Ole has no system that I can see ..... or do I just need better glasses?

I'm all for giving Ole more time, he earned it with finishing 3rd last season.

But there are some very worrying signs, we don't look well coached, while it seems the teams we play against look well coached and organised.

This is not knee-jerk from this game, but his game management it awful, his subs aren't great, waits far too long to make a tactical change or subs.

I'm also worried about how unfit and underprepared the players look. Ole even spoke about the need for us being fitter than other teams and better coached, time for him to back that talk up.
 
LoneStar said:
Even if he gives a bit of leeway for attack, surely need to coach the defence properly? Today was utter shit.

AWB was bad, but the tactics fecked him over. I don’t think he kept coming central over and over again if it were not instructions.

We should easily be controlling games against lower teams without the need for Sancho or Mbappe in front.
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I'm not a big fan of just sitting back with everyone behind the ball. You invite more crosses, more shots and the probability of relying on elements of luck tends to increase. That much pressure on a defence constantly means that there's an increased likelihood that at some point an individual mistake will occur too. I'd rather just exclude the elements of luck by competently being able to pass the ball and tiring out the opposition to a point in which their counter-attacks are diminished through fatigue.
 
I have strongly supported Ole over the piece but really hope this is a fitness issue which is sorted out very quickly.

Other than that we really struggle to play out from the back, invite too much pressure from the opposition and in midfield we seem to be going backwards literally more and more.

We often receive the ball in tight spaces back to goal, struggle to turn so either just go backwards again or quickly knock it on to someone tightly marked who usually loses it.

Going forward, again, we are often quite slow and the number of attacks where we check back and allow the opposition to set with everyone behind the ball is infuriating.

I’ve not enjoyed a game for a while now.
 
Hoof The Ball said:
I'm not a big fan of just sitting back with everyone behind the ball. You invite more crosses, more shots and the probability of relying on elements of luck tends to increase. That much pressure on a defence constantly means that there's an increased likelihood that at some point an individual mistake will occur too. I'd rather just exclude the elements of luck by competently being able to pass the ball and tiring out the opposition to a point in which their counter-attacks are diminished through fatigue.
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Yeah that would be ideal, but even with numbers we were defending horribly. When you have a back 5, you shouldn’t be getting cut open again and again the way we were today. Not by Brighton for sure.

It’s inevitable that that kind of play would lead to increased chances, but they had 2 goals and 5 close chances against us. At that point it becomes the system.
 
LoneStar said:
Yeah that would be ideal, but even with numbers we were defending horribly. When you have a back 5, you shouldn’t be getting cut open again and again the way we were today. Not by Brighton for sure.

It’s inevitable that that kind of play would lead to increased chances, but they had 2 goals and 5 close chances against us. At that point it becomes the system.
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This is probably an accurate representation of what coaching looks like at Brighton. 08:20 onwards.
 
Hoof The Ball said:
This is probably an accurate representation of what coaching looks like at Brighton. 08:20 onwards.
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Cheers mate, do you think that we play with any semblance of a system currently? I feel like we are overly dependent on Bruno or Martial/Rashford beating their man.
 
LoneStar said:
Cheers mate, do you think that we play with any semblance of a system currently? I feel like we are overly dependent on Bruno or Martial/Rashford beating their man.
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To a degree we do. There has to be some overriding philosophy in place, but I question whether it's more of a big picture philosophy than a deep tactical one. I suspect that Ole wants some pressing but he's not so convinced as to coach a proper pressing system; I suspect that Ole wants some ball-retention but does his coaching team know how to coach positional play versus other pressing teams? I think Ole isn't sure about what he wants, hence why he's not fully tactically committed to its implementation. You see Klopp and you already know the pressing from the front will be in huge waves of players and relentless. Klopp commits to that. Ole's pressing has 3-4 players do it from the front but the players in midfield and full-backs don't push up as a secondary press and so it doesn't work very well.
 
