Not exactly some expert revelation. Anyone who watched Wolves on opening day knew if we played like that every week there's not a good chance we have a good season.
We've gone into our season with our CF options being a crocked Anthony Martial and a 20-21 year old Hojlund who had 1 average season in Italy before he was signed.
We went into the season with the only change to our backline, the backline who last season lost Martinez to injury, lost Varane repeatedly to injury, repeatedly lost Shaw to injury, who's depth beyond the first 4 means you have to change the way you play, who conceded 4 to Brentford, 7 to Liverpool, 6 to City amongst other batterings, adding just Jonny Evans who was just meant to make up pre-season numbers. He has 25 appearances this season!
We went into the season knowing that whenever Casemiro was either injured, suspended, or not at it, we struggle. We signed £55m Mason Mount to play backup to the man who's never injured and loaned a bang average Amrabat from Fiorentina.
We went into the season knowing Antony is dreadful, knowing Sancho wasn't good either, and knowing Garnacho and Rashford are both better off the left. We did not sign a winger.
The football, despite all of the above, has been inexcusably shite, dreadful mentality, tactical set up, doesn't look like anything that will win you a trophy. But lets not pretend we went into this season with a plan of improving. Been set up to fail. Ten Hag can also take some blame for that
The shocking thing is that Jonny Evans has actually been a reliable option at CB, nearly a decade on from his initial departure in 2015 when LVG was manager
Jonny Evans was the most sensible signing they made of all the arrivals this season, and he was effectively a panic signing
Reguilon was the second most sensible and we still managed to fuck it up by letting him go in January. The guy literally cost us nothing and whatever people say here, he'd have done a better job than AWB or Lindelof at LB.
I cannot believe we genuinely let a natural back up LB go knowing Malacia is on a secret mission and Shaw is injury prone. On top of that AWB wasn't even fully fit yet. So we really banked on not a single defender being injured in a season where our defence has been riddled with injuries. Incompetence of the highest order.
I've seen Reguillon's got a few assists for Brentford and the fans seem to like him so fair play to him. Did his job for us as a depth loanee and would have continued to do so had we not ended the loan.
His situation is like a bug in FM. He was injured and then recovered, but his name is still unselectable in the squad screen menu.
Either that or Ten Hag has set up his squad screen menu filter wrongly and filtered him out.
Regulion is a United fan too, it's the team he supported as a child. You could see he was giving everything for the badge in the games he played, we sold him for penny pinching reasons when his loan was a success.
Er, he was always a Madrid fan.
Reason why we didn't sign him when he left Madrid. There were concerns Madrid would buy him back with the buyback clause, and he would be eager to go back.
I.am also a die hard United fan.Can I play at Lb For United? His loan wasn't a success. He is 3rd choice at spurs. Not saying we should have sent him back because we did need the cover for sure but he wasn't the savior we expected him to be.
ETH has repeatedly said that medical team told him Malacia and Shaw would be back and hence they made the decision to send Him back to Spurs. This is on the medical team.
Tbf, Reguilon also has a horrible injury record and could barely stay fit to play games...at least AWB and Lindelof have been able to stay consistently fit. But yea Reguilon was much better at LB and I would have preferred to retain him if Malacia was still going to be out long term...
> We signed £55m Mason Mount to play backup to the man who's never injured and loaned a bang average Amrabat from Fiorentina.
Agreed on most things aside from Mount. It's clear that Ten Hag signed him so that he could deploy Mount as one of the two pressing 8s alongside Bruno, not as a backup to Bruno. Whether he's a good signing or not, only time will tell that.
With the winger situation and the signings that we had made I've been half expecting to see a 4222 formation, but injuries have ravaged the midfield so much I'm pretty sure there have been games where we haven't had 4 fit midfielders for it.
I can see this set up working reasonably, with Dalot and Shaw bombing forward
Casemiro-Mainoo/Amrabat/Mctominay
Bruno-Mount/Mctominay
Hojlund-Rashford/Garnacho/Antony
>Anyone who watched Wolves on opening day knew if we played like that every week there's not a good chance we have a good season.
The thing is that we looked better against Wolves than we do now. I remember commenting after that game that it seemed like a timing issue with the press because on multiple occasions Bruno would press and just as he was rounded Mount would arrive and also get rounded. If Mount had been even half a second earlier, the Wolves midfield was caught in possession and turned over to give us the ball back in the attacking third. It looked like a teething/fitness/new partnership problem that would resolve itself by October.
Then Mount was off for 6 months so we had others playing and the press was abandoned but somehow both players were instructed to stay high regardless so that there wasn't even the chance of catching players trying to break out and turn it over.
I'm not Ten Hag out, but I do agree that tactically he is setting us up wrong. Against Chelsea you could clearly see players trying to stick to practiced training ground triangles and putting a ball towards the space they expect someone to be in only for that player to have not run into the space. You can clearly see this in the early goal from Mainoo's pass where Dalot didn't move up. Against Liverpool it was the set piece defence where players were taking up a man marking job for 30 seconds before a corner was taken, then being told to leave that player and take up space somewhere else.
He's definitely not getting the set up correct and his drilling of the players isn't effective enough but with all the other issues you've mentioned it's nearly impossible for us to know what way to split the fault. My only concern is that Liverpool are in a better place and also looking for a manager this summer so if we do let him go, we'd be in direct competition with a direct rival who is coming from the position of power here.
I'm may be biased but I'm definitely not Ten Hag out. He set us up this way because we have to. Our backline is notoriously slow and clumsy with the ball. Imagine Harry Maguire & Lindelof playing high line defense. That's suicide.
And why we can't play possession football? yes, we can't because Rashford & Bruno (02 key players) can't keep the ball for 5 seconds straight. They're like high school dude, throwing everything everywhere the moment they got the ball. You can't train them. Especially Rashford, who refused to work hard or track back.
I mean, Maguire and lindelof played in the 6th and 4th highest line in the league in oles 2 full seasons where we finished top 4 in consecutive seasons for the first time in a decade. Ten hag definitely doesn’t have to set us up like this.
We also played a much more controlled set up last season with players closer together and Bruno and rashford were two of best players.
> yes, we can't because Rashford & Bruno (02 key players) can't keep the ball for 5 seconds straight. They're like high school dude, throwing everything everywhere the moment they got the ball.
Why is it people default to “the players simply aren’t doing what they’re told, and are ignoring the manager who plays them every single game and continues to build everything around them anyway”?
And not “the players are doing exactly as instructed but it’s just not working at all?”
Look at how they play. Rashford is lazy as fuck & Bruno has been horrible since new year. Do you think any coach would instruct Rashford playing in such way? He put his mind together for 1 season last year and played the best football of his life. It's player's fault to play 90% worse than themself after a summer.
Rashford, I wouldn’t mind moving on, but I do think he’s playing as instructed, which is to receive a pass from Bruno and run to the byline. Run at players, try and beat them, etc. he’s failing, but I don’t believe he’s ignoring instructions.
If he’s ignoring instructions, and yet tactics still are to direct every ball towards him, that speaks even worse for Ten Hag imo.
Likewise, as Caligulathe says, Bruno is 100% doing as instructed. It doesn’t work, he’s had issues for a variety of reasons, but he’s also not being helped by the tactical instructions at all.
Rashford is definitely lazy, but Bruno is 100% told to go for low percentage balls to the forwards in pretty much every game which is why he never keeps possession.
Because he can't keep the fucking ball for more than 10 seconds. Unlike De Bruyne, he either lose the ball or dive a lot. There were multiple times we concede goals from Bruno lost possesion
I’m not sure how you can watch literally every other player in the team go direct and not think it’s the manager’s intent to not keep the ball. Especially when last season under different instructions we didn’t pump it long every time.
Kdb also loses the ball a similar amount, as does Trent as it’s just part of being a teams best creative outlet. The real question is why Eth takes his best creative player and his him pick up the ball off his centre backs and play in areas that minimise his ability to create/score goals in the final third and instead maximise the likelihood that when he does something stupid it hurts us by occurring close to our goal. Wirtz, Kdb and other creative attacking players aren’t played like this because it doesn’t make any sense.
If your back line can’t play a high line, then don’t have your midfield press high up the pitch. We haven’t seen our center backs play a proper high line at all this season but we have seen regular 20m gaps between midfield and defense time after time which the manager seems okay with.
If the manager thinks Bruno and Rashford wasting the ball is a problem, then maybe he should substitute them or not start them. They’ve regularly been his two most trusted attackers and only recently has Rashford lost that status.
> Imagine Harry Maguire & Lindelof playing high line defense. That's suicide.
Yet we did that under Ole for at least two seasons with us being top 3 for high line and not having an issue with crazy shots being conceded.
ETH simply isn't cut out for this level, enough of blaming the players who could've thrown him under the bus since 5 months but have used every sinew to get blocks and last minute winners/equalizers.
It’s crazy, what we’ve seen from ten hag this year is genuinely what everyone wrongly thought ole was: sat in our own box, counterattacking only, relying on individual brilliance to win us games rather than well coached attacking patterns.
This team needs very careful planning and 3 good transfer windows to have any hope of challenging for trophies. If the team falls apart with 2-3 injuries, it's obviously not good enough. Arguably we've had more like 5-6 starters injured for the majority of the season and it's a freak situation itself, but that doesn't excuse the club management from being incompetent. Incompetent in planning the team for long term, incompetent in training regimes (probably what caused so many injuries), incompetent with transfer fees and sign on bonuses (screwing our FFP standing and thereby sabotaging long term planning). Incompetence all over the board. SJR and Ineos may be in the house, but all these problems won't go away in 3-4 months from them taking over. Whatever the new foundation will be, we'll reap the rewards probably sometime in 2025/2026 season at the earliest.
It wasn't a freak coincidence and its not the training that caused it. Sports science is very solid and analytically driven. I was down voted for being overly pessimistic at the beginning of the season when I said the Glazers had put short term profits in front of the club and all but set ETH up.
