It just seems we have both planned badly and and don't have the manager to make it work with these set of players. In the end q new manager who has quality as a tactician is needed. Then well have a better idea of how to set this team up.
Ole: “maybe something has to give”
- Thread starter Zoo
- Start date
And the gift is what you get by givin' more than you receive. Give away the position to someone else, appoint Ole as one of them transfer comittee. Win win.
The 50-50s tend to go for the team that wants it more. It's an important detail. That said.... you can't just sit there and hope the attitude might improve, sometimes you have to send a message by pulling a big name off (or three). Ole is far too passive, far too trusting of his favourites, and it's gonna cost him the best job he'll ever have in football management.
When Sir Alex was in charge, it was almost never in doubt which team wanted it more in any football match contested between Manchester United and some other team. The players had it drilled into them the minimum required was maximum effort every time they pulled on our shirt. Sometimes equally talented teams matched our commitment, and those were our closest and toughest battles, but most of the time we outfought and outshone every team, every weekend. NOT ANYMORE.
It's not just about wanting. Leicester are a better organized football team than us. Live suddenly started pressing like maniacs when Klopp joined. Pep teams have mastered the art of winning the ball quickly in between spells of hogging possession. Of course one is more willing to break themselves for a manager who inspires but setting up a team that works efficiently (not just hard) is a skill.
Leicester were VERY impressive it has to be said. We were bloody awful, but no doubt their commitment to following a well drilled plan played a big part in our own failings on the pitch.
It’s Pogba, I think he’s being forced to play him.
We have a better squad than them but they just have the better manager. The same can be said of every single team we dropped points against, including Young Boys.
I was more impressed with Leicester than anyone else we've struggled against this season. Our own dismal performances have been our most regrettably consistent feature. Ultimately the blame for this will always fall on the manager.
you're blaming our problems on Pogba?
the crazy thing is that in spite of the performance levels, the insipid attacking and awful defensive organisation the noise seems to be to trust the process?!?
They've been busy extending contracts for this group
Why would he be a better manager if we bought him a new midfield? We should be seeing at least what he’s trying to do with the team he has, even if it wasn’t coming off. But his tactic from the outset has been to name a team and prey for individual brilliance. There’s never been anything else there.
I think Luke Shaw’s mood being improved to the point where he got himself new teeth is the total limit of this ‘progress’ we’ve made in three years
The sex might have been fun on the honeymoon but since then there’s been major compatibility issues in this marriage that everyone needs to face up to
I think Luke Shaw’s mood being improved to the point where he got himself new teeth is the total limit of this ‘progress’ we’ve made in three years
The sex might have been fun on the honeymoon but since then there’s been major compatibility issues in this marriage that everyone needs to face up to
Put ole in charge of Brighton and they would 100% be relegated.
Then look at what potter has done.
I’m not saying let’s get potter but the manager is THE most important member of staff at a club. We have one who is the footballing equivalent of a toddler a mile out to sea on an inflatable with a slow leak.
Then look at what potter has done.
I’m not saying let’s get potter but the manager is THE most important member of staff at a club. We have one who is the footballing equivalent of a toddler a mile out to sea on an inflatable with a slow leak.
The problem with United is that we believe that every solution lies in the transfer market and that's how we easily waste millions. Last season we had Greenwood on 15 goals and what did we do? Sign another young forward and compounded that by signing an undroppable legend who is a shadow of his former self.
We'd absolutely need a DM to replace Matic but why not try Laird at RB, Elanga as a rotation forward or Garner as the box to box CM before spending millions again. This is why we have to bring in a proper coach not someone with a glittering CV who won't be willing to fuse good signings with the youth.
It's unsustainable t say the least, Mourinho came in and blew £300m after LVG's £200m and Ole has just gone through £400m and he will be telling us he still needs backing. That's nonsense and has to be stopped but you can only stop it by appointing a proper coach.
