Ole Gunnar Solskjær | 2021/22 Discussion

[Leftback99]

Right? How dare fans want to enjoy a game of football? 5 goals in our last 5 competitive games. It's a little underwhelming, don't you think?

If Rashford takes a couple of his simple chances last night there would be a completely different view on his 'tactics' from all of these 'gameplan' experts we have.

 

[Rafaeldagold]

Just look at the amount of chances we had yesterday. Look at the stats. Look at videos on YT, do whatever. They had 1 decent chance, we had several big ones. Rashford could have scored three or four but he had a nightmare of a game. I suppose that's down to tactics too, all Ole's fault right? We hit the post and the bar several times, but that's Ole's fault right? LvG served up way worse performances than this and so did Jose, and that's after spending far more money than Ole has. Now consider we were playing with a glorified under 23s team with some added senior players who have barely played thusfar and are considered not good enough to play for us. We were still dominant, we had plenty of chances and we won against a team that did nothing but park the bus. Get a grip man. You're acting like a spoiled kid.

I watched the whole game mate, no need to be condescending.

Of course we had more of the ball against Astana. But we really didn’t look good with aimless balls in the box a lot of the time. Astana also looked relatively threatening in the second half which is embarrassing.

I think acting like a kid is not seeing the fact that over Oles tenure we have no identity yet & have had some terrible results & performances.

 

[lysglimt]

Right? How dare fans want to enjoy a game of football? 5 goals in our last 5 competitive games. It's a little underwhelming, don't you think?

It's not good enough - but there is a difference between creating chances and not taking them...and not creating chances. But for us to be scoring a lot of goals we need Rashford in form and Martial and Pogba free from injuries - right now we have neither.

 

[DomesticTadpole]

If Rashford takes a couple of his simple chances last night there would be a completely different view on his 'tactics' from all of these 'gameplan' experts we have.

Rashford is the problem. We are creating chances, but he is not taking them. Unless of course we get a penalty and you can't even guarantee that will go in. We need other people apart from Daniel James taking some responsibility.

 

[Rafaeldagold]

He does clearly have a style though. This is the sort of unconstructive comment that this thread is filled with. If you actually point out the aspects of his style you don't agree with, perhaps the "Ole apologists" will be more accepting of the criticism?

What’s his style?? What’s his identity?

To run around like headless chickens for 10 minutes at start of a match & then concede all possession & territory to the opposition? Great plan

 

[romufc]

What’s his style?? What’s his identity?

To run around like headless chickens for 10 minutes at start of a match & then concede all possession & territory to the opposition? Great plan

Yet another one of what his style? Maybe you need to watch football to understand?

Or maybe you need someone to explain to you because watching it doesn't help?

 

[Lrf]

Eesh.

Stats aside, there’s another very worrying element to what we’ve seen this season and that’s our horribly fragile mentality. Last night I was consoling myself about our inability to score against basically a pub team by telling myself it’s hard to score against a parked bus but one goal would force them to have a go and the floodgates would open.

It did indeed force them to have a go but all that happened was we suddenly looked horribly badly organised at the back, while remaining equally ponderous and ineffective going forward. And that’s happened loads this season. In every single game we’ve played there’s been long spells were we’ve looked completely rattled by the opposition starting to play some football. Shapeless and incapable of holding onto the ball and taking back control of the game. Completely reliant on individual moments from defenders to bail us out with last ditch heroics.

It’s all a bit grim really. We look fairly badly flawed in attack, defence and (especially) midfield. It’s hard to tell how much is down to how we’re being coached vs having a squad that’s not fit for purpose. Whatever, the manager is responsible for the squad and how they’re coached and I’m finding it very hard to find any kind of positive in what I’ve seen this season. Other than the performances of our new signings. And I’m fully expecting the knives to come out for AWB and Maguire when we get rinsed by City or Liverpool. Quite possibly James too (despite being absolutely terrific for us so far). Individuals are going to find it harder and harder to shine as part of a team that looks depressingly dysfunctional.

