Post-Fabregas

[Fist of Lehmann]

Say you have a player, let’s call him Brace Fagsecs (twitter account brace4fagsecs).
You know Fagsecs will be one of the finest playmakers in Europe so you spend the next 5 years building a team around him.

You win no trophies. People start to say that Fagsecs slows down play too much, that you’d be better off without him.
Eventually Brace leaves, he has Zalgiris Vilnius DNA so you always knew this would happen.

To make matters worse, your second most influential attacking midfielder, we’ll call him Nari Assrim, also leaves.
You have just a few days to buy replacements, what to do?


So far everyone has focussed simply on replacing like-for-like, but is this the right choice?

If you subscribe to the view that the system needs changing why would you buy an inferior version of Fagsecs and slot him straight in, effectively playing the same way but with a downgrade?

Utd rely on the interchange of 2 forwards and 2 wingers, pre-Mata Chelsea played with carrileros, the way you want to play informs the type of player you need and a single key pass playmaker isn’t the only way.

Given the criticisms of tipi-tapa is this the time to change? Is there still time to change? And would still buy a Fabregas…er Fagsecs type irrespective of change?

[Flavs]

we’ll call him Nari Assrim,

That actually got a laugh out loud from me, fine work.

[Özim]

We need a creative player, a player like Ozil would be great, someone with pace and creativity.

But it's clear that without that creative influence we are seriously short of ideas, so we do need a replacement, but not necessarily like for like.

I'd argue we could also start using the wingers more and that if we bought a fast goalscorer we could play through balls or lump it over the top and win games that way.

[Niall_Quinn]

That's why I loathe Chamakh (apart from him being shit), his presence in the squad kills our ability to change our style of play. That's why Sagna bugs the shit out of me when he gets across the halfway line, Clichy was just as bad. Even if we bought a top striker who was powerful in the box neither of these two could deliver the ball to him. That's why I chewed my elbows off watching Denilson (who wasn't the only guilty party but certainly the prime example). The constant refusal to unsettle the opposition defence buy playing it deliberately in front of them, sideways and back, what a pain.

You say we have the chance to change the system, but do we really? Do we have the players for it even if we brought in 3 or 4 who are untainted by our negative style? Fabregas might have carried the blame for slowing us down but he was one of the few who could inject a little pace with a forward pass. Arshavin's the same when he can be bothered. Ramsey looks awful at the moment so we might have no choice but to replace Fabregas like-for-like just to maintain rather than drop a level.

I think we're so far away from the style we used to play it may take a generation of players to get back to it and there might be a lot of pain in the interim as we try to recycle the squad 2 or 3 per transfer window. But I'd be up for that if we could trust the board and Wenger to keep the impetus.

One guy who has been mentioned, more of a tease and a joke I assume, is Schweinsteiger. If we could get him he could play either/ or, he's thoroughly versatile and talented wherever you put him on the pitch. It looked like he would stay in Germany his whole career but now there are rumours this might not be the case. I'd blow the whole Cesc and Nasri fees combined getting him here. But I know a man who won't.

[Fist of Lehmann]

You say we have the chance to change the system, but do we really?No, I didn't but your point is still valid.

It's often said that the difference between international football and club is that with the former you pick your formation and strategy, then select players to fit. With the latter you are more or less constrained to pick your best players and model a system to fit that.

It's not nearly so clear cut as that because you can still change your players, but as you said gradually, over 2 or 3 seasons.

If there is an opportunity to change now it's because of the turnover in 1st team players, particularly of Fabregas who, let's face it, was the lynchpin of this system.

Man Utd's attacking flexibilty in my view, makes them better equipped to overcome the variously defensive opponents they come up against in the Premiership.

[Fats]

Of course the system needs to be changed it does not work.

Fabregas was not played in the best position for the team IMO, he did slow things down and held onto the ball too long. If we had 2 sitting midfielders with him in front much further forward then that was his position as it is in the Spanish squad.

Certainly do not want to get a similar player