re: 2016/2017 Transfer Discussion

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When he was at United, i was under the impression that he was a Defensive Midfielder and that was his future.. not until he started to emerge at Juve did I see him more B2B.. sometimes it seems he wants to be an AM, but I don't think thats where he fits best..

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Yeah, he's an absolute beast defensively and that's why it's hard to say he's overrated since he's giving you goals and assists that sees him compared with lighter defending attacking mids while being a huge plus defensively.

One "problem" for Pogba's consistency is that the better he's gotten around the box, the more he's shifted positions the past two years. For France, he was asked to play more of a defensive role and you could see his and Deschamps frustration since he was used to a much more free role the past couple of seasons under Allegri for Juve.

He got a lot of criticism during the past Euros for not producing in the attack more consistently at the same time Deschamp publicly called him out for getting forward into the attack too often.




That said, I think Allegri did a much better job in simply playing him as a heat seeking missile with defensive cover behind even if he's not a #10 playmaker.

It's the same way Spalletti has played Nainggolan and Conte used Vidal. When Prince Boateng used to be good for a minute, Allegri used him exactly the same way.



I think attacking mid is likely Pogba's best position. To make it work well though takes putting a couple of specific types of players along with him:

1) deeper midfielders that can defend positionally but also move up to provide key playmaking at a #10 type level since Pogba/Nainggola/Vidal aren't "visionary" passers in the trequartista role (Pjanic/Strootman behind Nainggolan, Marchisio/Khedira behind Pogba, Pirlo/Marchiso behind Vidal, even Montolivo behind Boateng for Allegri previously).

2) at least one winger and/or very creative second striker that wanders playmaking areas (Tevez/Dybala for Juve or Perrotti/Totti for Roma).



This type ball hawking, heat seeking missile with good attacking skills but not visionary passing played as the forward most attacking mid isn't something I see as much in the top EPL clubs (though I haven't watched a lot recently).
The Ozil, Eriksen, Silva, Coutinho types have seemingly been preferred but that may be changing with Conte and Mourihno.





Edit: I should have mentioned above that the problem for Deschamp/France is that they simply didn't have the Pjanic/Marchisio type midfielder. Really Pogba, Matuidi and the good Newcastle midfielder whose name escapes me all seem a bit more suited for the same position and Pogba was moved back since he was most versatile of those.

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I think this is just the kind of signing United need to propel themselves back into the championship picture.

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I am more excited for this season, than I have been in a long time... the managers in the league.. the amount of teams that can challenge for top 4.. and obviously, I think we can make a push for one of those spots.

I'm ready for the quality of the league to go up again.. last year was so bad..

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At this time.. yes, I think they are all better than him...

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Welp, OK. Agree to completely disagree.

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And if you don't see where Pogba likes to get forward in attack often, then I don't know what to say.. I never suggested he lined up there for Juve.. thats why I said it *seems he wants* it's my perception..

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Uh, yeah, I see that. Come on.

But isn't the whole point of a complete, box to box midfielder is having one who likes to both get forward in attack and drop back on defense?

There's a huge difference in that and "he seems to want to be an attacking midfielder." That's severely underrating his defensive work.

Fine. It's obvious we have completely different views on him and how we "rate" players. Carry on.

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Like I posted above, some of the differing opinions on Pogba stem from watching France at the Euro more than lots of Juventus matches.

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He was pretty disappointing in the final match, but I realized that wasn't his ideal role.. And I don't judge players by a tournament appearance... Matuidi and Pogba both like to occupy the same positions, from what Ive seen (very similar to Stevie and Lamps).. Looks like he just drew that short straw with France..

So they got vietto and Gameiro frick bartha

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Vietto is at Barca?

Didn't he barely play for Atletico?

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Yeah but he did look quite good the season before.

In a couple of years when Barca sells him cheaply back to Villarreal or to someone like Fiorentina we can all enjoy watching him play again.


Would be so much better for casual fans to see players like this simply play for teams that are a notch below Barca to add a little bit of competition. The Globetrotters vs Washington Generals exhibitions that so much European football is becoming is depressing.

However, clubs like Barca, Bayern and Juve aren't really even trying to buy starters most of the time these days.

Since FFP, things have gotten so unbalanced that they're spending massively in building second teams that are also better than almost anyone else to help them easily win league matches while focusing on the CL.

The superleague is already here in everything but name.

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I do wonder if the elite teams wold buy differently if they had fewer games to play. As it stands, the best teams play a shite ton of games with virtually no margin for error

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That's a good point about the amount of matches. I do think that's the reason.


Every team buys depth type players.

The absurd thing is that Barca --like Juve et al -- are increasingly able to buy players to stash on their benches who would be full-fledged, everyday stars for even CL spot caliber teams in their leagues.

Roma or Sevilla get depth players who are either academy 19 year olds, 35 year olds or don't figure into the plans of Palermo or Granada.



It's not even a matter of no teams below Barca being able to buy and pay Suarez, Messi and Neymar but that they can't even get Gamiero or Vietto.


Sorry for the rant, but it's really starting to grate on fans of any European team who are not Real, Barca, Juve or Bayern to the point of diminishing interest.

I just got back from Rome and it was depressing how many friends that used to go to every single match now have such a "meh" attitude thinking Roma's done about all you can expect aside from maybe having a Europa League run or Coppa Italia trophy that they really don't care all that much about.


There's so many issues but Financial Fair Play was the real tipping point that's allowed the financial and qualitative gap to quickly increase exponentially.

La Liga is only a bit of an exception with the currently strong Atletico team due to the lax laws about third party ownership which Bundesliga or Serie A teams can't exploit.

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How does financial fair play make these things worse?

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We can blame this on the massive tv deals with Sky causing English teams to spend like crazy and then those European teams splashing the cash they made.

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I don't really understand since I thought the point was to narrow the gap between the haves and have nots.

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Its enforced being financial sound. Some clubs have risen up during this period like Southampton.

City played the system perfect before FFP went into full swing.