Why was that win dedicated to Ole? We were an absolute mess under him, with clear favouritism shown to a number of players.
Such an odd thing to say.
Such an odd thing to say.
Michael Carrick | 2021/22 Interim-Interim Manager Performances
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As he admires the man. If you don’t understand it then take a look at yourself!
He comes across as an intelligent guy who knows what he is doing, even if he is not the most vocal. We had a plan last night, and there was some resemblance to our trademark European away performances.
Hoping there is some transfer of his vision and class as a player into managerial acumen. Focus on the substance quietly.
Hoping there is some transfer of his vision and class as a player into managerial acumen. Focus on the substance quietly.
Also realised just now that this 4-4-2/4-3-3 hybrid is what SAF used in 08/09 to get the best out of Ronaldo. Its different now. Back then Ronaldo was a winger who didnt track back, so you had 2 hard working CFs, and the winger on the other side tucking in, into the midfield making it a 4-3-3. We initially used Fred yesterday in that Hargreaves/Park role.
Now Ronaldo is a CF/LF. So you have Ronaldo up top with another forward(Bruno/VdB), and then you can have them drop into midfield making a 3, and have the wingers(Sancho, Rashford, Martial) push up into a 4-3-3 when we have the ball.
Its smart. This way you compensate for Ronaldo's lack of workrate, and get some balance into the team rather than cramming all your best players in. Also, its good that Carrick realised you cannot play a high pressing game with Cristiano up top. It was a relief when I saw that players(and worst offenders like Bruno), not doing a solo unorganised press, and rather keeping shape and block passing lanes.
They had 9 shots in the first half and our goalkeeper made 2 world class saveswe were anything but tight.
One was a world class save. The other was a straight forward one. Their keeper made a better save when Sancho was clean through on goal.
The difference between last nights performance to the game at Old Trafford was like chalk and cheese. In the first game they were clean through on our goal 4 times in the first half. They were slicing us open for fun. Literally every time they attacked.
Last night, they were reduced to snatched chances and shots from outside the box. The clean sheet says it all.
Nobody is saying that we were vintage United, but by the final whistle we were comfortably controlling the game and could have been 4 goals up.
This is an improvement to where we have been recently.
They had an xG around 0.6. I would only classify the save in the second half as a good one, the rest were routine. They were just taking a lot of wild shots.
We contained them well. But we also hardly had the ball in the first half, and only came to life after Bruno and Rashford came on.
He should smile more than we can call him Smilechael Carrick
The two chances first half were routine for any Prem or CL keeper, but the one second half was very good. It's absolutely impossible to say whether another keeper, inferior or not, would have made those saves.
Very nervous. He looked like he's just arrived home and found out his dog had been eating his sofa.
Maybe because he has a personal connection with Ole? They played together, then were part of the same coaching team for 3 years. Whatever your opinions about Ole as a manager, this goes beyond that and its just a gesture from one friend to another.
Are you devoid of any form of empathy that you're incapable of understanding why carrick would mention this? Maybe you're a loner.
He did absolutely fine. He had the side more compact than it has been all season. He only had a day of training too. Well done to him. He has navigated the Champions League group stages for the new manager.
Which is bizarre, right?
I mean, maybe its too early to be asking these questions. DeGea made some big saves first half. Its entirely possible that Chelsea will stuff us like Christmas turkeys at the weekend too.
BUT.
How does the same coaching team successfully change tactics in the space of days, just by removing one person from it?
Last night United had an obvious game plan. Every player was bought into it. Every player knew their role, even though several players changed positions within game (especially in the front line). There was a clear 442 when defending, 433 when attacking. The players knew their jobs and executed them well.
So how comes they weren't doing that a few days before at Watford? Did they just decide, last night: 'Today we listen to Carrick but last week we couldn't be f'd?' Or is it bigger? Was there a huge disconnect between Ole's ideas and Carrick's ideas? Was Carrick training the team to do X, then Ole sending them out to do Y? If so, why? If not, why such a different result between Watford and Villareal (Villareal being a MUCH better team than Watford).
I think the team had a simple set up yesterday, the team was not really pressing as much as we have seen and there was more of a focus on positioning. Now the team has been quite poor at pressing this season, so I think it was a simple solution for Carrick to just drop it completely.
I don't think there was a change in tactical set up per se, just a change in focus.
Carrick focused on defence before attack, whereas Ole focused on attack before defence.
Ole's philosophy was correct for Man Utd, but the 'you score three, we score four' only works if we actually score four. We were scoring zero.
You say that. But the team had been totally unable to set up in shape out of possession all season.
Just look at Watford away. Massive gaps between players. Players looking absolutely baffled about where they should be and what they should do.
