More mistakes get brought out as a result of not having a cohesive team plan. We rely to much on individuals. Every team needs quality players, but they need them to perform their best within a system that will minimize overreliance on them doing something out of nothing. We rely on them to do that, which leads to unnecessary errors too often.
Do individual mistakes undermine us more than a lack of play style? (New manager, same ol' rubbish)
- Thread starter horsechoker
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I will side with the argument that it is lack of playing style which contributes to mistakes (keeping aside likes of Fred who are just bad & nowhere near United standard). Also, it is not that the teams who are more consistent than us never commit mistakes on pitch. For a club like United, the good plays should heavily outnumber any mistakes and when that happens, we will see the consistency which brings 90+ points in league and makes us title contender.
Nah. Some people just don't like that style of play and are annoyed when people try to pretend like it's the only style of play, or the best. As you mentioned there, Bayern have been incredibly successful playing differently to Guardiola's style. Plenty of teams have found success over the past decade whether it was tiki taka, or possession football, or counter attacking, or wing play, or high press, or sitting deeply. They can all work fine and you can be successful with any if the coach knows how to get the balance right and knows how to coach them properly in all phases.
At times the only thing that makes us look like a team, is they are all wearing the same kit!
Some of the 'irksome' things that we do/don't do that sometimes make me think the team all train on different pitches or different days of the week...!
Quick free kicks (in the opposition half) taken without anyone really understanding whats happening and in less than a few seconds the balls back with our keeper and the seventeen passes we made to get us up the field in the first place has now all been negated.
Attempting a press on opponents, one man goes the rest are either too far away to follow up or just stand and watch him run around like a headless chicken. (* In fairness sometimes once or twice at the start of a game we do go together, but it soon falls off)
When was the last time we saw anyone from mid field make a late, late run into the opposition box and score, or when anyone in possession looks for that late run
(**McT against Leeds last year!!)
Variations in corner kicks, not happened since Mata was a regular in the first team.
Not making use of the 'not offside from throw-ins' rule when in the oppositions last third.
....................................... add your own irksome issues
Some of the 'irksome' things that we do/don't do that sometimes make me think the team all train on different pitches or different days of the week...!
Quick free kicks (in the opposition half) taken without anyone really understanding whats happening and in less than a few seconds the balls back with our keeper and the seventeen passes we made to get us up the field in the first place has now all been negated.
Attempting a press on opponents, one man goes the rest are either too far away to follow up or just stand and watch him run around like a headless chicken. (* In fairness sometimes once or twice at the start of a game we do go together, but it soon falls off)
When was the last time we saw anyone from mid field make a late, late run into the opposition box and score, or when anyone in possession looks for that late run
(**McT against Leeds last year!!)
Variations in corner kicks, not happened since Mata was a regular in the first team.
Not making use of the 'not offside from throw-ins' rule when in the oppositions last third.
....................................... add your own irksome issues
Thats not true. Thats when coaching train on creating overloads and triangles to create 1vs1 situations. If you don't practice these things you will not get 1v1 with the fullback that is something man city are very good at.
Imagine a cook with a good recipe. If he follows it at the very least the food should be decent, he has to be utterly shit to ruin even a textbook recipe. If the cook is talented the result will be better. If the cook is super talented, he will improve the recipe further by adding his own creations in there.
Now imagine a talented cook that is asked to follow a bad recipe, doesnt matter how talented he is, the result is a bad food. If the cook is super talented he might add his creations in there to make it taste better. At least decent enough to eat. But that implies he will never fulfill his potential. After a while he will start doing his own things rather than following. If he is cooking alone, great but with a team of cooks being asked to cook together it could get ugly.
The bad thing is football is always about team. If 5 people know what to do and 6 people dont, its a bad recipe. Thats why a manager job exists.
Now imagine a talented cook that is asked to follow a bad recipe, doesnt matter how talented he is, the result is a bad food. If the cook is super talented he might add his creations in there to make it taste better. At least decent enough to eat. But that implies he will never fulfill his potential. After a while he will start doing his own things rather than following. If he is cooking alone, great but with a team of cooks being asked to cook together it could get ugly.
