The problem I see is that the team is not Mourinho's. What's the style? How is he trying to get us to play? Love it or hate it but LVG stamped his mark on the team by now. Mourinho's failure so far is that you can't see what he's aiming for. It feels like he's just lurching from game to game at the moment.
Really - why did so many of you think Mourinho was better than LVG?
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The problem I see is that the team is not Mourinho's. What's the style? How is he trying to get us to play? Love it or hate it but LVG stamped his mark on the team by now. Mourinho's failure so far is that you can't see what he's aiming for. It feels like he's just lurching from game to game at the moment.
Mou is better, and thats obvious.
This. I remember the first games under Van Gaal looked really promising. Di Maria, Nani, Mata and Herrera tearing it up, with Van Persie and Rooney scoring for fun. Things actually looked pretty good for a while. Then came the letdowns: Di Maria ostracized, Herrera sent to the dog house, sold RvP, Nani and Chico for peanuts and never replacing them, always playing Rooney despite him being gash and creating one or two chances each game. It all came down to Martial and then later Rashford having to save his bacon because without them we created jack all.
The reason we wanted Van Gaal out was because we went from looking pretty good to looking completely clueless. If it was the other way around i'm sure he would still have been here
Under Mouhrino the results have been bad, but the football is much, much better. Also Stoke, Bunley, Arsenal and now WH. That's four games where we really deserved to win, but ended up with draws instead. If Lady Luck had smiled at us instead of spitting in our faces, we would now have been at 28 points instead of 20. Van Gaal got two years, Mouhrino deserves the same.
The mess created by Moyes and LVG cannot be fixed in a couple of months.
I have no idea what you "told us so", but you are completely wrong.
This seems as good of a place as any to talk about my current fears for the Mourinho's management.
1. Mourinho's form - I have always claimed that Mourinho can't build a club over the long term. But at the moment the short term is disasterous as well. Over the last two years and 29 league games Mourinho has won 9 matches. If you look at the points collected in his last 38 games as a Premier League manager he'd be on 58 points. We'd have finished ninth last year with those results. Sure it was eighteen months ago since he won the league but his results since then have been nothing short of horrendous. It's fair to say looking at the clubs he had, he has underperformed over the last two seasons (so far) than any other manager in world football.
2. Mourinho's conduct - This has actually been ok so far. He hasn't gone out of his way to piss anyone off and he mostly seems to be behaving himself. However, he's started to single out some players (To the point where some player's brothers have had to go on twitter to defend themselves) and it doesn't help our cause when the manager is sent to the stands. So many people last year had the bizarre complaint that LVG wasn't animated enough on the sidelines and he needed to galvanise his players. Well at least he'd be in the dug out. Mourinho has already been sent off once this season, been given a suspended touchline sentence for insulting a referee and now will miss further matches as well. So his conduct has been better than expected but he still seems to be getting into trouble to the detriment of the squad.
3. Youth players - I've documented this in another thread. But the four youth players that we have had the most hope for (Rashford, TFM, Shaw and Martial) have all had their form drop off a cliff (or be played in odd positions). This happens to one player and it is fair enough, for it to happen to numerous players simultaneously suggests that maybe this isn't just on the players.
4. Lowered expectations
https://www.redcafe.net/threads/what-can-we-expect-this-year-your-expectations-for-2016-2017.420457/
Look at this thread. Look at the optimism in it. We all thought we were getting a title challenge this year. We had basically been crowing about out (record spend) transfer window and we had finished fifth the year before. However now it seems that once again our squad is broken. Absolute bullshit. I'm sorry if you have the chance to add almost half a new outfield team for about 150 million in one season you can sort out a squad. If the squad is broken it doesn't help that we've got a 35 million pound player just signed in our weakest position who can barely get a game.
When Mourinho was signed he was adamant that he will challenge. Hell after the 0-0 at Anfield he said he expected us to be title challengers this year. We all agreed with him. However, it feels like because some people have spent literally years posting about Mourinho (even when he was at other clubs) they are now scared to admit he might be struggling. The amount of people burying their heads into the sand is worrying, because the fact is we have to be doing better than we are right now.
