Realistic forum, mate!
Better than we think? Some optimism
- Thread starter SER19
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik and Imran hold a long overdue conversation about United's awful league form with 1 win in 7. They discuss a disappointing draw at Bournemouth, a not so disappointing draw against Liverpool and a crushing defeat at Chelsea - Is time nearly over for Erik Ten Hag?
Then in a special second half of the pod, Nik welcomes Natalie ( https://twitter.com/natalie_17) to discuss the fortunes of Manchester United Women as they booked a place in the FA Cup Final after a historic first ever win vs. Chelsea.
All Crystal Palace players involved in 4 games before the league even started.
So Palace had 2 friendlies, and 2 other games. WHile United had 1 friendly, and many involved in one or two International games.
Is this an excuse for our sluggish performance?
Don't change fact to suit your argument mate. You said "some'' in your previous post but now you changed it to "many". Let's also not change the fact that Palace had played 4 friendly games not just 2, and 2 other professional games, 6 in total.
Well that excuse is going to wear off really fast, I dont think its the only or biggest reason for the poor performance, but we'll see.
We've saw this excuse with Ole at first about poor conditioning under Mourinho, how he needed to have a full preseason, then again the squad fitness was poor because he run the first XI to the ground, and now he has fitness problems because other teams have played more games.
At some point he's going to have to take some responsibility, I mean he has been here for almost two years now.
Can you explain why we finished 3rd last season after having full preseason while we finished 6th when we had that poor conditioning excuse?
It's definitely not an excuse.
Last week Wolves played in the league and won. They also played in the EL (like us), but left the competition 1 week earlier.
Put simply, our fitness coaches are terrible at their job. There is a long history of them allowing our players to get fat and unfit. Lukaku was overweight when he left us. Once he arrived at Inter, this was identified and his weight was brought down to acceptable levels.
We buy players from other clubs. When they arrive, they are fit and raring to go (DVDB is the latest example). Once they spend a year with MUFC, they show the same problems as the rest of the players.
Last season, before Bruno F joined, no way would have finished top 4. He came in and his skill, drive and fitness pushed us forward. Put simply, it was Bruno who pushed us to 3rd.
Before he joined, I believe we were in 6th-7th place.
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Not even full fitness Lingard & Pereira can make a team to perform consistent. But that's not the point, the point is about match fitness.
We beat City, Chelsea, Spurs & Leicester without Bruno. We even had great start winning 4-0 vs Chelsea without Bruno.
A question. If we made no additions(BTW yesterday`s game showed we desperately need at least 2 new faces) and only decided to depend on fitness to get our form back with the depth we have do you wholeheartedly believe we can navigate our way through 4 major competitions including a potentially tough CL group and have a good season without a serious downturn in results somewhere?
We were talking about yesterday game and yesterday game we won't beat Palace even if we signed 2 new faces or Sancho. You are asking a question that is not related to the post you replied.
Fitness might be a wider issue. However. Lukaku being fat, unmotivated, lazy, unprofessional and unfit was100% on him.
Can't really make up any excuses for that yesterday. It was diabolical from start to finish.
Most of the team yesterday was our first eleven bar Fosu Mensah, McTominay and James. We do have some very good players at the club but they need support by not just additions to make our starting eleven better but also to the squad.
Lindelof and McTominay are both decent players but those are two of the areas we need to address for the long term.
Most of the team yesterday was our first eleven bar Fosu Mensah, McTominay and James. We do have some very good players at the club but they need support by not just additions to make our starting eleven better but also to the squad.
Lindelof and McTominay are both decent players but those are two of the areas we need to address for the long term.
What are you on about? Lukaku was overweight because of our fitness coaches? Is Bruno going to turn into a fat slob by January then? You have zero evidence to back up this wild claim.
Exactly, if that was the case then the whole squad would be resembling a beach ball by now.
Infact given the number of games in such short spaces of time last season I think they did a good job considering...
Yeah, considering how little injuries we got out of that period as well, I think they did a fantastic job.
Yeh. Our conceded goals are not because of lacking in match sharp, but more of stupidity. The likes of Lindelof, DDG, James, Bruno, Martial, and Rashford just had International matches this month also.
And it's Palace.
Fair, and I'd like to see Matic or even Fred in the DM role as I was particularly unimpressed with Scott yesterday and don't think he's a long term solution as our deepest midfielder.
In terms of attacking you're right that we surely will attack better than that with more matches under our belt and Greenwood starting on the right. The issue though is we're one injury away from starting the likes of James, Mata and Lingard, the former of whom could at least be useful on the left but the lack of depth in our attacking options is still a worry at present.
I dont think any of those league positions hadnt anything to do with the preseason or conditioning.
We finished 6th because the players lower their guns on Mourinho and even that we had a great spell when Ole arrived we then switched completely and played shit which ultimately left us at 6th when we did had the chance to get top 4 but managed to feck it up.
