Page 5 - Analyzing Fred - The 5 positives from the Manchester United new boy's pre-season

#1 His instant understanding with Pereira

Fred started the game as a deep-lying central midfielder, partnering Pereira and the addition of another ballplayer midfielder alongside him seemed to affect United's younger Brazilian instantly. Fred immediately built an understanding with Pereira and the fact that communication was not a problem must certainly have helped the two.

Never in the game did they look to be in each other's way. In fact, Fred routinely came to Pereira's aid whenever he was under pressure and always put himself as an option to pass the ball.

They switched places smoothly, working on the same wavelength and the fact that Fred looked so comfortable receiving the ball near his own half eased the pressure off Pereira. Fred also mixed his game well, keeping things simple at times and showing glimpses of trickery when required.

His short passing is perfect, but he also churned up beautiful long balls required. The pre-season certainly showed that Fred is totally at home with Pereira, and he should get better with the composure of Matic around him.

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Deepungsu is a veteran football journalist who has been covering daily transfer roundups and news for over six years at Sportskeeda. He has written close to 9000 articles for the website, and has garnered over 19.5Million reads.

Deepungsu holds a PG degree in Microbiology and an MBA degree in Total Quality Management. He has an extensive two-decade long writing experience, which includes a decade of sports blogging. His writing prowess has even led his work getting cited on the legendary Franz Beckenbauer's Wikipedia page.

Inspired by Diego Maradona, Deepungsu played as an attacking midfielder for his local club at subdivision level in his initial years and scored an important goal or two. However, his all-time favorite footballer is Lionel Messi, and evidently, he feels Argentina's glory in 2022 is his favorite FIFA World Cup moment for fulfilling his long-standing dream. He is also an ardent East Bengal fan.

Deepungsu has been a Manchester United supporter since the year 2000. Unsurprisingly, his favorite manager is Sir Alex Ferguson and the Scotsman helped him get through some of the toughest days of his life. Like the fiery Scot, Deepungsu also leaves no stone unturned when it comes to accuracy in articles and only relies on credible sources.

Despite believing in Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland to create an iconic rivalry, Deepungsu reckons no one can match the longevity of Messi and Ronaldo. He spends his leisure time writing about life on his blog, reading books, and playing the guitar.

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Edited by Rajdeep Puri