Klopp insistence on playing midfielders in defence was a big problem for them as well he could have played whichever fit CB's he had like he has been doing now rather than completely disrupting the teams dynamics by making players play out of positions, this season's relative failure of Liverpool has as much to do with Klopp's stubbornness as it has to do with their injuries
Our Progress
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I'd point to five factors:
1. Simultaneous long-term injuries to all 3 of their regular CBs
2. Underperformance by several key regulars (Mane, Firmino, Thiago) and lack of stepping-up from squad players (f.e. Keita, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Origi)
3. Team philosophy and squad design (not sufficient depth to sustain style of play in the face of injuries, which at least partly reflects conscious choice)
4. Lack of adaptation to changed circumstances. If you're not able to play your chosen style successfully because you lack the players, then you have to play in a different way if you want to succeed. They've not been able to do that.
5. More arguable and speculative than previous points; but you could at least question the mental resilience and attitude of the players, given how poor the results have been compared to the year before.
Abso bloody exactly.
Particularly the point about Mourinho supposedly having us close when we came a distant 2nd with his bloated superstars.
The following few months put paid to that myth.
Yeah he needs to be able to improve the squad to make progress for sure, but I'm operating on the assumption that there'll be slope signings.
What we are witnessing is a squad which is above average , it with bloated wages and players that need to be moved on, but things are difficult given the crazy contracts that were handed out when they should have been allowed to run down.
Around the corner is what are the objectives of the owners, will they understand the need for an experienced Head of Football/CEO and the investment needed for the next step and the adjustment in the roster by moving players who are not needed. If the Glazers just play lip service to the clubs requirements, then we will probably continue to look up as Citeh, an Improved Chelsea plus others actually recruit and invest.
Around the corner is what are the objectives of the owners, will they understand the need for an experienced Head of Football/CEO and the investment needed for the next step and the adjustment in the roster by moving players who are not needed. If the Glazers just play lip service to the clubs requirements, then we will probably continue to look up as Citeh, an Improved Chelsea plus others actually recruit and invest.
I see this being put about a lot. Yes, it probably has to do with a lack of coaching, but it is probably not because the quality of the coaches. The problem is related to lack of time to work on it. It just hasn't been prioritized because there have been more pressing concerns this season. Liverpool under Klopp actually had the same issues regarding set pieces, but they got it right in the end.
While I agree with your points, the injuries and underperformance is sort of an effect of all the success Liverpool has had the last years because of the high intensity/pressure gamestyle with the same squad relentlessly over many seasons.
Very similar to what happened with Klopp's Dortmund.
Do you really believe that Chelsea had the 9th best set of players in the league before Tuchel came in?
We were 6th when Solskjaer took over in 18-19 We finished 6th on 66 points. We finished 3rd the next season with 66 points and in the interim period the three teams who had finished directly above us all sacked their managers. I’m not saying we aren’t any better at all. I’m asking how much better are we really and is it enough? How much has our improved league position been driven by our improvements and how much by the collapse of others?
I’m not saying it’s the only reason. I’m saying a shorter pre season isn’t a greater handicap than not having your most important player for most of the season. Look at the state of our defence against Liverpool last week without Maguire.
This will be very interesting to see next season , since it will be a "normal" season with both Chelsea and Liverpool probably getting back to their old self.
It doesn't matter what I believe the players are.. do you believe SU are the worst set of players? They almost got into Europe last season.
How aren't we better? We have better results against the bigger teams now. We have 4 plus goal margins in more games than we did under all 3 previous managers.
We have a better team mentality and spirit.
The collapse is down to the manager though, why are the same Chelsea players now fighting for top 4 and CL under a different manager?
At the start of the season alot of fans had us down to finish 5th and below, so getting 2nd is shows progress considering we have 3/4 positions with holes in them.
Yes I do. They grossly over performed last season.
I believe we’re slightly better. Our results in big games have got worse this season though. We’ve added one of the most creative players in Europe. I believe that accounts for most of the improvement we’ve seen. The form of some players has improved also such as Shaw and Rashford. I don’t think results are as good as they should be given those facts.
My point on Chelsea is that now they’ve replaced the manager that was underperforming are we a better team than them? That will be tested next season. Our we second instead of third because they had a lame duck manager? If we were third instead of second would people still see us as making progress?
I hope I’m wrong, but I think we’ll have a job on just to finish second again.
The point is we are not 3rd. If but's and maybe's.
We have lost same number of games as City.. the best team in the league, why is that not progress?
