Painfully Pathetic Passing

IrishRedDevil

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Jun 23, 2016
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I haven’t seen it this bad. We cannot find a red shirt.

And when we do, it’s the most obvious square passes.

Or passing to a teammate when he is under pressure.
 
I said so many times, and people kept arguing with me, we have 0 stand out passers in our team. This is horrible, we are so far behind other teams with this.
 
What are they all doing, Martinez and Casemiro some of the worst passers on the pitch. Madness.
 
It's Liverpool's pressing which has been excellent, and our poor set-up or having way too many players ahead of the ball. Have seen several times where a United players options were really limited in where he could go because nobody was around to take the pass.
 
This is what happens when you fill a team up with technically inept players led by a manager who is allergic to keeping the ball.
 
This problem has plagued us for years now, not anywhere near enough composure on the ball. We seem to struggle to string more than 5 passes together without giving it away most games and are terrible at retaining possession for any length of time.
 
The moment we get the ball there is an urge to pass it to rash or garnacho behind. There is no control or any other gameplay.

Just one idea of playing behind. Cant keep the ball. Kobiee looks knackered already.

I doubt if Ugarte will fix this. We need to have some control of the ball in mid and just not keep playing over the top balls for Rashy who is just shit anyways.
 
Livewire1974 said:
Our play in the final third has been awful for a long time. Sick of it.
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I’d be fine if it was just the final third that was the problem. We couldn’t even make simple passes in our own half during the first half.
 
Ugarte won't fix this either, he's apparently not very good in this department :lol:
 
Bruno Casemiro and Rashford need shipping out the club. They signify everything that is wrong about our approach to possession. Sloppy, rushed, bad decision making.

The manager's hot potato football isn't going to bring us anything. He encourages players to rush the ball forward rather than show any patience.

There are other players who have questions over their ball retention, but they have the excuse of being young players or new to the club so we need to give them longer.
 
We play direct football. Bruno and Casimero can’t pass ‘normal’ ball to save their lives.

As we push our fall backs high, once we have a turnover in any part of the pitch, the back line is exposed.

The tactics expose our weaknesses of our inability to pass the ball accurately.
 
VP89 said:
Ugarte won't fix this either, he's apparently not very good in this department :lol:
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Stats suggest he's safe in possession but he's risk-averse.

Which may be what we need right now as Casemiro's high risk approach is killing us.

Ultimately we do need players who are both safe in possession and can progress the ball up the pitch.
 
Dominos said:
Stats suggest he's safe in possession but he's risk-averse.

Which may be what we need right now as Casemiro's high risk approach is killing us.

Ultimately we do need players who are both safe in possession and can progress the ball up the pitch.
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Very true. Perhaps Ugarte's safety first approach is what we need. The more worrying thing is that Mainoo has also been poor. Hopefully that's also because Casemiro is getting on, and fresh legs can do him a world of good.
 
KeanoMagicHat said:
It's Liverpool's pressing which has been excellent, and our poor set-up or having way too many players ahead of the ball. Have seen several times where a United players options were really limited in where he could go because nobody was around to take the pass.
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Ten Hag approach relies on the players we throw forward being clinical and incisive. None of the front four are in form.
 
Our midfield is just horrible. We need Bruno out of it and replaced by a player who wants to constantly get on the ball and get the team playing a short game. Not a central player who wants to put a cherry on top, but one who is the guy the game goes through.
 
VP89 said:
Ugarte won't fix this either, he's apparently not very good in this department :lol:
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His ball winning stats are (and will need to be) elite but by all accounts, another player to then give the ball back to the oppo?

Is it too much to ask with all the money we've spent to see us control a game? I'm not expecting every week. I'm not expecting it against your more polished outfits like City and Liverpool but we're incapable of doing it against pretty much any other PL side and arguably any well drilled professional side. We just play in fecking moments for 11 minutes of a c.100 minute match.

Men against boys again today in every single department.
 
Its been this way for too long now. We seem to be outnumbered in defence and attack.
Watching young Collyer carrying the ball swamped by opposition players with no options was painful.

There is something fundamentally wrong about the way the team is set up , the gaps between players seems to large.
 
If you're going to play this high pressing high risk style that we have, you need 2 things

1. Players who don't give the ball away cheaply because if they do you'll be caught in transition over and over again because you're wide open,
2. Athletic, fast midfielders and defenders who can recover situations when you do turnover the ball

We don't have either. Our entire team is built around the whims of Casemiro, Bruno and Rashford, who can't keep possession of a football to save their life. And we have old/slow players in midfield and at centre back. We have the worst of everything.
 
Most of our players are not press resistant, and it is in fact an extremely obvious vulnerability that opponents have been exploiting for a while. This team is such a mess, everything needs a rethink.
 
I cannot fathom how we’ve spent well north of a £1bn since Fergie retired and not a single manager has been able to put together a functioning and cohesive midfield. It’s like we’re cursed in that area, even now we’re reduced to playing Mainoo and Collyer, both of whom should really be understudies to established world class starters, like they would be at City, Real or Barca.
 
Sigh.

I’ll say it again, we aren’t getting to the top until we embrace the basic tenants of possession football. And that isn’t happening until-

- We hire a new manager and not this counter pressing manager with an irrational hatred for the midfield.
- We sign more players who can keep it in congested spaces and are especially great passers in midfield. We’ve needed a playmaker in midfield for a decade but nobody cares.

Another season wasted. Another year the penny hasn’t dropped.
 
VP89 said:
Ugarte won't fix this either, he's apparently not very good in this department :lol:
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He’ll help protect the back four but of course he isn’t being brought in to control games. For that there is no quick fix - it needs leadership to have a vision and then hire managers to bring that to life.
 
IrishRedDevil said:
I haven’t seen it this bad. We cannot find a red shirt.

And when we do, it’s the most obvious square passes.

Or passing to a teammate when he is under pressure.
Click to expand...
I live in Australia and find it hard to watch the games but from what I hear it is very poor.

We won't go too far if this is not addressed.
 
Drop Casemiro, play Ugarte when he is even half ready.
Drop Bruno, play Eriksen
Drop Rashford, play Amad and swap wings with Garnacho
Drop Licha (completely out of form), play Evans
Dalot is starting to annoy me as well, giving the ball away and taking forever on throw-ins, but we have no one else
 
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