What that did was remove Sancho from the responsibility of tracking off the ball runs down the left side (by moving him to centre forward). Wolves got to the bye line twice in the five minutes or so prior to the sub.
ETH: "We want to be the best transition team in the world"
- Thread starter sullydnl
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What that did was remove Sancho from the responsibility of tracking off the ball runs down the left side (by moving him to centre forward). Wolves got to the bye line twice in the five minutes or so prior to the sub.
It sends a terrible message tbh. Taking off our best player but a terrible one because we are scared of conceding
Caicedo Lavia Enzo is the most expensive bunch of average I’ve ever seen. Caicedo has probably shown the most but is worth about half what they paid. I just don’t think a £300m midfield should have so little quality on the ball.
Haven't seen enough of Enzo and Lavia to comment, but I paid special attention to Caicedo since there was lots of chatter about United's interest in him. I agree that he really seems average on the ball for the games I saw him play. He is athletic though and a good destroyer.
Where’s the creativity or goals in that Chelsea squad? Idea that Enzo will play further forward and turn in to KDB is funny.
Enzo should be performing by now for the fee paid. Keep the Pogba energy - who btw if fit I would love in our squad.
"Ole's ball" Makes sense in the context that none of United players but Onana, Licha, Shaw can keep the ball for more than 3 seconds
McAllister/Enzo/Caicedo are all average. Jeez. I think same people will also call Bellingham/Tchouameni/Camavinga average.
Really? Making a change in order to solidify an area where we were defensively vulnerable and the opposition were exploiting, going into the last 5 minutes of a game we are leading 1-0 and sustaining heavy pressure - what's wrong with that?
There is no decent transition play with a nonexistent midfield. The team has been crying for a half decent central midfielder for a decade now, apart from the failed Pogba experiment.
What a buzzword he's come up with.
It invited more pressure, it absolutely did feck all in terms of helping us out. How we won that game is the definition of a miracle.
At home against Wolves, resorting to coward tactics send a terrible message not only for that game but all the upcoming ones
Enzo is quality, he is going to be a superstar no doubt about it. I envied with how Chelsea "fixed" their midfield problem eventhough it cost them close to 300m but if it works then their's is set for another decade. meanwhile our club are still thinking whether to launch bid on Amrabat or not.
Eddie Howe, De Zerbi were appointed last season. Howe abit earlier. Both have implemented a style of play and identity in no time with inferior budget and inferior players. Postecoglu and Poch would implement their style this season in no time too. It’s only us who look so disjointed with no style and patterns of play. How? Someone explain this to me.
I had a lot of replies to my post so I thought I’d reply to one now on my concerns. I don’t disagree with any of what you’re saying however I would add that for me we have been a tactically backward team for a long time and have also recruited to fit that - a lack of focus on players who are good on tight spaces : Awb who can barely pass from the back, midfielders / players who are either end product merchants or hustle and bustle box to box types rather than playmakers, GK who can’t pass the darn football, Maguire who is too slow for a high line etc
Hence I’ve longed to see us bring in a manager who understands the importance of possession and dominating games. Over the last 10-15 years, that appears to be the common theme of the better teams whether to you employ it to transition faster or wear teams down with possession - that quality of recycling the ball and no useless eggs to make up for, is key.
When I see us - on face value i see the below when it comes to making us a team that dominates the ball consistently
GK - right type of keeper
Martinez - right type of CB
No new RB - no idea why / still carrying limited players
Casmeiro - great debut season but at 30 I was always skeptical and now you can see it. If we wanted to dominate the ball was he the right fit as he’s always needed great CMs to make up for his limited ability on the ball. I’d have thought a playmaking DM / DLP was needed.
Mount -Needs time to prove himself but again he looks a great idea to transition as that’s what he does and he is brilliant at pressing. But how do you dominate games when it’s him and Casemiro? Again, it’s fine to transition fine but can we out pass teams with this combination?
Bruno and Rashford - they are our biggest names in midfield and attack and while I expected ETH to make us a possession based team with counter attack specialists alike these two needing to adapt. On the other hand it actually feels like he’s building the collective around these two - who are good but also very flawed players.
