Nemanja Matic

[communicate 2,703]

6 hours ago, Robguima said:

While I don’t completely disagree on Matic,  just the way he was replaced - not really talking bout the name but rather how uneventful it was.

I’m not a betting man, but could go all out on salah..

salah will score until he retires... but if you only see the scoring, then well my point exactly. Have you ever seen hazard give so much in a game, run so much, and chase so much being the key player? I have not.

I don't want hazard to run so much and chase, that is just detrimental for our team as hazard is our sole creator in the team whereas Liverpool does not play with creator at least after Coutinho left.

Again for me it come down to team setup and style. Salah is fantastic but he will not be as fantastic playing in slow tempo which we employ.

 

 

 

 

[manpe 10,861]

1 hour ago, communicate said:

I don't want hazard to run so much and chase, that is just detrimental for our team as hazard is our sole creator in the team whereas Liverpool does not play with creator at least after Coutinho left.

Again for me it come down to team setup and style. Salah is fantastic but he will not be as fantastic playing in slow tempo which we employ.

 

 

 

 

Nobody thrives in a slow tempo game. Football is a game of exploiting and closing down spaces, you don't get space by allowing the opponent to close you down all the time. We should be aiming to change that and make this team a platform where those kind of players can shine, including Hazard and everybody really.

[BlueLyon 9,359]

On 6. 4. 2018 at 7:21 PM, Robguima said:

You kinda contradict yourself here, well to me at least.

Your reasoning is that the players are easy to replace, if the board were good. I find that line of thought entirely unrealistic for the mere fact that however inapt our board may be, replacing quality players is NEVER easy. Matic was also an established player who was working well in a system, which makes him more valuable to the club. If it were that easy, then our inapt board would've replaced at least one of them adequately.

It's much easier for Barca to replace top players, because the aspiring top players all want to move there. They already signed Arthur Melo (21) for 30+ mi just because he wanted to go there so badly. They bought an option of sale, because the transfer market is closed...  

Reading folks here talking about Salah is frankly sad....  Yes if you thought he was average when he was at chelsea (some of us did not!), just accept you missed it (I've plenty wrong about other players - Oscar for ex). Now not seeing what Salah is doing on the pitch is just the worst kind of blindness.

The club, esp its coaching staff should have had the quality to both see the potential and hold to the players. Managers, esp transient managers (which is what they are for us) should never have the last word on transfers.

Sorry, no I dont think its easy to replace top players. But its possible if you know were to look. And we had several windows of opportunities. Similar, we let go Robben once and we never looked back because we made proper changes. He turned into a brilliant brilliant player, better than any winger we had, but we still had quality team regardeless and no one missed Robben.

Its dissapointing that we didnt sign a single AM and we sold both Kevin and Oscar. If we had proper squad, it wouldnt matter how good KDB and Salah are. But it makes it difficult because our team is a mess and thats definately board fault.

As for Kdb or Salah, if you meant me, I was one of few who said we should keep them at any cost, especialy KDB who had great spell in Werder and he reminded me of Gerrard.

[BlueLyon 9,359]

15 hours ago, communicate said:

Matic is 28/29 and wanted to leave and we got 40 m out of him. That was no brainer. 

Losing salah is not a mistake. He will never score the way he is doing in our team. I have said multiple times, just watch 5 of Liverpool games and watch 5 of our games. It doesn't take a genius to see the massive difference in term of tempo and style. 

Either your priority is stay competitve or balance the books. Its obvious what Marina priority is. We got 40m...is that realy even a good argument? 40m is relative, because its all about how you spend it. I dont care at all how much we get for players honestly. What I care is that we stay on competitive level with good squad.

So if you ask me would I prefer 40m on Chelsea bank or Matic is squad, the answer is obvious. Chelsea has spend the money awfuly and, it realy doesnt matter if we got 40m for him, because we spend it unvisely. Matic might leave for nothing, wouldnt change the damn thing, because of our board incompetence. We also got 70m for Oscar. And while that was actualy a smart sale because Oscar was terrible, but where is his replacement? Its shame we didnt invest into new AM in all this time.

But does any other top club actualy give a shit about balances?

If its impossible to replace key player, and you want to stay competitive on highest level, then you simply dont sell the player. Even if its big offer and player is 28.

THE ONLY reason to sell Matic was that he wanted to leave personaly. There is nothing we can do after that point. We should make him happier long time before his request, which we failed.

