Erik ten Hag | 2022/23 & 2023/24

[Fortitude]

I think you are underestimating the so-called poor teams in our league. They sometimes get smashed but they are all capable of a level which makes them tough to beat some days. City didn’t smash Sheff U, for example.

I also think you are overrating our top 4 rivals and underrating our play (which is inconsistent but good in spells) - the gap is smaller than you perceive imo.

It hasn’t been good enough but the important thing will be the overall position at the end of the season (in terms of results and performances).

I'll reiterate that Sheffield United are currently on course to be the worst team the PL has ever seen, being battered from pillar to post in the majority of their games. I don't know what metric they can be underestimated by. They look, play and have the output of a Championship team out of its depth. City don't need to smash Sheffield, and any team can be afforded an off day - underdog stories exist and the FA Cup is lionised for them, but this isn't an off day. It's wholly predictable.

Good or great, cohesive performances are the surprise for us, and that's just not the case for our rivals for those CL spots. All of them mostly play the kind of football you'd expect of teams challenging for CL places.

We're only 6pts off the top of the table, but have a run of games coming up that will tell us where we stand and if we continue to play as we are, getting "found out" will be the least of our worries.

Tbh, I don't like the notion of trying to gloss over what is and is not happening. Missing 1st team players is going to play a part in our ability to contest at the very top, but the remainder of this squad is not poor relative to the fodder of the league. You point toward the better players being absent in those fine line games against peers - the difference between winning/drawing/losing against squads that match up with yours from the outset, not teams who would kill to have our 2nd and even 3rd string players field for them. At the point citing absences against clubs operating on the transfer fee and wages of a couple of the players we field against them, it's pure redundancy and sounds like a pitiful excuse.

The mark of a team is the sum of its parts - are they greater than, equal to or worse than what they should be? In regards to us, the answer is clear and that needs to be addressed ASAP.

I'm going to end this by saying I have been ten Hag in from the off, but am not afraid to call a spade a spade. He shouldn't be beyond reproach or above scrutiny; he shouldn't need a fully fit squad to comfortably dispatch the teams we're struggling against. The football we play is bad, really bad. There needs to be marked improvement in terms of coaching and execution.

 

[Moston Red]

Okay. Does that have anything to with today? How many managers have been able to turn it around? SAF, Arteta, .... ?

If media and fan pressure got too through internet sources then SAF could have been sacked.

I'm still fully onboard with Ten Hag, he's had a nightmare start with injuries and non football related issues. He needs full support from a stable board, a DOF that can get the right players to suit his style and deal with off field matters. Transfers need taking away from him and let him concentrate on tactics etc.

 

[TheReligion]

It does feel a bit cult like in here.

As though it’s not okay to have some reservations about Ten Hag but also acknowledge the challenges he’s been facing both on and off the pitch.

Ownership, Ronaldo, Greenwood, Antony, Sancho,injuries. I mean it’s quite a lot to deal with in such a small space of time and very distracting.

Its possible to recognise this without it being seen as excuses. It should also be possible to share the view he should get some time this season for things to settle before giving him the chop, especially when he brought back CL football, a trophy and two finals last season. There’s some credit in the bank.

 

[Garethw]

We win 2-1, we hit the woodwork twice, and have at least two other cases where, if the forwards were more composed they score…

CAF: THIS IS UNACCEPTABLY SHIT!!!

Did you even watch the game? They fecking dominated us in the first half. They too could have been 2-3 goals up.

If you look at the way we played for the majority of the game yesterday and think that’s acceptable then I don’t know what to say. We got the three points and we move on, but better teams will massively punish us if we continue playing like this.

 

[Fortitude]

And likewise, these posts are clearly from people stuck in 2008. Our first team is borderline Top 4/5 and our second string is just appallingly bad.

Let’s look individually:

Onana: a good GK who’s never had a secure back four in front of him
Dalot: a fair FB who everyone would have been pretty happy to sell had we got a replacement in
Maguire: often referred to as one of our worst ever signings. Seen as a laughing stock and barely PL quality by some hyperbolic folk.
Evans: given a pity contract to get fit and then a longer pity contract as we couldn’t afford a CB who was already at a club
Lindelof: a fine CB but not a LB.

The team also included McT, Eriksen, Antony and Rashford, with reviews ranging from useless, not physical enough for the PL, a waste of money and a man stealing a living based on prior reputation.

Appallingly bad like what? Take our first team away, are you saying the rest of the squad is relegation standard?

