We lack basic technical ability

Velvet Revolver

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I’m going back to Fred because that is who my post, and your response, was referring to. You said ‘maybe coach him not to do that’ in reply to my observation that he regularly blasts the fecker out of play. You can’t. It’s an issue endemic within Fred’s game that he isn’t suddenly going to sort out at the age of 27. So spare me the lecture on coaching; it is misplaced within the context of this discussion.

Separately, my view is that there is a positive approach to the vast majority of our games and that we need a few more proper players for the work we’ve done to really bear fruit. I go into specifics further above.
Ok fine lets go back to Fred. your post was about Fred blasting the fecker out of play and I said maybe Ole needs to tell him not to do that? Most coaches would and if he keeps doing that then discipline him do something, not applaud for trying!

You twisted that to don't expect him to be scholes overnight and what c0AchInG is all about.
 

Longshanks

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I never said that did I? I said there should be a balance and match in the coaching and player ability and a system to close the loop on being a good side. Pep struggled( to his standards) in his first season because he had a good coaching staff but not all good players in his team so he got in players matching the techniques needed for his system.

We don't have a system, we don't the coaching and we don't have technical players. It's not one piece it's all of the above and to solve this we need to solve all of it, not just buy technical players.

Pep struggled by his standards a little in his first season because he didnt have all the technical players required to play his system, he solved it with just under £500m in his first couple of windows and that was after just under £200m had been spent on the likes of K.D.B and sterling the season before he joined.

And it was hardly a bad disjointed squad he took over. Pep essentially spent 500m to tinker the squad to meet his needs it was already packed full of quality when he joined.

Ole on the other hand has started from a much worse posistion with a smaller budget and is also apparently a dreadful coach frankly taking all that into account it's an absolute miracle that we are even slightly competitive.
 

Velvet Revolver

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Pep struggled by his standards a little in his first season because he didnt have all the technical players required to play his system, he solved it with just under £500m in his first couple of windows and that was after just under £200m had been spent on the likes of K.D.B and sterling the season before he joined.

And it was hardly a bad disjointed squad he took over. Pep essentially spent 500m to tinker the squad to meet his needs it was already packed full of quality when he joined.

Ole on the other hand has started from a much worse posistion with a smaller budget and is also apparently a dreadful coach frankly taking all that into account it's an absolute miracle that we are even slightly competitive.
yup we spent 500 million on players and coaches and don't have anything. so yeah you are proving my point
 
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Yes Redcafe, its another thread of complaints and negativity.

To make my own positions clear; I am Ole-in, Pogba-out, and think our #1 priority this summer should be to try to sign Haaland.

Now the actual point - I am watching the game against Brighton and the thing that stands out to me is that - compared with virtually every other team in the league - we seem to have a lot of players who simply lack basic technical competence.
I am defining technical ability as things like first touch, ball control and passing. Things that you should pretty much take for granted in any professional footballer. We have too many players who are deficient in these areas. This isnt a thread about naming names or trying to blame specific players because I believe it is a problem with the entire squad, but there are certainly some more culpable than others. Fred and AWB come to mind - but again, they arent the only ones.

The result of this is that we rarely seem to score goals from well worked pieces of play. Most of our goals are either counterattacks, set pieces or individual brilliance. We struggle to maintain possession and to beat the press, because too many of our players simply arent comfortable on the ball.

If you look at basically any other team in the league, especially the midfielders and forwards, they are technically sound players, comfortable on the ball and able to do the basics with a 90%+ success rate. It isnt about being able to play a killer pass or take on 5 players, its about the basics;

* Simple 10-yard passes are too often sloppy/imprecise. This invites pressure and often kills any momentum.
* First touches when recieving the ball. Again, these are often sloppy, leading to the classic "second touch is a tackle" syndrome.
* Holding the ball under pressure. This makes us too easy to play against and spoils a lot of opportunities to counterattack - you beat a press by either crisp short passing, or by beating a man - we dont reliably do either.

I think there are some significant holes in the squad that need addressing, but in order to strengthen as a team, we need our players to be comfortable on the ball. This doesnt mean a £60m playmaker, this simply means players who can do the basics (and then presumably have some key strengths on top of this - we dont want a squad of Tom Cleverleys). Dont look at the other team teams in the league, look at the mid table sides. Look at the ~6th place sides in La Liga. You will not see so many players who are so uncomfortable on the ball as ours.
Baring the 98/99 team, United have always been technically inferior to top European teams or Arsenal and then Chelsea.
 

