Why is our passing so garbage?

[pcaming]

He’s the best at what he does. What he does well is usually our weakness and has been for years and years.Hence why I want him at the club.

If we can find someone who can do the job as well (or better) for cheap and left field - awesome but we all know United and all know that won’t happen.

Teams will just mark him out of the game the same way they do Rashford.

 

[Greck]

This thing about being press-resistant is a bit of a bogus-word to me sometimes. Against Wolves, no one really made themselves available for passes. That of course makes it hard for everyone on the pitch to be press-resistant, if there are very few options to pass to. Casemiro in particular was very invisible and didnt make himself available for passing.

All of City's players are great passers but also have a clearly defined system where options for passing are always there. They ran much more off the ball to make themselves available than we did against Wolves.

Being comfortable or the ball or press resistant will also directly affect their will to pick up the ball from tough positions. There has to actually be some sort of skillset affinity or they'll freeze in actual matches. Bruno for example has struggles picking the ball very deep with his back to goal and a defender breathing down his neck. He's not going to dive headfirst into such a situation if he can help it.

I don't blame them for not being press resistant because we already knew by the end of last season. We underestimated how much we could actually convert players like these into a slick passing machine that can dominate others at the highest level. We're going to look great against midfields that give us space one week and come completely undone against resistance the very next.

 

[Son]

Teams will just mark him out of the game the same way they do Rashford.

Mark De Jong out of the game? He is a midfielder who basically runs games for fun against anyone. He’s nothing like Rashford as a footballer or role wise.

A team is all about everyone making movements. De Jong’s job would be to always find the pass. Find space off the ball, be press resistant and progress the ball with drives through midfield which he’s incredible at.

If they try to man mark him out the game with physicality he has the ability to most of the time find the pass and move into space.

No attacker is taking the ball off De Jong so if they press with their midfield he can find his man giving Bruno a pocket of space usually to set free an attacker. All about drawing them into your trap using a world class talent like De Jong’s ability on the ball.

 

[The Mitcher]

Ask Ten Hag.

 

[gaffs]

We will never be a possession team with Bruno in the midfield. All he wants to do it force the ball forward as soon as he can.

It works at times, but I feel its a net negative for the team.

Another thing that hurts us is the lack of a 9 who can take a pass with back to goal and hold it up. Rashford just cant do that. Martial does it well, but cant stay fit for more than 20 mins.

 

[The_Midfielder]

Reminded me of Van Gaal today .
Toothless.. Bad forward play..pass around and nothing..miss chances..
The other team scores and you know the game is over

 

[croadyman]

Reminded me of Van Gaal today .
Toothless.. Bad forward play..pass around and nothing..miss chances..
The other team scores and you know the game is over

Yeah that's a very apt comparison

 

[Dominos]

Weird game to judge our ball retention because our playing out from the back looked decent today. Or should I say, playing amongst the back. The passing between Onana, defence and Casemiro/Eriksen themselves was good and we rarely looked troubled. However, we couldn't progress the ball up the field effectively. Someone needs to be brave and thread a forward pass, and someone needs to be brave to receive the pass and keep it under pressure.

Once the ball is played higher into midfield and attack we cannot keep the ball for toffee. How many sustained attacks did we have today where we kept Arsenal pinned back? Can't really remember any. Arsenal kept possession high up the field and had us defending our penalty area for long stretches, where our possession was with our own goalkeeper and centre backs. Yet again we concede a late goal because we cannot hold onto the ball. We conceded a last minute winner to Arsenal under identical circumstances lasts season because we spend almost the entire 2nd half camped in our own box, giving them the ball back every time we get it.

Similarly we were hanging on for dear life against 10 man Forest last week because we couldn't retain the ball. If this is how you play in the latter stages of games you're inevitably going to throw away points late on.

 

[Murder on Zidane's Floor]

Something I have tried to verbalise for years but this video nails it.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CtjqQKeMNfn/?igshid=NzZhOTFlYzFmZQ==

Don't kill the momentum, play the ball at forward angles, not flat, horizontal or backwards. If so the next pass has to be first time forward to reapply the pressure towards the goal of your opponent.

 

[Craig Ward]

We've been pretty abysmal with the ball for years, well before ETH.

ETH is trying to change that, by bringing in more capable players with the ball. Onana, Martinez, Mount etc.

