We are an awfully coached team

[SAFMUTD]

Yeah but even when we do well against poor teams, people come up with "it's because we have much better team". So Ole-In comes up with "it's because of Ole" when we win and then point out weakness in the squad when we lose. Exact opposite with Ole-Out , "Its because we have awesome team" when we win and when we lose it's because of Ole.

I have said it few times, I don't think he is good enough to win league titles but since Bruno was signed, we have improved a lot and have good record.

For as bad as a manager could be I dont think this squad would lose every game against poor opposition, its normal that even when there's lack of, proper, coaching the players themselves are talented enough to solve it. But you won't achieve consistency by relying only on their talent thats when coaching gets into action.

I dont think its valid to say oh yeah we win some and lose some so its not a coaching problem, we should be winning the vast majority of games against weaker opposition.

 

[roonster09]

You said:

Gaining 48 out of 54 (calculated) points in 18 games against poor teams, with goal difference of +32 means it's we're on the level of 2,66 points per game for lesser opponents. So if we assume we have 13 of those clubs, we make 13x2x2,6=69 points, and we'd need to get 21 points from 12 games against Liverpool/ManCity/Chelsea/Tottenham/Arsenal/Leicester which seems doable to me basing on last season, not so this season.

So yeah, I disagree that we might not be able to get 90 points because we are "inconsistent" at beating poor teams. Our problem is we got 1 point out of 9 against those top teams this season, rather than not winning against lesser sides.

Read the next part too, why bold only half a sentence.

I don't think we are consistent in beating poor teams, we need to gain around or more than 90 points which I think is bit out of reach for Ole

Table last season, you are considering the table since Bruno joined, I said in my first post that we have done well since he joined the club.

 

[RedSky]

I dont think its valid to say oh yeah we win some and lose some so its not a coaching problem, we should be winning the vast majority of games against weaker opposition.

In 2020 we've dropped points against the following clubs:

​

Leg​	Opponent​	Score​	Result​
A​	Wolverhampton Wanderers​	0:0​	D​
H​	Wolverhampton Wanderers​	0:0​	D​
H​	West Ham United​	1:1​	D​
A​	Tottenham Hotspur​	1:1​	D​
H​	Tottenham Hotspur​	1:6​	L​
H​	Southampton FC​	2:2​	D​
A​	Sevilla FC​	2:1​	L​
H​	Manchester City​	1:3​	L​
A​	Liverpool FC​	2:0​	L​
A​	Istanbul Basaksehi​	2:1​	L​
A​	Everton FC​	1:1​	D​
H​	Crystal Palace​	1:3​	L​
A​	Club Brugge KV​	1:1​	D​
H​	Chelsea FC​	1:3​	L​
H​	Chelsea FC​	0:0​	D​
H​	Burnley FC​	0:2​	L​
A​	Arsenal FC​	2:0​	L​
H​	Arsenal FC​	0:1​	L​

​

Who would you consider are poor? Burnley, Club Brugge, Istanbul Basaksehi and Palace stand out. With Southampton and West Ham in the next bracket up.

 

[roonster09]

For as bad as a manager could be I dont think this squad would lose every game against poor opposition, its normal that even when there's lack of, proper, coaching the players themselves are talented enough to solve it. But you won't achieve consistency by relying only on their talent thats when coaching gets into action.

I dont think its valid to say oh yeah we win some and lose some so its not a coaching problem, we should be winning the vast majority of games against weaker opposition.

Point is, both sides just take it to extremes to make the point.

 

[roonster09]

Do people really think the title winner will be on 90 points this season? I know this is slightly offtopic, but seems remarkable people assume this.

Don't think it's will be a 90 point season, so you can rephrase my post to "we won't get needed points to win the league".

 

[RedSky]

Don't think it's will be a 90 point season, so you can rephrase my post to "we won't get needed points to win the league".

Might be an intersting thread actually. I'll be staggered if it's a 90 point season, i'm thinking it'll be more like 80-85. Which I feel Ole can reach (perhaps not 85, but 75-80 is more than achievable for this team under Ole imo.

 

[romufc]

I am sort of on the fence. What we are doing is relying on individual brilliance to open up teams rather than collective brilliance.

When we come up against teams that sit back we kind of struggle to break them down.

The lack of consistency is so frustrating.

This is the biggest pile of crap I have read. Just shows how big the agenda is.

When you sign better players, they will do things others cant.

You don'y say Spurs rely on Kane's individual brilliance every game, instead they use his brilliance to create chances.

