The last season 2nd half was marvelous, but the first half was abysmal
We have reasons to be optimist coming to this season, maybe I thought Bruno was the missing piece and we finally found something that click. Turns out the first 3 games and subsequent 5 games cement my suspicion that it's all Bruno and Ole actually has nothing to do with it, just like he has nothing to do with his first 15 games win run. Just like James was starting good and suddenly got found out and turns to shit. My guess is that once teams finds out how to nullify Bruno we're back to being shit again.
This manager is clueless, if he spends 1Bn he'll assemble a team that good enough for top 4, or even challenge for the title, but it's not due to him. And that's IF he spend 1bn. His total spending breaks the 300M and we're far from looking anything like a sorted team, we don't even know what's our best formation.
Sometimes I think people refuse to see the reality as it is, because admitting he's not good means another reboot, and probably the thought of being shoved with the "I fecking told you so" by the oleinners or whatever your opposite position is. It's easier to create bogus excuses after excuses that's beyond ridiculous (e.g. All his purchases once turned out to be wasn't that great is chalked as Ed's and somehow Ole has nothing to do with them)
Non rival / non united fans can easily see Ole beyond his ex legend status, he's a very poor manager that has the same tenure as Pep Guardiola, yet achieved a grand total of big zero, but somehow if being given time he could suddenly become SAF.
We are the laughing stock of Europe, we started to resort to imaginary greatness (xG, APLT, Foundation, Bleeds reds, etc etc) the same shit we used to laugh at RAWK in our fergie days.
It's sad that some of you are so awed by Ole the scorer of our great 1999 goal that you can't see a simple reality that he's a poor manager.
I actually never think of Ole and his goal in the CL, trust me. But there are multiple things that you see in his game principles and for me, it's very good. I disagree with most of your points about Ole being clueless, I can try to emit some thoughts around why, but I think maybe it's just your thought, you've made up your mind and that's it.
Anyway, Bruno is not the only one helping. Because in order for Bruno to be able to help, you need to create the team to function well around him. The reason why it clicked right away was because the team was shaped to work with that role, and we just had players who couldn't fulfill the role. Do it, and it works best. However, if you look at the timeline, the team started going back on track before Bruno came on end of January almost. Which means that issues were getting fixed. That's not a clueless manager.
James has played well on the left. He had to play on the right when it didn't work out with Lingard, and that has create some issues for his confidence. This year, it seems that we want to put him back on the left to give him a chance to find back his natural form. Greenwood has been developed and slotted in on the right. He's not perfect there, but he can play the game. And Mata is now back on the right, albeit drifting a bit more inside, because of Bruno drifting lower, which is a recent issue we are facing and probably due to the fact that Pogba is not on absolute form right now. It goes back to the point of the thread I provided above, but we are too reliant on the form of some players because we have tried but we don't have all our players at our disposal, and as a result, we keep adapting. While Ole has addressed some of the issues by adapting the team, it doesn't solve all of them and the bigger issue is going to be consistency of the system for the players to execute, which can lead to confusion.
Now systems are not all at all. Look at the game vs Arsenal, the only game where we are completely lost in the 1st half. We played a system in a sort of 4/4/2 with a bit of a diamond, but the full backs didn't provide enough support. However, the biggest issue in that first half was not the system. Why? Because we changed the system to a more "stable" 4/2/3/1 and the good spell for us only lasted 15mn. What were those 15mn about? Intensity and energy level. In most of the games, that's what determine success. Now fitness is part of it, but mental strength is also included in that, because without those, your motivation level is not high enough to continuously create that energy. But you could see the energy level went up for 15mn. It tells us that during the half time talk, Ole probably broke something in the locker room. It also tells us that if that is not there, no system matters ultimately. And we come back to how to make sure our players can perform with that energy level consistently.
I know people focus so much on tactics, and on all kind of stats in a game. It's interesting, but we keep forgetting that these are players and human beings. What happens if Fred argue with his wife on the phone the morning of the match day, and it wasn't resolved? Or the day before, but because of the "lockdown" for the game, it wasn't resolved? Is he going to be able to deliver, whatever the staff tells him? Is there a stat in the world, or a tactic in the world, that can foresee that? There is none. And just like I don't go into my job and tell my boss that today, I've argued with my wife so I am not in condition, I don't think players share that much. They might, but they probably don't. So in that case, the mood, the confidence, this is why it all matters. We want players to be able to perform on a high energy level even when not everything is clicking, but they are not robots. It requires physical and mental training. And hopefully we are getting there but right now, that's not the case. For me, this is never captured by any tactics. But it doesn't mean there are no tactics, or that the tactics are not good. Even Messi doesn't perform well if his wife tells him something "mean".
The good thing with Ole, and I am sorry for digressing here, is that he sees that this energy level is key. Because system wise, the 4/2/3/1 he set up is structurally quite good. In fact, it's well organized enough and you can see the principles of the game quite easily. We want to play fast, we want to combine fast, and we want to be direct, to give ourselves a chance to unbalance the opposition. Also simple principles of overloading and switching over to the other side. The principles are there, but the energy level and the motivation to do so, or the lack of, sometimes hinder the goods. And then we have some weird issues, like AWB is making the calls but players can't pass to him. Matic, Pogba, Bruno are the players who can pass to him but:
- Matic is up and down, so when he's on low form, he doesn't see AWB or his pass doesn't work out
- Pogba is the guy to do that but he's overall form is low right now so we can't use him
- Bruno can do it, but if Bruno drifts low like that, we need a Mata to drift inside to give us options, but it creates a weird balance, so the best for us is to keep Bruno high up there for him to deliver in the box, and let someone else do those passes
Recently, we have tried to improve Scott passes. There were some elements, but most of the time, Scott drifts right and find Rashford on the opposite side (meaning it's a diagonal pass). It's ok, it's understandable, but then, in this setup, it means that it's either Maguire (on the left side of a back 3 in that phase) or Lindelof to find AWB who is often able to push high, especially when Bruno drifts all around the pitch and the full back goes after him. We need to reiterate the need for our players to pay attention to what's happening on the field, but that's another story.
Finally, one last comment: " My guess is that once teams finds out how to nullify Bruno we're back to being shit again.". Yep, and this is why we are working hard to create a team that allows us to create multiple threats.
Our ideal team right now under Ole is a front 3 of Rashford, Martial, Greenwood, all goal threats, so you can't "forget" them. To score, they often need the ball, so Bruno is the main provider but if you mark him, the idea is:
- To have Pogba provide the long options, to open up the game
- Have Shaw/Telles and AWB push up to cross, to provide other options
For that setup to work, we need a top form Matic to cover the field, or a good Fred or Scott in a sort of DM role. The 2nd best option, that we use right now, is the Fred/Scott combination with Scott drifting right and Fred playing as a 8, counter pressing high on the field to give us the opportunity to break opposition teams. But we lose Pogba in that setup.
That's really all. Anyway, that's OK in my mind. Even if Barcelona marked Messi during their prime, they had Xavi and Iniesta and the others to provide threats. So being "nullified" when they mark Bruno itself is not a nonsense, it's football. Our response as a club is to provide other threats so that if they double mark Bruno, we exploit it.