The blame lies a little with the manager but primarily with the Glazers and the club executives / recruitment for still only signing who the manager wants. It's outdated by about 10 years.
I think it's a few things;
- Zero movement off the ball.
- No players who can play the ball to those on moving off the ball.
- Lack of technique for first time passes.
- No third man runs.
- Lack of one twos.
- Passing is too lateral, lack of vertically focused passing, passers don't have the ability to make those passes.
- Zero repetitions of play, rehearsal of movement/sequences.
I think the main problem with the way we play is the football. Our players are unable to play when they are pressed. To a man they panic and turn the ball over.
Teams like Brighton are full of players who can keep possession under pressure and then make a simple pass. In fact many times today they were threading incredibly accurate passes between two pressing players to a teammate, who would control the ball quickly despite being tightly marked.
It’s what you should expect from any professional player. So weird that no matter who we sign we can’t get any players to do the simple things well. Is this the fabled “United Way”?
No he wasnt. Pogba was always a left sided 8 in a midfield 3 and we deployed him in a double pivot.United genuinely haven't had a top class ball-playing midfielder since Carrick retired. That's basically the long and short of it.
Pogba was supposed to be that guy but he simply wasn't. United not moving on from him sooner was catastrophic.
The more I think about it, I think if the transfer business was better, LVG would comfortably be our best manager. The football wasn't good to watch but considering the players at his disposal he did well to implement his style of a football.
Liverpool seem to be doing fine with the same owners after being crap for some time.You say don’t say Glazers, but we’ve got a completely different set of players and multiple different managers and it keeps happening. The Glazers are the only consistent part of this whole equation.
EtH hasn’t helped himself with the decision to spend money on a GK this year. Onana’s ball playing skill seem to look equally as disastrous as De Gea’s. I’m not knocking on Obanas ability but he is hardly helped by our static defenders who seem to invite pressure.
Why is Ten Hag’s style wrong? I think it’s mad to think De Zerbi would come in and change our fortunes, it’s so much more complicated than that.
1. Too many of our players are not press resistant.
2. Too many of our players are bad passers.
3. We have way too little possession, which means:
a) We can't dictate tempo
b) We can't dominate the midfield
c) We can't maintain a high line
d) We can't create enough chances
e) We concede too many chances
f) We spend a lot of the time chasing after the ball, which drains energy and inflicts muscle injuries
It ALL comes down to possession. And Erik ten Hag has -- like our previous managers -- been hoodwinked into this entire "United DNA" crap. He clearly wants possession, but our players are more suited to counterattacking, so they regress to that when hitting a wall.
And Ten Hag encourages it. Not only by his selections and decisions like always playing Rashford and Bruno. But also by saying stupid things like he wants to be the best transitional team in the world.
That type of football is dead in the water against a team that will dominate possession. It might work in certain games here and there.
But over the course of a 38-game season, you need consistency. And NOTHING is more consistently a marker for success than possession.
With possession comes more goals scored, and fewer conceded.
It's really dead simple. My 14 year old nephew even understands this.
We can get guardiola in to try set out a style of play but if we don’t have players who can or will put in effort then it will never ever work.
I see kids at grassroots level or boys basically straight out of the pub putting more effort in.
man uniteds dna behind the scenes was always the extra work - doesn’t happen no more Ronaldo hinted at it in that interview.
no heart no effort just £££
I don't know if Ten Hag is better or as good as De Zerbi but I know that his teams can look definitely more coached than what we're seeing. I thought with Jose and Ole, that was the ceiling because there was no evidence they can do any different but Ten Hag has definitely shown he can send out a better team than this. That's not to say he can make a team elite but there is a big difference between what we're seeing and elite.Because he clearly drills his teams better to control a game. And it's really not that complicated, we just have a good knack of making it look that way and our fans lap it up. Look at how managers like Howe came in to Newcastle, who were much worse than us, and had a big impact. Standards are just in the gutter here and there's a million miles of rope given to every manager and unlimited excuses. We must be the only club in the world whose fans think every manager needs a whole new team to play for football.
Just by watching the game you could tell Brighton made far more passes than us. We are so dated and basic, it’s almost becoming embarrassing at the top level. Brighton let the ball move, all of our progression requires either having to run 30 yards with the ball, or chase 30 yards to get it. We cannot move the ball up and down or around the pitch by simply passing it. We cannot pass the ball one touch. We’re just some 90s side hanging on to the past.
The sad thing is I thought that finally, getting an Ajax manager would be the start of our modernisation, but this guy has betrayed all Ajax principles from what I can see.
At the moment, any team that loses to us must be a very poor team. Basic organisation and tactics will outsmart us, so if we win playing a game with little complexity just because Rashford ‘does something’ then you can’t be much.
I don't know if Ten Hag is better or as good as De Zerbi but I know that his teams can look definitely more coached than what we're seeing. I thought with Jose and Ole, that was the ceiling because there was no evidence they can do any different but Ten Hag has definitely shown he can send out a better team than this. That's not to say he can make a team elite but there is a big difference between what we're seeing and elite.
He isn’t attempting to play how he played last season. He is trying to push the team to play a much more aggressive press and it looks like he has not go the team to either understand or buy into it yet.We might have seen the ceiling with that period before the world cup leading up into the league cup final.
We've been pretty poor since then.
We arguably outplay Barcelona in both legs while starting Weghorst and having De Gea in net + a midfield that isn't top level. Now however, we get outplayed by any decent side since that cup final. I was thoroughly convinced he was the man after those 2 legs. We looked better in the Nou Camp that tie than we did under Fergie in 2008 when we just sat back and countered.
Maybe the off-field issues + the uncertainty with the Glazers staying or not is taking a toll. I don't know.
He isn’t attempting to play how he played last season. He is trying to push the team to play a much more aggressive press and it looks like he has not go the team to either understand or buy into it yet.
Casemiros positioning on the pitch from second half of the season is an example of this and in my opinion a reason his form has dipped. Ultimately I think its because last season we did not score enough and he is trying to fix that, but getting it wrong so far
Like ETH said you have to play to the strengths of your squad. That is not valuing possession when we have so many transitional players.I agree that we're trying to be more proactive, but it's worrying that we've got off to a slow start yet again and there's so many off-field distractions.
I do think we don't value possession as much as I thought ETH would though.
Brighton's build-up play was something I thought we'd see here consistently.
I agree. I am still behind him and I thought the period you're talking about was easily our most encouraging period in 10 years. For the first time, we looked pro active and in control of games, not always, but regularly. The Barcelona game was a great example of that and I agree that that was a better performance than 2008. That's what making all of this so bizarre.We might have seen the ceiling with that period before the world cup leading up into the league cup final.
We've been pretty poor since then.
We arguably outplay Barcelona in both legs while starting Weghorst and having De Gea in net + a midfield that isn't top level. Now however, we get outplayed by any decent side since that cup final. I was thoroughly convinced he was the man after those 2 legs. We looked better in the Nou Camp that tie than we did under Fergie in 2008 when we just sat back and countered.
Maybe the off-field issues + the uncertainty with the Glazers staying or not is taking a toll. I don't know.
Like ETH said you have to play to the strengths of your squad. That is not valuing possession when we have so many transitional players.
Whoever we field in midfield is not worse on paper than what they have or what Arsenal had last season. Any PL team should have better build up than we showed today.Even with the same midfielders as last season being the only ones currently available?
