I think ETH is being very conservative (due to the pressure of needing results) and unwilling to chance it on kids.
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Season Average Rating
- Appearances
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- Assists
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) was joined by comedian Ali Woods to look back at the best and worst moments of a rollercoaster season with the annual United Hour Awards.
Has Ten Hag been sacked yet? We're not sure and we hope not, but it's looking more likely as the days pass.
Who should replace him and why is it taking so long to make a decision?
Time to throw him in the deep end
If he wants to develop us to play that brand of football, he has to set up and instruct the team to play that way, even though it means we won’t get the results we want always. But, he emphasizes on both getting results and developing the team. The compromises made in attempt to achieve both, have shown their damages and the whole team lose ideas and is a mess in play. The transfer failures are the direct consequence of that in my opinion, because his vision and decision making in transfer targets cannot be more directly linked to the desired brand of football we try to play every match and more from imagination which seems unfitting to the reality. Or, maybe his vision is simply infeasible to execute.
With our budget, DF could add more cheaper options rather than so-called three “premium” signings per summer. Those premium signings hardly work out. But maybe, it is also influenced by the Glazers as I remember there is reports that the Glazers believe the established superstars are better buys even though they are around or pass their peak.
He also hasn’t created an optimal environment to fit youngsters to drift in (except Garnacho who has been managed well, even though people keep calling to start him but he is not really ready yet in most league games). We have always in survival mode since last Feb. Throwing in youngsters might not be the right way, but he can give them more opportunities because not playing them doesn’t help mostly, except the Brentford game, which is a true outlier no matter how we look at it.
Time to unleash Mainoo. Especially when all our other midfielders have been a joke this season.
I don't believe the Glazers are a hindrance as far as player identification is concerned.
And all I can say to you is that he does have the tools at his disposal to play a more expansive style (maybe not against the very best teams yet) but there's three more players that need to come back into the team for that to happen. And those three players are Martinez, Shaw and Mainoo. It's about having the right profile of players in the build up phase on top of Onana, Dalot and Amrabat. Then we should see us play through the defensive and midfield lines. And if we don't, then I'll be worried.
It wouldn't surprise me if we started all three of Garnacho, Mainoo and Hannibal against Newcastle and win the game.
Agree.
Adnan, you are correct in playing out from the back, but this is not our only problem. We had that last year (minus Onana) and even though are football was pragmatic and worked it did not look very pretty since we have other big issues. For example, we cannot keep the ball and we cannot progress our play through simple passes as the videos you posted. Our players are not press resistant and cannot work in tight spaces. Bruno is one of the biggest culprits, and I still do not understand the signing of Casemiro, which you have not commented. Doesn't it feel weird to spend 80m on an aging Casemiro who does not have attributes to play ETH football?
Until now, I just had questions. Unfortunately for all of us, ETH just answered. He confirmed my fears that he is doing something completely different here and I really do not see any point to compare us with Ajax. The club and himself took the wrong route instead of doing a complete overhaul and implement his philosophy by taking hard decisions on current squad.
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That response will certainly do him no favours, but I really do think people are ignoring the nuance to it. Obviously we will look to play more direct and with more physicality than his Ajax side did due to both personnel and the nature of English football.
That does not mean that he will completely abandon his ideals of building from the back, playing through the thirds, and creating overloads. Look at Guardiola - this Man City team do not have exactly the same style of play as his Barcelona side and nor did Bayern Munich. They don't even have the same style of play as his City team from 3 years ago. Adjustments will always be made.
EtH is basically saying every team will play different because they are have different players. So don't compare United to Ajax.
Not everything has to be over analysed and twisted into a negative.
Not everything has to be over analysed and twisted into a negative.
Point partially taken above but it does still seem a fairly odd thing to say given that he has led quite a major squad overhaul already in the shape of Onana, Martinez, Casemiro, Amrabat, Mount, Hojlund, Antony. I mean surely he could have found a few of the current squad to fit into his way of playing if that is what he wanted to do. He sounds very reluctant in 'choosing' to play more direct.
I think fundamentally he has really struggled to bring in the right players and is finding that out.