Last night, suddenly, United were able to execute a counter attacking gameplan in a way we've not seen since winning 2-0 at the Etihad in March. The front three swapped positions all night. But whether Ronaldo was left, right or centre, Martial, Sancho, Rashford. They all knew exactly where they should be on defensive and attacking transitions. Nobody looked baffled about where do I need to be in X phase of play. It was like night and day from where we have been recently.
We didn't press Watford and still looked mostly clueless. How do you change that so fast, with the same people in charge minus one guy?
Again, I'm not sure this is true. We didn't set up to attack Watford. We were deep in our half from early in that game and looked shocking. If it was the same gameplan as last night it was executed far worse, which again begs the question: How do the same coaches get such different results within days of each other?
It's not just the Watford game. I'm looking at ideas across the whole of this season.
Ole had to shift to a defensive minded stance after getting smashed by Liverpool 5-0 but before that it was just cavalier stuff. The games after Liverpool were abject nothings in terms of both attack and defence because the players confidences were shot.
Carrick just straight out said to the guys last night "Concede 0 goals. And if you get 1 goal at the other end we'll take that". It was simple and effective, but if he does this long term he'll get booed at Old Trafford.
Of course, it's too early too judge him yet. He might go more attacking in mindset once the player's get their confidence back after a few clean sheets.
My impression is that the hybrid system didn't work particularly well. There was acres of space on the left side of our midfield and it often took us a while to get into position. We were also horiffic in possession
I don't understand how some are trying to make out we were solid. Villareal had quite a few openings (which they wasted) and could have done a lot more if they were less ponderous in possession
Its very easy to see the game going a different way on another night, particularly if villareal finished one of their chances
Whatever it is, Carrick needs to start negotiating his new contract. Who takes on a new and much bigger position without discussing a new salary???
I kind of agree with you but then, it seems to imply, Ole was ignoring the coaching staff.
Since we lost to Leicester the players had been giving interviews saying, pretty openly, what we're doing aint working. In fact they'd been saying that since at least beating Atalanta. Bruno's postgame comments were remarkable.
What I'd like to know is: Was Carrick of the same opinion and just being ignored by Ole?
You go back to what DeGea said at the weekend, basically that we don't know what f to do with and without the ball, and that was night and day from last night. They only had a couple of days to work on it, as well. So clearly the players took in what Carrick asked them to do. This, to me, would suggest they still have a degree of respect for him. Which you'd think they wouldn't if they blamed him (and McKenna) for our kamikaze football so far this season.
My personal opinion is that I do think Ole was ignoring some advice, to his downfall. I think that Ole was stubborn and he wanted us to 'be on the front foot' and attack, even if we quite clearly didn't have the confidence to do so. Ole should have been able to see that the attack needed a lot of time to gel and wasn't ready to destroy teams just yet. He should have tweaked and adapted to make his side more defensively solid in that time to compensate.
Ole and Carrick has the same ideas on formation and setup, and Carrick has said so. The only difference is that Carrick possibly has a more defensive focus then Ole so maybe he's more interested in keeping clean sheets than scoring lots of goals but I dunno, I've only seen him for one game. If Carrick plays like this at home to Southampton or Brentford, then it's probably true.
I suppose one key distinction between Carrick and Ole is that Carrick started life as a coach under Jose Mourinho.
I saw a lot of Mourinho in last night's performance: Trying to keep it tight, playing on transition etc.
If we're all honest, outside of the cliches about United DNA etc, the best of Ole's football looked very much like the best of Mourinho's: Countering from a compact shape at high speed. That'd make sense if Carrick was the one doing the coaching and Carrick cut his teeth under Jose.
I agree. Sometimes I wish we have a like button in this forum to surface up better posts.
They had 2 days to prepare. You don't switch a formation/system and it all goes perfectly straight away, especially not in our current form. There were promising signs last night compared to the previous 2 months, it is something to build on.
No experience they said
Agree the result was what was important and there was limited time to prepare but the performance wasn't good and a lot of people seem to be trying to claim it was after the fact.
I can already see some of the loons talking about carrick being good enough to stay on
Why is everyone somehow shocked that there is a difference when the head coach/manager leaves.
Now Carrick is able to apply entirely his own ideas, team selection, strategy as he sees fit vs recommending but ultimately executing what the manager wants.
Now Carrick is able to apply entirely his own ideas, team selection, strategy as he sees fit vs recommending but ultimately executing what the manager wants.
I'm just waiting for the United social media gimps to start some kind of Ole hashtag: #winitforOle
The post I was replying to said
"That was a textbook (Fergie) away from home performance, in Europe."
The reality was we gave up multiple good chances yesterday, the fact that Watford were more incisive and better in front of goal doesn't change that fact.
If we concede in the first half it's a totally different game. We've seen how brittle we are when we go behind at the moment.
