10 games in, happy so far?

After 10 matches we are two points off 2nd, unbeaten in 4, 3 wins back to back, new players making a difference, and the ever so subjective eye test suggests improved play in general. Is happy the right word?? Not sure. But this is definitely acceptable in its own right, regardless what you think should be the benchmark for United. And gives us a great platform to build from.
 
If we'd asked this question before the Forrest game i'd have said yes however i'm a little bit concerned after that result, beat Spurs and i'd say its a strong start to the season, lose and it would be classed as poor. Really is on a knife edge, fine margins!
 
I think only one game we were truly well beaten. The rest we should've either won or could've swung either way.
 
When you've experienced some of the greatest years in the clubs history, it's hard to be happy at the current situation. Comparing to last season, however, I see improvements. The Premier League is a fantastic competition, and there are so many great teams.

I hope we can continue developing, but i'm not looking forward to losing Amad and Mbeumo in january. They've been our best players by far and I reckon we'll see a team in decline in january again. The depth in our squad is inferior to most teams in the league. That's also something Ruben and Jason Wilcox has addressed recently.

Content with the situation right now. But a win or a loss can easily change that feeling. Still a lot of uncertainty about the current team I feel.
 
Solius said:
I think only one game we were truly well beaten. The rest we should've either won or could've swung either way.
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Assume you mean City?

The Brentford game was worse - and that's discounting Grimsby if we are sticking Prem only.
 
Happy no. Cautiously optimistic would be closer to how I feel.

I still need to see decent performances and results over a 15/20 game period to be convinced we're going somewhere.
 
Utd heap said:
Assume you mean City?

The Brentford game was worse - and that's discounting Grimsby if we are sticking Prem only.
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Yeah. Brentford we weren't great but could've gotten something out of it. We were only a goal behind for most of the game, plus Bruno missing the pen.

I thankfully didn't see Grimsby but yeah mostly thinking of Prem, also looked like Onana single handedly lost us that one.
 
My problem is that I can’t trust this team until they become truly consistent. We had the first good run in 18 months then drew with a poor Forest side. Lose to Spurs this w/e and the knives will be out once again; win and suddenly we might be able to go on another run.
 
Pretty happy overall. Recruitment has been good and performances have been much better, especially at home. I think we should absolutely be aiming for top 6 at the very least and should be disappointed if we don't as there aren't many teams with better squads than us.

We know that's not where we want to be but one step at a time and everything. It's still a big improvement after last year.
 
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More optimistic than happy. If we take full advantage of our fixtures between now and the City and Arsenal games in mid Jan, I'll be closer to happy.
 
Encouraged.

Not joining the knee jerk “if we lose this we’re sh!t/ if we win we’re ok”

Progress over the season. What we don’t know is what our ceiling can be… not just the one but going into the next.
 
Encouraged and hopeful. From losing to Grimsby to a single point from top 4, it’s been a wild ride, but I like the position we’re in.

If we can grab 6 points out of the rest of November (@Spurs, Everton, @Palace), December looks favorable which will put me on the verge of exhilaration.
 
When I look at how we play, and how we perform the fundamentals, this recent run feels like an anomaly to me rather than a corner turned. We can’t defend for shit, and we can’t perform consistently over a full 90. Lately we’ve been out scoring opponents but we can barely keep a clean sheet to save our lives. Unfortunately I feel we are just as likely, if not more, to go on a losing run rather than a winning one.

I remain supportive and optimistic that this is the real beginning of something, and ultimately if we stick to the plan I think it will work out in the long term, but I also think that we need to be realistic and assume that there will be many bumps in the road ahead. I am fully primed for an underwhelming season. Until I see us consistently perform well over a full 90, multiple games in a row, and show the ability to keep clean sheets and control games, I remain on edge that the recent results are the real aberration here.

Bournemouth, a team built on a shoestring budget, and whom lost almost their entire back four over the summer, are a better side than us currently. That, to me, puts our progress into perspective.
 
I think the best way I can put it is that I am engaged and excited for each weekend; that's been a rarity in recent seasons.
 
Massive improvement, I think when we sign a few midfielders we will be competing (pending squad depth)
 
I don’t trust it. We still look hopelessly vulnerable to concede at any moment, although our attacking moves are more fluid. Our poultry GD of 1 is quite telling.
 
The holy trinity 68 said:
Both City and Brentford battered us.
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Like I said to heapy. Brentford game we had a penalty to make it 2 - 2. We weren’t very good but it was closer than the final score looked. They only got that last one in the 90+ mins.
 
We are chugging along. Early doors so not much between many teams. More optimistic these days thanks to the holy trinity of Mbuemo Cunha and Lammens (i have just coined that phrase but you may use it)
 
Alan Partridge said:
I don’t trust it. We still look hopelessly vulnerable to concede at any moment, although our attacking moves are more fluid. Our poultry GD of 1 is quite telling.
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We have a GK, defenders and attacking line now. We don't have midfielders to cover a lot of ground and win the ball back and recycle the ball. I think we're in the place we should be now.

