What's the reason for our poor away record?

BusbyMalone

First Man Falling
Joined
May 22, 2017
Messages
10,362
So with yesterday's defeat, we've now lost as many away games as Everton. Which is...yeah. Shocking.

It's not just the results, but the number of goals we're shipping, too. 4 to Brentford, 6 to City, 3 to Villa, 3 to Arsenal, and obviously 7 to Liverpool.

We're at a -12 goal difference after yesterday's loss. And this is against a West Ham side who have hardly been formidable at home this year.

I know fatigue and a poor squad is a factor, but our home form has actually been really good. So that doesn't explain it all, really. The disparity between our home and away form is huge.

What's the issue here?

 
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Lack of control in midfield, certain error prone players who need to leave and bad finishing to take advantage of the periods when we play well.
 
It's probably a compounding problem. The players are aware of the poor record and have it in the back of their minds, which in turn leads to more of a loss of confidence when things go wrong and the cycle continues.
 
ArmchairCritic said:
Lack of control in midfield, certain error prone players who need to leave and bad finishing to take advantage of the periods when we play well.
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Massive issue for me. We don't have any midfielder who can take control when the game gets away from us. Their first instinct is to immediately look for a long, over-the-top ball, or to pass it on as soon as possible.
 
Not converting chances (bad coaching), inferior and energyless midfield, terrible goalkeeping (including distribution) and lack of focus leading to individual errors.
 
No control in midfield, no goal scorer. It’s a miracle we did so well for so long.
 
Yeah, it has to be a mental issue, because our home record is actually really good. Liverpool have played two more home games than us so far, but if we win those two home games, we're only second to City in the home game league table.
 
-12, not 21...

Part of it is flukey. Not taking the chances we create, not taking advantage of our good periods, opponents being clinical or being gifted goals... Away games are difficult, as evidenced by us having the 5th best away record despite just how bad it's been. Mostly it's mentality IMO.

The big matches against the best teams (City, Arsenal, Liverpool, Newcastle) have all been batterings and really shit in every way. Deserved losses, should've been worse vs Newcastle and Arsenal if anything. Brentford is in a different bucket, battering but opening day of season and last season hangover thing, probably would've been in this second bucket. The games against the mid tier sides have been pretty much even performances, decided by mental lapses, finishing, etc. Fulham was us not being clinical but getting over the line anyway, but it should've been comfortable Even just looking at the xG:
  • Spurs - 1.97 to their 2.37, stopped playing after going 2 up for whatever reason (mental)
  • Brighton - 1.32 to their 2.1 (of which 0.8 or so is the pen which should never have happened). Need to score your chances, this one swung for them
  • Villa - 0.52 to their 0.58. Nothing game from both.
  • Chelsea - 0.73 to their 1.2 (0.8 or so is the pen conceded out of nothing, again take your chances earlier in the game)
  • Fulham - 3.38 to their 1.7 (we won, but made it hard for ourselves)
  • Palace - 1.39 to their 0.41 (take your chances, don't concede a 90th minute screamer)
  • West Ham - 1.19 to their 1.77 (take early chances, don't palm them a goal to then kill our confidence and give them confidence).
We have been on the wrong side of variance in all of these really. Not that they have been good, but you'd think even just replaying these that they would go differently (even if still needing improvement, just better results). 7 games all played roughly even to the opposition, but all where we've had atrocious finishing, all where we gifted the opposition goals or penalties, all where we just stopped playing for a period and that period got punished. Though I guess you can say this variance here was just evened out in some home games or cup games where, so it is what it is.
 
we don't enough quality to control tough away games but we're not adjusting our tactics accordingly
 
I don't think people realise how open we are as a team. To make matters worse we aren't the most athletic team either so don't have enough players to mitigate potential threats.

Look at us and there are times where Eriksen and Bruno are all in advanced positions. We also have Rashford who barely tracks back so our left hand side is completely exposed and I feel this is where we consistently get carved up as a team.

The Newcastle and Sevilla games this happened time and time again. Same with Brighton in the Cup final. The positions we take on that side of the pitch create gaps and spaces to exploit and Casemiro and Eriksen are far too slow to cover the gaps. We've seen Casemiro flying into tackles in open channels so often.
 
