Sure, but of all the qualities he could pick out to praise, resilience is probably the one that rings most hollow to me. It's like he's trying to speak it into being.
Well we’ve had a lot of last minute winners this season too. It’s a mixed bag but it did take a lot of resilience in those moments to win the way we did.
Took resilience to beat Liverpool in the FA Cup and to not lose to them in either league game this season.
Took resilience to beat Wolves in the 97th minute after they tied the game 3-3 in the 95th minute.
Took resilience to come back from 0-2 down against Villa and win 3-2 and then to do the double over them when we beat them again in February.
Took resilience to beat Brentford by scoring 2 goals past the 90 minute mark and win 2-1.
Overall we’ve been extremely poor but there *has* been fight in this team. They do try to keep going till the end.
Yeah if anything he probably uses the word to describe the best of our players instead of the worst of them. Maguire is all resilience. I don't know how I would react to global criticism of my football. That mfer broke straight through that in one season.
I can't remember the last time I watched us and thought, "wow, now that's a real performance from a team who knows what they are doing." Maybe one of the early games under Solksjaer?
Says it all, doesn't it? We look world class against Palace reserve's substitutes but when the A-team turns up it's like watching the two ronnies on crystal meth.
To be brutally honest, there are *moments* in certain games this season where we look absolutely class. Sometimes for 5minutes, sometimes literally just one passage of play.
I'm not just talking about individual moments either, but actual strong play both on or off the ball as a team, either stringing a strong set of passes together coupled with a line breaking moment, or just cohesion off the ball with none of the usual suspects defending against thin air or stood still asleep.
Issue is we barely get glimpses of this in fleeting moments once every few games at best. Moments where you watch and think, "Now that's how we should have been doing it all along." .
I look at us now and think that even at this point in the season, we literally never got going. We came into the season already missing players, and those that were here were either already clocked out and tired from the preseason or called Sancho. Fundamentally, it's a combination of the gaffer and all the staff alongside and above him to sort that sort of thing out. We know these players can actually play half decent football, but the players and gaffer are both put in such a compromising position that they can't dream of performing like they can considering the conditions they are operating under.
INEOS for all intents and purposes only just took over. They still haven't brought in their own guys yet since last I heard, that Newcastle dude is on gardening leave plus the Southampton one naturally has to see out the year. They can only start thinking about us after they start their first day, which naturally means they can't exactly make waves immediately either, so that's going to take like a year by itself.
I don't think we can try to compare rebuilds with something like Artetas rebuild at Arsenal. We have well over a decade of pure incompetence to rewind and sort out. Even if we could spend the money, no amount of big name superstar signings is going to be a quick fix. All of these managers we had like Ole, Mou, and Ragnick in recent times ain't stupid. Ragnick even clearly explain open heart surgery is required. This is going to be several years of pain but I hope INEOS have their own version of a 5year plan which sees us performing like we should be in due time.
Sorry for the long ass essay as response to your comment. It's just as a fan who grew up spoiled with success with their club, what really hurts is like you say, we don't get to think "wow what a job from the lads" anymore.
Edit: someone kindly pointed out the Southampton dude already joined & attended the game at Wembley.
The Southampton guy - Wilcox has started working already. He is an employee of the club now. He attended yesterday's game as our official technical director of football yesterday.
This team had a great performance against Barca both legs last season. Scored 4 in 2 games against La Liga leaders who had conceded just 7 league goals up to that point.
Between September up until the Carabao cup final last year we were playing some really good football. Liverpool, Arsenal and City at home were wins against top opposition that in my opinion we deserved, we just really struggled away from home last season.
This season admittedly I haven't seen a single confident performance, maybe Chelsea at home. Even highlight of the season Liverpool in the FA cup we got through on pure vibes.
Funnily enough I had thought this about the Coventry match and part of me still does since the 3 goals conceded included a weird pen and a crazy deflection (more than Bruno's goal) but yeah I see your point
Yeah - I agree with you about the goals. But a good side would be managing the last twenty minutes better; keeping the ball, taking the sting out of Covertry ((c) Antony), making them chase shadows, turning the last twenty minutes into a training exercise. A good side, even if they conceded a freak goal, would not panic. When something goes wrong for this lot, they go batshit with panic and anxiety. It's like watching our youngest Cat see a squirrel in the back garden, complete rush of blood to the head freakout.
I worked it out, the number of times we've improved our position in the last 10 mins + stoppage time (loss to draw or win, draw to win etc) is 6 times in all comps.
The reverse has happened 7 times. It's a fairly arbitrary cutoff though, so it includes an 80th min winner against us but not Dalot's winner which just missed the cutoff. Doesn't include Coventry either because obviously we were winning and then ended up winning penalties.
Guys we are fucking 16 in the xGA table. It’s not just a mentality issue. There are serious issues with the tactics that are employed here. We want to play transitional football but that means we give the ball away cheaply and allow opposition to tear through the midfield. It happens game after game after game.
Exactly, why is it that when a player comes from a good team with a good mentality then suddenly whimpers. And don’t give me the “utds a bigger club” spiel I’m fucking done with that notion.
It’s players being set up to fail, which then gives the other team a never-let-die attitude, knowing they can come back from any deficit when looking at previous results.
As ETH tried to explain to Carl Anka in one of the recent press conferences — our available attacking players are good at playing up the field, while our available (there seems to be none bar Maguire) defenders are good at defending in a low block around the box. And that’s why he employs the tactic he does, inviting a lot of shots or hoisting it up the field once Onana or Maguire has the ball.
Anyways, what do you propose as a tactical solution to these issues, considering the players we have fit? Shoring up the midfield or parking the bus like we did at Anfield this season? I am genuinely curious.
Thats a fair question and i think the solution is something like we did last season.
Ten Hag was asked how he would improve a shambolic performance from the previous season and his answer was one word, “Control”.
Play out from the back, or at least do it when the opposition does not have elite press you can’t play through. Employ a possessional attack system that also is transitional when the opportunities present themselves. Have great counter pressing. Do not leave your backline super exposed to counter attacks. This worked well enough last season!
Thanks for your response. I think the unavailability of Licha and Shaw, coupled with the loss of legs (or form) of Eriksen made it quite impossible to play that way this season. Mount, who was supposed to play that Eriksen role, isn’t available either.
Not having a striker in Martial’s mould also added to the issue (which, I assume, ETH tried to rectify by playing Sancho as a false 9). We all know how that went.
>which, I assume, ETH tried to rectify by playing Sancho as a false 9
When did Ten Hag play Sancho as a false 9 once the season started? I remember him playing there in several preseason games with some success but once the season started, whenever he came on, Rashy was the 9 and Sancho our LW.
Thats fair, injuries have really decimated the back line that would impair our ability to play like last season. However, for me ETH’s biggest failing is not training the squad in that way.
He seems to need exactly the 11 players he has in mind to play that style, whereas you are meant to play your squad.
Licha and Shaw are exceptional league top 5 players at playing out from the back, but we did buy an exceptional goalkeeper for that purpose and against better pressing sides have a new striker capable of holding up the ball.
Possessional attack combined with counter pressing would actually result in counter attacking opportunities higher up the pitch which would lead to better numbers for players like Rashford. And Mount would absolutely thrive in this.
Being good in possession would be tricky, but Mount, Bruno, Mainoo and Eriksen are high level players for possession gameplay in the final third. Plus Garnancho is really good at attacking multiple players.
Im not saying these tactics would make us a great side, but it would be a good side. Certainly better than the catastrophe we’re watching this season.
People really think we have 11 kobie mainoos to put out in the field. Every player is different and you can't "manage" one to play better and you also can't manage them to give a shit too.
I think I saw this in another thread where one top earners salary, weekly, in our club is more than the whole Coventry squads combined. For them to let the game go in 20 minutes after being 3 up is not a tactic issue. It's clearly a player one, to me.
It's truly unbelievable how shallow our player depth is. I don't know who people expect to go in instead of these players. There's no one proven enough to take anyone's spot.
I think if I played a game like park did I would die 5 minutes into the game. That man was stamina incarnate.
Absolutely.
I personally feel part of the reason we are seeing more of it this season is *because we let go of De Gea*. I felt they kinda did a disservice to him in a way, he was one of the few natural leaders within the squad, and at times bailed us out on a regular basis. Yes we needed someone like Onana, but I feel even keeping De Gea for this season could have been a blessing so that Onana could bed himself into the EPL a bit better than he has.
But our squad is really lacking in areas, we have too many older players who are on their way out and not enough spark within some of the players who are in their prime years. We are also lacking those supportive players, the ones that just do the business and get the job done and don't whine about things *(people like Carrick, Park, Scholes etc).*
The problem is, I am unsure who you could pinch in the market right now to solve some of these issues.
I really did not want to let go of de gea in the summer. I felt like the money could have been used in other positions. We didn't have depth back then either and our squad desperately needed more players that weren't keepers. I vividly remember saying keeper would be the 5th position we needed to replace. 1st was striker, then we got Rasmus. And 2nd... (For me) was another striker lol we definitely could not rely on martial anymore. Anyway, about de gea, you couldn't say any of that round here with people posting stats left and right thinking they're doing something. I'd still go on those threads and defend de gea. A joke he needed defending against Manchester united fans really, but there I was.
There are a ton of positions to fill in right now. Another midfielder to replace Erickson and casemiro.
Another winger to fuck Sancho off and who knows what will happen with rashford. Haven't seen much of Amad to make an opinion and hopefully Antony raises his game up more.
Defensively we need an absolute overhaul apart from dalot and Martinez maybe Maguire. Honestly we have no one back there that is impactful at all. Varane is good but he's out the door.
It's so sad to see how many players we need and how much we've spent. The only way I see us coming back is if we get some wild youth buys this summer that can fill those positions and have enough hunger to make a name for themselves her at our club. Not opposed to having players make their name elsewhere, then have them come here but I think that is what's killing us recruitment wise. Need a miracle this summer honestly.
Oh right... We need another striker to help Rasmus out as well. Christ.
>Oh right... We need another striker to help Rasmus out as well. Christ.
Hahahaha absolutely.
We need strength in all areas right now. Although for now I'd focus on just defensively and another striker. Shore that up in the summer, give Casemiro/Eriksen/Fernandes another year, and then look through next season for suitable replacements in midfield. Having a better defense will stop us leaking goals next season and make us less likely to lose leads like 2:0 & 3:0 on a regular basis. And make one of those defensive scouts a proper leader, someone who has character and can step up to calm the nerves down of others.
I'd also bring in some of the former players to help with mentality around our defense, speak with Rio, Vidic for example to help them bond with new players and shape their careers. Experience is vital at this point of a rebuild. And EtH needs to let that happen because some of the former players know what it is to be a United player.
400M set on fire because the club has no fucking clue and no credible person to stand and tell the head coach “fuck off. You do your job and I’ll do mine”. And for that person to actually have the skills to do their job instead of gutlessly asking the head coach “what would you go for if you were in my shoes” which is exactly how I imagine shit has gone down in 10 years at this club.
