I actually think the Fernandes I was talking about there was Gedson lol. Pretty sure we were linked to him in the summer and that's why I used him as part of a '2 for the price of 1' example as Bruno would've cost the same amount as Ndombele. I knew Bruno would be good for Utd though, he's exactly what they needed. If we do switch to a 433 then I won't feel too badly about missing out on him as he's better suited in the Eriksen number 10 role, though if we keep 4231 when everyone's fit then yeah, it'll feel a little gutting at missing out on him. I'm buzzing with Lo Celso though and if Ndombele can sort his fitness out we've got a world class CM pairing there that'll hopefully be backed up by a DM/ hard working box-to-box midfielder, old school Dier would be a great choice but Skipp with more experience or Gedson's style could also be good. Time will tell, hopefully we get a good bit of luck at some point lol.
I've always thought that, if he signed for us, he'd have played in the van der Vaart role just off Kane and making late breaks into the box Considering that we bid for Dybala, and started the season playing Lucas as an ersatz striker, that's likely the system Poch was intending for us to use
I tried to say it earlier. Some folks didn't want to hear me. Man U with Bruno will finish above us in the league. Us with Bruno would finish above Man U in the league. We literally made top four one position less likely by not making that signing. The 'leader' that we needed.
Im sure someone will justify the brainfart by suggesting he won’t fit our system...whatever that is supposed to mean Once upon a time you chose a position then played in it throughout your youth. Nowadays it seems kids grow up only capable of playing a certain system The state of Millenial football
That or how you didn't want to get fleeced when qualifying is worth that money alone or that you couldn't compete with other clubs because they pay more even though he has a release clause and that no one bid for him in the summer
Levy offered 40 mill rising to 57 IF we win the PL/CL Sporting Lisbon owner looked at our trophy haul under ENIC and put the phone down
Spurs frequently seem to bid for players and then never follow it up in the next window. Sometimes that ends up being a blessing (Berahino) but sometimes it seems to be a big mistake (Bruno Fernandes)
ultimately, it’s the lack of desire to get your man that leaves me pissed off. Why would SL agree that pathetic clause when we haven’t won either, ever? The man is so unrealistic and out of touch with Football.
If we had the chance to sign Fernandes and didn't because of a few million then that is a huge mistake. He is the player we have needed for years.Not many players can change a team completely on their own but he is one of them. OGS's job is now a lot more secure than it was and United will return to the top 4.We probably won't this season, so how much will that cost?
It means a player doesn't fit our system Case in point, AVB's system needed a Drogba-type player up top as it needed a striker who had the strength to hold up the ball and bring in the players around him, yet instead we signed Soldado - at AVB's request - who is more of a poacher and less capable of holding up the ball, and funnily enough the system had a critical flaw at the top of it Or for another example, Poch's system required centre backs who can play out from the back, yet while we had Vertonghen who could do that we also had Fazio who could...well he can head the ball, but anything after that is a crapshoot, as we learned a few times that one season he was in the first team
A poacher can poach however we play and a traditional Centre Forward can hold up the ball however it arrives. It's not about players fitting a system it's about having quality players who put together will discover the strengths of each other and respond to it. It's the managers job to respond to that and help them get there faster. When a manager builds a team he looks for players who will match his expectations by playing the game as he believes will be the most successful, it does not mean that those players cannot be fitted into a different team using different methods.The spark between players is what you look for, the ability to read each others movements and that is only loosely related to the 'the game plan'. As usual I suspect people are trying to compare their experience in digital games with the real thing. I'm pretty certain that's why we get all this talk of formations and systems. In the real world players are human and can have a good game or a bad game and may or may not conform to the managers instructions. Playing a blinder and ignoring perhaps the disciplines imposed by the manager will not bring complaint. Play badly and do it and you will hear about it.
Current example Bruno Fernandes has just been dropped into the United team, because he is such a good player he does not need time to adjust because he adjusts the team to suit himself by simply knowing how to find space and knowing how to pass the ball to effect an attacking move. He would change any team and his manager would not be complaining.
Alternatively, when a striker doesn't have the strength to hold off defenders and bring teammates into the game, or a centre back has such a poor passing range that somebody may as well hand them a banjo to swat the ball away for all the good it will do, it demonstrates that they don't fit the system as they are lacking in at least one attribute that is required to be a component of the team More importantly, there's countless examples of players who couldn't simply be dropped into a team that play different methods, the best example of this in our case being Sergei Rebrov as he went from a Dynamo Kyiv game that played a quick passing game to a George Graham team whose tactics often resorted to route one tactics...quite often with the long balls lumped towards Rebrov, because of course the one player you want to lump it towards is the bloke who's 5'8" Also, your FIFA comment is horribly, horribly misjudged: in FIFA you can pick a team made up of cloggers who play as if passing in any way other than a long diagonal is witchcraft, yet as soon as the game starts you can have them playing tiki taka like they were peak Barca, even though if anyone attempted that in reality they'd be at risk of relegation within three months of the season starting - and I can say this for a fact as Mark Hughes has made that exact mistake at QPR and Stoke
I agree, at the moment it’s looking like a huge mistake and very expensive. The only plus side of Man Utd making top 4 is that it means OGS will remain in his job and we don’t have to see Poch in the Old Trafford dugout.
Unfortunately, Fernandes was only coming to Spurs if we'd shifted Eriksen in the summer for enough money to satisfy Sporting. We all know that Daniel Levy is the living embodiment of Mr Micawber... "Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen [pounds] nineteen [shillings] and six [pence], result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery." Just look at this January, we got Eriksen and Rose out (on loan) and that, plus some Amazon Prime money, pretty much equalled Bergwijn. We were never spending anymore but less was a possibility. Last summer, Pochettino got the CL windfall that he deserved and we had a list of priorities. Fernandes came in only when Eriksen and Wanyama went out. They stayed and so it didn't happen. It dragged on because there was always hope that someone would come in with a late bid for one of ours, giving us the cash. I'm guessing that paying off Poch and the likely lack of any European football will mean much less to spend this summer. Levy's said exactly that in the THST meeting. Barring the sale of Kane or Sonny or Lo Celso, anyone coming in this summer isn't going to be at Fernandes level given the extent of our needs.
I don't know the details of these games (FIFA) having never played one but what I am suggesting is what you confirmed. People pick a team of cloggers then play in a different way. They then take that experience and apply it to the real game, I understand that some real managers do this. It's like 'war games' or business strategy games and I have played those. If only people behaved in an expected manner it would all work beautifully. They don't.
If Levy did follow Micawber we would not have a new stadium and training facilities we would also not have Lol Selso or Bergwijn as both used used loan facilities, but I get your point. Levy needed to use his stadium strategy SOMETIMES when buying a player. When we find a player like Van de Vaart of Fernades we need to act fast and if that involves some borrowing from peter to pay paul then we need to recognise the player as an investment with the potential return and go for it.
It's crazy to think that with barely 3 days of the summer window remaining, we were actively pursuing interest in: Dybala, Lo Celso, Countinho and Fernandes. Given the size and intricacy of each of those deals and potential ramifications beyond the buying and selling clubs, is it any wonder we dropped most of the deals? Money or not, without a proper DOF to juggle multiple moves at once, it just isn't realistic to expect otherwise. If we can bring in this bloke from Lille in the summer, it may well prove to be our most important signing. More than his spendthrift approach, Levy's pig-headed insistence to run every aspect of the club single-handedly is killing us.
