Squad depth is king

jackal&hyde

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Mar 20, 2018
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I believe there are 2 key points to be successful. First is an 11 that is capable of winning against anyone and we are almost there imo. with a couple of improvements to be made for quality.

The second is squad depth and this is imo the reason why we fall short at the moment (a number of semifinals, poor performance in the final). We can not do what we used to and what City and even Chelsea are doing, rotation while maintaining good standards to keep the players fresh for the critical part of the season. We are forced to play key players through injury even.

I write this because I believe is an elemental understanding of football and the usual "hipster" journalists are going to make it all about tactics and details like substitutions as if this is FM. From United's domination of the past, the 4 CL wins in 5 years from Real to the dominance of City and Bayern, tactics, "patterns of play", etc are the least relevant aspect for sustained success. Leicester, Spurs (under Poch) even Liverpool this season, and United, fall way short in the squad depth department.

TL DR: from this point on improvement will only come through buying players of good enough quality to make rotation through the season possible, else we will continue to run our best players in to the ground and come short at the end of the season.
 
Yesterday we had better players than Villarreal and Ole made 0 subs. Having players isn't enough, we need manager who can use the squad. What's the point of spending so much money and pay so much in wages if manager won't trust them?
 
Are you ok (Hyde or Jackal)?

The man could have Thierry Henry on the bench and he wouldn’t put him on until extra time.
 
Whats the use of a Squad when you won't fecking play them?!

When you make your first change in Extra time you don't fecking deserve a squad.

We have a squad, we just don't fecking use it.
 
Must be difficult to go up against that all conquering Villarreal squad.

Poor Ole, what did he deserve to go up against the greatest team of all time.
 
Ole plays Maguire in every single match even when not necessary chasing a personal record for the player. The squad needed to be utilised better throughout the season for moments like this. Did he really think Maguire could play every game league and cup for 2 years?
 
Squad depth is great when you have a bold manager who is keen of using them.
 
Liverpool's squad depth is not any better than ours over the past 4 or 5 years and yet they have won a European cup and premier league in that time and that is because they have a world class coach
 
Renegade said:
Ole plays Maguire in every single match even when not necessary chasing a personal record for the player. The squad needed to be utilised better throughout the season for moments like this. Did he really think Maguire could play every game league and cup for 2 years?
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Same with bruno and he did the same with the likes with pogba and rashford over the past few seasons that have led to them having lengthy time on the sidelines and it's all because he relies massively on individual brilliance
 
It’s blatantly obvious for anyone that understands football. On the caf however you get lynched for suggesting that squad depth is important.

“We can’t sign X player because that would push Y player to the bench and hurt his feelings boohoo :(”
 
Squad depth is how City won the league.

With how many games are played at the moment, you can't just have a good 11. Our depth is terrible.
 
He needs to make better use of what he has got. There have been plenty of opportunities over the season to rest players. You don’t always have to play your best 11 when often your best 10 plus a squad player will suffice.
 
DickDastardly said:
Whats the use of a Squad when you won't fecking play them?!

When you make your first change in Extra time you don't fecking deserve a squad.

We have a squad, we just don't fecking use it.
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I'm interested, what changes should Ole have made last night? I'm looking at the bench and I can't really see anything that's not a step down in quality from what was on the pitch.
 
DickDastardly said:
Whats the use of a Squad when you won't fecking play them?!

When you make your first change in Extra time you don't fecking deserve a squad.

We have a squad, we just don't fecking use it.
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The OP is exactly why Ole is hesitant to make subs. He doesn’t want to reduce the quality out on the pitch. In his mind, a tired Greenwood with 90mins+ gone is a better prospect than a fresh Dan James.

I completely agree with Oles decision and with OP for this reason
 
It’s not squad dept that is king it’s squad quality, everyone on here today shouting for subs, who was he going to bring on that would realistically improve our performance, donny, how many times has he been ripped apart on here this season.
Mata, his legs are gone
Amad, he’s a kid with little game time the rest are defensive players and James.
Who of them would you replace Rashford with if it was your job and you had to deal with the repercussions.

we could have started with Pogba on the bench with Fred and mct in the middle to give us something different later on but we didn’t, we played our best hand from the start, our bench is weak when we are missing martial on it and he’s been crap this season as well.
 
largelyworried said:
I'm interested, what changes should Ole have made last night? I'm looking at the bench and I can't really see anything that's not a step down in quality from what was on the pitch.
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It's not all about quality.

It's man management. It's IN GAME management! You know, actually watching the game unfold before your eyes and SEEING your player UNDERPERFORMING!

