Time to remove the rose-tinted glasses

This is what happens with players that simply are not good enough for anything but a battle for Europa league places.

The squad is an upper mid-table squad capable of bouts of good play interspersed with utter shite.

We need to have sensational recruitment to get back in the top 4 because our squad is crap. Our best starting XI, when Amorim finally settles on it, is capable but nothing more.
 
DevilRed said:
:lol:

Only last season that people were laughing at them for buying all kinds of rubbish.

Its the managers job to get the players playing as a cohesive unit.

Right now thats not happening for us.
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Anyone who laughed at them for "buying rubbish" was an idiot. They bought some of the highest rated young players in the world at a multitude of positions, and post Xmas had the form of a top 4 team. The improvement was evident.

OUR manager is getting us to play as a unit. Every metric says so. That doesn't matter much when random defenders or keepers ship goals, or attackers miss chances.
 
It's not a rose-tinted glasses thing to believe we're seeing some positives under Amorim, and that we might have a good coach on our hands, just as a clear-eyed view tells us this squad will never work for him, and we are - yet again - looking at a major squad overhaul*, and a continuing bumpy ride ahead.

The massive frustration is that we're being consistently bettered (and, sometimes, battered) by teams that are simply stronger and faster. We have so little athletic prowess, most of it a product of recruiting too many players who are variously too old and slow (Casemiro, Eriksen), too small and too slow (Martinez: he's not a PL defender and neither, of course, is Malacia); or just slow (Antony and Zirkzee, though lack of pace is only one of their failings). Whoever we bring in as replacements, we surely have to learn from getting it wrong so often.

*I'm willing to accept that the absence of any sort of coherent playing strategy has been a huge factor in player churn, with all of LVH, Mourinho and OGS allowed to spend on re-builds that became redundant as soon as they were replaced.
 
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Let’s do just that remove the ‘Rose Tinted Glasses’

Many of diehard United fans, of why I and most of CAFE are were warned of INEOS inability to run a successful football team.
The warning signs were there, SJR interference with Nice, putting his brother in charge as CEO, they’ve been a yo yo club in his five years in charge 5th, 9th, 5th, 9th,5th no champions league and very little ambition to win the French League , they’ve had multiple managers. SJR is a hot head, he tries to manage a football club like one of his offshore shale businesses, he only sees results or failure, constant change, constant interfering, constant cutting back financials.

Roll on to his first year in United, yes certain changes needed to happen, but you have to implement them gradually!
You can’t cut 25% of the employees personal, cancel every Xmas party, have no interest in the ladies team, cut all Xmas bonuses for stewards and then sack your DOF after making a huge fuss to get him in the first place, SJR needs to make some bold decisions about himself!

1. Is he really a diehard Red that loves the Club?
2. Why is he penny pinching so much and spinning close to PSSR when. We sold £65m of pure profit from the academy in the summer.
3. Why have a DOF if you are going to ask the TD and CEO to go behind his back?
4. You are currently worth £20billion and your a man in the latter stages of your life so your in a hurry but knee jerk reaction never ever works, and your acting a spoilt brat that expects results immediately because you invested $300m?
5. What do you expect with current results when you have a squad based on 4231 and you just bought out a contract for a manager who specialises in 3421 or 343 .
6. We’ve paid out £30m in sacking a coach and getting a new one with no pre season and no players that really suit his system.
7. Due Dilligence, only one coach has ever won the PL with a 3421 or 352 system?

I’ve removed those spectacles and I see a club in disarray, a management team we were assured was best in class already broken up, a CEO who thinks he knows exactly what he’s doing but City right now are in a worse position than us! I see a great young coach that has 7 points from 6 games and only 4 wins from his first 9 games.

We can’t blame MDL or Rashford for the last two results, so who fo we hang out to dry this time?

I’ll give you the answer SJR is who, he’s cultivating an environment where panic is displayed at the top at first the sign of poor results, he’s shouting down the line, making ruthless decisions where the whole club feel completely inept because the guy at the top keeps telling everybody how shit we are!

It’s only a matter of time before he turns on Berrada, Wilcox or Amorim and the next 2/3 years might be our worst period to be a fan of our great club until he eventually realises he’s damaging the club beyond repair and finally sells up with the Glazers!
 
