Trying to break teams down by walking slowly about with the ball in our own half

[noodlehair]

I think Maguire was the only one - alongside Pogba and AWB perhaps - who was trying to be constructive with his passing. He played some very good long passes out to the left wing, played the through pass for Rashford and generally brought the ball forward well. The problem is that the ball kept coming back to him. Daniel James, Lingard, McTominay...were all controlling the ball backwards, passing towards our own half, and were reluctant to take on the opponent. It was like the priority was retaining the ball and avoiding confrontation with the Palace players..

He played a couple of good forward passes. He occasionally hits one of those Carrick like sharp passes between the lines, but he also does far, FAR too much, walk 6 metres this way, stop, walk a bit more, give ball to person he's just literally walked to within 2 yards of. Unless you're going to drive forward into space and commit an opposition player, it should be one touch and pass every time. He isn't Paul Scholes, and even if he was, Paul Scholes never took that fecking long to play a pass, if he did he'd have been a shite player.

I'm not deliberately singling Maguire out as he was not the only player doing this, but there's no reason for any player to ever do it. Unless there are literally no passing options, the player on the ball should only be taking more than one touch if they are doing something purposeful. With us it's seven or eight touches just to play a meaningless pass, to someone who's been standing there the entire time. Over and over. Within a minute or so of kick off this had happened seven or eight times. You'll see it seven or eight times a game from a team like City, and that'll be once they're 5-0 up.

 

[ValenciaRocks]

We did this for an entire 45 minutes today. Is this what we signed Maguire for?

Second half was a panic and a mess because we played the entire first half like it was the 93rd minute of a pre-season friendly.

People will moan about tactics, or not having players to break teams down, or Lingard controlling the ball in the same way punching a hive might control a swarm of bees. It doesn't really make much difference when we literally don't even try to win a game of football until there's half hour left and we're a goal down.

I'm sick to death of watching us lose games while our players spend over half of it just strolling about the pitch. You do not see this from any of the other top six sides. They might have bad managers or poor players in the starting line up, or no fit strikers, or whatever. They still manage to come out and actually try to win the game.

We're the equivalent of a racing driver who spends the first 50% of the race driving round like it's the wwarm up lap, and the last 50% frantically trying to overtake everyone in a panic and then crashing...then next week does the exact same thing again as if it's some kind of effective tactic.

I like the way you put this into perspective. I watched the Liverpool vs Arsenal game today and the way in which Liverpool pressed and fought hard to try and get an early goal was impressive. Their midfield trio of Fabinho, Jordan “punchable face” Henderson and Wijnaldum was incredible to watch. From the very start of that game they were menacing. I just don’t see the same work rate and intensity from our midfield like we see with theirs.

Another thing that catches my eye with Liverpool is their dynamic positioning. You will see players constantly interchanging positions, even Firmino will come back and act as a defensive midfielder while Fabinho is out of position. You’ll see a lot of players swapping positions all the time and this helps them to maintain possession, create more spaces, make the opponent second guess and in some ways helps to preserve energy levels.

When I say swap positions I mean that they will always make sure a particular area of the pitch is occupied by a player, whoever that may be in that particular instance. So if Fabinho goes on a run forward someone will drop back and cover if they anticipate the ball may be lost.

With United it’s seems that we haven’t mastered the art of this just yet even though I think I can see Ole trying to implement it.

But I can’t agree more that we need to be more ruthless and sharper when in possession. We need to think quicker and make smarter runs.

 

[bazalini]

Spot on. James Milner and Henderson and Wijnaldum are not much better than Pogba, Fred and Scott. We simply cannot set up this way. It is utterly ridiculous. We need a holding player and then play two midfield players and an attacking midfield player and two strikers. I would push Lindelof into midfield and bring Smalling back with Maguire and then let Pogba and Scott/ Fred play as the midfield players and play Fred/Gomes as the attacking midfield player and play Rashford and Martial up front together.
Now people will say no width but width is created not by a player being dedicated to playing on the touchline but creating that space depending on the situation.

It's more then that bud - It's an inherent confidence thing. They need a run of 10 games being fcuking amazing.

