and yet again, after a 2 game false hope the crack resurfaced. The first team we played with a defensive structure and we lost points. Players totally clueless on what to do when facing a defensive team. The 2nd half we barely had any chances apart from Shaw's shot and Mason goal against a depleted Everton team. Ole showed us yet again how tactically inept he is vs these teams, 11 points out of 33 points against such teams is a DISGRACE.
Would you sack or keep Ole? (Poll reopened)
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My point is that this weekend they weren't, but a Salah's individual quality give them the win. Liverpool created less chances than we did, Watford created more than Everton and should have scored a couple. Salahs effectiveness and Watfords inefficiency (2 x miss of the year + one in the post for them). We played better, created more and allowed Everton less opportunities than Liverpool against Watford. Everton scored a goal that should have been disallowed, and we created more than enough chances against them to put the match away. We didn't struggle to create like we did earlier in the season, we were just not effective enough in converting our chances into goals. 17 chances created is clear progress from earlier this season and should normally be more than enough to get us 2 - 3 goals and an easy win.
Our need for a striker in January has never been more evident than last night.
Which players? I'm curious?
Neville's kids, and iifc Nicky Butt and some of the rest of CO92 have placed their children in City's academy. In terms of young players signed from elsewhere, we have yet to sign any. But using City as a barometer, while they havent promoted many to the first team they are producing better talent out of their academy one of them is one of our biggest targets. If rumours are to be believed Solksjaer had had to fly out to Austria to personally convince 18 year old Haaland to join us and he still seems reluctant to commit to the move. The same people are claiming United are an attractive proposition to young players. We are no longer an attractive proposition to the best young players as our antiquated setup and coaching has seen a drastic decline in performances and results. Of our current crop I only see McT and Greenwood making it.
We can cling to this romantic idea, but we are falling further behind all other top clubs as we are sticking to system that worked in the 90s and 00s.
Well, they aren't top young prospects then are they? They're kids of former players... I wouldn't class them as top prospects. *scratches head* thought you were referring to some of the best talents in football.
Haven't you recently signed Hannibal Mejbri, Dillon Hoogewerf, Mateo Mejia, Johan Guadagno and Bjorn Hardley?
And as for Ole having to "out to Austria to personally convince 18 year old Haaland to join us and he still seems reluctant to commit to the move." I don't know where this comes from, you are bookies favourite to get him in January and everything seems quite positive.
As for your current crop, surely leaving Rashford out of your prospects is a mistake. I wouldn't worry to much about missing out on ex player's kids. There's much better out there.
Actually a nice and balanced post. Well played.
I proceeded to mention those, are we ignoring that because you can't refute we are not attracting the best young talent? Name me one credible link to top talent that we have a good chance of signing. I do think we will sign Haaland but I have a feeling we'll be offering him a massive wage to convince him of our "plan".
10 years a go we would have been at least mentioned during the de Ligt saga, but we weren't even considered as a viable target. That should indicated how far we've fallen as a club for top young talent.
Even now we are having to convince 18 year olds to join us. We've been courting Sancho for 12 months and he doesn't seem in the slightest bit arsed about our interest and has expressed no desire to join us. This is not how a top club operates. Young players should be convincing us to sign them, not the other way round.
Third best team yes - squad - no way. Looks at our rivals benches and we don't compare very well at all, even with only Pogba now unavailable.
I wouldn't class Rashford as a young player anymore. Maybe inexperienced would be a better term because while he's young in footballing years he has played for 4 seasons at the top level. Would you consider Mbappe a youngster?
You can list signings we've made for the youth teams, but Hannibal aside I don't recall any interest from other clubs. There's no guarantee any will make it. We're talking about young players who will be included in the first team immediately.
Do you think managers have to make personal trips to speak to players that want to join us? These sort of actions are in response to apathetic responses from the other camps. Reports this morning say Ole and Woodward have gone out and spoke to him and his agent personally, that simply doesn't happen if a player doesn't need convincing to join. Like I've said I do think we'll sign Haaland but he will not come cheap.
If Haland does join us then no doubt in part it will be due to wage, but there are many other factors that makes us currently an attractive proposition. Each player will have different desires, some will be more than happy to join the very best clubs and sit on their bench for the next few years while others will join a tier slightly below to actually play regular first team football.
You're making it out like we're some small time shite club. When the reality is we're a tier below the very best clubs in Europe right now in terms of footballing standard but given how small and young our current squad is i'm sure other young players will see this as an interesting and exciting project to join in on. We just need to focus on ensuring we get into the Champions League each season but currently that's pretty tricky given the standard of the league and how often we rotate our Manager and squad.
