Dinosaur United - dated, out of touch football and approach

Why does money always come into the argument?

Football is NOT a spectrum where you have defensive football to one side and attacking to the other, where the more money you spend the more attacking you play. Answer me this; What if Jose brought a bunch of defenders for £400m, would you expect him to play attacking football?

We spent big to invest in a average squad but we're not done yet. City invested to make a good squad great. We've made a average squad good. To quote LvG, its a process and we've come a long way since 2015.
 
Randall Flagg said:
It’s true

I posted in the other thread that a manager needs to keep adapting and changing. Because football keeps adapting and changing

Jose is still the same as he was years ago in his style and approach. It’s a real concern.

I went overboard with our results in the beginning of the season. But it’s pretty clear now we just got a very nice set of fixtures
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You got pranked, it was pretty clear to me that it was a false dawn from early on. We will marginally improve when Pogba comes back though.
 
snk123 said:
We have Martial who can beat his man 9/10. Delivery isn't important. Football is more than just delivering a good ball in the final third. What about passing, movement, isolating your wingers so people like Martial can flourish. If we play hoofball, we can have all the Hazards and De Bruynes and still would look shit.
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This
 
The truth is we have by far and away the worst 3 behind the striker out of the top 6 in the PL. In addition to that we have Lukaku who is the striker in the top 6 teams that is the least able to create for himself.

We need major investment in our attacking players especially with regards to creativity.
 
BluesJr said:
Will people please stop saying 2nd in the league as if it’s something to be massively proud of :lol: we are 8 points behind ffs with other teams right up behind us. Is a very distant 2nd suddenly a great position? Nope.
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I don't think anyone is saying it is a great position, just not the disaster certain posters are making it out to be. If we are so terrible then god help the 18 other teams in the league, including last weeks darling Spurs who we beat a week ago with our outdated, clunky dinosaur tactics.
 
As expected, full blown meltdown in here. Usual suspects again telling us about how 4-0 wins are 'flukey'.

I am extremely disappointed by our football over the course of past month or so but feck me how can people want Mourinho gone already? He has done so many things right after the disaster which were Moyes and LVG, where do you go from here? All his signings are crucial to the XI we have, do we sack him appoint a new manager who'll butcher the squad by spending hundred of millions and we start all over again?

At least give him the benefit of doubt because of our midfield situation, Fellaini catches so much flak on here but we only started looked threatening when he came on to win the 1st balls and allow the other into the game. Pogba has been a huge miss too, he was at the heart of everything we were doing in the beginning. Fair enough, it was against the poor sides but right now we can't control the matches against them either.

I am willing to cut him some slack until Pogba comes back into the mix, if the situation doesn't improve I'll question him but not right now.
 
OneUnited24 said:
Why does money always come into the argument?

Football is NOT a spectrum where you have defensive football to one side and attacking to the other, where the more money you spend the more attacking you play. Answer me this. What if Jose brought a bunch of defenders for £400m, would you expect him to play attacking football?

We spent big to invest in a average squad but we're not done yet. City invested to make a good squad great. We've made a average squad good. To quote LvG, its a process and we've come a long way since 2015.
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I think the bigger issue is that we've bought badly in certain areas along the way. Fellaini and Mata from Moyes' time were poor signings and in LvG's time there's only Martial who you'd really fight to keep, and even he it could be argued doesn't fit.

This links into the management as chopping and changing the manager doesn't help as you're starting again each time and the new manager wants to put his stamp on things which results in more spending.

If you look at the money we've spent post SAF we must be up there with the biggest spenders, yet look so far off even being talked about in the same sentence as City so for me the issue is where the money has been spent.
 
