Biggest issue to fix

croadyman

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I can't decide if our biggest issue to fix is creating chances or finishing chances
 
thisisnottaken1 said:
Both. We need to fecking create more chances for players like Højlund (when he comes back), the lack of service he receives is unacceptable.
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Hoijlund struggled getting any service with Denmark too, because his positioning is shite.
 
thisisnottaken1 said:
Both. We need to fecking create more chances for players like Højlund (when he comes back), the lack of service he receives is unacceptable.
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Problem is we can't afford to fix both in this window, however the worrying thing is we don't look like we have fixed either despite the money spent
 
Our midfield is the least balanced and functional out of probably any squad in the league.

Fernandes, CAM - can make a play come about out of nothing but more often than not tries a Hollywood pass that doesn’t connect or he rushes the delivery and miss hits it, the hero ball maverick style has no place in a team looking to build a system and style of play. Can’t play CM.

Mount, CAM - Brings good off the ball movement and pressing but technique and consistency are suspect, fairly low ceiling in terms of expected output. Can’t play CM.

Eriksen, CAM - Could barely play in a double pivot two years ago, legs have gone beyond any reasonable expectation for a contributing CM.

McTominay, CAM - Decent battering ram style chuck the ball forward and let him create and cause cause in and around the box, decent finish on him. Technique wise he’s majorly suspect and is a nightmare at CM.

Casemiro, CDM - Legs are gone to the point where he can’t play the line 6 role, being asked to play a hybrid CM/CDM role where he’s tasked with progressing the ball forward and has been given deep lying playmaker duties almost? Not convincing given his whole career has been based on being a technically limited CDM who is a great ball winner and reads the game well. Not a CM.

Mainoo, CM - I love Mainoo as much as we all do but he’s still a teenager with plenty of parts of his game that need to be developed before he’s considered a standout consistent week in week out midfield operator. Doesn’t show for the ball nearly as much as he should given his deeper role, goes hiding in games quite a lot, limited passing range from what we’ve seen so far. Promising young talent but deserves to be gradually introduced while he continues his football education and should be coming off the bench and given more sheltered moments if we had any kind of squad.

Midfield is in a really really dire state and really deserves a whole tear down and rebuild. Most controversial opinion being that we’re not building towards a positive system or style of play that could eventually win trophies if the squad is build around Bruno.
 
Both really, the patterns of play and the attacking transitions neeed to improve significantly, finishing also needs to improve and one part of it is positioning
 
Our biggest issue imo is the fact that our team is built around players that are incapable of controlling the game and playing in tight spaces. We'll always be a team that thrives on the counter rather than being able to control games whilst this is the case. In modern football you don't consistently challenge for the biggest honours if you're incapable of taking care of the ball and implementing control over the game.
 
1. We need a world class striker who can give us 20+ goals in the PL and 10-15 from the 3 cups we play in.
2. Winger of high class and sell Antony, Sancho, Rashford
3. CDM (Ugarte?) and sell Casemiro at least 2025
4. Left footed CB (Sell Lindelöf, Maguire, Evens) Braithwate would be the perfect fit here for next season (RCB: De Ligt/Yoro LCB: Martinez/Braithwate)
5. 2 new LB (Sell Shaw and Malacia 2025)
6. New CM (a box-to-box)

We have still not sold one of the problems in our team (Lindelöf, Maguire, Shaw, Evans, Malacia, Casemiro, McTominey, Hannibal, Sancho, Antony, Rashford - Greenwood was gone the day the situation was out there, so not counting him).

The big "open heart surgery" is nowhere near fixed - even if people starring there eyes on names like Yoro, De Ligt etc etc We have basically fixed the RB and RCB position this summer transfer, let a lot of players go for free or under 5m and some younger guys that were never meant to be here.

I am still believing in Ralfs theory that this "heart surgery" is required, and he said that it will take at least 3 summer transfer - so hopefully this is the first one - I am just not sure INOES have the right man in place to make the operation.
 
Both - in the 60 minutes he was on the pitch I think I counted 5 times Rashford should have been played through 1 on 1 with fairly simple passes. At least three of them should have resulted in chances and we managed 0.

