we were also the lowest km ran team last year, its not just the players. Its tactical.
Workrate
- Thread starter Pogue Mahone
- Start date
You can get away with this with cohesion and structure. Of which we have none - Attacking or going forward.
Mourinho's teams have always been reactive - Often to great effect. But either the players aren't good enough, aren't suited or aren't trying. Whichever it is it's only ending one way.
I do think we have too many individuals playing their own game on the pitch - Between that and the unfamiliarity of this current XI it will lead to the sort of shite we seen.
I'd imagine it will improve (The performance, not necessarily the running stats) on Monday if for example some of Valencia, Smalling, Jones, Matic, Herrera, Fellaini, Lingard etc. were to come in. They're more familiar with each other and would play as a more effective unit. As mediocre as some of these players are most have been heavily involved in our best performances under Jose. They're not the type to down tools either.
I suspect there will be wholesale changes in the coming weeks. The last play Mourinho really has.
Mourinho's teams have always been reactive - Often to great effect. But either the players aren't good enough, aren't suited or aren't trying. Whichever it is it's only ending one way.
I do think we have too many individuals playing their own game on the pitch - Between that and the unfamiliarity of this current XI it will lead to the sort of shite we seen.
I'd imagine it will improve (The performance, not necessarily the running stats) on Monday if for example some of Valencia, Smalling, Jones, Matic, Herrera, Fellaini, Lingard etc. were to come in. They're more familiar with each other and would play as a more effective unit. As mediocre as some of these players are most have been heavily involved in our best performances under Jose. They're not the type to down tools either.
I suspect there will be wholesale changes in the coming weeks. The last play Mourinho really has.
Crazy but I'm in the dentist chair reading about workrate. This thread is making me angry.
You don't need to press to put in decent work rate. We've never been a pressing team aside from a single season where Tevez made it so.
That tactical approach would excuse us not being top as would some of our players coming inside but neither excuses us being so low down.
That's a disgraceful stat considering we were chasing the game for most of the 90 minutes.
I don't get how not liking the manager would be an excuse. You should still have enough professional and personal pride to not want to embarass yourself, and if you don't, you definitely shouldn't be at a club like United, regardless of who the manager is.
I also don't buy that it's tactical, as this would have required Mourinnho to have actually said something to the effect of "guys, if we're losing and it's not working, don't try any harder to get back in the game"
We just have a lot of lazy, weak minded players it seems
For all his faults Shaw seems to not only be playing better but putting the effort in as well.
What Bailly does with his arm in the air really annoys me about modern footballers. I would be interested what percentage of these gestures make to a refs decision. I expect zero. If they actually reacted properly instead would probably deal with defensive issues better. This complaint is not just directed at Bailly, but nearly all modern footballers.
If you go to 1:40 you'll see one of our counter attacks. When the ball is rolled out to Rashford, we are in a great position, 4 of our players sprinting towards the Leicester goal with Rashford on the ball. By the time Rashford eventually gets the ball near the penalty area, we've got 4 players around the edge of the box and Leicester have 7 players back. Whats frustrating is at the start of the move Leicester only had 5. Rashford to be fair was at fault for holding on to the ball for too long, but they could see he was struggling a bit and yet none of our players came closer to him to give him an option.
It's all to do with our player movement and understanding of tactics. Our players don't seem to work for each other, when a player is on the ball it's very rare you see players move by running/sprinting to provide an option, they jog instead which is easy to defend. It's why I like Mata in the team, ok he's not the best player nowadays but at least he's constantly on the move making runs. I doubt it's a case that the players get coached to move about and look for space but then on matchday they ignore it and just walk about.
Players jogging back to defend is on them. Players jogging while we're on the ball is as much coaching as it is player effort imo.
Made for a great moment in the Full Monty as well. The only one, possibly.
Pretty much this. And this can be easily rectified in training. But we are doing jack all it seems.
We're also 17 in the league table for shots so far. 12 or 13th for shots on target. Least amount of touches in the opponents box of any team. I don't understand why we are so bad at attacking.
Guess ita a mixture of tactics and personnel.
Tactically, we drop deep and soak up pressure. Only running is moving across as a unit and tracking runners. Our pressing is inconsistent and our counter attack is non existent.
Against Brighton we had Mata and Martial on the wings - two players who like to come for the ball instead of running off it.
Personnel wise, I think we put in Lingard and Rashford for Mata and Martial, you definately get more running. Whether that be tracking back or running off the ball. We saw that when they came on.
Maybe there is player unrest, though. It wouldnt be anything new in a Mourinho team. Not sure what the numbers are, but people were talking about the same thing when Jose was at Chelsea.
All the signs seem to be the same and to me, we need to do something about it before it gets worse.
Tactically, we drop deep and soak up pressure. Only running is moving across as a unit and tracking runners. Our pressing is inconsistent and our counter attack is non existent.
Against Brighton we had Mata and Martial on the wings - two players who like to come for the ball instead of running off it.
Personnel wise, I think we put in Lingard and Rashford for Mata and Martial, you definately get more running. Whether that be tracking back or running off the ball. We saw that when they came on.
