A Ben Slimane

[AWetFlannel]

Happy for him. Should we be worried about how much better our players look playing for other clubs? Slimane, McBurnie, Moore, Brewster, RND, Berge...

Don't agree.

Mcburnie looked a top Championship player for us, Slimani never got a chance at this level, Brewster looked decent when fit, RND was fantastic under Hecky. Think it applies to Moore, but sometimes it just doesn't work out.

Players rarely play at one consistent level throughout their careers, Berge has certainly improved and been given a limited role at Fulham.

 

[MayorOJC]

Don't agree.

Mcburnie looked a top Championship player for us, Slimani never got a chance at this level, Brewster looked decent when fit, RND was fantastic under Hecky. Think it applies to Moore, but sometimes it just doesn't work out.

Players rarely play at one consistent level throughout their careers, Berge has certainly improved and been given a limited role at Fulham.

Mcburnie had a 43 game goal drought for us in the Championship

 

[AWetFlannel]

Mcburnie had a 43 game goal drought for us in the Championship

And then he fired us to promotion, on top of a good amount of solid appearances in the PL. All players come in and out of form.

 

[MayorOJC]

And then he fired us to promotion, on top of a good amount of solid appearances in the PL. All players come in and out of form.

Yep, very streaky player

 

[Balham]

Berge?

We played Berge as a right sided midfielder who was expected to run all game, a choice we made to accommodate Oli Norwood. He was when we signed him, and still is, an excellent #6 (deep lying midfielder) but I don't think we ever really played him there.

 

[wak1889]

Mcburnie had a 43 game goal drought for us in the Championship

He didn't, he may well have gone 43 games without a goal but that would have been across 3 seasons, back end of Premier league, full injury hit season in championship where he played less than 30 games and 5 or 6 games at start of new season before scoring ,

 

[CaptainMorgans]

We played Berge as a right sided midfielder who was expected to run all game, a choice we made to accommodate Oli Norwood. He was when we signed him, and still is, an excellent #6 (deep lying midfielder) but I don't think we ever really played him there.

We played him there a few times and he looked a bit lost. He took too many touches and got caught in possession.

 

[Champagneblade]

I think the point is relatively simple: almost three full seasons after buying him, he now looks comfortable at the level below which we needed him.

Don’t think you can have much seller’s remorse from that sort of transaction.

Meanwhile, we as a club have been in a position higher than him all the while.

From a personal perspective it’s good to see a player we brought to this country doing well. But when you look at the likes of Peck, Riedewald, Hamer and O’Hare, we’ve done alright in his absence.

 

[Houston_Blade]

We played him there a few times and he looked a bit lost. He took too many touches and got caught in possession.

Yet he plays that week in, week out for Fulham with good players around him and isn’t expected to do everything and he looks good. Weird that.

 

[HOT CURRIE 10]

Yet he plays that week in, week out for Fulham with good players around him and isn’t expected to do everything and he looks good. Weird that.

He’s a top player and as I remember,we hardly played him in the role he plays at Fulham,I also remember him coming back playing with Burnley in that quarter back position and he absolutely ran the show,pity our brain dead supporters booed him relentlessly. What a bunch of shameless pricks that follow us sometimes.

 

[ATL Recs]

Happy for him. Should we be worried about how much better our players look playing for other clubs? Slimane, McBurnie, Moore, Brewster, RND, Berge...

Bluntly - yes

 

[ATL Recs]

Don't agree.

Mcburnie looked a top Championship player for us, Slimani never got a chance at this level, Brewster looked decent when fit, RND was fantastic under Hecky. Think it applies to Moore, but sometimes it just doesn't work out.

Players rarely play at one consistent level throughout their careers, Berge has certainly improved and been given a limited role at Fulham.

RND was never fantastic he got to decent by the time of his injury at Coventry seem to remember he was abysmal at times then got some confidence in September
Mcburnie was an enigma but mainly poor though much better at defending the ball in the air rather than attacking it
I’d say Berge has been given the role he was touted for prior to joining us ? It’s pivotal to the way Fulham play not limited

 

[bonobo]

Wilder had actually dropped Norwood and moved Bergen into that role in the Prem. He said that had been the long term plan, with Berge as a player could could break the first press, but he bought it forward early that season as we were struggling ( and Norwood in particular). But Berge got injured shortly after. When he got back into the team a year a later, we were in the Champ, Norwood/Doyle could handle the role at that level, and Berge was an attacking asset to us further up the field.

 

[MayorOJC]

He didn't, he may well have gone 43 games without a goal but that would have been across 3 seasons, back end of Premier league, full injury hit season in championship where he played less than 30 games and 5 or 6 games at start of new season before scoring ,

Still not great

 

[ben1987]

Yet he plays that week in, week out for Fulham with good players around him and isn’t expected to do everything and he looks good. Weird that.

I always rated Berge extreamly highly when he was with United.

One thing that really stands out for me is when he came back to the lane with Burnley. He didn’t give the ball away all game. He made our midfield look absolutely miles off the required level. He could’ve dominated that game in his slippers.

Any properly funded club would’ve seen Souza and Hamer added to Berge and Ndiaye but that’s been done to death.

 

[Balham]

Wilder had actually dropped Norwood and moved Bergen into that role in the Prem. He said that had been the long term plan, with Berge as a player could could break the first press, but he bought it forward early that season as we were struggling ( and Norwood in particular). But Berge got injured shortly after. When he got back into the team a year a later, we were in the Champ, Norwood/Doyle could handle the role at that level, and Berge was an attacking asset to us further up the field.

You're right, in his second season with us, Berge played in the central role more often than not. However, in his defence he was never going to look good with Ben Osborn, Ethan "Nesh" Ampadu, post-Covid John Fleck or John "Stat Padding Cunt" Lundstram as partners in a busted flush formation. We also only kept the same line-up three times in the first 14 matches, using 7 different midfield combinations - compare that to the three midfield combinations used over the first 15 matches of Berge's United career, all of which involved a different player at LCM.

 

[LondonBlade89]

Wilder had actually dropped Norwood and moved Bergen into that role in the Prem. He said that had been the long term plan, with Berge as a player could could break the first press, but he bought it forward early that season as we were struggling ( and Norwood in particular). But Berge got injured shortly after. When he got back into the team a year a later, we were in the Champ, Norwood/Doyle could handle the role at that level, and Berge was an attacking asset to us further up the field.

I think that position - in the way that we played - asked too much of Berge. Norwood was the architect of how we played. Even with a few years of PL experience under his belt now I don’t think Sander could play that role.

 

[wak1889]

Still not great

Agreed

 

[nopigfansintown]

Berge was our best player until the injury in Prem season two. In typical United fashion our best players get injured when they're in the shop window. A key need of a team like us is to be playing your top players just in case you get relegated (JOC, Berge) so you can receive big returns.
In the first Champ season the club was doing everything they could to flog him as soon as he'd recovered from a bad hamstring injury. He was overplayed and got injured again meaning he wasn't at full force until the back end of the season.

Berge made his name as a CM or deep lying playmaker type with impressive displays in the Champions League against the likes of Liverpool. The problem in the Championship is that it can feel a waste having such high skilled players doing this job, especially if you're a top side that sides just sit off. Or that sit off because you have the likes of Berge playing through their press. You want your top players impacting games which is the reason Berge was played elsewhere.