A pattern of conceding goals early into second half under Amorim?

BorisManUtd

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It's happened now in almost every game since Arsenal. We concede 1-2 goals in first 15 minutes of second half as it seems players start the half so slow while the opponent plays with more energy and intensity.

Arsenal - Timber's goal in 54th minute

Forest - Gibbs-White in 47th and Wood's in 54th

Viktoria Plzen - Vidra's goal in 48th minute

Tottenham - Kuluševski in 46th and Solanke in 54th minute

Bournemouth - Kluivert in 61th and Semenyo in 63rd minute

Obviously Bournemouth's goals came bit later than the initial 15 minutes but they were the better team since the half started anyway. That's 5 of the last 6 games we've played so happening too often now. Sorry if it's not worth of a thread and administrators are free to delete it.
 
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BorisManUtd said:
It's happened now in almost every game since Arsenal. We concede 1-2 goals in first 15 minutes of second half as it seems players start the half so slow while the opponent plays with more energy and intensity.

Arsenal - Timber's goal in 54th minute

Forest - Gibbs-White in 47th and

Viktoria Plzen - Vidra's goal in 48th minute and Wood's in 54th

Tottenham - Kuluševski in 46th and Solanke in 54th minute

Bournemouth - Kluivert in 61th and Semenyo in 63rd minute

Obviously Bournemouth's goals came bit later than the initial 15 minutes but they were the better team since the half started anyway. That's 5 of the last 6 games we've played so happening too often now. Sorry if it's not worth of a thread and administrators are free to delete it.
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Seems a mentality issue. Seem to lose their heads under any set back.
 
Yeah, it's concerning, but perhaps understandable as well. They're under a lot of pressure and trying to learn a new system at the same time. Many of them are not really suited to it.

When we have a setback - like conceding - it's likely to stress a lot of them, which disrupts their focus and increases the likelihood of reverting to muscle memory and old patterns at least temporarily. Combine that with a lot of collective trauma suffered over the recent years as well as a clear deficit of actual on the pitch leaders, who stay cool under pressure...and you have a poisonous cocktail. The latter part is as true under Amorim as it was under Ten Hag.

Remember the good, old Arsenal team that would fold everytime it was on? That's us now, until the players get more confidence in Amorims way of playing and the club manages to build a sustainable team culture over time.
 
Valuedrug said:
Yeah, it's concerning, but perhaps understandable as well. They're under a lot of pressure and trying to learn a new system at the same time. Many of them are not really suited to it.

When we have a setback - like conceding - it's likely to stress a lot of them, which disrupts their focus and increases the likelihood of reverting to muscle memory and old patterns at least temporarily. Combine that with a lot of collective trauma suffered over the recent years as well as a clear deficit of actual on the pitch leaders, who stay cool under pressure...and you have a poisonous cocktail. The latter part is as true under Amorim as it was under Ten Hag.

Remember the good, old Arsenal team that would fold everytime it was on? That's us now, until the players get more confidence in Amorims way of playing and the club manages to build a sustainable team culture over time.
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Hopefully it'll get better with time. Just find it frustrating how bad we open second halves of games. But definitely will take time before players are comfortable in this system. Also games coming all the time which isn't helpful.
 
I'm sure we did it a lot under eth and remember this complaint under Ole at times. ETH seemed bad as it felt like a "what is he saying at half time?" scenario
 
like with Ten Hag, you're seeing slow starts to a 2nd half and you ask yourself "what is being said at half time". Just like the Forest, Spurs and today's game, we were 1 goal down and still in the game, Slow start from us and before you know it we're 2-3 goals behind and playing like we can concede more. By the time the game has settled, the game's gone
 
BorisManUtd said:
Hopefully it'll get better with time. Just find it frustrating how bad we open second halves of games. But definitely will take time before players are comfortable in this system. Also games coming all the time which isn't helpful.
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It can really go both ways.

If they manage to string some good performances together, get a bit of belief with the ideas of the system starting to take hold etc., and I could see us staying afloat without Amorim taking too much flak. I just think the ceiling of this squad in his system is not that high, but I'm hoping both he and they can surprise me here.

But if the coaches can't exorcise the collective jitters at least somewhat, we keep conceding these soft goals and the anxiety takes over in both the crowd and the squad, then I worry for Amorim. He seems like a good guy with exciting ideas, exactly the kind of coach who could really build something here if he's allowed to. But the environment he has come into and with my current impression of the INEOS management, I wonder what kind of leeway he will be afforded in the short to medium term.