You know what I could go on for ages, but everything I was worried about when we hired Jose is coming to fruition. LVG was fired, and there was a strong case to say he should have been. But we're going to be in December and firmly rooted in midtable by the time our next Prem fixture is played. We've got four more games until Christmas (three away from home). If we aren't near the top four then I've got no idea where we go from there as a club.
1. Mourinho's form - I have always claimed that Mourinho can't build a club over the long term. But at the moment the short term is disasterous as well. Over the last two years and 29 league games Mourinho has won 9 matches. If you look at the points collected in his last 38 games as a Premier League manager he'd be on 58 points. We'd have finished ninth last year with those results. Sure it was eighteen months ago since he won the league but his results since then have been nothing short of horrendous. It's fair to say looking at the clubs he had, he has underperformed over the last two seasons (so far) than any other manager in world football.
2. Mourinho's conduct - This has actually been ok so far. He hasn't gone out of his way to piss anyone off and he mostly seems to be behaving himself. However, he's started to single out some players (To the point where some player's brothers have had to go on twitter to defend themselves) and it doesn't help our cause when the manager is sent to the stands. So many people last year had the bizarre complaint that LVG wasn't animated enough on the sidelines and he needed to galvanise his players. Well at least he'd be in the dug out. Mourinho has already been sent off once this season, been given a suspended touchline sentence for insulting a referee and now will miss further matches as well. So his conduct has been better than expected but he still seems to be getting into trouble to the detriment of the squad.
3. Youth players - I've documented this in another thread. But the four youth players that we have had the most hope for (Rashford, TFM, Shaw and Martial) have all had their form drop off a cliff (or be played in odd positions). This happens to one player and it is fair enough, for it to happen to numerous players simultaneously suggests that maybe this isn't just on the players.
4. Lowered expectations
https://www.redcafe.net/threads/what-can-we-expect-this-year-your-expectations-for-2016-2017.420457/
Look at this thread. Look at the optimism in it. We all thought we were getting a title challenge this year. We had basically been crowing about out (record spend) transfer window and we had finished fifth the year before. However now it seems that once again our squad is broken. Absolute bullshit. I'm sorry if you have the chance to add almost half a new outfield team for about 150 million in one season you can sort out a squad. If the squad is broken it doesn't help that we've got a 35 million pound player just signed in our weakest position who can barely get a game.
When Mourinho was signed he was adamant that he will challenge. Hell after the 0-0 at Anfield he said he expected us to be title challengers this year. We all agreed with him. However, it feels like because some people have spent literally years posting about Mourinho (even when he was at other clubs) they are now scared to admit he might be struggling. The amount of people burying their heads into the sand is worrying, because the fact is we have to be doing better than we are right now.
You know what I could go on for ages, but everything I was worried about when we hired Jose is coming to fruition. LVG was fired, and there was a strong case to say he should have been. But we're going to be in December and firmly rooted in midtable by the time our next Prem fixture is played. We've got four more games until Christmas (three away from home). If we aren't near the top four then I've got no idea where we go from there as a club.
I would have agreed with your impressions in the 1st season of LVG's reign. However, his 2nd season was dreadful. It was unacceptable as a Manchester United club that we created so little -- with so little adventure and was so poor on the eye.
Mourinho for all his faults has been a much better fit -- probably as I said 3 years ago -- the best person to succeed Fergie. He isn't as good a fit this time around but nevertheless, has us playing with a swagger albeit, inconsistently.
As someone mentioned earlier, we are creating but just not finishing or have the right personnel who can finish consistently. We need a better finishers. In that respect, Zlatan has been a disappointment and Martial and Rashford maybe facing the 2nd season blues where they burst onto to the scene but failed to follow-up the following season.
I see improvements albeit too slowly for many people's eyes. But improvements nevertheless.