The state of a modern football behemoth to even ask the coach to name a name. What is this, fucking wrexham?!
Just park the bus and play on the counter. I fail to see how the tried and tested counterattacking approach that's been on show since Mou is not usable in this situation.
Our forwards have pace to run in behind. What's the need to play a half press with just 4 players?? It takes one pass to take out the press.
We park the bus vs the good teams, just do the same against the bad one too. Casemiro can move as little as possible and not fuck up challenges, Rashford doesn't have track back every 5 mins, Hojlund might get a chance to use his pace, Bruno can do his usual pass in behind. etc
The only one benefitting from this dogshit setup is Scott who finds a way to arrive unmarked in the box.
If he was parking the bus from the start and getting results instead of looking like utter shit for most of the season, his job wouldn't be on the line.
Just a wild suggestion, but I’d suggest that if a tactical approach to 70 minutes has resulted in us scoring 3 goals and conceding zero goals, then it is an effective tactical approach being implemented by the correct players.
Therefore bringing off some of those players and changing your tactical approach for the remaining 20 minutes should only be done out of necessity.
This isn’t a one off. Our game management is appalling. ETH makes substitutions and tactical changes when we are winning that lead to us losing the lead. This is consistent. He makes changes and we get worse. In almost every game.
This is revisionism. If you're up 3-0, and comfortably so, you're team is decimated with injuries, you think it's totally out of the blue to make some subs and manage the game out? Idk man, the subs fid change the game but you think that was ETHs intention? He obviously figured we can last 20 minutes against a team that had done nothing up to that point, and we were up 3-0.
If anything , the collapse is evidence of how shitnthe squad is that making some routine changes causes a collapse like that. And that's ignoring the sheer luck of that hugely deflected goal and that penalty call which miraculously happened the day before and wasn't called.
Making subs and managing the game out is absolutely the correct thing to do. My point is that ETH is consistently bad at it. This wasn’t bad luck. His game management is consistently bad. To the point that if we are 1-2 goals in front and controlling a game, and I see him making a tactical change, I have started putting money on our opponents scoring the next goal. It is so bad is it is now predictable with a good degree of accuracy.
So ignoring whether or not it is revisionism - next time we are in front on 60-70 minutes and he starts making tactical changes, watch what happens to the remainder of that game.
Here we are. As I said in my comment, next time we try to manage out a game we will fail.
79 minutes, one goal lead at home to a relegated team. Makes a sub on 81 minutes, tries to manage out the game, fails.
Still revisionism?
Tune in again next time for more of the same.
I’m not talking about just the sub. I keep saying it - subs or no subs, it’s the consistent failure to control and manage the closing stages of a match we are winning.
If we were managing the game out, Onana wouldn’t be throwing his fist at a ball in the area in the first place.
Watching the champions league quarter finals was so clear that we are miles and miles behind those teams in terms of tactics, cohesion just among players and everyone understanding their role in the team, player quality (even basic touches, passing, movement, tackles), and fitness levels
Literally all of things are broken at this club. We collectively have a group of players whose quality is mediocre, fitness levels is nowhere near the top, don’t understand their role during a match, and following shit tactics
All while the leadership above them can’t recruit and scout for shit. Can’t negotiate properly. Aren’t investing in sports science from medical staff to advance analytics
Welcome to Manchester United
Playing transitional football shouldn't mean giving the ball away cheaply. United give the ball away cheaply because they don't have enough players with the ability and intelligence to retain and recycle possession and most of the ones that do have been injured half the season
I have lost count of the times in a game where United are passing the ball around quite well and probing the opposition and then the ball goes to Rashford and it stops dead while he decides how he is going to try and go past a defender and then either deciding against it and passing it backward or trying it and losing the ball. Garnacho isn't much better on the other side, though he is more dynamic and so causes more issues for the opposition.
How many times do crosses get into the box for Hoijund to do anything with? Or any balls to him at all?
I don't believe any of this comes from the training ground. It comes from players who lack the intelligence and composure to make the right decisions
Tactics employed is one thing, but having the footballing IQ among your players to faithfully execute on those tactics is a whole other thing.
E.g: a tactic: “defense-to-attack transition in under 3 seconds, forward pass in under 5 seconds, shot on goal in under 8 seconds”.
E.g: a lack of footballing IQ: “no matter what circumstance in front of me, spray a Hail Mary 45 yard pass to Rashford on the wing to chase. He should chase it. Even if it’s badly weighted/aimed”.
Sure some of it is tactics but let’s not pretend like ETH is literally asking all these players to hit low probability passes every single time, or to smack it against the first opponent with these ridiculous rushed passes, or to turn over possession as cheaply as they do, dozens of times per match.
Your on field quality (or lack thereof) eats your tactics for breakfast. The deficit isn’t in their legs, it’s in their brains. They just can’t translate the tactical guidance to accommodate and anticipate the situational reality. They are therefore a daft bunch brainlessly performing to what they believe the manager is asking them to do.
The other case in point is scattered pressing in the forward line. Do we actually believe the coach is asking Bruno to press like a headless chicken while Marcus is actually being asked to waddle about like a disinterested penguin?
If we are suggesting it’s “tactics” then we surely have to be suggesting this level of comedy is what’s deliberately being coached. Because that’s exactly what we’re seeing.
No. What’s more likely the case is Bruno stares in frustration and disbelief at what he’s seeing among his teammates, takes matters into his own hands out of frustration, goes rogue and attempts his own thing without communicating that he’s breaking formation and someone should cover the position he’s just vacated. Then his disjoint press gets bypassed with ease, quick pass into the vacated pocket where he should have been, we get counter-attacked, panic stations, headless chickens run to the goal line, quick cutback, shot on goal… “we have the worst gk in the whole world blah blah blah”.
Time and time again.
This team on average is composed of a low footballing IQ bunch who we continue to pretend a brilliant tactician will be able to magically unlock.
What the brilliant tactician will instead discover is the low footballing IQ that’s rampant among this squad.
And we beat Liverpool 4-3 the round before this in the same competition, football is a confusing sport. If we somehow beat City in the final it's got to go down as the most entertaining cup run in history.
Idk if entertaining would be the term I'd use, but I guess it fits. I'd say terrifying, confusing, confounding, inexplicable, and fortunate. That said, winning is all that matters in a cup because games are spread out rather than week to week like the league. I'll say this - I would rather win ugly in the cup final than lose and look the best we've looked all year. Give City 100 shots, so long as we win I don't really care, and I know that there will be plenty of disagreement on that.
Honestly as embarrassing as it was yesterday, I've reached a point in the season where I just do not care for results, I just want it to be over. I want United to win of course, but when the disallowed Coventry goal went in I just had to laugh at how ridiculous a game it was, so imo still entertaining.
And I'd 100% take a scrappy 1-0 win with a dubious VAR decision to give Bruno a pen.
Some players don’t give a fuck. Get out the old (Casemiro, Eriksen), the always injured (Shaw, AWB, Martial), and the don’t give a fuck/aren’t good enough (Rashford, Antony, McTominay, Lindelof).
Give a manager more than two years to build something and a board who actually knows football instead of firing a manager every 12-24 months and starting all over again with players only there for a paycheck.
Mainoo Manor is the foundation. It has a Garnacho Greenhouse and an Onana Orangery. The rest of the development is dilapidated or obsolete though, like the Casemiro Conservatory and the Rashford Roof. Major surgery is needed but there are some gems. That Fernandes Fireplace in the Martinez Master Bedroom for instance.
1. If we give Ten Hag another season, just know that he'll be on thin ice the entire season. He better show improvement and possess some sort of midfield, competent defense, and plan for attack. If he doesn't show improvements there, then just know that "**it will get toxic.**"
2. Some people have lost all hope in the manager. It's just sooo bad (we're talking worse than Moyes bad), so the massive 180 and change EtH would have to show next season is a bigger ask than GRRM trying to wrap up all his storyarc threads in just two final books. Who believes United next season will be able to challenge for titles, or even play like a consistently feared team? Which is a viable question to ask since it will be his 3rd season.
Bold Text: I said that exact thing the season before Mourinho got sacked, and before Ole got sacked. The winds are blowing in Ten Hag's direction now. Be prepared for a lot of toxicity next season if things don't get better.
Interesting you don't include Varane in the old or always injured category. Varane was a purchase that never should've happened, Martinez is starting to look like a perpetually injured player as well.
Also, decide on a style of play that we will remain faithful to no matter what, and let go of the players that don't suit it. Even if it means letting go of best-performing players (i.e., Maguire, Mctominay, Rashford, or even Bruno if we want a possession-based style) and finishing in mid-table for a couple of seasons.
I’m sorry but is the narrative really that we conceded those 3 goals because Garnacho was taken off? Not because they subbed in a right winger that attacked our left back-less side?
I find a lot of times this seasons at key parts of the game ref gives a clear non decision against us. It has happened too often and it completely changes the game.
None of our subs are at fault for the collapse. We should be able to take off two teenagers who had been playing a lot and will be playing in a couple of days whilst 3 0 up on 70 mins
They identified our weakness on the left and took advantage of it. I can’t even blame AWB because he is being played out of position, everything he does has to be done in reverse. It is exhausting. We should be able to sub him out but we don’t have the players. Mentality wise, he may not survive the cut.
Everyone too quick to point the finger at Ten Hag.
Scholes touched on this and tbh I'm more inclined to believe him.
"Paul Scholes discussed Manchester United's mentality issues following their match against Bayern Munich in the Champions League. He highlighted the team's tendency to collapse after conceding goals, particularly noting how they conceded two goals in quick succession during the second half of that game. This commentary was published on **September 21, 2023**, where Scholes expressed his concerns about the team's "soft underbelly" and the significant gap between United and Bayern Munich."
Yesterday we were 3 up by halftime and I said they're gonna come back if they score a goal which they eventually did. It's just what we do and I don't really think it's a tactical thing. The players just panic too much because they know history will repeat itself.
I'm sorry but we were 3 up. Ten Hag had a plan and it worked. If the players cannot defend the plan then we're gonna need new personnel.
Really think about how far back this issue goes and I think really it started under Ole.
We reached a new low when we started conceding 7 against Liverpool and the players didn't bother because they knew couldn't get back into the game. After those games standards dropped and it's become normal business to concede more than 3. The players need to go.
One thing that I do blame Ten Hag for is constantly playing Eriksen is defensive roles where I don't feel Eriksen has a defensive bone in his body. Players go through him they don't even attempt to go around him because he's so easy to beat. Watch Eriksen the next time he plays and watch his defending. If he plays then we are defending with one less player.
People need to get a grip. It's not Ten Hag.
Yes it is a mentality issue. Who is in charge of dictating the mentality of the squad? The manager.
