Yeah I’ll say it: The Relegation Thread

[2 man midfield]

If it suddenly looked like we might actually go down, say we’re 3 points off the drop with 4 games left or something - I could see the players and manager getting their shit together, going 442 and grinding out some wins. It’s like they almost can’t be assed because there’s nothing to play for

 

[Dr. StrangeHate]

How did we get here?

Obviously a decade of incompetence. I feel us not having a consistent philosophy at the club is the biggest reason. Every manager we hire has a different philosophy from the last one and requires different players. Only Jose and Ole were the similar ones.

 

[Infra-red]

Leicester and Ipswich are on course for around 26 points using their current points per game average (0.68). Ours is around 1.16 looking across the whole season and 1 just looking at Amorim.. unless we see a continuous drop of form and one of them (and wolves) massively improve, we are fine

United having a drop in form relative to Amorim's tenure so far is to be expected - this week we've lost the only attacking player who was contributing goals / assists. I'd expect results and performances to be much worse in the next 13 games than they have been in our previous 13 games.

 

[LordSpud]

Let's say this though:

Anyone wanting us to just survive and let Amorim have pre season ready to go again next season is having a laugh, this toxicity is not going away over the summer. It won't get better next season. He'll be sacked before Christmas.

 

[C'est Moi Cantona]

Let's say this though:

Anyone wanting us to just survive and let Amorim have pre season ready to go again next season is having a laugh, this toxicity is not going away over the summer. It won't get better next season. He'll be sacked before Christmas.

What are you saying here? That Amorim is the problem?

 

[LordSpud]

What are you saying here? That Amorim is the problem?

Nope but he's not going to fix it either

 

[MikeUpNorth]

Imagine if Amad’s late heroics hadn’t bailed us out against City and Southampton…

If we had six points fewer at this stage, I’d say we could well go down. Fine margins.

 

[Grylte]

Seriously…

 

[SilentWitness]

You'll be fine. You've been completely shit and you're still 12 points clear of the relegation zone.

We were 1 point above it when Moyes entered and now we are 13 points clear. The gulf between Championship and PL has grown too much.

 

[Trequarista10]

Obviously a decade of incompetence. I feel us not having a consistent philosophy at the club is the biggest reason. Every manager we hire has a different philosophy from the last one and requires different players. Only Jose and Ole were the similar ones.

Agree, but I really have no idea what Ole's philosophy was (and suspect he didn't either). It started off all vibes, pace, attack and possession focused (binning off Smalling for not being good on the ball, backing Martial as a CF instead of Lukaku), but willing to park the bus and counter in some big games, and then became lethargic, reliance on McFred which lacked technical ability (even Jose liked midfielders who could control a game to compliment a ball winner).

Similiar with Ten Hag, in that initially it looked like he wanted us to be a possession side. Erikson started as a DM and F9 in the first couple games. Then it quickly reverted to being a direct "transitional" side, leaving increasingly huge gaps in midfield, whilst paradoxically bringing in Martinez and Onana for their ability on the ball despite us not being a possession side that would benefit from that.

The ONLY glimmer of hope I have at the moment is that it seems Amorim won't abandon his system and revert to normal. However, he's a long way from getting it to be effective so far. I fear/suspect we'll end up spunking a ton of money in the summer on specialist wing backs and other players suited to Amorim's system, and then sack him part way through next season and bring in a manager with a complete different system.

 

[Dannn411]

Having switched the wing backs, I now have more confidence in us getting enough points between now and the end of the season to survive. I was not at all confident when he was playing Dalot at LWB and Dorgu at RWB. We looked a lot more purposeful going forward yesterday because of this switch and created quite a number of chances. If we continue on that trajectory, we will win some games between now and May.

 

[C'est Moi Cantona]

Nope but he's not going to fix it either

But going back to a manager who will just play to the strengths of these players so we can finish top 8 isn't the answer either.

At least Amorim is exerting serious pressure, and exposing the situation for what it is.

Like Rangnick the football is terrible, but what he said was right, but then he was shuffled off as it was the easy thing to do, and Ten Hag followed the usual cycle a United manager goes through post Fergie.

Given we already know what will happen if we sack Amorim and go back to the comfort zone of these players (and owners), then I'd rather see everyone leave before Amorim does personally, even if he isn't as good a manager as people thought he was.