We have clearly improved from Eth, our structure and play is streets better but we don't have enough good players.
 
Katy Cat said:
It's not a rose-tinted glasses thing to believe we're seeing some positives under Amorim, and that we might have a good coach on our hands, just as a clear-eyed view tells us this squad will never work for him, and we are - yet again - looking at a major squad overhaul*, and a continuing bumpy ride ahead.

The massive frustration is that we're being consistently bettered (and, sometimes, battered) by teams that who are simply stronger and faster. We have so little athletic prowess, most of it a product of recruiting too many players who are variously too old and slow (Casemiro, Eriksen), too small and too slow (Martinez: he's not a PL defender and neither, of course, is Malacia); or just slow (Antony and Zirkzee, though lack of pace is only one of their failings). Whoever we bring in as replacements, we surely have to learn from getting it wrong so often.

*I'm willing to accept that the absence of any sort of coherent playing strategy has been a huge factor in player churn, with all of LVH, Mourinho and OGS allowed to spend on re-builds that became redundant as soon as they were replaced.
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I never said it was. Of course there are positives. But I've also seen loads of negatives rationalized away in post-match threads and the likes, driven by what seems to be more faith and hope in the manager, rather than actual play. But yes, some important aspects of our play have certainly improved. The pressing in the City match, for example, was impressive.

Although I think the ETH sacking was overdue, I do think it is kind of unfair, though, to compare our current play with the ending of his time here, as he was clearly a dead man walking and the players surely understood that too.
 
The only positive appraisal that I question is of the players. I sincerely believe we only have about 6/7 PL quality players, the rest are Championship level at best. Add into the mix that they simply cannot take on board simple instructions and have a propensity to make mistakes game after game means that it's almost pot luck if we win games, not out of merit. In this league, merit will always propel you but luck is unreliable.. and we're finding that out!
 
AndersB said:
a lot of "I see what he's trying to do here", when in reality we have not been performing well.
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That just shows how poor the performances were pre-Amorim.
You can see a clear idea and style of play. We have improved already, we are keeping the ball a bit better, creating more chance etc, but we were starting from absolute zero so even a moderate improvement still won’t see us playing at the level we aspire to. This is another long road we are on.
 
50% of the players will have to go. It’s wild how many of them that are not good enough.

That said, it’s easy to see that we have improved under Amorim. Only problem now is players not able to execute properly.

Whatever happens I will stand by Amorim.
 
I'll allow myself a bump here.

Now we're not even playing well anymore, something we at least saw quite a few glimpses of before. I didn't think degree of collapse was going to happen.
 
AndersB said:
I'll allow myself a bump here.

Now we're not even playing well anymore, something we at least saw quite a few glimpses of before. I didn't think degree of collapse was going to happen.
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Nobody did. If anyone had suggested that we would have 22 points after 19 games, we would have asked the police to conduct a welfare check. It’s a skip fire and there is lots of blame to go around. However, the manager who has been here less than two months can’t be blamed for much. This is the result of two decades of neglect and mismanagement. The fans must also take our share of the blame. We should have done more to oppose the Glazers from day one, never letting up on the pressure. We let them destroy it all, myself included.
 
Every time a manager has tried to modernise us and move to a pressing system, they have ultimately had a disaster. LVG lasted the longest but fans deemed him too 'boring', Mou had no interest in anything but his usual style, Ole just continued on from Mou and the season he made the show about moving to 433 the team bailed on him. Ragnick they had zero respect for and had no interest in pressing for him. ETH went back to the safe counter system when he had to and immediately results improved, as soon as he tried to move them to a more pressing system they also bailed on him. The common theme is resistance to hard work, as soon as a manager tries to move them towards a setup where they have outrun their opponents they baulk. Literally the first thing Amorim said is he wanted to improve this, yet it was the biggest thing ETH always complained about + why we had so many leaks about how the squad thought they 'ran too much' etc.

It can't just be lazy players and bad apples, this has gone on through multiple teams. Even just looking at us compared to other teams we are sluggish - players who were fast before they moved to United seem to lose a yard of pace. I honestly think there's a fundamental issue with whoever is in charge of strength and conditioning for the club because it happens every week. people end up saying how much more 'up for it' other teams are but there's no way we've had 3 or 4 iterations of teams all slacking in a professional environment, there's something deeper.
 
