I got the feeling ETH felt we needed more height against their forwards. But then if that was the case Varane should have started.
Piling in on new players: when did this become acceptable?
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The narrative about Martinez started before he even signed, and I get it. There is a reason why central defenders are taller. You have to admit his height makes him unusual in that position and especially in the premier league.
He will be targeted every single game
People are lazy, they picked the shortest player because it's easier.
Well it is easier to jump on him than the others. He’s about 4 foot tall!
Then he shouldn't be playing there yet. It's not the player anyone is having a go at it's the decision to play him.
Had a soft spot for United forever but I have to admit that I can see you turning into a club who simply makes players look bad. Here in Germany, Hamburger SV had this image. They could buy whoever they wanted, once the player wore their shirt, he turned shite. I think it‘s called „Toxic working environment“ and you better face this issue instead of keeping on blaming individual players. Sancho was world class in Dortmund, Pogba was great, Martial one of the most promising youngsters of his generation, heck you even turned CR7 into a donkey….
These players rightly get called out quite a lot by fans. One of these also isn't English.
EtH is an idiot if he thinks that. What we needed to do against them was give no space and time for them on the ball, if we'd done that none of their long balls would have been accurate and could easily have been mopped up by Maguire and Martinez.
Because Brentford where targeting him on high balls and working of the second balls because although he did well in not letting the Brentford forwards win every ball he certainly wasn't winning any himselfand the ball was just dropping loose in and around our defensive line.
A tall CB like maguire and varane would win the vast majority of the high balls and head it back where it came from having the second ball contested much further away from our defensive and ideally much closer to there defensive line. As happened numerous times in the second half, not allowing Brentford a very easy out ball to beat our press and immedialty put the pressure back on us.
Sancho has absolutely bags of ability I watched him tonnes at Dortmund and the problem at United is he hasn’t found a true role for his abilities yet.
Martinez wasn't at fault for any of the goals yesterday, yet I see posts about his height and Brentford tactically aiming at him on purpose. Mental.
Then we'd play Lindelof and Maguire.
Some players are just shit.
Nothing wrong with calling it as it is.
It was plain to see that Harry Maguire is a poor footballer.
He was subpar in every club he played at.
Has nothing to do with being right or being less of a fan.
Again, some players are just crap.
We, unfortunately, have a lot of them.
And?
Unfortunately, giving time does not necessarily mean players get better.
In a lot of our cases (like Bruno and Rashford for example), they actually get a lot worse
In a lot of our cases (like Bruno and Rashford for example), they actually get a lot worse
No he hasn’t. He’s been poor for us last season but he was good the seasons before that for all of the clubs he played for and country. Hence why us and City were interested in signing him. Don’t make shit up for the sake of it.
When the incumbent are so shite that they can only be defended by slating the new ones. Case in point, Maguire.
A lot of people defend (or used to) him and he's just an awful player, captain and generally has the mental fortitude of a wet wipe
A lot of people defend (or used to) him and he's just an awful player, captain and generally has the mental fortitude of a wet wipe
That's his level to be fair.
Championship football with the likes of Hull, Sheffield and a good outing for Leicester.
He's been poor for so long it's really fecking hard remembering his good play at United.
Something like Tony Martial.
Also a player that's been shit for so long that you cannot possibly try to resolve him of his shitness by remembering his great goal vs Liverpool.
We have a habbit of doing things like that, giving players the benefit of the doubt when it's quite clear they're past it and just play like crap for 90% of the time.
Namely most of our squad in the last 10 years.
We don't move on fast enough.
Maguire, Pogba, Martial, Rashford.....the list is so long it's quite sad.
Jump over maybe
That really went well thus far.
The only difference is Martinez is CB. If Mitrovic outjumps Dalot or Malacia I have no problem with that. But if most PL players outjump our CB - I see it as a problem.
Some of the players in this squad are on their 4th or 5th chance after multiple failed seasons and people are writing the new guys off after 1 or 2 games?
It's obvious this squad needs a complete overhaul so the new guys should be given the chance to be judged when not surrounded by the rubbish who have let the club down time and time again.
It's obvious this squad needs a complete overhaul so the new guys should be given the chance to be judged when not surrounded by the rubbish who have let the club down time and time again.
I don't even see the issue with him so far. At worst, Maguire and Varane start as CB's. Martinez can easily be one of our CM's if the stint at CB doesn't play out the way we hope. The reason I liked his signing had more to do with is versatility than simply him playing as a CB.
