Manchester United Thread 25/26 - Teamtalk/Transfers/Gossip Mod Note in OP 12.02.26

IMO he is constantly in odd positions, no actively engaged with the opposition player he should be covering or tracking - standing deep beside the defenders while a midfielder is free in midfield, or getting drawn to the ball while a guy runs off him.

Better than Mainoo and Ugarte at it - but nowhere near the level needed from his position in the PL, imo.

Lamnens much better than Onana, we play 3 at the back and in there De Ligt is player of the year, Shaw doing a great job, Casemiro screening them having a great season and much improved.

And yet we can't keep a clean sheet for love nor money. It just doesn't add up.

You all know my opinion though. It ain't the tools, it's the lad using them.

Fair enough, we clearly see this differently, and that’s what makes football debates interesting.

I’ve made my point already and I suppose the forum would be boring if we all agreed on everything. We’ll just have to agree to disagree on this one.

Just to be clear on this - I do think Bruno beside him is a big issue for him, and maybe his poor (imo) positioning is a reaction to what Bruno is likely to do.

I just think if you swapped Bruno and Case for the Wolves paid of Andre and Gomes, we would be FAR better defensively. If you had Gomes as an alt to Casemiro I think Gomes could take the starting spot, while not being a top level player for there himself. I think anyone beside Bruno is going to have a hard time, especially in games where our defenders aren't aggresive in stepping up to support Casemiro/the DM.

I think Casemiro is being exposed but I also think his defensive game is weak as well. IMO if you put Anderson beside Bruno our midfield goes up massively. but that is unfair cause there probably isn't a better player than Anderson for that role, imo.

At the same time, I don't think you can replace Bruno and Casemiro with any two defensive midfielders (anderson/baleba/wharton… gomes etc) and have the team be good enough going foward, cause the LWB and progression from the CBs isn't there yet. Bruno (and Case) are solutions to the problems we have elsewhere, as much as they are problems themselves (defensively) imo.

His utter stupidity pre, during and post Lyon game perfectly sums up his time here. He was utterly deluded.

Yeah Thats fair enough, he spends so much time covering for high full backs and aggressive number eights meaning his value is in balance and structure as opposed to highlight actions and for me I think it’s very harsh to say he’s weak defensively.

All things considered I think he’s doing a great job.

If Bruno leaves, how does that of itself solve our problems at CM? I would have to say it doesn't.

Ugarte has consistently been shown up as not good enough. Cas is aging and even in a season with a limited gameload, he runs out of gas most games after an hour.

The midfield needs serious investment whatever way you look at it imo. Regardless of Bruno leaving, or Amorim leaving etc.

It'll be loans until his contract runs out. Or we just buy him out.

Turkey or similar is his level. He's doing okay there by most accounts and we might even have a few clubs interested come the summer but you know well we'll be supplementing his lost wages in order to move him on.

To be fair to Ruben (and ETH before him) he doesn't want that space between his CBs and his midfield but our players keep getting pulled back.

He talks about bravery all the time. He wants them higher up and closer together.

Now as to who's fault that is when it isn't still happening over a year later that is fairly easy to say it lies with him and him alone.

If he can't make this setup work then he needs to find what does.

There were slight changes against Bournemouth in possession. It'll be interesting to see if that continues this weekend

100% this. Some of the situations Casemiro gets put in, particularly under ETH and last year, prime Kante would struggle to cover the ground. It’s no surprise he looks so much better when we are a functional unit. Even at his absolute prime he’d have struggled in that ETH doughnut formation.

The inability to press the space between defence and midfield is absolutely a personnel issue. All have their strengths but our best back 3 of Maguire, De Ligt and Shaw cannot press as high as we need them to due to the lack of athleticism. This breaks the whole thing down.

The squad has many issues. CM is probably the biggest. But I’m increasingly convinced 2 new athletic CBs is nearly as crucial.

Agree on your requirements and spend. Posted something very similar yday. That said whilst 433 maybe fixes some needs we’ll still need

2 new full backs (Amad can’t played RB)

2-3 new CM (assuming Case and Bruno leave, only Mainoo is a realistic CM even in a 3)

1 new CB (assuming de Ligt is a starter and Yoro/Martinez provide cover you still need an athletic partner to de Ligt)

A back up striker.

So I’m not sure the formation change fixes the spend needed. We just have a very small and relatively weak squad.

I don’t think there is any debating that we have the worst scouting department of any top level club. By far. There was always talk of us being in the dark ages post Fergie and never caught up. Our hit rate on players is at best 1 success in 10 post Ferguson. Bruno is probably the only elite signing. Too many flops to name. Some I can live with. But I watched Ugarte and Dorgu, for all of 45 minutes and knew they weren’t it. How we scouted them, who knows.

Comparing to Bournemouth/Brighton etc. probably isn’t fair as so much easier for them to take a punt and give time. It’s Liverpool city and Arsenal we need to look to.

That ball from Dalot is absolutely deplorable under normal circumstances. But at this stage of the game when we have just conceded an equaliser it is braindead. But shur I wouldn't expect anything else from him. He is one of the thickest footballers ever to play for United.

Loves his high fives though 🤬

Surely we have a youth team player that can be back up instead of Dalot 😂