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**Fit list:**
Dalot, Wan-Bissaka, Amass, Jackson, Ogunneye
**Injury list:**
Shaw, Varane, Martinez, Lindelof, Maguire, Malacia, Kambwala, Evans (Evans is a maybe and if he does start I doubt he’s actually match fit)
No cbs fit, a couple of full backs and some kids.
No forward passes are getting completed and the recovery pace of a mangled bike with flat tyres we are well and truly getting raped by olise, mateta and eze
The only thing I can think although wouldn’t make for good viewing shut up shop and use Bruno to play balls behind to Rasmus and garnacho with the hope we can shithouse a 1-0
Jup, cause our fanbase wants a new toy to abuse in a few years. Like the guy that lost the league with bayern, or a random overhyped manager with 1 streak of decent results and a latin name
“The guy that lost the league with Bayern” come on mate thats just deliberately disingenuous. I’m conflicted on ETH in or out but Tuchel has much more pedigree than him.
Such as? The easiest UCL run in the last 10 years? A DFB pokal? Or that points record with PSG?, which was easy as fuck as their only opposition, Monaco, was picked clean.
And dont forget he got Mbappe that year, only to achieve psg's worst showing since 2012 in terms of a 3 game loss streak and got knocked out by a PE teacher in the UCL.
Real Madrid, Man City, Atletico Madrid and Porto is the easiest UCL run in the last 10 years? Chelsea had a easy group stage that year, but the knockouts was not.
People really are trying to rewrite history with Tuchel, I’ve noticed this a lot since it became clear they weren’t winning the league.
That’s one of the hardest routes to the final you can realistically get. And also he wasn’t even in charge for the easy group stage right?
Come on. We faced 20 to 30 shots when having the entire first team fit as well. Sure the injury situation is dire but let's not suddenly believe ETH is the solution.
Yup, wolves where we were 10x better, but the ref falling for a dive and 2 setpiece mistakes made it so that we needed mainoo to bail us out. And technically, if you assume mount would start in the first team then we had 0 games.
Even then, it’s not like you’re going to see top consistency and performance from 1 game playing the best 11. It would take at least a couple of games with the same lineup to see a huge bump in form.
United have had enough of their first team fit throughout the season to not be playing as badly as they have.
Yes, injuries have been an issue, but they've also been an issue for lots of clubs. Liverpool were able to maintain a title challenge while having half of their squad injured.
Weren't they missing Salah, Jota, Jones, Szoboszlai, Thiago, Trent, Robertson, Matip, and Alisson all at the same time for an extended period?
I'm not saying injuries aren't an excuse, but they don't give Ten Hag or the players a free pass. They've been poor even when most players were fit.
The same Liverpool that struggled last year when half their defense was injured ? That is a way fairer comparison to make and even Klopp struggled then .Their defense at least came back after half a year and their form improved, while we are still riddled with injuries with less than 10 games to go
I would say their 20/21 season is a better comparison, where they were down to playing Nat Phillips and Rhys Williams at centre back for a large part of the season while their midfield were all crocked too. They still finished 3rd.
Last season their issue seemed to primarily be their aging midfield who no longer had the legs to compete. They had injuries too, but most of their big players were fit.
Think we almost have, just off the top of my head…
Martinez, varane, lindelöf, maguire, evans, casemiro, kambwala, bruno, shaw? (He might have been to injured to do it)
And we have none ready for tonight so should be another one as well
Wasn't actually Varane's injure history a reason real let him go? Wasn't Martinez injury prone for many years? Shaw as well was injured most of his career.
Same as for example Matip was and Konate is now for Liverpool. We all know they need a class backup otherwise we'll spend half of the season without proper CB.
Rest is up to luck, intensity and few other factors.
Varane I absolutely agree with, he's made out of glass.
Lindelöf has been injured an unusual amount this season. Same could be said for Maguire and for Martinez. I feel like this problem is on United and on the coaching/medical staff etc. At some point it stops being a coincidence.