A bigger concern for me isn't the attack on new signings, but the short leash previous saviours for us have gotten. Bruno in particular. I see someone who has had poor form in a team that can't seem to get anything right at the moment. For 2 seasons, he was a top 5 player in the league for us and has been almost our sole creative hub in his time here. Yet people have been so willing to lump him in with the true failures of our team.
For me, Rashford is also in this category. In the 19/20 season, everything went through him in the first half of the season. He had a serious problem with is back, but was still able to give a decent account of himself for most of the 20/21 season. He came back around the time Ole was about to be sacked, but hasn't been able to get his level up to what it was prior to the back injury. Yet people want him thrown out and seem unwilling to understand his dip in form. Should they have competition within the squad? Most definitely. However we cannot be throwing out players who have done well in poor teams and are now struggling for form themselves.
We need to focus on the actual deficient personnel in our squad and not lump everyone into it.
1. Lindelof - Lindelof has been with us since 18/19. Him coming into the team led to a boatload of goals being shipped. He has been poor at dealing with aerial duels and has never been what we hoped he could be at any point in his time here and most likely should be at best a rarely used back up if not sold.
2. Maguire - Maguire came in and had an average to decent impact in his first season. However, he's slow in possession, has poor body positioning, failed to bring the aerial threat or protection he was signed to bring and has been a cause of us being caught on the counter. Decent player who can play, but should never lead our backline or captain the team. Blame is deserved, but I feel he's been overly scapegoated.
3. Shaw - has had one good season in his time here, but has been at the club since 2014. Hardly any true improvement. The bigger issue for me with him is that in an age where full backs are supposed to be the athletic hub of the team, he falls short. It affects us during counters and pinning the opposition back. His thinking can be slow and he holds the ball too long without moving it forward. His positional awareness is pretty low too and imo, the Malacia signing was more needed than people think it was.
4. Mctominay - Been in the team since the 17/18 season. Never was good enough and never will be. Positioning terrible, agility and first touch is terrible, passing is terrible and his ability to intercept or tackle are relatively poor as well. I don't think people understand how bad he is. He presents the team with a lack of a passing option when he's in the team. We lost midfield battle simply because he's a non-existent presence when we are in possession. Should not be in the side. I really think people underestimate how bad he is due to his tenacity. I really think he may be one of the worst starting central midfielders in the league over the last 5 years - even for relegation fodder.
5. Fred - Headless chicken for a lot of his time here. Has energy, but can't do anything useful with it in most situations. He's not a good tackler or ballwinner, loses most duels, is not great with is his touches and is not a great driver with the ball. He really should not be a starting option for us. He would be in our squad, but his positional awareness, lack of strength and heavy touches make him a liability in most games. Should be a 4th option for a midfield pivot off the bench.
Even though there are more players with question marks, like AWB and Martial, starting the 5 above consistently is the reason why we have struggled over the last few years. They are the reason our build up has been slow. They are the reason we can't win the ball back in midfield. They are the reason it has been easy to counter us. They are the reason we can't control games. In attack, we simply need more competition, but in these 5 players listed above, we need people to at the very least start ahead of them. Focus on these 5 and ensuring they don't play too many games and we'll start seeing a decent team.
A bigger concern for me isn't the attack on new signings, but the short leash previous saviours for us have gotten. Bruno in particular. I see someone who has had poor form in a team that can't seem to get anything right at the moment. For 2 seasons, he was a top 5 player in the league for us and has been almost our sole creative hub in his time here. Yet people have been so willing to lump him in with the true failures of our team.
For me, Rashford is also in this category. In the 19/20 season, everything went through him in the first half of the season. He had a serious problem with is back, but was still able to give a decent account of himself for most of the 20/21 season. He came back around the time Ole was about to be sacked, but hasn't been able to get his level up to what it was prior to the back injury. Yet people want him thrown out and seem unwilling to understand his dip in form. Should they have competition within the squad? Most definitely. However we cannot be throwing out players who have done well in poor teams and are now struggling for form themselves.
We need to focus on the actual deficient personnel in our squad and not lump everyone into it.
1. Lindelof - Lindelof has been with us since 18/19. Him coming into the team led to a boatload of goals being shipped. He has been poor at dealing with aerial duels and has never been what we hoped he could be at any point in his time here and most likely should be at best a rarely used back up if not sold.
2. Maguire - Maguire came in and had an average to decent impact in his first season. However, he's slow in possession, has poor body positioning, failed to bring the aerial threat or protection he was signed to bring and has been a cause of us being caught on the counter. Decent player who can play, but should never lead our backline or captain the team. Blame is deserved, but I feel he's been overly scapegoated.
