Lots of reports about the squaring up of Young and Alli in the news today. Alli reported to have made some comment about Young's Zimmer frame, to which Young retorted that he should come back when he's got a PL winner's medal. Big kids. Young is a wind up merchant, but Alli seems to fall for it every time, whoever provokes him.
Shame the papers won't tend to cover United's league finishes relative to net spend since August 2014.
Maybe it's harsh on Ben as his form pre-injury was exceptional so I may have been judging by those levels but I just felt both he and Aurier could've done a bit more out wide. Winksy is a player I've really come to love but there are times I just want him to be more ambitious and take the game by the scruff of its neck. Despite his age and experience, he's already one of the best passers in the side and his ball control is also up there with most CMs in the league but what sometimes annoys me is his desire to play it too 'safe'. After every game you see he has like an above 90% passing accuracy but too many of them are simple ten yard passes and then a number of them are ones back to a CB. I want him to try and take a leaf or two out of Modric's book, I'm not saying I expect him to reach that level as Modric is one of the best CMs you'll ever see grace the game but it'd be nice to see Winks become that bit more forward thinking. Modric used to run games and even though his assist count wasn't high, he was often the player who made the key pass before the assist and that's what I think Winks can look to aspire to be like. If he can become a B-Rate Modric, he'll still be a ****ing top class player! Lol. I'd be tempted to not even start Dele on Wednesday to be honest mate, he's missed all the CL games so far due to his suspension and we've not missed him one bit.
Not sure why there is anti-Dele sentiment. He has scored five goals this season (close to one every two matches) and has covered more ground in the league than all but three players in the country. He is a truly inventive player and will have patches when some of his tricks and flicks don't work but that is not a reason to drop him.
Not technically dropped when he hasn't played in the CL this season. More of a case of sticking with what's worked so far and then if Alli's needed, bring him on.
I agree about Winks...neat player but he's got a pivotal role in the team..I expect more slide rule passes from him...get the moves going...a lot of sideways football from him at times. Having said that...Modric was probably passing it to Vdv and Bale neither are shy going forward or shy at all. Eriksen on the other hand who probably receives a lot of Winks's passes, tends to suffer brain freeze and dilly dallies, almost like he's too scared to be brave and the ball is usually easily lost. I get an air of...I hope he is in the mood today before kick offs....that's the problem...we are trying to aspire to a level where we should know that Eriksen is going to boss a game. I worry that he won't improve, he just comes across like someone in his shell For me Eriksen needs to man up...if he did...all the other pieces would fall into place a lot better. I watch Isco play and he's always got bite...same kind of player as Eriksen if you take the aggressive aspect away from his game but having that makes you go up a level and become a game changer. I wouldn't start Alli...he seems to bring an air of ****wittery into the game nowadays where it seems to become all about him and his flicks and tricks when a better option is on, an easier finish is on but he will try something daft. It's not happening for him so he needs to get back to basics.
I thought Dele was very good against Liverpool in a deeper lying role. When played more up front he has struggled to get involved and he has much more to his game than goals. The one thing that I worry about against Madrid is putting him up against Ramos, who is the most cynical cheat of a footballer that I can recall in the last decade. He's going to put everything into intimidating the young man and that's dangerous for us. Maybe Varane's absence will mean Ramos' hands are full dealing with Harry Kane?
I would be tempted to bench Alli because of temperament + UEFA refs. Tomorrow is the game where Madrid may play all the dark arts if things are not going their way, and Alli at this stage in his career is far too easily drawn into the antics. 25-30 mins in the 2nd half may be sufficient enough for him to do the best in his game.
Mate practically agree with everything. Glad I'm not the only one who thinks that about Winks. He gets praised a lot by the faithful and so he should but there's still a lot more I want to see from him. Even if it means his passing accuracy dropping a bit I could live with that. I'd rather he tried to play 10 defence splitting passes and only succeeding 2-3 times (in which that could lead to an assist or the pass before an assist) than playing 10 successful passes to the side of him or back to a CB. I'm probably one of Eriksen's biggest fans but I definitely agree about needing to man up. If he had VDV's confidence he'd be deadly. For me, he's a fine margin from being a world class player, just needs that confidence to be like "chill, I've ****ing got this!". That said, even if he doesn't take that next step, we'd need a miracle to find someone better than him that'd wanna join us. I said to my mate the other day that Alli's been trying way too many flicks this season that aren't coming off. Got no problem with players showing confidence but his is bordering stupidity, there's been better options available but he's tried looking the bees knees too often and failed. Sure, as PS mentioned he's still statistically doing great in terms of goals but if he got his head up a bit more and looked at the available pass that was on, he'd probably have about 5 or 6 extra assists to go with those goals he's already scored.
Ramos and co are a bunch of ****s, I hate Madrid as it is and they'll definitely do all in their power to wind Alli up if he starts. After the way Llorente bullied their CBs the other week, I'd be pretty disappointed if he didn't get the nod again to hopefully do similar, especially with Varane out. If that means he has to start at Alli's expense then so be it.
