Weak Mentality vs Weak Coaching

NZT-One

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Conceding only one chance with 10 men is unacceptable to you?

I mean I gave AWB and Lingardinho a 2 or 3 in the ratings. But all the others got higher than a 6 from me.

2 freak individual errors cost us. The team defended well as a unit, evidenced by the fact we gave away one fecking chance defending with 10 for 60 mins.


This post is shit.
Higher than 6? Really? I'd to hear more about this system.

I rated everybody with 5, except for Lingard and AWB and I think Ronaldo for getting us a goal. He got a 6, AWB and Lingard got a 4 iirc. 5 means, the player did mostly what was expected from him, without notably being bad or good. I think, this is already pretty generous because I think, it is safe to assume that we should expect a bit more from us as a team and therefor its players. I considered Ole's tactics to be responsible for that, so I did not want to rate the players to badly. But "higher than 6"?? For what? DVB higher than 6? Sancho? Shaw?

I actually think, this is an interesting topic because it might show us how much mindsets affect our perception. (both directions of course)

Only way for me to imagine a system like yours, is that applied to Rio and Vida back then, they would have never left the field without a 9 or 10.
 
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VanDeBank

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The managerial "school" of Alex Ferguson is really poor and outdated once you look at how well the "graduates" have performed. None of them are rated for their coaching and tactical abilities the way other modern managers are judged. Let's face it, Man Utd as a club is outdated in terms of modern football tactics. Even in the final years of Ferguson's regime you aren't really rated for excellent tactics, and games are more often won by Ferguson's sheer willpower.

The managers hired after Ferguson didn't really help things either. Moyes is an outdated manager in terms of tactics and poorly suited to be the manager of a top 4 club. Van Gaal is also outdated despite being one of the "founder" of modern football tactics. Not to mention the fanbase never really took well to the football style he was trying to implement. Mourinho is also another outdated manager with his prime being in the past. His tactics is also outdated with modern day pressing football making it more difficult for it to work and harder for players to buy into his vision fully. Then you guys went and hired Ole, who is a disciple of Ferguson who paid more attention to man-management but paid far less attention to tactical coaching and etc. While other clubs implement modern progressive football tactics all the way to their U12 level, I imagine this is hardly the case at Man Utd with the managers being brought into the club.

You guys won't win much trophies under Ole simply because you're hiring an outdated manager that isn't suited to winning most of the big prizes in football. Ole's tactics work for a mid-table manager seeking to exploit gaps in defence of "larger" clubs who tries to be more adventurous with their attack. It's why Ole does well against Bielsa's Leeds United because they play an extremely risky attacking football plan. Most other clubs in the chamption league won't leave so much space and have the players that control the mid-field a lot better. Or if not they are good at parking the bus and refuse to give Ole the gaps in defence he wanted to see from an opposition.

Ole can win the PL if the quality of coaches at the other big 4 club is poor. But Man City have Guardiola, Liverpool have Klopp and Chelsea have Tuchel. All top modern attacking coaches. They aren't going to give up the fight for the title as easily as other managers.
Fergie willed his way to victory? Guess Abin Sur should've given the ring to him and not Hal Jordan.
Good luck in the relegation scrap, you'll need it.
 

MattofManchester

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Even in the final years of Ferguson's regime you aren't really rated for excellent tactics, and games are more often won by Ferguson's sheer willpower.
He even had the powers of telekinesis???! This, I didn't know!:eek:
 

NZT-One

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So apart form the four goals against Newcastle and the clean sheet against Wolves and the win against Wolves we've been bang average?

A team cannot play well every match, whats that old saying? It's a sign of a good team when they win despite not being at their best? Or something along those lines.

So what you are actually saying is we are a good team??

The Wolves game we ended up winning due to taking our chance when we got it to me that derves a victory, the Newcastle game was utter domination from start to finish, Leeds game was superb, Southampton we dominated posession and had more chances just didn't take them.

Have a feeling you are watching games with too much of an agenda.
I had the same feeling about your text, to be honest. I mean, what was more than average against So'ton, the standout moments against Wolves were a last-ditch tackle by AWB, a great Save by DDG and a good goal by Greenwood. First Half against Newcastle wasn't great, our goal came from a keeper blunder, the 2nd after a good counter, the 3rd a wonderstrike from an unlikely position, 4th was a dead rubber more or less. I certainly wouldn't call it shit, not even bang average but using it to attack somebodies view as biased, phew, that's a risky play.

