Is this the worst run of awful football since Fergie retired?

I think the parallels with LVGs second season are very accurate

We had glimpses of brilliance.... remember the period beating Spurs 3 nil then going to Juanfield. Genuinely one of the best post-Fergie performances. Everything clicked there performance wise and Liverpool chased shadows that day.

how many games though did we end up with 1 or 2 shots on target? We were very boring to watch in spite of having some real quality in attack. The cup game at home to Sheffield United will be forever etched in my memory in terms of 2 hours lost

certainly some parallels with the way we've played at City/Anfield/Emirates and struggled to be productive in front of goal
 
You need to make room for some deliberate and serious mental gymnastic to say 'NO' here, no matter how you slice it. This dude makes LVG looks positively attacking.
 
He has only taken over for less than 2 months. Judge him next season.
 
I think something fundamentally changed in Ole’s last season. That was the first year when it just felt normal for the team to lack application, effort and mental fortitude on a consistent basis. In ETH’s first year, we got a bit of a new manager bounce but more importantly, we had a few players like Casemiro, Martinez, Rashford and Bruno who helped paper over the cracks but since the last third of that season we’ve reverted to the prior season’s levels and now even worse.

Essentially what we’ve seen in this period of around 3 or so years is a club whose mistakes have fully caught up with it - from recruitment / contacts to managerial hiring / planning and vision. We’re now truly paying for all those blunders and hence we look a tactically, technically, physically and mentally broken team.

We need at least 3 strong summers to arrest this malaise as I don’t see minor steps taking us anywhere.
 
I'm old, i remember United under Atkinson. They were poor then, but they tried and no matter what they had Robbo. That alone gave a club a head start. What a player he was, people talk about Keane yet he was Keane with skill.

This current side is easily the worst I've seen in my lifetime and it's not even close. I can think back to about 85-87 when Everton were a top team.
 
I honestly don't think it's worse than ETH's worst runs. I'm not going to pretend we're good at the moment, but at least we haven't been completely spanked by 4+ goals or given up multiple goal leads regularly like we did at times before.
 
Ibi Dreams said:
I honestly don't think it's worse than ETH's worst runs. I'm not going to pretend we're good at the moment, but at least we haven't been completely spanked by 4+ goals or given up multiple goal leads regularly like we did at times before.
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Yes agreed, mostly also because we almost never had 'multiple goal leads regularly'.
 
Idxomer said:
I don't think it has ever been worse, not even in the last days of Mourinho, Ole or Rangnick.

It doesn't seem like this team can perform even at 50% of their abilities.
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At least in those cases, we were talking weeks and months. Now we're closing in on two whole seasons of awfulness, and it's been getting steadily worse.

Don't really see the point in separating out Amorim's period. We were pretty much just as bad this season before he arrived.
 
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justsomebloke said:
At least in those cases, we were talking weeks and months. Now we're closing in on two whole seasons of awfulness, and it's been getting steadily worse.

Don't really see the point in separating out Amorim's period. We were pretty much just as bad this season before he arrived.
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Basically since we won the league cup vs Newcastle. Been awful since!
 
Andy_Cole said:
Basically since we won the league cup vs Newcastle. Been awful since!
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Yep. And, it's a new threshold this season. Before that, "awful" always meant hovering somewhere not much above 10th. Now it means hovering somewhere not much above 15th.
 
Patience is sadly lacking in the modern world. This win now or else mentality will result in far more failures than long term options of strength. I understand that fans need to see a product that they can associate with and admire, even if results take time to develop in a positive manner but give the guy a chance - it is not his squad, the system is completely different and he has been there a little over five minutes. If you are not aware, Manchester United is NOT a quick fix.

Perhaps by the middle of next season, once another transfer window has passed and importantly, the players get a full summer of learning the Ruben Amorim system, then, the judges can finally be allowed to sharpen their pencils. Until then, it is ridiculously unfair to do so.
 
Yes, when you consider that this is happening at the start of a new manager's reign. I've not tuned out of our matches so quickly under a new manager.

When Amorim played Dorgu on the right and started Dalot on the left is when I realised that I'm not seeing the vision.

Still early days, mind, but I think for the more cynical, Amorim just put himself on fraud alert with that move.
 
Ibi Dreams said:
I honestly don't think it's worse than ETH's worst runs. I'm not going to pretend we're good at the moment, but at least we haven't been completely spanked by 4+ goals or given up multiple goal leads regularly like we did at times before.
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Not worse, but not pretty also. The only thing that feels better is that it often looks like the team is trying to play football in an organized, coherent manner. Players simply cant or wont. Tempo is bad, technique is lacking. Didnt have this feeling with eth, seemed more random.
 
