Can we stop complaining until we see an actual ETH XI?

[VP89]

Come on. The squad isnt that bad. Ole (a manager most on here called clueless) managed back to back top 4 with this lot, and ETH has been allowed to spend 400 million on top of that. I am not saying that he should be sacked right now, but he shouldn't be untouhable either just because he did well in his last job.

Managing us is not the same as managing Ajax

Ole didnt' have near enough the injuries Ten Hag had in these games.

It annoys me with the whole "oh I cant see the style of play" when he's got no LB, no back up LB, the emergency LB doesnt know his team mates, no RW, no backup RW, no LCB, the backup LCB also out and a striker building up to 90 minute games.

I wonder fecking why we can't see patterns of play

 

[pocco]

Excuses, excuses, excuses. I just posted in another thread. Brightons made 6 changes. They sold most of their top players. There whole team was bought for 16 mill. The same as Dalot cost for us. And they spanked us. Who in Brightons team would get into ours? Some may take Mitoma over Rashford but its close? Lampty over Shaw? Who else? Should Lallana/Dahoud/Gross really own Casemiro/Bruno/Eriksen? The players we had are more than good enough on paper to beat Brighton.

Yeah, it's not even up for debate and I can't take people serious that try to claim they have a better individual team. If we had Lallana, Welbeck, Milner, Gross etc in our team, everybody would be pointing to them as a reason why ETH needs further backing to replace them.

 

[VP89]

Excuses, excuses, excuses. I just posted in another thread. Brightons made 6 changes. They sold most of their top players. There whole team was bought for 16 mill. The same as Dalot cost for us. And they spanked us. Who in Brightons team would get into ours? Some may take Mitoma over Rashford but its close? Lampty over Shaw? Who else? Should Lallana/Dahoud/Gross really own Casemiro/Bruno/Eriksen? The players we had are more than good enough on paper to beat Brighton.

Brighton have taken the scalp of many top 6 sides - what's your point?

 

[pocco]

Ole didnt' have near enough the injuries Ten Hag had in these games.

It annoys me with the whole "oh I cant see the style of play" when he's got no LB, no back up LB, the emergency LB doesnt know his team mates, no RW, no backup RW, no LCB, the backup LCB also out and a striker building up to 90 minute games.

I wonder fecking why we can't see patterns of play

What was the excuse last season?

 

[Leftback99]

Ole didnt' have near enough the injuries Ten Hag had in these games.

It annoys me with the whole "oh I cant see the style of play" when he's got no LB, no back up LB, the emergency LB doesnt know his team mates, no RW, no backup RW, no LCB, the backup LCB also out and a striker building up to 90 minute games.

I wonder fecking why we can't see patterns of play

What was the style of play last season beyond give it Rashford and hope he does something?

 

[pocco]

Brighton have taken the scalp of many top 6 sides - what's your point?

Why can't we take points from top 6 sides?

 

[VP89]

What was the excuse last season?

What excuse do we need? We finished 3rd and won a cup. Do you remember the shitshow Ten Hag took over prior? Do you think he needed to do better? fecking hell

Why can't we take points from top 6 sides?

We weren't bad at home to the top 6 sides. Our away form to the top 10 (or top half) has been the worry. But its up to him to fix it, my point is, he's been massively hamstrung with injuries + a couple players having situations out of his control.

People also say he's got the sole say on transfers, which is untrue. He wanted Kim, didn't get. Kane , didn't get. Todibo for Maguire, didn't happen. He long wanted a RB and had to ditch that idea. So he's also trying to adapt to the DoF as much as they are trying to adapt to him.

 

[Tarrou]

I’m backing ETH but come on, it’s perfectly reasonable to criticise a manager before he purchases a full 11

he’s made mistakes and it’s fine to call him out on them

personally, I think he’s a great manager and he’ll show that in his career, whether it’s here or somewhere else

 

[UpWithRivers]

Brighton have taken the scalp of many top 6 sides - what's your point?

That no one should ever use the excuse we need an extra billion, or we had too many injuries, or the manager is not playing his preffered 11 etc to beat Brighton when their players are worse than ours on paper.

 

[VP89]

What was the style of play last season beyond give it Rashford and hope he does something?

This can't be a serious question - it's not even worth entertaining.

Here you can educate yourself a bit:

 

[RedRonaldo]

let's just wait 5 years and let him spend 1 billion to build his own squad, then we can re-assess again.