List three of these attractive propositions for new players.
Liverpool created fewer chances than we did? No, they got an xG of 1.57 while we got 1.48. We had many shots, but mostly from unlikely angles or ranges. Besides Lingard's opportunity early in the game, we could hardly create a clear-cut opportunity, and we heavily relied on Rashford and Greenwood's individual quality to score goals.
Watford created more chances than Everton? Yes, but this was due to the fact that Everton were leading for most of the game, and they simply gave up attacking and focused on defending.
A lot of this post is based on how you personally see things based on rumours that you cannot verify.
What I do see as fact is this - we've just completed 4000th games in a row, and we are witnessing quite a few prospects coming through this season, some of whom will make it at the club. Greenwood might be special. The squad is full of academy players. Why not celebrate this instead of sulking about the ones that might gave gotten away.
If we lose out on Haaland then posters like you will ask whether we did enough to convince him. I think its great see Ole and Wooward make a personal visit to a player that we want to sign - it might make the difference. Ferguson used to do it all the time - he didn't think he was too important for that.
Of all the things to read, this is one of the most bizarre. Our youth scouting has been excellent. Just because there are no media headlines about kids, doesn't make it less impressive. City? Diaz, Sancho both left because of not having a pathway and Foden is getting a taste of what lay in store for them if they'd stayed. Meanwhile McTominay, Rashford made the first-11 while Williams and Greenwood are being eased in.
We signed Hoogewerf, Hannibal Mejbri and Mejia among others (Real Madrid were in for Mejia and he's a Spaniard, by the way). Like I said, though, there are seldom major headlines about kids at this level. Barring cases like Odegaard, most tussles aren't reported as there are major "sagas" to focus on for the media. Doesn't mean we're not working well at youth level. If anything, I'd say our work at youth level has been the biggest (and at times, only) redeeming feature of our club's operations over the last few years.
This poll is tighter than a camels arse in a sand storm.
Isn't that exactly what your post is? All your opinion and nothing based on facts. I don't see how our 4000th game with an academy prospect in the squad has any bearing on what I said. I am incredibly proud we can boast such an accomplishment but doesn't change anything that I said.
I celebrate success, not throwing youth players into the squad. That doesn't deserve celebrating. Its irresponsible of the manager is effecting the club and may effect the long term prospects of tbsse youngsters.
We're talking about young players that can play a role in the first team. Let's see how many of these youth players make it because I highly doubt many of them will. Every year we have a fresh new batch of young players that will go on to dominate and then we never see them anywhere close to the first team.
We may have snagged a couple of highly rated youth players but the issue is attracting the nest young talent to improve the first team and we are not doing that.
What are you talking about? The only opinion I've ventured is that Greenwood might be special.
Your position seems to be celebrate success and sulk if we don't get any. Seeing academy players coming through absolutely does deserve celebrating - its one of the main building blocks that seperates this club from the pack. You don't sweep that under the carpet because we haven't won the title for a few years, or because we missed out on De Ligt, or because Sancho isn't rowing across the channel right now and banging on the front door. You just sound entitled.
- Young emerging squad
- In Europe and progressing fine (granted its not CL)
- Winning games against the elite teams
- Just outside top 4 (granted its 4 points rather then 1/2)
- Manager that believes and plays young players
- In arguably the best league in Europe (either England or Spain)
- Can offer the best wages in Europe
The only time to judge a manager is at the end of a season, unless he's contrived to put us in a relegation scrap which seems unlikely.
I have expectations beyond throwing inexperienced, and unprepared players into the team. At this club the lowest expectation should be silverware or top four. The fact we now claim success is promoting youth is a sad state of affairs and goes to show how the board and management have managed to successfully lower expectations within the fan base.
Call me entitled all you want but I obviously have much higher standards than you when it comes the success at this club.
We raised the bar and set the standards, not only for ourselves but for every team in England and many more in Europe. We should accept nothing less than reaching those heights, no matter who's in charge or how many youth players he may be using. I really don't remember LvG getting this amount of praise for using the younger players.
It's not like we're lobbing teenagers into the PL and hoping they perform. Williams and Greenwood are the only teenagers in the squad who have started in the PL this season. We've been using the cups to analysis and given them a senior chance which I don't really see a problem with. We're actually doing fine in the Cups after all. If anything its our senior players that have been letting the team down.
Wages aside none of this are real tangible things that will attract a young, hungry player and it's a sad state that we now have to use that to attract players.
When we have the players he wants and the team that is his, there will be more pressure to perform then. It'll be sink or swim. Hopefully it's swim.