We finished 3rd last season because again we entered a great patch after Bruno arrived and that combined with the Leicester debacle and Chelsea inconsistency gave us the chance which we ultimately took.
If it was purely about conditioning why did we only play well after Bruno arrived and not since the start? Did we made any special conditioning in January?
Anyway if its just conditioning as you say then we should be up and running in about two weeks tops, I think its deeper than that an we will struggle for a long period until something changes and lift this team driven morale.
Played too much. Haven't played enough. Sick of these fecking excuses. Coaching at the club is laughable. No tactics, awful fitness levels. You watch all the class get coached out of Bruno.
We beat Spurs, Chelsea, City & Leicester without Bruno, either way that's not the point & the context what I'm trying to say here. I think what you need to understand is what the context in my post, do not trying to make things up and twist it to suit your argument. The context or the point is about match fitness. There is massive difference in match fitness between beating Chelsea 4-0 performance last season with losing to Palace 3-1 yesterday, that's massive difference in what a proper pre season can give to players.
Yes: 66 points was only enough for 6th in 2019 but the same amount got us third last season because the other teams fighting for CL qualification were a lot weaker.
Yes we defeated Spurs, Chelsea, City and Leicester without Bruno, we also lost to Palace West Ham, Newcastle, Bournemouth and Watford without Bruno. What does that has to do with fitness levels?
What thing did I make up or what argument of yours I twisted?
To be clear I agree we were not fit yesterday that was as clear as day, but thats on Ole and his coaches. No excuse for starting a season with such poor level of fitness, teams like Wolves, Arsenal and Chelsea finished the season around the same time and they dont look anywhere near as poor as us.
But again I repeat I think our problems are more due to coaching than fitness, and wont be solved as easily.
The massive difference here is that we beat our competitors last season while we didn't beat our competitors previously. We would have finished 3rd even with 66 points in 2018 if we achieved 4-6 points against the likes of Spurs, Chelsea & Arsenal like how we did it against Leicester, Spurs & Chelsea last season.
It was one match! Additionally, besides the first 30 minutes we the better team IMO. On another day we could have gotten a 1-0 or 2-1 win. Every goal CP scored could have been prevented or no a PK. The best news, though, is we now have one of the best midfields in the league.
How exactly would we score 2 ? Even if we played another 120 mins, we would still not score. That's how we bad we were.
I guess you forgot Greenwood's header that went wide and do you realize we had 17 shots, 4 shots on goal, 76% possession and 9 corners.
Possession and shots means nothing. Greenwood header was the only one that too he received bit outside of the post.
9 corners and 17 shots. I would guess about 5 of those were blocked by defenders. On another day we might score on a corner or two and/or a couple of shots might have gone in. It's not a crazy notion, is it?
Exactly the point, even with all of this, the only goal we scored was a result of a Palace defending brainfa**t, not much of quality attacking play there. Credit though to DVB for that cool finish
When was the last time we scored with an actual header from a corner?
I'm actually worried we might lose the next 2-3 games as well, because we looked laughably bad and unfit against Palace. This doesn't just change overnight, how did the club allow us to not have any sort of pre-season and fitness preparation?
It doesn't, that's why you shouldn't talk about it in the first place. My question was trying to remind you that Ole wasn't just making excuses, he back his own statement by finishing 3rd last season.
You are twisting my own word because you made false claim of this:
What does yesterday game for being lack of match fitness has anything to do with multiple games before Bruno arrived?
There is massive difference in match fitness between beating Chelsea 4-0 performance last season with losing to Palace 3-1 yesterday. A proper match fitness will give the team a good start, that's the difference!
What the feck haha I shouldn't talk about it in the first place? it was you who brought that up.
I brought that up because you ask me to explain how did we got 6th one season and 3rd the next one, not because of yesterdays game. I didnt twist your argument. I responded to it, I dont know what you're even reading mate.
Once again I agree, having poor fitness levels will make the job harder no one is arguing about that. Yes poor fitness its a problem, and its a problem that should be blamed to Ole. But what I say is that fitness is not our only nor biggest problem.
I asked the question because you talked about it in the first place. Read this post of yours!
How is that post of yours has anything to do with the problem of yesterday game that I spoke about?
It has to do with the fact that I dont think fitness is the only problem, as I said that excuse will wear off really fast. Can't blame poor results on calendar and fitness for too long before start poiting out other deficiencies.
Good point.
I think Maguire will get one this seasonLack of match fitness in the first game of the season yesterday has nothing to do with the squad's problem for the rest of the 37 games.
Maguire against Chelsea last season is the last one I remember, before that Im cant remember anyother than the Lukaku one against Brighton in the 2018/2019 season. It was from a corner but not directly, it was a deviated Shaw shot that Lukaku headed if I remember well.