These players always were and always will be bottle jobs

[Compton22]

ETH has done well to mask a lot of the teams shortcomings this season but the same old issues we have seen over years are coming home to roost at the pressure point of the season.

They can't handle the pressure and are ultimately not good enough to play for Utd. Never have been!

Just shows when leaders like Martinez, Varane and Casemiro are out for a lengthy period, their replacements are not up to it.

Nothing will change at this club until it is purged of these bottle merchants.

 

[horsechoker]

Should Casemiro be mentioned? He's looked woeful since coming back.

 

[miked99]

I think ETH will know that several of these players aren't up to it. But it doesn't sound like the budget is there for mass replacements, so I think he'll be forced to make do in some instances.

 

[King7Eric]

ETH has done well to mask a lot of the teams shortcomings this season but the same old issues we have seen over years are coming home to roost at the pressure point of the season.

They can't handle the pressure and are ultimately not good enough to play for Utd. Never have been!

Just shows when leaders like Martinez, Varane and Casemiro are out for a lengthy period, their replacements are not up to it.

Nothing will change at this club until it is purged of these bottle merchants.

Enough with the ETH love in. Which pre ETH players are bottling it? Shaw, AWB, Rashford seem like the only ones capable of playing for this club. Casemiro, Eriksen, Antony, Wout, Malacia, Sabitzer have all been terrible last month or so. Fred and DDG are the only ones pre ETH who are rubbish but this should have been clear to him when he joined. His signings have been as bad as any of the existing players. Fair enough if you think ETH is the man for the job but stop trying to absolve him of blame.

 

[SER19]

Cowards. A handful that aren't, but some of them don't belong anywhere near a club with ambitions beyond europa league bottling

 

[thegregster]

I think ETH will know that several of these players aren't up to it. But it doesn't sound like the budget is there for mass replacements, so I think he'll be forced to make do in some instances.

He spent 160m on Casemiro,Malacia and Antony. Those players aren't up to it at all. Giving him more money will just add to the squads problems.

 

[OmarUnited4ever]

For me.. we need at least 6 players with 4 of the being part of the starting 11.

GK, RB, CM, and ST as starters and backup DM and back CB (left footed preferably), that's just to get a core of 13/14 players that have the quality to perform consistently.

 

[KikiDaKats]

I won’t attack the players today because it was the key/big players that were detrimental to any sort of performance today.
We need to rediscover our mojo because this team is Confidence FC.

 

[Acquire Me]

ETH has done well to mask a lot of the teams shortcomings this season but the same old issues we have seen over years are coming home to roost at the pressure point of the season.

They can't handle the pressure and are ultimately not good enough to play for Utd. Never have been!

Just shows when leaders like Martinez, Varane and Casemiro are out for a lengthy period, their replacements are not up to it.

Nothing will change at this club until it is purged of these bottle merchants.

Sadly you are spot on. We need more windows to correct this.

 

[AFC NimbleThumb]

If it’s not DdG today, it’s a Maguire in Sevilla, its Shaw at Brighton, it’s a Fred in [name game], it’s a Lindelof in [name game] & there are more to add on top if that.

If there’s something that can go wrong these players will find a way to make it happen, they’ll then apologise, make sad faces & go about hiding for a few weeks/months to rinse then repeat.

We will see no change until we get rid of a number of players & some of those will be fan favourites.

 

[Red Star One]

“Bottle” is simple and lazy explanation. As if we were better and expected to do something, but then a fluke happened and prevented that. It’s not lack of Licha or Varane that cost us today, not even mistake of De Gea - we created nothing, offered almost zero offensively and the players didn’t seem motivated or driven. This is not a “bottle” but tactical, technical and psychological mediocrity that has been accepted at the club for a very long while, from first team coaches employed on the basis of their surname rather than qualifications for the job, through higher management at the club, to various manager’s favorite players that’d be in the line ups whatever their form. Our shortcomings are not a bottle - we didn’t come short because we lacked elite mentality and cracked under pressure. It’s a natural consequence of accepting mediocrity, giving leeway to certain groups, keeping low expectations and assuming success will come naturally just because we’re Man United.

