Those 2 early defeats….

AlPistacho

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A long long time ago in what seems like a different universe we lost our first two matches, rather humiliatingly. Anyways, I was speaking to someone today and he curses those defeats on the grounds that if we hadn’t had lost those we’d have been equal in points with Man City, a game in hand, and very likely favourites for the title.

I on the the other am of the opinion that those two defeats are exactly what we needed, and they came at the best time possible. It’s possible that without those defeats, we’re not where we are today.
1) Ultimate test of the manager
2) perfect opportunity for the manager to start phasing out certain undroppable players.
3)Allow for a shift in mentality & leadership, if we started off doing okay, would the like of Martinez, Varane, and Casemiro have had the ability to step in as leaders? Would the changes ETH made have gotten through?

And I still think we are lurking ominously in the title race.. both Arsenal and City probably look at us as the crocodile waiting for them to slip.. and it’s that fear that might just make them slip up. Can’t remember a time when a title race has had the 3rd place team be so primed and ready.

How I would describe us is a more complete and better placed team of the Liverpool team that finished 4th (when we fished 2nd under Jose) and people said they’d win the title within a year or two. Only thing I can see holding us back is the board / glazers
 
Difference between a good manager and a crap one is a crap manager would have sold us on a “this is just the team I inherited” BS and “rebuild/process/heritage will take time so a top 6 finish is good for now.

A top manager adjusts, extracts the best out of the current lot and doesn’t just passively “build” a team by buying his ideal players or nothing.

We’ve had our share of luck this season but it’s very different than getting lucky with jammy wins. Our squad is still razor thin and an injury crises would wreck us but ETH deserves all the praise

tl;dr signs a good manager in their peak and we do well what a surprise
 
Probably agree with you. I also think results tend to balance themselves out, and looking at it now you realize that Brighton and Brentford are two annoying teams to play as well as both are very well coached and provide serious threats.

There was no doubt a clear mentality shift from the players after ETH blasted them and had them do the running though. Was evident in the Liverpool game where we were just okay, but outran them by miles and fought harder than we had in years, which provided the foundation while we slowly adapted to the system/tactics that the staff was trying to drill into the side.
 
It's horses for courses tbh. There were also a lot of games earlier on in the season where we were fortunate to get the 3 points and couldn't have argued much if we hadn't.

Home to Arsenal
Home to West Ham
Away to Fulham


Even away to Leeds two weeks ago was looking quite dicey for most of the game.


I think we are roughly where we deserve to be.
 
shamans said:
Difference between a good manager and a crap one is a crap manager would have sold us on a “this is just the team I inherited” BS and
Click to expand...
It is certainly refreshing to have a modern manager without all the excuses. None of the BS like this

Jose Mourinho insists he would never have sold Manchester United trio let go by Louis van Gaal

The Portuguese believes he inherited a 'sad' club from his predecessor and dismissed a return to Sir Alex Ferguson-era dominance as 'not possible'
https://www.independent.co.uk/sport...ouis-van-gaal-danny-welbeck-a7634286.html?amp
 
Think those results removed any remaining doubt for the higher ups that the squad needed new faces immediately. We got Casemerio and Antony in pretty quickly afterwards. If we'd scraped through those matches then there is every chance ten hag would have been told to wait until future windows.

It also gave him more leaway to drop first teamers like Maguire and Ronaldo without it kicking up a stink in the media. The Ronaldo drama was bad enough but it could have been way worse if not for those early performances were he proved he was past it at the top level.
 
mu4c_20le said:
It is certainly refreshing to have a modern manager without all the excuses. None of the BS like this

Jose Mourinho insists he would never have sold Manchester United trio let go by Louis van Gaal

The Portuguese believes he inherited a 'sad' club from his predecessor and dismissed a return to Sir Alex Ferguson-era dominance as 'not possible'
https://www.independent.co.uk/sport...ouis-van-gaal-danny-welbeck-a7634286.html?amp
Click to expand...
That’s what I love about ETH… also it’s hard to pin down but something he’s navigated extremely well. He didn’t really set expectations early on nor, as you pointed out, did lower them. No talk of rebuild. The only time I heard him say anything was in buildup to the league cup final where he said something about “winning trophies is all that matters” and basically raised the bar which was well timed, and when you think of it a great message at a time when him and the team were getting lavished with praise.

