Set pieces issue, who's to blame? the manager, coaching staff or the players?

CanadianUtd

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The players. They are the ones playing.

This is not a case of coaching being terrible and unaware of the obvious problem at hand. In fact they stated it almost weekly throughout the year ...the players are the ones who time and time again missed their assignments by having a lack of concentration, mental lapses, or flat out just got beat often.


no to finger pointing the manager/coaching staff, it’s because of the players ability (or lack of should I say). Same reason we can’t point the blame of certain forwards lack of finishing on anyone else - these types of things rest on the individuals shoulders.
 

A-man

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The players. They are the ones playing.

This is not a case of coaching being terrible and unaware of the obvious problem at hand. In fact they stated it almost weekly throughout the year ...the players are the ones who time and time again missed their assignments by having a lack of concentration, mental lapses, or flat out just got beat often.


no to finger pointing the manager/coaching staff, it’s because of the players ability (or lack of should I say). Same reason we can’t point the blame of certain forwards lack of finishing on anyone else - these types of things rest on the individuals shoulders.
As I wrote earlier in this thread, I went through all conceded setpiece goals this season. It’s not the same 2-3 players responsible every time, instead basically every player has been at fault for a goal. If we look purely on the headed goals from setpieces, the same player has not been beaten twice over the whole season, a new player every time. That’s why I believe it’s something that can be coached.
 

SAFMUTD

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Another season, same old problems. Many claimed it was Lindelof's softness, he was replaced by Varane who's one of the greatest CB's aerially. Others claimed it was because our forwards aren't aerially strong but we brought Ronaldo who may very well be the best aerial striker yet were still poor at both sides.
 

MrSingh2002

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One more new coach added to the soft bunch we've already got and it's still the same shit.
 

Abraxas

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By all accounts this coach was extremely highly rated and not just by us.

I think part of the explanation is a little more simple: we don't have enough players that actually want to compete and win the ball and that think on their feet. You can have organisation but the basics are you have to leap, be willing to get hurt and to believe you're actually going to win it otherwise all the planning comes to nothing.

We're not a big threat in either box so it's not just defensive organisation, it shows we are not competing. The coach still has to look at himself of course because it's his area and I'm sure it's pretty embarrassing seeing this wherever most of the blame lies. Ultimately we need results.

Too often it seems to come down to Maguire (and sometimes Varane) win it or we're scrambling around. That's not good enough.
 

Foxbatt

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By all accounts this coach was extremely highly rated and not just by us.

I think part of the explanation is a little more simple: we don't have enough players that actually want to compete and win the ball and that think on their feet. You can have organisation but the basics are you have to leap, be willing to get hurt and to believe you're actually going to win it otherwise all the planning comes to nothing.

We're not a big threat in either box so it's not just defensive organisation, it shows we are not competing. The coach still has to look at himself of course because it's his area and I'm sure it's pretty embarrassing seeing this wherever most of the blame lies. Ultimately we need results.

Too often it seems to come down to Maguire (and sometimes Varane) win it or we're scrambling around. That's not good enough.
Look at them before they came to United or when they play for their national teams. Its the same players. Why do they play so different when they play for United?
 

TMDaines

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One more new coach added to the soft bunch we've already got and it's still the same shit.
On attacking set pieces (excluding pens and direct free kicks) we are 5th on xG generated, but we haven’t taken any of the chances:

 

grahamo

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terrible coaching. The defence are running around like the keystone cops. They can't head the ball and I've seen some of them duck out of aerial challenges (Maybe they don't want to ruin their new hairstyle). There is a real lack of will to win the ball. So So disappointing. I never thought I'd see United players ducking out of challenges and jumping over tackles. Panicking defenders who will put the ball out for a corner rather than try and play themselves out of a situation. They all look terrified when they are pressed.
 

Borys

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I would like to see how many corners and crosses we face in comparison to top 6 teams. I'd say we concede quite a lot of those, we seem to drop back very easily without much pressure in wide areas.
 

lsd

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I just want someone to tell me what on earth Carrick brings to the team in his position.

I have heard McKenna is the one handling coaching duties on a daily basis.

We know he is highly thought of from a lot of people in the know but Carrick? I've yet to hear of anything he does from anyone.

We see him on matchday just sitting there rarely making any movement or rarely taking to Ole.
 

spiriticon

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I don't know who is to blame but I can't believe something so simple is causing us so much problems.

