We've been playing second string

SER19

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Apr 15, 2008
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Almost. Our injury problems have been well discussed, and people will reasonably point to some players here, eg Mount, and say his poor form is down to the manager and player rather than anything else. But going into this season, I think the below list is our starting line up as most of us thought it would be. We have played 13 games this season, including the league cup, and this is how many starts our most likely starting XI has made. Not to mention they have almost never played together. I worry about plenty of aspects of our play and am not blind to our problems, but this simply has to be taken into account.

From 13 games this season, number of starts:

Onana 13

AWB 4
Varane 7
Martinez 6
Shaw 2

Casemiro 11
Mount 6
Fernandes 12

Antony 6
Hojlund 8
Rashford 12

Allow for some players to have occasionally been available, but not selected, and even so, it's a huge absence of first team players and it's disingenuous to think continuity isnt important for developing any sort of style. Missing our starting back 4 in particular has been a disaster - for the defence, for the goalkeeper and for our attacking play too especially on the left side where Shaw is a big loss.

Any team would struggle. Whether or not its an excuse for how poor we look in attack, time will tell, but we're patching up a team most weeks and this needs to be considered when talking about our overall assessment.
 
we have two players who consider themselves world class superstars in Bruno/Rashford that have been playing this whole time. Injuries havent made them look pathetic for most of the season. As for the rest of the lineup, there have been other options we couldve tried, and the one time we really went with youth/rotation was against crystal palace in the cup game where we actually looked good. Stop blaming injuries for what seems to be a coaching staffs complete inability to get a system set up that has more often than not included an almost full 11 of international players.

And i say this as someone who was a fan of EtH after him dragging us across the finish line last season and still hopes he is the answer for the future. Fast losing hope though and it has very little to do with the results and more the overall play on the field/his decisions
 
It's the crutch I'm holding on to because we look absolutely hopeless otherwise and for the first time cracks are starting to appear in my staunch support for the manager.
 
We've had our best front three playing many times and they've looked toothless. I hope that we improve - we are dealing with human beings after all - but I don't have much in the way of confidence at the minute, given how badly we've been playing.

Sir Alex's second strings would -batter us-, I'm convinced of that. Obviously a pointless thought exercise but he regularly had 3-4 top class strikers/number 10's to call on, I don't see where the goals are coming from in our team.
 
FerociousCorgis said:
we have two players who consider themselves world class superstars in Bruno/Rashford that have been playing this whole time. Injuries havent made them look pathetic for most of the season. As for the rest of the lineup, there have been other options we couldve tried, and the one time we really went with youth/rotation was against crystal palace in the cup game where we actually looked good. Stop blaming injuries for what seems to be a coaching staffs complete inability to get a system set up that has more often than not included an almost full 11 of international players.
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Yeah the best we played was that Palace game. 70% possession, total domination of every chance in the game, and goals.
 
Exactly, but that wont stop the miserable bunch to call out your post as "excuses" as that is the only thing they can parrot.
 
I don’t think anyone thinks casemiro mount and Bruno is a good enough midfield anymore. Horribly unbalanced
 
Other than Shaw and Martinez the others were available most of the time. You can't expect Varane to play 13 from 13 he can mostly play half of the games.
Also AWB is not a first option necessarily, him and Dalot are at the same level more or less.
 
SER19 said:
Almost. Our injury problems have been well discussed, and people will reasonably point to some players here, eg Mount, and say his poor form is down to the manager and player rather than anything else. But going into this season, I think the below list is our starting line up as most of us thought it would be. We have played 13 games this season, including the league cup, and this is how many starts our most likely starting XI has made. Not to mention they have almost never played together. I worry about plenty of aspects of our play and am not blind to our problems, but this simply has to be taken into account.

From 13 games this season, number of starts:

Onana 13

AWB 4
Varane 7
Martinez 6
Shaw 2

Casemiro 11
Mount 6
Fernandes 12

Antony 6
Hojlund 8
Rashford 12

Allow for some players to have occasionally been available, but not selected, and even so, it's a huge absence of first team players and it's disingenuous to think continuity isnt important for developing any sort of style. Missing our starting back 4 in particular has been a disaster - for the defence, for the goalkeeper and for our attacking play too especially on the left side where Shaw is a big loss.

