You know the scariest thing? Our set up last season was even worse than it is this one, if you can somehow imagine that. The middle of the pitch was left even more open and exposed, hence why we were conceding record amounts of shots.
We are an awfully coached team
- Thread starter bond19821982
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Maybe,... Shaw makes a difference on the left side alright.... but its at the stage now Shaw simply cant be relied on at all.
Utd should be in the market now asap for a new first choice LB. Let shaw go his own way and sit on the sidelines elsewhere. Im just sick of him being unavailable..and when he is you can always guarantee he wont be available for long.
Phil Jones got alot of stick for being unavailable due to all his injuries, Shaw must not be far behind him with % of time available
I haven't really thought about it before, but Dalot being the one inverting into the midfield is taking the covering pace out of the defence. If we're determined to play that way, perhaps we should have Mazraoui invert (he does to some extent but certainly not as much) while Dalot sits back a bit more, so Dalot can then use his pace to help cover across the defence. Based on what I've seen of City (admittedly not that much) that is how they use Walker. He tends to sit deeper and his sheer pace then gives them the protection which allows others to move up.
I don't really think it is much different. The only time this season it felt different was when we were starting Mount and Bruno up front. Since then I'm not sure whats changed compared to last year. Players are still running through our team. Twente, Spurs, Porto. Again and again. Even some of the cut backs are creeping back in.
I honestly feel EtH is totally lost in what he is trying to achieve in style. It's as if he is trying to mix high press possession football with a deep block to play counter attacking football. Very odd.
Mazraoui does invert sometimes too but no so much last night. Just last night there seemed to be some tactical plan where Dalot takes up centre mid and Erikson moves out to left wing(ish). Which I didn't really get.
I think that's exactly what he's trying to do. His head has completely fell off and he's trying all these mad ideas that don't join up.
High press + low block = disaster
Inverted full backs + inverted wingers = disaster
Two number 10's = disaster
Fullbacks running in behind for long balls = disaster
Possession based counter attacks = disaster
It's honestly just a car crash and his only solution is to add more layers of complexity. At this stage it just need to be incredibly simple football with a clear, straightforward plan.
Good point, but I really think, even that won't have that much effect. Having a midfield made of Eriksen, Casemiro and Bruno in addition to our... whats the opposite of compact? ... way of managing spaces is just asking for trouble. Space has to be covered and with so many players not participating or not suited to covering large spaces, it is just a mismatch to the way we setup which seems to be build on that expansiveness.I thought, we started alright yesterday, having Casemiro and Eriksen in a compact shape seems like an alright risk-reward-ration - god knows why we opened up?! Especially after going in front.
Anyone care to state who the bad coaching staff have been for the last 4 years? Seems they generally do well when they leave and apparently don't know what they're doing when they are here?
My guess is thst some toxic senior player who's game doesnt suit the manager feels threaten and somehow forced the manager to play to their liking, because they know there's no place for them otherwise.
I simply do not believe the calibre of our ex manager cant play even a functional midtable football
Rinse and repeat after every 2 years it's a clean slate all over again. The new manager wont dare to rock the boat, they probably pretend to play along as well licking his arse at first
Which coach has done well since leaving United ?
Moyes did alight at West Ham the 2nd time after some terrible spells at Sunderland and Sociedad. And even West Ham fans weren't happy in the end.
LvG basically retired. Did alright with The Netherlands, but resorted to some terrible football at The 2024 World Cup.
Mourinho has regressed at each club since winning The PL in 2015. Win % has dropped at each club in the top 5 leagues. Now he's in Turkey.
Ole has been unemployed for almost 3 years.
So, no one then outside of Assistant managers , such as Round, Stuivenberg, McKenna and Carrick.
Clearly talking about managers.
Yep. Zero regrets.
So it's Dalot, Rashford, Lindelof & Shaw by that logic, as we've removed everyone else. Shaw has been excellent (when he plays) and Dalot was probably our best player last season. So that narrows it down to being Rashford & Lindelof, by that logic. Not sure how 2 senior players can cause such issues? We've purged the squad over the last 4 years, we've changed the entire coaching team multiple times, we've chopped and changed the managers. Still it's no further forward and appears to be regressing at this point in time.
Then on the flip side all the other teams at United are excelling.
1st team is going to be a long term fix, we could really do with a manager who can work the room at pressers, as they're taking the pish out of Erik and he doesn't have the language ability / personality to deal with it.
4 years later here we are M.A.N.I.A C...
I cant believe this. How can we not find a coach that can coach a team.
While seemingly even "lesser" clubs can..... on a regular basis. It's madness.
