Our recruitment has been shocking. It's QPR and Fulham levels of bad, except we're rich enough to absorb our costly mistakes and carry on making them. It's actually really hard to understand how we've spent so much money so badly. It's something like £700m over the last 6 or so years, and look at the team we have to show for it. Everyone involved should be thoroughly ashamed
It's not the manager, it's the players
- Thread starter haram
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik and Imran hold a long overdue conversation about United's awful league form with 1 win in 7. They discuss a disappointing draw at Bournemouth, a not so disappointing draw against Liverpool and a crushing defeat at Chelsea - Is time nearly over for Erik Ten Hag?
Then in a special second half of the pod, Nik welcomes Natalie ( https://twitter.com/natalie_17) to discuss the fortunes of Manchester United Women as they booked a place in the FA Cup Final after a historic first ever win vs. Chelsea.
It’s the owners. Has been for years and years.
Yeah we all made up him starting Fellaini over Pogba. Or dropping martial for Sanchez
He lost the plot this season, having clearly thrown his toys out of the pram when he didn't get what he wanted in the summer. He's a twat and was rightly sacked.
That doesn't mean he was wrong about the shortcomings of our squad, though. Indeed the last 2 months have more-or-less proven him to be exactly right on that front.
A new manager has come in and is limited by the fitness of the squad along with the type of players we have... but yeah let’s defend the last manager for assembling the squad and failing to get the best out of them.
He is also limited by the quality of the players at his disposal. They aren't good enough.
Give me one player from the entire list who can walk into Man City or Barcelona ..That's the problem here
Two poor decisions in both legs from the manager to start the games.
Two lopsided disjointed starting 11s.
For me this ones on Ole. Playing Dalot as an attacker at home but not playing him as a fullback or wingback tonight?
Today shouldve been 352.
Two lopsided disjointed starting 11s.
For me this ones on Ole. Playing Dalot as an attacker at home but not playing him as a fullback or wingback tonight?
Today shouldve been 352.
Solskjaer made mistakes in selection certainly. But I think he got things right tactically, or at least he had the right idea. We pressed up high on Barcelona and stopped them getting into their flow. If we could have taken our chances and not made defensive howlers things could have been different.
It is 100% the players.
yes
It’s been the manager, the players and the staff off the pitch. Everything has been wrong since SAF left and too little is changing.
Mourinho was right the players weren’t good enough but neither was he, his signings weren’t good enough, his transfer targets weren’t good enough.
Mourinho was right the players weren’t good enough but neither was he, his signings weren’t good enough, his transfer targets weren’t good enough.
Simple the players just aren’t good enough. Five years of poor recruitment and this is what we’re left with. Huge transfer window coming up.
Regardless of the players, the buck stops at the manager.
I don't know if its the players or the manager or what but other than Messi there was a major difference in how we lined up tonight.
Barcelona playing out from the back were lined up like:
Roberto - Pique - Lenglet - Alba
Martial - Rashford - Lingard
Rakitic - Busquets - Arthur
McTominay - Fred - Pogba
Messi - Suarez - Coutinho
Young - Jones - Smalling - Lindelof
We were lined up like this:
Lindelof - Smalling - Jones - Young
McTominay - Fred - Pogba
Coutinho - Suarez - Messi
Arthur - Busquets - Rakitic
Lingard - Rashford - Martial
Alba - Lenglet - Pique - Roberto
It doesn't take a genius to see why we look so disjointed and so easily pinned back. Is it an instruction to play that way or are the players incapable of passing between the lines?
Barcelona playing out from the back were lined up like:
Roberto - Pique - Lenglet - Alba
Martial - Rashford - Lingard
Rakitic - Busquets - Arthur
McTominay - Fred - Pogba
Messi - Suarez - Coutinho
Young - Jones - Smalling - Lindelof
We were lined up like this:
Lindelof - Smalling - Jones - Young
McTominay - Fred - Pogba
Coutinho - Suarez - Messi
Arthur - Busquets - Rakitic
Lingard - Rashford - Martial
Alba - Lenglet - Pique - Roberto
It doesn't take a genius to see why we look so disjointed and so easily pinned back. Is it an instruction to play that way or are the players incapable of passing between the lines?