So, tell me the 3 goals we scored against Southampton, which 1 player did we rely on to have individual brilliance?

Individual brilliance is taking on 4/5 players and putting it in the top corner.

For the first goal, Fred pressed the ball, retained the ball very well, passed to AWB who drove in and passed to Cavani out wide, who put the ball in the box for Bruno to tuck it away. Since when is a 5 man move classed as individual brilliance?

The winner, Bruno took the freekick quick, Rashford crossed and Cavani headed it, what part of that was individual brilliance?

Everyone then will gas up Liverpool when their goals like Salah hitting a shot from a rebound into the top corner. But if Bruno hits one outside the box, we rely on brilliance.

 

[roonster09]

Don't think it's will be a 90 point season, so you can rephrase my post to "we won't get needed points to win the league".

If we are in touching distance from top position then Ole should get lot of credit for the season. Hopefully we will be up there with Ole in charge.

 

[Handré1990]

This is the biggest pile of crap I have read. Just shows how big the agenda is.

When you sign better players, they will do things others cant.

You don'y say Spurs rely on Kane's individual brilliance every game, instead they use his brilliance to create chances.

So, tell me the 3 goals we scored against Southampton, which 1 player did we rely on to have individual brilliance?

Individual brilliance is taking on 4/5 players and putting it in the top corner.

For the first goal, Fred pressed the ball, retained the ball very well, passed to AWB who drove in and passed to Cavani out wide, who put the ball in the box for Bruno to tuck it away. Since when is a 5 man move classed as individual brilliance?

The winner, Bruno took the freekick quick, Rashford crossed and Cavani headed it, what part of that was individual brilliance?

Everyone then will gas up Liverpool when their goals like Salah hitting a shot from a rebound into the top corner. But if Bruno hits one outside the box, we rely on brilliance.

It’s like we’ve forgotten how United stars are supposed to perform..

 

[RedSky]

This is the biggest pile of crap I have read.

Southampton are an expertly coached team according to many on the Caf and yet it took them two set pieces, one of which was a brilliant moment of individual brilliance to break us down...

Fact is that when you replace mediocre players (Lingard, Pereira, Mata) with better players (Bruno, VdB, Pogba) the moments of individual brilliance will go up as they're... better players! If we were scoring scruffy goals non stop i'm sure people would moan that we aren't scoring pretty, exciting goals. Now that we're actually scoring decent goals, people want scruffy ones. Surely, it's a promising thing that we're scoring decent goals as that tells us that we have higher quality players in the squad. It's not a negative. It's such a weird argument.

 

[Borys]

Read the next part too, why bold only half a sentence.





Table last season, you are considering the table since Bruno joined, I said in my first post that we have done well since he joined the club.

So you said in one sentence that we are inconsistent at beating poor sides, and we will not reach 90 points this season. Now I've showed you the first part is a myth (results clearly show we're doing very well against weaker teams), you still insist that the second part of your sentence is still true.
It might be true but for other reasons (poor record so far against top teams Tottenham/Chelsea/Arsenal).

Why would I not include Bruno in those estimations? He's been here for almost a year. Is Chelsea calculating their points not including Werner or Ziyech?

I see it you're trying to manipulate to make it look like your point stands no matter what was the first part of the sequence, context, or whatever comes up next because yes, we might not get 90 points this season. So I agree on that, disagree on the whole sentence as I explained before.

 

[romufc]

Southampton are an expertly coached team according to many on the Caf and yet it took them two set pieces, one of which was a brilliant moment of individual brilliance to break us down...

Fact is that when you replace mediocre players (Lingard, Pereira, Mata) with better players (Bruno, VdB, Pogba) the moments of individual brilliance will go up as they're... better players! If we were scoring scruffy goals non stop i'm sure people would moan that we aren't scoring pretty, exciting goals. Now that we're actually scoring decent goals, people want scruffy ones. Surely, it's a promising thing that we're scoring decent goals as that tells us that we have higher quality players in the squad. It's not a negative. It's such a weird argument.

Exactly, we are not telling Bruno and Donny, beat 6 man and score a goal, they are brilliant individual players with great skill.

When they play one twos with each other and a great through ball to a run, that is a collective goal.

Its this agenda that all Ole does is defend and rely on individual brilliance for goals. Ofcourse in some games where it is tight you need a moment of brilliance, which is why you pay top dollar for players.

Isn't that what separates a good team from the best? having someone who can score a individual brilliant goal? This is why Barca, Real, Liverpool, City, Bayern have been so successful in recent years.

