We had our better seasons under ole, mourinho in their second seasons and lvg to a degree as we won the fa cup in his second season but got the boot because mourinho became available
The "OK Calm Down Everyone, We'll Be Fine" Thread
- Thread starter bosnian_red
- Start date
Apology accepted.Antony? Where the feck did I say Antony would come good
Sorry if I'm not jumping on the panic train after 1 month when we are in an injury crisis. And yeah, Onana has proven he's a quality goalkeeper.
Shit post, you're better than that.
Apology accepted.
in my defence, I think it was understandable to have some struggles early on... Since then though, woof.At least you admitted being wrong, instead of being stuck doing fellatios like sum.
I think it was inevitable that it was going this way, it has been like this since March.
And I still cannot believe how anyone thought that Mount will ever be anything short of disaster. I am okay with people thinking that Hojlund will turn out good (I disagree with that, but at lest he is 20 and played in a different league), but Mount, come on, everyone saw him at Chelsea. Was it a coping mechanism all along?
I don't think it was inevitable, last season there were good signs with obvious squad holes but also adapting needed on Ten Hags part address issues we saw in those big away games. It's just a case of how many chances do you give someone to address those issues. For me, Newcastle was the game when I decided I saw enough and came to the conclusion he just can't figure those games out.
Managers are never going to get it right, right away. They'll need to adapt, they'll need to address issues that opposition managers find in your system, especially in this league. But if you keep making the same mistakes, if your system that you are building towards keeps getting picked apart in a frankly pretty simple way, then that just points to the manager.
With Mount, to be fair I think he's a good player in the right system, right role. Extremely role dependent, and injuries killing him right now. Never made sense here, given he plays the same position as Bruno. Would've made a lot of sense for Chelsea in that midfield with Caicedo and Enzo funnily enough.
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In any season, there are some good signs. For example, under LVG we went in a run of games when we played brilliantly, trashed City, defeated Liverpool in Anfield, and also Spurs. It was not good enough.
I am saying it was inevitable, because by September/October when you made this thread, it was already more than half a year of pure trash. We played quite good between the WC and League Cup final, but on both sides of it we were trash (especially after the League Cup). We were trash in the pre season, and despite that the results there do not matter, the performances kind of do. You can see that there was no organization whatsoever back then.
And ultimately, we fecked up in the transfer market. De Gea while way past it, has more talent than Onana will ever had. Mount at best is a squad player that a top club should get only if he is out of contract. And Hojlund, I have yet to see that he is anything more than a Championship level player, with journeyman EPL-striker potential.
We effectively downgraded the keeper position by replacing De Gea with Onana, and downgraded the midfield by replacing Fred with Mount. ten Hag sabotaged himself by creating a massive problem with Sancho in what was something that should have been solved in 2 minutes of a training, and then continued sabotaging himself by dropping Varane. We did not improve the attack, which was our main problem last season. Essentially, if I ever saw someone burning 200 million, this was EtH and United this summer.
The main problem is that I do not see any redemption, any silver lining on all this. After 400m pounds spent, and 18 months of coaching by what was labeled as a good coach, we are worse than before he arrived here. We are worse than at our worst point under Ole or Rangnick. That is really just sad and despite his League win trophy, I think that EtH is ultimately the worst manager we had in our lifetime. He was unconditionally backed, more than any other manager we had, and despite starting from a very low baseline, somehow managed to make us worse. Especially when you add that here the expectations were high (unlike for example Ole or Moyes where everyone knew that they will fail).
We are far from relegation. That's a positive I guess.
We should all calm down, sure.
But, no, we won't be fine unless we do something to change how the operation of this football club is fundamentally structured.
Hint: Don't hire people as "managers" who can effectively sign players they fancy (for whatever reason).
But, no, we won't be fine unless we do something to change how the operation of this football club is fundamentally structured.
Hint: Don't hire people as "managers" who can effectively sign players they fancy (for whatever reason).
Calls for champagne.
I’m quite calm but there’s a sense of inevitability ETH will go. Whether we’ll be fine depends on how SJR and INEOS shake up things.
Something I can't make sense of is the disparity between our attack and defence in the league and in the Champions League.
In the Premier League, despite the impression that we're comically leaky at the back, only four teams have conceded fewer goals than us. Even the mighty City have only conceded three goals less than our 21. That's really not terrible considering our defensive injury woes. On the other hand our attack has been completely flaccid, with only 5 teams having scored fewer than our 18, and all those teams being in the bottom 6.
Now in the Champions League, our goalscoring has been pretty decent, same number of goals scored as Bayern, and the fifth highest goals scored of all teams in the competition. Granted there's a couple of teams that could score more than us in their matches later today, but the point is we haven't been too shy of finding the net--certainly not compared to the league. Instead it's our defensive record in the CL that has led to our position: 15 goals conceded is the most of any club in this season's tournament.
