What's wrong with our players?

[JPRouve]

A very well composed response my friend.
Please let me qualify what I meant by ruthless.
By using that word I was referring to the objective to achieve as close to perfection as humanly possible.
To continually strive to improve and to eliminate weaknesses and errors.
To have a 'no excuses' culture and a 'no blame culture'.
Two names come to mind. Pep Guardiola and Gareth Southgate.

Then I wouldn't use the term ruthless, you could use a plethora of terms from ambitions, driven to even strong-minded when it comes to making no excuses for yourself. Those are definitely traits that you are not going to find in every managers, clubs and players, you want that type of mentality in a top team and you want a manager that can instill it. But bear in mind that this comes from the manager and clubs hierarchy not the players, few players have that by themselves they gain it from their environment, it's something that Matuidi mentioned about Juventus several months ago.

 

[Luke1995]

They are playing for themselves, to earn transfers elsewhere or new contracts. They aren't thinking about winning titles together as a group. I believe that all of them want either out or more money.

 

[Buster15]

Then I wouldn't use the term ruthless, you could use a plethora of terms from ambitions, driven to even strong-minded when it comes to making no excuses for yourself. Those are definitely traits that you are not going to find in every managers, clubs and players, you want that type of mentality in a top team and you want a manager that can instill it. But bear in mind that this comes from the manager and clubs hierarchy not the players, few players have that by themselves they gain it from their environment, it's something that Matuidi mentioned about Juventus several months ago.

Then perhaps unrelenting would be more appropriate.
When you look at the dictionary meaning of ruthless, unrelenting is one description.
Now to watch the Cup Final.

 

[Nou_Camp99]

Lots of them aren't very good and lucky to be at a club our size.

Others are here for the money.

Some care and try their best but aren't top drawer.

Some have plenty of ability but poor attitude.

 

[Schmeichel's Cartwheel]

1. DDG - Poor season, commitment in question
2. Lindelof - Poor in the air, weak for a CB
3. Bailly - Poor in the air, clumsy, injury prone
4. Jones - Poor in the air, clumsy, injury prone
6. Pogba - Our best player but often seems to lack effort and commitment. Dwells on the ball a lot
7. Sanchez - Looks shot
8. Mata - Can't run, weak as a feather
9. Lukaku - Poor technical ability, poor fitness level
10. Rashford - Poor finisher, very very greedy, doesn't look up enough
11. Martial - Very lazy, very low workrate, plays well 10 games a season and bad 30
12. Smalling - Terrible on the ball
13. Grant - Third choice, whatever
14. Lingard - Very low technical ability.
15. Pereira - So-so player, gives the ball away a lot. Seems weak
16. Rojo - Incredibly rash, brainless, and injury prone
17. Fred - See Pereira
18. Young - Not a full-back, not PL standard anymore
20. Dalot - Needs a loan. Nowhere near PL standard yet
22. Romero - He's fine as back-up
23. Shaw - Improved, but still makes occasional errors. Least of our worries
31. Matic - Looks shot
36. Darmian - He's ok defensively but absolutely awful going forward. Slow and can't cross
39. McTominay - He's ok as like a 6th choice CM. Works hard but has little technical ability.

 

[AJ10]

Young/Jones/Smalling/Rojo/Darmian/Mata/Lingard/Matic/Lukaku/Andreas/Sanchez - Not good enough/Haven't improved.

Fred/Dalot/Mct - Decent back ups and they're new/promoted.

Pogba/Martial/Rashford/Victor - Talented/inconsistent

De gea - Shit season but our best player for many seasons.

So in conclusion..........................................Fecking shit.

 

[Irwin99]

Been a culture change and more player power ever since Moyes. Every single manager we've had since SAF has complained about the attitude of the players or their lack of energy.

 

[Jeffthered]

Fantastic would mean Lukaku is regularly dominating top level defences for Belgium. Even at the World Cup once the business end of games got going his effectiveness drastically reduced. His list of goals is quite funny in terms of how poor the nations are that he has scored against in international football. Belgium wouldn’t miss him if he was replaced by a Lewa or a Suarez to name two. The proof of a top tier elite player is that the team is defined by that player and Belgium isn’t defined by Lukaku.