Rashford was horrifying.
Pogba was superbad.
Bruno was slow.

Of course you don't change your defensive players in a 1-1 final where you are clearly the better team......you change formations, you change the approach, you change the percentages - and - you fecking change the underperformers!!

Put on VDB.
Put on James.
Put on Amad.
Put on Mata

Go 3-5-2
Go 4-2-4

Oh the fecking possibilities....

But no, let's fecking wait for 120 minutes on our asses and not even try to win the game in the last 20. Not even a final push????

Its like Ole was never a part of Manchester United greatest team ever?

You give one last fecking push to win the game!!!! Its what it's all about!
 
Making a substitution isn’t just about trying to get more quality onto the pitch, it’s rare that you can bring someone on or equal quality, unless you are Man City. But especially against Villarreal, there should have been no issues bringing off some players with 15 minutes to go to freshen it up.

I can absolutely see why this wasn’t done after 60 minutes, but by the time we reached 90 it was painfully obvious the players were shattered.
 
People saying who should be bring on? Villarreal made 5 subs in the 2nd half. They’d love to have the players we had on our bench sting for them. Ole was just hoping the under performing players would pull something out the bag.
 
No disrespect but this is a rubbish thread. Do fans not recognise that this wasn't a champions League final but the Europa League ? We were favourites and for good reason, had the best squad of players in the second rate competition and failed.

The result was a disappointment because of the manager which then reflected in the players performance. If United win Solskjaer would have rightly been praised. The team lost so he is rightly getting criticised. Four botched semi finals and a final failed. If he's not winning anything significant next season and there is money spent I'd be looking for a new manager with no hesitation.

Sentimentality doesn't win you anything. We can't use Sir Alex as an example for consistency / stability in management when he was a better manager than most coaches in world football. Even with the best players being signed this club will still be a level below competing because of the frail mentality Ole brings to the table.
 
passing-wind said:
No disrespect but this is a rubbish thread. Do fans not recognise that this wasn't a champions League final but the Europa League ? We were favourites and for good reason, had the best squad of players in the second rate competition and failed.

The result was a disappointment because of the manager which then reflected in the players performance. If United win Solskjaer would have rightly been praised. The team lost so he is rightly getting criticised. Four botched semi finals and a final failed. If he's not winning anything significant next season and there is money spent I'd be looking for a new manager with no hesitation.

Sentimentality doesn't win you anything. We can't use Sir Alex as an example for consistency / stability in management when he was a better manager than most coaches in world football. Even with the best players being signed this club will still be a level below competing because of the frail mentality Ole brings to the table.
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You are basing that post on an assumption of a persons character. Unless you know the man or people that know him, you can't say that with confidence. He was good enough to win the first ever titles for his home club and improved United this and last season more then the vast majority would have though. You have to be honest and accept that at the beginning of the season, especially after the shambles of a transfer window, lots of people gave us little chance for top 4, let alone comfortable second and a European final.

This is not about one game; like you say, we were one penalty away from winning and it would be childish to have that as the difference between "rubbish manager" and very good manager. It's knee jerk. It's about a pattern of us running out of gas in the later stages of the season and imo it is very easy to see why.
 
Apart from possibly their striker, how many of the other villareal players would get in our team.
 
jackal&hyde said:
I believe there are 2 key points to be successful. First is an 11 that is capable of winning against anyone and we are almost there imo. with a couple of improvements to be made for quality.

The second is squad depth and this is imo the reason why we fall short at the moment (a number of semifinals, poor performance in the final). We can not do what we used to and what City and even Chelsea are doing, rotation while maintaining good standards to keep the players fresh for the critical part of the season. We are forced to play key players through injury even.

I write this because I believe is an elemental understanding of football and the usual "hipster" journalists are going to make it all about tactics and details like substitutions as if this is FM. From United's domination of the past, the 4 CL wins in 5 years from Real to the dominance of City and Bayern, tactics, "patterns of play", etc are the least relevant aspect for sustained success. Leicester, Spurs (under Poch) even Liverpool this season, and United, fall way short in the squad depth department.

TL DR: from this point on improvement will only come through buying players of good enough quality to make rotation through the season possible, else we will continue to run our best players in to the ground and come short at the end of the season.
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Not this again.

Villareal starting 11 aren't even guaranteed to be good enough for our bench if you asked prematch.

We have a fit and complete First XI who has more than 10 days to rest. No Excuse.
 
DickDastardly said:
Put on VDB.
Put on James.
Put on Amad.
Put on Mata

Go 3-5-2
Go 4-2-4

Oh the fecking possibilities....

