Neville - ‘’no style of play’’

[MO_Football92]

May I ask United fans, what was the style of play under Ferguson? I don't remember United playing out from the back in those days.

I think Solskjaer is trying to bring back Man Utds philosophy but he lacks proficient coaches at this level.

 

[roonster09]

May I ask United fans, what was the style of play under Ferguson? I don't remember United playing out from the back in those days.

I think Solskjaer is trying to bring back Man Utds philosophy but he lacks proficient coaches at this level.

Wing attack, overload the wings, commit more players to attack. We used to have good wingers to stretch the teams which created lot of gaps in defense. Also midfielders like Scholes, Carrick who were superb in creating 1v1 situation for wingers with their passing range.

 

[Josh 76]

Yet people in this place want Zidane to replace Ole, what style of play does he bring exactly?

I think people just want anyone but Ole at the moment.

 

[devilish]

Then someone in the top red thread in general took it at heart because I said that the Ole ins are delusional

 

[dal]

To be fair we probably haven’t had a style or familiar patterns of play for about 14 years.

 

[Josh 76]

May I ask United fans, what was the style of play under Ferguson? I don't remember United playing out from the back in those days.

I think Solskjaer is trying to bring back Man Utds philosophy but he lacks proficient coaches at this level.

I don’t think it’s about style of play, but it’s more like playing like a team. Utd seem to play like two different teams. Back 6 and then there is a gap to the top 4. So when Utd attack and defend it leaves so many gaps for the opposition to get a foot hold in the game. This is when it looks Like Utd never have control of the game.

 

[ROFLUTION]

May I ask United fans, what was the style of play under Ferguson? I don't remember United playing out from the back in those days.

I think Solskjaer is trying to bring back Man Utds philosophy but he lacks proficient coaches at this level.

I'd say an entertaining gung-ho go out and express yourself brand of football, mixed with pragmatism developed over years. Not that I can say it's a set system pr. see

Only certain tactic that stuck for me over the years, was reading an interview with Anderson where he told that the 2 central midfielders role was always to not go forward, but facilitate the play and pass it on to the more flair-players. In tough away games Fergie would go with a very pragmatic 4-5-1 with Rooney typically working hard on the flank.

So I don't really see Ole being that much different - it's not far from the same style. Ole is pragmatic, and relies on individual performances, it's just the times that have changed and football has evolved. Ole tries to adapt to this too, by getting in defenders that can play out from the back so to me he's a mix of Fergie who has also tried to copy some of the styles that other succesfull coaches have done. This was indeed Fergie's main-trait too. He'd be able to play like Arsenal in one match, and Chelsea in the next. Very adaptive manager really who learned the succesfull styles of whatever opponent who beat him and implemented them to be a total versatile and entertaining brand of football. This takes years, and an extremely succesfull manager to do it.

 

[Volumiza]

Unless they want Carrick and McKenna to be caretakers.

I think these two should be first out of the door.

 

[red4ever 79]

To be fair we probably haven’t had a style or familiar patterns of play for about 14 years.

Remember a specific style when LVG was here. The games might have been dull, but no doubt what his philosophy was all about

 

[MO_Football92]

Wing attack, overload the wings, commit more players to attack. We used to have good wingers to stretch the teams which created lot of gaps in defense. Also midfielders like Scholes, Carrick who were superb in creating 1v1 situation for wingers with their passing range.

Yes good point; I still feel Solskjaer is aiming for this type of wide-play pattern through Rashford, Greenwood and Sancho etc.

But I agree, United don't have the calibre of midfielders they use to. In fact your passing from midfield has been slow since even when Mourinho was manager.

 

[Real Name]

Unfortunately it's true. After 3 years we rely on improvisation and individual brilliance in attack all the while being vulnerable at the back. We have been outplayed in nearly of our games this year except Leeds and Newcastle and even vs Newcastle we've been cut open a few times and conceded like that too. It is damning that with that kind of firepower upfront we cant make any clear cut chances but rely on Greenwood to try something on his own (speaking of Villa game). And in the other end we produce some madness and silly mistake still (Maguire back pass to De Gea). in other games it was evident too, lack of chances. In some games like Newcastle and Leeds we managed to score goals but in games like on Saturday we couldnt get a sniff, they had better chances and deserved their win.

I've been on the fence with for a while but Villa game brought me to the other end. Good results if you count climbing on the Premier league table but last year we were never in the title fight and all those semifinals and the nature in which we lost EL final.. All that combined with the lack of style mean he should leave really. After 3 years we still start slow most of the games and usually concede first. Kudos to players and Ole for away record and all those games in which we got back in games but why should we always fall behind and rarely we play dominantly like you know from the 1st minute we'll win the game. Instead we're all nervous while watching United games.
Freestyle football upfront can only take you so far. You need some kind of structure, tactics and cohesion.

