Workrate

[Pogue Mahone]

2019 stats

It’s the lack of sprints that is so damning. This thread has plenty of stats about us being out-sprinted by other teams but zero evidence of the opposite happening. Tactical differences can explain variations in distance.

We just seem to be a team full of unfit and not very hard working players, going back for years. It’s disgraceful really.

 

[Maagge]

What bothers me a lot is that there is no team work. You can see a player running to press but nobody follows. So that makes his pressing pointless and leave us even more vulnerable.

If that happens enough times then everyone who is pressing will stop doing it as it makes no sense to do on your own. Players not working hard spreads like a disease.

 

[JBG]

These players don't give a flying fck about the club, the badge or the history of this club.

The idiot owners and people in charge have been rewarding mediocrity for almost 10 years now, so why would the players bother to bust a gut or outrun opponents or outpress them. As mentioned above, there are so many times during matches where 2 players try and press, but the rest of them stand there and watch like brainless zombies. The least you can do as an professional player is, try! Give 100%, but again they know they don't have to, because when their contracts are running down, they know they will get a new one and a pay raise. It's ludicrous and idiotic. We are where we because of them, I'm not saying ETH isn't to blame either, but the players and the people in charge are even more to blame imo.

 

[Von Mistelroum]

If that happens enough times then everyone who is pressing will stop doing it as it makes no sense to do on your own. Players not working hard spreads like a disease.

This is exactly right, and what is happening in the club as a whole. Lack of hard work and effort becomes intrinsic to the DNA.

 

[noodlehair]

It’s not just one game though. It’s been exactly the same every time I’ve looked at stats from any game, or series of games, under every manager. This thread is seven years old and 37 pages long. I don’t think there’s been a single post in it with any evidence that we’re matching (never mind exceeding) the workrate of other teams.

The one and only exception has been a couple of games this season when Mejbri and Hojlund ran themselves into the ground and both had individual stats better than the opposition (in the cup game where we beat Crystal Palace reserves) Bruno often has good individual stats too.

The rest of them have been consistently out worked, under five different managers, so blaming tactics and team selection under ETH doesn’t make sense.

That's a bit selective in itself since a quick glance back over the last 3 pages of this thread and it only seems to ever get bumped after we get thrashed, and with stats specifically relating to that individual game.

E.g. There is not a single post in here from last season between the Brentford match 2 games in, and the 7-0 at Liverpool nearly 6 months later. The large period in between where we mostly performed very well is missing and instead the focus is purely on our two worst performances of the season. I mean you might as well say "look we lost 11-0 over two games, why do we for 7 years never score a single goal?"

I suspect we weren't getting as consistently outworked last season when we were winning a majority of games and our players were full of confidence in what they were being asked to do.

Also, it doesn't make sense to blame the players either when 7 years ago we only had 5 players in our squad who are still here now, and one of those is McTominay who had barely played a game for us yet, another was Shaw who's been injured all season, another was Martial who barely plays now. Leaves you with Rashford and Lindelof, and Lindelof isn't a first team player now and Rashford wasn't a first team player 7 years ago.

For me the consistency is we always seem to reach a point where the belief is completely gone in what we are doing and you can visibly see the workrate drop off at that point...then we always seem to drag that out for a prolonged period of a season before we change manager, so its no wonder its a recurring theme. I would be asking why every manager we bring in seems to get to this stage, in more than one case after a promising first season. It suggests a problem elsewhere. Either too much player power given by the club, poor recruitment, poor club management, being really bad at picking managers...and actually we do all of these things a bit.

 

[Champ]

To be honest, even if we were literally sprinting around like headless chickens I would be less annoyed. Because then at least I know the players are all giving 100%. What bothers me is that I’ve seen zero objective evidence of that happening.

As I said, there was that one game where Hannibal and Mejbri covered huge individual distances but in the seven years since this thread started I have never seen anyone post any evidence of our team outworking another team, in the same way that Spurs did in the tweet I bumped the thread with. I’ve also not seen any evidence of us outworking rival teams based on larger data sets. If such evidence exists, I would love to see it. That’s basically the main reason I started the thread.

One look at Bruno's distance covered per game will show you how far he runs (clue, it's a hell of a lot), as you say Hannibal put in a huge number and often does, haven't seen Mounts running stats but id imagine per 90 they'd be pretty decent.