Any team would struggle. Whether or not its an excuse for how poor we look in attack, time will tell, but we're patching up a team most weeks and this needs to be considered when talking about our overall assessment.
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This is a problem for a lot of other teams though let’s be true.
Off the top of my head.
Arsenal - Partey, Jesus, Martinelli, Timber have been missing .
Chelsea - James, Nkunku, Fofana and a few others.
City - Stones, de Bruyne, Grealish
A few other team like Palace, Forest have had major injuries through the season.

I get that obviously not having injuries is better and you will be better with a fully fit squad but honestly I think people are going to be in for a shock when all our players return and we’re still stinking the place up. I’d also add that some of our players who you’d deem as ‘first on the team sheet’ are the ones who have been horrific this season. Rashford, Onana, Bruno for instance.
I don’t look at this team and think once they get players back they’ll be alright.
The team is broken, structurally and mentally it is on its knees. Once those ‘difficult on paper’ games start coming along the results will reflect.
 
It's just Martinez and Shaw who have been absences truly affecting us. And then past them of course the left back depth just being brutalized with Malacia and Reguillon being injured, and AWB so dalot can't go LB to cover. But positions on the pitch, it's just LCB and LB.

It's a factor, but it's not the reason. We would likely still be shit with them in, because it's a different problem affecting everyone, and not just a problem created due to LCB and LB being backups/out of position players.

And it's fair to mention no Martinez or Shaw against a big team. I think it's a different issue when you are struggling to do anything against relegation candidate level teams.
 
You can build a bridge with this reach.
 
What's the recordw
SER19 said:
Almost. Our injury problems have been well discussed, and people will reasonably point to some players here, eg Mount, and say his poor form is down to the manager and player rather than anything else. But going into this season, I think the below list is our starting line up as most of us thought it would be. We have played 13 games this season, including the league cup, and this is how many starts our most likely starting XI has made. Not to mention they have almost never played together. I worry about plenty of aspects of our play and am not blind to our problems, but this simply has to be taken into account.

From 13 games this season, number of starts:

Onana 13

AWB 4
Varane 7
Martinez 6
Shaw 2

Casemiro 11
Mount 6
Fernandes 12

Antony 6
Hojlund 8
Rashford 12

Allow for some players to have occasionally been available, but not selected, and even so, it's a huge absence of first team players and it's disingenuous to think continuity isnt important for developing any sort of style. Missing our starting back 4 in particular has been a disaster - for the defence, for the goalkeeper and for our attacking play too especially on the left side where Shaw is a big loss.

Any team would struggle. Whether or not its an excuse for how poor we look in attack, time will tell, but we're patching up a team most weeks and this needs to be considered when talking about our overall assessment.
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what's the record when most of the first-teamers have played?
 
A provably cause hypothesis. The truth is that we have some serious squad rebuilding still to do.
 
We’ve been playing our second string defence and largely best offensive players for most of the time.

We have looked somewhat shaky at the back, but not really terrible, and atrocious going forward. Probably even worse with our supposedly strongest setup.

Also if we are not able to handle 2-4 first teamers being out then we will likely never win anything serious anyway.
 
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I think the big issue is that a lot of our injuries have been in the same spot. LB being completely decimated has affected our build up as Shaw progresses the ball better than most full backs in the league. Coupled with Martinez being our main playmaker in that defensive line and you can easily see how we've become slow and ponderous to move the ball forward.

I don't expect us to become world beaters when they come back, but I would expect us to look like top 4/6 challengers. At the moment we play like a bottom half side, and are lucky we've got a bit more quality than the sides down there.
 
It's still an issue that the forward line Rashford is in horrendous form and has scored 1 goal in 12 out of 13 games, the fact Antony is considered first choice at all and that Hojlund is a decent striker but raw at 20 years old and ideally would be rotating with a peak striker, not being relied upon.

Antony has 8 goals in 52 games, not good enough.

With first choice yes we could concede fewer goals but with that forward line in that form, it's hard to see us being much better than average.
 
So Ten hag needs to play his best 11 to play good football? Brighton turned up with about 6 players missing and still did us, every team has injuries
 
Lee565 said:
So Ten hag needs to play his best 11 to play good football? Brighton turned up with about 6 players missing and still did us, every team has injuries
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And City lost two players and started losing points left and right, so much for that generalizing.
 
Also Lisandro Martinez was very poor when he played this season and Shaw is not alien to some awful form himself - in fact he generally tends to play shite when we play shite and well when we play well.
 
