Why is our passing so garbage?

I knew there was a thread about our garbage passing, so I had to bump it after last night.

Yes we won, great. But the passing was shocking, truly awful.

Nearly every pass either overhit or underhit. Misdirected or miscontrolled. And painfully slow too, although I suspect the reason it was so slow was because if we attempted to up the tempo, we'd invariably lose possession again!

A moment that stood out for me was in the 2nd half. Garnacho had the ball outside the left corner of their 18 yard box, and attempted a routine 5 yard pass inside to Bruno. Instead of passing to Bruno's feet, the ball must have been misdirected by about 4 or 5 feet, forcing Bruno to stretch for it and lose possession, resulting in a Fulham counterattack.

Shit like this was happening all night, but that one stuck with me because it was a situation where we were in a dangerous attacking position, and through sheer lack of basic passing technique we found ourselves out of possession and having to stop a Fulham counterattack. Better teams than Fulham would have punished us.

Can a coach improve these basic fundamentals or do we just need to sign players that can pass the ball accurately over 5 f**king yards?!
 
Not sure why you’ve felt compelled to mention it based on yesterday, as it’s always terrible and has been for a long time. The players aren’t up to the technical standard and we probably need to buy players who are as you say. Let’s see whether we improve under the current manager.
 
Offside said:
Not sure why you’ve felt compelled to mention it based on yesterday, as it’s always terrible and has been for a long time. The players aren’t up to the technical standard and we probably need to buy players who are as you say. Let’s see whether we improve under the current manager.
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I felt compelled to mention it because our passing was particularly garbage yesterday!
 
Been the same for a long time, pass speed is pretty woeful across the team - it's like certain players know others are nervous and won't zing it into them at the speed they need to. Martinez and Bruno are the two who seem to be way more aggressive with their speed of passing, there needs to be a lot more of that in general.
 
The technical quality has been lacking almost 10 years now, when it comes down to close control - first touch - composure under pressure in passing. There's been glimpses of Bruno, Martial, Mainoo now be the standout players in that department, but as a squad it's been very very rare to see us score *pass the ball to the net kind of goals*.
 
tomaldinho1 said:
Been the same for a long time, pass speed is pretty woeful across the team - it's like certain players know others are nervous and won't zing it into them at the speed they need to. Martinez and Bruno are the two who seem to be way more aggressive with their speed of passing, there needs to be a lot more of that in general.
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This is massively underestimated when it comes to how teams play. When your pass is slow, your teammate has to come to the ball or hold their defender at bay while it travels to them. It gives the opposition time to attack it and nick the ball. If nothing else it slows down the game and allows the opposition to gently track the movement of the ball at their leisure.

Sharp, quick and accurate passing has to be one of the fundamentals of pretty much every technically good team.
 
I know we're looking for a much more deep reason here, but it's just because we have poor players who are either scared/anxious and have a weak mentality, or who are just not good at passing.

We play against most teams who would traditionally be below us, and they tend to go for the jugular because it's a huge deal to beat United for them still. They will press and harass our weak mentality/technically poor players and they will inevitably mess up all their passes.
 
mctrials23 said:
This is massively underestimated when it comes to how teams play. When your pass is slow, your teammate has to come to the ball or hold their defender at bay while it travels to them. It gives the opposition time to attack it and nick the ball. If nothing else it slows down the game and allows the opposition to gently track the movement of the ball at their leisure.

Sharp, quick and accurate passing has to be one of the fundamentals of pretty much every technically good team.
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Yeah - agreed. There's a time and place for slower passing but if we are trying to move an opponent up the pitch, it has to be much punchier.
 
A big issue is lack of off the ball movement. We are, apart from Bruno, Licha, Amad and Eriksen (when he plays), extremely static. Most of our players simply dont present proper passing options for the team mates, and then when you add on a lack of quality in passing from, funny enough everyone but the abovementioned 4, it compounds in to us having abysmal passing.
 
tomaldinho1 said:
Yeah - agreed. There's a time and place for slower passing but if we are trying to move an opponent up the pitch, it has to be much punchier.
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Yeah, one and two touch passing with tempo to inject some pace into the game. We rarely do this.
 
