Well said
Jose Mourinho | 2017/18 Assessments | Poll Added
- Thread starter Suedesi
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No. It wasn't. We dropped out of the title race because we failed to put away the likes of Stoke, Hull, Burnley, Bournemouth and Swansea at home. Those were the really poor results last season. The ones that killed off our title challenge. This meant that we had other priorities by the time we played City, Spurs and Arsenal in the title run-in. Complaining about our approach in the Europa League is kind of daft tbh, seeing as we won the fecking thing.
On the bigger picture, a draw away from home the top 4/5 teams in the league is always a decent result. Always has been, always will be. It will also always be accompanied by a cacophony of moaning on here. It was the same under Fergie and will presumably be the same under every manager we ever have in charge. We do need to win those games at home, though, and it goes without saying that we need to improve our results from last season, across the board. But, make no mistake, it was our failure to put away cannon fodder at home that had the most detrimental affect on our league campaign. That's 10-12 points dropped we'd usually consider "gimmes" and none of those points were dropped because our tactics were too defensive on the day.
I did think we did quite well at home. Wins over Chelsea and Tottenham. For the City match he set up the team very wrong. Against Arsenal we played well and should have won. They had 1 shoot on goal. Chelsea had 0 and we played better than Spurs. Liverpool game was not great.
Away from home though we did quite terrible. Liverpool away was fine, but the other 4 games we played horrible. Last two games though we had focus on the EL.
Even if we won every home game against teams outside the top 6, we still would've finished 8 points adrift of Chelsea. Sure, dropping points against those teams was part of the problem but it's far too simplistic to pretend that was the only reason why we were unsuccessful in the league last season.
It wasn't until the Swansea game where Mourinho decided to officially pack in the league in favour of Europa and I didn't complain about either of the Spurs or Arsenal away games individually for that reason. Our worst performances against Liverpool and City came before that time, and the fact remains that there wasn't any interest in winning either of those games. At the time of both of those games we were struggling quite a bit as well - the Liverpool game came the week after 3 consecutive defeats in all competitions and the City game came when a win would've catapulted us into the top 4. Given the circumstances you would think we might try to go for it a bit more and it was that lack of ambition which was most frustrating.
That's fair enough. I'm hoping we can be a bit more assertive in those fixtures this season too. Which I hope will come now the squad is more to his liking. My main point is that we will still set up relatively defensively and try to pick them off on the break. That's the way our manager likes to play the game. All managers have styles and this is Mourinho's. We just need to hope that we're more clinical on the counter and make less silly defensive errors. Whatever happens, we're not going to see a radically different approach so that's just something we need to learn to live with while Mourinho is in charge.
I've seen enough in pre-season.
Our football is still going to be somewhat negative, largely tumescent and we'll still score nowhere near enough goals in comparison to our rivals. I'm not even convinced we'll score more than Bourenmouth... again!
This is in part due to an increasingly negative approach (especially in big games), a reluctance to play genuinely talented players (Martial) and that utterly shite players like Lingard are playing in major attacking roles in the team.
Mourinho is in control of rectifying these issues but, if I'm honest with myself, I'm not at all confident we'll see any considerable improvement.
Our football is still going to be somewhat negative, largely tumescent and we'll still score nowhere near enough goals in comparison to our rivals. I'm not even convinced we'll score more than Bourenmouth... again!
This is in part due to an increasingly negative approach (especially in big games), a reluctance to play genuinely talented players (Martial) and that utterly shite players like Lingard are playing in major attacking roles in the team.
Mourinho is in control of rectifying these issues but, if I'm honest with myself, I'm not at all confident we'll see any considerable improvement.
I should be full of optimism ahead of the new season but for some reason, like yourself, I'm not.
We were awful against the big teams last season, found it impossible to keep possession whilst moving up the field and it was much of the same against Madrid. Only became a threat when Fellaini came on and we went more direct. People expect a switch to suddenly flip in Mourinhos head and we start to play exciting goal friendly football against the big teams - it's not going to happen.
Hate to be a party pooper but West Ham at home, first game of season, had a draw all over it.
Feel exactly the same.
Probably not as negative as this but I'm definitely leaning your way.
Just can't see how it's going to be much different from last season looking at it objectively. Any positivity is based on players clicking significantly better than last season and being outrageously clinical.
