Forget the result, why are we so rubbish at football?

[Skills]

We struggle to reliably move the ball forward in midfield. That's the key issue in this team. It's also responsible for our defensive fragility because we lose the ball in awful positions.

Once we get better at moving the ball forward to our attack more reliably, we'll automatically be more defensively secure.

 

[Ekeke]

In the grand scheme of things I don’t think we even needed a CB as priority. We have Varane on the bench and Lindelof not in the match day squad, those 2 options are a million miles ahead of anything we have in reserve for midfield or attack.

We’ve spent about 170m on CB’s in the past 3 summer windows, why can’t they realise prime Cannavaro and Nesta would look bang average with that midfield in front of them.

Completely disagree. We needed 2, perhaps even 3 to replace Maguire, Lindelof/Varane, McTom and Fred on last season's performance or we werent going to finish above where we finished last season

We have 1. A questionable 2 if we got De Jong as he probably doesnt solve it either

 

[SER19]

Players aren't good enough. It's not that difficult.
Ralf told us about these players and we ignored him.

It truly is this simple.

 

[Livewire1974]

Any side with McFred in the engine room will always be shite.

 

[Leg-End]

It's possible if you have the right structure and scouting. PSG have Campos and have already bought like 5 or 6 players. Ralf was ready to help us build a great squad but we binned him off because its easier to think our problems can be fixed with one change. This club is only interested in short term fixes.

No offense but that's PSG who are hardly lacking in quality and have a bottomless pit of money. United realistically need to rotate out a whole new 11 over the next 2-3 years if they are interested in actually winning anything.

Two central midfielders of starting quality could turn this team around so quickly, there is just no excuse for dicking about like we have been for 5-6 years. ETH isn't a mug, I refuse to believe another United manager won't fix the area any fan knows needs fixing.

 

[georgieboiii]

7) Touch is really bad combined with the ball being received at the wrong angle.

I feel like this is not talked about enough. I remember Pep talking in a video or something about the angle of the pass, and how important it is. Pass the ball at the right angle, you keep the momentum and overrun the defense. We just pass the ball to get rid of it and that's it.

 

[TwoSheds]

Because these are in our starting XI:


Shaw
Maguire
Dalot
Fred
Mctominay


all are shit

Tend to agree with these. De Gea is a good player, our shit movement has feck all to do with the keeper. Bruno and Rashford have ability and they will show it again eventually.

Sick of watching so many of them half arse their way through their careers here. Particularly Shaw as he is very talented.

But the idea that we let Palhinha move to Fulham for £17m so we could see again whether Fred and McTominay can be our starting DM.

 

[DevilRed]

Change the central midfield and I bet you will see us actually play some football.

At the end of the day, we have absolutely nobody who can join up defence and attack. We are just wide open in midfield. Nobody respects Fred or McTominay. They are weakenesses to be exploited and thats exactly what happened today.

Would also be great if we could get rid of Dalot too, who is so far from the required level. Even AWB is better ffs.

 

[Irwin99]

We never look functional. Are we just doomed?

I was surprised when Ralf said the level of technique in the team is good but the physicality is lacking and was the biggest problem. To me our technique is decent but hardly levels above Brighton and hardly enough to match the best in Europe.

 

[BlueHaze]

This is a really sad but true fact. Nearly every single team in the league has a better midfield than ours with McShiteney and Freddy Krueger. Stupid nicknames aside try name 3 teams in the league with a worse midfield than ours.

 

[cyberman]

It’s midfield, it’s glaringly obvious. We could have the best defence in the world but what chance do they have when Brighton just walked up the pitch to the edge of the box without doing anything special?
We finally pegged them back when the attackers had Eriksen and Martinez to recycle the ball back to and it wasn’t just square passes over and back.

 

[Castia]

Completely disagree. We needed 2, perhaps even 3 to replace Maguire, Lindelof/Varane, McTom and Fred on last season's performance or we werent going to finish above where we finished last season

We have 1. A questionable 2 if we got De Jong as he probably doesnt solve it either

Mate replacing Maguire must be one of the last things this club is looking at, there’s more chance he signs a bumper contract than gets sold. He’s captain and starting 40 games this season without a doubt.