We don't have any formation or shape because we don't seem to practice it enough. You need to practice and practice so it becomes second nature. The 2nd goal we conceded was almost a carbon copy of the one we conceded against Palace with Bailly instead of Lindelof in that position.
Individual brilliance has got us where we are. Not because we play in a certain way.
It was Bruno's brilliance and Rashford's brilliance that we scored our second goal.
 
Hoof The Ball said:
To a degree we do. There has to be some overriding philosophy in place, but I question whether it's more of a big picture philosophy than a deep tactical one. I suspect that Ole wants some pressing but he's not so convinced as to coach a proper pressing system; I suspect that Ole wants some ball-retention but does his coaching team know how to coach positional play versus other pressing teams? I think Ole isn't sure about what he wants, hence why he's not fully tactically committed to its implementation. You see Klopp and you already know the pressing from the front will be in huge waves of players and relentless. Klopp commits to that. Ole's pressing has 3-4 players do it from the front but the players in midfield and full-backs don't push up as a secondary press and so it doesn't work very well.
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Yeah that’s the issue I have with our play. No uniform pressing across all the players. Just feels like players are told to press, but not given any set instructions to do so. Honestly, I’d call that a lack of a system.
 
We will find form and find fitness, play well for a period then inevitably we will tire out again and perform below expectation.

That's simply due to poor coaching/tactics.

When that happens, you will have the 'Ole is doing a decent job, the players are playing poorly or not putting in the effort, the board need to sanction £200m, they're hanging Ole out to dry' here bs.

The issue isn't the 'effort'. You can see our players sprinting and making high intensity runs for balls in transition defending and attacking. The problem it's a lot of wasteful energy.

We're making half hearted unorganised presses in their half, then when they play through us, we're making 10-30 yards dashes to get behind the ball. Then when we have the ball, we're shit at getting it up the pitch without some individual flair, so we hoof it up or lose it in their half then, sprint back to prevent the counter. Rinse repeat.

Lots of lateral movement with and without the ball that doesn't get us anywhere. We defend and attack with massive amounts of energy with little end product.

This is just not sustainable.
 
It's real bad. Despite having 5 defenders and 2 defensive midfielders, we got cut open continuously, because the defensive unit doesn't move together.

Both Fred and Matic exclusively defended on the left side of the pitch, leaving a gaping hole on the right. And of course AWB was trying to almost play inside of Lindelof. It was insanity.

The front 3 clearly decided it was time for counter-United, and refused to even think about defending.

Then you watch BHA - how well they move together, how nice the interplay is, especially in bypassing our press in their third, moving straight through our midfield like butter and creating chances.
Or you watch pretty much any team in the premier league, tbh.

We have some extremely talented individual players who can and do win us matches. But we have no play style, system of identifiable patterns.

In a sense it's encouraging, really feels like we have a whole extra gear to go up with better training.
 
We clearly have a preferred shape, but our tactics are not well developed, and our midfield is still terribly unbalanced.

It's obvious who moves across to cover the full backs, who sits deep in midfield etc, how we move to a 4 -1-5 in attack and so on. That bit is easy.

However, our coaching is obviously not going into much detail as our tactics are so half hearted. We try to play a pressing game but i'll be damned if i can spot what the trigger is for that. Some players press at random points whilst others stand still. Defensively, we get cut open because McTominay is terrible at blocking space and holding his position and Matic does not have the legs to cover enough ground anymore.

Offensively, again you can see what we try to do with our structure. We put 5 men forward and go 5 v 4 against their defence and pick gaps to pass and run into. A single midfielder sits and covers. Obviously fitness is an issue as we are not making the runs, but there doesn't look to be any planned movements to open those gaps up. So many times players pass as though they're going for a 1-2, but then stand still and don't move to receive the ball again. Is it tiredness? Further back, Matic is constantly trying to find space to take the ball from the defenders on the half turn but he doesn't have the legs to consistently escape his marker and he's usually on his own and doubled up on anyway, and McTominay is not good enough technically to receive the ball under pressure. Pogba and Bruno dont help as they are normally further up and out of the game, on Ole's instructions. The defenders are left to pass it sideways or into a congested channel, or attempt a long ball that has a high chance of being intercepted.

Improving fitness will help some of that but we still seem to lack any specific coaching.
 
