What is wrong with the way we play?

[Isotope]

We don't really value possession. We have DM that for the majority of his career, just a simple water carrier. Once he came in to United, he thinks he's Pirlo, try to spray passes from deep position, and result in us losing possession with his passing rate of 78%.

ANd he's allowed to continue doing this from last season to now.

 

[tomaldinho1]

Midfield

 

[Kinky Melinky]

The blame lies a little with the manager but primarily with the Glazers and the club executives / recruitment for still only signing who the manager wants. It's outdated by about 10 years.

Our transfer business is completely bizarre, and has been since SAF retired. Feels like there is absolutely no strategy whatsoever. We also end up paying way over the odds for players. We have a very long road ahead of us I'm afraid.

 

[R'hllor]

Nothing is wrong, just football aint sport for us. Wish people would stop hiding behind money spent and specific type of players, sure that can skip steps but there are plenty of teams that force certain style before getting getting better quality players for it, they use that style as base and not other way around.

 

[TheMagicFoolBus]

United genuinely haven't had a top class ball-playing midfielder since Carrick retired. That's basically the long and short of it.

Pogba was supposed to be that guy but he simply wasn't. United not moving on from him sooner was catastrophic.

 

[red_de_pologne]

I think it's a few things;

• Zero movement off the ball.
• No players who can play the ball to those on moving off the ball.
• Lack of technique for first time passes.
• No third man runs.
• Lack of one twos.
• Passing is too lateral, lack of vertically focused passing, passers don't have the ability to make those passes.
• Zero repetitions of play, rehearsal of movement/sequences.

we played some great football at times last season, they did it then, couple of players are capable.

 

[Swearing Budgie]

I think the main problem with the way we play is the football. Our players are unable to play when they are pressed. To a man they panic and turn the ball over.

Teams like Brighton are full of players who can keep possession under pressure and then make a simple pass. In fact many times today they were threading incredibly accurate passes between two pressing players to a teammate, who would control the ball quickly despite being tightly marked.

It’s what you should expect from any professional player. So weird that no matter who we sign we can’t get any players to do the simple things well. Is this the fabled “United Way”?

 

[Isotope]

I think the main problem with the way we play is the football. Our players are unable to play when they are pressed. To a man they panic and turn the ball over.

Teams like Brighton are full of players who can keep possession under pressure and then make a simple pass. In fact many times today they were threading incredibly accurate passes between two pressing players to a teammate, who would control the ball quickly despite being tightly marked.

It’s what you should expect from any professional player. So weird that no matter who we sign we can’t get any players to do the simple things well. Is this the fabled “United Way”?

We had this problem since last season. It's just EtH thought that to solve this midfield problem was by getting Mount, makes you scratching head. Then it's apparent in a few League games that the midfield was getting worse, then it became "eureka" moment for EtH that Amrabat type is actually a more pressing need.

A "eureka" moment that probably 90% of United fans (hundreds of millions of us) already knew.

 

[Fitchett]

Where do I start?
The forwards are incapable of playing as a team. Rashford in particular is head down too much and runs into blind alleys.
I posted in another thread earlier in the summer, that it was no use signing a modern, ball playing goalkeeper, if the rest of the team are static, as happened on numerous occasions today.
Too many safe, simple short backwards or sideways passes, as a result of not taking responsibility and leaving it to the same few.
Not attacking the ball in the penalty area, particularly when crosses come in, or clever cut backs from Pellestri.
Not winning tackles or aerial duels.
Too slow in transition, thereby allowing the opposition to set up in an organised defensive unit.

 

[berbasloth4]

We can get guardiola in to try set out a style of play but if we don’t have players who can or will put in effort then it will never ever work.

I see kids at grassroots level or boys basically straight out of the pub putting more effort in.

man uniteds dna behind the scenes was always the extra work - doesn’t happen no more Ronaldo hinted at it in that interview.

no heart no effort just £££

 

[Canagel]

United genuinely haven't had a top class ball-playing midfielder since Carrick retired. That's basically the long and short of it.

Pogba was supposed to be that guy but he simply wasn't. United not moving on from him sooner was catastrophic.

No he wasnt. Pogba was always a left sided 8 in a midfield 3 and we deployed him in a double pivot.

