Hello,
I am the creator of a Manchester United website called Stretford End Arising. URL: http://www.stretfordendarising.com/
Would a member of forumscp.com like to write an original article on Marcos Rojo? His strengths, weaknesses, preferred playing position etc.
A link to forumscp.com will be included in the published article.
I look forward to hearing for you.
Kind regards
He’s a fast left-footed defender with good air ability, long distant shot (althought zero goals from distance) and that’s it… :
Was it worth 20 million euros? Nope…
If you wanted two guys to the back you could have bought Eric Dier from us (5 million buy-out clause) and Ezequiel Garay from Benfica for like 7 or 8 million…
for 20 million you could have bought 3 great defenders from the 3 giants instead of one:
Rolando - FCP
Eric Dier - SCP
Ezequiel Garay - SLB
Please send me a private message if you are interested.
Except those are all central defenders and MU bought Rojo as Left Back
Rojo is a good buy to play in central back of the left side in your 3 defense system. He can also play as left back but i think that there he is only a reasonable player (not a player for Man Utd). As central back he’s a good player and can be excellent in my opinion.
He’s reasonable fast and has good air ability, technique (for a defender), aggression (in a good way) and a powerful long shot (although sometimes he uses it excessively and too far from goal). He has still to improve is concentration (wich he improved very much this year, when he arrived to Sporting he had critical fails due to laps of concentration especially in the big games) but i think he will do good in Manchester and he’s the best defender you have.
I don’t think you overpaid for him (20M for a centre back with his characteristics and after his great world cup is a reasonable price espeacilly when we see the price of Mangala or David Luiz) but i do think Garay (best defender in our league in my opinion and proved his value in the world cup) or Dier (this one in the long term with the plus that he’s english) would be a better (and much cheaper) buy for you just looking in the portuguese league.
Sorry for my bad english and i hope i could help :great:
Rojo had a though beggining on Sporting’s first team. He spent half of his first season playing really, really bad. His positioning was really bad, and as a team we were a total chaos. I mean, anyone could see he was technicly good (considering he plays as a central defender) and his phisical skills were really good (he was fast and really strong, which is a very interesting mix).
Then, we got Jesualdo Ferreira as coach. He is not in his best moment, and he is a bit far from the top coaches of our League, but he could manage to bring some organization to our team. We started to play as a team, which we didn’t do before. That was important for Rojo. I mean, he clearly needed some orientation, because he was totally lost in the field when he played. Rojo’s partner became Tiago Ilori (which signed Liverpool in the end of the season), a former Sporting player from our Academy. Together, they made a really good partnership. Ilori had way more class than Rojo (Liverpool was right signing him). But the true is Rojo improved a lot. He finally managed to put his natural skills (strenght, speed, technique) at the service of the team. He was no more lost: finally, we had a coach that could organize our defense.
Last summer, we made changes in our Club again, and there came a new coach: Leonardo Jardim. He is, currently, Monaco’s coach. And he is one of the top coaches in the World working on the team’s defensive process. That’s what he does best, actually. And Rojo had finally a full year playing really well. I mean, he made mistakes last season. It’s obvious. Any player (or, at least, most of the players) does. But he played good. His head was in the right spot. In last season’s second half he started to improve, and this year it continued to happen. With so many competitive games for him (Portuguese League has some really though teams - considering it’s not a top3 or even top5 League), he improved phisicly. Right now, it’s really hard for any forward to win a 1x1 situation against Rojo: he has a good jumping, he his really strong when he has to make contact with the forward and he is really fast. He was also way more confident and way more mature. That means right now he is a really good defender.
Why have I mentioned so many times the coaches he had? Because his problem is that he still lacks maturity. He’s not so consistent as he could be. And the coach is the key: if Van Gaal is able to organize the team and the defensive line properly, then you got a good player. He needs orientation but, in a good team, his technical and physical skills will appear and you will be happy with him. Mostly, you will find him a very complete central-defender. If you don’t manage to become capable of playing with your guys as a team, then you will have problems: Rojo will start to stay off his position, he will start to go everywhere (even at the midfield) to win a tackle, and there will many times be a hole in his spot.
There’s a last thing: Rojo has played in the World Cup as a full-back, for his national squad. I hadn’t mencioned it yet because I don’t believe his offensive skills are good enough for him to succeed in a club like yours playing in that position. Your 3-5-2 system is actually a very good one for Rojo’s skills: I bet he will be playing as a central-defender, near the left, and that will allow him to play his defensive game even better, knowing there are two more central defenders in case some forward manage to drag him (something is kinda vulnerable, as I said) to another spot.
