Are the players not good enough or not professional enough?

Silverman

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It's something that can be hard to put your finger on.
You hear lots of people berating the players but it can be for different reasons.
Some say that they just aren't good enough while others say they are throwing managers under the bus by not wanting to work hard and apply themselves properly.
Its said that "these are the same players that got previous managers sacked". However, apart from Ten Hag, this squad is vastly different to even the one Solskjaer left let alone Van Gaal and Mourinho etc.
Has the people in charge of recruitment made a hames of the set up or are the players we signed just being infected by the rot that is seeping through Old Trafford?
I know there are players that will have to be replaced for various reasons such as Lindelof, Evans, Eriksen, Casemiro and Rashford for example.
However, are we also saying that players such as Onana, Martinez, Dalot, DeLigt, Antony, Mainoo, Mount, Garnacho, Hojlund and Zirkzee have to be replaced as they aren't good enough or they aren't professional enough?
The only players that can hold their head high are Amad, Ugarte and Mazraoui imo.

We were linked to Cody Gakpo and Ryan Gravenberch in the past few years. They are both playing brilliantly at Liverpool but you just know they would be a shadow of that player had they joined us.

What is the actual problem?
 
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The whole thing around attributing everything to players professionalism is specific to the Man Utd fanbase. Manchester United's fanbase hate footballers - it's a weird thing, but the collective fanbase just doesn't like footballers.

I don't believe other clubs have more or less professional players than us, but as a club we fester a terrible environment around them. We've seldom made any effort whatsoever in the last 10 years since Fergies' retired to protect our players - we've thrown them to the wolves at any given opportunity.
 
The players aren't good enough. We have a mid table squad. Which is tough to accept for a lot of people who seem to think that if only we can get the right coach in we'll instantly start playing like it's 1999.
 
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Skills said:
The whole thing around attributing everything to players professionalism is specific to the Man Utd fanbase. Manchester United's fanbase hate footballers - it's a weird thing, but the collective fanbase just doesn't like footballers.

I don't believe other clubs have more or less professional players than us, but as a club we fester a terrible environment around them. We've seldom made any effort whatsoever in the last 10 years since Fergies' retired to protect our players - we've thrown them to the wolves at any given opportunity.
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What are you talking about? United fans love their players. We name stands after them. We build statues of them. Put their faces on murals. We wear their shirts years later. We sing their songs.

The issue is some of the players of the last ten years are so unfit to wear the shirt. There is a huge lack of effort, talent and cohesiveness within our team that it’s very hard to like very many of them.

We will love you when you show us something to love.
 
I think there are some who will never be good enough, such as Zirkzee, Malacia and Hojlund.

But then I think you have to question the professionalism of many. I mean why do they struggle with the basics so much? Simple things like passing and moving, controlling the ball, even putting in a decent corner now and then. They constantly feck everything up. If they were applying themselves fully in training why would they not improve the basics of football? Anyone who trains & practices hard at any skill will naturally see progress & improvement over time. But our players never improve, they only get worse.
 
I think what’s happened is that we are one or two really good players away from challenging and the players confidence and belief in each other, in the manager and organisation and vice versa is at an all time low. Nobody is secure in their work, not even Bruno anymore. Things are still a mess on and off the pitch. We’ve ripped up the club under SJR and I just don’t think there’s a short term fix to that anymore. We need to be relentless in the market until we find more special players like Ugarte or Bruno when he first got here
 
AndySmith1990 said:
I think there are some who will never be good enough, such as Zirkzee, Malacia and Hojlund.

But then I think you have to question the professionalism of many. I mean why do they struggle with the basics so much? Simple things like passing and moving, controlling the ball, even putting in a decent corner now and then. They constantly feck everything up. If they were applying themselves fully in training why would they not improve the basics of football? Anyone who trains & practices hard at any skill will naturally see progress & improvement over time. But our players never improve, they only get worse.
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Hojlund is a work in progress but I believe there's potential in him. Zirkzee isn't very good though.
 