But the fact that he was 28 and it was good offer means fuck all when you want to stay competitve. Im not talking just about Matic, but in general.

I do question what was realy going on, Conte wanted to keep Matic, but board sold him. So, if there was a chance to keep Matic, but the board decided the offer was too good, the board is absolutely stupid.

[BlueLyon 9,359]

On 6. 4. 2018 at 5:33 PM, manpe said:

Yeah, normally you wouldn't miss the sale of an average player like Matic for such money, but compared to the dross we replaced him with we get the illusion of him being nigh world class. That's only because we are masters of regression and self-sabotage.

Tbh Matic wasnt average. He wasnt world class, but more then dependable player. Chelsea fans and maybe even the board underestimated him big time. And obviously yeah we dont know how to replace him. We shot ourselves in the foot twice.

[communicate 2,703]

6 hours ago, manpe said:

Nobody thrives in a slow tempo game. Football is a game of exploiting and closing down spaces, you don't get space by allowing the opponent to close you down all the time. We should be aiming to change that and make this team a platform where those kind of players can shine, including Hazard and everybody really.

It is more about the style. Klopp team has always been very explosive, his dortmund teams were very similar. 

Playing fast and aggressive is exciting but it come down to personel including player and manager. 

[communicate 2,703]

55 minutes ago, BlueLyon said:

Either your priority is stay competitve or balance the books. Its obvious what Marina priority is. We got 40m...is that realy even a good argument? 40m is relative, because its all about how you spend it. I dont care at all how much we get for players honestly. What I care is that we stay on competitive level with good squad.

So if you ask me would I prefer 40m on Chelsea bank or Matic is squad, the answer is obvious. Chelsea has spend the money awfuly and, it realy doesnt matter if we got 40m for him, because we spend it unvisely. Matic might leave for nothing, wouldnt change the damn thing, because of our board incompetence. We also got 70m for Oscar. And while that was actualy a smart sale because Oscar was terrible, but where is his replacement? Its shame we didnt invest into new AM in all this time.

But does any other top club actualy give a shit about balances?

If its impossible to replace key player, and you want to stay competitive on highest level, then you simply dont sell the player. Even if its big offer and player is 28.

THE ONLY reason to sell Matic was that he wanted to leave personaly. There is nothing we can do after that point. We should make him happier long time before his request, which we failed.

But the fact that he was 28 and it was good offer means fuck all when you want to stay competitve. Im not talking just about Matic, but in general.

I do question what was realy going on, Conte wanted to keep Matic, but board sold him. So, if there was a chance to keep Matic, but the board decided the offer was too good, the board is absolutely stupid.

But Matic wanted to leave. That is the problem. Coutinho wanted to leave so Pool sold him. Walker wanted to leave, so spurs sold him. It happened to every team. Nobody wanted Matic to leave but if a player wanted to leave and you get the correct price you sell him. 

The biggest problem is not selling Matic but our signing. Forget Bakayoko and Morata. Those signing made sense. I am talking about drinkwater and Zappacosta. Those made 0 sense. I have said it since the end of last summer after we won the league , priority should be wing back and wing back. Alonso and Moses are serviceable but they can't be our starter. I have no problem with solid full back but you can't have just solid wing back. 

[Polo7 3,496]

How the fuck are we still discussing why Matic left??? The replacement is crap but thats a different topic.

[OneMoSalah 8,777]

On 08/04/2018 at 1:38 PM, Polo7 said:

How the fuck are we still discussing why Matic left??? The replacement is crap but thats a different topic.

Why wouldnt we be? Our season has been pretty much disastrous since about December and the sales of 2 big players Matic (to a direct rival) and Costa is a big part of why I feel as well as other things to do with players performances, speculation over Conte and form. Who lets a club sell a pivotal cog of their team to a team competing for the title/top 4 as we were hoping to do? 

[Tomo 21,733]

On 4/11/2018 at 10:31 PM, OneMoSalah said:

Why wouldnt we be? Our season has been pretty much disastrous since about December and the sales of 2 big players Matic (to a direct rival) and Costa is a big part of why I feel as well as other things to do with players performances, speculation over Conte and form. Who lets a club sell a pivotal cog of their team to a team competing for the title/top 4 as we were hoping to do? 

Honestly? I don't miss Matic one little bit. And given how bad his replacement has been and that we have had some horrific results against some shit teams, that's saying something.

