How are we SO bad?

[devilish]

Amazing how much nonsense I've seen written about Rangnick since that one tweet saying United were considering him for a role at Old Trafford. The closest thing out there to Ferguson is a guy in his 60s who has won far less in his entire career than Ferguson managed at Aberdeen? Good grief.

His managerial career was extremely average with him getting sacked more often than not and his fairly brief time as a DoF has been massively overhyped since we were linked with him.

I am not referring to his talent. On that regard no one is even near to SAF. I was referring to the roles he covered. In a world were modern managers are becoming glorified head coaches thanks to the introduction of people in more specialised roles (ex sporting directors, DOFs etc), I feel that Rangnick is the closest in terms of skillset and experience to Sir Alex. He's a manager who also covered the sporting director role and the head of sport and development soccer role.

I think that the best way to describe my thoughts is in a sentence he wrote about him joining us

"Can I be somebody who can influence areas of development across the whole club?’ Otherwise you are only getting half of what I am capable of. If, after that, you can work together in a trustworthy and respectful way, then you are more likely to be successful.”

Good luck finding a modern manager/head coach who bothers about that.

 

[BigLebowski007]

Points (1) and (4) no longer apply six seasons and a billions spent in transfer fees later. I think the biggest issue at United is the lack of someone permanent with executive authority making decisions on the football side; these decisions include what is our long term football objective and identifying the kind of people we need to have in place to achieve that (managers, coaches, fitness, data people and players).

After 2013 I think the board tried to take a short cut to success. Bring in a top coach and spend loads of money on the team but unfortunately Van Gaal, much as he did well at the WC, was a top but personally flawed coach and though we did spend a lot we didn't spend that much like what Madrid did in 09 or last summer. We spent big on Di Maria, Herrera and Shaw but compromised massively in quality on Rojo and Blind whilst disposing of the last explosive winger we had at the time Nani.

It's been downhill ever since because every opportunity to strengthen has been hamstrung by the need to rectify the previous manager's poor decisions. We need a massive window where we get rid of every poor player we have and sign 5 or 6 players at once. Doing it piecemeal won't cut it because the few new players you do bring in will be corrupted by the dross that has overstayed and played a part in at least two managerial sackings.

Yes, exactly: billions were spent but decision making was poor. Earlier Sir Alex and David Gill were making choices together and they proved to be an amazing team. Now the decisions about managers and players were poor. And yes, every transfer window is first about bringing in players for the current manager vision. We need to stick with Ole longer imo, he is still doing the clearing job.

Plus I've also read somewhere that there wasn't much investment in youth academy as well which as a result is not comparable with other (top) clubs.

 

[POF]

You missed the point a bit. The video clearly says we don’t create enough from open play. And then goes on to explain a little bit about why regarding our passing and lack of risk taking in midfield

But still have the 5th best xG in the league? It was a garbled mess of a video/article. There was a diatribe about xG at the start of the video to suggest the form at the start of Ole's reign was a lucky abberation but then dismissed this season's stats. Does it not mean they're unlucky this season?

United clearly don't create enough chances and lack talent in attacking areas. But there was a clear "Ole is a shit coach" slant about that article and the most basic tactical analysis to attempt to prove it. "I'll say 'passing between the lines' and 'low block' to show how tactically clever I am".

The suggestion that Mata take the ball on the half turn and run at the defence was my favourite. The fearsome dribbler Mata who is renowned for his pacy dribbling game! It was a poor attempt at tactical analysis playing to a popular agenda so people would lap it up.

The reason United create little and have a good defence is that they gutted their midfield and attack and spent £125m on 2 defenders. Just like Ole doesn't deserve massive credit for improving the defence because he simply bought better defenders, he doesn't deserve massive criticism for not getting more out of the worst squad of attackers/midfielders the club has had in 30 years.

 

[Cliche Guevara]

Amazing how much nonsense I've seen written about Rangnick since that one tweet saying United were considering him for a role at Old Trafford. The closest thing out there to Ferguson is a guy in his 60s who has won far less in his entire career than Ferguson managed at Aberdeen? Good grief.

