The question I keep wondering is why? Forget about the style of play. Why has Mourinho turned into Ranieri. Yes Mourinho has never played the most beautiful football but he always had his style and a settled system and team. You knew exactly what to expect when you came up against Chelsea and the team would pick itself. Now for some reason he is buying players that don't fit - Pogba, Sanchez etc and shifting the team around like a mad man. Its as if he doesn't have control over signings and he feels everyone needs to get a game and big players need to be shoehorned in. Its weird and annoying.
Sevilla loss epitomizes everything that is currently wrong with United
- Thread starter Vilev
- Start date
I am mentioning Martial when I comment on Sanchez because at those times I have seen glimpses of some things Sanchez can do, which Martial never was able to, like playmaking. Which is what I was pointing out. You also probably have noticed that I don't rate Martial highly, so it's hardly a surprise that I am excited to see us get in a proven wc player in his place. But don't label me as one of those guys that bashes him no matter what he does, because I if you look in his thread, you will see that I have always given credit where it's due.
The fact it hasn't worked out yet for Sanchez is an issue of course but we surely have to give him more time to prove himself. Martial has been here for a long time and he still hasn't been able to claim a permanent starting spot. Just the fact that we got Sanchez planning to play him on the left should tell you something about how highly Martial is rated by our manager.
Sanchez tries a lot of difficult passes, which is one reason why he gives it away so often. He also creates a lot of chances by doing this. Every playmaker has his fair share of turnovers. His movement off the ball shouldn't be marginalised and neither should his workrate. It's not like these things are trivial and only compensate a bit for his turnovers compared to Martial. You can bring up the stats all you want but Martial is still lacking in quite a few aspects of his game. Sanchez might turn out to be over the hill and declining but it's way too early to declare that. I have a hard time believing he has turned to crap over night.
Oh I have criticized him last season as well, when he was a lot worse than he is now, by the way. I'm not trying to pretend that I rate him at all. I am actually only giving credit where it's due, which you maybe confused for pretending to like him.
The comment he quoted is actually of me criticizing Sanchez, if you can't tell.
This is what is baffling me too. People can slate his style, but he had a style, there was the Jose way. What we're seeing isn't even that, we're unorganised and the team isn't settled at all still, in march, yes we've had injuries, but that's not an excuse.
We should not still look like a bunch of players thrown together instead of a team this far into his reign here, it's not good enough.
It isn’t knee jerk. People don’t like the way we play. If we are winning it kind of justifies the play style but as soon as we lose people will be out about our boring style.
I think that what's wrong with United is extremely complex, and it's not something that there's an easy fix for. Underlying it all is money -- we are a financial juggernaut and our owners want to keep it that way. There's nothing wrong with that per se, but I think it's pervasive in the mentality of how we choose our transfer targets and how our coach(es) set up the team. We have a lot of monetary momentum, being extremely popular throughout the world and a short period without major successes might slow that momentum down but it's not likely to bring it to a halt. However, everyone in the club has their mind set on ensuring that we're still winning things, and that's why we choose a manager like Mourinho: the club know that we're not going to be playing scintillating football a la Pep, but he has a history of being able to set his teams up to do well in knockout competitions. Defend resolutely, wear the opposition down and scrape a win. It's a high-risk strategy and it requires your players to all be on-board with it. Last night shows that when it fails, it fails hard. The problem is that this failure will lower Mourinho's standing with the board, but we're still filling the stadium and people are still buying the merchandise and will continue to do so regardless of how us fans of football (rather than simply fans of the team and its players) feel about it.
We've been spoiled by decades of success under a manager who was a force of nature. We've been used to winning things and playing well - for the most part - while doing so. I think that it's harder in the current footballing environment to do that, but Guardiola and City are showing that with time and investment it's still possible. For me football is foremost about entertainment. I want us to be successful, but I prefer to be entertained. I don't mind a hard-earned win such as the one against Liverpool, but we ought to be able to expect that against lesser opposition we entertain. No disrespect intended to teams outside the top 6, but there should be a gulf in class between us and them. What's disappointing to me is that we're not seeing it regularly enough, and I think that's down to our inability to adapt. If we're always set up to wear down the opposition rather than outplaying them from the off, we're always going to be playing insipid football that's belied by those 4-0 wins where we score a glut near the end when our stamina and squad depth win out.
