How can we build consistency into this United side?

fastwalker

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I get that there are no easy answers to this question of consistency, but I am putting it out there anyway...

This season has been a roller coaster ride for United fans. We have been frustratingly inconsistent almost from the off. Our weaknesses have been exposed, yet we have also produced some outstanding results. At the same time, we have seen individual performances vary from the truly outstanding to the utterly inept. It is hard from game to game to know what to expect with this United side. One step forward then one step back, then one step forward again.

I get that no side can ever play consistently well all the time. I also get the impact that injuries have on consistent performance. But by itself, that cannot be an excuse. After all, this season we have lost and drawn with some of our best players (Pogba and Martial) in the side as well as without them. But consistency is not measured by perfection it is measured by proportion.

So what is having the biggest impact on our consistency? Is it team selection and Ole's determination to keep faith with underperforming players? Is it a lack of tactical acumen and in-game management? Is it a lack of mental toughness and resilience to find solutions when nothing else seems to work? Is it the lack of on-pitch leaders to set standards for others to follow? Is it that this crop of United players actually aren't prepared to put in the graft required to emulate United sides of the past? Is it that some of our players are just too cosy and friendly with our manager and no longer feel the weight of the badge? Is it all of the above or no of the above?

Thoughts please....
 

Hughie77

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Time, patience, and good transfer windows, then you should see consitancey. Right players in right positions for right style of play. Pool had to wait nearly 2 to 3 seasons to get the right players to fit into the way they play. Salah, VVD, Alisson you could put Firmino in that. Also they had to wait for the consistency with there full backs, that was work, Trent, Robinson were not the finished article by far, games games games they got better in the way the team operates. Same with any rebuild you have to be patient especially with younger players.
 

AshRK

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It will not be a quick fix. There will be frustrating results but with right management and acquiring right players we will become more consistent.
 

GazTheLegend

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Wait for them to get older.

Young players are inconsistent. Look at Ronaldo's stats when he first started playing vs Greenwood/Rashfords.

Also improve and swap out those that will never improve or have gone past their point of usefulness e.g. Matic etc and make our squad stronger - it's hard to be consistent when your first 11 is fantastic but your second 11 is championship quality.
 

He'sRaldo

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Experience I reckon. We're playing very young lads in key positions, some of them with their first senior seasons in said positions.
 

Tarrou

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I don't think there are any quick fixes (beyond signing the 2/3 quality players we're short)

We just need to work hard on making minor improvements in lots of areas, and it will come with experience
 

WR10

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Take Rashford for example. He just learned he can jump and head a ball yesterday. He's now gone off on twitter liking every video and post about Ronaldo jumping.

Kids need time to explore their body and their talents. Once they learn what they can and can't do they'll develop automatic patterns of play. Once they do that they have baseline confidence that they can start to rely on and then springboard off that with constant moments of brilliance. Martial is getting there now you can see.

Greenwood, Scott, Rashford, AWB, James, and Perreira - not so much yet. That means more than half of your potential starting 11 is still developing.

These kids are running off talent and confidence. They're not at a mental capacity yet where they are capable of independent problem-solving week in week out. They are still relying on their elders to problem solve for them. For example - we devastate top 6 teams because our elders have an easy working strategy that makes use of their talents. They don't have to think much - just go out there and do what they're told and they win.

Against teams that sit deep, they can't do what their elders tell them to do. They can't just kick and run and exploit space. They have to manipulate space on the pitch mentally and make independent decisions to create something out of nothing. It's no surprise when you see Mata/Matic/Pogba come back into the team and they bring a level of calmness and assertiveness. Those guys have mastered their own patterns of play that they can confidently venture creatively from if needed. More often than not you have to be on top form to be truly creative as a young player. Inconsistent young players struggle to do that week in week out. They need time to develop their own automatic patterns that they can rely on to be creative from.



It's growing pains. Just enjoy the ride lads.
 

Roboc7

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Change the tactics, the team is actually very consistent. Perform well against the better teams that like to have the ball and struggle against teams that let us have the ball. The inconsistent results are the wins against Newcastle, Brighton and Norwich not all the other points we have dropped against teams in bottom half.
 

He'sRaldo

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Change the tactics, the team is actually very consistent. Perform well against the better teams that like to have the ball and struggle against teams that let us have the ball. The inconsistent results are the wins against Newcastle, Brighton and Norwich not all the other points we have dropped against teams in bottom half.
The arsenals needed against the two types of setups are different, and the 2nd usually takes longer to develop.
 

Dante

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Leaders.

The more leaders, the better.

Look at Fergie's vintage teams, and you'll see that they're made up of eleven players who were undisputed captain material. And although Keane was famous for being 'the manager on the pitch', you could probably say the same about numerous other United players over the years (oftentimes, more than one on the same pitch). As such, we always had a core of highly intelligent players who understood the tactical complexities of the game in realtime.