If City didn't have a winter break would they have won the league? Who knows. The point is we are 2nd so that is progress, with a EL final too.
Not much point in carrying on them. You don’t win the league based on how many games you lose. And league tables are based on how well you are doing in comparison to others. You can move up the table by standing still if others around you drop.
Fair point, that.
Look at Liverpool after the restart last year, look at them at the start of this season with VVD. Its not just their defence but how Klopp dealt with it. VVD getting injured was just a convenient excuse since its not their defence thats the actual problem. Hell we concede first every other game and our attackers are good enough to turn it around.
Edit fun fact. We have conceded 1 more goal than Liverpool
And you can win the league with same number of points as a 2nd placed team in a different season.
No doubt it’s not the only issue they’ve had. They were likely to drop off regardless. It’s obviously a massive problem to miss your best centre back though. Look at the absolute state of our defence last week in the first league game Maguire didn’t play in since we signed him. The question is would you rather have had a short pre season or not had your most important player available? I know what I would prefer.
Do you genuinely believe that Liverpool wouldn’t have more points if Van Dijk hadn’t been injured?
Indeed. Not sure how that’s relevant to this Man United team though and whether we’re much better than previous seasons.
Tbf to Klopp he had his first 3 CB's all get season ending injuries...Its like if we had Tuanzebe and Mengi to choose from all season for centerbacks. I'm sure we'd dabble with McTominay and Matic. They signed Kabak in January too to actually have options and then he got injured too
Vs Leicester, Chelsea, Arsenal, City, Spurs, Liverpool -
2019/20: 7 wins, 3 draws, 2 defeats, +9 goal difference
2020/21: 2 wins, 6 draws, 4 defeats, -5 goal difference
Progress?
2019/20: 7 wins, 3 draws, 2 defeats, +9 goal difference
2020/21: 2 wins, 6 draws, 4 defeats, -5 goal difference
Progress?
Not in those fixtures, but have you considered including all the games against every other team in the league?
We have more points than we got in that season and still have a game to play.
- From 3rd to 2nd.
- Distance down to 5th place widened.
- Distance up to 1st place narrowed.
- Yet to play the EL final(but first final reached nonetheless)
The above are facts that make it impossible to make any reasonable argument against us having progressed.
Then there's the deeper context which strengthens the case: for various reasons(the protests, City being a little too far ahead etc) we didn't really give our best in the last 4 games. That is 12 points potentially thrown away, not because of lack of skill, coaching or whatever. Not to mention all the points we dropped in the beginning because of our lack of a proper preseason. But of course the genius football historians in here will look back to this season and say: "Aha! We only got 5 points more! That is basically nothing! I was right all along!"
We also play better football this season, imo. That's subjective, though.
- Distance down to 5th place widened.
- Distance up to 1st place narrowed.
- Yet to play the EL final(but first final reached nonetheless)
The above are facts that make it impossible to make any reasonable argument against us having progressed.
Then there's the deeper context which strengthens the case: for various reasons(the protests, City being a little too far ahead etc) we didn't really give our best in the last 4 games. That is 12 points potentially thrown away, not because of lack of skill, coaching or whatever. Not to mention all the points we dropped in the beginning because of our lack of a proper preseason. But of course the genius football historians in here will look back to this season and say: "Aha! We only got 5 points more! That is basically nothing! I was right all along!"
We also play better football this season, imo. That's subjective, though.
I'm more interested in how the results and performances have declined so alarmingly in all the fixtures that are fought on an even keel.
We've been really good this season at not turning up in the first halves of matches and shipping goals away, and then coming back to win against bottom half clubs.
What the results from the big match ups show is that this approach doesn't work against good teams and this is why I don't think we've moved any closer to winning titles from last season. We haven't been able to string a good performance together over two halves of football all season. It's why we were humiliated in the CL and its why we've scraped 2 wins from 12 against the other competitive sides in the league.
This seems like some odd logic... I mean, we as fans can expect what we want or don't want, how is getting 2nd a sign of progress because of that? Thats so weird - we were expecting Top4 because we expected sort of stable trends of our competitors like City, Pool, Chelsea and Spurs. None of them really followed that expected trend though - City took half a year to really hit champions form, Pool fell of a cliff, Chelsea struggled, Spurs imploded. Leicester is one of the only teams to continue their trend and they are 4 points behind us. Nobody would take business numbers from 2006, compare them with numbers from 2020 and come to the conclusion that as we significantly increased our numbers, our ownership would be good for the club.
