The pile-on spewed by so called Pundits thread

A lot of pundits don't actually appear to watch much football even though they get paid to talk about it
 
ron86 said:
A lot of pundits don't actually appear to watch much football even though they get paid to talk about it
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This is part of the issue. Essentially the vast majority of pundits don't watch United as much as we do. The other issue is that a lot of pundits are not that analytical. Someone like Troy Deeney can clearly provide insight in what its like to be a striker for a bottom half prem/lower lesgue team. Its also clear he doesn't provide anything analytical tactically outside of that. The best thing is to take what pundits say with a pinch of salt or just ignore them.
 
Biggest mistake is watching Troll Deeney video, he is just awful.
 
pocco said:
Generally...

Out of possession:
Defend mid to low. Press on short goal kicks only.

In possession:
Recycle the ball slowly at the back and wait for an opportunity to exploit wide areas and get plenty of crosses in. When winning the ball in defensive areas, look for Bruno and trigger runs in behind by the forwards. Defenders responsible for creating plays, midfielders there to defend the middle on transitions and support the CBs on build up. Quite rigid in what we do and predictable.
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This is not it. We actively avoid going wide and look to play through the middle. Crossing also we’re not heavily reliant on. I’d wager we put less crosses than the average in the PL.

This season we seem to be looking for quick line breaking passes through the middle to progress up the middle and then go wide in the final third. A good example is the build up play for the 4th goal
Against Ipswich. We play the ball around patiently in our third, followed by a slick line breaking pass up the middle by Martinez followed by Mainoo playing wide to rashford in the final third.
 
Smores said:
That's nonsense and you're just linking Ole and Carrick because they happened to have played for him. It's lazy, you may as well just say good manager play good football bad manager play bad football.

Sir Alex amended his tactics based on who we had at the club but each era definitely had a 'system'. Our tactics with Ronaldo in the team, our tactics with Tevez, with Beckham were all notably different to get the most out of the team. It wasn't dictated by a single player's style in a game, the whole setup changed to exploit our strengths.

Our current tactic of a mid block don't suit Maguire or Shaw. We invite crosses in rather than aggressively stopping the cross which doesn't suit anyone except Maguire.

We vacate the midfield to try pull the opponent out but without a Scholes or Carrick we struggle to then quickly beat the lines. It only works when the opponent loses structure.

The one thing we do well and it's very United DNA is that we're able to exploit space effectively. Once Ipswich conceded the first they were doomed.

At 0-0 we struggle because we lack aggressive fullbacks and we don't have our wingers/forwards attack the byline. Our wide men just dribble into the space, stop and pass it back or attempt a poor cross.

We're apparently doomed to revert to counter, space, and transition focused football eternally. A club of our stature needs a manager who can also figure out how to play dominantly so until Carrick figures that out he's right to be challenged on his system. I'm not even being purest here, if his solution is to lump it to Sesko and Mbeumo that's fine if it works.
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I'm linking Ole and Carrick as they're regularly tarred by the same vibes shaped brush. Source: Redcafe

And we never had a strict system under SAF. Having Ronaldo or Tevez play to their best doesn't denote "system". He was a brilliant man manager and squad (club) builder.
 
Zen86 said:
I'm linking Ole and Carrick as they're regularly tarred by the same vibes shaped brush. Source: Redcafe

And we never had a strict system under SAF. Having Ronaldo or Tevez play to their best doesn't denote "system". He was a brilliant man manager and squad (club) builder.
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It wasn't just 'go play to your best lads'. With Tevez we switched to a high pressing interchanging front 3 and with Ronaldo we allowed him to play as a striker from the right whilst the team shifted to cover. Fundamental changes to our systems at the time.

I find it odd when football fans have absolutely no interest in tactics and just observe things as good or bad.
 
Smores said:
It wasn't just 'go play to your best lads'. With Tevez we switched to a high pressing interchanging front 3 and with Ronaldo we allowed him to play as a striker from the right whilst the team shifted to cover. Fundamental changes to our systems at the time.

I find it odd when football fans have absolutely no interest in tactics and just observe things as good or bad.
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"If you can let players play to their strengths and you can empower them, they will take control of the game. They’re good enough to do that.”
Sir Alex Ferguson
 
Ole's screen said:
This is not it. We actively avoid going wide and look to play through the middle. Crossing also we’re not heavily reliant on. I’d wager we put less crosses than the average in the PL.

