We are an awfully coached team

[sullydnl]

Whether we win, lose or draw a given game or any given games, it doesn't change whether the team was positionally suspect or looked undercooked in terms of what they (should be) drilled to do in possession during those games. Whatever the end result(s), that's either in our play or it isn't.

Just look at how Europe's top teams actually play football compared to us, the difference is immediately apparent. Some other teams look like their structures in/out of possession, the correct positions for them to take up relative to each other and pre-planned patterns for what to do on the ball have been drilled into them to the point where it's almost automatic, because that's exactly what has happened. Whereas we look like a team who have been put into a basic structure and encouraged to "go out and play". It doesn't take a genius to work out which team will look quicker on the ball, more capable of creating spaces and less susceptible to surrendering possession in dangerous areas.

You literally only have to count how many times in a game our players are given the ball in a position where they're isolated and under immediate pressure compared to a side like City, for example. That isn't down to our players being so poor they somehow magically teleport opponents in next to them. It's because they haven't been drilled well enough in terms of what to do when they have the ball to consistently have options available to pass too. And while City might be the best at that, a lot of teams are at least better than us in that regard, including teams with obviously inferior players.

And pointing to results Ole has got or players who have improved under him is irrelevant, because that doesn't magically wish away the flaws in how we are actually coached to play football. Sometimes it is indeed possible for other positives to get you results in spite of those flaws, but why on earth would we not look to improve our most glaring weak spot?

 

[Foxbatt]

when you can't beat Young Boys even with 10 men it does say a lot about our coaching. These players are good enough to beat Young Boys 10 men or not. We always rely on individual brilliance to win matches and when that does not work we fail.

 

[lefty_jakobz]

World class squad led by an average manager

 

[Nicoseth]

Yeah ofcourse, going 5 at the back and defend for 45 mins was players idea. He just don't know how to play through a high press. All he knows is stay deep and hit on counter. That also failed miserably today.

Bollocks. That's an old criticism that has been largely disproven. Did we sit back and counter Leeds this season? Newcastle? I suppose Ole can't break down a low block too? Yawn. Ole-outers looking for any reason to get rid.

 

[dpansheth]

I expect a team that knows a system. 2nd place alone is no short thing, but looking into specifics it's a really "cheap" second place where we ended up far from City after being top of the league in December.

Then of course we were ridiculed in last seasons UCL group stage, and yet couldn't even win that second tier EL tournament.

Got us back to the UCL, isn't that the bare minimum for a squad like ours? I mean you make it sound like an achievement, as if we have wolves squad or something. We had and have easily a top 4 squad in the league. It should be a given to qualify to the UCL, not worth to mention in my opinion.

Now about overachieving the other managers, well let's take into account the competition there, Moyes who may very well be the worst manager we ever had, LVG who was a boredom fest and Mourinho who was toxic as feck. Really the bar can't get much lower, but guess what? Still those managers, besides Moyes, won titles. Even Mourinho who seems only gets looked here as his last part managed to get a better second place with a lot more points than Ole.

So, by no metric is Ole better than Mourinho being honest. The only one is sentimental, the feeling about a healthier squad, attracting better players, etc but results wise we haven't reached the heights we reached with Mourinho and let's be clear, Mourinho failed here. There's no two ways about that.

But stating that somehow Ole has been more successful without actually winning a single trophy is ridiculous.

Finally, it's not only about tonight. If this happened to Sir Alex, Pep, Klopp, or Tuchel nobody would blink an eye. Bad luck poor performance move on, but Ole doesn't have that kind of credit in the bank does he? We continuously keep displaying this odd performances, to the point weather we can't really be sure about our next performance.

Which team we'll see next Sunday? The one against Leeds or the one against Southampton? Nobody can answer that, it depends on the players mood.

in NFL, when Rodgers got blasted off the field by saints last weekend, this was the phrase used to describe the performance “we were not prepared as a team”. Everytime we struggle to find a win through a brilliant individual play, I think we didnt prepare properly.
players can be world class but they need to prepared to play in a cohesive manner to deliver results, including unplanned events during the game.
i feel coaching staff have consistently failed to do this..
they get caught wrong footed and find it hard to respond during a game, where infact practice and coaching about such scenarios should take place in training before the game even starts.
You can blame everyone under the sun for tonight’s loss or any other defeats. The fact is Ole is the manager, buck stops with him. If the team couldn’t handle and play with a plan to win a game with 10 men against Young Boys, its on him. If we lost due to Lingard, its still on him. That’s why he is called a manager.

