The simple answer is , it was just one match. Credit to Potter as well. They aren't actually your typical long ball team but they did it on Sunday. It was full long diagonal balls. Even ETH said he didn't expect that. I will say this again - it's going to get worse before it gets better. Brentford and Liverpool is going to be shocking displays .
I for one didn't underestimate them. I vouched for Potter as a viable replacement for Ole and completely respect them and him. The only nitpicking thing I would say is, for a manager that plays pressing football (ETH), you would expect he comes against long balls a lot and has an answer.
To be fair he referenced winning second balls himself, so he does know. Players definitely let him down in that regard but Caicedo was an absolute machine mopping everything up all over the pitch.
I think the key to this is the contract ETH has signed, which is obviously confidential so we can only guess at it. But I bet if we see a similar team to Sunday vs Brentford (older more experienced players) we can conclude he has the clause. The clause they've all had since Moyes: get us into the CL or else.... So to give himself the best chance of scraping top-4 he will not risk anything, not even dropping Ronaldo from the squad, which should have happened vs Brighton.
But if Man United are serious about a proper re-build including trying out promising younger players e.g. Garner, Savage and Garnacho, I really hope ETH has been given an assurance that even a top-10 finish will not end his time at the club and I hope that is in black and white on his contract. But sadly, I fear not because the people at the top want CL next season (and every season) & they don't care about the longer term and the fact a season out of Europe might help reset things completely.
If the club expect top 4 this season then we have no hope, because they clearly rate this lot better than they are, and therefore thought ETH was their golden goose that would just sort it all out. There's no hiding for them anymore, it is time they upheld their end of the bargain.
I don't understand some of your worries. The problem didn't come from lack of coaching. It came from mental fortitude.
1. False 9 only occurred due to the Martial injury and a lack of genuine striker options. The choice of going with Fred as the 6 and McTominay as the 8 was not a case of him trying to look like a genius, and it did not come from underestimating the PL. He wants to play a possession based playstyle and he needs the 6 to get the balls from the CBs, and make himself available in vulnerable positions. McTominay does not have that ability. McTominay might be less susceptible to getting dispossessed only because he would likely not carry out the proper instructions of what he wants from his 6 because McTominay knows his limitations and is far less willing to show for the ball or try any difficult (for him) passes. ETH chose Fred because Fred has more technical quality than McTominay. What ETH did not know is just how panicky Fred is under pressure, which is something he largely did not witness as much in preseason.
The match was indeed an eye opener for ETH in multiple ways. He now knows the floor McTominay and Fred are capable of because they largely did not show that in preseason. We as fans have seen this for years so we know all about the qualities they have, nor do we have the confidence a manager has in their ability to mask the awfulness of McFred.
2. I think this is a wait and see. Is his 8 always supposed to be that far up? Or was it just McTominay being more reserved than what ETH wants? We saw a lot of verticality and quick passes during preseason to challenge this. Did the players not trust in themselves to do that? Because as in my opening remark, it was quite clear that many of the players were nervous and did not apply what we had seen in preseason.
3. Definitely a mistake
4. Isn't this just more evidence that the players reverted back to their original ways. That doesn't come from ETH. So I'm not worried about the manager. The comparison to Moyes is a bit out there because of this. Despite the performance, I would not place the blame on ETH's instructions. It just felt like more of an eye opener on the mentality of the players, and their inability to carry out his instructions in actual pressure situations.
5. We'll see, but hopefully this is just ETH letting Shaw hang himself in order to justify Malacia's increased playing time.
1) Like I said, going false 9 denied us an outlet. It was alien to a team that is already learning a completely new way of playing. I just felt it was a step too far and allowed Brighton to play with less to think about in terms of what we were offering. I'd have put Rashford or anybody with pace through the middle at the very least, to keep them wary of that threat and push their defence back.
With regards to Fred at 6, it was suicidal, whichever way you look at it. We have known this for a long time, how often does he get ambushed in that very position, collecting the ball off defence? Either play a youngster there that won't shit the bed (if we have one) or don't play that way until we have that player. He's played with 2 pivots, go with that option, instead of leaving Fred isolated like that.
2 &3) Agreed.
4 & 5) Hopefully that's the case. Though it does show that Moyes was probably unfairly criticised for when our players ran out of ideas and started lumping balls in the box Vs Fulham.
I would say slightly knee jerky after one game but I can't help but admit similar thoughts have been running through my mind after Sunday.
Just gonna touch on the Eriksen as a false 9 ploy, he didn't play as a false 9 he basically played as another number 8 alongside bruno and mctom and got in the way and didn't offer us the false 9 focal point. He should of been playing inbetween the lines offering a passing option but he was basically was just another midfielder. That lack of focal point killed us all game.
It is so frustrating when things we know as fans don't work e.g. Fred as a no 6 or De gea's rubbish distribution hampering our build up and then get to watch it all again under a new manager. And you are left wondering did you actually watch any videos of us last season to see where the big issue where or are we gonna have to watch a new manager make the same mistakes as previous managers?
Yeah I agree with all of that. I know it's kneejerk of me to point this out after one game of trying it out, but in the end I thought it might bring a bit of discussion into his tactics and what he actually wants, because I don't think anybody has really offered insight into that, despite many claiming to know a lot about him.