If the club itself internally set the goal for Top4 finish and got 2nd, that I'd agree would be progress - but we probably will never know that for sure. We've had a very good season but us being 2nd, for me, has more (at least just as much) to do with what other teams didn't do, than about what we did.
I agree with the OP, I think there surely is progress, we were able to grind results even when we were playing crap and we also managed to play some nice stuff but at the same time, we had big issues in critical moments, left CL group and title race in a disappointing manner, lost to direct rivals. This is not complaining, its just summarizing the season as a whole.
So yes, progress has been made. But I am a little worried that next season reality might hit us harder than some people expect. Other teams noticed our upwards trend, they will be prepared just like the bigger teams have been prepared this year. But still, I certainly wouldn't think a second about changing the managing team right now as there is no obvious candidate who really fills me with confidence. Ole might not be a Tuchel figure who is deep into the nitty-gritty pro-active puppet mastering but by setting the right environment, Ole can provide the squad with the opportunity to evolve.
Yeh I get that most people aren't smart enough to spot patterns and realise that maybe these woeful results against these sides, supposedly on roughly equal footing to us ability-wise, might be indicative of something significant, that will continue to keep us far away from winning titles.
Yes, lets rather win the "Top 6" trophy than 2nd and comfortable CL qualification.
I don't care about how comfortable a top four finish was, last time I checked we're not Arsenal.
So lets just ignore some indicators for performance evaluation and just enjoy the indicators with the happy faces? Seems a bit shortsighted to me.
Yes, lets rather win the "Top 6" trophy than 2nd and comfortable CL qualification.
It is a worrying trend, nothing less, nothing more. But it is a trend we should ignore.
Their most important player who was also a part of their team who shipped 3 against Leeds and 7 against Villa, that guy? Of course, it's all hypothetical from your end, but they had some shocking defensive performances after lockdown with him in the side as well...
A pretty big part of why we got 3rd last year was Martial. He hasn't even turned up this season. We've had more goals from the likes of McTominay and the fullbacks, and Maguire and Shaw have really come on in their ball progression from deep. We have come on a long way this season, so much so that Bruno hasn't really been the deciding factor in that many games for us since January, certainly not as much as he was this time last season.
With that being said, we need more because certain players are starters when they really should be squad players and bringing those upgrades in will see a further progression of the team. I'd say we're 4 top quality additions away from being a complete team, but just getting in two of those players would see us come on leaps and bounds.
Could also be a case that this season those teams took us a lot more seriously with a defensive approach, and they were mostly heavily contested games (Spurs game withstanding, but we all know the issues we had at the start of the season with no pre-).
Statistics are like bikini's, what they show is important but what they hide is vital. You can splice things up in different ways, personally I feel we're playing much better football than in the last 10 years but only in small bursts -> the next step now for me is maintaining that form not just throughout an entire 90 mins regularly but on multiple runs throughout a season.
Or, it could show that these teams, rather than not paying us any respect and playing their normal games against us, are now adapting to us and how we play. It says just as much about them, as it does us, if not more.
Not withstanding the hyperbole in the last sentence (because I can certainly remember quite a few dominant and strong 90 minute performances from us this season), we have played 2 games a week almost every week this season. The players are clearly knackered and despite all these issues, they are still second and in a European final. If we're meant to be worried for the coming season, what about Chelsea and Liverpool?
Yes, they had some bad performances with him. I’m not saying he’s the only reason they have 30 points less this season. Do you really think they aren’t a better team with him and would likely have had better results if he wasn’t injured? Come on.
You mention Bruno not being the deciding factor since January. Our league form since the beginning of January would have us 5th in the table. With the same number of points as Arsenal. To me that points to him being the progress.
You mean, spot that in 19/20 we primarily only played counter attacking against those sides and it suited us perfectly because they wanted to go on attack all game?
While this season they didnt dare go on attack because of this, and actually played very defensivly and simultaneously we were trying to play a more balanced type of play?
Yes, its a worry that we werent good enough to play through them, ofcourse I get your point. But that was a side effect of us trying to play more possession based, so we were better against the lower end sides.
As we hopefully will add another creative player and have more experience with this type of play, that is more or less the last piece of the puzzle in my opinion.
But adapting a different style of play that gains us more points overall is a progress, no matter how you twist it.
It's clear that subpar first half performances is a flaw that needs to be remedied (and OGS seems pretty clear on that). But it hardly amounts to an "approach".