You've not strengthened your point by naming those players - the concern we have with the squad is whether it's good enough to compete against the very best in the league or in the CL, not bottom of the league clubs and teams hoping to be in the PL come the end of the season.

 

[Toshey]

Did you even watch the game? They fecking dominated us in the first half. They too could have been 2-3 goals up.

If you look at the way we played for the majority of the game yesterday and think that’s acceptable then I don’t know what to say. We got the three points and we move on, but better teams will massively punish us if we continue playing like this.

They literally had 2 tame shots on target that Onana saved easily.
We should have been 2-0 up in the first half.

Making up stuff to shit on the team is not great.

 

[Berbasbullet]

It does feel a bit cult like in here.

As though it’s not okay to have some reservations about Ten Hag but also acknowledge the challenges he’s been facing both on and off the pitch.

Ownership, Ronaldo, Greenwood, Antony, Sancho,injuries. I mean it’s quite a lot to deal with in such a small space of time and very distracting.

Its possible to recognise this without it being seen as excuses. It should also be possible to share the view he should get some time this season for things to settle before giving him the chop, especially when he brought back CL football, a trophy and two finals last season. There’s some credit in the bank.

Completely agree with this, there's room for nuance.

 

[Toshey]

Because some of the performances have been shocking but we’ve got over the line in some. You could argue that last night was lucky. That Dalot strike to get us the winner could be missed more times than going in. If we don’t score that then we obviously draw the game. It’s very hard to score them type of goals consistently or regular.

Using this kind of logic, the 5 clear chances between Hojlund, Rashford and Garnacho should be scored more times than being missed.

Right now we create many chances and miss them, but we manage to score great individual goals. This will change.

"Lucky" win would mean we had 2 shots and 2 goals.
If anything, Sheffield were lucky they didn't lose 5-1.

And also, people are trying to make Sheffield the worst team in history of the world.
Why did mighty City and genius Pep, the greatest football team that ever existed (according to redcafe), need a dodgy last minute winner to beat them?
Why did the exciting and amazing Spurs need 2 goals deep in stoppage time to beat them?


If we had any kind of luck, we would have beaten both Arsenal and Spurs (and we deserved to) and we would have been 1st right now.

But that's a hard fact to swallow for moaners.

 

[FreakyJim]

It does feel a bit cult like in here.

As though it’s not okay to have some reservations about Ten Hag but also acknowledge the challenges he’s been facing both on and off the pitch.

Ownership, Ronaldo, Greenwood, Antony, Sancho,injuries. I mean it’s quite a lot to deal with in such a small space of time and very distracting.

Its possible to recognise this without it being seen as excuses. It should also be possible to share the view he should get some time this season for things to settle before giving him the chop, especially when he brought back CL football, a trophy and two finals last season. There’s some credit in the bank.

It's pointless. The mob has spoken.

Only titans like SAF and Arteta(?!?!?!?EE#@$#Q!) deserve more than a season and a half. If we're not firing on all cylinders with no first choice defense and people like Rashford and Bruno in a horrible form then clearly ETH is another fraud. Bring on the next lamb. Who's the flavour of the month currently? De Zerbi?

 

[Mr Pigeon]

The same arguments are all cracked and broken.

It's pointless. The mob has spoken.

Monotone. What's it called? Monotone. Once again. Monotone... Monotone!

...mono... D'oh!

 

[Darkhorsez]

It's pointless. The mob has spoken.

Only titans like SAF and Arteta(?!?!?!?EE#@$#Q!) deserve more than a season and a half. If we're not firing on all cylinders with no first choice defense and people like Rashford and Bruno in a horrible form then clearly ETH is another fraud. Bring on the next lamb. Who's the flavour of the month currently? De Zerbi?

Good post

 

[FreakyJim]

Hiring De Zerbi will put us on the map!

 

[Jim Beam]

Well, Bruno could be Tadić.

Garnacho is better then Neres.

We hoped Antony could be the Ziyech, but he's nowhere near.

He's still missing FDJ who was vital in that Ajax team, and a de Ligt.

We've got player to play like this, can't really put my finger on why are we so shit at football at the moment.

I think too many invested all their stock in Ten Hag after that one game (followed up by later losing to a pretty average Spurs side).

"He had a team playing like this once surely he can repeat it" - football doesn't work like that.

My point is that the man was born in Haaksbergen, Netherlands a place of little over 20000 with obscure playing success and then built himself so great that he brought back Ajax on football map earning a job at United. He didn't cheated, he rightly deserved this place.. He also doesn't behave like an absoute asshole (aka Mourinho) and people should talk more respectively about him. Fraud, failure etc doesn't go in line what he managed to do.