Godfather said:
He is totally out of his depth.
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Great analysis!

A lot of these types of comments. I think that Ole has a system he wants to play, but doesn't have the players to execute his vision. As a result, he is left with a match-by-match approach. We all know that we play better and create more on the counter. Our advantage is our pace and finishing of the front 3.

I do think Ole wants to press up high. Unfortunately, to do that, you need three characteristics in the squad: One, defenders with pace so you can play a high line and thus reduce the amount of space in between the lines. Maguire and Lindelof are too slow. Secondly, you need a midfield three that are quick to close down in the center of the pitch. Bruno is excellent, Pogba is disinterested, and not particularly quick, and Matic is slow and more of a positional player. Thirdly, you need a front three with a lot of pace who can attack defenders -- this we have.

When we gain possession, I think he wants to play more quickly with balls into space. Unfortunately, Matic's first instinct is the safe pass. Pogba and Bruno are both excellent at unlocking defenses this way, and I think that as we get more fit and our form starts to turn for the better, both of them will perform at expectation in this respect. In the build-up play and final third, he wants more movement. We seemed to have that after the restart and Bruno was really pulling the strings. Right now, we look pretty stationary. We aren't moving and switching enough. Our passing has been really poor, inaccurate and without conviction.
 
DSG said:
Great analysis!

A lot of these types of comments. I think that Ole has a system he wants to play, but doesn't have the players to execute his vision. As a result, he is left with a match-by-match approach. We all know that we play better and create more on the counter. Our advantage is our pace and finishing of the front 3.

I do think Ole wants to press up high. Unfortunately, to do that, you need three characteristics in the squad: One, defenders with pace so you can play a high line and thus reduce the amount of space in between the lines. Maguire and Lindelof are too slow. Secondly, you need a midfield three that are quick to close down in the center of the pitch. Bruno is excellent, Pogba is disinterested, and not particularly quick, and Matic is slow and more of a positional player. Thirdly, you need a front three with a lot of pace who can attack defenders -- this we have.

When we gain possession, I think he wants to play more quickly with balls into space. Unfortunately, Matic's first instinct is the safe pass. Pogba and Bruno are both excellent at unlocking defenses this way, and I think that as we get more fit and our form starts to turn for the better, both of them will perform at expectation in this respect. In the build-up play and final third, he wants more movement. We seemed to have that after the restart and Bruno was really pulling the strings. Right now, we look pretty stationary. We aren't moving and switching enough. Our passing has been really poor, inaccurate and without conviction.
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Assuming what you say is actually Ole's plan, that tells me he has no clue what he's doing, which is actually how things look right now.

1. If Ole wanted quick defenders, he would never sanction wasting £80m on Maguire who is as slow as they come. He also has Bailly and Smalling available yet Lindelof is clearly favoured over them both.

2. Again if he needed a midfield three that was quick in closing down, he doesn't offer Matic a new contract. He'd also find a way to get Fred and/or Mctominay in our midfield to cover the obvious deficiencies of Pogba in hunting the ball down.

He's been here too long to use the excuse of players not fitting his system.
 
DSG said:
Great analysis!

A lot of these types of comments. I think that Ole has a system he wants to play, but doesn't have the players to execute his vision. As a result, he is left with a match-by-match approach. We all know that we play better and create more on the counter. Our advantage is our pace and finishing of the front 3.

I do think Ole wants to press up high. Unfortunately, to do that, you need three characteristics in the squad: One, defenders with pace so you can play a high line and thus reduce the amount of space in between the lines. Maguire and Lindelof are too slow. Secondly, you need a midfield three that are quick to close down in the center of the pitch. Bruno is excellent, Pogba is disinterested, and not particularly quick, and Matic is slow and more of a positional player. Thirdly, you need a front three with a lot of pace who can attack defenders -- this we have.

