I miss this 
Static, slow motion zombie passing
- Thread starter noodlehair
- Start date
The first has been worse than the usual zombie like performance
I bet you all wish we were playing zombie football now.
We've been at our zombified best at Anfield for the past few seasons, so it's not exactly a new thing.
We haven't held on to it long enough to have a passing style.
The point of zombie football...bore your opponents into submission!
I miss the days of Zombie football. Dont know what that was today.
Celebratory thread lock? Anyone?
I screamed many times in the game 'Zombie zombie'. I dunno what's going on but we are playing the most ugly football I have ever seen United playing. But on the other side we are getting points which to me is more important.
I would have taken zombie football, today we seemed to be trying out invisible football. Our players appeared to be passing to invisible teammates. They weren't misplacing passes, no, it looked like they had seen someone, picked him out, delivered the pass only to find out there wasn't a United player within 10 yards. I saw Giggs do it with convinction about 4 times, I think he even complained at a spot of thin air where the ball went.
Still took them all about 3 or 4 minutes to find the invisble
It just goes to prove that when teams press and harass us in midfield, we tend to do very poorly and get taken out of our passing game.
I don't know whether its because we lack pace and athleticism in central midfield or what. Our midfielders just tend to be very static and rarely are able to get out of a tight situation.
I don't know whether its because we lack pace and athleticism in central midfield or what. Our midfielders just tend to be very static and rarely are able to get out of a tight situation.
Players seem to be just too far apart at times. The midfield 2 are generally quite close, and with the wingers sticking on the touchline so often, when it goes forward our players can look very isolated.
I think our system can be quite rigid too, wingers stay wide, midfield 2 stay deep, not much interchanging of positions going on and it generally seems quite easy for teams to press us quickly as a result. Kagawa often seems to have to provide the only link between the wingers, midfield and RVP at times.
Thing is, everyone has found us out and does exactly that.
Yeah agree the space between the players is the issue for me. That's probably the biggest reason we struggle against high/strong pressure. I've said before if you look at other teams who deal with pressure well or keep great possession they all have a lot of players close by. They move as units up the pitch. For us as you said we stay really wide and we rarely look to change that regardless of the amount of pressure so the midfielders have few options for a short pass to get out of danger.
That's not helped by lacking another midfielder who both knows how to play centrally and more importantly knows what positions to take up when we don't have the ball and has the physical abilities to compete well in the middle.
I hope Fergie isn't planning on going anytime soon because were in bad shape at the moment. I just don't see where the answers are coming from in regards to our midfield problem, our general play or closing the gap between the boys in Spain.
passing was poor but that was due to pool's pressing. they smothered us.
I think he has to give Clev/Ando the chance alongside Carrick. It's easy to use Scholes as he's about and whilst he should certainly play at times, we need to give those guys all the experience they can get. e's made the choice not to buy someone because of them so he should use them. That's 3 games in a row that Scholes/Giggs have started ahead of Clev.
I so knew this thread would make a comback after todays game but well this time it's pretty justified.
Our build up play, if you can call it that, was really atrocious today not surprisingly against a team that pressed us pretty aggressively the entire match.
It got a bit better after Scholes came on but still no where near good enough to compete on the highest level again.
I was really hopeful after the second half against Wigan and some promising attacking moves against Gala but today was a real relapse to our very worst.
Our build up play, if you can call it that, was really atrocious today not surprisingly against a team that pressed us pretty aggressively the entire match.
It got a bit better after Scholes came on but still no where near good enough to compete on the highest level again.
I was really hopeful after the second half against Wigan and some promising attacking moves against Gala but today was a real relapse to our very worst.
So basically it's now just a Little Britain-esque catchphrase for a poor performance?
Same happened last season. We play against a team that press our players and we struggle big time. Too slow on the ball and we don't press ourselves. It's like midfield suicide watching us atm.
well..sounds like fergie was pissed off with the performance, he'd been blind if he wasn't. Perhaps this might spur some sort of action in terms of the way we play
won't hold my breath though...
won't hold my breath though...
What did he say mate?
