Over the past few seasons, one of the biggest problem areas for Manchester United was their central midfield position, with many pundits highlighting a lack of creativity in midfield.
The preferred midfield pairing with Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was Scott Mctominay, who often sat in the back, with Brazilian Fred occupying a slightly more advanced role.
What the duo lacked in creativity, they more than made up for in their tremendous work rate. But Erik ten Hag quickly realized that the pairing wouldn’t work if they had to go up to the next level.
Fred’s difficult season at club level
The Dutchman proceeded to bring in high-quality replacements in the form of Christian Eriksen and Casemiro and since then Fred, especially, has struggled to start games.
As Ten Hag pointed out earlier in the season, Fred’s high-energy, relentless rushing ability can be very useful against some opposition.
However, due to his reduced minutes, the Brazil international has been linked with a summer 2023 exit and the former Ajax boss is said to prefer a more creative option in midfield.
????The last time Fred used the Brazil 10 was in March 2018.
Tite and Neymar thought it would be a good idea to boost Fred’s confidence.
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Despite a difficult season at the club, Fred remains a very popular figure in the national team dressing room and his enormous work rate has impressed everyone.
As Globo Esporte revealed, Brazilian physiologist Guilherme Passos was in awe of the statistics that the 29-year-old regularly racks up during his appearances.
“He has an absurd, very high work rate,” Passos said. “We had a match in the Copa América where he covered 12 km.
“It is always our top 1, top 2 in volume, in distance traveled. In work pace, which means that he is running around the field at high speed and moderate speed all the time.
Support staff from Brazil were impressed with Fred
And these impressive statistics also have a downside, since the midfielder regularly loses up to 1-3 kg in a single game. And that leads to a very specialized recovery program for the former Shakhtar Donetsk star.
“We paid a lot of attention to Fred regarding his recovery. Because he loses a lot of weight during the game precisely because of this great work rate.
“He’s one of the main athletes that we have to rehydrate a lot after the game, increase carb intake a lot to be able to recover well for the next game.”
Passos also praised the combative midfielder’s willingness to give it his all and recover by following all the protocols so he can be there to help the team when needed.
“He manages to recover quickly precisely because he is an athlete who pays attention to this information (care) and follows the recovery protocols.”
Fred is considered to be the “little engine” of the team due to his weight of 67kg, but he is highly valued and there are suggestions that he might not take the risk in the Cameroon game to avoid a suspension in the knockout stage.
