I feel your pain, although we’re on a good run atm playing 4-2-3-1 its basically just to accommodate Alli and that we’re missing Winks, on the occasion we have played 4-3-3 I think we play better.
Players in their correct positions please?
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik @Rood and Imran @Annihilate Now! start with the good news by celebrating Manchester United Women's emphatic FA Cup win over Spurs at Wembley and the future of manager Marc Skinner.
Then it's the bad news and the ever worsening form of our Men with losses to Arsenal and Palace.
Finally the main debate - ETH Out now or keep him until the end of the season - if not longer. Are you Team Nik or Team Imran?
But when you school a youngster to play the game a certain way and in a certain position and then drop them into a completely different role when they are an adult dont be surprised when they look clueless. It would be like asking Rooney to play as a deep lying midfielder...
Have you ever played football?
We are not paying him for defensive workrate.
Just play 2 behind him. It's not rocket science.
Yeah, I'm sure he's fuming that Jose keeps playing him at CDM after that match at Everton where he truly showed his worth, as well as a few matches from earlier in the season.
Sanchez is better on the right than Martial. The attack would be more balanced and efficient if they switch sides.
IMO the answer is that he is unbelievably stubborn and rigid in his approach. Even though some say he's pragmatic , to me he is not. Pragmatism means that you look at what works and what doesn't. For example , any Sunday league coach can see that Pogba needs to be released to do what he does best further up front. This is his more natural position and where we will get the best out of him. That's real pragmatism.
Jose does not believe in creating systems to suit players , it's all about players fitting in to systems. That's why he persists. He's blinded by the fact that his ego still thinks he's a genius. This is his fatal flaw. He's too up himself to see the obvious. Post match v Newcastle he claims that we could be there all day and not score , and he has a point in a way , but it's a smokescreen for deeper problems. I would respect him more if he just admitted the truth. His team isn't playing well . There's something wrong.
Good management means having the ability to see what's wrong and correct it.
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I don't think it's too much to ask an attacking footballer with 15 years of professional training to do a job anywhere on the pitch in the front three or a midfielder to do the same in the middle.
Absolutely agreed. Put McTominay/Herrera next to Matic. Push Pogba forward and play a front 3 with Martial on the left, Sanchez on the right and Lukaku up front. It's a formation where all our best players are in their preferred positions. Sanchez although he starts on the right has license to come infield and link the play whilst Martial keeps the width on the other side.
Would Shaw at left-back have helped Alexis score that open goal?
That's nightmare scenario stuff that. I'm hoping for Jose to eventually get fed up with our disjointed displays and try something different.
It can't have gone unnoticed by Jose that Martials form has fallen off a cliff since being shifted from the left. Something he was already aware of hence never playing him their previously.
I want us to play a midfield three too. The thing is, if we do so, we are sacrificing Lingard or Martial. Personally, i would drop Lingard since it has always been Lingard or Pogba to me.
I disagree with the notion that he plays as a CDM. He plays as a CM who is allowed to attack but doesn't do sufficient defensive work. How can you excuse not jumping or looking generally clueless when we are being attacked. The least he could do is run back and covers the center part of the midfield. McTominay knows this. How can Pogba not know this? Personally, i thnik Pogba compares himself to players like Neymar, Ronaldo, Messi who are pretty much liberated from much defensive work. Flair players eh.
I don't think he sees these disjointed displays as a problem when we get the 3 points. Probably the opposite infact, he likes slugfest, grindout victories where the opponents are frustrated. It has worked but god, is it awful to watch.
Have resigned to the fact that 4231 is here to stay. He's backed himself to a corner where it would look bad on him if a different formation actually ended up working better.
That contract extension might have been premature because I'd rather not have to watch this for another 2 years.
Martial can turn out to be excellent on the right, given time. Let's not jump into any conclusions.
The need to play 4231 stems from the fact that he wants to accommodate Lingard in the line up. Reminds me of Oscar at Chelsea.
Pogba in a 3 was great but the thing is, Pogba isn't a Mourinho 10 and Lingard is. One who runs and harries the opponent.
May be true but am also getting sick of hearing 'player x isn't a Mourinho winger/midfielder/striker' because of how often it seems to exclude talented/technical players in favour of those that run a lot or have some combination of physical attributes.
Would be truly comical if we build a team worth half a billion and still end up picking players in big games on the basis of their physical attributes and not actual football ability.
I'm giving Mourinho the benefit of the doubt for now.
I'm telling myself that we are playing Pogba there because our midfield options suck.
I think is time for us to start playing the players that suit the system and not trying to put everyone in.
Agree with OP, Martial on the right just proves Alexis is priority number 1 in the team, no matter how well Martial was doing, and actually I think if Martial would have scored against Newcastle we wouldn't been complaining about him playing on the right.
Pogba in a two man midfield is what I don't like, specially with Pogba playing because he has not much interest in defend or recover the ball so I think him playing in a 3 man midfield releases him from that defensive duty and can focus in creating damage to our rivals.