I’ll repeat the same caveat as you here. I REALLY hope I’m wrong and everything turns out great.

The mentality of the team have been pretty shit for a while now, with last season (under both Mourinho and the bad run with Ole) beeing the lowest point. I remember thinking that I hoped the winning streak would continue forever because I feared what would happen when they finally got put under pressure.

I'm not 100% sold on OGS as a manager who will take is back to the top yet, but from my point of view it looks like your concerns are something he has identified as one of our biggest problems and are taking measures to adress them. Hence the talk about buying the right players, who are motivated to give it all to play at United and at the same time selling "players who do not fit the style". I really think he would rather have kept a couple of the players that went out this summer, even if only as an option, but building a squad who does not crumble under pressure probably require a clearout that I think will last mulitple windows.

The comments he made at the end of last season regarding "some of the players" was not all about abilities.

 

[Ban]

It strange that some say that others have some kind of agenda for just stating we seem to be not well-coached. What agenda is there? People are saying as they see it, if we suddenly start playing like a team rather than just individuals coming up with some magic every match to save our asses, most will start praising about what a great team Ole is building.

It's called changing your opinion based on the evidence. We have really struggled to score from open play. We have had 5 games where we could only muster 1 goal and some of them were penalties. Our players look like they don't know positions to occupy when not in possession of the ball, our passing game breaks down after 2 or 3 passes anywhere in the final third because players always seem to misplace passes, and everything we try seems a step slower than opposition allowing enough time to get in shape. All these hints at the moves not being practiced enough in training. It's like giving an exam, if you haven't prepared well, that shows on your answer sheet. Honestly, there isn't much difference now compared to Jose's football minus the grind out results at all costs.

The agenda seems to be with some people who blindly support Ole just because he's a legend as a player. But he's the manager now, his time as a player shouldn't come into picture when he's in manager's capacity. The same way his legend status as a player should always remain even if he fails as a manager. This is almost like a cult, some people refuse to see things objectively.

Yeah a cult, sure. Him being a legend doesn't have anything to do with it. And the fact team is thin and not really quality needs to be taken into account. Not to mention patience which modern fans lack.

 

[DomesticTadpole]

What’s his style?? What’s his identity?

To run around like headless chickens for 10 minutes at start of a match & then concede all possession & territory to the opposition? Great plan

He is probably trying to teach a team how to press who have not really done it before. It will take time. It has to be co-ordinated.

 

[Ban]

So many Ole apologists in here. Wonder how they’d be feeling it it was LVG or Jose served up last nights performance. I wonder..

Truth is he doesn’t seem to have a identify or style of play about him because he’s an average manager. I’m amazed at how anything he does is lauded here & absolutely no criticism can be levelled at him because he played sone kids (who lets he honest weren’t good at all)

Average manager gets average performances. Who’d have thought it

So we had Jose apologists and now Ole apologists. It's all black and white with you?

 

[Tarrou]

I totally agree and it’s refreshing that more and more respectable posters share their views about what they see.

Let’s see if the “defenders”, mostly originating from the same part of the world, will jump on your back too. (He he secretly smiling a little bit like Gollum)

People don't tend to jump on criticism like this, that has a detailed point of view that can be addressed. It's the arbitrary insults and moaning with no substance behind it that pisses people off, me included. I think we are all in agreement that we're not where we want to be.

 

[cyberman]

I watched the whole game mate, no need to be condescending.

Of course we had more of the ball against Astana. But we really didn’t look good with aimless balls in the box a lot of the time. Astana also looked relatively threatening in the second half which is embarrassing.

I think acting like a kid is not seeing the fact that over Oles tenure we have no identity yet & have had some terrible results & performances.

Ole loves fast transitions and is trying to implement s high pressing game with our defensive line higher up than we had before.
It may not work but we are creating a shit load of chances with the actual putting the back in the net letting us down so the 5 goals in 5 looks worse than it really is.
His style is as clear as day, i have no idea how you cant see that.