When we gain possession, I think he wants to play more quickly with balls into space. Unfortunately, Matic's first instinct is the safe pass. Pogba and Bruno are both excellent at unlocking defenses this way, and I think that as we get more fit and our form starts to turn for the better, both of them will perform at expectation in this respect. In the build-up play and final third, he wants more movement. We seemed to have that after the restart and Bruno was really pulling the strings. Right now, we look pretty stationary. We aren't moving and switching enough. Our passing has been really poor, inaccurate and without conviction.
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You see the contradiction here. Why buy Maguire if the plan was to play that way from the start? Many of us have been left scratching our heads about the Maguire acquisition. Worse yet at 80m he has written off his chance to come back for more money on a new CB. That's going to be an awkward conversation.
 
DSG said:
Great analysis!

A lot of these types of comments. I think that Ole has a system he wants to play, but doesn't have the players to execute his vision. As a result, he is left with a match-by-match approach. We all know that we play better and create more on the counter. Our advantage is our pace and finishing of the front 3.

I do think Ole wants to press up high. Unfortunately, to do that, you need three characteristics in the squad: One, defenders with pace so you can play a high line and thus reduce the amount of space in between the lines. Maguire and Lindelof are too slow. Secondly, you need a midfield three that are quick to close down in the center of the pitch. Bruno is excellent, Pogba is disinterested, and not particularly quick, and Matic is slow and more of a positional player. Thirdly, you need a front three with a lot of pace who can attack defenders -- this we have.

When we gain possession, I think he wants to play more quickly with balls into space. Unfortunately, Matic's first instinct is the safe pass. Pogba and Bruno are both excellent at unlocking defenses this way, and I think that as we get more fit and our form starts to turn for the better, both of them will perform at expectation in this respect. In the build-up play and final third, he wants more movement. We seemed to have that after the restart and Bruno was really pulling the strings. Right now, we look pretty stationary. We aren't moving and switching enough. Our passing has been really poor, inaccurate and without conviction.
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That he wants defenders with pace makes zero sense. It's pretty clear he doesn't. Firstly he brought Maguire to the club, secondly he favors Lindelof no matter how poorly he plays. Both are defenders who aren't fast at all.
 
soapythecat said:
Blowing a £100m on Sancho won’t improve this team much. It’s clear as day our management and coaching staff are not up to it. We have so many talented players who are putting in 5 or 6/10 performances.
We will get bummed by a side full of quality.
I’d swap Ole for Potter any day of the week. Might even consider a swap with Brian Potter too!
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When Ole gets Sancho he's going to have a ridiculous amount of pressure to put on a cohesive looking attack. If our possession play continues looking choppy and our attack remains reliant on individual creation it will be difficult to convince fans the squad is the problem

edit who am i kidding though. He'll just draw from his bag of excuses about needing to bed Sancho in with a preseason or his fitness not being where we want it yet
 
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Greck said:
You see the contradiction here. Why buy Maguire if the plan was to play that way from the start? Many of us have been left scratching our heads about the Maguire acquisition. Worse yet at 80m he has written off his chance to come back for more money on a new CB. That's going to be an awkward conversation.
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I think Maguire's purchase was the step in having someone with leadership and stability due to Bailly getting injured too often, and Smalling and Jones became too unreliable.
I think the acquisition of Nathan Ake was the first step in having a quick center back, but he went to Man City instead, and United has not been able to buy any one.

He does have a vision and a system. There are just way too much changes left by the previous management teams and way too many players that United cannot sell to bring in new players - Dalot, Smallings, Jones, Rojo etc, and an inept upper management that can't scout players quickly enough and bring them in.
 
Denis79 said:
That he wants defenders with pace makes zero sense. It's pretty clear he doesn't. Firstly he brought Maguire to the club, secondly he favors Lindelof no matter how poorly he plays. Both are defenders who aren't fast at all.
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I think he actually wanted Tuanzebe or even Bailly in that position but unfortunately they were injured all the time
 
El Jefe said:
Assuming what you say is actually Ole's plan, that tells me he has no clue what he's doing, which is actually how things look right now.

1. If Ole wanted quick defenders, he would never sanction wasting £80m on Maguire who is as slow as they come. He also has Bailly and Smalling available yet Lindelof is clearly favoured over them both.