The issue being as a collective we then have players who don't cover enough ground, or work hard enough, which bring the collective stats down.
Dalot and Casemiro being case in point last night, plus this season playing Amrabat at LB would have affected the numbers as he wasn't overlapping etc.

 

[RuudTom83]

Everyone involved with United is depressed, you try running when you are miserable.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

That's a bit selective in itself since a quick glance back over the last 3 pages of this thread and it only seems to ever get bumped after we get thrashed, and with stats specifically relating to that individual game.

E.g. There is not a single post in here from last season between the Brentford match 2 games in, and the 7-0 at Liverpool nearly 6 months later. The large period in between where we mostly performed very well is missing and instead the focus is purely on our two worst performances of the season. I mean you might as well say "look we lost 11-0 over two games, why do we for 7 years never score a single goal?"

I suspect we weren't getting as consistently outworked last season when we were winning a majority of games and our players were full of confidence in what they were being asked to do.

Also, it doesn't make sense to blame the players either when 7 years ago we only had 5 players in our squad who are still here now, and one of those is McTominay who had barely played a game for us yet, another was Shaw who's been injured all season, another was Martial who barely plays now. Leaves you with Rashford and Lindelof, and Lindelof isn't a first team player now and Rashford wasn't a first team player 7 years ago.

For me the consistency is we always seem to reach a point where the belief is completely gone in what we are doing and you can visibly see the workrate drop off at that point...then we always seem to drag that out for a prolonged period of a season before we change manager, so its no wonder its a recurring theme. I would be asking why every manager we bring in seems to get to this stage, in more than one case after a promising first season. It suggests a problem elsewhere. Either too much player power given by the club, poor recruitment, poor club management, being really bad at picking managers...and actually we do all of these things a bit.

As I keep saying if anyone has even a shred of evidence that we’re matching (or exceeding) the effort of other teams then they should post it. And it’s wrong to imply the thread only contains evidence from individual games. I just linked to
this post from 2019, which is data from a series of games.

All the available evidence I’ve seen from games, or series of games, shows the same trends. I would be curious to see if evidence was available showing the opposite trends, from earlier this season, last season, or any other season. I keep asking for it but nobody has posted any. The only evidence under ETH of us working hard has been individual stuff from Hannibal and Hojlund vs Palace reserves in the cup match. I can’t even say for certain if we outworked them as a team in that match.

We also know for a fact that ETH was horrified from day one at the endemic laziness in our squad, hence the punishment runs after his first game in charge. If we’re seeing the same shit at the beginning of his second season in charge that’s incredibly damning of our players. It also tells us that he’s failed in his efforts to motivate them to work hard but he’s just the latest of several managers to fail in that way.

 

[The Hilton]

Yes but it's also a one off game and it was very clear the system didn't work in the game before. Well it was clear before that because of how frankly silly it was/is.

If its not working it doesn't generally take long for the players to lose confidence/belief. Particularly if they're 2-0 down and being overun.

It is annoying to see other teams just working harder but I think its too simplified to just put it down to lazy players, especially when looking at stats for a game where we clearly had major tactical issues.

The first half of the Spurs match was the best we've looked as a team all season; we completely dominated, and the system was working really well despite a few players, particularly Rashford, not pulling their weight. We did everything except score which is our biggest issue this season. This was up until the late yellow cards, at which point half the team immediately lost confidence in the approach and reverted to their mid block counter attacking instincts.

The system definitely has its limits with us, for example with how clearly unsuitable our backup players are for it. We're also not getting the benefit of our excellent high pressing, because we can't seem to turn those turnovers into chances/goals.

 

[Shinjch]

So much of it is pride in their work. A total lack of it at the club and it all comes from the top.

The players have taken the easy way out for so long now. Even when we do have the odd good spell in games, it only takes one thing to go wrong for everything to then fall apart and then it's all over. They know that it will be the manager that pays with his job, but it's not only the players that know that - everyone else in the football operation knows it too. Total lack of pride and personal responsibility.

 

[Grande]

That's a bit selective in itself since a quick glance back over the last 3 pages of this thread and it only seems to ever get bumped after we get thrashed, and with stats specifically relating to that individual game.

E.g. There is not a single post in here from last season between the Brentford match 2 games in, and the 7-0 at Liverpool nearly 6 months later. The large period in between where we mostly performed very well is missing and instead the focus is purely on our two worst performances of the season. I mean you might as well say "look we lost 11-0 over two games, why do we for 7 years never score a single goal?"

