Why is our passing so garbage?

[Idxomer]

Don't think I've ever seen a team at this level make passing such a challenging task like United.

 

[Annihilate Now!]

Do we play the softest passes in the league?

I wish Roy Keane was here to fire a few in at people.

 

[Yagami]

It's also a mentality thing.

We have hardly anyone who can receive a pass under pressure and keep the ball because they're weak. Our players know this. So, when we have the ball, and we're actually getting pressed, whoever is in possession is reluctant to play short, intricate passes because they know, nine times out of ten, we'll lose possession in a duel, so we go long.

This is why press resistant players are vital. You need players who have teammates who trust one another in possession regardless of if they're in a tight spot or not. It brings the best out of everyone.

 

[Malone_Post]

Do we play the softest passes in the league?

I wish Roy Keane was here to fire a few in at people.

None of them would be able to control it

 

[Godfather]

Our coaching is non existent is it?

 

[DownRiver]

People don’t get it. Mainoo has entered the team and seems the best passer of the ball. This tells you that it is not coaching but we don’t have players who have these attributes.

You have to blame recruitment.

 

[Dominos]

People don’t get it. Mainoo has entered the team and seems the best passer of the ball. This tells you that it is not coaching but we don’t have players who have these attributes.

You have to blame recruitment.

Somehow Newcastle look like prime 2011 Barcelona next to us.

Obviously poor recruitment and dogshit coaching on top of it.

 

[The-Mezzala]

Never going to be a possession based team with Mctominey in your side.

 

[PoTMS]

Manchester United Football Club.

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Shocking. I reckon you could randomly pick 5 Cafe members to perform a rondo and I'd back them to do a better job than these overpaid wankers.

 

[Marwood]

Manchester United Football Club.

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Shocking. I reckon you could randomly pick 5 Cafe members to perform a rondo and I'd back them to do a better job than these overpaid wankers.

That's our main problem summed up. It really doesn't need detailed analysis. We can't pass the ball.

 

[DatIrishFella]

Manchester United Football Club.

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Shocking. I reckon you could randomly pick 5 Cafe members to perform a rondo and I'd back them to do a better job than these overpaid wankers.

That's something alright .....

 

[sebsheep]

Manchester United Football Club.

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Shocking. I reckon you could randomly pick 5 Cafe members to perform a rondo and I'd back them to do a better job than these overpaid wankers.

Only need 1 pass for an assist. I'm not worried.

 

[Fortitude]

Manchester United Football Club.

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Shocking. I reckon you could randomly pick 5 Cafe members to perform a rondo and I'd back them to do a better job than these overpaid wankers.

I still chuckle at the idea of Zidane coming into training and seeing this lot.

 

[PoTMS]

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[Pogue Mahone]

Manchester United Football Club.

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Shocking. I reckon you could randomly pick 5 Cafe members to perform a rondo and I'd back them to do a better job than these overpaid wankers.

Point stands but that isn’t a rondo?

It’s been a theme since forever. I remember people posting similar videos when Lukaku was at the club.

 

[Cassidy]

Somehow Newcastle look like prime 2011 Barcelona next to us.

Obviously poor recruitment and dogshit coaching on top of it.

Prime Barcelona sitting behind us in the table. Interesting
Our players are not good enough but that isn’t anything new

 

[paulscholes18]

Manchester United Football Club.

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Shocking. I reckon you could randomly pick 5 Cafe members to perform a rondo and I'd back them to do a better job than these overpaid wankers.

Who was that at 1 second, I fecking live closer than that pass was to a team mate, reminds me of that John Smith advert “HAVE IT”.

 

[Tyrion]

Point stands but that isn’t a rondo?

It’s been a theme since forever. I remember people posting similar videos when Lukaku was at the club.

I remember the classic "static, slow motion zombie passing" in the late Fergie years. I think we passed well in about 5 games under LVG. That's the only time I could say we passed as well as any team in the league. Even the late Fergie title winners were more organised and hard working than fluid and accurate.

 

[Blood Mage]

Martinez and Shaw are the only high level passers in our team and even they're not world class on the ball IMO. We badly need to sign more technical players and hire better coaches.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

Martinez and Shaw are the only high level passers in our team and even they're not world class on the ball IMO. We badly need to sign more technical players and hire better coaches.

