Workrate

Four of the top six running teams are most likely to finish in the top six points-wise as well. Which does make a simple geezer like me wonder if it's a great thing to be bottom.
Any stats gurus have correlating tables for last season, ie over 38 games instead of 5?
 
712 said:
Four of the top six running teams are most likely to finish in the top six points-wise as well. Which does make a simple geezer like me wonder if it's a great thing to be bottom.
Any stats gurus have correlating tables for last season, ie over 38 games instead of 5?
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There is one on page 3 in the middle, although not distance covered as a whole, but average wise.
 
PedroMendez said:
I don´t think that sitting deeper is the problem. A lot of teams to it successfully and Mourinho always organized his teams this way. The problem is, that we lack quality and coherence in midfield. We had a billion threads about this during pre-season, discussing how we´d line up. No-one expected that Pogba + Fellaini would be the go-to partnership and it is not hard to see, that those two player don´t create a good duo in this position. Herrea is not and never will be a DLP/DM so adding him won´t solve the problem.
I think it is fair to say, that Mourinho himself still hasn’t figured out how he needs to set up the team.
Our 3 DMs are Carrick (who is old and declining), Schweinsteiger (who is out) and Schneiderlin (who never got a look). I struggle to come up with any convincing lineup, that doesn´t include at least one of those three players. I am not concerned about losing a couple of games or about mediocre performances. I am concerned about another manager – who got every player he wanted - coming up with weird lineups that shoe-horn player into strange roles.
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I think with our team sitting deeper is the problem at the moment. You're right Mourinho's teams have always done it and done it well however with the likes of Madrid etc they caught out teams on the counter so much better by being compact and once winning the ball breaking with speed. We've certainly got pace in the team but I feel we don't pressurise opposition teams enough to win the ball back effectively to then spring a counter attack. Im also quite surprised weve not yet seen Carrick or at the least Schneiderlin used as the DM. Hererra may never be a DLP or a DM but I think he can be a solid all round midfielder once given the opportunity. I personally want to see either Carrick or Schneiderlin then paired up with Herrera and Pogba in a trio. What happens with the forward line I don't know but I would like to see a trio in the middle.
 
PedroMendez said:
I don´t think that sitting deeper is the problem. A lot of teams to it successfully and Mourinho always organized his teams this way. The problem is, that we lack quality and coherence in midfield. We had a billion threads about this during pre-season, discussing how we´d line up. No-one expected that Pogba + Fellaini would be the go-to partnership and it is not hard to see, that those two player don´t create a good duo in this position. Herrea is not and never will be a DLP/DM so adding him won´t solve the problem.
I think it is fair to say, that Mourinho himself still hasn’t figured out how he needs to set up the team.
Our 3 DMs are Carrick (who is old and declining), Schweinsteiger (who is out) and Schneiderlin (who never got a look). I struggle to come up with any convincing lineup, that doesn´t include at least one of those three players. I am not concerned about losing a couple of games or about mediocre performances. I am concerned about another manager – who got every player he wanted - coming up with weird lineups that shoe-horn player into strange roles.
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What frustrates me is that we continually buy players in midfield that don't fit the system we're intending on playing. We've bought Pogba and play him in a midfield 2 despite most of us moaning at France for doing the same thing. Pogba played at Juve in a midfield 3, thats where he excels. We bought Schneiderlin who's best football came from playing alongside Wanyama (a destroyer) yet play him along non destroyers. We bought Fellaini and play him as a destroyer despite his best position being an attacking midfielder. Schweingsteiger was a terrible signing and Herrera gets constantly dicked about by every manager we've had.

I know this might be an odd suggestion. But how about we buy a midfielder that has played consistently as part of a midfield 2 if thats the formation we're going to play for the entire season? How about we actually buy a fecking destroyer for once and don't give me this bullshit about how we're Manchester United and we shouldn't buy destroyers because it's negative football blah blah blah. Fact is that there are games when we really do need a genuine destroyer, someone who will play dirty, roll up their sleeves and have a battle and win back the control of the game. Fellaini simply cannot do this because he fouls too much.

