There has a been lot of improvement in the speed and precision of our transition, team spirit and the belief in this team, they play with more confidence and character and can generate some very strong momentum. A lot of that credit has to go to Ole and I have to admit, I doubted he can instill those qualities. Our quality in possession higher up the pitch against numbers has not improved at all however and I am afraid it never will under Ole and his coaching setup. Because you are right, it is a coaching issue, it is in fact the hardest thing to implement by a coach which is why the ones who can implement it get paid the most money and are the most sought after in the business. OGS has really shown some very good qualities in his management with the way he is slowly shaping the squad and getting good performances from a lot of players. He has also shown some very good signs with his tactical setup for specific games. He managed to set up very well against several top teams in his time with us. His coaching ability however has always been in doubt and he has done nothing to show otherwise in that department.
We can still win the league without being particularly good at that like Leicester or Chelsea did recently. This is because winning the league simply means you are better/less bad than the other 19 teams. But I don't know a single top, top team the past decade who had that clear flaw.
Agreed 100%, especially with the bolded part. I do think Ole is a good manager, I understand why he does such personnel-choices but I see no improvement in terms how we move the ball high up the pitch. This is probably the reason why we tend to be so direct by the way.
I think we have improved a lot in results which is the best way to measure progress to be fair. But on our play style I actually think we have regressed.
The best we've played under Ole was after the covid break when we scored for fun and blew teams away. Since then we have not been able to replicate it.
Yes we are second on the table, but we struggle to get results every time. I can not remember a single game besides Leeds that I have felt we had under complete control and sure that we'll win. Even against the lesser teams we struggle.
We outscored Newcastle 4-1 but we scored the 2-1 at the 85th minute so the result doesn't show how hard we struggle to get the 3 points. Against Everton we won 3-1 but scored the third goal on the 90+ minute on a counter, still before that it was a tight game. We beat westbrom at home just 1-0.
In addition I think we can all agree we've been really lucky to get some of the results like Brighton which they should have won after failing like 3 big chances and conceding a penalty on the 97 minute. Or like against Southampton where we won by scoring in the 93 minute after a huge come back. Also against wolves at the 94 minute after a deviated shot from Rashford and against Burnley and Fulham with two amazing goals from Pogba.
Those kind of lucky/brilliance moments won't repeat very often. Its only natural that if we keep playing the way we have we will start dropping points. I think we have more points that we deserve and if we don't improve it will eventually catch up to us.
We still have the same old problems, we allow a bunch of goals on set pieces, we start the games slowly, we struggle to create big chances, performing wise I don't think we have improved much. We've been saved by worldclass performances from Bruno and Pogba but they won't sustain them, sooner or later they will fell short and without a proper system implemented we'll struggle big time.
Bottom line I think we need a better coach, even if results show we are top 2 we are not the second best team in the league. We don't dominate teams and our offense depends a lot on individual brilliance more than attacking patterns. Not saying we should sack Ole right now but we should be looking to improve on him in the summer.
No disrespect to Ole, he has shown great man management, but he's simply not up to the level that we require to beat City and Liverpool for the league. If we persist with this there's simply no chance we will get 90+ points in a season which is what is required nowadays to win win it.
The difference however against games like against Newcastle, West Brom and Southampton was that we had loads of clear cut chances and simply couldn't score (xG of over 2 in all those examples).
Yesterday we've been losing for over an hour and we still couldn't create any clear chances (this happened against Istanbul first leg as well, so I don't see much improvement). There are a few important factors (Bruno form, Pogba-Matic midfield instead of Fred-McTominay etc), but one thing is clear - we do not seem to have a clear gameplan how to move the ball to create dangerous situations
as a team.
A few days ago we are first in the league, one defeat and we are back to patterns of play, coaching and "is there progress?". Jesus wept.
Such a lazy comment, does the OP seem like an emotional reaction to you?
There are massive signs of improvement ans frankly that’s been shown by the fact we simply haven’t been slipping up regularly against teams we are expected to beat. Goals change games and the two we conceded yesterday came at the wrong time and were really poor. Every team can get caught out once or twice over a season especially those that aren’t the finished article.