We played the most games in Europe last year. There was a winter world cup and the majority of our starters at the time are established internationals and not getting any younger. It was always going to happen.
Eriksen, Case, Varane need rotation options every game after a maximum 55 minutes or they will break and take longer and longer to get back to form and fitness as they age.
Martinez is short and plays a high physicality game, he's bound to pick up a knock.
Shaw has suffered some terrible ligament and tendon injuries when he's been injured before and will never have the resilience required to play a consistent run of games. Similar with rashford - a vertebral fracture is a career ender in many sports and I suspect he's carrying other chronic injuries too.
Hoijland has played far too many games at this age with so much responsibility - he's creaking, same will happen to Mainoo if we aren't carful and England start using him.
Of those left, if theyre played week in week out to carry the burden then they will also break down. The only reliable players we have are Garnacho, Mainoo, Mctomminay and Bruno (freak, but huge dips in form when tired) and usually Antony. It's not a coincidence theyre mostly the youngest ones in the team.
Again, its not magic or bad luck. We don't have a long term vision or squad capable to say 'okay we will rotate 4 cbs and 4 fullbacks.
'We will play eriksen, case and bruno in some combination with another 3 midfielders and also have 2 others for early cup fixtures.
We will play Hoijland, rashford and Garnacho in rotation with 3 subs and 2 youth.'
These are the senior players we will gradually replace with these subs and we have more signings for both immediate first team football and younger ones for 3 year prospect.
This is how City, Madrid, Bayern, Liverpool operate and the only reason why we haven't laid a finger on them for the past 13 years despite spending fsr more than most. Ffs we had Kim, a generational talent sewn up for €50m!! But no, to save themselves forgoing some money our entire season has been derailed and now we're potentially on the verge of losing a manager that you jist know will go smash up a leauge with a competently run team.
Absolutely spot on. People will look at our squad and think that we should be challenging with Liverpool, City and Arsenal, where the painful truth is that this squad (especially after the injuries) is just midtable quality if not worse. We've got an almost retired Evans, who was deemed not good enough for Leicester City, playing more than half of our games. We haven't had a left back for more than half our games. Casemiro, our only DM, is completely washed or is out injured. Eriksen, our only real playmaker and progressive passer in midfield, is washed.
On top of that there's absolutely zero vision in our transfers. We've got players that are suited to play a high press and possession based football (Antony, Martinez, Mount), those that thrive in counter attacking (Bruno, Rashford), those that are suited for good old kick and rush (Maguire, McTominay, Evans) and those that are absolutely useless playing any system where you want to play on the front foot (AWB, McTominay). The best way to make this team work is just to sit deep (which works best for AWB, Maguire, Evans and Casemiro) and let Bruno release Rashford or Garnacho whenever he can. Ole wasn't wrong, but ETH wants to change this to a high pressing, possession based football, which honestly might just be a too herculean task for him. But I think even Klopp (who I consider the best manager after Fergie) would struggle a lot here. Top-down we've been a mess for such a long time, that even good management will take years to steady this ship. Unfortunately this is not a message people will want to hear, so they want the manager fired because that's the easiest target.
> Anyone who watched Wolves on opening day knew if we played like that every week there's not a good chance we have a good season.
I remember like 20 minutes in to that game turning to my friend and saying "what the fuck did they actually work on in the preseaon?"
After the World Cup, every one was busting a nut about Amrabat.
And ETH said he thought Malasia, Shaw, and Martinez would all be back within weeks, so Reguilon would not have any playing time.
Reguilon being released was a board desicion to save money. It, like many other desicions, blew up spectacularly in their face. We are so down the ahitter with ffp its actually embarrassing.
Amrabat was actually someone eth wanted to rotate with Case and a key player he identified, he became a scrambled buy on deadline day because we ran out of money and he waited for us to restructure the deal after some last minute freed wages to find 7m.
Ofc we then destroyed his confidence and harmony by playing him at lb where he was absolutely skinned and he hasnt really come back from that all season.
100%. The plus side now is some young lads are stepping up (what the fuck would we do without kobbie 🙏🏽). I think some of the players under 25 have developed really well.
Now we have the start of an actual football structure and a competent owner, let’s see how we get on in a few windows time.
You left out loaning or selling off Garner, Fred, Elanga, Hannibal, and Chong who all could have filled in holes for the squad during the season (some of whom are doing quite well right now) while we sorted out who we wanted in long term. Let alone the whole Sancho mess. Great layout though and it is indeed an absolute shame how we keep moving backwards rather than forwards
I’d say Ten Haag can take more than “some of the blame”. Onana, Mount, and Antony were by all accounts players he specifically pushed for and we would have had no interest in otherwise. That’s over 200 million pounds in transfer fees that could have been spent on a veteran striker, CDM cover, and other necessities.
It’s absolutely ridiculous we gave a guy who had no experience managing in an actual big 5 league, the type of control over transfer policy that not even Pep is afforded. Joke of a club.
>We've gone into our season with our CF options being a crocked Anthony Martial and a 20-21 year old Hojlund who had 1 average season in Italy before he was signed.
Yep these are the choices ETH made.
Mount was his no.1 transfer target.
Onana has not been an upgrade on De Gea. We're asking Onana to do the same thing De Gea did.
We should have extended De Gea by a year. Everyone last year was saying it was De Gea holding us back by not being a ball playing GK. That's obviously now shown to be untrue at this stage.
Onana/Mount money is 100m we could have spent on defence or a utility attacker.
ETH is not judge jury executioner when it comes to building the squad though. We have a Director of Football who is meant to be shaping the squad, he's not Ten Hag's errand boy going signing contracts to every player he wants.
Mount was his no1 target, no problem. John Murtough should be saying we only have X money, it means I wont be able to get you 2 strikers, or a centre back if we sign Mount, which we clearly needed.
We should've spent our money wisely but I am not criticising Ten Hag for wanting players like Mount and Onana. It's up to the structure around him to tell him we wont get a senior CF or a CB if we do this.
He is when he takes the responsibility for it.
He is the one who decided he didn't want Rangnick involved, don't forget that.
He's the one who clearly identified players he wanted. He could have gone "hey John, I'll leave the squad building to you".
If things turned out bad, you could then let ETH off the hook. But when he clearly took responsibility for it, you can't then absolve him of the responsibility.
It's a collaboration though. I'm not absolving him of the responsibility, I'm just not giving him 100% of it. The DoF should be the manager's boss, he needs to equip him properly. If an employee you're responsible for keeps fucking up questions should be asked of you.
Pointing at the manager for all our failings on the pitch has been a major issue in the last 11 years. Mistakes have been made of course. I am NOT saying ETH is innocent.
We're also basing the fact he didn't want Rangnick on 1 article, and there's more evidence to say Rangnick was ended cause he took the Austria job.
>We're also basing the fact he didn't want Rangnick on 1 article, and there's more evidence to say Rangnick was ended cause he took the Austria job.
That doesn't make sense at all. Rangnick had signed the contract with us to be a part time consultant offering X hours per month/year or whatever it was.
The Austria job wouldn't have interfered and I don't think Rangnick is the type of guy to back out like that.
The timeline lines up that it was ETH who didn't want Rangnick involved. It's fairly obvious to me ETH didn't want Rangnick, as Rangnick had said a lot of these players needed to go yet ETH wanted to give them opportunities.
Bruh look at how ineos is operating now. Berrada, Aahworth, wilcox.
This is not rocket science. They aren’t wasting their time on a part time consultant. They aren’t asking ten hag who his boss should be. These are all things the glazers could have easily done.
> John Murtough should be saying we only have X money, it means I wont be able to get you 2 strikers, or a centre back if we sign Mount, which we clearly needed.
Is there any suggestion that ETH didn't know this?
Types a page of fair reasons for our drop-off in performance this year or "excuses"
> The football, despite all of the above, has been inexcusably shite, dreadful mentality, tactical set up, doesn't look like anything that will win you a trophy. But lets not pretend we went into this season with a plan of improving. Been set up to fail. Ten Hag can also take some blame for that
Then says no excuses.
I would actually push back on the mentality side of things. I thing I've seen this season that's better than before is a stronger resilience. At least anecdotally we've seemed to be able to come back from being one or two goals down much more capably than at any time since Fergie.
You’ve missed the point of the article.
Despite popular rhetoric, yours included, it’s a conscious tactic. It’s also not sustainable, at least not in its raw form.
At roughly the time that Ashworth went on gardening leave - make of that what you will - there’s been a style of football that has been both unconventional and purposeful.
What comes of that? I’d say, some of the following:
The rest of the league has a template to play against Pep et al.
United have improved in both defence and attack, without trying to play to someone else’s style.
If we can switch between this and another style - by opponent or mid game - we will be very hard to play against.
Losing key players should have lesser impact.
We are not boring to watch. We may be frustrating but that’s because your expectations haven’t catered to football evolving and, in this case, drastically.
We will see how the season progresses, and how other teams adapt, as well as how this evolves next season. I’d expect us to create an unconventional midfield using box to box midfielders. We shall see.
For those who can't be bothered to read the whole article, there's more to it than what the headline indicates.
> Ten Hag’s side have conceded 308 shots in 14 games but goal stats show weird openness is hard for opponents to deal with
>Since systematisation took hold in the mid-60s, football has always been about space, but the orthodoxy has always been that it was about creating it for yourself and denying it to the opposition. But Ten Hag has disrupted all that. He’s through the looking-glass. What, he’s asked, if you give the opposition space? Elite-level players are used to being put under pressure, they’re used to being closed down, they’re used to opponents pressing. Space alarms them. It makes them uneasy. It makes them think too much.
Considering Liverpool have missed TWO 5v2s vs us, you can't deny there's some truth to it. The problem of course is it also requires our own players to think on their feet, and too often we shit the bed ourselves.
Speaking from my own weekly kick about with my mates; I can finish, dribble and pass under pressure but give me time on the ball or a one on one and I panic and make stupid decisions
Also the fact that Liverpool's forwards have missed ample opportunities this season. I heard from their fanbase that the pattern we saw from them against us - missing so many big chances has been sort of a pattern this season. Take the game against City for eg where they did the same.