To put this into perspective:

Idrissa Gueye - 6.2 tackles per game, 1.2 interceptions and 0.8 fouls
Marouane Fellaini - 3.2 tackles per game, 2.2 interceptions and 2.2 fouls

Fellaini is one of the highest fouling players in the Premiership this year. What we need is a bloody destroyer, someone who's actually good at this tackling lark. But Pogba will struggle for a while playing in a midfield 2, if we really want to see his best form then we need him higher up the pitch and that means a midfield 3.
 
RedSky said:
What frustrates me is that we continually buy players in midfield that don't fit the system we're intending on playing. We've bought Pogba and play him in a midfield 2 despite most of us moaning at France for doing the same thing. Pogba played at Juve in a midfield 3, thats where he excels. We bought Schneiderlin who's best football came from playing alongside Wanyama (a destroyer) yet play him along non destroyers. We bought Fellaini and play him as a destroyer despite his best position being an attacking midfielder. Schweingsteiger was a terrible signing and Herrera gets constantly dicked about by every manager we've had.

I know this might be an odd suggestion. But how about we buy a midfielder that has played consistently as part of a midfield 2 if thats the formation we're going to play for the entire season? How about we actually buy a fecking destroyer for once and don't give me this bullshit about how we're Manchester United and we shouldn't buy destroyers because it's negative football blah blah blah. Fact is that there are games when we really do need a genuine destroyer, someone who will play dirty, roll up their sleeves and have a battle and win back the control of the game. Fellaini simply cannot do this because he fouls too much.

To put this into perspective:

Idrissa Gueye - 6.2 tackles per game, 1.2 interceptions and 0.8 fouls
Marouane Fellaini - 3.2 tackles per game, 2.2 interceptions and 2.2 fouls

Fellaini is one of the highest fouling players in the Premiership this year. What we need is a bloody destroyer, someone who's actually good at this tackling lark. But Pogba will struggle for a while playing in a midfield 2, if we really want to see his best form then we need him higher up the pitch and that means a midfield 3.
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I totally agree with all of that. The manager has to make up his mind about the system (at least in broad terms) and the club needs to buy players that fit this system. That is one of my major complaint since SAF left. We buy players without any idea how to use them and shoehorn them into roles, where they struggle to perform. I don´t think that we necessarily have to field a destroyer, but if we use a system, that needs one, we shouldn’t have to use Fellaini or Herrera in this role.

I thought that Schweinsteiger and Schneiderlin both would be important this season, yet Mourinho clearly decided early, that he doesn´t trust them. Why didn´t we buy someone for this position? There are various options out there. We should have gone all out for Krychowiak, but sadly he is now playing for PSG.
 
PedroMendez said:
I totally agree with all of that. The manager has to make up his mind about the system (at least in broad terms) and the club needs to buy players that fit this system. That is one of my major complaint since SAF left. We buy players without any idea how to use them and shoehorn them into roles, where they struggle to perform. I don´t think that we necessarily have to field a destroyer, but if we use a system, that needs one, we shouldn’t have to use Fellaini or Herrera in this role.

I thought that Schweinsteiger and Schneiderlin both would be important this season, yet Mourinho clearly decided early, that he doesn´t trust them. Why didn´t we buy someone for this position? There are various options out there. We should have gone all out for Krychowiak, but sadly he is now playing for PSG.
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Jose really spend world record transfer fee without knowing/planning how to play him? Did he read the user manual from Juv? Or he read it but decided not to follow coz he's got his own way?
 