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You say this, despite the fact Bruno's entire game is based on risky passes an as such results in a lower pass completion ratio.

We also have Fred in our DM position, a player who whilst very good at breaking up play and doing certain things, is atrocious at passing
Who says i'm blaming Bruno? He's never deep. It's an eyesore watching us build up. Everything we do is laboured. When the whole team of internationals struggles to do the basics, that's poor coaching.

If Fred is the problem, who constantly plays him, whilst not giving technical players like van de Beek a chance deeper?
Individual players wouldn't have solved our creativity issues under LvG. The problem was the system. LvG would never have allowed a player like Bruno to express himself and try things. He would want him to stick to a position and recycle the ball.
I strongly suggest it was the opposite. The system was fine, but our individual attacking talent was very poor under LVG. We were crying out for some of our talent now.

Bolded is pure nonsense. LVG, within the team framework, always gave the players freedom in the final third. He just asks players to use their brains beforehand. Is that wrong? If you're deeper then obviously he wouldn't want players taking risks, but that's exactly the same as how Pep operates too. For every Di Maria, there's Müller and Robben who thrived under him. Also Rashford & Martial used to play some lovely interplay together under LVG back then.
My favourite Van Gaal stat was the game where we played West Brom.

80% possession, we lost 1-0.
We had a very, very poor squad attacking wise back then, what can you say? Falcao, Rooney, Van Persie, Fellaini, Young. You can't make a silk purse out of a sows ear.
 

Carl

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So if I'm up to speed, we:

  • Lack basic technical ability
  • Are poorly coached
  • Need a goalkeeper
  • Need a right back
  • Need at least 1 CB
  • McFred isn't even a top 10 duo
  • Bruno is a stats king
  • We have a PE teacher as manager
  • Have no RW



2nd in the league though. Interesting.
 

Majima

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Yep, my favourite performances were City and Liverpool away. We completely played them off the park on both occasions.

One of our biggest problems under LVG was creativity, bruno and pogba would have solved that issue.
The end of that season, where we beat Spurs 3-0, Juanfield, and City 4-2, dominating them all, in the space of a month were really fond memories. Everyone can say what they will about LVG, we've never come close to replicating that level of performances vs. our rivals since. I thought we were onto something special with that 4-1-4-1 system.

Yeah it was a shame we had an old flat team with no legs back then. LVG with our talent now would be a totally different story I reckon. For how supposedly restrictive he was, I remember Rashford & Martial playing some lovely football together the next season under him. I always wonder how it would have been if he was given another year to develop them instead.
 

crossy1686

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Who says i'm blaming Bruno? He's never deep. It's an eyesore watching us build up. Everything we do is laboured. When the whole team of internationals struggles to do the basics, that's poor coaching.

If Fred is the problem, who constantly plays him, whilst not giving technical players like van de Beek a chance deeper?

I strongly suggest it was the opposite. The system was fine, but our individual attacking talent was very poor under LVG. We were crying out for some of our talent now.

Bolded is pure nonsense. LVG, within the team framework, always gave the players freedom in the final third. He just asks players to use their brains beforehand. Is that wrong? If you're deeper then obviously he wouldn't want players taking risks, but that's exactly the same as how Pep operates too. For every Di Maria, there's Müller and Robben who thrived under him. Also Rashford & Martial used to play some lovely interplay together under LVG back then.

We had a very, very poor squad attacking wise back then, what can you say? Falcao, Rooney, Van Persie, Fellaini, Young. You can't make a silk purse out of a sows ear.
I thought you were joking until I read the rest of your post. Some of the best strikers to grace the game in recent years and they're rubbish? Wow, just wow.
 

Majima

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I thought you were joking until I read the rest of your post. Some of the best strikers to grace the game in recent years and they're rubbish? Wow, just wow.
Are you being disingenuous? Not at that time they weren't were they? Falcao was perma crocked (he wouldn't be fit for 2 seasons). Whilst Rooney & Van Persie were physically finished.
 

Leftback99

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Are you being disingenuous? Not at that time they weren't were they? Falcao was perma crocked (he wouldn't be fit for 2 seasons). Whilst Rooney & Van Persie were physically finished.
He had Di Maria and sold Nani and Zaha for next to nothing. The guy was clueless and ruined the squad setting us back years.
 

