How are we SO bad?

[steve.crowford]

So what's the story with this position then?
Have the club completely gone off the idea or was there just no suitable candidate for the DoF role?

More power for Ed Woodward I suppose. And as long as he keeps on getting those lucrative sponsorship deals to fill the Glazer's pockets, his position won't come under threat. It's frustrating as a United fan, but it's another transfer window where we've been left wondering whether Woodward actually has any idea of how to improve our football team, by fully backing the clubs manager in the transfer window or his interests solely lie on the business side of things? Sadly, I think we all know the answer to that.

It's clear as day that this club needs a real football man, in a DoF role, to assist the manager on improving the team. I actually believed this summer we'd possibly see that change come in to play and just maybe, potentially see this club moving in the right direction. But yet again, we've been let down. It's hard to accept, but we're actually falling further behind all of our main rivals at this point and it's hard to be optimistic about the future of this club.

 

[Mcking]

Dunno if it's got to do with quality, mentality or coaching, but the team is a complete shit show. Watching the Bournemouth game again, it is not difficult to spot why we struggle to dominate territory, create chances and score goals, and it's been the case in most games this season.

• Our CBs hover a lot on the ball and spend most of possession passing between themselves. There are sometimes when Maguire receives the ball and just stands despite Young being open on the left.
• Our fullbacks stay very deep to receive the ball, almost in-line with our CBs, meaning that they are easily closed down and rarely receive the ball in threatening positions. They should be encouraged to push forward when the central players have the ball.
• Our centre midfielders are guilty of hiding and wasting possession especially McTominay.
• Our attacking midfielders seem incapable of holding the ball and creating. Pereira loses the ball the moment he comes in contact with an opponent, Lingard looks completely bereft of confidence and Mata has to be labelled a coward at this point.
• The players control almost every pass backwards. No one seems to want to be on the front foot, and just passes responsibility to others
• We seem incapable of creating space on the flanks. You rarely see the fullback running beyond a forward or a flanker with space to swing a ball in.
• There's little activity in the box. Even when we manage to get forward, no one is actively attacking the goal. I can't remember any of our players even pouncing on a chance from a rebound this season talk of scoring from one.
• A lot of times when an attacker receives the ball, they'd be completely isolated because no one is supporting them and our fullbacks are still in line with our centrebacks
• We seem incapable of conjuring passing moves due to some the reasons mentioned above
• Our forwards can't win duels for shit - aerial or ground duels. Rashford, Martial are both terrible on the air, Pereira just keeps getting dispossessed, and James goes to ground at every duel.
• There's little urgency and our players seem happy just keeping possession, and some just hide behind an opponent when we have the ball

All in all, we have some very average talents that shouldn't be starting for top clubs even on form. The likes of Young, Wan-Bissaka, McTominay, Pereira, James, Mata simply aren't up to the standards either physically or technically. I think the team is horribly coached too, and a good coach should be able to paper over some cracks. Right now, the team and the players look like deers in the headlights.

 

[Backrow Singer]

Because the club and fans make mediocre players out to be good players.

 

[Ban]

Because the club and fans make mediocre players out to be good players.

Fans don't have anything to do with it.

 

[Backrow Singer]

Fans don't have anything to do with it.

It’s all your fault.

 

[Ban]

It’s all your fault.

You're incredibly cruel.

 

[Rafaeldagold]

Poor players & an even poorer manager.

Simple really & we can change the manager easily but we haven’t so we deserve a shite season

 

[NoLogo]

I'm starting to think it's actually our coaching staff. Think about, what is something we have seen under every manager so far? Yeah underperforming players. While under Klopp, Guardiola and now even Rodgers players seem to get better and better, almost any player we buy will end up being very mediocre or even down right bad. Of course some of that is down to not doing a good job in scouting and not identifying key targets but it's striking that in the last 6 years I can't remember a player, bar the occasional youth team player, that actually improved during his time with us. None.

There is another point that actually makes me point towards bad training and coaching staff which is the fact that 8 out of 10 games the lads looke like a bunch of professional footballers who just met on the parking lot 30 minutes ago and decided to play a pickup game of professional football. There is so little chemistry in our team it's baffling. Again look at what Liverpool and City are doing, they look like a well oiled machine everyone knows exactly that if they win the ball back either Mané or Salah is going to start a run on the wings or one of the wing backs is coming up from deep to start and attack. But you don't even need to watch at City or Liverpool to see that most teams have somewhat of a concrete plan on what to do with the ball once they get it and players somewhat understand what their team-mates are going to do. We have non of that. If you showed me a random game of ours with blurred faces and shirts and told me these players are playing together for the first time I wouldn't call you crazy.

So yeah our transfers haven't been great but the fact that we don't improve players or manage to get a resemblance of team cohesion going with players that have been playing together for years actually makes me think we don't only need some additional top players but also better training staff.

