Another false dawn?

[united_99]

We need a sample of 10 matches to see where this team is headed.

Well LvG has already said he wants to win the championship.

 

[Kakeru]

The difference between this season and last season is enormous.

There was no actual attacking intent last year and the team as a whole played absolute dross. This season, we have a lot more focus on attacking threat and are being pegged back by individual errors and a very low confidence in the back. Rojo and Evans falling asleep for the first goal, Rafael making it easy for the second. Total panic for the third, but at the end a pathetic clearance from Rooney, Fourth Blind and Smalling going missing, fifth Rojo and Mata get in a mix.

The end result is the same to me, and that is the unacceptable: 0 point at the end of the day, especially against a team that just got promoted.

Instead of working on attacking tactics, the coaching staff should spend countless hours on the training ground working defensive tactics. Why? Because honestly, I don't give a shit if we have to win all games 1-0 or 2-1 to see real improvement. The real improvement you see from any team is only reflected by how many points you earn in the standings.

With all due respect to Louis, he can shove his 3 months where the sun doesn't shine and focus on what only matters at all costs: winning matches.

 

[Stack]

The end result is the same to me, and that is the unacceptable: 0 point at the end of the day, especially against a team that just got promoted.

Instead of working on attacking tactics, the coaching staff should spend countless hours on the training ground working defensive tactics. Why? Because honestly, I don't give a shit if we have to win all games 1-0 or 2-1 to see real improvement. The real improvement you see from any team is only reflected by how many points you earn in the standings.

With all due respect to Louis, he can shove his 3 months where the sun doesn't shine and focus on what only matters at all costs: winning matches.

Well with all due respect not all of us feel the same way you do.

 

[Offside]

Bunch of jokers out there. I miss when we had a load of reliable and truely world class players. Now we have a bunch of jokers and some top class players.

 

[SalfordRed1960]

The end result is the same to me, and that is the unacceptable: 0 point at the end of the day, especially against a team that just got promoted.

Instead of working on attacking tactics, the coaching staff should spend countless hours on the training ground working defensive tactics. Why? Because honestly, I don't give a shit if we have to win all games 1-0 or 2-1 to see real improvement. The real improvement you see from any team is only reflected by how many points you earn in the standings.

With all due respect to Louis, he can shove his 3 months where the sun doesn't shine and focus on what only matters at all costs: winning matches.

I think you will find, and this is confirmed by LVGs press conferences pre and post match, winning is all that counts to him.

I would rather we win 5-4 every week, that watch defensive displays with a 1-0 win.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Right. This definitely feels like the real deal now. I don't see any more crushing disppointments from here.

I do think we might lose against City but since they got their oil billions we have never been favourites at that ground and I don't think we ever will be. Any last remaining doubt can be resolved with a convincing away performance against one of the "lesser" teams. I think Arsenal away is (just about) a big enough game that it could go either way so our trip to St Marys on December 8th looks like the perfect time to lay down a marker. Fitting that we're against another Dutch manager who's been getting loads of plaudits.

To conclude, City/Arsenal games aside, if we get 9 points from Hull, Stoke and Soton then I will be seriously bullish about a top four finish this season. Bring it on.

 

[FlawlessThaw]

We need to win an away match for me to start getting confident about this side. 8 games now we have failed to win away from home and we don't look like it for a while if our next three trips are at City , Arsenal and Southampton.

 

[Crackers]

Right. This definitely feels like the real deal now. I don't see any more crushing disppointments from here.

I do think we might lose against City but since they got their oil billions we have never been favourites at that ground and I don't think we ever will be. Any last remaining doubt can be resolved with a convincing away performance against one of the "lesser" teams. I think Arsenal away is (just about) a big enough game that it could go either way so our trip to St Marys on December 8th looks like the perfect time to lay down a marker. Fitting that we're against another Dutch manager who's been getting loads of plaudits.

To conclude, City/Arsenal games aside, if we get 9 points from Hull, Stoke and Soton then I will be seriously bullish about a top four finish this season. Bring it on.

Jesus, if you're bullish about that then it must be possible!(You being a stark realist and all that..)

 

[justboy68]

We need to win an away match for me to start getting confident about this side. 8 games now we have failed to win away from home and we don't look like it for a while if our next three trips are at City , Arsenal and Southampton.

