Give Ole some credit, strikers have been poor, especially last night

[Alek M]

We were down 0-2 last night.

We played some attacking football, quick movement in midfield, Bruno was shredding their defense. We missed at least 5 sitters

- Fred needed a better bend but scorable
- Ronaldo 1v1 miss at the gk
- Rashford rushed his shot and hit the bar where he just needed to cut to the left
- Bruno miss
- McTominay post (not the easiest, but scorable)

Had this game finished with us losing or draw it would have been Ole out brigade. But we were excellent attacking wise. Defense was an issue, Lindeloff had a nightmare, Shaw is a terrible defender, and still waiting to hear what productive he has done offensively over the last 2 years. Had Varane been there, maybe one or both goals would not have happened.

The team was working hard, Pogba being out enabled lot more tracking back and pressing. Ole had the balls to drop Pogba.

Rashford really need to put away the easy chances like the one he was offside.

 

[Dr. Dwayne]

Lingard had a nightmare,

 

[King Azaz the Unabridged]

Shaw is a terrible defender, and still waiting to hear what productive he has done offensively over the last 2 years

I mean, apart from putting the winner on a plate literally just last night, in the match you've created another thread about...

 

[Solius]

Maybe he legit had a bad dream at the hotel or something.

 

[Alek M]

meant Lindeloff

 

[Fussball13251]

Because we badly needed to win that game. You can't play like that for 90 minutes... teams like Liverpool will score 6 past you. We went ultra attack.

 

[Alek M]

I mean, apart from putting the winner on a plate literally just last night, in the match you've created another thread about...

After 500 crosses, he hits one that only the best player in the world can jump to get it. How about week in, week out? Terrible at defense, terrible on offense.

 

[roonster09]

"Our players are not better than Everton players" vibes in this thread.

 

[KiD MoYeS]

Maybe he legit had a bad dream at the hotel or something.

 

[Alek M]

Because we badly needed to win that game. You can't play like that for 90 minutes.

And the attacking side was humming and tearing up Atalanta

 

[Sparky_Hughes]

It must have been bad, I've totally blocked his performance out, can't remember a second of it

 

[LoneStar]

At this rate, we will have an Ole out or Ole in thread every game. Speaks volumes about our consistency as well.

Also, how do you conveniently ignore our previous CL game, where Villareal could have scored so many more goals and beat us? The whole point is that luck averages out over a couple of games. Despite that, we have been very poor over the course of the season so far.

 

[Alek M]

"Our players are not better than Everton players" vibes in this thread.

We have many World class. Bruno, Varane, Ronaldo, De Gea, Rashford, Maguire, Pogba. But the lack of finishing has been poor. We have been creating.

 

[largelyworried]

You didn't play well if you only did one bit of the game right. We were chaotic last night, that's fun and all, but it doesn't mean we played well.

 

[MDFC Manager]

@sullydnl think you'll need to put in the xG stats again in here

 

[amolbhatia50k]

So let's give Ole some credit for the strikers being poor. Makes sense.

 

[passing-wind]

Context is important the match was a group stage win in what is an average group for qualifying. Even if United won 3 - 0 yesterday the word "credit" should be disregarded the team should be winning that fixture irrespective.

Give Ole credit where it is due, with the quality of the team such credit is only afforded if the team is consistently performing well, attaining strong results against quality opposition, challenging for the league, winning a domestic competition, reaching the latter stages of the UCL. This is what warrants credit, not pulling back a win in a game of two halves after poor results against Everton and Leicester.

 

[roonster09]

We have many World class. Bruno, Varane, Ronaldo, De Gea, Rashford, Maguire, Pogba. But the lack of finishing has been poor. We have been creating.

Against Atalanta? Yes. This season? No.

 

[DWelbz19]

Yep. Give Ole Declan Rice and Haaland. Cut the geezer some slack.

 

[Flytan]

Yep. Give Ole Declan Rice and Haaland. Cut the geezer some slack.

After that then people will want to replace Maguire and AWB. Then De Gea is old. Then Rashford isn't good enough. Once we have a full team of FIFA Ultimate Team Gold Cards (or whatever they are) we can judge him.

 

[Beans]

We should have scored 6.