I just dont get it.. Do we see something different to what the hierarchy or management see? Surely, these are professional footballers?
Also, the likes of RVN and Hake have been managers before, surely they must be doing something too? How come we are seing no difference to how we played last season to this with new coaches?
Coaches don't do in game management, that's still the same person making the same decisions.
I know that, but coaches usually take training. There is no difference this season to last even though we have coaches who were managers, so they should be able to see the glaring holes in our team.
To be honest go back to when Carrick took over for those few games he got performances out of players that had turned to crap, he actually played to their strengths , kinda shows a coaches limits in affecting the matches.
Even that first goal we scored yesterday showed part of the problem with our setup. We had five attackers all pretty much in line in and around their box. But behind them was just acres of space. It didn't matter, because Rashford scored, but if he loses possession in that situation we're stretched.
We're just constantly stretched, exposed and outnumbered. And it's been like this for ages now. That's why winning the FA Cup didn't convince me, or why I wasn't buying the injuries as an valid excuse.
We're just constantly stretched, exposed and outnumbered. And it's been like this for ages now. That's why winning the FA Cup didn't convince me, or why I wasn't buying the injuries as an valid excuse.
People call bad what they don't understand. Ten Hag is an innovator, you'll see. Give it 10 years and his donut formation will be to football what Pep's 3-2-5 is now
Believe!
Believe!
Toxic culture spreads. Maybe they got it from someone else.
The day Moyes managed us we've developed a culture of laughing at the manager. Rio with his Jagielka vids, chips, etc.
It's Moyes and probably he was way out of his depth but looking back the way our senior player treated him was very unprofessional and set a bad example.
Easier said than done. Because conditions that make one player flourish, can be detrimental to another. The main reason, why recruiting is as important as it is and why we have been as abysmal with it in terms of not really benefitting at all. Interims sometimes benefit from a lifted mood, less expectation and so on. So those stories sometimes sound better as they are. The problem is, that we have a few players in the team whose skillsets are pretty special and therefor not difficult to integrate in a plan for the whole team and thats not even starting with stuff taking some time to get up to speed as well.I think, our pressing at times looks fairly organized these days, that is something on the plus side. The donut issue comes into play because we still don't get the synchronisation right that the team has to move as a unit - when the attackers push up, the defense has to as well. But they are reluctant for many reasons. To me, it is clear that this is what leads to the catastrophic outlook we experience these days. We are moving away from the comfort of simple gameplans like "sit deep, play for counters" to gameplans our rivals use as well. Just that they already invested time and money those things and therefor sitting pretty already.
In my eyes, the worst thing we could do now is just reverting back to simple game plans. Even if that stabilizes the results. We have to evolve otherwise we make sure become a midtable club that causes issues for any team on their day but is never a challenger for the highest honors. And thats not me saying "keep ETH" but the notion of "get whoever else" is just dumb.
Because it's very similar tactics to last season. The only thing that might be different is the players might like this set of coaches better.
I dont think its coaching. We're an awful team. Its not individual players or the manager.
We're outworked, outfought and outrun every week. You get the team to run 13km and they'll get their shit together for a couple of months but they'll sink back to zombie land before long. We dont keep tight, there's huge gaps between our defence and attack. And we play in a stupid manner really. City and others will string together 30+ simple passes with a bit of pace and create a tap in. Our players pick up the ball and they want to dribble past 2+ players to get a 30 yard shot off - its entertaining, its incredible when it comes off but its a dumb way to play football.
We're outworked, outfought and outrun every week. You get the team to run 13km and they'll get their shit together for a couple of months but they'll sink back to zombie land before long. We dont keep tight, there's huge gaps between our defence and attack. And we play in a stupid manner really. City and others will string together 30+ simple passes with a bit of pace and create a tap in. Our players pick up the ball and they want to dribble past 2+ players to get a 30 yard shot off - its entertaining, its incredible when it comes off but its a dumb way to play football.
It's absolutely crazy that we end up in this exact cycle every single time. This one just happens to be far worse than the others.
I have a worry in the back of mind, as this seems too be rinse-repeat this last few years, of the scary possibility that we could get rid of EtH and after a short bounce, we are going to be doing the same things over again come 6 months down the line. Unlikely, but still a worry.
With Ole and Rnagnick the players just seemed to just down tools. there was a general team shape and you knew pretty much what the plan was suppose to be, they just couldnt / wouldnt do it.
With EtH, most games I have no idea what they are suppose to be doing. Our midfield and defence have MASSIVE holes for players to just pass and wander through with ease. Combine that with having a couple weak minded players in the squad, we are in trouble for a while yet.