Good job pointing out this not obvious fact and I’m sure there’ll be an obvious turnaround when everyone is back, considering how amazing the team has been when everyone was fit.
 
Yes we are. And we're using the squad that ETH has assembled for this very situation which we knew was possible. So of course people are asking questions about how well we used our resources to prepare for it and how well we're performing in it. A lot of our managers have had to deal with lots of injuries one time or another.
 
All teams suffer injuries. Yeah we've had more than average, but it's not like our supposedly very best players have been missing all season. Also we have all of Ten Hag's summer signings available and look no better off for it. The excuses don't wash anymore I'm afraid
 
AndySmith1990 said:
All teams suffer injuries. Yeah we've had more than average, but it's not like our supposedly very best players have been missing all season. Also we have all of Ten Hag's summer signings available and look no better off for it. The excuses don't wash anymore I'm afraid
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It's entirely fair to say that losing such a big swathe of first-choice players is going to impact on overall play. A team is a gestalt, not just the sum of its parts. Take away enough key elements and the ones that remain are going to struggle to play coherently or maintain any momentum.

Some positions we have struggled to field our third-choice player. Shaw out. Malacia out. Reguilon out as soon as he's in. Dalot unable to cover because he's now the only RB because AWB out. That's the story of a single position. Similar situations at CB and RW.

I don't care how the raw numbers compare to other teams' injury lists, that is undeniably a serious injury crisis.

It's an excuse, of course. The players who have played and underperformed are still responsible for that underperformance. But you're allowed to factor an injury crisis like that in.
 
Second team or not, let's get back to the basic. What's our style of play under ETH?

The second string should beat Copenhagen with ease but we struggled big time and need to save a last minute penalty. WTF.
 
MackRobinson said:
What's the recordw

what's the record when most of the first-teamers have played?
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It doesnt really matter. Stick the best 11 players in the world together for one match, and it's very likely there'd be no real definite sense of style as a team.

If youre building a team, you need as much of your first XI to play together as much as possible - it isn't a controversial opinion.
 
Yakuza_devils said:
Second team or not, let's get back to the basic. What's our style of play under ETH?

The second string should beat Copenhagen with ease but we struggled big time and need to save a last minute penalty. WTF.
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But Bayern or Galatasaray didnt beat them with ease either. They're a well organised team, and very nearly knocked us out of europe a couple of years ago too. We should of course be getting through that group, I'm not saying we shouldn't, and I would have hoped for more last night again, but every position on the pitch is so important nowadays and we had mctominay and amrabat together at the heart, maguire played well but is a sub, reguilon is an emergency loan signing. Thats impactful
 
Lee565 said:
So Ten hag needs to play his best 11 to play good football? Brighton turned up with about 6 players missing and still did us, every team has injuries
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Not only that, we cannot assess him until he has been allowed to replace the entire squad and even then he can only be judged if he’s allowed to bring his first choice signing in every single position (including his preferred backups). Until all of that has happened he needs to be absolved of any blame for our performances.
 
SER19 said:
It doesnt really matter. Stick the best 11 players in the world together for one match, and it's very likely there'd be no real definite sense of style as a team.

If youre building a team, you need as much of your first XI to play together as much as possible - it isn't a controversial opinion.
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More than that, it's been demonstrated to be a statistical fact. The league is almost always won by a team who managed to play the majority of their first-choice XI for a high percentage of their games. When that isn't true of the winners, it tends at least to be true of the runners-up.
 
evil_geko said:
Exactly, but that wont stop the miserable bunch to call out your post as "excuses" as that is the only thing they can parrot.
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That's exactly what it is though - an excuse. And it's not as if ETH's stubbornness and refusal to rotate hasn't contributed to our injury crisis.
 
AndySmith1990 said:
All teams suffer injuries. Yeah we've had more than average, but it's not like our supposedly very best players have been missing all season. Also we have all of Ten Hag's summer signings available and look no better off for it. The excuses don't wash anymore I'm afraid
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We didn't though - Hojlund joined injured, Mount was injured.

I think the importance of a back 4 in particular is being ignored. Every time we've even looked close to a competent team post Ferguson, there was a functional back 4. Every succesful ferguson team was at its best with a consistent back 4. We've played Evans and Maguire, we've had amrabat at left back or lindelof at right back. This is elite sport and every PL team will exploit vulnerabilities.

I stand to be proven wrong obviously, and never expect a long run of full fitness for every player, but this has been a particularly bad run.
 