Probably just poor wording but we haven't played 8 games away from home. 5 including the MK Dons farce. As you say, still poor so far on the road and we need to start getting some results. At least we are decent at OT again though which is something.

 

[2 man midfield]

Just more consistency in our performances will be good, and it looks like it's coming, but we've been all over the place for a while with no cohesion or momentum between games. Nobody seems to know if the last victory was the start of something special or a false dawn, including half the team by the looks of it.

 

[Cina]

There was definitely something about the performance, the result and the reaction to the last minute goal on Sunday that really, properly reassured me for the first time that we are definitely on an upward trajectory and that things are going to be better from here on out.

It's just a fecking shame our next game is against the other best team in the league now, away from home, because if it wasn't it'd be a lot easier to give a definitive 'yes' to us turning the corner. For all we know, they could smash us and leave us wallowing again.

 

[freshibal]

I would say its all a front, or all appearances are deceiving. We go on a winning run for the next 10 games and pundits will all be hailing LVG as a genius, win 9 out of 10 and we will look like we are failing.

Saying that, i feel we are improving slowly, we still have the odd brain fart issue's in defence, and our strikers should be putting away more chances, but i feel much better with the simple fact that im seeing progress.

 

[Tarrou]

It's the little mistakes we need to eliminate to get the consistency needed. Even when we play well and dominate, we look like conceding on the break. We're getting closer to the level required but it's still a way off. A consistent back 4 will help no end.

People need to remember this team has struggled in midfield for a few years. To go from that, to a team that dominates or at least matches the big teams in midfield, is usually something that takes a long time to do. Not just one window and 10 games. I think our progress in that regard is very good.

 

[Carl]

Right. This definitely feels like the real deal now. I don't see any more crushing disppointments from here.

I do think we might lose against City but since they got their oil billions we have never been favourites at that ground and I don't think we ever will be. Any last remaining doubt can be resolved with a convincing away performance against one of the "lesser" teams. I think Arsenal away is (just about) a big enough game that it could go either way so our trip to St Marys on December 8th looks like the perfect time to lay down a marker. Fitting that we're against another Dutch manager who's been getting loads of plaudits.

To conclude, City/Arsenal games aside, if we get 9 points from Hull, Stoke and Soton then I will be seriously bullish about a top four finish this season. Bring it on.

Aye. This feels totally different to last season when even though we'd have the odd result where you felt change was in the air, the performances were never really there. There's clear direction from van Gaal which is nice to see, even if the result doesn't go our way.

To me it actually feels a little like Liverpool 2 years ago in Rodgers' first season. In the first half of the season they were shipping goals and getting poor results but you could see the direction he was trying to take the team.

 

[Crackers]

There was definitely something about the performance, the result and the reaction to the last minute goal on Sunday that really, properly reassured me for the first time that we are definitely on an upward trajectory and that things are going to be better from here on out.

It's just a fecking shame our next game is against the other best team in the league now, away from home, because if it wasn't it'd be a lot easier to give a definitive 'yes' to us turning the corner. For all we know, they could smash us and leave us wallowing again.

Hopefully it's the other way around and we give them a spanking. That'd put a serious amount of confidence into the team and we'd probably settle into a nice run.

 

[Brightonian]

There's no such thing as a false dawn in football because there's no such thing as a dawn. A team doesn't 'make it' and then just stop losing games. You just hope that the team improves steadily and the dropped points become less and less frequent.

If we beat City and Palace then lose to Arsenal that doesn't make the string of results against Chelsea, City and Palace invalid. It just means that we've improved but that there's still work to do.

 

[Cina]

Hopefully it's the other way around and we give them a spanking. That'd put a serious amount of confidence into the team and we'd probably settle into a nice run.

History at the Etihad says otherwise.

City are due a big win which also really concerns me. I also think our defense is going to find it far harder to cope with Aguero and Silva than it did with Hazard and Drogba, and Fellaini won't be able to take Yaya out of the game like he did with Fabregas. I'm more concerned about them than I was about Chelsea.

 

[Alock1]

You know what, at half time I said to mates 'that half had far more encouragement than all the games against big teams last season'. We weren't overrun in midfield, we nullified some incredible players and still managed to create chances and offer something up in response.

