@Pogue Mahone Praise for Van Gaal's style of football, that is a collector's item.
Static, slow motion zombie passing
- Thread starter noodlehair
- Start date
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik and Imran hold a long overdue conversation about United's awful league form with 1 win in 7. They discuss a disappointing draw at Bournemouth, a not so disappointing draw against Liverpool and a crushing defeat at Chelsea - Is time nearly over for Erik Ten Hag?
Then in a special second half of the pod, Nik welcomes Natalie ( https://twitter.com/natalie_17) to discuss the fortunes of Manchester United Women as they booked a place in the FA Cup Final after a historic first ever win vs. Chelsea.
Isn't it?
Guess which more extinct threads will be bumped after tonight.
The funny thing is that we scored 86 goals in the league in Fergie's last season, which is only bettered in the PL era by the 89 goals we scored the previous season and the 97 goals we scored in the 99/00 season. The treble side, Ronaldo team 2006-2009 and the double sides from '94 and '96 didn't score more.
Remember when I used to get criticised for posts like this when I said our performance levels under Fergie equated to decent football.
Classic Twigg bump. Surprised you didn't quote 10 people in the thread.
Classic Twigg bumping it from three minutes before
Sorry bump the wrong word. Meant more digging up an old post to gloat.
Yeah I'll admit I love a bit of that.
Create new threads instead of bumping old ones.
Mourinho Edition
It’s baaaaacccckkkkkk
Never more so than last night. It was like watching snails.
Yes I know this is an old thread but in looking for this thread i see that people were complaining about passing tempo for at least the last 5 years
It really boils down to hiring managers who don’t understand the traditions of Manchester United. Attacking football. Wingers. Breaking at pace. Adventure. Young players. A beat the world attitude.
Not only have the last couple of managers not got the idea of attacking football, they’ve stank the place out with negativity.
Time to go back to United basics and not kid ourselves that chucking money or big name managers at it is going to change the current situation.
Never more so than last night. It was like watching snails.
Yes I know this is an old thread but in looking for this thread i see that people were complaining about passing tempo for at least the last 5 years
It really boils down to hiring managers who don’t understand the traditions of Manchester United. Attacking football. Wingers. Breaking at pace. Adventure. Young players. A beat the world attitude.
Not only have the last couple of managers not got the idea of attacking football, they’ve stank the place out with negativity.
Time to go back to United basics and not kid ourselves that chucking money or big name managers at it is going to change the current situation.
@golden_blunder , it's not back because it never really left
Fair point, well put.
So this was a problem under saf.
He really did get out at the right time.
He really did get out at the right time.
Matic and Valencia's walkball is insanely annoying. It's worse than the Pogjog.
I wouldn't even really mind (well, I would, but I'd mind less) if our catatonic attacking was backed up by a rock-solid defence. But we're shite with the ball, and we're shite without it. I honestly can't remember the last time I saw a supposedly top-class side (on paper) with so little idea of what they were doing on the pitch. It's a bit like the testimonial XI's you get where the players have never played together before
No speed, innovation or creativity, imo it's a combination of player ability (Matic and Fellaini, don't encourage this type of game) and coaching.
Crazy to think that this has been going for years, and the thread is right, it started in the last few seasons under SAF. There's been a few periods since then where we have played well (remember that stretch of games where the Blind, Fellaini and Young triangle were running the show?). But apart from a few isolated instances, good football hasn't been sustained.
I said it the other day, but our movement, attacking play and willingness to run in behind really is shocking compared to the majority of the Premier League, never mind the top 4. City, Liverpool, Spurs and Chelsea look like they're playing a different sport at times when you compare their creativity and effort to ours.
It all stems from the Manager as well, we've hired negative and in the process we have shackled any semblance of creativity with our set ups in the main.
I said it the other day, but our movement, attacking play and willingness to run in behind really is shocking compared to the majority of the Premier League, never mind the top 4. City, Liverpool, Spurs and Chelsea look like they're playing a different sport at times when you compare their creativity and effort to ours.
It all stems from the Manager as well, we've hired negative and in the process we have shackled any semblance of creativity with our set ups in the main.
Jose has lost the players
I thought bumping old threads was frowned upon? 
It's amazing this thread started 6 years ago and we still have the same problem now.
So it's 4 managers fault? Not a Manager?