 

[VP89]

That no one should ever use the excuse we need an extra billion, or we had too many injuries, or the manager is not playing his preffered 11 etc to beat Brighton when their players are worse than ours on paper.

No one should use arguments like "our team is better than theirs on paper, why didn't we win?"

That's not how football works - believe it or not. Games cane easily against you.

 

[matsdf]

Ole didnt' have near enough the injuries Ten Hag had in these games.

It annoys me with the whole "oh I cant see the style of play" when he's got no LB, no back up LB, the emergency LB doesnt know his team mates, no RW, no backup RW, no LCB, the backup LCB also out and a striker building up to 90 minute games.

I wonder fecking why we can't see patterns of play

Wait what? We had plenty of injuries under his time here. Just one example is the 0-0 game at home to Liverpool Feb 19, where we were missing almost a full XI. Sure it was pretty good during lockdown football, but that's also when we played our best football. EtH is a miles better coach than Ole, but to say that Ole didn't have "near enough" the injuries EtH has had, I think is just simply untrue.

 

[VP89]

Wait what? We had plenty of injuries under his time here. Just one example is the 0-0 game at home to Liverpool Feb 19, where we were missing almost a full XI. Sure it was pretty good during lockdown football, but that's also when we played our best football. EtH is a miles better coach than Ole, but to say that Ole didn't have "near enough" the injuries EtH has had, I think is just simply untrue.

List the injuries.

 

[pocco]

What excuse do we need? We finished 3rd and won a cup. Do you remember the shitshow Ten Hag took over prior? Do you think he needed to do better? fecking hell

I don't look at football so 'black and white'. Results don't always = great performances or tactics. I said the same under Ole as I said last season with ETH, the actual performances and tactics weren't sustainable in terms of becoming a top team and competing. Regardless of the good things we achieved, there were quite a few dark days last season and I think everybody agreed that this season we needed to see an improvement in performances and some sort of recognisable tactical plan. Because we relied on things like pace on the counter, long balls over a high line etc to create chances, and these are all things that teams would recognise and snuff out before long. As they did with Ole.

But let's not just pretend this is a 5 game thing. We were actually poor for most of last season and all of pre-season too. The writing has been on the wall.

We weren't bad at home to the top 6 sides. Our away form to the top 10 (or top half) has been the worry. But its up to him to fix it, my point is, he's been massively hamstrung with injuries + a couple players having situations out of his control.

People also say he's got the sole say on transfers, which is untrue. He wanted Kim, didn't get. Kane , didn't get. Todibo for Maguire, didn't happen. He long wanted a RB and had to ditch that idea. So he's also trying to adapt to the DoF as much as they are trying to adapt to him.

He's had a lot of injuries for 1 game. Go back and look at our lineups in the previous 4 games and he had most of his players available. Suddenly after one game with injuries and it's 'he's been massively hamstrung by injuries'. Antony also, has only missed one game.

 

[VP89]

I don't look at football so 'black and white'. Results don't always = great performances or tactics. I said the same under Ole as I said last season with ETH, the actual performances and tactics weren't sustainable in terms of becoming a top team and competing. Regardless of the good things we achieved, there were quite a few dark days last season and I think everybody agreed that this season we needed to see an improvement in performances and some sort of recognisable tactical plan. Because we relied on things like pace on the counter, long balls over a high line etc to create chances, and these are all things that teams would recognise and snuff out before long. As they did with Ole.

Ten Hag has a certain style of play that requires progressive players - he inherited a squad that was broadly incapable of doing this which required pragmatism. I can buy his pragmatism if I see improvements in the way we play generally with results coming on top. He achieved both, and most certainly deserves praise let alone some "excuse" for last season. Last season was a big success for his debut year and its astounding you're insinuating anything otherwise.

But let's not just pretend this is a 5 game thing. We were actually poor for most of last season and all of pre-season too. The writing has been on the wall.

He's had a lot of injuries for 1 game. Go back and look at our lineups in the previous 4 games and he had most of his players available. Suddenly after one game with injuries and it's 'he's been massively hamstrung by injuries'. Antony also, has only missed one game.

You need to cut this season from last season. He is making a progressive step up in style of play which is pretty suicidal if it breaks down. He did the same at Ajax, and the dressing room turned on him in fact, so it was worse than it is here. But he stayed true to his beliefs that the players will get the system after weeks and weeks of training, and it eventually clicked in a big way. We are 5 games in, he has had shit loads of injuries and he's also changed the system, so you need to cut him some slack.