We were able to play the ball without lumping it and reverting to the wings, and we didn't give them the opportunity to simply run straight down the middle of the pitch and only greet them once they reached our box which had become a trend. Considering there was no Rooney, no Falcao and still a ton of players bedding in aswel as another new centre back partnership - I would have come away with confidence even if we hadn't got that equalizer.

 

[FlawlessThaw]

Probably just poor wording but we haven't played 8 games away from home. 5 including the MK Dons farce. As you say, still poor so far on the road and we need to start getting some results. At least we are decent at OT again though which is something.

I meant 8 games since we last won from away from home at all, beyond this season (our last away win was against Newcastle back in April).

 

[Carl]

History at the Etihad says otherwise.

City are due a big win which also really concerns me. I also think our defense is going to find it far harder to cope with Aguero and Silva than it did with Hazard and Drogba, and Fellaini won't be able to take Yaya out of the game like he did with Fabregas. I'm more concerned about them than I was about Chelsea.

On the flip side I'd say the last 2 years tell us the history book means nothing and just as they're due a big win we're just as overdue a big win against them.

 

[NJM78]

Four games unbeaten is a decent run - still think we should have beaten WBA though. The most I think we will get is a draw against City despite the semi wobbles they have had in certain games this season, they just seem to be up for United more than we are for them, which is a shame. Hope I'm wrong this time.
If we do however lose a close game I will still be fairly confident we are heading in the right direction. If we get smashed I do feel it is another false dawn and we still have some major issues and its not just down to injuries.

 

[Danny Boi]

We're getting there.It's great to see the fighting spirit return to the team.In the last 4 games we have held on to a lead against decent Everton and West ham teams and scored 87th and 93rd minute equalizers against West Brom and Chelsea.That spirit was totally missing last season.

It's the little mistakes that are holding us back at the moment.Like Rafael marking Drogba at corners or Jones stupidly flying in to a tackle against West Brom.Aswell as that we are not good enough at taking our chances yet.That has been the difference between a poor and great start this season,results wise.

 

[Brightonian]

History at the Etihad says otherwise.

City are due a big win which also really concerns me. I also think our defense is going to find it far harder to cope with Aguero and Silva than it did with Hazard and Drogba, and Fellaini won't be able to take Yaya out of the game like he did with Fabregas. I'm more concerned about them than I was about Chelsea.

Marking Touré out of the game won't be our approach, though - at least not if LVG knows what he's about. If you want to nullify City you mark Silva out and try and keep the FBs busy. That makes Touré their sole route forwards and it's in those circumstances that he has forgettable games. He's dangerous when Silva's doing all the attacking and Fernandinho/Fernando doing all the work, which leaves him free to wait for that moment to do something special and change the game. When he actually has to shoulder responsibility throughout the game he tends to be a bit shit.

Not your main point, I know. I'm with you on the feeling that they might be due a good result. I'm most worried that we're going to show them too much respect from the start, because for years under all three managers we've been doing that away to the top teams and whereas it would be the sensible approach against Chelsea, against City's it's suicide. You have to get right in their faces straight away.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

There's no such thing as a false dawn in football because there's no such thing as a dawn. A team doesn't 'make it' and then just stop losing games. You just hope that the team improves steadily and the dropped points become less and less frequent.

If we beat City and Palace then lose to Arsenal that doesn't make the string of results against Chelsea, City and Palace invalid. It just means that we've improved but that there's still work to do.

Well no, which is why I've made it clear there's a good chance we might lose two of our next three games.

What does happen, though, is teams turn a corner under a new manager and start to produce performances/results that are consistently better than those that came before. You can often retrospectively identify that turning point and there's obvious examples under Moyes and Van Gaal where it felt as though that might be happening, only for our hopes to subsequently be crushed. All I'm doing here is trying to do here is identify that turning point prospectively.

 

[Rado_N]

Shit, Pogue is feeling optimistic, quick where's Noodle to restore the balance?!

 

[Pogue Mahone]

I think it was Gaz and Carragher on MNF that did it. They were waxing lyrical about Van Gaal's tactics, with some interesting analysis showing how we nullified Fabregas and Matic and opened up Chelsea's rearguard. Combine that with our statistical dominance of (IMO) the best team in the league by a margin and it all adds up to the first time I've really seen evidence that this "philosophy" is turning us into a bit of a force to be reckoned with.