I guess Ole is trying to copy how we used to play under Fergie but it just isnt going. Also Fergie didnt play on the counter all the time. Sure we were famous for our counters but we were more known for overloading the attack and attacking the opponent on and on until they would collapse. Also you would rarely see us getting outplayed. Especially at home against the likes of Aston Villa, with all due respect to them.

Others said it here already, manager with an idea how to play can change the way how we play in weeks.
Thing is, even if we lose on Wednesday I dont see him leaving. We went out of the CL last year to. Ok it was in the last week of CL (although we cocked it up in Turkey before that) but after that we were 2nd in the league till the end while not being close to City at all as I said already. It will take a disastrous run in the league for the board considering sacking him.

He has made good, great things in and around the club but lack of style of play and tactical shortcomings (Cavani for the last 10 minutes, what is that, not to mention the circus vs Young boys) will or should cost him the job. I cant watch United games anymore, its so low quality and too stressful too.

Should it be Conte or someone else I dont know. But at this point of time Ole has taken us as far as he can. Time for someone else to take the reigns.

 

[Handsome Devil]

Quite a big shift in tone for Neville. Didn't expect to see that in September.

Yep, but a man can only take so much.

 

[buckooo1978]

Yes good point; I still feel Solskjaer is aiming for this type of wide-play pattern through Rashford, Greenwood and Sancho etc.

But I agree, United don't have the calibre of midfielders they use to. In fact your passing from midfield has been slow since even when Mourinho was manager.

yet he's opted to play Pogba wide left and Sancho has been sidelined.

I think Ole is almost Mourinho-esque in that his plan is to give it to our creative players and hope for the best. A team that relies on moments of magic. It's not a surprise when we hit 27/28 shots our XG is something like 1.8 and that was including a penalty

We must be one of the most direct United sides I've seen also. It's been evident in some games that it's get the ball as quickly as possible to Ronaldo.

 

[largelyworried]

May I ask United fans, what was the style of play under Ferguson? I don't remember United playing out from the back in those days.

I think Solskjaer is trying to bring back Man Utds philosophy but he lacks proficient coaches at this level.

I agree, I think that Ole is trying to do it the way that Fergie did it. But Ole isn't SAF. The way Fergie played had obvious downsides, particularly in Europe, even when SAF was in his pomp. But SAF had a supernatural talent for team building, motivation, judging opponent's weaknesses, buying players, and so on, that all comfortably outweighed any shortcomings. Ole may have the same style of play, he may even be relatively decent in the same areas, but he isnt on SAF's level. So he's unlikely to get anything like the same results.

 

[dal]

I truly believe that to have a modern style of play you need to have good footballers in the middle of the park and put simply we don’t. Although I do think if we start to play VDB more often we might have however it’s very early in the season and I do believe we will figure it out and challenge.

Im not making any judgements this early on.

 

[Skills]

Stupid of Neville to put pressure on the manager. Best to wait till the end of the rebuild

 

[Orton]

What also concerns me is that the longer serving players also look unfamiliar with each other. A lot of confusion and mistakes each game because they don’t know what their team mates are going to do. I get a bedding in period for new players but not when they’ve played almost every game together for a few years. Fred and Mct are positionally all over the place, the defence take forever to make a pass, and then you have the forward players who don’t really pass. It’s damning to watch. Of course we are still going to win loads of games, score loads of goals, but to me that’s all in spite of the problems and when the going gets tough we get found out. It’s too easy for well drilled teams to play their game against us, but unlucky for them they lack high end players to finish off chances whereas we have a whole host of top finishers.

 

[Ferguson’s Hairdryer]

This obsession with "patterns of play" is something else. We lost against Villa because we didn't do the basics well and had no leaders on the pitch. We never slowed the speed of the game down to take control of the game - we were rushed in everything we did. You can argue that message should be conveyed from the sidelines if no one on the pitch was taking responsibility. I think the problem is that Ole encourages Pogba and Bruno to always play the Hollywood pass. Playing the killer pass is fine if you win the ball in the final third. Our problem against Villa was that we won the ball in our half and went for the Hollywood pass or went on a solo run with the ball or went for a long shot instead of playing the extra pass. If we had slowed the game down by just one pass in their half we would have won that game IMO.

Sounds like what you’re describing is no build up plan, no possession plan, no winning the ball plan and simply relying on our best individual players to do individual things. So in other words “no style of play”

 

[RedDevilQuebecois]

Stupid of Neville to put pressure on the manager. Best to wait till the end of the rebuild

How about no? Three years have been more than enough time to make a final assessment.

