What is wrong with the way we play?

redshaw said:
It's pretty damning that they sold Caicedo and Mac as well and only brought on Evans at 85 mins that some fans want us to spend eye watering sums on. Had all these started some would be saying it's these players beat us handily and we should buy them.
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I saw a clipping this morning that the first 11 they played yesterday cost 18.3million Euros. One of the players cost 8.3 mil. Dalot was like 18-19 mil I think when we bought him.

Watching the game yesterday man for man I’m not sure there was any player they had out that I would have taken over the group we had, yet man for man they played us off the park so that has to come down to coaching.
 
Andersons Dietician said:
I saw a clipping this morning that the first 11 they played yesterday cost 18.3million Euros. One of the players cost 8.3 mil. Dalot was like 18-19 mil I think when we bought him.

Watching the game yesterday man for man I’m not sure there was any player they had out that I would have taken over the group we had, yet man for man they played us off the park so that has to come down to coaching.
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Spot on mate. It’s worrying times for ETH.
 
I’m sorry to disrupt the delusion of the OP that we must not name the one constant through all these managers, the Glazers. They’re wrecked the ship that was built by the previous owners.

The assholes have no idea how to put a winning football club together. To use a metaphor, they keep trying to rebuild the engine while the plane is in flight by bringing in big names that are either overhyped or not built for purpose. Lukaku? Maguire? Pogba? Ronaldo? Sancho? Antony? Contract extensions to preserve value??? No real thought goes into building a squad around an idea of how to play football.

We’re all reacting to yesterday’s debacle but this thread asks a deeper question of how and why we got here after 10 seasons of shit. The answer is not hard to find.
 
We will see our style of play once it clicks. How we played for a period against Barcelona is the blueprint for ETHs football, but I don't think he has the personality to implement it.

It happened with Arsenal and Arteta where they had no identity but as soon as things clicked you could see what style of football they were trying to play.
 
- Bad tracking back when opponents commit numbers into the box. When they get 3 or 4 players into the box our midfielders and wingers arent back there

- We sign players to run around in midfield rather than to get on the ball, probe, dominate and find the front players and our best forward isnt very good at setting up teammates. Ages using Fred and McTom and talking them up, signing Mount rather than Maddison and so on.

- We revert back to progressing quickly skipping midfield and counter attacking with pacy players because from the outside, it doesnt even look like we're trying to have control and lots of work and passing in the midfield ala Scholes or someone like that who would get the ball deep, find a teammate, make a run forward, ask for the ball back, find another teammate, take it back and switch play. We have midfielders who get the ball, find a fine sideways pass and thats it they're happy with their contribution.

- At the current time we're over-obsessing about "playing it out from the back" when we have very little idea of how to play in the final third and playing out from pressure mostly ends with nothing evne when done well. Put that time, effort and investment into getting our attacking players to already be a step ahead and know what each other are doing because they've been drilled with good patterns of play.

- Didnt invest in a new CB and our best CB last season is now coming back from an injury and looking a lot worse at the moment
 
More often than not, when Casimero has a bad day, we have a bad day. In 5 games, we have conceded about 6 goals from a late run not being tracked by our DM.
We also lack creativity from the right and a lot of selfishness from the left.
Missing Hojlund and Amarabat for the start has also hurt us but we finished 3rd without them last season so that is a bit of a biased excuse.
 
lex talionis said:
I’m sorry to disrupt the delusion of the OP that we must not name the one constant through all these managers, the Glazers. They’re wrecked the ship that was built by the previous owners.

The assholes have no idea how to put a winning football club together. To use a metaphor, they keep trying to rebuild the engine while the plane is in flight by bringing in big names that are either overhyped or not built for purpose. Lukaku? Maguire? Pogba? Ronaldo? Sancho? Antony? Contract extensions to preserve value??? No real thought goes into building a squad around an idea of how to play football.

We’re all reacting to yesterday’s debacle but this thread asks a deeper question of how and why we got here after 10 seasons of shit. The answer is not hard to find.
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Exactly. It’s so frustrating when you see media and opposition fans going ‘well they have spent XYZ, they’re backed the managers’. But there is no strategy at all to build a squad. They have just left the manager to do what they please which is a disaster should it not work out, and this has happened multiple times now. The biggest issue the structure above the manager. We should have the best DOF in the world. I worry this is the influence of Sir Alex himself. We are still stuck in the mindset that the manager rules all. Times have changed and we are now so far behind other well run clubs with the correct structure.
 