 

[justsomebloke]

You said:

Gaining 48 out of 54 (calculated) points in 18 games against poor teams, with goal difference of +32 means it's we're on the level of 2,66 points per game for lesser opponents. So if we assume we have 13 of those clubs, we make 13x2x2,6=69 points, and we'd need to get 21 points from 12 games against Liverpool/ManCity/Chelsea/Tottenham/Arsenal/Leicester which seems doable to me basing on last season, not so this season.

So yeah, I disagree that we might not be able to get 90 points because we are "inconsistent" at beating poor teams. Our problem is we got 1 point out of 9 against those top teams this season, rather than not winning against lesser sides.

- The current league leaders (Liverpool and Tottenham) have no more than a projected 80 points, so things are much tighter this year than normally, so far.
- Right now, it'd take a 7-game winning streak for us to get to a projected ~90 points.
- So far this season, we've done much worse against top teams than last year, but much better against everyone else (omitting Chelsea, Tottenham and Arsenal, we're 5-0-1). Of course, it's debatable who exactly the "top teams" are this year. Also, still a small sample.
- Our record last year was absurd - we were an incredible 7-4-1 against the top 6 other teams, and 11-8-7 against the rest. That's highly unlikely to happen again.
- I think it's highly unlikely that we will get 90 points, or close to it. That would take an improvement of 24 points, which means that even if we could replicate our amazing record against top teams (unlikely, given that we are currently 0-1-2 against those), we'd also need to win 24 of the 29 points we dropped against mid-table and bottom teams last year.

 

[roonster09]

So you said in one sentence that we are inconsistent at beating poor sides, and we will not reach 90 points this season. Now I've showed you the first part is a myth (results clearly show we're doing very well against weaker teams), you still insist that the second part of your sentence is still true.
It might be true but for other reasons (poor record so far against top teams Tottenham/Chelsea/Arsenal).

Why would I not include Bruno in those estimations? He's been here for almost a year. Is Chelsea calculating their points not including Werner or Ziyech?

I see it you're trying to manipulate to make it look like your point stands no matter what was the first part of the sequence, context, or whatever comes up next because yes, we might not get 90 points this season. So I agree on that, disagree on the whole sentence as I explained before.

And i proved my point with table which showed results against every club, which shows clear difference.

 

[troylocker]

Top 10 in the world is classed as WC?

DDG is probably still top 10 - is he WC?
Telles is pron in the top 10 - is he WC?
Bruno is top 10
Poba is top 10 - if you take NT players on top nations, world cup final scorer.
Rashford is top 10 winger
Martial is top 10 forward

Firminho is not WC. The reason these players look WC is because they are playing in a very good system. Trent has done 0 in the England set up.

If you are then talking about top nations then Cavani, Donny are all there too.

DDG has been, not sure anymore.
Telles - Impossible to rate him top 10 yet.
Bruno certainly was elevated him to that category now.
Pogba has been, not on recent form though.
Rashford is maybe close.
Martial is not top 30 forwards, maybe closer to top 10 as a winger.

What would you class as world class?
My point was that stating that LFC's squad is not world class and that they only have 3 maybe 4 world class players is just wrong. In my book they have one of the best squads in the world, and their only weakness as I see it is the depth in certain positions.

How many were world class before they joined Liverpool? That's the imporant part.

Hard not to give Klopp credit for the job he has done with the players. Some were world class when they came though (Allisson, VVD and Thiago. Mane and Salah kicked off from the start as well)

 

[Grande]

Not ironic at all, it's accurate. This isn't a positive or negative for Ole FYI, it's just an observation. LVG tried to play attacking football - occasionally it worked really well but it was usually a slog, although much of that was down the ADM, Falcao, Depay transfers. If even one of them had worked out as we hoped we might think very differently about his time here, although he did bring us Martial. he tried something very different and sadly it didn't work.

Ole is more pragmatic. He's not as passive as someone like Mourinho but he is definitely a cautious coach - hence the trend of a defensively minded double pivot and our super direct style. We don't try to play football in dangerous areas, we release a striker, try a high risk ball or go back to our CBs. Our best games with him have come when we've almost surrendered possession and just wait to break (2-0 City, 2-0 Chelsea away, 2-1 City away). Essentially I think Ole's approach to most games is that he believes we'll always create opportunities with the quality we have in the team but his first priority has been to stop us conceding/make us compact. It has made for some uncomfortable moments this season like Brighton, WBA and Soton where I do think we've started too cautiously and then have a race against time to save ourselves but it undeniably makes us hard to beat.