When you look at the past 2 seasons, the stats say the opposite.
United after MD 13 16/17: 6th, 20 pts, 18 gf 15 ga
United after MD 13 15/16: 2nd, 27 pts, 19 gf 9 ga
United after MD 13 14/15: 4th, 22 pts, 22 gf 15 ga
Both van Gaal's seasons had better starts than Mourinho has now, scoring more and allowing less (or equal, but scoring a lot more).
I agree that the stats are better but to be honest we play much better football and I can see things actually improving and us becomimg a good side in the near future. The results have been poor and I complain about them often enough, but now I actually see a team who is a year away of challenging for the title. We play some good football but need our wingers to perform and solid defenders.
Not that I think sacking LVG was wrong, but his performance has been retroactively lowered, in effect lowering the bar for Mourinho to succeed by at least being an improvement on his predecessor.
No one seems to remember that you looked like a much better team in his first season, where he did get you back in the top four, than what mourinho has managed so far. Or that his 5th place finish, itself a challenge to rise to for the current side, may have been dull as dishwater, but did win a trophy.
I just don't see how he has even passed the bar of improving on LVG yet. And that's without even looking at the reinforcements at his disposal.
No one seems to remember that you looked like a much better team in his first season, where he did get you back in the top four, than what mourinho has managed so far. Or that his 5th place finish, itself a challenge to rise to for the current side, may have been dull as dishwater, but did win a trophy.
I just don't see how he has even passed the bar of improving on LVG yet. And that's without even looking at the reinforcements at his disposal.
That's a silly use of stats, ignoring so many other factors. Who cares who did better after just 13 games? I think we were top in December under LVG at one point yet no one seriously expected us to win the league and we didn't even end up putting in a title challenge. LVG never managed to build on any progress made, so a few half decent starts become meaningless. Also, there's no question the level of opposition is higher right now compared to LVG and we've been unlucky in a few games.
Anyone without a short memory can see we're playing well in general and it's certainly more encouraging that the painful stuff LVG put us through.
I just logged in to let you know I just logged in too.
Did? speak for yourself.
The difference between LVG and Jose is clear by the fact that draws feel like loses! I mean we drew against Arsenal last week after they were in better form and it felt like a loss to us and a win for them. Under LVG these types of results were the norm and most of us were fine with it. I think we can all see that results will come, even the players can see it coming. Over the course of the season if we continue playing like we are, we are likely to get results more often than not.
Exactly. It is now frustrating, rather than anger or sleep inducing. The play is a lot better.
Thing is shaping a team is not easily done in one day. This team is' moving away from LVG. In moving away, we may take a step back to kill off old habit instilled by the Dutch man, then start building from ground zero.
LVG did similar in that at first he just focus on practicing possession football and ignore most everything else. In his second season, he aimed and failed to dominate other teams (players speak out that he focused on opponent more than his team thinking they by now mastered the basic of possession football). We're not very good with possession football leading to patching up and plug the leak than proactive approach.
With that in mind, here we're in the step of changing the style, moving away from LVG. If people pay close attention, we see subtle imrprovement/ moving away from LVG's style. Under LVG's we have 1 plan and players panic if that plan failed. We still see it in this new style in these players when the opponents dominate early minutes, City, Chelsea, Leicester, Watford, Fenerbarce... our players dropped their head after the cold water and we lost the game very early. This game we improved a bit that after a poor start, we fought back and got even. We aren't on the level where we can choke the opponent at late minutes for a crappy win like under SAF or some of Lampard late minutes winner, but we did improve! It takes timee to instill a different mentality in this team. Yes we need to win the League Cup, as winning something will help the cause and boost the team morale. So I'll disagree with anyone who prioritize playing youth in expense of a bigger picture here. We need to play our strong teams and gamble on second half of this season since the first half o the season is still fight away LVG's mentality. Throwing League Cup for the sake of playing youth may cement our place outside top 4 as we at the moment lack the stability of top 4 quality like Wenger's Arsenal, and more importantly our ultimate aim should be the very top.
