They brought that stat about United in last nights game, one of those little boxes in the corner they like, more to highlight Stoke I think, but I noticed us in there. I sat there opened mouthed. You have just confirmed it and it makes worrying reading. Yes our goalie saves out necks yet again. Yes we probably get more chances now, but other teams are getting more. Worrying stuff because if Jose thinks everything is Ok it will only go one way. We need to be stopping teams getting these chances, we need to create more and we need to be putting more of those chances away. Sounds simple. Sure it isn't though.xG melts my head but I can understand shots and saves so I looked those stats up.
De Gea has made the sixth highest amount of saves in the league. Arsenal, Spurs, Chelsea, Liverpool and City are in the 16th through to 20th places, respectively.
We're also in 6th place when it comes to shots at the opposition goal. The five clubs just mentioned are all ahead of us in this particular table. By quite a margin (53 shot gap between 1st and 5th, 83 shot gap between 5th and 6th) Unsurprisingly, they're also all ahead of us in terms of "big chances missed". City, Liverpool and Arsenal have all hit the woodwork more than us (Spurs the same amount)
Full credit to our strikers for being efficient and Dave for being Dave but the overall balance of play is not what you'd expect from a team that is allegedly the second best in the country. All the other "big teams" are getting at the opposition keeper more than we are and protecting their own keeper better than us. Points on the board are great but there's every indication we've been flattering to deceive at both ends of the pitch.
Jose Mourinho | 2017/18 Assessments | Poll Added
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Feck knows. But what I do know is that the stats I just dug out paint a pretty grim picture.
I've been a bit obsessed about shots on goal since the grim days of Van Gaal's final season. For the record, we finished 15th () in the shots table in that season!
Our individual shots stats are interesting. Sanchez is our highest player, in 6th place (top 5 are, in order: Kane, Salah, Aguero, Richarlison, Eriksen) I can only assume Alexis racked up most of his shots in an Arsenal shirt (including a whole bunch against us!) Lukaku is right behind him, in 7th place. After that we have to go all the way back to 23rd for the next United player (Pogba) and then on to 38th place for our next representative (Rashford)
Yeah, that period of 15-16 around December time is imprinted in my brain for how fecking insipid we were going forward mounting anything that might even resemble an attack.
At least Mourinho's better than that, whatever we might think of him...
Agreed completely with the bolded bit. Obviously a fantastic night for any United fan but slightly misleading for us to hold that up as evidence of our capability when up against top opposition, or as an example of our absolute best selves.
Yeah, that period of 15-16 around December time is imprinted in my brain for how fecking insipid we were going forward mounting anything that might even resemble an attack.
At least Mourinho's better than that, whatever we might think of him...
Aye, it’s stats like that which remind me how bizarrely @Wumminator has been behaving with his Chemical Ali “everything is fine” head in the sand stuff right to the bitter end of Van Gaal’s reign, followed by constant shitting on Mourinho from the very first hint of adversity.
Feck knows. But what I do know is that the stats I just dug out paint a pretty grim picture.
I've been a bit obsessed about shots on goal since the grim days of Van Gaal's final season. For the record, we finished 15th (
Our individual shots stats are interesting. Sanchez is our highest player, in 6th place (top 5 are, in order: Kane, Salah, Aguero, Richarlison, Eriksen) I can only assume Alexis racked up most of his shots in an Arsenal shirt (including a whole bunch against us!) Lukaku is right behind him, in 7th place. After that we have to go all the way back to 23rd for the next United player (Pogba) and then on to 38th place for our next representative (Rashford)
The rest of our forwards rotate, Lukaku plays every league game.
So which of my points were not sensible?
How does that explain the midfielders and defenders at other clubs who are so far ahead of their peers at United in that table?
You mean our central midfield? Who is meant to be shooting? Apart from Pogba who has missed league games as well. I think we do shoot less than other teams anyway. I was just making a point about Lukaku vs our other forwards.
Lingard does shoot quite a bit but Mkhi played a lot at the start as well.
And that is why the City game feels like some random giant killing act, as if we were some little part time team fluking a win against Real Madrid in some Roy of the Rovers story. We are Manchester United for feck's sake.
We went to City with SAF with some cowardly ass tactics as well aimed at not conceding? On paper they were better then us then, same applies now, only off paper it applies now 2....
