Last night Portugal U21 played England in a game that featured some of United’s finest young talent. This was, in particular, an opportunity to have a proper look at Bebe amidst rumours surrounding his ability, or lack there of. Our man on the ground in Portugal, Nuno Barreto, was able to give us a run-down on Bebe and the other United players involved.
Result: Portugal 0 England 1
Portugal
Bebé: In the first-half Bebé was playing as a striker, which is definitely not his natural position. He rarely touched the ball, and when the ball did reach him he wasn’t in a position to do any damage.
About ten minutes in the second-half Yazalde, a pure striker, comes in and Bebé starts playing as an offensive midfielder supporting the striker. Here is where we start to see him doing some damage. He was definitely more in the game doing some nice runs, most notably an amazing run from the halfway line to the goal, capped by an nice shot fake that tricked two English defenders. He wasn’t able score though.
Towards the end of the game Portugal put in another striker, the team became very disorganized, and Bebé disappeared again.
To sum it up Bebé has great pace, and he can definitely run with the ball at his feet. However his reception skills are something that he has to work on, there were loads of passes where he could have done a much better job controlling the ball. His touch needs to improve.
In the end I had a feeling that if he had played supporting the striker from the start it would have been a different game. There might be something to Bebé, but he needs to play regularly in the reserve matches.
England
Smalling: Didn’t have much work, but when he was called upon he did his job with no problems.
Cleverly: Very good performance from Cleverly. He controlled the game well and you could clearly see that he is a gifted player. He made the assist to Sturridge’s goal, a very good pass on the counter-attack. And also at the end of the game he made a good run that ended with another great pass to Delfouneso who missed the goal quite badly.
Welbeck: I feel that Welbeck suffered from playing alongside Sturridge, who was the go-to-player. He did however made the assist to a goal by Sturridge that was incorrectly called as an offside.
I think the really interesting point to take from this is the fact that Bebe’s best position may be as an offensive midfielder. This signing now begins to make more sense for me. We have plenty of strikers and are light in the creative midfielder role. Maybe Fergie has identified Cleverley and Bebe as the future for this position.
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Nice one Nuno! I was more interested to hear the Cleverly was doing well. I’m pretty sure Bebe is for next year and not too worried about him yet! It’s funny that out of all the internationals that were played in the last couple of days this is the onle one I was really interested in! Great to see all the exciting young guys coming through. I thought Wellbeck would have come through a bit further by now as always been tipped by Sir Alex but am guessing the amount of strikers her has been buying lately suggests that is not the case.
So glad see the england trio steal the show and have a controlled game, Bebe will improve rapidly once he adjusts to a Utd life, Sir Alex will get the best out of the promising lad and he will become a serious threat to the opposition.
Do people really believe the bullshit that gutter journalists who were banned from old trafford by fergie say.they are wankers who are using this kid to a take a shot at united.just because he has to get his fitness up a little bit more & these assholes say he does not have ability…FUCK OFF WANKERS.
These assholes should not even be acknowledged.