Just how bad were we today?

I can't think of many other teams in EPL that lose the ball as cheaply as we do. I don't have stats, but we are probably top 3 worst at it, if not the worst? Either way, it is absolutely ridiculous and possibly the worst thing about this lot

Someone said:

I'd say this is business as usual this season. It's hard to understand really because it came after a great performance against Liverpool, but I suppose we're where we deserve really. In fact I'm surprised we're 6th.

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The Liverpool victory lacked context.

It was a 4-3 win after extra time in which we played Bruno at CB & Maguire up top. It was a great win but now me of it was transferable. The first 30 mins were simply down to it being Liverpool, they were never going to perform to anywhere near that standard unfortunately.

Liverpool was probably his PSG moment.

I didn't watch it but I wanna watch the highlights now just to see how bad it was

Someone said:

I'd say this is business as usual this season. It's hard to understand really because it came after a great performance against Liverpool, but I suppose we're where we deserve really. In fact I'm surprised we're 6th.

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I don't think the Liverpool game was a great performance, it was a great result with the players showing character and the manager uncharacteristically making big gambles to enforce the result. All of those elements are circumstantial and not standards of norms. When Roy Keane was on the overlap he highlighted that the most impressive element of Sir Alex's management, was in his determination to win, he consistently demonstrated the ability to gamble. That's where I feel Eth falls short, he's not a winner because his actions don't align with individuals to whom that status can be accredited.

I don't want to make it seem like it was the worst ever, but I don't remember feeling this depressed after a Utd game. Not even the 7-0 vs Liverpool. It just felt so flat tonight.

Just a game ago you saw players playing for the club and the manager. And now they look like they arent. So weird and unpredictable, I dont know anymore at this point.

Today was a culmination that many needed to finally wake up. We were bad today but have been similarly shite multiple times this year.

The utter shock that was the Liverpool game meant people got their expectations up again only to be shown it meant nothing.

tenpoless said:

Just a game ago you saw players playing for the club and the manager. And now they look like they arent. So weird and unpredictable, I dont know anymore at this point.

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That’s because ‘playing for the manager’ is some intangible people band around.

The players played well & won versus Liverpool. They weren't doing it ‘for the manager’ just as the absolute stinkers dropped today weren’t ’against the manager’. You’re talking Fergie levels of authority at a club before players are doing Van Persie’s & moving from rivals to play for the manager.

This is a poor team, manager by a poor manager. Reading too much into their intentions in any given result is dangerous. You don’t ’play for the manager’ in the 6th round of the FA Cup having ‘not played for him’ against Fulham a few weeks earlier then again against Brentford.

What you’ve got is a manager that can’t implement whatever it is you’d have to imagine he wants. I don’t think it’s ‘not playing for him’ as much as not being able to translate his gameplan to the pitch which is a fundamental flaw in his coaching if that’s the case.

AFC NimbleThumb said:

That’s because ‘playing for the manager’ is some intangible people band around.

The players played well & won versus Liverpool. They weren't doing it ‘for the manager’ just as the absolute stinkers dropped today weren’t ’against the manager’. You’re talking Fergie levels of authority at a club before players are doing Van Persie’s & moving from rivals to play for the manager.

This is a poor team, manager by a poor manager. Reading too much into their intentions in any given result is dangerous. You don’t ’play for the manager’ in the 6th round of the FA Cup having ‘not played for him’ against Fulham a few weeks earlier then again against Brentford.

What you’ve got is a manager that can’t implement whatever it is you’d have to imagine he wants. I don’t think it’s ‘not playing for him’ as much as not being able to translate his gameplan to the pitch which is a fundamental flaw in his coaching if that’s the case.

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Agree, when people say this was our worst performance, I’m not so sure.

We’ve seen a few in CL. A lot more frequent in the league. This performance just sticks out due to recency.

Need to get rid of Ten Hag, Rashford first. He might have scored 30 goals but there’s no relying on him if he gives that level of effort after playing just 15 minutes in the internationals.

It is telling when an 18 yr old looks better than most of the team.

It wasn't as bad as the 4-0 loss to Brighton under Rangnick. In fact, a few of the performances under Rangnick were worse than today's. I would say this is our worst Ten Hag performance.

jasT1981 said:

I don't want to make it seem like it was the worst ever, but I don't remember feeling this depressed after a Utd game. Not even the 7-0 vs Liverpool. It just felt so flat tonight.

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I think it was the worst performance this season. We could easily have been 4-0 down, but most importantly - every on-field United player was horrible (Onana was more of an average). Usually, in other bad games you could have said at least somebody was ok or good, today – I don't know how anybody would give any of the United players above 4 out of 10. Utter garbage

gormless said:

We played better in the 7-0.
I genuinely can’t remember a worse performance from us. I just shrugged when we conceded. Normally I would be fuming

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Yeah I think i just starting laughing when they equalised.

The 31 attempts on goal from Brentford are more than they have managed in a single game for seven years. The 85 touches they had in our penalty area were two short of the Premier League record.

UnofficialDevil said:

The 31 attempts on goal from Brentford are more than they have managed in a single game for seven years. The 85 touches they had in our penalty area were two short of the Premier League record.

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We've hit rock bottom.

Born2Lose said:

There was a stat way before the end of the game on Sky that Brentford had something like 75 touches in the United box, and the record in PL history is City with something like 87.

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This really tells the story, because a team like City push you back so deep that a stat like that can be somewhat inflated by say a winger like Grealish having the ball on the wide part of the penalty area with 6-7 defenders in the box and maybe it's only fairly dangerous and not outright dangerous, but Brentford played with wingbacks (though Keane Lewis-Potter went forward like a winger and Collins went to LB when they had the ball a fair bit) and Roerslev barely went to the byline and we didn't defend deep a ton on purpose, so basically they just constantly got their strikers the ball in the box, and we were very lucky to score.