Lingard...I'm not yet convinced about him as our number 10 role, I prefer Mata anyday of the week, I still wonder why Mou play Mata from the bench whenever we are losing and if we are winning with Mata on the field he replaces him. Mata is a starter in my opinion.
Young as a right back, I think he's decent but I prefer Shaw just because he's natural at it and younger so we can rely on him in the future.
Sorry for bad english.
Pogba in a two man midfield is what I don't like, specially with Pogba playing because he has not much interest in defend or recover the ball so I think him playing in a 3 man midfield releases him from that defensive duty and can focus in creating damage to our rivals.
Lingard...I'm not yet convinced about him as our number 10 role, I prefer Mata anyday of the week, I still wonder why Mou play Mata from the bench whenever we are losing and if we are winning with Mata on the field he replaces him. Mata is a starter in my opinion.
Young as a right back, I think he's decent but I prefer Shaw just because he's natural at it and younger so we can rely on him in the future.
Sorry for bad english.
This is as bad as taking away his #9 jersey number without even informing him officially
Spot on, and in fairness he is that player.
Arsene Wenger, a manager who once managed Sanchez, thinks Sanchez best position is at the right though. At the right, Sanchez can cut inside to shoot and pass, can also push outside to cross. At the left, he is only capable of cutting inside to shoot, which is predictable and 1 dimension. I trust Wenger on this. But of course, Sanchez's own favourite is at the left. So let's just sacrifice Martial to accommodate Sanchez.
You dont get the simple things right, you get nothing right. Jose, after 2 years, is still not able to instill a proper attacking mentality into our team or get the best out of our attacking players. We struggle to create chances in almost every game and nothing changes
......exactly...and if I was being paid millions and I still wasn't getting basic things right in my job then I would resign out of sheer embarrassment or expect instant dismissal. Let's put this into perspective. The guy is supposed to be a genius being paid big money. He's paid massive amounts to get these things sorted and yet he seems to not even see the problem...? What's that about?
Attacking is .....erm..... a fairly significant part of the game?
Even if you did that he would not be absolved of defensive responsibilities. He'd still be playing in midfield at the end of the day.
And yet all of those players are strikers.
Pogba can't be a midfield at a top club like ours and not be expected to put in a shift.
And that attacking role was what made him the expensive player we (Jose|) bought from Juve. Surely Jose could see what he was doing in Italy and what made him devastating? So why block him by playing him out of position and shackling him to defensive duties? You could say that it's Pogba's fault but Jose knew who he was buying did he not?
Jose has bought a £100 million greyhound and then put him on a lead. Let him run for God's sake!!
Martial has no excuses. He was in the position to succeed and bottled it. The apologism he recieves from some of our fans is quite sickening at times. He’s very talented but not as good as some think.
Pogba and Young are another story. The former needs to be pushed forward in games like this and the latter is not good enough.
Pogba and Young are another story. The former needs to be pushed forward in games like this and the latter is not good enough.
He can play really well everywhere in the front three..this is the thing, even among world class players the majority will drop their level if you change their role, let alone potential wc players like Martial.
I really thought Alexis would play in the right.
The closest I can think of as parallel is Veron. World class but failed here in a midfield two. I ld be happy with all attack and no defensive Pogba. It's not like we have abundance of creativity in team. We can always find bodies to defend.
Talk about kneejerk...one was a good save, although he should've really scored, the other two one was a snapshot, that was blocked, as was the second a second later...
You'd have been loving it if he'd scored...he's been arguably one of our best players this season...
Some people need to stop with the kneejerk reactions to players (Unless it's Smalling and Jones)
Not a knee jerk. I’m admittedly not a massive fan of Martials. He’s too lazy and inconsistent for my liking. The way his fans make excuses for him does my head in.
If Lingard missed those chances, there would no excuses.
Jose not playing players in their best positions all boils down to him not trusting McTominay for upcoming huge games. If Fellaini was fit we would have won yesterday as we would have the right balance in central mid for everyone else to play where they need to be.
Play Lindelof in central mid with Matic FFS Jose and stop persisting with something that is not working
Play Lindelof in central mid with Matic FFS Jose and stop persisting with something that is not working
I can't disagree with this nor the solutions others are coming up with of a 4-3-3:
Martial - Rom - Sanchez
Pogba - Matic - Herrera/McTom
That isn't some magic bullet. We still have various question marks over the back four; our best CB combo, Shaw, Tony V's attacking prowess (not to mention Pogba looking injured and some poor finishing) but that is how I'd like to line-up for the foreseeable future.
I partly agree with you,I"m a bit dumbfounded that Young keeps playing ahead of Shaw when it's brazenly obvious that Luke should be our first choice LB.I definitely agree that Pogba needs to play on the left of a midfield 3,but I slightly disagree with your last point.Sanchez doesn't play on the right because he doesn't want to,he didn't want to play there for Arsenal and he said that very clearly even after he joined United.In his first interview after signing for the club he said that "I like to play on the left and centrally..."...