I suspect we weren't getting as consistently outworked last season when we were winning a majority of games and our players were full of confidence in what they were being asked to do.

Also, it doesn't make sense to blame the players either when 7 years ago we only had 5 players in our squad who are still here now, and one of those is McTominay who had barely played a game for us yet, another was Shaw who's been injured all season, another was Martial who barely plays now. Leaves you with Rashford and Lindelof, and Lindelof isn't a first team player now and Rashford wasn't a first team player 7 years ago.

For me the consistency is we always seem to reach a point where the belief is completely gone in what we are doing and you can visibly see the workrate drop off at that point...then we always seem to drag that out for a prolonged period of a season before we change manager, so its no wonder its a recurring theme. I would be asking why every manager we bring in seems to get to this stage, in more than one case after a promising first season. It suggests a problem elsewhere. Either too much player power given by the club, poor recruitment, poor club management, being really bad at picking managers...and actually we do all of these things a bit.

Good analysis. I remember in 1988/89, we’d had a very good first full season under Alex Ferguson (2nd place finish after L’pool), and then collapsed into lower mid table again after a run of injuries and some of the new players not hitting the ground running. It was mind boggling, but part of what Ferguson himself pointed out was a) the mindset and organisation of the club not being good enough on every level, and b) the pressure, spotlight and level of criticism and scrutiny was so different at Man Utd that many players froze or couldn’t handle it. Top players, even seasoned internationals would sometimes crumble when problems arose.

Top level athleticism demands nearly mindnumbing levels of positivity in thoughts and actions, it’s very hard not to slip below if outside factors meddle with your flow of focus. Man Utd is a challenging environment during such periods.

 

[noodlehair]

As I keep saying if anyone has even a shred of evidence that we’re matching (or exceeding) the effort of other teams then they should post it. And it’s wrong to imply the thread only contains evidence from individual games. I just linked to
this post from 2019, which is data from a series of games.

All the available evidence I’ve seen from games, or series of games, shows the same trends. I would be curious to see if evidence was available showing the opposite trends, from earlier this season, last season, or any other season. I keep asking for it but nobody has posted any. The only evidence under ETH of us working hard has been individual stuff from Hannibal and Hojlund vs Palace reserves in the cup match. I can’t even say for certain if we outworked them as a team in that match.

We also know for a fact that ETH was horrified from day one at the endemic laziness in our squad, hence the punishment runs after his first game in charge. If we’re seeing the same shit at the beginning of his second season in charge that’s incredibly damning of our players. It also tells us that he’s failed in his efforts to motivate them to work hard but he’s just the latest of several managers to fail in that way.

If we're talking about under Ten Hag then why is 2019 relevant? Again, this thread has precisely no posts in it for the entire period under Ten Hag when we have been playing well, which was a majority of an entire season. You can't emit that and then claim that the more recent lack of work rate can't possibly be down to him changing tactics. There's no more evidence for any other reason than there is for this one? And I would argue that the fact the tactical change wasn't working in pre-season, and leaves players confused about what ground they are actually meant to be covering, is quite likely to have a significant affect on work rate. E.g. players are less likely to make a run if there is no one on the ball in a position to pick them out. Players are less likely to run across to cover an area of the pitch if they're not even sure what area they are meant to be running to. Casemiro in particular this season has a lot of situations where he has t pick up 2-3 people at once, so ends up just standing in between them all.

Your last sentence kind of makes that point. He was horrified about it, then took all the players for a run, then we played better for ages after. Now we're playing like garbage again and we have stats showing we aren't running as much...why doesn't he just take them all on a run again if its that simple?

There is definitely some apportion of blame on the players, but I think its ironic to just put it down to them being lazy without bothering to look into why they might not be working as hard. Especially if what you're saying about it being a constant for 7 years is corrects, because you're probably looking at 100 odd players in that time, and the chances of them all being stubbornly lazier than any player at any other team in the league I would suggest is extremely remote. So you are more likely looking at a motivation, confidence or management issue, or a combination of different reasons...and actually going back through this thread, there IS an element of picking and choosing when to highlight it, which is makes the data you refer to quite unreliable. Like trying to claim its always raining by only bringing it up when it is actually raining.

 

[noodlehair]

The first half of the Spurs match was the best we've looked as a team all season; we completely dominated, and the system was working really well despite a few players, particularly Rashford, not pulling their weight. We did everything except score which is our biggest issue this season. This was up until the late yellow cards, at which point half the team immediately lost confidence in the approach and reverted to their mid block counter attacking instincts.