He could have said that it is never quite 'the same' at each club and that would be fine, but the tone of it really suggests he is unimpressed with the squad's ability to press and play high as a team, while avoiding taking responsibility for that.
I think fundamentally he has really struggled to bring in the right players and is finding that out.
He could have said that it is never quite 'the same' at each club and that would be fine, but the tone of it really suggests he is unimpressed with the squad's ability to press and play high as a team, while avoiding taking responsibility for that.
As a coach, he should have principles in terms of what he believes is the ‘right’ way to play. That is a worrying answer and confirms what I had suspected since he came here. He’s bought half the players in the squad himself. Otherwise I can only conclude that this is het again a Bruno and Rashford issue. Clearly, those two were off-limits from the beginning so whatever football he played would have to suit them. Everyone else has been changed. So by us ‘not having the players to play like Ajax’ - that can only mean that his two mainstays cannot. Not the entire squad. It’s his squad.
Good managers implement a style of play and the players buy into it.
Not the other way around.
This is everything we thought we weren't getting with ETH.
All of Pep's teams have absolutely dominated the ball though, they have just gone about it in different ways. He had overlapping wingbacks at Barca because he had the best midfield trio of all time to control the center. At Bayern he started inverting fullbacks to help control the midfield more and leave his teams less vulnerable to counter attacking. At City he has brought more overall physicality into the team to match the league and has had to adapt these past two years around providing service to a lethal finisher but overall limited footballer in Haaland. Regardless, every team has played possession oriented dominating football and there are probably less than 10 games in his career at those clubs where his team has not dominated the ball.
There is adapting your style of play and completely compromising it and we are doing the latter currently. Ten Hag earned his reputation at Ajax for the way he set out those teams, so why would we want him to completely change that when it is what got him the job in the first place.
Therein lies the nuance. I don't believe he's planning to completely change and nothing he said suggests that he will. Should he manage to turn results around and outlast the injury crisis, I fully expect him to set the team out to play positive football. Of course, we may never know at this rate
Has to start on Wednesday. Midfield is broken, he’s good enough & this season will be one of mediocrity. Think Saka a few years ago for Arsenal type of integration.
I fear he’s going to play about 8 of our best 11 available purely for fear of the media reaction if we lose this match rather than using it as a building block type match to try something new.
Wasn't that the whole point of bringing him to the club, so he could implement the style we all saw at Ajax?
Statistically, we're good off the ball. I think ten Hag is more alluding to what we're like on the ball, hence why he mentioned us having to be more ''direct''.
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Lad is literally playing at his own speed. That mark of a great playmaker.
Another assist. This time for Forson.
It does look like we have a special talent. If he stays fit. We’ve said that about a few players coming out the academy in recent years.
One touch, and he left opponent in the dust. Barca would probably have him as starter.
And we might soon too. He’s just coming back from a long term injury.
wiki says he’s 175cm. From video, it doesn’t seem right, anyone knows?
hm, interesting.. so Ancelotti changing style o play to accoomodate bellingham almost at no. 10 position is what exactly?
Most likely as subs. But this is the type of midfielder United should have.
He is still playing a shape fully consistent with the 4-3-1-2/4-3-2-1 shape he played with AC Milan.
The way he plays his football/his game model hasnt changed, the shape has changed slightly over the years but they aren't the same.thing.
Sorry for the late response.
I'll start with Casemiro first, and his signing made absolute sense as far as the situation ten Hag and Murtough found themselves in after the debacle of the previous regime where they had put together a team over 5 or 6 years that was lacking technically, physically, athletically and even tactically hence we've been a reactive team for far too long. And it's only now that we've made moves to become a more proactive team by moving De Gea on, moving Ronaldo on and breaking the McFred partnership in midfield which was at best a mid-table midfield two that was very mediocre against the opponent's press. And when you have those sorts of problems all over the pitch and the demand from the owners is top 4, and you also sack the head scouts on the eve of the transfer window, then signing Casemiro makes sense because the team is already lacking a lot and is also devoid of leadership. The work experience clubs like Salzburg and Leipzig don't have this issue because the demand their isn't to win the league but rather to develop talent with the help of a very wealthy owner who has also bought 6 other clubs around the world to tap into markets in different continents which give their employees a massive advantage when identifying talent. So what happened previously under Woodward, Judge, Bout, Lawlor and the managers is what has to be worked around to rebuild a team towards a proactive attacking play style that befits Manchester United. And I fully expect the heads of recruitment and the analytics personnel to now take control of recruitment. And when you don't have these people in position with at least a season of scouting and advance analytics under their belt, then the recruitment will be substandard like we saw in the summer window of 2022.