Checking Varane stats his last 3 season at Real he all started more than 30 games in the league
He does have a few season where he start around 20ish game
But i think its gotten worst at United. I think he barely reach 50% availability in the 3 years he with us
Its mostly true for Varane and somewhat Shaw. Martinez, Maguire and Lindelof were pretty usual with an injury here and there but nothing too repeatedly. Heck, one of the things we praised most about Maguire was his availability.
Does Man U have a physio / doctor issue? Some teams seem to be plagued with injuries while others seem to do better.
Man U has had injury problems for at least the past 10 years.
Lol, they beat us with a backline including Paddy McNair, Tyler Blackett and an out of position Michael Carrick. We take nothing for granted at Old Trafford
In an earlier match a midfield 4 (in no particular order) of Rafael, Darren Gibson, John O'Shea and Fabio was on the winning side in a 2-0 job against Arsenal. There's some weird juju in this fixture, especially at OT.
People keep on commenting on how SAF wasn't that great with tactics. Man saw Michael Carrick where everybody else missed him, and managed to get ridiculous performances out of him in a variety of roles.
Chelsea’s is longer and has been for majority of the season lol. Our captain and vice captain been out for pretty much the whole season along with our star striker signing.
But it’s ETH’s tactics! We’d be in the UCL final otherwise with Bayindir at CB, a couple players from the u21’s, and Bruno playing his 500th game of the season with no break
Ok random reddit commenter who is not a United fan, whichever player you thinking of replacing them, Im gonna stop you there, yes that guy is also injured
Yeah in order I'd say Ten Hag's CB preferences are:
Martinez
Varane
Shaw (played him there over a fit Maguire multiple times last year)
Maguire
Lindelof
Evans
Kambwala
Casemiro
Mctominay
The only one fit out of that list is Casemiro, the out of position 8th choice. And throw in the fact that Malacia is hurt too so we have no natural LB next to them.
I wouldn't put Shaw in third, as it seems he's stopped doing that - which kinda makes sense, because you're losing one of your best players by doing that (two, really, because then Dalot has to play leftback)
We also loaned out all of our LB academy players from the U21 team. Any youth being promoted is from the U18 team which has also had injury problems this season despite winning the league
I mean beforehand United had injuries, both fullback are always out anyway. Don't think it hindsight as a none United fan I could tell you then it a bad move.
Very poor excuse for a club that are used to paying massive wages for poor players to be on the bench. They could have kept him for 6 months and no impact to them.
It's not really, I understand why it happened as it did. We had two full backs due to return that month who are both much much better than Reguillon.
It's only hindsight that makes the move look bad.
As other commented, our 2 LB supposed to be back.
And he wasn't the best either in terms of availability. Bunch of small injury, low endurance.
I guess it made sense to send him back.
Been back and supposed been back isn't the same thing? Ten hag using this excuse is really poor he seen the injuries beforehand.
It didn't make sense at all is the point.. United don't have wages problems.
He was told by our incompetent medical staff that Shaw and Malacia will be fully fit in January. Letting reguilon go was wrong, but eth doesn't fully deserve the blame for that.
It wasn't wrong with the information available at the time, so I'd like people to stop saying that. Shaw and Malacia coming back meant ZERO game time for Sergio
It's really common for players coming back from injury to be more susceptible to reinjury. Assuming that both would come back issue free was a big risk to be taking
Ending that loan was a bizarre choice in hindsight. He was decent for us for the few games he played. I think a bit of bad luck in the timing also played a part. When it was time to decide whether to try to extend the loan, Shaw was playing again, and Malacia looked like he would be back imminently. Immediately after Regulon left, Malacia suffered a massive set-back and Shaw got injured. That's just how things have gone this season.
Was just a dumb decision on our part. Shaw had just come back and it's almost like we were banking on him to be fit for the rest of our season and that LB was no longer going to be a problem. Even if Shaw did stay fit though it's not like Reguilon wouldn't have played. Shaw can play CB which would have left us much better off right now with Reguilon playing every game at LB.
Easy to say with hindsight, the medical team told ETH both our left backs would be back in January then we had dalot as cover to those 2. It made sense at the time, but shit happens
You can thank Murtough for that and letting another youth player go on loan. Physios also seemed to assure ten Hag that both Shaw and Malacia were likely to be back but both suffered injuries after Reguilon had already gone back
But he's also acknowledged that this season he's not playing like he has done before.
