Got to stay positive mate. At least we’re only still 2 points of the top 4 and above Liverpool still.
How important is it for us to avoid a major thrashing by Liverpool or City this season?
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So would it of made a difference if we lost only 1/2-0? We’d of still lost the 3 points. The only bad thing to come from it is the GD. We’re still only 2 points from top 4 and still above Liverpool… even if we’d of lost 10-0 the outcome would still of been the same.
It literally doesn’t I was there today and I was over it before half time even. In fact I found today much better than the 2-0 at Old Trafford last season where they clearly didn’t even try.
The best team in the world on paper can hammer you on any given day. It happens. If anything a total annihilation like today you can shrug off and say it was one of those days where everything went in.
I'd hate seeing a thrashing by either of those clubs but if it was a one off you just shrug and chalk it as a bad day. The big scoreline defeats keep happening though and it's almost as if the fan base has become desensitized to it. Obviously everyone's pissed off that we lost to City but for over a year now we're losing quite a lot of games very very badly and with very heavy defeats and shocking performances. I wonder sometimes what it's doing to our player's confidence to keep going through this.
The mental scars of the last season are still there. It will take time to come out of this stretch.
I think they almost become ingrained into a clubs identity. Probably because the PTSD is hard to get rid of - fans get nervous that they're about to see their club get hammered again. It's impossible to shake off.
Arsenal have been the same for about a decade. As good as they have been this season, you wouldn't be too shocked to see them getting smashed for a few by Liverpool next week.
i noticed this trend, it always seems to be a horrible month, you left out that really horrible 4-0 against Chelsea in 16/17, we conceded in the the first minute and it was all downhill from there in that game.
More telling will be the return fixture. No one was really expecting us to win and we played with the intention, however naïve it was, to attack. The big losses last season were even more shocking to think they were with us setup to counter.
When they had nearly 70% possession at our place last season was the worst I’ve seen us behind the Pool game.
When they had nearly 70% possession at our place last season was the worst I’ve seen us behind the Pool game.
We have more thrashings in us than any other top 6 team. We just seem really vulnerable to a collapse, like our confidence is built on the thinnest material known to man. Since the spurs 6-1 just two years ago we must’ve been on the end of nearly 10 absolute drubbings.
Interesting. We also lost 5-0 to Chelsea in Oct 1999 and 4-0 to them in Oct 2016.
Hopefully this is just a sorely-needed lesson for Ten Hag. I remember Pep got beaten 4-2 by Leicester and 4-0 by Everton in his first season. Klopp also lost 3-0 to Watford in his first season and got beaten 5-0 at the Etihad in his third season (although in that case Mane got sent off at 1-0... still, that was a drubbing!!).
I don't mind the losses as long as the performances improve. Utd need to get the performances right first, then the results will come. Focusing on the results at the expense of performances is short-term thinking and will get us nowhere in the end. I wasn't particularly enamoured with the performances against Liverpool and Arsenal last month. The results were great, sure, but there was a strong whiff of recent seasons about them and that's not what we need ultimately. I'd rather Ten Hag get beaten trying to implement a front-foot style rather than eke out results playing on the counter. It'll be painful, but in the end pain is necessary for the type of growth this club needs.
In an ideal World yes, I like the idea of sacrificing results for the greater purpose, but in today's football managers are always on borrowed time and it's very important how soon the results start to be as expected.
Very good point this. Being an absolute laughing stock in the age of social media is much worse than in the 90s and 2000s. Young players and up and coming players will see how bad we are, will see the memes. It’s really bad we need to sort this out quickly
Yeah we have one of weakest mentalities in the supposed big six of this league, look at the hammering we have taken compared to scousers or Chelsea
Yeah and still gotta play Spurs & Chelsea, this month is seemingly when we collapse like a deck of cards in league games.
It absolutely must be priority, you certainly don't want this kind of scoreline to become a regular occurrence and to build confidence for future title challenges you want your team to be at least somewhat competitive with the big boys head to head so you could entrench the belief that they're almost there.
The last game wasn't too bad, they seemed to try somewhat in the second half and it could be chalked off as an one off but seeing how many hammerings we've got over the last year and half is quite worrying ...
The last game wasn't too bad, they seemed to try somewhat in the second half and it could be chalked off as an one off but seeing how many hammerings we've got over the last year and half is quite worrying ...
International break did us no favours, but also we are the lesser team right now, and City are probably the best around. Thank god for Pep's CL choking, because otherwise they easily enter the best club side ever conversation. We also got a little unlucky with the goals we conceded in the aftermath of the Varane injury, but this was going to be a thrashing either way IMO. Told my brothers weeks ago, that regardless of what happens in this game, we're a work-in-progress, and we finally have a plan.