He was misprofiled yet was still so good that he could somehow cover the weaknesses and deficiencies of our far less talented players who were given the keys.

Those same players are still here and we are worse than ever. What a awful post.

 

[Someone]

Nothing to do with DNA. We just keep hiring managers different from one another, and keep rebuilding squads from scratch with each one. All our managers had the freedom to play the way they wanted to, but we haven't had a top squad in ages due to poor planning. A well run club with a vision would at least hire managers with the same philosophy. You end up with a team where your best players maybe aren't the best for that system, so what would ETH do? Sell Rashford and Bruno? He had to adapt.

 

[CM]

Without even getting into anything too intricate, there isn't enough of a will to win. Our players ball watch far too often. Casemiro, Eriksen and McTominay have all been guilty of it plenty of times. Lindelof did it as well today. We're nowhere near good enough on the ball, that much has been obvious for a long time, but we also don't work hard enough off it. Opposition teams can waltz through our defence and midfield with ease and nobody takes accountability to stop that from happening.

 

[Sky1981]

Stop cheering players that are too lazy to run. Stop cheering them. Boo them and let them know they need to step up and that there's no free lunch.

Our unconditional support has made them thinking they're the dog's bollock. Everytime they jog back.. boo the shit out of them.. if they sulk and want out, take them to the airport.

We need to help ETH forcing top players like Rashford and Bruno and the rest to fall in line, or they're just gonna throw another one under the bus because everytime we get a new manager everyone got a 2 years clean slate.

Enough is enough... all these supports dont make them work their socks off. It made them weak. It made the manager weak they need to cater the egos. The management think they're the fans favourite handing 350k per week contract like candy

 

[Blood Mage]

Everything. We are poor in every area. And it's 50/50 the result of personnel and tactics.

 

[reddevilz007]

Rashford and Bruno, those two are obstacles to the way Eth wants to play.

Bruno is always hoping for that hollywood pass. He may have a lot of assists, but I’d be curious to see his efficiency rate out of the attempted key passes.

Rashford is just wasteful in the box. He suits a counter-attacking team just like Bruno.

Either both of them leave, or Eth leaves.

 

[Crashoutcassius]

Something something ole Maguire phelan murtough degea

 

[saivet]

The more I think about it, I think if the transfer business was better, LVG would comfortably be our best manager. The football wasn't good to watch but considering the players at his disposal he did well to implement his style of a football.

 

[redIndianDevil]

IMO our squad is not being coached well. I don’t know if it’s the incompetence of the coaching staff or that players don’t listen and apply themselves.

We have played more or less the same way since SAF left except under LvG. Always defend deep and counter attack, always rely on individual creativity of some attackers. Look at the match again today, the number of times our players are out of sync with each other and misplace passes. One player expects the other to be somewhere and make a pass but the other playing is doing something else.

Brighton players are not individually better than our players but they are all in sync with each other. They all seem to know where the next pass is going to be and how to move and give passing options.

EtH hasn’t helped himself with the decision to spend money on a GK this year. Onana’s ball playing skill seem to look equally as disastrous as De Gea’s. I’m not knocking on Obanas ability but he is hardly helped by our static defenders who seem to invite pressure.

 

[berbasloth4]

Again I’m repeating what I said above it’s all a lack off effort.

I can remember forlan coming to us took him a while to get his first goal but fans didn’t get on his back cause he worked his fecking balls off.Falcao was a shambles of a season but we sang his name cause he put the effort in. I can remember Berbatov getting booed at the started because he didn’t put the effort in like Rooney and tevez but ultimately after a while he showed what he can really do.

i used to get excited sometimes when we went 1 sometimes 2 down because it was the kick up the arse we needed and we would up the effort and usually end up winning. Now I dread it. As soon as we go a goal behind or things aren’t going too well too many players drop tools or cry about and our captains on of the worst culprits

 

[big_jeffstar]

The more I think about it, I think if the transfer business was better, LVG would comfortably be our best manager. The football wasn't good to watch but considering the players at his disposal he did well to implement his style of a football.

he was really hard done by transfer wise, apparently he gave Woodward a list of targets and they were offering him his third or fourth choices off it in every position.. he was apparently left baffled by this and couldn’t understand why they were unable to attract any of his top targets..
Imagine asking Woodward to get you lewandowski, Kante and Mahrez, and instead ending up with Schneiderlin, Rojo and Darmian ffs

 

[redIndianDevil]

You say don’t say Glazers, but we’ve got a completely different set of players and multiple different managers and it keeps happening. The Glazers are the only consistent part of this whole equation.

