We are bottlers

We are bottlers only because of a lack of quality and depth. I mean Fred is a first team player!!

He should be a fringe squad option at best, if United squads of the 90s were anything to go by.

We had a storied tradition of turning average players into understated superstars. Now we just throw what we have on and hope it works because there are very few quality options on the bench. VDB's situation however is an enigma but that is for another post/thread.
 
The problem is the manager. He is a specialist in lowering expectations & failing to deliver success. We’re also a horribly run club in the board room too, which certainly doesn’t help.

Our next league title is many many many years away. In fact I do not think we will win another league title until The Glazers, Woodward & Ole are all gone. We need a complete restructure from top to bottom.
 
Chairman Steve said:
This feels more like a one game too many scenario. If we had just gone out to a mid-table team like Soton, Leeds or Villa then I'd be right there criticising about bottling it.

But we played the 3rd best team in England at their ground (who are only a point behind us), after we played the 2nd best team in Italy at their ground three days ago (of which I think we've only won there once ever before the match)

And the 3rd best team in England had the week off to prepare for us too.
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Sorry but not giving our disgraceful team performance today that excuse to let them off the hook, moaning about tiredness and complaining that Leicester had a significant advantage due to them not playing on Thurs is not going to wash with me and know many won't agree with that but frankly not bothered
 
Bobcat said:
Are you wumming?

A whole season worth of football, of course you are going to have some shite results and performances here and there. Right now there are 4 teams left in the FA cup, does that mean that everyone else bottled it?

Leichester went out in the EL against Slavia Prague, a team whose record transfer is a mind boggling 4 million£, are they bottlers too? Are we double bottlers since we lost to a bunch of bottlers? Leichester lost their CL place to us last season after giving up a 12(?) point lead post lockdown, if they bottled it against the double bottlers, does that make them triple bottlers?
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I am not. But clearly you have lowered expectations from the club.
 
The Oracle said:
I think the word 'shambolic' pretty much sums it up.

It's as if they downed tools today.

At least go out with a bit of fight.
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I am not saying this United team are 'bottlers', I agree with @ivaldo and others' point that just because we go out of cup competitions that doesn't necessarily mean there's an issue of mentality. My worry with the manner of our exits from tournaments is how meek, and often downright terrible, many of the performances have been in these crunch matches, but I think the factors behind this collection of matches are more tangible than a weak mentality; the squad not being good enough to compete on several fronts, both Ole's squad and in-game management leaving much to be desired are better starting points than going straight for 'bottlers'.
 
Zen86 said:
It’s all ifs and buts at this point, but Fred-Matic really doesn’t work as a partnership nor did VdB, Martial, Greenwood and Pogba. It’s done now though so nothing to do but move on.
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I just don't think there was much choice on that starting 11. I agree they weren't good enough, but think that is down to poor squad depth rather than any choices Ole could make.
 
ivaldo said:
No it isn't just about this game ffs. We beat West Ham and Liverpool to get here. We beat Everton in the league cup. We beat Milan earlier in the week and Real Sociedad prior. If we had gone a stage further and got knocked out, it would be a mentality issue. If we had lost those games it would have been chalked down as a mentality issue. If we got knocked out even earlier, it's a mentality issue. If we got to the final and lost it would be a mentality issue. Unless we fecking win it it's a mentality issue, right?

Its the same shit posted every single time irrespective of when we go out or who we lose to. If we win the EC then is it no longer a mentality issue? It's half arsed and tedious, and falls down the instant you apply any degree of critical thinking.

You know why we lost today? Because we had shite like Matic and Telles playing. It's because VDB has barely played this year. It's because Pogba was unfit. It's because Martial is in terrible form. It's because Fred was tasked to do something he isn't capable of doing. It's because Bruno wasn't playing and Rashford is knackered. It's simply because our squad isn't currently good enough to hit the consistency over multiple cups we require. If we won today, beat Southampton then lost to City in the final we would have this same conversation. We've put in great performances when it mattered, and we've put in shite performances like today in a league game. Our form in the cup is no different to our form in the league. In fact, it's frightening how consistent our inconsistency over all competitions is.
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Well said. This thread being bumped today is....I'm not sure what the right word is.....a disgrace? An embarrassment? Further proof that our fans get what they deserve?
 
Bobcat said:
Since 2000 we've won the FA cup twice. So stop with the disingenuous bullshit about "lowering expectations", becuase its not a competition we win very often.

We lost to a very good team that had a full weeks worth of rest compared to our 36 hours.
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The fact that we want to win it is lowering our expectations. We were outclassed by Leicester. Swap both manager and the result would’ve been the same.
 
