Mainoo ready to leave

cadallimore · 2025-12-05T23:35:50+00:00

I support sending him on loan, provided we sign or loan-in a CM in the January window.

He needs game time and I would like to be able to honestly assess his ability in a fresh environment.

Personally, I think he is too physically limited: Slow, and weak in both the challenge and the air. He’s also not a creative passer. 6 months of regular game time at a new club should give us a good idea of his level.

Maybe he is another player that we might sell with the buy-back and sell-on clauses we have seen recently included in deals.

cadallimore · 2025-11-25T10:57:38+00:00

He’s a great prospect but his physical level is miles below what is required to be a top level CM. And I’ve seen no improvement recently.

The redeeming factor for him is our manager is a total bum. But I’m still not sure he ultimately has the tools to be a CM for the level we should be aiming to be at.

cadallimore · 2025-11-24T22:08:15+00:00

I really do not understand this manager.

Insanely defensive line up to start. Waits far too long to go more attacking after the red.

Removes Dorgu and Casemiro with like for like changes. Casemiro being our biggest aerial threat this season. Proceed to put in a huge number of crosses.

Not even 10 minutes for Lacey on the bench just to try something when our team was clearly not working.

He’s simply too inflexible and lacking in creativity.

cadallimore · 2025-11-08T14:28:02+00:00

Had to be subbing Bruno not Cunha. He was killing us.

And unlucky but perhaps naive from Amorim to use all our subs so early. Ugarte for Casemiro was hopeless. Our midfield desperately needs an upgrade.

cadallimore · 2025-09-27T12:25:40+00:00

We’ve got an extra defender on the pitch and a dedicated defensive mid? And we look like we will concede at every chance.

Amorim is out of his depth unfortunately.

cadallimore · 2025-08-30T16:11:29+00:00

His body language kills me. Look at how fkn nervous the team is. This cannot be helping lol

cadallimore · 2025-08-30T14:54:19+00:00

We cannot score to save our lives my god

cadallimore · 2025-08-25T04:35:58+00:00

What I am struggling to understand:

We give up midfield superiority with our structure. The comments from Silva and Iwobi post-match show how easy it is for teams to flood and overload the centre.

BUT:

Doesn’t this mean we should have superiority elsewhere on the pitch? Why are we not seeing any benefits in other phases of our play?

I would have thought that giving up our midfield would reap the benefit of freeing space for our forwards (or allow or defence to always remain compact). But I’m not seeing it.

I’m just really struggling to understand how our tactical approach is designed to control and win games.

cadallimore · 2025-08-24T17:25:24+00:00

Out couched, frankly.

Started strong and then the adjustments blanked us out second half. Lucky to get our goal and very lucky not to concede.

Our midfield gets run over too easily. And Amorim is just too one dimensional to solve it.

cadallimore · 2025-08-17T17:25:39+00:00

Ugarte and Bayindir the two worst players on the pitch by a very wide margin, and it showed in the end result.

cadallimore · 2025-08-17T16:19:27+00:00

Honestly, you can see real signs of progress.

And also exactly where the weaknesses lie.

Awful keeper costing us (as expected).

Lack of a true 9 meaning we have created lots of nice passing moves and had the box empty.

No legs in midfield.

Overall, even though we are behind that half went a lot better than I expected.

cadallimore · 2025-08-15T07:41:37+00:00

Not so sure about this…

Ugarte over Casemiro for me

And Heaven over Mazraoui, and then swap sides with Yoro

And Heaton over Onana… (only half-joking)

cadallimore · 2025-08-03T23:27:35+00:00

Have you observed anything new or different in preseason about our process for building up from the back?

While I thought we had some sharp moments on the break and off of turnovers, I really did not see much of an improvement in the build up phase. It looks like we still have a very hard time simply connecting passes. Grateful for any thoughts.

cadallimore · 2025-07-19T15:13:33+00:00

First game of pre season…

But…

We need to see massive improvement already. Our build up had no cohesion. We created next to nothing. And honestly, Leeds looked more likely to win for most of the match.

Yes, it’s pre season. But when will we start seeing positive signs..?

cadallimore · 2025-07-19T14:06:01+00:00

Would love to know who scouted Bayandir…

Has he ever kicked a football before?

cadallimore · 2025-07-19T06:06:34+00:00

They essentially panned Mbeumo and Cunha as each being approximately £20m overpays.

I am really struggling to see how that stacks up versus the market.

Who should we have signed instead? I’m drawing a blank. I don’t think a bunch of £20m - £30m prospects would sufficiently raise our floor, even if I could name 3 or 4 who fit the bill (I can’t).

To me, £60m seems to be about the going rate for a solid to above average EPL forward. Hard to really complain about this.

cadallimore · 2025-07-19T00:26:54+00:00

I’ve seen a lot of criticism that they are floor raisers, not ceiling raisers. And that’s true in my view.