You wonder if DDG is starting to get fed up of always having to make these saves and the slightest mistake might cost us the game because we do not score enough most of the time at the other end. It must irritate him watching the other team coming his way so much.
Must be used to it by now, we’ve had 5 years of this shit.
Has it been forgotten that we should have had a penalty in the first half against West Brom? A goal in the first half would have completely changed that game and forced them out of their third.
xG melts my head but I can understand shots and saves so I looked those stats up.
De Gea has made the sixth highest amount of saves in the league. Arsenal, Spurs, Chelsea, Liverpool and City are in the 16th through to 20th places, respectively.
We're also in 6th place when it comes to shots at the opposition goal. The five clubs just mentioned are all ahead of us in this particular table. By quite a margin (53 shot gap between 1st and 5th, 83 shot gap between 5th and 6th
Full credit to our strikers for being efficient and Dave for being Dave but the overall balance of play is not what you'd expect from a team that is allegedly the second best in the country. All the other "big teams" are getting at the opposition keeper more than we are and protecting their own keeper better than us. Points on the board are great but there's every indication we've been flattering to deceive at both ends of the pitch.
That's why the standard retort of "well we're in second, so..." is such a superficial one. It ignores all the nuances and other things that a standard league table doesn't tell you. It also wilfully ignores the main grievances of fans (or at least my perception of what the main grievances are), which has more to do with a lack of direction and a lack of any discernible style of play.
So when they play badly its them and need to be weeded out, but its on him when they play well here or there? That sounds about right for Jose..
Look over the season, who can we unarguably claim has been a success, with only the occasional bad game or patch of form?
De Gea, Matic, Lukaku. De Gea is not on him, hes the best in the world. So 2 players? You could make a case for Young and Lingard as well, more so Lingard, although he seemed to just catch fire during the season. Every other players has question marks hanging over them. Sorry, thats on the coach, not individual players.
Think the stat also proves that those teams attack more and defend by keeping the ball in the oppositions half, where we more often than not invite them on, hence DDG's stats, just hoping the other side give us the ball and we get the ball up field as quick as possible and hopefully score a goal.
If anything it makes him look better really, gives him more action in that sense. Although i'm not sure he would actually want to be busy? never really asked a GK that before lol.
Sure he would like the ball to be up the other end a bit more, just like the fans.
We are 2nd in the league.....not 6th....you don't get and be in 2nd all season if he hasn't got them playing well or at least winning the majority of the games. The odd horrific drop in performance is not on him in these circumstances...yeah if we were fighting for 4th place!
I used to be a keeper (actually came out of retirement to play a game recently) and can confirm that I would actively hope for the ball to come down my end of the pitch. I think all keepers just want to be involved as much as possible, even though they mightn’t admit it out loud.
Yeah, i mean it's a very passive way of playing. You hand the initiative to the opposition.
Jose deserves another season. Partly because we've seen progress, and partly because there's no clear alternative without taking a big risk.
There's two aspects to it. The first is the style of play and in that regard it's pretty dull. Not as bad as LVG, but it doesn't take much to beat that. I assume it's fair to say that Jose cares about results more so than the style. It's a doubled edged sword as when you are winning then you can point to that and most fans will be placated. However when you don't get the results (the second aspect) then fans are less likely to stay content if the football is dire.
On the other hand are the results. Results wise our progression is undeniable in the league, which was most peoples' first priority. We'll also be in the CL for 2 times in a row so despite our poor outcome this time around, next year is a chance to build and hopefully progress further. If Jose is a results driven man then results is what he should ultimately be judged on. Sooner or later the title or the CL will have to come. The other cups are nice and I'm glad he's showing them a lot of respect because clubs should aim to win everything. However it's widely accepted for his tenure to truly achieve success, that the league or CL is the primary requirement. 2nd or even 3rd place is a good step up from last season.
Next season is where it gets interesting though, what do we consider acceptable? Personally I would say that if Utd don't win the league then we should finish at least within 5/6 points of whoever does. There's perhaps a case to be made that the bare minimum should be the league next season. If this time next year we're as far away from the League/CL as we are now then I'd start considering parting with Jose. Maybe by that time a strong candidate wil become available. There can't be any more excuses now. If he feels he's trusted players and been let down then this summer is the time to clear the deadwood and bring in replacements, and to further bolster in Jan. If he's still playing makeshift wingers as fullbacks next season then that's on him IMO.