Whether we are successful or not, I think we'll still be tumescent to watch. I don't mind it so much when we're winning but I do laugh at the same posters who hated LVG with a passion, now on their high horse defending Mourinho.
You do realise there's a wealth of objective, statistics that prove we're much better to watch under Mourinho than we were under Van Gaal? Once you get your head round that you'll understand why the latter is being cut more slack.
And that's without even getting into the fact that Mourinho's only halfway through the two years Van Gaal took to erode the patience of all but a tiny minority of fans.
Excuse me, but do you actually remember that LvG's "football" was just a bunch of drones passing sideways and backwards? Compared to that, Mourinho's teams on their most negative, defensive days seem like they are playing champagne football.
Under LvG, we were barely playing football. "Human Chess" would describe his style of play, I reckon.
Said it before gonna say it again, it says a lot when manager is focused more on stopping the opposition game instead of playing his game.
I seriously cannot believe he's that unwilling to risk it sometimes and actually play some attacking game against top sides, without going all defensively.
He's picking attacking players for their defensively contribution rather than offensive contribution.
I seriously cannot believe he's that unwilling to risk it sometimes and actually play some attacking game against top sides, without going all defensively.
He's picking attacking players for their defensively contribution rather than offensive contribution.
Largely agree. Van Gaal's team actually entered bigger games with bravery, too. We had a way of playing and no matter tedious it may have been, the team would stick to its guns and usually do pretty well.
I'm disappointed at how negative I am, to be honest. I rate our squad highly and I think we're only an attacking player or two away from being able to compete at the very top level. I also think we're incredibly hard to beat, which is credit to Mourinho. But we play with no ambition or aggression. And I'll never buy into the argument that it's down to the players when I watch markedly inferior players at other clubs playing the sort of football we should aspire to (excuse the Moyesian remark).
We have some cracking players, we really do. Only Spurs defend better as a team. Our goalkeeper is the best, and we've just bought what should be a 25 goal a season guarantee up top. I should be positive, but I'm expecting more of the same. Hard to beat. Hideous 0-0/1-1 draws and a loser mentality against rivals. 4th place max.
It's a just different style to me with similar patches of boredom as a result. I mean it's in the same ballpark to me - rigid play with a lack of genuine creativity. And I don't believe creativity lies entirely at the feet of the players.
I assume you're suggesting due to more shots on goal that makes us more exciting. I would offer that it depends on what kind of chances they are. It's better than Van Gaal's stuff on average I agree, but I don't think by much.
I also preferred watching United against the top six with Van Gaal and that has disappointed me the most with Mourinho. I know not every clash against a big rival will produce great, assertive football and tight matches are now more common. But aside from Chelsea at home, last season was horrendous viewing (as a collective) when the crunch matches came in the league.
That's an extreme picture you're painting.
Juanfield is better than anything we've watched from Mourinho so far. I'm sure you'll disagree but no matter, it's the best United performance I've watched post Ferguson.
Spot on.
Totally agree. The complaining fans seem to forget that before our injuries last season we were playing pretty good attacking football but lacked the final finish to close games out. We created many goalscoring chances.
It was only when the injuries started piling up and when we faced the better league teams that we played more conservatively.
It's as you say, I personally didn't quite like Mourinho's style of Football but he is our manager now and he was brought in to fulfil a purpose that his brand of Football seems suitable for. Not sure why fans are complaining so much.
Beating the runaway champions two nil last season was just as good IMO.
I was never a fan of him. Either in terms of the football his teams play, or his personality. He's our manager now, though, whether we like it or not. Complaining about stuff we always knew would happen (his preferred tactics etc.) just seems like a complete waste of time.
Obviously, if these tactics don't win matches then we have a problem. But he deserves another season to prove they work. Even last season we were generally good to watch (bar the very beginning and end) so I see no rational reason for anyone to throw their toys out the pram just yet.
Yeah that's it really, Van Gaal was senile and delusional but more often than not, the players fought their arses off in the big games. It's disappointing to see that slide back to Moyes-type cowardice.
I also agree that Mourinho for all the faults of our attacking play, definitely knows how to set up a side to be defensively sound (most of the time). But as you say, that's only part of the job and I was convinced he would improve the attack over the season. It never happened.