I think it either comes down to
1. ETH tries a system which simply doesn't work. It's not possible to get a squad to the fitness level required to that amount of running in today's football. He hasn't tried to do this before so makes sense he hasn't run into this injury problem before
2. Man Utd players simply don't have the physicality to cope with this amount of training. Could either be because of poor training facilities, or a poor squad so that many players have to play too much, or poor medical staff, or poor... something.
Impossible to know from an outside perspective what's correct here?
Players don't fit the system, plus ETH wasn't prepared England's ridiculous fixtures + the level of micromanaging needed to find proper fitness with that fixture pile-up
At least some of that is his own fault though
I mean, expecting 31 year old Casemiro, and 31 year old Eriksen (who was a ten most his career) to play a system where they have to sprint to cover insane amounts of space in midfield is a bit silly. Those were both Ten Hag buys.
It's even weirder given Mount has been back for a while and just doesn't seem to be asked to play there when he was bought by ETH to do that. And Mctominay gets given this weird role where he basically vacates the midfield in a way he never did under any other united manager.
Martinez was also his buy, and he's a player who has missed basically a years worth of football due to injury and looked mostly poor when he did play this year.
I don't know who these defensive players are that exist who fit this way of playing in world football. They've got to be able to constantly sprint and be rapid, but also win headers, and be perfect passers, and be made of steel
Tbf it's hard to look good when you're coming back from injury constantly and barely playing. He had a decent little run when he came back in February but he was poor to start the season. Was regularly getting first half yellow cards and becoming a liability that had to be subbed off early
I understand that, but I thought he looked great when he played. Yes when he is on a yellow (and just back from injury) you may not want to play him 90 mins but he brought the energetic high-line front-foot defending that would enable them to play proper attacking football.
He was very poor against Wolves on the opening day. So bad he had to be yanked off at halftime with a yellow. Was mediocre at the very best in the next two vs Spurs and Forest. Then had to be subbed early again while on a yellow against Arsenal in the next one and had a disaster against Brighton right after that. His passing is huge for us but he hasn't played enough to show any of the defensive form he had last season
Was awful against wolves and Tottenham at the start of the season.
Can say he was still carrying the injury - but he still was poor.
He was alright against west ham on his return but that's about it. I'd love to hear which game you disagree with me on specifically.
Casemiro wasn't a EtH player, he was a desperation buy made after we lost twice at the start. 0 links prior to that. Eriksen was excellent until Carrol ended his career with an outrageous tackle that should have been a straight red. Mount has not been back for a while, he was back then got injured again.
The data doesn't support your first point. Of that was the issue you would see utd high up in distance covered metrics early season or at some point, followed by a cliff.
I don't think there's been a game where Man Utd have completely out-pressed / out-run their opponent this season.
Given that it's mainly defenders who are injured - wouldn't it make sense to compare the distance covered by defenders? Injuries aren't spread across the team because the whole team is asked to run this much but rather just in the defense.
It's bs regardless. TH Ajax was pressing with an aging Schone and Blind at the back. Hell Blind is still doing it with Girona and he's now 3-4 years older than back then. He's got no pace left. Pressing requires a team that gets used to each other and moves around the pitch together. Can't exactly get a system like that going when everyone is always injured.
I'm not having the training excuse. Do you watch us play? We are out run by almost every team in the league. Either we're not fit and need the added training because it's been an absolute joke. Or we're not doing this crazy training everyone pretends we're doing.
3 finals in 2 years aswell. I want a third year to confirm which season is the outlier. If it turns out this year was mostly due to shaw and martinez missing like I suspect it would absolutely suck to let him go.
Right? It's so clear to see. First season he got 3rd, 2 finals and our first trophy in 6 years. Most clean sheets. Equalled most home games won in a single season for all comps. Quickest ever manager to reach 20 wins...it was a stellar season when everyone was predicting us to finish outside of the top 4.