Also he’s not thrown anyone under the bus. The players he didn’t want but was forced to keep he has improved eg AWB looks better attacking wise.
 
shamans said:
Difference between a good manager and a crap one is a crap manager would have sold us on a “this is just the team I inherited” BS and “rebuild/process/heritage will take time so a top 6 finish is good for now.

A top manager adjusts, extracts the best out of the current lot and doesn’t just passively “build” a team by buying his ideal players or nothing.

We’ve had our share of luck this season but it’s very different than getting lucky with jammy wins. Our squad is still razor thin and an injury crises would wreck us but ETH deserves all the praise

tl;dr signs a good manager in their peak and we do well what a surprise
Click to expand...
Agree fully.
 
AlPistacho said:
That’s what I love about ETH… also it’s hard to pin down but something he’s navigated extremely well. He didn’t really set expectations early on nor, as you pointed out, did lower them. No talk of rebuild. The only time I heard him say anything was in buildup to the league cup final where he said something about “winning trophies is all that matters” and basically raised the bar which was well timed, and when you think of it a great message at a time when him and the team were getting lavished with praise.

Also he’s not thrown anyone under the bus. The players he didn’t want but was forced to keep he has improved eg AWB looks better attacking wise.
Click to expand...
He probably had a point from time to time but it's refreshing to not hear negativity and the players enjoy it as well. So they'll run through walls for him.
 
Yeah I'm with you in that those 2 defeats helped in terms of squad togetherness, overcoming the challenge, growing and fighting together and getting past last season. It was never going to be entirely smooth after last season.
 
I remember many including myself took what Rangnick said as gospel. Ten Hag thankfully saw thru that nonsense that we needed 10 players and has extracted the potential of this squad while adding proven winners. Arguably we are only 2 players from being legitimate title contenders. Absolutely brilliant job so far and possibly more to come this season.
 
mu4c_20le said:
It is certainly refreshing to have a modern manager without all the excuses. None of the BS like this

Jose Mourinho insists he would never have sold Manchester United trio let go by Louis van Gaal

The Portuguese believes he inherited a 'sad' club from his predecessor and dismissed a return to Sir Alex Ferguson-era dominance as 'not possible'
https://www.independent.co.uk/sport...ouis-van-gaal-danny-welbeck-a7634286.html?amp
Click to expand...

Before Erik they all played this trick and ironically Erik who deserved to say it the most hasn’t made this excuse
 
I always felt ETH does not think an aggressive ball winning DM is necessary at the very beginning, as we have been linked up with De Jong and Eriksen all summer, they are all ball playing type and none of them are aggressive midfield battler. Perhaps those 2 early defeats in PL changed his mind so we signed Casemiro, who turns out to be one of our most important player this season.
 
I think the two early defeats were the wake up calls and we deserved those defeats.

I think the ones I'm gutted more is the 1-1 draw vs Chelsea and 1-1 draw vs Palace. We should have win those games because we deserved to win them.
 
The serious point to consider is that ETH inherited a steaming pile of shit and now the squad purring like a Rolls Royce, despite our two most expensive signings — Sancho and Antony — performing at second gear at best.

When those two hit fourth gear, oh my.
 
RedRonaldo said:
I always felt ETH does not think an aggressive ball winning DM is necessary at the very beginning, as we have been linked up with De Jong and Eriksen all summer, they are all ball playing type and none of them are aggressive midfield battler. Perhaps those 2 early defeats in PL changed his mind so we signed Casemiro, who turns out to be one of our most important player this season.
Click to expand...
Casemiro is funnily enough a player who I feel was wrongly typecasted as RM. He’s more of a playmaking cdm with attacking ability than people realise. Which we’re seeing now at United.
 
