croadyman
Full Member
- Joined
- Mar 9, 2018
- Messages
- 38,756
Complete lack of technical quality
But they themselves could pass though, we were never a team that like to hog possession for possession’s sake, but we still regularly had about 57-58% avg. possession over the season, and we were better at sustained pressure. Teams used to go to OT and couldn’t break out of their own half for 15, 20 minutes, now us being outplayed in midfield is a regular occurrence.Think its genuinely a club issue. I remember, on a overlap episode, that Scholes and Neville regarded United as a non possession type team and that particular style wasn't the style they were brought up on, compared to a club like Arsenal/Barca. Think it still present.
That is not true.But they themselves could pass though, we were never a team that like to hog possession for possession’s sake, but we still regularly had about 57-58% avg. possession over the season, and we were better at sustained pressure. Teams used to go to OT and couldn’t break out of their own half for 15, 20 minutes, now us being outplayed in midfield is a regular occurrence.
The current problem stems from our recruitment, we’ve for too long gone for players who are at their best in transition, starting with Mourinho. Under LvG even though the recruitment was wank and the football tootless largely, a midfield of Carrick, Fellaini, Schneiderlin, past it Schweinsteiger could still knock it about all day and find their target.
Our passing is crap because our central midfield players are rubbish at it.
There I’ve said it.
Our forward players can’t hang on to the ball because the midfield give them cowardly balls and expect them to be magicians with it. I feel bad for Casemiro and his creative/playmaking responsibilities at United, this does not show him in a good light. The fact he has these responsibilities tell us how inept those in front of him are and them lacking the right abilities for the roles they are entrusted.
We can’t be a great passing team in a quick transition and direct duel heavy cm setup. To be good at passing the primary focus in the centre of the pitch should be ball retention and not fast breaks.
The time you're referring to also had a significantly worse competition technically in the PL. Mid table PL teams have never been better technically and tactically than they are today, hence, being good at passing the ball is no longer enough to pin teams back like it used to back in the '90s.But they themselves could pass though, we were never a team that like to hog possession for possession’s sake, but we still regularly had about 57-58% avg. possession over the season, and we were better at sustained pressure. Teams used to go to OT and couldn’t break out of their own half for 15, 20 minutes, now us being outplayed in midfield is a regular occurrence.
The current problem stems from our recruitment, we’ve for too long gone for players who are at their best in transition, starting with Mourinho. Under LvG even though the recruitment was wank and the football tootless largely, a midfield of Carrick, Fellaini, Schneiderlin, past it Schweinsteiger could still knock it about all day and find their target.
The worst part for me is we're not even particularly good at it.The football we play is utter shit. Transitional counterattacking garbage and Hail Mary-s... Why can't this club move away from this?
Ten Hag really needs to drastically change this in the summer. It suits our players - but that’s because they all lack the ability to control matches.The football we play is utter shit. Transitional counterattacking garbage and Hail Mary-s... Why can't this club move away from this?
Ten Hag has done a brilliant job raising the general technical level of the squad. We've come far but it will always be difficult to consistently outdo teams that are actually built to play this way. What we have right now is merely a poor imitation of what we would be with matching talents playing these roles.I don’t think it as bad as people in here are making out and I also put it down to generally having a few weak links in the team in relation to passing makes the whole team look like it can’t pass!
Personelle like DDG, AWB, Dalot, Fred ultimately need to stop being fixtures in the first team to see the type of improvement everyone seems to want.
I was astonished at how good the keeper for Brighton was on the ball last night, same for Lewis fecking Dunk!
Because there's no one to lead that charge. There's just a section of the fan base that wants it, that's itThe football we play is utter shit. Transitional counterattacking garbage and Hail Mary-s... Why can't this club move away from this?
Varane??Get 2 competent cm with excellent passing stats will completely change the way we play. At the moment its long hit and hope balls for Rash to chase mainly. When we have had a good spell usually at home, we look decent on the ball. Trouble is we cant keep it up with the likes of McFred and Bruno, who is better but still 50/50 with the passing. Eriksen and Casemiro are the best passers we have, but a big drop off if they dont play. Martinez and Verane are decent from the back
Get 2 competent cm with excellent passing stats will completely change the way we play. At the moment its long hit and hope balls for Rash to chase mainly. When we have had a good spell usually at home, we look decent on the ball. Trouble is we cant keep it up with the likes of McFred and Bruno, who is better but still 50/50 with the passing. Eriksen and Casemiro are the best passers we have, but a big drop off if they dont play. Martinez and Verane are decent from the back
Of the starting XI, I would say Onana, Martinez, Shaw and Antony are the only players naturally equipped to keeping the ball.
Eric seemed to have the right idea last summer by prioritizing perhaps the very best possession midfielder in the world but I genuinely have no idea what prompted him to change course so rapidly
Well to be fair we needed both a ball playing regista type player and a DM so not a case of the one or the other and cafe had been basically clamoring for it for so many years and in my opinion it was the right move, arrival of casemiro saved our season from total dissaster.I still find it absolutely bizarre how he pivoted from De Jong to Casimero last summer. They really couldn’t be more polar opposites in midfield. And he has now compounded the issue by buying Mount. Add to that we already had Bruno who’s always loved to piss away possession and it feels like ETH just completely ripped up his initial plans and went in the completely opposite direction. Just cannot get my head around it at all.
We signed Mount but in reality the first choice was a deep lying playmaker like De Jong who was out of our price range or didn’t want to come. Or bothWe refuse to sign the proper technical players.
Its never "just the players". Mate, other teams can play a possession based system as well, even Wolves mostly looked quite comfortable on it as well. It not just the players, better players obviously help but its also the set up. When you attack and defense are as far apart as we were today and the objective seemed to be "first idea should always be a through ball" than even Prime Barcelona wouldn't have kept the ball.We just lack the players for it and no tactical set up is going to change that unless we actually start bringing players that are world class on the ball and know how make the opposing team play on their terms.
You are right, if we want to get close to them and maybe even beat them, we have to bring in better players. But today and more often as not we are not playing teams as good at them. So the argument is a bit misleading. Look at Arsenal, look at Liverpool, look at Bayern, look even at Brighton - they all look more comfortable in possession than we do.Look at the best possession teams in Europe, look at City, look at Barcelona etc etc and none of them will be half as good if they didn't have the players that they've got.
Won't try to stop us bringing somebody in but lets be real, we are hearing this thing since the days of Mourinho, certainly since Ole. If you act as if only new players could change the status quo than you make sure you will be in an evergoing rebuilt.Eric seemed to have the right idea last summer by prioritizing perhaps the very best possession midfielder in the world but I genuinely have no idea what prompted him to change course so rapidly this season by pursuing mount who in my opinion his lack of world class ball playing and passing will not be compensated by his running and defensive work, I suppose we could make an exception for Bruno being so careless simply due to his sheer deadlines as an offensive threat and casemiro is pretty well suited to play possession based football given the right circumstances as we'd seen with real.
We still need a world class midfielder and we need it fast lest we waste bruno's and casemiro's peak and ending up having to buy 3 instead of one.
We signed Mount but in reality the first choice was a deep lying playmaker like De Jong who was out of our price range or didn’t want to come. Or both
Those players are so rare and we don’t have anyone in the mould. Bruno is basically doing his best deeper but he’s not the same level.