Predict when we next have a normal game

Lentwood

Full Member
Joined
Jan 2, 2015
Messages
6,837
Location
West Didsbury, Manchester
Solius said:
By normal I’m saying basically a comfortable routine win, probably 2 - 0. No frills. Couple of decent goals. No red cards, no penalties. Our games are always absolutely batshit. Not counting that one game in the carabao:

Utd 1 - 0 Wolves: Ridiculously tight. Should’ve lost. Had no midfield.

Spurs 2 - 0 Utd: Lost.

Utd 3 - 2 Forest: Two goals down in ten minutes.

Arsenal 3 - 1 Utd: Could’ve won it last minute only to have a marginal VAR call reverse it and then ended up losing.

Utd 1 - 3 Brighton: Lost comfortably.

Bayern 4 - 3 Utd: Madness. Gave away a pen. Conceded 4.

Burnley 0 - 1 Utd: Extremely tight again. Needed a goal of the month winner.

Utd 0 - 1 Palace: Lost to comfortably one of the worst teams we’ve played this season.

Utd 2 - 3 Galatasaray: I still have PTSD from this game.

Utd 2 - 1 Brentford: McTominay scoring twice after 90 mins to win it.

Sheffield Utd 1 - 2 Utd: Late winner from Dalot. One goal margin again. Conceded a pen.

Utd 1 - 0 Copenhagen: Late winner and conceded a pen which is saved with the last kick of the game.

Utd 0 - 3 City: Lost.

Utd 0 - 3 Newcastle: Lost

Fulham 0 - 1 Utd: Last minute winner again.

Copenhagen 4 - 3 Utd: Monstrosity that is fresh in our minds.

Utd 1 - 0 Luton: Scraped it.

Everton 0 - 3 Utd: Garnacho scoring one of the greatest ever PL goals against the backdrop of the biggest ever PL points deduction. Far from normal game.

Gala 3 - 3 Utd: Suffering.

Newcastle 1 - 0 Utd: Lost.

Utd 2 - 1 Chelsea - Just about despite creating so many chances.

Utd 0 - 3 Bournemouth: Tragic.

Utd 0 - 1 Bayern: Still losing.

Liverpool 0 - 0 Utd: Far from normal to draw here. Plus baffling Dalot red.

West Ham 2 - 0 Utd: ....

Utd 3 - 2 Villa: Comeback from 3 goals down. We really are batshit.

Forest 2 - 1 Utd: Even our whipping boys Forest can beat us now.

Wigan 0 - 2: Lower league oppo, penalty needed to make it comfortable.

—————————————

Luton at home next. Is that too perfect of a fixture to be comfortable? Something has to go wrong surely.

Predict the next normal game please. Don’t use this to moan like a boring cnut. Plenty of other threads for that.
Click to expand...
This is my single biggest gripe with EtH and the reason I am reluctantly EtH out.

You could extend this to last season and you wouldn't actually see many 'routine' wins. When we do win, it's usually a tight, hard-fought victory against massively inferior opposition. When we lose, we get absolutely tanked/embarrassed.

It shouldn't be like that. Regardless of what people think of our individuals, far weaker squads/teams don't make such hard work of winning literally any game at all. Far weaker squads/teams are capable of playing away from home vs decent opposition and making a fist of it.
 

Gordon Godot

New Member
Joined
Feb 19, 2016
Messages
1,374
Lentwood said:
This is my single biggest gripe with EtH and the reason I am reluctantly EtH out.

You could extend this to last season and you wouldn't actually see many 'routine' wins. When we do win, it's usually a tight, hard-fought victory against massively inferior opposition. When we lose, we get absolutely tanked/embarrassed.