Missing 1 or 2 midfielders that can run ..
We have started with Erikson and Casemiro the last few games..
The slowest midfielders in the league ..
We have seen guys like Cunha run directly across our.midfield and we could do nothing..
We needed athletic and fit players in the middle..
We got none ..
 
Ten hag is starting to make too many excuses, how can you say it's unfortunate the goal was ruled out by VAR? The ball was out of play

He then says we are not in a crisis, we can pull it back if we follow the plan.

What is the plan? Because I can't see it
 
I've started thinking about this recently too, I'm just so frustrated with watching us.
It can't be 5 different managers, they've all had their own players and yet our "style" of play always seems the same. Go slowly to the edge of the area, if we can't get through go back to CB/GK. If we get dispossessed we are attacked at with speed, can't cope and our fragile centre backs look like they belong in non-league.

I honestly think sometimes a transfer ban may do us good. Use the kids who WANT to play. Look at the passion shown by Hannibal, look how much a 20yr old Hojlund puts himself about already and I know a load of us a waiting for mainoo to come back and make our midfielders play
 
Josep Dowling said:
Exactly. It’s so frustrating when you see media and opposition fans going ‘well they have spent XYZ, they’re backed the managers’. But there is no strategy at all to build a squad. They have just left the manager to do what they please which is a disaster should it not work out, and this has happened multiple times now. The biggest issue the structure above the manager. We should have the best DOF in the world. I worry this is the influence of Sir Alex himself. We are still stuck in the mindset that the manager rules all. Times have changed and we are now so far behind other well run clubs with the correct structure.
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Bingo!

Let's just look at this summer's transfer activity and forget about the previous 9 seasons after the insane and foreseeably disastrous decision to bring in the clueless Moyes, whose first act as manager was to bring in the useless Fellaini.

Mason Mount. Did we really need a poor man's version of Bruno Fernandes? Maybe as a backup for Bruno to replace Van De Beek, but did we need to spend 60m on a backup for Bruno? I don't think so and I seriously doubt anyone here would disagree.

Andre Onana. On this acquisition there will be good faith disagreement, but spending 40m to replace De Gea was pretty fukking daft. Yes of course the whole idea was for Onana to "transform" our attack starting from the back, but without defenders who have it in their DNA to play this kind of football having this kind of keeper is useless. We are hardly transformed. Onana admirers may eventually win the day but as it looks through the first five matches there it would be a hard argument to make that Onana is a vast upgrade, or even tiny upgrade, on De Gea. That said, Onana's long ball to Garnacho v Arsenal was brilliant though it did not lead to a decent chance on goal.

Rasmus Hojlund. We actually needed two strikers (Martial, Lukaku, Cavani, Ronaldo and Elanga didn't exactly work out brilliantly for us) but only managed to bring in one, a brilliant one in the making and on this we have to say club management may have got it right. The benefit of the doubt always has to be positive for me, but what cannot be denied is that it's going to take time for Hojlund to grow into the role. That's ok and this is the kind of signing we should be bringing in more of. A risk, but a calculated risk. But I do worry that we're putting Hojlund in a position to fail, not to succeed, given how poorly this club is run.

Soyfan Amrabat. Another good signing, we hope, but why it has taken club management almost 10 years to bring in a proper central midfielder at the right age? It's a loan only, which is a bit odd and I can't see why it had to be only a loan, but it's better than persisting with McTominay. How soon we forget...McTominay started yet again v Brighton and, as usual, was woeful in defense and in attack.
 
Harry190 said:
We can't develop a proper system of play. With a real system, your team doesn't fall apart when you replace a player. Such is the case with City and Brighton.
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This is exactly what we are doing. Problem is we’re doing it more or less from scratch. With injuries to key cogs in the machine.
 
avgp_1 said:
Agree with that last bit. It shows the lack of confidence in our ability to keep hold of the ball and look for the easier glory ball option we keep going with.