Longshanks

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yup we spent 500 million on players and coaches and don't have anything. so yeah you are proving my point
If by 500m you mean 280m then yeah, your absolutely right point very much proven, we spent 200m less than city in oles first two seasons vs peps first two season and we also spent over 100m less the season before Ole took over in comparison to city.

So if you take the season before and there first two seasons that 300m less spent by us in comparison to city, think of it as 3/4 top quality players and that pretty much is what we are missing.

Point proven, well done.
 

Isotope

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Another extremely dumb thread. League tables don't lie. We wouldn't be second if we had no technically ability, no system of play and rubbish coaching. It's not possible. People need to give this cow dung a rest.....
Not that long ago we were 2nd under certain manager. It was still a rubbish coaching.
 

sunama

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The basics are very poor.

was it not alexis agent who said that training was embarrassing?

Top 2 is only possible due to how poor everyone else has been and not how good utd have been
Did Sanchez go into more detail as to why our training was bad?
IIRC, he took one training session and asked if he could change clubs, because our training was very poor and not to his standard.
 

sunama

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Not that long ago we were 2nd under certain manager. It was still a rubbish coaching.
Since then, we have spent a lot of money and it seems that we haven't improved. Spending all that money has kept us treading water.
 

Tom Van Persie

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Bolded is pure nonsense. LVG, within the team framework, always gave the players freedom in the final third. He just asks players to use their brains beforehand. Is that wrong? If you're deeper then obviously he wouldn't want players taking risks, but that's exactly the same as how Pep operates too. For every Di Maria, there's Müller and Robben who thrived under him. Also Rashford & Martial used to play some lovely interplay together under LVG back then.
It was well reported that LvG shouted at Herrera for running into the box and scoring against Everton because he didn't stick to his position and let's not forget the stupid 'take a touch' rule our attackers had. IIRC Di Maria said in an interview that he hated playing for him because he was given no freedom to play and LvG got mad whenever he tried something.
 

Isotope

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Since then, we have spent a lot of money and it seems that we haven't improved. Spending all that money has kept us treading water.
No worries. We can't judge a manager, unless we get what he wants: the likes of Sancho, Haaland, etc. I blame Ed.
 

Kag

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Ok fine lets go back to Fred. your post was about Fred blasting the fecker out of play and I said maybe Ole needs to tell him not to do that? Most coaches would and if he keeps doing that then discipline him do something, not applaud for trying!

You twisted that to don't expect him to be scholes overnight and what c0AchInG is all about.

Jesus, there’s not much going on up there, is there?

Do you think that a) Ole tells Fred to give the ball away as often as he does and/or b) that Ole applauds him for getting it wrong? I’m sure you don’t.

The reality is that Fred plays as often as he does because he has some good qualities, fantastic energy and is good at winning the ball back; this often leads to counter attacking opportunities. But he has big issues with the consistency of his passing and this is an area of his game that is not going to be improved by a new bloke coming in to replace Ole.

Fred’s passing is a weird hill to die on. If you were to raise concerns surrounding Ole’s coaching and identified that we too often conceded goals from crosses, or that we are hopeless at defending set pieces, or even that we don’t often enough put moves together that result in City-like pull backs, then I’d be inclined to agree with you. But Fred is just wank at passing the ball. Guardiola isn’t fixing that.
 

Velvet Revolver

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If by 500m you mean 280m then yeah, your absolutely right point very much proven, we spent 200m less than city in oles first two seasons vs peps first two season and we also spent over 100m less the season before Ole took over in comparison to city.

So if you take the season before and there first two seasons that 300m less spent by us in comparison to city, think of it as 3/4 top quality players and that pretty much is what we are missing.

Point proven, well done.
yeah keep comparing ole to all the great managers of the world!
 

Velvet Revolver

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Jesus, there’s not much going on up there, is there?

Do you think that a) Ole tells Fred to give the ball away as often as he does and/or b) that Ole applauds him for getting it wrong? I’m sure you don’t.

The reality is that Fred plays as often as he does because he has some good qualities, fantastic energy and is good at winning the ball back; this often leads to counter attacking opportunities. But he has big issues with the consistency of his passing and this is an area of his game that is not going to be improved by a new bloke coming in to replace Ole.

