I can remember the legions of posters on here that said they didn't care if we won or lost as long as we played attracting football. Some of our play has been sensational at times. We're top scorers in the league for a reason.
Snail's pace!
- Thread starter OleTheGreat
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik and Imran hold a long overdue conversation about United's awful league form with 1 win in 7. They discuss a disappointing draw at Bournemouth, a not so disappointing draw against Liverpool and a crushing defeat at Chelsea - Is time nearly over for Erik Ten Hag?
Then in a special second half of the pod, Nik welcomes Natalie ( https://twitter.com/natalie_17) to discuss the fortunes of Manchester United Women as they booked a place in the FA Cup Final after a historic first ever win vs. Chelsea.
Finally someone with a strong head over his shoulders. I love this club and I have followed them for over 2 decades. I have seen the best and the worst from this club and I definitely know the root of these problems but I still love when we play great football because it affects all of us who love this club.@OleTheGreat
Share the frustration. I think we started seeing some really good stuff against Southampton and Everton. Last night wasn’t great but we made some changes and it was a cup tie against a back eleven so I hope versus West Brom we see some of the stuff we saw in our last two league games.
But it’s still not as consistent as it needs to be. The bit about fixed position is important because most of our players bar Bruno seem to think they’re not allowed to leave their designated position. Is this an instruction? I don’t know but there needs to me more freedom in movement especially in our front three.
But it’s good that this post of yours has come from someone who clearly is pro Ole. Sometimes on here there’s this thought that if you criticise Uniteds style of play it’s just a ploy to lambast Ole.
A few have replied to you that actually we’re great to watch etc and I think I even saw someone say we’re better to watch than City
I can only describe this as ‘comedy bias’. When people who don’t support Man United start talking about how good are football is then we’ll know we’ve made that final step. At the moment that doesn’t happen.
I don't understand where you are coming from since if you remove the 9 goals we scored against Southampton, we're only ahead of Chelsea. Not to say that we did not totally outperform Southampton but we are just about there and thereabouts if we didn't.
Pep has players stick to zones too, is his football boring?@OleTheGreat
Share the frustration. I think we started seeing some really good stuff against Southampton and Everton. Last night wasn’t great but we made some changes and it was a cup tie against a back eleven so I hope versus West Brom we see some of the stuff we saw in our last two league games.
But it’s still not as consistent as it needs to be. The bit about fixed position is important because most of our players bar Bruno seem to think they’re not allowed to leave their designated position. Is this an instruction? I don’t know but there needs to me more freedom in movement especially in our front three.
But it’s good that this post of yours has come from someone who clearly is pro Ole. Sometimes on here there’s this thought that if you criticise Uniteds style of play it’s just a ploy to lambast Ole.
A few have replied to you that actually we’re great to watch etc and I think I even saw someone say we’re better to watch than City
I can only describe this as ‘comedy bias’. When people who don’t support Man United start talking about how good are football is then we’ll know we’ve made that final step. At the moment that doesn’t happen.
You could play that game for every team though.
I can see that at times we seem to take 10 passes to pass the halfway line. This isn't always on the defensive players though. Martial and Rashford are like statues waiting for the ball quite a lot and therefore marked easily, and that's why the backward and sideways passing. When Cavani plays he is constantly moving, pulling defenders all over the place. If the other 2 forwards did this the movement in the team would be more fluid and forward orientated.
To say we are playing with a miss firing centre forward half of the time and a dodgy CB pairing its bloody amazing what we are achieving really
What people perceive as free flowing football is actually probably repetitive drilling and people knowing where to move at certain times and spotting movements of other players and knowing where the space should be to receive a pass.
I watch us and at times you can see repetitive patterns but it never quite looks right. One will make the move then the others won’t take advantage of that, or the pass won’t go and then it just doesn’t happen. It’s why we really struggle with breaking teams down as we seem to think just putting 6 people in the box standing in a line and trying to put balls in is the way to do it.
The team just needs to start being drilled a lot more or start doing what they’ve been doing in training if they are. Say what we want about the micro managing of Pep and LVG but the point was to get these patterns and understanding of space and creating space down so it was as natural as breathing.
I watch us and at times you can see repetitive patterns but it never quite looks right. One will make the move then the others won’t take advantage of that, or the pass won’t go and then it just doesn’t happen. It’s why we really struggle with breaking teams down as we seem to think just putting 6 people in the box standing in a line and trying to put balls in is the way to do it.