Things were going wrong long before SAF left too. There have been plenty of articles about United's antiquated scouting system under Ferguson and the lack if investment in players due to the Glazer takeover. We're just lucky we.had possibly the greatest manager of all.time to paper over those cracks.
Yes it does. After a few years an assembling a real squad. Like both Klop an Guardiola. It took Klopp five years, and he is far from done.
If you think this run stops with the current management, i think you should switch to rugby!
You can't blame the owners for this mess, it's the idiot who's in charge of the day to day running.
Woody a smart guy no doubt about that, but he's fecking clueless when it comes to Football.
What run?
And the next transfer window we will probably replace pogba,sanchez,fred martial with other great players and let them try to play good attacking football with jones, smalling,young,lingard etc...op is wright, replace the players who are here the longest and change the future in stead of trying to repeat history. We need to let go of the idea of SAF no mather how hard it is.
Coaching, coaching. The players don't coach themselves, and they aren't the ones that set up the team either.
How can anyone look at a CL QF starting line up with the likes of Young, Lindelof, Jones, McTominay, Fred, Lingard and think it's good enough.
Having De Gea in the starting line up means people overrate how good we are on paper, but being a GK he has no effect on the quality of football we actually play.
Having De Gea in the starting line up means people overrate how good we are on paper, but being a GK he has no effect on the quality of football we actually play.
No amount of coaching will get this lot to beat genuine quality, also no amount of coaching can account for individual errors.
Was very obvious Young was going to give up possession on the first goal. Embarrasing build up at this level.
And he has been left to run rule over the club by the owners. The buck stops nowhere else but at the Glazers doors. They are a disaster for this club. Have been from day one.
Could a 3-5-2/3-5-1-1 be the answer? Shaw and Dalot providing the width as wingbacks. Two- two way midtfielders (McTominay and Fred), and Pogba as an attacking midtfielder/free role. The top two being Martial/Rash/Lukaku.
Yes. You can blame the owner(s) in this case where his(their) detachment to the sport meaning that they rely on other people to run the club. It's Okay when you have competent people at their job doing the work. However, there is times you have to step in find the issue at the executive board. It's confirmed our problem is the Pro-profit person at this club has been given free pass to failure of the team, just because he is maintaining good income for the club. This is not sustainable. The way this goes new football followers and neutral would prefer other clubs, and at one point where our resources being irrelevant with more money being put in football else where, we would find it much harder to get back to the top.
Except its obviously not the coaching. Its the players. As soon as ole came in they started playing well together. So if they werent playing well one week, then started scoring goals for fun the next week, what clues does that give us as to what the problem is? Its not that they are all shit, we know thats not true. So what is it? Attitude. Unless you think Ole is now being a cnut to all of them and they are low on whatever bullshit excuse people come up with?
Don't put that forward line against our defense line like that it hurts.
I don't know how many fecking managers some people want to get rid before realizing the problem is clearly and obviously else where.
5 years from now on, we'll still be here slaughtering our 7th or 8th manager post SAF and accusing him of "bad coaching" of our great top class players, and how these great players need better manager to coach them.
5 years from now on, we'll still be here slaughtering our 7th or 8th manager post SAF and accusing him of "bad coaching" of our great top class players, and how these great players need better manager to coach them.
There's an old saying...a coach is only as good as their players.
We saw what Mourinho did last year with 81 points. It wasn't pretty but it got results. This year it's a mixed bag regardless of manager but it's pretty much the same as last year if United win their remaining 5 matches, they'll be on 79 points in the league.
The squad will overachieve and only get 3rd. There's a massive gap between City/Liverpool and 3rd through 6th.
We saw what Mourinho did last year with 81 points. It wasn't pretty but it got results. This year it's a mixed bag regardless of manager but it's pretty much the same as last year if United win their remaining 5 matches, they'll be on 79 points in the league.
The squad will overachieve and only get 3rd. There's a massive gap between City/Liverpool and 3rd through 6th.
You are absolutely right. 5 years on from Ferguson, and Smalling, Jones and Young are still our preferred options in defense. The recruitment process has been profoundly terrible since Fergie left.