 

[mjstokes85]

I can see us getting maybe 11 more points this season, it'll be enough to stay up but it's still shocking.

 

[romufc]

I can see us getting maybe 11 more points this season, it'll be enough to stay up but it's still shocking.

Really? Where are these 11 points coming from? That is a minimum of 3 wins and 2 draws.

Looking at the next 7 games, I cannot see where we are winning games. We have relegation dog fights against Everton (away), Ipswich (home) and Leicester (away). We barely scrapped past Leicester at home, so I would say, 1 win out of those 3, then we have City, Newcastle, Arsenal in that period too, which I would say is 0 wins.

So we would have to win 2/5 of our last games. Tough

 

[Jericholyte2]

If it suddenly looked like we might actually go down, say we’re 3 points off the drop with 4 games left or something - I could see the players and manager getting their shit together, going 442 and grinding out some wins. It’s like they almost can’t be assed because there’s nothing to play for

What would 442 look like?

Onana
Dalot De Ligt Maguire Dorgu
Mazraoui Ugarte Bruno Garnacho
Zrikzee Hojlund

That would get destroyed.

 

[mjstokes85]

Really? Where are these 11 points coming from? That is a minimum of 3 wins and 2 draws.

Looking at the next 7 games, I cannot see where we are winning games. We have relegation dog fights against Everton (away), Ipswich (home) and Leicester (away). We barely scrapped past Leicester at home, so I would say, 1 win out of those 3, then we have City, Newcastle, Arsenal in that period too, which I would say is 0 wins.

So we would have to win 2/5 of our last games. Tough

 

[2 man midfield]

What would 442 look like?

Onana
Dalot De Ligt Maguire Dorgu
Mazraoui Ugarte Bruno Garnacho
Zrikzee Hojlund

That would get destroyed.

Well, 442 or whatever system everyone on here is clamouring for. Something a bit more compact and able to grind out results.

Surely if you were going 442 though this is what you’d do?

———————-Onana———————-
Dalot—De Ligt-Maguire-Mazraoui
Garnacho—Ugarte-Mainoo-Dorgu
——————Bruno—————————
————————-Hojlund—————-

 

[mjstokes85]

Really? Where are these 11 points coming from? That is a minimum of 3 wins and 2 draws.

Looking at the next 7 games, I cannot see where we are winning games. We have relegation dog fights against Everton (away), Ipswich (home) and Leicester (away). We barely scrapped past Leicester at home, so I would say, 1 win out of those 3, then we have City, Newcastle, Arsenal in that period too, which I would say is 0 wins.

So we would have to win 2/5 of our last games. Tough

Everton Lose
Ipswich Win
Arsenal Lose
Leicester Draw
Forest Lose
City Lose
Newcastle Lose
Wolves Win
Bournemouth Lose
Brentford Lose
West Ham Win
Chelsea Lose
Villa Draw

 

[RaddyRed]

Why just two wins? Sorry don't understand the maths.

You get 3 points for a win and 1 point for a draw mate.

 

[DRJosh]

Always found it a little funny that Arsenal lost the Carling Cup Final to an eventually relegated Birmingham in 2011

that Birmingham side would give our current squad quite a few scares if they played each other.

 

[romufc]

Everton Lose
Ipswich Win
Arsenal Lose
Leicester Draw
Forest Lose
City Lose
Newcastle Lose
Wolves Win
Bournemouth Lose
Brentford Lose
West Ham Win
Chelsea Lose
Villa Draw

I mean that is cutting it tight and also expecting us to beat Ipswich. I doubt we will beat them.

Wolves beat us comfortably when we played them earlier as well.

 

[DJ_21]

The bottom 3 are winning enough games to catch up to us. That’s what is going to save us

 

[Patchbeard]

There is no way we go down, but only because there are four even more awful/awfully unlucky teams this season.

 

[Flying_Heckfish]

We don't score goals. So I can't see where any points will come from.

As said up thread by others, RvN might just have kept us up

 

[romufc]

We don't score goals. So I can't see where any points will come from.

As said up thread by others, RvN might just have kept us up

This is my point... people talking about teams below being worse but we are just as bad... we may not get another win this season the way we are going.

 

[Speako]

Well, 442 or whatever system everyone on here is clamouring for. Something a bit more compact and able to grind out results.

Surely if you were going 442 though this is what you’d do?