It's not a case of it being away at Chelsea really, same shit has occured in the last 6-7 games. First half vs Spurs was very much like that, where Spurs were in control & all Utd did was hoof the fecking ball.
Even in some of the 4-0 games despite the scoreline the attack has been predictable, pass to Valencia he hobbles on the ball for 5minutes, contemplating whether to pass back, hit it against the shins or hobble some more.
Utds attack is way to reliant on Valencia and despite being pretty damn good last season he has noticeable limitations.
The other problem is the over reliance on individual brilliance due to rarely committing enough players forward and almost always being triple manned in the box due to a lack of bodies.
The other is how slow Utd get the ball forward, it's still incredibly slow, players would rather pass back most of the time than run into the midfield space, slowing the game down and letting them get back into shape, then passing to Valencia and going back to point 1.
Compare that to City & they've probably already created the chance by the time Utd get the ball to Valencia, 9 times out of 10.

A defender waiting for an attack is significantly more likely to snuff out any danger than a defender running into position. The problem is, the vast majority of the time defenders are more likely to be doing the former than the latter again Utd and that's been a problem for the last 4 years.
 
El Jefe said:
The truth is we have by far and away the worst 3 behind the striker out of the top 6 in the PL. In addition to that we have Lukaku who is the striker in the top 6 teams that is the least able to create for himself.

We need major investment in our attacking players especially with regards to creativity.
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What we need to do is decide on a manager, be it Jose or otherwise and stick with them for a sustained period of time, realising that throwing ungodly amounts of cash at the problem every summer expecting it to fix things hasn't worked.
 
How do some of you handle day to day life with the ridiculous overreacting?

The period we are going through now is really no different from the post Busby one.

We are no longer the best team in the land and are trying to find our feet. We are evidently improving from the last few years but it will take time. Our spine has improved,we are doing decently in Europe too.

But evidently some of perfomances show that we are not there yet. A lot of our fans know nothing else but sweet success, and this period has seen a lot of them break.
 
How can the connection between midfield and attack be so poor? At times, it is like the players have never seen or played with each other before.
 
Yup, Mourinho is useless at creating an attack. When was the last time we created a chance from quality attacking play? Or a clear style of play that we obviously planned as a way to create chances? I have clue what the actual plan is when we get the ball. Pass it around slowly, give it to Matic to spend an age on the ball only to pass it back to Jones, give it to a fullback to show some intent on running with the ball before cutting backwards, and then eventually give it to one of Martial or Rashford to try and dribble past multiple players and do something? Or just long balls/crosses on fellaini or Lukaku's head. There's no "style of play". It's all just a collection of players when we're on the ball. Off the ball we are very well drilled of course, and deserve credit there, but on the ball, shockingly bad.

Another point on that though, is that you see teams pretty regularly pass it around better then we do. They look more fluid against us, passing play seems more natural to them, and they just seem like better footballing sides. We just force everything with no plan. To make things worse, our best player at actually dribbling past players and creating something, unsettling defences through how he plays is always on the bench for league games (martial), and then our only bit of creativity in midfield has been injured for ages.
 
M Bison said:
I think the bigger issue is that we've bought badly in certain areas along the way. Fellaini and Mata from Moyes' time were poor signings and in LvG's time there's only Martial who you'd really fight to keep, and even he it could be argued doesn't fit.

This links into the management as chopping and changing the manager doesn't help as you're starting again each time and the new manager wants to put his stamp on things which results in more spending.

If you look at the money we've spent post SAF we must be up there with the biggest spenders, yet look so far off even being talked about in the same sentence as City so for me the issue is where the money has been spent.
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I agree that we have brought badly since SAF went but we cant blame that on Jose. Of his buys i can only think of 2 which havent worked as well as we thought, Mkhi and Lindoff.
 
He's been in the job 17 months now and he still can't make his team string together more than a few passes against the best teams.

I was worried before, but now I'm convinced that the man is outdated. I don't see him lasting long enough to become a success here, we're too far behind.
 
El Jefe said:
The truth is we have by far and away the worst 3 behind the striker out of the top 6 in the PL. In addition to that we have Lukaku who is the striker in the top 6 teams that is the least able to create for himself.

We need major investment in our attacking players especially with regards to creativity.
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It is also true that we don’t actually play the best 3 that we have in those positions. We set up where everyone has a ‘job’ to do and the only person allowed any inspiration is a left-winger, so any player with any forward ability must compete for that role at the moment.

