If you are going to leave just one back, it isn't a good idea that it's Matic who is far too slow. Didn't anyone realise if it came to a race he would get beaten hands down. Surely Axel should have stayed back.
This needs more attention
- Thread starter VeevaVee
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Are you talking about the display, or are you talking about the goal? As I said, that display is fair game for criticism, but that one moment is for me on par with the De Gea clanger against Everton. Its like one of my team at work taking a shit on the desk for some reason and I get the blame for not telling them not to do it.
We fans cannot have it both ways. We have to understand that this is a squad of players that can go away to Paris and put on a mature, organised and collective tactical display, but then they can also do last night. Was our coaching better that week than it was this week? Was preparation different? We like to criticise Ole for not rotating his squad. We criticise him for his 'patterns of play'. Yet when he rotates it seems to cost us points. When he experiments with a new system we lose games.
You are right though in that the buck does stop with the manager. Its becoming clear that this team responds better to a particular type of opponent, but its also becoming clear that there is a mentality issue within this group that prevents them from being consistent, both in the quality of their play and in the way that they are approaching matches. The single biggest takeaway from our last 3 managerial periods is that we don't seem to be able to find any consistency in anything. Except inconsistency. Maybe the right answer is to roll the dice and try a new face. I'd prefer to give Ole more time to solve these problems.
Name them?
The problem was that Ba was ahead of everybody, so had a head start. Matic should have been stood goal side so Ba could have been driven wide.
We do this every game.
I was Ole in for a long time but seeing things like this for so long changed my opinion.
We're clearly too used to that 5x5 passing drill with 2 players in the middle that we seem to do in every session. We then take it literally and do it on the pitch.
We make our football so difficult.
Any of our midfielders can switch the play no problem.Name them?
Pogba, Bruno, DVB, Fred, Matic. Only Mctominay is a bit more limited.
The issue is it's just not part of the plan. Our first instinct is to try and play through the middle into feet if possible, if that's not on we seem to use the width more as a recycling option to go back into the middle, rather than actually using the wide spaces.
I would have thought AWB and Shaw would stay back, and then when AWB got engaged from the short corner Tuanzebe and Matic should have gone back in as well. Ok to leave Maguire in there until the ball comes in.
I hate short corners anyway. Never understood them, rarely work out and you open yourself up for the counter. Usually Lindelof stays at home from corners. As much stick as he gets, unlikely we would have seen this happen if he was playing.
Oh absolutely. I was just responding to someone who was saying that even if Matic were in the right position his lack of pace means he would have been burned. Even if it were somebody fast if he were in the right position he could have tried for an early tackle, attempted to physically overpower him, or used his aerial ability to win the ball in the first place as it was played up the field. But in this particular instance even he would have easily won a foot race.
This says everything we need to know about a large chunk of our fanbase.I just told you when midfield aren't ball watching, defense will be more solid. And obviously it will be the opposite outcome of what happen to our defense if midfield are ball watching. How can you still don’t know what I’m trying to tell you here. The 2nd goal won’t happen yesterday if our midfield weren’t ball watching.
I gave you good example of what happened when midfield aren’t ball watching from our games against Newcastle to arsenal games.
And if you want to know what happened when midfield are being ball watching then check out yesterday game and all our games before the Newcastle games (Palace, Brighton & Spurs).
If you still don’t know what I’m talking about then go watch this clip. It will show you 2 midfielders who aren’t ball watching & know how to sense the danger, with 1 midfield who is just ball watching, lazy & unable to sense the danger.
Imagine blaming Maguire for the first goal
Bit late telling him .2 of a second before the ball is played to the striker.
Im amazed people actually think any coaching staff in existence can coach a side to put all it's players in the final third for example, without a thought to the oppositons forwards like they are so bad they can mark themselves.....Or the other picture when Maguire tries a dumb ass pass to a heavily marked Shaw whilst there are acres of space on the opposite flank and 2 clearly unmarked team mates.
It's a classic case of players not thinking and just being blatantly complacent and believing in their own hype and taking no responsibility. That their talent alone will win the day when they step on the pitch. Im honestly starting to believe we have no leaders and standard setters in our dressing room.
Goes back to Leaders on the pitch....as Keane said we don’t have them! Then our captain will be dragged out in the media to say we all need to try harder...it’s absolute drivel.
Thanks.