I think the bolded bit hits the real issue for me. I am not and never have been convinced this is down to players. All last season it was thrown on the players: we need Griezmann, wait until we get wingers, wait until this lad comes in. As you say, teams with far worse playing staff can play good stuff - it doesn't really wash with me.
Funny enough to end it, 4th is what I predict. However, I've noticed a lot of pundits have not only predicted United to finish 3rd and 2nd but plenty are putting them down as winners. I'll be pleasantly fecking surprised if that's the case and I'll give Mourinho full credit if he pulls it off. I'll be even more impressed if he does it without significant changes to our play.
I don't know why so many fans have such a pessimistic view for the next season. Yes the league finish was damning, but the improvement in squad quality and spirit is apparent. We also won two trophies and got back into the CL. It is a testament to Jose's abilty to get tangible results despite adverse conditions. And that's also what his Football is about when facing teams that are perceived to be stronger.
Everybody likes beautiful football. But our club after Fergie is probably at risk of losing some of our appeal. History remembers the trophy bearers and there aren't many managers right now you'd put money on to win trophies and who doesn't need a perfect squad (a la Guardiola) to do it.
I am actually very optimistic about next season. We are going to challenge for the title with a top 3 finish, possibly winning the title.
Everybody likes beautiful football. But our club after Fergie is probably at risk of losing some of our appeal. History remembers the trophy bearers and there aren't many managers right now you'd put money on to win trophies and who doesn't need a perfect squad (a la Guardiola) to do it.
I am actually very optimistic about next season. We are going to challenge for the title with a top 3 finish, possibly winning the title.
I did originally have a sentence added to that saying 'maybe Chelsea at home last season at a stretch' but took it out to avoid looking unconvincing.
In all seriousness, I think that's the only one though.
Sorry but this is just nonsense. Apart from crushing boredom, the Van Gaal era was mainly notable for us repeatedly shitting our pants whenever we tried to hold onto a lead and inevitably conceding late goals. There were also threads created about our complete inability to ever win a game by coming from behind. The backbone of our squad evaporated the moment Fergie left and showed no signs of returning under any other manager since. If anything, the most promising glimpse of regaining some sort of resilience has been under Mourinho.
I can point to the Chelsea home game under Mourinho. In terms of the opponent being Liverpool at Anfield, I would agree with you that it was the best game ever after Ferguson. But in terms of tactics, the Chelsea game under Jose was better.
The Anfield game was primarily due to LvG hitting upon a system by luck after injuries and some players peaking in form at the right time. In contrast, the Chelsea game was a perfect blueprint unrolling on the pitch.
Fact is, LvG never replicated that 3 game streak, which shows it was a freak occurence. That is why I feel there is no point highlighting it. Under Jose, we know we will see more of that.
Its' not just the Chelsea game, we played good, open football against Leicester at home, West Ham away and others. So the accusation that we only ever played defensive doesn't hold water.
The accusation that we played poor football is just another example of the psychological phenomena that is recency bias. Only the last two months produced tumescent football. The accusation doesn't even make sense:how could we make so many chances (4th best in the league iirc) playing uncreatively? How can Ibra be bemoaned if we weren't doing anything in the final third? Why are the home draws so infuriating unless we were shitting out chances in them?
I will say, though, that the team is poorly coached offensively. Positionally, we are decent when attacking in the sense we find space and place our players in good positions, but the movement is shocking. Pogba switches it to valencia who then finds himself alone on the flank with no one within twenty yards. He holds onto it until mhki trudges over and they play a shitty one two. This has to be coached correctly or a else we are just losing tempe.
I will say, though, that the team is poorly coached offensively. Positionally, we are decent when attacking in the sense we find space and place our players in good positions, but the movement is shocking. Pogba switches it to valencia who then finds himself alone on the flank with no one within twenty yards. He holds onto it until mhki trudges over and they play a shitty one two. This has to be coached correctly or a else we are just losing tempe.
Or the 3-0 against Spurs or the 4-2 against City. Heck even 2-0 against Arsenal with 1 shot on goal was much more entertaining.
Think LVG was good the first season, then the wheels came off.
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Hopefully he's decided on a consistent back four because they don't contribute to the buildup or attacking play, and often hinder us in big games. That means Smalling, Jones and Shaw will be bench players despite their talents.
Same here. I wasn't that fond of Mourinho coming here and desperately wanted us to look elsewhere preferably someone who has a more modern look at football but We have Mou and it's what it is.
