Biggest issue to fix

Suv666 said:
The league has changed
I’m sure if Fergie was around he’d putting them numbers on the board.

Besides, Arsenal went two seasons leading City till Christmas I believe? Then choked and gave them the advantage.

That’s because they lack that killer instincts that the best in the world have.
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True, Fergie with the spending power of modern United would be smashing 90+ points on the regular, you'd imagine.
 
SWE-Chucky said:
I am just not sure INOES have the right man in place to make the operation.
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This is the question.
I think Ineos wanted to move on from TH and maybe put their feelers out to see who was available. I also think Ineos might want a head coach, rather than a manager. Someone who coaches the players Ashcroft/Wilcox bring in. Tuchel was mentioned, but he's not a head coach. Ruud and Hake maybe something they go with, when they sack TH, maybe even look at McKenna.
 
Too many problems. I think the manager is the biggest problem. He cannot seem to get anything right. Questionable team selections, still can’t defend or score. If you concede goals it’s usually because the team plays attacking football. We do neither. All our play is at a snail’s pace.

We bring in players for Ten Hag and they don’t start matches. I cannot understand Garnacho not starting over Rashford. Zirkzee has to start. How can he expect us to score goals without a recognised striker on the pitch?

There is no control in midfield. Mount is a nothing player and up there as one of the worse transfers we have done. A player that wasn’t needed and being played out of position to fit him in the system. It has to be either Bruno or Mount. Both cannot play in midfield. There is a huge reason why we can’t control games. We need to be starting two holding midfielders to retain possession. Erik still hasn’t worked that out and if he can’t learn from his mistake he’s going to get sacked.

We look no different to last season and we continue to be the laughing stock of the league. One of the highest spenders in the summer once again and expectation is a top 4 finish, we probably won’t even achieve that. It’s not good enough. We can’t keep spending close to £200m a summer and not improve.
 
The biggest issue is how to have a cohesive midfield that links defense and attack while playing Bruno Fernandes. We've improved across the back 5 although some of the new players might still not be of the required level. Our wingers are decent and we just added a couple decent young strikers. Assuming we get in Ugarte then the biggest issue will be getting a midfield of Ugarte,Mainoo and Bruno to work. If it doesn't then ETH is fecked and will get the sack before the season is over.
 
Passitlikescholes said:
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
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This is the most infuriating part about our play. We are slow down everything. Everyone is looking for the easiest pass without thinking about the benefit of that pass. There is a stat that most goals come within 7 sec of winning the ball somewhere online. This is probably why Peps teams foul you every time they loose the ball in offensive shape.


Our fullbacks are fast but don’t overlap. It’s extremely difficult to break down a low block without overlapping runs. The “zombie football “ is never leaving OT it seems.
 
Our biggest issue is Ten Hag. He’s a horrible team builder.

From day one he’s tried to build a team around pieces that have a poor foundation for what he’s trying to achieve. Then he changes what he wants from the team the following season and compounds other problems.

What ends up happening is we look like a team that isn’t great at anything. Ole and Jose’s teams had strengths but I can’t think of a single strength we’ve had under EtH. Maybe our defence in his first season but even then our first choice defence conceded 7 at Anfield so they couldn’t have been that good.
 
One of the biggest issues is how bad we’re at scoring from set pieces. Under Fergie, scoring from set pieces (especially corners) was how we were efficient many times we had a bad game and got out of jail. Right now, we never come close to scoring from a set piece. If we could get better at it, it would relieve the pressure of creating chances from open play. We should obviously solve the issue of scoring from open play but that’s a real unknown seeing how this season has started and we really need goals from wherever we can get.
 
El Jefe said:
Our biggest issue is Ten Hag. He’s a horrible team builder.

From day one he’s tried to build a team around pieces that have a poor foundation for what he’s trying to achieve. Then he changes what he wants from the team the following season and compounds other problems.
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Bit unfair. He inherited a frankenstein mess of a squad and had limited scope to wave a chequebook or get the players he needed. The basic truth that we have to shift to a high press high organisation side is easier said than done and nearly all the players he started with don't fit that mould. Of course he made mistakes too but I doubt anyone could have done better.