He might not make it here. After all we need an absolute giant of a manager to get us where we want.. But fraud he is not.

 

[Baxquux]

Have a style appropriate for the league and our ambitions; coach it in a way that players can understand; select players on their ability to execute instructions properly rather than reputation. It's not too much to ask of a highly-salaried, fairly experienced head coach with access, if he wishes, to (at the very least) leading-European-club proven coaching talent if and when he chooses to shake his team-up. Ange at Tottenham has no experience in PL either, and a career largely spent in more obscure (by PL/global perspectives) leagues, for a club that just lost it's talisman and which is known for a certain flakiness. And his side look far more cohesive in a short space of time compared to ours.

Mitigating factors come in when talking about challenging for the title, they shouldn't apply when it comes to talking about basic pass an move or off the ball discipline in blocking passing routes once attacks have been turned over and the opposition is trying to get through. Or to the constant blind alleys our first choice LF finds himself going down, amongst just a few things.

 

[Lee565]

Okay. Does that have anything to with today? How many managers have been able to turn it around? SAF, Arteta, .... ?

Has arteta really turned it around? He had a good season last season by finishing 2nd but so did ole and mourinho, saf is truly an anomaly in regards to turning it around and creating a dynasty and it's crazy that people are likening ten hag to one of the greatest managers in the history of football.

I feel like I have heard the excuse for giving every manager post fergie more time just because of how fergie turned it around

 

[Garethw]

They literally had 2 tame shots on target that Onana saved easily.
We should have been 2-0 up in the first half.

Making up stuff to shit on the team is not great.

There were a number of times they won the ball and countered against us. A less shit team would have punished us.

I’m not making anything up. I’ve supported the team for nearly 40 years. It’s painful as feck to see us this shit.

 

[Leftback99]

If we had any kind of luck, we would have beaten both Arsenal and Spurs (and we deserved to) and we would have been 1st right now.

But that's a hard fact to swallow for moaners.

Delusional. You don't have a - 2 goal difference after 9 games through bad luck. If anything it suggests we're fortunate be where we are.

Our 'rivals' are on +10 to +15 already.

 

[Judas]

It does feel a bit cult like in here.

As though it’s not okay to have some reservations about Ten Hag but also acknowledge the challenges he’s been facing both on and off the pitch.

Ownership, Ronaldo, Greenwood, Antony, Sancho,injuries. I mean it’s quite a lot to deal with in such a small space of time and very distracting.

Its possible to recognise this without it being seen as excuses. It should also be possible to share the view he should get some time this season for things to settle before giving him the chop, especially when he brought back CL football, a trophy and two finals last season. There’s some credit in the bank.

Exactly. So many on here operate with only extremes at either end of the spectrum, it makes posting exhausting, because there’s always someone ready to launch an attack from one of the sides. It’s possible to feel a combination of both, but apparently not for some.

I still back him, there a lot he’s having to work against, but I’m still well within my rights to have a few concerns and be quite baffled by some on the field decisions and how we’re actually playing.

 

[TheReligion]

Exactly. So many on here operate with only extremes at either end of the spectrum, it makes posting exhausting, because there’s always someone ready to launch an attack from one of the sides. It’s possible to feel a combination of both, but apparently not for some.

I still back him, there a lot he’s having to work against, but I’m still well within my rights to have a few concerns and be quite baffled by some on the field decisions and how we’re actually playing.

I’m with you 100%

 

[e.cantona]

The same arguments are all cracked and broken.


Monotone. What's it called? Monotone. Once again. Monotone... Monotone!

...mono... D'oh!

 

[Sarni]

Apart from the fact that Mount has been injured, Amrabat also injured/came in late, Sancho is gone, Antony just came back from leave, Casemiro also now injured. Hard to take this serious when you're spouting lies.

Sancho is actually available and Antony was available all the time too, we are/were not playing them by choice.

Casemiro has been out for 1 game, Mount has been back for a while and Amrabat has also been available in that time (we just bought him late and he missed like two games getting back into fitness). Two months was an exaggeration though, we have had full team for 5 games in a row though (all of which we have been poor in) and have had decent injury record (in midfield and attack) throughout the whole season with an odd player out here and there. Nothing out of the ordinary that would not normally be expected for any team, there are teams with far more injuries like Villa, Brighton or even City.

Our horrific injury luck is true in defense but blatantly not true elsewhere. It’s one of many excuses for ETH.