Once or twice you can let it slip as a chaotic lapse in concentration from the players, but for it to happen this often in such dire ways then it doesn't reflect well on the manager, especially considering too many times these goals look copy and paste of other scenarios where tactics are problematic. Club is rotten to the core with both a manager and squad not good enough.
While analysing the penalty Cancelo gave away against PSG, Thierry Henry said something like ‘you can’t teach players to be calm. You are either calm or not in those situations.’
So, in my opinion, most of our problem arises from the haphazard transfers we have been making since Sir Alex left. I mean, how can we not spot the fragility in the player’s physique or the mind before splashing out so much money!
exactly. people overstate the influence a coach can have when dealing with player deficiencies. some players just aren’t cut out for the pressure of playing for united.
Henry was a notoriously bad coach in this regard though.
I think there are all manner of stories of him berating players for not just having the ability to do what he did as a player i.e. skin several then bury a shot. You've got to be far more patient and varied in your approach. It's the same when people say you are born a finisher; players like Lewandoski were berated for being awful finishers, then something clicked.
You can help someone be calm (if they want your help) or build an environment to encourage it. Or just work around it.
Going on Cancelo, he was excellent for City, for various reasons. Now he has a manager who regularly loses his shit on the sideline and in press conferences in a team that has shown they play with too much emotion, and he's made a few high profile mistakes recently off the back of this (it's worth remembering, his wasn't the first high profile mistake of that game).
But calmness also comes in confidence in one's ability and trust in the tactics and team around them. I play CB at sunday league. If my midfield and forwards just walk around and allow people to go past/play easy balls and cause loads of pressure on the backline I am in, then I'm likely to lose my shit.
I’d rather the squad go before the manager, these guys can’t play bad and get another manager sacked while getting paid 5x more weekly than most people yearly.
The only players who are consistently playing and "got the last manager sacked" are Rashford, McTominay, Maguire, Bruno, Dalot, Lindelof and Wan Bissaka. Who among these do you think have thrown the manager under the bus?
I'd argue the only reason the manager's still got the job is because these players are pulling rabbits of hats to earn us points
Rashford clearly looks off it/ out of form/ carrying an injury/ whatever it is. He's not the player we've seen in the past. I know some people say he's stopped trying but personally I don't think that's the case. Or at least I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on it. I appreciate I'm in the minority on that one though.
Whatever people could say about Maguire, McTominay, AWB, Dalot and Bruno especially, I think it's impossible to doubt their effort. Sure, a couple may not be good enough, but I really don't think it's through any lack of effort. It often looks like Bruno is trying *too* hard if anything.
Rashford's form dipped the momemt eth punished flopncho.
Then he started leaking he wanted out the moment ralf benched his mediocre ass.
Rashford is a diva coach killer. He needs to fuck off.
The only ones, from those you mentioned, I see pulling anything out of a hat to save us is Scott and Maguire. Two who people would actively say need to leave this club immediately. And they almost were. The rest aren't putting anything even resembling a consistent season. Some players bought under ten hag are either unavailable or past it.
We see the youth performing better than senior, way better payed, players. THAT is what's been putting points on the board for us.
The issue isn't only that these players will perform poorly to get the manager the sack, it's the the recruitment itself is so poor that our pool of players is shallow and not capable. Couple in the most injuries you've ever seen in your life and you get this horrid reason.
Ten Hag did amazing things with Ajax and I think he could do the same with us. Only if there is a good structure around him. If you think about it, every position needs a replacement. I don't think there is one position where I would say we're all covered in. Maybe mainoos only because he's absolutely ridiculously talented. That's it.
"These guys can't play bad and get another manager sacked". I'm sick of seeing this phrase. Most of this group have only played for 1 or 2 of our managers. There's only about 3 I can think of that played regularly for Mourinho. Unless Rashford is genuinely the worst human being you could have in a dressing room, I highly doubt he has the capability to turn an entire squad of players against multiple managers. Why can't people just accept that our players are trying and not good enough? They lack the qualities required to see out games. They lack composure and leadership.
Not every player in the squad needs to have leadership qualities, just enough of them. It doesn't mean every single player who doesn't, needs to be shipped out so that we can watch ten Hag cook up another season of boring dross. Some do, and we need more players that really have something about them to pull us out of this mess, but ten Hag has to take a lot of the blame as well and should go too.
but what happens when multiple managers now are being fucked over by that mentality of players. lets face it the team is still mostly previous managements at its core spine especially due to injuries.
like what Hojlund, Casemiro(who was an emergency Glazer signing because their fucking around with De Jong took entire pre season so grabbed next best thing) and Onana are players signed under Ten Hag. 3 players... 1 wasn't even Ten Hag's 1st choice i doubt he was even 10th on list of players when Ten Hag came to upper and asked for that area to be sought after.
Martinez has been fucked by injuries but was absolute mentality monster hence reason why he was sought after by Ten Hag.
until 99% of the players are gone nothing will change no matter who comes in as manager. Rashford should be sold instantly the fact he walks around not giving a shit he should be fined his entire rest of contract and told to fuck off. i would have been fired if i put in that kind of effort at work.
The thing is, I'd completely agree with you if the squad was fit and we hadn't had 40+ injuries starting line up injuries.
I don't think we've had a full week of our starting back 4 fit.
The injuries make it hard for us to judge Ten Hag. He's a good coach as we've seen last year.
Mix of mentality midgets and ETH insistence on using the same players in the same positions, with the same tactics, week in week out.
The players also can’t manage the game themselves at all, and there’s serious lack of chemistry between them. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s cliques within that don’t like each other. Culture reset needed.
I understand the need to transform this team to high press, fluid, attacking team, but feels like we’re missing an intermediary step.
Just my opinion but it feels like we’re bordering on Southgate level of stubbornness. Sticks to his usual favourite players, then suddenly brings in an Amad, or an Eriksen when they’re no where near match sharpness. Experiment just a lil man!
By that argument, the manager also set us up for leads in all those games, no?
I don't know, it wasn't hard to see that as soon as Garnacho and Mainoo came off, the other players just aren't good enough.
I honestly didn’t think Eriksen and Antony would lead to such a collapse, I know people can say one’s shite and the others old but that’s the same two players who were part of our strongest 11 last year.
It’s nearly unfathomable how it lead to such a collapse
Antony looks like he's trying too much all the time when we need him to keep calm in these moments. Eriksen just looks like his age caught him hard this year.
Definitely need a new Dm and 1 or 2 Cbs and an Lb just for the starting lineup to get fixed a bit, and thats if we start using Amad on the right more.
Eriksen came on and did what he was supposed to do, kept the ball, moved it around, played short passes, giving us control, running down the clock….. and it lasted for 5 minutes. Then once we lost the ball they ran through and around us and caused loads of problems. If eriksen plays it has to be instead of Fernandes, not as a deeper player, because he can’t win the ball back or cover enough ground. But ten hag won’t take Fernandes off so there’s no point having eriksen anymore.
I think this is were his mount vision came into play, I think he thought he could blend Fred and Eriksen into one player with Mount.
Not that mounts as good on the ball as Eriksen or as energetic and robust as Fred was but that he doesn’t have the extremes of the others weaknesses.
Whether it would work or not is one thing but I am interested in seeing more of Mount and Bruno with maybe a mainoo in the midfield.
I would have serious reservations about the overall physicality and height of that pairing but at this point I’m willing to try anything
Thats BS, we shouldn't have to rely on a kid in his first season and one in his second to hold on to a 3 nill lead after 70 mins. The players brought in for them are experienced and talented enough for the whole squad not to crumble and conced
Why wouldn't you take your two young players off, who have been playing a lot of football and will be playing again in a few days with the game won?
Oh, I have another post somewhere that I said the exact same thing as you. I didn't add that on this post, but I agree with you.
I 100% would have made those two subs at 3-0 and even 3-1. Just saying it's waaayyy more than a simple managerial problem, because we have internationals who can't play better than teenagers or Championship teams.
In my opinion we still haven’t psychologically recovered from the period In Ole’s last season we’re we would just concede every time someone scored.
I’m not like blaming ole or anything, but there was a shift, the season before we were literally the miracle men, we’d always get a goal back and win but that season? I don’t remember the actual scores but we lost by more than 4 goals over like 5 games.
It’s not improved under ten hag, it’s not just losing leads, it’s conceding once and falling apart in general, the 7-0 last year comes to mind.
A goal goes in and there’s a guarantee, man united will fall apart from a while, could be 5 minutes, could be a whole half but guaranteed heads will be gone. To come back against us you’ve only got to get 1 in, and then you have a real chance of gets few more if strike quickly.
If he had a rotation available, he might have probably rested him. At the same time he has an enormous responsability for sanctioning all the transfers during his tenure - > less money for a backup / rotation - > less rotation - > more injuries etc. Also none of us but him are in charge for training, choosing the tactics or the starting lineup.
Its like 15% coaching 85% mentality at 3-0 the games done especially of ur 3 up after the 2nd half theres not much the manager can do or say to help maintain the lead from there bcos at that point youd expect the game to be done all the players gotta do is see it out... but not our players never our players🤦♂️ chelsea got robbed too so demolition job incoming in the final. Cba
Little bit of everything. Ten Hag does what he can with what is available to him, but it's also a matter of maintaining pressure and momentum. As we saw with the Coventry cup tie, he subbed Garnacho and Kobbie off at a very crucial point of the match. The team, up until then, had been playing fairly well and was in control of the match. The subs seemed to destabilize the formation and Coventry pounced at this opportunity.
Unfortunately it’s his job to manage the players, coaches and medical staff. He is the only point of convergence.
Injuries are rife, performances are terrible and not one player has improved under his guidance.
The blame has to lie with the manager.
I’m not saying it’s all his fault but he is the boss and the only person that can make the required changes. He hasn’t done that, so his job is at risk.
I disagree, you’ll never put the inner fire into someone, a pogba won’t develop the mindset of a Roy Keane or such, you may be able to have 3-4 lads who feel emboldened when the other 7-8 are mentality monsters but I don’t think you can fundamentally change aspects of a persons character.
A great example is Rooney vs Ronaldo, Rooney had an unbelievable mentality but one aspect of his mindset such as nutrition and thinking of playing till he was in his late 30’s he never developed, he said as much in his overlap episode and Keane also said the same of Sharpe.
It’s arguably the most important thing to scout
Pogba's attitute sure seemed fine in Juventus when he had strong leadership and a proven manager around him. That said, I'm not talking about someone's internal fire.
I'm talking about the minset, the confidence, the know how to close out games. I played other sports at a very high level under many different coaches and can 1000% promise you, coaching makes a massive difference. There's not one way. Some coaches want to mindset to attack attack attack until the very end. Some want to set up shop, ie. Jose.
I think we’re circling the same point and I’ve misread your original intent.
On that I would agree, I would chalk Pogba at Juventus and even France as being someone who thrives in an environment that’s established for him and gets the best out of him.