The system definitely has its limits with us, for example with how clearly unsuitable our backup players are for it. We're also not getting the benefit of our excellent high pressing, because we can't seem to turn those turnovers into chances/goals.

The best I'd say for it is that it took about half hour before it started going horribly wrong. I don't think its the best we've looked all season and I think we've been pretty much consistently garbage.

And aren't you kind of proving my argument? The players worked hard until they lost confidence in the system/tactics.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

If we're talking about under Ten Hag then why is 2019 relevant? Again, this thread has precisely no posts in it for the entire period under Ten Hag when we have been playing well, which was a majority of an entire season. You can't emit that and then claim that the more recent lack of work rate can't possibly be down to him changing tactics. There's no more evidence for any other reason than there is for this one? And I would argue that the fact the tactical change wasn't working in pre-season, and leaves players confused about what ground they are actually meant to be covering, is quite likely to have a significant affect on work rate. E.g. players are less likely to make a run if there is no one on the ball in a position to pick them out. Players are less likely to run across to cover an area of the pitch if they're not even sure what area they are meant to be running to. Casemiro in particular this season has a lot of situations where he has t pick up 2-3 people at once, so ends up just standing in between them all.

Your last sentence kind of makes that point. He was horrified about it, then took all the players for a run, then we played better for ages after. Now we're playing like garbage again and we have stats showing we aren't running as much...why doesn't he just take them all on a run again if its that simple?

There is definitely some apportion of blame on the players, but I think its ironic to just put it down to them being lazy without bothering to look into why they might not be working as hard. Especially if what you're saying about it being a constant for 7 years is corrects, because you're probably looking at 100 odd players in that time, and the chances of them all being stubbornly lazier than any player at any other team in the league I would suggest is extremely remote. So you are more likely looking at a motivation, confidence or management issue, or a combination of different reasons.

It’s going to be hard to find one consistent reason that could be attributed to our lack of workrate going back through so many different managers. Other than, obviously, there has been a core of players who have been here throughout that period. So it’s definitely possible we’re lumbered with some players that just don’t ever put a shift in, which creates an atmosphere where not putting a shift in becomes acceptable. That’s a theory anyway. Albeit impossible to prove for certain. Stats aside, when you see the likes of Dalot (last night) and McT (multiple times this season) jogging back when they should be sprinting then there is clearly a shitty attitude endemic in the squad that goes beyond tactics.

Now what would blow the “core group of persistently lazy players” theory out of the water would be some evidence that at some point in the last few years, this team has upped its workrate to match that of our rivals, only to fall away again this season. Then we at least know they’re willing/able to put a shift in when given the right motivation. In the absence of any such evidence (and I’m assuming you can’t find any?) I’m going to stick with the theory in my first paragraph. Unless you have a better one for all the persistently negative stats in this thread? Or, failing that, any stats at all that aren’t negative?

 

[The Hilton]

The best I'd say for it is that it took about half hour before it started going horribly wrong. I don't think its the best we've looked all season and I think we've been pretty much consistently garbage.

And aren't you kind of proving my argument? The players worked hard until they lost confidence in the system/tactics.

It was 39 minutes that it started going wrong, that's when those bookings occurred. Horribly wrong was around 50 minutes in, when Spurs scored. Up until that point we were utterly dominant.

I disagree that we've been consistently rubbish, there have been bright spots, along with the Spurs first half we were a handful of millimetres away from beating Arsenal and equalising against Brighton, and really should have put Galatasaray to the sword. The problem is that our players lose their heads so easily, and don't seem to have the calmness of thought required for the system we're trying to play, nor the muscle memory in lieu of calmness.

And in a way I am agreeing with your argument, although I think the situation is more nuanced than the absolutism you're suggesting. The system we're playing can work for us, and if it does the potential upside is huge, but a lot of our players, particularly backups, aren't suited to it, and of the players who are capable of making a success of it, a good number lack the mental fortitude to stick with it (and I'd suggest any other system that isn't their mid-block comfort zone) when the going gets tough.

 

[croadyman]

Have Varane & Casemiro had enough of people not working hard enough,so now declaring themselves unavailable for games

 

[Gio]

This may well just be complete coincidence, but looking at those 3 other players, not a single one has played a 90 minute match this season. They’ve all either been subs themselves, or been a starter but been subbed off.