My problem is were not fun to watch. Can't press, can't get tight to attackers, we just give them space and let them go where they want. On offense, we can't hold the ball, our collective first touch and control is poor for a top team. Top players need one touch to kill the ball and place it in their path to pass, we touch the ball it hops up in the air and we need another touch to control, at which point the defense is on us.

We score great goals, but we look like the weaker team. It's hard to root for a team that is less than the sum of its parts. I often find myself impressed by the opposition's effort and togetherness.

 

[Blood Mage]

These Ole in arguments from the top reds are getting more desperate.

 

[Ixion]

It is newsworthy when we create 4-5 scoreable chances. Unlike most of our others where we hardly create anything.

 

[Kush]

We scrapped past an Atlanta side who were missing key players. Good for us to get 3 points, as we'd been staring down another Europa League stint but some fans need to get a grip. Nothing has changed in regards to Ole on back off one win, it speaks volumes about how incredibly shit we have been this season, that one victory is being celebrated as if it solves any of our issues.

We'll be brought back down to Earth very soon, because once again, we were extremely open and easy to play against last night, despite his preferred McFred pairing. Better team, with more quality, will punish us.

 

[NotoriousISSY]

Our attack will and is capable of scoring goals.

Our defensive unit from front to back is mid table standard. We have good individuals, we have good defenders but they are absolutely brain-dead as a unit. That comes from the management, the system and the plan...it has to. In isolation, you can make a case for any of the back 6 to merit starting based on some long-term form they've shown in their United career.

 

[PoTMS]

Give the manager some credit, blame the players instead.

 

[USREDEVIL]

We scrapped past an Atlanta side who were missing key players. Good for us to get 3 points, as we'd been staring down another Europa League stint but some fans need to get a grip. Nothing has changed in regards to Ole on back off one win, it speaks volumes about how incredibly shit we have been this season, that one victory is being celebrated as if it solves any of our issues.

We'll be brought back down to Earth very soon, because once again, we were extremely open and easy to play against last night, despite his preferred McFred pairing. Better team, with more quality, will punish us.

This is not exactly Nostradamus level foresight. Why can't some people realize this. Then when we get smashed by pool they'll be surprised. SMFH

 

[Redlambs]

Says this:

Had this game finished with us losing or draw it would have been Ole out brigade.

2 sentences over says this:

Shaw is a terrible defender, and still waiting to hear what productive he has done offensively over the last 2 years

I mean, if you can't see why you are as all over the place as our performances then maybe you shouldn't start threads that ramble on.

 

[bosnian_red]

We have world class players everywhere on the pitch, of course we will make chances. The issue is we shouldn't be outplayed almost every game, we shouldn't be struggling for consistency or struggling for top 4/getting out of our group. With our squad of players, we simply need to be challenging for all trophies and anything less means the manager should be replaced by somebody who can do that. There's 0 evidence of anything being enhanced by our coaching - it's purely just emotion and individuals doing their own thing out there. That's the problem, and it'll be a huge limit on us regardless of how good the individual talent can be. There's a base level of organization and instruction on and off the ball that we just aren't reaching which ensures we'll never challenge at the top.

Even looking at Atalanta yesterday, I always feel like the sign of a well coached team is how often they create situations like their first goal. How often they stretch the pitch and create overlaps for a pass across the face of goal for an easy tap in. We make football look so difficult with how we play, whereas it can be so simple for other teams. We pretty much never get into positions to score a goal like their first, which is a huge problem. Every chance we create has to be a moment of magic (Bruno's pass to Rashford/Fred), a huge mistake from the opposition (Rashfords chance), or a random lump in the box from deeper (Maguire and Ronaldo's goals). Crossing isn't a problem, it's the positions we cross the ball from and the instructions to the recipients in the box.

Basically, we are awfully coached and the blame for not challenging for the title now can only lie with the manager.

 

[bond19821982]

A score that should have been an easy 4-0 or 5-0 but we made it difficult for ourselves and had to score late to get a win. Yet, the narrative is give Ole some credit.

Cafe never ceases to amaze.

 

[diarm]

After 500 crosses, he hits one that only the best player in the world can jump to get it. How about week in, week out? Terrible at defense, terrible on offense.

