Has the 'coaching' changed then?
We are an awfully coached team
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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.
Sneering aside. Our midfield has been a lot better at recycling the ball lately and does look better coached than before. Pogba and an on-form Fredrick make a huge difference breaking up play and getting the ball to our pacy and dynamic forwards.
The 'fine margins' have been going our way a bit in the past few matches. We definitely looked more fluent against Villa, with Pogba in particular in great form.
Then again, I'd say Villa looked just as threatening as we did, but didn't put away their chances.
I fear with Ole there will always be this nagging wonder of what a real 'tactictian' could do with this group of players, because some of us (myself included) struggle to see what United's style or tactics are sometimes.
Then again, certainly towards later Fergie years, this was also the case and we still managed to do pretty well. That last title win we were kind of terrible, but RVP just hoisted us all onto his shoulders and delivered the title.
Then again, I'd say Villa looked just as threatening as we did, but didn't put away their chances.
I fear with Ole there will always be this nagging wonder of what a real 'tactictian' could do with this group of players, because some of us (myself included) struggle to see what United's style or tactics are sometimes.
Then again, certainly towards later Fergie years, this was also the case and we still managed to do pretty well. That last title win we were kind of terrible, but RVP just hoisted us all onto his shoulders and delivered the title.
Not conceding in the first few minutes of the game also helps.
A lot
Someone bumped this thread and i went back to read and chance upon your post.
just wondering did you pick back up the mic?
Until we can consistently keep our high tempo passing/quick transition identity with multiple personnel and not just our best team players I will always believe we are poorly coached. When we dont have a Fred or martial playing the coaching always shows it's ass.
Yes. Like mancity without Debryne or Aguero, Liverpool without Wijnaldum and Salah,
This has always been a ridiculous thread. Moaners playground
Yeah it 'looks better coached' when they play well. It just shows what a bullshit argument it was in the first place.
You mean the magical coaching sessions that every other club does, but we can’t do?
did we have patterns of play last night?
The thing I find weird and even yesterday against Villa this showed. So Fred and McT often just hold the position when we are on the ball. Shaw, AWB or whomever look for a pass inside and often there is acres of space Just crying out for someone to move in to. I feel like it really should be Bruno that does it but he never does. This is why Martial often ends up there as he is one of the only players that drops in to that space.
Yesterday when Pogba was central he started to do it and when he did it was in our best periods of play when we really started to amp up the threat on Villa.
I see this same pattern repeat game after game but who knows if that is coaching or players just being lazy or what. Every game this will happen where there is just this space between the 2 holding midfielders and Bruno that is pretty much no mans land.
I really think Bruno needs to start doing a better job of dropping in there and just getting on the ball.
Yesterday when Pogba was central he started to do it and when he did it was in our best periods of play when we really started to amp up the threat on Villa.
I see this same pattern repeat game after game but who knows if that is coaching or players just being lazy or what. Every game this will happen where there is just this space between the 2 holding midfielders and Bruno that is pretty much no mans land.
I really think Bruno needs to start doing a better job of dropping in there and just getting on the ball.
According to Ole himself we are trying variations in training now. He said that there are small details that need to be still worked on. These small details could be the difference between 3 points and zero points. So yes our coaching seems to have been improving. We don't seem to be so open in defense as earlier on. DeGea is certainly more proactive and more vocal now.
Winning conquers all. When team wins coaching seems improved. When team loses "we are an awfully coached team" threads popup. A team can be well coached and lose.
The only real concern I have had his Ole's in game management, other than that I think he's done well.
The only real concern I have had his Ole's in game management, other than that I think he's done well.
Got to love the “poor coaching” brigade. The line for people to pretend they know what they’re talking about in a bid to hide their biased agenda
IMO most people under value confidence.
You can be s brilliant coach but wont be apparent when there are nerves, doubts etc. It is a combination of preparation, personnel, tactics and confidence and different mixes of these can win.
Was SAF the best tactician throughout his tenure? Maybe not but he was the master of confidence, belief and a sense of purpose.
When we had the best players in the league we won titles in style because we only parked the bus against Arsenal, Chelsea etc but later titles were not pretty but he gave the belief and confidence.
You can see this team are developing confidence and a sense of purpose. This is why people like me said give Ole time.
There are still plenty who will moan about ole all the time but it is plain to seen that this team is growing and developing and you can coach and tactic as much as you like but there are 11 opposition players who don’t want your plan to go perfectly and will spend 90 minutes trying to ruin those plans. People expect the team to play perfect to plan for 90 minutes but this rarely happens in football just like in all our jobs in life! It is the character, confidence and experience that wins through when the plans go to ratshit.