I can’t work out whether that’s

a) a symptom of having more and more substitutions allowed

b) they’ve been subbed because they are knackered after so much pressing

c) (related to b), there is a deliberate game-plan by some managers that basically says I want you to play in such a high energy way that it’s not achievable over a full game, and it’s planned from the start that you give an hour of high intensity running and then get subbed.

Or d), it’s just a coincidence, not enough matches have been played to trust that the pattern is significant.

C is what Japan did with Maeda at the World Cup. Run him into the ground for an hour and sub him off every time. Even during that hour he would cover more sprints than anyone else in the game. Imagine that it's a plan that will extend with the extra flexibility generated by the subs.

 

[RedStarUnited]

What bothers me a lot is that there is no team work. You can see a player running to press but nobody follows. So that makes his pressing pointless and leave us even more vulnerable.

Or you can see player X applying pressure on a opposition, Player Y and Z who are relatively close will do nothing to help. In the end. Y either ends up fouling or is beaten and the opponents are off to attack us.

 

[Bastian]

Would it help if we had open training sessions? If these is huge disparity between training performance and match performance.. Might also stifle some leaks.

 

[noodlehair]

It’s going to be hard to find one consistent reason that could be attributed to our lack of workrate going back through so many different managers. Other than, obviously, there has been a core of players who have been here throughout that period. So it’s definitely possible we’re lumbered with some players that just don’t ever put a shift in, which creates an atmosphere where not putting a shift in becomes acceptable. That’s a theory anyway. Albeit impossible to prove for certain. Stats aside, when you see the likes of Dalot (last night) and McT (multiple times this season) jogging back when they should be sprinting then there is clearly a shitty attitude endemic in the squad that goes beyond tactics.

Now what would blow the “core group of persistently lazy players” theory out of the water would be some evidence that at some point in the last few years, this team has upped its workrate to match that of our rivals, only to fall away again this season. Then we at least know they’re willing/able to put a shift in when given the right motivation. In the absence of any such evidence (and I’m assuming you can’t find any?) I’m going to stick with the theory in my first paragraph. Unless you have a better one for all the persistently negative stats in this thread? Or, failing that, any stats at all that aren’t negative?

There hasn't been a core of players who've been here throughout though. We've covered that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017–18_Manchester_United_F.C._season - here's our squad 7 years ago...where is the core of players who are still here now?

I get what you are saying but I think there's been too many changes in that time to put it down to some ongoing culture within the dressing room.

I think motivation is where the problem is. I can't prove that either except for how often in football you see this pattern when what the manager is doing isn't really working or the players no longer really buy into it, and the effort levels seem to drop off. You see similar at Chelsea...the work rate goes off a cliff, they sack the manager and then suddenly its like all the players have come back from the dead. The only difference being it worked for them for a while where as it never seems to get us better than a mediocre runner up performance.

I really thought ETH was going to iron this out when he made them all go for a run after the Brentford game, but the problem with wanting your players to run through brick walls every week is they will only keep doing it if it keeps working, and if they believe what the manager is telling them to do will work. I don't think ETH right from the off this season has given off a great impression in that regard. Weird tactics, falling out with players, refusing to take any personal responsibility in post match interviews, inconsistency in how he applies his standards to players, etc. He's giving them every reason in the book to doubt him.

I think ultimately its something that is addressed above the level of individual players. If you put SAF in charge of this lot he'd have them working hard every week and a lot of them looking like much better players as a result, and then everyone buys into it because they can see the benefit. The few that don't end up playing for other teams.

Dalot - I mean its not directly related but he is my least favorite player and I think I would be picking a youth team player ahead of him if I had to. He's an example for me of where ETH is going wrong. You can't be publicly hanging players out to dry for not working hard enough or not doing their job properly, when you've got your fullback costing you games because he doesn't want to run fast or lets an opposition players shield the ball 30 yards up the pitch like a fecking scared child. If the standards are there surely you apply them to everyone, even if it means putting out a weaker team on paper to get the message across.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

There hasn't been a core of players who've been here throughout though. We've covered that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017–18_Manchester_United_F.C._season - here's our squad 7 years ago...where is the core of players who are still here now?

David De Gea, Lindelof, Rashford, Shaw, McTominay, and Martial.

Plus you have other players (often big characters) like Pogba and Lingard who remained at the club for a few years after 2019 and probably contributed to a shitty work ethic and general lack of professionalism around the club.