At some point our attack will have good chemistry and we'll score more. We're 10 games in with a new front three.
 
Given the teams we’ve played so far then it’s really not bad, however we are now heading in to a run of fixtures we should be winning. So if we start losing those it makes the start of the season look a lot worse than it was.
 
I'm encouraged by some bits but then other bits I remain sceptical of us getting results long term.

Attacking wise we look much improved but defensively oh boy and we play with 3 at the back which should lead to being decent at the back but we don't look good
 
Not thrilled about the last year, but not going to go overboard if we lose the next one after the recent undefeated run. Hopefully we 'just' need a mf or two and a lwb to really click.

Still think he's made things unnecessarily complicated with his system, but hopefully there will be a reward at the end of the tunnel.
 
United are obviously much improved from last year. This has always been a squad and club that should be in Europe and at least competing for a CL place. I think in some ways, however, the same problems that were much discussed during the Ole and ETH eras are still around - its a side that lacks the ability to control matches because the midfield doesn't have enough quality and a number of the defenders aren't athletic enough to really play a high line and squeeze the opponent territorially, so you end up playing a lot of matches that are end-to-end, in which both sides get a bunch of chances, and you rely on having a couple special attacking players that can make those chances count more often than the opponent. Last year you didn't actually have those special attacking players anymore so it got really really bad. Now you have those kinds of players again with Cunha and Mbeumo. That plus not playing in Europe should be enough to get back into European competition and quite possibly grab one of the last CL places if things go your way. But progressing further will require getting midfielders and defenders that facilitate a more dominant, controlling style of play as well as a manager that knows how to put it into motion (which Amorim might or might not, I'm not really sure).
 
We have improved , but not enough yet. Bournemouth doesn‘t have a better squad than us.

Other coaches make lemon meringue pie out of lemons. They adapt to the players they have.
 
Happy - no. Optimistic- yes.

It’s been a tough season so far given that we don’t go into any game thinking that we will surely beat the opposition. It’s always a 50:50 or we are the underdogs. After the start we had to the season in terms of fixtures, there was a good chance that Amorim would be on the firing block and we would be in chaos - so it’s great that he’s managed to stabilise. That’s the biggest satisfaction for now - we are not in chaos at the moment, and things seem to be in an upward trend. The problem however, is that we are only 1 poor result away from chaos again!

The big upside however is that it’s the first time since Ten Hag’s first season that I feel excited about watching United over the weekend. It’s not a duty that I must fulfil!
 
It's weird, in the first few games the xG stats seemed to suggest we were just being unlucky with the amount of attacking we were doing.

Now it looks like we are actually taking chances but as @simonhch says, it all looks like overachieving with it. We are still too chaotic, always conceding and not fully taking chances. Does feel like we could just as likely going on a big losing run than a decent winning one.
 
I think a lot of teams are gonna be 'streaky" this season.

We've seen this with us, the scousers, Villa and city already. One win can give you a massive boost but a defeat quickly leads to another then a crisis.

I think the narrative around Newcastle is interesting because they've been fairly poor in the league yet they've seemingly escaped a lot of criticism. They've not had a bad run as such, but have been very inconsistent.
 
Attack is much improved but not with our defence. It makes Maguire MVP whenever he is absent.
 
We need midfielders that much is clear, and if Zirkzee isn't getting time then we should go and get another #9 in the summer.
 
Aim for the season was finishing somewhere in the CL/EL/ECL places, and nothhing I've seen so far precludes us from doing that.

So sure, it's fine. One step back for every two steps foward, but fine.
 
A huge step in the right direction - that's for sure. Our first 11 is really good - and then we drop as soon as we make 3-4 changes. If you asked me before the season if I would have taken 18 points from 11 games (including Spurs, City, Arsenal, Liverpool, Brighton and Chelsea ? Absolutely.

We are playing Leeds and Burnley on jan 4th and 7th - after that it's 10 games until the next league game (City at home) - prior to that game I expect us to have made 2 signings
 
We're in decent situation right now but December and January will be so challenging without Amad and Mbeumo. Also our midfield being reliant on Casemiro and no real sign we'll sign someone in January. This season could still be good and poor. We won't have excuses in league having no Europe to play.
 
Had we won today at Spurs, I think most Utd fans would be happy and upbeat that we might be able to maintain good consistency and have a shot at a top 4 spot.
However, it’s very tight in the top half of the table and when the rest of this weekend’s fixtures have been completed, we could be as low as in 10th place.
We are still in teetering between “one step forward, one step back” and “one step forward, two steps back”.

.
 
Just compare the games this season v last season and then make a call cause we’ve done better in almost all of them except for Fulham. Brighton, Liverpool, forest and Spurs was 8 points lost. We just need to go on a decent run now. No excuses
 
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