 

[crossy1686]

For me.. we need at least 6 players with 4 of the being part of the starting 11.

GK, RB, CM, and ST as starters and backup DM and back CB (left footed preferably), that's just to get a core of 13/14 players that have the quality to perform consistently.

We'll sign 2 players for £150m in the summer and next year we'll be saying the exact same thing, but this time it will be different positions.

 

[miked99]

He spent 160m on Casemiro,Malacia and Antony. Those players aren't up to it at all. Giving him more money will just add to the squads problems.

Don't agree. Casemiro has been excellent for most of the season. Just because his form has dipped in the last few games doesn't mean he's suddenly useless. Malacia was a cheap backup signing and he's been decent enough in that role. Anthony hasn't justified his price tag and I'd hope for better next season.

 

[Lee565]

Not this again, this not same squad moyes, lvg, mourinho or ole had

 

[croadyman]

Yeah whenever we go behind away from home they just turn into Eeyore and don't fight back. I saw more spirit from my hometown team yesterday or John Ryder in that fight with Canelo.

 

[DutchSerb]

Fred and DDG are the only ones pre ETH who are rubbish but this should have been clear to him when he joined.

Martial? Maguire? Scott McTominay? Sancho? Lindelof? I don't think any of those deserve to play for United.

Also not sure if AWB is capable of playing in this squad. Not that he's bad but he's got to be the least dangerous RB out there. Good for a defensive team though, something we don't strive to be.

 

[King7Eric]

Martial? Maguire? Scott McTominay? Sancho? Lindelof? I don't think any of those deserve to play for United.

Also not sure if AWB is capable of playing in this squad. Not that he's bad but he's got to be the least dangerous RB out there. Good for a defensive team though, something we don't strive to be.

Maguire and McTominay have not been playing recently. Again Martial falls in the category of Fred and DDG. Why was he not kicked out in the summer? You don't need a season to see he's overrated shite.

Sancho hasn't started the last 2 games, I'm talking about people absolving ETH for our recent performances. Barring DDG and Lindelof, most of names you mention haven't started these games. It's ETH signings who have been among the worst culprits.

 

[Sarni]

Indeed. When we lose it’s purely because of players, when we win it’s because of manager.

 

[Member 58925]

Maguire and McTominay have not been playing recently. Again Martial falls in the category of Fred and DDG. Why was he not kicked out in the summer? You don't need a season to see he's overrated shite.

Sancho hasn't started the last 2 games, I'm talking about people absolving ETH for our recent performances. Barring DDG and Lindelof, most of names you mention haven't started these games. It's ETH signings who have been among the worst culprits.

Martinez has been immense, Casemiro has been great on balance, Malacia was cheap and has had ups and downs, and Eriksen was a very smart signing as a free transfer. The winter signings were as a result of being given literally no money to spend. Biggest culprits

 

[Josep Dowling]

Can’t believe Casemiro is being mentioned. He’s currently on a bad run of form but was unbelievable prior and got a goal in the League Cup final. I don’t have issue with Antony either.

For me we must get rid of De Gea, Maguire, Lindelof, Fred, McTominay, Martial. All players that have been here for too many years and I can’t believe they still play for us. So many mistakes at crucial times. De Gea is such a liability when the pressure is on, that has to be the final warning sign to not give him a new contract. Under Fergie all these players would have been sold 2/3 seasons ago. I’d rather see youth players.

 

[InfiniteBoredom]

It’s as if Rangnick were right. He was a terrible coach, but he was right.

We need an entirely new first team and relegate the first team under Ole to squad role. That job was half done in the summer, but we need to finish it. The culture of accepting mediocrity has permeated every facets of this club for far too long, and the fans are part of it. If the white hankies and smashed car windows are a thing at OT, maybe the players wouldn’t fold half as much, or wouldn’t be here to fold to begin with.