 

[Rash Decision]

Whether we win, lose or draw a given game or any given games, it doesn't change whether the team was positionally suspect or looked undercooked in terms of what they (should be) drilled to do in possession during those games. Whatever the end result(s), that's either in our play or it isn't.

Just look at how Europe's top teams actually play football compared to us, the difference is immediately apparent. Some other teams look like their structures in/out of possession, the correct positions for them to take up relative to each other and pre-planned patterns for what to do on the ball have been drilled into them to the point where it's almost automatic, because that's exactly what has happened. Whereas we look like a team who have been put into a basic structure and encouraged to "go out and play". It doesn't take a genius to work out which team will look quicker on the ball, more capable of creating spaces and less susceptible to surrendering possession in dangerous areas.

You literally only have to count how many times in a game our players are given the ball in a position where they're isolated and under immediate pressure compared to a side like City, for example. That isn't down to our players being so poor they somehow magically teleport opponents in next to them. It's because they haven't been drilled well enough in terms of what to do when they have the ball to consistently have options available to pass too. And while City might be the best at that, a lot of teams are at least better than us in that regard, including teams with obviously inferior players.

And pointing to results Ole has got or players who have improved under him is irrelevant, because that doesn't magically wish away the flaws in how we are actually coached to play football. Sometimes it is indeed possible for other positives to get you results in spite of those flaws, but why on earth would we not look to improve our most glaring weak spot?

Exactly this. I have the impression that perhaps too many fans - and maybe Ole himself - look back at how we used to play under SAF and think that it’s still a viable blueprint for success today. A big part of SAF’s greatness was his ability to adapt across time; hearkening back to how SAF used to coach his teams back in the early 2010s for success today ironically goes against the spirit of what made him so great.

 

[bond19821982]

Bollocks. That's an old criticism that has been largely disproven. Did we sit back and counter Leeds this season? Newcastle? I suppose Ole can't break down a low block too? Yawn. Ole-outers looking for any reason to get rid.

Let's talk again over weekend. Let's see how we perform against hammers. (You conveniently ignored our Southampton and Wolves performances)

 

[Adnan]

It's way too early for me to get into the Ole in/our debate. But I'd like to say that IMO if the manager does leave his post at the club, I believe we now have a structure in place with the likes of Murtough, Bout, Court etc which should allow us to bring in a Head Coach rather than a manager. That should in theory mean the recruitment process is controlled by the aforementioned whilst the Head Coach can concentrate on the coaching aspect at the club. So I personally don't subscribe to the view that there would be the level of ins/outs like we saw under Mourinho and Van Gaal like someone suggested earlier in the thread, where I believe they (managers) were given way too much control. And the difference now is that the aforementioned 3 names have considerable power in the recruitment decisions since 2018.

 

[elmo]

Yeah ofcourse, going 5 at the back and defend for 45 mins was players idea. He just don't know how to play through a high press. All he knows is stay deep and hit on counter. That also failed miserably today.

He has another game plan which is hope for Bruno/Pogba to do some magic.

 

[Jibbs]

I genuinely think we have a squad good enough to win EPL or even CL. I can bet even with prime Fernandinho and Fabinho, we would be struggling in midfield and the fanboys and class of 92 friends in media would be uttering the same nonsense that we are weak and need additions.
Fred and VdB are good enough to play the DM role under the right manager. Ole is just out of his depths.
If you want XI superstars on every position even any random poster here can manage the team, why do we even need that PE teacher.

 

[Nicoseth]

Let's talk again over weekend. Let's see how we perform against hammers. (You conveniently ignored our Southampton and Wolves performances)

Didn't ignore them, but used the other games as examples of how we don't just hit teams on the counter as you suggested. Happy to talk again! Can't beat a good debate. i think we'll beat WH btw. They play pretty open football - a little bit like Leeds, and we usually get a reaction after a defeat.

