How did this team lose 4-0 against Brentford?

It was perfect, in a way. We were so awful last season, I think the players had to show ETH first hand everything they were doing wrong.

This game and the city defeat, where ETH made big mistakes, have lead to clear and quick responses. Amazing, really.
 
Hangover from last year is the only thing. Team fragile on confidence, stupid 1st goal conceded and then collapse
 
It was a freak result made by many mistakes from us, I said it then and I am saying it now, that result is far from realistic portrayal on that game.
 
Brwned said:
It seems incredible a team that can be this good were able to be that bad.

I know we’ve added some quality since then, but really, how did things get that bad?
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2 big reasons. Casemiro and Ronaldo.

Eriksen played as the holding midfielder that day which didn’t work. Rashford was coming off the back of having a terrible season. Early days.
 
I guess it shows how important organisation and team work are in football. Which of course is partly derived from having top coaching, so long as the talent level is sufficient to fulfill the technical requirements. Once you get those things in place, you can build confidence.

I mean, we kind of intuitively know that you need these things, but when you see a turnaround with largely the bulk of the same squad to this degree (yes I know we've made a couple of key signings), it drives that point home. When we played Brentford we simply had none of this. It was just a bad hangover of the Ralf/Ole era.

Sometimes we get obsessed with individuals and signings, and yes you obviously do need the quality, but I think the managers work of "building" and "rules" as he calls it cannot be underestimated.
 
Think it's also worth saying, we needed that loss, it highlighted all of our issues and also probably won ten Hag the respect of the players when he joined them on that 13.8km run in training.
 
The number of thrashings we've had in the previous two years where the opponents scored 4 goals or more meant there was a lot of damage left from that (think it was eight times that happened or something like that?). The Liverpool performance was the real beginning of turning it around.

Even the 6-3 defeat against City was a bit different as we fought a lot better in the second half.
 
Brwned said:
It seems incredible a team that can be this good were able to be that bad.

I know we’ve added some quality since then, but really, how did things get that bad?
Click to expand...
reminded me how angry I was at Murtough travelling around in Europe pretending to sign players. Imagine, if at that point, we already bedded in Casemiro and Antony, we might not have lost that game would be much closer to Arsenal now. Looking back, things work out fine and we probably needed that lost for the board to approve the transfer of Casemiro and Antony and for the ETH to bond with the team post lost.

It wasnt the same team too, we had Maguire and Ronaldo starting then and is like playing with 9 men with their form at that time. The defender couldnt defend and the attacker that couldn't attacker.
 
stoinz said:
reminded me how angry I was at Murtough travelling around in Europe pretending to sign players. Imagine, if at that point, we already bedded in Casemiro and Antony, we might not have lost that game would be much closer to Arsenal now. Looking back, things work out fine and we probably needed that lost for the board to approve the transfer of Casemiro and Antony and for the ETH to bond with the team post lost.

It wasnt the same team too, we had Maguire and Ronaldo starting then and is like playing with 9 men with their form at that time. The defender couldnt defend and the attacker that couldn't attacker.
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Yeah it's a shambles how we can't do business until 2 or 3 games in every season. Like there will be talk about how crucial every game is and how you can't afford to drop points... yet we go into the first few games of seasons again and again half complete with shells of a team. We're actually top of the league if we win those two games instead of losing them.
 
Feels like Ronaldo ruined all the confidence in the team. ETH has given it back.

Ole was not great and ETH much better, but we still ended second with him and then got Ronaldo and all confident lost and the mentally got worse.
 
Paul_Scholes18 said:
Feels like Ronaldo ruined all the confidence in the team. ETH has given it back.

Ole was not great and ETH much better, but we still ended second with him and then got Ronaldo and all confident lost and the mentally got worse.
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Ten Hag is clearly a better coach but interesting how if United had got Casemiro instead of Ronaldo that summer after we finished 2nd. Casemiro seems the sort of player that could adapt to any system and coach by pure mentality, McTominay was holding us back and Ronaldo wouldn’t have come in and ruined squad harmony.
 
How did a lot of improbable things in the past happen? We drew 5-5 with West Brom in Ferguson's last match. Bayern completely outplayed us at the Camp Nou but we scored on two corner kicks in stoppage time. We were up on City by 8 points with just a few matches left and they beat us to the finish line.

All you can do is chalk up stuff like this to the vagaries of life.
 
That defeat might have been the best thing that happened to us in terms of our long-term development and shape. The rotten apples in our team were exposed then and now one has left and the other continues to warm the bench.
 
DRJosh said:
That defeat might have been the best thing that happened to us in terms of our long-term development and shape. The rotten apples in our team were exposed then and now one has left and the other continues to warm the bench.
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Excellent points.
 
It was too early for players to get ETH's philosophy plus individual and childish mistakes. If you put this team right at the beginning of the tournament I'm 100% sure we'd win the Premier League.
 
DRJosh said:
That defeat might have been the best thing that happened to us in terms of our long-term development and shape. The rotten apples in our team were exposed then and now one has left and the other continues to warm the bench.
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"Can a loss be a win?" :lol:
 
It happens. We had better teams under Ferguson who lost heavily too.
 
Well, if you compare the result before and after Ronaldo leave, you will know they are the same name but not the same team
 
On a more serious note - bad management and bad team spirit leads to bad performances. It’s pretty simple really.
 
Nobody has mentioned him, so I will. We didn't have Weghorst then.

All kidding aside, to his credit ETH changed his style of football and adapted to the team. There is a pragmatic element to our football. The next step in our evolution will be, once we get a controller CM, controlling games like his Ajax did, like city and Arsenal do.
 
Brentford are a pretty good side and they thumped other good sides as well.
 
I'd say we weren't even this team before the world cup, never mind against Brentford. No prizes for guessing what changed.
 
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