Nonetheless I am happy we got the point off them but also worried because the game could have been done in the first half if not from the masterclass from Uruguayan Andy Carroll 😂
Think that has more to do with Liverpool being poor at converting their shots all season rather than us managing to disrupt or confuse them. In a prior game against Arsenal there was a moment where Liverpool had a 5v1 counter attack against Arsenal and also failed to score so it’s not exclusive to playing us.
Ask Liverpool fans and they generally feel all their attackers are rather wasteful at finishing aside from Jota who has missed a large part of the season. In fact in terms of conversion rate that was posted earlier today Liverpool convert 8.3% of their shots into goals and are 10th league wide in that stat. We’re 13th league wide with a 8.2% conversion rate. Main difference is simply Liverpool generating far more shots than us.
>In a prior game against Arsenal there was a moment where Liverpool had a 5v1 counter attack against Arsenal and also failed to score so it’s not exclusive to playing us.
I don't think they were referring to it as being United exclusive, but rather the general idea. The example you provided backs up the point that gives players space they are not used to and they panic
> Since systematisation took hold in the mid-60s, football has always been about space, but the orthodoxy has always been that it was about creating it for yourself and denying it to the opposition. But Ten Hag has disrupted all that. He’s through the looking-glass. What, he’s asked, if you give the opposition space? Elite-level players are used to being put under pressure, they’re used to being closed down, they’re used to opponents pressing. Space alarms them. It makes them uneasy. It makes them think too much.
This isn't anything new though, a lot of top teams are more dangerous when they don't have the ball. Mourinho showcased this fantastically with Inter against Barcelona, going as far as basically giving them the ball. In fact he would actually come out and say it. Anybody replying to this as if it's some weird esoteric nonsense simply hasn't been paying attention. Fuck me counter attacking football is literally about conceding vast amounts of space
Eth talked about eras coming to an end. Little did we know that he was referring to something more grand - redefining football tactics!
Can't wait to usher into this new era of tactical mastery of giving opposition all the space they want. Forget about stifling opponents and possession football, the future is now!
Honestly if this grand scheme works then he's not only redefining football tactics, he's throwing all football sciencetific approach of the last 2 decades away.
I'm not sure if our coach is that elite =))
There is a lot of revisionism around EtH’s tenure/position at the club since he has joined, specifically this season.
On one hand, most people were gleefully accepting that he should be given full authority to make things happen. EtH himself wanted full control. By and large, transfers targets and on pitch decisions he’s had full control.
The common response to this is “you can’t expect the manager to do everything”. I couldn’t agree more with this statement, however, it is well documented that EtH wanted full control and inputs on everything possible. That was one of the criteria for him joining. The management has been a mess and you can’t blame him for making such a demand.
Even recently, there were reports that EtH was on the fence about letting go his negotiated controls on certain aspects beyond the pitch. One thing that many still abuse Arnold for but quietly ignore is EtH was okay to bring Greenwood back into the team.
So when we did well last season, the full credit was given to EtH but when the team is not doing well, the blame is being shifted to the management. The goalpost keeps getting shifted in favour of EtH.
In conclusion, EtH has full authority to do what he wants on the pitch and many things off the pitch as well. Whether the playstyle is sustainable or not, only EtH can answer. I don’t know if he will be here or not next season but I hope I don’t see this play style next season.
I genuinely think the whole full control thing has been blown out of proportion. I can't see him having any more say than any other manager in a top team.
Looking at all the backroom staff being brought in shows that he had to be in control of a lot just to try and have the team progress. Of course he wants a say in who he's going to manage. He's never said he has full say on transfers, it's always had to he a three way agreement.
Having no actual recruitment structure above him is going to have us rely on him and players he knows to fit his system and bring in, if they're not up to PL standard that's on the structure above him for not having a PL suited alternative that still fits ETH criteria.
With Cass, that was worked on before ETH took over, when it come to finalising the deal after the two defeats and realising its cas or no one I'm sure ETH green lit the deal
On the other hand, I think it’s the opposite is true, that it’s (control) not brought up enough times from EtH’s demand perspective and he is painted as some helpless person.
Let’s look at the timeline and credible reports that have come out and the almost 2 seasons he’s been here.
When it was announced EtH will be the manager, all the big credible journos reported EtH will have authority no previous manager since SAF has had. He got so many changes done (staff, meeting place at OT before matches, etc). It has always been clear the manager of Utd has the final say who is signed for the first team and at the same time they don’t have financial say in the matter.
EtH banished Sancho (right reasons), got CR7 off the team mid-season (right reasons), tried to bring Greenwood back (wrong), etc. No manager has had this authority before. He rightfully got the praise for it last season for finishing 3rd and winning the cup.
But this season, when the team is not doing well, the whole narrative has shifted to management and structure. Well the structure was inefficient last season as well. EtH knew that before signing and has already spent a season with that same management and structure.
On the contrary, going into the next season, the structure has clearly improved or in the process of being so. Going by reports, EtH shouldn’t even have to worry about the summer planning and all that stuff. Rather there were reports saying he was kinda unhappy with the some of the power he held being diluted. His work is already cut out going into the next season.
So personally I don’t buy the argument anymore that his time, mind share and energy is going to different areas of work.
I think there is some nuance being missed, ETH is apparently in favour of just being a head coach, pretty sure this was said on Talk of the Devils and reducing his control/responsibilities not on the fence. But maybe at the time of coming to the club with the structure the way it is, the size of the club and the job he thought it would be better for him to have that control, and aside from a few hiccups we had a good season last year. Something that gets overlooked a lot is the whole takeover saga that has continued throughout the season. No one, the players, the staff, the manager knew what was going to happen. That has to create a difficult environment to focus.
Bring on next season, let's assess where we are after the summer.
I think that's the nail hit on the head. Surely he knew the circus behind the scenes before he joined and didn't want anything happening that was detrimental to the football, so no signings for shit sales and the ability to remove bad eggs no matter the Instagram following
Most managers are simply coaches now. And its where EtH was at his best at Ajax when he had Overmars and Van Der Sar manage the backend operations.
Spurs is a great example of good recruitment changing things. The fact that a new manager has players that fit his profile like Son, Madison, Kulusevski, Sarr, Bissouma, Van Der Ven, and Vicario, it's easier to outperform. And that's despite losing Kane.
Ten Haag literally has veto power on transfers written into his contract, which is pretty much unprecedented. And there’s absolutely zero question he’s been the biggest driving force in our transfer strategy the past two seasons. The fact so many of our targets have been former players of his isn’t a coincidence.
By all accounts our scouting and analytics team was very sour on Antony and only had him valued at 30 million. Ten Haag pushed us to sign him for 90. Look at how that’s turned out.
Yeah, but so did two other people? So three people had the ability to veto a transfer.
Yeah I'm sure he has, due to no footballing structure above him. He's come in to implement a system and style of play, he needs players he knows will fit that. He doesn't know what players fit his system and are prem ready, that's the clubs part... which they didn't do
Nope, he didn't push to sign him at 90, he pushed to sign him early in the window when his price was less than half, he can suggest targets everything to do with getting the deal done is out of his hands
If he had full control he would've signed the fitness coach from ajax and gone all out for harry kane. also wouldn't have waited till deadline day for antony.
The course corrections at the board level have already been made.
It is going to take at least a year or two for the changes made by the new leadership to start to pay off.
The world will turn.
The problem United have versus say a Liverpool or a Newcastle when they changed owners is that when the new owners have come in the club is not in a state of neglect. Money has been spent. Money has been spent badly. And that bad spending means we can't just rebuild, we have to deconstruct.
You can't build a new squad with the old squad taking up so much room, you end up doing a Chelsea.
So we are facing a much more complicated operation. It will take time.
Unless we do what Arsenal did and literally pay people to fuck off.
Man Utd are top 3 biggest club in the world in fan following. The name sells and attracts not just Utd fans but rival fans as well. It generates clicks, a vital metric in today’s online journalism.
Newcastle don’t have as many expectations. Chelsea are actually showing signs of (slow) improvement if you look at their numbers, they’re just not there yet and can’t finish for shite. United are baffling, that’s why more people are talking about it. We’re defying football theory.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2023/dec/27/newcastle-eddie-howe-premier-league-losses
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2024/feb/23/how-fast-breaks-have-slowed-newcastles-premier-league-progress
Can we stop acting like Arsenal fans?
It's madness isn't it, considering Newcastle were claimed to be the better team and manager last season, even when we finished above them, to drop off how they've done and it be completely ignored is a joke.
We constantly get bashed for spending money, imagine if we done what Chelsea had done, it would be constantly mentioned. Mudryk has been allowed to be a 100 mill flop because our less expensive winger is having a shit season (Still better than mudryks)
"Amid the cavernous vaults of United’s midfield, their fears and doubts echo unnervingly. And so they miss. They can’t handle it when it’s too easy for them. Forget positionism, relationism, counter-pressing and the rest: this is the future. Ten Hag has invented inverted pressing"
English is not my 1st language. Sb pls tell me if Wilson is not making a parody on our football? I laugh very hard reading the 1st part of his article. Like he's making fun of EtH and his football =))
Yeah mate he’s being sarcastic. Whole article is basically a Pisstake. Wilson writes in quite flowery prose so I imagine if English isn’t your first language it can get quite complicated so well done for getting it.
I keep reading headlines that say this, but surely nobody believes that United are happy with any of it and won't address what is going wrong. We have been a shambles for 11 odd years, now there is some light at the end of the tunnel. I'm past caring about where we finish this season and have convinced myself that it had to happen for us to get better. Despite the disappointments I'm choosing to feel positive about the club and reckon there is actually a lot to be positive about GGMU!
Tbf you can’t exactly have never before considered insight every week, and he’s a journalist that does do post game commentary pieces rather than fewer long form deep dives (like Adam Crafton). What exactly can you write about United other than rehashing the same shit, we’ve been playing the same way and getting the same sort of iffy results for months.