Lads I was being sarcastic. Point being we should be far beyond thinking that tweaking this or that or swapping 1 player fixes anything
Lingard is running down his deal, Pogba is running down his deal. Personally I’d rather neither was getting game time as neither are consistently good enough to play whilst waiting to move.Lingard should be starting. His work rate, particularly off the ball, is desperately needed.
Edit: what @Zoo said
Something has to give, more like someone has to give, Ole should give in and give his resignation letter to Ed.
He’s part of the problem fecking shite in midfield for £90m or whatever, but the front 4 were not pressing, Bruno has to come back into midfield and the defence well oh feck I don’t know there they are all over the place.
Don't understand the Pogba blame. I thought he did fine yesterday.
Sadly it's time to fly a banner over old Trafford again.
He wasn' t great quality, but nobody could ever say the lad didn't work hard.
Spot on. SAF wasn't some brilliant tactician, but the desire and attitude he managed to instill into the players was simply incredible and THAT has been the biggest miss this season. We seem completely devoid of desire and hunger and it seems we barely care if we lose or draw. Infuriating
He was letting people run past him all over the place, giving away fouls and just generally sloppy for a midfielder, but it was mostly on defence yesterday.
Do we have a defensive coach at United because you couldn’t tell it from this season?
Think we have a counter-attacking team and we have lost the ability to counter attack this season in particular.
We saw one of our best counter attacking seasons was with Martial. He holds up the ball and brings others in to play. Bruno played high up the pitch with him. Then Martial turned to crap. Cavani became a better striker to us. Again Bruno played higher up the pitch. Ronaldo has come and is not a counter attacking style player. He cannot hold the ball up and bring others in to play like Cavani. Bruno is playing deeper than ever and his ability to score a goal or make a simple through ball close to the defence is gone - he is now just whipping in crosses to Ronaldo.
The tactics are all muddled up.
He sounds like a man that knows he's not losing his job soon.
It’s always been that way and it’s clear he and the club have shared the vision that buying good players and letting them express themselves is the way to success. That plus a “will to win”, and “team of leaders” will make us win the all important 50/50’s etc.
There appears to be no consideration to just how important coaching and tactics are in today’s game.
I don’t think Bruno is playing further back at all I think he’s as far detached from midfield as ever, his work rate and hustle has gone he was a Trojan when he first arrived but rarely see it now.
He’s not he got a 4 year contract or whatever and the back room staff all got contracts he’s going nowhere.
I think they could but someone has to tell Bruno he has to give up the goals and get back to being a midfielder which is a tough call but if not it’s either one or the other.
You can’t play two wide attackers that don’t track back, Ronaldo and a false 9 it’s over kill and doesn’t work.
Yeah, lately I have been thinking more and more about how different he is from the player we had during his first month at the club. For this team I think that the attacking 8 role is a better fit for him which means that Pogba is the one that should/could make way. I think that it is possible to play with both in a 433 but I don't trust this coaching staff to give them clear instructions and account for each players tendencies.
I disagree. Ronaldo is stopping and jogging in those positions Bruno used to make runs in to. Bruno runs in to half spaces. Ronaldo hardly makes a run in behind the defence unless in some sort of cross.
Bruno's our main creator and now our main goal scorer has turned to Ronaldo (our main goalscorer before was Bruno himself mixed with Greenwood,Rashford and Cavani). So he is doing the creative work to supple Ronaldo.
The amount of time Bruno is seen out wide trying to play a cross in like he is Beckham is different to the player he was when he was our main goalscorer.
There was this beautiful bit of gameplay yesterday where Ronaldo wasn't in his position - so it was Sancho as a LW, Pogba as a CM and Bruno back to his false 9 role and they make a quick interlinking move that completely broke down Leicester City apart.
For me we have the Portugal version of Bruno Fernandes- the pure supplier.
He is good but not that great version who was interlinking our front line and arguably our main goalscorer too.
And it's hard to talk about his energy - it was a horrible thing to see him going further forward than Ronaldo to press Leicester City defenders when Ronaldo was not doing it.