The bad thing is football is always about team. If 5 people know what to do and 6 people dont, its a bad recipe. Thats why a manager job exists.
There is always going to be excuses made for him. If we sign Rice or Ndidi next summer it’ll be “we need Haaland to challenge” then if we sign him it’ll be “we need a better right back”
We shouldn’t need a world class player in every position to challenge, that’s on the manager. The squad is more than good enough right now. Nobody is forcing him to play 4231.
What is not true? Did I suggest that you didn't need to practice it, everyone practice it and everyone try to do the same thing, it's not a style, it's not a tactic and it relies on having players that have the better skills/physical tools. That's the most common way of creating chances in Football regardless of your style.
We have more players then usual out of form imo. In a few weeks things will stabilize.
Obviously they can't.
But players, not necessarily the player on the ball, can make gestures and calls during phases of play to let others no what is expected. Or after a play breaks down, they bollock the guy responsible for not making the right move or pass. So that they know for next time and it reduces the chances of it happening over and over again.
So, like Mourinho?
I think there are some who are simply defending the manager. Some who are sick of seeing the likes of City, Pool etc praised sky high because they play a certain way. Football is tribal after all. And some are probably scarred by LVG.
Nope. It's very clearly an issue with our style/system.
CBs playing slow as a daisy between themselves under the guise of “playing out from the back”. Often ends in a hurried back pass for DeGea to boot long or a ‘hospital’ ball to AWB.
in fairness, not as bad since Varane came in but Maguire needs to shake that habit
Football is too quick to figure these things out on the pitch. Yeah you can tweak odd things, but the training ground is where you figure all that stuff out. Once you're on the pitch it needs to be automatic.
So your answer to problems that can be anticipated and practiced, is to rely on someone to read the situation fast enough and make a sign that his teammates will have to spot and decipher fast enough or bollock someone after the fact even though that person may not deserve to be bollocked because not being on the same page is fairly normal when you didn't practice this situation and don't have a common solution beforehand?
Surely you see the problem with your logic and why teams are coached with specific styles and instructions?
Training. As in any field of excellence, you train and train to the point of something being second nature. Then when the unexpected happens you're so well prepared you can easily adapt.
We are miles away from that.
So we have the following metrics in the league this season:
3rd highest passes attempted
2nd highest pass completion rate
3rd highest progressive pass rate
4th highest completed pass rate into the opponent's box
3rd most touches in the attacking third
Strange why some believe we don't play a passing game?!
3rd highest passes attempted
2nd highest pass completion rate
3rd highest progressive pass rate
4th highest completed pass rate into the opponent's box
3rd most touches in the attacking third
Strange why some believe we don't play a passing game?!
I said this in loads of threads now. We have too many supposed flair players who are passengers when it comes to getting the second ball, losing 50/50s, not tracking back and pressing from the front is beyond them. We are unbalanced. There’s not enough work rate or leadership in there. Mistakes are caused by the opposition not respecting us, working harder than us and getting in our faces and making it difficult for us to dictate a game on our terms. Too often we show up acting like we’ve already won. We are ridiculously easy to out work and out fight.
We've played 4 of the bottom 6. Last season we were 4th, 4th, 4th, 3rd, and 3rd on those metrics, despite Chelsea and Liverpool having pretty dreadful seasons in the league. So yes, we're better at passing than most midtable teams, but we're pretty much last from the top 4 teams.
So we were 3rd or 4th on those metrics, yet finished second. Good going I'd say.
If I was going to be pedantic of say that Wolves are actually not in the bottom Six!
Conversely you could then say that Liverpool have played majority of the bottom 6 also, as well as another newly promoted team, Chelsea being their only outlier!
Not every team has overlapping full backs, Not every team has inverted wingers, not every team has a target man to play off, not every team aims to play triangles around the box, not every team has a number 10 to play balls through, not every team crosses the ball often, not every team gets many players into the box etc etc. These are all direct tactics involved in the final third
+1
This is further proof of players not drilled with clear patterns of play, amount of thinking player will have to do will be less if there are set patterns practiced in the training sessions. By doing this, player will stick to those passes and thinking process to open up spaces. But if there are no preset patterns like (wing overlap, or underlap in the half spaces) players will have to think more to work out a viable solution in the same available time. This is why we often feel united rely on individual brilliance to win games than using similar attacking patterns to win a game. One clear example which can be shown is city goals scored from overlapping players cutting back into the center of pitch, we can find soo many goals of this nature in city game play. So far united gameplay havent shown any sort of patterns in play or movement.