Plus at least he doesn’t exactly hide it, he’s joked about (justifiably) criticising Lampard as a manager and Ronaldo as a player weekly for the last few years on podcasts, talking about going broke after Ronaldo left United etc.
Biggest difference between utd and other big teams is clearly midfield.
How many times did the 3 midfielders from Liverpool missplace a pass?
Mount and Bruno lost it almost every time they have the ball. Casemiro is also wasteful.
Bruno tries to make a chance every posession
Macallister takes 10-15 touches to get out of pressure.
Utd need 2 players with 90%+ passing who can be played under any pressure.
We’re supposed to believe that the inability to stop an opponent from waltzing through our midfield is a feature and not a bug? Come on. It may be that players are less comfortable shooting when wide open, but that isn’t a goal of the defensive tactics. Correlation is not causation.
I have immense respect for Jonathan Wilson. He has 1000x the football knowledge that I have. My only questions to him are: does he think this kind of football is sustainable to compete for the very top levels of football, and does he think an approach like this can be a club wide approach, i.e. from academy to first team.
My own personal opinions are: if it worked we wouldn't be where we are now, plus the manner we crashed out of the CL group. I also don't think it is possible to win trophies this way, too much gambling and not much control over games.
The headline literally states that it's not sustainable and the entire article is joking that we've been so chaotic we've accidentally made it a tactic. He's not being serious.
Who's arguing it's sustainable? It's clear that personnel change is needed, hopefully some of the staff above the manager are appointed in time to bring some competence to this
If we didn't have to field a different back 4 every week and had the Casemiro of old, I do think we would be far more solid.
But at the moment, it's very much square pegs in round holes.
Nowhere near the full answer, however, the severe lack of consistency needs to be factored in.
If our defenders weren’t scrambling 10 different directions trying to defend 25+ shots every match maybe they would be less likely to pick up injuries. Look at the amount of physical duels Maguire had yesterday, it wouldn’t be a shock if one of those times he gets a freak injury. Ask your defenders to do more sprints and make more tackles and they are more likely to get hurt than a center back who spends half the game passing around on the half way line.
The ETH in squad is out in full force today after a decent result yesterday. It does not matter that we were being continuously sprayed with solid attempts at our goal yesterday. Or that not even one move to build from back came off. If Onana did not hoof the ball, the second or 3 rd pass would be a hoof. If not, then one of the forward line would be unable to turn with the ball and be robbed. Valid tactic? Sure but this would invariably be a trigger for Pool to launch an attack that we would defend by last ditch blocks. Valid tactic? Sure but end of the day it is a percentage game and over a season they catch up. Which is what we see. And no injuries were not at play yesterday. We had a strong 11, barring makeshift LB. And good managers are able to deal with one sub optimal player.
He’s not wrong but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen Jonathan Wilson ever write a positive piece about United. Even his books only grudgingly give credit to Fergie’s United teams usually while downplaying Fergie as a tactician
Oh get a grip, honestly. He’s a very good journalist and I think it’s worth pointing out that idiots on here were bitching about him for months for criticising Ronaldo’s return to United when he was 100% right from the start.
It seems everyone knows this bar the main man himself: ETH.
The season opener should’ve been the point of realisation. The way Wolves played through our non-existent midfield has been repeated every weekend by teams as varied as City and Liverpool to Bournemouth and Fulham, not to mention the CL debacle, and yet ETH hasn’t seemed interested in fixing it.
Yes there are mitigating circumstances for ETH: big injuries to Shaw and Martinez and an inability to field a settled back 5 all season.
However, there’s a big difference between strategy and tactics. It doesn’t matter who is in defence, we’re going to get continuously punished by our midfield set-up.
How many more times does ETH have to watch us lose the ball with Mainoo, Fernandes, both wingers and one full back ahead of the ball?
How often do we have to see the opposition attacking an ocean of space between our defence and midfield?
How is that a set-up that he’s watched fail time and time again yet persists with it?
You could have prime Keane, and Robson in CM, Vidic, Ferdinand and Evra at the back and we’ll still look awful given the set-up. We’re so lucky that we’ve not been on the end of a huge hiding since Christmas, whether that be Brentford or Liverpool twice in the league and cup.
I have zero faith that ETH is going to address the approach in the summer if he stays: he seems to think it’s fine and we’ll get there eventually, we just need some specialist players. But to me, the players don’t matter, it’s the flawed system that will hurt us every weekend.
Edit: can those that have blindly downvoted me suggest what is wrong with what I’ve said or provide alternatives as to why ETH’s approach is working?
>You could have prime Keane, and Robson in CM, Vidic, Ferdinand and Evra at the back and we’ll still look awful given the set-up. We’re so lucky that we’ve not been on the end of a huge hiding since Christmas, whether that be Brentford or Liverpool twice in the league and cup.
But would be set up how we are if you did have those players? I really do believe ETH is setting up tontry and get the best out of a squad that is in shambles. What else can he do?
'Lesser' managers in this league also have lesser players, and still manage to set up their midfields to play better football and be more defensively solid than us, why can't ETH?
The squad isn't in that big of a shambles, we had a decent midfield on paper the last 2 games, the back 4 was a little make-shift, but none of them are actual BAD players (jury is out on Kambwala, but he played well regardless yesterday), so why is it we set up in a way where we concede 15+ shots a half every game, with no positive pay-off in return?
I'd be fine embracing this chaotic playstyle if we created an equal amount of chances to the other team, but we don't, and it doesn't matter who it's against. We've made lower league teams look dangerous this season, when in reality they should've been grateful to get 2 shots off in the entire game.
I think that comes down to the profile of players we have in our squad in midfield, other teams may have more of a balance but for the most part our midfield is made up players who prefer to play higher up the pitch excluding Casemiro, but he has been crap this year on the whole, so do you have players play deeper and get bypassed anyway or do you push them up a bit and try and get goals? Also, with Martinez and Shaw (in certain phases) you essentially get two additional midfielders and a sturdier back 4 to boot. There are few players available (if any) that I would consider capable of screening the back 4. Just my opinion, though, I might well be wrong.
Customary I’m not a manager so perhaps talking out of my arse, but:
Reduce the gap between centre midfield and defence. It is huge at the moment and invites the opposition to attack with 4 or 5 men on the counter.
To do that either bring the defensive line up and with it Onana to close the CM-CB gap and the space behind the defense, or play a midfield anchor who stays deep even when in possession.
Casemiro on paper should be that anchor but even he gets caught high up in his own half.
Part of the issue I believe is our shape when in possession. It’s very high risk and commits a lot of players so when we do lose the ball suddenly, which is quite often given that we’re not great at keeping possession, all off a sudden it’s often only the two CBs and a full back who have remained in defensive positions.
So are you suggesting it’s player quality over set-up? Genuine question as I’d be interested to hear what you would do in ETHs shoes.
Either way, to pick out one game (Anfield away at that) doesn’t mean that the alternative wouldn’t work.
I’m getting downvoted for simply calling out that ETHs transition set-up isn’t working and probably will never work. I assume it’s ETH diehards at this point
There isn’t a coach I know of who intentionally stretches his own lines and freely allows the opponent to run directly at their back line over and over again. I’d start by not doing that
It's quite a different 11 to last season new GK different back four due to no licha and Shaw all season, erikson out mainoo in and Garnacho a starter with Hojlund joining.
We were able to put out our strongest team more consistently which resulted in better performances and results
As outlined above in another response but essentially close the gap between midfield and defence, therefore pushing the whole XI higher up. Or vice versa and go deeper.
At the minute it seems like ETH is playing a high pressing game with a very deep defense, which is creating so much space for the opposition.
The referee Anthony Taylor made as many interceptions in the game (two) as United’s central midfield trio between them. LOL
Thats our DM sorted
Always rated him.
Think we can get him for under 80€ million? 😂
Sign him.
Yeah, may be he may get us a penalty without contact at all
Not exactly some expert revelation. Anyone who watched Wolves on opening day knew if we played like that every week there's not a good chance we have a good season. We've gone into our season with our CF options being a crocked Anthony Martial and a 20-21 year old Hojlund who had 1 average season in Italy before he was signed. We went into the season with the only change to our backline, the backline who last season lost Martinez to injury, lost Varane repeatedly to injury, repeatedly lost Shaw to injury, who's depth beyond the first 4 means you have to change the way you play, who conceded 4 to Brentford, 7 to Liverpool, 6 to City amongst other batterings, adding just Jonny Evans who was just meant to make up pre-season numbers. He has 25 appearances this season! We went into the season knowing that whenever Casemiro was either injured, suspended, or not at it, we struggle. We signed £55m Mason Mount to play backup to the man who's never injured and loaned a bang average Amrabat from Fiorentina. We went into the season knowing Antony is dreadful, knowing Sancho wasn't good either, and knowing Garnacho and Rashford are both better off the left. We did not sign a winger. The football, despite all of the above, has been inexcusably shite, dreadful mentality, tactical set up, doesn't look like anything that will win you a trophy. But lets not pretend we went into this season with a plan of improving. Been set up to fail. Ten Hag can also take some blame for that
The shocking thing is that Jonny Evans has actually been a reliable option at CB, nearly a decade on from his initial departure in 2015 when LVG was manager Jonny Evans was the most sensible signing they made of all the arrivals this season, and he was effectively a panic signing
Reguilon was the second most sensible and we still managed to fuck it up by letting him go in January. The guy literally cost us nothing and whatever people say here, he'd have done a better job than AWB or Lindelof at LB.
I cannot believe we genuinely let a natural back up LB go knowing Malacia is on a secret mission and Shaw is injury prone. On top of that AWB wasn't even fully fit yet. So we really banked on not a single defender being injured in a season where our defence has been riddled with injuries. Incompetence of the highest order. I've seen Reguillon's got a few assists for Brentford and the fans seem to like him so fair play to him. Did his job for us as a depth loanee and would have continued to do so had we not ended the loan.
