But we didn’t tactic the ball into the goal enough times against fecking Copenhagen. Or something.
Would you sack or keep Ole? (Poll reopened)
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik and Imran hold a long overdue conversation about United's awful league form with 1 win in 7. They discuss a disappointing draw at Bournemouth, a not so disappointing draw against Liverpool and a crushing defeat at Chelsea - Is time nearly over for Erik Ten Hag?
Then in a special second half of the pod, Nik welcomes Natalie ( https://twitter.com/natalie_17) to discuss the fortunes of Manchester United Women as they booked a place in the FA Cup Final after a historic first ever win vs. Chelsea.
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We have the worst internet fans, even the clowns at AFTV are more positive about their team than some of you lot 
Indeed. Hopefully @criticalanalysis can offer us all insight into the more subtle patterns of play that Copenhagen employed on their route towards 0 shots on target.
Self-indulgent, pretentious twaddle.
Well they aren't having a lot of luck with it. Let's not kid ourselves here. We didn't play brilliantly, and yet we could've quite reasonably scored 5 or 6. It was abundantly clear that we were knackered towards the end of the season. We won't ever face so many games in such a short space of time again. We won't be going into next season with so few attacking opens to rotate with either.
We got outclassed by Copenhagen in every way except the score, result, and every other meaningful stat.
FCK really had no clue how to defend against us, though. If they did, we wouldn't have 14 shots on goal and 4 more to hit the post. They had a goalie who played the game of a century. And a bit of luck. Sure, they defended heroically with great effort, but they really struggled a lot as well. They should all give Johnsson their match bonus. Some talk about how we need individual brilliance on offense to score goals, but they sure as duck needed plenty of individual brilliance to not concede as well.
I don't think that's the reason for our recent slump in performance. In the last 4-5 games of the domestic season we were collectively knackered. Changing things a little against Chelsea was a bad decision, we lost rhythm and tactical ability whilst still not resting some absolute key players. Against Leicester I think it was mostly mental determination to get through.
What you identify may become a problem down the line, but most of our players look sluggish and have done for some time now. Understandably. Resting Lindelof and Matic tonight probably didn't do the team many favours, as we had no balance in that first half and resorted to very old school tactics, albeit with a very slow tempo.
Ole deserves another season, but this season coming up is when he really should be judged with view to whether he is the one to take this team to where we want to be. I hope he'll surprise, but I doubt it.
And you didn't even mention all the injuries! If anything, Solskjær has over-performed.
I'm confused by your opinion.
United hit the woodwork numerous times. Their goalkeeper was MoM. Romero had absolutely no saves to make with Copenhagen having no shots on target.
No we didn’t
New record for saves from a goalie in the EL when we're not performing very well. I'll take that.
Cheer up. It's only football
We got totally OUTCLASSED
cleverly disguised sarcasm I think.No we didn’t
You're right. Romero had to make 0 saves.No we didn’t
On another night we win that 4 or 5 nil. The chances didn't go in tonight but we were clearly the better team. It wasn't a classic but the lads were playing in very humid conditions after what has been a hectic schedule.
Granted, we will need to be better next game against a better side but we clearly done what we needed to do. It's not a game that'll live long in the memory but criticising Ole for anything tonight is clutching at straws.
Granted, we will need to be better next game against a better side but we clearly done what we needed to do. It's not a game that'll live long in the memory but criticising Ole for anything tonight is clutching at straws.
It's a really sad indictment of our fan base when we struggle to win a game this thread gets a bump.
Bonkers post to be fair.
Exactly!
Achieved with Pogba, Rashford and Martial our three best-attacking options having missed good chunks of the season.
100% sarcastic, made me laugh.
There's people here moaning now because they "felt uneasy" during a game of football. Anything less than feeling completely certain of all results isn't enough now it seems.
If that's not a sign of progress I don't know what is.
If that's not a sign of progress I don't know what is.
We set up attacks haphazardly but I can forgive that as we’re handicapped by AWB and Williams who aren’t good enough in attack. Especially AWB. Having two fantastic attacking fullback would give us a such a different look. We could actually stretch teams and play with space. Now we’re just playing through the middle most of the time and 90% of the time our full backs do receive the ball, they recycle possession backwards or into the middle. I’m convinced we will look significantly better if and when we upgrade.
They definitely had at least one shot on 'target', which was blocked by AWB.
I never said we don't play attacking football but if you thought tonight's performance was good then you've got a simple view of football. We had to have Martial going Messi-mode, a £37milion attacking midfielder and a £30million defender come on to win against a team with a penalty, whilst running ourselves into the ground and making fecking hard work to create those chances.
I don't expect easy tap ins and square balls across the goal winning 3-0 by half time but there's got to be a middle ground between City/Liverpool blitzing and the ardous performances we currently are showing.
I don't give a crap about how Copenhagen played in relation to our game but they definitely passed the ball around more efficiently and made us work much harder than we did to them. That's not even taking considering how many times more talented and physically elite our players are. If you don't see that, then there's no point analysing any further because yeah we won, players are tired, injuries and Ole's doing a fantastic job, nothing else to critique, blah blah.
I still get the feeling we play according to the players inertia. We dont seem to have a system implemented, it seems all our attacks are somehow improvised. Thats why I fear so much if we enter a low patch and the players morale drops we will stay there for a long time.
Agree with this entirely. It does have that feel of just expecting a moment of brilliance in the final third.
You never know in this thread. But point taken.
Don't you all know that if a player has less than 40% stamina left you need to swap him off. Even a 60ish rated player will perform better than a 80ish then!
Wow.