I think by January he will be gone or we will have turned a corner.
 
We don't create enough chances.

But the biggest issue is simply ETH. He's just never going to be good enough.

There's enough evidence that ETH simply isn't capable of constructing a team in the PL with a high level attack. We score way less than we did under Jose/Ole and concede way more.

He's not improved us in any way and even our once devastating counter attacks have declined under his watch.
 
glazed said:
Bit unfair. He inherited a frankenstein mess of a squad and had limited scope to wave a chequebook or get the players he needed. The basic truth that we have to shift to a high press high organisation side is easier said than done and nearly all the players he started with don't fit that mould. Of course he made mistakes too but I doubt anyone could have done better.

I think by January he will be gone or we will have turned a corner.
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Come on
 
When you see the impact Ange has had on spurs within a season or meresca has had with Chelsea after a few games.

It has to come down to the manager.
 
croadyman said:
I can't decide if our biggest issue to fix is creating chances or finishing chances
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Why don't we start with - not getting caught in offside for 90% of our best chances. It is truly amateur and embarrassing for pro footballers at EPL level

Once they can fix that, playing team with some actual strikers, whose job is to be best finishers, and getting passes and crosses to them could do the trick. Playing without a CF and selfishly not giving them any good passes is bad football
 
dinostar77 said:
When you see the impact Ange has had on spurs within a season or meresca has had with Chelsea after a few games.

It has to come down to the manager.
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We had loads of managers and they were all shite let's face it. Other factors were at play.
 
glazed said:
We had loads of managers and they were all shite let's face it. Other factors were at play.
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Where any of them the right manager though? Ange for example plays very attacking football. Has won lots of trophies albeit in far east and Scotland. Would Utd have ever considered him?

If ETH had been sacked this summer would Utd have considered Maresca who is seen as a disciple of guardiola football? I doubt it on both counts.

Yes we have many factors at play. But the style of football and how it's played rests with the manager.
 
Watching Liverpool today was really interesting. They absolutely tore Brentford apart multiple times and created loads of chances. Very very rarely do I see us do that nowadays, Liverpool weren't even that good but still created loads.
 
dinostar77 said:
Yes we have many factors at play. But the style of football and how it's played rests with the manager.
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I disagree. I think it rests with the players, the manager, the club all being on the same page for an extended period of time. It's how the modern football club operates. What you see at a well run club like Brighton is that they can change manager and the style stays the same. It would not have mattered if we had the love child of Pep and Jurgen managing the club. Without the right players, the right economic model, the right club structure for acquiring those players and the time to do so, GuardiKlopp Jnr still would have failed at Old Trafford. INEOS explicitly acknowledged that was the problem when they kept ETH around in the summer. I think they are correct.
 
dinostar77 said:
Where any of them the right manager though? Ange for example plays very attacking football. Has won lots of trophies albeit in far east and Scotland. Would Utd have ever considered him?

If ETH had been sacked this summer would Utd have considered Maresca who is seen as a disciple of guardiola football? I doubt it on both counts.

Yes we have many factors at play. But the style of football and how it's played rests with the manager.
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Ange did start last season well and his sides look very well organised up to a point. Ten Hag's system is more complicated but if the players finally get the hang of it, the rewards will be much greater.

Having more players that are used to his way of playing should help eventually. The style of football is something we know that he can produce, as with his Ajax team.
The last 2 seasons were his attempt to make the players here work until he could build a side to play his way.

It appears that he's managed to convince Ineos that he can reproduce the Ajax style given the right players and time. They have certainly gone all in obtaining the right players so I doubt they'll sack him too early, given that there are more football people above him now who will be aware of the issues he faces.
 