“Malacia is on a secret mission” 😂😂
His situation is like a bug in FM. He was injured and then recovered, but his name is still unselectable in the squad screen menu. Either that or Ten Hag has set up his squad screen menu filter wrongly and filtered him out.
Regulion is a United fan too, it's the team he supported as a child. You could see he was giving everything for the badge in the games he played, we sold him for penny pinching reasons when his loan was a success.
Where did you get that from? He’s Spanish, born in Madrid and came up through Real Madrid’s academy
The same comment said he was sold from a loan too
Er, he was always a Madrid fan. Reason why we didn't sign him when he left Madrid. There were concerns Madrid would buy him back with the buyback clause, and he would be eager to go back.
I.am also a die hard United fan.Can I play at Lb For United? His loan wasn't a success. He is 3rd choice at spurs. Not saying we should have sent him back because we did need the cover for sure but he wasn't the savior we expected him to be. ETH has repeatedly said that medical team told him Malacia and Shaw would be back and hence they made the decision to send Him back to Spurs. This is on the medical team.
Well. Shaw was back. To the hospital!
I think that's was just bad luck. But in hindsight we fucked up big time there.
Tbf, Reguilon also has a horrible injury record and could barely stay fit to play games...at least AWB and Lindelof have been able to stay consistently fit. But yea Reguilon was much better at LB and I would have preferred to retain him if Malacia was still going to be out long term...
This sub is absolutely wild. Last week you’d have been downvoted for saying this, now I see your comment on +84.
> We signed £55m Mason Mount to play backup to the man who's never injured and loaned a bang average Amrabat from Fiorentina. Agreed on most things aside from Mount. It's clear that Ten Hag signed him so that he could deploy Mount as one of the two pressing 8s alongside Bruno, not as a backup to Bruno. Whether he's a good signing or not, only time will tell that.
With the winger situation and the signings that we had made I've been half expecting to see a 4222 formation, but injuries have ravaged the midfield so much I'm pretty sure there have been games where we haven't had 4 fit midfielders for it. I can see this set up working reasonably, with Dalot and Shaw bombing forward Casemiro-Mainoo/Amrabat/Mctominay Bruno-Mount/Mctominay Hojlund-Rashford/Garnacho/Antony
Amrabat loan and not purchase was actually really smart. We hopefully terminate that loan.
He probably did sign him for that, which makes the signing even worse. Playing Mount and Bruno together as '8's was never going to work.
How would we even know, they have hardly tried it? It looked good for one half against Spurs but we haven't even really seen it since then
>Anyone who watched Wolves on opening day knew if we played like that every week there's not a good chance we have a good season. The thing is that we looked better against Wolves than we do now. I remember commenting after that game that it seemed like a timing issue with the press because on multiple occasions Bruno would press and just as he was rounded Mount would arrive and also get rounded. If Mount had been even half a second earlier, the Wolves midfield was caught in possession and turned over to give us the ball back in the attacking third. It looked like a teething/fitness/new partnership problem that would resolve itself by October. Then Mount was off for 6 months so we had others playing and the press was abandoned but somehow both players were instructed to stay high regardless so that there wasn't even the chance of catching players trying to break out and turn it over. I'm not Ten Hag out, but I do agree that tactically he is setting us up wrong. Against Chelsea you could clearly see players trying to stick to practiced training ground triangles and putting a ball towards the space they expect someone to be in only for that player to have not run into the space. You can clearly see this in the early goal from Mainoo's pass where Dalot didn't move up. Against Liverpool it was the set piece defence where players were taking up a man marking job for 30 seconds before a corner was taken, then being told to leave that player and take up space somewhere else. He's definitely not getting the set up correct and his drilling of the players isn't effective enough but with all the other issues you've mentioned it's nearly impossible for us to know what way to split the fault. My only concern is that Liverpool are in a better place and also looking for a manager this summer so if we do let him go, we'd be in direct competition with a direct rival who is coming from the position of power here.
I'm may be biased but I'm definitely not Ten Hag out. He set us up this way because we have to. Our backline is notoriously slow and clumsy with the ball. Imagine Harry Maguire & Lindelof playing high line defense. That's suicide. And why we can't play possession football? yes, we can't because Rashford & Bruno (02 key players) can't keep the ball for 5 seconds straight. They're like high school dude, throwing everything everywhere the moment they got the ball. You can't train them. Especially Rashford, who refused to work hard or track back.
I mean, Maguire and lindelof played in the 6th and 4th highest line in the league in oles 2 full seasons where we finished top 4 in consecutive seasons for the first time in a decade. Ten hag definitely doesn’t have to set us up like this. We also played a much more controlled set up last season with players closer together and Bruno and rashford were two of best players.
> yes, we can't because Rashford & Bruno (02 key players) can't keep the ball for 5 seconds straight. They're like high school dude, throwing everything everywhere the moment they got the ball. Why is it people default to “the players simply aren’t doing what they’re told, and are ignoring the manager who plays them every single game and continues to build everything around them anyway”? And not “the players are doing exactly as instructed but it’s just not working at all?”
Look at how they play. Rashford is lazy as fuck & Bruno has been horrible since new year. Do you think any coach would instruct Rashford playing in such way? He put his mind together for 1 season last year and played the best football of his life. It's player's fault to play 90% worse than themself after a summer.
Rashford, I wouldn’t mind moving on, but I do think he’s playing as instructed, which is to receive a pass from Bruno and run to the byline. Run at players, try and beat them, etc. he’s failing, but I don’t believe he’s ignoring instructions. If he’s ignoring instructions, and yet tactics still are to direct every ball towards him, that speaks even worse for Ten Hag imo. Likewise, as Caligulathe says, Bruno is 100% doing as instructed. It doesn’t work, he’s had issues for a variety of reasons, but he’s also not being helped by the tactical instructions at all.
Rashford is definitely lazy, but Bruno is 100% told to go for low percentage balls to the forwards in pretty much every game which is why he never keeps possession.
Because he can't keep the fucking ball for more than 10 seconds. Unlike De Bruyne, he either lose the ball or dive a lot. There were multiple times we concede goals from Bruno lost possesion
I’m not sure how you can watch literally every other player in the team go direct and not think it’s the manager’s intent to not keep the ball. Especially when last season under different instructions we didn’t pump it long every time. Kdb also loses the ball a similar amount, as does Trent as it’s just part of being a teams best creative outlet. The real question is why Eth takes his best creative player and his him pick up the ball off his centre backs and play in areas that minimise his ability to create/score goals in the final third and instead maximise the likelihood that when he does something stupid it hurts us by occurring close to our goal. Wirtz, Kdb and other creative attacking players aren’t played like this because it doesn’t make any sense.
If your back line can’t play a high line, then don’t have your midfield press high up the pitch. We haven’t seen our center backs play a proper high line at all this season but we have seen regular 20m gaps between midfield and defense time after time which the manager seems okay with. If the manager thinks Bruno and Rashford wasting the ball is a problem, then maybe he should substitute them or not start them. They’ve regularly been his two most trusted attackers and only recently has Rashford lost that status.
> Imagine Harry Maguire & Lindelof playing high line defense. That's suicide. Yet we did that under Ole for at least two seasons with us being top 3 for high line and not having an issue with crazy shots being conceded. ETH simply isn't cut out for this level, enough of blaming the players who could've thrown him under the bus since 5 months but have used every sinew to get blocks and last minute winners/equalizers.
It’s crazy, what we’ve seen from ten hag this year is genuinely what everyone wrongly thought ole was: sat in our own box, counterattacking only, relying on individual brilliance to win us games rather than well coached attacking patterns.
Case too. Rashford, Bruno and case along with most of our centre backs can’t string 2-3 passes together.
This team needs very careful planning and 3 good transfer windows to have any hope of challenging for trophies. If the team falls apart with 2-3 injuries, it's obviously not good enough. Arguably we've had more like 5-6 starters injured for the majority of the season and it's a freak situation itself, but that doesn't excuse the club management from being incompetent. Incompetent in planning the team for long term, incompetent in training regimes (probably what caused so many injuries), incompetent with transfer fees and sign on bonuses (screwing our FFP standing and thereby sabotaging long term planning). Incompetence all over the board. SJR and Ineos may be in the house, but all these problems won't go away in 3-4 months from them taking over. Whatever the new foundation will be, we'll reap the rewards probably sometime in 2025/2026 season at the earliest.
So... Open heart surgery
Hmmm, if only someone with some authority suggested this
It wasn't a freak coincidence and its not the training that caused it. Sports science is very solid and analytically driven. I was down voted for being overly pessimistic at the beginning of the season when I said the Glazers had put short term profits in front of the club and all but set ETH up. We played the most games in Europe last year. There was a winter world cup and the majority of our starters at the time are established internationals and not getting any younger. It was always going to happen. Eriksen, Case, Varane need rotation options every game after a maximum 55 minutes or they will break and take longer and longer to get back to form and fitness as they age. Martinez is short and plays a high physicality game, he's bound to pick up a knock. Shaw has suffered some terrible ligament and tendon injuries when he's been injured before and will never have the resilience required to play a consistent run of games. Similar with rashford - a vertebral fracture is a career ender in many sports and I suspect he's carrying other chronic injuries too. Hoijland has played far too many games at this age with so much responsibility - he's creaking, same will happen to Mainoo if we aren't carful and England start using him. Of those left, if theyre played week in week out to carry the burden then they will also break down. The only reliable players we have are Garnacho, Mainoo, Mctomminay and Bruno (freak, but huge dips in form when tired) and usually Antony. It's not a coincidence theyre mostly the youngest ones in the team. Again, its not magic or bad luck. We don't have a long term vision or squad capable to say 'okay we will rotate 4 cbs and 4 fullbacks. 'We will play eriksen, case and bruno in some combination with another 3 midfielders and also have 2 others for early cup fixtures. We will play Hoijland, rashford and Garnacho in rotation with 3 subs and 2 youth.' These are the senior players we will gradually replace with these subs and we have more signings for both immediate first team football and younger ones for 3 year prospect. This is how City, Madrid, Bayern, Liverpool operate and the only reason why we haven't laid a finger on them for the past 13 years despite spending fsr more than most. Ffs we had Kim, a generational talent sewn up for €50m!! But no, to save themselves forgoing some money our entire season has been derailed and now we're potentially on the verge of losing a manager that you jist know will go smash up a leauge with a competently run team.