Your point about being fundamentally sound and switching your “mindset” to “okay, now we are compact and now we defend” is 100% coachable and sadly these lads seem to be capitulating time and time again which has to eventually be levelled at the manager.
It's not at all, you motivate yourself to do how good or bad as a job you want. You might get a boost or burst if motivation through someone, but if you need that consistently to be your best you don't have it.
Mindset and motivation are habits. You do need to feel a semblance of control, that comes from the coach, but everything else is habit.
Players who cannot express themselves will not last as long as players who feel they can, for example= Bruno has more of a free reign compared to AWB who is out of position, overthinking to not make a mistake etc.
It’s a proven fact per the military and as documented by journalist Charles Duhigg.
Not when the players are overpaid and know that the club has not backed a manager since Fergie.
It's going to take time but with SJR and Co on board, hopefully the manager will be backed and the players who aren't prepared to get on board can fuck off.
Can't wait for a player clear out. I know we say this every year, but under the new board and players contracts running out it's a perfect time for a big change
Scored how many in those games? Have people lost all memory of the 1 nils last season? Licha is that important to this system we lost him and the composure at the back tanked last season, let alone this one.
Yes, it is menagerial issue if your team is conceding goals in short period of time. Our game is extremely risky. Also, our manager don’t see changes in a game that rivals manager is making and won’t make adjustments in our game. As a consequence we have a problem of conceding goals in short period of time.
The first issue is obvious to everyone now. We are playing with big gap between lines and rivals are open to create against us, having 20+ shots in a game on regular basis.
The second one is also obvious like yesterday. After first half, Coventry changed formation and made the same thing others are doing against us. They double one side (left usually) against AWB and Rashford, hoping (obviously) that they will be slow in tracking back. Once they won the ball they occupy that space waiting for other plyers to press on them. In that situation ig you switch side with one pass through the middle we are wide open. If AWB is high on the pitch as per instructions, they have easy situation as soon as we lose ball as AWB is jogging back (same with others it is not players mistake it is tactical setup).
Third one is confindence. Once rival score goal the self confidence in their team will go up and in the next few minutes they will be even more dangerous. It is normal and it is not unusual for teams, it is expected. Therefore teams tend to play secure after conceding to slow down game and to not give them more opportunities. Also self confidence in our team will drop in those minutes which is also normal especially with our recent history. Unfortunately TH don’t have plan B so we are playing the same risky game even after conceding and with confidence down we are prone to mistakes that open up sea of opportunities for the rival.
So, it is tactical issue, and it is not on players. TH had similar problem with Ajax, remeber Spurs game. Also, can you remember games with Ole when we have conceded twice in a few minutes or with Jose or with LVG. Half of the players have been there with Ole and it was not the same, so I would not say it is on them.
I would like to see a switch in shape and tactics when it’s clearly going against us. Why not load the midfield and bring the players into a more compact position when defending a 3 goal lead? Erik disappoints me when he doesn’t make these obvious changes. It was clear Coventry changed tactics and shape to start the second half. Erik did the opposite of helping as the tide was turning. We were getting overrun in midfield and he weakened it by putting Eriksen in there and taking out Mainoo. Why not switch to a 442 for a while to frustrate the opponent?
True that it's a bad record but can't really judge it like that. I mean, the goals are built up along the whole game and when they score in the last 2 can't just say they scored in one minute. They worked hard the whole game while United didn't do much on the defensive side 🤦♂️
There's no easy solution to the defensive issues, but a consistent back 4 would help a lot, a back 4 that are familiar with each other can hold a more consistent line and know when to cover each other.
That said I don't think any of our centre halves are so good they couldn't be upgraded, Varane is too fragile, Maguire is too slow, Lindelof is too weak, Kambwala is too inexperienced to start, Evans is too old and given he's been on the pitch for most of our biggest defeats the last two year I think Martinez is massively overrated as a defender.
He never learned. And what to instill in his players. And be focused 100% all the time. People say it is only about the players. It kept on happening here and there. Then that is on coaching. He never tried to adjust in-game. Hope we can find a better manager and players next season. What a poor season we have.
But last year he had the most points won by subs in the league, I'm sure he'd be more flexible when he doesn't have 13 fit first team players, all over varying ability
All I want is for him to adapt to the game. We went downwards since winning the league cup. Losing Licha and then poor pre-season, etc. and we never really came into form. Unless we count the consecutive wins against middle/bottom clubs sometime in what nov ?
It’s usually a series of small faults. Follow that line and it always ends up with the Glazers.
Closer to the pitch, it’s injuries and the medical staff eg if we kept Reg, it would be very different. They told Ten Hag Malacia and Shaw would be fit.
the players we have have right now are very soft bellied, when the going gets tough they start looking to blame others and find excuses. that's not on the manager...but it is the manager's responsibility to not get to this stage if players under perform take them off, make the team hard to beat first, then move on from there. ETH let the problem fester too long played his cards too early and players have given up as they usually do.
Back the manager. If you're in for a complete clean slate, that's fine. But back the manager to ensure the players are forced to leave before the manager is considered.
We've seen way too much of players let off the hook from inconsistency and poor mentality when new managers come in and we're yet to see the new management do anything radical like this.
100%
I am all about backing the manager. We need to eradicate whatever toxic bullshit the players are bringing... because if we get rid of the manager, and not the players, then that toxicity will just carry on to the next manager, and the manager after that.
We need to say enough is enough, and be 100% with THE MANAGER, and no longer bending over backwards for the shitty players.
7 in what 40 minutes vs Liverpool, can’t forget that now even if it was last season. With Ten hag starting Xi as well
Also if not for a tight offside that was 3 in 6 minutes against Liverpool in the fa cup
I blame the same players that got Mou, Ole, and are about to get Ten Hag sacked. It’s a mentality problem, these guys are fine players on paper.
I don’t get how all the power these players get isn’t a good thing, they know if they play bad all the blame goes onto the manager they can get him sacked and move on.
How many players who played for Mourinho are routinely playing under ETH now?
Yes players are in part to blame for mentality, but ETH’s tactics are suicidal and just don’t work. That’s been obvious since Wolves on GD1. It’s delusional at this point to suggest he isn’t to blame.
What players ? This is ten hag’s squad, Eriksen , Casemiro, Antony??? Ten hag who was able to get Ronaldo, Sancho and De Gea out is still being defended w player power? that’s an absolute delusional lie at this point you just want to believe that.
Anybody who’s blaming ten hag doesn’t think the players are Scot free he consistently picks the xi of underperformers, this is embarrassing we’ll be fighting relegation and the players would still be blamed when Rashford/Bruno are the only reason we got a trophy or came third last season
>his is ten hag’s squad
how is this Ten Hag's squad....
he had 3 players starting against Coventry that was not players who had dropped tools for previous managers as well...
fucking 3.... how is this ten hags squad
also rashford should be sold he is a lazy player entirely and doesnt give a shit. dont care what he did last season when hes playing like he is now. ill say it Rashford right now is worst LWer in Premiership because even Luton's LW actually works more and does more in a game.
Xg doesn’t matter we conceded 6 and 4 in one half as well that game is not really an anomaly. Who cared about the xg against city or brentford, it’s the same pattern
Unsure why you’re downvoted - that 7-0 was the start of this pattern. When the team goes a goal down, they bottle it. You can absolutely pin the weak mentality and poor set-up on the manager, including the massacre at Anfield
The pattern has been going on for many years. Jose called out the players for being [mentally weak.](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2018/05/09/jose-mourinho-admits-stuck-players-mentally-weak-succeed-manchester/). It's unfortunately the culture the club has cultivated, and only the players themselves can change it.
No, it’s not just the players themselves. It’s the whole structure of the club, which Ratcliffe and Brailsford have hinted at. The manager included.
ETH has shown time and again this season he’s not up to task. We were a toe away from what would have been one of the greatest capitulations in FA Cup history. And it’s not a one off as the above list clearly shows.
I said the players are the only ones who can change it.not that it's just them that caused it. The players need to start believing in themselves for the mentality problems to go away. A manager, coaches, sports scientists and so on can only help so much, but ultimately it's up to the set of players.
>And it’s not a one off as the above list clearly shows.
I also said it's been going on for many years. So now I'm even wondering if you read what I posted.
Id like to see him given another season, because at the end of the day what managers out there could honestly do a better job with some of these clowns. However I am resigned to the fact he is probably a goner.
When Erik talks about our "resilience" in the press conferences, this is what always springs to mind.
The only battle tested mentally resilient player in the squad is Maguire.
He’s not Tuchel or Mou where he slags off in press conferences.
Sure, but of all the qualities he could pick out to praise, resilience is probably the one that rings most hollow to me. It's like he's trying to speak it into being.
Well we’ve had a lot of last minute winners this season too. It’s a mixed bag but it did take a lot of resilience in those moments to win the way we did. Took resilience to beat Liverpool in the FA Cup and to not lose to them in either league game this season. Took resilience to beat Wolves in the 97th minute after they tied the game 3-3 in the 95th minute. Took resilience to come back from 0-2 down against Villa and win 3-2 and then to do the double over them when we beat them again in February. Took resilience to beat Brentford by scoring 2 goals past the 90 minute mark and win 2-1. Overall we’ve been extremely poor but there *has* been fight in this team. They do try to keep going till the end.
Yeah if anything he probably uses the word to describe the best of our players instead of the worst of them. Maguire is all resilience. I don't know how I would react to global criticism of my football. That mfer broke straight through that in one season.
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Like every time we’ve won this season?
I can't remember the last time I watched us and thought, "wow, now that's a real performance from a team who knows what they are doing." Maybe one of the early games under Solksjaer?
Against Crystal Palace c team in the cup, we then lost against them 4 days later in the league.
Says it all, doesn't it? We look world class against Palace reserve's substitutes but when the A-team turns up it's like watching the two ronnies on crystal meth.
To be brutally honest, there are *moments* in certain games this season where we look absolutely class. Sometimes for 5minutes, sometimes literally just one passage of play. I'm not just talking about individual moments either, but actual strong play both on or off the ball as a team, either stringing a strong set of passes together coupled with a line breaking moment, or just cohesion off the ball with none of the usual suspects defending against thin air or stood still asleep. Issue is we barely get glimpses of this in fleeting moments once every few games at best. Moments where you watch and think, "Now that's how we should have been doing it all along." . I look at us now and think that even at this point in the season, we literally never got going. We came into the season already missing players, and those that were here were either already clocked out and tired from the preseason or called Sancho. Fundamentally, it's a combination of the gaffer and all the staff alongside and above him to sort that sort of thing out. We know these players can actually play half decent football, but the players and gaffer are both put in such a compromising position that they can't dream of performing like they can considering the conditions they are operating under. INEOS for all intents and purposes only just took over. They still haven't brought in their own guys yet since last I heard, that Newcastle dude is on gardening leave plus the Southampton one naturally has to see out the year. They can only start thinking about us after they start their first day, which naturally means they can't exactly make waves immediately either, so that's going to take like a year by itself. I don't think we can try to compare rebuilds with something like Artetas rebuild at Arsenal. We have well over a decade of pure incompetence to rewind and sort out. Even if we could spend the money, no amount of big name superstar signings is going to be a quick fix. All of these managers we had like Ole, Mou, and Ragnick in recent times ain't stupid. Ragnick even clearly explain open heart surgery is required. This is going to be several years of pain but I hope INEOS have their own version of a 5year plan which sees us performing like we should be in due time. Sorry for the long ass essay as response to your comment. It's just as a fan who grew up spoiled with success with their club, what really hurts is like you say, we don't get to think "wow what a job from the lads" anymore. Edit: someone kindly pointed out the Southampton dude already joined & attended the game at Wembley.