There's two aspects to it. The first is the style of play and in that regard it's pretty dull. Not as bad as LVG, but it doesn't take much to beat that. I assume it's fair to say that Jose cares about results more so than the style. It's a doubled edged sword as when you are winning then you can point to that and most fans will be placated. However when you don't get the results (the second aspect) then fans are less likely to stay content if the football is dire.
On the other hand are the results. Results wise our progression is undeniable in the league, which was most peoples' first priority. We'll also be in the CL for 2 times in a row so despite our poor outcome this time around, next year is a chance to build and hopefully progress further. If Jose is a results driven man then results is what he should ultimately be judged on. Sooner or later the title or the CL will have to come. The other cups are nice and I'm glad he's showing them a lot of respect because clubs should aim to win everything. However it's widely accepted for his tenure to truly achieve success, that the league or CL is the primary requirement. 2nd or even 3rd place is a good step up from last season.
Next season is where it gets interesting though, what do we consider acceptable? Personally I would say that if Utd don't win the league then we should finish at least within 5/6 points of whoever does. There's perhaps a case to be made that the bare minimum should be the league next season. If this time next year we're as far away from the League/CL as we are now then I'd start considering parting with Jose. Maybe by that time a strong candidate wil become available. There can't be any more excuses now. If he feels he's trusted players and been let down then this summer is the time to clear the deadwood and bring in replacements, and to further bolster in Jan. If he's still playing makeshift wingers as fullbacks next season then that's on him IMO.
No wonder he hasn't gone to Madrid. DDG must be having the time of his life in our goal plus the insane amount of attention the media gives his every save
It is how he wants us to play, no matter what he says. The players might not be doing it right, but even with players who do carry out his instructions it is not an attractive way to play. He might get better players but it will still be boring as hell.
All the saves he makes are great if we win, but when we don't the saves get forgotten in the outrage over the result.
I think he has tried at both Chelsea 2nd time and United to change his ways, but ultimately his strengths don't lie in long term planning. He made it pretty clear from early in his career he wanted a European tour then something more longer term but his attempts at it don't seem to be working out.
This is what he said shortly after we lost to Everton early into his return
"We have to build a team full of talented players without the experience and the football philosophy born of having worked together for a long time, going in one direction looking for an identity. The process has to end with a team, a philosophy, an identity, a style of play. If we win a match but not in the style we're trying to build, it's three points, one step up the table but one step back in the direction of our work. What we want to do is both things at the same time. If we'd gone to Everton [on Saturday], had a very bad match and, in the last minute, Leighton Baines had scored an own goal and we'd won 1-0, would we be happy? In normal circumstances, yes, but when you're trying to build something different? No."
Six months later he abandoned all of it to secure the top 4 then the title the next season, basically doing the total opposite of what he preached in that quote. The second half of the title winning season things got really bad and every single point we earned was due to a big moment from either Courtois or Hazard, often both. We gave him the benefit of the doubt that we were going down that route to get the title done and he'll look more long term in the summer, but as is well documented, that wasn't to be.
I feel he then went into the United job with the intention of fulfilling a legacy, i imagine he saw the Matt Busby way sign and felt to himself "i want a bit of that", i believe he would have loved to have done 15 odd years at United and got similar status to the big two but ultimately he's not a builder like a Fergie or for the present day say a Klopp (Klopp won't ever be a manager for instant success like Jose has been to balance that out).
I think both Chelsea and United made the mistake of appointing him with the direction the club wanted to head in the total opposite of his management style. If you appoint him accepting who he is and that it's a 2/3 year fix from the off then there's still (even now) a top manager in there but this idea of long term with Mou just will never happen.
I would say a job with a similar remit to Inter circa 2008 would be just what he needs right now.
I am not exactly a big fan of Jose especially in last few years.
But, I noticed you usually give a manager a fair amount of time before you give out your opinion either way. It happened like that with all the managers since SAF. Now, reading your posts about jose made me uneasy as in the past whenever you posted about Moyes, LVG after some time, we went pretty deep south. And which means your optimistic posts about them earlier usually were not on point.