The bridge from Brendan Rodger's style to Klopp's is closer than LVG's ultra possession style to Mourinho direct style. Pellegrini's to Pep's is also closer. Mourinho's backbone at Chelsea to Hiddink's stabilized Chelsea then Conte's Chelsea nowadays style is also closer.
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I sort of agree with this. i enjoy watching us again now. i didn't under lvg. results will or won't come, but the football is better now.
I was a big LVG apologiser and a tiny part of me would like to agree with the sentiments of the OP but I just can't because it's a complete rubbish.
We are already clearly far far better than we were under LVG. The results need work but our football and chance creation has improved 10 fold. I'm very confident things will start to go our way soon.
We are already clearly far far better than we were under LVG. The results need work but our football and chance creation has improved 10 fold. I'm very confident things will start to go our way soon.
We've been much better than last year, only a couple of deficiences in the attack have prevented us from transfering that into points. It will come though. Chelsea had similar problems in 2013-14 before Mourinho fixed them and won title.
Statistically nearly twice as many shots per game for Mourinho vs LVG.
A team not finishing is in a better place than a team not creating.
A team not finishing is in a better place than a team not creating.
Had Martial, Rashford, even Rooney (still better than this season) keep up the conversion rate of last season, we're far better with the amount of chance creating rate this season. Shame we go from one extreme to another extreme. So the sooner we get a right balance then we're fine.
I am logging out so telling you that you can't talk to me when I am logged out.
Lvg had one great year with Ajax in 1995 and has been dining out on it for 20 years. He managed to miss out on world cup qualification with Holland and leave Barcelona near the la liga relegation zone in this time.
Mourinho, by contrast, has a record of near-constant success apart from one half-season.
Lvg was given two years by United, Mourinho has only had four months. Perhaps the OP should give him a bit longer before making comparisons.
Mourinho, by contrast, has a record of near-constant success apart from one half-season.
Lvg was given two years by United, Mourinho has only had four months. Perhaps the OP should give him a bit longer before making comparisons.
OP must be watching a different United to the majority of people, either that or they were on very strong medication when they created this thread. We are miles better than we were under LVG. the team is set up in a way that we are dominating matches and creating numerous chances. Other than Mourinho being on the pitch to finish the chances off himself I don't know what else you expect out of him!! Under LVG we'd have 3 attempts of goal was deemed a very good day.
Really you can't see the different? did you forget how O.T was falling asleep under LVG? at least Mourinho playing an exciting attacking football, attackers just not good enough to finish the chances we are creating, that's not a tactical problem IMO.
I don't hate LVG as much as a lot of united fans, but let's be honest when looking for positives from his 2 year reign there aren't many.
The three game run from 2014/15 where we beat Tottenham, City and Liverpool and played quite well gets spoken about like it was a decade long epoch of champagne football.
Over two years I can't think of many more genuinely decent performances than Jose has gotten out of the team in four months.
In terms of man management Louis was awful, and I'm convinced we would have seen the likes of Mata, Herrera and De Gea angling for moves if he was still there.
He brought through Rashford yes but also handed debuts to a lot of players who were never up to the standard, after having sold the likes of Nani, Rafael and Chicharito.
The story about us playing well til 5-3 Leicester? Nonsense. We'd been garbage and won one game from our first four until that point.
Finally, last season we averaged 3.8 shots on target per game. 13th overall and lower than Newcastle, Palace and Bournemouth, playing mind numbing football that had us regularly booed off at Old Trafford.
This season we're averaging just under 6 per game - 4th highest in the league, and to anyone with eyes and a brain playing far better.
The three game run from 2014/15 where we beat Tottenham, City and Liverpool and played quite well gets spoken about like it was a decade long epoch of champagne football.
Over two years I can't think of many more genuinely decent performances than Jose has gotten out of the team in four months.
In terms of man management Louis was awful, and I'm convinced we would have seen the likes of Mata, Herrera and De Gea angling for moves if he was still there.