Problem is the slogan AJAX of Manchester and not Real Madrid of Manchester
 
tenpoless said:
Problem is the slogan AJAX of Manchester and not Real Madrid of Manchester
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Real Madrid are a corrupt mini state pretending to be a football club. We can't be that.
 
Have any of our players underperformed their XG to a concerning degree in 2 seasons under Ten Hag, except maybe Weghorst? The core issue is certainly the volume and quality of chances created in the first place, not necessarily the quality of finishing.

Hojlund last season had absurdly high conversion metrics (best in Europe) but his numbers were not spectacular. Our good form in Ten Hag’s first season was largely propped up by Rashford going on an unexplainable run of scoring or assisting in almost every game he participated in, regardless of XG.

A serious concern I have is no matter who we have up front in this team, our striker seems to average less than 2 shots a game. That suggests the issue does not lie with the personnel but with the system. We finished the 22/23 season with only 58 goals scored in the league, and last season with 57. For comparisons sake, Newcastle scored 85 goals last season, Chelsea scored 77, Spurs 74, Villa 76, and its best we don’t look at City, Arsenal or Liverpool. We have been miles off our competition tactically.
 
Reminds me of a saying.. Lions led by a sheep will still lose out to a bunch of sheeps led by a lion, or something something. If you can't see the issue clearly after 600mil and 3 years, you probably never will.
 
NewGlory said:
Why don't we start with - not getting caught in offside for 90% of our best chances. It is truly amateur and embarrassing for pro footballers at EPL level

Once they can fix that, playing team with some actual strikers, whose job is to be best finishers, and getting passes and crosses to them could do the trick. Playing without a CF and selfishly not giving them any good passes is bad football
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Yeah the offside thing was so frustrating yesterday, do you think Toney or Calvert-Lewin have the finishing ability as they are the strikers linked by Utd sources?
 
croadyman said:
Yeah the offside thing was so frustrating yesterday, do you think Toney or Calvert-Lewin have the finishing ability as they are the strikers linked by Utd sources?
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Hojlund was statistically the best finisher (highest conversion of chances) in EPL, last season . Zirkzee looks like a menacing threat, as well. So there is no reason, so far, for us to think that CFs are our problem.

Our problems seem to be:

1. Sorting midfield and defense. Midfield lacks players we need, defense needs coaching, time and benching Magalof + Evans
2. Fixing style of play into something that concedes less and creates more (offsides don's count). Mount needs to be Bruno's sub+rotation used well rather than playing with him
3. Letting goal-scorers like Garna, Zirkzee and Hojlund play enough minutes and creating chances for them + continuing to start Amad. A depth better than Rashford and Antony would also be nice but we are clearly stuck with them. We cannot really add more wingers until we get rid of those two and Sancho
 
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NewGlory said:
Hojlund was statistically the best finisher (highest conversion of chances) in EPL, last season . Zirkzee looks like a menacing threat, as well. So there is no reason, so far, for us to think that CFs are our problem.

Our problems seem to be:

1. Sorting midfield and defense. Midfield lacks players we need, defense needs coaching, time and benching Magalof + Evans
2. Fixing style of play into something that concedes less and creates more (offsides don's count). Mount needs to be Bruno's sub+rotation used well rather than playing with him
3. Letting goal-scorers like Garna, Zirkzee and Hojlund play enough minutes and creating chances for them + continuing to start Amad. A depth better than Rashford and Antony would also be nice but we are clearly stuck with them. We cannot really add more wingers until we get rid of those two and Sancho
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So after Ugarte what does our midfield still need and would you take Rabiot for Eriksen?
 
Tosicsleftpeg said:
Watching Liverpool today was really interesting. They absolutely tore Brentford apart multiple times and created loads of chances. Very very rarely do I see us do that nowadays, Liverpool weren't even that good but still created loads.
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Agreed. Having a world class attacker in Salah makes all the difference. He is such a reliable outball and creator. He misses a lot of chances but his head doesn't drop such that he keeps going and eventually creates or scores a goal. Ajer who was marking him played very well too. DS (abbreviated for obvious reasons) makes great forward runs and weighted passes whilst TAA is still a defensive liability but hits great defence splitting passes. Gakpo looked good off the bench whilst McAllister never seemed to be disposed.

