Why are Man United playing worse than last season?

Mate, last season we barely had one decent 1st half all season.

It was the most obvious false dawn of all time.

Maguire and Shaw have dropped in form. Ronaldo has disrupted the press up front and possibly the dressing room dynamics. McFred have forgotten how to tackle. Bruno isn't playing as superhuman as he was when he carried us.

Ronaldo, despite the goal his other contribution are very minor or nonexistent and at times makes you predictable.

Bruno was at a high level last season individually.

Liverpool with injuries + Chelsea with Lampard for half a season makes your finish look better then it should be would've been fighting for 4-5 spot otherwise.

Despite having better depth this season for United Ole doesn't know how to use it like Pep does with his.

We couldn't control games at all last season, so many results were narrow scraped wins from behind which were easier away from home due to there being no crowds and so our final position last season was a bit flattering and the way it was attained wasn't sustainable. In order to compete in the league Ole recognised he had to cut down on the dropped points caused by stodgy performances against weaker teams where we wouldn't create enough. Rather than fixing it with coaching he's just flooded the squad with attackers in whom no discipline or structure has been instilled and so now every game we have our midfield two (the weakest part of the team) trying to cover a huge amount of space and then add to that that certain players, notably Luke Shaw, have fallen off a cliff in terms of form.

We were not very good last season. Lost of comebacks and shocking home form

Bearded One said:

As bad as it was would you compare it to the way things are panning now?

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The results of course are making everything worse right now but we were very lucky last season in plenty of games.

Well we are regressing as a team and this lands solely on the lap of Ole and the back team. The entire setup is wrong. Everything from teamwork to tactics. It feels like we are a World XI when we play

There was no expectation that season, so it was easier to play better. Liverpool had massive injury problems, and Chelsea had their version of Ole for the majority of the season. Also, the team was built over morale, not over tactics and coaching. And tactics >>> morale, more often than not.

Now, there is expectation. And unfortunately, it has been over 2 years now since we did not have proper coaches. Sooner or later, the lack of decent coaching will affect the play, more and more. It is gonna be worse in the next few weeks. Spurs are likely gonna defeat us. And City, well, they are gonna toy with us. Probably not a 5-0 defeat, but they will just shit on us, and make us look like an amateur team.

Players with porcelain mentalities. Crowd puts them under a bit of pressure and they shatter.

There were a lot of problems last season that Ole's blind management failed to address.

If you don't sort out or recognise problems they don't magically go away. They fester and become weaknesses, and then your opponents start to attack them.

This is exactly what's happened. It's been very evident all season we can't play the way we have been as teams just pick us off. Instead of doing anything to address it Ole has just compounded it by doing things like picking Maguire when he's literally 10 yards off the pace or making changes in games that actually expose the weaknesses more.

Drainy said:

Maguire and Shaw have dropped in form. Ronaldo has disrupted the press up front and possibly the dressing room dynamics. McFred have forgotten how to tackle. Bruno isn't playing as superhuman as he was when he carried us.

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That's about how I see it.

Last season he relied on a lot of individual brilliance (mostly Bruno's) to rescue the matches. We were consistently down at half time because of his inept tactics and disorganization. This season the outstanding players revert to norms so his tactics and managing skills are getting exposed.

Basically, his luck is running out.

In the space of two months, the team has regressed dramatically culminating in todays humiliating defeat at home to Liverpool.

Last season, whilst we were in no way perfect by any means, we didn’t appear to have too many ‘major’ issues flaring up to resolve apart from an agreed need for more quality to our starting XI. This was addressed over the summer with three world class players added to the squad. In the space of just over two months, the issues Ole has watched brew to a horrible crescendo today are:

1. A major RW signing in Sancho after two years of chasing unable to be deployed in the first XI.
2. An appalling defensive record despite having signed the star CB we all craved to partner Maguire and the employment of a set piece coach.
3. Two of England’s summer heroes in Shaw and Maguire being unable to adapt back to club life.
4. Pogba’s final year of will he or won’t he leave on a free. I can’t believe we’re still having to consider does he want to be here.
5. Last season’s hero Fernandes looking half the player he did back then.
6. A disgruntled Cavani having been begged to stay now ousted to the bench as a bit part player having had a fantastic season last year.
7. A club legend in Ronaldo having the potential to act bigger than the club and affect what was being built within.
8. The trusty McFred ‘solid’ partnership last season looking like a miserable wet weekend now.
9. The ongoing Van de Beek saga made worse being his second season sat on the bench.
10. Players like Mata, Martial & Telles dismissed from even getting into some match day squads yet picking up hefty salaries for sitting in the stands.
11. No faith in Bailly whatsoever to replace an unfit Maguire.
12.The media finally latching on to the fact we are a poorly coached team relying on individual brilliance, something this forum has discussed for the past 12 months or so.