City regularly play Ake and Stones if there’s one place on the whole pitch we can compare players it’s at CB

Maguire 80m
Varane 50m
Martinez 55m

Meanwhile McFred start every game…..keep buying a CB every summer I’m sure after 500m it will start to click.

 

[Mwooyo]

The fact that we still have phil jones as player in the squad answers all the questions. We would rather keep such a player inorder for our finances to look good to shareholders rather than just terminate the contract like any footballing club would do. Inter milan terminated sanchez's contract. Juventus did the same to aron ramsey. Meanwhile at united, we have these lousy dead players still on the books...players who casually play 2 or 3 games a season and still get paid. We did this for mata, lingard etc. We rather keep them on the books rather than just get rid of them

Mcfred are still our starting midfield because of the exact same reasons. Rather than realising that they will never be good enough footballing wise and replacing them after 1 or 2 seasons max....here we are, 5th season hoping they suddenly become good. Its crazy

 

[Melvin Udall]

Players aren't good enough. It's not that difficult.
Ralf told us about these players and we ignored him.

This. This. This.

I’m not going to blame ETH, even if he fails this season, but he needs to wake up and realize that we don’t have anything close to FDJ in this squad. Starting McFred basically guarantees that we won’t get champions league, and will struggle to beat organized mid table teams like Brighton.

We needed 4-5 players who were ready to contribute to a push for top 4, and stay around for several years. Malacia might be good in time, but he is not ready yet. And Eriksen has quality, but he won’t be around in a few years. Martinez is the only one who fits the mold. We need 3 more, but the season has started already, and the window closes in 3.5 weeks.

 

[GOAT 777]

Because Malcolm Glazer' sons are running the club.

They are rich kids from New York, clueless about the Football we play over here.

That's why.

 

[jamesjimmybyrondean]

The answer is so simple and obvious. Get better technical players. Technicality is everything now in football especially for big teams. Just look at the impact Eriksen had when he dropped deeper. It's really that simple.

 

[Dannn411]

Because these are in our starting XI:

DDG
Shaw
Maguire
Dalot
Fred
Mctominay
Bruno
Rashford

all are shit

Its literally this. Nothing else. Get rid of this lot or move them to the fringes of the team (Particularly Maguire, Dalot, Fred and Mctominay) and significant improvement will follow. We have wasted so much money on utter dross over the last decade. So much money wasted. Any public company run in this manner would have fired all the executives and cut all these players a long time ago.

 

[Mailo]

1: Low technical level
2: Low intelligence players

 

[Von Mistelroum]

We have very technically poor players. Starting right from the back with De Gea who can't handle pressure at all. As soon as there's the slightest amount of pressure, our players panic because they don't have the technical skill to deal with that.

If the opposition don't pressure us too much (like in preseason games) then we can do a little passing. Although then if they sit back, we can't break through due to aforementioned lack of technical skill and composure.

Finally, the players are also pretty lazy on the whole and do not want to have to work too hard.

The only answer to these problems is new players and enough of them to change the team dynamic. The issue with this is that the owners don't want to spend much money and it seems to have run out unless we can sell some garbage for the price of gold.

 

[Catt]

Think it's a combination of a few factors. Quite a few of the players obviously aren't good enough, but also years of poor coaching and lacking in confidence

 

[AFC NimbleThumb]

Only way we get better is if we allow EtH to build his team from the ground up & don’t lumber him with ‘club assets’. Prime example is Shaw, contract ends soon & is wrangling for a contract, it’s clear he isn’t good enough so we should be offloading but people fell in love with his one good season so we’ll re-up his contract & wonder why 5 managers in he’s still delivering mediocrity.

We’ll get better at football once we start buying better footballers.

 

[Redfrog]

Because we only change managers when its clear as day half the starting squad needs to be shipped for not being good enough for several seasons now.