Fred’s passing is a weird hill to die on. If you were to raise concerns surrounding Ole’s coaching and identified that we too often conceded goals from crosses, or that we are hopeless at defending set pieces, or even that we don’t often enough put moves together that result in City-like pull backs, then I’d be inclined to agree with you. But Fred is just wank at passing the ball. Guardiola isn’t fixing that.
So you cherry pick and chose what works for your arguement. lets move on from fred

A better manager makes his players better! there is no doubt about that and I don't think ole has it. Even if we get technically gifted players i dont see him getting the best out of them.

Happy to be proven wrong
 

Majima

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He had Di Maria and sold Nani and Zaha for next to nothing. The guy was clueless and ruined the squad setting us back years.
Di Maria didn't want to be here to begin with, Manchester was the last place he wanted to be. He also gave Rashford his debut, developed Martial & Shaw. He was far from clueless. He taught the team how to keep possession vs. anyone, he gave us the foundations imo. Too bad we ripped it up. What set us back years was the club going in polar opposites in LVG to Mourinho.

He gets a raw deal I think. He's been the only one to set us up on an equal footing to our rivals. Juanfield? Who's done that since? I truly feel we played our best football played since SAF era under him.
 

Leftback99

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Di Maria didn't want to be here to begin with, Manchester was the last place he wanted to be. He also gave Rashford his debut, developed Martial & Shaw. He was far from clueless. He taught the team how to keep possession vs. anyone, he gave us the foundations imo. Too bad we ripped it up. What set us back years was the club going in polar opposites in LVG to Mourinho.

He gets a raw deal I think. He's been the only one to set us up on an equal footing to our rivals. Juanfield? Who's done that since? I truly feel we played our best football played since SAF era under him.
We played some of the worst football I've ever seen in his 2nd year. We had a decent 3 game run in his first season which was soon found out. 'Juanfield' is very overrated, we had 6 shots all game, playing against 10 men for 45 minutes.
 

Kag

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So you cherry pick and chose what works for your arguement. lets move on from fred

A better manager makes his players better! there is no doubt about that and I don't think ole has it. Even if we get technically gifted players i dont see him getting the best out of them.

Happy to be proven wrong
I’m choosing to focus on the initial point I made, yes. The one you attempted to dispute. I’ll repeat it again for you: no manager is going to fix the fact that Fred often misplaces passes. No one.

A better manager absolutely does improve players and make them play better. There are many example of players showing improvement under Ole, funnily enough. Fred is one of them, coincidentally.
 

Velvet Revolver

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I’m choosing to focus on the initial point I made, yes. The one you attempted to dispute. I’ll repeat it again for you: no manager is going to fix the fact that Fred often misplaces passes. No one.

A better manager absolutely does improve players and make them play better. There are many example of players showing improvement under Ole, funnily enough. Fred is one of them, coincidentally.
So you contradict your first statement with your next. Looks like you dont need anyone to have an argument with. works for me
 

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The problem with quoting what you never understood in a bid to seem clever ....
I understood. You believe it's not possible to be 2nd, if we had no system of play and rubbish coaching. We finished 2nd under Mourinho, and everyone wanted him gone based on that fact that the foundations weren't there. The common argument was that the players deserved better coaching. @Isotope pointed that out, and you just rejected it completely. Can you really make a strong argument to suggest there's zero similarities to back then? I don't think you can.
 

ASHWIT

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That cognitive dissonance is strong.
It's the same with City fans who claim it's a strong PL this year while also saying United are, "absolutely shite", even though we sit clear second in said strong league!!!
 
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I understood. You believe it's not possible to be 2nd, if we had no system of play and rubbish coaching. We finished 2nd under Mourinho, and everyone wanted him gone based on that fact that the foundations weren't there. The common argument was that the players deserved better coaching.
Thanks for proving my point:
It should be fairly obvious from my last post I doubt buy into "the common argument".

I was NEVER in the camp of idiots who rubbished Mourinho for finishing second ahead of Spurs and Liverpool who had better squads and we're ahead of us in footballing development stages under their coaches. Most especially with the asinine claims of poor system and poor coaching. League tables don't lie.

That's is why for example in his first season a Moyes, who was genuinely horrible whilst coaching us, finished FAR lower as compared to an LVG or Mourinho who till this day are both double disrespected in comparison. But I digress.....