It's hard for any manager to set up their team to play in two completely different styles. In general you either play open, flowing football and expect that in a game against equally open opponents your tactics are basically to score more than they do, or you play stifling, defensive football and hope to frustrate. I think it's time that we set ourselves up in the former style, and accept that it's going to take an extended period (and I'm talking 3-5 seasons here) to get into a position where that style has the potential to lead to both good football and success. As much as I thought Mourinho was going to be the one to take us to bigger and better things, now I'm not so sure. But the problem is that I don't see who would and if there's pressure from above for immediate success, I'm not convinced that any manager we choose would even have the freedom to fail in the short term for the longer-term good.
We've been spoiled by decades of success under a manager who was a force of nature. We've been used to winning things and playing well - for the most part - while doing so. I think that it's harder in the current footballing environment to do that, but Guardiola and City are showing that with time and investment it's still possible. For me football is foremost about entertainment. I want us to be successful, but I prefer to be entertained. I don't mind a hard-earned win such as the one against Liverpool, but we ought to be able to expect that against lesser opposition we entertain. No disrespect intended to teams outside the top 6, but there should be a gulf in class between us and them. What's disappointing to me is that we're not seeing it regularly enough, and I think that's down to our inability to adapt. If we're always set up to wear down the opposition rather than outplaying them from the off, we're always going to be playing insipid football that's belied by those 4-0 wins where we score a glut near the end when our stamina and squad depth win out.
It's hard for any manager to set up their team to play in two completely different styles. In general you either play open, flowing football and expect that in a game against equally open opponents your tactics are basically to score more than they do, or you play stifling, defensive football and hope to frustrate. I think it's time that we set ourselves up in the former style, and accept that it's going to take an extended period (and I'm talking 3-5 seasons here) to get into a position where that style has the potential to lead to both good football and success. As much as I thought Mourinho was going to be the one to take us to bigger and better things, now I'm not so sure. But the problem is that I don't see who would and if there's pressure from above for immediate success, I'm not convinced that any manager we choose would even have the freedom to fail in the short term for the longer-term good.
At this point, you can't call it knee jerk, because we seem barely capable of 90 minutes of good football. It's mental to think we might finish 2nd, I don't know what that says about us and the league in general, but it's kind of staggering, because we have been infuriating to watch quite often.
On top of it we might lose Shaw, Martial and Pogba due to Jose's ego.
Everything is so backwards with him , you don't buy attacking players just to fit them in a defensive scheme.
And for those talking about 2nd like it's some big deal ...City has double the goals we do. On paper their team is good but not x10 better than us ...the problem is POOR coaching.
Everything is so backwards with him , you don't buy attacking players just to fit them in a defensive scheme.
And for those talking about 2nd like it's some big deal ...City has double the goals we do. On paper their team is good but not x10 better than us ...the problem is POOR coaching.
Shaw is the odd one out on that list, I don't think him leaving would make even a slight dent, Pogba and Martial are a total different class.
How many REALLY good performances have we had this season? Most of the time we’re laboured when we win. Scholes is right with his comments last night.
By that logic every team apart from City is poorly coached, or perhaps City are just an excellent team thats superbly coached.
A great post, a lot of truth in it. I just wish Jose would read the RedCafe to get a true feeling of what the fans really think of his style of management and to think he has the cheek to complain about the fans being quite. Expecting him to change/adapt to the modern game, will never happen, ego will not allow it, means admitting being wrong and failure. I personally feel he was a knee-jerk decision to combat Pep going to City and he has totally failed to go toe to toe with Pep in any way. We are not even close to City and he can't use the excuse the club didn't back him financially.
I am also getting tired of reading these posts slating the players we have all not good enough for Utd, while the manager gets away with no blame. The puck has to stop with the manager and we must stop looking to make excuses for the great Mourinho. He is really running on borrowed time as a manager before he becomes a laughing stock in football, like players extending their careers way past their best years.