So he doesn't want to play on the right and maybe he's more effective when he's cutting in from the left,so I guess Martial and Rashford will have to learn how to play on the right....
I think it's a case of a few tweaks to starting position and man managing a couple of players to get them back up to form. The 433 should boss well for us and here are immediate problems to solve, based on yesterday's performance
1. Central midfield
Lingaard, Matic and Pogba all struggled yesterday. While i expect Lingaard to be inconsistant, the other two were below par due to injury niggles/ fatigue. A bit of careful performance management over the next month should be fine.
Jury is still out on whether Lingaard can play deeper in midfield. I would not write him off yet, but it may be best if we see more of Carrick and Mctom over the next month, until he has chance to adapt in training.
2. Fullbacks
Valencia struggled to get forward yesterday and lacked incision. Young was better, but did dwell on the ball too often. We need to look at replacing both next season, but in the meantime I'd be starting Shaw and Young as they are the best pairing
Centreback
I like Smalling's effort, but is stunting our build up play with his lack of technical ability, with a tendency for us to go long. A better passer in defence would give us an extra factor to be better in the build up. I don't think Rojo offers that, so it's time to make Victor L sink or swim. For 30m plus, it's time for him to step up as a starter - if we can work on his confidence, then we have a good defender who can use the ball.
Attacking Flanks
Like Rashford, Martial is a shadow of a player on the right. It's time we started Sanchez out there to see what he can do. In the 433 they have ample opportunity to be fluid and switch sides.
If that does not work then we need to look to youth. Chong has looked very strong and could be deserving of a promotion to start out right. It means rashford and martial will be benched, but sod it
Composure
Jose needs to work with the whole team on their composure. Far too often we are thumping it long to Lukkaku, or into wife areas. Nothing wrong with variety, but this appears to be our main approach and it's not working.
The player need to start passing more in the build up and showing more composure.
A few points, but I think the majority of the above is easy to solve.
1. Central midfield
Lingaard, Matic and Pogba all struggled yesterday. While i expect Lingaard to be inconsistant, the other two were below par due to injury niggles/ fatigue. A bit of careful performance management over the next month should be fine.
Jury is still out on whether Lingaard can play deeper in midfield. I would not write him off yet, but it may be best if we see more of Carrick and Mctom over the next month, until he has chance to adapt in training.
2. Fullbacks
Valencia struggled to get forward yesterday and lacked incision. Young was better, but did dwell on the ball too often. We need to look at replacing both next season, but in the meantime I'd be starting Shaw and Young as they are the best pairing
Centreback
I like Smalling's effort, but is stunting our build up play with his lack of technical ability, with a tendency for us to go long. A better passer in defence would give us an extra factor to be better in the build up. I don't think Rojo offers that, so it's time to make Victor L sink or swim. For 30m plus, it's time for him to step up as a starter - if we can work on his confidence, then we have a good defender who can use the ball.
Attacking Flanks
Like Rashford, Martial is a shadow of a player on the right. It's time we started Sanchez out there to see what he can do. In the 433 they have ample opportunity to be fluid and switch sides.
If that does not work then we need to look to youth. Chong has looked very strong and could be deserving of a promotion to start out right. It means rashford and martial will be benched, but sod it
Composure
Jose needs to work with the whole team on their composure. Far too often we are thumping it long to Lukkaku, or into wife areas. Nothing wrong with variety, but this appears to be our main approach and it's not working.
The player need to start passing more in the build up and showing more composure.
A few points, but I think the majority of the above is easy to solve.
You think Neymar and Messi are strikers?
I expect Pogba in a midfield two is like what Mourinho did with Fabregas in a midfield two. Both aren't exceptional on the defensive side and have similar qualities in being able to pick out long passes as well as the shorter eye of the needle ones when they eventually drive forward. Problem is Matic from a few years ago was able to anchor the midfield almost single handedly while current Matic probably cannot as effectively. To an extent you could even say that the replication of formation goes to Lingard as well in the #10 position, who has a more workman-like role similar to Oscar.
That's my two cents without having watched United all that much this season
So I may be way off.
That's my two cents without having watched United all that much this season
So I may be way off.Not sure if it was reflective of his all round game, but I thought Shelvey put himself about really well. Closed down, tackled hard, even covered a fullback once or twice. Even if his defensive contribution is considered weak, that sort of work rate probably makes a big difference in adding some steel in the midfield.
I meant to say forwards.
Agree with the sentiment but; Alexis on the right is probably not his correct position though.
Martial was better on the right than the left yesterday. Not sure if anyone else has said this but it's worth pointing out. He was actually playing the best football I've seen in a long time from him for a period of the first half.
He probably hears people talking about parking the bus.
He responds by playing a team of attackers. Unfortunately, they could not score a single goal yesterday.