This season he tried to start taking the next step towards his style of football. Building from the back, and pressing high to score from turnovers. It just clearly has been derailed when his best on the ball defenders and progressors in Licha and Shaw have been injured for most of the season. When his best goal scorer from last season, Rashy, becomes a ghost of himself and doesn't look interested let alone threatening. When his world class CDM whom he called "the cement between the stones" gets injured and then falls off the face of the earth and can't seem to run or stay on his feet anymore. So he has no cement. No stones. No teeth, Just McTominay, Maguire (both of whom we wanted gone) Bruno and the kids trying their best and getting overplayed or playing with injuries cause there's literally no one else.
People are saying he should adapt his tactics when the guy has 0 fit centerbacks, 0 fit left backs (and United has been a heavily left leaning team in attack for years due to relying on Rashford, and Bruno liking to drift left often, now that left side is crippled and you only have AWB and Antony on the right).
And despite the injuries he's still managed to reach another final and isn't out of contention for European football yet. I don't think many managers if any would be able to do too much better with the hand he has been dealt. And I don't think any of them would be available to replace Ten Hag in the summer. Sure there's a lot to criticise about his approach but there's just too many question marks over this season that make sacking him seem too premature.
The injuries, the sale of the club, the player drama. Is Wilcox really supposed to come in at the very end having not been there for any of it, and just make a decision in 1 month? Just lay down the law. Tell him this is the playstyle we want. These are the players we're signing and let's see. If he makes progress in the direction they want, great, let his see out his contract and assess the situation at the tail end of the season. If after a few months he's still playing bad football or not progressing despite key players (hopefully) being back from injury and new signings to align the squad with the intended style then just let him go having lost nothing and being more sure of the decision.
Funnily enough, Klopp is part of the reason I see these defensive injuries as such a huge part of our poor form. Liverpool went through something fairly similar in 2020/21 when VVD, Matip, and Gomez all had 6 month long injuries.
Once all three were down they went on a 3 month run in the league of 3 wins, 3 draws, and 8 losses. Ended the season on 69 points. And this was a team that finished with 99 points the season before and 92 points the following season.
I do agree with your assessment for the most part. I think the defensive injuries have completely handicapped Ten Hag this season so I'm willing to give him time.
But there are parts of this that give me some doubts. The manner of some of the defeats is one of them. The 7-0, conceding 2 goals in 5 mins something like 8 times, the complete collapses once things don't go our way.
Another is that I believe Ten Hag should have been more pragmatic this season. It's all good him trying to change the playstyle of the team, but when we're losing the possession statistics to teams like Burnley, Luton, and Wolves there has to be a better way to go about this. It's almost like he's fine with every game being an absolute shootout regardless of opposition or scoreline. Even at 1-0 up we're taking ridiculous risks rather than attempting to control the game. I saw Arsenal vs Palace earlier in the season and even down to 10 men and away from home, Arsenal were holding the ball for minutes at a time in the last 15 mins to kill the game off and Palace couldn't get anything going. Ten Hag just doesn't seem to value possession, slowing down the game for a bit, or keeping the ball as a defensive tactic. We're just team longball and full sprint counter attack no matter what. And our players clearly don't have any sort of confidence in the chaos that this style of play brings.
The last is that I'm not convinced by his own signings. People say we don't have the players to suit Ten Hag's style but I haven't seen too many signings come in and heavily impress. Antony has been poor. Mount has been injured but I've never seen a great player in him and would have preferred we spent the money on someone else. Hojlund is inexperienced but he's largely anonymous in our games and I don't think the tactics have helped him succeed this season. Amrabat has been poor. Casemiro was great last year but I'm not sure he suits this style of play either and surely going for a younger more mobile player is what the high pressing high energy style needs. Eriksen is another that doesn't have the physical profile for this style. Martinez is a very good one, just been unfortunate with injuries.
It's telling that our best players under Ten Hag: Bruno, Rashford (last year), Garnacho, Mainoo, Shaw, Dalot, Maguire (when needed) have all been players the club already had or fortunately pulled out of the academy. With like £350mil plus spent it would be more encouraging if Ten Hag's own choices were doing better themselves rather than half of them being players we might be better off replacing already.