We are just always so slow, and lazy with the ball. It takes us so long to simply pass the ball 5 yards sideways. We must be the most boring, slow, predictable side when the ball is with any of our back 6. It's painful to watch.

We dont look for quick passes, or get our wide players on the ball. The clip on MOTD highlighting Antony stood there for about 3 minutes while players just ignored him and went back or sideways just sums us up.

 

[Rozay]

I think the answer is that we have simply never valued it enough, as a club. Football teams, and then entire football clubs, are often built upon certain principles - and the top passing teams are never coincidental. It’s always obvious that they have made a clear decision on building a team on the principle that it MUST keep the ball, and have clearly spent hours and hours training and drilling that. It’s often the same journey too, never quite right at first, sometimes backfires in some high profile moments but the coach swears by it - and so long as he is there, that’s the way his team should play. Players are signed in keeping with these requirements and an identity is soon established.

With us, this has never been the case. Van Gaal tried to teach us how to keep the ball and we complained that we were bored. Our transfer strategy has always been with a view to players providing ‘impact’, i.e - a successful signing is one who will ‘win us the league’ more than one who compliments a clear wider vision. But primarily, our managers have not been committed to it, our own manager seems to have suddenly decided he can’t be bothered with it and now wants us to be a ‘transition team’, so clearly, it’s not a non-negotiable philosophy of his.

We can’t just become a top passing team by chance. It’s a decision, one that takes time and deliberate recruitment. If we are a ‘passing team’, a lot of players simply would not be here. They are here because we have placed other qualities they have above the importance of passing the ball well, and this is what it looks like.

 

[DJ_21]

When ETH first came In we seen some good stuff with passing, we seen movement quick interchanges, just like we did under Ole. The trouble we have is maintaining the standards and sticking to that way of playing. We’ve never been consistent enough to put together a decent run and some decent games of football.

 

[swooshboy]

Something I have tried to verbalise for years but this video nails it.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CtjqQKeMNfn/?igshid=NzZhOTFlYzFmZQ==

Don't kill the momentum, play the ball at forward angles, not flat, horizontal or backwards. If so the next pass has to be first time forward to reapply the pressure towards the goal of your opponent.

It's amazing how many times a simple pass is slightly misplayed, so the receiving player has to check or has to reach for it to control it – this then seems to disrupt their next pass, and we lose possession. Or they have to reach for it, so they stop and turn around and play another backward pass.

I have never seen a team lose possession as much as we do. It's not always even aggressive pressing that does it – it can be a simple counter attack that fizzles out because we can't consistently play helpful balls to each other.

We just seem to make it so difficult for ourselves to construct an effective attack.

 

[swooshboy]

We've been pretty abysmal with the ball for years, well before ETH.

ETH is trying to change that, by bringing in more capable players with the ball. Onana, Martinez, Mount etc.

We are just always so slow, and lazy with the ball. It takes us so long to simply pass the ball 5 yards sideways. We must be the most boring, slow, predictable side when the ball is with any of our back 6. It's painful to watch.

We dont look for quick passes, or get our wide players on the ball. The clip on MOTD highlighting Antony stood there for about 3 minutes while players just ignored him and went back or sideways just sums us up.

I think also we have midfielders who are averse to turning and dribbling the ball upfield. The number of times I see Bruno receive the ball in the middle of the park and then instant play it straight backwards to whoever passed to him...probably whilst shouting and pointing somewhere else.

When our wingers try and take someone on, it is always from a static, standing start and it is asking a lot of them to then beat their player (not that they shouldn't be capable of this of course).

 

[flappyjay]

When ETH first came In we seen some good stuff with passing, we seen movement quick interchanges, just like we did under Ole. The trouble we have is maintaining the standards and sticking to that way of playing. We’ve never been consistent enough to put together a decent run and some decent games of football.

We revert back to our comfort zone which works in the short term but no so good in the long term. I really thought by now we would be a proper ball playing team.

 

[Murder on Zidane's Floor]

It's amazing how many times a simple pass is slightly misplayed, so the receiving player has to check or has to reach for it to control it – this then seems to disrupt their next pass, and we lose possession. Or they have to reach for it, so they stop and turn around and play another backward pass.