Bruno has assisted in every single CL game this season, the performance was nothing out of the ordinary for him in Europe this year.
This needs putting to bed once and for all.
THE ONLY GAMES SOLSKJAER MADE HIS FIRST SUB LATER THAN 70 MNIUTES THIS SEASON ARE THE WINS AT WEST HAM, VILLAREAL AND TOTTENHAM.
Carrick made his at 66 minutes. This idea that Solskjaer was late making subs is nonsense. He's made subs at half time multiple times this season, something Carrick should have done yesterday after how dire our first half was.
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They had 9 shots in the first half and our goalkeeper made 2 world class saves
They had at most 2 shots that we had any risk of conceding from. That is a lot better than the past months.
Am I the only one who thought the performance was more Jose than anything of United old?
That's not a criticism, just my opinion on how we approached the game.
Because Villareal were a lot poorer than Liverpool, City and Watford going forward.
And the times we actually stopped them having chances was when we switched to our usual formation with Bruno on the pitch and played them off the park for 25 minutes.
I thought it wasn't much of anything. Just how we've been playing for months except this was against an opponent that has scored 15 goals in 13 matches in the league this year and wasn't all that interested in committing numbers forward. When they strung anything together we were exposed and when our best player came on we battered them.
I don't understand the point you are making. We have not been able to keep a clean sheet against ANYONE.
Villareal are not some mug. We managed to beat them at their ground and keep a clean sheet for the first time in ages. We played a game plan never played under Ole.
Try to limit them as much as possible, keep it compact, get them tired and finish them off.
They didnt look like scoring with every attack. We didnt look at sea. So what I am saying is that it was a decent start. What is it that you are saying again.
Its so strange that before we beat them everyone was going on that Villareal are so stable and are a very very decent team. Since we beat them its no big deal now.
We kept a clean sheet against Spurs. Ironically the only team we've faced recently who are worse going forward at the moment than Villareal.
Villareal have scored 15 goals in 13 games in La Liga this season. They're bobbins in front of goal and yet we still gave up 9 chances against them in the first half and another 3 in the second, including our goalkeeper making 2 very good saves to keep us in the game.
We didn't "tire them out", in the first 21 minutes of the second half they had 65% possession and 3 shots to our 1. We weren't doing anything, they were the ones strolling through the game. In the 10 minutes after Bruno and Rashford came on we had 70% possession.
What actually happened was we wasted over an hour playing an ineffective system which prevented us from having any control over the match which we survived because De Gea is very good and Villareal are poor going forward. Then we actually switched to the system and players we usually do and then won the game because... surprise, surprise... Bruno and Ronaldo are very good.
I don't know who "everyone" is, but it wasn't me.
Villareal are a team that concede a goal a game and score slightly more often than that. They're 12th in La Liga right now for a reason. They're not a bad team, but they're certainly not a good one going forward.
I thought the Carrick's change of strategy worked fairly well. Fred was pressing higher up the pitch, which is what you might have meant by the Hargreaves/Park role. And that was effective. Ronaldo being on the RW, wasn't as detrimental defensively when United pressed. And, most of the time, when the press broke down, players were getting back defensively better than they had been in the past several matches. MacGuire was a bit frustrating. He kept going deep into the box close to DeGea's goal, rather than coming out to meet Villa players on the counterattack. They were getting open chances from just inside or near the line of the penalty box on MacGuire's side. Of course, that is where Ronaldo would not have been helping defensively down the right side.
I thought that Ronaldo and Martial/Rashford could have switched places, once the ball had crossed into the other half. It would have helped the counterattack to have had Ronaldo in the middle and Martial or Rashford on the left. Also, once United was attacking their own goal, I'd rather have Ronaldo near the goal than out on the left as he often was in the first half.
For all the so called chances the xG was less than 1. The usual system and players have been an integral part of the trainwreck.
Last I will say on this, is I for one wouldn't change a thing in that match and we dont have to agree.
Am I the only one here who thinks that it would be nice for Carrick and /or McKenna to stay on in some kind of diminished capacity (if they are willing to) when a new manager comes in? Just for some form of continuity.
its a good start and i wouldnt mind having him as the interim manager.
Great yeah continued failure is important, otherwise we might get some competent coaches in
I think the best we can hope for is for our newfangled football structure to make a proper decision this time, as we don’t have insight as to what exactly the dynamics of the coaching staff are. I’d be more inclined for McKenna to stay and actually learn the ropes from more experienced coaches (as opposed to leading the training on his own) since he was very highly rated as a youth coach, whereas Carrick has zero experience and reputation outside of being on Jose’s and Ole’s staffs. I’m surprised that Carrick was given the nod for caretaker manager instead of McKenna, actually.
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