My glasses are fine, we've been consistently underwhelming or downright mediocre for ten long soul destroying years, watching City and Liverpool win titles and CL's, Amorim currently has less than three years to improve our standing, we can give him that surely. Anyone who thought he was gonna turn this wardrobe full of thrift store clothes into a suit of lights overnight, should have gone to specsavers.
 
ETH has shown that although he's not so good at tactics (always sticking with 4231), he's good at putting the correct player for each role most of the time. So that's why ETH can still earn victories and win domestic cups.

ETH's greatest failings is purchasing the wrong players which results in a squad with deteriorating quality.
 
Amorim is doing an awful job, to say the least. I never thought that we're gonna have a coach who can underperform ten Hag, but here we go. What's the point in forcing 3-4-3 when he hasn't got suitable players? It's like playing a center in the NBA when you are 1.80m. As Mourinho said once, the squad determines the tactics not otherwise. The worst thing is, when i saw our starting 11 against Newcastle I KNEW we're gonna lose. Yeah, we can say that "Amorim needs time" and so on, that's okay but i don't see ANY sign of progress, he makes the same mistakes again and again. Should i mention the sponsors? Are they happy to see United being one of the worst teams in England? I still support Amorim (what else could i do...) but it's time to see something promising.
 
AndersB said:
I'll allow myself a bump here.

Now we're not even playing well anymore, something we at least saw quite a few glimpses of before. I didn't think degree of collapse was going to happen.
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Don't forget to bump after the Liverpool and Arsenal performances. I'm sure, when we next lose, because we inevitably will, I won't have to remind you.
 
Some of the comments in this thread haven't aged well at all...over a few weeks...
 
When we went down to 10 men under Ten Hag, we lost most of our games 6-1 and 7-0, and to be honest I still have PTSD from various 10 man games we played. Under Amorim, the spirit has been on display for all to see.

He's seemingly turned the mentality of some of our team around, but we do need to start picking up points. He's clearly a great manager though. We have been seriously up against it with some of these refereeing displays as well.
 
Yagami said:
Don't forget to bump after the Liverpool and Arsenal performances. I'm sure, when we next lose, because we inevitably will, I won't have to remind you.
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Aye, silence is deafening from some. Impatient nonsense. Some honestly don’t understand how important “culture” is & how difficult a task it is to reset a toxic culture at organisations. No, they want instant results/gratification.
 
We need to be realistic about where we're at given our up and down performances under RA. Showing grit and determination to beat Shitty and draw with Liverpool and Arsenal (90 + 120 mins) in their own backyards does not absolve us of the abhorrently shit displays we put in against Wolves, Newcastle and Bournemouth.

Cutting out the massive errors - primarily from both keepers, our defence and midfielders - that lead to big opposition chances is obv going to help. But we still have those mistakes in us. I don't trust either keeper for sure, but am gaining faith in our CB combinations. Plenty has been said already about Case and Eriksen vs Ugarte and Mainoo, so I won't go there.

Up front we're so weak and passive. Can RA change that with the same personnel? Not sure. Rashford has to go. Neither Ras of ZZ are good enough, even with an on form Garnacho or Amad in support. I respect ZZ for the bottle he showed yesterday, but don't expect him to come good. For a big lad, he is - like someone said yesterday - just a teddy bear that's soft as shit. Less mobile too.

So are we able to start winning games more regularly and comfortably? Unlikely... however, I believe we can genuinely pick up 21 points from our next 7 games if our forwards start getting on the score sheet game in, game out. They have to contribute and alleviate the pressure that the rest of the team feel when we look like we're holding on or under the cosh.
 
RedFanaticTattooist said:
I still support Amorim (what else could i do...) but it's time to see something promising.
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No you don’t.

You can’t just say you still support him, after typing out a giant, breathless paragraph full of the opposite of support.

You expected a magic man to come in and immediately fix decade old problems, while playing 2 games a week for 2 months.

He didn’t do that and so you’ve thrown your toys out of the pram. If/when he does turn things around in time, you’ll tell people you always supported him and act as though you weren’t a whiny, impatient child during these early months.
 
