Because he was playing flipping crap!!! Obviously one thing I won't fault Rashford for is when Ole brought him on as a Sub resulting in that back injury he got. It was more than justified at that time after because he was so terribly inconsistent. There was talk of a move away from the club and I specifically mentioned if someone came in with big money, take it because he's not and was NOT producing enough. I also will add that I mentioned that the 12 Month extension should be triggered to see if he continues to produce and so far it clearly hasn't been working. Hopefully he turns it around this season but if reverts to type again you have to question last season. I wasn't the only one calling for him to be sold if the big money came calling at that time.
If someone offered daft money for Rashford (£110m+) I'd sell him without a second thought. As for Maguire, the idea of bringing him in now we have a keeper who likes to play out from the back sends shivers down my spine. He'd be caught in possession over and over because he takes longer than an oil tanker to turn round.
with de gea, the opposition pressed our defenders into passing the ball back to him and were happy to wait while he gave it away. now that we have a keeper who can pass, the opposition is happy to cut out his options, which is exacerbated by the fact that no one else is making any attempt to give onana an option. it was never going to be a quick transition with this style of keeper, but it isn't helped by our injuries, and that includes martinez not looking good at all since his broken foot/surgery. unfortunately, despite burnley's rocky start, i still worry about our defense's lapse in focus and awareness so far this season. don't see it improving before this weekend
Onana Evans Varane Maguire Dalot Amrabat Hannibal Mount Bruno Hojland Garnacho Can't be dealing with watching Casemiro lose the ball trying to play a stupid forward pass twice within 30 seconds again and I think he needs to be rotated more anyway, he isn't a spring chicken anymore. Unfortunately this means Evans at right back as I don't know enough about the available kids and it's looking increasingly stupid sending Alvaro Fernandes out on loan. Hannibal back in because he deserves another start imo and means we can put Bruno rw (even though I'm not that much of a fan of him there but Pellistri isn't impressing all that much) with Garnacho lw who deserves another start after his work rate mid week plus how shit Rashford was yesterday. Speaking of Rashford maybe coming on against tired legs will increase the likelihood of him scoring a goal and getting going for the season as we're DESPERATE for him to hit some form as I just don't see how we'll score if he doesn't. Must win game, I really cba going into the EL again and want a bit of positivity back as this season has been truly dire so far
To be honest if he picked your team I probably wouldn't bother watching the game. Amrabat was worse than Casemiro yesterday, and shoving Evans at fullback whist playing the ultra-liability Maguire in the middle of defence would be suicide. Sticking Fernandes wide right is absurd, either he plays no.10 or leave him out.
Left footed Defender Right Back and Right Footer as Left Back? Agree with Alvaro, mentioned plenty of times. I want to see Hannibal more involved for sure. But when we see what Ten is doing with selection, it'll be difficult to see where he can play. Bruno does need to be Attacking Midfield and not on the Right. I want to see Amrabat playing with Casemiro. I'm guessing that was the plan for bringing him in. Players have to be given a chance to gain experience and will improve. Pelli barely near never featured so he won't get going after 2 starts. At least he's more direct. However, I'd prefer Garnacho to play on the right as can't see Ten dropping Rashford regardless of how wank he's playing.
Amrabat might have been bad on Saturday (I don't agree he was worse than Casemiro) but Casemiro has been DREADFUL all season long and I'm sick to death of seeing him lose the ball. I'd rather play a kid at full back but idk enough about the kids atm Maguire isn't an 'ultra-liability' and 'ultra-liability' doesn't concede only 1 goal in his last ~600 league minutes despite Dave in net, he's at the very minimum our 2nd best cb if not our best (simply because Varane can't stay fit) and Ten Hag's refusal to play him is one of the many reasons he's going to lose his job. At the very least he's certainly better than that ****ing pussy called Lindelof. In case you've not noticed it yet this season but we've been playing with inverted full backs all season long. So who do you play on the right? Even if we say that Pellistri has been good (he hasn't) you can't be playing kids week in week out and the team 100% needs to be rotated better to avoid injuries down the road. So do I at one point but we need to rotate and Casemiro has been ****ing dogshit all season long I don't want to see Garnacho on starting on the right, he's bad enough as it is when he starts he's not going to be any good playing in a more unfamiliar position.
Amrabat gets a pass while he's filing in at lb, for me. Palace put pretty much every goal kick right at him to test his ability in an unfamiliar role. Pellistri is one I wouldn't start. I don't think Antony is fit yet, either, so I'd put mount wide. If for some reason rashford starts, I'd be tempted to play mount on the left and rashford on the right, in an effort to get him used to putting balls into the box. Problem is, we need a win tomorrow and it might not be the time to change to much. Though, you did argue that what we've been doing isn't working. Man, these injuries are killing us
Absolutely no chance we should be moving Mount out of midfield, he's been our only good midfielder this year, 93% passing accuracy in the last game with 11 out of 16 ground duels won 7 tackles in the last game but nobody wants to give him credit because they didn't like the idea of signing him in the first place and the rest of the team stinks bad. Bruno is way more of a goal threat than Mount so if we're to be playing one of them out of position on the wing it should be the guy who threatens to score more than the other guy. One of my many frustrations with ETH is his refusal to have Bruno playing close to the box when he's one of only 2 players in the squad who can score a damn goal, instead he does daft shit like play him right centre back when we're chasing a game.
Casemiro's our leading scorer, and it seems you think Maguire gets better with every match he doesn't play.
Anyway, thankfully I'm not going to this, not sure I can stomach another game so soon after Saturday's shitshow.
The guy who sits on my right has been playing golf in Portugal this past week due to a cock-up in his scheduling, so he gave his brother his ticket for the two games. Unluckily for his brother it turned out to be two games v Crystal Palace . . .