 

[Eriku]

Ole loves fast transitions and is trying to implement s high pressing game with our defensive line higher up than we had before.
It may not work but we are creating a shit load of chances with the actual putting the back in the net letting us down so the 5 goals in 5 looks worse than it really is.
His style is as clear as day, i have no idea how you cant see that.

I miss the days of LvG. Now HE had a clear vision... I think. I can’t be totally sure, as I was lulled to sleep half the time.

 

[Bilbo]

I watched the whole game mate, no need to be condescending.

Of course we had more of the ball against Astana. But we really didn’t look good with aimless balls in the box a lot of the time. Astana also looked relatively threatening in the second half which is embarrassing.

I think acting like a kid is not seeing the fact that over Oles tenure we have no identity yet & have had some terrible results & performances.

Last night we had our second eleven out - many of whom were just talented kids - against a team which most of the game had 10 or more men behind the ball. It played out almost exactly as expected. You either score an early goal and you might then get 5, or you don't and end up with what on paper looks like a poor result. What exactly were you expecting to see?

 

[Rafaeldagold]

I miss the days of LvG. Now HE had a clear vision... I think. I can’t be totally sure, as I was lulled to sleep half the time.

Yes 1-0 over Astana has me riveted the whole game. As have our other 1-0’s and draws

 

[lysglimt]

What’s his style?? What’s his identity?

To run around like headless chickens for 10 minutes at start of a match & then concede all possession & territory to the opposition? Great plan

You defended Mourinho who got 2.5 years and looked even further away from a style and identify than OGS does after 9 months but….

out of curiosity - do you see anything positive OGS has done since taking charge ?

 

[Eriku]

Yes 1-0 over Astana has me riveted the whole game. As have our other 1-0’s and draws

Piss off, you can’t seriously claim LvG’s football was more entertaining.

Pointing to scorelines is so fecking lazy.

 

[Random Task]

This one?

https://www.premierleague.com/stats/top/clubs/big_chance_created?se=274

Or this one?

https://understat.com/league/EPL

I'm not exactly a fan of the xG stat (might have something to do with the fact that I don't fully understand how the concept functions) but there is an increasing number of football fans who swear by it as a means of measuring a football clubs ability to create chances. This table has us placed second behind City, which strongly suggests that we're doing something right in our build-up play. The problems begin when it comes to converting those chances, which we cannot seem to do at a consistent level.

Our chance conversion rate has been awful ever since Fergie retired (we weren't scoring goals for fun in his last title-winning season to be fair). Due to the negligence of Ed Woodward, our midfield and striker options are severely limited. There is only so much Ole can achieve with such a creatively lacklustre midfield. Short of the successful summer transfer signings, our current squad is still very much the work of LVG and Mourinho. Expecting Ole to achieve more with these players than his infinitely more experienced predecessors is not realistic, yet, our xG stat is the highest it's been ever since it's inception. Go figure.

 

[Bilbo]

Ole loves fast transitions and is trying to implement s high pressing game with our defensive line higher up than we had before.
It may not work but we are creating a shit load of chances with the actual putting the back in the net letting us down so the 5 goals in 5 looks worse than it really is.
His style is as clear as day, i have no idea how you cant see that.

Its just lazy criticism from people. My biggest issue with this side so far this season is how slowly some of these players move the ball. None of those players were bought by Ole, and its not something you can coach out in 5 minutes, or ever. I'm sure he is emphasising this over and over in training.

 

[Rafaeldagold]

You defended Mourinho who got 2.5 years and looked even further away from a style and identify than OGS does after 9 months but….

out of curiosity - do you see anything positive OGS has done since taking charge ?

I never said Jose was perfect but he won us things & has pulling power as a top manager.

Yes the signings are good- James, Maguire & AWB will improve us.