The run of games we have over the next few weeks puts the accusations to the test.

The results are not the most important thing, but the fight and desire they’ve shown in the big games needs to be replicated. That’s all we want to see.
 
RedFanaticTattooist said:
Amorim is doing an awful job, to say the least. I never thought that we're gonna have a coach who can underperform ten Hag, but here we go. What's the point in forcing 3-4-3 when he hasn't got suitable players? It's like playing a center in the NBA when you are 1.80m. As Mourinho said once, the squad determines the tactics not otherwise. The worst thing is, when i saw our starting 11 against Newcastle I KNEW we're gonna lose. Yeah, we can say that "Amorim needs time" and so on, that's okay but i don't see ANY sign of progress, he makes the same mistakes again and again. Should i mention the sponsors? Are they happy to see United being one of the worst teams in England? I still support Amorim (what else could i do...) but it's time to see something promising.
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First time on this thread and I see this.

I would honestly question your ball knowledge if you see no progress in this team.

When was the last time you saw players dig out a result going down to 10 men?

Our defensive structure in the last 2 games have been the best they have been for a long time.
 
When ETH was the coach, I defended him to death.

I shall do the same for RA.

I will sell every player in the team before i put doubt on the coach. This is Manchester United.
 
It's why you need to give a manager at least several months up to one year before judging him ESPECIALLY when he was handed a broken team. Otherwise you'd look stupid. If after that period the manager is still crap then by all means say whatever you need to. You don't judge a Pizza when it's still a dough. But if after it's cooked it tastes like shit then it's a shit pizza.
 
that run of games over xmas were pretty concerning. When you keep losing and are unsure if these players can play this system it is fairly normal for fans to lose their shit, and then you see away games to Liverpool and Arsenal approaching.....I was nervous and was thinking we needed to stop the rot by reverting to 4-3-3.
 
Reditus said:
that run of games over xmas were pretty concerning. When you keep losing and are unsure if these players can play this system it is fairly normal for fans to lose their shit, and then you see away games to Liverpool and Arsenal approaching.....I was nervous and was thinking we needed to stop the rot by reverting to 4-3-3.
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Not normal at all, it was only bed wetters.

The majority listened to exactly what Amorim told us in his first press conference, whilst taking into account he had barely any training sessions, so was willing to give him time.
 
adkb said:
When ETH was the coach, I defended him to death.

I shall do the same for RA.

I will sell every player in the team before i put doubt on the coach. This is Manchester United.
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Which is a terrible idea. Part of the reason we are in such a mess is because we kept managers on for too long when it was obvious they weren't good enough. We allow them to continue training our players in shit styles, then wonder why our players don't develop properly (and in fact most get worse). We allow the manager to continue until they have completely destroyed all the belief and confidence in the dressing room, then wonder why the mentality and confidence of the players is so fragile. It was blatantly obvious that ETH should have been sacked in the summer, and if we'd replaced him with Amorim then we'd be in a much, much stronger position now. Instead we allowed him to tank another season, then Amorim had to walk into a far more difficult job which makes it much harder for him to turn it around.

You should absolutely support the manager in the early days. But as time wears on, they need to prove themselves to be good enough just as much (if not more) than the players need to prove they are good enough. Keeping one sub-par manager does far more damage than a dozen sub-par players.
 
Reditus said:
that run of games over xmas were pretty concerning. When you keep losing and are unsure if these players can play this system it is fairly normal for fans to lose their shit, and then you see away games to Liverpool and Arsenal approaching.....I was nervous and was thinking we needed to stop the rot by reverting to 4-3-3.
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I didnt want him to switch formation because it will reset progress, make players doubt him, and there is no guarantee we will win more games. Yes most players will be more comfortable but that doesnt guarantee points AND it had been proven time and time again u.der Ten Hag. We lost 7-0 to Pool playing 4 at the back... formations mean feck all without proper motivation and believe in the manager and the system.
 
We really need to see this team up against some lesser opponents. The biggest problem we have is that they usually think they’re too good to put in effort against the weaker teams and we get embarrassed.

I’ll believe we’ve really turned it around when we finally string together a few wins against teams we should be beating.

