He does have a Plan B, it's called hoofing it to Fellaini and it has worked in patches. Teams sit back because it's the best way for them to get a win. The best way for us to win is doing what the manager wants us to do. Louis van Gaal, with all his history of success, are we to believe that he doesn't know how to play against teams which sit deep and attack us on the counter? This isn't a tactic unique to English clubs, is it?
Louis van Gaal's tactics
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He does have a Plan B, it's called hoofing it to Fellaini and it has worked in patches. Teams sit back because it's the best way for them to get a win. The best way for us to win is doing what the manager wants us to do. Louis van Gaal, with all his history of success, are we to believe that he doesn't know how to play against teams which sit deep and attack us on the counter? This isn't a tactic unique to English clubs, is it?
This has to have something to do with coaching and preparation.
Tell them not to deliver shit crosses and learn how to control a ball, or score a penalty?
Well that's just silly and you would've looked foolish saying that 2 games ago when we were cutting teams apart at will.
We are lacking the pace, power and directness you mention. That is a personnel issue.
The players we are being linked with clearly point to Van Gaal's desire to rectify this (Bale, Depay etc.).
He should have buy the needed midfielder this winter, our tweaked midfield is shit. Fellaini creates nothing, Rooney creates nothing and Herrera plays too deep to creates something with his tools.
The problem isn't tactical.
This is the kind of shit we used to laugh at Arsenal for.
I agree, stats don't lie we've been poor up front. However, of those 3 losses, the only game where we didn't create any chances whatsoever was the Everton game. Even today, we were poor going forwards but we still did enough to win. The fact that we didn't despite getting a penalty is on the players, not the manager.
We're 4 points ahead of Liverpool and it's not as if they have an easy run-in. Chelsea away, Palace at home and Stoke away. They will drop points. It was always coming down to the last week or 2.
Possession with no penetration are the exact attributes of a manager that's past it.
Do you really not think it's part of LvG's coaching approach that instead of trying to beat a man, or try anything of risk where god forbid we may surrender possession in the final 3rd, we patiently pass around their defence waiting for space that never actually materialises because ... hey, its all just so predictable?
I agree with a few additions in the summer this style could work much better than what we saw today, but its not a stretch to question why we came out in 2nd gear again, patiently passed ourselves to nowhere in the first 60minutes, frustrated the crowd, and only responded once we conceeded, that for me is down to LvG.
The stubbornness in terms of sticking to the same personnel and system despite a bad run is very much what Wenger used to get criticised for.
We've become that Arsenal. Passing for passings sake.
I'd quite like the bit about Arsenal that gets the job done most of the time against the lesser teams though.
The more I cool off from the game the more I think that we just had terrible luck today. We did have a lot of chances but our finishing was some of the worst I've seen all season. RvP's penalty was horribly taken as well. On top of that, WBA's free kick was also incredibly lucky for them. That was a bizarre deflection.
On most days, with the amount of chances we had and ball control, we would have scored a few goals and would have comfortably won. These type of games just happen.
I don't know, just trying to look at things less negatively. Or am I just a fool and trying to justify things?
Then again, there was a lot of aimless passing with no penetration. When teams sit back like this van Gaal really needs a back up plan, and he does not have one.
On most days, with the amount of chances we had and ball control, we would have scored a few goals and would have comfortably won. These type of games just happen.
I don't know, just trying to look at things less negatively. Or am I just a fool and trying to justify things?
Then again, there was a lot of aimless passing with no penetration. When teams sit back like this van Gaal really needs a back up plan, and he does not have one.
Once again I have to question his in game management was, some of the changes he makes are quite baffling. Like moving RVP to midfield, then moving Rooney to no.10 and putting Fellaini upfront. What was that?
It's clear to see he's still worried about the balance though, he was just talking about it yesterday but West Brom were happy to sit back and let us have the ball.
It's not just about the tactics though, I don't think his comments after the Chelsea game were good, IMO it led to the players being complacent, something he complained about after the Everton game. But to not make changes to lineup or the tactics after losing two games is very poor management.
I know we should not compare the two, but Fergie would very often change his lineup after losing a game, felt that LVG should have made changes today.
It's clear to see he's still worried about the balance though, he was just talking about it yesterday but West Brom were happy to sit back and let us have the ball.