I have never seen a team lose possession as much as we do. It's not always even aggressive pressing that does it – it can be a simple counter attack that fizzles out because we can't consistently play helpful balls to each other.

We just seem to make it so difficult for ourselves to construct an effective attack.

I think because constant forward passing is forward pressure which squeezes a team backwards, the passes that are too lateral break this pressure.

 

[Dominos]

With us, this has never been the case. Van Gaal tried to teach us how to keep the ball and we complained that we were bored.

Don't think this is a fair reflection.

We were bored because his team didn't score any goals or create any chances. We scored 49 league goals in his 2nd season. And he got us nowhere near the title either in his time here so he didn't even have success in terms of points to fall back on.

 

[croadyman]

I think the answer is that we have simply never valued it enough, as a club. Football teams, and then entire football clubs, are often built upon certain principles - and the top passing teams are never coincidental. It’s always obvious that they have made a clear decision on building a team on the principle that it MUST keep the ball, and have clearly spent hours and hours training and drilling that. It’s often the same journey too, never quite right at first, sometimes backfires in some high profile moments but the coach swears by it - and so long as he is there, that’s the way his team should play. Players are signed in keeping with these requirements and an identity is soon established.

With us, this has never been the case. Van Gaal tried to teach us how to keep the ball and we complained that we were bored. Our transfer strategy has always been with a view to players providing ‘impact’, i.e - a successful signing is one who will ‘win us the league’ more than one who compliments a clear wider vision. But primarily, our managers have not been committed to it, our own manager seems to have suddenly decided he can’t be bothered with it and now wants us to be a ‘transition team’, so clearly, it’s not a non-negotiable philosophy of his.

We can’t just become a top passing team by chance. It’s a decision, one that takes time and deliberate recruitment. If we are a ‘passing team’, a lot of players simply would not be here. They are here because we have placed other qualities they have above the importance of passing the ball well, and this is what it looks like.

Yeah I do wonder what it will take for Utd to value possession in the same way that the likes of both Brighton,Arsenal and City do

 

[El Zoido]

Yeah I do wonder what it will take for Utd to value possession in the same way that the likes of both Brighton,Arsenal and City do

New owners, new club structure.

 

[Gordon Godot]

New owners, new club structure.

This is where football structure comes in. Traditionally United produced skillful players good on the ball, in fact for quite a period our academy products risked being too lightweight. But there was no real continuity across age groups and our recruitment is scatter gun. As well as simply bad signings of players who not technically good enough or like the mentality, we have signed players for completely different playing styles. Moyes was not here long but Fellani remains the closest to an anti-United signing ever. Then we had LVG who wanted to bore teams to death but signed players to suit this, then Jose who its hard to say what is style really was but pretty defensive and valued physicality, then Ole wanted an English core and sit deep/ break team, now ETH wants a more possession based approach but high pressing. Throw in stupid fees and wages and you get the mess we are in, still.

 

[croadyman]

This is where football structure comes in. Traditionally United produced skillful players good on the ball, in fact for quite a period our academy products risked being too lightweight. But there was no real continuity across age groups and our recruitment is scatter gun. As well as simply bad signings of players who not technically good enough or like the mentality, we have signed players for completely different playing styles. Moyes was not here long but Fellani remains the closest to an anti-United signing ever. Then we had LVG who wanted to bore teams to death but signed players to suit this, then Jose who its hard to say what is style really was but pretty defensive and valued physicality, then Ole wanted an English core and sit deep/ break team, now ETH wants a more possession based approach but high pressing. Throw in stupid fees and wages and you get the mess we are in, still.

Yeah there has definitely been far too many different playing styles in the last decade which hasn't helped at all

 

[Ole'sgunnarwin]

We've been so bad with passing in the final third for such a long time. All these 'different' styles of play with different managers seem to involve the keeper and defenders continunely passing it around to each other. Wasn't impressed with that Arsenal performance at all and I'm surprised so many were.

 

[Stig]

New owners, new club structure.

I don't think that the owners are involved in tactics.

 

[Davicho]

Don´t know the answer but it has been a problem since SAF´s last years...

 

[Marwood]

Don´t know the answer but it has been a problem since SAF´s last years...

I think it's really simple. Just get players who are comfortable on the ball, who want the ball. Who can maybe move with the ball a bit.

We haven't consistently done this for ages. In fact we've pretty consistently done the opposite.