You don’t need 11 world class players. You need a team full of players capable of handling a press and congested spaces in general even if they aren’t incredible passers. I agree that Martinez and Shaw stand out. If you replace - just on paper - Rashford, Bruno, McTominay , Casemiro, Awb / Dalot etc with 6-7 players of a similar time on the ball we’d be able to dominate teams. Mainoo is just a kid but he has the basic qualities of such a player. For me it’s les

 

[Pogue Mahone]

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[Yagami]

I don't get why people are for the likes of Palhinha as a recent example. We do not need more lightweights in possession. We need some good footballers who actually excel on the ball.

It's been over a decade. Surely we have to realise this soon. You can't get anywhere without players who can dribble, play in tight spaces and shield the ball under pressure. Another hard working DM who is lacking on the ball solves nothing.

 

[Buster15]

One of the reasons, apart from lack of real quality is that United doesn't really operate as a team. We continually leave players isolated and don't support the man with the ball. We are nothing like compact enough.
And there is a general lack of movement, not enough of trying to find some space.

 

[ShinjiNinja26]

It’s a problem that’s plagued us for years now and it’s a joke. Especially when you see numerous sides lower down the table capable of knocking it around far better than we do.

 

[Eli Zee]

Our team is a laughing stock for years now and the only way to fix It is by INVESTING in the right people.

players, coaches, scouts, managers - anyone directly impacting our team needs to be making it better, not worse or keeping it the same (it is bad to stay the same in our current losing state).... I don't give a shit about the facilities being outdated at this point or needing renovations..... fix the damn people at the club first.

 

[Lemon Moon]

Our midfielders are not great passers of the ball. Eriksen is decent but can't run. Bruno is good on his day but seems to drop too deep and trys the Hollywood pass. He's not Scholes or Rooney though so doesn't work too often. Hopefully when we see more of him Mainoo has a progressive pass or two in his locker.

 

[Oranges038]

It’s a problem that’s plagued us for years now and it’s a joke. Especially when you see numerous sides lower down the table capable of knocking it around far better than we do.

It's the players, they don't look after the ball properly, have no thoughts of how the receiver wants the ball or what they're going to do with it. Just kicking the ball at a player is seen as an accurate pass.

As an example, this something I noticed last week. Just look at the quality of Jonny Evans passing, plays it into feet, to the back foot and well weighted almost every time. Then compare that to Rashford, Dalot, McT etc. The difference in quality is noticeable.

 

[Lee565]

But the manager does not want that, he wants to be the best transition team.

If lvg could get a tune out of fellaini and herrera in midfield then why can't ten hag do the same over 18 months when he has had the likes of Fred, casimero,.amrabat,eriksen, Mount and bruno who all at the very least as good if not better than the former players mentioned.

Are we really to believe that bruno has been ignoring the manager instructions for 18 months and yet is still almost the first name on the team sheet every match despite ten hag not being afraid to dump other players for not fitting his vision...

Mount is far from world class but he can definitely play in a system that focuses on possession, if you put him in a dortmund side or Brighton side I doubt he would look out of place.

 

[ayushreddevil9]

But the manager does not want that, he wants to be the best transition team.

If lvg could get a tune out of fellaini and herrera in midfield then why can't ten hag do the same over 18 months when he has had the likes of Fred, casimero,.amrabat,eriksen, Mount and bruno who all at the very least as good if not better than the former players mentioned.

Are we really to believe that bruno has been ignoring the manager instructions for 18 months and yet is still almost the first name on the team sheet every match despite ten hag not being afraid to dump other players for not fitting his vision...

Mount is far from world class but he can definitely play in a system that focuses on possession, if you put him in a dortmund side or Brighton side I doubt he would look out of place.

I don't really see any kind of progress or efforts in undoing the mistakes we do regularly. Not sure what kind of coaching is being provided.

 

[Marwood]

But the manager does not want that, he wants to be the best transition team.

If lvg could get a tune out of fellaini and herrera in midfield then why can't ten hag do the same over 18 months when he has had the likes of Fred, casimero,.amrabat,eriksen, Mount and bruno who all at the very least as good if not better than the former players mentioned.

Are we really to believe that bruno has been ignoring the manager instructions for 18 months and yet is still almost the first name on the team sheet every match despite ten hag not being afraid to dump other players for not fitting his vision...

Mount is far from world class but he can definitely play in a system that focuses on possession, if you put him in a dortmund side or Brighton side I doubt he would look out of place.