It's not just about the tactics though, I don't think his comments after the Chelsea game were good, IMO it led to the players being complacent, something he complained about after the Everton game. But to not make changes to lineup or the tactics after losing two games is very poor management.
I know we should not compare the two, but Fergie would very often change his lineup after losing a game, felt that LVG should have made changes today.
Since footballers are basically overpaid primadonnas these days, and majority dont play for a shirt, just for their paycheck. What separates the great managers from the average is to keep overpaid footballers, on their toes, not to let them accept defeat, and if they do, come back even stronger
Traits which both SAF had and Mourinho, and then how they instill it into their players, the excuses about it not being the managers fault make no sense. Until West Brom scored our players where happily passing the ball around the middle of the pitch with their 75% posession, when they should be going to kill the game from the get go, not just when the other team scores
Traits which both SAF had and Mourinho, and then how they instill it into their players, the excuses about it not being the managers fault make no sense. Until West Brom scored our players where happily passing the ball around the middle of the pitch with their 75% posession, when they should be going to kill the game from the get go, not just when the other team scores
Go for goal from the first minute rather than playing to make them fall asleep. Training them to take chances with through balls or taking on defenders rather than passing sideways or benching players for taking risks.
Fellaini is normally plan B for a van Gaal team but became plan A this season, we've seen he tried to switch it up in the 2nd half. It just didn't work out today.
He isn't helped by constantly having to change our midfield because of injuries, I'm sure he doesn't want Fellaini-Herrera-Rooney as his first choice next season. He has to put Rooney in there because of the 'balance', we lack defensive minded midfielders who can play if Blind and Carrick are out. Fellaini has his strenghts but is a unique player who needs to be used accordingly, we just didn't have the options for that today.
I'm pretty sure we won't see Di Maria in midfield any time soon, if at all. He's much better with freedom, in midfield he would be too restricted so Rooney gets the nod over him since he's better defensively. This is why he already said he wants a new CM, we're very light on the defensive options. As per 'philosophy' he won't put a team out there who's lightweight in the middle because that'd be suicide with our possesion based style.
We couldn't break the wall down today, didn't think it had much to do with tactics. We got close, but not close enough. We'll get beat like this more often in the future under van Gaal in stead of being outplayed, we'll need to become more consistent. Another bad day at the office, but I'm not going overboard because of this.
He isn't helped by constantly having to change our midfield because of injuries, I'm sure he doesn't want Fellaini-Herrera-Rooney as his first choice next season. He has to put Rooney in there because of the 'balance', we lack defensive minded midfielders who can play if Blind and Carrick are out. Fellaini has his strenghts but is a unique player who needs to be used accordingly, we just didn't have the options for that today.
I'm pretty sure we won't see Di Maria in midfield any time soon, if at all. He's much better with freedom, in midfield he would be too restricted so Rooney gets the nod over him since he's better defensively. This is why he already said he wants a new CM, we're very light on the defensive options. As per 'philosophy' he won't put a team out there who's lightweight in the middle because that'd be suicide with our possesion based style.
We couldn't break the wall down today, didn't think it had much to do with tactics. We got close, but not close enough. We'll get beat like this more often in the future under van Gaal in stead of being outplayed, we'll need to become more consistent. Another bad day at the office, but I'm not going overboard because of this.
He'll probably get another transfer window, throw another 150 million at our problems and get sacked by next Christmas.
We need a RB, experienced CB, CM, a winger and probably a striker too, and that's after last summer's 150 million.
We need a RB, experienced CB, CM, a winger and probably a striker too, and that's after last summer's 150 million.
Is that supposed to be encouraging? There is no chance we win the league unless we stop losing matches like this.
Frustrating again today.
All this possession is fine when we play against teams that show some ambition. It leaves gaps and gives us room to pass around.
When we play against teams that just want to hit on the break, as we saw with Chelsea, Everton and now west brom, its all well dominating possession, but our style of play wont work.
We are drilling balls into the box, but as every player is back for them, it generally gets cleared one way or another.
Against these teams that show no ambition, lets attack with more directness as if they win the ball back, it doesn't seem to long until we get it back, so in these cases, forget the dominant possession
All this possession is fine when we play against teams that show some ambition. It leaves gaps and gives us room to pass around.
