I passed zero comment on any stats. I simply posted the stats I am personally most interested in as a fan of Man Utd.
Erik ten Hag | 2024/25
- Thread starter Cheimoon
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I passed zero comment on any stats. I simply posted the stats I am personally most interested in as a fan of Man Utd.
Bollocks, you posted them as a negative dismissive reply. Nice try.
Could work a few ways really.
I read it is a ‘you’re wrong’ post initially, because I’m now preconditioned with the way the Caf seems to be.
Could easily be to provide balance, to point out stats can create a different picture. Who knows.
Its rarely a good thing to assume the intent of a post, tends to go one way!
And even that was with a massive over performance of our xg conceded (74).
I like those stats but it's a small sample. If it was after 10 games, it would be promising and possibly a sign of improvement.
We've got Palace away coming up, Spurs at home, Villa away. Those are actually decent challenges to see if we can play better or it was just Southampton being poor side.
If only
Lets ignore the newly promoted team.
Last season
Shots conceded v Liverpool in Old Trafford 28
Shots conceded v Brighton away 17
Shots conceded v Fulham in Old Trafford 17
Total 62.
Losing against City in the League Cup semi is hardly a bottle-job.
It's also harsh to hold the Europa final loss against Villareal against him. It was one of those games that we were clearly the better team, but just couldn't get the ball in the back of the net and De Gea then let us down in the penalty shoot-out. The only real criticism I can think of for Ole in that match is he should have subbed Henderson on for De Gea towards the end since he does have a much better record for penalties. Or played him from the start since that was the season Henderson had become first choice in the second half of the season and was playing better.
I remember being quite critical thinking Ole's managing of the game wasn't up to par. It was much of the same, let the lads plays with very simple tactics and then being bettered by Emery, which is not an embarrassment of course but just par for the course considering our talent on the pitch. 'Patterns of play' and 'no midfield' (i.e things we're not too unfamiliar even 3 years later now under ETH) became almost banned on the forum.
However, for the life of me I can't find the match day or post match thread to have a look at the consensus; I know any game after a loss will be bad but there's always some balanced posts. Has it been wiped or something?!
Shots conceded v Liverpool in Old Trafford = 11 + 1 blocked
Shots conceded v Brighton away = 14 + 3 blocked
Shots conceded v Fulham in Old Trafford = 10 + 4 blocked
According to the CAF's match stats, I know which ones I believe, the Scousers may have stuffed us but they did not have 28 shots at our goal
https://1xbet.whoscored.com/Matches...-League-2023-2024-Manchester-United-Liverpool
We conceded 28 shots. 19 shots on and off target, 9 blocked shots
We're talking about different games!
You missed the last season bit in my above post.
Is it not about last season game at OT?
No. The point is all sorts of different stats can be presented to support any point of view or argument, but the only stats that ultimately matter are points and league position and, to a lesser extent, goal difference. Those will always be the ultimate tell of where the club is at, and all other stats fall into insignificance in comparison.
Villareal also made it into the CL semifinals the next season. Hardly a garbage team.
United finished 8th. That is a bad performance relative to other teams.
As others have pointed out, NLUnited's point was factually wrong. United conceded more goals than 4 other teams (City, Arsenal, Liverpool, Everton) and the same amount of goals as Crystal Palace, making them joint 5th on the GA table. A joint 5th position on GA suggests United were not particularly good at defending. That, combined with United not being particularly good at attacking, explains why they would finish 8th or whereabouts.
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You write such nonsense.
I don't really care for his general point. There really wasn't much in the way of positives last season. We very much weren't among the best defensive sides, even if we had conceded the (joint) 5th fewest.
However, it remains nonsense to argue against the point by bringing up the average goals conceded from previous seasons. They're irrelevant to what happened last season as the relative strength of the league fluctuates year on year.
It's far more salient that Everton conceded 7 fewer and Crystal Palace conceded the same amount. Just as it's more salient that Liverpool conceded 17 fewer, City 24 fewer, and Arsenal 29 fewer, while Villa, Spurs and Fulham conceded just 3 more, Newcastle and Brighton just 4 more, and Chelsea 5 more.