 

[Irwin99]

There hasn't been a core of players who've been here throughout though. We've covered that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017–18_Manchester_United_F.C._season - here's our squad 7 years ago...where is the core of players who are still here now?

I get what you are saying but I think there's been too many changes in that time to put it down to some ongoing culture within the dressing room.

I think motivation is where the problem is. I can't prove that either except for how often in football you see this pattern when what the manager is doing isn't really working or the players no longer really buy into it, and the effort levels seem to drop off. You see similar at Chelsea...the work rate goes off a cliff, they sack the manager and then suddenly its like all the players have come back from the dead. The only difference being it worked for them for a while where as it never seems to get us better than a mediocre runner up performance.

I really thought ETH was going to iron this out when he made them all go for a run after the Brentford game, but the problem with wanting your players to run through brick walls every week is they will only keep doing it if it keeps working, and if they believe what the manager is telling them to do will work. I don't think ETH right from the off this season has given off a great impression in that regard. Weird tactics, falling out with players, refusing to take any personal responsibility in post match interviews, inconsistency in how he applies his standards to players, etc. He's giving them every reason in the book to doubt him.

I think ultimately its something that is addressed above the level of individual players. If you put SAF in charge of this lot he'd have them working hard every week and a lot of them looking like much better players as a result, and then everyone buys into it because thy can see the benefit.

Dalot - I mean its not directly related but he is my least favorite player and I think I would be picking a youth team player ahead of him if I had to. He's an example for me of where ETH is going wrong. You can't be publicly hanging players out to dry for not working hard enough or not doing their job properly when you've got your fullback costing you games because he doesn't want to run fast or lets an opposition players shield the ball 30 yards up the pitch like a fecking scared child.

I would say 5 years or more is a more appropriate way of looking at the dressing room and assessing the characters of the dressing room. I also believe that there might be a case where new players come in and just perpetuate the culture or simply add to the problems (Sancho, Antony) which is obviously a recruitment problem. But anyway, EtH got rid of two of those of the supposed 'survivor culture' at United in Fred and DDG (ironically, probably two of the better ones) and the club should have gotten rid of Maguire and Mctominay this summer, but let's look at the others who are now in their fifth season or more at the club:

Lindelof
Maguire
McTominay
Bruno
Dalot
Shaw
Martial ( survived LVG, Jose, Ole, Ralf, EtH and will now have another fecking manager)
Rashford (ditto^)
AWB

These are nine players that have had at least three different managers and there will be ANOTHER one quite soon. Other than Bruno and possibly AwB, there's not a lot of energy or physicality there either coupled with frequent complaints about the likes of Shaw, Rashford, and Mctominay having poor workrate or physical conditioning.

Even disregarding that these players have seen 3 to 5 different mangers at what point do we just say, these aren't players that can be a title winning team?

 

[noodlehair]

It was 39 minutes that it started going wrong, that's when those bookings occurred. Horribly wrong was around 50 minutes in, when Spurs scored. Up until that point we were utterly dominant.

I disagree that we've been consistently rubbish, there have been bright spots, along with the Spurs first half we were a handful of millimetres away from beating Arsenal and equalising against Brighton, and really should have put Galatasaray to the sword. The problem is that our players lose their heads so easily, and don't seem to have the calmness of thought required for the system we're trying to play, nor the muscle memory in lieu of calmness.

And in a way I am agreeing with your argument, although I think the situation is more nuanced than the absolutism you're suggesting. The system we're playing can work for us, and if it does the potential upside is huge, but a lot of our players, particularly backups, aren't suited to it, and of the players who are capable of making a success of it, a good number lack the mental fortitude to stick with it (and I'd suggest any other system that isn't their mid-block comfort zone) when the going gets tough.

I remember the game. We were on top until around half hour - you might be right at around 39 minutes, but Spurs were absolutely god awful until just before half time, and the problems seemed to begin when they realised they could just run through the middle of our team at will. The same as Wolves had a few days earlier.

I think when we're 15 games into the season, and the highlights you're scraping for are made up of things like when we nearly equalized at home to Brighton, or when we nearly didn't lose to Arsenal, and almost didn't lose to Galatasaray, that is somewhat more of an argument that the system isn't working, than that it is.