If that was Ferguson- We would have easily won that in the second half. We've no leaders or players with confidence.

 

[Mcking]

He played a couple of good forward passes. He occasionally hits one of those Carrick like sharp passes between the lines, but he also does far, FAR too much, walk 6 metres this way, stop, walk a bit more, give ball to person he's just literally walked to within 2 yards of. Unless you're going to drive forward into space and commit an opposition player, it should be one touch and pass every time. He isn't Paul Scholes, and even if he was, Paul Scholes never took that fecking long to play a pass, if he did he'd have been a shite player.

I'm not deliberately singling Maguire out as he was not the only player doing this, but there's no reason for any player to ever do it. Unless there are literally no passing options, the player on the ball should only be taking more than one touch if they are doing something purposeful. With us it's seven or eight touches just to play a meaningless pass, to someone who's been standing there the entire time. Over and over. Within a minute or so of kick off this had happened seven or eight times. You'll see it seven or eight times a game from a team like City, and that'll be once they're 5-0 up.

Think it's got to do with coaching and team dynamics or perhaps, quality of players. There's nothing wrong with a CB driving the ball into space. It allows the players further forward to take up more advanced positions before receiving the pass. Our players tend to drop too deep and avoid tight spaces whenever we have the ball, which means that Maguire has to pass sideways most times he brings the ball forward. The positions our fullbacks, midfielders and wingers take during the build-up are usually too deep, narrow and useless. The likes of Shaw, AWB, James and Rashford should be moving further down the line when the CBs have the ball.

 

[UNITED ACADEMY]

Speaking about counter attacking football.

Today, we should have play quick passing on the feet. It’s a risky thing to do with potential of losing the ball but that’s how to breakthrough the bus and also at the same time we can let them attack us if we lose the ball and as soon as they start launching counter, we just need to be ready, put pressure on the opposition quickly, win it back & launch counter attack.

This is about the coaching problem not the player. We didn’t train how to breakthrough the bus. Not well prepared before the game. I can see that Ole is just giving our fronts 4 freedom to express themselves in the game against Palace, they look clueless and making too many poor decision making. Need a tactic & instruction to play against parking the bus.

 

[paraguayo]

Disregarding Ole, we've had 3 coaches from the so called "old school". It's on us for not have chosen a coach in his 40s, like all other top teams. Ole doesn't really count, even Lampard is a bettet example of the modern coach I'm trying to paint here.

Also, Lingard Rashford and others must have been permanently damaged from polar opposite instructions from LvG to Mou, in their football cognitive development phase.

 

[croadyman]

We just haven't got the ability or tactical genius to break down teams who come here to just put eleven men behind the ball, going to be experiencing this horrible feeling a lot this season sadly and not a damn thing we can do about it

 

[noodlehair]

Another 45 minutes of this today.

We're away at West Ham, with a weakened side, under pressure to win, and with the exception of James, Pereira and Bissaka, we stroll about like a pack of lazy twats.

I can't get my head around this team. There's actually some kind of weird determination that exists to go into games with a terrible attitude.

Why is it so hard for a grouo of professional footballers to start a game of football with the right attitude?

 

[Denis79]

Another 45 minutes of this today.

We're away at West Ham, with a weakened side, under pressure to win, and with the exception of James, Pereira and Bissaka, we stroll about like a pack of lazy twats.

I can't get my head around this team. There's actually some kind of weird determination that exists to go into games with a terrible attitude.

Why is it so hard for a grouo of professional footballers to start a game of football with the right attitude?

It's what we've done for a few seasons now, the mentality of our senior players is shocking at times. It's like they still underestimate opponents despite losing to almost all of them in the last 3-4 years.

 

[Dr. Dwayne]

Another 45 minutes of this today.

We're away at West Ham, with a weakened side, under pressure to win, and with the exception of James, Pereira and Bissaka, we stroll about like a pack of lazy twats.

I can't get my head around this team. There's actually some kind of weird determination that exists to go into games with a terrible attitude.

Why is it so hard for a grouo of professional footballers to start a game of football with the right attitude?