Pretty much what I came in here to say -- individual mistakes tend to occur more frequently than expected, kind of because we lack a style of play.
A cohesive, coherent system will tend to adorn the ability of a player. At times, it's like our team is almost doing the opposite!
Excuses? I say what our problem is, and in the end Ole is responsible. Our midfield is a nut to solve with current players. It’s not a catastrophe as long as we stay in the title race until April.
Diallo and Pellestri are long term investments. Don’t know why you mentioned them.
Everyone know we need a CM, but everything seem simple for you @Schmeichel's Cartwheel. Maybe the clubs preferred CM’s haven’t been available. Everything can’t be bought when you need it.
I agree with what seems like United’s transfer strategy right now: await buying until their preferred players are available; avoid panic buys.
Ole have solved everything except our centre midfield, and that’s next step in order to have a complete team.
The Premiership has changed over the years, with better coaches now in the league.
Plus now City being Champions of England, Chelsea be Champions of Europe and Liverpool having a couple of near 100 point seasons recently…it does make the task harder and the short comings more obvious within the United team.
It’s bloody hard to win the league these days, let alone do it playing beautiful football.
Plus now City being Champions of England, Chelsea be Champions of Europe and Liverpool having a couple of near 100 point seasons recently…it does make the task harder and the short comings more obvious within the United team.
It’s bloody hard to win the league these days, let alone do it playing beautiful football.
I agree, this gets really embarrassing at times, as well as inviting the opposition to hold their press positions and to maintain their discipline behind their press and just wait for us to foul things up. It also leaves our (speedy) front men not sure whether to go on a run, looking for a long pass, or stay and wait for the ball to feet. The result quite often is nobody moves anywhere, the ball goes back to the keeper and along hopeful punt results. Perhaps Pogba should drop into the back four!!! At least he can put in a decent diagonal long ball to the front men, not just a punt up the pitch.
I agree about Varane I think he's a good buy, but how long will it take to find him playing the 'United way' like the rest.
To rely on individual brilliance which Ole seems to do you need that brilliance right down the spine and in particular the DM position, we have not sorted that yet although we have apparently an abundance of mid field players, at this rate Matic will be still playing (with his Zimmer-frame) for us, as he is the only one we have who has any real idea of what this role requires, but his legs have gone!
Lets go for Kante, break the bank make Chelsea an offer they cannot refuse!
Not in the last third with a set low block. In the last third it's all about individuals and their personal skills, not even Guardiola or Bielsa micromanage that part of the field, they rely on individual talent and select them based on that, managers may have preferences in terms of profile but they don't tell them specifically how to deal with something in the last third. What managers mainly try to avoid is to find themselves with a set low block to break. If you take prime Barcelona as an example, they would avoid to enter the last third and recycle the ball in the middle third until an opponent makes a mistake that allow them to penetrate the last third with ease.
And every team crosses often, relative to their possession rate, it's the most likely and discernable source of key passes in Football.
On the Barcelona part Henry confirmed it a few years back.
He spent £75m on players he doesn’t use. When are Diallo & Pellestri realistically going to get a look in? They have Rashford, Sancho & Greenwood all in front of them, all either in their early 20’s or still teens.
If he wanted a DM so much why not spend that money on Neves or Ndidi or Bissouma or pretty much any DM? It’s not like it’s been spent better on 3 players he has zero intention of ever using.
Problem is getting a prime modric also wont solve the problem as there is no build up play in the team tactics. Ole's tactics is ignore midfield in the build up phase and put long balls up front for chasing, midfield is just to run around and try to hinder opposition team's build up play.
