The amount of space we get is different home and away. Certainly a lot harder to run in behind at home.
It's the same issue, if teams give us space to run in behind then we're good for a few goals, otherwise we struggle to break them down.
Would you sack or keep Ole? (Poll reopened)
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It's the same issue, if teams give us space to run in behind then we're good for a few goals, otherwise we struggle to break them down.
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We will score one more than youuuuuu
With our current fragile CB pairing and defensive woes, we'll do well to go with maximum points through to the new year. The game against Leeds will truly be decisive. We need 3 points from that. No excuses.
At the moment we're a team of 2 halves comprising of a somewhat clinical attack (with the occasional squandering of good chances) and a haphazard, poorly drilled, rickety defence
Reminds me of Brazil in the early nineties where they looked to outscore every opponent.....Except we don't have samba kings in our team. We have Fred.
Christ look at the state of Arsenal. 5 points from a possible 27, goal difference of minus 8.
I don't mind people questioning Ole's position at the club, what annoys me is people questioning his knowhow as a manager, as if he is a novice who simply picks 11 players and says 'come on lads' while clapping his hands.
That's now 10 consecutive away wins. By all means question whether or not he is man to take us forward, but do put some respect on his name.
That's now 10 consecutive away wins. By all means question whether or not he is man to take us forward, but do put some respect on his name.
Teams that play at their home will open up and attack. Any team opening up against us will get scored on.
Opposition who come to Old Trafford always up their game and the lack of 75k fans means that they don't feel the normal pressure of playing at old Trafford.
Then those teams are stupid to open up against us and would be stupid to do it at Old Trafford too. Particular with no home support to help them out.
And three of those points came at Old Trafford - such a frustrating loss! We’d be absolutely flying if we hadn’t thrown in such a shocker there.
Three of this seasons away wins was against Everton, Southampton and West Ham all 3 whom got results in Old Trafford this year.
Just some under him? That's so sad. We scored plenty enough of wonderful goals under LVG and Mou. Can't remember under Moyes.
Season 16/17 is the best football for me - entertaining with more players that have characters and a more efficient football. Sure there are finishing issues halfway through the season in the league, before that it's good and then later on, we had the injuries piling up to key players. With 2 trophies too at the end which matters the most.
Ole haven't won yet and that's okay because the football is overall slightly better than the previous manager trio. So we should accept it and be content with it.
Nice, good recovery. Only for the league though.
This kind of positive new tables are popping up more and more during this Ole reign. Wonder why. Curious what's next.
The only points that matter is at the end of season. This is just useless stats.
We've had post-Bruno tables, post-lockdown tables (overlapping seasons), post-joint-worst-defeat-at-home tables.
Next up: post-Leipzig table.
Anything to keep the delusion going.
There’s definitely a lot of life and belief in this team. To come back so often against pretty high quality opposition isn’t a coincedence after a while. The players ‘never know when they’re beaten’ and I know exactly who that reminds me of. Very promising.
I really don’t think Ole is a top tier coach yet, there are so many examples of teams that look more organised more quickly after other coaches come in. But who knows, maybe he can learn to be, or even more likely, get the right people in who can assist with that. I personally think - or more accurately hope - he is probably gonna figure it out and it’s undisputedly best we’ve played at times since SAF.
The butthurt on here because other fans don’t share your opinion though is really boring. If Ole was doing amazingly (over the last two years) I don’t think this thread would be very big at all. It’s got this big because there’s been a huge amount of inconsistency and no ones really very sure how it’s gonna pan out. The outraged incredulity at differing viewpoints is overly zealous Someone thinks he’s not the right guy for the job, so what? If he absolutely is, their opinion will become irrelevant pretty quickly. There is really no need to react like somebody has just taken a sh*t on your mince pie.
Ole is expected to do well here because he’s spent a lot of money and is manager of one of the biggest clubs in the world, that’s just the way it is. If the thread was that awful it would get locked. I think the thread is pretty interesting and reflects the enigma that this Man Utd team is. We could finish top two or eighth and I certainly wouldn’t feel comfortable betting against either of those outcomes! Nevertheless it is definitely fun and beats LVGs sideways backwards borefest or mourinhos cold blooded strangulation of the sport. And just maybe we are in a title race
D
I really don’t think Ole is a top tier coach yet, there are so many examples of teams that look more organised more quickly after other coaches come in. But who knows, maybe he can learn to be, or even more likely, get the right people in who can assist with that. I personally think - or more accurately hope - he is probably gonna figure it out and it’s undisputedly best we’ve played at times since SAF.
