Has the Palace result finally woken us up to reality?

[fastwalker]

So, the results are in Won: 1 Drawn: 1 Lost:1 with a total of four points. A total of nine points have been available and the truth is that we could have won all nine and could just have easily come away with none at all.

There-in lies part of the problem with United, we have become the footballing equivalent of drift-wood. In two of three games we have dominated and failed to win and in the other we were out-played for large parts and ran out rampant winners. There is no certainty with United, a total lack of precision in front of goal (despite an abundance of opportunities), lack of concentration, an absence of creativity and a lack of game management.

After Chelsea, we drank the Kool-Aid thinking that we were better than we really are. This afternoon, the reality is hopefully setting in. We are some way away from where we need to be.

The fact that a United side cannot work out how to break down a Wolves and a Crystal Palace whom we know will set up to defend reveals the scale of dilemma facing us. This is because more Premier League teams will set up like Wolves and Palace than like Chelsea. If we cannot work out how to unpick teams who defend deep and whose only attacking option is a counter, then this season will be a total and complete washout.

Much as I love Ole and think he is a United legend, he is tactically naïve and borderline tactically inept.

Thoughts please.

 

[GenZRed]

One of the worst aspects of our situation is how well-run Manchester City are. They had a long term vision that has come to fruition. Their player recruitment is amazing. Just look at their squad and the backup they have on the bench compared to us. Compare that to our player recruitment post-Fergie. Our signings have either been total flops (Sanchez and ADM) or ok-ish (Shaw, Miki and Pogba). As it happens the 2019 summer window signings may turn out the best post Fergie. You can actually see a philosophy behind those signings.

 

[Ludens the Red]

What exactly have we woken up to? I thought the general consensus was that we’re not very good and won’t be barking up any trees this season. You’ve got pundits tipping us for top four but they don’t really have a clue.
Weve not addressed the ‘attacking issues’ we had in our squad (although James has done well) . We’ve actually weakened ourselves outside our defence and so days like today are kind of predictable albeit frustrating.

 

[Sandikan]

We all knew we're light up front and for decent midfield options.

But the shock is that it's Palace at home that have first exposed that.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

Reality has been staring us in the face for 6 years now. You get a glimmer of hope every now and then but it really does seem, as has been the case since SAF retired, were a broken football team.

 

[Mibabalou]

I feel like on here at least we knew where we'd end up 25;

30 points off whoever wins the league, fighting for 4th.

 

[passing-wind]

Losing to palace at home is a bad bad bad result. This is a team that are usually hinging on battling relegation. Solskjaer is not the long term solution for this club in my opinion but the next few months will decide his managerial career.

 

[SirAF]

United are not going to return to the elite of football permanently under the Glazer regime. It is that simple.

 

[edgecutter]

I always believed that we would finish 6th and that hasn't changed and anyone thinking otherwise is living in another dimension.

 

[BluesJr]

Reality has been staring us in the face for 6 years now. You get a glimmer of hope every now and then but it really does seem, as has been the case since SAF retired, were a broken football team.

Club*

 

[SER19]

No.

Fans will spend the next few months hammering players and manager, wilfully sidestepping the cancer at the core of united.

We are the glazers and Woodwards dream.

 

[The_Midfielder]

OP forgot , 2 penalties awarded, 2 missed

 

[El Zoido]

I always believed that we would finish 6th and that hasn't changed and anyone thinking otherwise is living in another dimension.

6th seems optimistic.

 

[hobbers]

Didn't wake me up anyway. Ole has about a 0.1% chance of still being manager by the summer.

And we're about 0.001% to finish 4th.

 

[DomesticTadpole]

How many seasons have we had one of these 'Has ****** result woke us up' threads?

 

[r3idy]

One of the worst aspects of our situation is how well-run Manchester City are. They had a long term vision that has come to fruition. Their player recruitment is amazing. Just look at their squad and the backup they have on the bench compared to us. Compare that to our player recruitment post-Fergie. Our signings have either been total flops (Sanchez and ADM) or ok-ish (Shaw, Miki and Pogba). As it happens the 2019 summer window signings may turn out the best post Fergie. You can actually see a philosophy behind those signings.

Don't buy that narrative. For decades City was run like an utter market stall under Swales and Shinawatra. Why Sign Terry Phelan for £2m when you can spend £5m on him.

Utd have to start somewhere. Im sure there will be more days like today. we're at ground zero (bad analogy I guess) but things will get better under Ole

 

[Snow]

OP forgot , 2 penalties awarded, 2 missed

Kind of the point of OP. We should have 9 points after 3 games now but we don't, we have 4. City, Spurs and Liverpool would have had 9 after these 3 matches, no doubt. The just have more quality than we do. We created very few chances against Wolves and Palace and they did not have to do very much to score more goals than us.

 

[Sandikan]

I always believed that we would finish 6th and that hasn't changed and anyone thinking otherwise is living in another dimension.

Chelsea are in a difficult position - that helps us. But needless to say, we can't repeat today, or we'll be well off.

 

[SirAnderson]

They put the camera on Fergie toward the end of the match and that was the saddest of all of this. Boss must be gutted to see us fall so far from the perch he put us on.

 

[Ballache]

What reality? That we will finish between 5th and 7th? Most of us knew this already.

 

[sammsky1]

Not sure what your expectations were after our transfer window: mine is that we’ll do well to get 5th. We are still a quality CM, RW and CF short of having a certain top 4 squad.

Some of our fan base seem to think The Glazers have spent enough. Not anywhere close if we want to get into top 4.

This is fine if they are planning to keep OGS for 3-4 years no matter what, but I suspect they’ll sack him just as quickly as the previous managers.

