Its early days and a lot of parts aren't ideal. New right winger has been here about a week. Strikers aren't peak Van Nistelrooy. Manager is 6 games into job. Its still a drastic improvement
Our football is stale
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We've a better squad that real sociadad. Insane to suggest otherwise
Football is very fine margins…a few players having an off night (or just Maguire being himself) and it suddenly becomes a very hard game to play/watch.
Not suggesting that. Our squad is also still bloated and lacking in key areas. It is clear that we haven't moved on from the poor performances from last season (and before). But I don't think it is unreasonable to say that we have made some progress under ten Hag. There is at least an idea of how we want to play.
Hard to address is when Ronaldo is playing up top, the guy can't do anything with the ball at his feet and can't make runs. He's genuinely not cut out for a big league anymore. With Rashford at least we have plenty of moments of getting in dangerous positions. We will be at our best with Martial there as be can hold up the ball. Will also improve with a ball playing goalkeeper. See Sociedad today, every time we press high they bypass the press through their goalkeeper easily. De Gea isn't capable of it.
It's like we have about 11 on 12 players who can do what ETH has told them to and anyone beyond that struggles.
No. We must brainstorm a solution for him. Without us, he's lost. I imagine he didn't even know about the problem until this thread alerted him.
Anyone expecting sexy football and winning the EPL this season is delusional. This club and its football team has been badly managed for almost 10 years now and it will take time to change the culture, mentality and style of play.
I like it that ETH is going back to basics first. Get that defence sorted out and making each player understand their roles. Then we can move on to the next level. A top 4 finish will be a bonus this season.
I like it that ETH is going back to basics first. Get that defence sorted out and making each player understand their roles. Then we can move on to the next level. A top 4 finish will be a bonus this season.
Of course. I'm just commenting on the things some posters are saying which of course is ridiculous.
Naive if you thought this was an instant transition
We were better than Arsenal though and they had lots of it. United never have historically been great in possession so do you think that changes in 3 months?
We needed De Jong in midfield and a striker who can hold the ball up / play between the lines for that. Maybe then we’ll be better at it right off the bat.
I think we did ok for a team that played together for the first time (apart from defensive line which has proven shite last season). We also played against our bogeyman (Spanish side).
We should work on patterns of play in the final third, I think we tried to play it faster today at times but clearly players are not trained to do so. This is what we're missing to create chances for CF.
I'm not that worried, it's a shite result which doesn't reflect the game. My only concern is how we lost our heads in the last 20mins of the match.
We should work on patterns of play in the final third, I think we tried to play it faster today at times but clearly players are not trained to do so. This is what we're missing to create chances for CF.
I'm not that worried, it's a shite result which doesn't reflect the game. My only concern is how we lost our heads in the last 20mins of the match.
Stick to players who suit the kind of football we want to play and give ETH time to train the team towards that.
I didn't say nor hint anything changing in 3 months. When any team average European and English can come at OT and dominate possession relatively easily then something is wrong with the football.
For some games I can understand it and welcome it when the opponent is much better, I just hope to never see it against teams of average or low caliber. It will take a long time to correct sadly.
Patters of play in the final third is exactly what we miss. Spot on. Too many crosses and cutbacks in areas where no one is there
I agree with that.
We seemed to solve the Europe puzzle briefly in 2008-09 only. That’s the only time we ever mastered continental football in my life.
We played underdogs a lot in 99’ so I don’t count that.
I would argue we have the worst European record of all big clubs given the players we’ve had. Last 10 years it’s been absolutely diabolical. We couldn’t have done any worse.
Haven’t got to a single CL semi final and Real have won 5 CL’s in that time. It’s just very embarrassing for our club.
The standard hasn’t exactly been standout some years with Spurs and Ajax reaching one. If they did it we sure as hell should have.
Indeed, if you watch top teams you will notice there is no thinking and wondering what to do with the ball (around the box), it has to be intuitive and player should know what to do with the ball before he receives it.
There are teams (like Brighton) who do that without top players. It needs proper coaching though, and time. I actually have no doubt we have the players and the coach to learn it, but it will take a lot of time.
You really don't seem to have been paying attention at all if that's what you think. We've won four in a row with our first team and the players brought in last night were not match fit and some are just not suited to ten Hag's style/not good enough so it was always going to be tough. We already look much better defensively. There are partnerships forming, nice passing moves emerging and it's not really been counter attacking at all. Besides all that, are you really expecting miracles in a few months?
Yeah exactly. It takes a long time for these things to become automatic in competitive matches.
ten Hag's biggest challenge will be overcoming the low block
We were a little more zippy last night than the usual OT nightmare we’ve been watching for years. Still, in the final third absolutely awful and still giving the ball away for fun. Your bang average European team keeps the ball better than us.
We have made plenty of progress. I'm enjoying it all. He should be able to get a performance last night and he is accountable for that with no real excuses.
Eric's first real test.
Lets presume here that EtH is to us what Pep to City then its Buy Buy Buy. Buy until he gets the right players for his style and that we know already another CM, RB, GK, 2 Strikers/Attackers.