It shouldn't be like that. Regardless of what people think of our individuals, far weaker squads/teams don't make such hard work of winning literally any game at all. Far weaker squads/teams are capable of playing away from home vs decent opposition and making a fist of it.
Click to expand...
This is the reality. We all would love ETH to succeed. But the bare minimum is to play good, attacking football. I can count on one hand the number of times ETH has delivered this. As the list of matches show, we rely on last minute goals and wonder goals to bail us out. We should have lost several matches to lower teams and its only the fact that we have such an expensively assembled squad with some undoubtedly talented players that bail us out. It was exactly the same for periods under Ole. There is no clear system evident, and what is evident is just really, really dull.
 

alexanderplatz

Full Member
Joined
Jan 24, 2010
Messages
757
Location
Ireland
Looking at the fixtures it could well be March before the next ‘routine’ win - Everton or sheff United.
 

Mike Smalling

Full Member
Joined
Jan 27, 2018
Messages
11,031
Wolves (A), Luton (A) and Fulham (H) are decent options for this. Especially if we can get some players back.
 

thisisnottaken1

New Member
Newbie
Joined
Dec 9, 2023
Messages
1,033
Location
Edinburgh
I would hope that our game against Eastleigh or Newport will be routine. It should be, but knowing us it won’t.
 

Lentwood

Full Member
Joined
Jan 2, 2015
Messages
6,837
Location
West Didsbury, Manchester
Gordon Godot said:
This is the reality. We all would love ETH to succeed. But the bare minimum is to play good, attacking football. I can count on one hand the number of times ETH has delivered this. As the list of matches show, we rely on last minute goals and wonder goals to bail us out. We should have lost several matches to lower teams and its only the fact that we have such an expensively assembled squad with some undoubtedly talented players that bail us out. It was exactly the same for periods under Ole. There is no clear system evident, and what is evident is just really, really dull.
Click to expand...
It was actually much better under Ole. For long periods of time it was relatively enjoyable and we did play some good football.

Clearly the end-goal is to win trophies, so I don't want to be misunderstood when I say people were a little blinded by EtH winning the League Cup but it banked him plenty of credit despite our very soft run to the final.

Similarly the stick used to beat Ole was his lack of a trophy, but we got to an FA Cup semi-final and a Europa League final and so we're talking small margins.

Ole's problem was the same problem we had under Jose. Trying to sprint right after we'd learnt to walk, in our desperation to not be outshone by City. If Ole had continued his feel-good man-management style and best-of-British transfer policy (for the most part) I think we'd be in a much, much better position now. Unfortunately we tried to take shortcuts again with the likes of Varane and Ronaldo and it all imploded.

Sounds like I'm making the case for Ole still to be manager now! I'm not...but interesting how the two are both perceived on here.
 

BuzzKillington

Full Member
Joined
Sep 1, 2021
Messages
1,550
Location
Greater Manchester
thisisnottaken1 said:
I would hope that our game against Eastleigh or Newport will be routine. It should be, but knowing us it won’t.
Click to expand...
In a long history of FA cup shocks, us losing against either of those would be the least shocking shock ever. Feels like an accident waiting to happen and an opportunity for us to set a new record of some kind, we’ve been great at that recently.
 

Pexbo

Winner of the 'I'm not reading that' medal.
Joined
Jun 2, 2009
Messages
68,722
Location
Brizzle
Supports
Big Days
Can’t wait for the score to be 2-2 in this game
 

Pexbo

Winner of the 'I'm not reading that' medal.
Joined
Jun 2, 2009
Messages
68,722
Location
Brizzle
Supports
Big Days
2-2 by the 80th minute?
 

Solius

¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Staff
Joined
Dec 31, 2007
Messages
86,542
The only caveat is losing our best defender to a freak knee injury but yes :lol:
 

redshaw

Full Member
Joined
Jul 17, 2015
Messages
9,701
Enjoyed that abnormal game.

3--0 at home to a top 10 team, it's the closest we've come in a while. Could've reduced them to less shots and had more possession but after our showings this season that was great.
 

RedDevilRoshi

Full Member
Joined
Sep 28, 2017
Messages
13,269
Should play more often on my birthday if we get results like these on a regular basis :D . Can’t remember the last time we won a game as comfortably as this
 
You must log in or register to reply here.