 

[meamth]

This thread in a nutshell.

 

[SAFMUTD]

This is madness.

1. The team clearly has a system. If you can't see that, then I can't help you, but there is definitely a system.

Please explain the system to me, it's a serious thing. Many like me just can't see it clearly.

2. You're absolutely right, it is the bare minimum, but something that the so-called bigger names of LVG and Mou were unable to do consistently. Ole has been the first manager since SAF to get us into the CL in successive seasons - I think Ole deserves some credit for that.

Like I said I don't think it's worth mentioning it's something that if you achieve you don't deserve credit but if you don't it's absolutely criticable. Like let's say avoid relegation for an Everton manager.

3. When you say those managers won titles, you're right, but they didn't do it with us, unless you're counting cup competitions. And honestly, who gives a feck about Mou's EL and Carabao cup wins? LVG got the sack after winning the FA cup. When Mou left, he left us in a mess. Alienated players whose confidence was on the ground, Feckin Fellaini was a regular starter, and we were not even in the conversation for a title race. Solskjaer had to fix all of that and he did.

Don't get me wrong, Mourinho and LVG failed miserably here. They won only candy cups, but Ole has failed miserably as well. The way I see it the only season he was excused for not winning a title was his first one when he got the team mid season. From that on every trohpyless season can't be seen as anything else but a total failure.

Now when you say he fixed that what do you mean? We are still around the same tally points and about as far from the title as before Ole came, so what did he actually fixed? Besides the perception about the team I don't think anything has changed, results wise at least.

4. Depends on the players' mood? Do you really believe that Varane or Ronaldo or Maguire or Bruno wake up on match day thinking 'I'm not really up for it today'? Gimme a break.

What I mean is that we depend on how the players perform individually, if Bruno has a day off then we struggle as hell. Thank God we have Cristiano but if not we could see the very same dull games we saw last season.

What I mean by this is we are at the expenditure of the so called individual brilliance, were not a team like City or Liverpool that systematically break teams down due to structure, we rely on one magic moment to create something, if that moment doesn't come we look as if LVG was still running the show.

Bottom line for me is we have a world-class squad now, truly world-class players in Varane, Shaw, Bruno and Ronaldo, some really good ones on Maguire, Cavani, Greenwood, Sancho and Rashford. We should be performing way above than what we have.

I seriously think we have the squad to win every title that we can aim. But I think our biggest weakness is our coaching staff and manager, all the other top teams have clearly better managers than us. When it comes to it, when quality faces quality that'll make the difference and I don't think we'll come on top.

 

[ExoduS]

I genuinely think we have a squad good enough to win EPL or even CL. I can bet even with prime Fernandinho and Fabinho, we would be struggling in midfield and the fanboys and class of 92 friends in media would be uttering the same nonsense that we are weak and need additions.
Fred and VdB are good enough to play the DM role under the right manager. Ole is just out of his depths.
If you want XI superstars on every position even any random poster here can manage the team, why do we even need that PE teacher.

I am not sure about VdB. Maybe we are doing something wrong with him coaching wise, but Fred... Fred has been sucking this year. I don't think it is due to coaching at all. He seems physically not fit which then translates into him not mentally fit either.

I see a lot of people are defending Ole, I just hope you are right. We have had 3 very poor performances this season already. We can beat only teams that open up and allow us a lot of space. We are still slow in build up and disjointed. If that is not coaching I am not sure what is. AWB's red card was a bit unlucky, but what Lingard did can also be attributed to coaching decisions.

We totally deserved to lose today. I am not so sad about the loss as I am concerned how dominated we were by a second tier team. O and yeah... and just as many of us thought Lingard would build some confidence, this had to happen...

He shouldn't have even gone in the game in the first place. Seems like the guy needs few games where we lead by 2 or more goals first. He is total liability and the guy who put him in is at fault and coaching team that didn't train him well enough what to do in 94 minute of the game.

 

[Jibbs]

Exactly this. I have the impression that perhaps too many fans - and maybe Ole himself - look back at how we used to play under SAF and think that it’s still a viable blueprint for success today. A big part of SAF’s greatness was his ability to adapt across time; hearkening back to how SAF used to coach his teams back in the early 2010s for success today ironically goes against the spirit of what made him so great.