When we play against teams that just want to hit on the break, as we saw with Chelsea, Everton and now west brom, its all well dominating possession, but our style of play wont work.
We are drilling balls into the box, but as every player is back for them, it generally gets cleared one way or another.
Against these teams that show no ambition, lets attack with more directness as if they win the ball back, it doesn't seem to long until we get it back, so in these cases, forget the dominant possession
No, but van Gaal plays this possesion based football so you can have days like this. I just think we'll be beat more often like this than that we'll be outplayed much. I'm not suggesting we'll be beat regularly, if we can get some cover to critical area's (defensive midfield) he won't need to play players out of position as much and we'll probably be able to deal with these games better. We started with Fellaini-Herrera-Rooney in midfield, that's hardly balanced but he didn't have much choice, I don't believe for a second this is ideal for him.
Normally a Fellaini type is his plan B for his style of football, but as he's our plan A currently he couldn't change much - although he did change it up a little. It wasn't a poor game today, we played decent but didn't take our chances and they scored by a deflected freekick, sh*t happens. I don't see the need to be overly pessimistic after today.
I guess the tactics was not the problem. Ruud would have scored 4 goals today and the perspective would be completely different. We need that kind of a striker.
Definitely not. It's a real problem that we can't adequately replace Carrick when he is injured and it is hurting us two fold. Defensively he is immensely important to us which means to cover for his absence Herrera needs to play deeper which in return hurts us attacking wise and defensively he isn't really and adequate replacement for Carrick either.
Carrick's absence is completely destroying our midfield balance atm and we really need to find a way to fix this in the summer and I'm sure LvG will try to do exactly that.
Really feel in games like today, LvG is happy to set up his team with passive possession and hopes one of his *big* players pulls something out of the bag, rather than actively setting up going for the jugular from the start, it's completely alien to the DNA of Manchester United.
I think we must be the only team to have 3 proper forwards but play a midfielder as a striker and two strikers in behind that midfielder. "Tactics".
Let's start with the obvious.
Everyone knew West Brom would set up to defend with 10 men behind the ball, that they'd be thrilled with a scoreless draw and if they were going to conjure up a scoring chance it either be from a counterattack or a set piece.
We must all be in agreement, so far.
With no Carrick, a hard adjustment was required. Louis chose to bring Rooney back into midfield, but a better option was available.
De Gea
Valencia Smalling McNair Young
Mata Herrera Blind
Di Maria RvP Rooney
Caftards, West Bro (today they've earned the right to be called Bro!) were never, ever going to overrun us in midfield and batter our back line today. We could have easily positioned Young at left back, allowing him to overlap and Blind better positioning with Herrera, thus allowing Roo to serve in his preferred goal scoring role.
Start Di Maria. Rooney left is necessary if we're going to play RvP. That is, if we're interested in scoring goals.
The glaring omission is Fellaini, but we were never going to beat Bro with a route one game, flattered by meaningless possession stats. Even if Fellaini wasn't poor today he was simply unable to create anything, including any chances from a knockdown ball.
Louis had to be more flexible and start outthinking lesser managers like Martinez and Pulis. We know what's coming, we know we've been losing to clubs who park the bus on us and yet we keep doing the exact same thing in the name of the FEE-LAH-SO-FEE. It's time to think outside the box, maybe take a page of Clausewitz instead of the impenetrable Hegel, as the room for comfort has shrunk. We can pick up two wins out of the next three games, but if we plod along with the same philosophy/tactics we could lose all three...with or without Carrick.
Everyone knew West Brom would set up to defend with 10 men behind the ball, that they'd be thrilled with a scoreless draw and if they were going to conjure up a scoring chance it either be from a counterattack or a set piece.
We must all be in agreement, so far.
With no Carrick, a hard adjustment was required. Louis chose to bring Rooney back into midfield, but a better option was available.
De Gea
Valencia Smalling McNair Young
Mata Herrera Blind
Di Maria RvP Rooney
Caftards, West Bro (today they've earned the right to be called Bro!) were never, ever going to overrun us in midfield and batter our back line today. We could have easily positioned Young at left back, allowing him to overlap and Blind better positioning with Herrera, thus allowing Roo to serve in his preferred goal scoring role.