His managerial career was extremely average with him getting sacked more often than not and his fairly brief time as a DoF has been massively overhyped since we were linked with him.

Five days ago I’d never heard of the guy but it turns out he’s the most amazing guy in football. Not even sure saw any of the people now hero-worshipping him even mention him since before the start of the week.

Same with the player Zakaria.

 

[VeevaVee]

Wan B is a quality defender but not the attacking outlet we hoped he had in him yet, so doesn't make our football look any better.
Maguire is better than our other defenders but not so much so it makes much difference to our football.
Pogba is massively hit and miss.
Remains to be seen whether Martial is good enough for the striker role long term.
We don't get the most out of Rashford for some reason, but he's also majorly hit and miss.

The rest are young and learning, fresh out the womb, or just a bit shit.

We don't have the players to elevate us. Our defensive buys are good defensively, which is great, but it doesn't improve us much with the ball.

The coaching also seems to be an issue. From what Ole says, the players aren't really doing what he says, so either the coaching team isn't doing a good enough job or the players aren't doing it. Probably a bit of both.

 

[Massive Spanner]

United clearly don't create enough chances and lack talent in attacking areas. But there was a clear "Ole is a shit coach" slant about that article and the most basic tactical analysis to attempt to prove it. "I'll say 'passing between the lines' and 'low block' to show how tactically clever I am".

It's not a slant if it's true.

 

[Untd55]

We have a shockingly bad manager, who is tactically inept.

The signings were not as good as people are making out. Maguire is not a massive upgrade on Smalling. James is a decent player; squad player at best. Wan Bissaka is a good player, but you need a right-winger with him.

The sale and loss of players without replacements was a shocking decision. The team is worse now than it was last year, which is Solskjaer's fault.

The team is underperforming. I feel if we change the manager, we can do better than this.

 

[JJ12]

We will look better than what we are right now when Pogba comes back. But we just miss quality technical players in midfield - which is why we don't get the best out of Rashford and Martial. No service to them at all.

Brandon Williams is already our best attacking full back and I hope to see more of him.

 

[Massive Spanner]

Wan B is a quality defender but not the attacking outlet we hoped he had in him yet, so doesn't make our football look any better.
Maguire is better than our other defenders but not so much so it makes much difference to our football.
Pogba is massively hit and miss.
Remains to be seen whether Martial is good enough for the striker role long term.
We don't get the most out of Rashford for some reason, but he's also majorly hit and miss.

The rest are young and learning, fresh out the womb, or just a bit shit.

We don't have the players to elevate us. Our defensive buys are good defensively, which is great, but it doesn't improve us much with the ball.

The coaching also seems to be an issue. From what Ole says, the players aren't really doing what he says, so either the coaching team isn't doing a good enough job or the players aren't doing it. Probably a bit of both.

At the end of the day, these are still Premiership level footballers. I've seen way worse teams play way better football than us. This idea that people have on here that we're only playing like this because that's all our players are capable of is pure madness.

 

[VeevaVee]

At the end of the day, these are still Premiership level footballers. I've seen way worse teams play way better football than us. This idea that people have on here that we're only playing like this because that's all our players are capable of is pure madness.

Certainly have a point. There is something seemingly off about our talent though. So often with inaccurate passes, crosses, too many touches etc. Not just the obvious issues with our attacking plays.

 

[Vidyoyo]

Good question. I don't have an answer but will say that we're so boring to watch that I now hardly bother. I've recently listened to more games on the radio over streaming because it's better to do something else.

EDIT: As an answer though, it's likely because our attackers are rubbish. Martial and Rashford are very overrated players. Pogba is inconsistent, and Mata and Lingard are pure crap. James is simply a raw talent thrust into the starting XI because we have no better options. We don't have attacking fullbacks nor a good AM either.

Why should we expect to play good attacking football who can control a game when this is what we've got?

 

[Skills]

We have a 4-6th level squad, managed by a league 1 level manager who combined are putting out 12-15th position performances. Sounds about right.