Some heavy legs out there alright.

 

[passing-wind]

Another 45 minutes of this today.

We're away at West Ham, with a weakened side, under pressure to win, and with the exception of James, Pereira and Bissaka, we stroll about like a pack of lazy twats.

I can't get my head around this team. There's actually some kind of weird determination that exists to go into games with a terrible attitude.

Why is it so hard for a grouo of professional footballers to start a game of football with the right attitude?

Not according to Ole he's happy with what he's seen in this regard because his post match comments stated he was happy with the attitude / desire of the players. The truth is we have a mediocre manager, we are not going to just outplay the opposition and break them down when the coach is if not more inept than the opponent manager.

 

[Igor Drefljak]

It's actually quite amusing to see how this bunch of over paid players play so lethargically, yet you see players for other teams giving it their all, diving in the way of balls etc

 

[OT1214]

We play like we are leading 3-0, while we chase a game these days.

 

[Judas]

We don't look like a fit side at all, i can't believe it's september. We look beyond knackered. So slow and cumbersome, no pace at all.

 

[noodlehair]

Not according to Ole he's happy with what he's seen in this regard because his post match comments stated he was happy with the attitude / desire of the players. The truth is we have a mediocre manager, we are not going to just outplay the opposition and break them down when the coach is if not more inept than the opponent manager.

It's really bizarre if hes said that. It was the exact same thing as the Palace game. After literally 2 minutes you knew there'd be no kind of performance from us until we were behind, because we weren't closing them down and were already walking about with the ball. After 2 fecking minutes.

The only reason we beat Leicester is BECAUSE we started the game brightly. When you look at the chances our jigsaw team had in the second half today, there's a fair chance we win today if we don't take 45 minutes to start the game.

 

[Rampant-red]

Today reminded me of the sketch in Father Ted when they had walking football.

 

[Lee565]

Makes selling fellaini and lukaku a delluded move from Solskjear, he doesn't have the smarts to produce good attacking football team at the top level when in reality he would have been better having fellaini and lukaku with the rubbish he has the team playing.

 

[Massive Spanner]

It was pretty obvious within the first two minutes of that game that we were going to lose it.

 

[Josep Dowling]

We play like we are leading 3-0, while we chase a game these days.

That’s what I see as well. There is never any urgency to get forward. James was the only player to run at them. Rashford kept turning back on himself today, granted that may have been down to his injury which he was trying to hide in the first half.

Many times I saw a simple forward pass for Matic and for some reason he went sideways with it.

 

[Mcking]

We are everything a terribly coached team looks like. We can't even do throw-ins and set-pieces.

 

[BigBebe]

This Liverpool side, 2-0 up have got far more energy and drive than we had when we were chasing the game.

 

[Lentwood]

Question to the brilliant tactical brains on this forum (none of whom have ever played football)

Q. Why do you think Manchester Utd play “slow, unattractive, boring football”?

A) All of our last four managers have demanded it
B) All of our last four managers are inept incompetent buffoons not capable of coaching or implementing tactics
C) None of the 75+ players who have represented Manchester Utd post SAF care about the club, all are in fact lazy chancers
D) Our players are not very good, particularly our attacking players

If you answered A-C, you’re an idiot

Just to expand on that for the FIFA brigade, when you play football (on grass, not a console) the SPEED at which you do things is critical to the level at which you can play and be effective.

By that I mean, all footballers from semi-pro upwards have a good first touch, can beat opponents, can play forward passes - believe me I’ve played Academy/semi-pro level briefly up to about 20/21 and it would boggle minds how good you’re average semi-pro player is technically

The difference is how quickly a player can receive a pass on the turn, how quickly they can manoeuvre space or get a shot off. How aware they are of their surroundings. Hence the reason why a player who scores 40 goals in League 2 could play in the PL and not get a kick.

Remember Jose’s quote on Rooney? “My pass is great under no pressure”...very important...again, look how well Rooney and Zlatan have done in the US where the game is MUCH slower and suddenly, hey presto...! Their technical ability stands out again!