If we were a bit more composed when in possession at the back and under the press, we’d be able to create space and find those line breaking passes.

Martinez does this so well but Shaw and Lindelof as good as they are, aren’t looking for those open channels of play to launch an attack. They are more suited as no-nonsense defenders which means we are relying purely on our non-existent midfield for creativity.
 
bosnian_red said:
-12, not 21...

Part of it is flukey. Not taking the chances we create, not taking advantage of our good periods, opponents being clinical or being gifted goals... Away games are difficult, as evidenced by us having the 5th best away record despite just how bad it's been. Mostly it's mentality IMO.

The big matches against the best teams (City, Arsenal, Liverpool, Newcastle) have all been batterings and really shit in every way. Deserved losses, should've been worse vs Newcastle and Arsenal if anything. Brentford is in a different bucket, battering but opening day of season and last season hangover thing, probably would've been in this second bucket. The games against the mid tier sides have been pretty much even performances, decided by mental lapses, finishing, etc. Fulham was us not being clinical but getting over the line anyway, but it should've been comfortable Even just looking at the xG:
  • Spurs - 1.97 to their 2.37, stopped playing after going 2 up for whatever reason (mental)
  • Brighton - 1.32 to their 2.1 (of which 0.8 or so is the pen which should never have happened). Need to score your chances, this one swung for them
  • Villa - 0.52 to their 0.58. Nothing game from both.
  • Chelsea - 0.73 to their 1.2 (0.8 or so is the pen conceded out of nothing, again take your chances earlier in the game)
  • Fulham - 3.38 to their 1.7 (we won, but made it hard for ourselves)
  • Palace - 1.39 to their 0.41 (take your chances, don't concede a 90th minute screamer)
  • West Ham - 1.19 to their 1.77 (take early chances, don't palm them a goal to then kill our confidence and give them confidence).
We have been on the wrong side of variance in all of these really. Not that they have been good, but you'd think even just replaying these that they would go differently (even if still needing improvement, just better results). 7 games all played roughly even to the opposition, but all where we've had atrocious finishing, all where we gifted the opposition goals or penalties, all where we just stopped playing for a period and that period got punished. Though I guess you can say this variance here was just evened out in some home games or cup games where, so it is what it is.
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Think it's a big thing to score first in away games, outside of Tottenham where we should have seen the game out from 2-0.

But even West Ham yesterday, before the goal they looked garbage, the goal and the nature of it energised the stadium and West Ham players who went on to be the better team for a lot of the game.

If we score first not only does it play into our strengths currently on the break, but can settle us down as a team.
 
DRJosh said:
If we were a bit more composed when in possession at the back and under the press, we’d be able to create space and find those line breaking passes.

Martinez does this so well but Shaw and Lindelof as good as they are, aren’t looking for those open channels of play to launch an attack. They are more suited as no-nonsense defenders which means we are relying purely on our non-existent midfield for creativity.
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Martinez is such a massive miss. Talking about a lack of control, he actually brings it. He's very comfortable on the ball, and he's great with his distribution. As you say, Shaw and Lindelof have been great, but they're not Martinez. And of all the games for him to get injured in, it had to be that garbage Europa League game.

Fecking hate that competition with a passion.
 
Baneofthegame said:
Think it's a big thing to score first in away games, outside of Tottenham where we should have seen the game out from 2-0.

But even West Ham yesterday, before the goal they looked garbage, the goal and the nature of it energised the stadium and West Ham players who went on to be the better team for a lot of the game.

If we score first not only does it play into our strengths currently on the break, but can settle us down as a team.
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Yup. Playing away from home and literally gifting the opposition a goal in the premier league is one of the hardest things to come back from. Just the nature of how you concede kills your confidence, gives the opposition confidence, and makes it that much more difficult.

The Spurs game, yeah we just threw that game away despite taking the lead, but the point is still valid IMO.
 
Didn't Ole go 29 games unbeaten away from home, with a midfield set of Fred, McTominay, Matic, Pogba and Bruno?

I think we need to approach games differently. Maybe set up to counter teams more. ten Hag has two of his 8's pushed onto press, which means, if teams beat the press, we become heavily exposed. This happened both against Brighton and West Ham, and had the two had better decision making/finishing in the final third, then we'd have conceded a lot more than we did.