SER19 said:
Almost. Our injury problems have been well discussed, and people will reasonably point to some players here, eg Mount, and say his poor form is down to the manager and player rather than anything else. But going into this season, I think the below list is our starting line up as most of us thought it would be. We have played 13 games this season, including the league cup, and this is how many starts our most likely starting XI has made. Not to mention they have almost never played together. I worry about plenty of aspects of our play and am not blind to our problems, but this simply has to be taken into account.

From 13 games this season, number of starts:

Onana 13

AWB 4
Varane 7
Martinez 6
Shaw 2

Casemiro 11
Mount 6
Fernandes 12

Antony 6
Hojlund 8
Rashford 12

Allow for some players to have occasionally been available, but not selected, and even so, it's a huge absence of first team players and it's disingenuous to think continuity isnt important for developing any sort of style. Missing our starting back 4 in particular has been a disaster - for the defence, for the goalkeeper and for our attacking play too especially on the left side where Shaw is a big loss.

Any team would struggle. Whether or not its an excuse for how poor we look in attack, time will tell, but we're patching up a team most weeks and this needs to be considered when talking about our overall assessment.
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Yet, iconically, some of the worst performers are the ones that have played the most games...

Bruno, Casemiro, Rashford and Onana.

Regardless of injuries, there has been enough talent on the field for each game to be seeing more than we have.

I don't remember a season where we have been so poor in the first two and a half months of the season. Bar a league cup game, we have been pretty poor in every game this season.
 
SER19 said:
We didn't though - Hojlund joined injured, Mount was injured.

I think the importance of a back 4 in particular is being ignored. Every time we've even looked close to a competent team post Ferguson, there was a functional back 4. Every succesful ferguson team was at its best with a consistent back 4. We've played Evans and Maguire, we've had amrabat at left back or lindelof at right back. This is elite sport and every PL team will exploit vulnerabilities.

I stand to be proven wrong obviously, and never expect a long run of full fitness for every player, but this has been a particularly bad run.
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I agree the back 4 has been a mess. However, most managers and coaches make tactical tweaks to limit the pressure put on the defense.

Playing pedantic football only increases it. We simply don't score, don't create and dont finish the chances that do somehow come our way and that has nothing to do with a makeshift defense. Relying on Shaw to be the creative outlet when Rashford occupies the same wing is a ridiculous excuse.
 
Villa have been without their first choice CB, LB, LW, and CM all season and don't seem to be having any problems playing good football.

People are massively overrating the effect Shaw and Martinez have on our performances.
 
That’s a shocking first xi after the money we’ve spent.
 
SER19 said:
It doesnt really matter. Stick the best 11 players in the world together for one match, and it's very likely there'd be no real definite sense of style as a team.

If youre building a team, you need as much of your first XI to play together as much as possible - it isn't a controversial opinion.
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According to your numbers it most likely has been just one match.

Injuries are so common that this needs context. Most teams suffer from injuries and suspensions. If it’s happening to other squads it a pointless excuse
 
As usual, this is not an either/or situation. The injuries to our first teamers have been a very important factor in the club's failure, but doubtless it is not the entire story.

Other important issues inlude the chaos at the club in terms of ownership and upper level management, where (again as usual) the Glazers have their greedy fingerprints all over the mess we're in. Certain players have been and continue to be way out of form (eg Bruno, Rashers, etc), and ETH is clearly still finding his way in the EPL. This doesn't mean all the players are 'just shit' or that none of them care, nor does it mean we should sack the manager. But the combined situation results in our players being extremely lacking in confidence, which is why good players come here and become poor players.

All of this can change, but I don't think it will until the unifying thread is torn from the heart of UTD- the owners.

I also believe that we, the fanbase, are contributing to the pressure on the manager and players by relentless negativity. Pressure breeds lack of confidence. I want to add that confidence often seems to be viewed on here as a sort of optional extra, or even an excuse for bad play when it's lacking. On the contrary, confidence is central to why good teams are good.

Imagine, if you will, a striker closing in on goal; if the striker is confident, scoring is easy and fun, and is performed like an instinctive action. If there's no confidence, by contrast, the player is watching him/her self from the outside, expecting to fail, worrying how stupid he's gonna look if he does fail, and finally...Failing! Confidence is absolutely central. Look at Rashford at the moment for a study in the lack of confidence. We, at least to an extent, have made him that way.
 
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