But no, let's fecking wait for 120 minutes on our asses and not even try to win the game in the last 20. Not even a final push????

Its like Ole was never a part of Manchester United greatest team ever?

You give one last fecking push to win the game!!!! Its what it's all about!
Click to expand...
Put on Diallo and James and sub out penalty takers. You really would trust James and Diallo and James,especially, has not shown to impact our games when we are trying to break down a stubborn defense.
You really entrust them to take the penalties. I was actually pretty relieved that James scored - I was quite sure that he would miss.
 
christy87 said:
It’s not squad dept that is king it’s squad quality, everyone on here today shouting for subs, who was he going to bring on that would realistically improve our performance, donny, how many times has he been ripped apart on here this season.
Mata, his legs are gone
Amad, he’s a kid with little game time the rest are defensive players and James.
Who of them would you replace Rashford with if it was your job and you had to deal with the repercussions.

we could have started with Pogba on the bench with Fred and mct in the middle to give us something different later on but we didn’t, we played our best hand from the start, our bench is weak when we are missing martial on it and he’s been crap this season as well.
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You don't need to change player, you can change how they play.

For example:
If you see more of the ball, instruct Bruno to fall back a little bit and playmake. Keep the ball and bait the opponent to go out.
If you see them Rashford ineffective, you can try to swap him to other wing. Or instruct the FB to push up.
You can instruct your 2 DM to push up, since Villareal aren't playing attacking football and letting us have possession.
You can instruct different attacking pattern, if one doesn't work
If one of your CB is weak in the air (lindelof), don't instruct him to mark tall players during Set pieces, replace him someone tall to do that job.

(obviously in real match it's more nuanced and isn't quite that straight forward, but that's the manager's job)

There's alot of things a manager can do to influence the game, if his job is only picking starting XI and subs any coach potatoes can do that. Football is more about picking XI players on a piece of paper
 
Superden said:
Apart from possibly their striker, how many of the other villareal players would get in our team.
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Few would - but they had the better luck, better work-rate, better defence, and better set-pieces.
The same logic would apply when Greece won the Euros. How many would get into the Portuguese or French national team individually, but together as a team, they are different.
 
Sky1981 said:
Not this again.

Villareal starting 11 aren't even guaranteed to be good enough for our bench if you asked prematch.

We have a fit and complete First XI who has more than 10 days to rest. No Excuse.
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Yeah, we don't. Maguire is out, McTom and especially Fred barely trained after injury and Rashford needs an operation. The first 11 is good enough to win that but it was far from fit, witch is the point of the thread. We enter the end of the season knackered. Winning that game at pens or even during the 90 does not change that.
 
I get the annoyance as I was screaming for a sub myself - the boys were obviously done physically after 90 mins.

However I do understand Ole's thinking - we were chasing a game, and he had all his danger men on already. Mata hasn't shown much goal involvement form when he has played this season and neither has Donny, Martial hasn't either and is injured anyway and McTominay was playing a blinder.

Who would you bring on / take off bar throwing Amad or Elanga into a real pressure cooker situation? When the attacking thrust you can bring on is Dan James, you have problems.

Now I said I understand it, but personally I feel that's a rather simplistic mindset. I'm no football manager but sometimes I believe you need more creators to give your goal scorers a chance and I would have thought he'd take off Rashford, move Pogba to the left, and bring on Donny - a lot earlier too. Emery showed his experience by freshening half his team while Ole showed his reliance on individual moments of brilliance.

As I said, I could see what Ole was thinking with Rashford having the tendency to pop up with a goal out of nowhere despite playing terribly. Individual brilliance is usually key in winning finals - there was just none of it from the usual suspects yesterday.
 
jackal&hyde said:
I believe there are 2 key points to be successful. First is an 11 that is capable of winning against anyone and we are almost there imo. with a couple of improvements to be made for quality.

The second is squad depth and this is imo the reason why we fall short at the moment (a number of semifinals, poor performance in the final). We can not do what we used to and what City and even Chelsea are doing, rotation while maintaining good standards to keep the players fresh for the critical part of the season. We are forced to play key players through injury even.

I write this because I believe is an elemental understanding of football and the usual "hipster" journalists are going to make it all about tactics and details like substitutions as if this is FM. From United's domination of the past, the 4 CL wins in 5 years from Real to the dominance of City and Bayern, tactics, "patterns of play", etc are the least relevant aspect for sustained success. Leicester, Spurs (under Poch) even Liverpool this season, and United, fall way short in the squad depth department.

TL DR: from this point on improvement will only come through buying players of good enough quality to make rotation through the season possible, else we will continue to run our best players in to the ground and come short at the end of the season.
Click to expand...