I strongly believe Marcos Rojo and Phil Jones will make a good partnership in your defense. What I don’t know is if Johnny Evans will be a good third element. Atending to his caracteristics, Rojo needs one.
PS - I apologize for the many mistakes I probably commited using my english. If it matters, I’ve done my best
Regards,
Gonçalo
You can always email zezecamarinha@putacreme.pt
Thank you, Ehrmantraut. Your thoughts are appreciated. Just one thing, what do you mean by, “Atending to his caracteristics, Rojo needs one.”?
:rotfl: :rotfl: :mrgreen:
Club passion apart (the great motivator for the Portuguese public… god forbid you over criticizing a player from your own club), Rojo is an extremely limited player outside of his physical capabilities. Simply put, he doesn’t know football. On his arrival to Alvalade, he had 0 understanding over positioning, decision making or even simple modern game rules. He improved substantially in the next year (the only way was up!), but he’s still extremely limited.
The only reason he has transferred to your club is because a madman in Argentina thought this guy was his left back for the world cup and clubs like ManU went ballistic this year with getting new players… 20M? Peanuts. I’m wondering what a man like van Gaal thinks about this acquisition, I would have never considered a professional like van Gaal to approve a signing like this - so it either means I misjudged him or that the club has little input from the manager when it comes to signings.
Credo! :mrgreen:
Rojo was in top3 of Sporting´s squad, easily, last year. The beggining of Rojo here wasn´t good, essencially for overall problems in our club, but he improved, was our best defender and has physical and technical skills that can make him a very useful player for MU. He´s still very young and he´s still learning.
That’s what Luis just said. Your system protects Rojo a bit more, but if you ask me, I do believe you’ll need another two center-backs with very good positioning. It’s still not so hard for the forwards to drag Rojo out of his spot (though not so much lately).
If you ask me, I believe he will be a good player in this transition year you have with Van Gaal. With the current squad, he might be importante. But I wouldn’t count with him as more than a (very) usefull backup to a team who wanna win EPL and CL. And I wouldn’t certainly have paid so much for him
Though, he has grown a lot in last year and a half. That’s the main point. Maybe his devlopment continue to happen…
Forget the “atending”, what he means is: “Taking Rojos abilities into account, he’ll need one (a third element)”. Don’t know if he meant a defence with three centre-backs or something else though. :inde:
I’m absolutely agree with Ehrmautraut speech’s! However, I just want to say that Rojo is also strong when starting the offensive process of the team, because he have some good technical skills, including medium and long range pass, and nice individual technique to transporting the ball to offensive positions.
:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:
Obrigado Paracelsus. Lido soa de facto mal e dá para perceber que o significado de Atending é na realidade outro :great:
As previously stated, Marcos Rojo has improved substantially in the last year. His first season was a complete disaster. His positioning was completely terrible. His lack of concentration was also a problem. He was part of a squad could easly be called one of the worst teams at defending, even tough there was some quality in the players involved. Look at the image and take your conclusions:
Other remarks about Faustino Alberto:
Faustino Marcos seems a bit overpriced when compared with Gayra, but cheap when compared with Mangalho. He is a young lad that lives the club like nowone, with a good progression capacity. He has good technical skills and physical capacity, and has been improving on his defects. Work him well and he will be the player you need but don’t deserve.
Also i would like to recomend Miguel Lopes. Basically the same with one or two differences. Plays Portugal A team. Porto, Braga, Betis, Lyon and Sporting on curriculum. Cheap. It would give Alberto a friend to help in his transition.
I guess some of sporting fans are still mad with Rojo behaviour :mrgreen:
Rojo was one of the best players of our league. He has astonishing physical capabilities and I really apreciate is technical assets as well. Maybe positioning and concentration are his major botlenecks. Surely a manager like van gaal will work on that and make Rojo a world class CB.
EDIT:
Just to add that compared with Mangala deal, Manchester United made a great acquisition for 1/3 of the price. Mangala surely doesn’t worth 50 millions compared with Rojo. They are quite similar in their virtues and defects, but personally I would prefer Rojo for his international experience - way bigger than Mangala, an alternate in France national team.
Please, not Miguel Lopes… We can’t lose him too. Our team would be ruined without his skills