Set pieces is dinosaur football. It's straight out of the Fat Sam coaching textbook. It's probably a 10 credit module for the UEFA Class D coaching licence.

How is is possible a pro club like United has a problem with it for years?:houllier:
 

Lentwood

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Remember the old Football Manager line from the 2008(ish) era - "lacks the mentality to ever effectively challenge in the air"?

I would say this applies to many of our players. Some of them actively duck/avoid headers i.e. Rashford, some of them are generally poor/lack aggression in aerial challenges i.e. Lindelof, Fred and some of them, despite having the attributes (i.e. size/strength) are just not good at attacking the ball DEFENSIVELY, and I would include basically all of them bar Maguire in that. For example, Ronaldo, McTominay, Martial and Matic are all tall, and the first three can all score goals with their head, but do they show the same desire at the other end? I'm not sure.

Throw in to the mix the GK being about as usual as a chocolate fireguard at set-pieces, and the fact that the PL generally has a large number of teams who sole method of trying to score a goal is through set-pieces and you can start to understand why we have such a poor record.
 

Oranges038

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Man marking and at least one man on the post is the simplest and easiest solution to this problem. .
 

SAFMUTD

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Man United are the only club yet to score from a set piece in the Premier League this season.


On last night's game transmission it was mentioned that we have had over 90+ corners without scoring from a single one.

We brought a set piece specialist in Eric Ramsey, and yet we have become worse at least offensively.


What's the problem with us ffs? How can we be this poor? Liverpool has scored 10, City 9, Chelsea 7, Arsenal 8. Even God dam Norwich has scored 2.
 

Matty7

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Man United are the only club yet to score from a set piece in the Premier League this season.


On last night's game transmission it was mentioned that we have had over 90+ corners without scoring from a single one.

We brought a set piece specialist in Eric Ramsey, and yet we have become worse at least offensively.


What's the problem with us ffs? How can we be this poor? Liverpool has scored 10, City 9, Chelsea 7, Arsenal 8. Even God dam Norwich has scored 2.
Sorry for the bump, but this is still an ongoing issue. How is Eric Ramsey still in a job? Hes been here a few seasons now, and we are still hopeless at set pieces - mainly corners. We concede more goals from our own corners (e.g Forest) than we actually score from them... We would be better off just kicking the corner out for a goal kick and resetting.

I know we are a 'short' team, but there has to be a deeper issue here. After 2+ years of having a specific coach in this area, I would expect some improvement, but there's none.
 

Red Star One

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This was a sackable free kick. Absolutely disgusting to do this when it’s one of your few chances to threaten their goal
 

Big Ben Foster

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How on earth is it possible to be so constantly shit on set pieces?
How has this issue still not been addressed, even after so many years and multiple changes of managers, coaching staff, and players?
 

big_jeffstar

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Sorry for the bump, but this is still an ongoing issue. How is Eric Ramsey still in a job? Hes been here a few seasons now, and we are still hopeless at set pieces - mainly corners. We concede more goals from our own corners (e.g Forest) than we actually score from them... We would be better off just kicking the corner out for a goal kick and resetting.

I know we are a 'short' team, but there has to be a deeper issue here. After 2+ years of having a specific coach in this area, I would expect some improvement, but there's none.
May as well sack everyone then.. we don’t do anything particularly well at all, set pieces are just another in a long list of mindless passages of play really
 

Skills

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How has this issue still not been addressed, even after so many years and multiple changes of managers, coaching staff, and players?
I think it's symptomatic of his little we must do on the training ground. Its the one area of the team where even the poorest coach has the most influence over.
 

VivaRonaldo85

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We’ve been dreadful from dead ball set pieces for many years now. You never see a routine or anything in games from them.
 

redshaw

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Probably down to the type of players we buy but it does feel like some kind of performance de-enhancing drug sabotage It's gone on for so long with different personnel. It's like all our players drop to 70% and muggle through whatever it is at OT.

I'd be looking at a clean sweep going back to 2013.
 

Big Ben Foster

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I think it's symptomatic of his little we must do on the training ground. Its the one area of the team where even the poorest coach has the most influence over.
Our data and analytics capabilities must also be well behind the rest of the league, because preparation for dead ball situations is one area where you'd expect that to have a large impact.