We are an awfully coached team

[Dante]

People always get excited at the prospect of a new manager, then get brought back down to earth when things dont go well.

Don't get me wrong, Poch could be the right fit for United, but people will conveniently forget the poor performances Spurs displayed under him in his latter stages.

It's difficult to find the perfect package in a single manager sometimes.

The most obvious example is Arsene Wenger. He got lucky that he was able to follow George Graham (via Bruce Rioch). Wenger was always a poor manager when it came to building a decent defence, but brilliant at building an attack (as proven by his later career). The fact he was able to inherit Adams, Keown, Dixon and Seaman - through no judgement of his own - still led to years of success because Arsenal were able to have the perfect manager follow up another.

I don't know if Ole followed by Poch will be the right combination. But one thing I can see is that Ole has done a decent job of blowing away the cobwebs of the Moyes, LvG and Mourinho eras. The squad finally feels like a Manchester United squad, albeit a little bit rudderless. It feels to me like all we need is the right man at the helm to steer the ship. Poch may not be a perennial winner, but when I look at what we're missing and what he provides (a cohesive style and philosophy), it seems like a perfect fit.

You know, if LvG had followed Ole, he might have had a better chance for the same kind of reasons.

 

[rcoobc]

I'm so angry about that first goal

 

[Roboc7]

Coaching, management, organisation and motivation are all sub standard for the top level. People are trying their best but simply not up to the job.

 

[Machine Elements]

What do you mean by fraud. That indicates Ole is corrupt in some way which he is not. Think about what you are going to write.

For me he's a United fan in charge of Manchester United pretending to be a coach. That's what I meant by fraud. He's not a coach.

 

[Paxi]

Is launching a long floater for Maguire to nod down at the back post our only truly identifiable training ground tactic?

Funny that we sold Fellaini only to do the exact same thing in the end.

 

[dannyrhinos89]

Why does carrick escape criticism, like what does he actually do? Anytime he is shown hes sat looking clueless. Mckenna is the same and phelan is a dinosaur.

We need fresh ideas from a whole new coaching staff. No ex-players hanging around.

 

[el3mel]

I'm so angry about that first goal

I was more angry about the fact that even after such goal, we kept on leaving ton of spaces for them to counter and lump the ball in!

Like what the feck ? How stupid are we as a team ? It was clear as day all their strategy is to go on counter and lump the ball to their striker in space. Instead of learning from this we kept on playing with very high line up and giving them ton of space as if we don't care. Second goal was bound to happen.

Our lack of IQ and intelligence on the pitch is ridiculous. We're a stupid team, plain and simple.

 

[DomesticTadpole]

Why does carrick escape criticism, like what does he actually do? Anytime he is shown hes sat looking clueless. Mckenna is the same and phelan is a dinosaur.

We need fresh ideas from a whole new coaching staff. No ex-players hanging around.

McKenna and Carrick need to be learning from an experienced manager with an assistant manager who is forward thinking, not someone who is 12 years out of date.

 

[Hugh Jass]

If we were a good coached team, even after going a goal down, we would have come back and won 4-1.

Players have lost faith in Ole.

 

[AshRK]

The sad reality is we could have had both the arsenal and this game go for another 60 mins and wr still probably wouldn't have scored. We look dangerous only when we score the first goal. Probably we are the most dangerous side when given space but that's about it. For a Manchester United manager that's not good enough

 

[Skills]

I don't think we can do that. Poch wouldn't accept a caretaker position the same way Ole would.

Sign him on a 2 year contract and sack him at the end of the season. You don't need to tell him it's temporary.

 

[Web of Bissaka]

Wrong!
Moyes coached the team to cross more and play like a mid-table team, and they did! Well, revolts is expected from a previous top championship team players.
LVG actually is our best coach in successfully instilling his total football into our players... unfortunately it's a shit boring football.
Mou coached our defensive aspects very well while letting our players on their own when attacking. Some players don't want to defend though. Oh and he gave up at the end.

Ole actually coached well at the start, pushing players to press high and run more, while adjusting players positions and roles actively minutes by minutes with tactical variations and adjustments, and they did! Then once he got the job permanently, he started to get lazy and lazier, settling with a defensive system of 4231, bringing in 2 new good defenders, and just stop trying, letting the players be on their own how to attack and how to defend. Our press and runnings started to get worse last season. It's only vs the top teams where he got back his motivations and started tinkering around with tactical variations.

