"They Wanted It More"

Bondi77

Full Member
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Jun 28, 2019
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How many more times are we going to have to listen to this bullshit?
This should only be an issue when two opponents are evenly matched and that applies to any sport.
A lesser team or individual will most likely always want the win more but the superior team or individual will win on most occasions for the obvious reasons.
I would love to ask the question "Why are you not trying hard to win" after we draw or even lose to another opponent that get paid a pittance compared to our players.
 
We didn't want it enough in the end against Palace too. Last 10 minutes we looked content on a draw, was infuriating.
 
JJ12 said:
We didn't want it enough in the end against Palace too. Last 10 minutes we looked content on a draw, was infuriating.
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I'm not sure how you come to that conclusion. We didn't have good enough players on to do much against them and they were very well organised with their press and defense. Just because we didn't make many chances doesn't mean we didn't want it.

This is such a silly way of looking at things.
 
True or not it’s a stupid thing to say when you were directly involved in conceding the equaliser.
 
It's a tired cliche, we didn't draw because we didn't want it enough (Which is essentially that we didn't show enough aggression/ work rate) we drew because we didn't capitalize on opportunities, were sloppy in possession and made subs too late, this is a boring old line that's thrown out in the vein of "We go again"
 
Not that it can never be true, but....

Saying that one team wanted it more is the easiest bit of analysis to make if you don't actually understand what went wrong.
 
AngeloHenriquez said:
It's a tired cliche, we didn't draw because we didn't want it enough (Which is essentially that we didn't show enough aggression/ work rate) we drew because we didn't capitalize on opportunities, were sloppy in possession and made subs too late, this is a boring old line that's thrown out in the vein of "We go again"
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Yeah, I couldn't really see anything last night that would indicate that they somehow wanted it more. We created plenty of good attacks but they didn't really lead to many open chances. That is more down to your own quality.

There is something to be said though about how we often get too complacent/lacking urgency or assertiveness, specially late in games that we have otherwise had the upper hand in. Outside of generally just being too open to attacks. Before, and after they scored we had lost control of the game and wasn't really until they made a defensive change to sit back that we got the upper hand again and started threatening in the last 15 minutes or so.

This is a IMO club-wide mentality that needs to be changed somehow, that slacking off or losing focus gets you in trouble with the captain/manager. Hard to change when it has become so ingrained in the team though and our captain being the worst player on the pitch in many games.
 
I actually think it was true in this case. Not so much against Palace
 
AngeloHenriquez said:
It's a tired cliche, we didn't draw because we didn't want it enough (Which is essentially that we didn't show enough aggression/ work rate) we drew because we didn't capitalize on opportunities, were sloppy in possession and made subs too late, this is a boring old line that's thrown out in the vein of "We go again"
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Agree, it’s just a footballers cliche. What happened was a classic underdog story, they played without pressure or fear and we didn’t have the quality to finish them off when we should have. When we let them back in it gave them a huge lift and they went for it.

Despite them wanting it more we had 60% possession, 3 times as many shots, twice as many shots on target and nearly 50% more passes than them.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Who said it?!?

Second time I’ve seen that reference without the fecking player being named.
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Eriksen said it after the game when he was interviewed. Sounded like he was repeating something the manager had said in the dressing room to be honest. It's either say that or say the system was dog shit and we all know no one is allowed to have that opinion.
 
I think they did want it more but that would be something that evenly matched teams fall back on. City don't need to "want it more" most games because they just beat the other team for quality. Doesn't matter how much the other team wants it because they aren't given a chance to even fight for it.

The issue was a lack of quality when it mattered. The issue was that Bruno and Eriksen were both poor. The issue was the tempo we played with too often. The issue was Eriksen gifted them a goal when we were largely in complete control of the game. Not wanting it enough was pretty far down on my list of criticisms.
 
We, as fans, don't want EtH gone enough. Therefore his still around. We need to step up our "want it" game.
 
It’s a convenient excuse becuase all the manager has to do is fine a way to motivate a team that has the quality. It doesn’t and neither does he.
 
I think last night was a perfect example of us assuming we would win and the opposition playing in the game of their lives. SAF always made sure we never underestimated teams despite any gulf in talent and would be quick to call it out when it was evident.

Yesterday, Twente took it more seriously and played with far more effort and energy. You could probably call that wanting it more.
 
Because they are on way too money, they don't care, they don't trust the manager, they're badly managed by a manager who has terrible owners.
 
Plant0x84 said:
Nothing to do with ‘wanting it more’. We aren’t clinical enough to kill off a game, even when we are dominating. Our team is young, and players are integrating. It will come, given time.
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How many players last night were young though? Onana, Maguire, Dalot, Martinez, Mazraoui are all experienced and so are Eriksen, Bruno, Rashord. Only Amad and Zirkzee you can count as young and inexperienced. So who are we talking about here?
 
Hammondo said:
I'm not sure how you come to that conclusion. We didn't have good enough players on to do much against them and they were very well organised with their press and defense. Just because we didn't make many chances doesn't mean we didn't want it.

This is such a silly way of looking at things.
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2.5 years 600M and dont have a good enough team to beat Twente at home..
 