For me this season is over, don't expect to win anything and will be surprised if we hang onto 2nd place at this rate. I really hope Jose keeps true to history and leaves because having to watch this dire football for another couple of years, doesn't inspire any enthusiasm or expectations for the future. If you believe the rumours of possible transfers for the upcoming summer I see we are yet again in for another defender and that in itself brings tears to my eyes thinking we are Man Utd and what the hell is he creating here. Some may say a double decker bus but most probably a wall to hoof the ball over
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I am also getting tired of reading these posts slating the players we have all not good enough for Utd, while the manager gets away with no blame. The puck has to stop with the manager and we must stop looking to make excuses for the great Mourinho. He is really running on borrowed time as a manager before he becomes a laughing stock in football, like players extending their careers way past their best years.
For me this season is over, don't expect to win anything and will be surprised if we hang onto 2nd place at this rate. I really hope Jose keeps true to history and leaves because having to watch this dire football for another couple of years, doesn't inspire any enthusiasm or expectations for the future. If you believe the rumours of possible transfers for the upcoming summer I see we are yet again in for another defender and that in itself brings tears to my eyes thinking we are Man Utd and what the hell is he creating here. Some may say a double decker bus but most probably a wall to hoof the ball over
.And how did Spurs got Poch? Zidane at Real, Luis Enrique at Barca. It seems to work for everybody, even Chelsea who shifts managers every couple of years. Just not for United? That's stupid. There are literally dozens of managers that are perfectly capable of improving us, like Zidane done for Real or Poch done for Spurs. Both of them were not exactly experienced.
There is also quite a lot of managers who have title to their names, Enrique, Anci, the rest. Low might be able persuaded to switch to club football after WC18. Ultimately there are a lot of options. You just need people who know what they are doing in charge of football matters at the club. Woodward in terms of "high" football management, like a sporting director type of thing is clearly out of his depth.
I hope that I won’t make a complete fool out of myself by the comment I am about to make, but one thing got me wondering after the game (and someone already mentioned this in the thread). And the question is, why do we spend millions on highly technical players, when we want to play hoof and run. Yes, I know that usually those highly technical players are the ones that generate the most clicks, likes and whatnot (and therefore profit), but surely the club’s primary source of profit is the marketing deals with all those noodle companies, and more recently with the tractor company, ergo why even bother with the high profile names? We could minimise the expenses on the footballers by simply hiring some bang average names, and get by with the deals that Woodward is constantly signing. The fans will still pay for the season tickets/merchandise, because the relationship between fans and the club is just like an addiction. Certainly those high profile footballers are signed with some vision in mind, with a certain style of play, not just a medieval tactic to kick and run. The manager just has to have some “rough” idea on how to utilize such talent (even though I have serious doubts about Mourinho’s approach, and after yesterday’s dross I am more in the out bandwagon).
It's the Rooney situation all over again -- washed up player on a huge wage that we won't be able to get rid of for many, many years.
Absolutely spot on.
With regards to Fergie changing his methods and even persona, I remember reading about the time Roy Keane saying to him (Fergie) "You’ve Changed"
And Ferguson’s reply was something along the lines of "I’m glad that I’ve changed, we have players from all of the world here now and if I hadn’t adapted, then I don’t think we would of been nowhere near as successful as we have been"
The game is constantly changing. The tika-taka style of football utilised by Cruyff was and has been found out. Guardiolas tactics are a variation of this possession based football. His tactics this year are adapted from last years, even though he has spent a fortune on their defence, the way they are playing this year is much more effective in comparison to last year. They have completely nullified any chance of teams counter attacking them by closing down in packs.
I’m sure City will get beaten more times next year as managers will have a better idea of how they play.
As for Mourninho it seems he is sticking to his old methods and is reluctant to significantly adapt to the way the game is being played now.
For me, it seems like the era of Italian, defence minded and tactical football is being superseded my the Spanish/South American style of play.
Mourinho is an Italian style manager and he needs to adapt. If he doesn’t, then he won’t last very long.
With a one important difference though. Rooney did give United lots and lots and helped us win all those titles. Sanchez is essentially a nobody for United that got 7 shirt off the bat as well.
Agree with a lot of those points particularly on our transfer policy. It has been shambolic at times and we seem to be signing players on the whims of fans like KingMinger rather than building a team.
However the person you have left out who has to take a lot of the blame is our de facto Director of Football, Ed Woodward. He has now hired three managers in a row who have played absolutely tumescent football. I mean one by one it has been terrible at times, and while this season at times it has gotten better, not for the value put in. How long can we go with someone who's background is commercially heavy and has no real idea of what is best for the club long term?