I love United, but the quality of our players is just not good enough. After tonights game, I reviewed all the goals we conceded this season. Oh boy.... Check this out:
0-(1) Brighton - Lindeløf loses marking
0-(3) Brighton - Bailly concedes silly penalty
0-(1) Spurs - Sloppy Jones fails to mark Kane
0-(3) Spurs - Smalling completely owned by Lucas Moura
0-(2) Newcastle - Young a spectator in defense
0-(1) Chelsea - Pogba sleeping at set piece
2-(1) Everton - Smalling concedes ridiculos penalty
4-(1) Fulham - Herrera stupid penalty conceded
0-(2) Valencia - Phil Jones ridiculos own goal
0-(1) Burnley - Pereira clumbsily loses possesion
0-(1) PSG - Matic not following Kimpembe
(1)-1 PSG - Bailly sleeping at the back post
(1)-2 Crystal Palace - Sanchez switches off and gives Shaw no chance
(2)-0 Wolves - (FAC)Shaw easily outmuscled against Jota
(1)-1 Wolves - Fred gives away possesion
(2)-1 Wolves - De Gea and Smalling indecisive fumbling
1-(1) West Ham - Rojo loses his opponent
(1)-0 Barcelona - Young loses possesion easily
(2)-0 Barcelona - De Gea howler
There are 19 goals that I consider to be individual errors.
De Gea 2
Bailly 2
Jones 2
Smalling 2
Young 2
Pogba 1
Herrera 1
Perreira 1
Matic 1
Sanchez 1
Shaw 1
Fred 1
Lindelöf 1
Rojo 1
If only it was one, two or three players you needed to replace...
Our defense is terrible. We can't blame anyone but ourselves if we don't finish in the top 4.
Where's the Ed Woodward thread. I blame him for everything
He deserves a lot more criticism. A lot more.
Yeah exactly and there was no plan in place of how to replace him, six years later we are still plodding on with little plan.
Soon the Glazers will find it harder to trade off that success. United aren’t a very good team and won’t be for a while, we are also dull and boring to watch. Sponsors will start to spend their money elsewhere soon.
‘It’ is certainly the manager(s)/coaches for me. Some of the players aren’t all that either, but for a long time, even under Sir Alex - we have been outdated and behind in how we set up.
We have no plan. At the very top of the game where all the teams have good players, it is exposed. For the last few seasons, I’ve said around this time of the year that ‘for all the talk in the Transfer Forum, I can honestly say that I don’t expect any players we sign to change anything’. With a new coach/manager, I have a little more optimism this time due to the fact that they are an unknown, and I don’t know if they will finally be the lot to modernise us.
People keep pointing to our ‘terrible transfer policy’ in comparison to just about every other team. To me, that’s nonsense. These players we have brought in have talent. I think the difference is that a player has a far greater chance of success if he is going into an already established set up and vision. The longer that harmonious system is in place, the easier it will be to add players to it. For me, we have relied upon a combination of having superior players and having a superior mentality/will to win than others. The latter forming a large part of the ‘United DNA’. Even under Fergie. We did attack and had a positive attitude, but the detail in it needed work I think.
Our passing isn’t good enough. This is largely due to the passes we don’t make. Last night, for instance, I saw a few 10 yard passes in field from Young to Fred that he didn’t make. This was not necessarily the most obvious pass, as Fred had a man on him, or close enough to him. Young was obviously afraid of putting Fred under pressure, so would turn back and perhaps pass to Jones, who would not have a man on him. He probably thinks he did the right thing, and after all, he didn’t give the ball away, but that play will not move us forward. In contrast, Barcelona were breaking lines with these type of passes all night. It is not just down to their midfielders being so amazing. Rakitic and Arthur are good players, but nothing special. And I can bet they would not play the same way in our shirt. And there in lies the issue with our transfer policy I think. You can see these players in another shirt but they will never be as good or even better, like we want, if they come to a us. 10 years ago we were outplayed by Xavi and Iniesta, and we said they were just the best midfielders ever, which was true. A decade later, it’s Rakitic, a Rakitic on his latter legs too, and Arthur doing the same thing to us. To close the gap, we had £140m worth of CMs in Fred and Pogba. The point is, we could have had KDB and Bernardo Silva too. They would not have been as good as Barca’s pair. Whereas if Fred and Pogba both went to Barcelona instead of Old Trafford, they would have done the exact same as Rakitic and Arthur did to us last night. Probably better, as they are better players even, I think.