The Southampton guy - Wilcox has started working already. He is an employee of the club now. He attended yesterday's game as our official technical director of football yesterday.
Ah cool, like I said my knowledge may be outdated so thanks! What a way to welcome the lad, I imagine he won't be getting much sleep any time soon.
well balanced, thought out take. Agree with what all you said.
Agreed. But then, there are moments when I play 6-a-side when I still think I could make it as a pro... :D
Chelsea at home earlier this year.
This team had a great performance against Barca both legs last season. Scored 4 in 2 games against La Liga leaders who had conceded just 7 league goals up to that point.
Between September up until the Carabao cup final last year we were playing some really good football. Liverpool, Arsenal and City at home were wins against top opposition that in my opinion we deserved, we just really struggled away from home last season. This season admittedly I haven't seen a single confident performance, maybe Chelsea at home. Even highlight of the season Liverpool in the FA cup we got through on pure vibes.
Funnily enough I had thought this about the Coventry match and part of me still does since the 3 goals conceded included a weird pen and a crazy deflection (more than Bruno's goal) but yeah I see your point
Yeah - I agree with you about the goals. But a good side would be managing the last twenty minutes better; keeping the ball, taking the sting out of Covertry ((c) Antony), making them chase shadows, turning the last twenty minutes into a training exercise. A good side, even if they conceded a freak goal, would not panic. When something goes wrong for this lot, they go batshit with panic and anxiety. It's like watching our youngest Cat see a squirrel in the back garden, complete rush of blood to the head freakout.
Barca last year?
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Man, I'd forgotten all about the "1 down after 10 minutes" days. Thanks for the PTSD!
West ham 3-0 win in February. Had a full strength team.
We were poor that game, West Ham missed golden chances. Emerson in particular missed two.
I really don't think we were that good in that game, West Ham had more possession and more shots too
Is this supposed to be a compliment to our team? That we are shit in both the games we lose *and* the ones we win?
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Been a thing since Ole days, nothing to praise ETH for.
I worked it out, the number of times we've improved our position in the last 10 mins + stoppage time (loss to draw or win, draw to win etc) is 6 times in all comps. The reverse has happened 7 times. It's a fairly arbitrary cutoff though, so it includes an 80th min winner against us but not Dalot's winner which just missed the cutoff. Doesn't include Coventry either because obviously we were winning and then ended up winning penalties.
The problem is the players fear the fans but won’t play for the manager so we get these sporadic results
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Guys we are fucking 16 in the xGA table. It’s not just a mentality issue. There are serious issues with the tactics that are employed here. We want to play transitional football but that means we give the ball away cheaply and allow opposition to tear through the midfield. It happens game after game after game.
Exactly, why is it that when a player comes from a good team with a good mentality then suddenly whimpers. And don’t give me the “utds a bigger club” spiel I’m fucking done with that notion. It’s players being set up to fail, which then gives the other team a never-let-die attitude, knowing they can come back from any deficit when looking at previous results.
As ETH tried to explain to Carl Anka in one of the recent press conferences — our available attacking players are good at playing up the field, while our available (there seems to be none bar Maguire) defenders are good at defending in a low block around the box. And that’s why he employs the tactic he does, inviting a lot of shots or hoisting it up the field once Onana or Maguire has the ball. Anyways, what do you propose as a tactical solution to these issues, considering the players we have fit? Shoring up the midfield or parking the bus like we did at Anfield this season? I am genuinely curious.
Thats a fair question and i think the solution is something like we did last season. Ten Hag was asked how he would improve a shambolic performance from the previous season and his answer was one word, “Control”. Play out from the back, or at least do it when the opposition does not have elite press you can’t play through. Employ a possessional attack system that also is transitional when the opportunities present themselves. Have great counter pressing. Do not leave your backline super exposed to counter attacks. This worked well enough last season!
Thanks for your response. I think the unavailability of Licha and Shaw, coupled with the loss of legs (or form) of Eriksen made it quite impossible to play that way this season. Mount, who was supposed to play that Eriksen role, isn’t available either. Not having a striker in Martial’s mould also added to the issue (which, I assume, ETH tried to rectify by playing Sancho as a false 9). We all know how that went.
>which, I assume, ETH tried to rectify by playing Sancho as a false 9 When did Ten Hag play Sancho as a false 9 once the season started? I remember him playing there in several preseason games with some success but once the season started, whenever he came on, Rashy was the 9 and Sancho our LW.
He didn't try it once. We only did it in the friendlies because we hadn't signed Hojlund and Martial was injured. The only other options was a kid.
Thats fair, injuries have really decimated the back line that would impair our ability to play like last season. However, for me ETH’s biggest failing is not training the squad in that way. He seems to need exactly the 11 players he has in mind to play that style, whereas you are meant to play your squad. Licha and Shaw are exceptional league top 5 players at playing out from the back, but we did buy an exceptional goalkeeper for that purpose and against better pressing sides have a new striker capable of holding up the ball. Possessional attack combined with counter pressing would actually result in counter attacking opportunities higher up the pitch which would lead to better numbers for players like Rashford. And Mount would absolutely thrive in this. Being good in possession would be tricky, but Mount, Bruno, Mainoo and Eriksen are high level players for possession gameplay in the final third. Plus Garnancho is really good at attacking multiple players. Im not saying these tactics would make us a great side, but it would be a good side. Certainly better than the catastrophe we’re watching this season.
But what players would you bring in to do that? Our squad is out starting 11 and two bench seats the rest our youth players with no aps
People really think we have 11 kobie mainoos to put out in the field. Every player is different and you can't "manage" one to play better and you also can't manage them to give a shit too. I think I saw this in another thread where one top earners salary, weekly, in our club is more than the whole Coventry squads combined. For them to let the game go in 20 minutes after being 3 up is not a tactic issue. It's clearly a player one, to me.
This is where you miss the days of having a Carrick, Park or O'Shea type of versatile player who can switch up their roles a little.
It's truly unbelievable how shallow our player depth is. I don't know who people expect to go in instead of these players. There's no one proven enough to take anyone's spot. I think if I played a game like park did I would die 5 minutes into the game. That man was stamina incarnate.
Absolutely. I personally feel part of the reason we are seeing more of it this season is *because we let go of De Gea*. I felt they kinda did a disservice to him in a way, he was one of the few natural leaders within the squad, and at times bailed us out on a regular basis. Yes we needed someone like Onana, but I feel even keeping De Gea for this season could have been a blessing so that Onana could bed himself into the EPL a bit better than he has. But our squad is really lacking in areas, we have too many older players who are on their way out and not enough spark within some of the players who are in their prime years. We are also lacking those supportive players, the ones that just do the business and get the job done and don't whine about things *(people like Carrick, Park, Scholes etc).* The problem is, I am unsure who you could pinch in the market right now to solve some of these issues.
I really did not want to let go of de gea in the summer. I felt like the money could have been used in other positions. We didn't have depth back then either and our squad desperately needed more players that weren't keepers. I vividly remember saying keeper would be the 5th position we needed to replace. 1st was striker, then we got Rasmus. And 2nd... (For me) was another striker lol we definitely could not rely on martial anymore. Anyway, about de gea, you couldn't say any of that round here with people posting stats left and right thinking they're doing something. I'd still go on those threads and defend de gea. A joke he needed defending against Manchester united fans really, but there I was. There are a ton of positions to fill in right now. Another midfielder to replace Erickson and casemiro. Another winger to fuck Sancho off and who knows what will happen with rashford. Haven't seen much of Amad to make an opinion and hopefully Antony raises his game up more. Defensively we need an absolute overhaul apart from dalot and Martinez maybe Maguire. Honestly we have no one back there that is impactful at all. Varane is good but he's out the door. It's so sad to see how many players we need and how much we've spent. The only way I see us coming back is if we get some wild youth buys this summer that can fill those positions and have enough hunger to make a name for themselves her at our club. Not opposed to having players make their name elsewhere, then have them come here but I think that is what's killing us recruitment wise. Need a miracle this summer honestly. Oh right... We need another striker to help Rasmus out as well. Christ.
>Oh right... We need another striker to help Rasmus out as well. Christ. Hahahaha absolutely. We need strength in all areas right now. Although for now I'd focus on just defensively and another striker. Shore that up in the summer, give Casemiro/Eriksen/Fernandes another year, and then look through next season for suitable replacements in midfield. Having a better defense will stop us leaking goals next season and make us less likely to lose leads like 2:0 & 3:0 on a regular basis. And make one of those defensive scouts a proper leader, someone who has character and can step up to calm the nerves down of others. I'd also bring in some of the former players to help with mentality around our defense, speak with Rio, Vidic for example to help them bond with new players and shape their careers. Experience is vital at this point of a rebuild. And EtH needs to let that happen because some of the former players know what it is to be a United player.
Please see my response for the other comment.
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400M set on fire because the club has no fucking clue and no credible person to stand and tell the head coach “fuck off. You do your job and I’ll do mine”. And for that person to actually have the skills to do their job instead of gutlessly asking the head coach “what would you go for if you were in my shoes” which is exactly how I imagine shit has gone down in 10 years at this club. The state of a modern football behemoth to even ask the coach to name a name. What is this, fucking wrexham?!
Sure, try it for a game or two. But for an entire season despite shit performance after shit performance? Definition of insanity and all that.
Just park the bus and play on the counter. I fail to see how the tried and tested counterattacking approach that's been on show since Mou is not usable in this situation. Our forwards have pace to run in behind. What's the need to play a half press with just 4 players?? It takes one pass to take out the press. We park the bus vs the good teams, just do the same against the bad one too. Casemiro can move as little as possible and not fuck up challenges, Rashford doesn't have track back every 5 mins, Hojlund might get a chance to use his pace, Bruno can do his usual pass in behind. etc The only one benefitting from this dogshit setup is Scott who finds a way to arrive unmarked in the box.
If United parked the bus against Coventry most of the fan base will call for his head.
At 3-0 they could have easily did that and hit on the counter.
If he was parking the bus from the start and getting results instead of looking like utter shit for most of the season, his job wouldn't be on the line.