How many projects go to plan all the time?
You can be s brilliant coach but wont be apparent when there are nerves, doubts etc. It is a combination of preparation, personnel, tactics and confidence and different mixes of these can win.
Was SAF the best tactician throughout his tenure? Maybe not but he was the master of confidence, belief and a sense of purpose.
When we had the best players in the league we won titles in style because we only parked the bus against Arsenal, Chelsea etc but later titles were not pretty but he gave the belief and confidence.
You can see this team are developing confidence and a sense of purpose. This is why people like me said give Ole time.
There are still plenty who will moan about ole all the time but it is plain to seen that this team is growing and developing and you can coach and tactic as much as you like but there are 11 opposition players who don’t want your plan to go perfectly and will spend 90 minutes trying to ruin those plans. People expect the team to play perfect to plan for 90 minutes but this rarely happens in football just like in all our jobs in life! It is the character, confidence and experience that wins through when the plans go to ratshit.
How many projects go to plan all the time?
what a poor thread @bond19821982
It could always be better, that much is obvious. We are still seeing a few silly decisions being made by the players and some lapses in concentration but we are definitely coming together nicely. I would like to see a couple of matches with total domination from us as a run of clean sheets would set us up nicely. Confidence is certainly building for sure.
You seem to know all the answers. Are we a well-coached team, and why?
Because we are second in the league on goal difference!
Were we well-coached under Mourinho when we were second after 38 games?
What's weird to me is that some people on here think every single team in the league receives the same level of coaching and the only thing that makes the difference between the poor, average, good and great teams is just who's bought the best players. So Steve Bruce is as good a coach as Klopp and the only difference is Klopp has better players (which he undoubtedly does). It makes you wonder why teams even bother with having a manager and chopping and changing to try level up, when all managers are doing the same things in preparing for games and on the training pitch and none of it really makes a difference come match day anyway.
I get coaching is one of the intagibles because we don't actually get to see it so it's all speculation. But sometimes failures on the pitch must be down to the training and preparation for games not being good enough, otherwise we're in the situation whereby we have to say every team in the league is being coached and prepped in the exact same way and to the exact same level - surely this can't be right?
Now it's possible teams failures are down to other factors for example
- the players are being prepped to the highest level but they're just too dumb to follow instructions
- the squad are being prepped to the highest level but the players are just very low on confidence
- the players actually just don't have the quality and aren't very good footballers
- it's just a bit of bad luck or "negative variance"
Now I don't think pointing to any of these reasons are more valid than the idea that the team is poorly coached. It depends on the context of the situation. If some fans on the caf rate our players highly and think the squad is full of good footballers than it's not hard to see how they'd start to question the coaching and preparation.
Note this post isn't intended to say we're poorly coached, I'm speaking in general terms that I don't buy the idea that "we don't see the coaching therefore you can never question it".
Yes
With Mourinho it was the overall system that was the problem.
we have 6 shots on target per game, second just behind liverpool. whether fans at home can interpret tactics or not isn't relevant for me, over long runs of games the stats are showing that we are consistently creating which is so so different to united from 2013 - the start of 2020.
i don't mean to pick on any one person in particular but trying to make out that it is fine margins and ole just has had the rub of green, it has been a full calendar year with great results and encouraging stats like the above, we can't just keep accepting that it is any kind of luck. The first several games of the 19/20 season when we were dramatically over XGa, that was the real time luck has played an extended role in all of Ole's time here, might have made last season much more comfortable.
I share this nagging feeling, but I don't think the positive cultural shift that Ole has implemented can be underestimated. He got rid of the likes of Lukaku and Sanchez and seems to have handled the Pogba situation perfectly (and I was all for sending him to the reserves!) I think this likely gets him a lot of buy-in from players, as even someone like DVB, whom you might expect to be sulking, appears to be keeping a positive attitude. For varying reasons, this kind of squad unity was never going to happen with Moyes, Van Gaal, nor Mourinho. I also think Ole is the kind of manager who will be open to new ideas, or bringing in different coaches to help him sharpen the tactics.
Thats a daft take. If we wheel out Lindgard and Ighalo to replace Bruno and Martial, of course we are going to look worse.
Hell, whats even the point of getting good players? Why not just snatch some blokes from the street and coach them into world class footballers. Klopp is a good coach right? Why didn't he just coach Benteke into a technically brilliant player?
De Gea conceding 15.88 less goals than expected got us to second place, moreso than good coaching. In fact, our expected points for that season was 62.33 when we actually got 81. Our performances in that season were what indicated we weren't well coached.
Nobody questioned whether Mourinho was coaching the side well, or patterns of play.
