Time to remove the rose-tinted glasses

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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I do not agree with the complete overhaul.
The players must improve this season, players like De Ligt, Martinez, Yoro, Mainoo, Ugarte, Bruno, Amad, Hojlund, Zirkzee must improve as soon as possible and I see no reason not to, because they play in their familiar position even if the system has changed on paper.
Players like Rashford, Garnacho, Dalot, Mazraoui, Malacia, Shaw(if ever available) need to adjust, if they can't they should leave.
I think 2 wingbacks are a must, because there we do not have anyone capable of playing the role that Amorim wants.
 
I think I missed this thread before, thankfully. Some ridiculous takes in here. Now, I often let my emotions get the better of me, and am regularly pessimistic, but some of the posts in here about a manager coming into a huge club with a very poor attitude and many players who are clearly not good enough... With no money to spend, and for most of the first handful of matches, no time to really prepare... Just ludicrous!!

It's very clear that Amorim is a very, very talented manager and a very intelligent man. Just look at the recent performances, which came after he showed that being arrogant, lazy and entitled will see you gone (no matter who you are) and instilled done actual fight into these lads.

We might lose the next match, we will probably lose quite a few, but once we finally shift some players and can buy ones who fit the system, the tactics and work ethic will be in place, and suddenly Manchester United will be a very different prospect for other teams.
 
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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Other than the two wingbacks, the squad doesn't need to be overhauled any more than it would to play a more 'normal' 4231 or 433. None of the other positions are unique in our 3421. Any other position that needs to be improved is simply because we need a better player there, which would be true in any formation.
 
MadDogg said:
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.
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It is very easy for us to throw shade at ETH. Like it was easy for us to throw shade at Ole. And trust me if we do not improve our recruitment, it will be damn easy to throw shade at RA.

I'm all for sacking under performing managers, but sooner you understand that its not ONLY a manager issue, the better.
 
adkb said:
It is very easy for us to throw shade at ETH. Like it was easy for us to throw shade at Ole. And trust me if we do not improve our recruitment, it will be damn easy to throw shade at RA.

I'm all for sacking under performing managers, but sooner you understand that its not ONLY a manager issue, the better.
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Of course it's not ONLY the manager. But the manager does have the single largest impact on how a team performs. You could have the best squad of players in the world with the best upper management in the world, but if your manager is poor he'll bring it all down (look at what Moyes did with the defending champions for an obvious example). Get rid of him quickly and that poor manager doesn't do much long-term damage. Keep him for too long and the consequences of that will also be felt for much longer. Hence why plenty of the other top teams have gone through just as many, if not more, managers than we have in the last decade despite being far more successful in that time. They don't allow the poor managers to stick around and waste time, money and (perhaps most importantly) the development of their players.

Managers need to be held accountable for their performances. When judging those performances you should absolutely take into account the situation around them (the players they've got, the injuries, the support from the hierarchy above them, etc) so that your expectations are 'fair', but none of those things give the manager a free pass. Which is exactly what many argued for ETH last season, and giving him that free pass led to devastating consequences of tanking another season and putting his successor in a much more difficult position than he would have been if he'd been here from the start.

ETH's performance last season was almost unprecedentedly bad, and it wasn't due to injuries, the squad of players, or the people above him. The core issue was him insisting on a system that simply didn't make sense and wouldn't have come close to working if we had the best players in the world, and then despite the fact it was so clearly not working he played the exact same way all season until the final four games (when it was strongly rumoured we only changed because Wilcox stepped in). On top of that his in-game management was terrible, and he was regularly being out-thought by managers who are considered relegation-battlers or even had never managed in a top league. We fluked an 8th place finish due to some players pulling out some individual magic (and the opposition having poor finishing) in the first half of the season and getting us a lot more points than we actually deserved. We 'deserved' to finish 14th by almost all metrics and our general play was absolutely dreadful, and by far the main reason for that was ETH himself.

So keep your expectations on Amorim 'fair'. Certainly don't be one of the fans who think his job should already be under pressure. Give him time, look for what he's doing, watch for improvements, see the good he's doing...but don't be blind to any faults. And if the faults start outweighing the good, don't blindly support him just because "We're Man Utd and that's what we do".
 
MadDogg said:
Of course it's not ONLY the manager. But the manager does have the single largest impact on how a team performs. You could have the best squad of players in the world with the best upper management in the world, but if your manager is poor he'll bring it all down (look at what Moyes did with the defending champions for an obvious example). Get rid of him quickly and that poor manager doesn't do much long-term damage. Keep him for too long and the consequences of that will also be felt for much longer. Hence why plenty of the other top teams have gone through just as many, if not more, managers than we have in the last decade despite being far more successful in that time. They don't allow the poor managers to stick around and waste time, money and (perhaps most importantly) the development of their players.

Managers need to be held accountable for their performances. When judging those performances you should absolutely take into account the situation around them (the players they've got, the injuries, the support from the hierarchy above them, etc) so that your expectations are 'fair', but none of those things give the manager a free pass. Which is exactly what many argued for ETH last season, and giving him that free pass led to devastating consequences of tanking another season and putting his successor in a much more difficult position than he would have been if he'd been here from the start.