CS@SG said:
Jose really spend world record transfer fee without knowing/planning how to play him? Did he read the user manual from Juv? Or he read it but decided not to follow coz he's got his own way?
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I don´t know and I am not saying that Jose doesn´t know what he is doing. It is early in the season and everything might come together. Still after the experience of the last years, I have little blind trust left.
 
shaggy said:
No surprise that us and Chelsea are near the bottom. Conte and Mourinho are very very similar in their play-styles.
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Actually both have a big problem in their squad
 
Jesus Christ! 464.8km for us :lol:

I reckon that actually has its disadvantages you know? I reckon it contributes to our consistency problems, then again. We don't have any Euorpean football to worry about so I dunno.
 
All you have to do is compare Chelsea vs United.

Look at Chelsea's midfield/attack during the Jose v2.0 era

Matic/Ramires-Cesc
Willian-Oscar-Hazard
Costa

Literally, the only passenger on the team was Cesc and he was very well shielded by Oscar and Matic. Than, you had Dave Azp that shielded JT's lack of pace and Willian covering quite a lot for Ivanoic. The team was setup so well defensively because of Jose and the players he had starting on the team. He got rid of passengers like KDB, Schurrle, Salah, Lukaku, Mata, etc.

Compare that to current Manchester United and you can see the huge difference.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Some interesting stats in this article. So we may be bottom of the distance covered league, while last year we were in 3rd place but we've made more sprints under Mourinho than we did under Van Gaal. Which gives a different perspective on the thread title.
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That is interesting. In terms of Mourinho's impact then, it seems we now shoot more, cross more, pass less and run less (but sprint more). And Pogba is the only player in the squad to have run more than 10km in every appearance. If only we could do something about our shot accuracy and chance conversion rate, we'd be laughing (see Stoke!).
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Some interesting stats in this article. So we may be bottom of the distance covered league, while last year we were in 3rd place but we've made more sprints under Mourinho than we did under Van Gaal. Which gives a different perspective on the thread title.
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Thanks for sharing, interesting read that.

The difference as regards sprints isn't big though - 23 sprints per game. The difference between Mou's United and Liverpool is nearly 55 sprints per game.
 
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The higher number of sprints suggests we're trying to use our energy in a smarter manner so let's see how that works out over the season.

Also, with all the stats and technology in the game these days, I'm sure Mourinho and his staff have looked at how much influence there is on winning matches over the course of the season through covering more distance (which will surely help the team during the game) versus ensuring the players are fit for as long as possible. Seems like he's on the side of keeping your best players fit even if they don't work as hard.
 
Considering we usually sit back a lot deeper than LVG's team, the amount of sprints should go up by a lot since we have to run more to attack in their half. 2nd balls from hoofing ball might help that too.

Still the overall ground coverage is not impressive and it shows in results mostly on both ends of the pitch for us, imo.
 
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I wonder if it will translate to us having fresher legs in the second half of the season. I also would like to know what the distance covered stats were like under Fergie in some of our successful latter years, because it didn't really seem like we ran a lot then either in retrospect.
 
What is promising from that article is that to get the wins during LVG time we had to have a fairly high conversion rate at the start. Yet right now we have a fairly poor conversion rate per goal. Now as we saw last season that lack of shots continued, however the conversion rate as expected droppped back down to more normal levels. So it is likely that as the season goes one our current poor conversion rate will improve, and if we keep the number of shots up, we should be scoring a lot more goals than last year.
 
justboy68 said:
I wonder if it will translate to us having fresher legs in the second half of the season. I also would like to know what the distance covered stats were like under Fergie in some of our successful latter years, because it didn't really seem like we ran a lot then either in retrospect.
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It didn't for City last season, they were 19th in the distance covered table and struggled to make the top 4. I wondered why their record vs the top half teams was terrible. Now I see why, they were a bit static. You can't take many points vs the top teams without matching their movement. Now, under Pep, the only game which City lost is the only game in which they were outrun.
 
jojose said:
Its a marathon not a sprint.
We'll be there or there abouts.
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It's a beatiful analogy but ultimately pointless. Because those who win marathons cover more distance per, say, minutes, at least in the final stretches. If one systematically covers less distance (per game), he/she cannot win the marathon. In other words, the analogy would make sense, if United were to outrun the rivals in the second half of the season. Which isn't going to happen because of the style Mou is implementing. And that's worrying. And very strange because his best teams seemed to work very hard.