As my post noted, the average amount of goals conceded was 43.4 ± 1.5, meaning it did not actually fluctuate dramatically in previous years.
The argument NLUnited made was that the PL being 'stronger than ever' explained this increase in goals. But we have reason to believe the PL was weaker than in previous seasons in 23/24, for instance the relatively poor European performance.
There is only so much separation one can do between relative and absolute performance.
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Leicester won the league by 10 points with 81. 78 points wouldn't have got you top four 2 seasons prior.
The sack race?
So United have faced 10.3 shots per game this season, Man City 7.3, Arsenal 14.3, Newcastle 16.8, Villa 9.8, Tottenham 8.3, Pool 7
Its like the fanbase has PTSD (I guess understandably). You're highlighting that we still conceded double figures shots which means nothing without understanding whether they are dangerous shots or not and whether its normal to concede double figure shots in a game or not. Based on the first 4 games of the season our overall defensive performances despite the results are actually good, its a narrative based on the defensive mistakes at the end of the Brighton match and giving away poor goals in my opinion vs Pool. Another narrative for example is we were absolutely dominated in the first 30 minutes vs Southampton. Southampton had more possession than us and pressed us well, yet during that time they had only 3 shots on target, 1 being when Dalot was dribbled past and the other two being the penalty shot and the tame header rebound. Yet in that same 30 minutes we had double their chances. If Southampton should/could have scored a goal in that 30 minutes of "domination", then we should/could have scored 2 during that period.
Its pretty clear that results aside (and yes results are important) that through pre-season, charity shield and the first 4 games that we are seeing signs of progress:
- There is a clear style of play/identity, the style of play was clear from last season (its pretty much how his original Ajax team set up with the exact same criticisms that that team faced), but there is a difference between having a style of play and implementing it well. So far the team is implementing it better this season although there is still a way to go
- We have one of the best presses/counter presses in the league both statistically and from the eye test. Even last season our press was up there.
- We currently, despite not taking our chances, have one of the best attacks in the league. Without even looking at the statistics that should be evident just from the silly amount of clear chances we miss, even against pool Zirkzee should have scored 2
- We have a very solid defense at the moment, if you remove the PTSD of us getting run through, our general defensive performance has been good. Again for context, people were up in arms about us being countered by Fulham a couple times, when Pool and Arsenal faced more counters in the exact same weekend and we had one of the lowest for that weekend.
- In every game bar Pool we had periods of very good possession, even against City
- Controversial opinion.....in every game (bar maybe Pool as i've scrubbed that game from my memory)...even against city....we have seen at points some very lovely passages of play.
Now that doesn't mean it's guaranteed to continue like this, maybe the confidence gets a hit and we spiral, maybe we start to take all those chances and go on a great run, who knows. However, if we are talking about signs of improvement, signs of a style of play, signs we are going in the right direction, based on pre-season, charity shield and the first 4 games, I'd say there are more signs of improvement and that we are heading in the right direction, than the opposite based on the start to the season.
The last thing is this idea that its going to take 3 seasons is a myth, its a random number plucked out of the air. It's going to take as long as it needs to take. I think if we had this start to the season in Ten Hag's second season, despite the results these signs would be looked at more positively.
What are these 5 "leagues" (I think he means competitions) that he keeps going on about us being involved in?
EPL, FA Cup, Carabao Cup, Europa - am I missing one?
EPL, FA Cup, Carabao Cup, Europa - am I missing one?
In a small sample size, those different stats can point to trends about our performance.
We haven‘t played enough games to know where we stand. I think we are in much better shape though, based on said stats.
Anyway, you could point to the posted stats and say that they are encouraging instead of countering them with the obvious, so I still think you are full of it.
The point I made was that our biggest issue wasn‘t conceding goals last season. In that respect we were better than four teams who finished above us. Especially in light of the fact that we had devastating injuries to our backline.