These "deserved better coaching " camp were the same blind bats who couldn't see United had an entirely dead right flank and issue at center half at the time. Yet they expected THAT United to not only play champagne football identical to City who were having a record breaking season. But keep pace with them yet they had KDB their player of the season available all season long whilst we never recovered from the points we lost from losing Pogba for 3 months of that campaign.


So if "the crowd wanted him gone". Good for them. That's the same type of crowd behind this thread. The type that judge fish by their ability to climb trees and label them stupid. As a rule I don't take them seriously

pointed that out, and you just rejected it completely. Can you really make a strong argument to suggest there's zero similarities to back then? I don't think you can.
That's the problem right there!. You are doing alot of assuming and little actually thinking about what you read. That's why you could come up with the laughable notion that position can't be shot down piss easy.


One has to have extreme blinkers on to claim:
We have no technically ability: (Pogba, Bruno, Matic, Greenwood, Cavani etc technical mugs I tell ya)


We have no system of play: Classic case of not understanding how we play. On top of having no clue as to why certain structural issues prevent us operating in it smoothly and consistently.

No players have improved under our current coaching regime: (Shaw, AWB, Fred, Mctominay etc)

We are poorly coached:
Poorly coached teams don't sit second on the log when badly coached, technically inept and system-less. Whilst teams with all those things supposedly so far better are currently behind them on the log. Its embarrassing that this needs pointing out to people


Poor managers also don't beat up the likes of Klopp, Pep(3 times) , Ancelotti, Naggelsmann, Tuchel and Mourinho. No one alive can be that good at fluking. Not with a team that has supposedly rubbish technical ability that they supposedly coach very poorly. You guys simply love to have your cake whilst eating it too. It's ironic really...
 
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UNITED ACADEMY

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We did the basics very well under LVG with worse players, make of that what you will.
They say ‘’no sacrifice, no success’’. If we choose to play sideways and backwards like LVG we could easily do ’’the basics’’ now.
 

meamth

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I'm so confused.

How can they all be professional footballers if they lack basic technical ability??? Why is this thread even exists?

You can't have below par basic technical abilities and 2nd in the league.
 

ASHWIT

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Thanks for proving my point:
It should be fairly obvious from my last post I doubt buy into "the common argument".

I was NEVER in the camp of idiots who rubbished Mourinho for finishing second ahead of Spurs and Liverpool who had better squads and we're ahead of us in footballing development stages under their coaches. Most especially with the asinine claims of poor system and poor coaching. League tables don't lie.

LVG finished a lot closer to top than Mourinho points wise so the second place finish is a quite misleading.
 

Kag

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So you contradict your first statement with your next. Looks like you dont need anyone to have an argument with. works for me
I thought you’d say this, which is why I included my last line about Fred improving. I knew you wouldn’t be able to make the distinction between Fred becoming a better player on the whole, and the aspects of his game (e.g. passing) that are already well embedded and can’t really be developed in any significant way at such a point in his career. Well done for proving me right.
 

Smores

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I thought you’d say this, which is why I included my last line about Fred improving. I knew you wouldn’t be able to make the distinction between Fred becoming a better player on the whole, and the aspects of his game (e.g. passing) that are already well embedded and can’t really be developed in any significant way at such a point in his career. Well done for proving me right.
So Ole has improved Fred in all areas which can be improved? And all areas where Fred hasn't shown progress are just Freds limitations? Come on you can't be serious with that :lol:
 

Water Melon

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Our passing needs to be improved. Firstly, we need to revise our off the ball movement. Make sure that the players position themselves in such spots that will allow them to receive a pass in safest area thus enabling them to pass the ball forward as soon as possible. This is what Pep's teams are so good at. This needs to be coached.
 

Kag

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So Ole has improved Fred in all areas which can be improved? And all areas where Fred hasn't shown progress are just Freds limitations? Come on you can't be serious with that :lol:
Fred has become a better player under Ole because he has got to grips with the pace of the league and releases the ball quicker. A lot of that will be down to Fred and the benefit of time. This is time that’s been afforded to him under Ole’s management.

Fred blasting the ball to opposition players in the dug out every ten minutes is very much just part of his make up. No manager is sorting that issue out, whether it be Ole, Pep or Jesus. He might tidy it up but it’s a weaknesss of his game that will always remain.

So yes, I’m deadly serious and right on the money.
 

