Our best players are also our biggest issues

acnumber9 said:
It’s one half of football. Over a season Bruno Rashford and Casemiro will easily contribute more than those around them. The idea that our best players are our biggest problem is stupid.
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It's only stupid if you don't understand the concept of a team
 
AndySmith1990 said:
It's only stupid if you don't understand the concept of a team
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I understand the concept. We saw Casemiro run the show on Tuesday. And we’ll see it again. He was more than good enough in a team winning the Champions League. Now he’s one of the 9th placed teams biggest problems. Maybe the worse players are the problem. Like they are in most teams.
 
I don't see how they are our best players, they have too many big weaknesses.
 
acnumber9 said:
It’s one half of football. Over a season Bruno Rashford and Casemiro will easily contribute more than those around them. The idea that our best players are our biggest problem is stupid.
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They play like this half the time and it forces the team to play a certain style that's not sustainable to win football games either consistently or comfortably.
 
Hammondo said:
I don't see how they are our best players, they have too many big weaknesses.
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Because in a team that is generally pretty hopeless at scoring many goals (for a big club with title aspirations) they are our best goalscorers.

I completely get this thread and agree with some of the points, i'm just saying I understand why it's probably a difficult choice for EtH to drop a player with 30 goals last season in a side with very few natural goalscorers.
 
Irwin99 said:
Because in a team that is generally pretty hopeless at scoring many goals (for a big club with title aspirations) they are our best goalscorers.

I completely get this thread and agree with some of the points, i'm just saying I understand why it's probably a difficult choice for EtH to drop a player with 30 goals last season in a side with very few natural goalscorers.
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Other teams currently doing better than we are don't have those players.
 
Irwin99 said:
Because in a team that is generally pretty hopeless at scoring many goals (for a big club with title aspirations) they are our best goalscorers.

I completely get this thread and agree with some of the points, i'm just saying I understand why it's probably a difficult choice for EtH to drop a player with 30 goals last season in a side with very few natural goalscorers.
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We have to take the plunge of letting individual players go for the sake of improving overall squad balance and attacking cohesion. I don’t really trust Hag to be the man to do that, mind.
 
hobbers said:
Any half decent manager would ship Rashford and Casemiro off to Saudi as soon as possible.

Bruno should be a sub at best. Europa league level counter attack player.
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That's just not how football works. These guys have roots planted into the team, you don't just remove that like we're playing a video game.
 
It's honestly down to the manager to judge the squad and fix this. He needs to be honest with some of the better players if they don't fit the idea of how his team should play.
 
Rashford has always been inconistent as feck. Nothing new there, same with Bruno but to a lesser extent

Casemiro is in decline and his age is showing

Shaw is good when fit , but hes also a sicknote

These players aren't the problem
 
It’s really simple though. Everywhere in every walk of life, there is accountability and rewards for good performance. If a person performs better at his job, you promote them and encourage them.

I can not understand why our managers have favorites. If a player is not performing, bench them - have some cojones. It’s a team game. Why have other guys play at all if they have no chance of taking the place of an underperforming player.

Rashford and Bruno are performing below par this season. It happens. But why not play Mejbri and Garnacho? Ole did the same by always playing his favorites and Ten Hag is no different. Martial performed well midweek and only got 15 minutes today. Why?

Eth really is not learning.
 
Our best players just aren't that good.

We wouldn't have a single player in a league best eleven. Maybe even a second string.
 
Hammondo said:
He couldn't play their football, it was very simple to sell him.
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On the back of another league title it certainly was.
Revaulx said:
Well it was straightforward enough on Tuesday when they were dropped and we played well.
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I also want to see us without them. I think our best hope in our situation is that they get injured. I get you, even during the week I was thinking, "Hannibal's energy seems to bring so much to the table. Maybe we just need to run around more."
 
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Bobcat said:
Rashford has always been inconistent as feck. Nothing new there, same with Bruno but to a lesser extent

Casemiro is in decline and his age is showing

Shaw is good when fit , but hes also a sicknote

These players aren't the problem
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The problem is that they aren't suppose to have those issues. They are paid to be our top performers, but in the best teams in the world these players might probably not be first choice. At United, they obviously are undroppable. When the undroppable players aren't performing, that's not a good situation to be in.
 
I was onto Bruno and Rashford from early and copped endless amount of critique. I told you guys they were Low IQ footballers that were holding us back but most of the fans here only cared about their G/A.


This is the result of building the club around them. Out of the title race in less than 8 games once again.
 