This season we seem to be looking for quick line breaking passes through the middle to progress up the middle and then go wide in the final third. A good example is the build up play for the 4th goal
Against Ipswich. We play the ball around patiently in our third, followed by a slick line breaking pass up the middle by Martinez followed by Mainoo playing wide to rashford in the final third.
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We're top in crosses this season by some way and last season we were 6th but that's been obvious from watching us. I don't know what you're watching but we don't often play through the midfield, he purposefully vacates it in the build up. Using an example of how we played after Ipswich lost all shape and form is worthless.

Just checked the stats and the middle is where we take our fewest amount of touches at 30%. It's where we take the most amount of shots. Basically the exact opposite of what you think you're seeing.
 
Smores said:
It wasn't just 'go play to your best lads'. With Tevez we switched to a high pressing interchanging front 3 and with Ronaldo we allowed him to play as a striker from the right whilst the team shifted to cover. Fundamental changes to our systems at the time.

I find it odd when football fans have absolutely no interest in tactics and just observe things as good or bad.
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Of course it wasn't.

Nobody is saying we didn't have tactics, we obviously did and what we did was obviously very successful. But we never had a "system" under SAF as such, certainly not in the pretentious, modern sense of the word. We were typically quite fluid, direct, and played to the team's strengths. My original point is that might well be called vibes and individual brilliance fc today by some.
 
El Jefe said:
Two things here. If Carrick was an established manager in the PL and was not English/British, Deeney would not be saying this. We obviously have a style and it’s clear to see, it’s just not sophisticated for his liking.

We’ve been fooled into thinking set systems and strict tactical philosophies are a must. We saw the folly in that with Amorim. Obviously the likes of Arteta, Maresca, RDZ, Alonso have obvious tactical and positional setups that can be great if they work out but having it doesn’t guarantee anything.

The other end of that is playing according to the strength of your players and creating a basic structure and building from there and that’s what Carrick does. What’s the point of playing a high line when he has Martinez and Maguire in the team or playing horizontal risk free passes with Bruno.

I personally don’t see the Ole comparisons with him except when the team loses its way and gets desperate. We saw in preseason what his plan for the team looks like. Now that he has a proper set of midfielders it will only become clearer.
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What people have been fooled into is thinking that playing risky passes is having no gameplan. You hear it with Fergie these days, about how he "wasn't great at tactics" and that he was a "motivational manager" when Fergie absolutely had principles of play that we adhered to every game. Its not a coincidence that we used to find ourselves with multiple players in the opposition box every time we attacked. That wasn't just because the players we had were just smarter than everyone else, its because we practiced it. No matter what the formation is on paper or personnel the core principles the coach wants to instill will be there. Like @Ole's screen @Buckfast in the Park and yourself have said we have a very clear style of play but because its not the uber controlled pep style people assume we're just vibes fc.
 
Zen86 said:
Of course it wasn't.

Nobody is saying we didn't have tactics, we obviously did and what we did was obviously very successful. But we never had a "system" under SAF as such, certainly not in the pretentious, modern sense of the word. We were typically quite fluid, direct, and played to the team's strengths. My original point is that might well be called vibes and individual brilliance fc today by some.
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I will not hear this misinformation any longer. Fergie had core principles that we adhered to no matter who played, what the formation was or who the opposition was. We were always going to attack quickly and directly, and mostly by stretching the pitch wide. We used to do this so we could get as many players in the box as we could. Its not a coincidence that we used to end up with 4-5 players in the box every attack, its because the players had that coached into them. That's the very definition of a system. Fergie played many different formations through his time at United with loads of different personnel but if you go watch his first goal and the last one the principles of play didn't change. Even when we had Queiroz come in to "give us a continental style" we still played the same way.
 
Zedd said:
I will not hear this misinformation any longer. Fergie had core principles that we adhered to no matter who played, what the formation was or who the opposition was. We were always going to attack quickly and directly, and mostly by stretching the pitch wide. We used to do this so we could get as many players in the box as we could. Its not a coincidence that we used to end up with 4-5 players in the box every attack, its because the players had that coached into them. That's the very definition of a system. Fergie played many different formations through his time at United with loads of different personnel but if you go watch his first goal and the last one the principles of play didn't change. Even when we had Queiroz come in to "give us a continental style" we still played the same way.
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4-5 players in the box. Gotcha, I stand corrected
 
Zen86 said:
You’re clearly missing the point and I’m bored of the back and forth now.
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What back and forth. I replied once and you said "Ah can't be bothered to read so I'm going to make a stupid reply" and now your "bored of the back and forth". Cringe, incredibly cringe.
 