 

[Alock1]

I think it was Gaza and Carragher on MNF that did it. They were waxing lyrical about Van Gaal's tactics. First time I've really seen evidence that this "philosophy" is turning us into a bit of a force to be reckoned with.

I just posted a video of that in the Van Gaal tactics thread. You're right, definitely worth a watch.

 

[Cina]

Well, they also then went on to say that Chelsea would have killed us off if Mourinho hadn't decided to go negative after their first goal, which is quite funny, seeing as before the match both predicted that Mourinho's ability to 'shake things up' and adapt would work in Chelsea's favour in the match.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Well, they also then went on to say that Chelsea would have killed us off if Mourinho hadn't decided to go negative after their first goal, which is quite funny, seeing as before the match both predicted that Mourinho's ability to 'shake things up' and adapt would work in Chelsea's favour in the match.

I'll admit I didn't watch the whole thing. Only so many arrow and formation chat a man can take, especially when 50% of it comes via a nasal scouse screech.

 

[Cina]

I'll admit I didn't watch the whole thing. Only so many arrow and formation chat a man can take, especially when 50% of it comes via a nasal scouse screech.

Carra's alright, actually. I'd argue he's probably the most level headed Sky analyst when it comes to Utd now. Souness is a biased twat and Neville obviously has personal issues due to his brother and his need to try appear unbiased which is making him really fecking annoying nowadays, especially evidenced by his 90 minute wankathon over Courtois whilst ignoring the equally excellent Big Dave entirely.

 

[Brightonian]

Well no, which is why I've made it clear there's a good chance we might lose two of our next three games.

What does happen, though, is teams turn a corner under a new manager and start to produce performances/results that are consistently better than those that came before. You can often retrospectively identify that turning point and there's obvious examples under Moyes and Van Gaal where it felt as though that might be happening, only for our hopes to subsequently be crushed. All I'm doing here is trying to do here is identify that turning point prospectively.

Personally I think the 'turning a corner' is a bit of a myth. For any example of a team who are seen to have turned a corner over the course of one or two games, you can generally see that it actually happened much more gradually. They might have already been putting in better performances for a while but had a string of tougher games which masked that improvement, or a few bad decisions going against them in a row. Or the string of wins which declare the 'turned corner' might be flattering results.

I mean, I popped into the Caf very briefly after the West Brom result and it was being treated as a bad one, a step backwards. But personally I thought we played a very good game marred by two specific defensive meltdowns. Rub of the green and we would have had two more goals and won it 4-2. If we 'turn a corner', people might point to the Chelsea game as the moment it happened but everything that was happening in the Chelsea game was already on show against West Brom. (Which is presumably why LVG called it our best performance of the season.) And elements of that were developing against Everton and West Ham.

If we get battered by City, I don't think that in any way changes the validity of the progress made in those games. If you plotted how well a team performed game by game on a graph it would be a scatter-graph, and you can have a bad result but still have a line of best fit going upwards.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Carra's alright, actually. I'd argue he's probably the most level headed Sky analyst when it comes to Utd now. Souness is a biased twat and Neville obviously has personal issues due to his brother and his need to try appear unbiased which is making him really fecking annoying nowadays, especially evidenced by his 90 minute wankathon over Courtois whilst ignoring the equally excellent Big Dave entirely.

Yeah, he's fine. I do genuinely find his voice had work to listen to though.

 

[Alock1]

Yeah, he's fine. I do genuinely find his voice had work to listen to though.

Do you have a smart tv? There's a Scouse voice masking app so that people can understand them.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Personally I think the 'turning a corner' is a bit of a myth. For any example of a team who are seen to have turned a corner over the course of one or two games, you can generally see that it actually happened much more gradually. They might have already been putting in better performances for a while but had a string of tougher games which masked that improvement, or a few bad decisions going against them in a row. Or the string of wins which declare the 'turned corner' might be flattering results.