Siorac said:
He got rid of Ronaldinho and Deco straight away at Barcelona.
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It would be interesting to see the Catalan media's narrative around these two players at the time? It might just take a journalist or two pointing out how Marcus and Bruno are hindering us for this to be explored. My feeling is that it's going to take a certain ecosystem for us to move on from these players.
 
Re Casemiro, he and Madrid didn’t really play brilliantly early in their seasons. Note that they didn’t win the league so much as the CL either. By the second half of the season they were peaked and primed. Casemiro doing what he always does. Poor players around him, in a midfield sense as well as others, very dynamic fast-paced league.
 
Yorkeontop said:
On the back of another league title it certainly was.

I also want to see us without them. I think our best hope in our situation is that they get injured. I get you, even during the week I was thinking, "Hannibal's energy seems to bring so much to the table. Maybe we just need to run around more."
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Running around a lot coupled with a reasonable quantity of technical skill, particularly the ability to not constantly give the ball away (so not Fred), will get you a hell of a long way.

Sadly a lot of football fans seem to believe it’s beneath them to appreciate hard work.
 
Yorkeontop said:
That's just not how football works. These guys have roots planted into the team, you don't just remove that like we're playing a video game.
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Pep benched Aguero because his football was not suited to the way he wanted to play. Brought in a young weak Jesus to start ahead of him.
Fair play to Aguero he did adapt his game but it wasn’t enough for the managers full backing.
 
MikeKing said:
The problem is that they aren't suppose to have those issues. They are paid to be our top performers, but in the best teams in the world these players might probably not be first choice. At United, they obviously are undroppable. When the undroppable players aren't performing, that's not a good situation to be in.
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They are only undroppable if the manager makes them so.

hobbers said:
Three of them were all a major problem today and two of them have been a problem in every game they've played in this season.....
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Not disagreeing with that, but if one player plays like shit, you can blame it on him, if everyone play like shit, well....
 
Bobcat said:
They are only undroppable if the manager makes them so.



Not disagreeing with that, but if one player plays like shit, you can blame it on him, if everyone play like shit, well....
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But we were fine a few days ago when they didn't play. And plenty of people worried before today's game they would come back in and the team would go to shit again.

Move Bruno to the right, bring in Hannibal and drop Rashford for Garnacho, and the team would look far better.
 
Revaulx said:
Running around a lot coupled with a reasonable quantity of technical skill, particularly the ability to not constantly give the ball away (so not Fred), will get you a hell of a long way.

Sadly a lot of football fans seem to believe it’s beneath them to appreciate hard work.
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My eyes were opened to the possibilities during the week. Focused energy seemed to frankly change the team's paradigm.
If EtH recognises this, we are waiting on his courage to act.
KikiDaKats said:
Pep benched Aguero because his football was not suited to the way he wanted to play. Brought in a young weak Jesus to start ahead of him.
Fair play to Aguero he did adapt his game but it wasn’t enough for the managers full backing.
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Pep seems to have allowed himself to operate in a different sphere it seems. He's never had to deal with the scope of what United are going through I'd argue.
 
Bobcat said:
They are only undroppable if the manager makes them so.
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If we drop them because of that it means we have a b-team and belong where we are. Which is the truth too. They'll get back into form and then play catchup unless they don't fancy that challenge or sulks if being dropped, then it'll get worse real quick.
 
There are no pressure from everyone apart from getting top 4 which is reasonable, and maybe an ok run in the CL.

Ten Haag could have buy 30-40M players in numbers to fill the gap while readying the team in another 2 - 3 years. That's planning and professionalism. Maybe he dont last that long to bear the fruit of his works, but at this rate going 100mph and buying 70m players while not knowing where to put them and what is it they offer seems like a desperate move and selfish move for a shortcut.

Case in point buying casemiro for 100m, now he's losing his legs and needs replacement after only 1 year. Hojlund still need 2-3 years under GOOD team.

He's not a builder, he's a quick fix who naively think money solves everything

Get the basic right, we wont do as bad as we are even without 200M signing. Only when you get the basic right you start adding marquee signing
 
Yorkeontop said:
Pep seems to have allowed himself to operate in a different sphere it seems. He's never had to deal with the scope of what United are going through I'd argue.
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Managers are allowed to set standards and stick to it.
 
KikiDaKats said:
Managers are allowed to set standards and stick to it.
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Agree. Can you agree though, that Pep has never faced a situation like this before. His Barca had won the CL like 2 years before and only had to watch out for Madrid. Setting standards in that situation is different to the EPL in 2022.
 
When they're playing this poorly they certainly are.

Regardless of any arguments about how certain player profiles do/don't fit into the side, Casemiro and Rashford in particular have been plain bad on an individual level this season.
 
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