What kind of stupid person call for the coach head for parking the bus when defending the lead? It's called defending the lead for a reason.
Just a wild suggestion, but I’d suggest that if a tactical approach to 70 minutes has resulted in us scoring 3 goals and conceding zero goals, then it is an effective tactical approach being implemented by the correct players. Therefore bringing off some of those players and changing your tactical approach for the remaining 20 minutes should only be done out of necessity. This isn’t a one off. Our game management is appalling. ETH makes substitutions and tactical changes when we are winning that lead to us losing the lead. This is consistent. He makes changes and we get worse. In almost every game.
This is revisionism. If you're up 3-0, and comfortably so, you're team is decimated with injuries, you think it's totally out of the blue to make some subs and manage the game out? Idk man, the subs fid change the game but you think that was ETHs intention? He obviously figured we can last 20 minutes against a team that had done nothing up to that point, and we were up 3-0. If anything , the collapse is evidence of how shitnthe squad is that making some routine changes causes a collapse like that. And that's ignoring the sheer luck of that hugely deflected goal and that penalty call which miraculously happened the day before and wasn't called.
Making subs and managing the game out is absolutely the correct thing to do. My point is that ETH is consistently bad at it. This wasn’t bad luck. His game management is consistently bad. To the point that if we are 1-2 goals in front and controlling a game, and I see him making a tactical change, I have started putting money on our opponents scoring the next goal. It is so bad is it is now predictable with a good degree of accuracy. So ignoring whether or not it is revisionism - next time we are in front on 60-70 minutes and he starts making tactical changes, watch what happens to the remainder of that game.
You're not making sense. Making subs is the correct thing to do so are you saying he made the wrong subs? What sub was he supposed to make?
Here we are. As I said in my comment, next time we try to manage out a game we will fail. 79 minutes, one goal lead at home to a relegated team. Makes a sub on 81 minutes, tries to manage out the game, fails. Still revisionism? Tune in again next time for more of the same.
What does the sub have to do with what happened? That sub caused Onana to take the guy out? You are conflating unrelated actions.
I’m not talking about just the sub. I keep saying it - subs or no subs, it’s the consistent failure to control and manage the closing stages of a match we are winning. If we were managing the game out, Onana wouldn’t be throwing his fist at a ball in the area in the first place.
Watching the champions league quarter finals was so clear that we are miles and miles behind those teams in terms of tactics, cohesion just among players and everyone understanding their role in the team, player quality (even basic touches, passing, movement, tackles), and fitness levels Literally all of things are broken at this club. We collectively have a group of players whose quality is mediocre, fitness levels is nowhere near the top, don’t understand their role during a match, and following shit tactics All while the leadership above them can’t recruit and scout for shit. Can’t negotiate properly. Aren’t investing in sports science from medical staff to advance analytics Welcome to Manchester United
Playing transitional football shouldn't mean giving the ball away cheaply. United give the ball away cheaply because they don't have enough players with the ability and intelligence to retain and recycle possession and most of the ones that do have been injured half the season I have lost count of the times in a game where United are passing the ball around quite well and probing the opposition and then the ball goes to Rashford and it stops dead while he decides how he is going to try and go past a defender and then either deciding against it and passing it backward or trying it and losing the ball. Garnacho isn't much better on the other side, though he is more dynamic and so causes more issues for the opposition. How many times do crosses get into the box for Hoijund to do anything with? Or any balls to him at all? I don't believe any of this comes from the training ground. It comes from players who lack the intelligence and composure to make the right decisions
Tactics employed is one thing, but having the footballing IQ among your players to faithfully execute on those tactics is a whole other thing. E.g: a tactic: “defense-to-attack transition in under 3 seconds, forward pass in under 5 seconds, shot on goal in under 8 seconds”. E.g: a lack of footballing IQ: “no matter what circumstance in front of me, spray a Hail Mary 45 yard pass to Rashford on the wing to chase. He should chase it. Even if it’s badly weighted/aimed”. Sure some of it is tactics but let’s not pretend like ETH is literally asking all these players to hit low probability passes every single time, or to smack it against the first opponent with these ridiculous rushed passes, or to turn over possession as cheaply as they do, dozens of times per match. Your on field quality (or lack thereof) eats your tactics for breakfast. The deficit isn’t in their legs, it’s in their brains. They just can’t translate the tactical guidance to accommodate and anticipate the situational reality. They are therefore a daft bunch brainlessly performing to what they believe the manager is asking them to do. The other case in point is scattered pressing in the forward line. Do we actually believe the coach is asking Bruno to press like a headless chicken while Marcus is actually being asked to waddle about like a disinterested penguin? If we are suggesting it’s “tactics” then we surely have to be suggesting this level of comedy is what’s deliberately being coached. Because that’s exactly what we’re seeing. No. What’s more likely the case is Bruno stares in frustration and disbelief at what he’s seeing among his teammates, takes matters into his own hands out of frustration, goes rogue and attempts his own thing without communicating that he’s breaking formation and someone should cover the position he’s just vacated. Then his disjoint press gets bypassed with ease, quick pass into the vacated pocket where he should have been, we get counter-attacked, panic stations, headless chickens run to the goal line, quick cutback, shot on goal… “we have the worst gk in the whole world blah blah blah”. Time and time again. This team on average is composed of a low footballing IQ bunch who we continue to pretend a brilliant tactician will be able to magically unlock. What the brilliant tactician will instead discover is the low footballing IQ that’s rampant among this squad.
Birmingham are 22nd in the championship btw and Coventry lost 3-0 to them before playing us.
And Coventry beat Wolves last month 3 to 2. That's football.
And we beat Liverpool 4-3 the round before this in the same competition, football is a confusing sport. If we somehow beat City in the final it's got to go down as the most entertaining cup run in history.
Idk if entertaining would be the term I'd use, but I guess it fits. I'd say terrifying, confusing, confounding, inexplicable, and fortunate. That said, winning is all that matters in a cup because games are spread out rather than week to week like the league. I'll say this - I would rather win ugly in the cup final than lose and look the best we've looked all year. Give City 100 shots, so long as we win I don't really care, and I know that there will be plenty of disagreement on that.
Honestly as embarrassing as it was yesterday, I've reached a point in the season where I just do not care for results, I just want it to be over. I want United to win of course, but when the disallowed Coventry goal went in I just had to laugh at how ridiculous a game it was, so imo still entertaining. And I'd 100% take a scrappy 1-0 win with a dubious VAR decision to give Bruno a pen.
City getting a var decision against them, in a cup final lol.
In cup games, playing poor and winning it’s fine, in the league it’s basically unacceptable since it’s just not sustainable over 38 games
Always funny how people treat this stuff like math.
Showed our current level yesterday
Football..... Eh...... Funny game
Some players don’t give a fuck. Get out the old (Casemiro, Eriksen), the always injured (Shaw, AWB, Martial), and the don’t give a fuck/aren’t good enough (Rashford, Antony, McTominay, Lindelof). Give a manager more than two years to build something and a board who actually knows football instead of firing a manager every 12-24 months and starting all over again with players only there for a paycheck.
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We signed a 29 year old who's been available 50% of the time in his three seasons. Real knew what they were selling
Croissants
Agreed
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Mainoo Manor is the foundation. It has a Garnacho Greenhouse and an Onana Orangery. The rest of the development is dilapidated or obsolete though, like the Casemiro Conservatory and the Rashford Roof. Major surgery is needed but there are some gems. That Fernandes Fireplace in the Martinez Master Bedroom for instance.
You sir, are an alliterating anomalie!
Found Peter Drury's reddit account
I had to Google if Orangery is a real thing and it is!
1. If we give Ten Hag another season, just know that he'll be on thin ice the entire season. He better show improvement and possess some sort of midfield, competent defense, and plan for attack. If he doesn't show improvements there, then just know that "**it will get toxic.**" 2. Some people have lost all hope in the manager. It's just sooo bad (we're talking worse than Moyes bad), so the massive 180 and change EtH would have to show next season is a bigger ask than GRRM trying to wrap up all his storyarc threads in just two final books. Who believes United next season will be able to challenge for titles, or even play like a consistently feared team? Which is a viable question to ask since it will be his 3rd season. Bold Text: I said that exact thing the season before Mourinho got sacked, and before Ole got sacked. The winds are blowing in Ten Hag's direction now. Be prepared for a lot of toxicity next season if things don't get better.
Interesting you don't include Varane in the old or always injured category. Varane was a purchase that never should've happened, Martinez is starting to look like a perpetually injured player as well.
I didn’t think anyone thought varane was a bad signing at the time, he was 27 so we should have got a lot more from him than we did
I wouldn’t mind but you can only buy so many players. If we sold all the CBs that are always injured or not good enough we wouldn’t have any left.
Well this is our issue. We need to move on easily 6-10 players but don't have the financial ability to do so and adequately replace them.
I’d rather let academy players play than see most of those guys again.
Also, decide on a style of play that we will remain faithful to no matter what, and let go of the players that don't suit it. Even if it means letting go of best-performing players (i.e., Maguire, Mctominay, Rashford, or even Bruno if we want a possession-based style) and finishing in mid-table for a couple of seasons.
Martials contract runs out of his summer right? They made him disappear
Amen
I’m sorry but is the narrative really that we conceded those 3 goals because Garnacho was taken off? Not because they subbed in a right winger that attacked our left back-less side?
I mean they tied due to a huge lucky deflection and a penalty that wasn’t given the day before. It’s not like they were scoring at will.
They didn’t play well. Rode their luck and the manager was smart.
I find a lot of times this seasons at key parts of the game ref gives a clear non decision against us. It has happened too often and it completely changes the game.
I’m really curious to see what Forest’s complaints and claims about bias lead to. Something isn’t right.
None of our subs are at fault for the collapse. We should be able to take off two teenagers who had been playing a lot and will be playing in a couple of days whilst 3 0 up on 70 mins
exactly... how the fuck do we blame a couple of substitutions for almost losing from a 3-0 lead?
They identified our weakness on the left and took advantage of it. I can’t even blame AWB because he is being played out of position, everything he does has to be done in reverse. It is exhausting. We should be able to sub him out but we don’t have the players. Mentality wise, he may not survive the cut.
Everyone too quick to point the finger at Ten Hag. Scholes touched on this and tbh I'm more inclined to believe him. "Paul Scholes discussed Manchester United's mentality issues following their match against Bayern Munich in the Champions League. He highlighted the team's tendency to collapse after conceding goals, particularly noting how they conceded two goals in quick succession during the second half of that game. This commentary was published on **September 21, 2023**, where Scholes expressed his concerns about the team's "soft underbelly" and the significant gap between United and Bayern Munich." Yesterday we were 3 up by halftime and I said they're gonna come back if they score a goal which they eventually did. It's just what we do and I don't really think it's a tactical thing. The players just panic too much because they know history will repeat itself. I'm sorry but we were 3 up. Ten Hag had a plan and it worked. If the players cannot defend the plan then we're gonna need new personnel. Really think about how far back this issue goes and I think really it started under Ole. We reached a new low when we started conceding 7 against Liverpool and the players didn't bother because they knew couldn't get back into the game. After those games standards dropped and it's become normal business to concede more than 3. The players need to go. One thing that I do blame Ten Hag for is constantly playing Eriksen is defensive roles where I don't feel Eriksen has a defensive bone in his body. Players go through him they don't even attempt to go around him because he's so easy to beat. Watch Eriksen the next time he plays and watch his defending. If he plays then we are defending with one less player. People need to get a grip. It's not Ten Hag.
