Don't look at the results look at how we play.
How many games can you honestly say you've enjoyed watching over the last couple of seasons? Performances not results. A handful maybe?
We'll always get results as the team is full of top players and they'll win us games with individual brilliance but the key to becoming a world beater is attacking/defending as a unit, synergy.
We seem to get lost in games if we play a well drilled team.
I read the criticism of Sancho but I wonder how he would get on in a proper system with a tactic/style/plan that plays on his strengths. It looks at the minute like he gets told to just beat people.
Watch teams like City, Liverpool and Chelsea. Well drilled and every player clearly know what their job is. Burnley, Brighton and Brentford too. All have a recognised game plan that you can see during a match.
We just look clueless unless the other side leave us counter attacking opportunities.
Oles team rebuild has been generally good. The players seem to be happy and want to be here, the majority anyway, but I honestly believe he has taken us as far as his skill set allows.
I agree with this. Our games are a rinse and repeat affair of slowly passing the ball up to the opponent's third of the pitch, then running out of ideas and passing the ball back and forth across the pitch until we try a through-ball that doesn't come off. Anytime our wide players get the ball, they are standing still and, as they have two players right on top of them, end up passing it backwards so we can slowly move the ball to the other wing and try the same thing.
The exception is when we break on a counter – there we look like we know what to do, but as soon as we slow it down, and the opposition get into position, then we are stuck.
But this is not a knee-jerk reaction, it is simply an observation of how we have played for the last few years. As has been said a number of times, we tend to win games via an individual moment of brilliance, not as the result of a system we have employed.
Watching games last season, I loved Cavani's movement and endless runs into space...but we hardly ever got him the ball. This season it is the same with us failing to get the ball into the box for Ronaldo / Cavani to attack. We are wasting them. I'm not suggesting we go back to Moyes' record number of crosses...although if we did cross the ball that many times I have zero doubt that Ronaldo and Cavani would absolutely feast. But we need to get the ball into the box earlier and give them both something to attack. AWB is not perhaps the greatest crosser, but I don't think you always need to be. If a ball comes in early as out forwards are running into the box and their defenders are running back to heir own goal, there is a much higher chance of something positive happening then if we try and cross it into the box from s stationary position when both our forwards and their defenders are all stationary also. In that instance, the cross does have to be perfect.
We do not look good defensively – every team we play seems to be able to open us up with absolute ease. Had it not been for DDG rediscovering his best form, I don't think we would have won a single game. People are saying it will improve when Maguire comes back, but I disagree. We were bad before his injury, and I actually think he is part of the problem. He is painfully slow and frequently caught marking no man's land. Varane is our best CB, and then I would put our other 3 CBs at the same level...and would actually prefer to see Lindelof or Bailly ahead of Maguire. It annoyed me at the time when Ole made him captain the moment he joined the club (I think that was a terrible move) and it now means that, when fit, he is basically undroppable...which is a nightmare.
On the subject of our defence, even though we have two holding midfielders in a 'double-pivot'...we still look extremely vulnerable to any and every attack. And at the same time, when we do have the ball, our midfield has no clue how to break down the opposition. So we have a defensively-setup midfield...that doesn't actually help us defend. And has no influence in the game.
We have some fantastic players in our squad, but we don't have a system / way of playing. It is criminal that we buy a player like VdB, and then fail to use him. I honestly think he will leave, join another team and be incredible for them. I want to see Sancho play more, and think he has incredible potential...but I have no idea how to fit our players into our best XI...and I don't think Ole does either. Which is the biggest problem.
More of a rant than I planned...but I am tired of watching us play with zero idea, zero creativity when we have such exciting players.