Any more reasons we’ve gone back or is it an accumulation of all the above? Am I being harsh in some of these reasons?

Ole’s created more problems than he’s solved tbh

The results have just caught up with the performances this season

Skills said:

The results have just caught up with the performances this season

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This! It's this in a nutshell.

That's the thing that myself and others have been trying to suggest - we haven't really gone backwards imo. This was the norm for us. The question mark over Ole was always the sustainability of the football. We were consistently outperforming our xG, constantly being bailed out by individual moments but the football wasn't improving. It was also a very difficult conversation to have because it always went back to the league finishes, completely overlooking context.

This is just us performing more in line with the quality of our football imo. We finished last season as second place due to circumstance, not our own brilliance - that amount of points usually has us 3rd or 4th.

FootyGirl88 said:

Ole’s created more problems than he’s solved tbh

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Think this is very true. A lot of the glaring issues that were an issue last season still exists, and now we've got some new ones too.

Because Ole is just splashing money on any top class player available without actually having a clue how to use them. He definitely doesn't know how to use Ronaldo and Sancho. He just signed them because he has money and wanted to spend.

I missed the mismanagement of Lingard in the OP too. One of the players of the second half of the season last year for West Ham on loan. So you either sell him and cash in or keep him and give him a real run in the first XI. What does Ole do with him instead….. “go and sit on the bench next to Donny like a good boy”.

Culmination of all those things really.

The new players haven’t really hit the ground running.

Ronaldo, Greenwood and Pogba in particular are not high energy players either and whilst Ole is trying to transition to a pressing team it’s failing and these lads don’t help it one bit. When I say failing I agree it’s from a coaching perspective also.

The issue we already had of not having a capable/reliable DM ha been highlighted and exacerbated by the above. Meaning the front line is awfully detached from the midfield and we are still stuck with awful options to partner each other at the base of midfield.

Bruno played well further up the pitch but Ronaldo occupies that area now and Bruno hasn’t really played in a flat 4-3-3 so it’s hard for us to transition to that formation without dropping him.

Ole hasn’t coped with the changes well at all either.

Shaw has been terrible compared to last season, same for Maguire especially since his knock.

Add it all up and it looks like today.

Playing the wrong tactics if you want to play these players you need to play counter attack.

Ole's trying to change the way we played when he first came.
We were a counter attacking unit which worked against the bigger teams or teams that came to have a go but against the ones who came to defend we would sometimes get caught out.
He's now trying to be more dominating in games.
Unfortunately we haven't got a decent hard working midfield and God only knows what defensive tactics are being taught!

kitress said:

Basically, his luck is running out.

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Agreed

I do not know why we are so shit at defending suddenly? We could defend in big games last season. Often getting 0-0, but at least resisted the other teams.
Now every defensive player is doing badly.

Simple: the acquisition of Varane and Ronaldo.

These players demand winning and trophies now. The pressure to win is mounting. Usually Ole would back pedal or play down expectations, but with those 2 in the squad he can't do that anymore. So he's forced to do what he's not used to. Hence why it's unravelling before our eyes.

Caesar2290 said:

Simple: the acquisition of Varane and Ronaldo.

These players demand winning and trophies now. The pressure to win is mounting. Usually Ole would back pedal or play down expectations, but with those 2 in the squad he can't do that anymore. So he's forced to do what he's not used to. Hence why it's unravelling before our eyes.

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Interesting take

I mean that's a summary of some of the things that look to be strange or potentially wrong but I'm not sure it is any more instructive than the fact we are not playing well enough in any department.

We're not pressing, we don't have energy, we're not smart enough to accept these limitations, we're not passing well, and then we're compounding everything with individual errors.

Of course you can always look at something and list 25 things that are discrete situations and say this is going wrong when things are as bad as they are but more often than not they come about because there is no performance level to begin with. Which means X player is probably playing bad. Which means we have dissatisfied players, both on the pitch and on the bench/in the stands.

