End of an era: Did McFred deserve all the criticism thrown their way? – Man United News And Transfer News

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For the better part of the past four seasons, “McFred” – the central midfield partnership of Scott McTominay and Fred – was a regular fixture in the Manchester United lineup, albeit far less since the arrival of Erik ten Hag.

With Fred being heavily linked with a move to Galatasaray and West Ham United submitting an offer for McTominay, it appears that this is the summer when the McFred era will officially come to a close.

Although many fans may feel the urge to celebrate the end of a midfield partnership that was one of the hallmarks of a low point in Man United’s history, was McFred truly as ineffective as some might think?

Use of the term McFred appears to date back to a tweet in 2019, when Paul Pogba was ruled out of United’s Premier League match at home to Leicester City.

While it was actually Nemanja Matic who started the game alongside McTominay in that 1-0 victory, the 2019-20 season was when the McFred partnership truly began to emerge.

McFred’s partnership got off to a decent start, with United winning 55 percent  of their games in the 2019-20 season when the pair played together as opposed to just 30 percent when only one or none of them featured.

Clearly impressed with what he had seen in the 2019/20 season, then-manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer decided to double down on his use of the duo, with 2020-21 being the season that McTominay and Fred made the most appearances together.

One Football reported that during the 2020-21 season and the first few months of the following campaign, United won 53.1% of their games with McFred on the field while losing 15.6%.

Although the team’s win rate went up to 59% without the pair holding down the fort together, their loss rate also increased, to 25.6%.

This shows that even though McFred were far from United’s key to success, they did manage to provide some stability in the midfield to limit the Red Devils’ defeats, although this could have been a simple case of other midfield pairings not receiving sufficient time to gel.

The 2021-22 season proved to be an overwhelming disappointment, with Solskjaer and his successor, interim manager Ralf Rangnick, guiding United to their lowest-ever Premier League points total of 58 while scoring just 57 goals.

But while McFred received a lot of criticism that season, the pair actually fared decently if statistics are to be believed.

During his short tenure at Old Trafford, Rangnick earned 1.82 points per game when he used McFred as opposed to just 1.28 points without the duo.

Overall, when featured during Solskjaer’s reign at the club, McFred won the Norwegian manager 1.76 points per game when they featured compared to the 1.68 points per game he won when they didn’t.

Even if United fared better with McFred since the start of the duo than they did without them on a relative basis, the duo still fell largely short of the standards that a team of United’s stature demands, particularly at the heart of the midfield.

Back in March, United legend Paul Scholes voiced his disapproval of the duo while singing Casemiro’s praises, labelling the Brazilian as “a proper Manchester United midfielder” while claiming that “he’s probably as close to Roy Keane as you’re going to get.”

Ultimately, the Red Devils remained trophyless throughout the McFred era, while last season saw the team improve significantly under Ten Hag, winning the Carabao Cup and qualifying for this season’s Champions League.

What’s more, the Dutch manager is hungry to lift his team even higher this season, declaring that they must “raise the bar” in order to compete with the Premier League’s elite.

While McFred’s tenure at the club wasn’t all doom and gloom, this midfield pairing is best left in the past, especially when considering the new heights that Ten Hag is looking to reach with his revitalized United squad.