What do we think so far

Mazraoui is definitely a plus. De Ligt is better than Maguire and Lindelof, but is he better than Varane?
Zirkzee looks promising.

comment by Cesario (U22905)
posted 7 minutes ago
Mazraoui is definitely a plus. De Ligt is better than Maguire and Lindelof, but is he better than Varane?
Zirkzee looks promising.
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Which version of Varane? Peak Varane or the one on a downward spiral due to age and toll on body? We never had peak Varane at Utd.

De ligt should be hitting the highest point of his ceiling. It's a matter of fitness, adjusting to life in a new country, adjusting to the demands of a high intensity league and his new team mates. Never easy for any player arriving in a club with so much turmoil, so much negative press and noise, especially from demanding fans.

Zirkzee has been good off the bench, added some impetous and has a bit of nous about him. I’m quite pleased with our summer signings. Amad looking decent too

comment by BerbaKing11 (U6256)
posted 1 hour, 22 minutes ago
Have to take into consideration that we have a lot of young, exciting, talented players who will not be hitting their peak years for at least another 3 or 4 seasons: Garnacho, Amad, Mainoo, Yoro, Rasmus, Zirkzee... even those who are around the 24/25 year old mark should still have a few years to add maturity, experience and consistency to their game.

Personally I'm more excited to see how these players develop overtime rather than getting too concerned about a lack of goals or poorer individual performances in the short term.

What we have seen throughout preseason and in the CS + the two PL games so far is a night and day difference in terms of the effectiveness, aggression and coordination of the high press, as well as not looking as vulnerable once possession has been lost and conceding chance after chance.

Goals will be a conundrum whilst Rasmus is out, Rashford still looking out of sorts and Bruno and Mount being tasked as forwards for the purpose of pressing and shape.

Brighton away is a tough game and a draw probably would have been a fair result. We also should have beat City in the CS really and felt we deserved the win against Fulham. There's good signs there and no need to get the pitchforks out after a slightly harsh loss to Brighton away.
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No room on this board for someone who talks this much sense,

comment by (U23173)
posted 19 seconds ago
comment by BerbaKing11 (U6256)
posted 1 hour, 22 minutes ago
Have to take into consideration that we have a lot of young, exciting, talented players who will not be hitting their peak years for at least another 3 or 4 seasons: Garnacho, Amad, Mainoo, Yoro, Rasmus, Zirkzee... even those who are around the 24/25 year old mark should still have a few years to add maturity, experience and consistency to their game.

Personally I'm more excited to see how these players develop overtime rather than getting too concerned about a lack of goals or poorer individual performances in the short term.

What we have seen throughout preseason and in the CS + the two PL games so far is a night and day difference in terms of the effectiveness, aggression and coordination of the high press, as well as not looking as vulnerable once possession has been lost and conceding chance after chance.

Goals will be a conundrum whilst Rasmus is out, Rashford still looking out of sorts and Bruno and Mount being tasked as forwards for the purpose of pressing and shape.

Brighton away is a tough game and a draw probably would have been a fair result. We also should have beat City in the CS really and felt we deserved the win against Fulham. There's good signs there and no need to get the pitchforks out after a slightly harsh loss to Brighton away.
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No room on this board for someone who talks this much sense,
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Hello, RDD!

comment by (U23173)
posted 9 minutes ago
comment by BerbaKing11 (U6256)
posted 1 hour, 22 minutes ago
Have to take into consideration that we have a lot of young, exciting, talented players who will not be hitting their peak years for at least another 3 or 4 seasons: Garnacho, Amad, Mainoo, Yoro, Rasmus, Zirkzee... even those who are around the 24/25 year old mark should still have a few years to add maturity, experience and consistency to their game.

Personally I'm more excited to see how these players develop overtime rather than getting too concerned about a lack of goals or poorer individual performances in the short term.

What we have seen throughout preseason and in the CS + the two PL games so far is a night and day difference in terms of the effectiveness, aggression and coordination of the high press, as well as not looking as vulnerable once possession has been lost and conceding chance after chance.

Goals will be a conundrum whilst Rasmus is out, Rashford still looking out of sorts and Bruno and Mount being tasked as forwards for the purpose of pressing and shape.

Brighton away is a tough game and a draw probably would have been a fair result. We also should have beat City in the CS really and felt we deserved the win against Fulham. There's good signs there and no need to get the pitchforks out after a slightly harsh loss to Brighton away.
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No room on this board for someone who talks this much sense,
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Other than Mainoo and Garnacho, I don't believe the others mentioned will be anything special. Brighton today had many played out injured and still managed to win, so let's not pretend we lost to a strong Brighton side.

comment by Zacab
posted 52 seconds ago
comment by (U23173)
posted 9 minutes ago
comment by BerbaKing11 (U6256)
posted 1 hour, 22 minutes ago
Have to take into consideration that we have a lot of young, exciting, talented players who will not be hitting their peak years for at least another 3 or 4 seasons: Garnacho, Amad, Mainoo, Yoro, Rasmus, Zirkzee... even those who are around the 24/25 year old mark should still have a few years to add maturity, experience and consistency to their game.