Lyng said:
A big issue is lack of off the ball movement. We are, apart from Bruno, Licha, Amad and Eriksen (when he plays), extremely static. Most of our players simply dont present proper passing options for the team mates, and then when you add on a lack of quality in passing from, funny enough everyone but the abovementioned 4, it compounds in to us having abysmal passing.
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Agreed, our movement, passing speed, anticipating 50/05s we look worse than everybody we play, and we have done since the last 3 months of ETHs 1st season, we are trash and it blows my mind, part of me thinks this is just beyond our players, then watch our movement and how we were passing against Liverpool clearly they can do it,

I am not sure that confidence was not just decimated by ETH last season when we were playing the most ridiculous system and conceding 20+ shots a game
 
Lyng said:
A big issue is lack of off the ball movement. We are, apart from Bruno, Licha, Amad and Eriksen (when he plays), extremely static. Most of our players simply dont present proper passing options for the team mates, and then when you add on a lack of quality in passing from, funny enough everyone but the abovementioned 4, it compounds in to us having abysmal passing.
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100% this. You can observe this in pretty much every game. One of our defenders has the ball, but he doesn't have an easy passing option apart from another CB because our DMs and WBs don't seem to want the ball. Yesterday with Bruno playing DM it looked a bit different but not much because he drops deep and is in the same predicament as the CBs, no one make himself available to receive a pass. The thing is, every other team in the league can do it. They all have players offering easy passing options, but our players are too lazy to move and have too little awareness on where to move to offer an easy passing option. That's why I always say the majority of players neither have the physical nor the mental quickness to play in the PL. It's also the reason we lose so many second balls and always seem a step late. We field 5–6 players each week who neither can anticipate where they need to be nor have they got the pace to be there in time.
 
We need to sign some Spanish midfielders. That will sort this out… Spanish know how to keep possession.
 
It was touched on by RA, but our CB’s also need to take some responsibility in this as well, Licha seems to be the only CB to drive forward with the ball or play a line splitting pass, to try and disrupt the defence.
 
Offside said:
Not sure why you’ve felt compelled to mention it based on yesterday, as it’s always terrible and has been for a long time. The players aren’t up to the technical standard and we probably need to buy players who are as you say. Let’s see whether we improve under the current manager.
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People complain about simple passing and technique and then in the same breath want to light Old Trafford on fire when it's suggested that we want to sell Garnacho because he's "the future" (even though the future can't complete simple passes after 2+ years of top level football)
 
Valencia Shin Crosses said:
People complain about simple passing and technique and then in the same breath want to light Old Trafford on fire when it's suggested that we want to sell Garnacho because he's "the future" (even though the future can't complete simple passes after 2+ years of top level football)
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Meh, he's a 20 year old who has explosive moments. He can learn better decision making and develop his technique. There was a time a young Giggs or later Ronaldo looked like they could barely pass a football across a field, even if capable of exceptional skill. Garnacho isn't on that level but he's still produced some real quality. He could be 7 years away from his prime, while you're right about his basic play it would still be crazy to sell.

What's more concerning to me are the experienced players, like Rashford and Fernandes for example, who still play like raw talents trying things with about 1% of them coming off.

When players like Rooney, Giggs, Yorke were out of form they used to get a lot of stick, but players like that come back into form by doing the basics right and eventually everything else will flow. When players like Fernandes and Rashford aren't on form, you have to put up with genuinely dog shit Championship standard passing and decision making, control etc for months. This is where we have gone wrong even in the better examples of our recent recruitment.
 
Oscar Bonavena said:
I knew there was a thread about our garbage passing, so I had to bump it after last night.

Yes we won, great. But the passing was shocking, truly awful.

Nearly every pass either overhit or underhit. Misdirected or miscontrolled. And painfully slow too, although I suspect the reason it was so slow was because if we attempted to up the tempo, we'd invariably lose possession again!

A moment that stood out for me was in the 2nd half. Garnacho had the ball outside the left corner of their 18 yard box, and attempted a routine 5 yard pass inside to Bruno. Instead of passing to Bruno's feet, the ball must have been misdirected by about 4 or 5 feet, forcing Bruno to stretch for it and lose possession, resulting in a Fulham counterattack.

Shit like this was happening all night, but that one stuck with me because it was a situation where we were in a dangerous attacking position, and through sheer lack of basic passing technique we found ourselves out of possession and having to stop a Fulham counterattack. Better teams than Fulham would have punished us.