Then get a manager who values having the ball. Only LvG did this between Fergie and ETH.

 

[Rozay]

Don't think this is a fair reflection.

We were bored because his team didn't score any goals or create any chances. We scored 49 league goals in his 2nd season. And he got us nowhere near the title either in his time here so he didn't even have success in terms of points to fall back on.

But my point was more a case that we have shown that we are not willing to go through the process. We were not willing to go through the required caterpillar in order to see the butterfly. As I mentioned in my post, I think the transition requires a commitment and will not be great at first.

And ‘Ten Hag Ball’ got us 58 league goals last year and people see him as some sort of oracle.

 

[Rozay]

Yeah I do wonder what it will take for Utd to value possession in the same way that the likes of both Brighton,Arsenal and City do

Will come from the top down, and require patience and bravery. I think we’ve always tried to ‘bounce back’ or get back on track the following season by buying big players who were supposed to singlehandedly take us to the top. That was the strategy, and always fell short.

I think this is part of the reason why every small player is considered ‘too lightweight for the league’ is really ‘too light for Manchester United’. It is our football. I don’t think we would be saying Amad was too small to play for City. We need to start respecting the ball more.

 

[El Zoido]

I don't think that the owners are involved in tactics.

It's a lot more than just "tactics", it's about a top-down philosophy of how you want to structure the whole club which eventually filters down to 11 players on the pitch. The tactics do come from the top if you define what you want to be, because you then recruit people who will meet those standards. City didn't just hire Pep and become a passing team, they set this in to motion in 2012 by hiring (poaching) Barcelona staff, Ferran Soriano as CEO, and Txiki Begiristain as DOF. They prepared four years for Pep's arrival, beginning to build the squad, and build towards the type of football Pep will want to play. A decade later and they have won numerous league titles culminating in the treble under him. This stems directly from the owners, this is how you build a consistently successful football club, by hiring top class personnel and planning years in advance. This is why manager scapegoating is pointless at United, Pep would flop here because he would be walking in to absolute chaos, a club with poor structure and no long term vision. It didn't have to be this way, but it is because the Glazers haven't a damn clue how to operate a football club and have little interest in it aside from siphoning club revenue in to their own pockets.

 

[Redstain]

It's a lot more than just "tactics", it's about a top-down philosophy of how you want to structure the whole club which eventually filters down to 11 players on the pitch.

This is it, the rest of your post highlights it significantly. Fans are looking at this too narrow minded to objectively consider all the moving parts. Club philosophy is supposed to come from the hierarchy not the manager. Because the entire clubs structure has to reflect the directive of that philosophy at various levels from recruitment to the coaching.

Look at the players that have been acquired in the last two major windows and see if there's any consensus behind the approach for the first team to be identified as one that keeps possession. I've said this throughout the summer United are putting a team together not building one. Who knows what the scope of the first team is in the next five years. There's a very momentary feel about how the club conduct themselves nothing is definitive.

 

[Dominos]

But my point was more a case that we have shown that we are not willing to go through the process. We were not willing to go through the required caterpillar in order to see the butterfly. As I mentioned in my post, I think the transition requires a commitment and will not be great at first.

And ‘Ten Hag Ball’ got us 58 league goals last year and people see him as some sort of oracle.

We went through the process for 2 years, Van Gaal was making us worse in his 2nd year. I'm not sure how many years we're meant to give these failing managers to see the fruits of their labour. The transfer business was poor, and his risk-averse, side-to-side directions given to the team meant we couldn't create a chance or score a goal to save our lives. I don't think he was on the cusp of turning us into an elite team when he'd just taken us backwards to 5th place. The players also didn't take to him judging by the stories that came out after he left.

We weren't great last year at all either, we were around the same level we were in the best seasons from LVG, Mourinho and Ole, a top 4 finish. ETH has it all to prove because we've had managers get CL qualification in their first season, it's just no one has been able to actually progress us from that so far.

 

[Steffa Barnesa]

I don't think that the owners are involved in tactics.

Pep didn't just turn up at City and get them passing. The owners installed a heirarchy, and they prepped for his arrival years before he came. Begiristain was hired four years prior.

Our owners hired Moyes, Van Gaal, Mourinho, then Solskjaer, hoping each would somehow figure it out like it was still the 90s, like other clubs at home and abroad weren't running far more sophisticated operations.