It's time for Ole to either unfeck himself or hit the bricks.

 

[Andersons Dietician]

Probably in their safe space thread.

The echo chamber looked in turmoil the other day I like to go in there and read the posts and have a laugh at the hypocrisy of them whining about whiners in the football forum and them being oblivious to It.

Anyway I like Ole and generally I think he’s done a great job in turning around the fortune of the club but this does seem like it’s come to the end of its journey unless something remarkable happens.

The squad may have improved drastically but the football has stagnated and as much as some knuckle draggers can’t see it the flaws are quite evident in the pattern and style of play. I’m pretty confident had LVG had this team it would be better than it currently is.

Interesting that this is now Rio and Neville starting to question it a bit.

 

[Anustart89]

So what this means is that Neville reads the caf, seeing as I’m told that patterns of play is a phrase that is made up by agenda posters on here; right?

 

[LuisNaniencia]

Wing attack, overload the wings, commit more players to attack. We used to have good wingers to stretch the teams which created lot of gaps in defense. Also midfielders like Scholes, Carrick who were superb in creating 1v1 situation for wingers with their passing range.

Used to love it when we were a goal down and Fergie chucked all our strikers on and played a 4-2-4.

 

[VP89]

A manger in place for over 3 years, yet not style or pattern of play.

Basically, a group of players just relying on individual brilliance to bail us out.

First time I think Neville has directed negativity at the coaching? Albeit you have to read between the lines.

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I think he's still being kind because he's given Ole another 18 months to get a trophy. That is quite frankly ridiculous.

 

[Classical Mechanic]

Ole was asked recently about his football philosophy. He didn't like the question and avoided it. I would have liked to hear his answer.

He did answer it though. He basically said 'none of this modern rubbish, I want my team to play like the United of my day'. He specifically talked about how he doesn't believe in midfielders being specialised in their job characterised through them be 6s or 8s and that he wants his midfielders to do a bit of everything like Keano did.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

So what this means is that Neville reads the caf, seeing as I’m told that patterns of play is a phrase that is made up by agenda posters on here; right?

It's an actual thing those who rate Ole have made up into a meme to ridicule genuine cause for criticism and make themselves feel better.

 

[Real Name]

Fergie.. Do you remember when we won vs Arsenal with Rafael and Fabio in the middle.

 

[Green Arrow]

Does anybody think he will be gone at the end of the season? I personally don't think so he's just got given three major world class players, he's just signed a new contract in the summer. The only way he will go is either he won't get top 4 (Which I think he will with these group of players) and the owners only care about top 4 and that's it so I expect this kind of rubbish football to continue for the forseable future.

 

[Real Name]

Does anybody think he will be gone at the end of the season? I personally don't think so he's just got given three major world class players, he's just signed a new contract in the summer. The only way he will go is either he won't get top 4 (Which I think he will with these group of players) and the owners only care about top 4 and that's it so I expect this kind of rubbish football to continue for the forseable future.

Easy CL group combined with the players he got this summer might cost him if we dont go through in the CL.

 

[LARulz]

Stupid of Neville to put pressure on the manager. Best to wait till the end of the rebuild

When exactly does this rebuild finish?

 

[MO_Football92]

I agree, I think that Ole is trying to do it the way that Fergie did it. But Ole isn't SAF. The way Fergie played had obvious downsides, particularly in Europe, even when SAF was in his pomp. But SAF had a supernatural talent for team building, motivation, judging opponent's weaknesses, buying players, and so on, that all comfortably outweighed any shortcomings. Ole may have the same style of play, he may even be relatively decent in the same areas, but he isnt on SAF's level. So he's unlikely to get anything like the same results.

Yes good points. It's exactly why I posted in a similar thread that although coaching is an issue; Ole's main problem lies in the fact he doesn't have the personality or characters on the pitch to play this style that Ferguson used.

Obviously he seems a good man manager, but I wonder if some of those United players actually respect him? He needs to be braver and build a culture of accountability, otherwise I cannot seeing him stay there much longer.

 

[dove]

This obsession with "patterns of play" is something else. We lost against Villa because we didn't do the basics well and had no leaders on the pitch. We never slowed the speed of the game down to take control of the game - we were rushed in everything we did. You can argue that message should be conveyed from the sidelines if no one on the pitch was taking responsibility. I think the problem is that Ole encourages Pogba and Bruno to always play the Hollywood pass. Playing the killer pass is fine if you win the ball in the final third. Our problem against Villa was that we won the ball in our half and went for the Hollywood pass or went on a solo run with the ball or went for a long shot instead of playing the extra pass. If we had slowed the game down by just one pass in their half we would have won that game IMO.