To be fair ETH has said repeatedly we don't pass the ball well enough.

 

[Zed 101]

I don't get the we don't have the players capable of passing, these are players that have been at worked their way to the top level of the game, yet pretty much every player in the Prem at other teams seems to be capable of passing the ball faster and more effectively, it just doesn't add up, not saying we have a team with the capabilities of Scholes, Cantona and Iniesta, but these are players that can play at the top level of the game, passing should not be the thing that undoes us.

I think this issue comes more from mentality, belief and tactics, and that all stems from training, it also doesn't help that we play with 1 midfielder

 

[Jimble]

Manchester United Football Club.

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Shocking. I reckon you could randomly pick 5 Cafe members to perform a rondo and I'd back them to do a better job than these overpaid wankers.

the 6 years old I train can string more passes together

 

[Galactic]

You don’t need a coach to teach premier league players to not pass straight to opponents feet every 5 mins.

 

[NZT-One]

One of the reasons, apart from lack of real quality is that United doesn't really operate as a team. We continually leave players isolated and don't support the man with the ball. We are nothing like compact enough.
And there is a general lack of movement, not enough of trying to find some space.

Spot on.

But the manager does not want that, he wants to be the best transition team.

Good passing isn't the same as possession. And transition doesn't mean the absence of good passing. Or would you describe the great Dortmund side that was in CL final a bad passing side? Or the Liverpool?

Don't lump terms together for the sake of it, makes the discussion just unnecessary difficult.

Our passing isn't great because the overall technical level of the team isn't great. Too many players have issues with passing and 1st touch. Add that to us being subpar in terms of workrate (in terms of making himself available) and organisation and you have rather weak players in a challenging environment. I'd argue that the overall football IQ might also be a bit limited among our players.

That being said, I agree that the manager could improve that by either providing a clearer system and structure and/or b) by making his instructions more clear. The magnitude of change this would lead to is unknown but right now, the issue isn't just the players or just the manager.

 

[MadDogg]

But the manager does not want that, he wants to be the best transition team.

The likes of the Real Madrid team that dominated the CL, Klopp's Liverpool and ourselves under Fergie were all amongst the best, if not the best, transitional teams in the world. That doesn't mean being poor on the ball and constantly playing bad passes.

We seem to have a combination of a technical limitation of far too many of our players, managerial mistakes in both signings and tactics, and probably issues on the coaching side.

 

[RedinIndia]

A third of our side wants to play front foot football.

Another third are pragmatic footballers bought for a different coach who are happy to counter attack

And then the final ones are guys who shouldn't be playing for the club.

All this leads to lack of cohesion on the field which leads to the shit we see out there

 

[Top]

Absolutely ridiculous!

 

[Scholsey2004]

Well, from Ten Hag's comments about making us the best team in transition in Europe, it doesnt seem like possession football is the objective, which i think is a mistake. Why he decided this is perhaps the most important point. Did the club hierarchy push the idea or did the manager misinterpret the clubs culture?

 

[Andersons Dietician]

What I find so frustrating with us and have done for many seasons is the lack of passing options created for the man on the ball. We speak of wanting to be a fast transitional team but it still helps to give the man on the ball different passing options. And speaking of the very best United teams I remember watching could do a bit of everything.

It should start with the very basic of passing out from the back, someone drops in to take the ball off the Cb’s or goalkeeper and then after that there is no other passing option. Amount of times we are just forced back or lose possesion drives me crazy. They should always be thinking a pass ahead or where they should be heading it just doesn’t happen and I refuse to believe that 3-4 managers couldn’t notice this very basic issue or would opt out of doing it for tactical reasons.

 

[Bobski]

When the midfield is spaced in the absurd way Ten Hag has continued to go back to the passing options are already limited. DM gets the ball, the 2 attacking midfielders are pushing up high, often 25-30 yards higher than the DM, often nearly in CF positions. Difficult to thread passes through the lines in that situation and also quite easy to cut off the passing line defensively. So we end up in the dead end of either hoofing it down the channel for the wide men to chase or trying to play out through the full backs, with again not enough options for them.

You can look at the individuals but the shape shows the intentions and controlled possession ain't it.

LVG's Utd had plenty of players with technical weaknesses in the team but the team was structured to retain possession, often passively, but they could keep it.