Yeah the balance just isn't right with Maguire & Lindelof,makes me wonder if Ole just doesn't trust Bailly/Axels injury records.
Haven't you seen us how we play this season? The manager wants to play from the back and fair to say why he decided to let him go on loan.
Is there any reason why you replied to my post? What are you complaining of with my post?
If he does. Will he have enough money for other position? We are linked with Dayot, Koulibally & Joe Rodon. And three of them are quick but then again due this pandemic, the manager also need to be careful of spending his budget. If you look at our attack on the table, there is also a concern about it since offensively we are worse which is why lot of people believe the no 1 priority this summer is to improve the attack.
Yet none of Liverpool's midfielders have scored more goals than McTominay in the league this year. Oh, and they have played more games...
Yes. That one should not rate the defensive output in isolation, but also include how the team is at creating chances. If you do not concede a lot of chances does not automatically mean that you have a good defence. Could just mean that your team is defensive or playing with 10 men behind the ball. The same goes for an attack. I.e. Creating a number of chances does not mean that your attack is good, could also mean that you are playing attacking football.
It seems to me we've adopted a wrong philosophy from the first place.
Not much of an achievement for Liverpool this season then I guess.
Who you got in that list? I haven’t really watched much of the lower teams like your Wolves, Everton’s, Sheffield Uniteds and the likes but I would say without Laporte in their side we are better than City. Certainly better than Arsenal and probably better Spurs And Chelsea.
Firmino, Mane and Salah are pretty attacking minded. Then they have Robertson and Alexander-Trent who are attacking full backs as well. This season we played with just 3 players who are attacking minded (Martial, James and Rashford) with Greenwood used sparely. Our game was dull up until January when we finally added Bruno (ie our 3rd attacking minded). With so many players who are better in defending then attacking then no wonder why we're 4th in terms of goals conceded (actually we're joined 3rd with Leicester and Shitty). The price to that is that we're 6th place in terms of goal scored (21 goals less then Liverpool) and we're rather low in terms of assists as well. Our top assist man is at 11 place behind the likes of Robertson, Alexander-Trent, De Bruyne, Traore, Buendia, Silva, Mahrez, Son and co. Our second most prolific assist man aka Rashford is behind Digne, Aurier, Azpilicueta and god knows how many other full back.
We had more shots against Spurs & City in our last games. Possession doesn't mean sh*t. People need to realise the difference between United under Ole & under Jose. Under Ole, we are still creating chances, under Mourinho we purely playing 10 men behind the ball.
What are you on about? You might want to re-read what I mentioned in that post.
This. Are players, especially the full backs, aren't awful going forward talent wise.
We had a slightly higher exp goals ratio per game under Jose. More difference if considering Non-penalty expected goals.
You seem to be getting a little lost in the discussion here. To clarify, no one is saying those players don't aren't better in the defensive aspect of the game, but that doesn't make us a defensive team, it doesn't mean we are set up defensively, and it shouldn't detract from the job the defenders have been doing. With the exception of when we play the top few teams, we play a pretty attacking, expansive style that means we commit plenty of players forward. We don't have a DM shielding the defense and we don't have fullbacks that stay back. Our inability to convert that to goal scoring opportunities is our issue. I think your assertion that we field 7 defensive players is incredulous, and that logic would mean we must consider Liverpool as a 'defensive team too.' I have asked on a few occasions now what other teams play with 2 creative players in a midfield 3 as you previously suggested, and you've not answered. Kinda shows teams simply do not do that. If we play Pogba next to Bruno going forward, our midfield would be as ambitious as anyone's.
Just because player doesn't produce it doesn't mean they aren't attacking minded. Pereira pretty much have been playing in Bruno's role. While Pogba been injured. That's pretty much Martial, James & Rashford as attacking mind. Then we have Bruno & Pogba who are midfielder who considered as the creative players offer assists & also goals.
So McTominay With 7 goals in 75 matches is as creative as Phil Neville who scored 9 goals in 500+ matches. If you consider creative as being able to place very clever passes - then maybe. If you consider creative as producing goals and chances - then you are miles off target
Again, I still don't get your point about the Jose here. Under Ole we are creating chances, as you can see we even had more shots than Man City & Spurs in our last two games, we didn't even have a penalty against City 2-0 victory. Under Jose, we rarely create chances against those top teams. People think it's the same just because we don't have possession, the reality is that possession doesn't mean sh*t.
