Where does Raphael Varane fit in at Manchester United?

National World - LocalTV

A look at the centre back situation at Manchester United.

Transcript

00:00 And look at the centre-back options and the events occurring with

00:05 Chen Haag and Rafael Varane for example, what's the sort of story you can tell us

00:09 there because there seems to be some confusion on who plays and

00:15 whether this Champions League winner, World Cup winner Rafael Varane, what his

00:19 role is now in his team?

00:21 I mean I think there's an argument to say that Rafael Varane, as you just said, a

00:25 World Cup winner, a four-time Champions League winner, former Real Madrid player,

00:30 played so well last season and formed such a kind of formidable centre-back

00:33 partnership with Lissandro Martinez but I think there's an argument to say he is

00:36 now fifth choice centre-back at Manchester United which is incredible

00:40 really and it's been such a quick turnaround for him and you know it's

00:46 not, I doubt it's sat particularly well with a player like Varane to be honest

00:50 with you who has just always experienced such highs in his career but look as I

00:54 say Varane came into this season first choice centre-back alongside Martinez

00:58 that was certainly the first choice partnership. Martinez has been injured,

01:00 Varane's performances have notably dropped with him not in the team and

01:05 we've got the case where in the last couple of weeks he's played Maguire and

01:09 Evans almost as the first choice centre-back which I mean we consider at

01:13 the start of the season they were fourth and fifth choice options at the back it's

01:16 remarkable how quickly this turned around. Chen Haag said after the Man City

01:20 game that he left Varane on the bench for tactical reasons. I think we all

01:24 disputed that we all kind of thought you know I didn't totally believe him if I'm

01:27 honest and he's obviously had a lot of injuries for Varane but he was asked

01:32 about it in Friday's press conference ahead of the Luton game and he gave

01:35 quite a firm answer to say that the reasons that Varane has not been

01:39 in the team are tactical. He said that basically the build-up play is better

01:43 with, he prefers someone on the right someone on the left of centre-back right

01:47 footer and a left footer for the build-up play. Well Martinez is the only left

01:51 footed centre-back he's out so they've got to play someone on the right Harry

01:54 Maguire to be fair to him has played really well recently and is

01:57 justifiably I think at the moment getting selected above Varane so he's in

02:01 the right slot and he doesn't feel that Varane is particularly comfortable on

02:04 the left he actually said the same about Maguire so the option is Johnny Evans or

02:08 Viktor Lindelof and he basically seemed to say that Evans is slightly better

02:12 suited that on his left foot. It's a bit of a strange thing really for me

02:15 personally I would be just slightly adapting something I mean Chen Haag

02:19 knows tactics much better than me but I'm surprised he's not slightly adapting

02:21 something and changing the system that he can get two right-footed centre-backs

02:25 in who can defend you know better than Evans and Lindelof but yeah very

02:29 strange one and you know he then there was this report basically on Friday that

02:34 they've had a bit of a fallout he then Varane wasn't selected Evans was injured

02:38 against Luton Lindelof came into the team you know it's a really interesting

02:42 issue really I think one that's gonna drag on listen I think the way things

02:47 are going I would be surprised if Raphael Varane is still a Manchester United

02:51 player this time in a year I think there's gonna you know it just can't

02:54 keep continuing like this for a player of Varane's kind of pedigree and for

02:58 what he's achieved in his career he's not gonna be happy just sitting on the

03:01 bench at United but yeah it's a really interesting turn of events regarding the

03:04 centre-backs at United

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