Ibi Dreams said:
I honestly don't think it's worse than ETH's worst runs. I'm not going to pretend we're good at the moment, but at least we haven't been completely spanked by 4+ goals or given up multiple goal leads regularly like we did at times before.
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Is it really fair to compare the overall standard of Amorim's tenure to the worst of ETH's time here?

There's too much recency bias where our ex-managers are concerned. Aside from the disaster at Anfield in his first season we were fairly solid.

We only lost one game at Old Trafford in 22/23 and based on home form were second only behind City. This season we've lost seven games at home, five of which game under Amorim. We've won only two - Everton & Southampton, and have been beaten 3-0 by the likes of Bournemouth.

I want him to succeed but the lengths some go to (I'm not saying this applies to you by the way) to excuse him of everything that goes wrong and blame everything on the last manager is absurd.
 
Ibi Dreams said:
I honestly don't think it's worse than ETH's worst runs. I'm not going to pretend we're good at the moment, but at least we haven't been completely spanked by 4+ goals or given up multiple goal leads regularly like we did at times before.
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The thread was made during Ten Hag's bad run in his 2nd season. I think there were only two legitimately good performances in the first half of that season, against Chelsea and Aston Villa.
 
I don’t think it’s the worst run of football but it’s definitely the weakest a post-Fergie United team has ever been in terms of morale and self-belief.

Amazing what the mind alone can achieve both on and off the pitch.
 
DRJosh said:
I don’t think it’s the worst run of football but it’s definitely the weakest a post-Fergie United team has ever been in terms of morale and self-belief.

Amazing what the mind alone can achieve both on and off the pitch.
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I would say the weakest in terms of quality also. I am not saying this to defend Amorim because he has underperformed but I think us fans need to lower our expectations. This squad is not of top 4 quality. In my personal opinion not even top 6.

There might be potential for more in this squad when the younger players develop but right now it isn't very good at all.
 
I would say the whole of last season was the worst run, last season was atrocious, the worst football I have ever seen any team play EVER! ok we got 8th but we were very lucky to get 8th it could have easily been 14th.

I am more positive about this season even if the results are worse, because:
  • there have been glimpses of what we could do with the right players,
  • INEOS look to have a plan to get rid of ridiculous wages, sign players at the right time and price
  • Time will tell, but it feels like a this is actually the start of a real change in the way we operate as a club, taking player power away, building something sustainable
  • This is the first time it actually feels like a project not a sticking plaster
 
Yes it is a bad run, it was bad in the 80s at times but we has a decent league form for bit under Big Ron , won FA cups but then SAF came in and bloody hell it was poor for seasons , but we all know what happened when you get a squad of players singing off the same hym sheet.
That needs to happen again only time will tell.
 
Perhaps it's just a sad case of having gotten used to such outcomes by now but the ragnick days felt much worse.

LVG's tenure was also mostly quite boring although mitigated by the fact that we rarely got humiliated if at all.
 
Zed 101 said:
I would say the whole of last season was the worst run, last season was atrocious, the worst football I have ever seen any team play EVER! ok we got 8th but we were very lucky to get 8th it could have easily been 14th.

I am more positive about this season even if the results are worse, because:
  • there have been glimpses of what we could do with the right players,
  • INEOS look to have a plan to get rid of ridiculous wages, sign players at the right time and price
  • Time will tell, but it feels like a this is actually the start of a real change in the way we operate as a club, taking player power away, building something sustainable
  • This is the first time it actually feels like a project not a sticking plaster
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Good points these mate, I agree with what you have written here.
 
buckooo1978 said:
I think the parallels with LVGs second season are very accurate

We had glimpses of brilliance.... remember the period beating Spurs 3 nil then going to Juanfield. Genuinely one of the best post-Fergie performances. Everything clicked there performance wise and Liverpool chased shadows that day.

how many games though did we end up with 1 or 2 shots on target? We were very boring to watch in spite of having some real quality in attack. The cup game at home to Sheffield United will be forever etched in my memory in terms of 2 hours lost

certainly some parallels with the way we've played at City/Anfield/Emirates and struggled to be productive in front of goal
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The stuff in the first paragraph was in his first season.
 
buckooo1978 said:
I think the parallels with LVGs second season are very accurate

We had glimpses of brilliance.... remember the period beating Spurs 3 nil then going to Juanfield. Genuinely one of the best post-Fergie performances. Everything clicked there performance wise and Liverpool chased shadows that day.

how many games though did we end up with 1 or 2 shots on target? We were very boring to watch in spite of having some real quality in attack. The cup game at home to Sheffield United will be forever etched in my memory in terms of 2 hours lost

certainly some parallels with the way we've played at City/Anfield/Emirates and struggled to be productive in front of goal
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LVG second season though we were solid at the back, boring but solid. 35 goals against all season (22 so far with Amorim for reference). The current worry is the real issue under ETH of teams cutting through us is still there, it is lessened by keeping the ball there but it still happens way too often.
 