However. even when we do get the chances we are missing too many of them currently. Failing to score from an open goal 2 yards out should never happen, no matter how freakish the reason was.
 
creating+converting chances, midfield that doesn't control games hence puts a lot of presure on the defence, inability to crack an oppo's low-block
 
croadyman said:
I can't decide if our biggest issue to fix is creating chances or finishing chances
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Dominating the ball, passing and keeping it well in congested central spaces and also handling difficult situations where we typically wilt.

For me it’s not about a goal scorer here or creator there but more how we move the ball about. We have improved a lot in our pressing which is impressive but the system is incomplete if we can’t do much on the ball and always rely on moments of counter footy.
 
croadyman said:
I can't decide if our biggest issue to fix is creating chances or finishing chances
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That's easy. Creating chances is the bigger issue. But that's not our biggest issue. As has been noted our biggest issue is we don't have a midfield to control the game with the ball or without. So we rely on pressing and counter attack to create chances. Which obviously will only get you so far.
 
Biggest issue, of course, is midfield. We don't control games, even against weak opposition. It's also pretty open a lot of the time and doesn't protect the defense.

Need to buy players who are both good athletes(to handle the physicality of the PL) and have good close control(ability to dribble). McTominay, Eriksen, Bruno, Casemiro(at least this old version) don't fit that description. Only Mainoo and Mount(when healthy) in our squad fit the criteria of a proper PL midfielder(to some extent, at least). Haven't seen enough of that young DM lad(Collyer) to judge.

With Rashford being done as a professional footballer and Hojlund injured, we lack goalscoring as well(another big problem). Garnacho, Amad and Zirkzee are relatively inexperienced. Sancho is also not interested in being a footballer while Antony is just not capable of being one, no matter how hard he tries.
 
Our manager would be a good start but apart from that actual talent in midfield, on the ball & defending it. Mount, Casemiro are useless, Fernandes has run his race for us, he's still capable of the odd good performance but he can't take the game away from the opposition like he used to.
 
1. We're slow in everything we do, especially coming out from the back

2. We have a forward pass and 80% of the time our players are inclined to hold it, slow it down and then pass back

Without pace in our movements, we're not creating any overlap nor opportunities to beat a man and create a man advantage on a defence running backwards

We're just so slow
 
croadyman said:
I can't decide if our biggest issue to fix is creating chances or finishing chances
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its neither, by far the biggest issue is the inability to control the game with both bruno and casemiro playing hollywood ball all the time....we sign zirkzee who plays between the lines and in 2 cameos he received the ball to feet maybe 3 times. We dont know how to slow the game, when to speed it up, we always play in the same pace and thats fairly easy to defend against as its predictable anf you only need to survive certain periods after which we gonna blow out and you will get a chance.
 
The xG we had yesterday is enough to score 2 goals usually, what isn't too bad. We got unlucky with Garnacho goal.

Conceding chances seems to be far bigger problem. I mean, just look at the back 7 yesterday and tell me we're going to fix this just with new players? I don't think so.

This team doesn't know how to defend, or even play football as a collective.
 
Rashford’s the biggest issue.

He’s pointless and we’re giving him so much playing time. Can’t beat anyone, can’t stay onside and can’t score.
 
Casemiro needs replaced, done well in the first game and for a good portion of the game yesterday but after 70 minutes his legs had completely gone. Some strange substitutions as well during the game didn’t help the balance of the team.
 
There are 3.

1) Finishing - goals change games especially when your playing away from home. 1st half three big chances were all missed by Amad, Casimero and Rashford. Arsenal or City would have stuck one of them away.

2) Defensive quality/work rate - Macguire’s error on the cross is in stark contrast to what De Light did later in the game to block a cross 4 a corner. Arsenal defend from the front (United did a pretty good job whilst Mount on in limiting Brighton’s attacking options) but contrast Havertz willingness to track back yesterday and put in tackles with that of Rashford. Amad had some good defensive steals yesterday.