 

[Eckers99]

At the end of the day, these are still Premiership level footballers. I've seen way worse teams play way better football than us. This idea that people have on here that we're only playing like this because that's all our players are capable of is pure madness.

Yeah, this is true. There's no way the current squad, even with all its obvious flaws, is as bad as we've seen over the past 6 or 7 months. We're consistently less than the sum of our parts, which is 100% on Ole and the coaches.

 

[Needham]

Maybe we're just way ahead of our time.

 

[adexkola]

Not sure how true this is

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

 

[Vidyoyo]

Yeah, this is true. There's no way the current squad, even with all its obvious flaws, is as bad as we've seen over the past 6 or 7 months. We're consistently less than the sum of our parts, which is 100% on Ole and the coaches.

I think it is personally. We have no cohesion except for in defence. Our attack is such a mismatch of individuals who can't gel (minus maybe Pogba and Rashford).

 

[POF]

At the end of the day, these are still Premiership level footballers. I've seen way worse teams play way better football than us. This idea that people have on here that we're only playing like this because that's all our players are capable of is pure madness.

How many EPL teams would 2 of Pereira, Mata and Lingard in current form get into the starting line up in key attacking roles every week? Not many in the top 10.

Moments of quality by top players win close games. The West Ham game was a real case in point. West Ham won that game because of 2 moments of individual quality by Yarmolenko and Cresswell that United just didn't have the quality to match.

Maybe Ole is a terrible coach but if he had Ronaldo in this team, United would be third.

 

[bondsname]

Don’t over complicate it.

Our 2 most creative players have been injured.

By the end of the season we will be in the top 4 - comfortably.

This. When Martial, Shaw and Pogba get back to full fitness, there will be no more excuses. The team we put out yesterday was really bad, with a mixture of young players and deadwood, and understandbly we played way below our target level.

If nothing changes when we get our starting 11 back, Ole has to fecking leave.

 

[redshaw]

Bad coaching, a loss of some players and a greater fear of losing under Ole. The insipid football of this season is very much the same as LVG's second season and we're on course to score about 40 odd goals. We scored 49 under LVG's second and teams above and under scored way more.

 

[Eckers99]

This. When Martial, Shaw and Pogba get back to full fitness, there will be no more excuses. The team we put out yesterday was really bad, with a mixture of young players and deadwood, and understandbly we played way below our target level.

If nothing changes when we get our starting 11 back, Ole has to fecking leave.

This is all well and good but do you genuinely believe that those 3 players will get fit and stay fit? At least 1 of them will be injured again within weeks.

 

[Judge Red]

The answer is always ‘every single aspect of the club’. Nothing is good. Even we as fans go into matches against bottom of the table sides accepting we’ll be humiliated.

 

[bonothom]

Get rid of Ole - he's utterly clueless. He's the problem for me. Is the squad good enough to win the league? No. Is it good enough to dominate in Belgrade? It bloody well is.

Yeah but Ole has a plan and he's playing the youth. Forget the results, forget the performances, forget we could be in the Championship next season, Ole's building for the future and thats the most important thing.

 

[Maticmaker]

How are we not bad? I'm genuinely curious as to how anyone can think that.

There is a difference between being bad, and being not as good as we would wish to be.

Sure our position in the league is very disappointing, especially if we had beaten Wolves and Southampton which our overall play in those games suggested we should have won, then we would have 14 points and be in the top 6.

Also nobody except perhaps West Ham has given us a 'seeing to', we are struggling to get our top players fit players fit and firing on all cylinders; to make and take chances, but the defence has been improved greatly with AWB and Maguire, and Axel and young Brandon looking good too!

As I said, not as good as we would wish to be, but not bad!

 

[Alabaster Codify7]

Combination of poor players and bad coaching. From Ole through to the substitutes bench, we are not a top club. We are badly staffed from top to bottom.

How many of our players would honestly get into the starting 11 of Liverpool, City or any of the big clubs in Europe?

DDG, Maguire possibly, AWB (in a few years perhaps), Pogba.

That's it. Nobody else.

That right there is your answer. But it's not just the fact that the players are shite - Ole has assembled and / or approved the presence of this bunch of jokers. Woodward has overseen the entire thing. Both are culpable to some extent.

