[HookedOnAPhelan]

I really shouldn't let this affect me so much but I'm just so fecking sick of this shit. It never fecking ends.

 

[Buster15]

I really shouldn't let this affect me so much but I'm just so fecking sick of this shit. It never fecking ends.

This is pretty much how most United fans are likely to be feeling. Certainly me.
It is the hope that kills you. And every season I hope that we will turn things around. Last season finishing 3rd was better. But the same basic problems were there and the terrible start this season is a real kick in the guts.

 

[Blackbeard]

I remember the days of laughing at the owl but to be fair the owls done us .

 

[mitchmouse]

As I said in August, we don't have enough goals in us to turn defeats into draws and draws into wins. Forest aside, when is the last time we came from two down to win? When was the last time we put a winning run of (say) five league games together?

As soon as we went behind, I feared the worst. Some of that is down to ETH - why do we insist on starting so slowly? Part of course is down to weak mentality, heads drop whenever we fail to score in the first 15-20 minutes and it gets worse when we then concede.

Four shots on target is pathetic: Newcastle had eight different goal-scorers last week, Arsenal had four yesterday (accepted that Havertz was given his goal). Palace hadn't score a first-half goal in the PL this season until yesterday.

United are rotting through and through. The owners and the people they put in charge are destroying our club. We play a right-sided midfielder at left back - are you telling me there isn't someone in the academy who could have stepped up? Disgraceful.

The reluctance to give Garnacho more game time, who at least adds pace to the sluggish attack, is mind-boggling. The fact we send on Maguire in the dying minutes as well as Donny, who must have forgotten the way to OT by now, is pretty much as crazy as it gets. And the refusal to admit that Rashford and Fernandes aren't doing enough to start is sad to the extreme. nd Mount was supposedly bought to bring creativity and dynamism to the midfield - you'd get more from Corporal Jones (from Dad's Army, not Phil)

If we lose on Tuesday night to a side with a very poor away record, then it's "hello again, my old friend (the Europa League)..."

 

[mitchmouse]

I really shouldn't let this affect me so much but I'm just so fecking sick of this shit. It never fecking ends.

This - why, oh why, do I let it ruin my weekends?

 

[Buster15]

We can not break down teams like Palace because we don't overload their organised defenses.
I continually refer to our attackers being isolated.
Our attacks are usually limited to individual 1 or 2 players. Or more normally hopeful balls with the defenders backs to their goals. Far too easy for them.

Our tactics are almost none existent. And that is inexcusable, especially at OT

 

[Ayoba]

I really shouldn't let this affect me so much but I'm just so fecking sick of this shit. It never fecking ends.

Same mate. I just don't understand how bad the situation has become and worst of all, I cant see ETH turning this around. I wasn't ready for yet another shite season!

 

[bazza3727]

I’d get De Zerbi

Brighton have just been stuffed 6-1 by Aston Villa!

 

[Captmfla]

Needs Antony to be back. He's better than Pellestri.

 

[NLunited]

I hope people are happy we ‚won‘ the game with 77% possession.

We looked stationary in attack a lot of the time, but there were some good moments. Just not enough to deserve a win.

We had trouble scoring goals last season too, but we managed to narrowly win many games. Now we are losing them.

It doesn‘t help that refs won‘t give us clear handballs in the box: Rashford was denied a shooting or crossing opportunity in the box by a defender handling the ball. That‘s the third or fourth this season.

Not sure what needs to be done, other than continuing to demand high levels in training and games. There is not a lot of coaching time these weeks and we don‘t have options in the squad that are better.

 

[SambaBoy]

We just have a multitude of problems that are surfacing.

- We won the most games last year by a single goal. It only takes a few of them to turn into draws for it to become a big problem, which is now happening.
- We looked a different team from February onwards last season - I'm not sure about how many points we picked up after that but we looked fatigued and not as fluid as previously. I think that crazy season in terms of games is still having an affect like it was for Liverpool the season after they played 60+ games. We have looked off the boil in terms of fitness so far and the hectic pre-season schedule we had definitely doesn't happen. It said a lot that Reguilon looked in our fittest player in the games he played when he hasn't had a pre-season at the club.
- Injuries. We are picking up way too many muscular injuries, something isn't right behind the scenes and combined with the effect of last season is killing us at the moment.
- Poor recruitment. ETH has obviously demanded a lot of his targets but the majority have been underwhelming and you need to get the recruitment right to compete.