TLDR?
Majority of the times we are coached well, but the football that are coached are generally shit. Caretaker Ole's coachings and football are good, but Manager Ole's are shit and have almost no coaching. At least the previous three managers did coach consistently (bar Mou who gave up at the end), just that the football things they are coaching are just shit.

 

[Greck]

People always get excited at the prospect of a new manager, then get brought back down to earth when things dont go well.

Don't get me wrong, Poch could be the right fit for United, but people will conveniently forget the poor performances Spurs displayed under him in his latter stages.

Klopp had a sorry final season at dortmund. They were just art the end if their cycle. It happens. No one can ever take away where they peaked

 

[Sparky Rhiwabon]

If we get rid of Ole he will walk into another top job. Oh, wait, no he won’t.

 

[Red_Orchestra]

We are just a very very imbalanced team with lots of players playing out of position who do not know what their role is in the squad.
If we had players in their natural preferred roles I think we would be playing a lot better, but instead, we have players on the pitch who are absolutely clueless.

 

[dannyrhinos89]

McKenna and Carrick need to be learning from an experienced manager with an assistant manager who is forward thinking, not someone who is 12 years out of date.

I'd rather see a whole new coaching team though. I dont get the obsession this club has with shoehorning an ex player in somehow.

If they want to learn their trade they need to go elsewhere and earn it.

 

[Ollie Derbyshire]

It’d help if he just chose a formation and worked on getting a balanced team to play consistently well, building partnerships, patterns of play etc. just simple stuff really.

If a player is rested or injured, don’t change everything just get the incoming player to slot in. Drill it into them.

We have no idea what we are doing.

 

[UbicaMekogSrca]

We are playing like when my 8 y daughter (Irma) take p2 gamepad and try to play PES.
It is a mess.
What is our plan? Why are we clueless with ball? Do we have plan B? What is or 200M defence doing?
At least she have a smile who would cracks a stone... OLE?

 

[Cathy Ferguson]

I want a new manager but I do not think any manager in the world can make this squad challange for silverware.

Our fullbacks are poor going forward compared to the best.

Pogba, Matic and Maguire are some of the slowest players in top football.

The midfielders with good physique are lacking in creativity and technical ability, except for Bruno and hopefully Danny.

Martial is not a proper CF.

Bit I am sure that a top coach can get this squad into top four.

 

[Robbie Boy]

Far too often our coaching smacks of pure amateur stuff.

 

[Offside]

Hard to disagree. Ole isn’t up to it in my opinion.

 

[L1nk]

says it all

 

[rcoobc]

says it all

Zebras run together for protection

Lions spread out to attack.

 

[UbicaMekogSrca]

Why does carrick escape criticism, like what does he actually do? Anytime he is shown hes sat looking clueless. Mckenna is the same and phelan is a dinosaur.

We need fresh ideas from a whole new coaching staff. No ex-players hanging around.

He is most overated Manchester UTD player ever. He would crumble after little preasure.
People will say it was prime Barca... If you are world class you play like that.
He was good against fodder teams.

 

[Robbie Boy]

says it all

feck me

 

[izec]

Amateur hour today. Inexcusable. Wtf was going on for the 2 goals.

 

[Foxbatt]

Why did AWB go forward into the box while our CBs are still in the opposition box for the corner?
Matic is never going to catch Ba no matter what. The ball was a clearance and we got caught. AWB should never have left his position and gone forward.

 

[2 man midfield]

I genuinely worry about us in terms of coaching. Sometimes we can seem like a really well drilled team, defending like demons and tearing teams apart going forward. Then the next week we’ll defend like that and look lethargic in the final third. Some of the errors we make are just unreal at times, it baffles me how we can vary so wildly. How are we making such basic defensive mistakes one week, and pocketing Mbappe and Neymar the next?

 

[el3mel]

He is most overated Manchester UTD player ever. He would crumble after little preasure.
People will say it was prime Barca... If you are world class you play like that.
He was good against fodder teams.

Carrick wasn't overrated. He was a great player.