I would expect any half decent coach coming would see this a mile away and address these MF/DF issues first thing. Its just keeping them in order and consistant is the challenge from there.
Im not even sure with this lot any more what could happen.. Watching this team has just fried my brain this last while. Utterly demoralising
With Ole and Rnagnick the players just seemed to just down tools. there was a general team shape and you knew pretty much what the plan was suppose to be, they just couldnt / wouldnt do it.
With EtH, most games I have no idea what they are suppose to be doing. Our midfield and defence have MASSIVE holes for players to just pass and wander through with ease. Combine that with having a couple weak minded players in the squad, we are in trouble for a while yet.
I would expect any half decent coach coming would see this a mile away and address these MF/DF issues first thing. Its just keeping them in order and consistant is the challenge from there.
Im not even sure with this lot any more what could happen.. Watching this team has just fried my brain this last while. Utterly demoralising
I am not trying to troll or pile on but this is absolutely fecking crazy:
4 passes later, Porto scored. The guy that Casemiro is next to is the next one to receive a pass. 5 of your players are pushed up into the opposition final third yet none of them do anything to influence the next ball being played. It's a fecking ludicrous height to have your wide players given where the defensive line is - the plan seems to be let 32 year old Casemiro cover the entire middle third of the pitch??
4 passes later, Porto scored. The guy that Casemiro is next to is the next one to receive a pass. 5 of your players are pushed up into the opposition final third yet none of them do anything to influence the next ball being played. It's a fecking ludicrous height to have your wide players given where the defensive line is - the plan seems to be let 32 year old Casemiro cover the entire middle third of the pitch??
Well this was the primary tactical masterpiece that powered us to 8th last season.
TBF he now doesn't do it all the time, now he sticks our left back in midfield with him sometimes. Usually when the ball isn't in midfield and teams are attacking down our left but still.
Yup, standard fare. Its so much worse in motion.
It’s so strange that people just refuse to believe that we haven’t hired a great coach since Ferguson retired
Ole hasn’t done it anywhere, Moyes is a limited coach who should never have been anywhere near a top team. Mourinho and LVG have since proven to be well past their sell-by-date. In the case of LVG, about 15 years past it.
That only leaves Ten Hag, who is 54 and had never managed a top club, or won anything outside of Holland, much like de Boer. Dominant with a dominant team. He very clearly has no idea how to set up a team in a top league.
We have never given the job to a top coach in, or approaching, the prime of his career. We should try that before deciding the club is cursed.
Just make a good decision, for once.
Ole hasn’t done it anywhere, Moyes is a limited coach who should never have been anywhere near a top team. Mourinho and LVG have since proven to be well past their sell-by-date. In the case of LVG, about 15 years past it.
That only leaves Ten Hag, who is 54 and had never managed a top club, or won anything outside of Holland, much like de Boer. Dominant with a dominant team. He very clearly has no idea how to set up a team in a top league.
We have never given the job to a top coach in, or approaching, the prime of his career. We should try that before deciding the club is cursed.
Just make a good decision, for once.
I’m not sure we are an awfully coached team at this moment, we are trying to play football at a higher technical level than what we have done in the past, and we’ve seen against cannon fodder this season that at times they can make it work.
Against Palace was probably the closest we’ve been to what I assume is the overall idea of how ETH wants us to play. However as soon as we come up against anyone that’s is mildly decent that has pace and power and we fall apart.
What I assume the strategy is is that we play with a highline, squeezing the space and being more compact overall. That just makes it easier to win the ball back and to attack.(transition)
There is no world where I believe he wants that much space between defence, midfield and attack especially where in brief moments this season we’ve seen the back line push up, be aggressive and win the ball back quickly.
A problem now seems that they are slow and don’t seem to trust that midfield will be there or can hold possession/help out when we lose the ball so they are playing scared and dropping back to try and cover their lack of pace.
Dalot is clearly tasked with playing in a manner that is putting a lot of responsibility on him to read the game and make the correct decisions. Again against Palace he seemed to do that. He has to get better at making the decision of when he can go forward and when he needs to sit inside the midfield allowing Bruno/Mainoo or Eriksen to go join the attack. (Covid Shaw did it perfectly)
He’s not helped by the fact that Rashford isn’t the most helpful whilst covering his flank. It’s always going to be an issue there but the biggest issue in all of this is the midfield.
They are lazy, can’t keep the ball to save their own skin and really don’t work or help each other out. It’s compounded with them being really slow and easily bullied. It’s a huge issue and generally we aren’t going anywhere with these tactics till 3-4 new midfielders more suited to how we are trying to play are brought in.