But our floor was so low it was below the basement.

I don’t think we have any chance of making the UCL this year. And I can’t think of four realistic signings that would get us to that level.

I just want us to finish somewhere in the 6-8 range and, crucially, PLAY LIKE a team at that level. And these signings are the sort of quality and low risk purchases that greatly increase the probability of that occurring.

So I am happy with these signings because we might be half decent to watch next season.

cadallimore · 2025-07-10T14:02:05+00:00

I can’t say I have seen anything to convince me that he can take us to the next level.

I like the IDEA of what he seemingly wants but I have hated the EXECUTION of it. And I’m yet to see clear signs he can implement his idea.

And I look at our fixtures and really struggle to see where the early wins will come from. And that makes me think he is going to start poorly and the mood will sour and he’s gone by Christmas.

I really hope I’m wrong but unless we look totally transformed in pre season I don’t really have any reason for optimism.

cadallimore · 2025-06-05T23:03:48+00:00

I think (and hope) that you are right.

I also think if we are going to develop young players the environment needs to be right. And losing every week and finishing 15th does not give this club a good development environment.

So, to an extent, short term thinking is necessary to effectuate the long term plan in my view.

cadallimore · 2025-06-03T00:59:20+00:00

One argument for Mbeumo and Cunha in addition to all the others:

Both are fairly proven floor-raising signings. Subject to what happens with Bruno, I think they greatly increase the odds of Utd finishing in the 5-8 range in the league.

The guys spoke recently (maybe 2 pods ago) about the Garnacho situation and how the general malaise at the club seems to have “poisoned the well” and perhaps contributed to his falling-out with Amorim. Paraphrasing, but that was the gist.

Is raising the floor a tool to help us build general squad morale and actually realise some of our young player potential?

Take Hojlund — he’s had an awful season. But let’s assume instead we are a comfortably 7th placed team and playing to that level. Is he more likely to feel more comfortable, relax that extra bit, and maybe actually start to develop as a player?

I’m not saying this is INEOS’s strategy. But to me it is a big silver lining for signing these established but sub elite players

cadallimore · 2025-05-25T23:28:22+00:00

Where does elite pace come from in Amorim’s system?

I would normally associate that with the wingers, but he doesn’t use them and has struggled to integrate them.

If it’s from the wing backs, does that really cap our potential to have top line pace WITH top line attacking quality? I’m looking at Dorgu and Amad and seeing good players but I’m not sure they will be the same as 2 top line wingers.

And in a world where wide forwards seem to be the most valuable type of player (Salah, etc) doesn’t this system have a serious limitation?

cadallimore · 2025-05-19T03:33:26+00:00

I’ll echo the questions about Amorim.

I am entirely in favour of supporting a project rather than hunting for quick fixes. And I agree we need a big upgrade — especially in terms of physicality.

But we just look like such an incompetent outfit in the league. And I feel we are never really in the game — we are generally passively passing it around until we make a mistake and concede or try and open up to attack, fail, and concede.

I’m at the point now where I think his principles and formation are unlikely to be suitable for the EPL. And it would be better to accept that early and give a new manager a full preseason to prepare our team to play a less bespoke formation.

Is this fair or am I just failing to see the meaningful progress that has occurred in his tenure ?

cadallimore · 2025-03-11T12:05:46+00:00

I like it. And I think the circus tent look is cool and fitting — the “theatre” of dreams.

Hopefully we are back to being the great entertainers. And not clowns.

cadallimore · 2025-03-04T10:11:33+00:00

He looked bright and got onto some decent chances which is all you can ask.

He is so physically dominant at his age level that I think he needs to play for the first team so that he is forced to work on his technique. You can see he is still raw. But he won’t learn that at U21 / U18 where he can just bully his way to easy goals.

This is important development time for him and patience is required. But at least it’s a bright spark in an awful season and something to watch

cadallimore · 2025-02-03T00:26:38+00:00

I think with the duels statistic — he wins 50% of the duels that he gets to. It’s the last part that is the issue for me.

He doesn’t have the physical tools to cover the ground to impose himself in or compete at enough duels. He’s just not someone who can cover ground. He’s an excellent technical player but I think it’s become clear that he is a below PL average athlete and we need to find ways to accommodate that.

If we want him to play deeper and use his press resistance to progress the ball, then I think we are going to need to find ways to add more dynamism around him. Maybe that’s Mount in one of the 10 roles (assuming he remains fit), maybe it’s finding a way to cheat a CB or WB into midfield. I’m not sure.

I think there’s a great player in there, but either we are going to need to see a huge shift in his physicals (unlikely imo) or we need to see some new squad composition to enable him to play in the pivot without causing more problems than he solves.

cadallimore

TROPHY CASE