He's just very uninspiring on the touchline and seems to be just there.

 

[ArmchairCritic]

I think we were a well drilled side under LVG. We were boring but that was mostly because we just lacked a lot of quality thanks to his poor signings. You might even say the system was too rigid but we were definitely a visibly coached side.

You would throw a low block in front of it and it would all go to shit. We haven't been able to break teams down for donkeys now.

 

[Bilbo]

This is such a conflicting point, because quite frankly none of us know where the line is blurred between (a) how well this team are coached and (b) how much these players are actually 'coachable'.

I'm an Ole fan. I think hes done a very decent job in difficult circumstances, but its important to try to be impartial. I find it nearly impossible to be concisive about this point though, and there is one simple reason why - at times we look like a marvellously coached football team. On other occasions we look like 11 players that just met for the first time in the car park. It makes absolutely no sense.

Its not coaching that leaves Demba Ba with 60 yards of pitch to himself. Its not coaching that tells Pogba to make an insane tackle on a player going away from goal, and its not coaching that caused the avalanche of ridiculous mistakes that occurred against Spurs. Nobody would coach that stuff. These are BASICS, and these are high level professionals making these basic mistakes.

Its complacency.

It would seem that Ole has so far failed to stamp out whatever it is that is going on behind the scenes that causes our team to be so wildly inconsistent. To fail to take the same attitude we display when we play well and win games into the next game. To fail to communicate with each other on the pitch.

I dont believe that our problems are anything to do with coaching, and im far from convinced that changing the manager will solve these issues, but i now fear that this change is coming and these players will be let off the hook. We will go through the same boom-bust cycle all over again, in search of solutions to a problem that we don't seem to understand.

 

[Andersons Dietician]

Why did AWB go forward into the box while our CBs are still in the opposition box for the corner?
Matic is never going to catch Ba no matter what. The ball was a clearance and we got caught. AWB should never have left his position and gone forward.

Yeah found it weird. Normally he stays back but whatever Bruno and Mata had planned for the corner screwed up and drew him forward to get involved and then we were left with just Matic at the back.

Its a mistake by him, but someone, Matic should have been aware and tried to reorganise the shape or stopped Bissaka from going forward. Basically for our set pieces one of Shaw or Bissaka need to stay back.

 

[Baneofthegame]

Yeah found it weird. Normally he stays back but whatever Bruno and Mata had planned for the corner screwed up and drew him forward to get involved and then we were left with just Matic at the back.

Its a mistake by him, but someone, Matic should have been aware and tried to reorganise the shape or stopped Bissaka from going forward. Basically for our set pieces one of Shaw or Bissaka need to stay back.

Not sure why Shaw is in the box at this point, the first goal was just comical from all points of view except our teams.

 

[Andersons Dietician]

Before Lockdown we seemed to find a system and had patterns that seemed to work but for whatever reason we seem to have moved away from the successful things we were doing then and it’s all gone to pot.

The thing with Shaw moving in midfield to back up Matic and help protect us has stopped. Seems to have instruction now just to play like a normal FB. Rashford doesn’t pull wide to draw the RB out so Shaw can run between RB and CB. The pressing has stopped, it’s all just looked like we took a few steps forward then jogged backwards.

 

[Tapori]

I'm gonna play devils advocate for a second..

It could be a mentality thing; The performances at PSG and Leipzig and in other big games have been on point. Then these games I think some players lower their guard.

 

[kentafuji]

I'm gonna play devils advocate for a second..

It could be a mentality thing; The performances at PSG and Leipzig and in other big games have been on point. Then these games I think some players lower their guard.

So basically we are a cup team. Turn up for the big ones, cant be arsed for the rest

 

[Tapori]

So basically we are a cup team. Turn up for the big ones, cant be arsed for the rest

So it seems...
So it seems...

 

[Darlington Padgett]

It's not the coaching that's the issue, it's the motivation and desire to win.

We stink of a team that turns up when it wants to. Big occasion and they're all up for it, brilliant performances across the pitch. When we have to grind or we have to dig deep everyone hides or puts in a 5 out of 10 performance. Completely lack of intensity.

