Let's not get carried away here, 2 good games in a row is more than nothing, but it takes much more than that to call it progress.
Ruben Amorim - Manchester United Head Coach | Thread locked during matches
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Nik (@Rood) and Imran (@Annihilate Now!) discuss United's fantastic win away against Athletic Club in the semi-final of the Europa League.
They also pick out the positives of United's 4-3 loss away at Brentford, and Nik reviews a day out at Old Trafford watching Manchester United Women qualify for the Champions League.
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Well I did say, "slowly becoming" as in we're showing signs. Not that we are atm.
I just sat down, bro. Got to go squat by the pitchside again. Feck me.
The squatting is because of the bad English food. Obvs.
Do we have stats and goal diff squatting and non-squatting?
Just extend his short-term contract. Not tomorrow, not after breakfast, now!
have we ever had a 3 games streak of all 3 of them being fully fit together?
one of the players is Shaw, who has missed about 4 /5 seasons alone at a guess, so the answer is clearly no.
Not that it matters but this isn't true, if I go on Spanish bookies it's all very similar, some even have Spurs as faves above Bilbao.
La Liga is so hard to judge, the quality is really poor outside of a few elite teams - no offence to Sociedad but they are 11th and I think they'd be right in the relegation scrap in the PL given the lack of pace/physicality in that team. Girona were 3rd last year and they just got 1 win and 7 losses in the CL, with their win coming against Bratislava.
Point being all games will be tough, not because the other teams are great though, Bilbao are nothing special, because we are massively underperforming. We are in Europa for a reason.
Bilbao have the Williams brothers who are going to cause us a massive headache.
They have an elite attack that can hurt our defence, I’m not sure our powder puff attack would currently give their defence too many sleepless nights!
I mean we have two Strikers who have 13 goals in all competitions and 4 assists better them in over 40 matches.
Rasmus is 1 in 7 in all competitions 1 in 13 in the EPL
Venus & Serena?
We'll see if we play them - it's not like we're coming up against Rafinha/Yamal/Lewa or Vini/Mbappe/Rodrygo though. This is Europa and we're not levels below this Bilbao team.
Why are you inventing false bookmaking odds for the sake of being negative?
We don't have the same physical problems in Europe like Amorim said after the game. We're one of the weaker sides physically and athletically in the Premier League but in Europe we're probably one of the stronger teams.
Also, most games at Europa League level are played at a speed that suits most of the players currently at our disposal, for whom the "freedom" of an extra touch (or more) and/or a few extra seconds to weigh their options can be the difference between a bad and a good performance.
I really like how honest he is on his shortcomings. This must help him build the team morale.
I watched his post match interview on TNT and he was talking about how he is learning about players, he mentioned how he tried Garnacho on the right in the away leg and how he saw all the different things he liked compared to the left.
He also went on to say.. I am learning how to coach Casemiro, where to play him etc... it shows when he talks about players need to do better / improve, he is also questioning whether he is doing enough to profile these players.
I watched his post match interview on TNT and he was talking about how he is learning about players, he mentioned how he tried Garnacho on the right in the away leg and how he saw all the different things he liked compared to the left.
He also went on to say.. I am learning how to coach Casemiro, where to play him etc... it shows when he talks about players need to do better / improve, he is also questioning whether he is doing enough to profile these players.
People are getting carried away. Sociedad were poor and had a man sent off, which gave us a lot more space to operate. We aren’t going to be facing a team as bad as Socidead too often and we aren’t getting a man advantage. Some green shoots of progress hopefully are sprouted, but I think we are getting a reality check with Lyon.
Love after almost 2 seasons of piss poor performances, one good result against a mediocre Spanish side means the players clearly are good enough.
Yeah it's always a green flag for me when a manager is accurate/honest about screw ups, both his own and his players. He noted Zirkzee as an example yesterday needing to be more direct and WANTING to score more, which is something we've all mentioned as noticeable from the first kick with him. So it's good to hear those things are being harped on in training as well.
After we got drawn against Sociedad the negativity in here was unreal. I was expecting them to play like prime Barca. After we beat them the narrative has flipped completely to how shite they are and that we can't get carried away
I thought Amorim started off with Porro and Mendes as his wing backs at Sporting ? They became so dominant anyway that much like City were over here they could do the tweaks and it didn’t effect much in the grand scheme of things whereas at United we need to do the basics before we’re in a position that we can do tweaks.