2. Again if he needed a midfield three that was quick in closing down, he doesn't offer Matic a new contract. He'd also find a way to get Fred and/or Mctominay in our midfield to cover the obvious deficiencies of Pogba in hunting the ball down.

He's been here too long to use the excuse of players not fitting his system.
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Greck said:
You see the contradiction here. Why buy Maguire if the plan was to play that way from the start? Many of us have been left scratching our heads about the Maguire acquisition. Worse yet at 80m he has written off his chance to come back for more money on a new CB. That's going to be an awkward conversation
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Did /was Ole behind the Maguire transfer? If they didn't buy Maguire, was he looking at a Lindelof + Bailly/Rojo/Jones/Smalling partnership?
If that's the case, please buy Maguire, because he's loads better than any of the rest.

Also, playing the high line, you also need ball-playing center halfs. Smalling/Rojo/Jones are not and Bailly is always injured. Lindelof is good on the ball, same with Harry.

The Matic contract was insurance policy, nothing more.

Clearly, if you are trying to emulate the Liverpool midfield, you can't play Pogba, and you are looking at a midfield three of Bruno, Fred and McT. That's uninspiring.

I suppose you can blame Ole (everyone does) for tactics ('cept when he wins 3 out of 4 vs Pep), but I blame lack of squad depth and lack of transfers. Last year was about stabilizing defense -- he did that. This year's transfer window should be about instituting his vision.
 
dev1l said:
I think he actually wanted Tuanzebe or even Bailly in that position but unfortunately they were injured all the time
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Time will tell I guess. Let's see if Bailly stays fit and gets a prolonged run in the first 11.
 
We don't know how to press, we rarely use triangulations, players are too far apart, slow on the ball, and the defense... Wow we actually got incredibly worse. Awb seems lost, Shaw is in the building confidence stage, the opposition seems to be always in advantage even when we outnumber them.

It's incredibly hard to watch games this season so far. Sancho won't save us, nor the low quality bench bar some players.
 
DSG said:
Great analysis!

A lot of these types of comments. I think that Ole has a system he wants to play, but doesn't have the players to execute his vision. As a result, he is left with a match-by-match approach. We all know that we play better and create more on the counter. Our advantage is our pace and finishing of the front 3.

I do think Ole wants to press up high. Unfortunately, to do that, you need three characteristics in the squad: One, defenders with pace so you can play a high line and thus reduce the amount of space in between the lines. Maguire and Lindelof are too slow. Secondly, you need a midfield three that are quick to close down in the center of the pitch. Bruno is excellent, Pogba is disinterested, and not particularly quick, and Matic is slow and more of a positional player. Thirdly, you need a front three with a lot of pace who can attack defenders -- this we have.

When we gain possession, I think he wants to play more quickly with balls into space. Unfortunately, Matic's first instinct is the safe pass. Pogba and Bruno are both excellent at unlocking defenses this way, and I think that as we get more fit and our form starts to turn for the better, both of them will perform at expectation in this respect. In the build-up play and final third, he wants more movement. We seemed to have that after the restart and Bruno was really pulling the strings. Right now, we look pretty stationary. We aren't moving and switching enough. Our passing has been really poor, inaccurate and without conviction.
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He's got the players to at least implement his style which, in my opinion, should have been the starting point in the rebuild. Drop Pogba and play Fred, for example. Don't buy Maguire and get a faster CB. Don't rely on full backs for width and sign Wan Bissaka, who is only good defensively. There's so much he can do and a good coach would do with this set of players. Everyone is being fooled into thinking this is as much as we can get out of this group of players. What Ole says he wants and what his signings/ team selections say, are two completely different things. He really comes across as though he doesn't have a clue what he's doing in all honesty.
 
Sandikan said:
Imagine if we hadn't won today!
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I think its more to do with how we play. Most people can see that we have no system of playing. Sherwood and Hargreaves were spot on at half time. We have individual players who can do brilliant things individually. Collectively they are unable to play is because lack of a system and coaching. People are talking here about press and highline and that sort of thing.
But thats not the problem. You can do all the press too but what do you do when you have the ball? This is our biggest problem. If the opponents are not giving the space behind their defence we do not know what to do. This is the main reason why we see our players trying to beat two or three opposition players. They have no other option. Either try that or play it behind. Look at the West Brom third goal. It was practised. We never seem to try anything like that.
 