But overall as a coach I just don’t see him being a top level manager & we can do much better

 

[Rafaeldagold]

Piss off, you can’t seriously claim LvG’s football was more entertaining.

Pointing to scorelines is so fecking lazy.

I agree it’s not the best indicator but is one at least. Funny how no other manager post Fergie got this leeway

 

[BusbyMalone]

Eesh.

Stats aside, there’s another very worrying element to what we’ve seen this season and that’s our horribly fragile mentality. Last night I was consoling myself about our inability to score against basically a pub team by telling myself it’s hard to score against a parked bus but one goal would force them to have a go and the floodgates would open.

It did indeed force them to have a go but all that happened was we suddenly looked horribly badly organised at the back, while remaining equally ponderous and ineffective going forward. And that’s happened loads this season. In every single game we’ve played there’s been long spells were we’ve looked completely rattled by the opposition starting to play some football. Shapeless and incapable of holding onto the ball and taking back control of the game. Completely reliant on individual moments from defenders to bail us out with last ditch heroics.

It’s all a bit grim really. We look fairly badly flawed in attack, defence and (especially) midfield. It’s hard to tell how much is down to how we’re being coached vs having a squad that’s not fit for purpose. Whatever, the manager is responsible for the squad and how they’re coached and I’m finding it very hard to find any kind of positive in what I’ve seen this season. Other than the performances of our new signings. And I’m fully expecting the knives to come out for AWB and Maguire when we get rinsed by City or Liverpool. Quite possibly James too (despite being absolutely terrific for us so far). Individuals are going to find it harder and harder to shine as part of a team that looks depressingly dysfunctional.

I’ll repeat the same caveat as you here. I REALLY hope I’m wrong and everything turns out great.

This is something i said after the Wolves game and caught a bit of flak for it. I said that we haven't improved at all in that respect. We were controlling the game, but as soon as Wolves scored the game was up in the air. Now Wolves are a decent side, but they've been really poor this season and i don't think they were particularly great in that game, but when we come up against any sort of adversity we seem to crumble. The game goes incredibly loose and it's just a crapshoot from there.

 

[Grande]

Doubt people want him to fail (besides some Jose apologists). Remember many of these people clamoured for him to get the permanent job. Why do a 180 and irrationally hate him? He didn't shoot anyone's dog. Before the season began it was commonly expressed by many that a discernable style of play would be a better barometer for progress than results. That sounded fair. That's still the standard to many. You don't have to agree, you may have another measure of progress you've bought into but it's not unreasonable

I think the majority of us is like this, and can have a discussion about pros and cons of the squad changes, the level of focus on youth, and locals, the tactical changes or attempts at tactical changes, the attitudes around club ethos, relation between academy and elite team etc.

It’s polluted a bit by some of the minority posting much, much more frequent and black/white than the majority, and a bit by the polarising effect of any short-sentenced discussion, where you might go on responding to balance my overly optimistic view and I keep reaponding to balance your overly pessimistic view, making it seem like I can see now flaws and you can see no positives. I guess it’s best to focus on the latter posters and remember to acknowledge their points as well.

I’d hazard a guess that the ratio of posts of posters ‘completely negative to everything’ outnumber the posts ‘completely positive to everything by about 10 to one. It does something to the environment that I’ll have to try to ignore I guess.

What is less than convincing are arguments like ‘there are no signs of ... (positives/negatives)’ as it just makes it seem one is unable to see half of the field and equally unable to listen to people seeing what oneself doesn’t.

 

[AJ10]

This is something i said after the Wolves game and caught a bit of flak for it. I said that we haven't improved at all in that respect. We were controlling the game, but as soon as Wolves scored the game was up in the air. Now Wolves are a decent side, but they've been really poor this season and i don't think they were particularly great in that game, but when we come up against any sort of adversity we seem to crumble. The game goes incredibly loose and it's just a crapshoot from there.

I wouldn't say at all but more work to be done, After they scored...didn't we create 2/3 good chances and that pen. its much better than before, we don't shit ourselves as much imo.

