I think we should be a careful about just blindly blaming the players for all troubles in the dressing room/training pitch when we don't really know what's going one. We shouldn't dismiss any chance that Ten Hag has to take his share of the blame. It's too easy to point to the fact that this has happened before, when many of the players who we know fell out with their managers already left the club (e.g. Pogba, Bailly). I hear people repeating over and over again that the same players that stopped playing for Mourinho and Ole are at it again, which does not make any sense at all - firstly, because it's factually not the same players. How many players that were on the pitch against Newcastle played one single game for Mourinho? Is it Onana, Raguilon, Mount, Amrabat, Antony, Højlund, Garnacho, Hannibal and Casemiro that are "doing it again"?
Andy Mitten: The players aren't responding to the manager
- Thread starter Bastian
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Send all the British players down to the reserves based on wild guesses about who are leaking from the dressing room? As late as yesterday McTominay was quoted on that he has 100% belief the manager can turn in around. Was it the British players that fell out with Mourinho? Was it the British players that stopped backing Ole? If you are seaching for rubbish, introspection may be a good starting point.
It does when he has been prolific over the last year, is still one of our most potent attacking threats and we would have to pay through the nose for a suitable replacement.
Fixed it for you.
Mitten mentions the players aren't responding to the manager again today.
Said it's partly on the players, partly on the manager. The manager gives very detailed instructions and the problem with that is there's too much to take in and too many specific instructions. From minute 23 if anyone wants to jump to that point in the audio:
Said it's partly on the players, partly on the manager. The manager gives very detailed instructions and the problem with that is there's too much to take in and too many specific instructions. From minute 23 if anyone wants to jump to that point in the audio:
It's been obvious for a while that a lot of the United players have a pretty low football IQ, so this revelation is not surprising. Any decent coach at United would struggle to get through to them for the same reason.
I keep coming back to Ronaldo and the story that he was shocked when he returned that everything was still the same. There is a feeling of stagnation right through the stadium, gym, training ground, that is lowering the expectations the players have of themselves too. It is not an excuse, but the malaise is from the top down.
They are a bit more scathing towards the players without maybe realising they are going in two footed. They talk about a lack of capacity to get instructions into their heads, a lack of footballing IQ, above shoulders inability. It's pretty brutal. And likely accurate.
They sound a bit thick based on your description
Agreed. The club will never be successful again under the current ownership - that much is surely now clear to everyone (except, perhaps, the Glazers themselves).
One thing people always fail to recognise is what separates the great players from good players, as well as the players who can make it under a pep or a klopp isn't just technical ability but also their game IQ. There is no doubt to me that a Rashford or Bruno wouldn't last that long under a Pep simply because of this. We can blame Ten Hag as much as we want but at the end of the day if we brought him in to take us to a level where we can compete with the big boys and the players are struggling to follow his instructions, then to me that means we need to move on those players, not move on the manager.
It doesn't surprise me one bit that they would struggle with instructions, but part of being a good teacher/coach is you get your message across in a different manner, and if that doesn't work, you break it down further and micro manage them with more simple and specific tasks. Unless we have literal simpletons at the club, there should be a way to convey a solid and constructive message to them. Least, you don't just give up and let them have at it!
You also don't have to give players 27 different separate instructions for events that may happen on the pitch. Under Fergie we worked on a couple of drills that would expose the weakness of the opposition team. You don't need to have come through the Ajax youth academy to play football.
When was the last time the mrs sent you to the shop to buy more than three things are you forgot at least one?
crossy has sent for choker!
Royal rumble!