Our squad is midtable, but it's not relegation zone standard which is how we have been performing since he was made permanent manager. There is only one person to blame for that. Once he's fired, a few months later, even his staunchest supporters will start rewriting their own narrative on Ole.

 

[Eric7C]

There is a difference between being bad, and being not as good as we would wish to be.

Sure our position in the league is very disappointing, especially if we had beaten Wolves and Southampton which our overall play in those games suggested we should have won, then we would have 14 points and be in the top 6.

Also nobody except perhaps West Ham has given us a 'seeing to', we are struggling to get our top players fit players fit and firing on all cylinders; to make and take chances, but the defence has been improved greatly with AWB and Maguire, and Axel and young Brandon looking good too!

As I said, not as good as we would wish to be, but not bad!

You're kind of just playing with words here. We are bad! in relation to what you expect for United. Actually, we are just plain bad! when Brighton pass the ball and move better than us.

 

[Alabaster Codify7]

There is a difference between being bad, and being not as good as we would wish to be.

Sure our position in the league is very disappointing, especially if we had beaten Wolves and Southampton which our overall play in those games suggested we should have won, then we would have 14 points and be in the top 6.

Also nobody except perhaps West Ham has given us a 'seeing to', we are struggling to get our top players fit players fit and firing on all cylinders; to make and take chances, but the defence has been improved greatly with AWB and Maguire, and Axel and young Brandon looking good too!

As I said, not as good as we would wish to be, but not bad!

Mate. We are on the borderline of the relegation zone.

This is bad. This is not 'what we wish to be' - that'd be us around 3pts off third, alternating between wins and draws and scoring about twice as many goals as we are right now.

This is not bad, actually. This is horrendous. The only thing that could make our current situation worse is actual relegation - that fact is nothing if not very, very bad indeed for a club like ours.

 

[kidbob]

If a guy can come in and get Brighton playing good football then it's clearly the coaching, simple as that. We complain about the technical level of our players but Brighton ain't got a team full of them either. That and we have a terribly balanced squad. For example Mata is past it now but he'd have been an excellent number 10 when we first signed him but we wasted him as a right winger. Too many players playing where they aren't comfortable.

No team cohesion causing players to take extra time to make decisions. This thread feeds directly into @kouroux one about not playing obvious passes. The lack of a cohesive system almost seems to lead to a 'do it myself attitude' instead of trusting the team.

No Nani type player that can beat a man or score the odd screamer.

However since before Fergie our main issue is lack of movement when someone has the ball. @noodlehair has a thread on this from years ago and it's even more relevant now.

The scary thing is we can see this but management seemingly can't. As I said that if someone like Glen Murray can play in a team that plays good football then any of ours can.

In hindsight we should have stick with LVG. Football wasn't pretty but the guy knee how he wanted to play and gave us our best performances against the other top sides. Would have been better for Gomes et all too. Maybe we were too impatient and he just needed the chance to get in the right players (like Pep and Klopp did except LVG was worse in the market, DOF might have helped with that!!). Bottom line is we need a progressive manager and we need to stick with him as long as we see improvement in the football.

 

[Axle17]

The difference that stands out for me:

- We never shoot

No matter where we are we just never take our chances. How have we become so inept with taking a shot?

 

[Van Piorsing]

Is there too much pressure ?

Absolutely. Signing young players is great, but apart from Maguire there's absolutely no leaders in this team. Pogba despite world class talent is moody and Matić with Mata can't even play full 90 minutes in a high tempo.

In order for game plan to work Solskjaer probably needs players who will make sure it's fully realised on the pitch and since Herrera gone, there's absolute anarchy in midfield, in almost every match. We panic and suddenly Partizan is putting pressure like we're playing against Pep's Barcelona.

SAF could have team full of leaders and on top of that he also had players with tough character to play against just like Solskjaer, Ruud or even Tevez.

 

[sunama]

You are a plastic entitled glory hunter. You should support another club. Good football? Pfft. Hipster.

Or something.