I'm actually not hugely worried by our record against top teams this season, because there seems to me to be perfectly understandable reasons for it. Last year, we got shockingly good results from playing a low-lying, counterattack based game, against teams who showed up trying to control and dominate the game. We're not getting those opportunities this year, because strong opposing teams no longer play us that way - some of them have even reverted to a downright defensive approach (Chelsea at Trafford, for example). They now approach us more carefully, which means we have to beat them by contesting dominance (which we would I think in any case attempt, because you're never going to be a dominant team if you can't do that). But we're simply not good enough yet to prevail in that way with any regularity against really strong teams. Not really surprising, and something that in my view indicates we're a team in transition rather than a team who's already arrived. This is one of the reasons why the next transfer window will be so crucial.
Their PPG after lockdown was trending downwards, and they actually stabilised for quite a decent chunk of time after his injury until January which is when they went into freefall. You'd like to think that if he was so important to them, they wouldn't be top of the league 3 months after his injury, but you probably have a different definition of important to me.
Yes, and I've already mentioned that the performances in the majority of those games have been decent and we by and large deserved wins in most of them. Poor refereeing and not seeing out certain games correctly has cost us, but with this being a young team it's expected.
Ok, Liverpool wouldn’t be likely to have more points with Van Dijk in their team. Jesus Christ. If you don’t believe Van Dijk is an important part of Liverpool’s team then you’ve a different definition of important to everybody.
But you were wrong when you said that. We were fecking abysmal in many of those games whether you say we weren’t or not.
Again, you're ignoring the fact that they were top of the table in January. For me, their issues weren't necessarily because VVD wasn't there, but that they struggled to fit Thiago in once he regained his fitness after his injury v Everton.
That's your opinion, it's not a fact, as I'm sure you're aware. We'll agree to disagree.
I’m not. They were top until around the time they had to play two central midfielders in defence. Something greatly influenced by losing Van Dijk. If anything I underplayed the injuries they suffered. What you’re doing is blatantly refusing to acknowledge that losing a centre back as good as Van Dijk is a massive issue just because they coped alright for a while. In the process you’re losing any credibility.
Indeed it is an opinion. One that most football fans watching the games would have shared.
Some people in this thread! 
Use your eyes, you can see the progress clear as day. Is it perfect? No. Do we still have issues to resolve? Yes. Has there been progress? Absolutely.
On the whole, the football has been so much more enjoyable, and the players are showing strong togetherness and a real desire and grit about them. There are still weak links, sure, and we've had more than our share of disappointing and frustrating games, but the good times outweigh the bad. Or have we all forgotten just how bad it ended up under previous managers?
For those that want to look solely at the numbers instead of what is actually happening in front of them:
We've gone from 6th -> 3rd -> 2nd in the last three seasons, with the gap to the eventual winners being 33pts ->32pts ->12pts (as things stand). Progress, end of.
Yes, we never really mounted a serious 'title challenge' this year, but we asked some questions and sat top for a little while at the turn of the year, and didn't that feel great?! Plus it took City until the penultimate week of the season to wrap it up, with us dropping off the last few games down to fixture congestion and focussing on the European final that we have to look forward to next week!
Obviously we don't expect to sit back and admire the progress, we need more solid recruitment and for the lads to kick on another level again next season. But please, some of you need to try to enjoy the positives, rather than drowning yourselves in a sea of negativity constantly, it's not worth it and can't be good for you.
Use your eyes, you can see the progress clear as day. Is it perfect? No. Do we still have issues to resolve? Yes. Has there been progress? Absolutely.On the whole, the football has been so much more enjoyable, and the players are showing strong togetherness and a real desire and grit about them. There are still weak links, sure, and we've had more than our share of disappointing and frustrating games, but the good times outweigh the bad. Or have we all forgotten just how bad it ended up under previous managers?
For those that want to look solely at the numbers instead of what is actually happening in front of them:
We've gone from 6th -> 3rd -> 2nd in the last three seasons, with the gap to the eventual winners being 33pts ->32pts ->12pts (as things stand). Progress, end of.
Yes, we never really mounted a serious 'title challenge' this year, but we asked some questions and sat top for a little while at the turn of the year, and didn't that feel great?! Plus it took City until the penultimate week of the season to wrap it up, with us dropping off the last few games down to fixture congestion and focussing on the European final that we have to look forward to next week!
Obviously we don't expect to sit back and admire the progress, we need more solid recruitment and for the lads to kick on another level again next season. But please, some of you need to try to enjoy the positives, rather than drowning yourselves in a sea of negativity constantly, it's not worth it and can't be good for you.