TLDR;
- We are under performing, we are a better team than we look right now.
- Injuries have held us back and due to the thin squad will hold us back this season.
- We can't rely on just counterattacking, we need to hone better tactics for breaking teams down.
- We defintely need better players
- We might end up needing a better manager, idk if right now is the best time for that.
- Club needs a DoF, rebuild is too slow
=========== in Depth ===========
We're a better team than we look right now. We are a top 6 side, we ought to be trying for top 4 as a minimum. Right now we're woefully out of form, tactically figured out (adapting to new tactics) and we have injuries to key players. Once Pogba, Shaw, Martial and Lingard are back, we'll be a much better side. It sounds daft, but these guys are our key players right now.
Unfortunately because out squad is so thin (in terms of quality, not numbers) I expect whenever we lose a player or two, we'll look really bad. Martial is expected back, Rashford is out; this sort of thing will happen repeatedly this season because we'll either overplay our key players, or key players will run themselves into the ground. Of course the flip side is they might down tools to protect themselves from injuries.
Tactically we've been found out. We rely on the counter, we rely on the left hand side, we don't go central, we don't usually go right, we tend not to have a man in the box who can hold it up or knock it in. To beat us you sit deep and compact, then when you have position run through the middle as Matic and Mata are slow AF. We have tried knocking it about, but the passes are sideways and not forward enough, we've got nobody with the muscle or the magic to get past a couple of players and we're too slow in the pass so those who do get inbetween lines don't get the ball because the oppo have intercepted it. It's just work that needs to be done on the training ground.
Our team is good enough for top 6 over the course of the season but we need top 4 at least, so we can use it as a spring board to challenge for titles. This is how I see our squad right now;
GK = Great options
RB = AWB and Dalot, sorted
CB = Maguire and Lindelof, ok for now, won't win us a PL title i suspect. Taunzebe, good young prospect, rest - rubbish. I feel we need to sell more of the rubbish and buy another excellent CB to push Lindelof down the pecking order. This is not a priority of course.
LB = Shaw is ok, Young desperately needs replacing, ideally with someone who can push Shaw into a backup option. This should be priority, not because Shaw is a bad player, but because he's not going to be Evra.
CDM = Terrible options. Need to replace Matic, McTomminay can cover.
CM = Pogba aside we have terrible options. We need a top quality CM to replace Herrera and then in the future someone else as cover (ie replace Fred).
CAM = We could play Pogba here and he'd do really well. I don't think we should get a specialist for this position when we have Pogba, instead we should make sure we have plenty of CM options. Mata is too slow, Lingard is rubbish, Gomes is a child.
RW = Urgent attention required. AWB is not an attacking RB, I think our best option here right now is Rashford, Periera, Lingard etc, no good. We need a proper RW. Maybe one day Greenwood might be that guy, when he is, we can sell a player.
LW = Actually well stocked. James seems great and long term i think Rashford should just play here. He's at his most effective here. Wouldn't say no to Ryan Fraser in Jan as a stop gap though. We need the bodies.
ST = We need someone else to compete with Martial, someone who can head, someone who can play with their back to goal, as well as do normal striker activities. We need a 30 goals a season man.
In terms of Manager, it's wait and see. We've no great options right now, if Ole fails badly this season, i don't think he should start the next. We shouldn't axe him this season unless he looks likely to relegate us. Give the man a proper chance, write off this season as development, see how it goes. He won't win us a title though - i don't think he's that good. We'll see i suppose.
Finally, we desperately need a DoF, someone who can continue when coaches change, someone who plans long term. Right now we are losing good chances to get back to the top. This season Arsenal are rubbish, spurs are failing, Chelsea are hamstrung and yet we're worse than all of them. It was an easy opportunity to get top 4. It'll get harder as the years go on. We had the advantage of money, but other clubs have money too now. The likes of Leicester and Everton won't be selling talented players if they make it into the CL. Even Palace put up a huge fight for AWB. The finacial edge, doesn't go as far as it used to, and it wont got even this far in the future.
For those of you old enough remember when Chelsea and City hit money. They signed tonnes of players and went through loads of managers quickly, each iteration improving. You'd rather have good players on high salaries wasting away on the bench, than poor players (ironically we have poor players on high salaries). Remember how they chewed through Benjani, Adebayor, Santa Cruz, Robinho, Bellamy, Shaun Wright Phillips. They went up bit by bit before they got Aguero, Toure and Silva.
Same for Chelsea, Kezman, Schevchenko, Crespo, Mutu, Veron, Duff, Johnson, Gallas, etc... loads of players before they got their core of Lampard, Essien, Makele, Drogba, Terry, Cole, Cech, Carvalho.
We need to do the same, we need to churn through the dross, improve step by step, but we need to do it at the same stupid rate they did.