 

[lysglimt]

I never said Jose was perfect but he won us things & has pulling power as a top manager.

Yes the signings are good- James, Maguire & AWB will improve us.

But overall as a coach I just don’t see him being a top level manager & we can do much better

Mourinho of 2016 had pulling power - Mourinho of 2018 only had pushing power. No one would go near him because of his attitude and mood. You can blame the club, you can blame Woodward, you can blame Mourinho himself - but never before has a sacking been more justified.

As for OGS signings - if you accept that his signings are good, why not give the january window and the next window. If he continues to sign the right players, it wouldn't really matter that much if he is not a good enough manager - he will have made the team a lot stronger if he is sacked. We are being linked with Sancho, Maddison etc - the right kind of players. And players want to stay - the exodus has stopped.

It's obvious OGS is risking his job by signings fairly young players, getting young players through - and it might get him sacked. He could have signed 3-4 established 27-28 year olds who would make us better here and now, but wouldn't improve us in the long run. Will it hurt us short-term - yeah probably. Will it benefit us in the long run ? Almost guaranteed.

So if he is improving young players and improving the team by signing the right players - why risk it by bringing in a new manager who might not do better and might not sign the right players. Are there people out there who could have done better with the players available - probably. But the total benefits for me convinces me that he needs to stay. It will make us stronger 12 months from now, regardless if it's with or without him.

 

[Scotty McT]

One thing that really needs to be removed from the discussion about Ole is this idea that people who are against him being manager of the club hate him. I don't hate him, I love him. He's largely responsible for one of the best memories of my childhood. I simply just don't rate what I've seen on the pitch, which when coupled with the fact he had a mediocre managerial career before United makes me think he isn't cut out for the job. The players don't look like like they've received proper coaching, which is especially worrying seeing as we apparently have amazing young talents coming through. I watch the likes of City and Liverpool and you can see the coaching drills in effect constantly.

I don't think he's a Glazer yes man at all. I think he's done an admirable job given the constraints of working for businessmen who see overpaid, mediocre footballers as saleable commodities who we should extract maximum value for by adding years to their contracts. We obviously had a pretty tight budget and the recruitments have been top quality. The ins and outs have been the one positive for me. He might have made a great DoF.

I've genuinely seen someone on here make the argument that the manager of a football club isn't even that important, so we should ease off Ole. How are people allowing themselves to be deluded to that point? He was a legend as a player but he shouldn't be given an easier ride than Moyes, LvG and Mourinho because of that.

So please be more considerate about your usage of the word hate. We all want what's best for the club.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

This is something i said after the Wolves game and caught a bit of flak for it. I said that we haven't improved at all in that respect. We were controlling the game, but as soon as Wolves scored the game was up in the air. Now Wolves are a decent side, but they've been really poor this season and i don't think they were particularly great in that game, but when we come up against any sort of adversity we seem to crumble. The game goes incredibly loose and it's just a crapshoot from there.

Yeah, I consoled myself with the idea that Wolves took a lot of big scalps last season and are a tough nut to crack. A notion that was swiftly punctured by their results since that match.

Up until last night there’s been an almost identical pattern.

Start well, score early, then look as though we don’t know whether to stick or twist and end up desperately trying to cling on to our lead while the opposition play all the good football. The difference last night was it took ages for us to score, so we only endured 20 minutes of generalised chaos and uncertainty.

Basically it’s a very mid table kind of mental fragility and it’s looking as though mid table is where we may end up.

 

[AshRK]

People read too much into the scorelines. Any honest fan would admit we should have won the game 4 or 5-0. Rashford had three straightforward chances which he should have scored and then Dalot misses a open net. It is clear to see we are still work in progress but anyone claiming we didn't create enough are just joking. We created enough easy chances to win the match with a good scoreline. I still think Ole should prioritize signing a CF this Jan.