Maybe there is player unrest, though. It wouldnt be anything new in a Mourinho team. Not sure what the numbers are, but people were talking about the same thing when Jose was at Chelsea.
All the signs seem to be the same and to me, we need to do something about it before it gets worse.
Because Mourinho likes to just focus on the defence. All the media are talking about it and how we need a defender, but no one seems to mentioning how toothless we are going forward.
Dont get me wrong we could do with a centre back, but we need to focus on our attack and how to create chances.
If we're not great at defending, lets do as Liverpool did and try and outscore teams. We have Lukaku, Martial, Sanchez, Mata, Lingard, Rashford. Not as good as other top teams, but certainly enough to turn over Brighton, in my opinion.
We creates absolutelu nothing against Brighton in the second half.
Jose's never been that sort of coach though. I don't think it's fair or realistic to expect him to make a 180 degree change and still perform at a high level.
I cn see your point and you are probably on to something. This is just one aspect though. Another common theme is games like on Sunday where we struggle to do anything effective in the game, because whatever area of the pitch the ball is in, opposition players are the ones most alive to what is going on.
We have the ball at the back, our players stand still trying to play while opposition players actively close them down. The opposition have the ball in the same area, we still stand still while they try to play and move around us. There's no situation in any area of the pitch where we're the team trying to force the issue, and yet there is also no situation anywhere on the pitch where we're the team in control despite not trying to force the issue. I don't think that is just on Mourinho. You don't tell your players to just go out and allow themselves to be out played. It's not that we are reactive or not understanding the tactics, though this may also be an issue...it's that our players just look like they don't want to put the work in to win the game.
It's been a theme of United performances for some time. Since pre-Ferguson retirement. Do the bare minimum required, as if football is some massive chore rather than a competitive sport.
We don't beat anyone by 5-6 goals, because regardless of how poor the opposition is, by the time we're more than three up what effort we were putting in has completely gone out the window.
I have seen this in many games last season where players seemed to walk around the pitch. We play at a very slow pace under Mourinho and only seem to raise our game a bit when we go a goal or 2 down.
We either sit back and stay compact, making it harder for teams to break us down or attack and outscore opponents. At the moment, we're doing neither.
I suggest we bring back Roy Keene into that midfield. The sheer presence of him!
We need a leader like him right now. But Mourinho would still try and dictate the more defensive side.
we had 3-4 non regulars in the side from last season and Young out of position. I think over the course of last season we certainly were compact.
We are the most uninspiring team in Europe when it comes to attacking football. All of our possession and passing stats are accumulated 40 yards from our own goal. Our goalkeeper has won our player of the year award every year. We never play a ball in to space, only to feet and usually to the person who just passed the ball. Any run behind the lines is pointless because 9 out of 10 times the ball is squared.
We are in serious danger as a club and the only way out is for Mourinho to go or to change his attitude towards the game. I don't want us to hire our 4th manager in 5 years but what else can the club do if he cant get us attacking like you're average football team. These fecking players also need a rude awakening. Martial needs to feck off, Rashford only has one way of playing and is very naive on the pitch. I dont think I've ever seen him win a header in the center either. Sanchez is a fecking lunatic with the ball but at Arsenal he always had a passing option. With United he either has to do it himself or pass backwards. We are a fecking shambles right now from Woodward down.
Personally I cant see a way out for us as we have been shit for 5 years now. Successful in some respect but the football has been laughable. Until the quality of the squad is raised we are going nowhere. The players I would clear out would be Young/Smalling/Jones/Valencia/Martial/Mata
Herrera/Darmian. Every other player has a part to play but fecking hell play some fecking football. Take a risk and help each other out but I've seen enough of us now to know that will not happen.
Absolutely. The worst thing about it is I know for sure Mourinho doesn't want the team to play like this because his teams have never been this bad in attack. He just doesn't have any ideas. Pep was recently talking about how Mendy will give them another dimension in attack and help break down smaller teams. That's the difference. The top coaches are always coming up with fresh and innovative ideas whilst Jose is still stuck in the dark ages. The fact that we choose the lazy option of hoofing the ball to Fellaini everytime we need a goal is enough to tell you he's out of ideas. He doesn't even take a defender off. Never even chooses to go two up top even though we have four strikers. It's so predictable. I can't even blame the defenders anymore. So what if there was a mistake? Every goal in football can be accredited to a mistake. There always something that can be blamed. Otherwise if there were no mistakes every game would finish 0-0 right? Even if we didn't make those mistakes would we have won the game? Probably not. The best teams overcome mistakes by outscoring the opposition. We don't do that. I know if we go behind we have little chance of getting back into it. Throw the kitchen sink at least. People wouldn't be as angry if we attacked but just had an off day in front of goal.
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Not any more compact than other top teams or actually on the contrary we conceded the most shots on goal from any top 5 teams, making De Gea earn his money. That's not something I associate with being truly compact, you would expect teams to struggle to have a sniff at our goal.