I miss static, slow motion passing from the Fergie era :sad:
The managers are responsible for it, obviously. Mourinho in particular decided that he can compete with Guardiola and Klopp by finding ways to bypass high pressing. From the start his tactics was oriented towards having very tall players. Look at our midfileders and attackers and those of our rivals:
City and Liverpool don't have a single very tall midfielder and attacker and Chelsea have one in Giroud/Morata. United are full with such players. It's no coincidence. Problem is you can't play highly dynamic pacy football with many giants in midifield and attack. It's physically impossible.
City and Liverpool don't have a single very tall midfielder and attacker and Chelsea have one in Giroud/Morata. United are full with such players. It's no coincidence. Problem is you can't play highly dynamic pacy football with many giants in midifield and attack. It's physically impossible.
Its frustrating that this issue could have been resolved with any one of our nearest rivals managers.. Pep, Klopp and Sarri.
And they wouldn't need 3+ years to show their impact.
We have no pace at all in midfield. Just three lumbering giants.
If you are asked Lukaku to move around for 90 minutes, he'd need to be taken away on a stretcher.that tittle
more to the point - I've been thinking about myself. Maybe we don't have players who can be in constant motion through 90 mins.
But I do agree, that perhaps our players are not capable of moving as much. Remember, Jose has assembled a team of tall players, which means that they are not inclined to be as mobile as teams made up of shorter people.
I do wonder why Jose is so obsessed with tall players. It can't be so that we can score lots of headers (because we don't) or so we can defend against set pieces (we aren't particularly good at that).
Take McTomminay - IMO, this guy is not MUFC quality, but because he is tall, Jose puts him in the team.
IMO, we need to focus on buying mobile players who are quick and can move constantly for 90 minutes.
Indeed.
EDIT: Interesting to note that this issue first surfaced in 2012. It still hasn't been addressed.
It was like playing FIFA but the only button that worked on your controller was the pass button (X for PS4 & A for XBOX 1)
You don't need pace in midfield. Look at Busquets, Xavi and Iniesta.. individually, they're snails and slower than Pogba in a sprint. Same goes for Kroos-Modric, or Silva/KDB.
It is about improving players reaction times, their intelligence in terms of taking up good positions constantly on and off the ball, fast one-touch passing and finding easy passes between the lines and constantly finding people in space.
If you don't encourage that style of play, and you don't improve players in this regard, they end up not knowing where their colleagues are, they end up dwindling on the ball and it just becomes a clusterfeck.. where each attack, the players themselves are having to formulate a way of getting the ball from a to b. It isn't automated enough.
Latter years of Fergie, our play become aimless in the midfield whenever Scholes wasn't in the side. Carrick in particular, was a big issue as he was a good passer from a to be but he was very limited in terms of movement off the ball.. which made us very easy to press. That in addition to not really having coaches in the set up who improved the players ability to pass in constant triangles and provide them with the tactical framework to keep possession under pressure and play at a higher tempo.
Last post in the thread at 2016 contradicting the post that bumped it and both are admins.
Can’t believe this thread is 6 years old. Time flies when you’re having fun
Rise from your grave
It feels more like 10 years, doesn't it?
It feels more like 10 years, doesn't it?
Completely wrong there. Any of them has quicker reactions and would beat Pogba over 5-10 m. In football, you don't need to sprint 60-70 m. Midifielders need to be quick over short distances. Pogba is a fantastic athlete but KDB, Iniesta etc. are quicker over short distances and much more agile. Matic would beat Kante over 100 m or even 50 m without problems. Kante, however, eats him alive over 10-15 m. The problem with Matic, Fellaini, Pogba, McTominay is not that they are slow over 50-60m, they are not. But they are not quick over 5-10 m and not nimble enough. There is a reason why the most dynamic teams in the league don't have giants in midfield and attack.
Wow, I never expected this thread to rise from the ashes. Hello my old friend, it's been too long.
Just shows how badly we’ve been setup that it still hasn’t been addressed
We're not setup to play in that way though, that's one style and one as a club we've barely adopted.
In a 433 you absolutely need pace in midfield otherwise the front line becomes isolated. Pogba and whoever the other midfiielder is on the day need to be sprinting to support the attack on counters and they need to be constantly moving so we can play out and break.
Instead we get statues and our front line can't move because they don't know when they're getting the ball. We see it all the time, Lukaku or whoever will start to make a run but Pogba takes 3 touches before releasing it and the moment passes or Lukaku ends up offside.
A lot of it was to do with the centre midfield, Matic and Fellaini were basically as deep as our centre backs when we were trying to play out from the back, leaving a massive empty void in the centre of the park and giving us zero options. It did feel like a tactical instruction as well.
Bring back Fergie and his zombie style of football
We didnt do too badly did we?
We didnt do too badly did we?
We zombie walked into a couple of league titles