So you want us to just chuck the ball long to Martial & James? Well that's what I call wrong.
Phil played mostly as a full back while McT plays in midfield. I can see McT develop into a decent DM or a decent b2b who'll specialise more on the defensive side of the game. However he's not very creative.
Periera isn't very good in playing football. I don't think you can add AWB, McT, Fred and co to that category. The latter are defensively sound but they aren't great in going forward. Which is fair enough really.
What is wrong with his logic?
Bruno and Pogba are creative midfielders, Fred, McTominay and Matic are not. Time will tell whether we can maintain our defensive record when Bruno and Pogba start together, but for most of the season, we've been fielding at least two defensively minded midfielders (Fred, McTominay and Matic) to protect the defence. Despite they participate in some goals occassionally, it's undeniable that they have more defensive contributions than offensive actions throughout the game.
I struggle to comprehend how a team which plays 6-7 players who are defensive minded can be described as attacking minded. Now there's plenty of reasons why that might have happened which doesn't necessarily mean that Ole is defensive minded like for example
From what I saw of Lindelof and Maguire against Tottenham they aren't doing anything special with the ball that Smalling couldn't do. They literally pass it a couple of yards forwards or back. I've been so disappointed we haven't seen the maurading Maguire that could come forward and act as an extra midfielder.
I guess it's hard to argue or agree on something when we are debating what we actual see ourselves. I don't see what you guys do in the sense a picture of United being this ultra defensive team that creates nothing at the other end of the pitch.What is wrong with his logic?
Us having the 4th best defensive record looks good on paper, but in reality we know better as we watch them every week.
We know that our setup is very conservative, and that they get a lot of support, at the expense of our attack, because just look at how we setup for starters & how we struggle to create every match, leaving our attackers constantly feeding on scraps.
The last time we had a proper defence, with Rio, Vidic, Evra & Nev, look at how little defensive support they got in comparison to us now. It's night and day. They were routinely left 1v1 at the back. Because now they were actually good defenders and they didn't need it.
Simple question. Would you be as confident of the defence if we opened up, pushed higher up, got Shaw & AWB to overlap more, got rid of the 2 defensive mids, played more attackers etc?
If our defence needs as much hand holding as it gets now to look 'good', surely it's obvious to see that our defence isn't actually that good really?
Bingo..
The debates around Pogba earning his place have been that Fred and Scott offer more defensively and are more solid. I'm sure most see it that way, so IMO it's not hard to see that point at all. It's just that now it's being brought up in a negative light it will be denied.
What are we creating for our attackers that we weren't doing 18 months ago? I don't see anything different, seriously. To describe us, i see a disjointed team, lopsided towards defence, that struggles to build up or put any attacking moves together. Everything we do in an attacking sense seems off the cuff. As it was with Pogba, it's the same with Bruno too. If he can't create something out of thin air or is marked out of the game, we're stuffed. Wasn't that what we were like 18 months ago too?
This is where you are confused here. Being shit doesn't mean the player isn't attacking mind and not being played in attacking position though.
Sorry I'm not sure of your point. The issue with adding to our threat has been addressed by signing Bruno. You can't mark both he and Pogba out of the game. But in comparison if you keep KDB and Silva quiet City are nothing, if you take Liverpool's fullbacks out of the game they look average..
I defo disagree with that. But then again, you judge it based on one game which makes me have the right thing to even call you're wrong about that.
Did we get an answer to this?
Agree. Defence has been good and Wan-Bissaka and Maguire have made a huge difference. The amount of crosses Wan-Bissaka has stopped coming into our box, the amount of crosses/set pieces that Maguire would have got to and headed away first ... all of those, last season, were getting into our box and a good percentage would have ended up in efforts on our goal and also goals. Happy with both of them and their impact.
You said we've changed from being an ultra defensive team that creates nothing attacking wise 18 months ago to now, and i'm just saying i can't see what is supposed to have changed. We still struggle building the play and creating chances every game don't we? We still play a deep line with 2 defensive mids who are limited on the ball, that's quite defensive isn't it?
I think you are replying to the wrong poster here.
this.