I don’t understand why people keep mentioning Pochettino. If you had Poch ye would play “beautiful football” (whatever the feck that means these days - tippy tappy bores me to tears) but you won’t win a pencil. You have a manager who plays “ugly” but won you 2 pots and could win you one more this season. But even if he doesn’t win anything this season, so what? Pep didn’t win a thing last season after outspending everyone but they didn’t sack him did they?
You all agreed Sanchez was too good an oppo to pass up and yeah he’s disrupted your shape and game but they would have the rest of the season & preseason to gel and figure it out.
But hey, you can always hire Klopp or Poch to play that sweet football you like. You won’t win a thing though.
Weren’t you all heralding your manager as a tactical genius after Liverpool & Palace? Funny how all that can change in a matter of hours.
Face it you’ll win some and lose some. City were so sure of a quadruple (lol) but Wigan has other ideas. It happens. Move on.
Because your team isn’t no where near good enough. Yet. Pogba, Matic, Sanchez, Lukaku, Bailey are all better than whatever Jose found when he arrived here. If you are honest with yourself you would accept that he couldn’t have sold the whole team and started over. Even he intimated to the fact when he signed that it would be easier to sell the whole team and start over but it’s impractical and obviously would never happen. Unless you’re City & Pep Guardiola.
After this window, when he’s going to most likely reinforce your midfield, finally, and your shaky defense, if things don’t improve then i’ll hold my hand up. but at the minute it just seems all knee-jerky and impatient/entitled.
If the players arnt good enough and yes he took over a 6th place side then fair enough. And if we loose games then it happens. What is not understood is why he keeps chopping and changing and why he buys players that don't fit. We still have no idea what the fk is happening with Pogba. He says he can play in a 2 and defend. No evidence if that working yet. Then Sanchez. No idea what was the plan with him. Was he bought to play on the left? Behind lukaku? What? If he was bought to play on the left or number 10 then that means he thinks martial and rashford or lindgard are not good enough. Which is weird. And he also thinks we don't need any more attackers. Which means he is happy with right wing. Which again wtf? We don't know the system. 4-3-3. 4-2-3-1. What? Who is our favoured cb pairing? Its all over the place. Maybe he is missing one or two key players and once they are bought it will all fall into place. At the moment it just feels like he's an england manager.
Absolutely agree with your post on every point.
This whole scam would hurt me less if I didn't take delight in watching Rashford and Martial combine and actually make me want to watch Utd at the end of the Van Gaal period.
I picked up on your last sentence, because whilst I was holding out hope that Mourinho would adapt/change, but all evidence is to the contrary.
How many of you actually believe he can change/adapt?
The only time I've seen him go away from his usual ways was when the Real Madrid hierarchy and fans made it clear to him early in his first season at Madrid that the tactics employed at his previous clubs was not good enough for a club of their stature.
wonder what the fall out will be of this match, Jose wont take the blame and will have a clear out this summer, De Gea, Shaw, Martial and Pogba might not be here next season
Yeah, you're right. I did mention him here just like a while ago exactly in a sense that he out of his depth and there are many good manager alternatives, you just need to choose smartly.
Obviously after Fergie we can't seem to find a right way for our football side of things to function. Our scouting/recruitment, our football management is all over the place. Woodward needs to seriously consider bringing in at least some kind of assistant or something on football matters.
After a rather humiliating Chelsea sack i honestly thought he would. I don't really get what's stopping him. He did win quite a lot. So he will win some more, he won EL with MU. Does it change anything major for him? Not really. Even Chelsea fans are not fond of him, i thought it stung him. I thought with MU move he wanted not just a quick 3-4 years trophy hunting expedition, but to actualyl make the team his own, something he has not done in a while.
But yeah it does seem, that he either can't change or simply don't want to, does not think he needs to. Which is in a way sad, because even if he will bring some local success here, i am pretty sure he won't get recognition and love, adoration he seeks. It will be like that title with Chelsea, Chelsea fans are kind of grateful to him for that, but it's still "meh".
I still can't believe we hired a manager on the back of such a "sack", but that's another story...
Can only nod in agreement with your thoughts there.
Right now, i am left pondering what is left to expect from him/ the team till the season ends... The next game is versus Brighton, and i feel i have nothing to look forward to, win and it is par with expectations, lose and we are below par. But given i don't expect an overwhelming display of an offensive performance, I feel "meh" (as you say), iIguess there can be individual feats of brilliance, but I already know we have some lovely players.
