Absolutely.
We are an awfully coached team
- Thread starter bond19821982
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Absolutely.
Hostile?
Considering I didn't even disagree with anything you wrote, merely added to it.. your reply is a bit odd.
An awfully coached team wouldn't be sitting 2nd in the most stacked league in the world, having out scored everyone. No amount of mental gymnastics will change that.
You added to nothing, Ruben Dias isn’t the reason City are an extensively drilled side is it?
It may be the reason they are doing better than at the start of the season, but you did already tell us all many many times that the top teams including United started poorly due to no pre-season did you not?
The point I'm making is most of the games I've watched have been very close encounters. The games could have gone either way apart from the 9-0 (Southampton ) which may have been different had we not been playing against 10 men for 90mins and the 6-2 (Leeds).
I've seen nothing in tactics and strategy that excites me for the comming seasons so far. Don't be fooled by our position. We are a couple of games away of being over taken by David Moyes.
Is that not also true?
We played more games than anyone in Europe since the lockdown last season, while relying on a small, core group of players. Our season then finished as late as any team and we had no preseason. We played 1 preseason friendly against Watford when we played Palace, while they were playing their 7th game.
It certainly looks true for City and United yes, so I think Tom was bang on.
And I was sceptical.
We're also a couple personal mistakes from still being in the title race. This nonsensical argument goes both ways. We are where we are.
Ole has done decent and we are doing better than last year obviously, I won't argue with any of that . However, we were second to the most expensively assembled squad of all time literally 6 months before Ole took over.
Fair play.
Every team that started poorly lacked match fitness, that includes us and Manchester City and most of the teams in Europe with the exception of perhaps Bayern.
City has gone from a defense with our quality in 19/20 to a side that is almost impossible to score on with the addition of one Centerback. Did Pep drill them differently from last season? Or is Ruben Dias' individual contribution having a major impact here?
The football style part can may be argued for. I think the main difference from LVG and Jose is the belief Ole has instilled in the team. We do keep winning whilst playing poorly or going down a goal early on.
Results wise however Jose is the clear winner, he got us second with 81 points.
And City are a few games from getting into a tussle with us. That logic doesnt make sense. We are where we deserve to be.
We are the top goal scorers in the division. Not just a side scoring above their means but top scorers while missing a lot of other chances we should be scoring.
We were told 9-0 was a one off, a mirage. Then we score 11 goals in our next 4 games.
Its kind of tiring to be told everything we do is smoke and mirrors, of course you dont see any progress if thats your mindset.
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I think playing with no striker is probably a large part of it* Tom, but yes, Dias is clearly a good addition.
* City scored 102 goals last year, on course for just 79 this season.
Pep is clearly less dogmatic in his original beliefs now as evidenced by him playing little defensively against us compared to last year. So yia Pep has evolved, Dias might have helped with that but it is mainly Pep.
He’s been forced to by the loss of Aguero too, a side that scored 102 is always going to be more open than a side that is on course for less than 80.
Playing with no striker is a defensive tactical change.
Without checking, didn't Ole and Pep essentially use no subs, or wait until 80+ with using a sub? I remember taking note of that during that game as something odd and unexpected.
If you are talking about that famous hugs match, I don't remember about subs but basically both managers were happy with a draw.
You could also argue that Liverpool at that stage were better than United; Spurs and Chelsea too... (two of those reached a UCL final, the other beat us in the FA Cup final.)
But at the time Ole took over, we were definitely in a worse position than City, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, Spurs. Right now we're looking better off than 4 of those 5,
I think Jose sabotaging the team has many people believing we were way worse than what we actually were. But yes even though Liverpool finished below us I agree they were better prepared for future than us as performances are more important indicator of future and they had a cracking last 6 months that Jose second season.
6 months is a long time in football and our style of sitting back in low blocks got found out and ruthlessly exploited.
When you see certain players making the same mistakes, not just bad judgement, but sloppy passing, poor covering, not communicating effectively, then its easy to say they are being 'awfully coached' because these 'rinse and repeat' errors should be able to be removed from a players performance. However it depends on how important the player believes such shortcomings detract from his abilities overall.