He brought through Rashford yes but also handed debuts to a lot of players who were never up to the standard, after having sold the likes of Nani, Rafael and Chicharito.
The story about us playing well til 5-3 Leicester? Nonsense. We'd been garbage and won one game from our first four until that point.
Finally, last season we averaged 3.8 shots on target per game. 13th overall and lower than Newcastle, Palace and Bournemouth, playing mind numbing football that had us regularly booed off at Old Trafford.
This season we're averaging just under 6 per game - 4th highest in the league, and to anyone with eyes and a brain playing far better.
The FA cup run last season was the most fun I've had as a United fan since 12/13. The semis and finals at Wembley with Martial and Lingard scoring the winners were the only two moments that I jumped out of my seat watching our football. LvG might not be the best man for the job but he certainly doesn't deserve to be vilified as much as most United fans do. Atleast he was good for a laugh every week in the press conference unlike "the morose one".
Was never really a Mourinho fan thought his style was boring, in the big games he has backed that up, but in most of our home games we have been attacking and creating chances, poor finishing and a bit of luck we could easily have won the last 4 home games. my biggest worry is he has no clue what his best side is and that is something Jose usually has sorted by this time in the season.
Mourinho failing (if he does), will not validate LVG or make him look better. Both can be failures, one's failure does not somehow lift the other.
Got to agree with this.
How is there even a thread for this?! Jose is by far a better manager and quite simply someone I have 1000% more faith in rebuilding and reorganising this club.Don't enjoy the results but there's a huge improvement in how we play and I want to watch our games again, as they at least are exciting.
Yup, I agree. What we needed yesterday around the 60 min mark was to replace Mata with someone like Nick Powell.
LVG was lucky to stay as long as he did. If nothing else we played truly terrible sliw cautious football - the antithesis of how United should play football.
I'm not sure about Mourinho but at least he is trying to speed our play up.
I think most people think Mouriho is better than LvG simply because he is better.
I think that Liecester loss destroyed LVG's confidence. Aggression in gameplay went out the window. Same thing happened with that 6-1 City loss and Ferguson. The team became too cautious and defensive, and the league was lost by a whisker.
The following season after the 1-6 to City we were anything but cautious. We won the league and fell behind in numerous games only to come back and win.
The Leicester game under LVG in his 1st season was an interesting one. But dont forget we had also lost on the opening day to Swansea too. He appeared to be horribly under prepared
Far better, that's clear for all to see.
If current Mourinho team with LVG team played each other, it would end 1-1 with the first one creating loads of chances but due to poor finishing and amazing DDG saves as well as scrappy goal from Rooney or brilliant Martial move (that rarely happens this season. That's how I see it.
We're closer to being good team than we've been in the last 4 years.
We're closer to being good team than we've been in the last 4 years.
LvG is still part of the problem of this club, he brought in the likes of Rojo, Darmian, Depay and even Blind, who wouldn't get into any top side in this country let alone the elite aides in Spain/Germany.
For all his "knowledge", identifying the right players with the right mentality wasn't one of them, he was rightfully sacked as it looked like things had become stake under him, he gave us a trophy which I'm grateful for because it was needed, but he wasn't anymore.
For all his "knowledge", identifying the right players with the right mentality wasn't one of them, he was rightfully sacked as it looked like things had become stake under him, he gave us a trophy which I'm grateful for because it was needed, but he wasn't anymore.
What can I say. Revisionist nonsense. LVG's season last year was a major backwards step from his first season. Compared to his first season we had fewer points, fewer goals, fewer wins, worse goal difference, lower finishing position. We never scored more than 3 in a league match all year. Our longest winning run was a pathetic 3 games in a row, and we only even managed that once.
In almost every single meaningful area, we were going backwards. And, it should be pointed out, backwards from a season that was itself pretty mediocre by United's standards. There is simply no evidence whatsoever to suggest that we were moving forward as a team under LVG.
Remember the "philosophy" and the "process" and the "horny" bullshit?
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