Last night, post the slow-moving, lackadaisical first half, the team came back with a much improvped tempo in the second, and Atalanta were clearly not ready or able to cope with the fast, often one touch interaction between United players, so much so, that they had to concede 3 yellows in the span of 5 minutes to stop our forwards. Ultimately, they caved in.
For me, the question is why can't we keep up this tempo consistently in all our games. Particularly when this is Ole's main objective too?
That is the big question, not just this season, but the whole of Oles tenure we have seen this tendancy. Despite the negative mood around here these days, we have shown under Ole we can play some brilliant football, with the results to match, but we can also look like a bunch of plonker who seems to give no fecks
Its this lack of consistency that kills us and what sets us apart from Liverpool and City. They too can have terrible games of course, but i'd say 80% of the time they are playing very close to their top level, where as we seem to do that maybe 30% of the time and thats probably generous.
And before someone says "coaching". Yeah, that too, but imo it goes well beyond that. To me it seems more of a mentality issue, where we look casual and pedestrian and dont wake up until we have to. Last season for example we had WAY too many games where we started out half asleep, conceded some shite goal and only started to play when the pressure was on
Likewise, the team always seems to dig deep and bring out a crucial result when Ole's head is on the block. I really hope he proves me wrong, but its this complete lack of consistency that made me lose faith in Ole this season. Hes been allowed both time and resources now, and the way we played in 2nd half should be our standard, not something we pull out only when the chips are down and we are desperate for a result