The main current problem, players or formation ?

To be honest, ETH and his signings contributed hugely to the issues the club currently has, it obviously goes back further with crazy signings and extensions under the Hooray Henry the Glazers put in charge, and still suffering from players still on the books. The basically Dutch driven signings have been an unmitigated disaster, and can’t be cleaned up in 4/5 months. Getting the financial flows in order is also part 9f the problem, how a club with the resources of Utd got into FFP issues shows how bloated the wage bill was across the club, admin and players, and the funding problems of the Glazers hasn’t helped. Time will tell but it needs to be done and the club really should be sold to much better resourced owners than the dividend seeking absent Yanks.

Fingers crossed the biggest club in the EPL comes out the other side.
 
Both. Players, don't need any explanation. Just as shit when played in a 4 atb.

The formation, it's a bit more complex. It's less to do with the formation, but more about how the players are fitting in/performing their roles. Even 4 atb teams play with a back 3 in games, with full backs tucking in or midfielders ligning up with the CBs. Our main problem I feel is the lack of cohesion -CBs not closing gaps in midfield & forwards unable to link up smoothly.
 
Some players are better midfielders than defenders, some are attackers, etc., and I think everyone knows this without being told. But we seem to think playing on the left is as easy as the right for every player, or that playing as a CB is the same as a fullback, or a CM can be an attacking mid just by asking —in the hardest fecking league in the world.

A formation recognizes which kind of player you have, and puts the best ones in their best position.

In our particular case we are playing a system that requires specialists who are also greyhounds who can run all day long—but of course we don’t have those players. So the answer is these players in this system overseen by this manager head coach who was hired by these owners.
 
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What I’ve realised reading the cafe over the last few months is that formation, tactics, confidence, training and actual quality level of players are not the reason the team is underperforming. I’ve been enlightened and can now see the root cause.

The main causes are Gary Neville, Paul Scholes and Roy Keane and then after that, toxic internet fans like Goldbridge.

Cutch said:
Is it any wonder some of our players struggle to settle with this background noise from cretins like Scholes and Neville and influencers like Goldbridge making everything so critical and toxic.
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MUEricTheKing said:
It’s impossible to build a positive atmosphere between the fans, players, and leadership when constant negativity is being thrown out into the media by former players. I hope they’ll soon approach their roles as pundits with more love for the club and the project, instead of just creating noise and negativity.
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I’m seeing posts like these quite regularly so there must be something to it.
Until Neville, Keane, Scholes and Goldbridge are removed from the media our players won’t fulfill their potential. The club will not be able to move on.

Must be very difficult for them when they run out onto the old Trafford pitch to then immediately remember what Neville and Keane said about them on the overlap or what Scholes said about them on fan debate.
Expecting our players to block out media and outside noise and focus on a game is outrageous and the type of dinosaur mentality that needs eradicating.
Back in the days of Keane, Neville and Scholes, there was never any spotlight on United or grand sweeping comments about United by any pundit. Not Alan Hansen, not Alan Brazil no-one.
They never had to deal with Mark Goldbridge, they never had to deal with very surprising criticism from United legends after a 8th home defeat in 11. A complete and total overreaction.

The noise from these guys is also causing the board to do things like sign Antony for 85 million or sign Joshua Zirkzee. Once this noise stops, United will start making better transfer decisions too.
 
The main problem is that players are not good enough for dominant in technical possession based.
We are kick and run team with weak ball control and passing.
The recruitment is the worst area as well. Even Yoro or Dorgu are also not worth in term of price and potential.
 
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Bertie Wooster said:
It's amazing and bloody frustrating how these continue to be the case, no matter how many different squads we've assembled!

Are we just targeting those kinds of flaws? Or not targeting them deliberately but continually making bloody awful choices and getting that type by mistake? Or do players just become that type when they join us because there's something so intrinsically wrong with the club?
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While we certainly have bought too many players who are lazy and have a weak mentality we have a problem that actually goes deeper. If you look at our players they almost all get slower and have less stamina the longer they play for us. I can't really say with certainty but it feels like our fitness coaching isn't really up to the task anymore or they are setting the wrong priorities for our players.

I watched games where it felt like we were a team from a lower division because we were never fast enough to win the second ball, opposition players were gliding past our players at will and we were always 2 or 3 steps late for a challenge.