 

[AndySmith1990]

Seems there's always some excuse made as to why managers and players at this club should avoid criticism or be given indefinite amounts of time.

 

[VP89]

Seems there's always some excuse made as to why managers and players at this club should avoid criticism or be given indefinite amounts of time.

Or maybe more than 5 fecking games

 

[Eddy_JukeZ]

Or maybe more than 5 fecking games

Most of the people worried have pointed our decline going back to last season after the cup final.

It's not really 5 games. We've looked out of sorts since that game with a plethora of rough performances(Liverpool, Newcastle, Sevilla, Wolves).

 

[El Presidente]

Can never understand how every Utd loss is the end of the world even though we picked up 7 out of 15 points in the corresponding fixtures last season, the three teams we have played are currently 2nd (Spurs away), 4th (Arsenal away), and 5th (Brighton at home) in the PL, we were missing 11 squad members last Saturday, and fine margins have gone against us in the three defeats i.e. Should have been up at HT versus Spurs (Bruno's header), Garnacho being marginally offside, the ball marginally crossing the end-line before Rashford crossed it (Although admittedly, we got the rub of the green against Wolves and some would argue against Forest although I think the latter claim is unfair).

And who do people think should replace EtH? What is it that EtH has done wrong that other managers would definitely do right? If you end up sacking ten Hag, you'll probably end up in the exact same place in 18-24 months time when his successor is sacked; any manager would find it almost impossible to succeed at Utd given the current organisational structure.

But yes, let's lose all our heads and moan instead

I think it’s very wrong to compare ten Hag’s first 3 games with his 60-63rd game. Actually, the fact that it’s pretty much the same is damning.

 

[pocco]

Ten Hag has a certain style of play that requires progressive players - he inherited a squad that was broadly incapable of doing this which required pragmatism. I can buy his pragmatism if I see improvements in the way we play generally with results coming on top. He achieved both, and most certainly deserves praise let alone some "excuse" for last season. Last season was a big success for his debut year and its astounding you're insinuating anything otherwise.

It was a success in isolation. But like I said, still quite a few dark days and some periods of very poor performances. Getting destroyed by Sevilla, a team that had literally just hired a new manager a couple of weeks earlier and were languishing in La Liga, was a particular low point. There were a lot of games that I wouldn't expect him to get outdone in, but he ultimately did. I'm sorry but after the backing he had last summer, along with my belief that we were a much better team/had better players than it appeared under Ole, my expectations weren't quite in the gutter like yours for last season. In fact, rightly or wrongly, after we signed all those players last summer, RedCafe was full of posters saying they expect top 4 and some even saying we should be putting up some sort of challenge to City. Besides, it's not uncommon for a manager to come in and transform a team.

You need to cut this season from last season. He is making a progressive step up in style of play which is pretty suicidal if it breaks down. He did the same at Ajax, and the dressing room turned on him in fact, so it was worse than it is here. But he stayed true to his beliefs that the players will get the system after weeks and weeks of training, and it eventually clicked in a big way. We are 5 games in, he has had shit loads of injuries and he's also changed the system, so you need to cut him some slack.

You say I need to separate last season from this but I saw these same tactics in quite a few games anyway last season. McTominay, Casemiro at times and Sabitzer pushing further up the pitch. This is why I said that I didn't like the Mount signing as I knew he was going to fully commit to this tactic and I could see the issues with it already after last season.

 

[VP89]

Most of the people worried have pointed our decline going back to last season after the cup final.

It's not really 5 games. We've looked out of sorts since that game with a plethora of rough performances(Liverpool, Newcastle, Sevilla, Wolves).

In between which we beat Brentford, Forrest, Everton, Fulham, Brighton, Villa, won the Carabao Cup vs Brighton and then Wolves on the final day to finish 8 points clear of 5th and end in 3rd place?

Cool.

 

[Big Ray]

Following on from what Melissa Reddy said yesterday, where she was right on the mark, it’s clear no manager will flourish here until the parasite owners leave and the club personnel is totally revamped from top to bottom off the pitch. The sooner everyone realises this the better. The weight of negativity and uncertainty must weigh heavy on even the strongest of shoulders.