The butthurt on here because other fans don’t share your opinion though is really boring. If Ole was doing amazingly (over the last two years) I don’t think this thread would be very big at all. It’s got this big because there’s been a huge amount of inconsistency and no ones really very sure how it’s gonna pan out. The outraged incredulity at differing viewpoints is overly zealous Someone thinks he’s not the right guy for the job, so what? If he absolutely is, their opinion will become irrelevant pretty quickly. There is really no need to react like somebody has just taken a sh*t on your mince pie.
Ole is expected to do well here because he’s spent a lot of money and is manager of one of the biggest clubs in the world, that’s just the way it is. If the thread was that awful it would get locked. I think the thread is pretty interesting and reflects the enigma that this Man Utd team is. We could finish top two or eighth and I certainly wouldn’t feel comfortable betting against either of those outcomes! Nevertheless it is definitely fun and beats LVGs sideways backwards borefest or mourinhos cold blooded strangulation of the sport. And just maybe we are in a title race
DThe thing is ole is really not the best coach but he's an amazing manager. He backs his players, improves them, motivates them and gets them fighting for each other.
He really does need a better team through because in some areas we are really struggling. Things like keeping possession under stress, building fun the back and defending set pieces are all basic components of football and all this is down to the coaching team.
One forget striker does not have the ability to coach all this.
He really does need a better team through because in some areas we are really struggling. Things like keeping possession under stress, building fun the back and defending set pieces are all basic components of football and all this is down to the coaching team.
One forget striker does not have the ability to coach all this.
No.
Everyone wants us to get back to winning titles. The difference is that one side thinks we should challenge now where as the other side dont think we are quite there yet. One side thinks that with a new coach we would see a massive improvement in performances where as the other side is more skeptical
And most importantly, one side thinks that we are too big to fail where as one side thinks we've been run by idiots for too long and we needs a steady hand to guide us forward
Just throwing out a bold claim like that does not prove anything unless you back it up with something substantial. You might as well say we look poor from a dermatological point of view
The error that lead to the goal yesterday had a couple of small and big blunders
1. Lindelof takes the freekick and passes it to centrally to Maguire, should have passed it wide to AWB who had space
2. Maguire has his body weirldy shaped so he cant pass it wide, his options are Matic and Henderson
3. Matic rather than moving 5 feet, instead opts to stand in Goldbridges shadow and just look, hes actually one of the big culprits
4. Maguire then has two options, hoof it or play it to Henderson, he goes for the latter
5. Henderson has a shite touch which leads to goal
LvG tried to micro manage every little aspect of how we played and we both know how that turned out. I agree that we playing out from the back has caused us some trouble and we can get a lot better at it, but i'd still prefer it to just hoofing it since none of our attackers are particularly strong in aerial duels
So why the feck isn't he getting in coaches that can help with the different aspects instead of getting people who're basically learning on the job?
It's been 2 years since he's gotten the job and we've not seen him get any new coaches in to help him.
I love this no coaching argument, when in fact some of the plays that we've had in under him point completely in the opposite direction.
It might not always work out, which is because we try short slick passing, and even one error means that the move has come to an end, but my God when we manage to pull it off, it's a beautiful sight.
It might not always work out, which is because we try short slick passing, and even one error means that the move has come to an end, but my God when we manage to pull it off, it's a beautiful sight.
What you said would be fine in isolation. the thing is we feck up this play from the back quite a lot of times and end up hoofing it clear. This is a managers instruction and/or poor coaching of how to implement it. Its obvious the players aint good enough to do it, so why persevere?
Which is exactly what it is.
Lovely moments, but I’ve started to become a little bit worried. I don’t see the collective pressure, and the players are very static when they try to play out from the defence. The offensive play in the right side is totally absent: We don’t have a RW, and I’m not sure AWB is our future solution on the RB.