You obviously don't need talent to run as fast as you can for every sprint, what you need is the work ethic and the physical conditioning to do it but we can't even compete in that department.

About 10 years ago Holger Broich for Bayern changed the entire way their players do fitness training and nutrition and turned them at that time into one of the fastest and fittest teams in Europe, by now a lot of teams have caught up but it feels an evolution like that never happened at our club.
 
It’s having a collection of players that don’t suit any formation particularly well, and don’t do anything with any sort of consistency.. and we’ve had that problem since Mourinho.. we’re in a pretty desperate situation now we’ve lost pretty much all of our attacking threat, because we can’t afford to build a team from the back, Amorim has to fix the defence, the midfield and the attack in the same window.. it’s an awful position to be in really
 
Keep bitching about formation all you lot want, put them in any formation and they still wouldn't get up to 4th.
 
I truly find it hilarious that there are some fans that are blaming the formation and/or Ruben for our league position and our overall shortcomings. It's actually remarkable how some of the fan base chooses to watch football and receive information.

This team is by far and large, the worst set of players that have ever been assembled in the history of the Premier League, for a club the size of Manchester United. They lack any form of basic footballing ability. Watching Garnacho ignore Dorgu repeatedly the other night was quite astonishing, or watching Hojlund and Garnacho attempt to link up with a 1-2 and they both complete misread what the other will do etc. I cannot believe that these are professional footballers.

If people are truly blaming this on the manager and/or formation then I don't know what to tell you... you are clearly lost and you do not understand football I'm afraid.

This team finished 8th last season with a negative goal difference, playing 4 at the back. What makes you think that this year they would've all of a sudden transformed into a top 3 side off the back of that? Our opening fixtures until Ten Hag's firing were abysmal too. See below;

9 Games
3 Wins
4 Losses
2 Draws

11 Goals Conceded
8 Goals Scored
14th in the League

Above is what the team looked like after 9 matches playing 4 at the back and our new signings also debuting and getting solid minutes. I'm struggling to see how 4 at the back made us an impenetrable force that every team was afraid of... maybe someone can enlighten me?

Ruben with his Sporting side, before SJR forced him to leave, was 2nd in the UCL standings, with 4 games played, 3W 1D. His Sporting side seemed to play perfectly fine and even recovered from a 1-0 deficit at HT against City, and ended up winning 4-1, on a European night, against one of the so called best managers to have ever lived. He played 3-4-3 that night.

So tell me.. is it the formation that's the problem, or is the fact that our squad of players is the worst in the history of the clubs existence? I'll let you be the judge...
 
People see our players miss chance after chance and still blame the system.

Is any formation going to stop us from struggling goals? I don’t think so, and it’s because Hojlund, Zirkzee and Garnacho aren’t reliable goalscorers.
 
AndyMUFC said:
People see our players miss chance after chance and still blame the system.

Is any formation going to stop us from struggling goals? I don’t think so, and it’s because Hojlund, Zirkzee and Garnacho aren’t reliable goalscorers.
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Would also add watching our defenders gift chance after chance and out goalkeepers continuing to put tap ins on a plate for players following in
 
Weird because initially i thought we'd be ok with this new formation the players could cope with it - of course the full backs can play wing back, should give them a little freedom to attack!
But seeing dorgu come in and how good he seems suggests that Amorim needs 10 other new players to start a match for his system to work, though I'm sure he can make a few of them work.
 
daveskimufc said:
Weird because initially i thought we'd be ok with this new formation the players could cope with it - of course the full backs can play wing back, should give them a little freedom to attack!
But seeing dorgu come in and how good he seems suggests that Amorim needs 10 other new players to start a match for his system to work, though I'm sure he can make a few of them work.
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Or Maybe Dorgu is better than all our other fit options in that position so therefore looks better?

I think a lot of our players shit no matter the formation. The formation doesnt not explain the level of bad passing I see from this team consistently.
 
AndyMUFC said:
People see our players miss chance after chance and still blame the system.

Is any formation going to stop us from struggling goals? I don’t think so, and it’s because Hojlund, Zirkzee and Garnacho aren’t reliable goalscorers.
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We are 12th on the big chances created table. We dont create chance after chance.
 
