It was ashley young now its luke shaw. I always thought mourinho was just bullying shaw because they never got on, the constant criticism regarding shaws positional sense. Mourinho was wrong to publicly criticise him. I attributed shaws poor performances down to mourinho man management skills, but now under Ole i can see what mourinho meant. Teams are now just targeting shaw down the left side just like they did with ashley young down the right.
The massive gap between maguire and lindelof for palaces first goal was down to maguire covering shaw just like mourinho said would happen. In this case though lindelof shouldnt have got beaten in the air, but maguire mightve been close enough to help out. Either way it was all round dire performance from the whole team.
Ole needs to sort shaw positional sense out sharpish. Now shaws injured wouldnt mind seeing brandon williams for afew games. Bit of competition might be what shaw needs as he probably feels hes guaranteed first team selection.
Got a feeling we might be seeing young though on the left for the next game.
Luke shaw, defensive weak link
posted on 28/8/19
For the record I don't think Lindelof is good enough long term for us either.
I do rate Maguire though.
posted on 28/8/19
For me, whilst the jury is out on Maguire, Smalling is still the best central defender - the best blocker, if you like - that we have.
And Lindelof is the best footballer that we have playing at centreback.
They are both valuable players. And they both have their uses.
I’d say there was a fair argument to be made that with the pair of them and Maguire fit, the starting partnership against bottom half sides (generalizing a bit here) should be Smalling and Maguire, to shore things up with aerial protection and because we don’t need to worry about playing out under pressure so much.
Against the top half sides, Lindelof’s intelligence and capabilities with the ball at his feet will be of more use and his aerial weakness less open to exposure.
posted on 28/8/19
I know it is, but I don’t think their ball playing skills are particularly great anyway.
posted on 28/8/19
I don’t think Lindelof and Maguire will work as a partnership. It lacks mobility and will be exposed by tricky and quick teams. We’ve seen signs of it already.
Maguire wasn’t at fault for not covering Lindelof at Palace, but a quicker defender would have got back and put pressure on Ayew. I can see teams looking yo exploit Lindelof’s weakness in the air and Maguire’s weakness in covering this season.
posted on 28/8/19
comment by Mason The King Greenwood (U10026)
posted 15 minutes ago
I don’t think Lindelof and Maguire will work as a partnership. It lacks mobility and will be exposed by tricky and quick teams. We’ve seen signs of it already.
Maguire wasn’t at fault for not covering Lindelof at Palace, but a quicker defender would have got back and put pressure on Ayew. I can see teams looking yo exploit Lindelof’s weakness in the air and Maguire’s weakness in covering this season.
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That’s why when we’re likely to be subject to route-one aerial counterattacks, we switch in Smalling for Lindelof.
posted on 28/8/19
The problem with that is that I suspect it won’t happen. It does look like Smalling has been marginalised by Ole, and he’ll want to play a consistent back four so they can build up chemistry.
posted on 28/8/19
I think Lindelof is more tailor-made for a DCM. I don't see any reason why this wasn't at least looked at by the club, as we don't have a proper DCM (that can run more than 5 mph). Mike could partner with Harry, and I think it would be a mistake to alienate Mike and let him leave for peanuts.
posted on 28/8/19
Why is someone being second choice now referred to as alienating? Should we just play him once in every 3 games for the sake of it? Rightly or wrongly he deems Lindelof and Maguire his first choice partnership and we've only played 3 games, with no cup involvement yet. No one is being alienated, there are only a select number of subs and he has already said (not sure which match he said it for) that Tuanzebe was useful on the bench as he could cover a couple of positions.
posted on 28/8/19
It’s not a stretch to imagine he would be, Smalling didn’t even play in pre season. Lindelof, Jones and Tuanzebe were all ahead of him. Smalling has always been professional since he’s been at the club so I imagine he’ll just get on with things anyway.
posted on 29/8/19
comment by Busby (U19985)
posted 22 hours, 12 minutes ago
Yeah that goal was linelofs fault. Bread and butter for a defender that.
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Lindelof is a liability