Even if the players are letting him down, imagine how shite it must be to be told just to shift the ball about hoping for an opening while restricting the natural creativity and flair of the attackers. Absolutely no wonder confidence is shot and Van Gaal has a lot to answer for.
Is it the Players or the Tactics?
- Thread starter Walrus
- Start date
I agree with that. We do obviously need more wingers but it's on him for not signing them earlier. I think he hoped that memphis would have adapted quicker then he has but I still have hope that he'll turn into a very good player. He blatantly ignored signing what was needed last summer though. We needed a winger and a striker, on top of what we signed. We needed it on top of what we had last season, but over the summer, martial basically replaced falcao and Van Persie, while memphis replaced di Maria and nani. So we were still short of those players. We we didn't go out and sign another striker/winger is beyond me, but it's been needed for a while.
I think we'll be consistent enough to challenge for the title this season, but it's such a chore watching United because of how boring we are. And honestly, I'd rather us just fight for the top 4 and be exciting to watch, rather then fight for the title and put in performances like we do.
clearer but not at all to the point. you are saying the two best signings in his tenure he's had nowt to do with. you are not helping your cause in arguing for louis.
Nani has been here 7 years, we didn't make a loss on him in any real sense and he was 29. If you want to blame AdM on LvG that's your call, I'm not going to argue with you because it's senseless. Bet people said the same thing when SAF sold Beckham. Sometimes things don't work out and you have to adapt.
Memphis is a talented young player who hopefully we'll be seeing the rewards of for years to come. It's impatience to the point of madness not to see the value in that signing just because he's not made a massive contribution in his first 4 months at the club while adapting to the league.
It's every other week. The only difference between that and Watford was the ball fell in the right place. We've scored 5 goals in the last 6 matches. It's clearly not one of those nights. There is a fundamental problem with the tactics and that is the manager's job. Every team can have an off day but we rarely have a day when we look up for it and able to create and score.
Pretty sure I was a) derisory enough of the notion that he shouldn't get credit for them b) not agreeing those are his best signings at all. It's hard to argue the case with someone who isn't interested.
ok you got me hooked , who are his best signing to date in your opinion.
Probably expected not to have a 21 year old's future in a new league all figured out in November tbf.
He obviously doesn't like Herrera and avoids playing him as much as he can.
LVG has proven to be quite a good tactician, however this formation and team instructions would be more suitable away from home against Real Madrid, not against PSV at home. Our tactics seem to suggest we aim for a draw, not a win - the evidence lies in the results. Having said that, players were beyond dire as well. Blaming tactics or not, there was 0 passion or drive on show last night.
Time for players and management to step it up before this season ends up guaranteed trophy less.
Time for players and management to step it up before this season ends up guaranteed trophy less.
I don't have 2 outright best players, I think in terms of contributions so far Blind and Herrera have been the best. In terms of what I think will be best for the club looking back in years to come it will be Shaw and Martial.
I mean apart from him playing him in 45 games since he arrived despite some no inconsiderable injury issues.
I'm not talking about LVG, I'm talking about judging his signings in November instead of May.
People keep replying to me as if I'm somehow defending LVG, I'm not. I'm just not prepared to shit on the squad and his signings in November of his second term because of a couple 0-0's.
So give both time.
My point remains valid. He is a proven winner. He's proven at creating great teams. He's proven and recognising young talent.
What ever tactics any manager sets the team out to play withy he cant control Morgan Schniderlin giving the ball away constantly.
I am sure Van Gaal would love to attack with pace and purpose which is why he wants "fast wingers". TBF to him he's said it since he arrived!!! Numerous times. Anybody would have taken Di MAria given that opportunity but unfortunately it did work out.
He even played Martial there just to get that pace and thrteat from wide areas.
There is no point setting a team up to play quick attacking football when the players we have don't suit that style.
we badly miss any kind of invention, creativity and martial aside, genuine pace. So it would be stupid to set us up to play a system that requires that.
we are not far away. a genuine qulity wide man or two in January and we'l be chanpions or very close
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my point is that it's the same as last term. players underperforming in his system. his signings are sound his tactics aren't. we can not break teams down. and his passing game without a cutting edge are nothing different than his first season. what is different is the goals against and the better start. but it is looking very similar to last season. couple of results then a couple of shit performances. it's just not getting better , just a different kind of meh.
I think a large part of the dire attacking displays is due to the lack of penetrating runs from the attackers and lack of forward runs from both central midfielders and full backs.
Every game there constantly seems to be so much unoccupied space in, what is now called, 'the hole'; that space in between the oppositions' back line and midfield. This comes down to the midfield dropping deep after releasing the ball, and also due to the attackers maintaining their advanced position rather than dropping deep into the vacant space.