UNITED ACADEMY said:
I think the two early defeats were the wake up calls and we deserved those defeats.

I think the ones I'm gutted more is the 1-1 draw vs Chelsea and 1-1 draw vs Palace. We should have win those games because we deserved to win them.
Click to expand...
The Palace one was annoying that would have been an extra two points, Leeds was also an unexpected blip.
 
UNITED ACADEMY said:
I think the two early defeats were the wake up calls and we deserved those defeats.

I think the ones I'm gutted more is the 1-1 draw vs Chelsea and 1-1 draw vs Palace. We should have win those games because we deserved to win them.
Click to expand...

You can play that game til you’ve gone mad. There’s also plenty of games we won we likely should have tied or lost based on a bit of luck.

I think we probably are right where we deserve to be…and that’s a good thing. We have been over-performing in some ways so no need to inflate it with some extra luck. We’ve had a stellar season so far, and we clearly have some room to grow.
 
Those defeats were not expected but happened, ETH has brought in the changes needed, the 3rd game was Liverpool at home, and the bookies put us at 11-1 to win a home game at OT ffs, you won't get those prices now. Closest I've seen is Everton 8-1 at home to Arsenal.

What I'm getting at In 8mths the climate has changed in bookies minds were we are now 9/4 favs for Europa league. So those 2 defeats have been a godsend and the transfer window was still open and we picked up players like Casimero, Antony.

After those 2 games the ex pundits now have a fair bit of egg on there face from there comments about players like Martinez .
 
There’s definitely a butterfly effect of ‘if you take those games out, does the following still happen as it does’? Probably not.

I also don’t really like the trend of united fans online saying ‘well if you take the first two games out then…’ as if they didn’t count. We played those games, and we lost. You’d cringe if Liverpool fans said ‘well if you ignore all the games we lost we’d be unbeaten’.
 
shamans said:
We’ve had our share of luck this season but it’s very different than getting lucky with jammy wins. Our squad is still razor thin and an injury crises would wreck us but ETH deserves all the praise

tl;dr signs a good manager in their peak and we do well what a surprise
Click to expand...

I wouldn't say we've had our share of luck at all given the injuries in midfield and up front.
 
the points we dropped that standout to me as avoidable were the draws against Palace and Leeds and the defeat to Arsenal away

Palace and Arsenal were both to goals conceded last minute, and against Leeds we just woke up too late (still had 20 minutes to get a winner but didn't do much)

that's points we could have done with on the table right now
 
AlPistacho said:
A long long time ago in what seems like a different universe we lost our first two matches, rather humiliatingly. Anyways, I was speaking to someone today and he curses those defeats on the grounds that if we hadn’t had lost those we’d have been equal in points with Man City, a game in hand, and very likely favourites for the title.

I on the the other am of the opinion that those two defeats are exactly what we needed, and they came at the best time possible. It’s possible that without those defeats, we’re not where we are today.
1) Ultimate test of the manager
2) perfect opportunity for the manager to start phasing out certain undroppable players.
3)Allow for a shift in mentality & leadership, if we started off doing okay, would the like of Martinez, Varane, and Casemiro have had the ability to step in as leaders? Would the changes ETH made have gotten through?

And I still think we are lurking ominously in the title race.. both Arsenal and City probably look at us as the crocodile waiting for them to slip.. and it’s that fear that might just make them slip up. Can’t remember a time when a title race has had the 3rd place team be so primed and ready.

How I would describe us is a more complete and better placed team of the Liverpool team that finished 4th (when we fished 2nd under Jose) and people said they’d win the title within a year or two. Only thing I can see holding us back is the board / glazers
Click to expand...

I'm in both camps at the same time. I keep thinking what if with those two games, but the Brentford defeat led to the 13km run thing which was a simple but genius piece of management to both stamp authority, disciplin amd standards onto the squad, and show that everyone is in it together, and without that result it couldn't have had the same effect.