How would you even know that for fecks sake. Have you ever been a young, hungry footballer? Have you ever been a footballer? How would you know what they are thinking or even their agents?
In that scenario, how did Liverpool sign any top young prospects when they were shit? Coutinho for example. Why would Felix move to Atletico Madrid instead of Madrid/Barcelona? Why would any young player move to RB Leipzig or Dortmund? You're being unrealistically negative, negative, negative.
How would you even know that for fecks sake. Have you ever been a young, hungry footballer? Have you ever been a footballer? How would you know what they are thinking or even their agents?
In that scenario, how did Liverpool sign any top young prospects when they were shit? Coutinho for example. Why would Felix move to Atletico Madrid instead of Madrid/Barcelona? Why would any young player move to RB Leipzig or Dortmund? You're being unrealistically negative, negative, negative.
The best young players moved to City or other top academies because of wages and some nice gifts to their parents but somehow we should attract them without paying good wages. Some unrealistic expectations as always.
How would you even know that for fecks sake. Have you ever been a young, hungry footballer? Have you ever been a footballer? How would you know what they are thinking or even their agents?
In that scenario, how did Liverpool sign any top young prospects when they were shit? Coutinho for example. Why would Felix move to Atletico Madrid instead of Madrid/Barcelona? Why would any young player move to RB Leipzig or Dortmund? You're being unrealistically negative, negative, negative.
Well how would you? But it's easierto dismiss my posts with the tired, you're not a footballer so how would you know? That's suggests to me you have no real rebuttal. I can make an educated guess based on us throwing money at players for the past 4 years.
I'm not saying we won't occasionally snap up a good player or unearth the odd gem. My issue is the manager will not be able to get the best out of them anyway.
There's a difference between negativity and realism. But you keep burying your head in the sand.
I'm sure that you are convinced that this is a positive thing. All it does is make you the type of supporter this club doesn't need when the inevitable happens and another club 'raises the bar'. You start to see only the negatives. We are playing catch up because over the last few seasons our rivals have made better decisions than we have. Some of these rivals have had the advantage of enormous sums of money. My standards for the club are the same as yours.
The difference is, I'm enjoying the ups and downs of this season immensely. This is a project I believe in. I'm delighted that the club seem committed to seeing this through and I look forward to every match more than I have done since Ferguson was here. I go out of my way to ensure I don't miss a game and I've attended more matches already this season than I did in the last few combined. I'm delighted that I have rediscovered that enthusiasm for this club (my wife isn't), because it had reached an all time low under Mourinho. I believe 100% that we are going to be an extremely exciting team in 2 years, and that we will look back on this season as the period where we came of age again.
On the other hand, you sound almost embarrassed to support the club. I'm sure you don't believe that in your own mind, but you certainly read that way. How are you going to cope if we go another 10 years without winning the title?
feck me.
You completely dismissed every single one of my points and now thrown a hissy fit because ive done the same with you. Gotcha.
Some of our best and improved players this season have been our younger ones. Not to mention the players like Ole, I doubt they'd be so pleased if they think he's shit and not improving them.
Something that is lost on you because all you've done is point out the negative. You aren't being in the slightest bit objective, all you've done is list bad, bad, bad. Id take you more seriously if you even attempted to be objective but all thats come out from every single one of your posts in the last 20 minutes is negativity. I mean anyone being even the slightest bit realistic should have worked out that missing Pogba has been a big blow to us this season. He's missed 12 PL games through injury and yet this is the player that we all said was our creative hub last season. Statistically by far and away our most important player last season.
Fact is that injuries have hampered us this season, we can point to lack of squad depth that's fine. If thats the angle of attack we're going to be launching at the Manager then thats on Jose and not Ole. Personally i'm enjoying this Season, feels like United again, young players, quick, pacey football. The only thing missing is consistency and being able to break down teams that defend (an issue thats plagued us for years). Bring in an attacker and a midfielder in January, get Pogba back from injury and go into the 2nd half of the season with the aim of getting top 4 and getting a cup. If we do that, i'd qualify this season as a success and something to build on.
Please stop making incredibly wild and inaccurate statements about my support. United could be playing in the conference and my support would remain the same. When your argument descends into accusing other supporters to be lesser fans than yourself it diminishes any point you were making and makes you seem like a top red.
I'm glad you feel like you can enjoy and watch your team again the difference is I have continued to watch through these barren years and have watched as the board have actively lowered the standards and expectations. Once you hit the heights we hit you do not except anything less. Ffs in 2005 there was genuine talk of getting rid of SAF due to a few barren years, yet now we are talking about giving a manager that appears well out of his depth as much time as he wants to stamp his authority on the squad. While he might not have all the 25 players he wants long term we should be seeing more than the occasional good counter attacking display against a big team after 12 months in charge. Like it or not we are statistically worse off now than last year.