With Mourinho all I feared are happening, from his harsh and public treatment(or mistreatment to be more precise) of certain players to him being an overly negative manager, they're all happening and I'm not even surprised despite me hoping that maybe he'd have changed after everything he'd been through.
The only games I look forward to are against minnows because we do try attacking and doesn't take much courage to set up offensively so Mourinho will at least attack, though if those games happen to be important ones like finals or knockout games he'll revert into his shell and set up negatively regardless of opposition pedigree.
When we go into big games or against semi decent oppositions my anticipation drop because I know without a shadow of a doubt we'll be camping in our own half while watching the opposition play all the football. Utter frustration.
Derbies and such games, normally should be anticipated and have everyone raring to go, have me deflated because Mourinho will go ultra negative and have us watch a depressing 90 minutes of constant defending while our team fail to string a couple of passes.
Heck Van Gaal for all his faults and his overly cautious approach actually had the balls to play against our rivals and his record against top teams was pretty good. If my memory serves me right under Van Gaal, We completely had City and most of our rivals numbers.
There is nothing more annoying than going into an important game against rivals or semi decent teams expecting us to set up negatively. It's so infuriating. All we see are our exiting and attacking players rotting on the bench while Mou indulges himself with his mediocre defensive workhorses to torture us for 90 minutes in one of his many negative nightmarish set ups.
Absolutely agree with this. We set up to nullify the opposition and then we complain about finding it difficult to create chances and score goals. If you're not on the front foot how can you expect cohesive play in the final third from your attackers?
Van Gaal gave us absolute gems against the top teams in his time which is why I've actually grown to appreciate his time with us a bit more despite his football being so frustrating for the most part.
We went into big games with balls and played our football and for the most part we had our rivals numbers.
We owned Liverpool and City and Van Gaal but now that's just a fleeting dream. We approach those games like utter cowards with ridiculous inferiority complex.
Well this is forum and we talk about all these things positive or negative. Bottling up everything inside and not mention them just because x person is our manager seems a bit ridiculous to me.
We got through players threads and talk about the same performances whther positive or negative over and over after every match and it seems alright to me. I don't see why the same shouldn't be done for our manager.
Ultimately Mourinho will be judged on what he does with his team and as long as his trend of overly negative football continues, it'll keep getting mentioned. Likewise when he does something spectacular it'll also be mentioned. This is a forum to talk about all those things.
Or the "oh yeeeeeeeeeeeees" Tyler commentary on Martial debut. I still have goosebumps from that game and goal
I'm quite optimistic about the new season. For one we have Lukaku now who will guarantee more league goals than Ibra and I can't see Martial being a sub as many times as last season.
How's that? For starters, Lukaku has managed to score 20+ league goals only once in his career so far while Ibra has proven his prolificness at a top level for a much longer period. Secondly, they had about the same goal to game ratio in the league last season. What makes adamant Lukaku will score more goals than Ibra?
He scored eight more goals than Zlatan last year despite taking less penalties and playing for a worse team.
How many penalities did Lukaku take last season? Zlatan scored 2 and missed 1 iirc. Also, Everton were much better than us going forward. We play a very different (conservative) system where the striker is isolated and is expected to do a whole lot more by himself. We also don't have fullbacks that bomb forward and whip in accurate balls like Bains and Coleman were doing for Everton. Not to mention Zlatan missed 9 games due to his injury.
He scored one less penalty, so without penalties scored nine more goals in the league for a team lower down in the league and got more assists while doing so.
The main problem for me is the long ball football. There's no way a club as big as United should be spending over a third of the game lumping the ball up to two big target men.
This isn't about the fatuous 'United way' nonsense, it's simple financial reality. We're the richest club in the world, we're spending huge amounts on players, so we should never have to resort to playing like Stoke or Wimbledon. No top club should.
People say Fergie played this, and I well remember Steve Bruce scoring at Wimbledon in '95 having been thrown up front to win a game. But Fergie only did that for the last five minutes, after he'd exhausted all his ideas and thrown on all his subs. Mourinho did it with half an hour to go on Tuesday, and against Liverpool last year he did it for the entire second half. For Mourinho it's a plan B, for Fergie it was a plan F.