(And before you come up with something along the lines of "but Chelsea and Liverpool didn't play better than we did" - doesn't matter, because it isn't connected with how to evaluate our very own performance. Nobody expects a masterpiece every 90 min. But being able to give 120 min of good football from 450 available minutes isn't stuff to write home about. We should try to be as good as we can, if we can achieve something with not achieving this all the time, even better, but there is no point in only orientation ourselves to the teams who might be struggling. Our competitors showed, that seasons with 90 points are possible. That's what we should try to aim for.)
 

ray24

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Fergie willed his way to victory? Guess Abin Sur should've given the ring to him and not Hal Jordan.
Good luck in the relegation scrap, you'll need it.
More in the sense that he can motivate his team to keep winning no matter how badly they played.
 

Champ

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I had the same feeling about your text, to be honest. I mean, what was more than average against So'ton, the standout moments against Wolves were a last-ditch tackle by AWB, a great Save by DDG and a good goal by Greenwood. First Half against Newcastle wasn't great, our goal came from a keeper blunder, the 2nd after a good counter, the 3rd a wonderstrike from an unlikely position, 4th was a dead rubber more or less. I certainly wouldn't call it shit, not even bang average but using it to attack somebodies view as biased, phew, that's a risky play.

(And before you come up with something along the lines of "but Chelsea and Liverpool didn't play better than we did" - doesn't matter, because it isn't connected with how to evaluate our very own performance. Nobody expects a masterpiece every 90 min. But being able to give 120 min of good football from 450 available minutes isn't stuff to write home about. We should try to be as good as we can, if we can achieve something with not achieving this all the time, even better, but there is no point in only orientation ourselves to the teams who might be struggling. Our competitors showed, that seasons with 90 points are possible. That's what we should try to aim for.)
And judging by our results so far we are on course for a 90 point season are we not?

Seems strange to belittle a team that currently sits top of the league albeit at a very early stage, and have scored a lot of goals already.
One bad result in Europe doesn't change that.
No team in history has played well in every game, to do so would be impossible.

I think the entitlement of a few is leading to this knee jerking.
If we play average to poor but beat West Ham what does that say?
What happens of we play really well against West Ham and dominate the game but they score to win with a last minute penalty? What then?
 

croadyman

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FFS. Comeback kings last season and two freak mistakes later and suddenly Ole and the players are a bunch of fannies?

YB hardly created anything the entire second half besides the two goals, one of which was an absoloute gift. Had Lingard hoofed it upfield instead we would all be content with a hard fought draw, where as now the world is crumbling around us and everyhting is shit again
We don't defend leads well at all so rather than trying to do that we should try actually killing the game off, maybe then silly little individual errors wouldn't end up being so costly at crucial times
 

Revan

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On a planet where you watch the game and not the result.
We gave away one real chance playing with 10 for 60 minutes. We were up 1-0 before then.
They had 18 shots, we had 2 (the last one being in the middle of the first half). They had an XG of 1.38, ours was 0.56.

We were a pub team from the moment we got a player sent off.
 

ray24

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That’s harsh on the players we had and the work they put in on the pitch.
Performance wise they were dire to watch as a neutral. You guys just managed to win while playing badly.
 

Ranchero

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Do some of our players lack the mentality to play for United? Or is the coaching staff just not good enough? Do the likes of Carrick and Mckenna need to be replaced?

I understand going down to 10 men and playing for 55 minutes a man down is hard but why did we struggle so much to even get possession and get the ball up the pitch let alone have a shot on goal?

Chelsea went away to Anfield and played a man down for an entire half and came away with a point? We couldn’t even do that to a Swiss team. So is it a player quality issue or is it Ole’s management or is it the mentality/mental toughness issue? I don’t think having Ronaldo alone is going to fix the issue. He can only do so much.
The issue is Ole and the committee nature of decision making that believes subbing Bruno and Ronaldo was justified. While the guy you bring on hands the game to the oppostion.
 

RDCR07

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Performance wise they were dire to watch as a neutral. You guys just managed to win while playing badly.
Last couple of years with Fergie we didn’t really care about defense. It was actually entertaining. We just went out to outscore the opponent. Still remember the home game when Chicharito scored a last minute winner against Newcastle. We won 4-3.
 

ray24

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Last couple of years with Fergie we didn’t really care about defense. It was actually entertaining. We just went out to outscore the opponent. Still remember the home game when Chicharito scored a last minute winner against Newcastle. We won 4-3.
You guys were struggling to string effective wins and often grind out victories like Liverpool did 2 years ago.
 