I praised our good performances, I've been as objective as possible with the shit we've served up this season. I could equally claim you are being wildly optimistic and following nothing but blind faith, that's not exactly objective.
We'll come back to this in a few weeks and see if Pogba is the saviour that you and many others seem to think he will be. His injury has been a convenient excuse to absolve blame on Ole. We were just as bad with him in the team and I expect his return to unbalance the team as he will need to accommodated so I expect the promising McT/Fred midfield will either be broken up or adjusted to suit Pogba.
Possibly, but when everyone was moaning in October I said we needed to be patient and wait for Martial to come back as he would help us score more goals as Rashford was clearly struggling with the expectation of leading the line by himself. Martial came back and we improved significantly. I also said back then that we would need to limp through this period until January when the club can bring in a midfielder as it was clear to everyone that we were light in that area.
There is good reason to be optimistic though, our form since Martial has returned has been much better. Only 1 PL loss since his return in 9 games. But we still need our creative hub to return to unlock the tight defenses. Don't get me wrong, Pogba frustrates the feck out of me, but when he's playing well we are a significantly better team. The concern I have is Rashford burning out, which is why we need an attacker and an CM in Janauary. If that happens then Ole has no excuses.
I think people are starting to realise they're looking like right tits when they're changing their votes every other game. Maybe this thread should only be opened every 10 games to help prevent knee jerk reactions. After all, there are enough threads as it is for people to bang on about Ole.
He will be given January and we will likely sign Haaland, but I don't think we'll get much more. I also expect Haaland to struggle initially. Like it or not we need a transition signing in a number of positions. An experienced head to drag us through certain games and help the youngsters develop. As admirable as it sounds on paper, throwing all these young players together and hoping it clicks is terrible management.
I don't think Martial has done anything to justify a lot of his praise. He's the definition of a luxury player and we are carrying him in too many games. I criticised Rashford but he has improved massively after a consistent run in one position. My issue with him was his inconsistency and constantly running into dead ends and while he did display these traits again yesterday, he has improved into a very good player for us this season.
"Best young talent to improve the first team", you say. I'll mark this for later as well - but how about AWB and James? Both young, and both improved the first team. Both were not without other clubs courting them either, for the record. Still, like I said, hold this thought too - and I'll come back to this one later in the post.
Aaah! So you want "readymade" players? The Mourinho model then. Age and longevity be damned as long as we can get immediate results...but wait! You do want them to be young... and like I said, there's something you say later that really jars with this, so once again, hold this thought!
Aaah! So, maybe young players go to City for the laughs and giggles? Or the packs of crisps handed out over the laughing gas? OR are you trying to aim a sly dig at Ole in the form of, "young kids would rather stay outside the squad under a Pep rather than actually be introduced into top-level football in the right manner under Ole"? I sense a bit of an agenda, but I'll let this pass. Clearly you've either just not thought this through, or are trying really hard not to show your agenda / bias but it's starting to slip here.
A-ha! So now you say that the "next big thing" will actually sign for us (and not Pep? Not Klopp?) but the young signings, however good, will definitely be inconsistent at the outset - and that "readymade" players are going to be older ("experienced head") and therefore "transitional" (read: short-term). How does this gel with your desire for us snaring the best young players?
In summary:
1. You want us to get the best young players - who will immediately improve the first team
2. You want them to come to us for reasons other than wages - but can't say what those are, since you dismiss literally every non-wage reason that's cited
3. You don't however believe young signings are consistent enough / ready for the action - so you don't want young signings after all.
At least think it through and be lucid. Unless of course, you're just baiting...
I guess it depends on what gameanalysis referance you use. According whoscored.com we created 17 chances against Everton, Liverpool created 7 against Watford. You can of course argue how clear these chances were, but it was definitely possible to score more than one from what we created yesterday. Both James and Rashford could easily have scored with a little more composure in front of goal. Liverpools first goal was the result of pure magic from Salah and his weak foot, while their clean sheet was the result of pure luck and catastrophical finishing from Watford. Even when Everton gave up attacking we created more than Liverpool. Fact is that Everton created next to nothing against us.
My point was that our performance was better than the result, margins play a role and we could use more quality in our attacking unit.
Stop putting words in my mouth. I've not said any of these things so stop creating strawman arguments.
I think the recent upturn in performances have earned him the January window and the rest of the season. It will be easier to look objectively at it come next summer.
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