First goal:
As I said in the other thread, I don't have too much of a problem with anything until AWB passes the ball the first time. At that point he should continue to drop deeper, both to give the ball-carrier a different option and (more importantly) provide the defensive cover which he's supposed to when we take a corner. Matic' movement is also very poor. Does the right thing in the first place to drop deeper, but after that it's poor. In theory somebody else (probably Shaw or Tuanzebe) should see the problem and be rushing back to cover since AWB is now out of position, but those are much smaller errors. Perhaps a finger could be pointed at Henderson as well as he's seeing everything in front of him so could have been screaming at somebody to get back in cover, although that's probably harsh. Actually the exact same thing could be said about our coaching team on the side of the field.
But overall it was definitely mostly AWB and Matic. They both should be made to watch that play multiple times and shown exactly what they should have been doing at that time.
With this one, it was basically 2v2 on the right side of the box (Mata was behind play so was out of it) so I can't really blame either Axel or Maguire on being dragged over to that side although they both could have done a bit better. Once again it's mostly on Matic who was level with the attacking midfielders when we lost the ball but watched them run off him then just jogged back. You can see the difference in starting positions between Shaw (who was pushed up in an attacking position while we had the ball) and Matic here just before we lost the ball in this following image yet Shaw actually beats Matic back to our box. If Matic had actually pulled his finger out and tried he may have been able to at least put the attacker under pressure.
Two issues I have.
On the first goal, it's a corner to us right... why is Shaw in the box? What is he possibly going to achieve by being in the box? He's not great in the air, i don't think he's actually ever scored from a corner in his life... he can surely see they have one man up, and he can see that AWB is involved in the play, surely he should take it upon himself to get back?
I mean why is Matic not staying goalside and screaming for someone to get back with him?
Matic fecks up for not being goal-side of his man (which is so obvious its incredible) but the rule of thumb is always, for every man they have up, you one defender plus an extra person (unless they have 3 up in which case you can go 3 vs. 3)
I mean ideally our corner set-up should have Shaw and AWB back with Matic in the box as he's one of our best headers of the ball... unless they have two men up in which case pull him/someone else back.
Now on the second goal... Matic's positioning is garbage like you said, but why IS Shaw so high up on the left? We're playing the ball around in RCM/RB... why is he so high? If he he can see AWB is high on the otherside, he should know he needs to be pulling back a bit. Plus say we recycle position you'd want your left back to actually be at left back so you can switch sides.
This kinda feels like i'm ragging on Shaw a bit - and maybe I am - but surely his instincts should kick in at some point?
I think it's the worst piece of defending I've seen in the Champions League. For the second, United have been pretty crap at tracking runners on the counter for years.
Rightly or wrongly, defending set-pieces with the whole team back is fairly standard practice at the top level these days.
Yeah I don’t get what Shaw is doing at all. He’s never going to score from the corner and it was on the opposite flank. When the corner was played short it makes sense for the right back to be involved. It doesn’t make sense for the left back to be making a run at the near post. Though if he’s told to be up there then it’s on who told him to be there.
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No one does this though... even we don't normally just leave one man back if they have one man up. It's crazy.
Couldn't understand why they did it. It was as though they all piled forward and just didn't realise only Matic was back. Somebody should have been in control of that.
Said it last night, you don’t need any coach to know better than to do that.
It’s basics that you learn in junior school ffs.
If players need a coach to explain this to them then it’s laughable. Just another brain fart from what I class as a generally thick bunch of players that we have.
Which goes some way to explain why some of them struggle under multiple managers.
It’s basics that you learn in junior school ffs.
If players need a coach to explain this to them then it’s laughable. Just another brain fart from what I class as a generally thick bunch of players that we have.
Which goes some way to explain why some of them struggle under multiple managers.
Modern day fans blame that on the coach, so yeah, they do need coaching not to do that, especially if you’re a manager who wishes to remain in a job.
Yes! Exactly that.
Apparently thats progression.
As others have said it doesn’t need coaching, it’s just appalling decision making from the players on the pitch in that moment.
The rest of game and our approach / performance is fine to blame on the coaches, that first goal though is just basics that anybody learns playing Sunday league. No excuse for it and if I were one of those players I’d be embarrassed to blame it on poor coaching.
Upon viewing that image the first questions that popped to my mind was: where he heck is Pogba?
Thick players under a pretty incompetent coaching team.
That first goal is only really permissible (though still bad) if it's in stoppage time and you're piling forward to get a goal and get caught out, like Salah's stoppage time goal against us at Anfield.
But never ever that early in the first half. Total madness.
But never ever that early in the first half. Total madness.
First one Shaw is actually quite good in the air defensively at least, so I presume they think he has a fair chance of winning the ball even if he's unlikely to actually score from it. Then once AWB gets involved in a higher position Shaw is actually in clear space right in front of the goal and has quite a good chance of scoring if the ball got played to him. I do agree that once AWB got on the ball the second time and started to drive forward that either Shaw or Tuanzebe probably should have seen the danger and started dropping.