The mentality is awful. It’s insane how often we concede goals within 5 minutes of conceding. Or immediately after scoring. School boy stuff. Very hard to know how to fix that. Probably just need to go on a decent run to try and get some self belief back. Catch 22 though. How do we go on a decent run when we’re this fragile?
 
It's a mentality problem more than anything. We might not have a top squad but its not this bad, yet at the same time, we've built this squad around the wrong players (starting with Bruno). We need a major culture change first and foremost, and we need to stop building around players who are not good enough.
 
In my opinion that means the same thing. If you aren’t professional enough, you aren’t good enough, and to be good enough - you have to be professional as well.

They must go hand in hand, no use having a talented player who isn’t professional, they won’t be good for the club or the team.
 
It's a squad that isn't good enough, that said we are underperforming. A new football structure, and we've got a new manager thrown in having to manage the club in the most hectic part of the season. There is a mentality problem in that we can go from "well we're still in this game, only 0-1 down" to "oh feck we're 0-3 down and they're running away with it"
 
A lot of mid-table teams have top recruiters and there’s no guarantee a player who costs 60m is better than one that costs 30m. What used to happen was that they’d go to a mid-table team and United would just buy the best players in the league from those sorts of teams like Keane, Yorke, Cole etc.

Now say if the equivalent of Roy Keane was at Forest and they were 4th in the league he’d cost 100 million or 120 million or whatever. United got burnt by Maguire and Wan Bissaka it seems and stopped doing that sort of transfer but have missed out on a lot of the best players in the league from recent years - didn’t seriously try for Rice, Caicedo, Mac Allister, Lavia, Olise among others.
 
The current team was assembled in a relatively short period of time. The players who have been around longer unfortunately came through similar structural issues that their predecessors faced. There's been a terrible cycle going on for most of the post-SAF era - each season our team has been characterized by a lack of cohesion, identity, physicality, and perseverance in unfavorable situations.

It's easier to add two or three above-average players like Gakpo to an already well-oiled machine like Liverpool than to add a prime Ronaldo to a dysfunctional team like ours.

The problem requires a long-term fix: building the team with the right profile of players while creating cohesion and identity. I trust the current coaching staff is capable of achieving that based on early signs.
 
It’s a mentally weak and fragile collective. Unlike in all times gone by that I’ve known, this is the first time where there isn’t a talisman to carry others and be a sure thing that others can draw inspiration from.

Robson
Cantona
Keane

And the like who are responsible for ushering in mental fortitude and brilliance that acts as a beacon for an entire squad to set their bar off of, isn’t there, and I think we’re desperate for such a player as all we have here are players that feed the void and not a single one who can pull others out of it. A self-perpetuating cycle of shite. Unfortunately.
 
We lack a lot of professionalism.

We have conceded nearly 50% of our goals from corners or free kicks. Situations where you get to set up your defense you know roughly what's going to happen - that is awful. Maybe poor coaching but professional footballers and these guys are at the highest level should be able to defend corners.

Then Mazraoui gives away a needless penalty. The player is going either straight to the goal line or turning right into two defenders and he doesn't have much control of the ball - so Mazraoui decides to upend him and give away a penalty.

We so often give up fouls and yellow cards when there is absolutely no danger. This just gives the opposition the chance of a set piece, at which we are awful at defending, or lets them reposition for a short free kick and build an attack.

I keep thinking we should have an Idiot of The Game -- as opposed to Player of the Match, because so many times one or two players make stupid, stupid decisions that cost us a goal and points.

The lack of professionalism in the decision making is a factor in our hopelessness.
 
They are not good enough for Amourims tactics (but i think with the right players bought we can challenge).

You look at liverpool, their game intelligence is off the charts. They make the right passes and dont get caught in possession. Today mainoo lost possession. Against forest bruno gave the ball away. Against arsenal rashford and garnacho both lost possession that lead to the corners.
 
Players who have got comfortable at the club. Some good, some average. Add high wages into the mix.
 