The XG I saw was 3.1 for Brentford, 0.5 for us, and I'd say it was a typical 3 or 4-0 type of game, whereas say the last time they beat us like that they were probably a tad lucky to be so efficient.

The 7-0 felt worse, but I think we were worse today considering Brentford are just a regular 12th or 13th placed (they're lower but Toney was out) sort of side.

A particularly strange thing was that it seemed like the setup was for Wan-Bissaka and McTominay to be targets making aggressive runs so they don't have to touch the ball much and hope Mainoo, Rashford and Bruno could create for them, but they never got into any space with the runs and nobody wants to give them the ball in tight spaces so nothing worked at all going forward. And tactically we were terrible, just played exactly into what a 3-5-2 team wants in the buildup with a simple ball to a wingback giving him 30 yards of carrying the ball. If we'd played say Inzaghi's Inter like that we'd have lost by 6 or 7.

They basically Eddie Howed us. This had very similar vibes to our last two visits to St James', and to a smaller extent, the carabao cup game at OT. It's the blitz approach, we struggle against it and quite frankly I'm surprised more teams haven't done it to us. Newcastle are coming to OT again soon. I fully expect the same thing to happen there.
Here's the last game at St James Park for context:

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This wasn’t our worst performance in the post Ferguson era, but watching this game made me really sad.

The more often you see so many similar performances, the more it feels like an intentional approach. And based on the results, the more it feels like piss poor decision making by the manager and his coaches. The squad is his, moreso than any manager post-Fergie. Yes the injuries have been bad this year but we're 3/4 of the season in and we're seeing the style and in-match approach play out more often like today than not. Ten Hag wants us to play a better version than what we've seen, but a better version only really gets us occasional results and isn't sustainable. It's simplistic and feels outdated and says like today are too easily achievable for any opposition.

tenpoless said:

Just a game ago you saw players playing for the club and the manager. And now they look like they arent. So weird and unpredictable, I dont know anymore at this point.

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That game was at home and against a big rival. Its easy to get up for those games and the fans help.

Chairman Steve said:

It’s one of those games that will go down in infamy, like that 81 cross game vs Fulham under Moyes.

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I've also come to this conclusion post match. Surrealistic to watch us being completely dominated and yet Brentford couldn't score.

It's a good result because Brentford should have won comfortably.. United conceded 31 shots which is outrageous.

Chairman Steve said:

It’s one of those games that will go down in infamy, like that 81 cross game vs Fulham under Moyes.

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Intresting point. If this game was a film how would you call it?

Difficult to rank it. It was absolutely rotten, but also generally in keeping with how the team has played since the League Cup final 13 months ago. In that sense, it wasn't really shocking or even surprising.

We were terrible last night, should have been a thrashing but this type of performance (to varying extents) has become normal and just a question of whether we get away with it or not.

I don’t think you can overstate how bad that performance was. Even after watching us all season, I just couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The worst performance of the season and arguably the worst post-Ferguson. We could have lost 10-0 and it would have been a fairer reflection on the match. Against the worst in-form team in the league. The sort of match that should, and hopefully will, get the manager sacked.

It's a standard United performance that's been masked over by our ridiculous luck that's got us as high as 6th. I don't know how anyone can be surprised by such performances anymore. It won't change until that deluded Dutch manager is replaced

It was a shocking performance. We’ve seen some crap under ETH, but this was among the worst performances if not the very worst. Team looked absolutely hopeless out there. Lost, clueless, timid, confused.

It’s honestly changed me from being on the fence about ETH to wanting him out.

So bad that there is more than one thread on the subject.

PoTMS said:

I honestly don't think it was much different from about 90% of our matches this season.

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Exactly

If we had lost by 3-4 goals, I’d have had no complaints and it probably would have been deserved, barring woeful finishing from Brentford.

Scarlett Dracarys said:

We've hit rock bottom.

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Erik Ten Hag will see this as a challenge.

Scarlett Dracarys said:

We've hit rock bottom.

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IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT WE'VE HIT

It wasn’t that atypical a performance. We are poor in most games and give up lots of chances.

We've been bad for most of the season but I think the circumstances and stats and timing show alarming problems and no progression. Just a bunch of players that can sometimes come together but are mostly all at sea.

Brentford with just 47% possession had a record number of touches in our box, a team that has 1 point in 18, lost 17 games. I can take some long range shots or scrappy half chances but Brentford should've had 4-5 goals. We shouldn't be conceding this many touches.

It's not like we're benefitting, or breaking away with chances after allowing all these shots and possession in our own box, we're on 40 goals and didn't produce much in the Brentford game. One Hojlund chance in the second half and the Mount goal at 96 mins.

Mike Smalling said:

It was a shocking performance. We’ve seen some crap under ETH, but this was among the worst performances if not the very worst. Team looked absolutely hopeless out there. Lost, clueless, timid, confused.

It’s honestly changed me from being on the fence about ETH to wanting him out.

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Same.

We are usually this way guys, we are terrible.

The worst performance since the last time we played Brentford (lost 4-0, they took their chances that time).

It was an absolutely appalling performance. As I was watching the whole game I couldn’t help but wonder what has happened for this to be the norm for Manchester United. As we are so bad, most weeks, people have become somewhat numb to it but what I saw last night was as bad as anything I’ve ever seen. You just run out of words with what we’ve seen this season. It’s hard to understand how any, even average-level coaching team, could get such a poor return of performances from such an expensive collection of players. These aren’t awful players by any means, but what we are seeing is awful.

I want Ten Hag gone, but these players are truly a disgrace to the shirt, how they're not being booed for every touch they take is a mystery, it'd surprise me if they managed to get worse if they get booed.

Bunch of cnuts.