It was simply the fact that his negative style was not something that many were a fan of, and it was a boring and dull style that he wanted the team to play. Nobody was questioning him as being clueless or a P.E. teacher, which is some of the retarded crap repeated on here in conversation about Ole.
When people start making stupid hyperbolic statements like that, there is no place for sensible discussion.
Served a purpose of making us fight to get the points though .
It was always a process of which there are different stages with different problems at different points of time. We're doing good now at solving the problems in front of us.
And it's good to remember that it's a collective process, the players and the coaches improve together and as a single group. With the time we are giving the process for the group to work its yielding excellent results with the best yet to come
The term “won due to individual brilliance” is always a bit baffling to me. How many games do Liverpool win because salah smashes one in? Or city because of De Bruyne? Why isn’t that because of individual brilliance then? We don’t dominate games because we don’t have the players in midfield to do so yet. We’re still a work in progress but we’re getting there.
To be fair they definitely were. Questioning his negative style was part of questioning his coaching and preparation for games as it was limiting in how good the team could become.
1. We struggled to break down teams who sat deep
2. We only scored 68 goals in that 2nd place season while City scored 106 which is why they ended up 19 points ahead of us
3. We overperformed our XGA as De Gea was pulling off heroics, and overperformed our expected points, which suggested the results were not sustainable long term (and even then the results already weren't good enough to be where we wanted to be given we were so far behind City and then the game against Sevilla..)
Yes, people were wondering why he was so negative, but nobody questioned him as being clueless or a P.E. teacher.
That negative style was his own, but it was still a style, a plan for the team to follow. Plenty disliked the style, but nobody went into as ridiculous hyperbole as we saw since Ole took over.
Definitely. I would love to know the stuff Ole has the lads doing in training, because while the football was already better than under the previous 3 managers at the start of the season, this is real exciting, enthralling stuff. Brilliant, and I hope it continues this way.
In 10 days we were clearly the better team vs Everton, Leicester and Villa and all of these clubs are at the top of the table. This is clear proof we are improving and deserve to be where we are.
I'm not going to forever wonder what another coach could do with this team, I'm going to enjoy the ride and I suggest you do the same.
One area, particularly, I think we need getting into the players heads is the penalty area. The opposition one. Our fullbacks (sometimes understandy) cop flak for their crosses never finding a target. This is because there usually is no target. There’s never anyone getting on the end of things. Martial did brilliantly to get his goal yesterday but it is usually desperately lacking. It might help to have an actual striker playing in the role. All well and good having Rashford/Martial coming in from wide but they often run out of options. As well as Martial played , he just isn’t suited to the role Of striker. We need bodies in the box, which we usually only see when chasing the game. Yes, we’re looking alright at the moment but it doesn’t mean we’ve found the key. Things can change very quickly. Only a few weeks ago it was all despair on here. As an ex-striker, you’d think Ole would be aware. I’m sure we’re working on it from a coaching and personnel angle. A reliable striker with Martial and Rashford offering options would offer not only variation but a more direct route to goal
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I don’t think anyone has ever suggested that management and coaching has no bearing in results.
If anything, it’s actually the opposite. Plenty of posters here seem to strip any and all responsibility from the players and place results solely on “the system” and the “style of play”. It actually goes as far as people suggesting misplaced passes and individual f***ups are the result of “poor coaching”. Obviously it doesn’t go the other way, as any positives are dismissed under that laughable term “individual brilliance”.
Anyone with any sense knows that football is far more complicated than to suggest any one thing is the root of all failures or success.
Why can’t we see nuance? Look, Ole isn’t 100% the best manager, and he’s not 100% the worst. We can argue about the margins, but I do see patterns of play being developed. Clearly, we want to take advantage of our pace, and we are putting a lot of balls over the top and into space. Secondly, with Martial as a target man, we are trying to get to the end line and putting the ball into the box on the ground (mostly from the left/Shaw/Rashford/Martial). When playing through the middle, it’s a lot of flicks and leaves. Movement is starting to come together. Are we Man City? No, and we’ll never be, but we can still be successful.
Bruno coming into the squadhas completely transformed the team. Does Ole get credit for that? Maybe a little.
I don’t understand why this forum has to be so polarized. Let’s get behind Ole. Maybe we can achieve something special. Maybe the clown Woodward will actually bring in some new signings in January. Maybe some of our younger academy players will emerge.
All I know is, I’m the happiest with our form since SAF retired, and that’s worth something.
Defensively yes we were a well coached side but attacking wise we looked like individuals who didn't know each other.
Yes you're right failures are most likely a combination of factors. There are posters who aren't convinced we're a well coached team, but there are also loads of posters who ridicule the idea that any of our problems could be down to poor coaching.