Yes.
Any fool can see that ssmzp wasn't the problem today... we never even got the ball!
On the odd accasion we did, we just passed it back to them, making it impossible to make judgment on whether the pass was quick, or inventive enough.
Looks like it.
People bump this thread whenever we play badly even if it has nothing to do with the bad performance.
It doesn't even need a really bad performance anymore for this thread to pop up and the main reason for that is imo the fact that our football often looks so brainless.
We seem to switch between very slow possession football, the original zombie-passing, against teams that sit deep and brainless, aimless long balls against teams that put pressure on us.
Be glad there isn't new thread popping up for every time we play badly.
The reason we passed it back to them was because we were too slow. By the time we'd played half our passes, the intended target had already moved or been closed down.
Are we just going to keep picking non functional static midfields and playing like this until Giggs and Scholes both literally die of old age?
I mean, is it not completely fecking obvious by now how much of a better team we look when we play Cleverley/Anderson and actually have a functioning midfield rather than a weird second line of centrebacks?
It was so bad today, the people sitting near us were discussing whether or not United had agreed with Liverpool to try not to win the game.
I mean, is it not completely fecking obvious by now how much of a better team we look when we play Cleverley/Anderson and actually have a functioning midfield rather than a weird second line of centrebacks?
It was so bad today, the people sitting near us were discussing whether or not United had agreed with Liverpool to try not to win the game.
We had two problems today.
1. Giggs was complete and utter shite
2. When Scholes came on we reverted to the pointless shape of 2 deep lying midfielder and 2 out and out wingers which means our two main offensive outlets in Kagawa and RVP became completely isolated. If either Carrick or Scholes actually helped out by doing runs into space it might work but as it is our shape makes no sense at all with Carrick and Scholes on the pitch at the same time.
1. Giggs was complete and utter shite
2. When Scholes came on we reverted to the pointless shape of 2 deep lying midfielder and 2 out and out wingers which means our two main offensive outlets in Kagawa and RVP became completely isolated. If either Carrick or Scholes actually helped out by doing runs into space it might work but as it is our shape makes no sense at all with Carrick and Scholes on the pitch at the same time.
I think the issue though if you don't have Scholes is that Clev/Giggs don't take up the best positions when we don't have the ball. Scholes might not tackle particularly well but he gets in the right areas the majority of the time. Also because of the way Clev/Giggs play through the middle they're more about central play and so we don't always get Valencia in the game enough. It's a hard balance to strike, in some ways Ando might be the best mix of getting in better areas to help out in the middle but also having the enrgy to allow us to push higher.
Our wingers are not especially good at including other players in link up play. Valencia in particular seems hell bent on crossing no matter how little it makes sense. If we consistently brought the full back on our attacking side into play and had Kagawa make himself available we would have at least 3 players in an offensive position when we attack - then this formation might work even with Schoels and Carrick on the pitch at the same time.
Now we are too focused on crossing at all time, and in addition to that, Kagawa is doing a poor job of making himself available and give the winger and fullback an alternative to crossing. I think this might be largely down to instructions from SAF and the coaching team, because Kagawa was a lot better at this at Dortmund. It makes no sense to me, because its clearly not working. We couldnt break down 10 man Liverpool and had to rely on a counter attack and a dubious penalty to get a win.
Now we are too focused on crossing at all time, and in addition to that, Kagawa is doing a poor job of making himself available and give the winger and fullback an alternative to crossing. I think this might be largely down to instructions from SAF and the coaching team, because Kagawa was a lot better at this at Dortmund. It makes no sense to me, because its clearly not working. We couldnt break down 10 man Liverpool and had to rely on a counter attack and a dubious penalty to get a win.
We REALLY need to be moving away from any ideas that involve Scholes or Giggs being in the starting line up. Neither has the legs anymore and we have younger players who've proven they deserve a chance.
I can't believe how fecking stupid we're being with this. We're deliberately making ourselves a much weaker team than we actually are, both in the short and long term.
I can't believe how fecking stupid we're being with this. We're deliberately making ourselves a much weaker team than we actually are, both in the short and long term.