I just don’t agree with you thatVan Gaal’s football was particularily ‘attacking’ or ‘less cautious’. It makes me wonder what you mean by ‘attacking’. His philosophy, which focused on possession and transitions, where equally concerned with defense and attack, and his practice of it was for the most time cery risk-averse. This was evident already at Barcelona. They could be such an unimaginative bore under him, even withplayers like Rivaldo, Kluivert and Xavi, they were so cautious of losing the ball.

When it comes to Solskjær, I agree he’s much more pragmatical than Van Gaal, yet much less cautious than Mourinho. there is a big difference in how we played when you compare his first meetings with City and PSG to his last. The first was staying back, waiting for the counter. The last were not like that. Remember how we started off pressing high, pushing them back? Then periods where we were pushed back, and at PSG he made changes for us to dominate the game for the latter parts again. This points towards Solskjær - as you say - first shoring up defence, but then, having us impose ourselves more and more on the final third of the pitch as our all-round ability has improved.

Against Southampton (4th in the league before we met them?) we took the game to them to begin with, pushed them back for the first 20-25 mins, and then reacted badly I think to letting in a set piece goal against the run of play. Still we had three chances that first half that were better than their best chance, despite them scoring two. Second half we more or less completely dominated, scoring three goals against a team that sat back - which we are getting better and better at if you look at our results.

 

[romufc]

DDG has been, not sure anymore.
Telles - Impossible to rate him top 10 yet.
Bruno certainly was elevated him to that category now.
Pogba has been, not on recent form though.
Rashford is maybe close.
Martial is not top 30 forwards, maybe closer to top 10 as a winger.

What would you class as world class?
My point was that stating that LFC's squad is not world class and that they only have 3 maybe 4 world class players is just wrong. In my book they have one of the best squads in the world, and their only weakness as I see it is the depth in certain positions.

How can you base players WC level on form?

If you basing players on recent form, Varane, Upamecano, Ramos, Pique and the like do not get into the top 10 CB's in the world.

What do you mean you cannot rate Telles yet? this isn't his first season as a professional footballer.

 

[roonster09]

Southampton are an expertly coached team according to many on the Caf and yet it took them two set pieces, one of which was a brilliant moment of individual brilliance to break us down...

Fact is that when you replace mediocre players (Lingard, Pereira, Mata) with better players (Bruno, VdB, Pogba) the moments of individual brilliance will go up as they're... better players! If we were scoring scruffy goals non stop i'm sure people would moan that we aren't scoring pretty, exciting goals. Now that we're actually scoring decent goals, people want scruffy ones. Surely, it's a promising thing that we're scoring decent goals as that tells us that we have higher quality players in the squad. It's not a negative. It's such a weird argument.

Yeah agree with this. I didn't see anyone saying Klopp is only good because of brilliance from Mane and Salah (Or few other players), if anything Klopp gets credit for their brilliance saying how much he improved them.

Tbh I have few concerns too but people judge Ole way too harshly with some ridiculous criteria.

 

[Borys]

- The current league leaders (Liverpool and Tottenham) have no more than a projected 80 points, so things are much tighter this year than normally, so far.
- Right now, it'd take a 7-game winning streak for us to get to a projected ~90 points.
- So far this season, we've done much worse against top teams than last year, but much better against everyone else (omitting Chelsea, Tottenham and Arsenal, we're 5-0-1). Of course, it's debatable who exactly the "top teams" are this year. Also, still a small sample.
- Our record last year was absurd - we were an incredible 7-4-1 against the top 6 other teams, and 11-8-7 against the rest. That's highly unlikely to happen again.
- I think it's highly unlikely that we will get 90 points, or close to it. That would take an improvement of 24 points, which means that even if we could replicate our amazing record against top teams (unlikely, given that we are currently 0-1-2 against those), we'd also need to win 24 of the 29 points we dropped against mid-table and bottom teams last year.

24/29 means 2,48 points/per game. We're on the level of 2,66 this season so good enough against lesser teams.

But like you said, it's unlikely we'll match last season streak against top sides and therefore we might not get enough to win the league.

At this point @roonster09 I don't know what you're trying to prove showing last season table, surely it's better to make assumptions basing on the period since our best player is in the team on quite a representable sample of data?

 

[romufc]

Tbh I have few concerns too but people judge Ole way too harshly with some ridiculous criteria.

Having concerns about the manager is one thing but to completely disregard everything he does is totally something different.

I have seen people say this about he relies on brilliance which is complete crap.