We could have scored 6 tonight in a European QF if it wasn't for the keeper having the game of his life and bad luck hitting the post so often. We've won the last 2 rounds by 5 or 6 goals.
But apparently we're clueless with the ball. You're definitely critical but I wouldn't call what you're doing analysis.
No, they had 0 shots on target. Let's not redefine what the term means in order to make the stats look slightly worse for Ole, eh? You're better than that.
Can't believe this is a serious thread now. I admit I had given up on him when we were flirting with a relegation battle but he has remarkably turned it around and led the team to what seemed unattainable third position with three cup semifinals at least. He is selling all the right players (still has a few more to go) and recruiting with a purpose.
This game tonight was fine, almost thirty goal attempts, almost thirty degrees, disallowed goals, woodworks and a keeper having the game of his nine lives.
Hopefully we deliver on the transfer market again, he is struggling with a lack of depth. At least it seems he has lost the faith in most of our squad players.
This game tonight was fine, almost thirty goal attempts, almost thirty degrees, disallowed goals, woodworks and a keeper having the game of his nine lives.
Hopefully we deliver on the transfer market again, he is struggling with a lack of depth. At least it seems he has lost the faith in most of our squad players.
I dont care what anybody thinks, we are POORLY coached. We looked handicaped when bringing the ball out from our defense, we have no pattern to our press and we basically freestyle our attacking play.
AWB should never have been the RB to bring in if you want to be an attacking team and Maguire is slow so we cant play higher up the pitch.
It seems nobody had a word with Bruno about forcing the play and the man complicates simple things.
The point though is Ole is at least 2 steps below Pep and Klopp when it comes to coaching. I like Ole but he seldom feels me with confidence in some type of transfers and in the way we play football.
AWB should never have been the RB to bring in if you want to be an attacking team and Maguire is slow so we cant play higher up the pitch.
It seems nobody had a word with Bruno about forcing the play and the man complicates simple things.
The point though is Ole is at least 2 steps below Pep and Klopp when it comes to coaching. I like Ole but he seldom feels me with confidence in some type of transfers and in the way we play football.
In that case, the use of 'shots on target' doesn't tell the full story and is used misleading in this case to represent how much we 'dominated' them then isn't it?
Did they have a few limited good chances towards our goal or got into our box more comfortably that we wanted? Yes.
Did we make fecking hard work of those 14 chances on target? Yes.
Should the players take responsibility for the finishing? Yes.
Do I think Ole has shown some consistent deficiencies enough to call him out it? Yes.
Does that mean I think he has been terrible for us? No.
Why is it so black and white for some you and being so defensive?
Look at some of the recent replies, who basically say the same things. We are not are well coached as we can be; no more no less to that statement.
There is one glaring problem and it seems we dont have a solution to it; They crumble under little pressure when bringing the ball out of defense. For a team our size and quality we should do it seemlesly more often than not. We take ages to get it to our front players.
I agree that is still a problem. And I have questioned the make up of our lead coaching staff. It's Carrick, a former player who hasn't been trained anywhere else for almost 15 years , McKenna who stayed on after failed managers were let go and Phelan, semi-retired former Hull manager who doesn't seem all that current.
I don't see it as a reason to sack Ole after a very good end to the season, but I do feel the coaching staff could use a fresh mind, one bred outside of the United bubble.
The confidence he's given to our strikers should be praised and rightly so.
I just really hope we abandon this build-up structure.
Matic slots into a back 3. Pogba becomes isolated. Bruno ventures up top with Martial. The distance between the 3 midfield players is absurd. We're basically playing a 1 man midfield. The full-backs push up as well. Shaw sometimes was drifting in to supplement the midfield, but I don't think it's enough. We seem to almost bypass the midfield at times. I just don't think it'll work out vs better teams.
I just really hope we abandon this build-up structure.
Matic slots into a back 3. Pogba becomes isolated. Bruno ventures up top with Martial. The distance between the 3 midfield players is absurd. We're basically playing a 1 man midfield. The full-backs push up as well. Shaw sometimes was drifting in to supplement the midfield, but I don't think it's enough. We seem to almost bypass the midfield at times. I just don't think it'll work out vs better teams.
I just wish this would get done. I have no faith in this back room staff. Too inexperienced. Hopefully someone who can coach 433.
It is in the mind isn't it? If players do not know or are coached to move without the ball then the passes will go astray. That is why our players seem to be on the back foot. They do not expect the passes. Good coaches like SAF, Clough, Pep, Klopp, Cruijff etc they teach the players to move the ball. That is pass and move into empty space. Also the player with the ball to pass and move himself. I do not think our players are coached to do that as it seems they always take a few touches and then dilly dallies on the ball because no one is moving or moving into the right space.
I agree. In my opinion we have a talented team now, but we rely on the quality of players to drag us through even the most basic of games.
Tactically I don't see anything special at all. Even our incredibly expensive defence looks unorganised and vulnerable. In my opinion, Ole's managerial career speaks for itself and it's saying he's not good enough. We'll probably sign enough good players to keep Ole here for a while but eventually we'll need to replace him.
All from your comfy armchair with zero coaching experience? Ole, Phelan, Carrick, Kieran, you know better than them all - well done.
The truth is from your home watching match day games on TV, you can't really make such assertions.
Ole didn't ask Rashford not to make any runs, neither did he have a choice with Luke Shaw injured, with the right footed Williams rarely backing himself to even venture forward, if you get that much immobility from one side, you're not going to create many patterns on the pitch. We all know that AWB brings a lot more in defence than attack, but with no attacking balance on the left, we're forced to rely too heavily on the poorest part of his game.
Edit:
This is the same side that was scoring 3s and 5s per game not too long ago, and the same team that had 14 shots on target.
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