Darlington Padgett said:
The fact that we want to win it is lowering our expectations. We were outclassed by Leicester. Swap both manager and the result would’ve been the same.
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We wanted to win it in 2010 but got beat by Leeds in the 3rd round. Was that team bottlers?

If Leicester swap managers with Slavia Prague would the result have been different when they went out of the Europa league a few weeks ago? Or are they bottlers too?
 
Leftback99 said:
We wanted to win it in 2010 but got beat by Leeds in the 3rd round. Was that team bottlers?

If Leicester swap managers with Slavia Prague would the result have been different when they went out of the Europa league a few weeks ago? Or are they bottlers too?
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I never said we were bottlers, I said we were outclassed by a Leicester.
I never said Leicester is doing better than us, I just said it was clear yesterday that Rodgers is twice the manager.
 
Darlington Padgett said:
I never said we were bottlers, I said we were outclassed by a Leicester.
I never said Leicester is doing better than us, I just said it was clear yesterday that Rodgers is twice the manager.
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Does that make Ole twice the manager Pep is for beating City a couple of weeks ago?
 
Leftback99 said:
Does that make Ole twice the manager Pep is for beating City a couple of weeks ago?
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I'm not basing it on one result. He's clearly the better manager. He can't seem to get world-class players to string 3 passes together. What is exactly our game plan when we can't hit a team on the counter? Why does a midfield with Pogba and Bruno Fernandes got dominated by Tielemans and Ndidi?
He beat pep is this years trophy right? Last year we had the top 6 table. How is that going this year? We only beat Everton, West Ham and Villa from the top on the first half of the season.
 
Darlington Padgett said:
I'm not basing it on one result. He's clearly the better manager. He can't seem to get world-class players to string 3 passes together. What is exactly our game plan when we can't hit a team on the counter? Why does a midfield with Pogba and Bruno Fernandes got dominated by Tielemans and Ndidi?
He beat pep is this years trophy right? Last year we had the top 6 table. How is that going this year? We only beat Everton, West Ham and Villa from the top on the first half of the season.
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You said it was clear yesterday who is the better manager. Winning one game proves nothing. Was Rodgers proving he's 'clearly the better manager' when they collapsed in the top 4 race last year?

Tielemans and Ndidi are excellent players that would walk into our team. I've also seen plenty of Leicester games where they can't string 3 passes together.
 
Nothing to do with bottle. If you can't compete in big games because the midfield is always overrun, you're going to not get results in those games. Its a lack of quality in our build up and defensive transitions, both of which are midfield responsibilities.
 
I don’t think that we are bottlers - we are just not very good individually and collectively to get by on the occasions when the odd spark of creativity -or opponent cock up -does not come along to save us - for every game we have played well we have played a game equally as bad.

Takes us older supporters back to the 1980’s pre Fergie - and Fergie pre 1993 days - good one week, lucky to get away with it some weeks, then terrible/abject every now and then.

Upshot is that we are mediocre and frustratingly show no tangible sign that this will change much going forward without further heavy spending in the transfer market - but where to start?

Apart from Shaw and Fernandes, literally every other position we all have our doubts about the personnel available to us at present....they aren’t bottlers - just not very good....
 
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spontaneus1 said:
We are all thinking it so someone should say it. The vast majority of our players have shown they can only do it when the pressure is off. I am 80% certain we will go away to Leipzig next week and lose. All but a few simply aren't winners. We bottled top 4 in Oles first season, we tried our best to bottle in last year. Then we managed to crash out vs Sevilla in the Europa league play offs because the players just won't score when it matters.

It's the same reason why we embark on great runs of form and as soon as we get into contention for anything we go to shit again. The players can't handle the pressure.
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Your cnut loves bottles.
 
When the manager doesn’t have any bottle can’t complain the players don’t.
 
Even if we win on penalties, feck me this is woeful
 
We put Liverpool back in the UCL and made a hash out of this game.
 
Di Maria's angel said:
Careful, he'll remember this post for years.
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His name does him a lot of justice, was absolutely ridiculous that day. All that "evidence" he posted proves to be very true. I am sure he isn't honest enough to ever come back on it.
 
We didn’t bottle it but we were extremely meek and risk averse here. Almost zero courage.
 
Don't know whether we are bottlers or not but this game has given me a very Mourinho vs Sevilla vibe.
 
Cant be bottkers after that. 11 - 10 on pens after coming fron a goal down ffs
 
Shocking performance and we can't even bring anyone off the bench to make any difference.

Weak squad, Ole overall out of his depth sadly
 
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