If he has 40 hours of the weak to remember those 3 things then he would be indeed a bit thick if he forgets one of them
Fergie was a decade ago and even under Fergie he recognised the need to evolve and become more tactically astute especially in Europe by bringing in Quieroz and Rene. Since then the pendulum has swung away from the more free/freestyle football to system based football, with the CR7 Real team being one of the few to buck that trend and they needed a GOAT player to do that. I don't see how anyone can see how more tactically astute the prem has become, the almost robotic sytem based style of play from the top teams (even Klopps heavy pressing team is based on pressing at the right time, right situation etc) and say that a team nowadays doesn't need to be extremely well drilled and tactically astute to challenge for anything. You can take Spurs under Ange and see how the fullbacks need to know exactly when and in what situations to come into the centre, how the Brighton players need to constantly be thinking about where they need to be in relation to their teammates down to their body shape for when they receive the ball, all the teams that we are seeing being successful clearly are very heavily tactically astute. Its also evident from seeing both Pep and Klopp implement their styles of football that it is not just based on technical abilities, it is also based on a player's game intelligence and one thing we can all agree on is that there is a severe lack of game intelligence within this squad.
What if you're not training those things and telling the players in the middle of the week during video reviews of the opposition?
I was gonna respond to Crossy but I forgot what I wanted to say
The players rapport with Ten Hag is improving noticeably. Just this Wednesday they played with Ten for more than half an hour.
You aren’t supposed to think about what to do - it comes automatically through repetition in training and games. That’s why ETH has banged on repeatedly about automatisms and how the fact we’ve had an ever changing line up due to constant new injuries has fecked those automatisms.
I always feel like that Madrid team's tactical ability is really underrated. I agree that it didn't have a heavy focus on possession or counter attacks, it was nothing for purists leaning towards one of those things, but it was a very well rounded team that new exactly which tactical approach would work against which team. Surely it had a certain level of creativity, but that doesn't mean that they didn't have a clear system as base to their football.
In other words, he wasted the preseason when he didn't use that to build these basic automatisms into the team. An ever changing lineup makes it more difficult to get going, but shock horror, this is to be expected when you play about 60 matches a season (plus internationals for most of the players). If you can't teach a basic level of automatisms into the players, you are not in the right job. In that regard the ever changing lineup can be accepted to be the reason between grade A and B in regard to how well the players know automatically what they should do and what their teammates are doing, but what we are seeing is far worse than that.
The whole squad should be familiar with them, not just a few of the select. Even for nuanced drills bespoke to someone like Shaw, someone else should be shadowing. The whole point of a system is anyone can slot into it and perform.
I agree with this assessment, but it raises the question why was the manager happy to give Rashford a new contract? I know it's not solely his decision but why not put your foot down?
Similarly, Dalot was given a new contract and to me he is the most culpable if we are talking about our players making stupid on-field decisions. Bruno was given the captaincy. He's bought in Antony and Malacia who's decision making is questionable at best.
I’m not sure Højlund, Mount, Amrabat, Onana, Evans and Reguilon would know - what with them all being new and being bedded into a totally unsettled team. You’re also assuming the system stays the same - which as again he’s mentioned it isn’t the same system - he’s pragmatic enough to realise when you have zero left backs, Evans and Maguire at CB and zero RWs for much of the season you can’t play the same way.
We would have needed a blimp to train atop to have had enough time, given our ridiculous globetrotting. And that, I would say, has been a problem for every manager under the Glazers' tenure - a worsening one too.
Good call out. The pre season schedule was a shambles and extremely damaging to our season.
I think the reality is that the chances of moving Rashford on the star of this united team, at a time when he was having his best goal scoring season who has been built up to be the face of United and Manchester in general, was/is really low. I'm not even sure that he should be moved on, more that in an ideal world we would have a left winger in who has a better game IQ and could challenge him. Rashford still would be a great squad player to have for a team fighting for prems/champions leagues.
Regarding the other decisions I'm not really sure who could have been given the captaincy realistically and regarding Dalot's renewal it follows the trend of the the Glazers renewing player's contracts. I think Antony quite clearly improves us in terms of keeping possesion and relieving pressure, he's just terrible at the attacking part of the game. Malacia I don't think was ever brought in to improve the team, more to fill out the squad. Martinez, who I still think we would need to upgrade or at least have someone to rotate with him, is a good example of someone who clearly has a good game IQ which is partly why when he's in the team we look better.
What? Only half the squad went, the rest were on extended leave. Do you really think sitting on a coach for a few hours over the summer has derailed our season?