Characters aren’t strong enough. Keane said it best how the locker room let a player like Rashford do whatever the feck he wanted like missing training, any real leadership in that locker room would have eaten him alive

Standards have been on the floor from the top down for a decade, United is an easy payday for minimum effort. I mean the fact the team gets leaked every week is a disgrace in itself and tells you all you need to know about this group half of them don’t give a feck

We need real leaders and players who are hungry for success
 
Ali Dia said:
I think what’s happened is that we are one or two really good players away from challenging and the players confidence and belief in each other, in the manager and organisation and vice versa is at an all time low. Nobody is secure in their work, not even Bruno anymore. Things are still a mess on and off the pitch. We’ve ripped up the club under SJR and I just don’t think there’s a short term fix to that anymore. We need to be relentless in the market until we find more special players like Ugarte or Bruno when he first got here
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Could be this
 
The players are quite bad for the most part, with some genuinely quality players in there.

Most games we field a team with an overall severe lack of quality, several very young/inexperienced players, a lack of chemistry and cohesion, and very little leadership.
 
List of players good enough;

Yoro, De Ligt, Mazroui, Ugarte, Mainoo, Amad, Bruno.

The rest ate not. Need new winbacks, attacking midfielders and strikers. People with track records of scoring.
 
Not good enough at certain things

Not good enough defending set pieces, passing accuracy some games and not good enough at creating or getting shooting chances on target under Amorim so far.
 
There seems to be a distinct lack of intelligence and poor decision making. When you look at the top teams they have players who make good choices at good times. Our players always seem to make the wrong choice or pick the wrong time to make said choice. I honestly don’t know how you change that, it’s almost as if they’re all on different wavelengths. I look at someone like Eriksen who I class as a VERY intelligent footballer, yet when he plays the rest of the team seem too stupid to understand what he’s doing.
 
KeanoMagicHat said:
A lot of mid-table teams have top recruiters and there’s no guarantee a player who costs 60m is better than one that costs 30m. What used to happen was that they’d go to a mid-table team and United would just buy the best players in the league from those sorts of teams like Keane, Yorke, Cole etc.

Now say if the equivalent of Roy Keane was at Forest and they were 4th in the league he’d cost 100 million or 120 million or whatever. United got burnt by Maguire and Wan Bissaka it seems and stopped doing that sort of transfer but have missed out on a lot of the best players in the league from recent years - didn’t seriously try for Rice, Caicedo, Mac Allister, Lavia, Olise among others.
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Remember people moaning that we'd overpaid when we bought Carrick from Spurs for £18m.

Imagine what Spurs would want to do that deal nowadays.
 
Jacob said:
List of players good enough;

Yoro, De Ligt, Mazroui, Ugarte, Mainoo, Amad, Bruno.

The rest ate not. Need new winbacks, attacking midfielders and strikers. People with track records of scoring.
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I would take Bruno out of that, he doesn't suit the 8 or 10 for Amorim's system. Bruno is usually at the forefront of our panic after we concede, the Manager talked about panic post match.
 
Sadly for me the answer is both. Not good enough, and lacking professionalism.

We’ve been 8th a couple of times at Christmas since Sir Alex retired, and both times it was considered disastrous. This year we’ll be sitting 13th in the table come Christmas Day.
 
Bruno is not a leader, he spends more time throwing temper tantrums then he does leading by example.
 
Some of them are probably not good enough, but I’m more concerned about how we get outrun by almost team we face. We look so sluggish and the lack of sharpness is worrying. Makes you wonder what we’ve been doing in training these past years.
 
If it looks like a team in 13th, and if it swims like a team in 13th place, and if it quacks like a team in 13th place it’s probably the 13th best team in the league
 
Both they are not good enough and they are not professional enough. They have no discipline their egos fragile and the vast majority are brainless.

Look at the game today when Garnacho didn't play in Hojlund when he should and a minute later Hojlund then refused to play in Garnacho as a result. Both instances cost us a possible goal and sums us up.

Bruno insists on taking every set piece despite failing to deliver on the most of them. He will go for the hollywood ball time and time again and then try and score from impossible angles rather than just play the easy pass.

It's the same all round the squad and they have done this for too long now too change.

These players are not professional enough to succeed at the highest level and none of them would last long at a team challenging for titles.

We are not a team but a bunch of individuals who think they are better than they are and want to show it as it's only ever going to be all about them
 
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