Also, the man is human, he cant wave a wane and boom, we be able to play like a world beater. Process, patience, and time is needed.
Also, the man is human, he cant wave a wane and boom, we be able to play like a world beater. Process, patience, and time is needed.
It's going to take time to build the in possession play with the patterns ETH wants. We see it in short moments but it's only been a few games. What's important IMO is that we found a way to be harder to score against and be able to grind results while we work on general play. The system ten Hag wants is so complex that I think we will only see it in full display after 18 months or so. Until then, some glimpses here and there, some counter and getting some results through quality of individuals.
I'm actually very happy with our situation because I feared the manager would be obsessed with only making his way of playing the be all end all and have that result in catastrophe after catastrophe of results that would lead to sacking. I'm delighted that after the first 2 games he took a more pragmatic view and implement change slower while working on his philosophy. This is proof of him not only having a good and working football system like we've seen at Ajax, but he is also a smart man capable of adapting.
First ten Hag wanted to aim for us to be stable in defense. I would argue so far so good with that. Going forward seems he needs a little more time with our forwards and our second team for sure. The link I’m between seems hardest at the moment although our starters appear to be finishing better, wouldn’t you say?
the team looks compact for a reason and won’t be galloping for a little while. Hope we make a January signing or two. Top four will be tough.
Edit: Our team is also far from the finished article. Fred, Elanga and McTominay to name a few, are players who will get loads of minutes this season. Ronaldo another issue, Martial always injured etc.
Players like Fred dont belong at this club.
People trying to pin it on certain players, Ronaldo etc., think we are talking about type of possession in final third where you camp their box and we lets be honest have no clue about it, specially under Ole and currently under ETH but lets say he needs a bit of time to adress if he finds that an issue at all.
Seems quite reminiscent of Ole moving from his honeymoon period 4-3-3 to a counter attacking 4-2-3-1 as soon as he got the job, its part of why i wasn't quite sold on him as the manager it felt like he had sold us a lie.
And just like with Ole to have a long term vision of "progress" you don't accomplish this with pragmatic football you just don't any system also needs regular match practice, its exactly what makes results like last night even worse i mean you didn't see Pep or Klopp do it when they came in did you it was their way or the highway and there was massive growing pains (as their team was also unsuited) but in the end it paid off.
And just like with Ole to have a long term vision of "progress" you don't accomplish this with pragmatic football you just don't any system also needs regular match practice, its exactly what makes results like last night even worse i mean you didn't see Pep or Klopp do it when they came in did you it was their way or the highway and there was massive growing pains (as their team was also unsuited) but in the end it paid off.
This..
For now as the manager is working on a system of play and constructing the structure of the team i couldn't care less how boring it may be if wins are produced. What i really found boring was losing to mediocre opposition who didn't have to play well to beat United.
“New manager hasn’t got us playing exactly how I want after only a few games”
It's not stale, at the moment I would say we are just not good enough untill we have a proper settled team.
It was actually a very similar start to ours. His results in his first six league games were D-D-W-L-W-W, including big wins against Chelsea (although this was while Mourinho was on course to get them relegated) and Man City. And then they got smashed 3-0 by Watford and lost to Newcastle within a few games of thrashing City.
I seem to recall them having the exact same problem people are noticing with us right now or previously under Ole - great in transition against teams that press us high up the pitch, prone to looking out of ideas when the other team sits back. That sort of thing takes time to drill into players - the difference with our previous managers is that I think we're already seeing visible evidence of Ten Hag's stamp on the way we play (the opening goals against Liverpool, Arsenal, and Southampton).
Could be like this for a while, but at least ETH knows how to get results even if we're not playing how he wants to, if he didn't then he'd be toast pretty quickly given how many players we still have that he must hate been here.
I think even the super optimistic Rangnick said it'd take 3 transfer windows to sort this mess out if we were aggressive in the market, which tbf I think we were in the summer, it's just still less than half the job done though.
I think even the super optimistic Rangnick said it'd take 3 transfer windows to sort this mess out if we were aggressive in the market, which tbf I think we were in the summer, it's just still less than half the job done though.
He needs more time to get our possession and passages of play game sorted. The first thing that had to happen was to get the defence under control. We conceded way too many last season, and we'd conceded 6 after 2 games under him. He seems to have gotten that under control now. I'm sure we'll have quite a few boring games this season. I'll take some more hard fought 1-0 wins than conceding a tonne.
Thinking back, outside of maybe Moyes it's been a huge part of all the post Fergie managers eventually getting sacked.
I disagree with the threads premise. I've seen good football from us when in control of the game. It's just not consistent yet, which is to be expected given Ten Hag has had feck all time.
Agreed. The first 15 mins against arsenal was the most controlled ive seen utd play in many years.
Buying players like Sancho and Antony are supposed to help you break low block teams. Its only been 6 games not 60 games under ETH.
Yeah we definitely zipped it about more but the accuracy was definitely an issue
Yeah the low block is clearly one of our biggest achilles heels