Danny Murphy nailed it last weekend on MOTD2. Utd are among the bottom three teams in PL for pressing. We have too many players who dont want to do defensive work, press and chase down the opposition. We have a front 4 who dont press. It's almost impossible to be successful with that many players not pressing and doing the dirty work as well.

That's down to the coaching. City forwards work their socks off and do the dirty work and tactical fouls, if our forwards worked as hard as City's forwards do, maybe we'd have half a chance.

Also Ole doesnt punish mediocre performances, play badly and he still picks you next game. Sets the bar very low for players and there is no punishment for playing badly.

Because the lack.of coaching is making us worse and worse, managers have completely sussed out ole's one dimensional tactics and what has really backfire for ole is that he thought bringing in a bunch of world class attackers in sancho and Ronaldo would mean more individual magic to cover up his poor managerial ability but has created a massive unbalance and he is too afraid drop players that ain't suited to his one dimensional tactics

Bruno is not playing like he was, which covered many of our mistakes.

Also make no mistake, today's game wasn't an accident. We performed the same way against wolves, Southampton, Atalanta and Villarreal. The difference is that those teams don't have Salah's and Jota's to punish you.

It was just a matter of time before we faced a decent team and got totally smacked, we were riding our luck for way too long now.

VivaRonaldo85 said:

Interesting take

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To add to what I said. I think Bruno views Ronaldo as his bigger brother. So everything Ronaldo says and does is emboldening him as well. That's why there have been rumors that Bruno isn't thrilled with Ole this season as well.

As some other posters said. The acquisition of Ronaldo might spell for Ole's doom.

I’d put it down to the summer signings

dinostar77 said:

Danny Murphy nailed it last weekend on MOTD2. Utd are among the bottom three teams in PL for pressing. We have too many players who dont want to do defensive work, press and chase down the opposition. We have a front 4 who dont press. It's almost impossible to be successful with that many players not pressing and doing the dirty work as well.

That's down to the coaching. City forwards work their socks off and do the dirty work and tactical fouls, if our forwards worked as hard as City's forwards do, maybe we'd have half a chance.

Also Ole doesnt punish mediocre performances, play badly and he still picks you next game. Sets the bar very low for players and there is no punishment for playing badly.

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so if there’s one thing worse than not pressing, it’s pressing badly in response to criticism. Far worse.

We were rotten for the last 10 games or so last season as well, all the way to the EL final. We haven't 'gone back', we just continued on the same vein of form.

You can even say that for a lot of our 1-0 wins during the festive period, the signs were already there, and it caught up with us in the 2nd half of last season. If you aren't putting in consistent performances, only a matter of time until the results normalize. Same thing happened under Mourinho.

I think it's probably a combination of many, many factors. Ultimately the manager is responsible for all of those factors of course, so you would probably have to summarise it by saying because the manager has not been good enough, and the players have not performed well enough. You can get into specifics but that pretty much encapsulates it. Nobody comes out of it smelling like roses at the moment.

However, one potentially interesting theory I've had is that the reintroduction of fans has not helped us. Clearly it is not a main reason but I think there may be something in it to partly explain the difference. I think the extra tension within the stadiums, the extra energy provided by the fans benefits the pressing side. It encourages them. As we know it is not our forte in the slightest, we are both bad at playing through it and bad at initiating it so I think this is immediately putting us in deep waters.

As a minor reason, I don't think fans returning has helped our results:

- Our squad generally don't look good under pressure, imo. Nor do they react especially well to moments of adversity in games.
- We have a bad habit of giving moments of encouragement to the opposition (and their fans) out of nowhere with sloppy play. I think the momentum that generates against us is huge, whereas without fans it seemed easier to recover from those moments (including the many comeback wins).

Not that having fans back is bad in any way, obviously, just something I think factored in our favour last season.

Problem-free Philosophy said:

As a minor reason, I don't think fans returning has helped our results:

- Our squad generally don't look good under pressure, imo. Nor do they react especially well to moments of adversity in games.
- We have a bad habit of giving moments of encouragement to the opposition (and their fans) out of nowhere with sloppy play. I think the momentum that generates against us is huge, whereas without fans it seemed easier to recover from those moments (including the many comeback wins).

Not that having fans back is bad in any way, obviously, just something I think factored in our favour last season.

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Ole cited the lack of fans last season for our poor home form.