zombietiki zombietakaI bet you all wish we were playing zombie football now.
Still took them all about 3 or 4 minutes to find the invisbleI would have taken zombie football, today we seemed to be trying out invisible football. Our players appeared to be passing to invisible teammates. They weren't misplacing passes, no, it looked like they had seen someone, picked him out, delivered the pass only to find out there wasn't a United player within 10 yards. I saw Giggs do it with convinction about 4 times, I think he even complained at a spot of thin air where the ball went.
I would have taken zombie football, today we seemed to be trying out invisible football. Our players appeared to be passing to invisible teammates. They weren't misplacing passes, no, it looked like they had seen someone, picked him out, delivered the pass only to find out there wasn't a United player within 10 yards. I saw Giggs do it with convinction about 4 times, I think he even complained at a spot of thin air where the ball went.
Players seem to be just too far apart at times. The midfield 2 are generally quite close, and with the wingers sticking on the touchline so often, when it goes forward our players can look very isolated.It just goes to prove that when teams press and harass us in midfield, we tend to do very poorly and get taken out of our passing game.
I don't know whether its because we lack pace and athleticism in central midfield or what. Our midfielders just tend to be very static and rarely are able to get out of a tight situation.
Thing is, everyone has found us out and does exactly that.It just goes to prove that when teams press and harass us in midfield, we tend to do very poorly and get taken out of our passing game.
Yeah agree the space between the players is the issue for me. That's probably the biggest reason we struggle against high/strong pressure. I've said before if you look at other teams who deal with pressure well or keep great possession they all have a lot of players close by. They move as units up the pitch. For us as you said we stay really wide and we rarely look to change that regardless of the amount of pressure so the midfielders have few options for a short pass to get out of danger.Players seem to be just too far apart at times. The midfield 2 are generally quite close, and with the wingers sticking on the touchline so often, when it goes forward our players can look very isolated.
I think our system can be quite rigid too, wingers stay wide, midfield 2 stay deep, not much interchanging of positions going on and it generally seems quite easy for teams to press us quickly as a result. Kagawa often seems to have to provide the only link between the wingers, midfield and RVP at times.
I think he has to give Clev/Ando the chance alongside Carrick. It's easy to use Scholes as he's about and whilst he should certainly play at times, we need to give those guys all the experience they can get. e's made the choice not to buy someone because of them so he should use them. That's 3 games in a row that Scholes/Giggs have started ahead of Clev.I hope Fergie isn't planning on going anytime soon because were in bad shape at the moment. I just don't see where the answers are coming from in regards to our midfield problem, our general play or closing the gap between the boys in Spain.
Same happened last season. We play against a team that press our players and we struggle big time. Too slow on the ball and we don't press ourselves. It's like midfield suicide watching us atm.passing was poor but that was due to pool's pressing. they smothered us.
What did he say mate?well..sounds like fergie was pissed off with the performance, he'd been blind if he wasn't. Perhaps this might spur some sort of action in terms of the way we play
won't hold my breath though...
Yes.So basically it's now just a Little Britain-esque catchphrase for a poor performance?
Looks like it.So basically it's now just a Little Britain-esque catchphrase for a poor performance?
It doesn't even need a really bad performance anymore for this thread to pop up and the main reason for that is imo the fact that our football often looks so brainless.So basically it's now just a Little Britain-esque catchphrase for a poor performance?
The reason we passed it back to them was because we were too slow. By the time we'd played half our passes, the intended target had already moved or been closed down.Yes.
Any fool can see that ssmzp wasn't the problem today... we never even got the ball!
On the odd accasion we did, we just passed it back to them, making it impossible to make judgment on whether the pass was quick, or inventive enough.
I think the issue though if you don't have Scholes is that Clev/Giggs don't take up the best positions when we don't have the ball. Scholes might not tackle particularly well but he gets in the right areas the majority of the time. Also because of the way Clev/Giggs play through the middle they're more about central play and so we don't always get Valencia in the game enough. It's a hard balance to strike, in some ways Ando might be the best mix of getting in better areas to help out in the middle but also having the enrgy to allow us to push higher.We had two problems today.
1. Giggs was complete and utter shite
2. When Scholes came on we reverted to the pointless shape of 2 deep lying midfielder and 2 out and out wingers which means our two main offensive outlets in Kagawa and RVP became completely isolated. If either Carrick or Scholes actually helped out by doing runs into space it might work but as it is our shape makes no sense at all with Carrick and Scholes on the pitch at the same time.
Players stick to their positions too rigidly and are often too far apart in my view. Hard for the winger to link up when the nearest player is 15 yards away.Our wingers are not especially good at including other players in link up play. Valencia in particular seems hell bent on crossing no matter how little it makes sense. If we consistently brought the full back on our attacking side into play and had Kagawa make himself available we would have at least 3 players in an offensive position when we attack - then this formation might work even with Schoels and Carrick on the pitch at the same time.
Little harsh. Consider the set up of the team and you will find that Kagawa is the only plausible link between midfield, wingers and RVP. No-one else moves from their position often enough to provide reliable outlets.Now we are too focused on crossing at all time, and in addition to that, Kagawa is doing a poor job of making himself available and give the winger and fullback an alternative to crossing. I think this might be largely down to instructions from SAF and the coaching team, because Kagawa was a lot better at this at Dortmund. It makes no sense to me, because its clearly not working. We couldnt break down 10 man Liverpool and had to rely on a counter attack and a dubious penalty to get a win.
I bumped it and said i miss it. We were so shite i'd have loved to see some slow lacklusture passing football with no movement.Looks like it.
People bump this thread whenever we play badly even if it has nothing to do with the bad performance.