I think, if we sit off teams, and defend in a 442, as apposed to a 4141, we could potentially be harder to beat. Maybe, putting in someone more solid next to Casemiro, too. Fred is the obvious option. A bit like Ole used to do with Fred and McTominay, who, although not majorly creative, on the whole, we were hard to beat, and the record speaks for itself.

I also think finishing on our behalf is a massive factor, too. Against Brighton, if we score the first goal, which we had plenty of occasions to do so in the first half, then we probably go onto win.



Home:

Martial
Rashford Eriksen Bruno Antony
Casemiro
Shaw Martinez Varane Dalot
De Gea

Away:

Rashford
Sancho Bruno Antony
Fred Casemiro
Shaw Martinez Varane Wan-Bissaka
De Gea​
 
Mentality. We have too many weak minded players in our team. ETH still has a way to go to get rid of them.
 
We need a consistent, high energy, strong tackler as no.8 next to Casemiro, Caicedo in other words, to make up for Fernandes' high risk high reward passes and floating positions, Rashford/Antony's general untidiness and lack of technicality from the full backs. Until we have all that fixed, we will struggle with one defensive player in front of the defence against the hard opponents. I think with a new keeper, new striker, Caicedo next to Casemiro and Amad on the right it'd be a huge transformation in the tough games.
 
bosnian_red said:
-12, not 21...

Part of it is flukey. Not taking the chances we create, not taking advantage of our good periods, opponents being clinical or being gifted goals... Away games are difficult, as evidenced by us having the 5th best away record despite just how bad it's been. Mostly it's mentality IMO.

The big matches against the best teams (City, Arsenal, Liverpool, Newcastle) have all been batterings and really shit in every way. Deserved losses, should've been worse vs Newcastle and Arsenal if anything. Brentford is in a different bucket, battering but opening day of season and last season hangover thing, probably would've been in this second bucket. The games against the mid tier sides have been pretty much even performances, decided by mental lapses, finishing, etc. Fulham was us not being clinical but getting over the line anyway, but it should've been comfortable Even just looking at the xG:
  • Spurs - 1.97 to their 2.37, stopped playing after going 2 up for whatever reason (mental)
  • Brighton - 1.32 to their 2.1 (of which 0.8 or so is the pen which should never have happened). Need to score your chances, this one swung for them
  • Villa - 0.52 to their 0.58. Nothing game from both.
  • Chelsea - 0.73 to their 1.2 (0.8 or so is the pen conceded out of nothing, again take your chances earlier in the game)
  • Fulham - 3.38 to their 1.7 (we won, but made it hard for ourselves)
  • Palace - 1.39 to their 0.41 (take your chances, don't concede a 90th minute screamer)
  • West Ham - 1.19 to their 1.77 (take early chances, don't palm them a goal to then kill our confidence and give them confidence).
We have been on the wrong side of variance in all of these really. Not that they have been good, but you'd think even just replaying these that they would go differently (even if still needing improvement, just better results). 7 games all played roughly even to the opposition, but all where we've had atrocious finishing, all where we gifted the opposition goals or penalties, all where we just stopped playing for a period and that period got punished. Though I guess you can say this variance here was just evened out in some home games or cup games where, so it is what it is.
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Yeah, the -20 was against the top 9. I'll change that in the OP. Agree that's it's mostly mentality though.
 
I think this team knows they will get overrun at some point of the game so they lose confidence. There was no reason to play long ball yesterday since we had very good ball-playing midfielders, but they are afraid to lose the ball because midfield can barely chase players at this point.

The confidence of some players (De Gea...) is shot as well.
 
justboy68 said:
It's probably a compounding problem. The players are aware of the poor record and have it in the back of their minds, which in turn leads to more of a loss of confidence when things go wrong and the cycle continues.
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This is the best suggestion yet. It becomes self perpetuating. Players start to associate everything that is involved with away games (travel, staying in hotel, hostile atmosphere etc etc) with bad outcomes and that gives the opposition a psychological advantage. The more bad outcomes that result the more entrenched our sense of inferiority becomes when we walk out in front of an away crowd.