I'm failry certain that if we don't improve our work rate, we'll struggle in most games vs top teams. LVG's team covered 10km more per game than Mou's team, ffs. And it looked terribly static.
 
Treble said:
It's a beatiful analogy but ultimately pointless. Because those who win marathons cover more distance per, say, minutes, at least in the final stretches. If one systematically covers less distance (per game), he/she cannot win the marathon. In other words, the analogy would make sense, if United were to outrun the rivals in the second half of the season. Which isn't going to happen because of the style Mou is implementing. And that's worrying. And very strange because his best teams seemed to work very hard.

I'm failry certain that if we don't improve our work rate, we'll struggle in most games vs top teams. LVG's team covered 10km more per game than Mou's team, ffs. And it looked terribly static.
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Talk about over analysis. My point was we are 7 games in. New manager, new team, new style.

We have stepped it up a notch in terms of performance in the last couple. I expect that to continue and us to be very good November through to March, then its the run in and we'll be involved.

I don't think we look static in the slightest. Certainly more fluidity in our play than under LVG. Look at the Juan Mata goal, the best goal we have scored for some time.

Jose looks to defend narrow and compact and dispossess rather than press. That requires less work. So in terms of how we defend, work rate is irrelevant as he only has Zlatan pressing / working. When attacking its the opposite, unlike LVG he doesn't want centre forwards running channels, he wants Zlatan as a static focal point who is in the box. The fluidity then comes from the wide men and pogba and mata. Its starting to work fine. Stop being a big girl.
 
jojose said:
Talk about over analysis. My point was we are 7 games in. New manager, new team, new style.

We have stepped it up a notch in terms of performance in the last couple. I expect that to continue and us to be very good November through to March, then its the run in and we'll be involved.

I don't think we look static in the slightest. Certainly more fluidity in our play than under LVG. Look at the Juan Mata goal, the best goal we have scored for some time.

Jose looks to defend narrow and compact and dispossess rather than press. That requires less work. So in terms of how we defend, work rate is irrelevant as he only has Zlatan pressing / working. When attacking its the opposite, unlike LVG he doesn't want centre forwards running channels, he wants Zlatan as a static focal point who is in the box. The fluidity then comes from the wide men and pogba and mata. Its starting to work fine. Stop being a big girl.
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That's very naive, IMO. Time will show though. Anyway, there is no successfull team out there that doesn't work hard, including Barca and Real.
 
Treble said:
That's very naive, IMO. Time will show though. Anyway, there is no successfull team out there that doesn't work hard, including Barca and Real.
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What is naïve?

I just think its another mis-leading stat. I am amazed that on average each out field player is covering 1km per game less than we did last season.

Nobody watching any game of ours this season can say we have been more rigid / static that we where under LVG. That's just incorrect.

Our performance levels have been significantly better in these 7 games. I don't think we where great against Hull, but got the win. We where obviously poor against Watford but Zlatan missed a couple of chances and Pogba it the bar, one of those goes in and we'd come away with atleast a draw. Awful first half against City, much better second. Should have had a penalty and their keeper sent off at 1-2 with half hour to go. Should have been out of sight at half time against Stoke, conceded an awful goal.

On the whole we are performing well and but for very fine margins, could be significantly better off points wise. I am happy and confident the "transition" is entering its final stages. A fully fit martial and miki and a settled back 4, both of which we should soon and I think we'll see the long awaited "click" where we actually look a title winning team.

I don't think that's naïve. Positive maybe, but not naïve.

We have a great keeper and a solid defence, We now have a lot of creativity in the side, a lot more pace and a proper centre forward. We have lots of height and lots of options in the squad.

Other teams running around a bit more doesn't concern me, most of them would swap their work rate for our quality in a hard beat. I certainly wouldn't wish us to go back to last year just becase we ran 10km per game more and conceded a few less. No chance
 
jojose said:
What is naïve?