VanDeBank

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They had 18 shots, we had 2 (the last one being in the middle of the first half). They had an XG of 1.38, ours was 0.56.

We were a pub team from the moment we got a player sent off.
If you wanted to confirm you're not basing your criticism off watching the game, job well done.
 

InfiniteBoredom

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Why does it matter though? As long as you win! Whether it’s pretty or not.
It matters because it’s unsustainable. The moment we lost that driving force in Fergie’s personality and his knowledge of the league, we tapered off badly. And for the actual effectiveness of it, the league has also moved on. We got 80, 89, 89 in his last 3 seasons, while the league nowadays is often won by much higher point total, even in a pandemic year with congested schedule like last year City got 86. That’s the competition we are up against.
 

reelworld

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LVG is better than Ole any day of the week. He just wasn’t suited to United and he certainly didn’t have the players to implement his vision. Maybe he might do better with the current crop.
I don't buy that. Van Gaal got the players he wanted, what we see is what he wanted us to play.
United seems to fluctuated from one extreme to another.
LvG: valued possession too much, team is boring as hell, bad man management
Mourinho: valued defense too much, team could play attacking football if pushed, toxic man management
Ole: couldn't care less about possession, team play fast tempo football, great man management.

There should be a happy medium between these 3.
 

RedDevilQuebecois

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Zidane would be great because he would immediately have the respect of the whole squad & he sets up his teams well to play in the CL. I do wonder however if him not speaking English (as far as I know) would be an issue though. I remember Enrique was learning English back when he was linked with Chelsea years ago so imagine he's got a decent level. Maybe not.
TBF, Marcelo Bielsa has been with Leeds since 2018 and yet doesn't speak anything near fluent English. Mauricio Pochettino doesn't speak fluent French in front of the French media nor with the French contingent of players at PSG. I wouldn't worry about that issue at all for now as Zidane can always get an assistant-interpreter with him to get the message across to his players. I think we severely underestimate a man's ability to find communication links with other people.

I would take Zidane immediately if the Ole project goes to shit. We need someone who can both work with the players available, command respect straight away, and choose the right tactics. What people forget is that Real Madrid were not spending particularly a lot during Zidane's first stint as full-time manager.
 

reelworld

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The managerial "school" of Alex Ferguson is really poor and outdated once you look at how well the "graduates" have performed. None of them are rated for their coaching and tactical abilities the way other modern managers are judged. Let's face it, Man Utd as a club is outdated in terms of modern football tactics. Even in the final years of Ferguson's regime you aren't really rated for excellent tactics, and games are more often won by Ferguson's sheer willpower.

The managers hired after Ferguson didn't really help things either. Moyes is an outdated manager in terms of tactics and poorly suited to be the manager of a top 4 club. Van Gaal is also outdated despite being one of the "founder" of modern football tactics. Not to mention the fanbase never really took well to the football style he was trying to implement. Mourinho is also another outdated manager with his prime being in the past. His tactics is also outdated with modern day pressing football making it more difficult for it to work and harder for players to buy into his vision fully. Then you guys went and hired Ole, who is a disciple of Ferguson who paid more attention to man-management but paid far less attention to tactical coaching and etc. While other clubs implement modern progressive football tactics all the way to their U12 level, I imagine this is hardly the case at Man Utd with the managers being brought into the club.

You guys won't win much trophies under Ole simply because you're hiring an outdated manager that isn't suited to winning most of the big prizes in football. Ole's tactics work for a mid-table manager seeking to exploit gaps in defence of "larger" clubs who tries to be more adventurous with their attack. It's why Ole does well against Bielsa's Leeds United because they play an extremely risky attacking football plan. Most other clubs in the chamption league won't leave so much space and have the players that control the mid-field a lot better. Or if not they are good at parking the bus and refuse to give Ole the gaps in defence he wanted to see from an opposition.

Ole can win the PL if the quality of coaches at the other big 4 club is poor. But Man City have Guardiola, Liverpool have Klopp and Chelsea have Tuchel. All top modern attacking coaches. They aren't going to give up the fight for the title as easily as other managers.
It failed because IMO those managers took the wrong lessons from what makes Ferguson great. His greatest strength is his ability to adapt to any situation he faced. The "graduates" failed because they're either too stubborn to do this or don't have the capabilities to recognize their weakness.
Look at Ferguson famed man management skill. He adapted his approach according to the players personality and background.
He knows he needs to adapt to the European game to win another Champions League, so he brings Queiroz to help with the tactical side. That United 2007-2008 side played very different to United 1999 treble side.
 

