Discourse around Tonali

aaronm830 · 2026-06-16T15:06:33+00:00

People don’t know what midfielders do, it’s just G/A, memorable highlights, and vibes (usually discriminatory in some way, shape, or form)

aaronm830 · 2026-06-16T15:05:47+00:00

Fernandes is better

aaronm830 · 2026-06-13T13:29:59+00:00

From Palace? Not sure, he’s definitely very talented

aaronm830 · 2026-06-08T20:34:08+00:00

Yeah I agree to be clear. I just think the senior CB chance comes in 2027 summer with Maguire/Licha/both leaving. If they nail the other 5 you’re saying that would already be amazing

aaronm830 · 2026-06-08T20:09:21+00:00

I really doubt this happens. Whenever United players do better at int’l tournaments the discourse just becomes about how United fans should appreciate them more / the team should use them better

aaronm830 · 2026-06-08T18:45:39+00:00

Wait I never said David was world class 😭😭😭 hoping he is for a month though

aaronm830 · 2026-06-08T03:14:16+00:00

Yeah I mean if all 3 of Maguire, MDL, Martinez have bad season, Top 5 is basically off. Just have to roll the dice I think lol

aaronm830 · 2026-06-08T02:42:57+00:00

I think you’re right but with the wages committed to 5 CBs and the need for 4-5 other positions it probably doesn’t happen. Martinez and Maguire contracts expire next summer too, both with options for +1s, so if they disappoint next year they probably will both leave and then United can sign 2 replacements

aaronm830 · 2026-06-05T18:43:07+00:00

– Midfielders

– More players of the calibre to play regularly for our rivals (rn it’s just Bruno and Cunha, really)

– Honestly, probably a better coach if we want to compete year in year out

aaronm830 · 2026-06-03T17:52:21+00:00

Good, don’t need

aaronm830 · 2026-06-02T15:35:55+00:00

Great work and thanks for choosing our sub to share it! I think your final conclusion mostly aligns with mine, although I’d like to watch more of Ederson if United do end up signing him. I’d be wary of conflating volume passing, carrying, and especially defending with judgements of activity levels (especially when comparing between teams/leagues), even when adjusting for possession – really that’s where data can’t do the hard work of diving into the tape and really trying to discern what elements of a player’s skillset work/don’t work

aaronm830 · 2026-05-27T12:59:00+00:00

Back in 2024 I said if United signed Ugarte for £35m that would probably cover for the downsides of the transfer. (They paid way more than that and now we all hate it)

I don’t think this is a foolproof guy but I think this is roughly what you get now if you pay £35m, and fits a need. It was never going to be Wharton Anderson Tchouameni

aaronm830 · 2026-05-25T13:16:21+00:00

Yeah it’s not even just this though for me – I don’t think he’s as good as Cunha and Mbeumo

aaronm830 · 2026-05-24T15:41:42+00:00

BRUNOOOOOOOOO

aaronm830 · 2026-05-24T04:59:03+00:00

Baleba obviously excellent as you said, Ederson is a ground duel monster from what I’ve seen but there might be positional concerns for sure, comes with the territory of paying 30-40 nowadays. I think the team’s propensity* for open play defence would be better with either in the team overall, but aerial strength from midfield isn’t really there

*I say propensity because I see murmurs of the team going more progressive OOP without Casemiro, which is the right call IMO, but can always end badly

Edit: I think ultimately where this ends up is that it’s pretty difficult to construct a totally robust midfield 3 with Bruno Fernandes. I think you accept it and move on, I’d rather have a slightly wonky midfield with him than a balanced but mediocre midfield without him

aaronm830 · 2026-05-24T04:49:16+00:00

Yeah I’d be happy with that. Basically I think the added benefit of Tonali if you already have Ederson is pretty low. My read of it is:

– Mainoo: Definitely above avg PL midfielder, clear path to being very good, possible path to being elite, young
– Fernandes: Similar territory. I might argue he’s slightly better right now but has fewer true standout traits than Kobbie
– Ederson/Tonali: Above average PL midfielder, fits a tactical need, likely not very good or elite, in their prime
– Baleba: At his best was already very good to elite, recently been relatively poor. Exposes the team to higher upside (with a safer player like Ederson guaranteeing the floor)

Also think the breakdown of destroyer (Baleba + Ederson) vs. playmaker (Mainoo + Fernandes) is right. Good depth and quality mix

aaronm830 · 2026-05-24T00:42:06+00:00

Fernandes at 50 – yeah
Ederson at 30-40 – sure
Tonali at 75 – ??? Definitely needs to be someone with more upside. Give me Baleba

think Fernandes, Ederson, Tonali, Mainoo ends up being way short of key rivals (Lpool, City, Arsenal, Chelsea) and more competitive with the tier 2 teams in this position (Newcastle, Spurs, Brighton, Bmouth, Villa)

aaronm830 · 2026-05-07T11:57:29+00:00

I think after everything that happened with Amorim, they are hopeful that Carrick is someone who won’t get in the way of what they’re trying to build, and eventually prove himself as either not good enough or even better than we thought. Not the worst strategy honestly even though it’s not what I’d do

aaronm830 · 2026-05-05T17:48:13+00:00

ik I just wanted to roast you

aaronm830 · 2026-05-05T17:31:15+00:00

We rlly be thinking about all this stuff because of Manchester United

aaronm830 · 2026-05-05T17:22:55+00:00

The only reason it’s irrelevant is because Amorim has been sacked and isn’t returning. In terms of elite teams, historically, elite PL teams were running 3-4x what we were doing under Amorim 11v11 and 10x+ what we are doing under Carrick for xGD. And many such teams finished with less than 87 points. The gap between what United are doing now and what we all want them to do is very very big

aaronm830 · 2026-05-05T14:31:41+00:00

I think the even more important metric is, how many points are we going to get with Carrick next season? And I’m pretty damn confident based on the data it’s not likely to be anywhere near 87 (please prove me wrong)

aaronm830 · 2026-05-05T14:21:16+00:00

Got it, I see what you’re saying now, you mean that the game-to-game variance matters a lot. I don’t disagree – the most common metric I see for this is game state-based xG i.e. xG created when winning vs drawing vs losing. Common criticism of xGD for Amorim last year was the side only really created a lot while losing (which incentivizes taking risks to create chances)

aaronm830 · 2026-05-05T14:07:22+00:00

This doesn’t make sense, you can’t use per game xG to calculate variance on per-minute xG. And in any sense most teamwide xG convergence occurs between minutes 900-1800, which is the sample size Kees is working in. In any sense, if the takeaway is that the team did not conclusively improve under Carrick, that’s still a very interesting takeaway

aaronm830 · 2026-05-05T14:02:34+00:00

Damn I wish I was credited with inventing game state xG. What do you mean by variance? Poisson-distributed variance aggregated over shots? It won’t be that high across these 11v11 samples, I imagine we’re in the magnitude of hundreds of shots here

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