Ibi Dreams said:
I honestly don't think it's worse than ETH's worst runs. I'm not going to pretend we're good at the moment, but at least we haven't been completely spanked by 4+ goals or given up multiple goal leads regularly like we did at times before.
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Yeah I feel the same. It's been pretty dire recently, but nothing approaching the levels of the Palace game last season nor the various violations administered by the likes of City and Liverpool (and even Spurs this season) under ETH.
 
Andy_Cole said:
Basically since we won the league cup vs Newcastle. Been awful since!
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That is so true. Up until that final, we were right up there in the league, the performances were good and we were scoring goals.

That should have been the moment when we kicked on, but instead the club has gone backwards. I often wonder if the win against Newcastle did more harm than good.
 
Salfordlad70 said:
That is so true. Up until that final, we were right up there in the league, the performances were good and we were scoring goals.

That should have been the moment when we kicked on, but instead the club has gone backwards. I often wonder if the win against Newcastle did more harm than good.
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I don't think it did harm. I'd pin it on the bullshit around selling the club which took like a year. In that time we went backwards. We probably should have sacked Hag around 12 months earlier than he did get sacked when it was 6+ months of horrid form.
 
Zed 101 said:
I would say the whole of last season was the worst run, last season was atrocious, the worst football I have ever seen any team play EVER! ok we got 8th but we were very lucky to get 8th it could have easily been 14th.

I am more positive about this season even if the results are worse, because:
  • there have been glimpses of what we could do with the right players,
  • INEOS look to have a plan to get rid of ridiculous wages, sign players at the right time and price
  • Time will tell, but it feels like a this is actually the start of a real change in the way we operate as a club, taking player power away, building something sustainable
  • This is the first time it actually feels like a project not a sticking plaster
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I like this.
 
I am looking for the team to really click and for all the training to start to pay off. I think we have a really likeable coach who seems to connect well and have the backbone to do what needs to be done. I hope the click (winning games in a row on the trot) comes soon.
 
What frustrates me the most about United in recent years is the lack of a clear identity when it comes to playing style, recruitment, and managerial appointments. All successful dynasties have one thing in common: a clear identity built throughout the club, from youth teams to the senior squad and management. We should be scouting managers to fit an already established playing system. It’s simply not sustainable to overhaul an entire squad just because a new manager wants to play with wingbacks and no wingers. What happens in a year when Amorim is back managing in the Portuguese league? What do we do with the five wingbacks left in the squad and no wingers?

ETH has already wasted absurd amounts of money on players who will barely fit into the new system. It’s baffling how incompetent you can be when making decisions involving hundreds of millions of pounds. Once again, the lack of football knowledge in leadership is glaringly obvious. What even is “The United Way” in terms of playing style and tactics?

Our current playing style is some of the worst I’ve seen since Sir Alex left. Every single ball has to go through Maguire. We play backwards more than forwards, and I honestly don’t see how this system is meant to work in the Premier League. Half the time, I feel like the only success we’re aiming for is passing the ball around in a back five while all 11 opponents are behind the ball. Sure, it might work against weaker opponents, just like Sporting in the Portuguese league, where 8 out of 10 games are against teams with extremely low quality – half of them probably work part time as electricians and plumbers.

But the Premier League is completely different. Look at Nottingham Forest – they play a clear, no-nonsense system. They go long when needed and play short when needed. And they work there a** off. They get a lot out of very little, and honestly, I wish United played similar football.
 
MUEricTheKing said:
Our current playing style is some of the worst I’ve seen since Sir Alex left. Every single ball has to go through Maguire. We play backwards more than forwards, and I honestly don’t see how this system is meant to work in the Premier League. Half the time, I feel like the only success we’re aiming for is passing the ball around in a back five while all 11 opponents are behind the ball. Sure, it might work against weaker opponents, just like Sporting in the Portuguese league, where 8 out of 10 games are against teams with extremely low quality – half of them probably work part time as electricians and plumbers.
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I watched several Sporting matches when they were still under Ruben Amorim. The one thing I noticed, above all else, was that they very rarely went backwards with the ball. It was such a positive system and they were excellent at dissecting opponents with diagonal balls. Given time, hopefully Amorim will also have United playing with more positive intent and especially, once a few more better suited arrivals are added to the squad, better end product.
 