I'm not actually sure whether we normally keep one or two players back during our corners. I'll have to pay more attention to it in the next few games if I remember. I think it might depend on how many the opposition keep up, if they bring everyone back we leave just the one player (AWB) to cover but if they leave somebody up then we'll keep a second. In this case they bought everyone back (even Ba was at the edge of the box at first) so it may have just been AWB that was supposed to stay back. Watching the play I don't think Matic was 'supposed' to be defending that position, I think he was originally going to be running into the box but he saw that AWB was out of position and took it on himself to cover. Which was great work originally, but then he ruined it by wandering and left Ba completely alone.
Second one Shaw is in a good position for either Maguire or VDB to play him into space and attack their fullback. Think of all the times we saw the likes of Scholes, Carrick and Rooney play those raking diagonal balls out to the fullbacks. We don't do it as often anymore but the likes of Maguire, Matic and especially Pogba do play it sometimes.
Better than blaming de geaImagine blaming Maguire for the first goal
This is exactly right, footballers of this level shouldn't need to be "coached" to recognise this, this is an absolute basic from any footballer at even the very lowest levels.You don't even see this in youth level football.
The thing is, this really is a cock up.
You could argue in Ole's defense if the game was played with fans - you know, you're in Turkey, the fans are loud, bla bla bla.... - but you could hear a fly from Istanbul on TV.
Imagine you are the coach of Manchester United, you're sitting there in the dugout, watching your team have a corner.....
And you see all your Zebra players are trying to score, they all want to score from that corner! Great isn't it! ITS NOT THE LAST MINUTE you dumb fecks.
And there is this HUGE black guy in a bright ORANGE shirt all alone on the center line, ALL ALONE!!!
And you do nothing, you just sit there. SCREAM your lungs out for crying out loud!!!
THAT right there, that's Ole's biggest problem.
He's either on antidepressants or he's as cool as a cucumber. Either way, not good.
You could argue in Ole's defense if the game was played with fans - you know, you're in Turkey, the fans are loud, bla bla bla.... - but you could hear a fly from Istanbul on TV.
Imagine you are the coach of Manchester United, you're sitting there in the dugout, watching your team have a corner.....
And you see all your Zebra players are trying to score, they all want to score from that corner! Great isn't it! ITS NOT THE LAST MINUTE you dumb fecks.
And there is this HUGE black guy in a bright ORANGE shirt all alone on the center line, ALL ALONE!!!
And you do nothing, you just sit there. SCREAM your lungs out for crying out loud!!!
THAT right there, that's Ole's biggest problem.
He's either on antidepressants or he's as cool as a cucumber. Either way, not good.
Read my bloody post. Im not blaming him. When he gets involved someone else needs to realise matic is 1v1 and has to go back.
I said it clearly. Its not awb fault, but when he gets involved and leaves matic 1v1 someone else has to notice this.
feck me. Read my post mate
I suppose on 2nd watch he did actually gain the ground. No idea what he was doing where he was but someone else should have dropped back as soon as awb got involved
excatly. Once awb gets involved leaving it 1 v 1. Someone has to notice this.
Normally youd expect awb and shaw to be back as your 2 v 1 with matic around the edge of the box to stop a counter or pick up a loose ball.
Have no idea why we lined up like we day
This reminds me of primary school when PE teacher Mr Murray decided I should be a defender (the cnut) and so I basically just stood like a statue on the edge of the box all game alongside three others waiting for the opposite team to attack us.
I always look back and wish I’d been told how to play properly but turns out that tactic would have made me the best defender in this team.
I always look back and wish I’d been told how to play properly but turns out that tactic would have made me the best defender in this team.
I read your bloody post and you said something along the lines of ‘the issue was when AWB got involved’.
That statement was what I originally replied to and I think is rubbish. He should be involved.
The issue was clearly not having anyone back and I don’t think that is AWB’s issue when the ball is on his side of the pitch and he is involved in the build play.
Like I’ve already said, Shaw was in the penalty area attacking the near post. He should be responsible for being the last man back. As should AWB if we had a corner on the opposite side.
Who passed the instruction needs to be spoken too?
This is an isolated incident so I can forgive it to an extent. What is a pattern and entirely unforgivable is our pathetic attempt at chasing the result. They took the lead in the 11th minute and not once did we look like being a real threat. We created feck all and never stretched them. It was just a terrible attempt at chasing a result.
And thats exactly when the issue happened. If we just took a normal corner he would have been back at the halfway line.
When he gets involved in the short corner someone needs to notice it and drop back in and cover.
I didnt once blame awb.
We're saying the exact same thing but you're not reading my post