I do think this squad needs a very good psychology team to be working very actively with them, and I particularly feel this way after the recent Bruno interview with The Athletic. They go into 'Oh no, it's happening again' mode just because of the what they've been through across terrible management, planning and their own shortcomings in the past. And it's easy to say that they're millionaires and players at the top level and they need to figure this out by finding their own strength, but the truth is that it's unlikely to happen. It's the one area where damage control needs to happen far more actively.
I do think this squad needs a very good psychology team to be working very actively with them, and I particularly feel this way after the recent Bruno interview with The Athletic. They go into 'Oh no, it's happening again' mode just because of the what they've been through across terrible management, planning and their own shortcomings in the past. And it's easy to say that they're millionaires and players at the top level and they need to figure this out by finding their own strength, but the truth is that it's unlikely to happen. It's the one area where damage control needs to happen far more actively.
25 is my breaking point, Wouldn't be able handle 28.
Its important to avoid major thrashing from anybody ffs 
I feel like we have always got this in us, even when we were good. I remember pre-oil Chelsea beating us in the 90s/early 2000s 5-0 and Newcastle doing the same. It happens to actual good teams sometimes. At the moment I genuinely feel ETH is improving us and I’m prepared to take the odd battering. I’m not even that bothered about Sunday to be honest. City are excellent right now. And a bunch of sports washing financially doped cnuts. If it had been Liverpool though…..
It wasnt just a thrashing it was an abject destruction, it could have been 10. It's not acceptable, and the blame starts with ETH and really poor team selections. Having said that he inherited a flawed squad, but amount of money spent on some players makes me nervous. He needs to be able to do better with a squad that cost more than Citys.
Definitely why I'm so worried specially if you add games like Watford or Leicester or Brantford more recently it seems to have become a habit.
Every big team has an outlier result in them and it could come out of nowhere but they're just that, outliers, we have gotten a lot of them recently and it's very worrying.
I like ten hag too but definitely he tries to avoid these kinds of results in the future even if he has to set his team negatively in the big games.
https://www.redcafe.net/threads/humiliating-defeats-can-become-an-difficult-habit-to-reverse.466470/
I made this thread last year which got locked. I said it at the time - once you lose that aura as a great club, it's close to impossible to get back. It's why these results should be a once in a decade outlier, rather than the habit they are now.
We are basically Arsenal, and I don't know if it's possible to come back from it.
You were certainly onto something, I don't even think Liverpool in their 3 decade drought faced as many drubbings as we've had in the past two years.
It's still the early days in ten hat's reign so hopefully he'll reverse course before it's too late.
Yeah they truly are financially dopers FC, however we need to start getting the recruitment right because wasted far too much money in last 3 years alone.
Getting back on topic we have far too many of these kind of defeats, so need to stop that happening which if necessary involves a more sensible approach.
Yeah that loss was hard to take, it was Mourinho coming back to Bridge too so even more horrible for him.
fecked by both again I guess.
Enjoy it lads, some of you guys really seem to enjoy these
Enjoy it lads, some of you guys really seem to enjoy these
Depressing thing is I can’t ever imagine us thrashing either of these like they do with us.
We're all even so that's alright I suppose .
2 for 2. Ole/Ragnick would have been proud.
I cannot get my head around how the team that plays so well in the Nou Camp gets so utterly battered at the Etihad, Anfield and even Brentford, as well as being completely outplayed at the Emirates. Bizarre.
Getting a pasting off Liverpool is becoming a regular occurrence which needs to stop immediately. We never seem to be able to do the same against them either, even the rare times we do outplay them we seem to miss a ton of easy chances and games where we should’ve scored 5 or 6 usually end with us only converting 2 or 3. It’s vital we sign a quality striker in the summer.
the regularity with which Liverpool smash Utd at Anfield or OT over the years is bizarre, think I’ve seen Utd beat them by +3 in the league like maybe twice in my lifetime
Right? Its so wierd. Even in their worst period in the 90s, they always turned up against us.
And here we are, every season, rolling over for them
Depends how we finish the season I guess.
At the start of the season if you told me we’d win a minor cup and get top 4 but get battered away at City and Pool I’d have bitten your hand off.
At the start of the season if you told me we’d win a minor cup and get top 4 but get battered away at City and Pool I’d have bitten your hand off.
Yeah that always annoys me. It's probably near 50-50% in terms of wins in the PL era but it never feels like we put them to the sword ever, we either dominate a low scoring game or just scrape past them when we win.
The 4-0 at OT in 2003 is the only one i can think of and they had a player sent off in the first two minutes. A few 3-1s in the 90s too. 3-0 in 2008.
We might have City coming in the FA Cup again imagine getting thrashed by them in a final? 
For the most part, our concern has always been winning leagues than the rival game twice a season. Yes, it's supposedly the biggest game of the season but usually it's Liverpool that raise their game for it. Unless it's a cup game, think our record against them in cups (under Fergie) was quite good. Recent years it's been a bit awkward cause they are now the ones chasing titles and we are still not turning up.
I hope we can keep the scoreline respectable in the FA cup final.