Bilbo

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Is there a single point made in this entire thread which couldn't have found a home in that other 'awfully coached' travesty?
 

Siorac

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It's not an issue. We have some players with excellent technical ability (Shaw, Bruno, Greenwood), most are decent (AWB, Pogba, McTominay, Rashford) and I'd say only Fred stands out as a bit "random first touch" kind of player.
That has to be the most random grouping of players based on technical ability that I've ever seen. Pogba being in the same category as Wan Bissaka and McTominay... that's a bit like putting James and Maguire in the same category in terms of pace.

And there is no way Fred is technically inferior to McTominay and Wan Bissaka either.
We do create chances, though. Too often we don’t take them, which is why we are ranked 16th when it comes to the percentage of shots we have that result in a goal. We are ranked fifth in total shots on goal, so this is an issue.
'Shots' is an imperfect metric for chances created anyway but also, we're not 16th in goals/shots ratio, we're 6th. We're 8th in shots on target/goals. 2nd in shots on target/total shots. 5th in total shots.

The problem with these metrics, of course, is that they say nothing about the quality of chances. A 40-yard shot that trickles into the waiting arms of the keeper is a shot on target. Blazing over the empty net from five yards out isn't. We're 4th on the xG table though (on both fbref and understat, though they disagree on how much we're overperforming our xG stat). So despite the recent Caf narrative, I still don't think finishing is a problem. We're not extremely clinical but not particularly profligate either.

Also, our goals are distributed very unevenly. We scored 58 goals in 30 games, a decent number. But 19 of that came in just three games (Southampton, Leeds, Newcastle). That means we scored 39 goals in the other 27 league games. So we have a tendency to either run riot - when there's space to exploit - or struggle massively.

To sum it up, I think that improving the quantity and quality of the chances we create would bring more of a benefit than just hoping for an improvement in finishing. Or to put it another way: I'd rather sign two excellent passers than Haaland. I have no idea who those two players might be though. Sancho could be one I suppose.
 

Smores

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That has to be the most random grouping of players based on technical ability that I've ever seen. Pogba being in the same category as Wan Bissaka and McTominay... that's a bit like putting James and Maguire in the same category in terms of pace.

And there is no way Fred is technically inferior to McTominay and Wan Bissaka either.

'Shots' is an imperfect metric for chances created anyway but also, we're not 16th in goals/shots ratio, we're 6th. We're 8th in shots on target/goals. 2nd in shots on target/total shots. 5th in total shots.

The problem with these metrics, of course, is that they say nothing about the quality of chances. A 40-yard shot that trickles into the waiting arms of the keeper is a shot on target. Blazing over the empty net from five yards out isn't. We're 4th on the xG table though (on both fbref and understat, though they disagree on how much we're overperforming our xG stat). So despite the recent Caf narrative, I still don't think finishing is a problem. We're not extremely clinical but not particularly profligate either.

Also, our goals are distributed very unevenly. We scored 58 goals in 30 games, a decent number. But 19 of that came in just three games (Southampton, Leeds, Newcastle). That means we scored 39 goals in the other 27 league games. So we have a tendency to either run riot - when there's space to exploit - or struggle massively.

To sum it up, I think that improving the quantity and quality of the chances we create would bring more of a benefit than just hoping for an improvement in finishing. Or to put it another way: I'd rather sign two excellent passers than Haaland. I have no idea who those two players might be though. Sancho could be one I suppose.
Spot on, it isn't an issue. I posted in another thread a few weeks ago that actually our rates are comparable to most other seasons including under Fergie.

In the haste to absolve Ole of all wrong doing our forwards get slagged off endlessly. Strikers don't finish every chance but when they only have a limited number of clear opportunities the expectation becomes that they have to do so.

I'll extend that point to all these threads slagging off our players. The current line of thinking on here is that criticising our manager is being overly negative but slagging off our players left right and centre is absolutely fine. No room for a nuanced position in between the two.
 

Siorac

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In the haste to absolve Ole of all wrong doing our forwards get slagged off endlessly. Strikers don't finish every chance but when they only have a limited number of clear opportunities the expectation becomes that they have to do so.
I agree, with the slight caveat that the attackers are also responsible for creating chances - when we're struggling to do that, a huge part of it is their fault.

And yes, the 'get behind United, support the club' often tends to mean 'get behind the manager but the players are fair game for any sort of criticism'.