TRUE NUMBER 9 said:
I watched several Sporting matches when they were still under Ruben Amorim. The one thing I noticed, above all else, was that they very rarely went backwards with the ball. It was such a positive system and they were excellent at dissecting opponents with diagonal balls. Given time, hopefully Amorim will also have United playing with more positive intent and especially, once a few more better suited arrivals are added to the squad, better end product.
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TRUE NUMBER 9 said:
I watched several Sporting matches when they were still under Ruben Amorim. The one thing I noticed, above all else, was that they very rarely went backwards with the ball. It was such a positive system and they were excellent at dissecting opponents with diagonal balls. Given time, hopefully Amorim will also have United playing with more positive intent and especially, once a few more better suited arrivals are added to the squad, better end product.
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It’s easy to play forward when the opposition is so weak. But there are no easy opponents in the Premier League; every team is super well-organized in their pressing. I honestly can’t see anything positive in the style of play United has at the moment. We have no deep runs, so everyone receives the ball with their back to goal—especially the wingbacks and center forward. This often leaves no options moving forward.It results in pointless ball circulation in the back five, occasionally involving a central midfielder, and ends with a hopeless long ball to our number 9, who’s got two defenders hanging on him.

I’m so tired of teams insisting on playing out from the back at all costs, even when it’s obvious the opposition is fully prepared for it and sends everyone forward to press. Just play a ball in behind the defense and give them something to deal with so the game doesn’t only happen in front of them. There’s nothing easier to defend against than a team that never runs or plays deep.

It makes you long for the Solskjær days—at least back then, we actually played the ball forward.
 
MUEricTheKing said:
It’s easy to play forward when the opposition is so weak. But there are no easy opponents in the Premier League; every team is super well-organized in their pressing. I honestly can’t see anything positive in the style of play United has at the moment. We have no deep runs, so everyone receives the ball with their back to goal—especially the wingbacks and center forward. This often leaves no options moving forward.It results in pointless ball circulation in the back five, occasionally involving a central midfielder, and ends with a hopeless long ball to our number 9, who’s got two defenders hanging on him.

I’m so tired of teams insisting on playing out from the back at all costs, even when it’s obvious the opposition is fully prepared for it and sends everyone forward to press. Just play a ball in behind the defense and give them something to deal with so the game doesn’t only happen in front of them. There’s nothing easier to defend against than a team that never runs or plays deep.

It makes you long for the Solskjær days—at least back then, we actually played the ball forward.
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The games I was talking about were mostly in the UEFA Champions League (Manchester City, PSV & Sturm Graz), so hardly what you would call weak opposition. Obviously, they can dictate against poor league teams but he had Sporting playing attractive football against everybody. If he was not a good coach, then why have the subsequent managers at Sporting been unable to simply carry on thrashing all before them? They inherited the same team...

All I say is give him some time, maybe, just maybe, United will start to entertain you again.
 
TRUE NUMBER 9 said:
The games I was talking about were mostly in the UEFA Champions League (Manchester City, PSV & Sturm Graz), so hardly what you would call weak opposition. Obviously, they can dictate against poor league teams but he had Sporting playing attractive football against everybody. If he was not a good coach, then why have the subsequent managers at Sporting been unable to simply carry on thrashing all before them? They inherited the same team...

All I say is give him some time, maybe, just maybe, United will start to entertain you again.
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True all that. And the last thing Manchester United needs now is to embark upon another managerial musical chairs and get rid of him given the sack-happy practices since Sir Alex left have taken the club on a downward spiral.

If the same attitude had prevailed when the then plain Alex Ferguson struggled for some time and heard cries of `Fergie Out!`, then history wouldn`t have been written.

Time for the Manchester United owner and board to dig in and give significant time to the new manager. Real Madrid etc can get away with managerial musical chairs but it should be obvious by now that it`s been nothing but toxic for United to do this.
 
ryansgirl said:
True all that. And the last thing Manchester United needs now is to embark upon another managerial musical chairs and get rid of him given the sack-happy practices since Sir Alex left have taken the club on a downward spiral.

If the same attitude had prevailed when the then plain Alex Ferguson struggled for some time and heard cries of `Fergie Out!`, then history wouldn`t have been written.

Time for the Manchester United owner and board to dig in and give significant time to the new manager. Real Madrid etc can get away with managerial musical chairs but it should be obvious by now that it`s been nothing but toxic for United to do this.
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For me, it is the only way to give a fair chance to Amorim. Sadly, in these "everything on a silver plate handed to me NOW" times we live in, patience is a rare virtue. Yes, I fully understand that it is a results driven business, above being a sport but long term thinking and planning is the only way to go. Switching managers but keeping substandard players just will not work. Time for a total reboot which fortunately, appears to have possibly started.
 
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