We have Ashley f cking Young playing out wide. Still!
 
Jose is a very small part of the problem. I'll post what I did in the other thread, keep in mind these have been my feelings on the state of the club long before Jose was even appointed and I said as much in the past, so it's not kneejerk.
Womp said:
Up until recently he was doing a good job, was instilling the right mentality back into the squad and got us some very needed trophies. We started the season very well. That being said, it's just gotten worse and worse since that Stoke game.

Let him go, get in a DOF and let a new manager have a few years to really imprint an identity on this squad because as of now we just look like a squad made up of many different parts.

We will forever be nearly men until the club starts planning for the future, rather than trying to find a quick fix. If they wanted Mourinho so bad, why the feck did they hire LVG and provide him with so much money? City wanted Pep and planned for him years before by bringing in his friends, improving the youth system etc. They provided a very good manager with a platform, something we haven't done since SAF left. We've been throwing shit at the wall and hoping it sticks.

Mourinho if given time will win things, but I don't think we have much time left, we've spent enough money already. LVG spent a feck ton himself, with half those players being sold and not good enough. We can't just keep aimlessly spending money, hiring managers without the patience to give them time or the platform for them to thrive, then sacking them and rinsing and repeating.

The problem though is, if Jose was to leave, who is available? Poch looks happy and has said before he'd be happy to stay at Spurs and if he were to leave, he'd get offers from much more stable jobs than we have. Pep isn't an option. Simeone would make the fans just as unbearable as they are now.

The club is in the shitter and until we start looking to the future rather than trying to find a quick fix, we won't get anywhere.
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All this coupled with the fact that some of these players just aren't very good, makes for our current predictament. No team with title aspirations has fullbacks as shite as ours, for starters.

The club needs to decide on what path it wants to take and bring in the right manager and recruit the right personnel for that style. Give that manager time. Whether that's Jose or someone else, they need to decide what they want. The game is far too advanced to just keep chopping and changing and throwing money everywhere. That doesn't work as all clubs have money now and there's an abundance of top managers.
 
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Its been symptomatic of this club since the final years of fergie. We dont score great teams goals anymore. Not on a regular basis anyway. We play far too many long balls and aimless hoofs for a top club.
 
OneUnited24 said:
I agree that we have brought badly since SAF went but we cant blame that on Jose. Of his buys i can only think of 2 which havent worked as well as we thought, Mkhi and Lindoff.
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No not blaming that on Jose at all. I suppose i was responding to your point about spending big to turn us into a good side from an average side. I think we have spent enough to be in a better position than we are but we have bought badly and changed managers along the way which has disrupted things.

We should be closer to the likes of City than we are but have had three attempts at rebuilding and each one has been very costly.
 
OverratedOpinion said:
What we need to do is decide on a manager, be it Jose or otherwise and stick with them for a sustained period of time, realising that throwing ungodly amounts of cash at the problem every summer expecting it to fix things hasn't worked.
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Make no mistake about it, Jose needs to improve however our competition are just stronger than us in attack.

Mkhi and Rashford would not start for any of the other top six sides and Lukaku wouldn't start for at least 3 of the 5.

Defensive manager with inferior attackers is not a good mix and it will be easier for us to invest in better attackers than to sack Jose and get an attacking coach.
 
While I don't have issues with losing at the Bridge, not sure what the "we're second in the league" brigade will say once we slip out of the Top in around a months time.
 
Sky1981 said:
Something is very wrong with united.

Moyes-lvg-mourinho and we're still playing like zombies.

Until we find it and fix it no manager/signing can improve us.
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Nothing signified it more than a moment in the first half. Jones passes to Matic and then stands like a frickin door. Matic is surrounded and he literally has to coax Jones to move and even point to where he wants him to move so that he can pass the ball. This clearly indicates that our passing and movement is not at all worked on in trainings. Our players just don't seem to grasp the basic concept of passing and moving into space to make themselves available for a return ball. They all stand appreciating themselves after passing as if they just ran a marathon in under 2 hours.
 