 

[Crimson King]

You all need to go for a long walk, listen to some music, or a podcast that isn't to do with football, and log off from this site for a few days.

If you're letting this ruin your weekend then it's nobody's fault but your own.

 

[Hackman2210]

Mount and Fernandez just doesn’t work. One has to be left out. I don’t think hojlund can play as the point of a 3 man attack. He looks like the lead striker that needs a number 10 to play off him. No balance in the team. Let’s go back to 442 please. All this inverted fullback bollux is killing us. City can do it because they got better players - we need to simplify our game not copy theirs.

 

[Maticmaker]

Watching United is becoming something of a "had my teeth fixed, now my mouth won't work" experience. Accepting the Palace team were now at full strength or near to it, we should be considered not far off with the team put out yesterday. Most of our injuries are to defenders, our problem yesterday was in attack, not defence.

Our approach play was marginally better, but the final ball into the penalty area was terrible, my granny (if she were still with us) could have defended against most of those efforts. Palace never really looked in trouble apart from a couple of times when miscued shots/passes from us nearly caught them out.

At times we had some smart back-to-front movement, quick balls played out from Casemiro/Amrabat, to feet or to run onto, but as soon as anyone, especially Rashford got near the box it was the same old same old...! What does it take to convince Marcus he cannot barge his way through 2 or 3 defenders, especially when they are lined up in such as way as to anticipate such an attempt, why can he not seem to understand his presence is a danger, it draws defenders, look to pass around them give your mates at least a chance of hitting the target?

Rasmus has got the right kind of striker sense, but he needs more help in terms of his runs and the service he needs, surely its Bruno or Mason's job to give him that support, he needs an 8 or a 10 close to him to feed him, or off him, at the moment it looks as if ETH is trying to get Marcus and Rasmus into some sort of partnership, but their natural styles seem to clash.

I suppose given the amount of possession we had there is some marginal improvement, in part at least, but it looks like we are starting again, either that or the 'ground-hog day' hex as taken over.

 

[giggslover]

Season Over...I'll still watch Champions league, but team's realistically already out of top 4 race, and its only Oct. 1st

 

[RedPed]

I agree with you, ETH’s “tough line” doesn’t wash as it’s only reserved for certain people. It makes him look inauthentic and actually a bit of an idiot

Completely agree. He's beginning to lose credibility like Southgate. If he leaves out Hannibal and starts Rashford, for example, all that bluster amounts to nothing in the end.

 

[The_Midfielder]

We had good control in the game against Palace. But our front three of Rashford, Hojlund and Pellistri could not play well around the penalty area. The choices being made were poor. If we can fix that, we will begin to string results together.

Other than Rashford .. do anybody from that frontline look like scoring

 

[Hammondo]

Other than Rashford .. do anybody from that frontline look like scoring

Do they get the chance with Rashford around? On Tuesday they did, odd that.

 

[Hester_manc]

Not sure what game you were watching not including Rashford instead of Mount . At least Mount gives a feck

Mount had 10 good minutes right before he was replaced. Otherwise he was anonymous. As I see it, he is very overrated in general. Rashford was the only player, who at least tried to create chances in the first half - in the second half he disappeared as soon as he became right wing

 

[Wazzaduke33]

Brighton have just been stuffed 6-1 by Aston Villa!

You have to contextualise Brighton, their starting 11 yesterday cost less than £20m, so they will always have these types of results, and go through 7-8 game bad spells, it’s inevitable with such an inexperienced squad. The job he’s done there is incredible. Don’t forget we regularly get stuffed 4, 5, 6, 7 by teams and we have a £1bn squad

 

[ROFLUTION]

For the balance of the team, Antony was missed yesterday. He just works 10-15% harder. What a shitshow that he has allowed himself to take the focus away from his football though.