I still think it’s for the best if Ole stays through this season, but things need to improve if he also should be allowed another season. It’s not only about securing top 4. Top 4 is probably realistic the way we play now, but it’s not enough to reassure me Ole is the right manager to meet my future expectations.
At the same time I have to admit our squad is far from good enough to challenge for the title.
I still think it’s for the best if Ole stays through this season, but things need to improve if he also should be allowed another season. It’s not only about securing top 4. Top 4 is probably realistic the way we play now, but it’s not enough to reassure me Ole is the right manager to meet my future expectations.
At the same time I have to admit our squad is far from good enough to challenge for the title.
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Well, I keep saying I don't know which team will show up in different games. Now I can say that 2 teams showed up in 1 game. The first 20 minutes and last 10 minutes we saw 1 form of united, while during the remaining minutes we saw another. Ole has been doing well (we've had thousands of posts debating this, but I firmly believe he's done well), now one of the key asks of him is to have this team maintain some form of consistency week in week out and throughout each game. He said he demands players to show high work ethics and he needs to continue to ensure they do throughout 90 minutes. Of course, to achieve that, players need not be over worked. This is when rotation is required. We can't keep fielding the same team throughout the season. The only position that is usually rotated is central midfield (almost). Everything else is just constant.
We are still some signings away from being a top team again, but we don't have a bad squad overall. Need to start seeing this consistency.
We are still some signings away from being a top team again, but we don't have a bad squad overall. Need to start seeing this consistency.
The problem is simply lack of movement, we have 6 players back there (7 with the GK) who are supposed to help with the build up, the problem is that midfield tends to just walk around instead of making themselves available. Henderson will take most of the blame, but i'd say Matic is equally clupable because of he just gets his arse moving for 2 seconds we will easily play past them. Thats why i think a good CDM with a good engine who knows how to play nice and tidy will improve us massively.
VdB might be the answer, but is he really a CM? I dont know what to make of him. Most of his camoes hes been alright, but yesterday he was pretty bad imo
We've struggled with high press, but have gotten slightly better at beating it. If we can comfortably beat the first line of press we are going to be much more comfortable
I was particularly talking about goals. Not trophies. Goals under Jose like you said were efficient. Long balls to Fellaini or Zlatan was our plan on most occasions. We never scored a proper team goal that much. The third goal we scored yesterday was a pure peach and we do tend to score a lot like that under Ole.
You don’t be 6th and jump to league title right away. You make progress every season. First full season expectation is to make it top 4, second full season is to close the gaps between United and Liverpool, third full season is to challenge the league and finally winning it. We want high standard because this is big club but it’s unrealistic to fix 6 years problem within 1-2 years.
What the hell is going on with this place.
Keeper hands then a goal we end up going ahead cruising basically and people are getting on like big babies demanding him fired.
Got bit ropey at end as they scored 2 real scrappy goals but good night work.
Defence is so fragile. Not sure how you fix it at this stage of the season bang in the middle of games coming thick and fast
You are spot on. Matic, McT, Pogba and Fred tend to fall very deep, and then everything is slowed down and the forward alternatives are few.
I think it’s wrong to criticise Ole for playing on our strengths, but have to admit we heavily depend on Rashford and Bruno. Perhaps it’s proving the squad isn’t good enough.
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Yes. Can’t be sure who is coaching what behind the scenes but even if coaching is to blame for some of the issues we’ve had this season, Ole does seem to be a good manager. The same was probably true of SAF, by most accounts he didn’t do much actual coaching himself.
Based on intuition from watching the games over the last year or so and just instinctively when you look at the guys in the senior coaching positions, it looks like we need a couple of additional coaches with more experience.
People do not hate Ole the player but the ''hate'' Ole the manager as he is deemed not good enough to be Man Utd coach. People get too sentimental with Ole.
1. "We have a better defense than pretty much all of these"? Just like that. Seriously? You're going to make me go through the personnel of five teams in order to argue points like Luke Shaw and Aaron Wan-Bissaka offers less offensively than Alexander-Arnold/Robertson, or Chilwell/James? Or that Aymeric Laporte is a more satisfactory CD option than Viktor Lindelof?