I just think its another mis-leading stat. I am amazed that on average each out field player is covering 1km per game less than we did last season.

Nobody watching any game of ours this season can say we have been more rigid / static that we where under LVG. That's just incorrect.

Our performance levels have been significantly better in these 7 games. I don't think we where great against Hull, but got the win. We where obviously poor against Watford but Zlatan missed a couple of chances and Pogba it the bar, one of those goes in and we'd come away with atleast a draw. Awful first half against City, much better second. Should have had a penalty and their keeper sent off at 1-2 with half hour to go. Should have been out of sight at half time against Stoke, conceded an awful goal.

On the whole we are performing well and but for very fine margins, could be significantly better off points wise. I am happy and confident the "transition" is entering its final stages. A fully fit martial and miki and a settled back 4, both of which we should soon and I think we'll see the long awaited "click" where we actually look a title winning team.

I don't think that's naïve. Positive maybe, but not naïve.

We have a great keeper and a solid defence, We now have a lot of creativity in the side, a lot more pace and a proper centre forward. We have lots of height and lots of options in the squad.

Other teams running around a bit more doesn't concern me, most of them would swap their work rate for our quality in a hard beat.
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It is possible to win games while running less than the opposition. This is exactly what City were doing last season. Their quality helped them destroy most of the bottom half teams and they even finished with the most scored goals. But they were generally crap vs top teams, including LVG's United. Quality can help you get away vs poor teams but it is necessary to add high work rate in order to win vs top teams as well. The only top team we have played so far was City and the performance wasn't good. The next two games will be more instructive but if we remain the laziest team in the league in terms of covered distance, nothing good will happen, IMO. There is no magical tactics that can help you win vs top teams while running significantly less than them. Any top top team in Europe now - Barca, Bayern, Atleti, Real, Dortmund, City, etc. work very hard. I think Mou knows it and will make the necessary to improve the fitness levels of the team. Notice that the only game in which we run further than the opposition was vs Leicester and this was our best performance so far.
 
Dargonk said:
What is promising from that article is that to get the wins during LVG time we had to have a fairly high conversion rate at the start. Yet right now we have a fairly poor conversion rate per goal. Now as we saw last season that lack of shots continued, however the conversion rate as expected droppped back down to more normal levels. So it is likely that as the season goes one our current poor conversion rate will improve, and if we keep the number of shots up, we should be scoring a lot more goals than last year.
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Your theory is largely dependent on the quality of attempts/chances created.

Van Gaal spoke in an interview about how he liked his team to retain possession and work the ball into better goal scoring positions, i.e. he preferred the team to create one 'really good' chance rather than two 'half chances'. It is a part of why we would see players pass backward or sideways rather than take a risk or 25 yard pot shot. This explains our lower attempts and generally higher conversion rate.

Mourinho, to his credit, has loosened the reins in the final line of attack so we see players more willing to risk taking on a man or mixing it up with a long shot. It makes our forward play look a degree more varied and attractive (not as much as it should be if Jose really let the team off the leash!) and explains the increased attempts but generally lower conversion rate.
 
Treble said:
It is possible to win games while running less than the opposition. This is exactly what City were doing last season. Their quality helped them destroy most of the bottom half teams and they even finished with the most scored goals. But they were generally crap vs top teams, including LVG's United. Quality can help you get away vs poor teams but it is necessary to add high work rate in order to win vs top teams as well. The only top team we have played so far was City and the performance wasn't good. The next two games will be more instructive but if we remain the laziest team in the league in terms of covered distance, nothing good will happen, IMO. There is no magical tactics that can help you win vs top teams while running significantly less than them. Any top top team in Europe now - Barca, Bayern, Atleti, Real, Dortmund, City, etc. work very hard. I think Mou knows it and will make the necessary to improve the fitness levels of the team. Notice that the only game in which we run further than the opposition was vs Leicester and this was our best performance so far.
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I take your point, I understand what you’re saying and in theory I don’t disagree.