Shaw
Rashford
McTominay
Fred
Dalot

We just change managers thinking they'll turn them into world class players whereas they've been exposed several seasons now under different managers.

You can add a new striker and a new goalkeeper as well ! And I wouldn’t mind shipping Bruno too, he is abysmal. That’s seven or eight players only for the starting team.

 

[Ekeke]

Mate replacing Maguire must be one of the last things this club is looking at, there’s more chance he signs a bumper contract than gets sold. He’s captain and starting 40 games this season without a doubt.

City regularly play Ake and Stones if there’s one place on the whole pitch we can compare players it’s at CB

Maguire 80m
Varane 50m
Martinez 55m

Meanwhile McFred start every game…..keep buying a CB every summer I’m sure after 500m it will start to click.

Stones was one of the best CBs in the league the season before last as City won the champions league.

I guess if we stop wasting money based on how well we've spent it, instead of based on how bad the quality we have in each position is then we shouldnt spend any money at all. Barely any of our signings in the past 10 years have been worth the money

 

[Catt]

@AFC NimbleThumb when's Shaw's contract up?

 

[Delano]

Aside from the obvious, its because we have a mishmash of players signed under different managers to play different brands of football. Which has now changed again.

This club is terrible at signing players because it has zero direction. It's all done by the managers. Who are constantly changing.

Rangnick was spot on when he spoke about creating a system and scouting players for it. It's not fecking rocket science and I hoped we'd learned our lesson with EtH, but if Arnautovic is the answer, we're either fecked, skint or both.

 

[Redfrog]

Only way we get better is if we allow EtH to build his team from the ground up & don’t lumber him with ‘club assets’. Prime example is Shaw, contract ends soon & is wrangling for a contract, it’s clear he isn’t good enough so we should be offloading but people fell in love with his one good season so we’ll re-up his contract & wonder why 5 managers in he’s still delivering mediocrity.

We’ll get better at football once we start buying better footballers.

I feel like you. And no players should be indispensable. The manager should be allowed to build his team without consideration about assets.

 

[Beans]

All our players need a touch to control the ball before they can pass, so we can't pass through a defense like a top team, that delay allows the defense to recover.

Players can't shield the ball and turn, so when pressed we only go backward. People don't dare get that close to all of City's or Liverpool's players.

If we can't connect defense to attack, it doesn't matter how good our attackers are. They're not getting good service. A lack of creative FBs doesn't help, most top teams use their overlapping FBs to huge effect.

 

[Castia]

Stones was one of the best CBs in the league the season before last as City won the champions league.

I guess if we stop wasting money based on how well we've spent it, instead of based on how bad the quality we have in each position is then we shouldnt spend any money at all. Barely any of our signings in the past 10 years have been worth the money

Oh I agree 100% I think we need at least 6 new players but my point was on prioritising positions we’re desperate for midfielders and attackers. We’ll have 200m worth of centre backs in the squad but our attack will consist of Elanga and Arnoutovich.

 

[Skills]

In the grand scheme of things I don’t think we even needed a CB as priority. We have Varane on the bench and Lindelof not in the match day squad, those 2 options are a million miles ahead of anything we have in reserve for midfield or attack.

We’ve spent about 170m on CB’s in the past 3 summer windows, why can’t they realise prime Cannavaro and Nesta would look bang average with that midfield in front of them.

Agreed. It was a terrible signing to make this summer.

 

[Murder on Zidanes Floor]

I feel like this is not talked about enough. I remember Pep talking in a video or something about the angle of the pass, and how important it is. Pass the ball at the right angle, you keep the momentum and overrun the defense. We just pass the ball to get rid of it and that's it.

When you watch a game the pitch is landscape in view, now every pass is flat (more towards the bottom of the screen) than to the sides if that makes sense. Now 100% vertical passes can't be done all the time and you have to go wife but we go wide at 70 degrees rather than 45 degrees if that makes sense.

