What are you talking about? In the old days it used to be it is a sure 3 points against Everton. Yes we did lose but no one had any doubts before the match that we would win.
We're actually quite good
- Thread starter Sassy Colin
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Sounds like Pochettino at Spurs, to be frank.
Calm down mate, Im all for Glazer's out.
I agree with everything you said, but I posted that with what's left of our resources.
I wish one day I can go to the matches, visited Old Trafford last year, dream came true.
Anybody would be an upgrade on Lingard. Having him on the pitch is like playing with a man down.
We mostly lost to the worse teams though.
Mata, Herrera and Valencia had a nice triangle on the right for about half a season or so. They played some pretty nice football. Overall, I agree with you. I think, however, that Bruno seems to elevate players around him. He just sees those pockets of space that few others are able to spot.
Everton away is a big game to see if we have improved since last season. If United get something there then we might get top 4.
If we can find a way to get a team with Pogba in it (or replace him with Grealish) then add Sancho (or another top RW) and get Rashford back then we are going to be very good next season.
DDG
AWB
Maguire
Bailly
Shaw
Fred
Pogba
Bruno
Sancho
Martial
Rashford
Add some depth pieces and that will challenge or at least take a massive jump towards competing.
DDG
AWB
Maguire
Bailly
Shaw
Fred
Pogba
Bruno
Sancho
Martial
Rashford
Add some depth pieces and that will challenge or at least take a massive jump towards competing.
If we played a team of 10 Lingards, anything less than a 10-0 hammering would be shameful.
They won’t match this season again, they’re obviously a good team but they’ve had a tremendous amount of luck along the way. Absolutely zero chance they match it next season. They’ll drop points and we will gain more as will city.
This is why I berate our personnel so much.
I'm actually not directing my ire to the players - more to the support staff and higher-ups. Mainly Woodward.
So, by that argument, we're a better team than Chelsea (W3 L0), Manchester City (W2 L1), Leicester City (W1 L0), and Tottenham Hotspur (W1 L0), but not as good as Bournemouth (W0 L1).
That's true but losing our best player and having our two current top scorers out for big chunks of the season will do that to you, not to mention having our midfield picked apart by injuries. We've got players returning from injury now and January let us add a bit of quality and depth, so no more Pereira in midfield and hopefully no more players like Jones and Lingard eating up minutes, as harsh as that sounds.
They literally finished last season with just under a 100 points.
They are the team to catch. We need some strong recruitment to begin reeling them in.
They had 97 points last season. I thought they couldn't keep that up. Maybe when we start to consistenly win games, we can begin to be a top 4 team. When we are consistently top 4 we can talk about the leap to challenging for the league. We still have our worst point tally in decades so far.
I'm not sure where he was going with the original point.
We haven't been shown up against the better teams at all.
I've been saying it all season that we are not far away. The difference that 2 or 3 top players can make to a side is phenomenal. Take City for example. They lost Laporte from defence and Fernandinho from midfield and suddenly they look human again - that's only two players. It would be the same for liverpool if they were missing VVD and say Mane this season.
If all we did in the summer was buy Sancho then I would expect us to mount a serious challenge for the league next season.
Football is 90% having the right players. As Ole has proven that he is capable of bringing the right players in, I'm very confident for next season. Jose/moyes and Lvg were unable to bring the right players in hence they struggled and were ultimately sacked.
Ten Hag looked like the worlds best manager last season and nearly made it to the Cl final, they lose their 3 best players and suddenly they cant even make it past the last 32 of the europa league. Having the right players is everything.
Brutalin my opinion, Potch fell down in the big games. I’m all for a nice attacking mentality and that being our go to in games against the premier league bottom 12 etc. When you play the big teams at the top of the table and in the latter stages of cup competitions you have to ditch that if need be and get a result. He couldnt do that. And neither to an extent could Wenger in the end. I think we have it the other way round - we have the results against big teams but have struggled to beat the weaker ones.
Quite Good?
How many professional football teams are there in the world? Fecktons. We are perhaps one of the top 30 of those teams... That's more that quite good, that's incredibly good.
How many professional football teams are there in the world? Fecktons. We are perhaps one of the top 30 of those teams... That's more that quite good, that's incredibly good.
Let’s keep fighting for top 6 in the PL then, as long as we’re top 30 in the world . Plenty work to do yet..
Man Utd should be top 10 in the world at worst!!
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That's my thinking as well. Pochettino is a good coach/manager, but Spurs consistently failed when the pressure was on and he had the worst record against the top 6 in his time there.
A lot of posters on here are obsessed with "tactics" and "patterns of play", ignoring that Fergies (and Klopps) biggest strength always was motivating his players and making them believe they could win every game.
Was pleasing is that when I saw the team sheet - wasn't too sure about the width but as a team we were fluid and I think Mata really worked well with Bruno. So maybe we'll see more from Mata from now till the end of the season with the added bonus, him and Bruno can take great set pieces. What's pleasing is Freds weight of pass through the center. I think we're now seeing the team emerge. Shaw as a left center back has done great. We could have been over reliant on Rashford and his loss could have hit us harder (and it might ...) but so far we've adapted and other players are scoring. We need to do better when we play from the back and continue to press in the right areas but I think things are better defined.