I have no idea who to blame for this, whether it's the players lack of intelligence to create space for themselves, their lack of confidence to get into positions to receive the ball, or whether it's down to the managers instructions.
I'm really beginning to believe it's a tactical decision. It's safer to have the CMs drop back after passing the ball than make a boosting run into advanced areas. It ensures we are not leaving empty gaps in defence or midfield if we turn the ball over. There's no sense of adventure or spontenousness to our football. It's easy to defend - we're not giving the defence much to think about.
LVG seems to always want total structure in our formation, as in each player has a role and a position or area on the field that they must occupy at all times. That's all lovely in theory, looking at the whiteboard in preparation for matches, but football doesn't work like that. Obviously there's some switching of positions between players, but that's simple a case of swapping roles.
It's all too easy for the opposition and any manager with the slightest bit of tactical intellect shouldn't have much issue nullifying our offence.
Every game there constantly seems to be so much unoccupied space in, what is now called, 'the hole'; that space in between the oppositions' back line and midfield. This comes down to the midfield dropping deep after releasing the ball, and also due to the attackers maintaining their advanced position rather than dropping deep into the vacant space.
I have no idea who to blame for this, whether it's the players lack of intelligence to create space for themselves, their lack of confidence to get into positions to receive the ball, or whether it's down to the managers instructions.
I'm really beginning to believe it's a tactical decision. It's safer to have the CMs drop back after passing the ball than make a boosting run into advanced areas. It ensures we are not leaving empty gaps in defence or midfield if we turn the ball over. There's no sense of adventure or spontenousness to our football. It's easy to defend - we're not giving the defence much to think about.
LVG seems to always want total structure in our formation, as in each player has a role and a position or area on the field that they must occupy at all times. That's all lovely in theory, looking at the whiteboard in preparation for matches, but football doesn't work like that. Obviously there's some switching of positions between players, but that's simple a case of swapping roles.
It's all too easy for the opposition and any manager with the slightest bit of tactical intellect shouldn't have much issue nullifying our offence.
Was it the players or the manager under Moyes? Same answer applies here pretty much but now with a better squad of players.
No he didn't. He won the CL and 3 League titles with Ajax. That was his only CL, though he came close with other clubs.
He won 2 Ligas and a Copa with Barcelona and left them with a team that went trophyless for 5 years. He won a Bundesliga and a Cup with Bayern Munich.
He has a great record. He doesn't need a new history. That doesn't mean people aren't going to question how he's managing the United team right now.
Feck. Really? Didn't realise it was that long. Kind of torpedoes the narrative that he'll leave us as a vastly improved side to the one he took over.
i think we'll be better after he leaves. because the players are better. after he leaves the tactics will be more liberal (i hope).therefore we'll be better for him buying the players then leaving.
If it is Giggs who takes over, I believe he will bring his own tactics and style of play.
He kind of already has to be fair.
Look at our back 5 and its difficult to claim he hasn't created a nice set up (ferguson can take some credit too i guess)
The rest has been disappointing ... i still fancy martial and memphis among others to do well long term though.
And i dont think were a million miles away from where we want to be. Fine margins at the top and all that jazz being my thinking.
I think the next manager will benefit from the current set up (kind of doubt van gaal ever will though tbh).
Totally agree with this.
When Martial first came he started to show what can happen when players make runs. Lingard also has introduced a lot of movement, whereas Depay, Young and Mata tend to hog the byline.
Last night it started OK because of movement and then players stopped.
We don't have the quality. Not one of the big three foriegn euro teams would have any onews of our attacking players near there second team even.
Over the top inaccuracy. We have not played as bad as we did last night all season.
A combination of both tactics and players. If we were ultra clinical then we'd win pretty much every match....I'd like to see us generate more chances by taking more risks in in the final third. Also Hererra needs to play when fit.
newcastle , palace one home one away right off the top of my head. one from early on one more recent. a couple of great matches followed by a couple of shit matches. our inconsistency is the one constant we have (we defend well)
Players will miss chances, and with playing possession football they're likely to miss more for 3 reasons: The chances will be spread over the whole squad, not just the specialists in finishing like strikers, the centre forward should be a player with lots of abilities, not just finishing, so you'll have to compomise on his clinicalness, and you tend to get al lot of decent chances but far from clear cut. So if you want to make sure you score 3, you have to create about 10 chances.
That's the point. If you have to create about 10 chances in 90 minutes, you can't just have 30 minutes without even getting to stage you might create a chance from. It's perfectly possible to create a chance every 10 minutes, it doesn't take much time to create a chance, but you have to build an attack first and most attacks will fail before it comes to a chance.