 

[King7Eric]

Martinez has been immense, Casemiro has been great on balance, Malacia was cheap and has had ups and downs, and Eriksen was a very smart signing as a free transfer. The winter signings were as a result of being given literally no money to spend. Biggest culprits

Casemiro has not been great and this is a classic case of rose tinted glasses. Just because he's a big name doesn't mean he's been great, he just hasn't. He's had a number of games where he's looked the part but you can't label his season great.

Eriksen has been good against bottom of the table opposition, but against any team that's actually set up properly, he's been found wanting.

I think it's becoming a case of people seeing what they want to see but the truth we have so many mediocre players ( both existing and bought by ETH), that the chances of us seriously challenging for major trophies over the next few years are highly remote.

 

[Scottynaldinho]

We must accept that with the intensity we've played with this, this was always how the season would end.

It would take another season until we see the type of football Ten Hag wants to be sustained throughout the season.

 

[Bebestation]

Casemiro has not been great and this is a classic case of rose tinted glasses. Just because he's a big name doesn't mean he's been great, he just hasn't. He's had a number of games where he's looked the part but you can't label his season great.

Eriksen has been good against bottom of the table opposition, but against any team that's actually set up properly, he's been found wanting.

I think it's becoming a case of people seeing what they want to see but the truth we have so many mediocre players ( both existing and bought by ETH), that the chances of us seriously challenging for major trophies over the next few years are highly remote.

This is ironic. Just because what you say is negative doesn’t make you any different.

Ten Hag has arguably missed 1 whole transfer window & if all he could do would be to sign a player of Lisandro Martinez’s quality then that in itself would have been more useful than being forced to sign Weghorst and Sabitzer on loan whilst being forced to utelise them as well.

 

[Wumminator]

Don’t see why fans call the players bottle jobs when everywhere on this forum we’ve got example of the fans bottling it more than ever.
Players feed off the emotions of the crowd. All season we have been fighting together and the atmosphere was great. Recently; you can feel some idiots giving up on the players. Someone above said Casemiro hasn’t had a good season.

We are still in control for fourth. Stop giving up already you weirdos.

 

[Dannn411]

But yet many on here still want a sizeable majority of this group of players to remain at the club in the name of "depth" when they actually provide zero depth at all.

 

[Red Star One]

Ten Hag has arguably missed 1 whole transfer window & if all he could do would be to sign a player of Lisandro Martinez’s quality then that in itself would have been more useful than being forced to sign Weghorst and Sabitzer on loan whilst being forced to utelise them as well.

Isn’t it bad planning though? ETH had a giant transfer kitty, decided to splash it all in the summer and took the calculated risk of not leaving a penny for the winter. In our terrible structure it’s hard to say who’s responsible for transfers, but the common understanding here was these were ETH transfers already and that he was given a lot of power (too much) and means to invest for a newcomer. By going all out on Antony so late in the summer, he must have been aware that paying 95m EUR there means no money in the winter, it’s not like he was promised 200m net every transfer window.

 

[King7Eric]

This is ironic. Just because what you say is negative doesn’t make you any different.

Ten Hag has arguably missed 1 whole transfer window & if all he could do would be to sign a player of Lisandro Martinez’s quality then that in itself would have been more useful than being forced to sign Weghorst and Sabitzer on loan whilst being forced to utelise them as well.

It's not a case being negative. I was saying this a couple of months ago that people claiming ETH was a success were being premature, and similarly anyone calling for his head is the same. He's done some good stuff but there are huge question marks over him as well.

The argument of same old players throwing him under the bus is not true though because almost half the team are his signings and the likes of Shaw, Rashford and Bruno are some of our best performers so they aren't throwing him under the bus.

Like you say Martinez has been fantastic but that's the only signing I can say that for. Casemiro and Eriksen over the whole season have not been better than above average and Malacia as well as Antony haven't shown anything much apart from a willingness to work hard, both seem seriously lacking in quality.