Although I don't see us as title contenders, mainly because those 6 points along with our schedule are too big a handicap when Arsenal and City are pretty good themselves, which is still annoying, but I'd still have been delighted if someone said we'd be where we are now before the season started.
 
The Brighton home loss was down to the wrong setup in the first half. He changed it in the second half and I think on another day it could have finished 2-2.

The Brentford loss was basically a catalogue of horrible individual errors that somehow all came in the first 30 minutes. I’ve never seen that many mistakes get punished in such quick a time in any football match. Massive feck ups happen once in a while for every team but they don’t always get punished and Brentford hit a hat trick of successfully capitalising on our feck ups in such a short space of time. If I remember it was only their fourth goal that was not gifted to them in some way.
 
If I had three balls instead of two I would be a pinball machine and if I could drink two beers instead of ten I wouldn't be an alcoholic. There is a reason why "if" is never helping to prove a point in a conversation. It was necessary in some way. Stop overthinking it and get up to speed on the present.
 
We just wanted to give all the other teams a 6 point head start to make it a fair competition. We'll still win the PL, but the early handicap will make the quadruple even sweeter. Fergie used to do the same thing - I remember one Champions League Final, he gave the Germans a 1-0 lead going into injury time to make it more exciting, and yes, it did make victory all the more sweet because of it.
 
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Giggsy13 said:
I remember many including myself took what Rangnick said as gospel. Ten Hag thankfully saw thru that nonsense that we needed 10 players and has extracted the potential of this squad while adding proven winners. Arguably we are only 2 players from being legitimate title contenders. Absolutely brilliant job so far and possibly more to come this season.
Click to expand...
To be fair, we have signed nine players this season, albeit two of them are reserve keepers.
 
Shark said:
I wouldn't say we've had our share of luck at all given the injuries in midfield and up front.
Click to expand...

Just think it could have gotten way worse with some injuries and in the beginning we did grind out some results where we honestly could have lost. It's not ETH's fault, that's just the way of the game but we easily could have been 4th/5th without any fault of the manager if we suffered worse injuries.
 
It's the draws to Palace and Leeds that are more annoying, in my opinion. Those losses at the start of the season were stupid, but we made up for it with a reaction.

Also we have a quality manager (fecking finally). Turns out they're actually really important and make us play well.
 
I was thinking about those games myself earlier today and that we probably needed them in hindsight. Can’t remember exactly, but just thinking of the lineups - pretty sure we had Maguire, McTominay and Elanga in the team against Brighton. That couldn’t be allowed to continue.
 
☝️ what 2cents said
Yeh, remember that alright. This was around the time maguire and some of the senior player were supposed to have approached the board with their 'concerns' about his methods and the club's transfer ambitions.
 
AlPistacho said:
A long long time ago in what seems like a different universe we lost our first two matches, rather humiliatingly. Anyways, I was speaking to someone today and he curses those defeats on the grounds that if we hadn’t had lost those we’d have been equal in points with Man City, a game in hand, and very likely favourites for the title.

I on the the other am of the opinion that those two defeats are exactly what we needed, and they came at the best time possible. It’s possible that without those defeats, we’re not where we are today.
1) Ultimate test of the manager
2) perfect opportunity for the manager to start phasing out certain undroppable players.
3)Allow for a shift in mentality & leadership, if we started off doing okay, would the like of Martinez, Varane, and Casemiro have had the ability to step in as leaders? Would the changes ETH made have gotten through?

And I still think we are lurking ominously in the title race.. both Arsenal and City probably look at us as the crocodile waiting for them to slip.. and it’s that fear that might just make them slip up. Can’t remember a time when a title race has had the 3rd place team be so primed and ready.

How I would describe us is a more complete and better placed team of the Liverpool team that finished 4th (when we fished 2nd under Jose) and people said they’d win the title within a year or two. Only thing I can see holding us back is the board / glazers
Click to expand...
If we won those first 2 games, I’m not sure we would have signed Casemiro and Antony. It took some serious panic and over paying to get them both in after those defeats.
 
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