That's not a problem, as long as you keep building attacks, some attack will result in chances and some of the chances will result in goals. If you lack quality, less attacks will result in chances, and if you lack quality or luck, less or no chances will result in goals. But if you don't manage to build an attack from possession, the whole possession based style is pointless. It's a minimum requirement for this style of play to know how to get from possession to an attack. That didn't work for 30 minutes, because with Schweinsteiger the only player left who has an idea how to move and where to pass to get from possession to attack was off. I've defended LvG a lot and will defend him again, but I thought that was emberassing, the players should understand that by now and not be dependent on Schweinsteiger or Herrera playing. Such an off 30 minutes means that only 2/3 of the chances that are possible with these players with all their limitations ar created. That 1/3 could be the difference between scoring and not scoring. It also could not lead to a goal, but only then you can say they've tried enough and just lacked quality and luck. You can't say that when they wasted half an hour figuring out how to get from possession to attack.
This missing chances thing is such a poor excuse that LVG uses after almost every game. We create 3 chances in a game (most not even clear cut) and he acts like we should have scored three goals. Crazy to expect any team to consistently take all its chances; if they did that, they'd win almost every game.
Who sets the style of play? LVG
Who determines what is done in training? LVG
Who picks the team?. LVG
Who picks the substitutions?. LVG
Who gives individual players game instructions?. LVG
Who gives the team playing instructions relative to the opposition.? LVG
Yet somehow some people want to blame it all on the players.
A big chunk of our fanbase right now are LVG sycophants who are coming up with all sorts of excuses to let him off the hook.
We are really fecking dull to watch.
Who determines what is done in training? LVG
Who picks the team?. LVG
Who picks the substitutions?. LVG
Who gives individual players game instructions?. LVG
Who gives the team playing instructions relative to the opposition.? LVG
Yet somehow some people want to blame it all on the players.
A big chunk of our fanbase right now are LVG sycophants who are coming up with all sorts of excuses to let him off the hook.
We are really fecking dull to watch.
So he hasn't got the players to play good football. But he's had three transfer windows to bring the right players in.
We've reached the stage where the team is now Van Gaal's baby. He gave birth to it, nursed it, and watched over its first faltering steps. If the baby has grown into a badly behaved child, it's his fault.
He's equally responsible for players and tactics. There's no distinction. Both failure and success must be laid at his door.
And oddly enough in the league our midfielders have scored 11 goals, our strikers 5. That's because Mata and Herrera are pretty clinical, not because they gobble up all the chances. We had 3, maybe 4 clear cut chances against PSV and half a dozen others, that's more than PSG had against Malmo and they scored 5. Our finishing wasn't of an acceptable standard for a team hoping to progress into the knockout stages of the Champions League yesterday, that's the long and short of it.
CSKA, Palace, Boro, City and even Watford last week all quite recently and it's been the same story throughout them. It's becoming the norm.
Also played as a #10 in pre-season. It is a bit confusing what he has done with Memphis.
Honestly, I think the team is punching above their level because of the tactics.
Good post
The oddest thing for me is the system. It doesn't seem to suit any of the players. They don't have any top class wingers but play a system that needs 2. Schneiderlin is the only midfielder who is suited to playing in a 2 and they don't have any stand out candidates to play the #10 role. 4-3-3 with a fluid front 3 is a system that would suit more of the current squad. Playing that 4-4-2/4-2-3-1 no matter what shows incredible tactical inflexibility and terrible squad planning.
What is absolutely undeniable is that out of a 25 man squad, maybe 4 are playing at their potential. the rest are well beneath themselves.
This team has very little quality for me.
Who misses their shots? The players.
Both, but I'm leaning more towards tactics.
It's evident that the players are asked to hold shape and keep position too much. Possession football can be enjoyable, but it needs to be played more aggressively, at a higher tempo. We need to advance as a team when in possession. A few yards at a time in quick succession will disrupt the shape of the opposition and force them to commit players to mark us, or leave space for a long ranger. What's the point of circulating the ball around when you don't force the opposition to run or make mistakes?
Watch Bayern, watch Barca. Sure, they have vastly superior personnels, but the way they advance as a team during the offensive phase is how it should be done as well.
It's evident that the players are asked to hold shape and keep position too much. Possession football can be enjoyable, but it needs to be played more aggressively, at a higher tempo. We need to advance as a team when in possession. A few yards at a time in quick succession will disrupt the shape of the opposition and force them to commit players to mark us, or leave space for a long ranger. What's the point of circulating the ball around when you don't force the opposition to run or make mistakes?
Watch Bayern, watch Barca. Sure, they have vastly superior personnels, but the way they advance as a team during the offensive phase is how it should be done as well.