2. "By this logic of yours we should be 6th every season then? You just made us the worst of all big teams in England!" . The only logic implied here is that the strength of squads should be assessed realistically. And much as I would have liked it to be otherwise, it seems obvious to me that Liverpool, City and Chelsea are considerably ahead of us. They have fewer (if any) positions where they lack a satisfactory option in the first XI, and they also have much better secondary options and depth of quality than we do. I don't think we have a weaker squad than Tottenham or any other team beyond those 3, all things considered.
3. "Anyway, the point I said is we aren't facing Liverpool and Chelsea every week. 90% of our games are against midtable clubs and relegation fodder. We are better than these surely? The number of big games in a season is about 10-12 out of 38. You win the league by being consistent in the other 28 games against midtable and relegation fodders teams."
The fallacies involved in that argument are so painfully obvious that I think I'll rely on the ability of pretty much anyone to figure them out for themselves within 10 seconds. You will too, if you have a rethink. Because what you're arguing here is that somehow it doesn't matter if we're not as good as other top teams, we can - and should - beat them in the standings anyway.
4. "It's a defeatist mentality to conclude we have no chance to win the league or even challenge just because there are one or two teams better than us. So there's no hope to win it until we have the undisputed best team in the league? Because it isn't happening any time soon, maybe ever."
The only people who use the word "defeatist" are generally those who are determined not to face the facts. So I'll wear that like badge of honor.
Also, you are clearly misrepresenting what I am arguing. I am not arguing that we have no chance to win the league. I'm just pointing out that it wouldn't be reasonable to expect us to, given how our squad lines up against some of the others. Unless other main competitors play well below their potential, we're not in my opinion good enough to achieve that, not yet. I'm fully prepared to be pleasantly surprised, but considered as an expectation, it's just not reasonable. Also, I fear you're giving rather free rein to your imagination if you think I'm arguing that we have no hope of winning until we are the undisputed best team in the league. Obviously, that is not so. Having a squad that is roughly on the same level as the other top candidates will do. I don't think we have that, yet.
I also think that while so far the inconsistency of other top teams have left us with unexpected opportunities, the shortage of squad depth in particular is ultimately going to be a bigger disadvantage through a compressed season than it normally would be.
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I think the options in the vote need to be updated. I've voted for sack as I want him gone at the next best opportunity, which may well be the end of the season but certainly not ASAP.
I basically agree with your first four comments. Not saying Henderson is totally blameless but Maguire put him under that pressure in the first place and as you state had other options. It looked to me as if Matic was actually telling Maguire to move wider which would have given him the space he needed.
We appear to keep making similar defensive mistakes time and time again. This is where ( IMO ) I blame Ole and the coaching staff as it's a easy fix. Our defence is very weak and can't remember us conceding so may goals early on in matches.
For it to happen as often as it does suggest to me their inept and just don't have what it takes at the moment. Even with a few defensive targets ( hopefully ) in January sales I still have major doubts Ole can turn us round. Hoping I'm totally wrong though and eating humble pie.
Thanks for confirming my point. Hatred for the manager based on personal opinion, which ultimately clouds all ability to look at our situation rationally, or respectfully.
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We've only played six matches!
How can you dislike Ole? He's a United legend who's literally got us playing the same type of football as SAF's United, just without the same quality of players.
We are expansive when we need to be, have the flexibility in strategy to be able to beat any team in world football and ultimately we're getting results. Also, his signings on the whole have worked out well.
We are expansive when we need to be, have the flexibility in strategy to be able to beat any team in world football and ultimately we're getting results. Also, his signings on the whole have worked out well.
One problem is that Maguire and Lindelof lacks the acceleration, athleticism and/or confidence to just move past pressing attackers. This means they need passing options and help from our fullbacks and DCM's. Usually when Fred plays, this is a bit better since hes good at dropping down and providing a safe passing option. Pogba and Matic? Not so much.
I've banged on about this, but i am confident that a quality CDM with a good engine and decent ball handling will completely transform us both in attack and defence. Teams like to press us, but if we can counter that by moving the ball froward in an efficient manner regularly, we are going to cause teams a lot of problems
Unbelievable that is. Ole is sometimes found wanting on the tactical side of the game, but he has really instilled some bollocks into this team.
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