re: .

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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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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.

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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.

Pogba has been at his very best as an attacking mid but in a system where he has two creative, regista type mids behind him or at least one deep lying playmeker and another slick pasing box to box mid since he is not a visionary passer in the #10 role.


For France, Pogba was moved back from where's been playing so well at Juve because France have a wealth of top midfielders that are best played forward like Matuidi but miss the creative type deeper playmaker. France actually had a bit of the infamous Gerrard/Lampard issue though their midfielders being so athletic masked it more. Deschamp even criticized Pogba's defensive discipline. In fairness to Pogba though, he hasn't been asked to maintain defensive discipline for Juve aside from maybe against Barcelona in the CL final becuase that's not his strong point. Pobga runs around and wins the ball.


Ideally, I think Mourinho would be salivating about Pogba playing attacking mid with playmakers behind him. That way he's completely free to win balls high up the pitch and get isolated where he can dribble defenders/ get shots around the area and make runs into the area.

His defensive chops are more similar to Nainggolan or Vidal. Pure ball winner instead of defensive positioning.

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.

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I'm pretty baffled by Barcelona's transfer strategy, and I follow Real Madrid closely

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that is funny because madrids transfer strategy has baffled me for years.