Yes it might create a few chances, but throwing on Martial to play alongside Rashford and run at tired defenders would have yielded chances at well, I'm sure. When Rashford was running at the Real defence, they looked genuinely rattled - far more so than they did when they were handling crosses. And the route one tactic will never get the best out of players like Pogba and Mkhi, bought at huge expense.
Obviously there's a huge caveat here, as we were playing the best team in the world. Let's hope we opt for more fluid tactics against lesser teams, but given how often Mourinho opted for the hoofball approach last season when were chasing games, the signs aren't promising.
If Mourinho persists in playing like this at the first sign of adversity, then frankly I don't know why we hired him. We should look elsewhere and find someone who can open up games with the rapier rather than the bludgeon.
This isn't about the fatuous 'United way' nonsense, it's simple financial reality. We're the richest club in the world, we're spending huge amounts on players, so we should never have to resort to playing like Stoke or Wimbledon. No top club should.
People say Fergie played this, and I well remember Steve Bruce scoring at Wimbledon in '95 having been thrown up front to win a game. But Fergie only did that for the last five minutes, after he'd exhausted all his ideas and thrown on all his subs. Mourinho did it with half an hour to go on Tuesday, and against Liverpool last year he did it for the entire second half. For Mourinho it's a plan B, for Fergie it was a plan F.
Yes it might create a few chances, but throwing on Martial to play alongside Rashford and run at tired defenders would have yielded chances at well, I'm sure. When Rashford was running at the Real defence, they looked genuinely rattled - far more so than they did when they were handling crosses. And the route one tactic will never get the best out of players like Pogba and Mkhi, bought at huge expense.
Obviously there's a huge caveat here, as we were playing the best team in the world. Let's hope we opt for more fluid tactics against lesser teams, but given how often Mourinho opted for the hoofball approach last season when were chasing games, the signs aren't promising.
If Mourinho persists in playing like this at the first sign of adversity, then frankly I don't know why we hired him. We should look elsewhere and find someone who can open up games with the rapier rather than the bludgeon.
Every team in the league at some point has some sort of adverse conditions which limit their game.
The problem with Jose is against big teams, he always goes for a safety first and then when trailing has to resort to long balls. Sucks to watch United falter against the big teams. Since LvG, we haven't approached any big games with positivity and beat them at football. It's always the players who are supposed to follow instructions to the word, keep positions, stifle the attacks and hit then on a counter or a long ball to Zlatan and Fellaini to initiate attacks. We hardly have any possession.
I don't think that the football is going to change much, it's going to be the same old same old which kind of sucks. I wish United would get back to the level from 2006-2008 kind of football which was absolutely fantastic. Win or Lose, it would be excellent entertainment. Post 2008, we have dropped off and even in Fergie's last years, we kind of just strolled by and did the minimum.
It's not looking bad for many only because Moyes and LvG came in before Jose and the standards dropped quite a lot. With the amount of money Jose is spending, he has no excuses asking the team to play the way the do.
The problem with Jose is against big teams, he always goes for a safety first and then when trailing has to resort to long balls. Sucks to watch United falter against the big teams. Since LvG, we haven't approached any big games with positivity and beat them at football. It's always the players who are supposed to follow instructions to the word, keep positions, stifle the attacks and hit then on a counter or a long ball to Zlatan and Fellaini to initiate attacks. We hardly have any possession.
I don't think that the football is going to change much, it's going to be the same old same old which kind of sucks. I wish United would get back to the level from 2006-2008 kind of football which was absolutely fantastic. Win or Lose, it would be excellent entertainment. Post 2008, we have dropped off and even in Fergie's last years, we kind of just strolled by and did the minimum.
It's not looking bad for many only because Moyes and LvG came in before Jose and the standards dropped quite a lot. With the amount of money Jose is spending, he has no excuses asking the team to play the way the do.
There's a lot in this post that I agree with. Route one has its place and always had done but we do seem to resort to it much earlier than I would like. It would be nice to see us laying siege in the final quarter of a match with the ball on the ground more a bit more often. Nobody wants to watch hoofball any more than absolutely necessary.
I don't even think it's a classic Mourinho tactic. It's not something I associate with his most recent title-winning team at Chelsea, or at any of his other previous clubs. Maybe it's just a tactic that appeals purely because we have Fellaini at our team? It was a recurring tactic under both our previous managers too.
Think it's just opted for as it's the most reliable and easiest way to overcome a press.
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