Summary - our attackers (I include the two CMs in that) today are very average. They cannot do things at the speed your Aguero’s, your Silva’s, your Mane’s, your Salah’s etc...can. That is why we look slow and pedestrian, because our players are surviving at this level playing easy passes sideways and being conservative. They don’t have the talent or ability to do much more than that.

 

[noodlehair]

Question to the brilliant tactical brains on this forum (none of whom have ever played football)

Q. Why do you think Manchester Utd play “slow, unattractive, boring football”?

A) All of our last four managers have demanded it
B) All of our last four managers are inept incompetent buffoons not capable of coaching or implementing tactics
C) None of the 75+ players who have represented Manchester Utd post SAF care about the club, all are in fact lazy chancers
D) Our players are not very good, particularly our attacking players

If you answered A-C, you’re an idiot

Just to expand on that for the FIFA brigade, when you play football (on grass, not a console) the SPEED at which you do things is critical to the level at which you can play and be effective.

By that I mean, all footballers from semi-pro upwards have a good first touch, can beat opponents, can play forward passes - believe me I’ve played Academy/semi-pro level briefly up to about 20/21 and it would boggle minds how good you’re average semi-pro player is technically

The difference is how quickly a player can receive a pass on the turn, how quickly they can manoeuvre space or get a shot off. How aware they are of their surroundings. Hence the reason why a player who scores 40 goals in League 2 could play in the PL and not get a kick.

Remember Jose’s quote on Rooney? “My pass is great under no pressure”...very important...again, look how well Rooney and Zlatan have done in the US where the game is MUCH slower and suddenly, hey presto...! Their technical ability stands out again!

Summary - our attackers (I include the two CMs in that) today are very average. They cannot do things at the speed your Aguero’s, your Silva’s, your Mane’s, your Salah’s etc...can. That is why we look slow and pedestrian, because our players are surviving at this level playing easy passes sideways and being conservative. They don’t have the talent or ability to do much more than that.

This would be fine except it all completely falls down when you notice that teams with average players are perfectly capable of closing teams down effectively and playing with some kind of purpose.

For example, Norwich do this. Southampton do this. United do this when they feel like it.

 

[Buster15]

We did this for an entire 45 minutes today. Is this what we signed Maguire for?

Second half was a panic and a mess because we played the entire first half like it was the 93rd minute of a pre-season friendly.

People will moan about tactics, or not having players to break teams down, or Lingard controlling the ball in the same way punching a hive might control a swarm of bees. It doesn't really make much difference when we literally don't even try to win a game of football until there's half hour left and we're a goal down.

I'm sick to death of watching us lose games while our players spend over half of it just strolling about the pitch. You do not see this from any of the other top six sides. They might have bad managers or poor players in the starting line up, or no fit strikers, or whatever. They still manage to come out and actually try to win the game.

We're the equivalent of a racing driver who spends the first 50% of the race driving round like it's the wwarm up lap, and the last 50% frantically trying to overtake everyone in a panic and then crashing...then next week does the exact same thing again as if it's some kind of effective tactic.

A lot of people blamed this kind of lack of urgency on Jose because we did this nearly every game.
I said at the time that when he went so did the excuses.
And now we are doing the self same thing.
Why. What can possibly cause Manchester United players to think that it is acceptable to play for this great club with no urgency and no intensity and no pride and no passion and no ambition and no effort.
Why.
How can this rubbish be allowed to happen.
How can this rubbish be allowed to continue.
There is absolutely no excuse at all.

 

[Lentwood]

This would be fine except it all completely falls down when you notice that teams with average players are perfectly capable of closing teams down effectively and playing with some kind of purpose.

For example, Norwich do this. Southampton do this. United do this when they feel like it.

Not really, you can’t press as an individual, it has to be done as a unit. Pereira and Mata can’t press, so straight away it’s not an option as a tactic.

If we want to play high energy pressing football, we need two more mobile CMs and two more mobile attackers. Simple enough really

 

[Cassidy]

Not really, you can’t press as an individual, it has to be done as a unit. Pereira and Mata can’t press, so straight away it’s not an option as a tactic.