Here I am hoping his 3rd season would be a bit different. But history of jose tells us it probably would not. We could be seeing same shit shows both on and off the pitch.
I am not exactly a big fan of Jose especially in last few years.
But, I noticed you usually give a manager a fair amount of time before you give out your opinion either way. It happened like that with all the managers since SAF. Now, reading your posts about jose made me uneasy as in the past whenever you posted about Moyes, LVG after some time, we went pretty deep south. And which means your optimistic posts about them earlier usually were not on point.
Here I am hoping his 3rd season would be a bit different. But history of jose tells us it probably would not. We could be seeing same shit shows both on and off the pitch.
It City go away from us again, it could see a full meltdown, so let's just hope we are up there with them and he is in a happy mood.
Yeah, I try to reserve judgement as long as possible. Partly because I prefer being optimistic to being pessimistic for the sake of my own mental health. Partly because I genuinely believe it can take a season or two for a manager to turn things round and it’s unfair to completely write him off in his first season, no matter how grim things look (which ended up making me look borderline deluded during Moyes’ disastrous reign)
All of which means that if/when I do run out of patience I’ll end up doing exactly what I was slagging other caftards off for doing, earlier in the manager’s reign. Mea culpa.
FWIW I haven’t completely given up on Mourinho yet. We have improved on last season and it’s possible that he can fix things over the summer. This belief is very much more in hope than expectation, mind you. Deep down, I forsee nothing good coming out of his time in charge. Depressing but there you go.
Clutching at straws. We shouldn't be that pathetic against bloody West Brom regardless of the odd decision here or there.
No, he wouldn't, for different reasons. However, he did manage Real Madrid and was very successful, and would easily win with any of them if given the opportunity. Your turn to answer.
Yeah. We have to hope City would not have similar season like this one next season and the pool, the spur etc would not improve much. Pretty much relying on other teams so that our lord does not do self-destruction in and out of the club.
The Jose we got and we see now is not the same one from years ago as many people said a million times before. Throwing everyone from CEOs to ground staff whenever we loses should worry everyone especially the reaction to that has not been positive for a long time. No one likes to work in that kind of toxic environment constantly. Happy workers are good workers. It applies with football clubs too no matter how much these guys get paid and should be doing their jobs bla bla.
And, we don't know if he will be successful yet but if not, his shit might stink us for years long after he leaves us. Which is what I am concerned.
City will be better next year...this idea a Pep team will take a step back given the average age is based on what....?
Think only the very optimistic would think City will get worse next season. He wants to retain the title, which they have not done before and will desperately want to win the CL, something he couldn't manage at Bayern.
Based on people not taking a look at City's age column. We on the other hand rely on a lot of players who have peaked. An argument could be made that we are more prone to decline than they
Whether or not any team has a better season next year will be based on a lot more than their average age. If, say, De Bruyne misses as much football as Pogba did this season then there’s an excellent chance they’ll struggle to repeat this season’s points total, never mind beat it. They’ve also been very reliant on Aguero and he might not be willing to have another season with a status that doesn’t match his contribution.
It's not clutching at straws. It was 100% a penalty. It's a pity when more people on here seemed to wish City had a penalty against us than recognising that we were blatantly denied one the other.
It's still clutching at straws. We should have been dominating Westbrom. We're not going to hang out hats on some penalty decision when we created next to nothing all match long and looked bereft - again - under Mourinho.
Nobody wanted or wants City to have had a penalty. Most United fans recognize that the Young tackle was a penalty though. We are not deluded or fanboys. This type of post is a little alarming. What is it with Mourinho fanboys and their frantic meltdowns everytime their hero is criticized?
The majority on here seem to mention they won't hit the same heights next year. If they smash it again they'll say the same about the next season. Is it wrong that part of me wants them to smash it just to ram that notion back down people's throats?
Not really. Think some need a reality check, but I am a glass half empty type.
They won't be adding 2 new full-backs ala us no doubt...a right winger and a CM.....They are now settled and have won it as a group. They'll buy well no doubt and buy big.....they don't have to change half as much as we do....everything points towards us not scoring the same points as this season if anything bedding in major components of a successful team!
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