My point is simply that whilst statistically we might have grafted our puddings off last season and are sloth like lazy this season, last season attacking wise we where slow, ponderous and static. This season we are far more fluid and creative.

We are far better this year than last. Irrespective of distance ran and points on the table. Would you agree with that??

It’s a little bit like Brendan getting thumped 3 nill and saying “but we won the passing”.

I honestly think we have been a little unlucky. Like I say in the games where we have dropped points, City, Watford and Stoke fine margins, controversial decisions, pure bad luck and uncharacteristic error all cost us.

I disagree Leicester was our best performance. Clearly best result but performance wise we were better against Stoke for me. Some of the link up play was very good. We created clear cut chances from open play against Stoke.

I think the distance thing might be down to being well coached too. I think LVG can take some credit in the and Jose has just tweeked our defensive set up a little. Off the ball we work in individual areas. Short sharp sprints to close down, then back into position rather than an en masse press.

My seat is quite high in the stretford end and looking down the length of the pitch it stands out how we set up. We drop 10 yards deeper than most, everybody gets in position, we almost force them to go short and then only Zlatan presses. That changed in the second half at City where we marked their back four and fernandinho man for man and forced the keeper long.

So I don’t for one minute think we are lazy. We just work hard in smaller areas and therefore our distance covered will obviously be less.

The press is clearly very effective. It is also easily overcome IMO and also in a far more competitive league like the premier league, I think it will be inconsistent.

Again going back to the City game, they actually play 5-5. It was noticeable in large periods that they had huge holes in midfield. They had all the attacking players pressing, with Fernandinho no more than 10 yards in front of the back 4. I haven’t seen Liverpool much so don’t know if they implement the press in the same way but it wont take managers long to look at ways of causing City trouble. I can see both them and Liverpool winning 4-0 one week and losing 4-2 the next. Breaking down a solid and protected back 4 is far more difficult than breaking the lines of a press which requires one good pass or a bit of skill to beat a man.
 
Treble said:
It is possible to win games while running less than the opposition. This is exactly what City were doing last season. Their quality helped them destroy most of the bottom half teams and they even finished with the most scored goals. But they were generally crap vs top teams, including LVG's United. Quality can help you get away vs poor teams but it is necessary to add high work rate in order to win vs top teams as well. The only top team we have played so far was City and the performance wasn't good. The next two games will be more instructive but if we remain the laziest team in the league in terms of covered distance, nothing good will happen, IMO. There is no magical tactics that can help you win vs top teams while running significantly less than them. Any top top team in Europe now - Barca, Bayern, Atleti, Real, Dortmund, City, etc. work very hard. I think Mou knows it and will make the necessary to improve the fitness levels of the team. Notice that the only game in which we run further than the opposition was vs Leicester and this was our best performance so far.
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I don't know the absolute numbers from that game but wouldn't be surprised if the main reason for us coming out on top was Leicester not running very much. Which is how they set up. Sit deep, keep a compact shape and hit the opposition on the break. Not dissimilar to Mourinho's preferred approach and a tactic that - let's not forget - helped them win the league ahead of Pocchetino's frantic pressing when the Spurs players all looked jaded at the business end of the season.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
I don't know the absolute numbers from that game but wouldn't be surprised if the main reason for us coming out on top was Leicester not running very much. Which is how they set up. Sit deep, keep a compact shape and hit the opposition on the break. Not dissimilar to Mourinho's preferred approach and a tactic that - let's not forget - helped them win the league ahead of Pocchetino's frantic pressing when the Spurs players all looked jaded at the business end of the season.
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Agree about the first point, maybe our performance was down to Leicester running less. Still, it only highlights my point: running matters a lot.