 

[gza the genius]

We're still a long way off but I think it was pretty telling that our only good spell in the game came when Eriksen was dropped deeper. We have no midfielders good at any of the things you'd want from a midfielder.

 

[Zlaatan]

Replace our two starting midfielders and we'd be a much, much better team. We'd still have issues but we'd be far more competitive.

This and this again.

 

[fergiewherearethou]

Let's buy 2 good CM's for starters and we may become at least decent.
Don't think it can happen though, we're too late in the transfer market now and I don't think we can afford them anyway.

 

[K Stand Knut]

I’m glad someone made this thread because I had something to say and didn’t know how to start it as a new thread.

There has been loads of mentions on here recently about the club choosing a style of player to buy the players to fit that style of play.

Has anyone thought that the club wants to play this exact style of play because today could have been the opening game from any of the last 3 seasons.

What have the coaching team, and therefore the manager worked on for the past weeks to be able to see that nothing has changed? Bar Martinez, it was almost an identical starting XI and the same dross being served up

 

[Murder on Zidanes Floor]

Watching the City game and they never, unless up the pitch or under no pressure, play a pass to the man nearest them

 

[Valencia Shin Crosses]

1) Body position of our players.
2) Passing to the wrong side of the body, behind them when advancing up the pitch.
3) Zone of the pitch players occupy, they don't vacate that area and when they do, they it's chaos.
4) Lack of technique when passing, just lazy, lacks zip, angle and spin is wrong.
5) Passing angles are too flat/horizontal and played to slow, instantly triggering the other teams press. Verticality of our passing is worst in the league.
6) We never move towards the ball when a pass comes into a player, we wait for it to arrive, allowing teams half a second to set.
7) Touch is really bad combined with the ball being received at the wrong angle.
8) We are always square on to players with the ball - you never should be at amateur level yet at pro level, here we are.
9) No off the ball movement. And when there is the lack of passing vision and technique means we don't make the pass.

Yeah all of this pretty much. When you don’t get these things right, it snowballs into needless giveaways, slower attacks, missing opportunities to attack, and eventually a disjointed shit show of a game.

McFred, Rashford, Bruno are the main culprits of this stuff. This is the shit that gets ignored over a period of time because fans see a good result or a player score, but the foundation has never been there and for all the ideas and changes ETH can make, he can’t turn players from technically poor to quality. It’s why Pep at every club ships out a ton of players and initially all he buys are technical quality at every position. THEN you can go buy the shiny new striker after you have the foundation set

 

[Scarlett Dracarys]

We have a defender who plays people onside that allows them to score a goal...

 

[Redfrog]

This. This. This.

I’m not going to blame ETH, even if he fails this season, but he needs to wake up and realize that we don’t have anything close to FDJ in this squad. Starting McFred basically guarantees that we won’t get champions league, and will struggle to beat organized mid table teams like Brighton.

We needed 4-5 players who were ready to contribute to a push for top 4, and stay around for several years. Malacia might be good in time, but he is not ready yet. And Eriksen has quality, but he won’t be around in a few years. Martinez is the only one who fits the mold. We need 3 more, but the season has started already, and the window closes in 3.5 weeks.

Even if we are in relegation zone by December, I won’t blame Ten Hag. He has proved to be good at Ajax while almost all our players have proved jack all.

 

[AFC NimbleThumb]

@AFC NimbleThumb when's Shaw's contract up?

Next Summer [2023, I believe there’s an option to extend so really 2024] so we’re in that wrangling for a new contract phase when we should be cutting ties & wishing him the best at the end of the season.

 

[DutchSerb]

Because we have a defense with no chemistry, a midfield with no creativity and an attack with no confidence or supply of proper balls from said midfield. The thing that irks me the most about us is that we don't seem to have the ability to move on quickly from certain players that don't match the clubs ambition/standards, to the point where we need to ask ourselves right now what our standards really are. People can say a lot about Chelsea, but they don't have problems with this. Lukaku? Take your loss. Werner? Moving on. But we still stick to Rashford, Shaw, Maguire. It's so depressing.