The point of this is that it’s the management and coaching more than the players anyway. Nobody improves when they join us. The instructions are outdated. The detail seems overlooked. People will see De Jong in Spain next year and again say that Woodward is this and that because he just ‘allowed’ Barcelona to sign him. The De Jong you will see on your TV screens is not the De Jong you would have gotten in Manchester. Not until it changes at Carrington.
We have no plan. At the very top of the game where all the teams have good players, it is exposed. For the last few seasons, I’ve said around this time of the year that ‘for all the talk in the Transfer Forum, I can honestly say that I don’t expect any players we sign to change anything’. With a new coach/manager, I have a little more optimism this time due to the fact that they are an unknown, and I don’t know if they will finally be the lot to modernise us.
People keep pointing to our ‘terrible transfer policy’ in comparison to just about every other team. To me, that’s nonsense. These players we have brought in have talent. I think the difference is that a player has a far greater chance of success if he is going into an already established set up and vision. The longer that harmonious system is in place, the easier it will be to add players to it. For me, we have relied upon a combination of having superior players and having a superior mentality/will to win than others. The latter forming a large part of the ‘United DNA’. Even under Fergie. We did attack and had a positive attitude, but the detail in it needed work I think.
Our passing isn’t good enough. This is largely due to the passes we don’t make. Last night, for instance, I saw a few 10 yard passes in field from Young to Fred that he didn’t make. This was not necessarily the most obvious pass, as Fred had a man on him, or close enough to him. Young was obviously afraid of putting Fred under pressure, so would turn back and perhaps pass to Jones, who would not have a man on him. He probably thinks he did the right thing, and after all, he didn’t give the ball away, but that play will not move us forward. In contrast, Barcelona were breaking lines with these type of passes all night. It is not just down to their midfielders being so amazing. Rakitic and Arthur are good players, but nothing special. And I can bet they would not play the same way in our shirt. And there in lies the issue with our transfer policy I think. You can see these players in another shirt but they will never be as good or even better, like we want, if they come to a us. 10 years ago we were outplayed by Xavi and Iniesta, and we said they were just the best midfielders ever, which was true. A decade later, it’s Rakitic, a Rakitic on his latter legs too, and Arthur doing the same thing to us. To close the gap, we had £140m worth of CMs in Fred and Pogba. The point is, we could have had KDB and Bernardo Silva too. They would not have been as good as Barca’s pair. Whereas if Fred and Pogba both went to Barcelona instead of Old Trafford, they would have done the exact same as Rakitic and Arthur did to us last night. Probably better, as they are better players even, I think.
The point of this is that it’s the management and coaching more than the players anyway. Nobody improves when they join us. The instructions are outdated. The detail seems overlooked. People will see De Jong in Spain next year and again say that Woodward is this and that because he just ‘allowed’ Barcelona to sign him. The De Jong you will see on your TV screens is not the De Jong you would have gotten in Manchester. Not until it changes at Carrington.
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When we bought them, any of the following could have fitted in that list. We may have mismanaged some or all of them but at the time they were all highly regarded. I'm probably even leaving some out unfairly.
Luke Shaw
Ángel Di María
Memphis Depay
Anthony Martial
Eric Bailly
Paul Pogba
Victor Lindelöf
Fred
The issue as much as the individuals is the lack of a clear plan. Every player in Barcelona's system fits that system. Every player in City's system fits that system. Some of them are not actually that good, but they fit the system.
Look through our list and you have possession players, counter attack players, technical players, physical players, and so on. We're buying talented individuals but never with a purpose.
Exactly how I see it.
What happened after the PSG game? The team looked like on a complete high and the loss to Arsenal was a bit unlucky after that but since that time the team looks completely changed and has reverted to the worst we have seen of them in a long time. What the hell is going on with them?