It leaves us vulnerable if the key players dont show up, as the rest of the side has no real structure to control games and keep creating openings. It also means we are not flexible enough to work around problems when we face teams who are well prepared. For instance, we tried with a focus on forward pressing this season but when Arsenal and then Spurs and now Brighton adapted in our games we just didnt have any way to play around them and resorted to lazy Hollywood passes.
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Pressing requires a disciplined and integrated team if it is to be effective. Difficult to see how that can achieved when Rashford is a part of the press. He makes it quite clear that he regards himself as being above all that. What is perhaps more baffling is why ETH puts up with it.
 
Hammondo said:
We had a strong period, didn't last.
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It lasted until august 21, until we bought Ronaldo:p So it lasted pretty long. Don’t know why people talk like it lasted for only a couple of months.

In 20/21 we scored 73 (and 44 against). Only City scored more. Last year we scored 58 (and 43 against). I don’t understand why several on this forum claim last season was wonderful; talk about progress all over the place.
 
Obviously htere are loads of flaws and reasons to our performacnces in general over the last decade.

The biggest concern for me over the majority of managers and sides the last decade has been just how easy it has been for teams to cut through us and bypass our midfield.

That was for me still evident towards the tail end of last season and certainly been the case so far this season.

The Mount signing and how he helps a high press I never understood at the time....what high press?

Hopefully a return to form with Casemero added to the additions of Arambat and Mainoo can have an effect with that but there have been quite a few seasons for me over the last decade where bar the newly promoted teams we have looked like one of the most fragile sides without the ball, not just against the biggest sides either.

Its alarming how it is looking that way again so far this season.

Until that is addressed there isnt a hope in hell of us competing for the major trophies, for me its been our biggest achilles heel
 
In possession we seem to have the inability to make simply quick passes around the opponent to control the game.
why ? If Brighton can pass us off the park why can't our team choc full of internationals play a controlled passing game until an opening or chance is found?

out of possession once the opposition beat the high press they can cut through us like a hot knife through butter. We are so Soft centred and have been for years. Im hoping Amrabat and mainoo can become a midfield force and finally resolve a decade of crap midfield. God knows we need it.
 
When EtH joined the club he had a midfield of McFred...the club got Eriksen on a free and then collectively messed around all summer and ended up going after Casemiro for big money. Now you can point the finger in many directions and I would agree with most of them.

But 1 year on the manager is still only 1 injury away from fielding McTom...so you need to go again any buy another CM.

Sadly I can fully imagine the owners being perplexed by any request to buy another midfielder after forking out last summer for Casemiro. But in the premier league if you stand still you get left behind.

*Mount is still way to early to make a judgement call on his success.
 
Yesterday had nothing to with "style of play,". We simply picked the wrong tactics vs Brighton on the day. From the (rotating) diamond that has an inherent weakness vs the 4-2-3-1, to pushing Rashford infield into a second striker role, to attempting a new formation and system vs a well drilled bogey side of recent times, plus poor substitutions and only adjusting the formation when the match was long gone out of reach as a contest. It was a very bad day at the office for ETH and his staff. They didn't provide a a platform for the players to have any chance of success.


I'll be very surprised if they had such a coaching made again
 
RedIan said:
In possession we seem to have the inability to make simply quick passes around the opponent to control the game.
why ? If Brighton can pass us off the park why can't our team choc full of internationals play a controlled passing game until an opening or chance is found?
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... Because we employed a midfield diamond vs their 4-2-3-1. Enabling them to out number us in every phase of play. You'd literally have to be prime Barcelona midfield under pep, or prime United 99 midfield to have any hope to overcome that disadvantage.
 
Who's Kissing Cameras? said:
It’s the coach. ETH has been unable to implement a coherent, possession based, dominating style of play.

If fecking Brighton with Van De Hecke, Lamptey, Steele and Gross can do it, this Utd squad full of internationals sure fecking can.
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I’m not so sure, we’ve heard rumblings for a while that players like Bruno will just do what they want regardless, when Rashford isn’t being asked to be the main man he seemingly gets bored and tries to do everything himself anyway.. good luck coaching martial to actually run sometimes, I fail to see how 3 different managers were asking him not to.. half of the players are just uncoachable, it’s a massive problem and will eventually stop any manager from succeeding
 
Canagel said:
No he wasnt. Pogba was always a left sided 8 in a midfield 3 and we deployed him in a double pivot.

He was misprofiled yet was still so good that he could somehow cover the weaknesses and deficiencies of our far less talented players who were given the keys.