I think it's a result of the tactics. Other than Fellaini, midfielders don't venture into the opposition box. Our full backs overlap less than any team I've seenin years. Lukaku doesn't often make channel runs (when he does we look much better). Mat is a wide forward who doesn't run in behind because he'll be caught.
So basically most players don't run more than half the pitch at any time.
It's like the opposite of all the other top teams, who have both fbs forward and midfielders constantly breaking lines.
So basically most players don't run more than half the pitch at any time.
It's like the opposite of all the other top teams, who have both fbs forward and midfielders constantly breaking lines.
That was the biggest thing for me again. As crazy as it sounds, the mistakes didn't really interest me to be honest. They were mistakes and we fecked up big time. But the defending is almost a red herring. The focus is on them because they were so glaring, but our general shape and pattern of play in attack was awful again. That's not a mistake. That's not something you can write off as a one off thing. You couldn't necessarily point to individual mistake and say "yep, that's where we went wrong in attack" because it's way more fundamental than that.
To me, this is a team that's just not coached. People can disagree and say it's an absurd thing to say, but that's how i see it. I see a team that hasn't got a fecking clue what they're doing; they're just not on the same page. There is no structure there that holds them together. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. But in the times that it does work, if you notice in the next game it's completely gone out the window. Because what made it work has not been structurally implemented as a (please forgive me for using this word) "philosophy". Or an identity. Whatever you want to call it. So basically what ends up happening is that the previous game may swell have not existed. It's a blank slate.
That's a fecking problem.
You can both compact and a bit shit at it at the same time though.
There's a thread on Reddit on it too. Seems that Sanchez doesn't cover that much ground, didn't at Arsenal too, his average was 8.52km at Arsenal.
Would need a comparison of other team figures first if we're going to try and point fingers. And probably better if broken down into positions (even if we accept different tactics changes this a bit).
There's a thread on Reddit on it too. Seems that Sanchez doesn't cover that much ground, didn't at Arsenal too, his average was 8.52km at Arsenal.
It's a massive problem. I think a big part of it is the tempo of our play is just so slow - if the ball is moving slowly, the players will make fewer runs and cover a lot less distance. I find it especially strange as Mourinho teams have normally, at least anecdotally, been great at quick transitions and fast counter attacks. We have none of that.
We're crap to watch. We don't play with any pace. We don't play with width or stretch teams and attack down the sides. None of our full backs attack or overlap. We don't take risks too predictable and when we don't have the ball we don't press and put pressure on opposition. Come 60 mins we stick Fellani on and play hoof ball hope for him to win headers for knock on or score from one of the long balls.
I'd love to see us play with two upfront and take risks and have wide midfielders to hug touchline and full backs overlap and get crosses in with midfielders and centre forwards getting in to box.
Think Sanchez upfront with lukaku could work. Get him in to central positions. Seemed to be Sharpe in pre season playing upfront.
I'd love to see us play with two upfront and take risks and have wide midfielders to hug touchline and full backs overlap and get crosses in with midfielders and centre forwards getting in to box.
Think Sanchez upfront with lukaku could work. Get him in to central positions. Seemed to be Sharpe in pre season playing upfront.
I thought the allusion was that we were defensively sound, since we actually tried staying compact against Brighton too.
Yes but the point im making is encouraging players to go ahead and press will over the course of a season make them more aggressive, more likely to close down and better mindset as well as physical condition to put in work. If you let players sit back and cover each of their zones on the pitch they will always develop a slightly more relaxed mindset. Take Van Gaal for example. He was safety first. If there was no passing option forward we would look to pass backwards or sideways first rather than create that chance. Giving players that option and that instruction means 9/10 they will always choose to safe option as they develop that mindset. Look at what he did to Herrera. That guy was playing chipped forward passes all the time at Bilbao. Under Van Gaal he suddenly lost that ability.
Was it not the same way last season? I don't know, I'm genuinely asking. This maybe can't be seen with a naked eye, but I didn't see any difference from how we played back then. If it was the same, then how on earth did we manage to beat teams like Tottenham and Liverpool to second place if we're playing with 9 men basically? That must mean that either Mourinho is a genius or we have some incredibly skilled players to manage that.
Either way though, I don't buy that the players are going on strike. We were missing a few first team players anyway and I have a hard time with conspiracy theories.
Anyone know how much distance we covered against Spurs? We looked lot better at least in the pressing and work rate.
Copied from Reddit
Distance covered in meters(per minute played)
Lingard = 127.01
Fred = 126.9
Pogba = 114.12
Shaw = 112.22
Lukaku = 101.36
Lindelof = 101.32
Sprints(per minute played)
Rashford = .286
Lingard .189
Sanchez = .182
Lukaku = .133
Shaw = .125
Lindelof = .072
No surprise Pogba never breaks into a sprint, don't think he is even capable of it.
It would be interesting to compare this to others teams.
Yep, that's what we need.
I'm more worried that all of our creative, flair players are either seriously underperforming or are painfully average under Mourinho. Talking about the likes of Pogba, Mata, Sanchez, Martial, Miki T, even Rashford who looked incredible under LVG.
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