I have seen people say, when you have good players on the pitch they score good goals but when we lose with the same players, the manager has no tactics?

I have seen people say, all he does is say to them go out there and express yourself.

I mean surely, if you understand football you cannot think like that?

Do you think Klopp tells Mane, on minute 25, do a stepover and beat a man on the inside? No, they have systems and then when it gets to the final third you want your expressive players to try something. a skill or a couple of quick passes.

 

[Foxbatt]

Lot of nonsense being stated here. Individual brilliance is not dribbling past the entire opposition to score a goal. Individual brilliance is what Cavani did to score those two goals.
By the way a good free kick is good team work. Good coaching will get good movements off the ball and with the ball.
Every top coach drill their team in free kicks too. We have been crap in this.
No one with any sense would say that we are well drilled team with good movements.
Yes the topic maybe too extreme. We may not be an awfully coached team but at the same time we have not been a well drilled team that plays good football.

 

[troylocker]

How can you base players WC level on form?

If you basing players on recent form, Varane, Upamecano, Ramos, Pique and the like do not get into the top 10 CB's in the world.

What do you mean you cannot rate Telles yet? this isn't his first season as a professional footballer.

Can you agree that being world class is current? Being a world class player should be based on the player you are, not the player you have been.

I think Pogba has world class potential and his top level is extremely high, but has yet to deliver this consistantly. I don't think he's been among the 10 best midfielders in the world the last 12 months, hence not world class.
Telles is 27 and has still not shown what he can do in a tougher league. Had a great season as a wingback last season (8 of his 11 goals were penalties), but has not had similar output before and it was in Portugal. I look forward to see him more though, might be a gem.
It would be wrong to call Bruno world class when he came here as well, based on his performances in Portugal.

 

[roonster09]

24/29 means 2,48 points/per game. We're on the level of 2,66 this season so good enough against lesser teams.

But like you said, it's unlikely we'll match last season streak against top sides and therefore we might not get enough to win the league.

At this point @roonster09 I don't know what you're trying to prove showing last season table, surely it's better to make assumptions basing on the period since our best player is in the team on quite a representable sample of data?

You are proving my point now. We are too reliant on Bruno to unlock these teams, that should change that big time. Of course every team relies on their best players, so I won't use it as a stick to beat Ole but I have very low confidence in this team if Bruno isn't playing.

We don't have to make any assumptions here, we had good and bad periods through out Ole's time, started brilliantly and then completely shit. Started last season poorly and then finished excellently. Started this season poorly and now our form has improved a lot.

Like I said, we are inconsistent. Not sure why you are arguing against that.

 

[romufc]

Lot of nonsense being stated here. Individual brilliance is not dribbling past the entire opposition to score a goal. Individual brilliance is what Cavani did to score those two goals.
By the way a good free kick is good team work. Good coaching will get good movements off the ball and with the ball.
Every top coach drill their team in free kicks too. We have been crap in this.
No one with any sense would say that we are well drilled team with good movements.
Yes the topic maybe too extreme. We may not be an awfully coached team but at the same time we have not been a well drilled team that plays good football.

No, Cavani regularly scores those kind of goals. You buy a player like him because of his movement. Without the ball in from Rashford that doesnt happen, without the quick thinking from Bruno to pass to Rashford it doesn't happen.


A freekick is good team work but a headed goal is individual brilliance? Explain to me how Ward Prowse goal is more team play than Cavani'sw goals?

 

[RedSky]

By the way a good free kick is good team work. Good coaching will get good movements off the ball and with the ball.

Are you actually claiming that James Ward Prowses free kick goal wasn't a moment of individual brilliance? Or are you referring to the corner?

 

[Hugh Jass]

Lot of nonsense being stated here. Individual brilliance is not dribbling past the entire opposition to score a goal. Individual brilliance is what Cavani did to score those two goals.
By the way a good free kick is good team work. Good coaching will get good movements off the ball and with the ball.
Every top coach drill their team in free kicks too. We have been crap in this.
No one with any sense would say that we are well drilled team with good movements.
Yes the topic maybe too extreme. We may not be an awfully coached team but at the same time we have not been a well drilled team that plays good football.

This.

 

[romufc]

Can you agree that being world class is current? Being a world class player should be based on the player you are, not the player you have been.

I think Pogba has world class potential and top level is extremely good, but has yet to deliver this consistantly. I don't think he's been among the 10 best midfielders in the world the last 12 months, hence not world class.
Telles is 27 and has still not shown what he can do in a tougher league. Had a great season as a wingback last season (8 of his 11 goals were penalties), but has not had similar output before and it was in Portugal. I look forward to see him more though, might be a gem.
It would be wrong to call Bruno world class when he came here as well, based on his performances in Portugal.