Exactly this...Ole and the whole class of 92 around the club seem to be stuck in Sir Alex era. A decade has passed, football has moved forward. We need a thinking coach and the best one available right now is Conte.

 

[fergieisold]

Yeah ofcourse, going 5 at the back and defend for 45 mins was players idea. He just don't know how to play through a high press. All he knows is stay deep and hit on counter. That also failed miserably today.

Its as if we were playing with 10 men.

 

[reelworld]

Ole has done well up to a point in improving the general quality of the squad and team play.

However, I think as a manager he reached his ceiling and that's not good enough for a club like United. To those who think this is just a bad day at the office, the occurrence of United teams under Ole getting dominated by a less talented team has happened numerous times. This has become a pattern in his 3 years at the club. He could fall back to the excuse that his team isn't good enough, but right now he got a really good squad that are capable of so much better than the dross we see last night.
Exceptional managers could get his team play more than the sum of its parts, but so far this United team either performed equal or less than the sum of their parts. I've rarely seen this United team outplayed a team that's on paper are so much better, except for the one PSG match last season, and against Pep's City.

 

[reelworld]

This is madness.

1. The team clearly has a system. If you can't see that, then I can't help you, but there is definitely a system.

I agree with this we do have a system. Unfortunately the system we are employing are not good enough.
IMO, we are playing very similar to Fergie early title winning teams. Very quick transition with getting the ball to your attacking players as soon as possible with emphasis on the wings. This is why his system works wonder when we're playing against team who attack us, since we can employ that system. But matches with low block teams, or European teams who valued possession, against teams who would need us to control possession and being creative with that. That's where we struggled

2. You're absolutely right, it is the bare minimum, but something that the so-called bigger names of LVG and Mou were unable to do consistently. Ole has been the first manager since SAF to get us into the CL in successive seasons - I think Ole deserves some credit for that.

Ole doing better than previous manager is great, but at United we need to keep improving. If this team can't improve further, then questions must be asked to the manager

3. When you say those managers won titles, you're right, but they didn't do it with us, unless you're counting cup competitions. And honestly, who gives a feck about Mou's EL and Carabao cup wins? LVG got the sack after winning the FA cup. When Mou left, he left us in a mess. Alienated players whose confidence was on the ground, Feckin Fellaini was a regular starter, and we were not even in the conversation for a title race. Solskjaer had to fix all of that and he did.

Ole did well in the man management stuff, but you don't become a great manager by just great at managing the players ego. The in game management and tactics coaching is also important

 

[Flytan]

Yeah. Caf acts like we actually lose every game and playing for relegation.

Keep whining.

What a terrible post. We can be awfully coached even if we finish second. With our investment anything besides top 4 is a failure. It doesn't take the season being a failure to sack the manager. Especially when there are superior ones free

 

[Member 58925]

There is a severe lack of understanding or willful ignorance in this thread in regards to the intangible aspects of management, I.e the role a manager plays in motivation, focus, cohesion and confidence.

 

[RedBanker]

Ole has done well up to a point in improving the general quality of the squad and team play.

However, I think as a manager he reached his ceiling and that's not good enough for a club like United. To those who think this is just a bad day at the office, the occurrence of United teams under Ole getting dominated by a less talented team has happened numerous times. This has become a pattern in his 3 years at the club. He could fall back to the excuse that his team isn't good enough, but right now he got a really good squad that are capable of so much better than the dross we see last night.
Exceptional managers could get his team play more than the sum of its parts, but so far this United team either performed equal or less than the sum of their parts. I've never seen this United team outplayed a team that's on paper are so better, except for the PSG match last season.

Well said. But no manager picks Lingard as a sub when a focal point or an outlet is needed? Why drop Varane from the start? Why then shunt VdB to bring in Varane? Why hook Fred and not Pogba when the latter was gassed? It is a case of leaving ones brain in a lockbox at Manchester before the trip.

 

[Regalia]

There is a severe lack of understanding or willful ignorance in this thread in regards to the intangible aspects of management, I.e the role a manager plays in motivation, focus, cohesion and confidence.