———————-Onana———————-
Dalot—De Ligt-Maguire-Mazraoui
Garnacho—Ugarte-Mainoo-Dorgu
——————Bruno—————————
————————-Hojlund—————-

Amorim was asked directly about this yesterday by Sky and gave a very clear response - you cannot play 442 with two centre backs when one of them is Harry Maguire. The opposition would target him and get in behind every time, he articulated this perfectly.

That said, I totally agree with all those who say we can't continue with the current setup, it's a shambles.

 

[Steve 007]

We had plenty of attacks yesterday.
The best came to Gernacho. He didn’t even hit the target or even get close to hitting it. That’s not on Amorim. Those pondering if we should sell him need to watch the game again. Having said that I don’t want any of our youngsters sold but we do need to be realistic and give the man a chance. The squad is poor and he didn’t buy them.

 

[jadajos]

We're already basically safe.

Ipswich and Leicester are on 17pts after 23 games. At that rate, they will score 28pts by the end of the season. We have 29pts.

It's even wors for them. They have 17 after 25 games (= 26 over a full season). There is no universe in which they catch United.

 

[Hester_manc]

We have to face Everton and Ipswich in the next 2 games. 6 points in them and the relegation battle is unrealistic. But if we lose both of them or only get 1 point, then I think it is naive not to recognize that we are part of the relegation battle.

So in my opinion the next 2 games are incredibly important for United.

 

[Rooney24]

It won’t be this season.

It sounds though as if we will have little to no money available in the summer. So then we are in sell to buy mode, Amorim has confirmed this.

Given our track record the last 10 years in the market I’ve no confidence we can do a decent job there and I could then see next season as being the one we are in a real relegation scrap.

Tough times.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

We won’t need those 11 points (or even close to that many) to avoid relegation. In fact, there’s a reasonable chance we could lose every single game from now until the end of the season and still not get relegated.

 

[golden_blunder]

Jesus. Look at the table. We’re more than 10 points away. We are not going to be relegated.

 

[Brand Nubian]

Bit ironic that RVN basically saved United from relegation then goes down with Leicester.

 

[Adisa]

Let's say this though:

Anyone wanting us to just survive and let Amorim have pre season ready to go again next season is having a laugh, this toxicity is not going away over the summer. It won't get better next season. He'll be sacked before Christmas.

So what do you propose?

Hire another coach?

 

[Bwuk]

Amorim was asked directly about this yesterday by Sky and gave a very clear response - you cannot play 442 with two centre backs when one of them is Harry Maguire. The opposition would target him and get in behind every time, he articulated this perfectly.

That said, I totally agree with all those who say we can't continue with the current setup, it's a shambles.

Stop playing Maguire then.

 

[Dannn411]

Amorim was asked directly about this yesterday by Sky and gave a very clear response - you cannot play 442 with two centre backs when one of them is Harry Maguire. The opposition would target him and get in behind every time, he articulated this perfectly.

That said, I totally agree with all those who say we can't continue with the current setup, it's a shambles.

Who is forcing him to play Harry Maguire every match? Is it Sir Jim? If ONE player is preventing you from playing a formation that is not working, bench the player. Its not rocket science.

 

[CallyRed]

Oh no he said the R word

 

[Moston Red]

A season or two in the championship wouldn’t bother me tbh. Glazers might do one and we might start winning some games

 

[Lentwood]

It's even wors for them. They have 17 after 25 games (= 26 over a full season). There is no universe in which they catch United.

Thanks for tidying up. Essentially though, I am sick of people talking about "40 points". We don't need 40pts. In fact, I think 18th place will end up getting less than 30pts

 

[Lentwood]

Who is forcing him to play Harry Maguire every match? Is it Sir Jim? If ONE player is preventing you from playing a formation that is not working, bench the player. Its not rocket science.

Bench for who, exactly?

I go back to saying it again - talent is less important in modern day PL football than running power / pace.

Harry Maguire, with pace, would be an absolute elite level CB, one of the best in the World....and that's what suckered us into paying £80m. It's totally moot though, how good he is at defending a penalty box, when no top team plays that way and you expose all his weaknesses playing a high-line.

The problem is, we haven't just made this mistake with Maguire, we have made it over and over. One more example...£155m on Sancho and Antony...two wingers who couldn't beat a junior district sprinter over 100m. Doesn't matter that they are both superb technically, it's moot if you can't run away from a player once you beat them