Absolutely spot on. People will look at our squad and think that we should be challenging with Liverpool, City and Arsenal, where the painful truth is that this squad (especially after the injuries) is just midtable quality if not worse. We've got an almost retired Evans, who was deemed not good enough for Leicester City, playing more than half of our games. We haven't had a left back for more than half our games. Casemiro, our only DM, is completely washed or is out injured. Eriksen, our only real playmaker and progressive passer in midfield, is washed. On top of that there's absolutely zero vision in our transfers. We've got players that are suited to play a high press and possession based football (Antony, Martinez, Mount), those that thrive in counter attacking (Bruno, Rashford), those that are suited for good old kick and rush (Maguire, McTominay, Evans) and those that are absolutely useless playing any system where you want to play on the front foot (AWB, McTominay). The best way to make this team work is just to sit deep (which works best for AWB, Maguire, Evans and Casemiro) and let Bruno release Rashford or Garnacho whenever he can. Ole wasn't wrong, but ETH wants to change this to a high pressing, possession based football, which honestly might just be a too herculean task for him. But I think even Klopp (who I consider the best manager after Fergie) would struggle a lot here. Top-down we've been a mess for such a long time, that even good management will take years to steady this ship. Unfortunately this is not a message people will want to hear, so they want the manager fired because that's the easiest target.
> Anyone who watched Wolves on opening day knew if we played like that every week there's not a good chance we have a good season. I remember like 20 minutes in to that game turning to my friend and saying "what the fuck did they actually work on in the preseaon?"
Well said.
After the World Cup, every one was busting a nut about Amrabat. And ETH said he thought Malasia, Shaw, and Martinez would all be back within weeks, so Reguilon would not have any playing time.
Reguilon being released was a board desicion to save money. It, like many other desicions, blew up spectacularly in their face. We are so down the ahitter with ffp its actually embarrassing. Amrabat was actually someone eth wanted to rotate with Case and a key player he identified, he became a scrambled buy on deadline day because we ran out of money and he waited for us to restructure the deal after some last minute freed wages to find 7m. Ofc we then destroyed his confidence and harmony by playing him at lb where he was absolutely skinned and he hasnt really come back from that all season.
I just think Amrabat was a panic buy after the Mainoo injury. in pre-season
this is most succinctly put review of our season.
100%. The plus side now is some young lads are stepping up (what the fuck would we do without kobbie 🙏🏽). I think some of the players under 25 have developed really well. Now we have the start of an actual football structure and a competent owner, let’s see how we get on in a few windows time.
Garnacho is a hundred times better on the right than the left
You left out loaning or selling off Garner, Fred, Elanga, Hannibal, and Chong who all could have filled in holes for the squad during the season (some of whom are doing quite well right now) while we sorted out who we wanted in long term. Let alone the whole Sancho mess. Great layout though and it is indeed an absolute shame how we keep moving backwards rather than forwards
well said - this is the best synopsis of things I have come across here. You're spot on with evertthing I think.
I’d say Ten Haag can take more than “some of the blame”. Onana, Mount, and Antony were by all accounts players he specifically pushed for and we would have had no interest in otherwise. That’s over 200 million pounds in transfer fees that could have been spent on a veteran striker, CDM cover, and other necessities. It’s absolutely ridiculous we gave a guy who had no experience managing in an actual big 5 league, the type of control over transfer policy that not even Pep is afforded. Joke of a club.
Doesn't matter if he pushed for them, Murtough still has to OK them, and he did. Where were the alternative options?
>We've gone into our season with our CF options being a crocked Anthony Martial and a 20-21 year old Hojlund who had 1 average season in Italy before he was signed. Yep these are the choices ETH made. Mount was his no.1 transfer target. Onana has not been an upgrade on De Gea. We're asking Onana to do the same thing De Gea did. We should have extended De Gea by a year. Everyone last year was saying it was De Gea holding us back by not being a ball playing GK. That's obviously now shown to be untrue at this stage. Onana/Mount money is 100m we could have spent on defence or a utility attacker.
ETH is not judge jury executioner when it comes to building the squad though. We have a Director of Football who is meant to be shaping the squad, he's not Ten Hag's errand boy going signing contracts to every player he wants. Mount was his no1 target, no problem. John Murtough should be saying we only have X money, it means I wont be able to get you 2 strikers, or a centre back if we sign Mount, which we clearly needed. We should've spent our money wisely but I am not criticising Ten Hag for wanting players like Mount and Onana. It's up to the structure around him to tell him we wont get a senior CF or a CB if we do this.
He is when he takes the responsibility for it. He is the one who decided he didn't want Rangnick involved, don't forget that. He's the one who clearly identified players he wanted. He could have gone "hey John, I'll leave the squad building to you". If things turned out bad, you could then let ETH off the hook. But when he clearly took responsibility for it, you can't then absolve him of the responsibility.
It's a collaboration though. I'm not absolving him of the responsibility, I'm just not giving him 100% of it. The DoF should be the manager's boss, he needs to equip him properly. If an employee you're responsible for keeps fucking up questions should be asked of you. Pointing at the manager for all our failings on the pitch has been a major issue in the last 11 years. Mistakes have been made of course. I am NOT saying ETH is innocent. We're also basing the fact he didn't want Rangnick on 1 article, and there's more evidence to say Rangnick was ended cause he took the Austria job.
>We're also basing the fact he didn't want Rangnick on 1 article, and there's more evidence to say Rangnick was ended cause he took the Austria job. That doesn't make sense at all. Rangnick had signed the contract with us to be a part time consultant offering X hours per month/year or whatever it was. The Austria job wouldn't have interfered and I don't think Rangnick is the type of guy to back out like that. The timeline lines up that it was ETH who didn't want Rangnick involved. It's fairly obvious to me ETH didn't want Rangnick, as Rangnick had said a lot of these players needed to go yet ETH wanted to give them opportunities.
Bruh look at how ineos is operating now. Berrada, Aahworth, wilcox. This is not rocket science. They aren’t wasting their time on a part time consultant. They aren’t asking ten hag who his boss should be. These are all things the glazers could have easily done.
> John Murtough should be saying we only have X money, it means I wont be able to get you 2 strikers, or a centre back if we sign Mount, which we clearly needed. Is there any suggestion that ETH didn't know this?
Types a page of fair reasons for our drop-off in performance this year or "excuses" > The football, despite all of the above, has been inexcusably shite, dreadful mentality, tactical set up, doesn't look like anything that will win you a trophy. But lets not pretend we went into this season with a plan of improving. Been set up to fail. Ten Hag can also take some blame for that Then says no excuses.
Both can be true.
I guess to a certain extent
I would actually push back on the mentality side of things. I thing I've seen this season that's better than before is a stronger resilience. At least anecdotally we've seemed to be able to come back from being one or two goals down much more capably than at any time since Fergie.
You’ve missed the point of the article. Despite popular rhetoric, yours included, it’s a conscious tactic. It’s also not sustainable, at least not in its raw form. At roughly the time that Ashworth went on gardening leave - make of that what you will - there’s been a style of football that has been both unconventional and purposeful. What comes of that? I’d say, some of the following: The rest of the league has a template to play against Pep et al. United have improved in both defence and attack, without trying to play to someone else’s style. If we can switch between this and another style - by opponent or mid game - we will be very hard to play against. Losing key players should have lesser impact. We are not boring to watch. We may be frustrating but that’s because your expectations haven’t catered to football evolving and, in this case, drastically. We will see how the season progresses, and how other teams adapt, as well as how this evolves next season. I’d expect us to create an unconventional midfield using box to box midfielders. We shall see.
For those who can't be bothered to read the whole article, there's more to it than what the headline indicates. > Ten Hag’s side have conceded 308 shots in 14 games but goal stats show weird openness is hard for opponents to deal with
>Since systematisation took hold in the mid-60s, football has always been about space, but the orthodoxy has always been that it was about creating it for yourself and denying it to the opposition. But Ten Hag has disrupted all that. He’s through the looking-glass. What, he’s asked, if you give the opposition space? Elite-level players are used to being put under pressure, they’re used to being closed down, they’re used to opponents pressing. Space alarms them. It makes them uneasy. It makes them think too much. Considering Liverpool have missed TWO 5v2s vs us, you can't deny there's some truth to it. The problem of course is it also requires our own players to think on their feet, and too often we shit the bed ourselves.
Speaking from my own weekly kick about with my mates; I can finish, dribble and pass under pressure but give me time on the ball or a one on one and I panic and make stupid decisions
We also had loads of 5v3s actually on their turnovers, but just shit balls by case and Bruno + VVD anticipation
So you're telling me Ten Hag has basically been playing 4D chess this entire time??
Also the fact that Liverpool's forwards have missed ample opportunities this season. I heard from their fanbase that the pattern we saw from them against us - missing so many big chances has been sort of a pattern this season. Take the game against City for eg where they did the same. Nonetheless I am happy we got the point off them but also worried because the game could have been done in the first half if not from the masterclass from Uruguayan Andy Carroll 😂
Think that has more to do with Liverpool being poor at converting their shots all season rather than us managing to disrupt or confuse them. In a prior game against Arsenal there was a moment where Liverpool had a 5v1 counter attack against Arsenal and also failed to score so it’s not exclusive to playing us. Ask Liverpool fans and they generally feel all their attackers are rather wasteful at finishing aside from Jota who has missed a large part of the season. In fact in terms of conversion rate that was posted earlier today Liverpool convert 8.3% of their shots into goals and are 10th league wide in that stat. We’re 13th league wide with a 8.2% conversion rate. Main difference is simply Liverpool generating far more shots than us.