There’s extremely fine margins between success and failure in elite sport and we know how superstitious and highly strung footballers are. It’s the exact same rationale for our great home record, only in reverse.

I definitely don’t buy into the idea that there is some fundamental tactical or footballing difference between home and away games. It’s still 11 v 11, at the end of the day. The only plausible difference has to be psychological.

On the plus side, it shouldn’t be a difficult vicious cycle to break. All it takes is 2 or 3 good away results in a row and that belief will start to build again.
 
Walters_19_MuFc said:
Didn't Ole go 29 games unbeaten away from home, with a midfield set of Fred, McTominay, Matic, Pogba and Bruno?

I think we need to approach games differently. Maybe set up to counter teams more. ten Hag has two of his 8's pushed onto press, which means, if teams beat the press, we become heavily exposed. This happened both against Brighton and West Ham, and had the two had better decision making/finishing in the final third, then we'd have conceded a lot more than we did.

I think, if we sit off teams, and defend in a 442, as apposed to a 4141, we could potentially be harder to beat. Maybe, putting in someone more solid next to Casemiro, too. Fred is the obvious option. A bit like Ole used to do with Fred and McTominay, who, although not majorly creative, on the whole, we were hard to beat, and the record speaks for itself.

I also think finishing on our behalf is a massive factor, too. Against Brighton, if we score the first goal, which we had plenty of occasions to do so in the first half, then we probably go onto win.



Home:

Martial
Rashford Eriksen Bruno Antony
Casemiro
Shaw Martinez Varane Dalot
De Gea

Away:

Rashford
Sancho Bruno Antony
Fred Casemiro
Shaw Martinez Varane Wan-Bissaka
De Gea​
Click to expand...

Yeah, when there were no crowds, which kind of renders it meaningless.
 
Walters_19_MuFc said:
Didn't Ole go 29 games unbeaten away from home, with a midfield set of Fred, McTominay, Matic, Pogba and Bruno?

I think we need to approach games differently. Maybe set up to counter teams more. ten Hag has two of his 8's pushed onto press, which means, if teams beat the press, we become heavily exposed. This happened both against Brighton and West Ham, and had the two had better decision making/finishing in the final third, then we'd have conceded a lot more than we did.

I think, if we sit off teams, and defend in a 442, as apposed to a 4141, we could potentially be harder to beat. Maybe, putting in someone more solid next to Casemiro, too. Fred is the obvious option. A bit like Ole used to do with Fred and McTominay, who, although not majorly creative, on the whole, we were hard to beat, and the record speaks for itself.

I also think finishing on our behalf is a massive factor, too. Against Brighton, if we score the first goal, which we had plenty of occasions to do so in the first half, then we probably go onto win.



Home:

Martial
Rashford Eriksen Bruno Antony
Casemiro
Shaw Martinez Varane Dalot
De Gea

Away:

Rashford
Sancho Bruno Antony
Fred Casemiro
Shaw Martinez Varane Wan-Bissaka
De Gea​
Click to expand...
The stadiums were empty, he wouldn't have gotten close to that if the stadiums were filled with raging oppo fans.
 
Mentality and physicality. It's a physically small and weak squad that aren't up for any kind of battle when the going gets tough.
 
Lack of pace
Lack of pressing
Playing out from the back against teams that press and play with tempo
Being overrun in midfield
Slow build up lets teams defend against us easier
Slow passing, get pressed, lose the ball
Lose our heads when we go behind. We're no longer the comeback kings.
 
I posted this in another thread.

I find it a bit odd the way people talk about this issue, "we need to fix our away form".

The reason City and Arsenal win more away games than us is because they can actually pass a fecking ball like an elite football team is meant to pass a football.

The way to "fix" your away form is to become a better football team. It's very unlikely to be something specific that we're currently doing wrong in our approach away from home that we can just stop doing by flicking a switch.

Away games are more difficult than home games. Combine that fact that we're not very good, you're going to have a lot of difficult trips on the road.

By elite teams standards we're below par at playing out from the back, the ball retention all over the pitch is often horrendous, we don't have any competent striker, and don't create enough chances. All these factors result in us finding ourselves under too much pressure and turning the ball over and gifting the opposition transitions which causes our defence problems.