Because for the highline and pressing to work with the defenders we have we need the midfielders to be able to hold the ball and be better at winning it back quickly. You could argue that then this is suicidal tactics by ETH since we don’t have the people to do it. (Mount, Mainoo, Ugarte could maybe do a better job )
At somepoint ETH has to recognise it’s not doable with the midfield combos he has and that if he wants to play Bruno he probably needs to shut up midfield and plant Ugarte and Casemiro in just patrolling it .
Basically from what I can see there are people making the wrong decisions on the pitch or not capable of doing what is asked of them, plus ETH being stubborn and trying to force it to work. I don’t really see what sacking him would achieve at this moment as the problems are there on the pitch and any manager is going to have the same issues, especially if Ineos overall plan is to play in this high aggressive manner.
Against Palace was probably the closest we’ve been to what I assume is the overall idea of how ETH wants us to play. However as soon as we come up against anyone that’s is mildly decent that has pace and power and we fall apart.
What I assume the strategy is is that we play with a highline, squeezing the space and being more compact overall. That just makes it easier to win the ball back and to attack.(transition)
There is no world where I believe he wants that much space between defence, midfield and attack especially where in brief moments this season we’ve seen the back line push up, be aggressive and win the ball back quickly.
A problem now seems that they are slow and don’t seem to trust that midfield will be there or can hold possession/help out when we lose the ball so they are playing scared and dropping back to try and cover their lack of pace.
Dalot is clearly tasked with playing in a manner that is putting a lot of responsibility on him to read the game and make the correct decisions. Again against Palace he seemed to do that. He has to get better at making the decision of when he can go forward and when he needs to sit inside the midfield allowing Bruno/Mainoo or Eriksen to go join the attack. (Covid Shaw did it perfectly)
He’s not helped by the fact that Rashford isn’t the most helpful whilst covering his flank. It’s always going to be an issue there but the biggest issue in all of this is the midfield.
They are lazy, can’t keep the ball to save their own skin and really don’t work or help each other out. It’s compounded with them being really slow and easily bullied. It’s a huge issue and generally we aren’t going anywhere with these tactics till 3-4 new midfielders more suited to how we are trying to play are brought in.
Because for the highline and pressing to work with the defenders we have we need the midfielders to be able to hold the ball and be better at winning it back quickly. You could argue that then this is suicidal tactics by ETH since we don’t have the people to do it. (Mount, Mainoo, Ugarte could maybe do a better job )
At somepoint ETH has to recognise it’s not doable with the midfield combos he has and that if he wants to play Bruno he probably needs to shut up midfield and plant Ugarte and Casemiro in just patrolling it .
Basically from what I can see there are people making the wrong decisions on the pitch or not capable of doing what is asked of them, plus ETH being stubborn and trying to force it to work. I don’t really see what sacking him would achieve at this moment as the problems are there on the pitch and any manager is going to have the same issues, especially if Ineos overall plan is to play in this high aggressive manner.
We’re still defensively shit but I think you might have repressed how open we were last season. Every bloody team was cutting through us like we were soft cheese. We’re not good this season, but last season was the weakest defensive set-up I’ve ever seen in the prem. We routinely had to deal with 4 v 2 attacks due to being caught on the break with no midfielders in sight.
Ok I'll admit to being pretty clueless when it comes to tactics, but watching highlights of recent games, I keep noticing de Ligt and Martinez in the opposition 18-yard box as we are attacking, not on set-pieces, which seems normal enough, but on regular passages of play. Again I'm not the most attentive to such things, but is that something that we have done in the past (ie. is it normal, whatever 'normal' may mean?)
While this is true, it shouldn't take a "great" coach to make us not awful. Lots of managers who aren't "great" coaches are able to get their teams playing competent, sensible football in a way that we have struggled with for more than a decade
We play with 2 midfielders for most of the game, as Bruno plays like a second striker. Another thing is Zirkzee was bought to supply the striker, yet plays as the striker and has never played with Hojlund, as far as I can remember.
I would like to see Zirkzee play instead of Bruno, with Hojlund up front. This would still leave our midfield light though. Perhaps we need to find a speed merchant central midfielder to replace Casemiro, if TH stays that is and keeps the same tactics. Trust the process!
(I dont want TH to stay)
I would like to see Zirkzee play instead of Bruno, with Hojlund up front. This would still leave our midfield light though. Perhaps we need to find a speed merchant central midfielder to replace Casemiro, if TH stays that is and keeps the same tactics. Trust the process!
(I dont want TH to stay)