I believe in ten hag more than any manager since Fergie. He gets a clean slate like everyone else when the Glazers go, which will hopefully be very soon.

 

[DRJosh]

The club needs a change at ownership level. ETH's supposed first XI will also spectacularly fail until the negative atmosphere across the ground lifts. That can only happen if the Glazers leave.

 

[UpWithRivers]

No one should use arguments like "our team is better than theirs on paper, why didn't we win?"

That's not how football works - believe it or not. Games cane easily against you.

Sure thats not how football works. Sometimes the worse team on paper wins. However its still a valid question. When a Prem side gets beaten by lower league then whats do people say? This Prem side is miles better, cost more, so why didnt they win? And in this case I only pose the question to oppose the exact opposite view of the OP that is stating we only never won because we never had our first 11 when in fact Brighton never either and they had a worse team on paper.

 

[VP89]

It was a success in isolation. But like I said, still quite a few dark days and some periods of very poor performances. Getting destroyed by Sevilla, a team that had literally just hired a new manager a couple of weeks earlier and were languishing in La Liga, was a particular low point. There were a lot of games that I wouldn't expect him to get outdone in, but he ultimately did. I'm sorry but after the backing he had last summer, along with my belief that we were a much better team/had better players than it appeared under Ole, my expectations weren't quite in the gutter like yours for last season. In fact, rightly or wrongly, after we signed all those players last summer, RedCafe was full of posters saying they expect top 4 and some even saying we should be putting up some sort of challenge to City. Besides, it's not uncommon for a manager to come in and transform a team.

"Destroyed by Sevilla" is just silly hyperbole I'm sorry. We got beat in a knock out, but we weren't destroyed.
Yeah we had isolated terrible games but guess what, it will happen. Before he joined everyone sensible said it's going to be a great upward trajectory but you'll get some big lows on the way because that's what has to happen.

Ultimately he was successful in implementing a better style, better defence and he got us top 3 and a cup. There is NOTHING he needs to excuse himself for last year.

You say I need to separate last season from this but I saw these same tactics in quite a few games anyway last season. McTominay, Casemiro at times and Sabitzer pushing further up the pitch. This is why I said that I didn't like the Mount signing as I knew he was going to fully commit to this tactic and I could see the issues with it already after last season.

We are operating differently this season, last game in fact was a diamond tested for the first time. And vs Arsenal we adopted a different approach with Casemiro dropping center back to help build out play. We are tweaking things differently in various games this year and I think you need to be a lot more patient than moaning 5 games in to be honest. Especially on the back of what is a successful season for Ten Hag last year - he's built up a lot more goodwill than 5 fecking games in to this season with a crazy amount of injuries.

 

[Eddy_JukeZ]

In between which we beat Brentford, Forrest, Everton, Fulham, Brighton, Villa, won the Carabao Cup vs Brighton and then Wolves on the final day to finish 8 points clear of 5th and end in 3rd place?

Cool.

We beat Brighton in pens. Technically that result is a draw. And then we faced them in the Premier League and lost.

And yes we won games vs those other teams.

The point wasn't that we didn't win games. The point was too many shambolic performances after the cup final. If you want to ignore those performances, go ahead, but they were worrying.

 

[Luffy]

ETH will eventually be sacked because he doesn't know what players to buy.

 

[Greyfog]

Na wait till he gets 2 world class players in every position then we can judge him.

 

[VP89]

We beat Brighton in pens. Technically that result is a draw. And then we faced them in the Premier League and lost.

And yes we won games vs those other teams.

The point wasn't that we didn't win games. The point was too many shambolic performances after the cup final. If you want to ignore those performances, go ahead, but they were worrying.

Shock horror, we didn't win some games in a debut year for Ten Hag where he had to adapt to some pragmatism without a striker and competing in all cups for most the season.

But we also finished on 75 pts moreso than Ole in his best ever season with us finishing 2nd, he also won a cup and had record clean sheets.

Seriously? This is what you think is a black mark against him? feck me - you need to go back to what Pep and Klopp did in their debut years and get some perspective

 

[Eddy_JukeZ]

Shock horror, we didn't win some games in a debut year for Ten Hag where he had to adapt to some pragmatism without a striker and competing in all cups for most the season.

But we also finished on 75 pts moreso than Ole in his best ever season with us finishing 2nd, he also won a cup and had record clean sheets.