I think being world class is consistent performances over years. Not current form I agree.

The problem is there is a shortage of top top quality players at the moment, which is why it makes it difficult. Alot of players now are World class in certain systems, like alot of Liverpool players.

I agree Allison, VVD, Robertson, Salah, Fabinho and Mane are world class.

Look at CB's as well, hardly and top quality ones.

 

[roonster09]

Having concerns about the manager is one thing but to completely disregard everything he does is totally something different.

I have seen people say this about he relies on brilliance which is complete crap.

I have seen people say, when you have good players on the pitch they score good goals but when we lose with the same players, the manager has no tactics?

I have seen people say, all he does is say to them go out there and express yourself.

I mean surely, if you understand football you cannot think like that?

Do you think Klopp tells Mane, on minute 25, do a stepover and beat a man on the inside? No, they have systems and then when it gets to the final third you want your expressive players to try something. a skill or a couple of quick passes.

Tbh nothing surprises me anymore, people make up all sort of shit if they don't like the manager/player. People even used Brexit FC for our transfer approach when we tried to sign multiple foreign players, people came up with random shit like Ole wanted to sign Longstaff for 50 million. There are many more too, especially off field things.

He has such a brilliant record vs big teams but apparently he is tactically clueless.

 

[Borys]

You are proving my point now. We are too reliant on Bruno to unlock these teams, that should change that big time. Of course every team relies on their best players, so I won't use it as a stick to beat Ole but I have very low confidence in this team if Bruno isn't playing.

We don't have to make any assumptions here, we had good and bad periods through out Ole's time, started brilliantly and then completely shit. Started last season poorly and then finished excellently. Started this season poorly and now our form has improved a lot.

Like I said, we are inconsistent. Not sure why you are arguing against that.

There must be some kind of misundesrtanding between us. Please highlight the part in your full quote below, where you said anything about Bruno and us being too reliable on him, because to me it sounds like you're twisting words now to make it sound like you actually meant something completely different to what you said.

I don't think we are consistent in beating poor teams, we need to gain around or more than 90 points which I think is bit out of reach for Ole.

Does that mean he isn't doing good job? No. IMO he has done very good job till date, just that I feel he lacks that final bit to win league titles.

Credit to Ole though, since Feb we have done really well.

I also proved that beating poor teams has not been an issue since Bruno joined and we've been winning those games very consistently, and don't understand what previous season standings have to do with it.

 

[romufc]

Tbh nothing surprises me anymore, people make up all sort of shit if they don't like the manager/player. People even used Brexit FC for our transfer approach when we tried to sign multiple foreign players, people came up with random shit like Ole wanted to sign Longstaff for 50 million. There are many more too, especially off field things.

He has such a brilliant record vs big teams but apparently he is tactically clueless.

Literally as you said that, a poster has just told me a freekick is team play but Cavani's goals are individual brilliance.

You cannot get anymore individual brilliance than a free-kick.

Yep, its just lazy. We get linked with so many players, they are not all true.

 

[VP89]

Southampton are an expertly coached team according to many on the Caf and yet it took them two set pieces, one of which was a brilliant moment of individual brilliance to break us down...

Fact is that when you replace mediocre players (Lingard, Pereira, Mata) with better players (Bruno, VdB, Pogba) the moments of individual brilliance will go up as they're... better players! If we were scoring scruffy goals non stop i'm sure people would moan that we aren't scoring pretty, exciting goals. Now that we're actually scoring decent goals, people want scruffy ones. Surely, it's a promising thing that we're scoring decent goals as that tells us that we have higher quality players in the squad. It's not a negative. It's such a weird argument.

We matched Southampton for aggression and second balls this time round mainly because Ole learned and deployed a more suitable system (he seems to like the diamond against pressing teams). I know we switched formation when we got the 2 goals, but we actually created more with our diamond.

Also, the likes of Bruno, Pogba (who was terrible that day) & co. all played when we drew to Southampton last year. Result aside our performance last season vs them was terrible not because of quality, but system. Pogba didn't suit Southampton either, because he is ponderous in deep positions and it's handing the game to the opponent. VDB for Pogba was more suited to that sort of environment (not a question of quality but horses for courses in that sense).

 

[roonster09]

There must be some kind of misundesrtanding between us. Please highlight the part in your full quote below, where you said anything about Bruno and us being too reliable on him, because to me it sounds like you're twisting words now to make it sound like you actually meant something completely different to what you said.