In Amorim's system with where we are I think it’s very important to have a right footed right sided centre back and a left footed left sided centre back then a right footed right wing back and a left footed left wing back, as far as the two behind a striker are concerned I don’t think that’s overly important as long as they fully support the striker and the wing backs create the width.
A bit of enthusiasm and positive energy when you're in 14th is never a bad thing. Even though the opposition lost a man, we played with a lot more spirit than in the preceding games and are now reasonably well positioned to seriously challenge for a CL spot.
Agree. We beat a fairly woeful Spanish side and had a man advantage, and suddenly we're winning the EL with the gang who couldn't shoot straight.
I like that the manager has already said that it will be a different game with a far more physical team in Lyon, although they do have the likes of Matic and Lacazette in their squad.
I think in the last 30 minutes the difference between United and Sociedad was the fitness of the players. Dorgu seemed to be winning every duel he had on his side especially. Lyon and Athletic Bilbao will be fitter teams to play against. We also have some horrible fixtures around those games in City and Newcastle. We need players back and more options.
And it’s onto how good the remaining teams are and we haven’t got a chance…
And you are spot on. Clear signs of improvement last night and the match before. More running into channels. Quicker recycling of the ball. More linked together in the press and counter-press. LONG way to go. But Amorim is still the man for the job, imo. It's taken a lot longer than supporters would have liked and will still take a lot more time but the way RA wants to play is very slowly starting to take shape.
Yeah it's madness, we might be ropey this season but we have every chance against any of these teams left in.
Sociedad aren't great, I think there's no shame in admitting that, but we take a win and enjoy it all the same.
Exactly. We've beat arsenal and city away, and drew with Liverpool at anfield in a game we should have won but it will count for nothing when we run in to European juggernauts like Lyon and Bilbao
I thought people were joking about this, wow. It will be fun to see them roll back the years!
This is not mentioned enough. That was new to us and there were signs
I mean it was a good performance don't get me wrong, but it's insane to use a single result to justify watching Dalot cross balls into the stands, the attackers performing like a relegation side, Onana and the defenders singlehandedly fumbling games away with individual errors, and the entire midfield being basically unable to show any athleticism and getting ran slap over by the more athletic teams in the league.
City away: City aren’t very good at the moment.
Liverpool away: Pool had an off day.
R/S away: They’re not very good we should be beating them.
Arsenal home: Hard to believe they are up there.
R/S home: Don’t get carried away, they’re a bad lot.
There have been lots of times to feel pessimistic but why can’t we take these results at face value and show some positive vibes.
If some fans can’t see the fight and passion shown in those results, and even the comeback win against Ipswich with our ten men, and the kick in the teeth on Thursday night followed by the commanding win and performance, I don’t know.
If we had converted the chances we had in those drawn games, our spirits would be extremely high.
Well, since Arsenal, City and Liverpool we've seen loads of worrying signs against teams who are not exactly top quality in England, so surely there was a reason to worry - and there still is, unless we show we can turn it on regularly against different teams and different types of teams.
The rewrite of history after that Liverpool game is so funny, did we play well yes we did but then so did Liverpool they were better than us by every metric so to argue we should have won when actually we got a draw well a bit desperate
I'm not so sure that Liverpool were better than us. We really could have won that game. We created some great opportunities.
Love that he solved our biggest problem. When he first joined we was awful at set pieces and conceded every corner pretty much. Now we look more solid. Dont know how he did it but he did.
They were maybe better by every metric but only slightly. We could have won that game and I remember some Liverpool fans saying that as well. Liverpool were clearly better last season at Old Trafford when they were only 1-0 up at HT and missed few big chances. This January the game was different.
Xg
Liv 2.8 Vs United 1.08
Shots
19 to 13
SoT
6 to 4
Big chances
4-3
They also had more possession, more passes in the opponents half and better passing accuracy
I mean we could have won the game sure, saying we should have won is a stretch.
To be fair that would only explain the Europa League games, as in the 6 matches we played across the FA and League Cups we played 5 Premier League teams.
Amorim will get here, he is learning about the team everyday and he is trying out different thing each game. As results improve, the players form and confidence will improve. Moving Garnacho from the left to the right seems to be working. Instead of shooting, Garnacho is looking from someone is a better position to score. Zirkzee is a no. 10, his best role is link up play between striker, midfield and wingers. Dorgu is always trying to get forward with his pace and physicality which is what he wants. With a decent ST, RWB and CM, he should be doing alot better next season.
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