Lingard was good at World Cup but his time for England is coming to an end - better players are coming through and he will eventually be a squad player if that max going forwards. My prediction is similar will happen to Rashford by 2022 if he doesn’t up his game over next few seasons. Hard to see how he will become a starter for national team.

International football is sometimes a difficult measure to judge players by. Belgium were and are not good because of Lukaku. You can see that. Hazard, Kompany, De Bruyne, Tielemans, Mertens... these make that team. Lukaku is not an inspirational player, this has been proven (at United).

Lindgard is a charlatan, and that England team are not that good. The Nations League is meaningless (Portugal do not even play Ronaldo...).

 

[Reddy Rederson]

Sorry didn't bother reading this....I replied to someone else.

Yeah ya did.

 

[Reddevil1978]

I think we have to many mentally weak players, who aren't coached very well the team is also filled with average players and players on the decline.

The whole team needs to be coached better as most games they look clueless in defence and not much better in attack. More competition for places would improve Martial's game I feel as no one's pushing him on. Same goes for other positions.

When I think who I would replace I realised its quicker to think who I would keep. Virtually the whole team needs replaced. We have gone from having a high quality team to an average mediocre team.

I'm just hoping this is rock bottom and the only way is up.

 

[fastwalker]

What's wrong with United players is as clear as day. Strangely enough I totally disagree with those who say that having being given too much money is one of the players problems. The problem is that we do not know how to respinsibly steward the vast sums of money that we have. In other words we have more money than sense. It is because we have no sense that we compound our stupidity by giving money to those who do not deserve it nor feel any sense of accountability for it.

Money is not destroying the club, nor is it the thing that is wrong with our players; what is wrong with our players is the prevailing culture of senselesness and utter stupidity. Our players are only doing as those given rewards without responsibility would predictably do.

 

[Ducklegs]

I mean the players. Not the structure and other outside-the-pitch matters.

We may have all the problems outside it but I refuse to believe that the main reason behind not being able to beat the minnows lies there. After all, it's a set of players who go out there and I doubt they're influenced by the number of scouts, Woodward being incompetent etc. during a football match.

Started with Moyes, who was out of his depth and lacked respect from our seniors. Fair enough I guess, given he tried to convince our WC defenders they should play like Jagielka.

Then Van Gaal, who made a seemingly huge mistake of telling the players to read something that doesn't only contain pictures and actually demands some reading comprehension. The players could also feel it's too possession-based (which we don't like) so they could easily dump him out of the club.

In came Mourinho. Fun while he was winning something but then started having conflicts with some of them. Again, the players could feel we'll side with them in the long run as we like being on the front foot most of the time during games. Their biggest win so far, given Mourinho's stature in the game.

Ole's at the wheel, then. Or was, while we were winning. They probably decided that was the time to show how right they were wanting Mourinho out and that there would be no excuses if they didn't suddenly start playing. Giving a feck or two was too much for them to keep for more than two months, though, but now are at risk of finally NOT having our backing as we love Ole (see G. Neville's spot on comments). Possibility of running out of gas is there, but is it enough to cause results like that?

One way to look at the problem is that we are badly run and the players' culture and power got out of hand. Another is that periods like that happen at all huge clubs but the players are professional enough to at least show minimum of commitment and reach the minimum goals (see Madrid).

The quality is lacking, I know, but not to an extent of notoriously not getting TOP 4, not beating fecking Huddersfields, losing 4-0 at Goodison etc. It sounds far-fetched to say that our players, who were star men or at least v.good in the last WC, first being picked, then playing great football are not good enough to represent a decent level in club football.

It's basically another way of looking at the problem. We all know we're badly run but I'd like to focus on the on-pitch workers, their attitude and the cause of it.

Its a team made up of squad and reserve team players, thats the reason why its so bad.

There isnt one of them (apart from Pogba) who at the time we bought them would be considered a first team player for any competitive side, and there isnt one of the youth team players that have come through or we have bought that would force its way into the first team of any other top side.

THATS the problem.

The reason we dont beat minnows, is because its a team made up of mid table minnows, thats their level, its always been their level.