If we want to play high energy pressing football, we need two more mobile CMs and two more mobile attackers. Simple enough really

Then Ole is a clown for handing Mata a new deal and insisting on Pereira being good enough for the squad.

He laid out clear intentions to press yet has persisted with players who are not up to the task

 

[noodlehair]

Not really, you can’t press as an individual, it has to be done as a unit. Pereira and Mata can’t press, so straight away it’s not an option as a tactic.

If we want to play high energy pressing football, we need two more mobile CMs and two more mobile attackers. Simple enough really

Pereira can and does. He's one of the very few who does start games consistently with the direct mindset.

You are talking about being good enough to play as a unit at a high level. What we aren't even doing is starting games with the correct mentality. After 2 minutes we are walking about with the ball trying to slow the game down. If we can't press, we can get into an organised shape and close down space, and move the ball with a purpose and intensity when we do get It, but we do not do that either.

Yet last week at Leicester we could do that. At Southampton we could do that. Against Palace we couldn't. This is the same set of players, being perfectly capable of doing something one week and then not doing it the next.

Teams have the odd off day when they are fatigued or not at It, but this is twice in 6 games, and the start of the Chelsea game was also very suspect.

 

[Alabaster Codify7]

- No creativity
- Nobody in the squad capable of delivering a threatening set piece
- Nobody trying 'something different'
- No movement from the forwards
- Defence panicky and making mistakes every game

What exactly do we train?

Running?

I'm being deadly serious here.

 

[noodlehair]

- No creativity
- Nobody in the squad capable of delivering a threatening set piece
- Nobody trying 'something different'
- No movement from the forwards
- Defence panicky and making mistakes every game

What exactly do we train?

Running?

I'm being deadly serious here.

We didn't do much running until after half time either.

Thing is even if Ole doesn't know how to coach a team or have them start a game switched on, Mourinho obviously does, yet this was going on for probably a year under him as well...to the point he was even calling the team out on it in his program notes.

City had a similar problem before Pep arrived. Where they'd just seem to pick and choose when they could be arsed. It is even more baffling from this team though as it's just so extreme. As a few of us have said, you can tell very easily within a couple of minutes of the game whether this United team can be arsed with it or not. Because if they aren't the effort and intensity levels are so low it is almost beyond belief.

 

[Castia]

What happened today was a complete disgrace. In the first half the players didn’t even want to run, they were at walking pace strolling around the field.

There’s no movement, no urgency, the players don’t care or just don’t want it enough.

It’s a complete farce on and off the field from top to bottom. Upper management (Ed fecking Woodward) is clueless, manager in experienced and the squad is a complete mess...... how have we ended with this set of players after all the cash we’ve spent?

I honestly believe we’ll finish in the bottom half this season, there’s nothing in this team that looks like it can put a run of games together and it’s been like this since the PSG game.

I honestly don’t know where to start with fixing it. Ole ( or any manager) needs the backing to sort this out but it looks like we’ve put the brakes on in terms of spending.

It’s gonna be a shit few years, we seem to be going backwards.

 

[L1nk]

One of the biggest reasons, for multiple years now, in our inability to break teams down, is our complete lack of movement, particularly in the center of the park, it forces us to spread it wide or play long balls every time, it's rare you see fluent passing in the middle of midfield, because nobody is coming towards the ball and asking for responsibility, they wanna just stand around and hope that Pogba can pull off a Hollywood pass.

Just watch any match, whenever we pick the ball up in midfield, particularly around the DM position, our attackers are usually just stood upfront by the defenders waiting for the ball, and there is a massive gap between the midfield and the attack and so majority of the time we have to play it wide or lump the ball forward, as Ashley Young did many times today. Where as City and Liverpool come towards the ball, they pass it, play triangles, they move, and this is how they are able to open teams up and score, generally, bucket fulls against them.

Before, when perhaps we still weren't playing triangles or technically tippy tappy football, we had the attacking quality so that our counter attacking football was on point, it wasn't static, it was quick and incisive, now it's pondering and slow.

It's been this way for seasons.