 

[breezy12]

There were a number of times they won the ball and countered against us. A less shit team would have punished us.

I’m not making anything up. I’ve supported the team for nearly 40 years. It’s painful as feck to see us this shit.

This. Anyone who actually tries to sugar coat that as a good performance or even a half decent one is deluded. We were crap.

 

[OrcaFat]

Yeah, I don’t like it, we’ve not progressed. The problem is at the moment we’re not well coached and we’ve been stubborn with our selection of out of form players. The transfers we’ve made in the summer raised more questions than answers in terms of how we want to play when we’re at our best.

I disagree that we are not well coached. The players are not fully up to speed and that is a price we are paying for the long-term reward of settling on a plan and sticking with it. Nobody likes losing but it is a necessary evil at present.

I wouldn’t necessarily agree with EtH’s team selections every week but usually I can see why he’s done it and, imo, it has nothing to do with stubbornness. He is picking the team he thinks is best for the match and for the system. We can often see that the outcomes are unsatisfactory but we can’t know that the alternatives wouldn’t have been even worse.

Once again, it is a long term project and you have to take the pain if you want the gain.

 

[Toshey]

Delusional. You don't have a - 2 goal difference after 9 games through bad luck. If anything it suggests we're fortunate be where we are.

Our 'rivals' are on +10 to +15 already.

All of our attacking players have scored 3 goals between them.
This is why we have bad GD.

In every game we fail to score easy chances. But we create them.
So, eventually this will change.

Also half of the goals we conceded were extremely dodgy.

We've done enough to beat Arsenal, Spurs and Bayern. We got unlucky.

Let's see what happens against City.

 

[Gambit]

I'm done with sacking managers. I'm still behind him. He was Peps choice to replace him at city. If the players aren't putting the performances in they can go first.

 

[Ayoba]

Crucial week for him. 3 games against Copenhagen, city and then newcastle in the league cup. We could potentially be out of all cup competitions and the way we;re playing right now, it wouldnt be a shock.

 

[Max_United]

Using this kind of logic, the 5 clear chances between Hojlund, Rashford and Garnacho should be scored more times than being missed.

Right now we create many chances and miss them, but we manage to score great individual goals. This will change.

"Lucky" win would mean we had 2 shots and 2 goals.
If anything, Sheffield were lucky they didn't lose 5-1.

And also, people are trying to make Sheffield the worst team in history of the world.
Why did mighty City and genius Pep, the greatest football team that ever existed (according to redcafe), need a dodgy last minute winner to beat them?
Why did the exciting and amazing Spurs need 2 goals deep in stoppage time to beat them?


If we had any kind of luck, we would have beaten both Arsenal and Spurs (and we deserved to) and we would have been 1st right now.

But that's a hard fact to swallow for moaners.

A quick check on expected points from various sources shows that we are on around 13 so roughly in line with what we are, maybe even better. Yes, it is an imperfect measure but it is not so imperfect to show us midtable when we should have allegedly been on top.

And it is disingenuous to mention Arsenal and Spurs (where we lost and roughly drew on expected goals by the way respectively) and ignore e.g. Wolves where we were exceptionally lucky to win. Had we also won Arsenal and Spurs we would have been incredibly lucky and this luck would have been unsustainable

 

[Jericholyte2]

Did you even watch the game? They fecking dominated us in the first half. They too could have been 2-3 goals up.

If you look at the way we played for the majority of the game yesterday and think that’s acceptable then I don’t know what to say. We got the three points and we move on, but better teams will massively punish us if we continue playing like this.

Yes I did, we were very poor but, if not for players being shit at hitting the proverbial barn door, we'd have won by a 4/5 goal margin. That's not ETH, that's not tactics, that's individual players unable to step up.

Appallingly bad like what? Take our first team away, are you saying the rest of the squad is relegation standard?

You've not strengthened your point by naming those players - the concern we have with the squad is whether it's good enough to compete against the very best in the league or in the CL, not bottom of the league clubs and teams hoping to be in the PL come the end of the season.

Pretty much - take some of the first team out of midfield and attack and we have.

Turkish GK
Dalot Maguire Evans Lindelof
McT Mainoo
Pellestri Mount Garnacho
Martial

That team is struggling to stay in the PL.

 

[OrcaFat]

This is why clubs don't do this. "Nobody knows" is not something you want to gamble your club's future with.

Just sacking managers is not the solution but neither is sticking with something that isn't working. That's why there's no easy fix. What we can do is see what other successful clubs are doing and it's most certainly not randomly giving managers 5 years time. The sooner we forget the next SAF idea the better.

