You have players who win, and win always, and players who lose and always lose.

Desert Eagle

Punjabi Dude
Joined
Sep 25, 2006
Messages
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I found this quote from ETH pre match quite interesting even before last night's humiliation. He was answering a question about Casemiro who is a clear winner but I don't know if it's as black and white as our manager makes out.

We have a few clear winners in our squad and a lot of losers. Hopefully we can keep shifting the balance in favor of the former.
 
I’m a little tired of all the winner talk. Feels like it only happens at United who ironically… don’t win as much as we used to. I agree that mentality is important but I’d like to see us play more cohesive football and get our basics right now.

I don’t think ETH would have meant that so literally.
 
Odd quote, considering how awful Casemiro was yesterday. He was losing pretty heavily out there.
 
He was talking about finals if I read that well, and Casemiro's record in them.

I would agree, there are some players who simply won't win you anything, and there are players like Casemiro and Varane who can be important part of the team that wins trophies. They proved that this season too, but they can't be the only great players in almost every game. Players like Bruno, de Gea, Shaw, etc. who are leaders of this team really need to do more if they want to be regarded as winners onnce their careers are finished and not just good players. You can argue the same about someone like Kane for example.
 
Casemiro and Varane won the CL infinite times, Varane won the WC too, Martinez won the WC a few months ago, and they all were terrible yesterday. Pogba won the WC and infinite Serie A titles and never settled here.
Berba and Nani and Chicharito had minimal winning experience (Berba was part of Neverkusen!) and propelled a team to the title. RvP was a perennial loser and scored the goals to win a league the moment he got the chance.
 
berbatrick said:
Casemiro and Varane won the CL infinite times, Varane won the WC too, Martinez won the WC a few months ago, and they all were terrible yesterday. Pogba won the WC and infinite Serie A titles and never settled here.
Berba and Nani and Chicharito had minimal winning experience (Berba was part of Neverkusen!) and propelled a team to the title. RvP was a perennial loser and scored the goals to win a league the moment he got the chance.
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Yeah, I agree with @amolbhatia50k on this: we overrate the whole "winning mentality" and "experienced winners" thing.

But I'm also a pedant and I'd like to point out that Nani was a two-time title winner who converted a crucial penalty in a Champions League final by the time he was a main man in 2010/11. And Berbatov, while a lovely player who played his part, did very little of the propelling. Yes, yes, 20 league goals - but he scored 11 of them in just three games. 9 in 29 looks a lot less impressive than 20 in 32... By the end of the season, he wasn't even part of the starting XI. He was left out of the squad altogether for the Champions League final.
 
Siorac said:
Yeah, I agree with @amolbhatia50k on this: we overrate the whole "winning mentality" and "experienced winners" thing.

But I'm also a pedant and I'd like to point out that Nani was a two-time title winner who converted a crucial penalty in a Champions League final by the time he was a main man in 2010/11. And Berbatov, while a lovely player who played his part, did very little of the propelling. Yes, yes, 20 league goals - but he scored 11 of them in just three games. 9 in 29 looks a lot less impressive than 20 in 32... By the end of the season, he wasn't even part of the starting XI. He was left out of the squad altogether for the Champions League final.
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Wouldn't have won the title without his goals or his presence - he glued the attack together* while Rooney was unfit and unmotivated for months.
Also, since you want to arbitrarily dice stats, he had 19 goals from 24 starts, without taking penalties...which sounds better than 9 in 29 yada yada. Apart from Blackburn and Birmingham (he scored the opener in both as well), his other multiple-goals games were all important goals: 3 against Liverpool 3-2, 2 against Blackpool 3-2. That season is *very* underrated.

*the value of this should be clearer now, where, despite having an amazing goalscorer in Rashford, a different focal point makes the team better.

e - knew i was arguing this a while ago too :lol:

berbatrick said:
And he improved the team as a whole. In those 24 starts we scored 53 and in the remaining 14, including with Rooney-Hernandez played consistently at the end of the season, there were only 11 goals scored. (I'm not counting goals scored when he was subbed off for the first or after he was subbed on for the second.).
Basically when he was on the pitch we scored 61 goals and without him 17 in the whole season.
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78% of the goals scored in 65% of playing time...
 
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amolbhatia50k said:
I’m a little tired of all the winner talk. Feels like it only happens at United who ironically… don’t win as much as we used to. I agree that mentality is important but I’d like to see us play more cohesive football and get our basics right now.

I don’t think ETH would have meant that so literally.
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Yeah all this winners mentality stuff is overblown. Casemiro has won lots because he's s good player whose spent most of his career in a truly brilliant team.

If instead of Madrid he played for Betis he wouldn't be winning anything. Would his winning mentality suddenly disappear?