If Pochettino had as good players as Mou's Chelsea, the comparison would be a serious argument. But he hadn't. The stars in his team were young and inexperienced palyers, nothing like Hazard and Costa at their very best. I'd like to see stats about how much Chelsea ran in their title winning season though. I'd be hugely surprised if thye didn't make at least the top half of the distance covered table. No way were they 19th or 20th. Impossible. City finishing 4th and being 19th in the said table is maybe the biggest discrepancy across the top leagues in Europe in recent years.

Edit: Spurs have better players than Leicester but won less points. Imo, mostly small teams can use their tactics with continued success. Many teams didn't take them seriously enough for the entire first half of the season. And they used to run a lot too, were probably 10th in covered distance. Besides, they have the quickest player up front.
 
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Also, you can hardly compare Leicester winning the title last season as a focal point to argue though. It was a freak one time thing.

Generally, it is not hard to see covering ground more will get teams to play much better.

When Jose won the league with chelsea the last time, we can argue that the standard of the league was meh. And, his team was boring as feck especially on 2nd half of the season and didn't go far in CL and other cups competitions for a team that would have been fresher if I remember correctly.

The fact that we don't look like we cover too much ground now does not mean we will be fresher and play better and win more games later on for sure. Hell, we even looked pretty tired towards the end of the games in some of these so few games.
 
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A game can be a 'freak one time thing'. Winning the premier league cannot be dismissed so easily.
 
The United said:
Also, you can hardly compare Leicester winning the title last season as a focal point to argue though. It was a freak one time thing.

Generally, it is not hard to see covering ground more will get teams to play much better.

When Jose won the league with chelsea the last time, we can argue that the standard of the league was meh. And, his team was boring as feck especially on 2nd half of the season and didn't go far in CL and other cups competitions for a team that would have been fresher if I remember correctly.

The fact that we don't look like we cover too much ground now does not mean we will be fresher and play better and win more games later on for sure. Hell, we even looked pretty tired towards the end of the games in some of these so few games.
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Indeed, and it was meh next season too which goes a long way in explaining why Leicester won it. No way would Leicester have won it, had they faced the competition of Guardiola's City or even the current versions of Wenger's Arsenal and Klopp's Liverpool. The league is more competitive and generally better now. What worked for Jose in 2014/15 may be not enough this season. United 16/17 have to be better than Chelsea 2014/15, if we are to challenge for the league or even make the top 4.
 
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We were static in attack under LVG but our work rate and pressing off the ball was excellent, something we all acknowledged when the team started doing it since it was a transformation to more "modern" football from the more relaxed system under SAF. It's one of the reasons why we had such high possession stats (of course along with playing mind numbing football when we did receive the ball) so it's not a surprise we had much higher distance covered per game last year than presently.
 
friend said:
We were static in attack under LVG but our work rate and pressing off the ball was excellent, something we all acknowledged when the team started doing it since it was a transformation to more "modern" football from the more relaxed system under SAF. It's one of the reasons why we had such high possession stats (of course along with playing mind numbing football when we did receive the ball) so it's not a surprise we had much higher distance covered per game last year than presently.
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Absolutely. The classic pattern is to blame every single aspect of a reign if it doesn't end up to be an overall success. There is a black and white approach to analysis when it comes to coaching and management. This leads to fans dismissing everything about LvG's United. The fact is as you point out, we were quite good in a lot of areas. Our problem was when in possession in the final third and unfortunately for us, that is the main area on the pitch. Failing there however does not necessarily mean the rest was bad.
 
I'm sure it was mentioned recently that we still had a lower work rate in terms of distance covered than any of the other top 6. No idea where I saw or heard this though.

I think there's been a noticeable improvement in terms of how urgent/sharp we look in games...though in the last four or five we seem to have gone back to looking too lethargic (although I didn't see the Stoke game in full).
 
The commentator for the Stoke game said we're still bottom of this table.
 
I am not sure how other teams are playing but I would imagine our Kms covered would be lesser if we dominate games like how we were camped in Stoke's half. Not that that's whats happening every game but you can see how we are looking to pin every team in their box in an effort to score.
 
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