When Rooney left, he talked about there not being any players who could 'maintain standards'. The Caf had a right old laugh about that because of his decline in form. But the truth is that he was actually referencing the title winning standards of character and attitude that the United teams of old used to have in bucket loads.

I remember once hearing Martin Keown talk about how it was always possible to tell the United players from the non-United players in the England training camps. Scholes and Neville used to fly into challenges during drills, and run themselves into the ground in 5-a-sides. They were terrible losers who simply didn't let up, no matter how trivial the competition.

The United squad these days is filled with too many nice losers. There's too much laughing and joking with the opposition, and too little focus on being at our very best for 90 minutes every game.

It's a cultural thing... a bit like a school in a particularly low-aspirational area. It doesn't matter how clever the kids there are when the underlying culture being passed on from generation to generation is so difficult to shake off. That's why our transition is taking so long, and why Ole is building from a foundation of Academy graduates. The di Marias, Depays and Scheweinsteiger of this world were the wrong players, at the wrong time, in the wrong environment.

McTominay is a good start, even though he'll end up being a squad player in the long run. I'm hopeful about Maguire, Rashford, AWB, Greenwood, Tuanzebe and Fred one day being the heartbeat of the club. Hopefully a few of the rest can develop the same laser focus and winning drive.
 
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Forevergiggs1

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By having an exceptional manager, an exceptional leader on the pitch and all round quality squad depth. May get there by 2027.
 

fps

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Coaching the midfield so against a low block they are further up the pitch, with better starting central midfielders (at least one). Next, working on the intricate passing and overloading of flanks that City do so well. and signing more appropriate 10 and left-back options as well as a worldie right-wing in order to implement those things.
 

fps

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Leaders.

The more leaders, the better.

Look at Fergie's vintage teams, and you'll see that they're made up of eleven players who were undisputed captain material. And although Keane was famous for being 'the manager on the pitch', you could probably say the same about numerous other United players over the years (oftentimes, more than one on the same pitch). As such, we always had a core of highly intelligent players who understood the tactical complexities of the game in realtime.

When Rooney left, he talked about there not being any players who could 'maintain standards'. The Caf had a right old laugh about that because of his decline in form. But the truth is that he was actually referencing the title winning standards of character and attitude that the United teams of old used to have in bucket loads.

I remember once hearing Martin Keown talk about how it was always possible to tell the United players from the non-United players in the England training camps. Scholes and Neville used to fly into challenges during drills, and run themselves into the ground in 5-a-sides. They were terrible losers who simply didn't let up, no matter how trivial the competition.

The United squad these days is filled with too many nice losers. There's too much laughing and joking with the opposition, and too little focus on being at our very best for 90 minutes every game.

It's a cultural thing... a bit like a school in a particularly low-aspirational area. It doesn't matter how clever the kids there are when the underlying culture being passed on from generation to generation is so difficult to shake off. That's why our transition is taking so long, and why Ole is building from a foundation of Academy graduates. The di Marias, Depays and Scheweinsteiger of this world were the wrong players, at the wrong time, in the wrong environment.

McTominay is a good start, even though he'll end up being a squad player in the long run. I'm hopeful about Maguire, Rashford, AWB, Greenwood, Tuanzebe and Fred one day being the heartbeat of the club. Hopefully a few of the rest can develop the same laser focus and winning drive.
Excellent, post, as a teacher the analogy with a school in a low-aspirational area is very good, particularly because such direction for change has to come right from the top down and through every facet of the organisation.
 

tjb

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Depth and Quality. Sounds simple, but these, moreso than mentality are what are killing us at the moment. I believe Pogba fit would have us top 4 at the moment. But i also believe we would still have lost or drawn enough games to be out of the title race. Our midfield positions lack depth and quality. Our attack for the most part lacks depth and a touch of experience. If these two areas are fixed, i think we would be consistent enough to challenge for the league.
 

cyril C

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Take Rashford for example. He just learned he can jump and head a ball yesterday. He's now gone off on twitter liking every video and post about Ronaldo jumping.

Kids need time to explore their body and their talents. Once they learn what they can and can't do they'll develop automatic patterns of play. Once they do that they have baseline confidence that they can start to rely on and then springboard off that with constant moments of brilliance. Martial is getting there now you can see.

Greenwood, Scott, Rashford, AWB, James, and Perreira - not so much yet. That means more than half of your potential starting 11 is still developing.

These kids are running off talent and confidence. They're not at a mental capacity yet where they are capable of independent problem-solving week in week out. They are still relying on their elders to problem solve for them. For example - we devastate top 6 teams because our elders have an easy working strategy that makes use of their talents. They don't have to think much - just go out there and do what they're told and they win.