Under Fergie if you dare put in a 5 out of 10 performance you wouldn't see the first team until someone got dropped, these players hang their hats on mediocre performances. There's no consequence for being shit anymore, they get benched (like Pogba), and then when we're losing they're thrown on in the hopes to salvage something. I bet that taught him a lesson, didn't it?

Now, who's fault is it? 60% the manager and coaching staff. The players should fear being dropped for a youth player or any squad player for that matter. Squad players/youth players should be chomping at the bit ready to take their chance when it comes. At the moment, the worst thing that happens is you sit on the bench for 60 minutes and watch your colleague's phone in a performance.

The other 40% lies with the board for allowing the squad to be this weak outside of the first 11 by failing to strengthen the first 11 this summer.

Solskajer won't see the end of November with this set of players. He'll be gone.

I do agree that motivation and desire are lacking at times but and unmotivated Pogba should be enough to beat teams with a bunch of retired Premier League players. Rafael showed us today what a proper Manchester United player should be. We start these 'easy' games as we've already won and we end up trying to win it in the last few minutes once we're losing. But there's also a huge problem even when they're up for it we look like the lesser team. This underdog approach shouldn't be the way Manchester United is playing and I'm afraid Ole's limitations as a manager is the only reason we're playing like we are. We have some really good players so I don't think lack of motivation and desire to win will stop them from completing 3 passes in a row. There's absolutely no movement, our midfielders never have options when looking for a pass. If you see teams like Ajax, City, Liverpool, and Bayern you can see how the players are moving around once they pass and always creating spaces. They always have different options for a pass, in our case they either hoof the ball or pass it to any of our defenders who will eventually just hoof the ball. We are not properly coached, that win against PSG that everyone called a masterclass was just sitting back and waiting to counter. Everyone used to hate when Jose did that but Ole is called a mastermind for doing it.

 

[Leftback99]

This is such a conflicting point, because quite frankly none of us know where the line is blurred between (a) how well this team are coached and (b) how much these players are actually 'coachable'.

I'm an Ole fan. I think hes done a very decent job in difficult circumstances, but its important to try to be impartial. I find it nearly impossible to be concisive about this point though, and there is one simple reason why - at times we look like a marvellously coached football team. On other occasions we look like 11 players that just met for the first time in the car park. It makes absolutely no sense.

Its not coaching that leaves Demba Ba with 60 yards of pitch to himself. Its not coaching that tells Pogba to make an insane tackle on a player going away from goal, and its not coaching that caused the avalanche of ridiculous mistakes that occurred against Spurs. Nobody would coach that stuff. These are BASICS, and these are high level professionals making these basic mistakes.

Its complacency.

It would seem that Ole has so far failed to stamp out whatever it is that is going on behind the scenes that causes our team to be so wildly inconsistent. To fail to take the same attitude we display when we play well and win games into the next game. To fail to communicate with each other on the pitch.

I dont believe that our problems are anything to do with coaching, and im far from convinced that changing the manager will solve these issues, but i now fear that this change is coming and these players will be let off the hook. We will go through the same boom-bust cycle all over again, in search of solutions to a problem that we don't seem to understand.

I agree. This group just don't have the mentality no matter who is in charge, we've seen it for years. Rafael showed them up tonight with his tanacity and fight.

Excusing players on £100k+ a week making Sunday league mistakes due to lack of 'coaching' is ridiculous.

 

[Plymouth Red]

In every job I ever had, there was a definite, undesirable consequence in the event of sustained poor performance. It usually included loss of remuneration in the form of reduced or removal of performance-related annual bonus, which made up a big chunk of total earnings.
For our players, I can't see the equivalent consequences. Frequent poor displays or obvious lack of effort and hunger to win don't appear to result in any obvious sanction. This doesn't seem logical or healthy to me.
A prolonged spell on the bench is a rare event for most of our supposed big players even though it is often obviously appropriate to push them to try harder and raise their game.
Maybe part of the cause of our malaise is that we pay very high wages which losses don't seem to dent significantly. Maybe our players are too comfortable and this diminishes their hunger? If we paid a weekly wage of £25000 and a bonus of £1,000,000 per goal scored, would we see a better goals for column? Probably.
Our coaching is one aspect of what makes a player and team successful. Individual performance is the product of the combination of skills, knowledge and attitude. It feels to me like our biggest issue is under the attitude heading.