Those same players are still here and we are worse than ever. What a awful post.
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Mate - I agree with you!

Pogba was fundamentally mischaracterised and shoehorned into a role he wasn't fit for - because United haven't prioritised players with any semblance of quality on the ball, especially in deep-lying positions.
 
Andersons Dietician said:
I saw a clipping this morning that the first 11 they played yesterday cost 18.3million Euros. One of the players cost 8.3 mil. Dalot was like 18-19 mil I think when we bought him.

Watching the game yesterday man for man I’m not sure there was any player they had out that I would have taken over the group we had, yet man for man they played us off the park so that has to come down to coaching.
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Being told what to do in training and then going and doing on match day are two very different things.

Just take Sancho for example, I'm sure he knows what time to be at work and how to get there...but still he doesn't do it haha.
 
There are so many reasons, terrible recruitment, inability to sell, unwillingness to move on from players who aren’t good enough etc etc.

I also think even our best players hinder us. Likes of Rashford and Bruno are our best outfield players but they have huge flaws that make integrating them into a successful team very difficult. Rashford doesn’t have the work rate and decision making, Bruno is too erratic and gives it away carelessly way too often.

No one has the answers because the problems are so deep rooted and it just never looks like changing.
 
Litch said:
But were any of those managers any good anyway when they got here? Unproven or on the decline. Its not like they left and went onto to greatness elsewhere.

Good managers are really hard to find and often the only time they are at your club, cause they failed somewhere else.
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I think this is something a lot of United fans keep failing to understand. Not one of these managers we hired had been a top level manager. I had hope with Mourinho and van Gaal because they had the cvs but they were blatantly passed their sell by dates.
Ole was obviously never going to be good enough.
When we got rid of Ole we had an opportunity to bring in a proven and suitably modern day manager and we didn’t.
United fans can bitch and moan about the glazers and how any coach would fail but over all these years if a top coach was brought in who had the knowledge and links in football with the spend we’ve had we’d have had a successful team by now. It’s just frustrating that the Glazers are too fecking thick to bring in a top coach.
 
The inverted forwards is our main problem. It makes our attack vector so narrow and easy to defend against. Where available again, I would put Antony on the left and Rashford on the right. Their primary job is not to score goals but to create them. They will also be more useful defending because they will be hugging the byline with their preferred foot.
 
Marcus said:
The inverted forwards is our main problem. It makes our attack vector so narrow and easy to defend against. Where available again, I would put Antony on the left and Rashford on the right. Their primary job is not to score goals but to create them. They will also be more useful defending because they will be hugging the byline with their preferred foot.
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All the best teams in the past decade have inverted forwards, and you want to hamper our best attacking player by putting him on the right?

Rashford's best asset is goal-scoring. If you put him on the right, you hamper that asset.

Inverted forwards aren't a problem at all.
 
Eddy_JukeZ said:
All the best teams in the past decade have inverted forwards, and you want to hamper our best attacking player by putting him on the right?

Rashford's best asset is goal-scoring. If you put him on the right, you hamper that asset.

Inverted forwards aren't a problem at all.
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True. Although his overall decision making is probably the weakest element of his play which many have interpreted as selfishness and the impulse to shoot from the tightest of angles.
 
Honestly, I haven’t a fecking clue. I thought we were finally starting to build towards a modern cohesive team but it feels as far away as ever. I guess you just keep trying - new players if that doesn’t work then a new manager and the the cycle goes on. Part of me feels that nothing will change under the Glazers as the executive level work at this club is rubbish.
 
As long as we treat our players as commercial assets instead of employees we will have the same issues surface over and over as we've seen in the last decade. Players putting the effort in when their contracts are about to expire, only to revert to their old disinterested selves once they secure their bumper deal. Player power, entitlement and toxicity will run rampant because these folks have an insane amount of job security.
 
Weak mentality. The players aren't internally motivated: they come here for the money and then want to just enjoy the football. Theyre each on their biggest ever contracts and think they've made it just by being here.
 
amolbhatia50k said:
Honestly, I haven’t a fecking clue. I thought we were finally starting to build towards a modern cohesive team but it feels as far away as ever. I guess you just keep trying - new players if that doesn’t work then a new manager and the the cycle goes on. Part of me feels that nothing will change under the Glazers as the executive level work at this club is rubbish.
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Same. Even though i enjoyed our best periods under Ole, it was far from the organized modern football you see other top teams do, and i really thought ETH was the man to take us there. The first year under Klopp Liverpool leaked goals like a broken sieve, but you could still see the tactical change pretty much overnight.

