When is it ever the players' faults?

[Aloysius's Back 3]

When all of the squad are playing rubbish day in and day out - that is the managers fault.

When there is good starting 11 playing to a team strategy that is able to outplay the opposition whilst getting the result ; then its easy to pinpoint out certain players that do not fit that system or is out of their depth in comparison to the rest.

That's when you blame individual players of not being good enough whilst the rest are.

Divock origi was not good enough for Liverpool for example as he could not fit Liverpools style of play.

We on the other hand play an individualist type of play with many players not playing to their best attacking nor defensive type of football; at that point - you dont blame the players and you blame the manager.

 

[Turnip]

I do agree that Jose is getting the blame for some things he can't help, like lukaku missing chances. But when lukaku is in such bad form, why is he being played every game? That's a Jose mistake. Lukaku will continue to play every game and miss chances that cost us points, and that's Jose's decision. If some players don't care, why are they playing? Why is Jose not motivating players or playing players that he can't get motivated?

There is a reason the person in charge gets it in the neck for the people under them under performing. Football is not unique in that case, these are problems that managers in every walk of life face every day.

 

[AshRK]

Good post and makes sense also but the issue is our manager is not helping the situation by making wierd statements after each game. He goes on to fight with players rather than just staying quite and just accepting the flaws in his system. His comments about how great he was once is stupid and that turns many fans against him. I am a huge jose fan but even I will say Jose has disappointed me.

 

[Janson]

I agree, and that is concerning. Especially with Jose, who has made a career of having an established first team, often playing the same 11 in many consecutive games, and especially so with an established back four. Several transfer windows in, he should have been able to cement that by now. He brought in enough of his own players to do that. He looks no closer to settling on a best 11, or even a best back four, than he did when he took over from Van Gaal. His lack of a plan and a vision for where this team is heading is a major concern.

Yeah, he always liked to have a set first 11. I think the problem here is that we don't really have standout players in many positions, which all can agree on. Some of his own players haven't turned out to be as good as he thought probably, but that has to be on him.

 

[Janson]

We don't even have consistent center back pairing let alone best 11, I honestly can't remember a top team where the 2 center backs changes constantly each game, it is honestly mind-boggling.

Yep, it is.

 

[Sky1981]

I do agree that Jose is getting the blame for some things he can't help, like lukaku missing chances. But when lukaku is in such bad form, why is he being played every game? That's a Jose mistake. Lukaku will continue to play every game and miss chances that cost us points, and that's Jose's decision. If some players don't care, why are they playing? Why is Jose not motivating players or playing players that he can't get motivated?

There is a reason the person in charge gets it in the neck for the people under them under performing. Football is not unique in that case, these are problems that managers in every walk of life face every day.

Yes the bucks stops with the manager. But if what we suspect is true than a new manager won't fare much better and the vicious cycle will repeat itself.

If jose leaves now he'll leave an unstable squad, and unless the players falls in love with the new manager the problem will still be there.

 

[Adam-Utd]

If it was 1 or 2 players playing badly then you can say it's bad form and they need to be dropped / recover their form.

When the whole team is struggling, that's on the manager.

It's not like this happens 1 in every 8 games or something, it's happening every week recently.

It doesn't help that we seem to change the team / formation every couple of games, the players all look lost.

 

[JPJohnson]

I don’t understand how anyone can watch the United’s attacking play and not think Mourinho is a huge part of the problem. Arsenal went through the same thing the last few seasons with the “Wenger In” loyalist. They said the same thing many United supporters are saying now:

• The club needs to back him/they aren’t spending enough money
• “He needs more time”
• “We need a big name to replace him

All of that has proven to be nonsense from people scared of change. Arsenal didn’t get Allegri or Simione like many of their supporters wanted, they got someone that fits their personnel. It didn’t take Chelsea and Arsenal years to turn things around, it took months.

Too many supporters want to stick with Jose because they fear the unknown. Mourinho is not the right manager for this club unless you’re resigned to watching defensive football and being played off the park by sides with managers that coach a modern game.

 

[Di Maria's angel]

I don't think it's Jose or the players. It's definitely a case for both. The game on Saturday, in my opinion, illustrated two points:

1) Jose is capable of getting these players playing coherent football - it's just whether he's willing to move forward in this way.
2) Our players are also capable of playing attacking football under Jose i.e. if it's true that Jose wants the players to go out there and express themselves with very little coaching, they're definitely good enough.