 

[Cantonagotmehere]

I really shouldn't let this affect me so much but I'm just so fecking sick of this shit. It never fecking ends.

I finally got numb mate. Need the club sold or we will wallow in this mire.

 

[Marcus]

Not sure what happened. We had so much possession but the players who were played out of position had no clue what to do. I think Amrabat playing as an additional midfielder put everybody off their usual game. Should stick to being an emergency left back at this point.

 

[NLunited]

Not sure what happened. We had so much possession but the players who were played out of position had no clue what to do. I think Amrabat playing as an additional midfielder put everybody off their usual game. Should stick to being an emergency left back at this point.

There could be some truth in that.

 

[norm87cro]

Hodgson (a man that got dumped by Iceland from the Euros) schooled our so called tactically brilliant manager by giving him possesion and probably just slightly targeting Rashford with 3 or 4 knocks with various players (Im not defending Rashford just saying how they approached the game).
And our so called brilliant visionary had no plan B for this classical lower to mid table approach of every single english team of Palaces calibre. It is turning into LVG all over again (I said that way back and got attacked but some of the CAF is starting to see my POV recently) the way weaker teams just give us possesion and defend easly against us for the majority of the game.
To be fair to him we probably should have made it 1 1 but in reality we played very poorly.

 

[stoinz]

I thought we played well largely from defense to midfield. Issue was largely with our attacking play, too predicatable and slow which let us down. Not sure what can be done to it.

 

[Wing Attack Plan R]

Our 2 main goal scorers are having a bad start to the season. Hojlund was bought to add to the goals tally, and maybe the chances either Rashford or Bruno may have been expected to convert are falling to Rasmus, maybe not.

Rashford was our most prolific scorer last season:
17 league,
6 Europa,
1 FA Cup,
6 EFL Cup
---------------------
30 total (all from transfermarkt).

Bruno scored:
8 league
1 Europa
3 FA Cup
2 EFL Cup
---------------------
14 total.

This season so far, Rashford has 1, Bruno has 2 league goals. All other issues on the pitch aside, our two main goal threats can't hit a cow's arse with a banjo. And it's not like they don't get the ball in promising situations. We had all the possession, just Rashford and Bruno didn't have any useful ideas on what to do with the ball. It might be just as simple as that.

It's not like we can't find a teammate with a pass, or the opponents are running over us roughshod, it's that we can't finish. Finishing is down to individual efforts. Lately Rashford has not looked like his old self, maybe he's carrying an injury. Bruno is always wild, but usually after a disaster class he follows up with a master class, but not this season. I don't think it's all doom and gloom, I think we look better, we're more cohesive, the tactics are working, we just couldn't finish a ham sandwich.

 

[norm87cro]

Our 2 main goal scorers are having a bad start to the season. Hojlund was bought to add to the goals tally, and maybe the chances either Rashford or Bruno may have been expected to convert are falling to Rasmus, maybe not.

Rashford was our most prolific scorer last season:
17 league,
6 Europa,
1 FA Cup,
6 EFL Cup
---------------------
30 total (all from transfermarkt).

Bruno scored:
8 league
1 Europa
3 FA Cup
2 EFL Cup
---------------------
14 total.

This season so far, Rashford has 1, Bruno has 2 league goals. All other issues on the pitch aside, our two main goal threats can't hit a cow's arse with a banjo. And it's not like they don't get the ball in promising situations. We had all the possession, just Rashford and Bruno didn't have any useful ideas on what to do with the ball. It might be just as simple as that.

It's not like we can't find a teammate with a pass, or the opponents are running over us roughshod, it's that we can't finish. Finishing is down to individual efforts. Lately Rashford has not looked like his old self, maybe he's carrying an injury. Bruno is always wild, but usually after a disaster class he follows up with a master class, but not this season. I don't think it's all doom and gloom, I think we look better, we're more cohesive, the tactics are working, we just couldn't finish a ham sandwich.