Yesterday saw two good examples either way; until he scored his goal, Marcus was doing some of his own ' rinse and repeat' errors; wanting the ball to feet, taking the ball too far, running up 'blind alleys', not laying off to others, etc. Then he scores, by taking the ball to feet , moving the defender, running into more defenders, ignoring his team mates around him, then scoring at the near post from a position where he had no right to score from! So hands up in the air, he broke all the rules and scores!! Why because he knows he can, he may fail three or four times, but the fifth, sixth or seventh one he will succeed.
Later listening to Daniel James post match interview, he explained how he had brought himself back to form and it was mainly, by, "my working with the coaching staff on my weaknesses, a lot of hard work to iron out problems then taking that into games." James recognised his failings as being 'a debilitating problem' for him, so he tries to limit his errors with the help of the coaching staff, so that what he 'can do', he does do well.
Matt Busby's famous line about with players like Law, Best and Charlton, "you throw them the ball and say get on with it, with players like Nobby Stiles you tell them, 'win the ball... then give it to Bobby". Its the United way that Ole often quotes, trust your players to see for themselves, may be nowadays we just don't have those sorts of players, except for Bruno and Rashford???
Yesterday saw two good examples either way; until he scored his goal, Marcus was doing some of his own ' rinse and repeat' errors; wanting the ball to feet, taking the ball too far, running up 'blind alleys', not laying off to others, etc. Then he scores, by taking the ball to feet , moving the defender, running into more defenders, ignoring his team mates around him, then scoring at the near post from a position where he had no right to score from! So hands up in the air, he broke all the rules and scores!! Why because he knows he can, he may fail three or four times, but the fifth, sixth or seventh one he will succeed.
Later listening to Daniel James post match interview, he explained how he had brought himself back to form and it was mainly, by, "my working with the coaching staff on my weaknesses, a lot of hard work to iron out problems then taking that into games." James recognised his failings as being 'a debilitating problem' for him, so he tries to limit his errors with the help of the coaching staff, so that what he 'can do', he does do well.
Matt Busby's famous line about with players like Law, Best and Charlton, "you throw them the ball and say get on with it, with players like Nobby Stiles you tell them, 'win the ball... then give it to Bobby". Its the United way that Ole often quotes, trust your players to see for themselves, may be nowadays we just don't have those sorts of players, except for Bruno and Rashford???
That is a fair point, last year we were great against the big sides this year we are atrocious, last year we struggled against the smaller sides, this year we have done very well.
But I still think Jose throwing players under the bus and playing players out of position was more the reason of our decline that season.
While tactics chance is a huge deal, there is also the very recent Liverpool example of how adding two top pieces of the defensive puzzle can work miracles. Look how their team was transformed with Alisson and VVD.
I don't understand these posts, it seems you're very quick to criticise me rather than removing your blinkers and objectively looking at our performance (which I admit as a fan can be difficult sometimes).
There was a period on the 2nd half for about 15 minutes where we couldn't get hold of the ball and newcastle looked threatening, that's when I made this post - it was an accurate reflection of the game and our performance up till that point. The same happened against sheffield U and west brom. We were struggling to retain possession against a relegation team and we have chelsea and city away coming up, so its obviously a point of concern and a discussion point. You may not agree with it, which is fine, but there's no need to criticise me individually!
Exactly, and that is why keep going on about patterns of play. It worked then, because United had Bobby and Best, and teams in general maybe weren't so great tactically. We are spoiled by usually having the best players, and therefore dictate the game. However, that is an obsolete tactic because every team is so tactically drilled, and has so good footballers, that you can't get away with it as often. United still has one of the best squads, but United can get outplayed by Brighton because Brighton is tactically inferior (in that game). It's not a modern tactic, relying on individuals. That's why the best teams (like City and Liverpool) have the best coaches with a clear pattern. I'm not a football star in any sense, but I have been playing fairly high up. I, and I can only talk for myself but it's my general feeling, like it best when I know what my coach wants. When I know how our attacking play is gonna happen, and when I know how we will set up our defense. I have played under managers that do both, under one manager I had no confidence because he was very unclear in how we were going to set up the team. I'm sure he had a vision, but he couldn't implement it. Then I had another manager that was so clear from day one. This is how we are going to do, and this is how it will look. No bullshit. We played simple football, but effectively. I knew what I was going to do before I got the ball, and I knew where my teammates were because we practiced it all the time. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Every training. My picture of United is that Ole is very unclear in what he wants, and therefore makes it more difficult for the players. Some like system and some don't. Is it any wonder that Martial was better with LvG? Then again, Bruno probably prefers his freedom and takes it as it comes. There is a good reason why Pep and Klopp, the most successful managers, is having a clear system. Because it doesn't make them too vulnerable if players drop in form. I remember a Klopp b team winning against Arsenal at Anfield, they had almost no first-teamers. They won because every single player knew exactly what they would do, and they were confident in that. When United rotates, particularly, then you can see that we kind of look lost. That's because of this.