Mourinho seems a bit clueless at the moment. His signings haven't been thought out and he doesn't seem to have a (forgive me) philosophy or style of play besides stay organised at the back and hope for a goal. A director of football would have been good to get the club going forward with some kind of plan in terms of targeted system of play and transfers.

Of the three players we signed, only Matic has fitted in perfectly. I don't think there was a need to spend £30m on a defender and I don't believe Lukaku (as good as he is at what he does) is the striker to compete against the best teams. I can't believe that we didn't have more money to spend to fix the glaring weaknesses in our squad.
 
The difference in our play when we have the ball compared to not having it is like night and day.
 
El Jefe said:
Make no mistake about it, Jose needs to improve however our competition are just stronger than us in attack.

Mkhi and Rashford would not start for any of the other top six sides and Lukaku wouldn't start for at least 3 of the 5.

Defensive manager with inferior attackers is not a good mix and it will be easier for us to invest in better attackers than to sack Jose and get an attacking coach.
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You mean the same attackers which our manager bought for more than 100 million pounds?! Yeah why not. Give him more money to buy more dross.
 
After £400m spent, over a decade of top b level management, 7 years of PL experience, attributing poor football to the absence of one player is absolutely embarrassing.
 
JohnnyKills said:
The problem dates back to the glazers' chronic under-spending during the last years of fergie's time. Instead of pulling away from the other teams, we let them overtake us. The glazers must take a huge amount of blame for the mess we've been in since fergie left.

When you combine that under-investment with two poor managerial appointments and it's easy to see why we are where we are.
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Nah, our squad is probably as good as Chelsea. We just played worse today.
 
I really want to play 4-4-1-1 again. Get some proper chalk on their boots wingers who has absolutely devastating delivery.

Who is with me?!
 
gibers said:
Hazard and Ronaldo and most of the Madrid team said he doesn't coach attacking and it f*cking shows. Lukaku vs 3 defenders and DDG launching it up to him for 90s minutes with no support. Watched the City game earlier and I'm fuming. Chelsea looked like they had a spare man all over the field and we made them look like prime Pepcelona.
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Because they did. Hazard was spare between the lines and that dragged us all over the place.
 
Rhyme Animal said:
Obviously this will be called reactionary, but for too long we've been years behind in our thinking and approach.

From employing Moyes because of tradition, to our lack of any kind of footballing minds behind signings - be that a DoF or anyone else, to the awful, woeful, dire football we've been churning out for 4 years now.

Today, watching this over-sized, clunky, un-skillful group of 'United' players hoof balls up the pitch toward Fellaini and Rom is just not acceptable, not with the amount of money spent.

What will it take to get this team out of the fecking dark ages? A DoF? Another new manager (if so, who?).

I just don't believe that new signings will fix this dated, dire approach.
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Just two good fullbacks, that's it, people underestimate the harm Valencia is doing on that right flank, attacking wise, he offers nothing, even if he's very good defensively.

The only difference between us and the City/Tottenham are the fullbacks.

Just look at Aurier today for example or Walker, the fullbacks are the new wingers and we're still playing with Valencia and a make shift left back.

Two fullbacks and a back up for Pogba and we would be good.
 
NK86 said:
You mean the same attackers which our manager bought for more than 100 million pounds?! Yeah why not. Give him more money to buy more dross.
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Oh why don't we just give him the sack now then!

The starting point for our attack was fecking woeful. In LVG's final season we couldn't score for shit as and we were almost as bad last season. Lukaku and Mkhitaryan are his only signings in attack so far. It was a problem that was never going to be fixed in one window.
 
Overall mentality of the club is fecked from start to finish!

We got away with it in the 90s
 
Murder on Zidane's Floor said:
I really want to play 4-4-1-1 again. Get some proper chalk on their boots wingers who has absolutely devastating delivery.

Who is with me?!
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4-4-2. I'm tired of this number 10 nonsense trend, two strikers for wingers to aim at would be better. We would also need new fullbacks how are capable of overlapping and crossing.
 
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