So yeah I do worry that it’s more a definition issue but that we aren’t being built to dominate the ball. For that ideally you’d need Bruno and Rashford weaknesses countered for and instead we are adding to them - strengthening our transitional qualities but not the possession / tight space / playmaking ones.
The Glazers curse
It has to be. Not for the lack of spending but a lack of strategic foresight to get the right people in charge of recruitment and the rest of it
No club with mediocrity at executive level can be successful anymore. Our only plan is to ‘back the manager’ which doesn’t mean competence or excellence but just money.
We've essentially only built a good ball playing defense, and neglected that area everywhere else. How can we even solve this problem outside of one of our youngsters bailing out our transfer duds? As it stands we need two of Amad, Hannibal, or Mainoo to solve this internally. Because our other players don't have that ability and our manager obviously doesn't stress that area enough going by his transfers, and trust in those that do not prioritize possession.
I still think Mount is a decent signing, it's just that he shouldn't be the only midfield signing. We need different types of set ups for different matches, we have no plan b at this point. Our plan A requires a super fit pressing team which they drop off after a decent first half
Agreed. Proper press resistant complete midfielder.
You can't tackle him, just from the eye test and that's a special trait to have.
Transitional play is nothing if you dont have attackers who can finish. Otherwise its just giving over what little possession you have
Its been the case with most dutch managers and teams. They rely on a striker or #10 to be lethal in finishing. We dont have either and we have complicated things by signing mount
We are unmatched in transitioning possession to our opponents.
Well we are approaching being the best transitioning team..... for the opponent.
That's how I see it too. When that pressure in the first half failed to scored any goals, we're in deep trouble as when we dropped, we still try to played like plan A and risk conceding goals
While our player of player quality is higher than the teams you mentioned I do think the balance of our squad is way off.
We have so few players who can actually take care of the ball in possession. An none that can do that and have pace which is ideally how ETH wants to play.
If you take Brighton for example De Zerbi has come in with players already suited to his side.
I am frustrated with ETH part in the transfer of Mount and Anthony, both players who aren't what we need and for massive money.
I think so much points to the inability and negligence of the board and Murtough. As director of football, the defining metric of his job is ensuring we have a balanced squad that can compete at the level we should be at.
We have a single striker who is 20 and never played in the league. No cover at CDM, no box to box midfielder. We have spent £60m on a CAM who isn't as good as our captain. Unbelievable level of negligence! Especially when we knew from November that strikers are needed.
Because we dont have proper footballing structure like these clubs. These clubs dont have managers identifying and choosing which players to buy for them.
Exactly, it’s so clear what the issue is but despite a decade of failure no attempt to do anything about.
When transitioning means turning to absolute shit every other week he's right
Tight tight tight, pounce on a mistake and speed it up.
Then concede.
It's how it's done. Quick transitions from shite to good to shite.
Then concede.
It's how it's done. Quick transitions from shite to good to shite.
We've made a world-class transition from being a really good football team at Camp Nou to being utterly wank.
No idea what has happened but it's concerning.
No idea what has happened but it's concerning.
I'm not sure ETH has actually accomplished anything with this team.
The transition back to ole ball. Everything being passed along the back line and and then lumped forward to the wingers. No ability to pass through the middle
I'm not seeing it.
The goal was a nice transition 
. I said in another thread that I’m not sure some of the players compliment this type of football. AWB takes way too long to release the ball and his touch is the weakest of the back 4, martial offers too little, Dalot is good technically but doesn’t offer much going forward.
Onana is a big difference though . No way in hell we play as comfortable from the back last season.
. I said in another thread that I’m not sure some of the players compliment this type of football. AWB takes way too long to release the ball and his touch is the weakest of the back 4, martial offers too little, Dalot is good technically but doesn’t offer much going forward.Onana is a big difference though . No way in hell we play as comfortable from the back last season.
Everybody is trying low percentage through balls and it has killed our play. We got a goal from a classic counter in the end.
Exactly. WTF has happened.
I guess that’s why he bought amrabat.. there’s a massive disjoint between midfield and attack, and has been for years now
Is this the season where ETH tries to prove how "forward-thinking" McKenna and Carrick were?