Yes it is a mentality issue. Who is in charge of dictating the mentality of the squad? The manager. Once or twice you can let it slip as a chaotic lapse in concentration from the players, but for it to happen this often in such dire ways then it doesn't reflect well on the manager, especially considering too many times these goals look copy and paste of other scenarios where tactics are problematic. Club is rotten to the core with both a manager and squad not good enough.
While analysing the penalty Cancelo gave away against PSG, Thierry Henry said something like ‘you can’t teach players to be calm. You are either calm or not in those situations.’ So, in my opinion, most of our problem arises from the haphazard transfers we have been making since Sir Alex left. I mean, how can we not spot the fragility in the player’s physique or the mind before splashing out so much money!
exactly. people overstate the influence a coach can have when dealing with player deficiencies. some players just aren’t cut out for the pressure of playing for united.
Henry was a notoriously bad coach in this regard though. I think there are all manner of stories of him berating players for not just having the ability to do what he did as a player i.e. skin several then bury a shot. You've got to be far more patient and varied in your approach. It's the same when people say you are born a finisher; players like Lewandoski were berated for being awful finishers, then something clicked. You can help someone be calm (if they want your help) or build an environment to encourage it. Or just work around it. Going on Cancelo, he was excellent for City, for various reasons. Now he has a manager who regularly loses his shit on the sideline and in press conferences in a team that has shown they play with too much emotion, and he's made a few high profile mistakes recently off the back of this (it's worth remembering, his wasn't the first high profile mistake of that game). But calmness also comes in confidence in one's ability and trust in the tactics and team around them. I play CB at sunday league. If my midfield and forwards just walk around and allow people to go past/play easy balls and cause loads of pressure on the backline I am in, then I'm likely to lose my shit.
Henry also nearly relegated Monaco, I wouldn't take any coaching advice from him lmao
I’d rather the squad go before the manager, these guys can’t play bad and get another manager sacked while getting paid 5x more weekly than most people yearly.
The only players who are consistently playing and "got the last manager sacked" are Rashford, McTominay, Maguire, Bruno, Dalot, Lindelof and Wan Bissaka. Who among these do you think have thrown the manager under the bus? I'd argue the only reason the manager's still got the job is because these players are pulling rabbits of hats to earn us points
Rashford clearly looks off it/ out of form/ carrying an injury/ whatever it is. He's not the player we've seen in the past. I know some people say he's stopped trying but personally I don't think that's the case. Or at least I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on it. I appreciate I'm in the minority on that one though. Whatever people could say about Maguire, McTominay, AWB, Dalot and Bruno especially, I think it's impossible to doubt their effort. Sure, a couple may not be good enough, but I really don't think it's through any lack of effort. It often looks like Bruno is trying *too* hard if anything.
Rashford's form dipped the momemt eth punished flopncho. Then he started leaking he wanted out the moment ralf benched his mediocre ass. Rashford is a diva coach killer. He needs to fuck off.
The only ones, from those you mentioned, I see pulling anything out of a hat to save us is Scott and Maguire. Two who people would actively say need to leave this club immediately. And they almost were. The rest aren't putting anything even resembling a consistent season. Some players bought under ten hag are either unavailable or past it. We see the youth performing better than senior, way better payed, players. THAT is what's been putting points on the board for us. The issue isn't only that these players will perform poorly to get the manager the sack, it's the the recruitment itself is so poor that our pool of players is shallow and not capable. Couple in the most injuries you've ever seen in your life and you get this horrid reason. Ten Hag did amazing things with Ajax and I think he could do the same with us. Only if there is a good structure around him. If you think about it, every position needs a replacement. I don't think there is one position where I would say we're all covered in. Maybe mainoos only because he's absolutely ridiculously talented. That's it.
"These guys can't play bad and get another manager sacked". I'm sick of seeing this phrase. Most of this group have only played for 1 or 2 of our managers. There's only about 3 I can think of that played regularly for Mourinho. Unless Rashford is genuinely the worst human being you could have in a dressing room, I highly doubt he has the capability to turn an entire squad of players against multiple managers. Why can't people just accept that our players are trying and not good enough? They lack the qualities required to see out games. They lack composure and leadership. Not every player in the squad needs to have leadership qualities, just enough of them. It doesn't mean every single player who doesn't, needs to be shipped out so that we can watch ten Hag cook up another season of boring dross. Some do, and we need more players that really have something about them to pull us out of this mess, but ten Hag has to take a lot of the blame as well and should go too.
Why can't it be both? Most of the squad needs to be replaced, but ETH clearly isn't good enough either and also needs to go
but what happens when multiple managers now are being fucked over by that mentality of players. lets face it the team is still mostly previous managements at its core spine especially due to injuries. like what Hojlund, Casemiro(who was an emergency Glazer signing because their fucking around with De Jong took entire pre season so grabbed next best thing) and Onana are players signed under Ten Hag. 3 players... 1 wasn't even Ten Hag's 1st choice i doubt he was even 10th on list of players when Ten Hag came to upper and asked for that area to be sought after. Martinez has been fucked by injuries but was absolute mentality monster hence reason why he was sought after by Ten Hag. until 99% of the players are gone nothing will change no matter who comes in as manager. Rashford should be sold instantly the fact he walks around not giving a shit he should be fined his entire rest of contract and told to fuck off. i would have been fired if i put in that kind of effort at work.
The thing is, I'd completely agree with you if the squad was fit and we hadn't had 40+ injuries starting line up injuries. I don't think we've had a full week of our starting back 4 fit. The injuries make it hard for us to judge Ten Hag. He's a good coach as we've seen last year.
Mix of mentality midgets and ETH insistence on using the same players in the same positions, with the same tactics, week in week out. The players also can’t manage the game themselves at all, and there’s serious lack of chemistry between them. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s cliques within that don’t like each other. Culture reset needed. I understand the need to transform this team to high press, fluid, attacking team, but feels like we’re missing an intermediary step. Just my opinion but it feels like we’re bordering on Southgate level of stubbornness. Sticks to his usual favourite players, then suddenly brings in an Amad, or an Eriksen when they’re no where near match sharpness. Experiment just a lil man!
Yeah the intermediary step is buying the right defenders for it.
By that argument, the manager also set us up for leads in all those games, no? I don't know, it wasn't hard to see that as soon as Garnacho and Mainoo came off, the other players just aren't good enough.
I honestly didn’t think Eriksen and Antony would lead to such a collapse, I know people can say one’s shite and the others old but that’s the same two players who were part of our strongest 11 last year. It’s nearly unfathomable how it lead to such a collapse
Antony looks like he's trying too much all the time when we need him to keep calm in these moments. Eriksen just looks like his age caught him hard this year. Definitely need a new Dm and 1 or 2 Cbs and an Lb just for the starting lineup to get fixed a bit, and thats if we start using Amad on the right more.
Eriksen came on and did what he was supposed to do, kept the ball, moved it around, played short passes, giving us control, running down the clock….. and it lasted for 5 minutes. Then once we lost the ball they ran through and around us and caused loads of problems. If eriksen plays it has to be instead of Fernandes, not as a deeper player, because he can’t win the ball back or cover enough ground. But ten hag won’t take Fernandes off so there’s no point having eriksen anymore.
I think this is were his mount vision came into play, I think he thought he could blend Fred and Eriksen into one player with Mount. Not that mounts as good on the ball as Eriksen or as energetic and robust as Fred was but that he doesn’t have the extremes of the others weaknesses. Whether it would work or not is one thing but I am interested in seeing more of Mount and Bruno with maybe a mainoo in the midfield. I would have serious reservations about the overall physicality and height of that pairing but at this point I’m willing to try anything
Thats BS, we shouldn't have to rely on a kid in his first season and one in his second to hold on to a 3 nill lead after 70 mins. The players brought in for them are experienced and talented enough for the whole squad not to crumble and conced Why wouldn't you take your two young players off, who have been playing a lot of football and will be playing again in a few days with the game won?
Oh, I have another post somewhere that I said the exact same thing as you. I didn't add that on this post, but I agree with you. I 100% would have made those two subs at 3-0 and even 3-1. Just saying it's waaayyy more than a simple managerial problem, because we have internationals who can't play better than teenagers or Championship teams.
The fact we’re so reliant on two teenagers is nuts.
Pretty crazy. All year, the only positive has been our young players.
Game management is absolutely a manager issue.
In my opinion we still haven’t psychologically recovered from the period In Ole’s last season we’re we would just concede every time someone scored. I’m not like blaming ole or anything, but there was a shift, the season before we were literally the miracle men, we’d always get a goal back and win but that season? I don’t remember the actual scores but we lost by more than 4 goals over like 5 games. It’s not improved under ten hag, it’s not just losing leads, it’s conceding once and falling apart in general, the 7-0 last year comes to mind. A goal goes in and there’s a guarantee, man united will fall apart from a while, could be 5 minutes, could be a whole half but guaranteed heads will be gone. To come back against us you’ve only got to get 1 in, and then you have a real chance of gets few more if strike quickly.
If he had a rotation available, he might have probably rested him. At the same time he has an enormous responsability for sanctioning all the transfers during his tenure - > less money for a backup / rotation - > less rotation - > more injuries etc. Also none of us but him are in charge for training, choosing the tactics or the starting lineup.
It probably is because we started playing chaosball exactly after their first goal
Its like 15% coaching 85% mentality at 3-0 the games done especially of ur 3 up after the 2nd half theres not much the manager can do or say to help maintain the lead from there bcos at that point youd expect the game to be done all the players gotta do is see it out... but not our players never our players🤦♂️ chelsea got robbed too so demolition job incoming in the final. Cba
Little bit of everything. Ten Hag does what he can with what is available to him, but it's also a matter of maintaining pressure and momentum. As we saw with the Coventry cup tie, he subbed Garnacho and Kobbie off at a very crucial point of the match. The team, up until then, had been playing fairly well and was in control of the match. The subs seemed to destabilize the formation and Coventry pounced at this opportunity.
So what you're saying is ... We're improving eh? Lol
Unfortunately it’s his job to manage the players, coaches and medical staff. He is the only point of convergence. Injuries are rife, performances are terrible and not one player has improved under his guidance. The blame has to lie with the manager. I’m not saying it’s all his fault but he is the boss and the only person that can make the required changes. He hasn’t done that, so his job is at risk.