I'm not assuming a system stays the same as that would suggest it's flawless and has no need for adjustment or improvement, but the tenets of systems remain, which is why teams can switch formations and personnel seamlessly. That's the whole point of automation.
I am not sure how you are lining the opening sentence when we've literally seen clubs bed in new ways of playing inside a month or two, if not weeks.
I think these caveats where we exist inside a vacuum actually lessen the merits of the manager, as if others are not getting on with the same thing and are already on their way. Even if you cannot implement a fully fledged system in a short(er) period of time, the fundamentals should be there and rock solid, with no exception. Do we have that? Do we look like we're playing to any well drilled methodology?
I've worked for many managers whose ways and methods I disagreed with.
The players are paid to be professional and get on with the job, and carry out the managers orders whether they disagree with them or not.
If they do not understand/remember the instructions, it's their job to ask the manager until it's crystal clear in their head. If they can't remember the instructions, then they need to spend more time repeating said instruction until they do remember them.
The players are paid to be professional and get on with the job, and carry out the managers orders whether they disagree with them or not.
If they do not understand/remember the instructions, it's their job to ask the manager until it's crystal clear in their head. If they can't remember the instructions, then they need to spend more time repeating said instruction until they do remember them.
TO be fair to ETH, and I dont really rate him at this point, I think these contract decisions are made by the board. But in some cases like Dalot seems really bizarre.
I agree, and the fact that a lot of transfers happened late (like Amrabat) or were injured (like Höjlund) comes on top. I get that this is a problem and I am not sure how much the manager is at fault for this, but I won't accept the manager citing changing formations as a reason for a lack of automatisms. Take responsibility and acknowledge what you/the board did wrong and prevented you from doing your preseason job.
He has a veto right for all transfers, I am pretty sure he also has this right in regard to keeping players.
And where do you get this level of insight from? Despite all the publicly available evidence about how meticulous he is in his planning? And let’s just assume for a second that what you say is indeed true, how hard would it be for professionals whose livelihood depends on those instructions to spend a few hours trying to memorize them? We’ve heard plenty of stories over the years about how tidbits of info can contribute to success, like the way Rio taught Smalling how to control Tevez in 2010, not doing so is a lack of effort, not want of instruction.
I think he’s done a pretty shit job of recruitment and that contributes a lot to his struggle right now, and might well be his downfall, but that’s also something even we as fans had plenty of warnings about from Ajax fans, so it’s criminally negligent for the hierarchy above him not to assist him with that. We know that he was a highly successful coach when given a solid structure of player recruitment and club ethos behind him, we know that building a solid playing style take time for players (who are capable) to internalize all the automatism worked on in training, and we also look with our own eyes at the level of disruptions in our club from ownership uncertainty, fatigue after an abnormal season/preseason and injuries, and the absurd run of bad luck with referee decisions. So the question now is whether you believe that we finally get a Fergie v2 who can do it all, or we bite the bullet and work on structural change that would prevent bad transfer decisions from the coach while acquiring him the players with the necessary qualities to implement his style successfully. For all the accolades Edu and Arteta are now getting for their job at Arsenal, they have also signed plenty of duds to average squad players like Luiz, Willian, Soares, Runarsson, Mari, Lokonga, Tavares, Fabio Viera, Kiwior and Havertz (their own Antony) in addition to having to take huge losses on Pepe, Aubameyang, Ozil and Mkhitaryan just to be rid of them. So what makes you think another manager can come in and hit all his transfer targets and win matches right from the off, avoiding these similar growing pains other clubs went through?
I feel like us fans have such a different mindset to managers because this happens everywhere. Managers just want loads of players, if you offer them someone who could be good, they'll say yes, if you say should we extend this 'ok' players contract, he isn't going to really care if they get a big pay rise, as long as they are a squad player ETH probably wants them all. We all think long term as fans but ETH is probably thinking about essentially keeping his job right now and so letting squad players feel happy and keep moral good is fine. Maybe if we were doing great you'd see some more cutthroat decisions but this is not unique to United.