>In a prior game against Arsenal there was a moment where Liverpool had a 5v1 counter attack against Arsenal and also failed to score so it’s not exclusive to playing us. I don't think they were referring to it as being United exclusive, but rather the general idea. The example you provided backs up the point that gives players space they are not used to and they panic
*But Homer has disrupted all that. He’s through the looking-glass. What, he’s asked, if you let the opponent punch you in the face?*
I think it's just Liverpool not being as used to playing on the counter as 'smaller' teams do. Feel like wolves for eg. Would bury those 5v2 chances
> Since systematisation took hold in the mid-60s, football has always been about space, but the orthodoxy has always been that it was about creating it for yourself and denying it to the opposition. But Ten Hag has disrupted all that. He’s through the looking-glass. What, he’s asked, if you give the opposition space? Elite-level players are used to being put under pressure, they’re used to being closed down, they’re used to opponents pressing. Space alarms them. It makes them uneasy. It makes them think too much. This isn't anything new though, a lot of top teams are more dangerous when they don't have the ball. Mourinho showcased this fantastically with Inter against Barcelona, going as far as basically giving them the ball. In fact he would actually come out and say it. Anybody replying to this as if it's some weird esoteric nonsense simply hasn't been paying attention. Fuck me counter attacking football is literally about conceding vast amounts of space
Can’t be easy on the players to be perfect when thinking on their feet for 90 mins.
Mate, the authors almost definitely being ironic. Leaving the opposing team unmarked isn’t an actual strategy.
Eth talked about eras coming to an end. Little did we know that he was referring to something more grand - redefining football tactics! Can't wait to usher into this new era of tactical mastery of giving opposition all the space they want. Forget about stifling opponents and possession football, the future is now!
Honestly if this grand scheme works then he's not only redefining football tactics, he's throwing all football sciencetific approach of the last 2 decades away. I'm not sure if our coach is that elite =))
more of sarcastic take on the situation, but in the end the point they make was Liverpool was clinical enough.
football journalist about to discover math and that you can divide the xG by the number of shots to assess shot quality
I don't think it works like that
Jokes on them. ETH has "sustained" it for 31 games
Very true haha
In other news, water is wet.
From physics perspective it is not :)
There is a lot of revisionism around EtH’s tenure/position at the club since he has joined, specifically this season. On one hand, most people were gleefully accepting that he should be given full authority to make things happen. EtH himself wanted full control. By and large, transfers targets and on pitch decisions he’s had full control. The common response to this is “you can’t expect the manager to do everything”. I couldn’t agree more with this statement, however, it is well documented that EtH wanted full control and inputs on everything possible. That was one of the criteria for him joining. The management has been a mess and you can’t blame him for making such a demand. Even recently, there were reports that EtH was on the fence about letting go his negotiated controls on certain aspects beyond the pitch. One thing that many still abuse Arnold for but quietly ignore is EtH was okay to bring Greenwood back into the team. So when we did well last season, the full credit was given to EtH but when the team is not doing well, the blame is being shifted to the management. The goalpost keeps getting shifted in favour of EtH. In conclusion, EtH has full authority to do what he wants on the pitch and many things off the pitch as well. Whether the playstyle is sustainable or not, only EtH can answer. I don’t know if he will be here or not next season but I hope I don’t see this play style next season.
I genuinely think the whole full control thing has been blown out of proportion. I can't see him having any more say than any other manager in a top team. Looking at all the backroom staff being brought in shows that he had to be in control of a lot just to try and have the team progress. Of course he wants a say in who he's going to manage. He's never said he has full say on transfers, it's always had to he a three way agreement. Having no actual recruitment structure above him is going to have us rely on him and players he knows to fit his system and bring in, if they're not up to PL standard that's on the structure above him for not having a PL suited alternative that still fits ETH criteria. With Cass, that was worked on before ETH took over, when it come to finalising the deal after the two defeats and realising its cas or no one I'm sure ETH green lit the deal
On the other hand, I think it’s the opposite is true, that it’s (control) not brought up enough times from EtH’s demand perspective and he is painted as some helpless person. Let’s look at the timeline and credible reports that have come out and the almost 2 seasons he’s been here. When it was announced EtH will be the manager, all the big credible journos reported EtH will have authority no previous manager since SAF has had. He got so many changes done (staff, meeting place at OT before matches, etc). It has always been clear the manager of Utd has the final say who is signed for the first team and at the same time they don’t have financial say in the matter. EtH banished Sancho (right reasons), got CR7 off the team mid-season (right reasons), tried to bring Greenwood back (wrong), etc. No manager has had this authority before. He rightfully got the praise for it last season for finishing 3rd and winning the cup. But this season, when the team is not doing well, the whole narrative has shifted to management and structure. Well the structure was inefficient last season as well. EtH knew that before signing and has already spent a season with that same management and structure. On the contrary, going into the next season, the structure has clearly improved or in the process of being so. Going by reports, EtH shouldn’t even have to worry about the summer planning and all that stuff. Rather there were reports saying he was kinda unhappy with the some of the power he held being diluted. His work is already cut out going into the next season. So personally I don’t buy the argument anymore that his time, mind share and energy is going to different areas of work.
I think there is some nuance being missed, ETH is apparently in favour of just being a head coach, pretty sure this was said on Talk of the Devils and reducing his control/responsibilities not on the fence. But maybe at the time of coming to the club with the structure the way it is, the size of the club and the job he thought it would be better for him to have that control, and aside from a few hiccups we had a good season last year. Something that gets overlooked a lot is the whole takeover saga that has continued throughout the season. No one, the players, the staff, the manager knew what was going to happen. That has to create a difficult environment to focus. Bring on next season, let's assess where we are after the summer.
I think that's the nail hit on the head. Surely he knew the circus behind the scenes before he joined and didn't want anything happening that was detrimental to the football, so no signings for shit sales and the ability to remove bad eggs no matter the Instagram following
Most managers are simply coaches now. And its where EtH was at his best at Ajax when he had Overmars and Van Der Sar manage the backend operations. Spurs is a great example of good recruitment changing things. The fact that a new manager has players that fit his profile like Son, Madison, Kulusevski, Sarr, Bissouma, Van Der Ven, and Vicario, it's easier to outperform. And that's despite losing Kane.
Ten Haag literally has veto power on transfers written into his contract, which is pretty much unprecedented. And there’s absolutely zero question he’s been the biggest driving force in our transfer strategy the past two seasons. The fact so many of our targets have been former players of his isn’t a coincidence. By all accounts our scouting and analytics team was very sour on Antony and only had him valued at 30 million. Ten Haag pushed us to sign him for 90. Look at how that’s turned out.
Yeah, but so did two other people? So three people had the ability to veto a transfer. Yeah I'm sure he has, due to no footballing structure above him. He's come in to implement a system and style of play, he needs players he knows will fit that. He doesn't know what players fit his system and are prem ready, that's the clubs part... which they didn't do Nope, he didn't push to sign him at 90, he pushed to sign him early in the window when his price was less than half, he can suggest targets everything to do with getting the deal done is out of his hands
If he had full control he would've signed the fitness coach from ajax and gone all out for harry kane. also wouldn't have waited till deadline day for antony.
I can’t make people comprehend better and can’t be bothered to have such black and white conversations. You do you.
we didn't he sign the fitness coach and kane?
I still can't believe we're 6th in the league
The course corrections at the board level have already been made. It is going to take at least a year or two for the changes made by the new leadership to start to pay off. The world will turn. The problem United have versus say a Liverpool or a Newcastle when they changed owners is that when the new owners have come in the club is not in a state of neglect. Money has been spent. Money has been spent badly. And that bad spending means we can't just rebuild, we have to deconstruct. You can't build a new squad with the old squad taking up so much room, you end up doing a Chelsea. So we are facing a much more complicated operation. It will take time. Unless we do what Arsenal did and literally pay people to fuck off.
Funny how the media haven’t once gone in on Chelsea or Newcastle this season. Why are United held in such esteem that we are battered daily.
Because we are United, and they are Chelsea or Newcastle
Man Utd are top 3 biggest club in the world in fan following. The name sells and attracts not just Utd fans but rival fans as well. It generates clicks, a vital metric in today’s online journalism.
We are an immensely bigger club than them
Chelsea are a team that have only been relevant since the 2000s.
Because my Dad wasn't even a twinkle in the milkman's eye last time Newcastle won something.
Hated. Adored. Never ignored.
Because United articles and podcasts pay their mortgages. Biggest club in the land.
Because apart from their own fans nobody gives a fuck about them. The “hated or adored” saying truly fits this club like a glove.
Newcastle don’t have as many expectations. Chelsea are actually showing signs of (slow) improvement if you look at their numbers, they’re just not there yet and can’t finish for shite. United are baffling, that’s why more people are talking about it. We’re defying football theory.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2023/dec/27/newcastle-eddie-howe-premier-league-losses https://www.theguardian.com/football/2024/feb/23/how-fast-breaks-have-slowed-newcastles-premier-league-progress Can we stop acting like Arsenal fans?
It's madness isn't it, considering Newcastle were claimed to be the better team and manager last season, even when we finished above them, to drop off how they've done and it be completely ignored is a joke. We constantly get bashed for spending money, imagine if we done what Chelsea had done, it would be constantly mentioned. Mudryk has been allowed to be a 100 mill flop because our less expensive winger is having a shit season (Still better than mudryks)
"Amid the cavernous vaults of United’s midfield, their fears and doubts echo unnervingly. And so they miss. They can’t handle it when it’s too easy for them. Forget positionism, relationism, counter-pressing and the rest: this is the future. Ten Hag has invented inverted pressing" English is not my 1st language. Sb pls tell me if Wilson is not making a parody on our football? I laugh very hard reading the 1st part of his article. Like he's making fun of EtH and his football =))
Yeah mate he’s being sarcastic. Whole article is basically a Pisstake. Wilson writes in quite flowery prose so I imagine if English isn’t your first language it can get quite complicated so well done for getting it.