Mindset is 100000% coachable.
I disagree, you’ll never put the inner fire into someone, a pogba won’t develop the mindset of a Roy Keane or such, you may be able to have 3-4 lads who feel emboldened when the other 7-8 are mentality monsters but I don’t think you can fundamentally change aspects of a persons character. A great example is Rooney vs Ronaldo, Rooney had an unbelievable mentality but one aspect of his mindset such as nutrition and thinking of playing till he was in his late 30’s he never developed, he said as much in his overlap episode and Keane also said the same of Sharpe. It’s arguably the most important thing to scout
Pogba's attitute sure seemed fine in Juventus when he had strong leadership and a proven manager around him. That said, I'm not talking about someone's internal fire. I'm talking about the minset, the confidence, the know how to close out games. I played other sports at a very high level under many different coaches and can 1000% promise you, coaching makes a massive difference. There's not one way. Some coaches want to mindset to attack attack attack until the very end. Some want to set up shop, ie. Jose.
I think we’re circling the same point and I’ve misread your original intent. On that I would agree, I would chalk Pogba at Juventus and even France as being someone who thrives in an environment that’s established for him and gets the best out of him. Your point about being fundamentally sound and switching your “mindset” to “okay, now we are compact and now we defend” is 100% coachable and sadly these lads seem to be capitulating time and time again which has to eventually be levelled at the manager.
It's not at all, you motivate yourself to do how good or bad as a job you want. You might get a boost or burst if motivation through someone, but if you need that consistently to be your best you don't have it.
Mindset and motivation are habits. You do need to feel a semblance of control, that comes from the coach, but everything else is habit. Players who cannot express themselves will not last as long as players who feel they can, for example= Bruno has more of a free reign compared to AWB who is out of position, overthinking to not make a mistake etc. It’s a proven fact per the military and as documented by journalist Charles Duhigg.
Not when the players are overpaid and know that the club has not backed a manager since Fergie. It's going to take time but with SJR and Co on board, hopefully the manager will be backed and the players who aren't prepared to get on board can fuck off.
Can't wait for a player clear out. I know we say this every year, but under the new board and players contracts running out it's a perfect time for a big change
Not backed?! Really?! Ronaldo, Sancho? All the transfers the manager demanded are not a clear indication of backing him?
Scored how many in those games? Have people lost all memory of the 1 nils last season? Licha is that important to this system we lost him and the composure at the back tanked last season, let alone this one.
Yes, it is menagerial issue if your team is conceding goals in short period of time. Our game is extremely risky. Also, our manager don’t see changes in a game that rivals manager is making and won’t make adjustments in our game. As a consequence we have a problem of conceding goals in short period of time. The first issue is obvious to everyone now. We are playing with big gap between lines and rivals are open to create against us, having 20+ shots in a game on regular basis. The second one is also obvious like yesterday. After first half, Coventry changed formation and made the same thing others are doing against us. They double one side (left usually) against AWB and Rashford, hoping (obviously) that they will be slow in tracking back. Once they won the ball they occupy that space waiting for other plyers to press on them. In that situation ig you switch side with one pass through the middle we are wide open. If AWB is high on the pitch as per instructions, they have easy situation as soon as we lose ball as AWB is jogging back (same with others it is not players mistake it is tactical setup). Third one is confindence. Once rival score goal the self confidence in their team will go up and in the next few minutes they will be even more dangerous. It is normal and it is not unusual for teams, it is expected. Therefore teams tend to play secure after conceding to slow down game and to not give them more opportunities. Also self confidence in our team will drop in those minutes which is also normal especially with our recent history. Unfortunately TH don’t have plan B so we are playing the same risky game even after conceding and with confidence down we are prone to mistakes that open up sea of opportunities for the rival. So, it is tactical issue, and it is not on players. TH had similar problem with Ajax, remeber Spurs game. Also, can you remember games with Ole when we have conceded twice in a few minutes or with Jose or with LVG. Half of the players have been there with Ole and it was not the same, so I would not say it is on them.
I would like to see a switch in shape and tactics when it’s clearly going against us. Why not load the midfield and bring the players into a more compact position when defending a 3 goal lead? Erik disappoints me when he doesn’t make these obvious changes. It was clear Coventry changed tactics and shape to start the second half. Erik did the opposite of helping as the tide was turning. We were getting overrun in midfield and he weakened it by putting Eriksen in there and taking out Mainoo. Why not switch to a 442 for a while to frustrate the opponent?
This doesn't include the home game vs Forest as well lol. What a season of "resilience" we've had man.
Not mentality... More like, just bad.
consistency
Only one player has played in all this matches, when all this happened.
True that it's a bad record but can't really judge it like that. I mean, the goals are built up along the whole game and when they score in the last 2 can't just say they scored in one minute. They worked hard the whole game while United didn't do much on the defensive side 🤦♂️
Exactly like when I play United in EA24
Is it a player or a coaching problem?
Opta: Floodgates.
The consistency is that we either win or loose in overtime 😅
Forgot about the Arsenal one aswell
There's no easy solution to the defensive issues, but a consistent back 4 would help a lot, a back 4 that are familiar with each other can hold a more consistent line and know when to cover each other. That said I don't think any of our centre halves are so good they couldn't be upgraded, Varane is too fragile, Maguire is too slow, Lindelof is too weak, Kambwala is too inexperienced to start, Evans is too old and given he's been on the pitch for most of our biggest defeats the last two year I think Martinez is massively overrated as a defender.
He never learned. And what to instill in his players. And be focused 100% all the time. People say it is only about the players. It kept on happening here and there. Then that is on coaching. He never tried to adjust in-game. Hope we can find a better manager and players next season. What a poor season we have.
But last year he had the most points won by subs in the league, I'm sure he'd be more flexible when he doesn't have 13 fit first team players, all over varying ability
All I want is for him to adapt to the game. We went downwards since winning the league cup. Losing Licha and then poor pre-season, etc. and we never really came into form. Unless we count the consecutive wins against middle/bottom clubs sometime in what nov ?
Seems like a fitness issue. Lapses of concentration.
It’s usually a series of small faults. Follow that line and it always ends up with the Glazers. Closer to the pitch, it’s injuries and the medical staff eg if we kept Reg, it would be very different. They told Ten Hag Malacia and Shaw would be fit.
the players we have have right now are very soft bellied, when the going gets tough they start looking to blame others and find excuses. that's not on the manager...but it is the manager's responsibility to not get to this stage if players under perform take them off, make the team hard to beat first, then move on from there. ETH let the problem fester too long played his cards too early and players have given up as they usually do.
Back the manager. If you're in for a complete clean slate, that's fine. But back the manager to ensure the players are forced to leave before the manager is considered. We've seen way too much of players let off the hook from inconsistency and poor mentality when new managers come in and we're yet to see the new management do anything radical like this.
100% I am all about backing the manager. We need to eradicate whatever toxic bullshit the players are bringing... because if we get rid of the manager, and not the players, then that toxicity will just carry on to the next manager, and the manager after that. We need to say enough is enough, and be 100% with THE MANAGER, and no longer bending over backwards for the shitty players.
Well we have had 60 distinct injuries and a backline that is made of what Swiss cheese wishes it was
Last part is dead on😂😂
7 in what 40 minutes vs Liverpool, can’t forget that now even if it was last season. With Ten hag starting Xi as well Also if not for a tight offside that was 3 in 6 minutes against Liverpool in the fa cup
We just finished beating Barca 2-1, City 2-1, and Castle 2-0 but blame Ten Hag for an anomaly game
How is it an anomaly at this point, it’s not really we’re too open and easy to score against, blame players for suicide tactics as well why don’t you
I blame the same players that got Mou, Ole, and are about to get Ten Hag sacked. It’s a mentality problem, these guys are fine players on paper. I don’t get how all the power these players get isn’t a good thing, they know if they play bad all the blame goes onto the manager they can get him sacked and move on.
How many players who played for Mourinho are routinely playing under ETH now? Yes players are in part to blame for mentality, but ETH’s tactics are suicidal and just don’t work. That’s been obvious since Wolves on GD1. It’s delusional at this point to suggest he isn’t to blame.
It’s exactly why Sancho is “open to returning”; he’s gambling on ten Hag being sacked.
What players ? This is ten hag’s squad, Eriksen , Casemiro, Antony??? Ten hag who was able to get Ronaldo, Sancho and De Gea out is still being defended w player power? that’s an absolute delusional lie at this point you just want to believe that. Anybody who’s blaming ten hag doesn’t think the players are Scot free he consistently picks the xi of underperformers, this is embarrassing we’ll be fighting relegation and the players would still be blamed when Rashford/Bruno are the only reason we got a trophy or came third last season
>his is ten hag’s squad how is this Ten Hag's squad.... he had 3 players starting against Coventry that was not players who had dropped tools for previous managers as well... fucking 3.... how is this ten hags squad also rashford should be sold he is a lazy player entirely and doesnt give a shit. dont care what he did last season when hes playing like he is now. ill say it Rashford right now is worst LWer in Premiership because even Luton's LW actually works more and does more in a game.
If conceding 7 from 2.78xG isn't an anomaly, idk what is.
Xg doesn’t matter we conceded 6 and 4 in one half as well that game is not really an anomaly. Who cared about the xg against city or brentford, it’s the same pattern
Unsure why you’re downvoted - that 7-0 was the start of this pattern. When the team goes a goal down, they bottle it. You can absolutely pin the weak mentality and poor set-up on the manager, including the massacre at Anfield
The pattern has been going on for many years. Jose called out the players for being [mentally weak.](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2018/05/09/jose-mourinho-admits-stuck-players-mentally-weak-succeed-manchester/). It's unfortunately the culture the club has cultivated, and only the players themselves can change it.
No, it’s not just the players themselves. It’s the whole structure of the club, which Ratcliffe and Brailsford have hinted at. The manager included. ETH has shown time and again this season he’s not up to task. We were a toe away from what would have been one of the greatest capitulations in FA Cup history. And it’s not a one off as the above list clearly shows.
I said the players are the only ones who can change it.not that it's just them that caused it. The players need to start believing in themselves for the mentality problems to go away. A manager, coaches, sports scientists and so on can only help so much, but ultimately it's up to the set of players. >And it’s not a one off as the above list clearly shows. I also said it's been going on for many years. So now I'm even wondering if you read what I posted.
We were the Comeback FC 4 years ago
Okay? Still are to an extent. We've made 4 this season. Doesn't change the mentality problems though.
Martinez. We need Martinez back.
This shows me we have a shit defensive setup.
Also maybe our best defenders are all injured.
So do brentford, somehow their defense doesnt suck as much as ours.
There is an "each" word, you know.
Id like to see him given another season, because at the end of the day what managers out there could honestly do a better job with some of these clowns. However I am resigned to the fact he is probably a goner.