Players stick to their positions too rigidly and are often too far apart in my view. Hard for the winger to link up when the nearest player is 15 yards away.
Little harsh. Consider the set up of the team and you will find that Kagawa is the only plausible link between midfield, wingers and RVP. No-one else moves from their position often enough to provide reliable outlets.
I think it all stems from the coaching as you say. We need to be more interchangeable, we can't expect too much from Carrick and Scholes, so the wingers need to swap sides and occasionally come inside to lessen the distance between each other.
Same when we are defending, we are just all to far apart and i definitely put that down to the coaching too. We haven't been able to play anything effectively other than 4-4-2 for a few years now, which makes us far too predictable.
I've made my thoughts clear in the Cleverley thread
I'm not bothered with blaming individuals. From what I'm seeing this seems to be a systemic issue. We've played Carrick/Cleverley/Scholes in midfield at different times and Kagawa infront of them and still we've seen this unique style of football being played.
To be honest, I am slightly worried about where our footballing philosophy/system is headed. Madrid have their fast paced direct attacking style built around pace and flair. Bayern and Barca play a possession game. City base their football around a mix of physicality in defence/midfield and a fluid set of interchangeable attackers infront. Dortmund play a high pressure game where they press teams to death and then attack swiftly.
With us, in 2006 or 2008 I could have told you we had a style of play we were either working towards or had gotten spot on. Right now, I can't quite see the picture coming together. We've gotten into this trap where our passing has gotten laborious and over calculated and often just plain sloppy and inaccurate. And then at the other end, we seem to just stand off teams watching them pass. It's a case of me just being unable to see how either is actually good for us. Why pass it taking 20 touches on the ball allowing teams to block off your avenues? Why stand off teams giving the a luxury they shouldn't get and hence making them look better than they are? And then there's the point that we seem a bit obsessed with wideplay to the point where opening teams up through incisive passing doesn't seem to be a priority at all times. The intention to far too often is simply to "get it wide and get a ball in", even when it's not really coming off.
To be honest, I am slightly worried about where our footballing philosophy/system is headed. Madrid have their fast paced direct attacking style built around pace and flair. Bayern and Barca play a possession game. City base their football around a mix of physicality in defence/midfield and a fluid set of interchangeable attackers infront. Dortmund play a high pressure game where they press teams to death and then attack swiftly.
With us, in 2006 or 2008 I could have told you we had a style of play we were either working towards or had gotten spot on. Right now, I can't quite see the picture coming together. We've gotten into this trap where our passing has gotten laborious and over calculated and often just plain sloppy and inaccurate. And then at the other end, we seem to just stand off teams watching them pass. It's a case of me just being unable to see how either is actually good for us. Why pass it taking 20 touches on the ball allowing teams to block off your avenues? Why stand off teams giving the a luxury they shouldn't get and hence making them look better than they are? And then there's the point that we seem a bit obsessed with wideplay to the point where opening teams up through incisive passing doesn't seem to be a priority at all times. The intention to far too often is simply to "get it wide and get a ball in", even when it's not really coming off.
I'm not sure if it is the system or the players but it often seems that the team doesn't have any real excitement when playing and that they often just go 'through the motions'
I bumped it and said i miss it. We were so shite i'd have loved to see some slow lacklusture passing football with no movement.
Were you happy yesterday Mr. Noodles?
I thought we were pretty Zombie with our passing in the second half even with the preferred players in the midfield. Though it was more to do with the opposition and the formation than the players.
I don't like this diamond formation. I think the opposition always needs to have an invitation to come and attack, which in turn would open up space for us show our attacking prowess and pace.
Yesterday, was like watching Italian football. I am not a big fan.
I thought we were pretty Zombie with our passing in the second half even with the preferred players in the midfield. Though it was more to do with the opposition and the formation than the players.
I don't like this diamond formation. I think the opposition always needs to have an invitation to come and attack, which in turn would open up space for us show our attacking prowess and pace.
Yesterday, was like watching Italian football. I am not a big fan.