We are an awfully coached team

Leftback99 said:
It's not coaching, they just aren't that good.
Click to expand...

My opinion is that by the time a player hits their early 20s, there's not a great deal a coach or a manager can do to improve their base technical ability. Especially nowadays, modern footballers like Rashford, McTominay, Greenwood etc...have been 'bred' to be professional. They have spent hours and hours every week being drilled and coached from the age of 6/7.

By the time a manager like Ole gets hold of them, he's not going to be able to teach them to move the ball faster or control it better or improve their range of passing etc...like anything, practice helps refine skills but you're not going to go drastically improve once you hit at certain level.

What Ole can do is get them organised, and I don't see any problems with our shape. When did we last get absolutely cut-apart or run-ragged by an opponent? I can't think of it happening too many times, if at all since last Christmas. Remember, until very recently we regularly got absolutely embarrassed by the likes of City and Liverpool. That has stopped happening (although let's hoped I haven't jinxed the Derby this weekend!)

As for our attacking patterns...well unfortunately most teams will deploy a low-block against us and we are a one-trick pony currently because of the personnel we have. The forwards we do have are very similar and not really natural goalscorers, bar Cavani who is 34.

I feel we need a better wide forward than Rashford/Martial. We need to get more minutes and experience into Greenwood and we need a CF who can really dominate CBs and pin them with pace, power and aerial ability. Someone like Haaland would transform our side almost overnight in my opinion
 
We play like a team who is afraid of losing and not desperate to win.

Last night especially;

Why is Matic needing to sit back in the LB position to form a back 3? we end up having 3 defenders not involved in the game, Fred is left in midfield all alone - as soon as he gets the ball he's immediately pressed and has to go backwards or sideways. It takes away all the momentum. I understand perhaps do this against sides like City/Liverpool, but away to Palace without their best player? The silly thing we do it at home also.

Our midfielders should be a lot closer to the forwards. I have no idea why they sit 5 yards in front of our centre backs, all they do is end up making 5 yard square passes to each other.

At least 1 of the CM should be pushed up high sitting between the fullback and the centre back making a triangle with the LW and the LB, and vice versa the other side when attacking.

We lack simple patterns that would help keep the team recycling the ball and creating space. The way our team plays now relies on individual intelligence and athleticism and not every player has that.
 
Bobcat said:
Truth be told, i dont know.

What i do know though it was stupid selling Evans for peanuts. Much rather we kept him around than Jones/Smalling
Click to expand...
I agree with that, same with Michael Keane but LVG knew better.
 
Lentwood said:
My opinion is that by the time a player hits their early 20s, there's not a great deal a coach or a manager can do to improve their base technical ability. Especially nowadays, modern footballers like Rashford, McTominay, Greenwood etc...have been 'bred' to be professional. They have spent hours and hours every week being drilled and coached from the age of 6/7.

By the time a manager like Ole gets hold of them, he's not going to be able to teach them to move the ball faster or control it better or improve their range of passing etc...like anything, practice helps refine skills but you're not going to go drastically improve once you hit at certain level.

What Ole can do is get them organised, and I don't see any problems with our shape. When did we last get absolutely cut-apart or run-ragged by an opponent? I can't think of it happening too many times, if at all since last Christmas. Remember, until very recently we regularly got absolutely embarrassed by the likes of City and Liverpool. That has stopped happening (although let's hoped I haven't jinxed the Derby this weekend!)

As for our attacking patterns...well unfortunately most teams will deploy a low-block against us and we are a one-trick pony currently because of the personnel we have. The forwards we do have are very similar and not really natural goalscorers, bar Cavani who is 34.

I feel we need a better wide forward than Rashford/Martial. We need to get more minutes and experience into Greenwood and we need a CF who can really dominate CBs and pin them with pace, power and aerial ability. Someone like Haaland would transform our side almost overnight in my opinion
Click to expand...

While i agree on this i think we have looked way to casual on ponderous on the ball lately. Maybe its fatigue, but right now we have serveral players who are performing well below their level in regards to the basic stuff like passing, trapping and moving with the ball
 
Lentwood said:
My opinion is that by the time a player hits their early 20s, there's not a great deal a coach or a manager can do to improve their base technical ability. Especially nowadays, modern footballers like Rashford, McTominay, Greenwood etc...have been 'bred' to be professional. They have spent hours and hours every week being drilled and coached from the age of 6/7.