3. Shaw - has had one good season in his time here, but has been at the club since 2014. Hardly any true improvement. The bigger issue for me with him is that in an age where full backs are supposed to be the athletic hub of the team, he falls short. It affects us during counters and pinning the opposition back. His thinking can be slow and he holds the ball too long without moving it forward. His positional awareness is pretty low too and imo, the Malacia signing was more needed than people think it was.
4. Mctominay - Been in the team since the 17/18 season. Never was good enough and never will be. Positioning terrible, agility and first touch is terrible, passing is terrible and his ability to intercept or tackle are relatively poor as well. I don't think people understand how bad he is. He presents the team with a lack of a passing option when he's in the team. We lost midfield battle simply because he's a non-existent presence when we are in possession. Should not be in the side. I really think people underestimate how bad he is due to his tenacity. I really think he may be one of the worst starting central midfielders in the league over the last 5 years - even for relegation fodder.
5. Fred - Headless chicken for a lot of his time here. Has energy, but can't do anything useful with it in most situations. He's not a good tackler or ballwinner, loses most duels, is not great with is his touches and is not a great driver with the ball. He really should not be a starting option for us. He would be in our squad, but his positional awareness, lack of strength and heavy touches make him a liability in most games. Should be a 4th option for a midfield pivot off the bench.
Even though there are more players with question marks, like AWB and Martial, starting the 5 above consistently is the reason why we have struggled over the last few years. They are the reason our build up has been slow. They are the reason we can't win the ball back in midfield. They are the reason it has been easy to counter us. They are the reason we can't control games. In attack, we simply need more competition, but in these 5 players listed above, we need people to at the very least start ahead of them. Focus on these 5 and ensuring they don't play too many games and we'll start seeing a decent team.
The focus on Martinez is so obvious I’m bemused anyone wouldn’t understand why. We’ve had two shocking results against much smaller clubs who clearly adjusted their tactics to exploit his individual weaknesses. Weaknesses that everyone’s been talking about from the moment we were first linked with him. Opposition managers are even coming out and explicitly stating they saw him as a weak link to the press. Then we go and lose both of those matches with those tactics proving very successful. I mean, come on. Are we expected to just ignore all of this because he’ll take a while to settle? As far as initial impressions made by a new signing that’s about as bad as it gets.
Yes, we should be patient and no, he shouldn’t be written off already but people are getting bizarrely precious about legitimate concerns based on what we’ve seen so far.
Yes, we should be patient and no, he shouldn’t be written off already but people are getting bizarrely precious about legitimate concerns based on what we’ve seen so far.
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Beyond the pale. Completely pointless too. Self defeating behaviour.
Good point. But then again for the third goal, the ball fell in a way that neither the Brentford player nor Martinez jumped for it. Not great defending to be sure but the team as a whole was poor on that corner, with Dalot not challenging at the back post and De Gea not commanding the box as usual.
Yet none of the goals actually came from this targeting did they? that's why we're saying it's a load of rubbish.
If they'd have been launching long balls, he loses every header and flick on and they score from a knock down then fair enough. But there hasn't been 1 situation like that yet.
I really want to see 1 of those 'every touch' videos of Martinez against Brentford. I'm sure it's nowhere near as bad as you think it is.
The manager hooking him at halftime was always going to put a target on his back.
Will be interesting to see if he's dropped for your next game.
Will be interesting to see if he's dropped for your next game.
Martínez barely had a preseason. ten Hag has thrown him to the wolves a bit by starting him twice. I understand he wants to establish a system but Martínez has had a baptism of fire in the English football, now he needs to manage his confidence
you can add a spoonful of sugar to 10 spoons of shite. It still won't make it taste any more appealing.
The manager of brentford was asked whether they targeted martinez’ height and he said yes.
https://www.skysports.com/amp/footb...rgeting-manchester-united-defender-in-4-0-win
I agree, it was the same after the Brighton game. There is a point there concerning his stature and how that affects his effectiveness. It is clear that he was targeted for that, and that it made us vulnerable. But that's not the same as him playing badly, I don't think he did. Just note Ivan Toney's words after the game, where he also acknowledged that Martinez had played well, being very aggressive on the ground, and he said he thought it was more or less 50-50 between them. Possibly left back or CM would be a better fit for him, but I don't think he's played badly.
....you're arguing that no one is calling out Maguire, Rashford, McTominay, Shaw or Sancho? Then you're not reading much around here. They're all being eviscerated on a regular basis. Or maybe you're being sarcastic, it's hard to tell anymore.
Well, they didn’t do a very good job then. Martinez got subbed not because he was outmuscled, but judging by ETH’s post pressers because he didn’t carry out ETH’s instructions of playing the long ball.