Fred and McTominay now appear to be a serviceable midfield. Not world beating and not very strong for the top 6 but good enough. The problem is if one of them goes down we are left with Pereira - he hasn't shown he is up to it. Then we need to work out how to break down lesser teams.
A world class striker and central midfield player, plus a fit and firing Pogba would leave us competing for second this season. Liverpool are a class above unfortunately. Finding world class players who actually fit your team isn't easy to do though.
We desperately need to get through to January with McTominay/Fred playing as many minutes as they possibly can and then get at least one more in. You'd like to hope that the club is already well down the line behind the scenes with any transfer targets.
Scotty has quickly become one of my favourite players.
When you think about it, you would have thought that we would have been able to cope with an injury or two at CM thus far in the season - yet when Pogba is long term injured (plus who knows where his mind is at), Matic is packing a sad and McTominay gets injured too, we really look short. As would most teams when three of the same position (City at CB) get injured.
Pereira is just not at the level but with Matic out the door you would rather look to bring one in for one out rather than ship out Pereira at this stage too. Made a good foul at City tbf.
McTominay is almost the ideal person and player you need at the moment. Someone who wants to put the hard yards in and then just keeps it simple. Does his job and if others can do theirs then they all look good. Decent leader too