By the time a manager like Ole gets hold of them, he's not going to be able to teach them to move the ball faster or control it better or improve their range of passing etc...like anything, practice helps refine skills but you're not going to go drastically improve once you hit at certain level.

What Ole can do is get them organised, and I don't see any problems with our shape. When did we last get absolutely cut-apart or run-ragged by an opponent? I can't think of it happening too many times, if at all since last Christmas. Remember, until very recently we regularly got absolutely embarrassed by the likes of City and Liverpool. That has stopped happening (although let's hoped I haven't jinxed the Derby this weekend!)

As for our attacking patterns...well unfortunately most teams will deploy a low-block against us and we are a one-trick pony currently because of the personnel we have. The forwards we do have are very similar and not really natural goalscorers, bar Cavani who is 34.

I feel we need a better wide forward than Rashford/Martial. We need to get more minutes and experience into Greenwood and we need a CF who can really dominate CBs and pin them with pace, power and aerial ability. Someone like Haaland would transform our side almost overnight in my opinion
Click to expand...

This is nonesense. A manager can teach, coach, manage players to make better decisions. Decisions are what win titles.
 
Scarlett Dracarys said:
We're still in 2nd place for crying out loud. We've hit a rough patch but we're not in a terrible position. We could have been in 5th and lost our last three games but we didn't. Winning is obviously better than drawing but at least we didn't lose. Some of you really need to take a chill pill and stop with the tantrums and whining.
Click to expand...
This is the approach I can not understand. What is the point of watching games if you're ignoring completely the performance and focus only on League position? What is the point in discussing football on the forum in that case?
You're talking like we're overachieving. "At least we didn't lose". Against feckin Crystal Palace.

Scarlett Dracarys said:
I'll panic then but for now I won't. We're 6 points ahead of 4th place West Ham. Even though they have a game in hand we would need to have the worst run ever to drop below them. We have been drawing not losing and who's to say we can't beat City ? We're damn well capable and we will sure as hell try. We then play West Ham after City and there's no chance in hell we're letting them move past us.
Click to expand...
Well the problem is we most certainly WON'T TRY to win against City and I can bet there will be smiles after another 0-0 game.
 
Yorkeontop said:
And that's deadly worrying because surely it involves a pretty basic level of coaching to achieve.
Click to expand...
You'd think so, but it's clear keeping possession isn't important to our management.

they just want to get the ball forward ASAP and try to get shots away on goal - but when we are having a bad day like last night, we look completely foolish.

The only time we made chances was when Shaw overlapped on the left side. You'd think the coaching staff would hammer into them to keep doing it, instead we managed it once the whole of the 2nd half.

It's just infuriating to watch. We are so reliant on individual ability. If Bruno is having a drop of form we are absolutely toothless.

We seem obsessed with counter attacking, but that is barely useful anymore, teams know they just have to sit back and close off the middle of the pitch and we won't do anything.

The thing that annoys me the most is we are allowing an absolute shit level of performance from our "better" players, but the moment our squad players make a slight mistake they're cast out into the wilderness. Rashford put in the worst performance of a united player I've seen in a long time against Palace, but he's never subbed?
 
Scarlett Dracarys said:
We're still in 2nd place for crying out loud. We've hit a rough patch but we're not in a terrible position. We could have been in 5th and lost our last three games but we didn't. Winning is obviously better than drawing but at least we didn't lose. Some of you really need to take a chill pill and stop with the tantrums and whining.
Click to expand...
:lol:

This mindset is scary to be honest, and it's exactly how we will end up sleep walking into 5th or 6th place again.

Drawing games is a bad habit. We've had 6 goalless draws now - if we lost 4 of those and won 2 of them, we'd still have the same amount of points.

This mindset of "it's ok we didn't lose" is getting to become a pathetic excuse. Our away unbeaten strike is causing this, we seem too frightened to lose the streak than go gungho and win the match.

Anyway, City will take us apart this weekend and hopefully that'll kick us back into action.
 
