QUOTE(statikinetic @ Sep 9 2022, 09:43 AM)
Penalty decision is embarrassing. In all fairness, that was a 0-0 game.
When we talk about standards, I think we can already see how far Fred is from the rest of the midfield options. Casemiro did relatively ok in shielding the defence.
For the past couple of years, we were crying out for a CDM who can take the ball off the back 4 and progress upwards. We did not get that CDM. Eriksen was signed as a more progressive midfielder, but is put into the deep lying midfielder role because we did not get our preferred option in the summer.
So when we see how important Eriksen is to the midfield distribution, we are actually seeing how badly we need a midfield orchestrator. To be fair to Eriksen, he is doing a makeshift role due to the lack of options and his vision helps us progress the ball. How many goals have we scored where Eriksen makes the pass upwards to maybe Bruno, and the subsequent pass leads to a goal? No surprise we become sterile once Eriksen leaves the field and then our forwards cannot get the ball. Familiar scenario?
I don't think Maguire did anything wrong and the goal should not have stood. But when the stats say that in all 3 games Maguire played United have lost and in all 4 games he didn't United won, it won't stop people talking.
I also think its fair that ETH started players like Maguire and Fred as we need to rotate and give them a chance. VDB is not fit so he would have gotten a chance here otherwise.
we still didnt solve the main problem in our midfield, which is deep lying playmaker... eriksen already mentioned that's not his position, but he willing to play at there for the starting spot, and his football intelligence make it seems very easily integrated... the main problem is without him, we lost CM with good passing range...

this has to be solve during the jan window i think, or we trial and error with the reserves CMs....