There are some things that we're doing right, but many that we're doing wrong. If we can figure out the formula of replicating the rights from the CL, in other words scoring, then we can revive our league fortunes in the second half of the season.
My hopes, however, are not high, and I do wonder if the way we play means that to have a hope of actually scoring entails an open approach that leaves us more susceptible to leaking goals at the back, setting us up for perhaps entertaining matches but high-scoring losses. The fact that we have such a habit of conceding in the minutes after we score suggests to me that we haven't been able to figure out this balance yet.
In the Premier League, despite the impression that we're comically leaky at the back, only four teams have conceded fewer goals than us. Even the mighty City have only conceded three goals less than our 21. That's really not terrible considering our defensive injury woes. On the other hand our attack has been completely flaccid, with only 5 teams having scored fewer than our 18, and all those teams being in the bottom 6.
Now in the Champions League, our goalscoring has been pretty decent, same number of goals scored as Bayern, and the fifth highest goals scored of all teams in the competition. Granted there's a couple of teams that could score more than us in their matches later today, but the point is we haven't been too shy of finding the net--certainly not compared to the league. Instead it's our defensive record in the CL that has led to our position: 15 goals conceded is the most of any club in this season's tournament.
There are some things that we're doing right, but many that we're doing wrong. If we can figure out the formula of replicating the rights from the CL, in other words scoring, then we can revive our league fortunes in the second half of the season.
My hopes, however, are not high, and I do wonder if the way we play means that to have a hope of actually scoring entails an open approach that leaves us more susceptible to leaking goals at the back, setting us up for perhaps entertaining matches but high-scoring losses. The fact that we have such a habit of conceding in the minutes after we score suggests to me that we haven't been able to figure out this balance yet.
I think Onana performances have a lot to do with that. He's let in some really bad goals in Champions league games. Those goals count in your tally and they also put us behind so we're chasing games and conceding even more.
Not sure why we're scoring more in Champions league. Suspect some of the defences we've faced are not up to Premier league standards.
If it was DeGea in his peak (2018) I'd agree but what I've seen of Onana thus far it's a like for like replacement. Fred played more times bad than good in the United shirt. Mount has been more injured than played for United so far.
I'm not sure if I buy the latter explanation about our opposition's defence, if we've scored the same number of goals as Bayern have against the same opposition then it can't just be about weak defences, although the sample size is a little small to make meaningful assessments.
But that's true about Onana, I normally find it unfair singling out players but unfortunately his errors have pretty much single-handedly cost us our place in the competition this season.
Nah we won't be. Our defence is crap, our midfield is even worse, our manager sounds clueless and the worst of all our forwards can do feck all.
Needless to talk about bigger issues like structure or finance. It's a bloody miracle we're not in the lower half of the table atm. And miracle won't happen often.
Needless to talk about bigger issues like structure or finance. It's a bloody miracle we're not in the lower half of the table atm. And miracle won't happen often.
Teams obviously set up differently against Bayern and aren't as concerned about opening up against United because they know they'll create enough chances to win anyway. Bayern also effectively played 2 dead rubbers as they had already qualified after 4 games.
As bad as United were in the CL they did have consistently awful refereeing decisions go against them which cost them a comfortable 2nd place finish. The only thing worse than the refs was Onana of course.
Seemed obvious to me where we were heading back in September. We're actually worse than I thought though. The summer window simply wasn't good enough.
The OP came to admit he might not be right and even decided to join the critics side as of late so I see no reason to make fun of the thread. @bosnian_red usually writes very good critical posts even when I disagree with him, so fair to him.
I'm sure that Jonny Evans is in line to be our starting centre back against Liverpool at Anfield on Sunday. Rashford is "ill" and Fernandes is banned. I don't see anything other than a crushing defeat and the only light at the end of the tunnel seems to be extinguished by the Glazers every time it flashes.
We will be fine in that next season we will be in the Premier League and the fans will keep going, and hopefully no specific harm will come to any of us for posting about a football club and the sun will keep rising, that sort of thing, but in the terms of "fine" with regards to the expectations of an elite club, we are not fine.
We will be fine in that next season we will be in the Premier League and the fans will keep going, and hopefully no specific harm will come to any of us for posting about a football club and the sun will keep rising, that sort of thing, but in the terms of "fine" with regards to the expectations of an elite club, we are not fine.
Four charts that damn Manchester United’s woeful attack
Erik ten Hag’s United are the only team with a negative goal difference in the top eight
Erik ten Hag’s United are the only team with a negative goal difference in the top eight
And that’s only going to get worse with pool, whu and Villa coming up
Maybe we will get our very first draw of the season at Anfield.