With us now i dont even know what we are trying to do. Its like Oleball in the worst periods, counter attacking and pressing, just fecking terrible at it
 
amolbhatia50k said:
Honestly, I haven’t a fecking clue. I thought we were finally starting to build towards a modern cohesive team but it feels as far away as ever. I guess you just keep trying - new players if that doesn’t work then a new manager and the the cycle goes on. Part of me feels that nothing will change under the Glazers as the executive level work at this club is rubbish.
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Well, I can't pinpoint what Ten Hag's long term side should look like. So it's kind of hard to judge whether it's a case of players failing to adapt to his intended tactics, or if it's a matter of Ten Hag being pragmatic (changing it up). Onana has already taken a step back when it comes to coming off his line. I have to imagine it's by instruction. That's another reason why I'm confused what Ten Hag wants. Did Pep or Klopp give up on his intended tactics that quick? Or were they stubborn, accepted the results that were a product of an incompletion of his intended tactics, and then got rid of players that did not fit to eventually get what he really wanted? Because one thing I've been frustrated with Ten Hag is that he doesn't appear as stubborn in that regard. And if so, what makes this Ten Hag appealing compared to the Ajax one that had them flying?

As dumb as it sounds, the most appealing United looked under Ten Hag was his first preseason. I could understand what United wanted. Now it feels like he might have given up on that which makes this project a dud.
 
I do not buy into the notion of our players, especially midfielders, not being press resistant, or Brighton having superior ball playing midfielders, it is not like Lallana, Goss & Dahoud are superior players to Cas, Eriksen & Bruno.

I believe we have the names to outplay any team, apart from City, the issue I see is mainly we do not play as a unit, everyone does what they want, Bruno only tries to find Rashford, Rashford runs as a headless chicken most of the time, McTom was just being there doing nothing, in previous games, Antony also was just cutting in and being very predictable, Cas making too many basic mistakes in passing, tackles and positioning, Eriksen not able to keep up, we do not press properly, and when we regain possession we rush into things without waiting for the attacking shape to take form, it is very messy, teams cut and slice through us with ease, it is understandable if the players are caught out in transitions, but many times a team can pass through us from the back (GK) to the back of the net (goal scorer) with ease, nothing we do seems working, something if fundamentally wrong with players, it is as if they are not willing to work together as a team.
 
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OmarUnited4ever said:
I do not buy into the notion of our players, especially midfielders, not being press resistant, or Brighton having superior ball playing midfielders, it is not like Lallana, Goss & Dahoud are superior players to Cas, Eriksen & Bruno.

I believe we have the names to outplay any team, apart from City, the issue I see is mainly we do not play as a unit, everyone does what they want, Bruno only tries to find Rashford, Rashford runs as a headless chicken most of the time, McTom was just being there doing nothing, in previous games, Antony also was just cutting in and being very predictable, Cas making too many basic mistakes in passing, tackles and positioning, Eriksen not able to keep up, we do not press properly, and when we regain possession we rush into things without waiting for the attacking shape to take form, it is very messy, teams cut and slice through us with ease, it is understandable if the players are caught out in transitions, but many times a team can pass through us from the back (GK) to the back of the net (goal scorer) with ease, nothing we do seems working, something if fundamentally wrong with players, it is as if they are not willing to work together as a team.
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Totally agree with you. We have been trained to play on the counter for years, it will take more than 2 years to be counter offensive
 
Bobcat said:
Same. Even though i enjoyed our best periods under Ole, it was far from the organized modern football you see other top teams do, and i really thought ETH was the man to take us there. The first year under Klopp Liverpool leaked goals like a broken sieve, but you could still see the tactical change pretty much overnight.

With us now i dont even know what we are trying to do. Its like Oleball in the worst periods, counter attacking and pressing, just fecking terrible at it
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Do you think if all our players are fit and available, we would be playing like we are doing lately?
 
For starters and most important. They are lazy... zero press at all. Just watch Rashford during the game utter disgrace
 
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