That is silly. We are not randomly giving someone five years. We carefully selected the best candidate for a long term project.

 

[Manutd GOGOGO]

Why are so many people complaining when only 3 out 11 players yesterday were Ten Hagg players... And 2 are in their 1st season !

Our results last season were based on a solid defence and he has none of this right at the start?

 

[OrcaFat]

Crucial week for him. 3 games against Copenhagen, city and then newcastle in the league cup. We could potentially be out of all cup competitions and the way we;re playing right now, it wouldnt be a shock.

I agree. I wouldn’t be surprised if we lost all three. We should get something out of the Copenhagen game but we need to win.

 

[Grande]

Exactly, it isn’t actually true though. United struggling to play consistently attractive football this season hasn’t been due to Maguire and Evans, who both played well today. The system that we’ve shifted to simply hasn’t worked, and the shape is a little wonky when we lose the ball with the holding midfielder generally isolated.

I think you should think about why Maguire and Evans didn’t look so bad yesterday, and at what cost. The problem with injuries is of course with lacking key players who suit the primary game plan, but equally or even more important is the lack of continuity. Football is about developing relations within team parts and between. This is much more important than ‘how good is player X in position 3’, which is a rather primitive question. This season have seen a unparalleled lack of continuity in player relations, due to injuries, sickness, new players arriving and noise (Antony, Sancho). It’s not one of these
factors - it’s the combination of them. Any team can patch over a few games like that with heightened focus and a a temporary deviation from tactics. It’s over the cause of several games it impacts levels, confidence, accumulation of errors etc.

Had this hit Liverpool now, they’d have struggled (look at their bench). Had this hit Man City in Pep’s second seasond opening, they’d have struggled.By now, every City player is a Pep player, every squad member knows every tactical principle backwards and forwards in their sleep, every new player walks into a machine. It’s the opposite at Man Utd right now. Yesterday, the central line was Onana - Maguire/Evans - Amrabat - Fernandes - Højlund. There are no relations there - at all. Of course it will be disjointed. And when you see that this is corroborated by constant chances in every position, it’s of little import how things look now. We hve toget through it, geta settled firat elen over a good strechf games, and only then can we see if it’s the playing style or it’s all these other factors that add to the problems.

 

[SirMattBugsby]

Why does Newcastle play better football than us? They finished 11th before the Saudis really started spending.

You gave the answer yourself. The Saudis.. new owners. It's less about the spending, more about ambition. When owners show they mean business (not the financial kind), the players get the message.

There's no such 'quality' control at United. We can blame ten Hag for not implementing his tactics well, but these players have shown time and again that they throw the manager under the bus when it suits them.. and the ownership enables them with shiny contracts. This has been the case since van Gaal.

I'm pretty sure when ten Hag is sacked in December (yes, that's my prediction), we'll see a scoring spree and articles on how regimented the training was and that the players' "creativity was being stifled." And then we'll know that the van Gaal-Mourinho-Solskjaer cycle is in full swing again.

 

[Superden]

Using this kind of logic, the 5 clear chances between Hojlund, Rashford and Garnacho should be scored more times than being missed.

Right now we create many chances and miss them, but we manage to score great individual goals. This will change.

"Lucky" win would mean we had 2 shots and 2 goals.
If anything, Sheffield were lucky they didn't lose 5-1.

And also, people are trying to make Sheffield the worst team in history of the world.
Why did mighty City and genius Pep, the greatest football team that ever existed (according to redcafe), need a dodgy last minute winner to beat them?
Why did the exciting and amazing Spurs need 2 goals deep in stoppage time to beat them?


If we had any kind of luck, we would have beaten both Arsenal and Spurs (and we deserved to) and we would have been 1st right now.

But that's a hard fact to swallow for moaners.

That is a mental thought...
but the 6pts against wolves and Brentford could easily have been 1.

I just hope that garnacho offside goal doesn't haunt us end of season as it was 6pt swing against arsenal..

 

[TheReligion]

I think you should think about why Maguire and Evans didn’t look so bad yesterday, and at what cost. The problem with injuries is of course with lacking key players who suit the primary game plan, but equally or even more important is the lack of continuity. Football is about developing relations within team parts and between. This is much more important than ‘how good is player X in position 3’, which is a rather primitive question. This season have seen a unparalleled lack of continuity in player relations, due to injuries, sickness, new players arriving and noise (Antony, Sancho). It’s not one of these
factors - it’s the combination of them. Any team can patch over a few games like that with heightened focus and a a temporary deviation from tactics. It’s over the cause of several games it impacts levels, confidence, accumulation of errors etc.