Our players certainly seem to let their heads go down very easily or resort to panic with little encouragement. I don't disagree with that, but I think its all part of the same problem...if the players don't believe in what they are doing, they aren't going to respond well to set backs or difficulties.

The problem with your last sentence is its explaining exactly why it CAN'T work for us. And I'd add in the fact that it is tactically inept in a league as physical as the PL. Nearly every team in the PL can carry the ball up the pitch or control the middle of the pitch, if you leave a big hole there for them to do it. We already found this out under Ole.

 

[noodlehair]

David De Gea, Lindelof, Rashford, Shaw, McTominay, and Martial.

Plus you have other players (often big characters) like Pogba and Lingard who remained at the club for a few years after 2019 and probably contributed to a shitty work ethic and general lack of professionalism around the club.

DDG isn't here anymore and I'm not sure how he would contribute to a lack of running about. That leaves the players I named before.

I don't disagree RE: Pogba, Lingard, etc...but then Pogba either caused trouble or wanted to leave for years and we kept him and ran his contract down instead. Lingard we literally talked into staying just to not play him, and then ran his contract down. It's pointless blaming these players when any half decent run club would have just shipped them out the second they became a problem and used the resulting transfer fees to invest back into the squad.

I think what I'm getting at is however you dress it up, when you have a workrate problem that extends over 7 years, the problem is sitting somewhere above the players. If its a cultural/attitude problem in the dressing room, and it doesn't get sorted out for 7 years, at that point its not just the manager's fault but its whoever is appointing or managing the manager.

 

[poleglass red]

I don't know the stats for ground covered, but that to me isn't the biggest problem, We've players who cover ground such as McT, Bruno, Eriksen, Casemiro, but none of them ever break into a sprint, it's always a casual jog, even when other teams are on a counter attack against us.

 

[Ted Lasso]

Everyone involved with United is depressed, you try running when you are miserable.

Running helps overcome the depression.

 

[Marwood]

I don't know the stats for ground covered, but that to me isn't the biggest problem, We've players who cover ground such as McT, Bruno, Eriksen, Casemiro, but none of them ever break into a sprint, it's always a casual jog, even when other teams are on a counter attack against us.

Yeah agree.

I rarely feel we aren't running enough(apartfrom one or two). It's more that it's all one paced. There's little athleticism.

And that will keep happening for 7 or more years if you keep buying one paced or relatively weak players.

 

[The Hilton]

I remember the game. We were on top until around half hour - you might be right at around 39 minutes, but Spurs were absolutely god awful until just before half time, and the problems seemed to begin when they realised they could just run through the middle of our team at will. The same as Wolves had a few days earlier.

I think when we're 15 games into the season, and the highlights you're scraping for are made up of things like when we nearly equalized at home to Brighton, or when we nearly didn't lose to Arsenal, and almost didn't lose to Galatasaray, that is somewhat more of an argument that the system isn't working, than that it is.

Our players certainly seem to let their heads go down very easily or resort to panic with little encouragement. I don't disagree with that, but I think its all part of the same problem...if the players don't believe in what they are doing, they aren't going to respond well to set backs or difficulties.

The problem with your last sentence is its explaining exactly why it CAN'T work for us. And I'd add in the fact that it is tactically inept in a league as physical as the PL. Nearly every team in the PL can carry the ball up the pitch or control the middle of the pitch, if you leave a big hole there for them to do it. We already found this out under Ole.

Spurs were awful because we made them awful, they tried running through the middle and just weren't able to. Up until the yellow cards we had a total stranglehold on the match, but a few players losing concentration cost us.

The approach we're trying to take has already been proven viable by Klopp at Liverpool. It can work for us, but whether it can work for this group of players remains to be seen.

 

[croadyman]

Spurs were awful because we made them awful, they tried running through the middle and just weren't able to. Up until the yellow cards we had a total stranglehold on the match, but a few players losing concentration cost us.

The approach we're trying to take has already been proven viable by Klopp at Liverpool. It can work for us, but whether it can work for this group of players remains to be seen.

These players just don't seem to have that heart and desire to run through brick walls for him like Klopp & Guardiola get from theirs

 

[Lost bear]

Everyone involved with United is depressed, you try running when you are miserable.

Yes, I agree strongly with you. There is some sort of malaise that has spread right through the squad, and it renders everything else a non- starter. We can speculate as to its origins, as we regularly do, but imo it’s impossible to identify the root of it as we don’t know what goes on inside the club. Clearly something is massively wrong.