The truth is this thread just reflects badly on you considering the form we have showcased this season in dispatching teams who sit deep. The progress has been there for all to see so I don’t quite understand what you are getting at. I also disagree we can’t improve the squad. It was clear last night that the weak links were Matic, Tuanzebe, Telles, Martial - all of which can either be improved by players already in our squad at the moment (Shaw, Fred, Cavani) and equally can be improved further with the right recruitment. Klopp and Pep didn’t build great teams Overnight, they had to recruit the right pieces of the puzzle before it fell into place.
I don't care about the conceded goals. You can call it bad luck or whatever. I am very worried about lack of ability to create any clear-chance while losing for over an hour against team sitting bottom of the table. Do you think we've been good recently relying on a bits of luck to get a result?
I've been talking about that for a while anyway. Before Sheffield game, we've won 7/9 games with one goal difference. If you consider only EPL games with available xG data, 3/6 we were expected to draw. We've been poor for a while, it's great that we kept the momentum going and frankly I think we squeezed everything we could from that period, but let's not pretend like it's an unexptected slip-up.
I am very interested to see those "massive signs of improvement", other than grinding results recently against the odds.
There were quite a few posters, myself included questioning whether or not those wins were sustainable and still questioning our coaching. Fact of the matter is, we were somehow grinding results without looking that impressive for quite some time now, relying on individual brilliance etc.
I was happy to somewhat overlook it when the results were coming, purely because there is no point ruining my mood when wins are something to be celebrated but if our luck and individual brilliance isn't getting us out of our hole as consistently anymore, then that's worrying
I'm not sure about some of the people on here, but I just have a hard time accepting the fact that teams like Leicester and Southampton etc. Are better coached than us from an offensive standpoint despite not having nearly the same resources. Why that is acceptable to others, I'm not sure
Seconded. The bolded part gets me too. Aren't people watching other teams play football? I don't even mention City who look on different planet, but you gave some good examples of Leicester and Southampton. And this is the point - they have decent/good players but the system takes them to another level. We have good players who look like they've never played together before when put against pressing/team sitting deep.
I’m glad you finally got your opportunity to criticise and being to negative again
You have some valid points, but you exaggerate a lot.
You blame the system and say it’s difficult for individuals to shine.
Right now I se quite the opposite.
Rash and Marty who is allowed to express themselves are way out of form. They try flicking tricking all the time instead of shooting from distance, like Pogba and Bruno try more often.
My second point is that we never see Greenwood or AWB challenging defenders one against one on our right side; creating unbalance.
Have you seen them use speed or dribbled the left back even though they had plenty of opportunities (facilitated by the system)? Instead they have played a safe pass back or sideways. In this particular case it’s more about lack of individual brilliance than problems with our system.
I disagree completely. Take a close look how Rashford and Martial receive the ball when running away from goal and with two players down their back - this is the issue, we don't create space to isolate fullbacks 1v1 against our attackers. We just give them the ball and hope something happens. It's all out of sync and just random movement.
Another point is - if you have basically all forwards out of form, surely at some point it has to be down to the coaching and manager?
Not going to talk about coaching unless results really turn to shit, but all I’ll say is that last night’s result was coming. We played 4 mid table to relegation battling teams before this and won every game by a single goal. That’s not sustainable; we can’t eke out wins in every game. There’s a reason no one has ever won a league with a +18 goal difference or something around that ballpark.
Our 2012-13 side was a Champion team, just like unfortunately, the City team who will win this league. Yes, we did eke out wins, like the 4-3 against Newcastle and 0-1 against Sunderland. However, you do also have to play well in 80% of the games and win by good margins, like the Norwich 4-0, Stoke 4-2 etc. Even Leicester handed out some smashings when they won their title, like they’re doing this season as well.
If the blueprint to win the league is to squeak 1-0 victories every game, then guess what, we won’t win the league. That’s not even a sustainable way to make top 4.
Not only that, basing on xG we were more likely to draw than to win in 3/6 of last games we've won by 1 goal. Like you said, this was coming.