 

[Davicho]

i will never understand why LVG changed so much the approach of the team in his second season. We were flying with the 4-3-3 with Carrick-Herrera-Fellaini in midfield and Mata-Rooney-Young in attack. He just needed a cover for Carrick and upgrades for Fellaini and Young... That was the best team on the ball we had post Fergie IMO.

 

[Greck]

i will never understand why LVG changed so much the approach of the team in his second season. We were flying with the 4-3-3 with Carrick-Herrera-Fellaini in midfield and Mata-Rooney-Young in attack. He just needed a cover for Carrick and upgrades for Fellaini and Young... That was the best team on the ball we had post Fergie IMO.

The players LVG bought were all wrong for his style and so were the talismanic players he backed like Rooney. I sometimes fear ETH is edging towards some of the same roadbumps. We've spent quite a huge amount without necessarily raising the technical level of the first team. Onana was good but how do we still not have a midfielder comfortable on the ball?

LVG would also say there was no one in the boardroom with the requisite knowledge he could discuss transfers with or consult, not that he would have used it. Same issues with a different coat of paint.

 

[Dominos]

Another weird game to analyse. Definitely some decent bits of passing particularly first 20 minutes, worked the ball into good attacking areas throughout the game, no major errors playing out from the back.

Bayern's 3rd and 4th goal though are perfect examples of how our ball retention is costing us though. Eriksen decides to take an age on the ball for no reason and gets tackled instead of just releasing a simple pass, we concede a 3rd.

We then have an overload on the left side at 3-2 and look very good for an equaliser and Bruno decides to gift the ball back to Bayern instead of just finding a team mate, who go up the other end and score a 4th. Just criminal. So not only are we wasting promising attacks with shitty ball retention, we're conceding completely avoidable goals.

Every goal we concede we need to rewind the clock 10 seconds and see who lost the ball and whether it was avoidable. 95% of the time it's a completely needless basic error in possession.

 

[Dominos]

i will never understand why LVG changed so much the approach of the team in his second season. We were flying with the 4-3-3 with Carrick-Herrera-Fellaini in midfield and Mata-Rooney-Young in attack. He just needed a cover for Carrick and upgrades for Fellaini and Young... That was the best team on the ball we had post Fergie IMO.

I think people massively overhype that spell we had. We had maybe 3 or 4 good game run where we beat Spurs and City I think, and it came to an abrupt end when Chelsea beat us 1-0 when we couldn't create a chance for shit. We didn't play well once after that Chelsea game, it was just a very short purple patch before it.

 

[TMDaines]

Small sample, but yikes. None of them can pass forward:

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

 

[giggs-beckham]

I think people massively overhype that spell we had. We had maybe 3 or 4 good game run where we beat Spurs and City I think, and it came to an abrupt end when Chelsea beat us 1-0 when we couldn't create a chance for shit. We didn't play well once after that Chelsea game, it was just a very short purple patch before it.

A bit like the SETI 'wow!' Signal. A brief glimpse of excitement, never to be seen again.

 

[AndyMUFC86]

Passing is becoming a real problem for this team. I hope that Amrabat can have a positive influence once he comes in. But for me the biggest problem is our final pass. It’s staggering how many times we find ourselves in great positions and either mess the final pass up or time it poorly losing the opportunity. If this could be improved we could seriously improve our goal rate imo.

 

[Eddy_JukeZ]

Small sample, but yikes. None of them can pass forward:

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

How does this compare to other center-backs at top clubs?

 

[Eddy_JukeZ]

I think people massively overhype that spell we had. We had maybe 3 or 4 good game run where we beat Spurs and City I think, and it came to an abrupt end when Chelsea beat us 1-0 when we couldn't create a chance for shit. We didn't play well once after that Chelsea game, it was just a very short purple patch before it.

I mean it was a pretty good spell to be fair. We went into Anfield and absolutely dominated them with a XI you'd think wouldn't be capable of doing so.

Even the Chelsea game, we had Falcao up top and were missing certain players. Rooney and Carrick played in midfield IIRC and we had 70% of the ball(vs a Jose side but still).

We were able to pass the ball well. Utilizing that possession to create loads of chances was missing, but there was a decent blueprint albeit short.