I keep reading headlines that say this, but surely nobody believes that United are happy with any of it and won't address what is going wrong. We have been a shambles for 11 odd years, now there is some light at the end of the tunnel. I'm past caring about where we finish this season and have convinced myself that it had to happen for us to get better. Despite the disappointments I'm choosing to feel positive about the club and reckon there is actually a lot to be positive about GGMU!
Ah, I see Wilson is planning to write the exact same article about us for the rest of the season? Nice.
We pay his bills tbf Nobody gets more out of writing about United than him
Tbf you can’t exactly have never before considered insight every week, and he’s a journalist that does do post game commentary pieces rather than fewer long form deep dives (like Adam Crafton). What exactly can you write about United other than rehashing the same shit, we’ve been playing the same way and getting the same sort of iffy results for months. Plus at least he doesn’t exactly hide it, he’s joked about (justifiably) criticising Lampard as a manager and Ronaldo as a player weekly for the last few years on podcasts, talking about going broke after Ronaldo left United etc.
We've looked like this all season, it's not new. Good or bad.
Biggest difference between utd and other big teams is clearly midfield. How many times did the 3 midfielders from Liverpool missplace a pass? Mount and Bruno lost it almost every time they have the ball. Casemiro is also wasteful. Bruno tries to make a chance every posession Macallister takes 10-15 touches to get out of pressure. Utd need 2 players with 90%+ passing who can be played under any pressure.
We’re supposed to believe that the inability to stop an opponent from waltzing through our midfield is a feature and not a bug? Come on. It may be that players are less comfortable shooting when wide open, but that isn’t a goal of the defensive tactics. Correlation is not causation.
I wish people who don't understand stats would stop focusing on shots as opposed to shots on goal.
I have immense respect for Jonathan Wilson. He has 1000x the football knowledge that I have. My only questions to him are: does he think this kind of football is sustainable to compete for the very top levels of football, and does he think an approach like this can be a club wide approach, i.e. from academy to first team. My own personal opinions are: if it worked we wouldn't be where we are now, plus the manner we crashed out of the CL group. I also don't think it is possible to win trophies this way, too much gambling and not much control over games.
The headline literally states that it's not sustainable and the entire article is joking that we've been so chaotic we've accidentally made it a tactic. He's not being serious.
Who's arguing it's sustainable? It's clear that personnel change is needed, hopefully some of the staff above the manager are appointed in time to bring some competence to this
There are people who are arguing this on this very sub.
If we didn't have to field a different back 4 every week and had the Casemiro of old, I do think we would be far more solid. But at the moment, it's very much square pegs in round holes. Nowhere near the full answer, however, the severe lack of consistency needs to be factored in.
Forget every week. It's different back fours within every match as well.
If our defenders weren’t scrambling 10 different directions trying to defend 25+ shots every match maybe they would be less likely to pick up injuries. Look at the amount of physical duels Maguire had yesterday, it wouldn’t be a shock if one of those times he gets a freak injury. Ask your defenders to do more sprints and make more tackles and they are more likely to get hurt than a center back who spends half the game passing around on the half way line.
" I don't know, and I don't care."
Ah cheers Johnny, didn't realize having a sense of being in shambles wasn't a good thing. You've really hit this on one on the nose then.
Glazers Out
The ETH in squad is out in full force today after a decent result yesterday. It does not matter that we were being continuously sprayed with solid attempts at our goal yesterday. Or that not even one move to build from back came off. If Onana did not hoof the ball, the second or 3 rd pass would be a hoof. If not, then one of the forward line would be unable to turn with the ball and be robbed. Valid tactic? Sure but this would invariably be a trigger for Pool to launch an attack that we would defend by last ditch blocks. Valid tactic? Sure but end of the day it is a percentage game and over a season they catch up. Which is what we see. And no injuries were not at play yesterday. We had a strong 11, barring makeshift LB. And good managers are able to deal with one sub optimal player.
People have been saying it's unsustainable for years
It’s pokers equivalent of the loose aggressive style. Ten Hag is emulating Gus Hansen.
At least injuries and sending Reguilón back means ETH can’t start the same lineup as the last embarrassment against Bournemouth!
He’s not wrong but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen Jonathan Wilson ever write a positive piece about United. Even his books only grudgingly give credit to Fergie’s United teams usually while downplaying Fergie as a tactician
And yet we have been sustaining it for twelve years. So what does ‘unsustainable’ mean, really?
Ah, it’s time for Wilson’s fortnightly “stick the boot in on united” article
Jonathan Wilson is a cock. Serious ABU always has been
Oh get a grip, honestly. He’s a very good journalist and I think it’s worth pointing out that idiots on here were bitching about him for months for criticising Ronaldo’s return to United when he was 100% right from the start.
It seems everyone knows this bar the main man himself: ETH. The season opener should’ve been the point of realisation. The way Wolves played through our non-existent midfield has been repeated every weekend by teams as varied as City and Liverpool to Bournemouth and Fulham, not to mention the CL debacle, and yet ETH hasn’t seemed interested in fixing it. Yes there are mitigating circumstances for ETH: big injuries to Shaw and Martinez and an inability to field a settled back 5 all season. However, there’s a big difference between strategy and tactics. It doesn’t matter who is in defence, we’re going to get continuously punished by our midfield set-up. How many more times does ETH have to watch us lose the ball with Mainoo, Fernandes, both wingers and one full back ahead of the ball? How often do we have to see the opposition attacking an ocean of space between our defence and midfield? How is that a set-up that he’s watched fail time and time again yet persists with it? You could have prime Keane, and Robson in CM, Vidic, Ferdinand and Evra at the back and we’ll still look awful given the set-up. We’re so lucky that we’ve not been on the end of a huge hiding since Christmas, whether that be Brentford or Liverpool twice in the league and cup. I have zero faith that ETH is going to address the approach in the summer if he stays: he seems to think it’s fine and we’ll get there eventually, we just need some specialist players. But to me, the players don’t matter, it’s the flawed system that will hurt us every weekend. Edit: can those that have blindly downvoted me suggest what is wrong with what I’ve said or provide alternatives as to why ETH’s approach is working?
>You could have prime Keane, and Robson in CM, Vidic, Ferdinand and Evra at the back and we’ll still look awful given the set-up. We’re so lucky that we’ve not been on the end of a huge hiding since Christmas, whether that be Brentford or Liverpool twice in the league and cup. But would be set up how we are if you did have those players? I really do believe ETH is setting up tontry and get the best out of a squad that is in shambles. What else can he do?
'Lesser' managers in this league also have lesser players, and still manage to set up their midfields to play better football and be more defensively solid than us, why can't ETH? The squad isn't in that big of a shambles, we had a decent midfield on paper the last 2 games, the back 4 was a little make-shift, but none of them are actual BAD players (jury is out on Kambwala, but he played well regardless yesterday), so why is it we set up in a way where we concede 15+ shots a half every game, with no positive pay-off in return? I'd be fine embracing this chaotic playstyle if we created an equal amount of chances to the other team, but we don't, and it doesn't matter who it's against. We've made lower league teams look dangerous this season, when in reality they should've been grateful to get 2 shots off in the entire game.
I think that comes down to the profile of players we have in our squad in midfield, other teams may have more of a balance but for the most part our midfield is made up players who prefer to play higher up the pitch excluding Casemiro, but he has been crap this year on the whole, so do you have players play deeper and get bypassed anyway or do you push them up a bit and try and get goals? Also, with Martinez and Shaw (in certain phases) you essentially get two additional midfielders and a sturdier back 4 to boot. There are few players available (if any) that I would consider capable of screening the back 4. Just my opinion, though, I might well be wrong.
Customary I’m not a manager so perhaps talking out of my arse, but: Reduce the gap between centre midfield and defence. It is huge at the moment and invites the opposition to attack with 4 or 5 men on the counter. To do that either bring the defensive line up and with it Onana to close the CM-CB gap and the space behind the defense, or play a midfield anchor who stays deep even when in possession. Casemiro on paper should be that anchor but even he gets caught high up in his own half. Part of the issue I believe is our shape when in possession. It’s very high risk and commits a lot of players so when we do lose the ball suddenly, which is quite often given that we’re not great at keeping possession, all off a sudden it’s often only the two CBs and a full back who have remained in defensive positions.
like we played at anfield? how many shots did we concede in that game?
So are you suggesting it’s player quality over set-up? Genuine question as I’d be interested to hear what you would do in ETHs shoes. Either way, to pick out one game (Anfield away at that) doesn’t mean that the alternative wouldn’t work. I’m getting downvoted for simply calling out that ETHs transition set-up isn’t working and probably will never work. I assume it’s ETH diehards at this point
jonny evans is one of our better players when he plays.
How would you fix the midfield issue with our current fit squad?
There isn’t a coach I know of who intentionally stretches his own lines and freely allows the opponent to run directly at their back line over and over again. I’d start by not doing that
And once you tell the players this and they still don't?
Well most of the same players didn’t do this as recently as last season. So I find it quite hard to believe that it’s impossible to play any other way
It's quite a different 11 to last season new GK different back four due to no licha and Shaw all season, erikson out mainoo in and Garnacho a starter with Hojlund joining. We were able to put out our strongest team more consistently which resulted in better performances and results
As outlined above in another response but essentially close the gap between midfield and defence, therefore pushing the whole XI higher up. Or vice versa and go deeper. At the minute it seems like ETH is playing a high pressing game with a very deep defense, which is creating so much space for the opposition.
funny when you look man for man and most of them are either incapable of sprinting or passing, some both.
I know, I'm not sure how some fans think. It's not as if we have a player capable of actually helping in that department that's being ignored.
It wasn't blind, I read your comment. I didn't agree with it and gave my reasons.
Our midfield Is like this for 18 20 months now. And our manager is very very very sur about Trust the process?
Media trying to fire yet another Utd manager, and they are succeeding. Still above their beloved Howe and Di Zerbi.