We rested an entire eleven on the weekend whilst Villarreal sent out their first team against Real Madrid in a title decider.

Villarreal made more and earlier subs last night and looked fitter.

Villarreal a squad is smaller and cost less and most of their knockout games have gone all the way.
 
This is true. The game intensity in the Prem and congested covid fixture list has exposed our lack of quality outside the starting 11. And even certain areas of our starting 11!

This combined with season fatigue on our top players has seen our form dip in the second half of the season. Post January we ran out of steam and had joined good enough to come into the starting 11 and rotate while keeping some level of winning quite in the side.
 
It’s about having options to change a game. Everyone is saying our subs would get into the Villarreal side which is true for some of them. However, as a manager during that final the question is: Have I got more chance of winning the game with Greenwood on the pitch or James. Amad or rashford. Bruno or DVB etc. The answer to that becomes far more blurred than the venting masses would claim. I think we’ve scored the most goals from subs this year so clearly Ole isn’t too bad at the sub lark - yesterday though the injuries to martial and Fred meant ALL our attacking load was blown at the start. Yes, I’d have taken Rashford off but then I’ve been screaming for that before and he’s popped up with a goal or an assist from nowhere.

The answer is you add a top quality attacking player and DM in the summer which means you’d have two of Martial, Cavani, Greenwood, Rashford and x on the bench along with the option of moving Pogba higher up. I’m convinced that’s what we’ll do too.
 
FahadiHossein said:
Put on Diallo and James and sub out penalty takers. You really would trust James and Diallo and James,especially, has not shown to impact our games when we are trying to break down a stubborn defense.
You really entrust them to take the penalties. I was actually pretty relieved that James scored - I was quite sure that he would miss.
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Isn't this the problem? Worrying about penalties at 60/70 or hell even 90 minutes? Why not try win the game instead of thinking about penalties? And even if you want to keep pens in the back of your mind, then bring on good technical players like Mata or VdB to try something different.

This squad stuff is nonsense, yeah our squad isn't vintage United but a) there's lots of good players in there b) lots of our bench players would walk into the Villareal side and c) SAF got more out of far worse bench players - and if SAF was in charge last night there is zero chance he'd manage it in the same way.
 
jackal&hyde said:
Yeah, we don't. Maguire is out, McTom and especially Fred barely trained after injury and Rashford needs an operation. The first 11 is good enough to win that but it was far from fit, witch is the point of the thread. We enter the end of the season knackered. Winning that game at pens or even during the 90 does not change that.
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How are we knackered when we already have nothing to play since gameweek 37.

Our last game we played a full set of u-23, we already throw away the FA cup, and we're already have nothing to play bar 2nd or 3rd since a few games ago. This should be in consideration, if players were lacking match fit, or too tired they should have been rotated long before gameweek 38. That's just how other team are coping.

So unless we have 2 full sets of high level starting XI we can't expect to win A UEFA cup against 7th placed La Liga team? A team who's filled with 30+ players.
 
Leroy The Red said:
We rested an entire eleven on the weekend whilst Villarreal sent out their first team against Real Madrid in a title decider.

Villarreal made more and earlier subs last night and looked fitter.

Villarreal a squad is smaller and cost less and most of their knockout games have gone all the way.
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Don't compare the intensity it takes to compete in the PL plus 2 domestic cups. This game is played 2 months ago we dispatch them like we did Sociedad. Again, the thread is not about this one game that we could have easily won on pens or earlier but the underlying issue is the same.
 
I think the depth is an issue but it really isn’t inferior to a side than finished 7th in their domestic league
 
elmo said:
Must be difficult to go up against that all conquering Villarreal squad.

Poor Ole, what did he deserve to go up against the greatest team of all time.
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This.
People are acting as of we were playing against 2010 Barca.
Our squad players are more than good enough to come on against Villarreal!
 
Sky1981 said:
How are we knackered when we already have nothing to play since gameweek 37.

Our last game we played a full set of u-23, we already throw away the FA cup, and we're already have nothing to play bar 2nd or 3rd since a few games ago. This should be in consideration, if players were lacking match fit, or too tired they should have been rotated long before gameweek 38. That's just how other team are coping.

So unless we have 2 full sets of high level starting XI we can't expect to win A UEFA cup against 7th placed La Liga team? A team who's filled with 30+ players.
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You seem to be obsessed with this game. We were not battered or something, we could have won but the issue is the same for at least 3 or 4 season. We win the EL with Mourinho but having to completely sacrifice the PL. We can not keep momentum in to the later stages of the season. Is a squad quality issue.
 
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