 

[Lee565]

Because Solskjear spent transfer money poorly, our midfield and attack was severely lacking numbers whilst we still had smalling, Jones, rojo, bailly, lindelof and Tuanzebe for 2 central defence positions.

Trippier-lindelof-tuanzebe-shaw

That back line would have saved us 100-110 million, we could have then spent that on a defensive midfielder like ndidi or partey and also brought tielemans with about 20-25 million still to spare.

 

[Dave Smith]

The squad is poor and OSG is an unproven manager. People talk about Maguire and AWB as if they are great signings but I do not see them walking into many of the current top 4 sides. The way I look at it, have Utd improved that much with them in the side? Sure they are better than what went before but that is not saying much considering who they replaced. Further, have Leicester or Palace missed them? Again I would say no and there is even an arguement to say that Leicester have actually improved at CB this year, whilst Chelsea is a special situation as they have had they best youth set up in Europe for about the past decade and are now starting to actually go with them.

When I look at the squad I can only see Dave and Pogba (on his day) as current squad players who are top level, whilst the next set of good players are ones early in their career who are going to be inconsistent, Rashford, James and McTommy.

 

[Champagne Football]

We desperately need an extra player or two who can create things. Ryan Fraser could be available in January. Christian Eriksen for the right money could be available

They are the only 2 playmaking forwards I can think of who we might have any chance of landing in January.

 

[marktan]

It's easy for me - consistently poor transfer windows post SAF and no coherent framework for all the different managerial signings to work together.

I bet if you considered all the players SAF left and all the signings we've had since, you could come up with a pretty strong first XI. But there's just no strategy or idea in place for them - and I believe that comes from not having a DOF or a footballing board to help steer recruitment.

It's not really that complex - look at Leceister. A top goal keeper and two good CBs, which we have. Two very good attacking full backs, which we don't have. A technical midfield, which we don't have. A top striker, which we don't have. Two tricky wide players, which we sort of have (and Leceister don't). The template is to basically copy Liverpool or City, but somehow we keep going through transfer windows without making progressive signings.

 

[FootyGirl88]

Because Solskjear spent transfer money poorly, our midfield and attack was severely lacking numbers whilst we still had smalling, Jones, rojo, bailly, lindelof and Tuanzebe for 2 central defence positions.

Trippier-lindelof-tuanzebe-shaw

That back line would have saved us 100-110 million, we could have then spent that on a defensive midfielder like ndidi or partey and also brought tielemans with about 20-25 million still to spare.

That would be an awful CB pairing as both players prefer to play on the right and neither are strong in the air.

 

[DFreshKing]

The biggest problem I see is movement - or should I say a complete lack of it. None of the attacking players show for the ball with any purpose, they don't run the channels and with players like Rashford and James this is especially strange. The attackers always seem to take the ball back to goal and go that way, where is the touch on the half turn?

The other big issue is position, full backs are really deep, don't seem to overlap or inter link with anyone except CB's or deep pivots. Do we play 3 forwards? 3 attacking mids and false 9? I'm not entirely sure even when watching is very strange. Play pacers forwards but don't run the channels or on the shoulder of the defense. It's a tumescent, safe positional mess that encourages the other team to take the initiative and grow into the game.

Finally the midfield, lack of a killer pass, slow, no interest in stretching teams and using the space on the pitch. It's a horror show to be fair.

 

[EdinburghDevil]

It's lack of squad depth. No options to bring off the bench when the team is struggling in a game.

 

[The Irish Connection]

Watching the game back. I’ve said it before and it is still the case, the runs our attacking players make are badly timed, unintelligent or nonexistent.
The amount of times I see particularly rashford make a run when the midfielder is still getting the ball under control or turning or getting it out of his feet. It’s very unsynchronised.
Then on the few occasions decent runs are made the midfielders don’t make the pass.
There must be an element of coaching there.

Also, if ole made the subs 10 minutes earlier we would probably have gotten the draw.

 

[::sonny::]

Rashford and Martial can’t play together

Too much inconsistency

 

[croadyman]

Because we are only able to beat teams who come out and play,they are the ones who leave spaces which we can exploit with pace.

Any time a team just sits in and plays with a low block then we are absolutely clueless in how to break them down.

Honestly think the last few results were down to the opposition not being good enough rather than us playing well. The Norwich game reminded me of when we beat Burnley a couple of seasons back.

 

[Dave Smith]

Because we are only able to beat teams who come out and play,they are the ones who leave spaces which we can exploit with pace.

Any time a team just sits in and plays with a low block then we are absolutely clueless in how to break them down.

Honestly think the last few results were down to the opposition not being good enough rather than us playing well. The Norwich game reminded me of when we beat Burnley a couple of seasons back.

Good point. The best games or phases of play this season have come against teams that play on the front foot or are just rank bad at defending. When teams sit deep Utd just do not know how to play against it.