Too many false dawns with this team that it’s scaring me off.
 
he's been here 5 minutes I'm gonna enjoy feeling optimistic for a while before I start shitting on everything
 
elmo said:
We really need to see this team up against some lesser opponents. The biggest problem we have is that they usually think they’re too good to put in effort against the weaker teams and we get embarrassed.

I’ll believe we’ve really turned it around when we finally string together a few wins against teams we should be beating.

Too many false dawns with this team that it’s scaring me off.
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These next 3 games all home are massive

3 out of 3 - then full steam ahead
 
elmo said:
We really need to see this team up against some lesser opponents. The biggest problem we have is that they usually think they’re too good to put in effort against the weaker teams and we get embarrassed.

I’ll believe we’ve really turned it around when we finally string together a few wins against teams we should be beating.

Too many false dawns with this team that it’s scaring me off.
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Completely agree. Just as wrong to go full doom and gloom and question formations after such a short time for the new manager, as it is wrong to start getting smug after a good result after a very good performance away to Liverpool and a good performance with a great result against Arsenal. We've seen this team raising their levels in big games and being able to grind out results. The problem was always to raise the floor level in the "not-so-big" games.
 
romufc said:
When was the last time you saw players dig out a result going down to 10 men?

Our defensive structure in the last 2 games have been the best they have been for a long time.
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I saw teams even winning matches LOTS of times when they were down to 10 man, but that's maybe because I'm over 50 and watch football for 40+ years. I'm talking about facts, numbers. We played 13 matches undar Amorim, won maybe 4 of them and two of these wins were against dirt cheap teams, Bodo/Glimt and Plzen. Still, my problem is, Amorim prefers a formation for which there are no suitable players and he knows that. The results are poor (sorry I'm not gonna rave about the last two draws although the performance against Liverpool wasn't bad) and I understand that players will master the formation to a certain level but to unleash the full potential of the formation Amorim will have to completely overhaul the squad, and I'd say -looking at the current financial situation of the club- it will take at least 2 years if I'm optimistic. Three seems more realistic. And even if we start performing better, don't forget that other teams play brilliantly too and sign players even better.
 
RedFanaticTattooist said:
I saw teams even winning matches LOTS of times when they were down to 10 man, but that's maybe because I'm over 50 and watch football for 40+ years. I'm talking about facts, numbers. We played 13 matches undar Amorim, won maybe 4 of them and two of these wins were against dirt cheap teams, Bodo/Glimt and Plzen. Still, my problem is, Amorim prefers a formation for which there are no suitable players and he knows that. The results are poor (sorry I'm not gonna rave about the last two draws although the performance against Liverpool wasn't bad) and I understand that players will master the formation to a certain level but to unleash the full potential of the formation Amorim will have to completely overhaul the squad, and I'd say -looking at the current financial situation of the club- it will take at least 2 years if I'm optimistic. Three seems more realistic. And even if we start performing better, don't forget that other teams play brilliantly too and sign players even better.
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Football has changed a long way from what USED to happen. I am not talking about what used to happen, what other teams have done, I asked when was the last time MANCHESTER UNITED didn't crumble after being down to 10 man.

There is alot of context for the 13 matches we have played. We were playing terrible, with matches coming fast, new manager who had no time to train or get his principles into the players.

I mean you can talk about squad overhaul and what it may look like, you dont know that, 3 years after Ten Hag, the squad is still rubbish.

So I would rather a player that sticks to his principles.
 
Superden said:
Some of the comments in this thread haven't aged well at all...over a few weeks...
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A lot of the comments on here don't age well from the time it takes them to travel from the brain to being typed onto the screen, tbf.
 
Regardless of if he works out or not I'm expecting several more cycles of this type of thread before the end of the season.

Unless we get into a relegation battle, at some point we're going to de-prioritise the PL for the Europa League, which will result in losses because our squad does not have good depth. I can't see there being a reasonable reaction to this on the redcafe. Especially not if we don't win the Europa League which I wouldn't exaclty have us as hot favourites for, but the reality is this is where we are at and the manager will make the call to aim for the most realistic option of sucess and getting the club in a stronger position for next year...and that definitely isn't going to be by aiming for top 4.
 
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