RDCR07

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It failed because IMO those managers took the wrong lessons from what makes Ferguson great. His greatest strength is his ability to adapt to any situation he faced. The "graduates" failed because they're either too stubborn to do this or don't have the capabilities to recognize their weakness.
Look at Ferguson famed man management skill. He adapted his approach according to the players personality and background.
He knows he needs to adapt to the European game to win another Champions League, so he brings Queiroz to help with the tactical side. That United 2007-2008 side played very different to United 1999 treble side.
This! Couldn’t have said it better.
 

Bobcat

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We don't defend leads well at all so rather than trying to do that we should try actually killing the game off, maybe then silly little individual errors wouldn't end up being so costly at crucial times
The stats beg to differ. If anything, we are notoriously slow starters or at least we were last season. Every team fails in defending leads at times, the thing is when other teams drop points like that you forget about in a couple of minutes where as when you do it yourself it really stays with you. Thinking about Everton last season still boils my piss

Just to be clear. I am not going to try and defend that 2nd half performance. I honestly think going 3 at the back and the general tactic of staying deep and hoping to hit them on the break was our best bet. Had Ronaldo scored or gotten a pen that would be game-set-match, but the midfield was just a hot mess and it seemed no one had any clue on what we were actually trying to do with the ball
 

Himannv

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I somehow read the title as Weak Mentality vs Weak Clothing and it made me wonder if there was a problem with the kits that made us shit. That blue monstrosity we were wearing could well have been the cause.
 

ray24

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Why does it matter though? As long as you win! Whether it’s pretty or not.
Because your luck will run out and end up spending years without winning the league as a result. Arsenal winning badly is also why we end up where we are now, because we run out of luck and now we're stuck in mid-table.

A title winning side cannot sustain their success if the only way they win it is by winning ugly. Liverpool lost their title defence after a year of playing ugly football.
 

tomaldinho1

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TBF, Marcelo Bielsa has been with Leeds since 2018 and yet doesn't speak anything near fluent English. Mauricio Pochettino doesn't speak fluent French in front of the French media nor with the French contingent of players at PSG. I wouldn't worry about that issue at all for now as Zidane can always get an assistant-interpreter with him to get the message across to his players. I think we severely underestimate a man's ability to find communication links with other people.

I would take Zidane immediately if the Ole project goes to shit. We need someone who can both work with the players available, command respect straight away, and choose the right tactics. What people forget is that Real Madrid were not spending particularly a lot during Zidane's first stint as full-time manager.
No denying he is a good coach, that's for sure and agreed re his success despite not a huge amount of spending in certain seasons. His midfield setup was excellent and they actually had some of the best pressing stats in Europe under him as well which I don't think people realise as there's this weird narrative of Zidane being some kind of current Ancelotti style manager.
 

Garethw

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It’s both. Weak coaching and weak management breeds weak mentality in players.

He probably doesn’t mean it, but he does come across as a defeatist at times. The other day he was quoted as saying that we have 5 CL games to get 10 points. No Ole you have 5 games to get 15 points! It’s a weak mentality which gets absorbed by the players.
 

NZT-One

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And judging by our results so far we are on course for a 90 point season are we not?

Seems strange to belittle a team that currently sits top of the league albeit at a very early stage, and have scored a lot of goals already.
One bad result in Europe doesn't change that.
No team in history has played well in every game, to do so would be impossible.

I think the entitlement of a few is leading to this knee jerking.
If we play average to poor but beat West Ham what does that say?
What happens of we play really well against West Ham and dominate the game but they score to win with a last minute penalty? What then?
I don't know, you tell me what then?

If you read the criticism, you will find that it is mostly about the performances. Not the results. And sub-par performances will lead to bad results eventually. Which we have seen on a somewhat regular basis thoughout the last year or so. These bad performance led to bad results which then led to us being trophyless at the end of last season.

I think, some of you shrugging these things away by mentioning the good results aren't particularly using better argumentation than others who mention the negative results over time. Of course one game doesn't really change the overall picture and I agree with you, some reaction to tuesdays match were weird AF but the criticism isn't just about single games or events, it is about a pattern that is recognizable, it isn't just a small group of "weird fans", it is a lot of people supporting our club and other clubs as well. I am not saying that this pattern is the worst-thing in the world and rectifies anything, but the pattern is there and we will have to take care of it.