Exactly!
How dare you demand that we play attacking football and not park the bus against sides like Partizan.
We should accept that a club like MUFC should only win matches when we are awarded (and score) penalties.
Aside from that, you should thank yourself happy that we can scrape a draw in some of the other matches.

 

[Offside]

Starting to think that a lot of players don't have the balls to play for such a big club. There's a carefree attitude at Chelsea at the moment that you just don't get at United. Too much pressure on panzies like Rashford and Martial, so they under perform massively.

We need players with a United mentality.

 

[Alabaster Codify7]

The difference that stands out for me:

- We never shoot

No matter where we are we just never take our chances. How have we become so inept with taking a shot?

Yeah it's something that I always notice. I can only imagine nobody (apart from Rashford who seems to do so at random but at least he tries) has the bollocks to try and fail, basically. They pass the responsibility to the closest player to them instead, who then does the same. Lack of quality and lack of confidence.

 

[sunama]

This. We could have bounced back but LVG and Mou spend so much cash on dross. Its a shame Ole wasnt given the amount they spend because his signings have been decent.

But Oles tactics and coaching has been seen as some of the worst we have seen at the club, in recent times.

 

[RedDevil@84]

Option A; Manager/Coaching staff know jacks**t about coaching
Option B: Manager/Coaching staff know their stuff, but have zero authority. Players do whatever they want
Option C: Players are so low quality, that they cant grasp what manager/coach wants them to do.

 

[SAFMUTD]

We have 1 maybe 2 worldclass players, 4-5 good ones and the rest are medium-low table team players. We also have a few starting players injured and our confidence is on the ground due to last months results.

But most importantly we have a poor poor manager.

 

[Fosu-Mens]

Option A; Manager/Coaching staff know jacks**t about coaching
Option B: Manager/Coaching staff know their stuff, but have zero authority. Players do whatever they want
Option C: Players are so low quality, that they cant grasp what manager/coach wants them to do.

Option D: Manager/Coaching staff/high number of the players are so bad that the only possible outcome for us to win is to play Mourinhostyle football.

 

[Tom Cato]

Why is no one fawning over the fact that Brandon Williams just proved himself a fantastic option at Leftback?

 

[DVG7]

Starting to think that a lot of players don't have the balls to play for such a big club. There's a carefree attitude at Chelsea at the moment that you just don't get at United. Too much pressure on panzies like Rashford and Martial, so they under perform massively.

We need players with a United mentality.

Whilst I agree with this, i'm not sure its something you can buy. Even now i'd be hard pressed to find players who have that sort of mentality already ingrained, and i'd probably still have Ibrahimovic at the top of that particular list.

I do think our coaching staff are trying to instill a "United mentality" into the players. Remember that we only see them working for a maximum of 3 hours a week, i'm sure behind the scenes a lot is going on from a psychological perspective and getting the players to understand whats expected of them as a Manchester United player. Irrespective of how well they might be performing, the club is full of individuals who do understand the DNA of the club and can probably steer the players on the right track.

With the average age of our starting line-up still south of 25, We have to have a little more faith that in a few years we'll be looking at a team that's had the necessary upheaval, the correct additions, and the mainstays of the team embodying the example of what a United player is supposed to be.

 

[Copa Mundial]

For me it's simple, our managers over the years have purchased or are playing bang average players.

Players such as Rashford, Lingard, Young, Lindelof, Matic, Mata, Martial, Fred, Pereira and McT are no way good enough for what we are trying to achieve. If these players weren't playing for Man Utd I guarantee nobody would be talking about them.

 

[Lentwood]

This should be obvious

We’re “so bad” for two reasons.

1) Most teams raise their game against us. We’re still a big scalp even though every team in England has had a turn at beating us.

2) Most teams still line-up 5-5-0 against us, especially at OT, because a point against Man Utd is still valued. We don’t have the ability to play the short, sharp, stick passing game required to break these teams down so we invariably look tumescent, passing it side-to-side until we inevitably over-commit and get done on the counter

If you want evidence of this, see Chelsea, Arsenal, Leicester and Liverpool games - we’re not that bad when teams attempt to give us a game