United’s fixture schedule and making home superiority count

The White Pele

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One quirk of the season so far is that we are yet to face any of the bottom 10 sides at home. Obviously these games make up over 1/4 of the season so being 8 games in we might have expected to have had a couple of these games already. However, if you discount West Ham, who are likely to be amongst the league’s top 10, we will not face any of the bottom half at home until after the World Cup when we play Forest at Old Trafford on Boxing Day. At which point we will be 14 games into the season without having had a home game against the weaker teams in the league.

Ten Hag is obviously a possession based coach who favours his team controlling the game with the ball in a proactive manner. Indeed, one of the key reasons most supporters favoured Ten Hag over other candidates is because he hasn’t just shown he can play effective football, he has shown he can play superior football. His Ajax team could take the ball away from the opposition and make their superior quality count.

This superiority is what we want to see him implement at United but despite the decent results we have perhaps not yet had the fixtures that have allowed us to demonstrate this.

Transforming United completely in one season was never going to be possible but where we may have expected to see noticeable gains this season in both performances and results would probably be in those matches at home against the weaker opposition. That’s where we may expect to see Ten Hag’s brand of football be most evident and begin to take shape.

When PL football returns after the World Cup, in our remaining 24 games we have all of Forest, Leicester, Southampton, Bournemouth, Leeds, Brentford, Wolves, Palace, Fulham, Everton, Villa at home. That’s 11 games with 33 points on offer. We’ve not really seen United control these games for many years but Ten Hag was brought in to implement the kind of football which would allow us to do so. This is where we should start to see the United he wants us to be. If we are around the top 4 as we restart after the World Cup then we are surely in a very strong position to finish in those top places which will be a strong improvement on last season.
 
That is a very interesting observation that you made, one I haven't given much thought personally. But...in recent times we always struggled against smaller teams at home, playing a low block and countering us and it's interesting to see if until after the WC, ETH stile will kick in and influence the way we create chances at home against these types of teams.
 
There is no home superiority, but there should be home advantage.
 
That bodes really well for the second half of the season then! I think we will turn into a team who wins these games relatively comfortably.
 
Interesting point. Confidence plays a huge role too so having those games early would have helped both set the rhythm to play the way ETH wants and give the players the confidence to execute in tougher games.
 
We’re somehow the only team who has played 3 home games. Everyone else is on 4-5.

It’s annoying that the club didn’t wake up until we had lost the two opening fixtures or else we would be sitting pretty closer to the top with a game in hand and having had the dodgiest of programmes.
 
Samid said:
We’re somehow the only team who has played 3 home games. Everyone else is on 4-5.

It’s annoying that the club didn’t wake up until we had lost the two opening fixtures or else we would be sitting pretty closer to the top with a game in hand and having had the dodgiest of programmes.
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Leeds at home was postponed when most others played.

It’s a good sign though, if we can grind out at least 4/5 points in the next three games then we’ll be well placed for top four.
 
Let’s see how good we are at trying to beat the low block. We have struggled a lot in the past to break these teams down.
 
We are effectively starting the season 3 times. Start of the season and then after 1 month break for the Queen and both times we started badly. Plus it seemed our players fell apart the most after the Euros. Im just hoping our players come back fit and tuned in and we start well after the world cup.
 
I have found it quite odd. Seems like most of the time we’re playing away and if it’s at home it’s to a top side. Whereas it feels like everyone else is playing the fodder at home every weekend.
 
We've had one of the most difficult starts to the season out of everyone in the PL this season. I think it's pretty good that we're within touching distance of top 4 despite the difficult games and getting used to a new manager.

Really looking forward to how we deal with the lesser teams. That's where leagues are won.
 
It’s tempting to think that this will hold us in good stead, but in previous years it’s usually these games that see us drop silly points. Struggling to break down 2 banks of 4 while they nick one on the break.

If anything I’m happy to play more pragmatically against the bigger sides and get those out of the way now. Meanwhile we spend time learning how to beat a low block for when these fixtures come around.
 
Think 5 of our next 6 games are at home too. In all comps. Would be great to improve our record at OT it used to be a hard place to go
 
Isn't the flip side of this that our away games will all be against top 10 sides in the 2nd half of the season?
 
Our league schedule this past month or so has been crazy. This time next week, we’ll have played 11 games and 7 of them were against the current Top 8 teams in the league, including us. At least we’ll go a good period of playing the lesser teams.
 
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