 

[Andy_Cole]

Probably merge this with the classic Zombie Football thread.

 

[noodlehair]

One of the biggest reasons, for multiple years now, in our inability to break teams down, is our complete lack of movement, particularly in the center of the park, it forces us to spread it wide or play long balls every time, it's rare you see fluent passing in the middle of midfield, because nobody is coming towards the ball and asking for responsibility, they wanna just stand around and hope that Pogba can pull off a Hollywood pass.

Just watch any match, whenever we pick the ball up in midfield, particularly around the DM position, our attackers are usually just stood upfront by the defenders waiting for the ball, and there is a massive gap between the midfield and the attack and so majority of the time we have to play it wide or lump the ball forward, as Ashley Young did many times today. Where as City and Liverpool come towards the ball, they pass it, play triangles, they move, and this is how they are able to open teams up and score, generally, bucket fulls against them.

Before, when perhaps we still weren't playing triangles or technically tippy tappy football, we had the attacking quality so that our counter attacking football was on point, it wasn't static, it was quick and incisive, now it's pondering and slow.

It's been this way for seasons.

It's not so much lack of movement as just the lack of any urgency or intensity. Even watching on TV today there were numerous times James or Rashford made the run and the person on the ball didn't even look up in time. Mata and Matic, maybe 30+ times between them ignored runs that they did see.

It is two or three seconds before our players will even look for a pass. @Lentwood mentioned that better players can do things quicker, which is true, but even a bog standard Championship footballer does not need this long to LOOK for a pass. We do not press from the front...that's fine if that's not what we are setting out to do, but then we aren't compact either. We aren't aggressive in trying to win the ball back. We don't close down space even on the edge of our box. We aren't deliberately being open to give our own players more room to play and run into. None of these are things you need quality players to do. THey have nothing to do with quality on the ball or game intelligence. They are just down to intensity and concentration, and it isn't there.

The most damming thing is that sometimes it is. Leicester last week, we were at it from the start. Palace and today, suddenly after half time the intensity magically appeared. The performance by that point was poor and a struggle but the level difference in urgency from one half to the next just because we start losing is shocking. It isn't down to quality when it just switches on and off like this. It's a choice on some level.

I really struggle to put my finger on what it is. @Lentwood is right again saying that pinning it on four successive managers, or 70+ players is quite difficult to do logically...but it is obviously down to something. Just an inherent culture of poor attitude maybe, that stays even when you move players in and out. It was being blamed on people like Lukaku...he is gone. Pogba...he didn't play today. Matic...but he didn't play against Palace. The list of players who aren't guilty of it is actually much shorter...you couldn't name half a team of them. If it's a confidence thing why does it randomly happen after two decent performances like it did for the Palace game. If you are low on confidence surely you make sure even more than you are fully switched on for the next game?

 

[Kostur]

Question to the brilliant tactical brains on this forum (none of whom have ever played football)

Q. Why do you think Manchester Utd play “slow, unattractive, boring football”?

A) All of our last four managers have demanded it
B) All of our last four managers are inept incompetent buffoons not capable of coaching or implementing tactics
C) None of the 75+ players who have represented Manchester Utd post SAF care about the club, all are in fact lazy chancers
D) Our players are not very good, particularly our attacking players

If you answered A-C, you’re an idiot

Not really, you can’t press as an individual, it has to be done as a unit. Pereira and Mata can’t press, so straight away it’s not an option as a tactic.

If we want to play high energy pressing football, we need two more mobile CMs and two more mobile attackers. Simple enough really

You cannot claim the high ground in the first post when you're coming out with such bullshit in your second post, sorry.

 

[Amerifan]

We did this for an entire 45 minutes today. Is this what we signed Maguire for?

Second half was a panic and a mess because we played the entire first half like it was the 93rd minute of a pre-season friendly.

People will moan about tactics, or not having players to break teams down, or Lingard controlling the ball in the same way punching a hive might control a swarm of bees. It doesn't really make much difference when we literally don't even try to win a game of football until there's half hour left and we're a goal down.