The team just needs to start being drilled a lot more or start doing what they’ve been doing in training if they are. Say what we want about the micro managing of Pep and LVG but the point was to get these patterns and understanding of space and creating space down so it was as natural as breathing.
I've repeatedly said this about our players that they seem to think it works to play a certain way every week but what they fail to understand is the opponents learn the way we play and change their formations. We often come out with the same formation and I love that but what players from our team must learn is in game management where you change your pattern and positions according to the opponents and you do it in the game. Show them that you go out the same way every game but change formations and positions to out wit the opponents in-game. I saw SAF teams do this quite often because we often had players moving wide, in field to receive passes and midfielders moved in to cash in which nowadays hardly ever happens. Putting pressure on the opposition is totally playing to distract them and misdirect them into thinking we play a certain way but we should instead move the opposite way or move a different play into that position to create space for others. Right now we're doing well but we still haven't found a way to get out when teams press us high or in their own half, we often find it hard to get out of pressing. I have often watched Rashford, Martial or Greenwood come in field to collect the ball but they more often than not pass the ball back to the defense or a defensive midfielder. We still need players to make those half turns, let the ball run and turn around, skip with the ball to beat the opponent, pass and run where you can actually collect it back, always always expect the ball to be played to you, keep your eyes wide open to the players around you and more. There is a lot this United team can do but I love where we are heading though. From the times of Fellaini, Perriera, Mata, Lingard to Greenwood, Fred, Mctominay and Bruno is huge. We can work on these things as the season goes on and with the inclusion of a few more players in proper areas, we can be a force to be reckoned with.
Take away Liverpool's seven against Palace, then. Any why not City's ten against West Brom and Burnley while you're at it.
Yeah, we lack consistent movement and fast patterns of play that allow us to get up the pitch fast enough that the opposition aren't able to properly organise themselves. Liverpool (used to) do their bum-rush stuff of long, fast balls into Mane and Salah with Roberton and Trent bombing up in support, City always manage to find each other in enough good positions to carve open the opposition. Key to this though is having a really solid defence (obviously not current Liverpool) and a holding midfielder that can find the forward men. We don't have either of those things, but I'm confident that Rashford, Greenwood, and Cavani (much less so Martial) have good enough movement that most defences will struggle to contain them if they have stronger support behind them.
We're as good as anyone when it comes to ripping apart teams that don't defend deep with numbers. Going forward, our play against Everton and Southampton was brilliant, and there have been other examples this season of us playing quick, incisive football.
Against teams that are well organised, we struggle. City are the best in the business at playing out from the back, because Ederson basically plays the role that Lindelof or Matic play for us in that regard, coming out right on the edge of the 18 yard box. It allows Stones and Diaz to go wider, and more space for them to beat the press.
When we play out from the back, once the ball leaves DDG's boot, he's not involved any further and we're too easy and predictable under the press. When we're afforded time and space, we can be devastating. But creating it ourselves is definitely an area we can improve on.
Against teams that are well organised, we struggle. City are the best in the business at playing out from the back, because Ederson basically plays the role that Lindelof or Matic play for us in that regard, coming out right on the edge of the 18 yard box. It allows Stones and Diaz to go wider, and more space for them to beat the press.
When we play out from the back, once the ball leaves DDG's boot, he's not involved any further and we're too easy and predictable under the press. When we're afforded time and space, we can be devastating. But creating it ourselves is definitely an area we can improve on.
Are we watching the same Man City? The wing backs go wide and then turn up in central midfield. We've seen Sterling, Foden, Gundogan, all interchanging a central striking role in recent weeks.
Ston
Our own fall backs are often found inside our wingers in the box. Our CBs have freedom to push up and attack their box. Bruno and Cavani go every where.
The only thing I would say is our wingers sometimes hold the width top much and don't attack the box or leave space for our fullback to attack.
You've seen their players do that because they don't have a CF without Aguero.
Stones even spoke about it in his interview with Rio. They have zones.
Our own fall backs are often found inside our wingers in the box. Our CBs have freedom to push up and attack their box. Bruno and Cavani go every where.
The only thing I would say is our wingers sometimes hold the width top much and don't attack the box or leave space for our fullback to attack.