I have been saying it for months that you can only judge the success or failure of ETH's tenure from next season, but for me at least, the signs are not positive. I sincerely hope I'm wrong, but what I'm seeing is a lot of people making excuses for him, when in reality there are aspects where he should have done better. Hopefully he learns quickly over the coming season.

 

[OmarUnited4ever]

We'll sign 2 players for £150m in the summer and next year we'll be saying the exact same thing, but this time it will be different positions.

No one knows how many players we will sign for next season, I was talking about what we need to be able to perform consistently and not suffer too much when 2 or 3 players are not available.

of course I am also aware that we can't sign 6-7 players in one window, but we really need to move a lot of players on if we want to progress further, too many in the squad are just way below the quality needed and are too weak and many of them feature regularly for us or are the only option when a starter is injured

DDG
Maguire
Fred
McTominay
Sancho
Martial

 

[Sparky Rhiwabon]

Copied from the bizarre Ten Hag sack thread

I actually think it’s less about bottling it or poor mentality and more about fatigue combined with the squad having shortcomings generally (e.g. no decent strikers) - fatigue due to lack of decent squad depth and so many games, a situation that we weren’t equipped to deal with yet. I said two months ago on the Top Four thread, when most people were saying that top four (in fact top three) was sewn up that we may struggle to get top four for this reason, you could see the fatigue and injuries building.

 

[OmarUnited4ever]

Copied from the bizarre Ten Hag sack thread

I actually think it’s less about bottling it or poor mentality and more about fatigue combined with the squad having shortcomings generally (e.g. no decent strikers) - fatigue due to lack of decent squad depth and so many games, a situation that we weren’t equipped to deal with yet. I said two months ago on the Top Four thread, when most people were saying that top four (in fact top three) was sewn up that we may struggle to get top four for this reason, you could see the fatigue and injuries building.

Not only fatigue and injuries which is a common thing for teams at the top, but the lack of quality within the squad outside of the best 11 is problematic in of itself, the brain farts or the unforced errors or the howlers during the game are things not any manager can account for, and when they happen we do not have enough fire-power to overcome it, if for once Ederson made a silly mistake and conceded a goal from it, City has enough quality to overcome it, we don't and that is why the team easily crumbles when such things happen.

 

[Tarrou]

if an organisation is failing for a decade or more then it's the leadership that is the problem, we have owners who treat the club like something to extract value from and don't give a feck about anything else

until that changes you can change the manager and players as many times as you want and you'll get the same result

 

[AndySmith1990]

It's telling that certain issues have been present throughout the tenure of multiple managers. Very different managers, too. At this point you can only point at the constants during it all. Obviously there are two sets of constants we can blame; the Glazer scum and the players who have been here for 5+ years. There are certain players contracted to United who shouldn't be anywhere near this club. The standards have fallen so low and they get away with it time and time again.

 

[SER19]

What we absolutely lack, is enough players in midfield and attack who can influence a game on their own, when others are having a bad day. This will rarely be needed with a top team, but those sorts of characters aren't constantly shifting responsibility to others. I would say that Casemiro, Ferndandes and this season, Rashford, have demonstrated that they can do it and bail the team out. Other talented players like Sancho, Eriksen, Martial, Antony, Fred, and so on, only really produce when everybody else is firing.

If you look at our successful teams through the years, we had similar shocking games but we always had so many players you could trust to come up with a moment or even just to drag others on a level. Maybe this is what bottle is - too many of these players seem very comfortable when there is an excuse available

 

[Judas]

We'll sign 2 players for £150m in the summer and next year we'll be saying the exact same thing, but this time it will be different positions.

I do worry we might do something like this when wholesale changes are needed. We need many pieces for the jigsaw, not a couple of overpriced ones.

 

[Lentwood]

There's a huge % of our fanbase that still haven't learnt any lessons from the past decade though...they're suckered in by one or two decent performances and a few stat-padding games.