The team is coached to play very simple, often cautious, counter attacking football. Sometimes we press but in general we’re quite happy to sit off and let teams have the ball.

Players seem to know what they’re supposed to do so maybe coaching is good, maybe it isn’t. The big issue is how we want to play is just wrong, it’s too simple, too cautious. Until that changes, which will only happen with a new manager, I don’t think what coaches do will make much difference.
 
Shamana said:
I'd be open to Nagelsmann at this point. Has Leipzig punching above their weight. If we don't get pens and Bruno doesn't score we fecking suck.
Click to expand...
Watched their game at the weekend against Borussia. They were two down, he took his captain Sabitzer off at HT, he was losing his head a bit and brought Sorloth on. They then went on to win 3-2.
 
Adam-Utd said:
:lol:

This mindset is scary to be honest, and it's exactly how we will end up sleep walking into 5th or 6th place again.

Drawing games is a bad habit. We've had 6 goalless draws now - if we lost 4 of those and won 2 of them, we'd still have the same amount of points.

This mindset of "it's ok we didn't lose" is getting to become a pathetic excuse. Our away unbeaten strike is causing this, we seem too frightened to lose the streak than go gungho and win the match.

Anyway, City will take us apart this weekend and hopefully that'll kick us back into action.
Click to expand...
If we don't finish second then to me there has been no progress, out of the CL early, we now have to hope we at least get to a final of F.A. Cup or EL, the ideally win it. If we scrape 4th then that is a backwards step. We are this far behind City because we, yes we, have fecked up.
 
It would be just an am
Leftback99 said:
This. Tielemans would also walk into our side in CM.

Our fans just overrate our players, they see us having an elite attack when the reality is Rashford probably doesn't even start for England, Greenwood won't even make the squad yet and Cavani is well past his best. It's not coaching, they just aren't that good.
Click to expand...
This ☝️
I said the same thing yesterday and several people got quite upset (this was before the game last night). Put Tielemans, Ndidi, Fofana, Vardy, Barnes & Justin in our team and we would immediately be a much better team.
 
Roboc7 said:
The team is coached to play very simple, often cautious, counter attacking football. Sometimes we press but in general we’re quite happy to sit off and let teams have the ball.

Players seem to know what they’re supposed to do so maybe coaching is good, maybe it isn’t. The big issue is how we want to play is just wrong, it’s too simple, too cautious. Until that changes, which will only happen with a new manager, I don’t think what coaches do will make much difference.
Click to expand...
We know what to do when it works, it is when it doesn't the problems start. The coaches stand there and instead of changing tactics, they change players and just carry on with the same thing that isn't working.
 
DomesticTadpole said:
Watched their game at the weekend against Borussia. They were two down, he took his captain Sabitzer off at HT, he was losing his head a bit and brought Sorloth on. They then went on to win 3-2.
Click to expand...

He's young, but he's incredibly dynamic. If Ole were to go, he'd certainly be on my top 3 list. Still not sure what to feel about Ole. Sure we are 2nd now, but more or less completely out of the title race as in Mourinho's 2nd season, but we'll see where we finish. It would be nice if we could just play some fluid entertaining football once in a while.
 
Zlatans Knee said:
It would be just an am

This ☝
I said the same thing yesterday and several people got quite upset (this was before the game last night). Put Tielemans, Ndidi, Fofana, Vardy, Barnes & Justin in our team and we would immediately be a much better team.
Click to expand...

There's a reason why most of our signings never look as good playing for us as they did playing for their previous clubs.

We've a manager who doesn't know how to use them to their strengths.
 
DomesticTadpole said:
If we don't finish second then to me there has been no progress, out of the CL early, we now have to hope we at least get to a final of F.A. Cup or EL, the ideally win it. If we scrape 4th then that is a backwards step. We are this far behind City because we, yes we, have fecked up.
Click to expand...
I'd accept going for Cups and finishing 3rd/4th. Don't see much point in fighting for 2nd spot to end up 15 points behind winners anyway.
 
There are many things I like about Ole's reign as manager. He doesn't rotate too heavily, has a system and has been quite ruthless in getting rid of most of the deadwood. But I do not see how this current group of coaches makes sense, how they can cover in areas Ole is maybe lacking. Of course when you are talking about coaches you are only making assumptions, based on their history and what you see on the pitch.