Had this hit Liverpool now, they’d have struggled (look at their bench). Had this hit Man City in Pep’s second seasond opening, they’d have struggled.By now, every City player is a Pep player, every squad member knows every tactical principle backwards and forwards in their sleep, every new player walks into a machine. It’s the opposite at Man Utd right now. Yesterday, the central line was Onana - Maguire/Evans - Amrabat - Fernandes - Højlund. There are no relations there - at all. Of course it will be disjointed. And when you see that this is corroborated by constant chances in every position, it’s of little import how things look now. We hve toget through it, geta settled firat elen over a good strechf games, and only then can we see if it’s the playing style or it’s all these other factors that add to the problems.

Good post

 

[mu4c_20le]

All of our attacking players have scored 3 goals between them.
This is why we have bad GD.

In every game we fail to score easy chances. But we create them.
So, eventually this will change.

Also half of the goals we conceded were extremely dodgy.

We've done enough to beat Arsenal, Spurs and Bayern. We got unlucky.

Let's see what happens against City.

Last season Rashford scored nearly half of our goals. That is why we finished 3rd with a trophy. Not because of genius coaching, but because we were carried by Rashford and Bruno and a motivated pre WC winning Martinez.

 

[Redstain]

Last season Rashford scored nearly half of our goals. That is why we finished 3rd with a trophy. Not because of genius coaching, but because we were carried by Rashford and Bruno and a motivated pre WC winning Martinez.

Exactly

 

[Toshey]

Okay, take away Haaland goals and what happens to City last season?

It's like having a star striker in form is a bad thing.

Usually every team has a main scoring outlet, that's how football works.

 

[Fortitude]

Pretty much - take some of the first team out of midfield and attack and we have.

Turkish GK
Dalot Maguire Evans Lindelof
McT Mainoo
Pellestri Mount Garnacho
Martial

That team is struggling to stay in the PL.

I mean, you've actively omitted players to try and emphasise the point you're making.

This is likely our best xi (per ten Hag trying to implement his new system):

------------------------Onana
------------Varäne-------------Martinez
AWB-------------------------------------------Shaw
---‐-------------------Casemiro
------------Bruno-----------------Mount
Antony---------------------------------------Rashford
-----------------------Højlund

That leaves this squad (with Sancho persona non grata):

Keeper: Bayindir, Heaton
CB: Maguire, Evans, Lindelof,
FB: Dalot, Reguilón, Malacia, (Lindelof), (Amrabat)
DM: Amrabat, (Mainoo)
CM: Amrabat, McTominay, Mejbri, Eriksen, Mainoo
AM: McTominay, Mejbri, Eriksen, Van de Beek
WF: Garnacho, Diallo, Pellistri,
CF: Martial

-----------------------Bayindir
------------Maguire-------------Evans
Dalot-------------------------------------------Reguilón
---‐-------------------Amrabat
------------Mejbri-----------------Eriksen
Pellistri---------------------------------------Garnacho
-----------------------Martial

McTominay, Lindelof, Mainoo first off the bench or rotated into the team. If you think that’s the worst collective on paper in the league or that the relegation fodder wouldn’t plunder that bunch, then we have a disconnect from the outset. As I said before, this squad is unimpressive compared to the teams we’re supposed to be peered with, but compared to the teams we’ve struggled against, they’d bite our hands off to be able to field the majority of these players, but they will never be able to afford them. It was mainly this bunch of supposed misfits that have given us the best (or at least most cohesive) performance of the season; actually trained and coached as a unit to forge the pre-season chemistry that should be accrued for a league campaign, that is not a relegation squad in a league with Luton, Sheffield United, Everton, Burnley and Bournemouth in it.

These are semantics given the xi’s we’re fielding have 1st team starters in plus others subbing in.

 

[Irwin99]

All of our attacking players have scored 3 goals between them.
This is why we have bad GD.

In every game we fail to score easy chances. But we create them.
So, eventually this will change.

Also half of the goals we conceded were extremely dodgy.

We've done enough to beat Arsenal, Spurs and Bayern. We got unlucky.

Let's see what happens against City.

This is an issue for me. We don't actually seem to create that many but when we do create good ones we often miss them. Missing them is fine if you get another great chance a minute or two later but it doesn't happen. It's very like LvG's football in that regard (just without the possession or control)