Pitchforks? I said I was happy with the win but we played shit and that's still a concern. I also said we were lucky Luton didn't have any attacking threat because we made them look dangerous every time they crossed the half way line.
We should be beating Luton by 3 or 4 goals, we've spent £400m and they're a Championship team. We've beat Brentford, Sheff United, Fulham and Luton in that winning run you mentioned, hardly games you'd expect us to drop points is it? In the mean time, during that run, outside of the PL and in the PL we've lost to Galatasary, Newcastle, Man City, Copenhagen, and shipped 13 goals against that lot.
It would appear that any team with any form of organisation can put 3 past us with ease.
You call it pitchforks, I call it legitimate criticism and cause for concern.
There are plenty of games and examples where you can have a go at how United played and how they were lucky, Luton is not one of them.
We should of won by 3/4, it wasnt tactics or even how we were playing, it was the finishing of players lacking confidence. The only way to overcome this is by our forwards getting goals, a manager cant come onto the pitch and put the ball in the net for them. Some of the misses were really poor, but its just where we are at. There have been so many games where we start well or have really good periods (green shoots) but then we get sucker punched and all to easily fold, alot of this is confidence for me (not just leadership).
Listening to the Athletic podcast there, they said it really is an odd thing at United. There are good reasons why we are playing poor (not ALL down to manager) and anybody watching us play could hardly get excited about the way we have generally be playing. But we have been playing so poor and yet appear to be there or therabouts (in the top 4 race if you want to call it that), it really does feel like there is a massive pendulum swing potential that could go either way.
Regardless, I think ETH has been just a really unlucky manager, you couldnt find anymore unfortunate things that he would have to deal with in really 14 months:
- Club ownership question marks
- Fans at loggerheads with owners
- Superstar player falls out within weeks of him taking over
- Takes over a club/squad in crisis from a miserable season
- multiple players with external scandals that manager has nothing to do with
- Savage injury issues to entire defence (he brought in a GK specifically for his passing , partially so we can play out from back) , Even our emergency left back defender got injured, i mean WTF, Erickson gets a run and gets injured
- New GK trying to bed in with second string defence and a team short in confidence
- VAR decisions, some fair, some very marginal and inconsistent for/against (we do seem to be suffering alot with this, but since we are already struggling, this is probably affecting us more)
- Kane v Hoijland. Manager wanted Kane, we are either a super club or we are not, cant have it both ways. The club made a long term decision by going with Hoijland (which I am not completely against BTW), but they left the entire team exposed. Kane would of been banging them in and the team would of gotten confidence with a leader like him and dare i say wed actually not be in a terrible position now.
- Next to this One strong striker at the club unproven. This is massive, there is no opportunity for Hoijland to bed in or get taken out of firing line. Manager wanted Kane and Ive said it before, Hoijland (I like him) is the player you bring in after you have a Kane. Hoijland is not getting a decent chance to bed in, so in the deep end. I like what i see, but coupled with all the other issues, i feel the compounded effect is making is so hard for everybody
- Transfers, Uniteds transfer policy has been a mess for a decade, regardless of whether ETH hand picked the players or not, the issue isnt ETH, its that whatever setup the club has is a mess. ETH inherited the same kind of messers that every other United manager has had.
I might of even left out something , but what other manager has ALL these things to contend with in the first 14 months of their managerial appointments ? None. Absolutely none. What club has kept on a Martial or Phil Jones for multiple contract extensions long after they were every going to succeed ? None.. This idea that concurrent United managers wanted these sort of players kept is bulls*t. A manager has to make concessions, they dont get everything they want , I dont understand how people can think that a manager gets 100% what they want, its so stupid to think that.