Mike Phelan was semi-retired in Australia, sacked from Hull so I don't think he progressed since leaving United. Michael Carrick hasn't seen anything other than United in 15 years. McKenna has been here for relatively unsuccessful 5 years and now we bring in Darren Fletcher, who is another one with the same background. Further down the line there are Nicky Butt and former academy player Neil Wood.

It just feels like a group of the same personalities with the same values that worked 20 years ago. There is an arrogance and naivety that comes across in interviews and the make up of this coaching staff, thinking that We are United will somehow get us winning titles again.
 
Zlatans Knee said:
It would be just an am

This ☝
I said the same thing yesterday and several people got quite upset (this was before the game last night). Put Tielemans, Ndidi, Fofana, Vardy, Barnes & Justin in our team and we would immediately be a much better team.
Click to expand...
Put Brendan Rodgers in and we would immediately be a much better team.

Last season our forwards were the highest scorers in the league and Ole was getting all the accolades. This season something has drastically changed. Having one player off form is normal but 3 at the same time? What's even worse is that they don't look like the can be bothered so maybe it's more than individual talent. If teams have sussed our forwards out then it's up to the manager to change patterns of play to make us more unpredictable but every single game it's the same tactics making us so easy to play against.
 
Borys said:
I'd accept going for Cups and finishing 3rd/4th. Don't see much point in fighting for 2nd spot to end up 15 points behind winners anyway.
Click to expand...
Problem with the F.A. Cup is fecking Manchester City who have a insatiable hunger for trophies. So looking at the EL. He has to get us into a final first.
 
DomesticTadpole said:
Problem with the F.A. Cup is fecking Manchester City who have a insatiable hunger for trophies. So looking at the EL. He has to get us into a final first.
Click to expand...
Of course, but a win against them in FA Cup would be much bigger than winning on Sunday what does nothing to our title chances anyway.
 
drdoityourself said:
There are many things I like about Ole's reign as manager. He doesn't rotate too heavily, has a system and has been quite ruthless in getting rid of most of the deadwood. But I do not see how this current group of coaches makes sense, how they can cover in areas Ole is maybe lacking. Of course when you are talking about coaches you are only making assumptions, based on their history and what you see on the pitch.

Mike Phelan was semi-retired in Australia, sacked from Hull so I don't think he progressed since leaving United. Michael Carrick hasn't seen anything other than United in 15 years. McKenna has been here for relatively unsuccessful 5 years and now we bring in Darren Fletcher, who is another one with the same background. Further down the line there are Nicky Butt and former academy player Neil Wood.

It just feels like a group of the same personalities with the same values that worked 20 years ago. There is an arrogance and naivety that comes across in interviews and the make up of this coaching staff, thinking that We are United will somehow get us winning titles again.
Click to expand...

If it was up to me, the entire coaching staff + Ole should be outed in the summer.

Phelan never should have been brought back.
 
drdoityourself said:
There are many things I like about Ole's reign as manager. He doesn't rotate too heavily, has a system and has been quite ruthless in getting rid of most of the deadwood. But I do not see how this current group of coaches makes sense, how they can cover in areas Ole is maybe lacking. Of course when you are talking about coaches you are only making assumptions, based on their history and what you see on the pitch.

Mike Phelan was semi-retired in Australia, sacked from Hull so I don't think he progressed since leaving United. Michael Carrick hasn't seen anything other than United in 15 years. McKenna has been here for relatively unsuccessful 5 years and now we bring in Darren Fletcher, who is another one with the same background. Further down the line there are Nicky Butt and former academy player Neil Wood.

It just feels like a group of the same personalities with the same values that worked 20 years ago. There is an arrogance and naivety that comes across in interviews and the make up of this coaching staff, thinking that We are United will somehow get us winning titles again.
Click to expand...

This is my view. SAF always said coaching was not his strong point and he brought in brilliant tactical minds like Queiroz to look after that part of the club for him. Ole needs to do the same.

We have a Plan A but if that doesn't work we are out of ideas. I see the same problems he had at Cardiff, they were totally clueless and with poor players. We have much better players who when we play counter attack are too fast and too talented to defend against, but if they can't play that specific way are equally clueless. It's coaching and coaching alone. Ole doesn't see that the current group of coaches are not good enough and that's very concerning. If he cant see it after two years he probably never will.