What matters in football is ability. Get lots of it in your team and then you win stuff.
 
When United were sweeping all before them we played against a lot of losers who never let us get 7 past them.

We’ve far too many players who down tools the second we go down by multiples. Whilst it might be nice to get a consolation goal you don’t leave yourselves open like we did yesterday in the search of it.
 
Don't really get why people still try to over analyze what ETH says after a game like that.

The game was lost because of a few simple things:
- Rashford and Bruno couldn't score for their lives to make it an early 2-0
- ETH completely messed up the tactics and hung out Casemiro to dry
- the players gave up far too easy which was evident to see after we missed the first few chances. The players were so so relaxed after the first 20-30 minutes like we were playing Millwall at OT.

We could have had 11 world cup winners yesterday and still would have lost.

Also, along the way of being a winner, you lose some anyway so the argument is dumb to begin with. There is no such thing as being a winner, but there is being part of a winning team where everyone needs to contribute to the max. Our players didn't do that yesterday, simple as.
 
berbatrick said:
Casemiro and Varane won the CL infinite times, Varane won the WC too, Martinez won the WC a few months ago, and they all were terrible yesterday. Pogba won the WC and infinite Serie A titles and never settled here.
Berba and Nani and Chicharito had minimal winning experience (Berba was part of Neverkusen!) and propelled a team to the title. RvP was a perennial loser and scored the goals to win a league the moment he got the chance.
Click to expand...

Exactly I don't think it's black and white in that let's just get all the winners then we'll win however I do think there is something in the mentality of certain players that lifts the rest and makes winning more common. Keane, Cantona, Rooney being perfect examples. The understanding of what it takes to win in a team sport, the sacrifice and discipline and consistency. Of course most professional athletes already have those qualities to some extent but at the highest level I think the intangibles come into play a lot more.
 
amolbhatia50k said:
I’m a little tired of all the winner talk. Feels like it only happens at United who ironically… don’t win as much as we used to. I agree that mentality is important but I’d like to see us play more cohesive football and get our basics right now.

I don’t think ETH would have meant that so literally.
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But you can't play cohesive football and get the basics right with players who are mentally very fragile.
 
Has Casemiro surprised you in just how good he is in those attributes you mentioned?
"No, from these attributes absolutely not. I knew what a magnificent player he was. Just look through his profile. You see all the cups he won and that's not [a] coincidence. Like Rapha Varane and Casemiro, they won five Champions Leagues. That's not a coincidence, it's not like all of a sudden. For me it's always the same. You have players who win, and win always, and players who lose and always lose. Of course, you have to do your research and find that type who will win and who are co-operative in the dressing room to be humble but when they are on the pitch they take responsibility and you can sit on the bench and you are composed, because you know the players will do the job and will deal with the situation and will bring you the wins."

The full context of the quote in case anyone wants it .
 
Slevs said:
But you can't play cohesive football and get the basics right with players who are mentally very fragile.
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You can as we have seen this season (if you’re suggesting our squad is fragile). Arsenal were fragile last season and threw away top 4.
 
Marwood said:
Yeah all this winners mentality stuff is overblown. Casemiro has won lots because he's s good player whose spent most of his career in a truly brilliant team.

If instead of Madrid he played for Betis he wouldn't be winning anything. Would his winning mentality suddenly disappear?

What matters in football is ability. Get lots of it in your team and then you win stuff.
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I mean I do think it’s important but at times it seems like all we talk about re: positive things about us, has to do with that.
 
amolbhatia50k said:
You can as we have seen this season (if you’re suggesting our squad is fragile). Arsenal were fragile last season and threw away top 4.
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To re-phrase, you can't always play cohesive football with some players who are suspect to mentally collapsing.
 
It's true and its important. A winning mentality is not going to overcome shit technique, but it will turn a good player into a great one, and a good team into a great one. Those players are the ones who will lead by example on the pitch and have the ability to interpret the managers instructions to suit the game. Keane was a master at this. Right now I think we have too many who rely on ETH to tell them everything from when to make a run to when to take a shit.

The biggest difference between Liverpool's spice boys and us in the 90s was our attitude. Madrid beat Liverpool 5-2 last week because of it. Its undoubtedly a thing.
 
Is he trying to turn into poundland Johan Cruijff?

"Italy can't beat you, but you can lose to them" OH WOW THAT'S SO PROFOUND.
 
It’s probably as much of a comment about Liverpool and Manchester United than anything else. If anyone thought the season until now was a vision of the future, they were probably sadly mistaken. Klopp’s Liverpool will likely be winners again longer term and some of these United players have shown that they probably aren’t going to be winners for us.
 
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