ETH's performance last season was almost unprecedentedly bad, and it wasn't due to injuries, the squad of players, or the people above him. The core issue was him insisting on a system that simply didn't make sense and wouldn't have come close to working if we had the best players in the world, and then despite the fact it was so clearly not working he played the exact same way all season until the final four games (when it was strongly rumoured we only changed because Wilcox stepped in). On top of that his in-game management was terrible, and he was regularly being out-thought by managers who are considered relegation-battlers or even had never managed in a top league. We fluked an 8th place finish due to some players pulling out some individual magic (and the opposition having poor finishing) in the first half of the season and getting us a lot more points than we actually deserved. We 'deserved' to finish 14th by almost all metrics and our general play was absolutely dreadful, and by far the main reason for that was ETH himself.

So keep your expectations on Amorim 'fair'. Certainly don't be one of the fans who think his job should already be under pressure. Give him time, look for what he's doing, watch for improvements, see the good he's doing...but don't be blind to any faults. And if the faults start outweighing the good, don't blindly support him just because "We're Man Utd and that's what we do".
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I understand what you are trying to say.

Again, ETH was dealt with a terrible hand, with a cocky Rashford, a cry baby Ronaldo, and the idiot Greenwood. His problems werent only injuries, but team culture. He tried hard to instill the same. He gave a break to Mainoo and helped evolve Garnacho. By no means i would say his system was flawed. He was trying to get the best out of the players he had.

RA is doing the bang same. However with RA there is focus on building an identity which we all saw with ETH in the first few months. RA even said that its going to get very problematic soon cause he is right, he might have to stick to his guns or break down and play to the teams comfort. He is currently doing a splendid job of sticking to his guns and getting the team to tag along. But,

I know this team. I have seen this team week in week out. They aren't the saints they are made to look. Bruno is playing well recently, but I know what he does when maximum times. I know how useless rashford is. I know how ineffective Antony is. I know Maguires lack of leadership. Dalot cannot cross a ball, we have no LB and our keeper has mood swings. I know these players, and if the ship sinks, I will stand by the manager and kick every last player out before him.
 
adkb said:
I know this team. I have seen this team week in week out. They aren't the saints they are made to look. Bruno is playing well recently, but I know what he does when maximum times. I know how useless rashford is. I know how ineffective Antony is. I know Maguires lack of leadership. Dalot cannot cross a ball, we have no LB and our keeper has mood swings. I know these players, and if the ship sinks, I will stand by the manager and kick every last player out before him.
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Jim is that you?
 
adkb said:
I understand what you are trying to say.

Again, ETH was dealt with a terrible hand, with a cocky Rashford, a cry baby Ronaldo, and the idiot Greenwood. His problems werent only injuries, but team culture. He tried hard to instill the same. He gave a break to Mainoo and helped evolve Garnacho. By no means i would say his system was flawed. He was trying to get the best out of the players he had.

RA is doing the bang same. However with RA there is focus on building an identity which we all saw with ETH in the first few months. RA even said that its going to get very problematic soon cause he is right, he might have to stick to his guns or break down and play to the teams comfort. He is currently doing a splendid job of sticking to his guns and getting the team to tag along. But,

I know this team. I have seen this team week in week out. They aren't the saints they are made to look. Bruno is playing well recently, but I know what he does when maximum times. I know how useless rashford is. I know how ineffective Antony is. I know Maguires lack of leadership. Dalot cannot cross a ball, we have no LB and our keeper has mood swings. I know these players, and if the ship sinks, I will stand by the manager and kick every last player out before him.
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ETH's system was incredibly flawed last season. To the extent that off the top of my head I can't think of any other manager who has ever played such a clearly flawed system for an entire season. At a time where the meta is largely to pack the midfield (either through actual midfielders or by having players from other positions step into that role) to gain control, he completely abandoned it. At a time where everyone is trying to compress the space when out of possession as that's the best way to win the ball back, he set us up to be as open as humanly possible with half the team pushing up high (and we did it stupidly where we just relied on numbers, rather than actually setting up proper traps and pressing triggers) while the other half sat just about the deepest that we ever have. It's why we were facing 20+ shots every game, why we were getting cut to ribbons every single match and opposition teams just ran straight through us time after time after time. Multiple opposition managers publicly talked about how they took advantage of it.

Maguire recently said that Amorim's style is the total opposite of what ETH was demanding, and that's quite clear already. Amorim is moving towards the things that dominant teams do, whereas ETH...well, he did the exact opposite. The players can be blamed for their own faults but last season was almost 100% on the manager. It was utter incompetence to a stunning degree and I hope to never see anything like that again (with us; I'd love to see it at Liverpool or City).
 
This is a great thread. Some wonderful negative insights here, moaners and bitchers assemble in a comfortable spot with mood lighting in familiar surroundings and with like-minded company. Perhaps some Leonard Cohen tunes low in the background. Something inside so poor, that Labi Siffre favourite. Just stay there gentle readers. I’ll make sure your orders are taken and drinks brought to the table.
 
One wing or left back and a decent goal scorer up top, we are peach. Not saying he is top manager yet, but he can be. I can see it. Tbf, i also saw it with Ole and ETH. 3rd time the charm.
 
Ahmer Baig said:
This comment aged well.
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The best part about posts like this is they make it out like they're some kind of football experts and know it alls. Citing Mourinho, Cruijff and whoever. They see it all, understand stuff from a get go and have a vast football knowledge.
 
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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This comment aged well.
 
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Real Name said:
The best part about posts like this is they make it out like they're some kind of football experts and know it alls. Citing Mourinho, Cruijff and whoever. They see it all, understand stuff from a get go and have a vast football knowledge.
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Sometimes maybe good, sometimes maybe shit
 
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