I also proved that beating poor teams has not been an issue since Bruno joined and we've been winning those games very consistently, and don't understand what previous season standings have to do with it.

That's the problem, you took after lockdown stats. We have done very well since Bruno signing too, wonder how we will do if he misses few games against deeper defensive teams. Going by last season, it's not good enough,

Lost only 1 game vs Top 6 team but 5 games vs bottom 6-7 teams.

If Bruno is fit then we should be good enough.

If you wanted everything in the very first post, then no. Bruno wasn't mentioned as it wasn't important. It was casual post in reply to other poster who asked why I felt we won't win the league under Ole.

So we shouldn't use last season league table, can we use this season's and say we are poor team as we are 7th or lower in the table, already lost vs Palace, Istanbul and completely outplayed vs Brighton?

Can we also conclude that we are so inconsistent as one week we play awesome vs PSG, Leipzig and then we lose our way vs Arsenal, Istanbul?

 

[georgipep]

Can you agree that being world class is current? Being a world class player should be based on the player you are, not the player you have been.

I think Pogba has world class potential and his top level is extremely high, but has yet to deliver this consistantly. I don't think he's been among the 10 best midfielders in the world the last 12 months, hence not world class.
Telles is 27 and has still not shown what he can do in a tougher league. Had a great season as a wingback last season (8 of his 11 goals were penalties), but has not had similar output before and it was in Portugal. I look forward to see him more though, might be a gem.
It would be wrong to call Bruno world class when he came here as well, based on his performances in Portugal.

I agree about Pogba and Telles but definitely not about Bruno. I wasn't sure he will fit in our squad and was generally opposed to his signing but to say he was anything short of World Class in Sporting is ridiculous.
Season 17/18: 33 games, 11 goals and 10 assists
Season 18/19: 33 games, 20 goals and 13 assists
Season 19/20 (before he came to United): 17 games, 8 goals and 7 assits

I mean....if that's not World Class output, I don't know what is. He wasn't touted as WC just because he was playing in Portugal. Now he is showing that he can cut it in Premier League just as well, which proves that he was World Class all along.

And kudos to Ole for prepping the team to play in the way we did before he came, because he basically just replaced whoever we were struggling to fit in the #10 role (Lingard, Pereira, Mata) and team performance just took off.

 

[SAFMUTD]

In 2020 we've dropped points against the following clubs:

​

Leg​	Opponent​	Score​	Result​
A​	Wolverhampton Wanderers​	0:0​	D​
H​	Wolverhampton Wanderers​	0:0​	D​
H​	West Ham United​	1:1​	D​
A​	Tottenham Hotspur​	1:1​	D​
H​	Tottenham Hotspur​	1:6​	L​
H​	Southampton FC​	2:2​	D​
A​	Sevilla FC​	2:1​	L​
H​	Manchester City​	1:3​	L​
A​	Liverpool FC​	2:0​	L​
A​	Istanbul Basaksehi​	2:1​	L​
A​	Everton FC​	1:1​	D​
H​	Crystal Palace​	1:3​	L​
A​	Club Brugge KV​	1:1​	D​
H​	Chelsea FC​	1:3​	L​
H​	Chelsea FC​	0:0​	D​
H​	Burnley FC​	0:2​	L​
A​	Arsenal FC​	2:0​	L​
H​	Arsenal FC​	0:1​	L​

​

Who would you consider are poor? Burnley, Club Brugge, Istanbul Basaksehi and Palace stand out. With Southampton and West Ham in the next bracket up.

Why take "since 2020" why not this season? why take only the best part of last season into account? if anything we should take all last season, or all Ole's career here. This is just cherrypicking.

 

[Borys]

If you wanted everything in the very first post, then no. Bruno wasn't mentioned as it wasn't important. It was casual post in reply to other poster who asked why I felt we won't win the league under Ole.

But the data doesn't support that we will not win a league because we're inconsistent at beating poor teams (your initial point). Table below is based only on games this season - excluded games against top teams (Liverpool, Chelsea, ManUtd, ManCity, Leicester, Arsenal).

	W	D	L	PTS	Games	pts/game
United	5	0	1	15	6	2,5
Chelsea	5	2	0	17	7	2,4
ManCity	3	2	0	11	5	2,2
Tottenham	4	2	1	14	7	2
Liverpool	4	2	1	14	7	2

So we shouldn't use last season league table, can we use this season's and say we are poor team as we are 7th or lower in the table, already lost vs Palace, Istanbul and completely outplayed vs Brighton?