Liverpool seem to be doing fine with the same owners after being crap for some time.

 

[big_jeffstar]

EtH hasn’t helped himself with the decision to spend money on a GK this year. Onana’s ball playing skill seem to look equally as disastrous as De Gea’s. I’m not knocking on Obanas ability but he is hardly helped by our static defenders who seem to invite pressure.

I feel sorry for him in this regard, there’s just no movement infront of him, you can see the look of bewilderment on his face as he’s desperately searching for someone to pass to, and the defenders are just aimlessly jogging away from him or stood next to an attacker staring at him, it’s woeful stuff

 

[Rozay]

Just by watching the game you could tell Brighton made far more passes than us. We are so dated and basic, it’s almost becoming embarrassing at the top level. Brighton let the ball move, all of our progression requires either having to run 30 yards with the ball, or chase 30 yards to get it. We cannot move the ball up and down or around the pitch by simply passing it. We cannot pass the ball one touch. We’re just some 90s side hanging on to the past.

The sad thing is I thought that finally, getting an Ajax manager would be the start of our modernisation, but this guy has betrayed all Ajax principles from what I can see.

At the moment, any team that loses to us must be a very poor team. Basic organisation and tactics will outsmart us, so if we win playing a game with little complexity just because Rashford ‘does something’ then you can’t be much.

 

[pocco]

Why is Ten Hag’s style wrong? I think it’s mad to think De Zerbi would come in and change our fortunes, it’s so much more complicated than that.

Because he clearly drills his teams better to control a game. And it's really not that complicated, we just have a good knack of making it look that way and our fans lap it up. Look at how managers like Howe came in to Newcastle, who were much worse than us, and had a big impact. Standards are just in the gutter here and there's a million miles of rope given to every manager and unlimited excuses. We must be the only club in the world whose fans think every manager needs a whole new team to play good football.

 

[tenhagsimp]

I am no means qualified as a manager but I have watched football for almost 20 years and like to analyse on my own in my comfy armchair. I work as analyst in other industry so its literally my job to see and analyze stuff. Here are some huge problems:

1. Our pressing from the front is uncoordinated dumpster fire. Rashford is horrible and culpable in this one. This resulted on teams passing through us like hot knife through butter
2. The gaps in our midfield is insane. Rewatch the game and notice there is a gaping hole in the middle waiting to be exploited. The blame goes both to the players and manager here. Thats why a simple one two or triangle pattern carve through us. Football is a game mostly won in midfield. Obviously you have upsets ala inter-barca but teams who dominated the midfield usually ends up at top. Also linked to point 5 below
3. We left our fullbacks isolated 1v1 so many times. This is also caused by problem no 1 and 2. Compare how many times our players get a 1v1 situation with how many times opp wingers get 1v1 moment against our fb.
4. We have wingers who dont pass to overlapping FBs. Other teams do this all the time to produce a cutback. Also we cross randomly without any direction and setup. Our team always spam directionless high crosses. See brighton first goal to realize what a proper attacking movement is.
5. Midfielders who treated the ball like a hot potato. They need to stop spamming long ball upfront. They play like fifa players whose low pass button is broken and spam hoof balls. We lost the ball so often and its very tiring to run back to defend. We play with high tempo without the stamina and pressing nous to do it. Liverpool did this with 3 workhorse midfielders back then while our players cant run without gassing out for more than 20 mins.
6. Lack of movement esp in midfield and final third. We played very static with minimal movement.
7. Most of our players cant win headers even if their life depend on it. You can count how many times brighton start an attack via this method
8. Also cant understand why we dont do the "meta" playstyle in which players go to byline and do low cutbacks to opp penalty area. If you watched other top teams (esp city and arse) they mostly do this all the time. The setup might be different but the end goal is the same. The reason is its very hard to defend against. The only time we did it ytdy was during Hojlund offside goal. Compare it to how many times any other teams attempt to do that

 

[KD6-3.7]

This is what has made the last decade so much more difficult.