I’m not expecting much and therefore losing interest.

 

[ship50]

Teams going through a bad patch should play us. In my mind, the reality was a 5th, 6th or 7th place so it is all still on course.

 

[NJM78]

Was awake already.

 

[ecantona7]

Woken us up to what exactly? A manager that is improving us, players that are fighting for the shirt until the last minute.

You would have been mental if you thought we were going to be challenging for anything this season. This was always a season to allow progress and that's what I'm seeing so far. Wait until more han 3 matches to judge a team.

 

[Melville Red]

What reality? That we will finish between 5th and 7th? Most of us knew this already.

Well I wouldn’t bet on it.
Oh Liverpool just awarded a penalty. Might just see how penalties are supposed to be taken.
Yep. 2-0.

 

[Irwin99]

Objective analysis is always going to be tough when you are a fan and 3 games is too small a sample size to make any final judgements on where we will finish for this season just yet. That being said, the warning signs were there from last season and in our 6 out of 10 transfer window this summer (after last season's debacle it needed to be a 10 out of 10 window and we surely had enough time to plan for that).

The big thing that i think should be a wake up call is that people shouldn't expect miracles from the young players and expect a class of 92 repeat. The coaches know the score concerning how ready some of the players are, they see them day in day out everyday whilst we don't and it looks as though Greenwood, Gomes etc. need more time. Unfortunately, we're just stuck with a lot of dross at the moment.

 

[Omahahaha]

This is a season of high variance, we are simply not as strong as the other top teams.

However, we do have players with a very high potential. And we are capable of beating other top teams on our day.

It's a knife in my heart seeing Lingard start every game.

 

[fastwalker]

Objective analysis is always going to be tough when you are a fan and 3 games is too small a sample size to make any final judgements on where we will finish for this season just yet. That being said, the warning signs were there from last season and in our 6 out of 10 transfer window this summer (after last season's debacle it needed to be a 10 out of 10 window and we surely had enough time to plan for that).

The big thing that i think should be a wake up call is that people shouldn't expect miracles from the young players and expect a class of 92 repeat. The coaches know the score concerning how ready some of the players are, they see them day in day out everyday whilst we don't and it looks as though Greenwood, Gomes etc. need more time. Unfortunately, we're just stuck with a lot of dross at the moment.

I think you are absolutely correct. I have highlighted your sentiment about 'warning signs' because in many way that highlights where we are now. We are seeing warning signs. There is not enough to draw conclusions about where we might finish, how good Ole might or might not be etc but there are definitely warning signs that suggest that this is likely to be a bigger job than anyone might have imagined. I really wonder whether our fans are prepared to be patient with this team. If the fans start to turn on the players at Old Trafford, we could see many more days like today.

 

[fergiesarmy1]

Another reason to sack Woodward but won’t happen because the owners love him. We are fecked, I’m more depressed about it now than the dark days of moyes and lvg. We are arsenal but worse.

 

[0le]

I don't think it has changed many views. Most people knew the team was shit in midfield. It is no surprise that we continue to struggle against defensive teams because we did not sign any creative midfielders.

 

[redshaw]

Already awake for it but it's probably quite a blow for Ole to lose a game at OT with an injury time winner to a poor Palace team.

I hope he can stop playing crap like Lingard or have a sub on to unlock defences like today. Sort out who is delivering dead balls to Maguire. Seems as though Ole is still just learning and very slow to make changes or instill anything.

 

[Beagle]

Why should it? There have been plenty of results like this in the last few years.

 

[izzydiggler]

I really don’t see how anybody can be surprised...the writing was in the wall when we changed very little from last year and only had the ‘hope’ that everyone magically got better and the youth team players were instantly good enough to start first team games.

 

[Casanova85]

Hell yes. Brutally, dramatically.

The result vs Chelsea was a mirage. 2-1 would have been more realistic. The draw vs Wolves + the missed penalty was already a generous glass of reality, but this travesty at OT vs Palace has been a huge punch right in the teeth; we are back to March-May 2019 folks. It's going to be a miserable autumn (+ Ole sacked) if they don't use today's defeat as a learning experience.

 

[Kopral Jono]

What reality? That we will finish between 5th and 7th? Most of us knew this already.

/thread

 

[McGrathsipan]

Club*

He was right saying team.
The Club/business is doing quite well.

 

[::sonny::]

Without a Herrera, Fellaini, Lukaku replacement this season will be one of the worst ever

10-15th place

 

[Nou_Camp99]

I thought we'd finish 5th at best on day 1. Still not changed my mind. Defence is better. Midfield and attack now worse.

The club is a shambles. Woodward needs to step down before things turn ugly.

 

[Varun]

The loss in itself was a shock but there's no real groundbreaking reality that it has exposed.

Our attack and midfield lacks quality. We have the pace to hurt teams when the game is open but not the quality on the ball to break down teams that defend deep.

The problem is further exacerbated when the only player who's actually creative and can create openings plays so deep its mind-boggling. That too to accommodate fecking Lingard in the 11.

When you combine lack of quality in the squad with poor management of what's available, the result is unlikely to be good.

We can't do much till Jan about the first problem but getting Pogba higher up the pitch and Lingard away from it is as easy fix. Just fecking play 2 midfielders behind the guy and let him create chances.

When the window opens, get a bloody attacker in

Mind you, I don't think we'll finish as far down as people expect. Thankfully we have dross around us so competing for the 4th spot is on if we get our fingers out our ass and fix what we can.

 

[Big Ben Foster]

How many seasons have we had one of these 'Has ****** result woke us up' threads?

Has this thread woken us up to the reality of these "has ****** result woken us up" threads?