3) Midfield rotation - Brighton took of both their central midfielders given work rate involved; ETH didn't replace either of Utd’s who usually notably tire after 2/3’s of the game. Collyer was really the only option to maintain the balance of the team. Hopefully Ederson or Ugarte addresses this.
 
We need to be able to play four central midfielders in order to maintain our press effectively, but we need that at the same time as having a striker on the pitch, plus width.

Maybe you achieve that by starting with a winger on one side and a striker through the middle, with one of the fullbacks getting high and wide, a la Barcelona 22/23. Or maybe you do that by bringing in a stupidly good midfielder who can do the work of two, like a Kante. Or maybe you hope that once Zirkzee settles he can basically be a midfielder and a striker at the same time, which he kind of was at Bologna. Or maybe you just sit back and pray that somebody gets back into goalscoring form - all of the starting front four do have priors for it to some degree.

We've been in control of both matches until personnel changes weakened our press, but not being clinical has forced us to roll the dice and open up later in the game. We need to balance stopping the other team with putting the ball in the net.

Strachan8 said:
There are 3.

1) Finishing - goals change games especially when your playing away from home. 1st half three big chances were all missed by Amad, Casimero and Rashford. Arsenal or City would have stuck one of them away.

2) Defensive quality/work rate - Macguire’s error on the cross is in stark contrast to what De Light did later in the game to block a cross 4 a corner. Arsenal defend from the front (United did a pretty good job whilst Mount on in limiting Brighton’s attacking options) but contrast Havertz willingness to track back yesterday and put in tackles with that of Rashford. Amad had some good defensive steals yesterday.

3) Midfield rotation - Brighton took of both their central midfielders given work rate involved; ETH didn't replace either of Utd’s who usually notably tire after 2/3’s of the game. Collyer was really the only option to maintain the balance of the team. Hopefully Ederson or Ugarte addresses this.
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I also agree with these points.
 
Manager and his style of football, and Rashford.

Not going anywhere until the club leans into the possession game, which also means getting rid of players who can't do that. This should have been done this summer but it wasn't.
 
What type of teams we want to be or play? I still dont see. We seems to try to fix an issue but at the same time creating another issue. Like RB and LB, we bought Mazraoui that can play LB and why not play him there instead we play Dalot when hes having big season last season playing RB. MF will have to wait for next season to get fixed because we need an ovehaul.

If we still wants to play like last season then we will have to expect the same results as last season. Maybe EtH can ask Bruno to be more controlled with phases of plays and not try to counter all the times. We needs some tempo in phases of play and i dont believe that he not capable of doing even a bit of that.
 
Defenders who have a mistake in them even when they're playing well.

Attackers who operate in isolation and are unable to form firm partnerships with each other.

Midfielders with no sense of tempo who can't distinguish between being rush and being proactive.

Build-up players who are afraid to pass the ball and receivers, between the lines, who are dead scared to show for it.

Professional footballers who, in the simplest terms of two-men partnerships all over the pitch (one of Ferguson's greatest strengths was the ability to "see" the right talents and profiles for just that) can't play with each other or off each other, but play the game in their own heads instead.

City are full of players who can receive the ball on the half-turn, escape their market and pass it to the nearest teammate. It's as simple as that. United have none. Havertz (the donkey for some on here) can drop between the lines to receive the ball, stove off defenders and be a good link-up player. United choose to worship at the altar of Bruno (i'm criticizing the style, not the player).

What you put in, you get back. This is the beauty of football.
 
M-I-D-F-I-E-L-D. Nothing else matters if you cannot control games. The greatest teams suffocate and overwhelm the opposition. This "transition" nonsense will get us precisely nowhere.
 
It's midfield.

Losing the midfield battle is what cost the game yesterday, I still have no idea why both Bruno and Mount were taken off. McTominay is atrocious and Mainoo and Casemiro were totally spent.

Expecting two tired players to cope in midfield with McT is absolutely insane.
 
The squad is unbalanced.

We buy 3 defenders and still end up starting Maguire for the first 2 games.

The midfield hasn’t been changed from last season and I think it was more pressing to replace Casemiro than it was buying 2 CBs.