 

[bond19821982]

Yeah, I consoled myself with the idea that Wolves took a lot of big scalps last season and are a tough nut to crack. A notion that was swiftly punctured by their results since that match.

Up until last night there’s been an almost identical pattern.

Start well, score early, then look as though we don’t know whether to stick or twist and end up desperately trying to cling on to our lead while the opposition play all the good football. The difference last night was it took ages for us to score, so we only endured 20 minutes of generalised chaos and uncertainty.

Basically it’s a very mid table kind of mental fragility and it’s looking as though mid table is where we may end up.

That's the key part. And it starts with the manager.
Liverpool of late 2000s is what we are now. Lot of british players, a legend as a manager and expecting the young guns from academy to create miracles.

 

[Judas]

People read too much into the scorelines. Any honest fan would admit we should have won the game 4 or 5-0. Rashford had three straightforward chances which he should have scored and then Dalot misses a open net. It is clear to see we are still work in progress but anyone claiming we didn't create enough are just joking. We created enough easy chances to win the match with a good scoreline. I still think Ole should prioritize signing a CF this Jan.

Over a midfielder? Are you having a laugh? We need both, but seriously, the desperation for someone in the middle is actually ridiculous and must be sorted out.

 

[finneh]

This is something i said after the Wolves game and caught a bit of flak for it. I said that we haven't improved at all in that respect. We were controlling the game, but as soon as Wolves scored the game was up in the air. Now Wolves are a decent side, but they've been really poor this season and i don't think they were particularly great in that game, but when we come up against any sort of adversity we seem to crumble. The game goes incredibly loose and it's just a crapshoot from there.

Whilst this is a fair comment I think in general this is true (to a lesser extent) of almost all teams.

You look at the second half of the Chelsea-United game and how they capitulated after we scored. You look at the Arsenal-Watford game in the second half. You look at Spurs-Arsenal in the second half. The opening half hour Norwich-City. The second half Chelsea-Leicester. Even So'ton against Liverpool there was a period that should have seen the former get something out of the game.

Games do tend to be played out in phases and often goals do change those phases. Against Wolves after there goal of the season contender the crowd were roaring and the players got a natural boost; our players conversely became nervous and the shape of the game changed.

What I saw against Wolves though, and also against Crystal Palace despite the sucker punch at the end, was the fortitude to wrestle control back after that kind of phase. Against Wolves we dominated the last 20 mins and should have won the game. Against Palace we pushed all second half and got the equaliser.

We are nowhere near the finished article but I can see some shoots of recovery.

 

[AshRK]

Over a midfielder? Are you having a laugh? We need both, but seriously, the desperation for someone in the middle is actually ridiculous and must be sorted out.

Yes we need both but expecting a 21 year old to lead our attack is asking too much. Rashford is expected to perform like a 26 year old striker when everyone can see he still lacks the maturity to be a striker who can lead us. Martial also has not proven that he can do it. Ofcourse if they both prove it then fair play to Ole but let us not underestimate our attacking issue.

 

[Scotty McT]

People read too much into the scorelines. Any honest fan would admit we should have won the game 4 or 5-0. Rashford had three straightforward chances which he should have scored and then Dalot misses a open net. It is clear to see we are still work in progress but anyone claiming we didn't create enough are just joking. We created enough easy chances to win the match with a good scoreline. I still think Ole should prioritize signing a CF this Jan.

Ole's love of Rashford is his own issue though. The fans are quickly realising that Rashford isn't kicking on at quite the rate we would have hoped. You'd have hoped the manager would have been a step ahead and made a signing during the summer, if money was available, but nope we went into the season being reliant on an inconsistent winger or striker(?) to get us goals. Then Ole spends the entire season bigging up the the talents of him which leads to Rashford having an ego the size of Ronaldo's, with very little of the talent.