I could've got on the end of that cross. If Ronaldo hadn't done what "no other player on earth could have", it was landing on Maguire's head you cabbage.

Shaw created more chances than any other defender in the league last year. In fact, among Europe's top 5 leagues, only 2 players (defence, midfield or attack) have created more chances than he has in 2021.

You're talking out of your hoop.

 

[The Brown Bull]

At 0-2 I had more faith in us than at 0-0.
Why is that? It’s almost like we just take off the handbrake when we go behind and just give it a lash.Why do we start games so poorly?
With the quality in our squad we should be cruising past Atalanta at OT.
Falling behind and being reduced to high octane cavalry charge football is simply not sustainable over a season.

 

[King Azaz the Unabridged]

After 500 crosses, he hits one that only the best player in the world can jump to get it. How about week in, week out? Terrible at defense, terrible on offense.

You asked someone to tell you when Shaw last did something productive offensively, so I told you. It just happened to be in the same game you're talking about, so you look a little silly right now.

I'm all for having pops at Shaw when he's playing crap, but he's been good for ages now. See post by @diarm above with some more specifics.

 

[VP89]

"Give Ole credit, his world class attack created chances against a side missing all 3 first choice center backs"

 

[tomaldinho1]

This is fair for last night. Usually we don't create enough and concede sloppy goals, this time we conceded sloppy goals but should have scored more down to bad finishing.

 

[Sylar]

We should have scored 6.

My problem is were not fun to watch.

We're one of the most 'fun' teams to watch this season. There's hardly been a boring game

Unless your definition of fun is being confused with dominant?

 

[OleTheGreat]

We were down 0-2 last night.

We played some attacking football, quick movement in midfield, Bruno was shredding their defense. We missed at least 5 sitters

- Fred needed a better bend but scorable
- Ronaldo 1v1 miss at the gk
- Rashford rushed his shot and hit the bar where he just needed to cut to the left
- Bruno miss
- McTominay post (not the easiest, but scorable)

Had this game finished with us losing or draw it would have been Ole out brigade. But we were excellent attacking wise. Defense was an issue, Lindeloff had a nightmare, Shaw is a terrible defender, and still waiting to hear what productive he has done offensively over the last 2 years. Had Varane been there, maybe one or both goals would not have happened.

The team was working hard, Pogba being out enabled lot more tracking back and pressing. Ole had the balls to drop Pogba.

Rashford really need to put away the easy chances like the one he was offside.

yeah yesterday United had a lot of chances but generally that is not the case.

 

[OrcaFat]

Our strikers have missed a few, sure. But the defence (by which I mean all players when we are defending) is a shambles.

I don’t think we can criticise the whole team without criticising the selections and the way they are set up and prepared. We have had some very poor individual performances and a few injuries but some of the team selections have left us wide open.

I prefer not to make excuses for Ole any more. We’ve been mostly shit recently. I’d like to think Ole and all the players will get it the feck together and get a run going. We’ll see.

One thing that annoys me is posters who put every poor performance and result down to Ole and every good performance and result down to the players. It has to be all of them in it together; win together, lose together and see where we are in a few weeks.

 

[Ixion]

We're one of the most 'fun' teams to watch this season. There's hardly been a boring game

Unless your definition of fun is being confused with dominant?

Young Boys, Everton, Villa, Southampton, West Ham? Not the most thrilling matches.

 

[davidmichael]

We were playing Atalanta at home not 2011 Barca or 1994 Milan so I expect us to create lots of chances seeing as we had arguably the greatest goal scorer of all time flanked by Greenwood and Rashford then Fernandes in behind not to mention Pogba, Sancho and Cavani on the bench.

This kind of thinking that we should reward a home win against a team we should be comfortably beating is the problem post Sir Alex, we’ve accepted mediocrity or just being a top four club and basically become a richer northern version of Arsenal.

I love Ole the man and Ole the player but Ole the coach is NOT good enough and the sooner we put a top head coach with a great coaching team in charge the better we will be. We have one of the most talented squads (outside of midfield) in Europe and it’s unfortunately being wasted due to romanticism and nostalgia, Chelsea fired arguably their greatest player in Lampard mid season for a top head coach in Tuchel so why can’t we ?