I don't understand how you can claim performance is bad because of a 15 minute period. That's what's silly. Every team has such moment during games. Have you seen the game stats? 72% possession for us, 73% in the first half, 71% in the second half. I don't know about that 15 minute period that you refer to but it sounds to me like you were the one with blinkers on, not seeing this objectively.
Here I actually rate Potter. His coaching for a English is very modern like Rodgers style.
My point is, lot of people claiming this manager and that one can get same results are taking into the context the state we were in when Ole came in and he's totally transformed the mentality of the squad in my opinion. Not to say if potter was here now he couldnt do the same thing as Ole right now as the squad rebuild is night and day compared to when he came in, but seems silly thinking all these other managers could have came in over 2 years ago and had the same impact at that time. It was a massive job.
We've already had proven managers attempt it before Ole and they left us in dire states.
I just think it's cheap shots at the manager and not grounded in reality when some certain posters come in and claim such and such can do the same job like Ole holding us back. Was even someone claiming Moyes could match it too........totally forgotting he had a title winning team breaking records weekly and languishing down at 7th in the league
Haha..
This is what I said about our performance .
Maybe there was a wider context to your post. But I can’t guess that, I took it for what it was.
Trust me I don’t like the football we play but to me it looked like you were making things up about how much of the ball we had.
Good posts but it’s futile. At this point in this thread I feel you’re addressing people who just don’t want to understand or may be incapable of understanding. They’ll still come up with their sarcy comments about ‘patterns of play’. They’ll still tell you those counter attacking goals we scored are proof of a fantastically drilled team. They’ll still go on about the goals for column or Rashford and Luke Shaw playing a one two.
Results are the end game and there’s no doubting that but too many on here cannot seem to grasp the fact a lot of people who watch football and happen to be United fans have a burning desire to see their team play an entertaining and convincing brand of football and it’s not happened at United for almost a decade.
A lot of this back and forth on here is as a result of this lack of understanding.
Nobody will tell you that, but keep on attacking that strawman. There's a lack of understanding, at it goes both ways. Your post is a prime example of that, and it's baffling that you even managed to type it out without realising the irony of it.
This does wind me up to be fair. We see it every game, and I'm yet to see even a slight improvement at it. I don't know why we're keeping it up, it's just a hazard.
There’s countless examples of it. Just search up the term ‘patterns of play’. It’s now used as a sarcastic quip to make out that people are too dumb to be able to watch United games and process what goes on during it. The two people I quoted responded to this post.
It’s not a straw man at all...
And no, I don’t think there is a lack of understanding from both sides with this specific argument. It’s heavily with one side. I’ve seen people in here repeatedly say they’re happy with everything else but want to see better football only to be greeted by snobby posts see above.
A few days back I said something about if our football was easy on the eye, it would get more recognition outside the club, more pundits would speak about it and not just throw us back handed compliments about counter attacking and the person kept responding with “no that’s not true”.
Nonsense. Pure turd sorry.
2nd in the league and most goals of any team. Talk is talk, points and goals speak louder than your negativity.
What would you prefer? That we score less? Play like prime Barcelona?
We are ahead of where our expectations were after the shocking window from Ed and Glazers. On top of being top scorers in the league we also miss a shite tonne of chances, there are literally video compilations of all our misses.
We create and score more than any team.
Talk about consistency and mentality if you want to pick holes in our season.
What's happening with Klopp's great system now? Systems and patterns of play can't compete with talented footballers who are in form. The system is saying no for Jurgen.
His and Peps teams are far more about great players playing well than about any perceived system. We don't have the best squad and we're not gonna win until we do. Only Fergie won things with lesser squads.
Thanks for emphatically proving my point.
Or more likely I’ve proven the point that your so clearly missing, as others have pointed out.
You don’t compete at the top of this league and be top scorers without ‘patterns of play’ and attacking intent backed up with coaching. You just don’t, if you don’t appreciate that then let’s save our breath.