Take your own advice in, a bad result shouldn't change a positive start into the season, same as a good result shouldn't leave us ignoring a concerning pattern. Same goes for 4 matches against smaller teams where we were at least somewhat fortunate to get as many points from than we did. This is, how complacency starts, Fergie could get away with "great teams can get a result even on a bad day", Liverpool too. But only because these bad days are the exception.
 

wolvored

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Do some of our players lack the mentality to play for United? Or is the coaching staff just not good enough? Do the likes of Carrick and Mckenna need to be replaced?

I understand going down to 10 men and playing for 55 minutes a man down is hard but why did we struggle so much to even get possession and get the ball up the pitch let alone have a shot on goal?

Chelsea went away to Anfield and played a man down for an entire half and came away with a point? We couldn’t even do that to a Swiss team. So is it a player quality issue or is it Ole’s management or is it the mentality/mental toughness issue? I don’t think having Ronaldo alone is going to fix the issue. He can only do so much.
All your first paragraph. Coaching is not good enough and either need replacing, or moved to lesser positions and get experienced WC coaches in, or as near as dammit. Some player look a lot better playing for other teams and wilt when they come here.
 

Champ

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I don't know, you tell me what then?

If you read the criticism, you will find that it is mostly about the performances. Not the results. And sub-par performances will lead to bad results eventually. Which we have seen on a somewhat regular basis thoughout the last year or so. These bad performance led to bad results which then led to us being trophyless at the end of last season.

I think, some of you shrugging these things away by mentioning the good results aren't particularly using better argumentation than others who mention the negative results over time. Of course one game doesn't really change the overall picture and I agree with you, some reaction to tuesdays match were weird AF but the criticism isn't just about single games or events, it is about a pattern that is recognizable, it isn't just a small group of "weird fans", it is a lot of people supporting our club and other clubs as well. I am not saying that this pattern is the worst-thing in the world and rectifies anything, but the pattern is there and we will have to take care of it.

Take your own advice in, a bad result shouldn't change a positive start into the season, same as a good result shouldn't leave us ignoring a concerning pattern. Same goes for 4 matches against smaller teams where we were at least somewhat fortunate to get as many points from than we did. This is, how complacency starts, Fergie could get away with "great teams can get a result even on a bad day", Liverpool too. But only because these bad days are the exception.
Bad days are this United teams exception too realistically. We have lost 13 games overall in the last 66 (thats two seasons worth in all comps) for context City have lost 9 games and Liverpool (this great team that can get a result on a bad day) lost 12.

If anything last season was individual mistakes that cost us points, very similar to what happened the other night.

You mention we are fortunate to be on as many points as we are this season - based on what? As we dominated the Newcastle game, The Leeds game, the Southampton game and were clinical against Wolves. Thats not fortunate, thats called getting the job done. The Wolves game was prehaps the only one whereby any metric you wish to pick on was in Wolves' favour.

Criticism of performances is good, however criticism of performances whereby we are winning and comprehensively so is slightly misguided and deranged.

I cannot say there isn't room for improvement in some of our performances, but the mentality of the club is changing and the stature of personnel brought in can only be a good thing. Also there has to come a point whereby these people bemoaning our 'poor performances' have to take heed and think that actually we are quite a decent outfit and win more often than we don't.

I would expect a reaction from Tuesday night against West Ham, but i would quite happily take a one nil scrappy win considering our last two results there have been one nil win, and if that happens I will be happy that my team has won and probably won't jump online to bemoan the fact that Lingard played a part in the game, or that Ole didn't make a sub until the 76th minute and when he did it was to bring Matic on.
 

Champ

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It’s both. Weak coaching and weak management breeds weak mentality in players.

He probably doesn’t mean it, but he does come across as a defeatist at times. The other day he was quoted as saying that we have 5 CL games to get 10 points. No Ole you have 5 games to get 15 points! It’s a weak mentality which gets absorbed by the players.
I think you are miscontruing what he meant by this, usually ten points is enough to get you to the next round - thats the aim, so he wasn't saying per se that we only want ten points, just that ten points is enough to get us through to the next round.
 

RDCR07

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Because your luck will run out and end up spending years without winning the league as a result. Arsenal winning badly is also why we end up where we are now, because we run out of luck and now we're stuck in mid-table.