Concerning. Liverpool could beat Utd badly again and the media will relish the narrative that there is one forward thinking and successful Dutch manager and the other is living off borrowed time and has wasted hundreds of £m’s recreating his Ajax side which it isn't good enough.
 
Confidence in the final third. Hojlund would have netted a couple more last season if players didn't freeze with the ball at their feet and instead had the confidence to try and find a teammate. So many times we get into a position where the opportunity is afforded to someone to try an incisve pass into the area, or a first time cross and they stand, freeze and pass the ball sideways. Specualtive shots by Fernandes from outside the area must represent a signficiant chunk at every 'shots on goal' stat produced at the end of every game.

That's why I reject some of the criticisms of Mount, because at least he is someone willing to use the ball quickly and not dwell on it. Everyone else on the team seems to have a comfort blanket of not being able to do anything descisive with the ball near the oppositions penalty area without waiting for the reassurance that the opposition defence has had a few seconds to regroup and get back into possession. Then begins the strings of sideways passes.

That and consequence for performance. Being dreadful and a liability on the pitch shouldn't be 'punished' by a threat that if a players attitude doesn't improve then in 23 matches time, he might just well be subbed off after 70 mintues before being put right back into the starting line-up the next game. We won't become title challengers overnight, but we will play better if everyone on the pitch was at least fighting for their place.
 
We would look a lot better with the Rashford from 2 seasons ago. A top clads attacker makes all the difference. Sure we have Amad. GARNACHO. Zirkzee, Hojlund etc but they are all kids trying to establish themselves.
Rashford should be the one doing most of the heavy lifting. That's why ETH keeps playing him. Without Rashford in form we are done before we start. Sure other attackers can do a good job but we will never get the goals needed
 
The midfield is our biggest issue. As good as Bruno can be, he gives the ball away consistently, we can't constantly rely on a double pivot. I'd like to see us play 4-3-3.
 
On the pitch. I feel Casemiro and Mainoo just does not work and it needs the energy of mount to stabalize the midfield, which means our best player has to play as a false 9 and that creates an imbalance as we are not able to play zirkzee up top, even though he seems ready and the link up between him and bruno would be great for our creative play.

The addition of Ugarte will solve that bit only to an extent, we need a DLP/no. 8 hybrid to take the pressure off mainoo.
 
It's the midfield, and it has been for about 10 years.. that's where games are won and lost, and for some reason we think we can somehow bypass the area completely, it doesn't really matter who you've got upfront if you have zero control over any game you play, you can expect wildly erratic results, which is exactly what we've become accustomed to
 
zenith said:
On the pitch. I feel Casemiro and Mainoo just does not work and it needs the energy of mount to stabalize the midfield, which means our best player has to play as a false 9 and that creates an imbalance as we are not able to play zirkzee up top, even though he seems ready and the link up between him and bruno would be great for our creative play.

The addition of Ugarte will solve that bit only to an extent, we need a DLP/no. 8 hybrid to take the pressure off mainoo.
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Still say Rabiot could be that number 8, he is a free agent so deal can be done outside of window
 
Hopefully best XI after signing Ugarte and offloading Scott, Sancho and Mejbri

Not the worst in the league but significant weaknesses at LB, CM and attack. The signing of Zirkzee doesn't make sense to me, should've been a definitive starter, not somebody who maybe is better than Hojlund.


Onana
Bayindir

Mazraoui --------------------- De Ligt ------------------- Martinez ------------------------ Shaw
Dalot ---------------------------- Maguire --------------------Yoro ----------------------------- Amass

Ugarte
Casemiro

Mainoo -------------------------- Fernandes
Eriksen ------------------------------ Mount

Garnacho ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rashford
Antony ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Amad

Hojlund
Zirkzee​
 
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