Zedd said:
What back and forth. I replied once and you said "Ah can't be bothered to read so I'm going to make a stupid reply" and now your "bored of the back and forth". Cringe, incredibly cringe.
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Yeah try reading the thread before you just jumped into it. Toodles.
 
Zen86 said:
Yeah try reading the thread before you just jumped into it. Toodles.
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its not my fault you don't understand what a system is, and feel the need to essentially slander Fergie by saying he had "no tactics or a system". Just because it isn't spoon fed to you by pundits doesn't mean there wasn't one. Toodles though.
 
Smores said:
We're top in crosses this season by some way and last season we were 6th but that's been obvious from watching us. I don't know what you're watching but we don't often play through the midfield, he purposefully vacates it in the build up. Using an example of how we played after Ipswich lost all shape and form is worthless.

Just checked the stats and the middle is where we take our fewest amount of touches at 30%. It's where we take the most amount of shots. Basically the exact opposite of what you think you're seeing.
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Of course we don't take a lot of touches in the middle! That's the whole point. We keep the ball rotating among the centre backs until the players line up correctly to quickly do 2-3 one touch passes and progress the ball through the middle.
 
We still play a lot of long ball and counter attack which is our style, interspersed with good passing attacks, when we ain't playing against low block.
 
Ole's screen said:
This is not it. We actively avoid going wide and look to play through the middle. Crossing also we’re not heavily reliant on. I’d wager we put less crosses than the average in the PL.

This season we seem to be looking for quick line breaking passes through the middle to progress up the middle and then go wide in the final third. A good example is the build up play for the 4th goal
Against Ipswich. We play the ball around patiently in our third, followed by a slick line breaking pass up the middle by Martinez followed by Mainoo playing wide to rashford in the final third.
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You can’t judge us off one game, or one move in one game. I’m talking about Carricks whole time here. And like you said in the end, it ends up out wide more often than not. Especially when teams are structured defensively we go side to side a lot and push CMs or Bruno and full backs out wide to try to create overloads.

Obviously this varies depending on what we’re facing, but I did say that we also look to transition quickly in behind a lot.

I might be imagining it but was it not against Hull or another recent game, we threw in over 30 crosses?

The only time we look good, or these “Carrickball” reels pop up is against teams like Ipswich who press us poorly, with a high line, and give us very easy routes forward. Against a well organised press or a low block, we look terrible.
 
pocco said:
You can’t judge us off one game, or one move in one game. I’m talking about Carricks whole time here. And like you said in the end, it ends up out wide more often than not. Especially when teams are structured defensively we go side to side a lot and push CMs or Bruno and full backs out wide to try to create overloads.

Obviously this varies depending on what we’re facing, but I did say that we also look to transition quickly in behind a lot.

I might be imagining it but was it not against Hull or another recent game, we threw in over 30 crosses?

The only time we look good, or these “Carrickball” reels pop up is against teams like Ipswich who press us poorly, with a high line, and give us very easy routes forward. Against a well organised press or a low block, we look terrible.
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The only team outside of hull we looked downright poor against the press was in the Leeds game when Mainoo didn’t play afaik.

Low blocks yes I agree - but that’s true for pretty much every team. Low blocks are all about getting an early goal then the game opens up.
 
Smores said:
That sounds lovely but it's happened in one or two games.
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The great thing about the slur ‘they don’t have any style of football’ is it’s a great way to signal out people who are not able to understand or detect styles in football so that you can look away from their other bombastic ‘analytical’ claims.
 
Ole's screen said:
The only team outside of hull we looked downright poor against the press was in the Leeds game when Mainoo didn’t play afaik.

Low blocks yes I agree - but that’s true for pretty much every team. Low blocks are all about getting an early goal then the game opens up.
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Leeds in pre-season? We looked poor at times when pressed last season also.
 
The Bruno line from Deeney is just a lazy take. Being reliant on your best player isn't the same thing as no style of play.

Carrick's United are fairly recognisable already - 4231 base, 325 in possession, build through midfield, get Bruno higher, quick vertical attacks when the space opens and 442 without the ball. You can argues whether it's god enough, or whether we're too dependent on Bruno, but saying there is no identity is something else entirely.

And Carrick hasn't been here for two games. We watched 16 games under him last season and the football evolved during that period.

Funny thing is, if Carrick imposed one rigid tactical ideology regardless of the personnel he'd probably be accused of doing exactly what Amorim did. Now he's building around the strengths of his players and apparently that means he has no style.

Apparently a manager can only have an identity if the pundits can give it a trendy name!
 
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