F... me the tactics are not working mate. Not by a country mile. The tactics are dire especially against teams like Palace. We can beat City once in two games this season but if a team sits back our players look pedestrian and that is all ETHs fault (not Mounts, not Brunos, not Rashfords, not Casemiros and not Sanchos). Im not saying Bruno and Rashford should play by default but injuries and ETHs own stuborness got him to this point too.
Garnacho actually looked good (and we kind of looked like scoring with him)but he is a young promising wide player and ETH already gave up his tiki taka tactics at that point and even gave Big Ol Harry a chance.
I said it before the Burnley game if ETH doesnt change his attitude and grinds out results until some players come back and January he is going to lose his job

 

[Amir]

Hodgson (a man that got dumped by Iceland from the Euros) schooled our so called tactically brilliant manager by giving him possesion and probably just slightly targeting Rashford with 3 or 4 knocks with various players (Im not defending Rashford just saying how they approached the game).

Hodgson is a good manager. Just not one of the very few brilliant ones. No needs to knock him down.

Overall though, it's quite easy to see our weaknesses and how to play against us.

 

[norm87cro]

Hodgson is a good manager. Just not one of the very few brilliant ones. No needs to knock him down.

Overall though, it's quite easy to see our weaknesses and how to play against us.

I do agree Hodgson is a good manager (for teams like Switzerland and Palace) but not for teams with expectations (like England and Liverpool). The way CAF has been going about ETH is that he is brilliant (why? Because he got an Ajax team into the SF of the CL playing ok offensive football?)
Fact of the matter is a man considered by many to be washed up outwitted somebody who is considered a brilliant modern europiean manager and fans like me just dont see the brilliant process that is about to unfold.
ETH doesnt take into account a lot of things like: players moral, the way weaker opposition sets up, the midfield battle and at the end of the day Manchesters weather. He is obviously very stubborn and isn't really good at man management either

 

[Amir]

Fact of the matter is a man considered by many to be washed up outwitted somebody who is considered a brilliant modern europiean manager and fans like me just dont see the brilliant process that is about to unfold.
ETH doesnt take into account a lot of things like: players moral, the way weaker opposition sets up, the midfield battle and at the end of the day Manchesters weather. He is obviously very stubborn and isn't really good at man management either

Obviously ETH isn't doing very well. Was he 'outwitted' by Hodgson? I don't think so. We didn't lose because we didn't set up tactically well for a particular game. We lost because the team in general is struggling, is unable to break down defences and barely creates chances. Basically, our attacking football is crap. That's why we lost.

It's not about Palace and Hodgson in particular.

As for the many people who think Hodgson is washed up, well, many people in this world are absolute idiots about more important things than a 76-year old footballer manager who is doing well.

 

[crossy1686]

Season Over...I'll still watch Champions league, but team's realistically already out of top 4 race, and its only Oct. 1st

So you'll watch the next 5 CL games and you're done for the season?

 

[Rockets Redglare]

Season Over...I'll still watch Champions league, but team's realistically already out of top 4 race, and its only Oct. 1st

So you only watch United when they win?

 

[norm87cro]

Obviously ETH isn't doing very well. Was he 'outwitted' by Hodgson? I don't think so. We didn't lose because we didn't set up tactically well for a particular game. We lost because the team in general is struggling, is unable to break down defences and barely creates chances. Basically, our attacking football is crap. That's why we lost.

It's not about Palace and Hodgson in particular.

As for the many people who think Hodgson is washed up, well, many people in this world are absolute idiots about more important things than a 76-year old footballer manager who is doing well.

Yeah again I agree Im ok with Hodgson he is doing well but attacking football or not we should be grinding out these kind of games and we are not and ETH just doesnt get it. He is like a kid playing football manager excpecting thing to go his way just because he has "stats" on his side

 

[giggslover]

So you only watch United when they win?

We are in tenth.
Every team above us is literally better than we are.
We lose to teams who are supposed to be lesser than us on a consistent basis.
There is zero fear factor from other teams when they play us./Conversely we are visibly afraid and shaken when we play Liverpool and City in particular.
We are so far back from the top 4 both in terms of quality and points, they are out of sight already.
We usually can stick around until April, but we're so far back this early, and too many teams would need to drop too many points, before we could even conceive of competing.

Bleak...Just bleak.