It’s totally the other way around. It’s the individual brilliance that earned us points most of the time. Style of play and tactics are non-existent.
because they prefer to believe what pundits claim. Truth be told our problems begin and end with playing two defensive minded player in deep midfield. Even when the defence behind them no longer needs 2 in front if it. Without a more attacking player or play maker in deep midfield it is impossible to consistently control games, No matter the system one uses
Interesting choice of words this. I mean, reading this thread, there were many descriptions of what the issues with United are. It seems weird to come "join the party" by talking of the truth and ignoring the well formulated points being made in this thread.
Truth is, your argument isn't very convincing. And a team that has Pogba and Bruno on the pitch, shouldn't need to have a third playmaker of all things to be able to control possession better.
You just literally described two ways of playing in the final third. Individual quality obviously is there but you have to create the openings for the individual brillance. Whether that be creating an overload constantly to give your fullbacks room to cross or whether that is playing the ball from right to left at the edge of the box waiting for the space to open up or even whether your a team that doesnt aim to be patient and just goes for a shot anytime you are even remotely close to the box they are all different tactics that will be success totally depending on how good the player is. But regardless is still a tactic.
Because they’re not United’s preferred players. Why spend £40m on a player if it results in a) they can’t afford Rice or b) the player is on the bench next season when Rice arrives.
Diallo and Pellistri = low risk investments and with high upside (potential). It’s the business part of the club. United also have to think about future profit or developing world class players (long term).
The problem is people insist on compare plug and play style managers to managers who don't coach that way. Then pretend the plug and play ones are superior and the only ones with pattern of play
There are two types of coaches in football:
First are those who coach pre set pattern of plays aimed to be replicated on pitch again and again like they are drilled in military boot camp. In which players are only allowed to think in the final 3rd or some times not at all. With a every phase of play picked and prescribed by the coach. The system is usually king. It doesn't really on partnerships for consistency though they enhance it. But once it fails to break through there rarely is plan B. The likes of Klopp, Guardiola even Simeone and Conte fall into this category.
The second. Are those who pick a structure or frame work, in which they enable their players to express themselves and think through game situations as they arise, implementing the coaches preffered vision of attacking or defending. The likes of Zidane, Mourinho, even Fergie fall in this category. So does Ole.
They pick a template structure, for attacking and defending, then build partnerships and understanding in that structure, to enable players express and think for themselves. When it works it is very hard to stop. For their is always an alternative plan to a given solution that arises. However its fluidity is entirely reliant on the partnerships formed in the starting and back up units. Its one of the reasons for example United under SAF and even REAL under Zizou during his UCL 3 peat, most times got better and better the longer a season would go on. It disadvantage is if the partnerships are either imbalanced or taking to long to gel the team can look disjointed or directionless
In United's case right now we have a whole host of new partnerships forming. From defence, to midfield to attack. Till those partnerships soldify. We are going to be sputtering along. Lurching from the sublime to the ridiculous with our sheer quality of personnel stopping us sinking at worst, while laving us wondering ' why can't we be this good consistently' when it clicks. But the "period of pain' wont last long. I expect by the team early december rolls around. United will start looking more like a well oiled engine consistently
LvG was up there possession and passing wise too. Doesn't mean he had a clue how to coach attacking football. Same goes for Ole. Our sheer talent in the side will lead to high possession and passing stats in most games. Especially against the dross we've faced in the league so far.
Doesn't take away the fact that we look toothless up front.
Players make mistakes when they are under pressure and don’t have a clear idea of what they want to do.
Individual mistakes can be reduced if players know exactly where their teammates are and can play a pass blind, into a zone let’s say. If we were better drilled or the team had played together more and began to click you’ll see these issues pretty much disappear with the exception of the occasional brain fart
Individual mistakes can be reduced if players know exactly where their teammates are and can play a pass blind, into a zone let’s say. If we were better drilled or the team had played together more and began to click you’ll see these issues pretty much disappear with the exception of the occasional brain fart
what? Low risk investment that cost the better part of £50m?
You do realise there is other DM’s capable of playing for United than Declan Rice, right? Any one of the 3 I listed would massively improve us. Is Declan Rice really that special that we’re willing to play McfeckingFred for 2 years waiting for him?
If we didn’t want to waste money on someone who is going to sitting on the bench why did he buy Donny? Your argument doesn’t make any sense. Ole didn’t even want a midfielder this season, he was prioritising a back up right back over that position.