No leaders on the pitch Riiiiiiight. We had plenty of leaders on the pitch, unfortunately we don't have any on the sidelines, that's the real issue here.

 

[MDFC Manager]

Stupid of Neville to put pressure on the manager. Best to wait till the end of the rebuild

Correct.

 

[Leftback99]

So what this means is that Neville reads the caf, seeing as I’m told that patterns of play is a phrase that is made up by agenda posters on here; right?

Neville has said it before. More likely it started from there because people repeat on here what they've heard on TV rather than the other way round.

 

[captaincantona]

.

Yes good points. It's exactly why I posted in a similar thread that although coaching is an issue; Ole's main problem lies in the fact he doesn't have the personality or characters on the pitch to play this style that Ferguson used.

Obviously he seems a good man manager, but I wonder if some of those United players actually respect him? He needs to be braver and build a culture of accountability, otherwise I cannot seeing him stay there much longer.

Characters? I think our winning from losing positions indicates that character is one of our strong points and we have added Ronaldo and Varane to that dressing room. Our Character, by dragging us over the line so many times, has papered over the really slow and unimaginative football we have played for a long time.

Character meant more in Ferguson’s day because lesser teams weren’t prepped and set up so well in his day. These days, Every team in the premiere league is at least organised and know how to set up to stifle top sides...it’s whether or not your team has the ability to play around, play through or stretch that set up. Character will get you back in a game or help you nick a late winner but it only makes the difference across a season when you don’t rely on it so often. It’s Utds number one weapon- that mentality to keep taking on the difficult shots and passes until one of them works out. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t.

 

[roonster09]

He did answer it though. He basically said 'none of this modern rubbish, I want my team to play like the United of my day'. He specifically talked about how he doesn't believe in midfielders being specialised in their job characterised through them be 6s or 8s and that he wants his midfielders to do a bit of everything like Keano did.

Yeah, even before that in an interview with Neville or Sky he explained how he wants his team to play. He said he doesn't like "tippy tappy nonsense" for the sake of it, wants his team to play forward passes quickly. Its a risk ManUtd players should take and also it's not a problem losing possession as the team should work hard to win the ball again.

This is what he said and this is how we play. Problem is, this isn't a good method to get consistent results and that shows too.

 

[roonster09]

Used to love it when we were a goal down and Fergie chucked all our strikers on and played a 4-2-4.

For me, the best part was no matter which player we played, they played well and we used to win games. Now if we miss one key player, we struggle to win. SAF can play Gibson, O'Shea in the midfield but he still wins the game as he know how to get more from the players.

 

[Giggsyking]

We have been saying this for 3 years, yet we got abuse for saying that. We might have a style of play, but it is not a style of play for a prestigious club like united. Our only obvious style of play is counter attacking football because it is the easiest. Other complicated football patterns need good coaches, do you really think we have anyone in that mediocre staff who know anything about attacking progressive football?

 

[Freak]

May I ask United fans, what was the style of play under Ferguson? I don't remember United playing out from the back in those days.

I think Solskjaer is trying to bring back Man Utds philosophy but he lacks proficient coaches at this level.

Attack from the wings and be direct, brave and quick. Have loads of players in the opposition box when the cross comes in.

It’s really the opposite now under Ole. Everything goes through the central areas and we are more concerned with possession. We are not brave enough and players don’t take on their opposition enough. Our full backs don’t even overlap these days. I really hate the way we seem to play these days.

 

[Real Name]

Yeah, even before that in an interview with Neville or Sky he explained how he wants his team to play. He said he doesn't like "tippy tappy nonsense" for the sake of it, wants his team to play forward passes quickly. Its a risk ManUtd players should take and also it's not a problem losing possession as the team should work hard to win the ball again.

This is what he said and this is how we play. Problem is, this isn't a good method to get consistent results and that shows too.

Thing is, Fergie was the best in adapting and wasnt playing just one way like @largelyworried and @ROFLUTION said here. Adaptation and changing things on the pitch depending on circumstances isnt one of Ole's strengths, on the contrary.Not using VDB for instance or not knowing how to use him for instance. Insisting on Fred and McTominay nearly every game.
Similar with Sancho, he had a slow start but I dont know what's the idea with him, how will he be used.

 

[youmeletsfly]

Stupid of Neville to put pressure on the manager. Best to wait till the end of the rebuild

I know this is decent sarcasm, but on a serious note, if it keeps going like it's currently going, he'll still be rebuilding in 2044.