The problem stems right at the top and drips down. The Glazers ultimately are to blame. Yes they precided over mega spending but took on people who knew nothing about football and spent the money stupidly while undermining the finances with massive debt to fund their takeover.
They ignored Qatari money that would wipe out their debt to bring in Ratcliffe and Ineos as a smokescreen for what is the predictable austerity as revenues slump alongside team performance.
The ultimate madness was bringing in a manager who had one way or the highway with a bunch of misfits who are just not good enough and can't cope with the cripplingly heavy weight of history and expectation. We are lucky that Southampton, Ipswich and Leicester are in the Prem as they look surefire candidates for relegation. Otherwise the spectre of relegation was there. The form table from the past 15 Prem games has us fourth bottom on 11 pts just three ahead of Ipswich.
Nothing will change as long as the Glazers are in charge.
 
Poor recruitment - we've needed an out and out experienced number 9 for a few years now and constantly neglected it. Now everyone looks bad because we can't score goals.
 
daveskimufc said:
Weird because initially i thought we'd be ok with this new formation the players could cope with it - of course the full backs can play wing back, should give them a little freedom to attack!
But seeing dorgu come in and how good he seems suggests that Amorim needs 10 other new players to start a match for his system to work, though I'm sure he can make a few of them work.
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I think dorgu has shown we do give freedom to attack, the other fullbacks are just not capable.
 
Not sure you can say one thing is wrong, it's a combination of factors.
1. The ultimate responsibility is the ownership. We needed a number 9 and they bought a kid with no PL experience and threw him in the deep end. They sacked multiple managers over the years and over paid for players who weren't the standard to challenge for the PL or CL. They should have sacked ETH in the summer or kept him for the rest of the year. Everything about INEOS has been awful.

2. The manager. I think we have good players but RA is not getting the best out of them. SAF had players like Chadwick, Cleverly, Djemba Djemba and countless others who were never world class. But as Ole always alluded to, out running and working your opponent is free and SAF could motivate players to run through walls for him and give their all. Watching the team against Everton yesterday all I saw were players who were afraid to take it to the opposition and fight. Speaking as someone who runs a company and has to manage staff morale, you can't go on national TV and say your team is awful and the worst ever. They aren't. But telling people, especially ones who are young, that they suck, isn't going to help you.

3. Toxic pundits and social media. Imagine being 20 years old and every time you made a mistake at work millions of people called you humiliating names and professional pundits said you didn't have what it takes. Don't tell me about "elite mentality", Gary Neville the player would never have recovered if Gary Neville the pundit had laid into him the way he criticises the players today. And don't get me started on social media trolls.

Ultimately the club needs to prepare for a lean couple of years, make it to the end of the season without getting relegated, and then everyone at the club has to have an honest conversation with each other about how they are going to work together to get back on track. We could buy every player in the real Madrid team and still suck if the club mismanages them and people treat them like dirt. It really is that simple.
 
The number of goals is a big worry.

Every transfer window for the last couple of years seem to have resulted in less and less goals remaining in the team/squad.

As it now stands there is only 1 player at United you would be confident of scoring 10 goals a season.

No formation or fancy tactic can turn United into a goal machine.
 
NoLogo said:
While we certainly have bought too many players who are lazy and have a weak mentality we have a problem that actually goes deeper. If you look at our players they almost all get slower and have less stamina the longer they play for us. I can't really say with certainty but it feels like our fitness coaching isn't really up to the task anymore or they are setting the wrong priorities for our players.

I watched games where it felt like we were a team from a lower division because we were never fast enough to win the second ball, opposition players were gliding past our players at will and we were always 2 or 3 steps late for a challenge.

You obviously don't need talent to run as fast as you can for every sprint, what you need is the work ethic and the physical conditioning to do it but we can't even compete in that department.

About 10 years ago Holger Broich for Bayern changed the entire way their players do fitness training and nutrition and turned them at that time into one of the fastest and fittest teams in Europe, by now a lot of teams have caught up but it feels an evolution like that never happened at our club.
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I agree. I feel that some players seem to be a tad slower after they are here for some time. The latest example is Hojlund. His touch might still be awful but I thought he was faster when he first joined us.

This is all eye test though.
 