You've seen their players do that because they don't have a CF without Aguero.
I think it's pretty standard for WBs to overload the midfield in Pep's system, it's not because he gave the WBs ridiculous amounts of freedom that they're doing that. They were specifically instructed to go cover certain zones in the pitch.
The exact player -> position mapping doesn't matter that much as well. The role of a striker in their system is clear, as is the role of the two attacking mids as well as the two wingers. The whole system is to get the ball near left / right halfspace and make vertical runs to receive the ball near the touchline and run a cutback to a striker. It's as formulaic as it gets. Of course it's insanely effective as well, just because you know how they're going to play doesn't mean you can go stop them from playing.
Sure Foden can start as the striker sometimes in that system and does what's expected of a striker. Sometimes he starts on the wing and does what is needed for the winger role. But through out the passage of one single game, they don't change things that much. If Sterling starts wide, he's just playing wide, he doesn't magically go play striker for 10 mins and CM for another 20.
Think there's some confusion, I'm not saying city have their players running all over the place moving positions constantly but there is more flexibility with their positions and movement off the ball. Think about what Foden or Sterling moving positions for a ten/fifteen minutes does to the opposition's mindset. This isn't something I see REGULARLY enough when I watch United. Isn't that one of the main reasons we struggle against parked buses? something you rarely see City doing.
But we did and so it counts. The same logic could be used for any of the other teams then. Let's knock off their highest scoring games and then compare? I don't mean there isn't scope for improvement in attack, just that it isn't the priority right now. We have bigger fish to fry.
I agree with that, there are extremely set patterns of attacking play that City use to breakdown oppositions. We have a reasonably set pattern of play until we get to the final 3rd and Ole just expects his players to make some magic happen once we get there.
Actually that's not quite true, because we have _some_ patterns (e.g., overloading the left side), but nothing anywhere close to as structured as what City / Pool do.
Our players have freedom to move, and often do. I never watched our players and think they've been told to stay in a spot. City are showing more fluidity than usual now because they don't have a CF, when Aguero plays it's very similar to us this season.
The truth is City struggle less because they have better wingers and more creativity in the middle.
Agree with your first argument. We get stucked because everyone plays to safe in the possession play, except Bruno. Seems like the other player are afraid to do mistake or be the one losing the ball. They need to play with higher risk. Like it’s now, the players inside the box become very passive, because they don’t expect to get the ball.
Regarding your second argument, neither Martial, Greenwood or Rashford is hold up players or tough enough to win or put a lot of pressure on the first ball, so I think aerial balls won’t be a very successful strategy. But I agree we should play more direct with higher risk in our possession play.
This is another example of why we NEED a pure out and out defensive midfielder so we can play with his attack minded midfielders, at the moment Pogba is restricted playing in a two because Matic doesn’t have the legs to cover both Fernandes and Pogba whilst McTominay and Fred are box to box midfielders with ball winning abilities rather than attack minded so it all falls on Fernandes.
People say sign Grealish or sign Sancho or sign Haaland but until we have a pure out and out defensive midfielder we’re always going to have a problem, hypothetically if we played Fernandes and Grealish with Greenwood on the right and Rashford on the left with Cavani through the middle we’d be murdered as Matic could never cover the midfield and shield the defence.
Both AWB and Shaw are great defensively so we could effectively have a back five and front five by signing a pure out and out defensive midfielder, we could unleash Pogba from defensive responsibilities or sign Grealish or do a number of things to break teams down or move the ball quickly from one end to the other but until we sign someone to long term do Matic’s job we can’t do any of it without being worse defensively than we already are.
People say sign Grealish or sign Sancho or sign Haaland but until we have a pure out and out defensive midfielder we’re always going to have a problem, hypothetically if we played Fernandes and Grealish with Greenwood on the right and Rashford on the left with Cavani through the middle we’d be murdered as Matic could never cover the midfield and shield the defence.
Both AWB and Shaw are great defensively so we could effectively have a back five and front five by signing a pure out and out defensive midfielder, we could unleash Pogba from defensive responsibilities or sign Grealish or do a number of things to break teams down or move the ball quickly from one end to the other but until we sign someone to long term do Matic’s job we can’t do any of it without being worse defensively than we already are.
Top scorers in the league this season!