If we were smashing teams at home 4-0 every week, then it would be a different story. But we're still mostly scraping close wins at home and then hanging on for dear life in the final minutes as we defend our penalty box from an aerial and set piece onslaught because our team is too incompetent to retain possession of a football. Which signals if you put this team in the more difficult equivalent fixture away from home, those narrow wins very easily become draws and losses.
 
Walters_19_MuFc said:
Did any other team do it during that period?
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No, but we were 6th in terms of home record. Also the league average away record was better than the league average home record that year. Shit balances out, and on the balance it showed that playing away with no crowds was easier than playing home. Makes sense too:
  • Home games you are expected to do better, and have the crowd normally to back you
  • Expectation remains but crowds were gone meaning it became more difficult, an easier to play the spoiler role
 
Weak mentality is one thing, but such a big part of this, is that we cannot score enough goals, since we are lacking a striker (and generally quality up front). We have scored more than two goals away from home once this season, and that was against Man City after they had already thrashed us easily. When you struggle that much with scoring there is no margin for an individual mistake, some bad luck, or just the opponent having momentum at home. We got away with 1-0 away victories against Southampton, Leicester and Wolves this season, but then against Crystal Palace, for example, we are undone by a great freekick, because we can't kill the game.
 
Mike Smalling said:
Weak mentality is one thing, but such a big part of this, is that we cannot score enough goals, since we are lacking a striker (and generally quality up front). We have scored more than two goals away from home once this season, and that was against Man City after they had already thrashed us easily. When you struggle that much with scoring there is no margin for an individual mistake, some bad luck, or just the opponent having momentum at home. We got away with 1-0 away victories against Southampton, Leicester and Wolves this season, but then against Crystal Palace, for example, we are undone by a great freekick, because we can't kill the game.
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Yeah, true. Errors that would normally be a bit of a hindrance, are magnified with this team because of our inability to score. It leads to positions where free kicks and corners at the end of games become huge. And with that, comes added pressure. That wonder goal freekick that Palace scored would ordinarily be a consolation goal where even you, as a United fan, would go "fair play"

Instead, it was a massive goal that resulted in us dropping two points. It's infuriating.
 
I feel its all down to our attack. We never score early, or during the moments when we're on top, to give the relieve the pressure off of the rest of the team.

There is also a matter of lack of composure in midfield, but this is also helped by the fact that our failure to score keeps the opposition fighting and working their socks off. Scoring from the chances we create should demoralize opponents.
 
The goalkeeper and the forwards for me.

De Gea has been guilty of costly errors leading to opening goals, even before yesterday.

Our attackers have been guilty of missing early chances throughout the entire campaign. I always feel if we don't bag one before the half hour mark we struggle, heads drop, individualistic traits start to come out, moaning etc.
 
It's like when we played slightly better during lockdown and opposition teams played slightly shitter. Our team bottle things more than a Coca Cola factory when they're in front of a hostile crowd. Couple that with mental fatigue from a long season, with shit loads of travelling around Europe, the same players being picked because our squad depth just isn't there. Not to mention that our midfield can't usually control a game, and when they do the only attacking player who can do anything with the ball has a one track "I'll go for the shot no matter what" mind, so we waste chances constantly. And our best defensive pairing have barely played together.

Add all of that to our players buckling at the first sign of pressure, and falling back into the "we're shit aren't we?" mindset that has been building in this club since Moyes, and you get to where we are.
 
NotoriousISSY said:
The goalkeeper and the forwards for me.

De Gea has been guilty of costly errors leading to opening goals, even before yesterday.

Our attackers have been guilty of missing early chances throughout the entire campaign. I always feel if we don't bag one before the half hour mark we struggle, heads drop, individualistic traits start to come out, moaning etc.
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Even the oppo fans are targeting De Gea whenever he attempts a pass; it doesn't exactly transmit a lot of confidence to our players. Add to this a midfield that can't control a game and an attack that's blunt and the reasons start to pile up.

Hope to god our fans are in great voice for the cup final and make it seem like a home game, perhaps they can trick the players minds into thinking the game is at Old Trafford :D
 
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