Can a coach improve these basic fundamentals or do we just need to sign players that can pass the ball accurately over 5 f**king yards?!
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The one that takes the cake, the funniest one for me was from one Bruno when he point Garnacho to run and instantly made a lob directly to the rival's chest to later clattered the fella.
I'm serious, I love that stuff in football too...my neigbourhood club was always in second or third division and we where mostly terrible, lots of the fun of going and watch them and support them was lots of plays like that, it's fun too and it feels better to support them 'cause they really need that.
It's football in its essence too. Social media has ruined such stuff too.
 
Offside said:
Meh, he's a 20 year old who has explosive moments. He can learn better decision making and develop his technique. There was a time a young Giggs or later Ronaldo looked like they could barely pass a football across a field, even if capable of exceptional skill. Garnacho isn't on that level but he's still produced some real quality. He could be 7 years away from his prime, while you're right about his basic play it would still be crazy to sell.

What's more concerning to me are the experienced players, like Rashford and Fernandes for example, who still play like raw talents trying things with about 1% of them coming off.

When players like Rooney, Giggs, Yorke were out of form they used to get a lot of stick, but players like that come back into form by doing the basics right and eventually everything else will flow. When players like Fernandes and Rashford aren't on form, you have to put up with genuinely dog shit Championship standard passing and decision making, control etc for months. This is where we have gone wrong even in the better examples of our recent recruitment.
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My entire point is players with poor technique are always going to be players with poor technique.

You don’t suddenly become a technician with excellent weight of pass and touch in your mid 20’s if you were poor technically your entire career.

So when you put together a team (especially in attack) of players like this, don’t be shocked when they struggle to play quality passing football
 
Escobar said:
I think he would be perfect for us
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He was very good in the Euros in the context of a team that plays like a team and understands the traits and flaws of everyone around. He can perfectly work, yet...

I dunno right now how he is doing in PSG but Fabian was incosistent as hell the two seasons I've watched him with PSG while Ney/Kiki/Messi where there...to be fair even Verratti and Vitinha had some serious drop in their level in those days. A new Verratti would have been excellent for United right now.

Yet the thing with him it's that United needs more players with more United vintage character, than Fabian's one.
Also it's time for United to at some point buy a proper VERY HIGH PROFILE name too, not bashing on Ruiz's qualities but like United have been avoiding buying a consolidated striker/forward, or trully snatching from some other club an emerging and proven young player a la Writs and such, the cicle of Mounts, Eriksen's, Rasmus, would never end.

Casemiro was that bet, it didn't work, but United can't stop trying to obtain a couple of those high profile consolidated fellas.
Also type of personalitis must be taken in account too, to buy a Pogba and not expecting to be Pogba alike, its plain wrong. Fabianmight perfectly work, not saying he might not, but he has a calm, low profile, somtiems too langid approach for what United recently demands from the past. Also he is almost 29, United should be try to aim for a Valverde type, a Wirtz a Verratti if exits if the player is young (while helping what already has in the youth deparment) and try to snatch some high profile mid from another club.
 
Valencia Shin Crosses said:
My entire point is players with poor technique are always going to be players with poor technique.

You don’t suddenly become a technician with excellent weight of pass and touch in your mid 20’s if you were poor technically your entire career.

So when you put together a team (especially in attack) of players like this, don’t be shocked when they struggle to play quality passing football
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All in all taking in account this last game and with the reference made by Oscar (glorius nick as always) in his opening post, was kind of weird? misplaced?.

Mostly because in this last game Garnacho actually made some great controls, even some flair plays, dared to dribble more (included the play that ended in the goal).

I'm not Alejandros' biggest fan, not my cupe of tea players with his style mixed with some Cris antics. Yet last couple of games he looked returning to his best self of what he already shown sometimes in the team.

I've been reading quite a lot lately that you don't learn touch, etc...yeap it's mostly true, but touch, timing, the dare to dribble of a player can seriously be affected by lack of fitness and/or lack of confidence due to sometimes just not being in the right place mentally. That is pretty common, even for Maradona (in his case he still be, yet he won't be THE Maradona).

As an example talked a lot lately, I'm not saying that Rasmus is Van Basten, but you can bet that even if limited technically a player, his touch, control, everything will be affected if your head it's not there. If you are too anxious, etc. it doesn't matter if you are Messi or Rufete, it will affect your game and even some of your best traits, plus worse it will expose even further the aspects a player it's not great or merely fine.
 
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