The results thus far haven't been good enough but as far as the direction of travel is concerned, we've made the right decisions as far as attempting to create a team that can exert dominance over the opponent. Unfortunately we've suffered injuries to key players in the first phase but the decisions that were made over the summer were to improve our build up play by signing Onana, Amrabat and introducing Kobbie Mainoo. And they also decided that they needed to beef up the pressing from the front which is why Mount was signed imo because he's more agile out of possession in comparison to Bruno and his game in possession is more mature and very team oriented. And the striker Hojlund for me again was another good signing who will score goals once we rectify our problems in the build up phase. Because a weak first phase will have a knock on effect on the players occupying positions higher up the pitch. If the opponent's high pressure tactics cause our back-line problems in possession, then you've lost control of the game.
And what ten Hag is saying is absolutely correct and we can never play that brand of football with the players he's currently got at his disposal. But the moves and decisions that were made over the summer, were ones that do show that they're working on creating a team to build play from the back and press high in a compact block. And there was strong indications that they wanted to sign Todibo and Amadou Onana in the summer as well. And we do need those types of players to raise the technical, physical and athletic levels of the team because our biggest issue imo once everyone is fit and available, is that we lack the ability to control the game out of possession in large spaces. I think the funds should be made available in the January transfer window to beef up the team (posted below) out of possession. The team has capability in possesion but having a player like Amadou Onana or even Lucas Gourna-Douath would really help us control defensive transitions.
Arsenal under Arteta and Edu finished 8th, 8th and 5th. Arsenal fans were livid and couldn't believe how both men were still in a job. But as long as the project makes sense, then you have to keep faith with the rebuild in a league which is being dominated by a team bank rolled by a nation state.
The team below is where it's at for us going forward and the team potentially provides a good foundation going into future transfer windows. Zlatan recently said in a interview with Piers Morgan that there's certain teams who start a project and when the results go wild they then abandon the project. I think it's important not to abandon the project and add to the strong elements in the team below by taking away the weaker elements via the transfer window.
---------------------Hojlund-------------------
--Rashford---Mount---Bruno---Dalot--
-----------Mainoo-------Amrabat-------------
------Shaw----Martinez----Varane---------
----------------------Onana---------------
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Wasting his time in that game tonight when he should be in the team tomorrow.
He’s just come back from a multi month injury. Better he plays a few full games at a lower level to regain fitness and confidence.
Save us child. Rinse and repeat. I’d love nothing more than for him to do well and he looks class but it’s just embarrassing we need him to come in and save us, just like so many before him.
That team with AWB in for Varane and Amad for Dalot would be interesting to see. As long as Kobe and Amrabat drop in to defence when Shaw or AWB drift wide then we’d be defensively tight enough. I’ll try it in FIFA and report back
Sounds about right, I think? He looks like 5ft9-ish. He's very broad shouldered but he still looks pretty average height.
I'll probably get torn to shreds if I say he was at fault for Salfords seconds goal, so I won't
Good performance otherwise though, however still doesn't look ready for a premiership start for me, but I would imagine he may see a few minutes off the bench tonight, or at least in the upcoming league fixtures, then we can really see what his level is.
Good performance otherwise though, however still doesn't look ready for a premiership start for me, but I would imagine he may see a few minutes off the bench tonight, or at least in the upcoming league fixtures, then we can really see what his level is.
Think it was a poor pass to him.I'll probably get torn to shreds if I say he was at fault for Salfords seconds goal, so I won't
It wouldn’t surprise me if he did this and then revert to the old guard for next weekend’s PL game and subsequently lose the game.
Yeah was a weak pass for sure. Still think he could have challenged for it though but anyway that was a minor blip in an all round good performance.