1.The players aren't good enough.
2. The formation is bobbins and is making some of them worse.
3. The manager is doing a bad job.
4. The manager needs time to correct things.
Off the pitch sitiation is a shambles and is making points 1-4 significantly worse.

The problems at United go so far beyond one or two people.

People in the summer were saying that selling Rashford and Sancho would ignite some kind of "cultural reset" were so badly wrong.
 
RuudTom83 said:
The number of goals is a big worry.

Every transfer window for the last couple of years seem to have resulted in less and less goals remaining in the team/squad.

As it now stands there is only 1 player at United you would be confident of scoring 10 goals a season.

No formation or fancy tactic can turn United into a goal machine.
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It's a relegation-level attack, really. The attacking players (bar Bruno) are all lesser-experienced, underdeveloped, and too reckless in front of goal. Garnacho's shooting is abysmal, Zirkzee is never close enough to the goal to shoot and underhits so many shots anyway, and Hojlund is too ineffective in games. The only other outlet we had is Amad, and he's injured. We really needed Rashford, Sancho, and Antony to step up to the plate this season and lead by example, but they're all not at the club right now. It's a really frustrating situation.

We don't keep clean sheets either because we're reckless at the back too and give too many goals away. So, we're relying on an ineffective and inefficient attack to score more than 1 goal a game to get something from each match. It's no surprise the results have been what they are. We can't outscore the opposition, and we're not defensively savvy enough to nick games 1-0.
 
V.O. said:
Players, but selection isn't helping. Lining up with five pure defenders and seeing no actual defensive benefit from it while completely hamstringing us going forward is madness.
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This! When over half your team are defenders what can you expect.
 
AndyMUFC said:
People see our players miss chance after chance and still blame the system.

Is any formation going to stop us from struggling goals? I don’t think so, and it’s because Hojlund, Zirkzee and Garnacho aren’t reliable
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Every team misses chances they should be scoring though, usually multiple in a game, even the ones with top quality forwards. The real problem is that we don't create nearly enough decent chances.

We certainly need a much better striker, but I don't belive that will win us all that many more games without the level of attacking football and number of quality chances created going up.
 
Another game where we have a man less in midfield, and 3 CBs up against a single striker.

I don’t think this is a particularly great side, but something like this would have done better using what was available today.

Onana
Mazraoui - De Ligt - Yoro - Heaven
Ugarte - Casemiro
Dalot - Bruno - Garnacho
Zirkzee​

It’s not great, but it is a hell of a lot more balanced than the shite we keep putting out.
 
Bwuk said:
Another game where we have a man less in midfield, and 3 CBs up against a single striker.

I don’t think this is a particularly great side, but something like this would have done better using what was available today.

Onana
Mazraoui - De Ligt - Yoro - Heaven
Ugarte - Casemiro
Dalot - Bruno - Garnacho
Zirkzee​

It’s not great, but it is a hell of a lot more balanced than the shite we keep putting out.
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Seems Reuben has sworn to die on 3CB, your team is best suited to 4-2-3-1. Why not try out a different formation to suit your players available. There's no point losing matches to prove a point. And he's not getting a complete overhaul. At most he's getting 4-5players max.
 
Both. The players are terrible, both in terms of skills, but also attitude. Amorim however should have played a back 5 counter system this year, as a stepping stone to make real changes in the future.

It's on the players, but the manager's inflexibility has doomed us. I can't see any real recruitment in the summer, so unless Amorim find a 'third way', I think we are fecked.
 
I’ve finally reached the point where I think Amorim needs to just abandon his system and pick it up next season. Or at least only work on it in the league.

Winning the EL and getting into Europe next season is just too valuable for us to squander. Which is exactly what will happen playing the way we are, as we’ve seen enough games to know it won’t end well.We don’t have the players to play his style, everybody knows this. It’s basically sabotage to carry on like it.

Just go with a 4231 in Europe and play off the back foot. If we get into the CL we earn a shit tonne of cash, attract better players and generally advance the entire project considerably. Miss out and not only do we end up trophyless, we’re also broke and can’t replace any of these unsuitable players anyway.