I will say this over and over again - the non-negotiables are workrate, tenacity, aggression, winning 2nd balls, holding off opponents, chasing lost causes, winning 40:60s. Running hard. Sprinting. Going into tackles hard. Fighting to hold/progress the ball up the pitch

IF you can't do those things on a regular basis, then you are useless. I dont care how many goals or assists you get. I dont care how many nutmegs you pull off. How many passes you complete. There's no room in the modern game for passengers.

We have too many highlights reel players who are only capable of performing in 'moments'. Sometimes, they have quite a few of these 'moments' in a game or a run of games and the fans are conned.

Primarily the players I am talking about are Rashford, Sancho, De Gea and Martial. Its not that they are "bad" (apart from DDG), but they are useless in sides with aspirations to win trophies because they will continually disappear at key moments.

Then we move on to the players who AREN'T lacking in mentality but are just crap/out of their depth...and we certainly have a few of those. These players mean well and have the right attitude but are not good enough, and they include Weghorst, Fred and Dalot.

So if we compiled a Venn diagram with "not good enough" on one side and "bottler" on the other, you'd have DDG smack bang in the middle then you would have

"Not Good Enough" - Weghorst, Fred, Dalot, Elanga, Sabitzer, McTominay

"Bottler" - Sancho, Rashford, Martial, DDG

I am almost put Varane in the "bottler" category because he has the resilience of a wet paper towel and wont play through the most minor pain barrier...but lets just leave that argument for another day.

There are a few who flirt with the "Not Good Enough" category but they will do for now in the context of achieving a top four finish and/or filling out squad positions i.e. Malacia, AWB, potentially Eriksen (although I do love some of his attributes), Maguire, Lindelof.

My point is, you see when you start looking through the squad, its not simply a case that they are "weak" or "bottlers" - some are just crap. Fred isnt a bottler, he's just garbage. Dalot isnt a bottler, he's just the most bland, average fullback you're likely to see. Weghorst isnt a bottler, he's just criminally awful.

Personally I want to see ETH do what we have all called for for a long time - and thats get the bottlers and the weak players out first. I can stand "lack of quality" to a degree but I cant stand lack of effort, cowardice, weak mindsets, laziness, bottling challenges, ducking headers and jogging.

Some might disagree with me but whilst you rely on Rashford's, DDGs, Sancho's and Martial's you will forever be trapped in this "5 good games, 5 shocking games" cycle. They're all great when the going is good but complete non-entities when we experience any kind of adversity.

 

[moses]

We'll sign 2 players for £150m in the summer and next year we'll be saying the exact same thing, but this time it will be different positions.

Well you will definitely be saying the same thing, that's pretty much a guarantee.

 

[Sir Erik ten Hag]

Don’t see why fans call the players bottle jobs when everywhere on this forum we’ve got example of the fans bottling it more than ever.
Players feed off the emotions of the crowd. All season we have been fighting together and the atmosphere was great. Recently; you can feel some idiots giving up on the players. Someone above said Casemiro hasn’t had a good season.

We are still in control for fourth. Stop giving up already you weirdos.

How many percent of the CAF posters are actually parts of the match-going crowd?

 

[CaseHero]

ETH has done well to mask a lot of the teams shortcomings this season but the same old issues we have seen over years are coming home to roost at the pressure point of the season.

They can't handle the pressure and are ultimately not good enough to play for Utd. Never have been!

Just shows when leaders like Martinez, Varane and Casemiro are out for a lengthy period, their replacements are not up to it.

Nothing will change at this club until it is purged of these bottle merchants.

Great post I've been saying the same. We need to be ruthless. ETH done wonders.

 

[The Brown Bull]

My two cents.Martinez and Varane have been massive losses. Rashford & Garnacho losses too. Rashford’s hot streak seems to have come to an end. Eriksen’s injury was also a blow .
Just looked at the league table and one stat sticks out like a sore thumb, ie goals scored.
We are on 49. Well below everyone else!
Not good enough. ETH has done very well.
I blame the Glazers