We will have more poor matches until teams start to get confident against us and come out to attack, we will be able to play our game again and hit them with pace, and the cycle will repeat.


For me it's simple. Ole clears the coaches out in the summer and brings in a proper forward thinking tactical mind, or we do it for him and he goes with them.
 
elmo said:
There's a reason why most of our signings never look as good playing for us as they did playing for their previous clubs.

We've a manager who doesn't know how to use them to their strengths.
Click to expand...
Not sure who those players are apart from Pogba perhaps. But it just seems to me that we have signed players or who are not as good our scouts and coaching staff thought
Forevergiggs1 said:
Put Brendan Rodgers in and we would immediately be a much better team.

Last season our forwards were the highest scorers in the league and Ole was getting all the accolades. This season something has drastically changed. Having one player off form is normal but 3 at the same time? What's even worse is that they don't look like the can be bothered so maybe it's more than individual talent. If teams have sussed our forwards out then it's up to the manager to change patterns of play to make us more unpredictable but every single game it's the same tactics making us so easy to play against.
Click to expand...
I sort of agree with what you are saying but I am not sure that Rodgers is the answer either. It seems as if teams have figured out how to play against Leicester as well. Someone like Graham Potter on the other hand has got Brighton playing lovely football with a very modest budget. They just don't quite have the players to be able to compete at the top. I would be very interested to see what he could do with a bigger club and some decent resources.
The obvious one is Nagelsmann, if anything just to hear a manager incessantly shouting at our players which is what we all want to do these days :)
 
Gundogan cost 24 mil?? How did they get him that cheap?
 
Zlatans Knee said:
Not sure who those players are apart from Pogba perhaps. But it just seems to me that we have signed players or who are not as good our scouts and coaching staff thought

I sort of agree with what you are saying but I am not sure that Rodgers is the answer either. It seems as if teams have figured out how to play against Leicester as well. Someone like Graham Potter on the other hand has got Brighton playing lovely football with a very modest budget. They just don't quite have the players to be able to compete at the top. I would be very interested to see what he could do with a bigger club and some decent resources.
The obvious one is Nagelsmann, if anything just to hear a manager incessantly shouting at our players which is what we all want to do these days :)
Click to expand...
To be honest I'd be wary of Potter. It was only 6 months ago that Eddie Howe and even Chris Wilder were being touted as future managers here and their value has plummeted. Moyes had Everton playing a decent level of football and we all know what happened to him.

Nagglesman is the only choice for me. He really is the only one that ticks all the boxes and hopefully our board will come out of the prehistoric age before he goes somewhere else. But what's the chances?
 
Di Maria's angel said:
Hasn't Ole spent any money during his tenure?
Click to expand...

Sure he has. A roaring success in Bruno for a bargain price. A cheap punt with James, worth the money paid. And a free 33 year old Cavani.

While we have released loads of unwanted players who were bought for huge money.

Had we got Sancho and Grealish as well as Cavani, do you think we'd be having the same problems?
 
I keep making the same points all the time
But we need to have a plan A,B and C
The Premiership have intelligent coaches and tacticians so we can not keep playing the same way and hope to not get found out
We have to develop different ways of playing even within the same match
Man City go long sometimes and score a lot of goals from Set pieces even Liverpool did last Season
We need to be able to have different ways of playing
It doesn’t matter who we bring in but this has to change.
We have to be able to adapt to different situations
 
Flying high said:
Sure he has. A roaring success in Bruno for a bargain price. A cheap punt with James, worth the money paid. And a free 33 year old Cavani.

While we have released loads of unwanted players who were bought for huge money.

Had we got Sancho and Grealish as well as Cavani, do you think we'd be having the same problems?
Click to expand...

What about Maguire, AWB, Diallo and VDB - over 200 million there?
 
So we have need to have 200m worth of players on the bench to expect to beat Sheffield, WBA and now Crystal Palace ?
How dare we as fans expect to beat Crystal Palace when we only have Daniel James and Amad (who costs more than any player Crystal Palace had in their starting 11) on the bench.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.