I also don't think we have one game as evidence for this, we saw these performances plenty of times last season in patches - City, Palace, Chelsea, Tottenham, Liverpool etc. Something is holding us back and it's most likely Jose's unwillingness to stray away from his methods as we've played our best football when the chips are down. I think that the board has probably given Jose a little more time based on the result/performance against Newcastle to see if the team build on from that. However, if we don't, then I definitely think he'll be gone soon after the break. We're a scary team when we play like we did in that second half, it's a shame we don't do it very often.

 

[JPJohnson]

I don't think it's Jose or the players. It's definitely a case for both. The game on Saturday, in my opinion, illustrated two points:

1) Jose is capable of getting these players playing coherent football - it's just whether he's willing to move forward in this way.
2) Our players are also capable of playing attacking football under Jose i.e. if it's true that Jose wants the players to go out there and express themselves with very little coaching, they're definitely good enough.

I also don't think we have one game as evidence for this, we saw these performances plenty of times last season in patches - City, Palace, Chelsea, Tottenham, Liverpool etc. Something is holding us back and it's most likely Jose's unwillingness to stray away from his methods as we've played our best football when the chips are down. I think that the board has probably given Jose a little more time based on the result/performance against Newcastle to see if the team build on from that. However, if we don't, then I definitely think he'll be gone soon after the break. We're a scary team when we play like we did in that second half, it's a shame we don't do it very often.

That wasn’t players playing for Jose, that was players throwing caution to the wind and going forward.

A handful of good games in three years is not acceptable in any form or fashion. Stop giving people credit today for what they did for another club in the past. If his name wasn’t Jose Mourinho, no one would be backing him. I don’t understand the fascination for a has-been manager. Wenger was great once too.

 

[Di Maria's angel]

That wasn’t players playing for Jose, that was players throwing caution to the wind and going forward.

A handful of good games in three years is not acceptable in any form or fashion. Stop giving people credit today for what they did for another club in the past. If his name wasn’t Jose Mourinho, no one would be backing him. I don’t understand the fascination for a has-been manager. Wenger was great once too.

This has no relevance to what I posted.

 

[WensleyMU]

Players play badly. Jose's fault.

Players play well, all about the players.

Haven't some players already stated that Jose's half time team talk was what spurred them on second half?

 

[Micky Targaryen]

Apologies for bumping an old thread, but I find it interesting how the general consensus in this thread regarding our last few managers was "The buck stops with the manager".

But now it seems like there's a different set of narratives for ETH. Or am I just imagining it?

 

[tjb]

Apologies for bumping an old thread, but I find it interesting how the general consensus in this thread regarding our last few managers was "The buck stops with the manager".

But now it seems like there's a different set of narratives for ETH. Or am I just imagining it?

I hate to say this, and I'm all for him learning from his mistakes. He showed enough last season to make me think he can do this, even though he'll need to show good performances with goals before December for me to keep trusting him. It's always the players fault. The media, managers and general consensus have been blaming the players since LVG.

Looking back for Jose and Ole, you see horrible squad building. Every single manager that we've had has been allowed to build their own teams. Prior to getting the money and spending it, none of them, outside of ETH ironically, proved that they were actually getting close to a decent playing pattern. All of them talked up what they wanted to do, but without much evidence of even the pattern on the pitch. This for me is the main gripe I have with all of these managers. It's not even about results, it's the fact that none of them have brought performances.

Tuchel under Chelsea we're playing well at various points and scoring goals. Chelsea under Lampard could attack, they weren't great defensively, but they had a pattern. Liverpool under Rodgers had a clear pattern.

With Pep, Klopp and Arteta, you could see exactly what they were trying to do. Their teams were already scoring goals, but they lacked consistency during their first seasons. Talk all you want about the board, but the fact is that after these managers left us, they still don't have visible attacking patterns. We've seen Bruno, Rashford, Casemiro, Varane, Licha, Shaw, AWB, Maguire etc perform well in England in the past. We watch a game against City where our build up and spaces between defence and attack didn't allow our forward players get into the game, yet people will end the game bashing Rashford, Bruno, Hojlund and Mount for the performance, when they couldn't even get the ball.

 

[fallengt]

Apologies for bumping an old thread, but I find it interesting how the general consensus in this thread regarding our last few managers was "The buck stops with the manager".

But now it seems like there's a different set of narratives for ETH. Or am I just imagining it?

5 years and a fanbase can't mature?
Oh are you suggesting we got everything figured out 5 years ago. If that was the case club wouldn't be in such mess.

The new trend is it Glazers's fault. Get in time grandpa