Like we said with Mourinho, dire football is only acceptable if we're winning a title.

For a battle for top 4? It's not good enough.
 
I’m afraid to say we seem to wholly rely on form and “bounce”, new manage bounce, fernandes bounce, to get the forwards firing. I’ve always been a massive fan of ole and I do think he has been perfect for the transition and reshaping the squad and getting us back to a solid base due to his love for the club, but I think his time is now up and we should bring someone else in now to drive us forward.
 
Its the same system that has given us 1 loss in 16 premier league matches.

So I'd go out on a limb and say that the system isn't the main issue at the moment. I'd say fitness and player sharpness are the glaring problem now.

Easily can be fixed as long as we stay injury free and continue to grind away and improve our levels.
 
DevilRed said:
Its the same system that has given us 1 loss in 16 premier league matches.

So I'd go out on a limb and say that the system isn't the main issue at the moment. I'd say fitness and player sharpness are the glaring problem now.

Easily can be fixed as long as we stay injury free and continue to grind away and improve our levels.
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The CAF have short memories
 
DevilRed said:
Its the same system that has given us 1 loss in 16 premier league matches.

So I'd go out on a limb and say that the system isn't the main issue at the moment. I'd say fitness and player sharpness are the glaring problem now.

Easily can be fixed as long as we stay injury free and continue to grind away and improve our levels.
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Teams have realised that if they attack us we can counter attack them and hurt them. So they do not leave space behind their defence and they have wised up. Just like today's goal by Rashford.
 
Sandikan said:
They certainly do, and overlooks that we won today!

The reasonable response is we know we were fortunate today, but let's see what the next game brings.
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You know what they say, better to be lucky than good!

These are the types of points that move a team up the table. Play shit. Get 3 points.

The dippers won the title on the back of these results. We have done so many a time under SAF too.

Its good to see we have it in the lads. OGS mentioned postmatch that the attitude in the team is good during training. We just have to play our way out of this slump in form and get fitter and sharper. Most importantly start to resemble a team again.
 
DevilRed said:
You know what they say, better to be lucky than good!

These are the types of points that move a team up the table. Play shit. Get 3 points.

The dippers won the title on the back of these results. We have done so many a time under SAF too.

Its good to see we have it in the lads. OGS mentioned postmatch that the attitude in the team is good during training. We just have to play our way out of this slump in form and get fitter and sharper. Most importantly start to resemble a team again.
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A Liverpool fan had the cheek of trying to ask me about the luck of the added on time, saying they had none last year.

They did have an incredible amount of goal keeper clangers, late goals, or sneaky wins over the last 2 years that they didn't deserve though
I can't imagine even the most Suarez t shirt backing Liverpool fan could deny that.

Pickford dumping that 95th min on his own goal line the worst, rivalled by Kepa last week.
 
People here are confused between having a system and trying to implement a system. I dont doubt Ole knows which system he wants the team to play, but he hasnt implemented at all. At least not properly.

Were not a high pressing team, the team is divided our attackers press but the midfield dont follow and our defense is passive. Thats not a pressing system, that seems more like a "go up in there and make the best you can" tactic.

All the excuses regarding how he is limited because our slow defense, well Maguire is the one who makes it slow. Lindelof is not the fastest defender in the league but he's not slow. No if anything making a slow central back is on him.

Like some have said before, he's been here long enough for the "he doesn't have the right players" excuse, that doesnt works out anymore. Not when he has signed 4 players 40M+ players.
 
Interval said:
> Fire Woody
> Move Ole to head of recruitment
> Hire a competent coach

In that order
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Head of recruitment? There's serious questions over Maguire, AWB and James. When he's inevitably fired, he should go like all who came before him.
 
Our system appears to be to let the opposition have the ball and try not and defend until the ball is in our box. Going forward I genuinely have no idea what the system is supposed to be
 
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