And you show your own ignorance while passive aggressively trying to insult the collective you oppose by implying nobody else besides Ole possesses the skill to play that role.

 

[Member 58925]

And you show your own ignorance while passive aggressively trying to insult the collective you oppose by implying nobody else besides Ole possesses the skill to play that role.

To put this politely...huh?

 

[VanHaal'sRedArmy]

We have a coaching staff full of 'yes' men. No one really has a say against what Ole thinks he should do.

 

[croadyman]

We have a coaching staff full of 'yes' men. No one really has a say against what Ole thinks he should do.

Bang on they are clearly scared shitless of challenging his decisions but not good enough for this level anyway, still utterly staggering he is letting this amateur coaching farce carry on but then he's stubborn fc so not surprised at all

 

[11101]

Put simply, we keep making the same mistakes. That cannot be allowed to go on. If Ole can't see it somebody in the club needs to show him. It's perfectly OK for him to bring somebody in to do this bit for him but he has got to start recognising that he is not good enough when it comes to tactics and game management.

We can't waste a team this good.

 

[RedDevilQuebecois]

We have a coaching staff full of 'yes' men. No one really has a say against what Ole thinks he should do.

And that is a hallmark of a weak manager. Strong managers have no issues surrounding themselves with strong figures.

Fergie had Brian Kidd (still a solid assistant today for City), Carlos Queiroz and even Walter Smith (most decorated Rangers manager in recent history) among his assistants. Brian Clough had Peter Taylor as the key man for their successes. Who the hell would Ole hire as that strong old fox to help him? And for the record, being a first-team coach for Manchester United is not a job for a coaching newbie.

 

[dove]

Its as if we were playing with 10 men.

It's as if we have those shocking performances only with 10 men. Remember Wolves game? We simply don't play as well as we should be. We very rarely have comfortable performances and limit opposition to let's say 5 shots or so. We constantly concede 10+ shots and 20 yesterday which is way too much even with a red card considering who we played. Even with red we have quality to not let them completely batter us for 60 minutes without us having a single shot. We have a very good squad with below par performances, who is to blame here? I think the answer is quite clear considering we have the same problems for 3 years now. Ole built a very good team but he and our coaching staff are just not good enough, I think it's quite clear at this point.

 

[redIndianDevil]

I see there are still people floating the idea of Ole as manager and getting a good coach under him to help us improve, it's again one of the shittiest ideas that some people in our fanbase have. Just because we had SAF do it doesn't mean it will workout for anyone. SAF had the pedigree, any good coach would be happy to work for him as he had achieved so much.

 

[Mercurial]

We have a coaching staff full of 'yes' men. No one really has a say against what Ole thinks he should do.

Has this been proven or just what you think?

 

[TrustInJanuzaj]

I’ve said it for ages now but the biggest issue we face is game control and possession. Compared to the other top sides we don’t know how to move and retain the ball consistently. Now some of that absolutely is the personnel we have in midfield. We are crying out for a Carrick, or someone of that ilk and when you look around, most of the top teams have that player. That being said, I just don’t think the coaching is helping in that department either. Even with the personnel we do have, I would expect us to garner far greater control over games, have a more consistent supply pipeline into our front men and create greater defensive stability all over the pitch.

I have maintained that this is the season Ole and the team will be judged more harshly and rightly so because we have one hell of a side. Yesterday was disappointing but I will still give Ole the benefit of the doubt to get us out the group which we are still capable of. Save the real outrage for if we fail to progress from the group.

 

[VanHaal'sRedArmy]

Has this been proven or just what you think?

Have you seen anything that suggests otherwise? Anyone on that bench you think has the gall to tell Ole off when they don't see the same thing as he does?

 

[ray24]

Ole is only still around because he has the luxury of spending tons of money on players. He's just someone that buys his way out of trouble, rather than a coach that makes the team better than the sum of its parts.

 

[stw2022]

I'm not as annoyed as others seem to be with last night. Liverpool imploding and 'he used to play for us' though as still the only two real things you could list as a reason why he has the job though.