Seriously? This is what you think is a black mark against him? feck me - you need to go back to what Pep and Klopp did in their debut years and get some perspective

It's not that we didn't win them. It's that we looked awful in the defeats. I'm not expecting wins constantly. I'm expecting the team to look competent and not like relegation fodder as it did in a few games. I never said it was a black mark.

I'm saying the performances since the Newcastle cup final are concerning. We haven't played well generally since then.

If you want to compare his 1st season to Pep and Klopp, you open up a whole new can of worms. Because ETH has worse results/performances than both of them, but that's not even the point I'm trying to make, nor did I even compare them.

 

[VP89]

It's not that we didn't win them. It's that we looked awful in the defeats. I'm not expecting wins constantly. I'm expecting the team to look competent and not like relegation fodder as it did in a few games. I never said it was a black mark.

I'm saying the performances since the Newcastle cup final are concerning. We haven't played well generally since then.

If you want to compare his 1st season to Pep and Klopp, you open up a whole new can of worms. Because ETH has worse results/performances than both of them, but that's not even the point I'm trying to make, nor did I even compare them.

Pep got just 4 points more than Ten Hag (and inherited a more balanced squad with less circus).
Klopp had 2/3rds of the 15/16 season with 60 points and then finished on 76 points after a full season.

They are at least comparable and both managers experienced rocky periods. I'm not saying we haven't had concerning games, but it's only concerning if they are not isolated instances. Our ability to recover from those performances and get wins when the squad is completely burnt out and while we have no actual striker is nothing short of impressive.

 

[Gordon Godot]

Pep got just 4 points more than Ten Hag (and inherited a more balanced squad with less circus).
Klopp had 2/3rds of the 15/16 season with 60 points and then finished on 76 points after a full season.

They are at least comparable and both managers experienced rocky periods. I'm not saying we haven't had concerning games, but it's only concerning if they are not isolated instances. Our ability to recover from those performances and get wins when the squad is completely burnt out and while we have no actual striker is nothing short of impressive.

Lets get real. Managers dont get 4 years and a completely new team of their own players before they are judged. ETH has already signed a lot of players and its clear the club have given him free reign to identify targets and we have overpaid to get several of them. He needs to show some progress this season, not going backwards. Brighton is not a great example given different expectations but a manager has shown you can drill and organise players in a short period of time. At the moment even when he had more of his players like against Wolves we were awful. Awful. They should have killed us.

 

[VP89]

Lets get real. Managers dont get 4 years and a completely new team of their own players before they are judged. ETH has already signed a lot of players and its clear the club have given him free reign to identify targets and we have overpaid to get several of them. He needs to show some progress this season, not going backwards. Brighton is not a great example given different expectations but a manager has shown you can drill and organise players in a short period of time. At the moment even when he had more of his players like against Wolves we were awful. Awful. They should have killed us.

I don't think de zebri has had the injury crisis Ten Hag had to be honest and yes Brighton is not comparable to United in a lot of ways. Yes Ten Hag has bought a lot of players but he has shown progress from that, so I don't see why we are complaining so much.

If your gripe is from the first 5 games then that's more a concern on your patience toward a manager who delivered well last year than anything else.

 

[Slevs]

He's never going to get his own starting XI but lets be honest, he's been dealt a bad hand ever since he came here. Just look at the striker situation for example, there's only so much you can do as a workaround.

Ronaldo - Love the guy but old and past it. Slow reactions, can't press as much as before. There's a reason he's playing in KSA
Martial - Perma crocked injured who is never fit. Shame really as I love the guy but his body is done. He can't run anymore and can't stay fit to save his life
Weghorst - Emergency striker loan. There's a reason he was an emergency loan player, guy wasn't up to the required standard but he was fit all the time. Better than having a midfielder play there as a false 9
Rashford - Wants to play left wing as his preferred position. Cannot play pure ST as he doesn't make the necessary runs when he plays there

^ The above is why I'm excited by the Hojlund signing. Sure we've lost 2 games in a row, but at least it looks like he's slowly becoming available again after his injury.

 

[the_cliff]

Ole didnt' have near enough the injuries Ten Hag had in these games.

It annoys me with the whole "oh I cant see the style of play" when he's got no LB, no back up LB, the emergency LB doesnt know his team mates, no RW, no backup RW, no LCB, the backup LCB also out and a striker building up to 90 minute games.