We are so dull and boring to watch, doesn’t matter what manager we have our football has more or less stayed the same where it’s relying on individual brilliance or counter attacking but none have ever sustained a long period of time where we looked like we had a proper structure in place.

 

[pocco]

1. Too many of our players are not press resistant.

2. Too many of our players are bad passers.

3. We have way too little possession, which means:
a) We can't dictate tempo
b) We can't dominate the midfield
c) We can't maintain a high line
d) We can't create enough chances
e) We concede too many chances
f) We spend a lot of the time chasing after the ball, which drains energy and inflicts muscle injuries

It ALL comes down to possession. And Erik ten Hag has -- like our previous managers -- been hoodwinked into this entire "United DNA" crap. He clearly wants possession, but our players are more suited to counterattacking, so they regress to that when hitting a wall.

And Ten Hag encourages it. Not only by his selections and decisions like always playing Rashford and Bruno. But also by saying stupid things like he wants to be the best transitional team in the world.

That type of football is dead in the water against a team that will dominate possession. It might work in certain games here and there.

But over the course of a 38-game season, you need consistency. And NOTHING is more consistently a marker for success than possession.

With possession comes more goals scored, and fewer conceded.

It's really dead simple. My 14 year old nephew even understands this.

United DNA isn't counter attack in my eyes, even if it is a thing. We controlled games well under Fergie, always on the front foot and probing. We only rely relied on the counter in Europe when we wanted to get results abroad. What we're seeing is nothing to do with United DNA, this is ETH football. This is what he did at Ajax.

I agree on the rest though

 

[RedDevilCanuck]

When your best attackers are Rashford and Bruno you are in trouble.

They are decently productive but only thrive in 1 setup.

Brighton showed that controlling the game with possession is huge. We can't keep the ball for shit.

The last time we kept possession was with LVG but we had old and slow forwards and LVG bought horribly.

You can press and counter all you want but if you can't control large amounts of the game you're fecked.

Sadly the last great midfield we had was Carrick and Scholes and that was over a decade ago.

 

[Eddy_JukeZ]

We can get guardiola in to try set out a style of play but if we don’t have players who can or will put in effort then it will never ever work.

I see kids at grassroots level or boys basically straight out of the pub putting more effort in.

man uniteds dna behind the scenes was always the extra work - doesn’t happen no more Ronaldo hinted at it in that interview.

no heart no effort just £££

Ronaldo should be the last person to hint at anything when he walks out on his teammates in a match because of his fragle ego.

 

[Theonas]

Because he clearly drills his teams better to control a game. And it's really not that complicated, we just have a good knack of making it look that way and our fans lap it up. Look at how managers like Howe came in to Newcastle, who were much worse than us, and had a big impact. Standards are just in the gutter here and there's a million miles of rope given to every manager and unlimited excuses. We must be the only club in the world whose fans think every manager needs a whole new team to play for football.

I don't know if Ten Hag is better or as good as De Zerbi but I know that his teams can look definitely more coached than what we're seeing. I thought with Jose and Ole, that was the ceiling because there was no evidence they can do any different but Ten Hag has definitely shown he can send out a better team than this. That's not to say he can make a team elite but there is a big difference between what we're seeing and elite.

 

[Eddy_JukeZ]

Just by watching the game you could tell Brighton made far more passes than us. We are so dated and basic, it’s almost becoming embarrassing at the top level. Brighton let the ball move, all of our progression requires either having to run 30 yards with the ball, or chase 30 yards to get it. We cannot move the ball up and down or around the pitch by simply passing it. We cannot pass the ball one touch. We’re just some 90s side hanging on to the past.

The sad thing is I thought that finally, getting an Ajax manager would be the start of our modernisation, but this guy has betrayed all Ajax principles from what I can see.

At the moment, any team that loses to us must be a very poor team. Basic organisation and tactics will outsmart us, so if we win playing a game with little complexity just because Rashford ‘does something’ then you can’t be much.

Hard to disagree with this.

I was really hoping ETH would value possession play more than he has.

Brighton's build-up play was something I thought we'd see here consistently.