It seems such a massive gamble they have taken to be honest, bringing him in now. Yeah, it looks decisive for the media and so on, but switching mid-season in this kind of turmoil to a somewhat bespoke system with neither the players nor the finances to act in the market? And a manager who insists from the get go that he will not compromise on his principles? It feels like a high wire act really.

I just hope they're actually on the same page this time in the management team with Ratcliffe and INEOS respecting the possibility of severe short term pain here. But like you said, hopefully it will get better sooner rather than later, so we won't have to test that hypothesis too much.
 
I used to look forward to half time if we were 0-0, or 1-0 behind with SAF in charge. You just knew in most cases he would get a reaction

Not a single manager post SAF has ever made me feel like that. If we’re bad in the first half…I just assume we’re gonna bad in the second.
 
The problem we have had for over a decade now is that none of our coaches have managed to embed their system and philosophy to that the extent that it becomes automatic for the players.

If you're having to think about your actions constantly on the pitch, it's going to impact your technical execution. If you're not sure where you're teammates are or what they are going to do, it's hard to play free-flowing / possession based football.

To the matter at hand, I think we concede goals after the break because the players have probably just had their head filled with more instructions.
 
Overall we’re giving up fewer chances in games, right? So that’s something

We often starting halves sluggishly under ETH too

Clearly the mentality is a problem and it’s gonna take a good while to sort it out
 
FortunaUtd said:
61th minute is not early into the second half.
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It's why I wrote this in the original post:

Bournemouth - Kluivert in 61th and Semenyo in 63rd minute

Obviously Bournemouth's goals came bit later than the initial 15 minutes but they were the better team since the half started anyway.
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A lot of those goals have come from terrible defending at set pieces or stupid individual errors. So I'm more concerned with the team cutting those out rather than the time of the game when they were conceded.

But you could be right though, the players aren't fully tuned in for the first 10 mins after HT and are therefore more susceptible to losing concentration and making a mistake or losing their man at a set piece, who knows.

I'm not laying this at the door of Amorim though. They're highly paid professional footballers, they should be able to have the right mindset coming out for the 2nd half. The manager can't wipe their arses for them.
 
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Mike Smalling said:
The teams mentality is weak as piss.
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I'm not sure if it's the players or the players at this club which is the bigger problem.

That is to say, the players coping with the attendant circus and intense expectation accompanying playing for United.
 
It’s been going on for years. And you will notice the same players involved in these games. Dalot, Bruno, Lindelof and Maguire in particular are present. All four are prone to mentally crumbling during games.
Bruno gets frustrated and starts giving the ball away. Dalot and Lindelof completely hide away and Maguire usually starts panicking and making mistakes.

Will never change until these kind of players are replaced.
 
Probably have to give credit to the other team and manager at half time. I feel we've been lucky to have a "good half" or looked "comfortable" many times this happens and really we've been poor but the other team hasn't exploited us. Come second half we face a team coming out the blocks fast having taken onboard their managers instructions to exploit certain areas. Spurs have done this well about 3 times now and so many more.
 
flameinthesun said:
Is it an Amorim issue or did similar happen under Ten Hag indicating its a squad issue.
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This season (under ten Hag) it happened on 4 occassions: vs Liverpool (Salah's goal in 56th minute), vs Spurs (Kuluševski's goal in 47th minute), at Porto (Samu's goal in 50th minute) and at Fenerbahce (En Nesyri's goal in 49th minute). So much more often under Amorim in a much shorter period. Not suggesting it's neccessary Amorim's fault, just watching the games recently it's something that's been repeating through December.
 
For me, defending set pieces is more of an issue rather than the second half restart.

Set pieces will only get harder as it’s now a very well highlighted flaw in the current United team.
 
Conceding early goals is nothing new, in either half, but then again conceding late goals is now the norm and it can only be down to concentration and being/remaining focussed. How many times over the last few years, even before ETH, have United teams either left their brains in the dressing room at the start of either half and been caught cold, or switched off and allowed opponents to score late goals, sometimes deep into stoppage time? To be honest losing concentration and switching off at any time in any game is a constant problem with our players....why? They are paid, and paid very well, to play football and even if they cannot play to a half decent level at least half of the time surely to God they can stay switched on and with it for 90 minutes or so? Is that too much to ask?
 
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