You have to question the manager’s decisions. Buys a second striker but decides to start 3 games without a recognised striker on the pitch. Starting Rashford, playing Mount in a midfield 3.

I don’t think this squad is good enough but the manager should be getting more from them. We keep buying him players but he keeps playing the same crap every week.
 
When Ineos kept Ten Hag this summer it was obvious that this season would be a free hit. I think anything over and above relegation survival is a bonus, and what happens on the pitch over the next 12 months is immaterial in the grand scheme of things.

When Pep was at Bayern, the team at City was put in place to do the work for his arrival.

While there's no Pep out there that Utd are preparing for, I'd imagine a lot of the same work is being done and perhaps Pep himself is being used in the Utd boardroom as a model for the next manager.

It's quite likely that the club has drawn up the next manager's profile, and are working to get things ready for that profile. In the meantime, let Ten Hag mess around for a year, as no one is going to give a damn about this season. He'll be removed if relegation is a real threat, but 17th or above is fine for 24/25.
 
I do think if we improve our midfield we be better.
Need more options in there.

We play a system that requires legs and energy.

Think we need players that can drive forward with the ball when in possession.

The chap Villa got off Everton looked good yesterday and he drives forward with the ball. Casemiro doesn't do that.


Manoo has it in his locker. Bruno hit and miss, more of a try for killer pass at all costs type player.
 
We don’t have a winning mentality. Only turn up when we want

No goalscorer in the squad at all. Hojlund is our best hope but he’s injured a lot
 
We just don’t have enough goals in the team, when City went behind yesterday there was no doubt that they would win. They were 3-1 up after 20 minutes and the rest of the game was a procession. I can’t even remember the last United game where we won comfortably
 
For me it's that we need to play with 4 midfielders/ without a striker to have any semblance of control within a game/ not be incredibly open.

As soon as we put a striker on the pitch, last season's issues are back in full swing.
 
My big issue, and it was the same for chunks of the Fulham match as well is,

I always felt we were in control. We kept the ball well enough, we moved it around well enough, and more so Brighton over Fulham, I actually didn't feel like we were going to concede in open play (set plays I wasn't overly confident).

I think that is exactly the issue though. It felt comfortable, but it never went past that point.

If we start with the striker. Having Bruno, or even Zirkzee there, we just don't have a focal point, no pace, no presence, just absolutely nobody to look for. We can complain about Amad and Rashford, but it must be frustrating when you're trying to get down the wing and look up, and the box is just empty.

But lets move it back a little. I felt we pressed really well, and I think that's were the feeling of control comes into it. Without the ball, I felt confident, but that's playing Bruno and Mount together. It works without the ball, it just doesn't work with it, and you don't win games without the ball. So with Hojlund back, we need to drop one of them two, so great, we've got that focal point now, but have lost our press. Catch 22.

Mainoo is also a problem. Huge potential, and us fans got a bit giddy last season, but right now he just doesn't specialise in anything. He's not a ball winner, not a presser, and he's not a playmaker.

Casemiro defensively looked good again yesterday, but he does not have the legs or stamina to play that role consistently anymore, and on top of that, he just wants to hit 40yrd balls every time it's at his feet.

Midfield is the real issue. It just doesn't work. Nobody compliments each other, yet me need Mount and Bruno playing together to control the game, but takes away most of our goal threat.

I think a midfield of Ugarte, Mount and Bruno could work as we're not having to babysit all Casemiro's flaws, but we'd need to hold a higher line and squeeze the opposition.
 
Honestly don't know where to start. I wish it were so simple to just replace Rashford but I'm not convinced he alone is the issue.

Bruno is a good player but lacks composure. He came to United when we had a black hole of quality in there and it elevated him to god-like status in that first season. In reality, it was more of a case of "in the kingdom of the blind the one eyed man is king".

He runs the yards which every fan likes to see but being too frenetic is not a good thing for a player in his position.

I just think that the whole system is still not right. How many times do out CB's pass the ball sideways to each other or look forward and see every single player up front just standing still. I used to hate Lukaku for being so passive in his runs but it seems it's a trend as they're all doing it now
 
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