Against teams that sit deep, they can't do what their elders tell them to do. They can't just kick and run and exploit space. They have to manipulate space on the pitch mentally and make independent decisions to create something out of nothing. It's no surprise when you see Mata/Matic/Pogba come back into the team and they bring a level of calmness and assertiveness. Those guys have mastered their own patterns of play that they can confidently venture creatively from if needed. More often than not you have to be on top form to be truly creative as a young player. Inconsistent young players struggle to do that week in week out. They need time to develop their own automatic patterns that they can rely on to be creative from.



It's growing pains. Just enjoy the ride lads.
You sound like players learn the basic when they are 23. Kids learn the basic when they are 13-16. Basic routine of any striker, or attacking player, is to have 1 attack the front post, 1 at the back post, and if there is a 3rd player, go to the spot. Why we failed to score from cross in the past few years (instead of Lukaku and Fellaini), because no-one bother to run into the box, they just run after the player for the ball. If these kids have forgotten how to make the run, the coaches should have drilled this into their training 100 times a day....

Instead of spending time on practising post-goal routine...
 

The Don

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Teams that are being praised for the way they play (compared to us) have had the same manager for a number of years and the same core of their squad and for the most part, settled sides, with not too many injuries.
Our team has went through more upheaval, turmoil and changes, than most. It's been near impossible to find consistency under those circumstances. Whoever the manager is, needs time to build his own squad and time to get them all playing the same way.
 

UNITED ACADEMY

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I get that there are no easy answers to this question of consistency, but I am putting it out there anyway...

This season has been a roller coaster ride for United fans. We have been frustratingly inconsistent almost from the off. Our weaknesses have been exposed, yet we have also produced some outstanding results. At the same time, we have seen individual performances vary from the truly outstanding to the utterly inept. It is hard from game to game to know what to expect with this United side. One step forward then one step back, then one step forward again.

I get that no side can ever play consistently well all the time. I also get the impact that injuries have on consistent performance. But by itself, that cannot be an excuse. After all, this season we have lost and drawn with some of our best players (Pogba and Martial) in the side as well as without them. But consistency is not measured by perfection it is measured by proportion.

So what is having the biggest impact on our consistency? Is it team selection and Ole's determination to keep faith with underperforming players? Is it a lack of tactical acumen and in-game management? Is it a lack of mental toughness and resilience to find solutions when nothing else seems to work? Is it the lack of on-pitch leaders to set standards for others to follow? Is it that this crop of United players actually aren't prepared to put in the graft required to emulate United sides of the past? Is it that some of our players are just too cosy and friendly with our manager and no longer feel the weight of the badge? Is it all of the above or no of the above?

Thoughts please....
Young players tend to be inconsistent. To build consistency is has to be through coaching & playing time to improve & develop players which require time and this is what we are doing right now. The fans just need to understand this.
 

F-A-C-T-S

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I get that there are no easy answers to this question of consistency, but I am putting it out there anyway...

This season has been a roller coaster ride for United fans. We have been frustratingly inconsistent almost from the off. Our weaknesses have been exposed, yet we have also produced some outstanding results. At the same time, we have seen individual performances vary from the truly outstanding to the utterly inept. It is hard from game to game to know what to expect with this United side. One step forward then one step back, then one step forward again.

I get that no side can ever play consistently well all the time. I also get the impact that injuries have on consistent performance. But by itself, that cannot be an excuse. After all, this season we have lost and drawn with some of our best players (Pogba and Martial) in the side as well as without them. But consistency is not measured by perfection it is measured by proportion.

So what is having the biggest impact on our consistency? Is it team selection and Ole's determination to keep faith with underperforming players? Is it a lack of tactical acumen and in-game management? Is it a lack of mental toughness and resilience to find solutions when nothing else seems to work? Is it the lack of on-pitch leaders to set standards for others to follow? Is it that this crop of United players actually aren't prepared to put in the graft required to emulate United sides of the past? Is it that some of our players are just too cosy and friendly with our manager and no longer feel the weight of the badge? Is it all of the above or no of the above?

Thoughts please....
I feel this is very straightforward. The answer is not rocket science, you almost got to it but didn't mention it as one of your reasons. It's got nothing to do with players working hard or chopping and changing. The simple reason for our inconsistency is that the team is not good enough.

And I'll tell you what, fans who don't see this are going to go through a lot of heartache asking themselves why a Manchester United side is not performing as it should be and judging current circumstances on past achievements. This team has lots of mediocre players in it. And going forward only a handful are good enough to stay in the should it be improved to accomplish the levels we fee we deserve.

We've become very tolerant of mediocrity and that's part of the problem. We spend time justifying why certain players are performing as they are or failing to perform as they should and that they should be given more chances to prove themselves when in reality they are not good enough and never will be (Lingard )

Fans see our results against the likes of City, Liverpool, Leicester and think that we are a top team but like most mid table teams we are a bunch of game raising cnuts.