Start Di Maria. Rooney left is necessary if we're going to play RvP. That is, if we're interested in scoring goals.
The glaring omission is Fellaini, but we were never going to beat Bro with a route one game, flattered by meaningless possession stats. Even if Fellaini wasn't poor today he was simply unable to create anything, including any chances from a knockdown ball.
Louis had to be more flexible and start outthinking lesser managers like Martinez and Pulis. We know what's coming, we know we've been losing to clubs who park the bus on us and yet we keep doing the exact same thing in the name of the FEE-LAH-SO-FEE. It's time to think outside the box, maybe take a page of Clausewitz instead of the impenetrable Hegel, as the room for comfort has shrunk. We can pick up two wins out of the next three games, but if we plod along with the same philosophy/tactics we could lose all three...with or without Carrick.
Have to say, very concerned after today, the approach to try and win a match against an inferior team was shocking, not good enough for Manchester United, we never tried hard enough to win the game, it was very conservative, we have the personnel in our squad to terrorise but it was toothless, given the stakes this will have been noticed by the hierarchy surely, it was disgraceful.
So Brendan Rodgers was right? Again?
Did the same thing with Rooney and Di Maria a while back, it's fecking bizarre, no excuse for it.
Cryable
Neither. However considering what was spent in order to improve the team, I expected a hell lot better from us as a solid group of guys after that great run against Spurs, Scousers and the Berties.
Moving RVP into midfield and we actually looked better than we did in the first 45 minutes, again, in football, all that matters is a win. When we win, no one argues about certain players being out of position etc.It's when you lose that everyone starts bringing out these useless information. We were playing West Brom, not Barcelona. We could have had RVP as CB and still won on another day.
So we had Roo and RVP playing deep with Fellaini centre forward when we needed a goal, it was so anti Manchester United it was sickening to look at, it has to be questioned, 3 defeats in a row and served that shit, not good enough.
LVG is clueless!!!!
Am I doing this right?
Am I doing this right?
You're not a fool. That is exactly what happened today. Against Everton, we played poorly but today we were unlucky. But shh! you are talking to people who after a defeat conclude that everything is wrong with everything. Tactics, players, manager, physio, medical team, owners you name it. Our finishing was not good enough and the longer they had something to hold onto, the deeper they sat and made it even more difficult. The stupidest argument is that we don't know how to play against teams that sit back because when looking at our record at OT this year, it simply boggles the mind how little energy people expand in making a valid argument. We beat teams regularly at OT and most of them came to sit deep and defend in numbers but you will be unlucky at times especially if you are not the finished article and again I don't understand why would anybody think we are. Oh and we used to laugh at Arsenal because they have been doing the same thing for 10 years. We are talking about a couple of games where that happened now (Everton, we simply played poorly IMO) and one of them against the to be champions who could nullify the best team ever. To say people are acting like hormonal teenagers is an insult to teenagers.
This is probably one of those very very naive posts I have ever seen. Your opinion is so flawed on so many levels, but here are a few examples:
1. You're not sure what he could have done to prevent this from happening: Well think how a good manager can do, and think how players of our level can execute his instructions. Then you might know for sure what LvG can do to prevent a pathetic loss, at this stage of the season hoping just for top 4, which is hardly a huge challenge by United's standard
2. We had the ball the whole game and conceded a shit goal that van Gaal surely couldn't in any way prevent:
A clue: How about scoring two goals then that conceded goal wouldn't matter? Having possession the whole time means nothing when you don't score. Epic LvG philosophy fails if he thinks possession is > than scoring
3. Our attacking players had no idea how to break West Brom down: Heres a clue: WBA is hardly a giant team we have never played before. Any homework done on how to play them at home would make it easy to break them down. Our attacking players do not know how to play to win, and its not the manager's fault. Come on it does not need a PhD to understand that.
4. we had absolutely no luck out there: the penalty and brilliant save of their goalie of RvP's volley was our lack of luck but to say we were just out of luck today not winning or drawing is rubbish. We had absolutely no plan B but more importantly what about plan A, to play a proper game using our players in their best position and motivating them to play their best. It has a lot to do with training and preparation. Everybody knows that.
If LvG does not improve himself, his players will continue to be clueless in scoring.
One more ! would make your point more poignant.
LVG is clueless, needs to go!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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