——————-Bayindir———————
Dalot-Maguire-De Ligt-Mazraoui
————-Ugarte—-Mainoo————
Garnacho—-Bruno———-—Dorgu
—————-—Hojlund———————
 
2 man midfield said:
I’ve finally reached the point where I think Amorim needs to just abandon his system and pick it up next season. Or at least only work on it in the league.

Winning the EL and getting into Europe next season is just too valuable for us to squander. Which is exactly what will happen playing the way we are, as we’ve seen enough games to know it won’t end well.We don’t have the players to play his style, everybody knows this. It’s basically sabotage to carry on like it.

Just go with a 4231 in Europe and play off the back foot. If we get into the CL we earn a shit tonne of cash, attract better players and generally advance the entire project considerably. Miss out and not only do we end up trophyless, we’re also broke and can’t replace any of these unsuitable players anyway.

——————-Bayindir———————
Dalot-Maguire-De Ligt-Mazraoui
————-Ugarte—-Mainoo————
Garnacho—-Bruno———-—Dorgu
—————-—Hojlund———————
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Great idea. And when he fails, which is absolutely in the cards, people will cry even louder for him to be sacked and half a year later it will then be his fault because he abandoned his principles.
 
NZT-One said:
Great idea. And when he fails, which is absolutely in the cards, people will cry even louder for him to be sacked and half a year later it will then be his fault because he abandoned his principles.
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The rate we’re going he’ll be sacked even sooner
 
It's the intangibles that look wrong that gets to me.
Too many times for a decade now, we have struggled against very very poor opposition where a manager shouldn't even be needed for the players to figure out a win given their status/experience.
So I don't think it's just a player quality or a manager/formation issue when the players don't seem like they want to play with/for each other.
I could be wrong, but the reason I feel they don't get along :
- The "hot potato" pass. How many times have seen a united player pass the ball to a team-mate basically marked-out, and worst no one even turning up for an easy one two if the poor sod has somehow controlled it under pressure.
- The "you should be there" pass. These can also be crosses btw. For example, hardly any of our players make back-post runs, yet more often than not we spam that area when getting to the byline. This doesn't necessarily mean it's not right to pass in the open space/or that the team should adjust to provide that run because it is a good idea. But these players train together so often, yet look like strangers too often on the pitch come game day.

The other intangible is the pressure: I can't explain why we look more focused away from home than at home. Also Sancho's "freedom" post is, to me at least, a tacit admission that the pressure at United stifles (Even if I don't think his performances are better in blue).

Whilst I think we can accidentally stumble upon quality players, I do think unless we address the intangibles, we simply won't see good football regardless of any manager's vision.
That's really all I want, for United to play good football, I'm sure the rest is more likely to follow. But don't see it happening if there is no unity in the squad.
 
2 man midfield said:
The rate we’re going he’ll be sacked even sooner
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Lets hope the decision makers aren't as fickle and shortsighted (with all due respect, thats how I see it) as some of the fans. If they are, there is no point in wasting energy on this club anyway. Then we probably will go down the 30 year road of Liverpool.
 
2 man midfield said:
I’ve finally reached the point where I think Amorim needs to just abandon his system and pick it up next season. Or at least only work on it in the league.

Winning the EL and getting into Europe next season is just too valuable for us to squander. Which is exactly what will happen playing the way we are, as we’ve seen enough games to know it won’t end well.We don’t have the players to play his style, everybody knows this. It’s basically sabotage to carry on like it.

Just go with a 4231 in Europe and play off the back foot. If we get into the CL we earn a shit tonne of cash, attract better players and generally advance the entire project considerably. Miss out and not only do we end up trophyless, we’re also broke and can’t replace any of these unsuitable players anyway.

——————-Bayindir———————
Dalot-Maguire-De Ligt-Mazraoui
————-Ugarte—-Mainoo————
Garnacho—-Bruno———-—Dorgu
—————-—Hojlund———————
Click to expand...
Didn't he switch from a 4 at the back with wingers to 3 at the back with wingbacks at Sporting? Was it because he didn't have the players or was it because he was inept in his coaching skills? Serious question. Was the previous coach using 3 at the back with wingbacks or was it completely his undertaking and a last-ditch effort to save his job?

Whatever the case, I can't see him caving on his beloved system. There are no guarantees this lot will set EL on fire if they go back to the 4-2-3-1 they played under ETH. We could end up being much worse.
 
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