It really is that simple and when we get back to the top soon I hope (more likely 3+ years) we will look back at this period and laugh at some of the players who wore our shirt . So sit back, accept we are not good enough, don't expect much, football is cyclical, it will be our cycle soon and maybe avoid watching Liverpool, they rarely ever lose so it makes everything worse
 

TheLord

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United are going nowhere unless a few things happen asap.
1. Clueless Woodie is fired.
2. Ole is replaced by an "actual" manager.
3. A few transfer windows where players are bought after thoughtful long term planning. This is not easy given the current state of affairs.
4. Some luck. Eg, Mo Salah.

And of course, number one is a bigger priority than everything else at the moment.
 

Acheron

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I think it's a matter of implementing a very defined style and having the right players and manager to implement and develop. So while it sounds simple but in your current state it's going to take time and very good planning and a lot of resources to build the right platform.
 

TheLord

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United are going nowhere unless a few things happen asap.
1. Clueless Woodie is fired.
2. Ole is replaced by an "actual" manager.
3. A few transfer windows where players are bought after thoughtful long term planning. This is not easy given the current state of affairs.
4. Some luck. Eg, Mo Salah.

And of course, number one is a bigger priority than everything else at the moment.
And may I add...
Actual football takes precedence over commercial matters.
 

Sky1981

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We're fecking manchester united, we paid top dollars for players. Learn your trade somewhere else

For the love of god by the looks of some posts in here we're some welfare foundations where every kids is special. Rashford can jump and head the ball? Here have a medal and a feel good videos. Martial starts to finally runs more, here have a thread on being the most hardworking players. Every little thing that you know any footballer earning hundreds of thousands per week should be doing is applauded.

No wonder we're shite.

How to improve? Stop rewarding mediocrity, demand more, stop giving them excuse. They're supposed to be the top 1percent athlete, start acting playing paid like one
 

King7Eric

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Leaders.

The more leaders, the better.

Look at Fergie's vintage teams, and you'll see that they're made up of eleven players who were undisputed captain material. And although Keane was famous for being 'the manager on the pitch', you could probably say the same about numerous other United players over the years (oftentimes, more than one on the same pitch). As such, we always had a core of highly intelligent players who understood the tactical complexities of the game in realtime.

When Rooney left, he talked about there not being any players who could 'maintain standards'. The Caf had a right old laugh about that because of his decline in form. But the truth is that he was actually referencing the title winning standards of character and attitude that the United teams of old used to have in bucket loads.

I remember once hearing Martin Keown talk about how it was always possible to tell the United players from the non-United players in the England training camps. Scholes and Neville used to fly into challenges during drills, and run themselves into the ground in 5-a-sides. They were terrible losers who simply didn't let up, no matter how trivial the competition.

The United squad these days is filled with too many nice losers. There's too much laughing and joking with the opposition, and too little focus on being at our very best for 90 minutes every game.

It's a cultural thing... a bit like a school in a particularly low-aspirational area. It doesn't matter how clever the kids there are when the underlying culture being passed on from generation to generation is so difficult to shake off. That's why our transition is taking so long, and why Ole is building from a foundation of Academy graduates. The di Marias, Depays and Scheweinsteiger of this world were the wrong players, at the wrong time, in the wrong environment.

McTominay is a good start, even though he'll end up being a squad player in the long run. I'm hopeful about Maguire, Rashford, AWB, Greenwood, Tuanzebe and Fred one day being the heartbeat of the club. Hopefully a few of the rest can develop the same laser focus and winning drive.
Well said. This is precisely what Ole means when he again and again refers to trying to incorporate a culture change at the club. This is the biggest difference between him and someone like Jose and why I think we should persevere with Ole. Jose wanted to build a successful team, but Ole wants us to go back to a successful club, like we were under SAF.
 

BAMSOLA

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Getting a natural goal scorer up front as we have a problem with wastefulness which means that we often lose games that we start well due to nerves caused by not putting away good chances.

A quick short term fix would be a switch to 4 3 3 which would allow us better protection of the back 4 to stop conceding cheap goals and better control of overall possession. We had our best run last season playing that way and got the best from pogba that way.

Better midfielders. Whilst mctominay and fred have done well at times this season they cannot be the general standard and instead represent good squad options. We need more numbers there and better starting quality and there are plenty of cms around Europe playing for less fashionable clubs who could come in and improve the standard.
 

Greck

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Player and coaching improvement. The latter can't be bought in x amount of transfer windows unless we think it's possible to amass so much talent that it won't be necessary. Even then it's now beyond doubt that a playing system beats a reliance on individual brilliance over the course of a season. We aren't buying our way out of this one