With other words, we had bigger problems.
Although I feel that the style that we are operating with under Ten Hag is very dangerous, there have been some signs of improvements.
However; what I do want to see is that Arsenal type defence, where you can go away from home and play on the counter. They have now done that on numerous occassions, where you trust your team to keep a clean sheet. This is where we are struggling at the moment, teams seem to still be able to play around us easily.
Going forward, I think goals will come, Zirkzee has missed some good chances and Bruno has been quite poor so far.
However; what I do want to see is that Arsenal type defence, where you can go away from home and play on the counter. They have now done that on numerous occassions, where you trust your team to keep a clean sheet. This is where we are struggling at the moment, teams seem to still be able to play around us easily.
Going forward, I think goals will come, Zirkzee has missed some good chances and Bruno has been quite poor so far.
I've been wondering that myself. Maybe he's counting the Community Shield, since he's talking about five opportunities to win trophies.
Perhaps, I did think that, but that's already done and dusted, but he speaks in present terms. I genuinely did wonder whether I'd forgotten a whole competition!
Indeed I did
You made the much more extreme claim that United conceded a low amount of goals. That's why people jumped on it.
United were better than four teams that finished above them but this difference is mostly trivial. The difference between Chelsea conceding 63 goals and United conceding 58 amounts to 1 extra goal every 8 games. Both teams simply concede a lot of goals.
All part of the plan. Trust the plan. The plan is good.
Did you forget the Best Baldies? I doubt we will win it this season after losing VdG and Amrabat
I think we absolutely would have conceded a low amount of goals if we didn‘t suffer the injuries to our backline that we did. Evans played the most games from our cb‘s.
Even so, we conceded less than four teams above us.
To say our defense conceded a catastrophic amount of goals last season is just plain wrong.
Saw the pre-match presser and it amazes me that this man was able to fool not one but two football administrations. I can somewhat understand as Arnold and Murtogh were clowns; however I expected better from INEOS. He is such a charisma vacuum. Doesn't inspire any confidence and keeps talking about Mickey Mouse cups after he has been given players worth gbp 600m+.
"All leagues are important"....Jesus f-ing Christ!
Nothing about him screams a Manchester United manager. Hopefully, the plan is to sack him as soon as INEOS are able to sort out the background stuff. We are not going anywhere with this guy. And wins against S'ton, Barnsley and Twente isn't going to change that.
"All leagues are important"....Jesus f-ing Christ!
Nothing about him screams a Manchester United manager. Hopefully, the plan is to sack him as soon as INEOS are able to sort out the background stuff. We are not going anywhere with this guy. And wins against S'ton, Barnsley and Twente isn't going to change that.
So which leagues, in your opinion, are unimportant?
I get we're not in a position to get sniffy about silverware any longer. A trophy is a trophy. But for me there's a difference between trying to use success in a cup to build momentum, increasing confidence and using it as a springboard to success - and putting all your eggs in one basket because you've admitted you're now a cup team.
I'm still not willing to accept winning a league cup represents success for Manchester United. Sorry. I understand that these days it probably does, but I'm not there yet. We should be using cups as a gateway drug to success. Get the winning feeling going, push on. Not: "If we win the league cup this year, we might push on and be fortunate to win it again the next year too" - I'm not ready for that to be us. Nor am I willing to consider a manager a success because he might have amassed a couple of domestic cups and a charity shield.
I'm still not willing to accept winning a league cup represents success for Manchester United. Sorry. I understand that these days it probably does, but I'm not there yet. We should be using cups as a gateway drug to success. Get the winning feeling going, push on. Not: "If we win the league cup this year, we might push on and be fortunate to win it again the next year too" - I'm not ready for that to be us. Nor am I willing to consider a manager a success because he might have amassed a couple of domestic cups and a charity shield.
Love the overall optimism, but I think this season's been no better than the last after four games. It's just that things got even worse after that last season and we don't know what'll happen this season.