A title winning side cannot sustain their success if the only way they win it is by winning ugly. Liverpool lost their title defence after a year of playing ugly football.
No one goes years winning ugly. Top teams might do it for one year. Then they rebuild in the summer and things go back to normal. The difference for us is Ferguson left so things haven’t gone back to normal. And all this talk about winning ugly and not playing pretty is rich coming from a guy whose team was known for playing pretty on the eye football but no trophies to show for it.
 

croadyman

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The stats beg to differ. If anything, we are notoriously slow starters or at least we were last season. Every team fails in defending leads at times, the thing is when other teams drop points like that you forget about in a couple of minutes where as when you do it yourself it really stays with you. Thinking about Everton last season still boils my piss

Just to be clear. I am not going to try and defend that 2nd half performance. I honestly think going 3 at the back and the general tactic of staying deep and hoping to hit them on the break was our best bet. Had Ronaldo scored or gotten a pen that would be game-set-match, but the midfield was just a hot mess and it seemed no one had any clue on what we were actually trying to do with the ball
The problem with that Everton result is it carried into our games against both WBA & Palace as well, much like that utterly diabolical showing at Istanbul made life much harder than it should have been against PSG & Leipzig
 

RDCR07

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The problem with that Everton result is it carried into our games against both WBA & Palace as well, much like that utterly diabolical showing at Istanbul made life much harder than it should have been against PSG & Leipzig
Hopefully the likes of Ronaldo and Varane will not allow that this year with their leadership and mentality.
 

ray24

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No one goes years winning ugly. Top teams might do it for one year. Then they rebuild in the summer and things go back to normal. The difference for us is Ferguson left so things haven’t gone back to normal. And all this talk about winning ugly and not playing pretty is rich coming from a guy whose team was known for playing pretty on the eye football but no trophies to show for it.
Ferguson gets away with it because he is who he is. A top manager that make sure his teams wins no mattet what, unless it's against a top European team in his final years.

As for Arsenal, it's better to play attractive football and not win anything than to play boring football and not win anything (which is where we are now). Do you think Arsenal will win anything if onlu we played uglier football?
 

RDCR07

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Ferguson gets away with it because he is who he is. A top manager that make sure his teams wins no mattet what, unless it's against a top European team in his final years.

As for Arsenal, it's better to play attractive football and not win anything than to play boring football and not win anything (which is where we are now). Do you think Arsenal will win anything if onlu we played uglier football?
As long as it’s not winning anything I don’t care about attractive football or not. And no I didn’t say you will anything if you played “ugly football”. It’s just that that was always the fallback option during the Wenger days. We don’t win but at least we play attractive football.
 

Wade3

Correctly predicted France to win World Cup 2018
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Dec 4, 2013
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2,729
There's a reason we've struggled so mightily in the Champions League under OGS. I'm far away from blaming him for most of the issues with our play, but there seem to be tactical struggles for him in Europe. Perhaps he isn't versatile enough yet and has simply developed good game plans against the usual PL style of play.
 

Teja

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Aug 17, 2014
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No denying he is a good coach, that's for sure and agreed re his success despite not a huge amount of spending in certain seasons. His midfield setup was excellent and they actually had some of the best pressing stats in Europe under him as well which I don't think people realise as there's this weird narrative of Zidane being some kind of current Ancelotti style manager.
Any links? I don't particularly recall them being good at pressing / doing an exceptional job against a high press.
 

ghagua

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Jul 12, 2012
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5,992
Do some of our players lack the mentality to play for United? Or is the coaching staff just not good enough? Do the likes of Carrick and Mckenna need to be replaced?

I understand going down to 10 men and playing for 55 minutes a man down is hard but why did we struggle so much to even get possession and get the ball up the pitch let alone have a shot on goal?

Chelsea went away to Anfield and played a man down for an entire half and came away with a point? We couldn’t even do that to a Swiss team. So is it a player quality issue or is it Ole’s management or is it the mentality/mental toughness issue? I don’t think having Ronaldo alone is going to fix the issue. He can only do so much.
We used to do it as well. We had plenty of sending offs in the Fergie era without resorting to shite that we saw against Young Boys. It comes down to management and also coaching. We could easily have gone with Varane, Lindelof, and Shaw at the back, brought on Matic and replaced Fred with someone in midfield to keep the pressure on Young Boys, but putting 5 at the back just asked for them to push us into a defensive stance as we could not hold the ball in midfield. Lingard did what is being coached and accepted, sideways and back passing. Terrible management, terrible coaching. We have Ronaldo, Bruno, Pogba, Sancho, Greenwood on the team. Let that sink in and then compare the shite that is on display. 2 shots on goal, just 2.