I just want the team to click and be inspired to take on the challenge of outplaying the opponent offensively from the start, I don't think that is an unfair demand given the talent pool.
I agree.
I think the priority now is to secure second place in the PL and aim for the FA Cup. Begin to look towards next season. I think Mourinho has more trophies in him.
West Ham (h) CSKA (a) , first half of Liverpool (h) and second halves of Chelsea (h) and Everton (a).
It seems he hasn't really worked out a way to play against teams who press. His only option is to park the bus, pump long balls forward and hope for the odd counter.
It worked against Spurs and Liverpool at home (all three goals came from DDG clearances) but it's also brought some pretty horrible defeats and it doesn't really answer the problem.
Until he solves this riddle I'm not sure he can recapture his old dominance.
It worked against Spurs and Liverpool at home (all three goals came from DDG clearances) but it's also brought some pretty horrible defeats and it doesn't really answer the problem.
Until he solves this riddle I'm not sure he can recapture his old dominance.
Yes, we have been bad against Sevilla, and in all other "big" games with defensive approach. Still, I remember 2 years ago playing Sheffield United at home,although winning in Fergie time, but playing without any idea what to do with the ball. Two years later we are much better against smaller teams, playing OK against teams other than top 6 in PL. I wouldn't say I am happy with this, just to say what kind of job Jose had in front of him and that we shouldn't expect miracle any time soon.
@GifLord
Do you have a clip of the ~1 minute of United possession leading up to Sevilla's 1st goal? Starting around minute 72 or 73, mostly passing at the back.
Do you have a clip of the ~1 minute of United possession leading up to Sevilla's 1st goal? Starting around minute 72 or 73, mostly passing at the back.
Thanks.
I really don't know if that even needs a comment, I think it tells the story on its own. But anyway - we have no way of playing out from the back. The CBs won't try a risky pass, the CMs cannot position themselves correctly, an the winger-fullback link is where we lost the ball. Terrible all round.
The thing is, we haven't ha a convincing method of doing this going back to 2012...The entire team has changed, 4 managers have changed, but this is constant at the club.
Edit - though I think the Carrick-RvP link was a way out of this in 2012/13, and it's why I like seeing Blind given some role at the back.
https://hdmatches.com/2018/03/13/vi...evilla-full-match-highlights-13-march-2018/#5
you have it here, starts around 28:40. For a minute we are not able to move the ball to their half. Their 3 players are making soft pressing, basically just covering 40m line, Pogba and Matic walking around, no one using space to offer themselves, to end it with Valencia bad pass to Sanchez as he is not capable to give a good ball on that distance and Alexis not offering himself enough. Also, Pogba or Matic should be in position on the left of Valencia in the space to take that pass and defend if something goes wrong.
Also, when they take a ball, Pogba is not aware where is the player behind him. He did not even look in that direction, just standing on his position for 10 seconds, so ball easily past him. Of course, Smalling also too far of him even he is the only player he should control.
Everything wrong with our defensive setup and transition in 1 minute. They needed 8 seconds since interception to score, 6 touches, 50 yards. We moved it around for a minute without any idea what to do with the ball, and they even did not press hard.
To anyone who says it's "knee jerk", ask them what our Plan A was in the game. Then ask them if that is an acceptable Plan A for such an important game.
That is just ridiculous when you watch it back. 30 seconds of slow sideways passing. None of the CB want to move forward with the ball. Nobody is showing up for the ball. Valencia gives it away. Matic doesn't win his duel and two passes through our midfield is enough for them to score. I wonder what goes on in training sometimes and what these players work on. You don't need to be peak Maldini to be able to pass the ball out from the back. Just simple things on how to move the ball and how to receive it and how to take opposition strikers out of the game will make big differences. We need to play a higher line in defence and close the spaces between players too. It's too disjointed right now.
Also, our attacking style you can see in full at 19:40. Look how static are all the players without a ball in the next 50 seconds. No one except Lingard is moving one step if without a ball. Did Jose told them to do that?
....and this is what happens when you have a manager who wants to play over complicated chess rather than football. It's nonsense and if his name wasn't Jose "the Special one " Mourinho we would think he was a joker.