Personally I'm more excited to see how these players develop overtime rather than getting too concerned about a lack of goals or poorer individual performances in the short term.

What we have seen throughout preseason and in the CS + the two PL games so far is a night and day difference in terms of the effectiveness, aggression and coordination of the high press, as well as not looking as vulnerable once possession has been lost and conceding chance after chance.

Goals will be a conundrum whilst Rasmus is out, Rashford still looking out of sorts and Bruno and Mount being tasked as forwards for the purpose of pressing and shape.

Brighton away is a tough game and a draw probably would have been a fair result. We also should have beat City in the CS really and felt we deserved the win against Fulham. There's good signs there and no need to get the pitchforks out after a slightly harsh loss to Brighton away.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
No room on this board for someone who talks this much sense,
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Other than Mainoo and Garnacho, I don't believe the others mentioned will be anything special. Brighton today had many played out injured and still managed to win, so let's not pretend we lost to a strong Brighton side.
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If we converted our chances and had a bit of luck with VAR, if Maguire had poked the cross out for a corner, if Licha or De Ligt picked up Jao Pedro then maybe we'd walk away with a win. I don't think we believe we can win when we travel away, our poor away record is clear evidence of that under ETH. It requires a mentality shift. Brighton weren't even that good, they've been a bogey side but have lost so many good players yet had enough to beat us, just. Half the battle for them was won because they had a good record and believed they could get something.

comment by Zacab (U18502)
posted 30 minutes ago
comment by (U23173)
posted 9 minutes ago
comment by BerbaKing11 (U6256)
posted 1 hour, 22 minutes ago
Have to take into consideration that we have a lot of young, exciting, talented players who will not be hitting their peak years for at least another 3 or 4 seasons: Garnacho, Amad, Mainoo, Yoro, Rasmus, Zirkzee... even those who are around the 24/25 year old mark should still have a few years to add maturity, experience and consistency to their game.

Personally I'm more excited to see how these players develop overtime rather than getting too concerned about a lack of goals or poorer individual performances in the short term.

What we have seen throughout preseason and in the CS + the two PL games so far is a night and day difference in terms of the effectiveness, aggression and coordination of the high press, as well as not looking as vulnerable once possession has been lost and conceding chance after chance.

Goals will be a conundrum whilst Rasmus is out, Rashford still looking out of sorts and Bruno and Mount being tasked as forwards for the purpose of pressing and shape.

Brighton away is a tough game and a draw probably would have been a fair result. We also should have beat City in the CS really and felt we deserved the win against Fulham. There's good signs there and no need to get the pitchforks out after a slightly harsh loss to Brighton away.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
No room on this board for someone who talks this much sense,
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Other than Mainoo and Garnacho, I don't believe the others mentioned will be anything special. Brighton today had many played out injured and still managed to win, so let's not pretend we lost to a strong Brighton side.
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Even mainoo hasn’t been all that ‘special’ (reserve that for those that truly are) imo. He’s had a great breakthrough season with some decent highlights, and has a great head on his shoulders, but like today he’s had quite a few poor games too. Hopefully that’s just cos he’s so young, but there’s some aspects to his game that don’t look anything special. He’s obviously very young, come in and done for the most part a decent job, he’s not going to spilt defences, and defensively isn’t that great, but he’s got good close control and seems to have good composure, so it’s going to be interesting to see how he develops and what sort of player we have in the end.

So far, we seem to be a better unit overall. However, I feel we will have a lot of similar experiences as we did last season (e.g., conceding last minute goals as we did today).

Maz looks good already and seems to have settled in well. Not seen much of De Ligt, but honestly, whether it's him or Maguire with Martinez, I think it will be quite solid. Zirkzee needs to start and get a run of games under his belt.
It disappoints me that in the absence of Hojlund, the plan seems to be to play the false 9 with Mount rather than a proper forward, whether that be Zirkzee or even Rashford, although we just seem to be carrying him for another season.
I get that Mount helps with the press and makes us a bit tighter, but of course he's not a 'proper forward' so we have no focal goal threat whilst he is on, and of course one of our biggest problems is we don't score enough goals.
So we don't seem to be able to play with both an attacking focal point and also with a decent press at the same time - other top teams don't seem to find this as much of a problem as we do, so surely it comes back to the manager?
Hopefully getting Ugarte in will make a significant difference (no pressure, eh)
I feel there has been some progression since last season, but it was a pretty low bar, so I wonder if the last few years means we are just settling for less.
It's a genuine worry that we will have a fairly strong squad capable of top 4, but ETH struggles to get the best out of them - we look like a team that really needs to grind out results, we need to be able to put in some dominant performances. Time will tell.