[OneMoSalah 8,777]

18 hours ago, Tomo said:

Honestly? I don't miss Matic one little bit. And given how bad his replacement has been and that we have had some horrific results against some shit teams, that's saying something.

Still he'd be an improvement on watching Bakayoko roam about aimlessly, Cesc get waltz past by players who are slow although even he makes them look fast and Drinkwater is solid enough to play some games but out of his depth in others. 28 or 29 or whatever, he still had plenty in him to give regardless of what people may have thought, which he has shown for United. Shit results or not it was not a football decision, purely a money one although the club probably helped him make up his mind by even enticing an offer from United in the first place.

[robsblubot 3,504]

However one might rate Matic (irrelevant), he had several MotM performances for us - some of them in very big games too!

His replacement, has already had several "Worst Man of the Match" performances for us - some of them in very big games too! 

[LAM09 6,744]

Still he'd be an improvement on watching Bakayoko roam about aimlessly, Cesc get waltz past by players who are slow although even he makes them look fast and Drinkwater is solid enough to play some games but out of his depth in others. 28 or 29 or whatever, he still had plenty in him to give regardless of what people may have thought, which he has shown for United. Shit results or not it was not a football decision, purely a money one although the club probably helped him make up his mind by even enticing an offer from United in the first place.

I don't think anyone could say it was bad business on our behalf. However, the use of the funds was dreadful business

[Tomo 21,733]

10 hours ago, OneMoSalah said:

Still he'd be an improvement on watching Bakayoko roam about aimlessly, 

Yeah but when we had Torres half of League two would have been an improvement. Two wrongs don't make a right.

[Tomo 21,733]

2 hours ago, Robguima said:

However one might rate Matic (irrelevant), he had several MotM performances for us - some of them in very big games too!

His replacement, has already had several "Worst Man of the Match" performances for us - some of them in very big games too! 

Post 14/15 which big games was he MOTM in? He was often a big reason we were so easy to press and suffocate the life out off, infact we did just that to United with him in the side 3 halfs out of four this season.

[robsblubot 3,504]

53 minutes ago, Tomo said:

Post 14/15 which big games was he MOTM in? He was often a big reason we were so easy to press and suffocate the life out off, infact we did just that to United with him in the side 3 halfs out of four this season.

Does United count?

Sorry not really interested in convincing you that Matic is a good player - think there is plenty of evidence of that regardless of your personal preference.

My disagreement was around the (imo crazy) idea that the club does no miss Matic... that just defies all logic esp considering the replacement does not know how to play football. We can go into crazy what-ifs into different players with diff characteristics as replacements and we wouldn't know whether they were avail at that moment. The fact remains a proper replacement wasn't brought in, which makes us miss Matic.

You see, Matic, regardless of your personal opinion and preference, was a nail-in started for all managers in all our wins of late. The only time he did not start (he was indeed in terrible form as many others) we finished 10th. So, for us NOT to miss him, the replacement would have to be - at the very least - a nail-in starter. That's really the only disagreement I have, since we all have our own preferences, which may also involve the style in which the team plays.

[Tomo 21,733]

17 hours ago, Robguima said:

Does United count?

Sorry not really interested in convincing you that Matic is a good player - think there is plenty of evidence of that regardless of your personal preference.

My disagreement was around the (imo crazy) idea that the club does no miss Matic... that just defies all logic esp considering the replacement does not know how to play football. We can go into crazy what-ifs into different players with diff characteristics as replacements and we wouldn't know whether they were avail at that moment. The fact remains a proper replacement wasn't brought in, which makes us miss Matic.

You see, Matic, regardless of your personal opinion and preference, was a nail-in started for all managers in all our wins of late. The only time he did not start (he was indeed in terrible form as many others) we finished 10th. So, for us NOT to miss him, the replacement would have to be - at the very least - a nail-in starter. That's really the only disagreement I have, since we all have our own preferences, which may also involve the style in which the team plays.

He didn't play when we were 10th because he was dropped when we were 16th.

[robsblubot 3,504]

On 4/19/2018 at 8:33 AM, Tomo said:

He didn't play when we were 10th because he was dropped when we were 16th.

That's correlation not causality - but do you realize you are making my point stronger? That we depended on his form in our many wins with him.

Yes, his form was indeed poor, but I have to disagree switching him with mikel *caused* us to improve from 16th to 10th position.

You obviously dislike the player, but the fact remains he was an important player for us and now is an important player for united.