Pexbo said:
Despite them wanting it more we had 60% possession, 3 times as many shots, twice as many shots on target and nearly 50% more passes than them.
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This is not actually overly impressive, do t you think? Possession at 60/40 for example.
 
groovyalbert said:
I think last night was a perfect example of us assuming we would win and the opposition playing in the game of their lives. SAF always made sure we never underestimated teams despite any gulf in talent and would be quick to call it out when it was evident.

Yesterday, Twente took it more seriously and played with far more effort and energy. You could probably call that wanting it more.
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I thought it was mad that people were predicting we'd batter them 5-0 or play the kids against them. People seemed to think it was an amateur side. Nevertheless, we should be beating them and the dropoff in the second half was pretty shocking. Seemed like we got complacent shortly after taking the lead.
 
duffer said:
Away at Old Trafford is a huge game for the Twente players.

At home to Twente is chance to rotate the team for Man United.

Of course they wanted it more.
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Ye basically this - for some of those players, last night was the biggest game they played in their lives

Still we should have enough quality to get the win
 
As annoying as it is to hear, it's felt true for so long.

For years now we've watched United matches where it appears the players think just wearing the shirt alone is enough to lift them above the opposition.

You see the lack of desire in the small details. There's a lot of talk right now about rivals employing the so-called dark arts. We wouldn't come up in such conversations because we don't show enough desire to be fully switched on in all areas. Or to use the term in question, we never seem to want it enough.

What's most annoying of all is that on the rare occasion we do give a shit, we look really good. Take the cup final as an example - we were well up for that. Sadly, raising your game so rarely is the sign of a poor mentality.
 
Hammondo said:
I'm not sure how you come to that conclusion. We didn't have good enough players on to do much against them and they were very well organised with their press and defense. Just because we didn't make many chances doesn't mean we didn't want it.

This is such a silly way of looking at things.
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We fell out of the game for nearly the entire second half, definitely felt like we went down a gear from the first half, no urgency and became very sloppy. This part you could perhaps attribute to a lack of quality and/or Palace improving.

However, I was absolutely raging that whilst needing a goal in the last 10 minutes we constantly passed it backwards with players (Martinez the biggest culprit) standing on the ball for what felt like 20 seconds at a time before passing it short or back.

That was absolutely mental to me, I get it if you're drawing 1-1 with Liverpool at Anfield or something, but against teams like Palace we need to be trying to win right up to the last second. Not doing so will cost us the points that are desperately needed to have a chance of playing in the Champions league.

The cowardice shown in some games already this season will see us finish where we did last season or worse.

We have inexperienced or streaky forwards who appear to lack a bit of quality when trying to finish chances, so we need to keep going and trying to create until something goes in. There's no point in just backing off and dropping in energy for large periods of a game, we're going to struggle even more doing that.
 
NicolaSacco said:
What a strange response, be less sensitive.
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Eh?

The context of the post is that “wanting it more” suggests Twente tried harder yet by all metrics United were ahead of them.

Judging whether United should have had 65% or even 80% possession is moot in the context of that argument. We are comparing two teams on equal footing to determine who “wanted it more” and none of the metrics suggest that was Twente unless you decide to infer from our finishing stats that rather than trying to score we were just half assing our shots.
 
Pexbo said:
Eh?

The context of the post is that “wanting it more” suggests Twente tried harder yet by all metrics United were ahead of them.

Judging whether United should have had 65% or even 80% possession is moot in the context of that argument. We are comparing two teams on equal footing to determine who “wanted it more” and none of the metrics suggest that was Twente unless you decide to infer from our finishing stats that rather than trying to score we were just half assing our shots.
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Fair enough- I thought I haven’t taken your post out of context, but looking back, that’s exactly what I’ve done! Apologies.
 
I don't know if it's "Wanting it more". The reality is that when we're up we don't have this predatory instinct to kill games. We seem to be content with just leading, and that encourages opponents to get back in the game and even win it.

This has been a team a characteristic during the whole ETH era. Dare I say it comes from the manager.
 
didz said:
I thought it was mad that people were predicting we'd batter them 5-0 or play the kids against them. People seemed to think it was an amateur side. Nevertheless, we should be beating them and the dropoff in the second half was pretty shocking. Seemed like we got complacent shortly after taking the lead.
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It was odd all round. Seemed like we wanted to do enough to get the win whilst saving energy for the weekend.

Would probably have been more players unlikely to be in the first XI and have them make a point.

Something about yesterday just really didn't sit right with me. It's undone all the minor forward steps we've had since being thrashed by Liverpool, and we're firmly back waiting when not if ETH likely gets forked out.
 
It did look like that though tbh. We were garbage for the whole game even by our own almost non existent standards.

Some of the passing and off the ball work was just plain lazy.

I would have a bit of leeway if all was going well in the league and players naturally had half an eye on the Spurs game, but the EL is probably one of the more realistic routes to actually getting anything out of this season.

The only player who looked fully interested and focused was Garnacho when he came on. Its never a good sign when a sub sticks out like a sore thumb, despite not really contributing much other than running around and looking more alert than everyone else
 
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