Red_Aaron
Full Member
There's plenty of good points regarding the board and long term planning which of course contribute however football is played on the pitch and we've a big squad with plenty of talented players who should be achieving more than they currently are regardless of the state of the board
Main issue of course is we give up way too many chances, this began last season when we regularly conceded first and had to recover results from losing positions (and tbf we got away with it a hell of a lot). This continued at the start of the season too with Leeds and Newcastle having bags of chances in games we won. Defending is a team effort and our attackers are as much to blame as the defenders, we aren't compact enough, our strikers don't work hard enough off the ball, perhaps the Ronaldo signing contributed to this, sancho too maybe but ultimately this is a coaching issue and something the manager/a this season should've been able to address this instead it's been allowed to fester and actually get worse. RR keeps banging on about conceding less goals since his appointment but we've not stopped conceding chances - I've never seen a United side as open as this one
It's curious that perhaps our best defensive performance was likely spurs away under Carrick - we were noticeably compact, I remember Nev referring to it constantly during the game and it was a great away performance and an excellent result. That we were able to produce that immediately after Ole and the run of results he'd had showed these players aren't useless - what they are however is temperamental and clearly need a strong hand to lead them. Carrick may not have been an established manager but he's achievements in the game we're respected and I saw more in his handful of games and anything under Ole or RR this season.
Midfield or course is a massive issue and has been for years. Many here bemoan McFred but without them we're an even bigger shambles. Neither are good enough long term though so even though there were times last season they worked well once their form fell off this season all our chickens came home to roost, trying to shoehorn pogba in there made things even worse as he's probably the most defensively neglegant player in the squad. Midfield is called the engine room for a reason, it sets the tone and teams turn up against us and know they'll be able to dictate the game.
Finally momentum is huge in top level sport. Once the wheels started to come off we didn't do enough to correct it allowing the poor form to manifest and worsen. The compete and utter lack of effort on display over the 3 months has been a disgrace. The appointment of RR and all the narrative around it has only made things worse. Announcing an interim position essentially wrote the season off there and then, this coupled with the amount of players out of contract left the squad in a limbo with no motivation to get out of it.
I'm hanging on to some hope for next season though. If we get a bunch of midfield upgrades and ETH gets a shape back into the side I think we'll comfortably get CL and can go from there
Main issue of course is we give up way too many chances, this began last season when we regularly conceded first and had to recover results from losing positions (and tbf we got away with it a hell of a lot). This continued at the start of the season too with Leeds and Newcastle having bags of chances in games we won. Defending is a team effort and our attackers are as much to blame as the defenders, we aren't compact enough, our strikers don't work hard enough off the ball, perhaps the Ronaldo signing contributed to this, sancho too maybe but ultimately this is a coaching issue and something the manager/a this season should've been able to address this instead it's been allowed to fester and actually get worse. RR keeps banging on about conceding less goals since his appointment but we've not stopped conceding chances - I've never seen a United side as open as this one
It's curious that perhaps our best defensive performance was likely spurs away under Carrick - we were noticeably compact, I remember Nev referring to it constantly during the game and it was a great away performance and an excellent result. That we were able to produce that immediately after Ole and the run of results he'd had showed these players aren't useless - what they are however is temperamental and clearly need a strong hand to lead them. Carrick may not have been an established manager but he's achievements in the game we're respected and I saw more in his handful of games and anything under Ole or RR this season.
Midfield or course is a massive issue and has been for years. Many here bemoan McFred but without them we're an even bigger shambles. Neither are good enough long term though so even though there were times last season they worked well once their form fell off this season all our chickens came home to roost, trying to shoehorn pogba in there made things even worse as he's probably the most defensively neglegant player in the squad. Midfield is called the engine room for a reason, it sets the tone and teams turn up against us and know they'll be able to dictate the game.
Finally momentum is huge in top level sport. Once the wheels started to come off we didn't do enough to correct it allowing the poor form to manifest and worsen. The compete and utter lack of effort on display over the 3 months has been a disgrace. The appointment of RR and all the narrative around it has only made things worse. Announcing an interim position essentially wrote the season off there and then, this coupled with the amount of players out of contract left the squad in a limbo with no motivation to get out of it.
I'm hanging on to some hope for next season though. If we get a bunch of midfield upgrades and ETH gets a shape back into the side I think we'll comfortably get CL and can go from there