 

[Eddy_JukeZ]

I don't know if Ten Hag is better or as good as De Zerbi but I know that his teams can look definitely more coached than what we're seeing. I thought with Jose and Ole, that was the ceiling because there was no evidence they can do any different but Ten Hag has definitely shown he can send out a better team than this. That's not to say he can make a team elite but there is a big difference between what we're seeing and elite.

We might have seen the ceiling with that period before the world cup leading up into the league cup final.

We've been pretty poor since then.

We arguably outplay Barcelona in both legs while starting Weghorst and having De Gea in net + a midfield that isn't top level. Now however, we get outplayed by any decent side since that cup final. I was thoroughly convinced he was the man after those 2 legs. We looked better in the Nou Camp that tie than we did under Fergie in 2008 when we just sat back and countered.

Maybe the off-field issues + the uncertainty with the Glazers staying or not is taking a toll. I don't know.

 

[Cassidy]

We might have seen the ceiling with that period before the world cup leading up into the league cup final.

We've been pretty poor since then.

We arguably outplay Barcelona in both legs while starting Weghorst and having De Gea in net + a midfield that isn't top level. Now however, we get outplayed by any decent side since that cup final. I was thoroughly convinced he was the man after those 2 legs. We looked better in the Nou Camp that tie than we did under Fergie in 2008 when we just sat back and countered.

Maybe the off-field issues + the uncertainty with the Glazers staying or not is taking a toll. I don't know.

He isn’t attempting to play how he played last season. He is trying to push the team to play a much more aggressive press and it looks like he has not go the team to either understand or buy into it yet.

Casemiros positioning on the pitch from second half of the season is an example of this and in my opinion a reason his form has dipped. Ultimately I think its because last season we did not score enough and he is trying to fix that, but getting it wrong so far

 

[Eddy_JukeZ]

He isn’t attempting to play how he played last season. He is trying to push the team to play a much more aggressive press and it looks like he has not go the team to either understand or buy into it yet.

Casemiros positioning on the pitch from second half of the season is an example of this and in my opinion a reason his form has dipped. Ultimately I think its because last season we did not score enough and he is trying to fix that, but getting it wrong so far

I agree that we're trying to be more proactive, but it's worrying that we've got off to a slow start yet again and there's so many off-field distractions.

I do think we don't value possession as much as I thought ETH would though.

 

[Cassidy]

I agree that we're trying to be more proactive, but it's worrying that we've got off to a slow start yet again and there's so many off-field distractions.

I do think we don't value possession as much as I thought ETH would though.

Like ETH said you have to play to the strengths of your squad. That is not valuing possession when we have so many transitional players.

 

[Mingus]

Brighton's build-up play was something I thought we'd see here consistently.

Even with the same midfielders as last season being the only ones currently available?

 

[Theonas]

We might have seen the ceiling with that period before the world cup leading up into the league cup final.

We've been pretty poor since then.

We arguably outplay Barcelona in both legs while starting Weghorst and having De Gea in net + a midfield that isn't top level. Now however, we get outplayed by any decent side since that cup final. I was thoroughly convinced he was the man after those 2 legs. We looked better in the Nou Camp that tie than we did under Fergie in 2008 when we just sat back and countered.

Maybe the off-field issues + the uncertainty with the Glazers staying or not is taking a toll. I don't know.

I agree. I am still behind him and I thought the period you're talking about was easily our most encouraging period in 10 years. For the first time, we looked pro active and in control of games, not always, but regularly. The Barcelona game was a great example of that and I agree that that was a better performance than 2008. That's what making all of this so bizarre.

I hope and it could be as you say, the issues off the pitch are just having too great an impact and this is just a series of bad fortune that will turn around. But the pressure will start to build now and he will have to either show belief in his convictions and how he wants to play or revert to some safety first football.

 

[Rozay]

Like ETH said you have to play to the strengths of your squad. That is not valuing possession when we have so many transitional players.

He should have his own ideas, and with 400m and counting, the strengths of the squad should be whatever he chooses it to be.

 

[Theonas]

Even with the same midfielders as last season being the only ones currently available?

Whoever we field in midfield is not worse on paper than what they have or what Arsenal had last season. Any PL team should have better build up than we showed today.