Thin squad? That is a myth.
This same team came second and went on that incredible 12-13 game win run last season. We have strength in depth, that is showed with the absence of our key players in Rashford and Pogba. The likes of Garner, Greenwood Gomes and Chong can’t even get enough minutes because of our full squad.
Lingard is an anomaly and is not worse than Aoyze Perez, and Albrighton. Pochettino left Spurs a balanced squad, but lingard was no worse than Ali or Eriksen when they were in that terrible run of form.
Our third choice number 9 was (and still is, I suppose, even with Ighalo) a 17 year old that had never once played a game of professional football. (now 18 but you get the point.)
Our second choice left back was a 34 year old right winger.
That's insanely thin. 2nd was never on the cards, be honest, we actually had a worse side at the start of the season than we started last season with, and they were nowhere near City or Liverpool's level LAST season. 3rd? With luck with injuries, sure. But with Europa league football factored in? Not a chance.
Lack of European football is what's driving Leicester to the season they're having. Similar to how the year they won the league it was all they had to focus on. Same with Wolves last season - not a coincidence sides overperform when they're fresh for their league fixtures every game. I sorta wondered at the start of the season if we were taking a calculated gamble to finish OUTSIDE the Europa league places - literally one step backward to try to get CL football the next time around, because we had no strikers at the start of the season - Rashford and Martial weren't even considered proper number 9's to begin with!
People are right to talk about and even obsess over tactics - a manager's tactical decisions make up 50% of his matchday job (the other 50% being his man-management/motivational abilities).
I don't really buy the "tactica managerl" vs "motivational manager" thing, as Fergie and Klopp are/were very good tactically. Tactical ability doesn't mean a coach's ability to get his side playing a certain style of football, it refers to the strategies they implement to give their team the best possible chance of winning , as influenced by their side's strengths/weaknesses as well as the opponent's (e.g. Fergie playing Ronaldo wide left in the 2008 CL final to target Essien at RB, Klopp choosing to make TAA/Robertson his side's creative focal points rather than his comparatively weaker midfield). Guardiola, as reported by nearly every player he's ever managed, is also an excellent man-manager that does an incredible job in getting his players up for games.
From my view, Ole has done well with both of these up to now - the players seem to be really happy under him and he has shown the ability to devise a tailored tactical plan for every game (wins in big games have largely come down to his tactics, imo).
TL;DR: an excellent manager (Klopp/Fergie/Pep) needs to be great at both an excellent tactician and man-manager, and Ole is showing great potential in both of those areas.
It's hard to disagree with that. Point was Pochettino might be lacking in the man-manager department.
Edit: And that being good at tactics is not enough, which you seem to agree with.
That is normal.
Spurs second choice number nine is a 35 year old striker that is past his expiration date. Their 3rd choice was an unproven 16/17 year old striker.
Liverpool second choice is origi??? Barely good enough and they don’t have a third choice.
Arsenal has Auba who is similar to Rashford. third choice is also another unproven kid.
No top club has three quality no.9. With Ighalo, we have more depth upfront than most top teams. I can parse other team left back and compare to ours and the result will be the same.
As stated a myth blown out of proportion because of injuries.
The Liverpool praise on this forum is a bit irksome, especially when it’s not even warranted.
Not saying they aren’t very very good but they are a team that’s peaking as the rest of the league is in mediocrity. And it shows. It’s a lot to do with belief as well. That will go as losses roll in. Even Barcelona at their peak weren’t this good in their league. This is a freak season and their record will be the one to beat in coming decades. But to say that they will do this season after season, I don’t even think Liverpool fans would expect it.
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We were missing Rashford, Pogba, McTominay. I don’t get why people do this all the time. I remember last season “Chelsea were missing Hazard!!” while we were missing Pogba. Sort of weird.
Gotcha, misunderstood your post
I'd agree with that, even last year against us at Wembley I thought Poch was quite naive tactically and his record against big teams has been really poor. I think there are worse options if our form takes a serious downturn but I don't think he'd be a major upgrade on what we already have.
Watching the replay of the Brügge game?
You cannot say this is the same team that came second.
Also most of the young players are too young to warrant getting more minutes.
It's not like they're kicking the door down and would get into other PL teams is it?
Greenwood's the best of them and I'd argue he's getting enough minutes for his stage of development.
I can because a majority of this player were there, but regardless if you don’t want to look at that, you can still look at the incredible run we had when Ole was interim manager, which was just last year.
Those young players are good enough for minutes, especially if we do have a supposedly thin squad.
Yeah, hardly the same squad. Rojo, Sanchez, Lukaku, Zlatan, Smalling, Carrick, Blind, Young, Herrerra, Mkhitaryan, Valencia, Fellaini, Darmain all gone.
More than half of the first choice players that season is gone. See my post above.
Let's "be good" for more than a couple of games before we start talking about how good we are. We've been shite for 6 and a half years. It probably takes half a season of actual good football before we can legitimately think we're good.
You can list all the players that stayed and it will still be more significant. A lot of players you listed were just bit part players. Even then, you can also say that we have upgraded on some of these players and promoted much more better replacements. So, we should be doing better not significantly worse than what we are doing now.
Still not the same squad, which was your point.