I do wonder if we'll look back at this period, in years to come, and wonder what we could have achieved under a different manager. Maybe we'll go on to achieve great things under this one. I still think he's learning the job. Learning at the top in England doesn't work. The game is too competitive. Even at our majestic best we weren't Real Madrid in Spain. We couldn't just randomly pick any ex-player to manage us and reasonably expect to win the league. Top management matters in England because it's about far more than 'my XI is better than your XI so obviously we'll win 4-0'

 

[CanadianUtd]

Everyone’s got to relax. We were a man down for vast majority of the game. Odds are you lose a game in which you’re down a player in the first half.

…as for “awful coaching”/decision making, anyone who watches the games would know it’s more of a collective than a single person (Ole) calling the shots. You can usually see angles on the bench of Ole and others talking strategies over in game scenarios. Things happen. Especially when you’re short handed a player in a match. It happens.

 

[JG3001]

Everyone’s got to relax. We were a man down for vast majority of the game. Odds are you lose a game in which you’re down a player in the first half.

…as for “awful coaching”/decision making, anyone who watches the games would know it’s more of a collective than a single person (Ole) calling the shots. You can usually see angles on the bench of Ole and others talking strategies over in game scenarios. Things happen. Especially when you’re short handed a player in a match. It happens.

Dont worry, plenty of us are just as concerned/critical of his support group as the main man himself…

 

[Cnaiür urs Skiötha]

The red card is a poor excuse, we played badly before. Having a front 4 of Ronaldo, Bruno, Pogba, Sancho and creating zero chances is just awful.
Yes we got enough top players to beat anyone and sometimes bang in quite a few, but is the football good? For 95% I would say no.
It seems a bit like with England - a fantastic group of players getting wasted.

I am still not Ole out though, would be ridiculous at this stage. Just saying that with this squad I would expect us dominating and creating much much more.

 

[stw2022]

I'm still not sure what we are as a team. What our tactical outlook is. One of the things for me that has worried me for a while (even before he turned up) is that unlike other top sides there's never any consistency in how we play. Other top sides lose and occasionally play poorly but you can usually expect them to try and win the game playing a certain style of football. Their hallmark might be short passes, pressing, defensive play, focus through the middle, rely on wingers....what's ours? We seem to lack that. Often two United performances side by side over the last few years will look like two totally different teams led by two totally different managers, trained and prepared by two completely different coaching staff. You never know what United you're going to get in terms of how we're going to play.

We lack an identity on the pitch. How would you even describe our style of play beyond 'we signed Ronaldo'? That's always been the concerning thing for me, even when we were playing well. Nobody knows if a team will win their next game but the fact none of us, hand on heart, can even begin to pretend we know how we're going to try to, is concerning. It's why I'm reluctant to acknowledge 'progress' that others are because every performance seems so utterly disparate from the last, how can you judge besides being one of those Teletext fans who looks at the result on screen and from that alone deduces: 'Humm, a win, what a good performance I say' or 'A defeat? This is not good enough!'

 

[CanadianUtd]

Dont worry, plenty of us are just as concerned/critical of his support group as the main man himself…

It’s taken 3+ years to get the team to where they are, bringing in new pieces and getting rid of all the dead weight. Look at Ole’s record/winning percentage in his first 100 games compared to managers in all of United’s history — speaks for itself, all while having done that with dreadful squads.

…maybe this is crazy but how about we give him another run with the squad he’s assembled and see how much better he does now.

 

[LUC1f3R]

Everyone’s got to relax. We were a man down for vast majority of the game. Odds are you lose a game in which you’re down a player in the first half.


…as for “awful coaching”/decision making, anyone who watches the games would know it’s more of a collective than a single person (Ole) calling the shots. You can usually see angles on the bench of Ole and others talking strategies over in game scenarios. Things happen. Especially when you’re short handed a player in a match. It happens.

1) That's okay if we had played against a really good team. But 10 men against Young Boys should be enough to show a fight.

2) For all his decisions, the subs backfired. Makes me wonder what he was discussing. And his lack of tactical nous keeps getting exposed. Many a times, we were saved by a moment of individual excellence than team play.

I'm sure we will win next few games and we will forget about this for a month. Let's see how we manage through Oct/ Nov fixtures. If we are not challenging the table (2-5 points of the leader at least), Ole has to go.