We are 9th because we got 1 point out of 9 against big guys, not because we can't beat lesser teams. I showed that on a sample of 18 games that we beat those consistently (2,66 average points/game). We've also won 2 games against weaker teams in EFL cup this season (3-0, both without Bruno).

Can we also conclude that we are so inconsistent as one week we play awesome vs PSG, Leipzig and then we lose our way vs Arsenal, Istanbul?

Yes, we are not winning every game against top league/european teams. If that's your point then yes I agree. But this also applies to other contenders, so it might be a shock only for Bayern Munich supporter.

 

[Grande]

For as bad as a manager could be I dont think this squad would lose every game against poor opposition, its normal that even when there's lack of, proper, coaching the players themselves are talented enough to solve it. But you won't achieve consistency by relying only on their talent thats when coaching gets into action.

I dont think its valid to say oh yeah we win some and lose some so its not a coaching problem, we should be winning the vast majority of games against weaker opposition.

We now do.

 

[Grande]

Why take "since 2020" why not this season? why take only the best part of last season into account? if anything we should take all last season, or all Ole's career here. This is just cherrypicking.

No it’s not cherrypicking. If you want to find out about improvement, you have to compare after with before. If you look at our results period by period (say five games at a time or ten games at a time), you’ll find that we’ve had continuous, gradual improvement from after the honeymoon and up to now. There was a jump when Bruno came, but the improvement was continuous also before he came. There was a slope after the missed preseason, but after that, results and performances again has found a stable level.
What’s more, results against so called lesser teams have improved much. From a birds eye view, the stability is increasing. Hav we reached the top? Who knows, but I don’t expect so, based on the fct that we have a young team likely to keep improving.

 

[Gator Nate]

This is the biggest pile of crap I have read. Just shows how big the agenda is.

When you sign better players, they will do things others cant.

You don'y say Spurs rely on Kane's individual brilliance every game, instead they use his brilliance to create chances.

So, tell me the 3 goals we scored against Southampton, which 1 player did we rely on to have individual brilliance?

Individual brilliance is taking on 4/5 players and putting it in the top corner.

For the first goal, Fred pressed the ball, retained the ball very well, passed to AWB who drove in and passed to Cavani out wide, who put the ball in the box for Bruno to tuck it away. Since when is a 5 man move classed as individual brilliance?

The winner, Bruno took the freekick quick, Rashford crossed and Cavani headed it, what part of that was individual brilliance?

Everyone then will gas up Liverpool when their goals like Salah hitting a shot from a rebound into the top corner. But if Bruno hits one outside the box, we rely on brilliance.

This post shows individual brilliance.

Or is it a result of team effort, since many of us have tried to say the same thing?

Either way, totally agree. We're buying quality players so they can use their brilliant talents together to score more goals.

 

[roonster09]

But the data doesn't support that we will not win a league because we're inconsistent at beating poor teams (your initial point). Table below is based only on games this season - excluded games against top teams (Liverpool, Chelsea, ManUtd, ManCity, Leicester, Arsenal).

	W	D	L	PTS	Games	pts/game
United	5	0	1	15	6	2,5
Chelsea	5	2	0	17	7	2,4
ManCity	3	2	0	11	5	2,2
Tottenham	4	2	1	14	7	2
Liverpool	4	2	1	14	7	2

We are 9th because we got 1 point out of 9 against big guys, not because we can't beat lesser teams. I showed that on a sample of 18 games that we beat those consistently (2,66 average points/game). We've also won 2 games against weaker teams in EFL cup this season (3-0, both without Bruno).


Yes, we are not winning every game against top league/european teams. If that's your point then yes I agree. But this also applies to other contenders, so it might be a shock only for Bayern Munich supporter.

Well data supports that, not sure why you want to exclude last season. If we did anywhere near as good as we did against top teams, we would have finished 2nd very easily. The sample size you used is very small, I used full season data.

Just because we won well against weak clubs now doesn't mean we will maintain same standards through out the season, just like how we won't get just 4 points in 12 games vs top 6 clubs.

Anyways I made my point. This is just ending up in circles.

 

[Foxbatt]

Are you actually claiming that James Ward Prowses free kick goal wasn't a moment of individual brilliance? Or are you referring to the corner?

The corner. Near post corners are one of the most difficult to defend against. That's why even top teams try it.
The Dutch team of total football is famous for it. If it's good for Rinus Michels it should be good enough for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer too.
We have good enough headers of the ball most of the time.