I'm sick to death of watching us lose games while our players spend over half of it just strolling about the pitch. You do not see this from any of the other top six sides. They might have bad managers or poor players in the starting line up, or no fit strikers, or whatever. They still manage to come out and actually try to win the game.

We're the equivalent of a racing driver who spends the first 50% of the race driving round like it's the wwarm up lap, and the last 50% frantically trying to overtake everyone in a panic and then crashing...then next week does the exact same thing again as if it's some kind of effective tactic.

I try not to be critical of our team, but I noticed this on Wednesday and again today. I kept yelling “Move!” at the telly. Our guys are literally standing there watching teammates play at times. Given how many minutes between goals for us we need to make every second count.

 

[Starkie_1]

You cannot claim the high ground in the first post when you're coming out with such bullshit in your second post, sorry.

Not sure what he’s said that’s bullshit. It’s true, you cannot successfully press if you don’t do it as a unit. It’s absolutely pointless and just opens up spaces behind you

 

[Kostur]

Not sure what he’s said that’s bullshit. It’s true, you cannot successfully press if you don’t do it as a unit. It’s absolutely pointless and just opens up spaces behind you

Notion that Pereira for some reason cannot press, I'd even go as far as to say that Mata in #10 can press as well. Firstly he talks about pressing as the unit and pressing not being a case of just one player pressing then he goes to single out two players who apparently cannot press.

 

[arthurka]

Not sure what he’s said that’s bullshit. It’s true, you cannot successfully press if you don’t do it as a unit. It’s absolutely pointless and just opens up spaces behind you

Fully agree our pressing game is non existent it's a team effort that makes it work. Close the angles and limit the space for them to pass into. When we press we have 2-3 guys running around while the others watch what happens next.

 

[Lentwood]

Then Ole is a clown for handing Mata a new deal and insisting on Pereira being good enough for the squad.

He laid out clear intentions to press yet has persisted with players who are not up to the task

Well, either Ole believes Pereira and Mata are great players OR he believes they are the two players he has to make do with, so little point in highlighting their deficiencies publicly....I think the latter is more likely

 

[finneh]

I really struggle to put my finger on what it is. @Lentwood is right again saying that pinning it on four successive managers, or 70+ players is quite difficult to do logically...but it is obviously down to something. Just an inherent culture of poor attitude maybe, that stays even when you move players in and out. It was being blamed on people like Lukaku...he is gone. Pogba...he didn't play today. Matic...but he didn't play against Palace. The list of players who aren't guilty of it is actually much shorter...you couldn't name half a team of them. If it's a confidence thing why does it randomly happen after two decent performances like it did for the Palace game. If you are low on confidence surely you make sure even more than you are fully switched on for the next game?

I get the feeling that the senior members of the squad are simply going through the motions and have been for years, passing this mentality on from group to group.

Under Moyes the likes of Rio, Vidic and RVP clearly had no respect for the manager, which at the time you could appreciate when they were being told to monitor how the likes of Jagielka defended.

Under Van Gaal we had the same issue with Rooney, Di Maria, Falcao, Depay, Schweinsteiger etc. They seemed to be simply going through the motions.

It briefly changed early on under Jose but again (including the majority of his signings)... The likes of Pogba, Lukaku, Matic, Sanchez, Mkhitaryan and Shaw just don't seem to be motivated whatsoever.

Now we see the same with Mata, Matic, Pogba, Shaw and even Lingard who you'd expect to rely on at least from a being arsed perspective.

I do wonder whether we need a complete cull next Summer in tandem with a strong manager to stamp it out. Get rid of Jones, Bailly, Rojo, Young, Matic, Mata and Pogba (inc Sanchez). Commit a £400m budget to identify players with a different mentality, which in truth Ole seems to have targeted with Maguire, Wan-Bissaka and James.

I've had employees before that infect everyone around them and turn relatively good staff into complete wasters. The problem is that if they aren't gotten rid of quickly the others don't return to their former selves even after the bad eggs are removed; they replace them.

I get the feeling we have a similar situation with a rotten and negative core of the squad passing on their toxicity from group to group. Especially when the same players know it's likely to be the manager and not them who get sodded off.