I mean, I popped into the Caf very briefly after the West Brom result and it was being treated as a bad one, a step backwards. But personally I thought we played a very good game marred by two specific defensive meltdowns. Rub of the green and we would have had two more goals and won it 4-2. If we 'turn a corner', people might point to the Chelsea game as the moment it happened but everything that was happening in the Chelsea game was already on show against West Brom. (Which is presumably why LVG called it our best performance of the season.) And elements of that were developing against Everton and West Ham.

If we get battered by City, I don't think that in any way changes the validity of the progress made in those games. If you plotted how well a team performed game by game on a graph it would be a scatter-graph, and you can have a bad result but still have a line of best fit going upwards.

I don't disagree with any of that.

Equally, every word of the post you're responding to still stands.

People can argue the toss about exactly when that turning point occurred but history will (hopefully!) prove the Chelsea game was a much better estimate than, for example, the QPR game which first prompted this thread. Which - at the time - 83% of redcafe thought really was the tipping point under Van Gaal.

It's interesting to note that Van Gaal's own "three months" timeline might well be on the money.

 

[Rado_N]

I think it was Gaz and Carragher on MNF that did it. They were waxing lyrical about Van Gaal's tactics, with some interesting analysis showing how we nullified Fabregas and Matic and opened up Chelsea's rearguard. Combine that with our statistical dominance of (IMO) the best team in the league by a margin and it all adds up to the first time I've really seen evidence that this "philosophy" is turning us into a bit of a force to be reckoned with.

I definitely agree with the idea that we looked more formidable and could have turned the mythical corner. I didn't see MNF, though, I can't be arsed with all the OTT analysis and touch screen fannying around, plus I genuinely can't stomach Carraghers accent, it makes me squirm.

Carra's alright, actually. I'd argue he's probably the most level headed Sky analyst when it comes to Utd now. Souness is a biased twat and Neville obviously has personal issues due to his brother and his need to try appear unbiased which is making him really fecking annoying nowadays, especially evidenced by his 90 minute wankathon over Courtois whilst ignoring the equally excellent Big Dave entirely.

Neville seems to get worse every time I listen to him commentate.

 

[Crackers]

Shit, Pogue is feeling optimistic, quick where's Noodle to restore the balance?!

If he's feeling optimistic too, the caf might break.

 

[Clas Sified]

Carra's alright, actually. I'd argue he's probably the most level headed Sky analyst when it comes to Utd now. Souness is a biased twat and Neville obviously has personal issues due to his brother and his need to try appear unbiased which is making him really fecking annoying nowadays, especially evidenced by his 90 minute wankathon over Courtois whilst ignoring the equally excellent Big Dave entirely.

Yeh, it sucks. I've seen no plaudits for Dave although his performance was just as good if not better than Courtois'.

 

[lysglimt]

History at the Etihad says otherwise.

City are due a big win which also really concerns me. I also think our defense is going to find it far harder to cope with Aguero and Silva than it did with Hazard and Drogba, and Fellaini won't be able to take Yaya out of the game like he did with Fabregas. I'm more concerned about them than I was about Chelsea.

Two completely different teams...

Chelsea - much stronger from set-pieces, better defensively and better on the counter-attack - better as a unit
City - better against organized teams, more match-winner types, better individually.

So I don't fear being countered to pieces by City - but our main problem against City will be that we have no wide-players who help defensively (Di Maria, Januzaj etc suck at it) - and that is a big concern against the types of Zabaleta, Kolarov etc - who LOVE going forward.

 

[brian017]

Even though we didn't win in the last 2 games. The way we fought until the end gives we a lot of hope that the United of old is slowly coming back. The last 10 minutes against WBA were like the days of SAF and even though the equaliser came late in that game we had 1 or 2 chances after that and could've won that game. That's all I wanted to see from Moyes' team, passion and fight and we never got to see that.

 

[sullydnl]

No quite so optimistic.

The Chelsea result was good and we did indeed perform well tactically but I'm not sure games against the top teams are the real barometer for our progress this season. We need to stop dropping points against weaker opposition and I'm not totally convinced we'll be able to do that just yet.

However, one thing the games against City and Arsenal will effect is the confidence around the club. If we get results then all well and good but if we were to lose (or even lose badly) then suddenly we're low on confidence again as we go into a run of games we should win but might in fact still struggle with.

Quite optimistic generally but not sure our struggles are coming to an end just yet.