I wonder fecking why we can't see patterns of play

I do agree with this. We have 9 first team injuries and Sancho/Antony are both out. I wonder what a team like Arsenal/Liverpool would look like with the same injury problems as us.

We finished the game against Arsenal with our 5th and 6th choice centre backs, if they had the same injury problems they'd be finishing the game with Kivior and Tomiyasu as the Centre backs. Any team in the EPL (other than City) would see a significant downgrade in terms of results and performances if they had the injuries we had.

The only problem is nothing about our injury crisis gets mentioned in the media. I remember when Liverpool had their injury crisis a couple of seasons ago, all the media was using it as an excuse for their failings, we're Manchester United so we don't get the same media backing unfortunately and the pressure is on ETH.

 

[Puskas_007]

There's loads of valid points here, and I agree, some of the players are not suitable, but also a manager should pick his team to perform as best it can from the sum of it's parts and work towards their ideal squad make up etc.

I totally totally agree that Brighton have shown how they can take a team with much less vaunted players and create a well drilled team, however this highlights another key issue, and that's the ridiculous pressure on the players, we've been to the peak of the game under SAF, and now we've fallen and are trying to get everyone pulling in the same direction to narrow the gap to the top, Brighton are just enjoying the ride with players joining with mostly a view to playing out of their skin to get their big move and payday afterwards, suiting both the players and the club (for the moment).

The thing is, the pressure issue is not an excuse for ETH to hide behind, if there are players that are folding or fading or losing their sh** because of the pressure then they need to leave, and that's what the squad building has to be about, the right players with the right mentality, I'm sure they get this, and I'm sure they're working towards it, and I just hope that we get players back fit and show some form and continue to ship out players that aren't working or are causing us problems, and keep improving.

I think ETH has a plan, and his previous shows he understands how to put a modern team together, but he needs to sort the first XI out desperately, we have to be more solid as if we continue to wilt he will get the boot, I reckon he'll sort it and we'll show something soon, but we have to improve the mentality as the quality is there (even if the parts don't fit together perfectly).

 

[Bondi77]

If posters stopped complaining on here the activity would be reduced by about 80%.

 

[Slevs]

Thats a good video. Don't see how anybody could possibly watch it and blame the manager. Its also hard to watch it and not break your screen in frustration. Absolutely abysmal effort all round, with rashford and mctominay so bad they should be dropped off the back of an amateur tacticians interpretation.

How do you fix it? How to you get fundamentally lazy players in key roles to not be lazy?

You replace them

 

[StiffTackle]

I dont think we need to see ten Hag have a perfectly fit XI every week to improve but the point is that we havent seen anything close to it at all.

Arteta has been at Arsenal long enough to have completely rejuvenated their squad. The only players he has are ones he's bought or one's hes deemed good enough to stay. Ten Hag is not there yet. He still has a number of players in his squad hes either actively tried to sell or would like to replace in the short-term.

De Zerbi arrived to a squad built via advanced analytics where they were bought to play a very specific style. He himself was recruited via the data, seen as the perfect manager to continue whats was already a well run project. United are not in the same position. We have a squad built based on a numerous re-builds, chosen based on each managers style of play, which are completely different from each other.

It would be disingenuous to compare ten Hag at United to these two clubs in the first place, but to do so in the middle of an injury crisis as deep as the one we're currently in and then criticise the manager is ridiculous.

Arsenal finished 2nd last year and did so by playing one game a week and having the lowest lineup variation of any team in the league. They lost Saliba for a few games at the end and everyones decided that single injury was sufficient explanation for why they could no longer compete.

We've dropped points in 10 games since we won the carabao cup.

80% of those were against last seasons top 8 (this seasons top 6)
80% of those were away from home
80% of those we were not able to field the crucial defensive trio of Martinez, Varane and Casemiro

Our first 6 games of this season include games against Arsenal, Spurs, Brighton and Bayern. When you're in the midst of a system overhaul (moving to the single pivot with two attacking 8's) and then have to change systems again due to losing 11 outfield players (the diamond), the last thing you need is to be playing against top quality opposition. There are probably only 4 other teams in the world that would be more difficult to face during this period.

If our biggest rivals had the injuries we have right now, they would barely be able to field an 11 let alone fill a bench. We're going to see a number of players coming back over the next couple of weeks, they'll settle in and we'll see an improvement. Lets not kill the manager for having a blip. If we're still in the bottom half come January when everyone is fit, then its a different conversation.