 

[Judas]

Yes we need both but expecting a 21 year old to lead our attack is asking too much. Rashford is expected to perform like a 26 year old striker when everyone can see he still lacks the maturity to be a striker who can lead us. Martial also has not proven that he can do it. Ofcourse if they both prove it then fair play to Ole but let us not underestimate our attacking issue.

Whats the point of another striker when we have a team lacking the ability to create chances.

 

[Bilbo]

We all want what's best for the club.

I'm not even convinced that this is true anymore. There are undoubtedly many posters on here who care so much about being seen as football experts that they would prefer to see the team go backwards and thus vindicate their opinions than have to admit having misjudged the situation.

This forum is way busier after a loss, and the post match threads are twice the size. Its easier and more fun for a lot of people to criticise - praise is boring.

 

[AshRK]

Whats the point of another striker when we have a team lacking the ability to create chances.

Like I said both are concerning issues and it's not one or the other. Yesterday rashford had good chances. I feel he was trying too hard to score and that is what happens when you expect a 21 year old to lead your line and be your main striker. We do definitely need a creative midfilder in place of Mata or Lingard and may even need two if Pogba leaves. So yes both areas needs to be filled.

 

[Bilbo]

Yeah, I consoled myself with the idea that Wolves took a lot of big scalps last season and are a tough nut to crack. A notion that was swiftly punctured by their results since that match.

Up until last night there’s been an almost identical pattern.

Start well, score early, then look as though we don’t know whether to stick or twist and end up desperately trying to cling on to our lead while the opposition play all the good football. The difference last night was it took ages for us to score, so we only endured 20 minutes of generalised chaos and uncertainty.

Basically it’s a very mid table kind of mental fragility and it’s looking as though mid table is where we may end up.

Shocked by this last sentence from you Pogue. This is a young team. Game management comes from experience as well as coaching

 

[Bilbo]

Like I said both are concerning issues and it's not one or the other. Yesterday rashford had good chances. I feel he was trying too hard to score and that is what happens when you expect a 21 year old to lead your line and be your main striker. We do definitely need a creative midfilder in place of Mata or Lingard and may even need two if Pogba leaves. So yes both areas needs to be filled.

Id had a drink so maybe I'm not remembering accurately, but from what I recall Rashfords best chances last night weren't easy by any stretch. Instinctive stabs at goal rather than the type where you have time to think and place a shot.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Shocked by this last sentence from you Pogue. This is a young team. Game management comes from experience as well as coaching

Yeah, that’s a good point. I was automatically linking it to the same fragility we’ve seen in other recent seasons but maybe this time we’ve got a decent excuse. This is a young team. It’s nerve-wracking to watch regardless.

 

[BusbyMalone]

Whilst this is a fair comment I think in general this is true (to a lesser extent) of almost all teams.

You look at the second half of the Chelsea-United game and how they capitulated after we scored. You look at the Arsenal-Watford game in the second half. You look at Spurs-Arsenal in the second half. The opening half hour Norwich-City. The second half Chelsea-Leicester. Even So'ton against Liverpool there was a period that should have seen the former get something out of the game.

Games do tend to be played out in phases and often goals do change those phases. Against Wolves after there goal of the season contender the crowd were roaring and the players got a natural boost; our players conversely became nervous and the shape of the game changed.

What I saw against Wolves though, and also against Crystal Palace despite the sucker punch at the end, was the fortitude to wrestle control back after that kind of phase. Against Wolves we dominated the last 20 mins and should have won the game. Against Palace we pushed all second half and got the equaliser.

We are nowhere near the finished article but I can see some shoots of recovery.

Whilst you are right that games do tend to pivot one way or the other when a team scores, this is something that happens almost all the time with United, even against the most average teams. If we were just talking about one offs here, then it wouldn't be anything to worry about. But you even saw it last night against a really, really poor side. The game just becomes so loose with us when the other team have a go. You can sense it in the stadium, too; the fans know. When there's pressure put on us, any sort of tactual discipline that we had just evaporates.

As i said in another thread, i like what we're doing off the field, but there are still many questions on it.