Bruno would press and Ronaldo would stand there and we would get cut apart because we would have one less midfielder in his area.
Well that’s the sacrifice you have to make to have Ronaldo in the team Bruno needs to be pushed further back into an 8 in midfield not false 9 or on the wings.
Ronaldo has proven he can score goals so it would take a strong manager to make that call which hasn’t happened so it’s just another baffling decision from Ole in a list of many.
Yeah I agree he needs to be told to play in midfield and lose some of his attacking interests because we need reinforcements in there as much as anything.
Ronaldo should play LW.
Striker's position is cursed because Bruno is playing too far up which is also why Martial stop scoring a lot. His space was taken up mostly by Bruno.
Striker's position is cursed because Bruno is playing too far up which is also why Martial stop scoring a lot. His space was taken up mostly by Bruno.
Ole is literally playing Football Manager. Stick as many forwards as you can in the XI and a couple of randoms in midfield that's not really their position and hope it works.
No….absolute nonsense
Agreed.
This is a huge problem. Wtf Is that comment that they spent the international break looking at issues….then a) did nothing about them yesterday and b) why are you reacting now to the same problems we’ve had for years
You should be able to see the patterns of play and style we are trying to play. If it ends up not successful then better players come in and you hope that gets you over the line.
You can see this at teams like Brighton or back in the day when Swansea played Barcelona-lite style possession football. They had/have a clear style of play and it’s a lack of overall quality that lets them down.
You don’t watch us and see in any way what we are trying to do. We don’t keep the ball well. We play fairly direct (not long ball but we attempt killer passes often). We play a painfully slow tempo. In fact we lack intensity in both attack and defence.
I said this in the match day thread but two-touch and pass and move would make a significant improvement to this side and that’s damning of the coaching.
Another pattern we’ve seen repeatedly is our improvement after going behind in games. We up our tempo and start to actually run. Ole even joked about having to start 1-0 down recently.
This to me is a symptom of the way we are playing. We set out to control games and often have the first 15-20mins of decent possession and we feel a bit dangerous but by and large the opposition prevent any big chances. As the opposition get comfortable they realise we aren’t really hurting them and they start to commit players on the break. We then start to concede worrying chances to the opposition and panic. All sense of control then falls apart and we often end up conceding or giving up big chances and De Gea bailing us out.
It’s almost like in trying to control the game it’s making us cautious. Cautious in attack and cautious in defence. We don’t commit to anything properly and end up just woefully mediocre.
Compare this to when we go a goal down and all of a sudden we can often be knocking on the door and find ways to score goals. We start to run and press the opposition high up the field.
You can see this at teams like Brighton or back in the day when Swansea played Barcelona-lite style possession football. They had/have a clear style of play and it’s a lack of overall quality that lets them down.
You don’t watch us and see in any way what we are trying to do. We don’t keep the ball well. We play fairly direct (not long ball but we attempt killer passes often). We play a painfully slow tempo. In fact we lack intensity in both attack and defence.
I said this in the match day thread but two-touch and pass and move would make a significant improvement to this side and that’s damning of the coaching.
Another pattern we’ve seen repeatedly is our improvement after going behind in games. We up our tempo and start to actually run. Ole even joked about having to start 1-0 down recently.
This to me is a symptom of the way we are playing. We set out to control games and often have the first 15-20mins of decent possession and we feel a bit dangerous but by and large the opposition prevent any big chances. As the opposition get comfortable they realise we aren’t really hurting them and they start to commit players on the break. We then start to concede worrying chances to the opposition and panic. All sense of control then falls apart and we often end up conceding or giving up big chances and De Gea bailing us out.
It’s almost like in trying to control the game it’s making us cautious. Cautious in attack and cautious in defence. We don’t commit to anything properly and end up just woefully mediocre.
Compare this to when we go a goal down and all of a sudden we can often be knocking on the door and find ways to score goals. We start to run and press the opposition high up the field.