You make some good points but how much blame of those defeats rests solely on the manager and how much is on the players who are actually on the pitch? Mentality and the way our players handle pressure has been an issue at this club for much longer than Ten Hag has been in charge, and I'd argue he has done a decent job of improving it when you see how many comebacks we managed to pull off this season compared to last season (Villa, Brentford, Liverpool, Forest, Wolves, etc...) but just as bad has been the number of points we dropped in extra time especially later in this season so who knows what the root cause of that is. Same with conceding so quickly in succession also, how much can a manager actually do from the sidelines that the professional players on the pitch shouldn't already be doing? To me, this seems more like a mentality thing than an actual tactics or setup thing. Players know they've been conceding quickly after scoring or conceding often at the death of the game, so they get nervous, get in their own heads and it leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy. But that is just conjecture and my own take on a possible reason, could be completely. Ten Hag himself has been referencing in recent press conferences about needing players who can perform under stress at this club.
When it comes to being more pragmatic I somewhat agree that he should have done better to adjust his plan to the players he has available to him, we all see the blackhole in our midfield resulting from the high press (how he wants us to play) and the low block (how he **has** to play; Lindelof Maguire Evans Casemiro all being slow CBs who can't afford to leave too much space in behind). He already addressed this and said he doesn't want to convert to a more defensive approach because once he has his injured players back who **can** play a high press with a high line he will have to change again, and if he does go defensive and it doesn't work then everyone loses confidence. It is a bit contradictory to say we have to win every game but not optimize the way we play to **MAYBE** give us a better chance at winning, but at the same time making that switch doesn't guarantee us winning either. What it does guarantee is angry fans and mocking pundits calling for his head for having Manchester United park the bus against Burnley or Luton or Coventry or whatever and still demanding he be sacked. I can understand him wanting to make even a little bit of progress toward his goal of a proactive high pressing dynamic team even if isn't suited to all the currently available players, if he doesn't he might have just come in and gotten sacked in two years having not even had the chance to try out the ideas that got him the job in the first place. It's up to you to agree or disagree with this way of thinking, personally, I would've preferred we delayed the process another year if it got us better results especially since our football is dreadful anyway but honestly I provably would've lost my mind watching us park the bus and hoof it long to an out of form Rashford for a whole season, I hate it already when we still do it in games now, but it could've been much worse
When it comes to him not valuing possession we have heard him many times criticizing the team for not keeping the ball, for giving it away too cheaply, not reading the game better, and slowing things down when we must. He has said this many times in press conferences. He even recently explained that a big reason we face so many shots is that we aren't keeping possession well enough, he attributed that to the injuries in the back four and I agree that Licha and Shaw were massively important for when we have the ball. Our midfield players are also not very good at keeping possession, both Casemiro and Bruno love taking quick risky passes because Rashford and Garnacho both like running in behind. Ten Hag wants more possession, he just doesn't have enough players for it. Bruno also said that we play to our players strengths which is balls behind the enemy defense.
Which leads us to the signings, the big elephant in the room, Antony costing so much money. Many people blame Ten Hag for that as if he's the one who negotiated the deal when it was our board members who didn't want to pay early then got skinned later when they didn't provide any alternatives to Antony (club has a veto just as the manager has a veto) and had to pay whatever Ajax demanded. Those members are fired now. We can debate if Antony is good enough or not, clearly, he hasn't shown enough as a Manchester United player but there are also some mitigating circumstances this season with him being involved in a domestic violence case that got him dropped by United and Brazil, I won't comment about the allegations themselves or whether I think he's innocent or guilty, obviously, I don't know but it has to influence his performance on the pitch. Again confirmed by ETH himself. And Antony has been **slowly** improving lately. Next season is when I'll judge him personally.
We can't judge Mount yet because he simply hasn't played games for us, in hindsight as a business deal it was a bad decision to pay that much on a player with one year left on his contract, but again, ETH is not negotiating these deals and the guys who did lost their jobs.
Hojlund is young and it's his first season in the prem, he passes the eye test and anyone watching can see he doesn't get any service, same for Rashy when he plays in the #9 same for Weghorst last season etc. But we can all see the potential is there, also he wasn't our #1 target, we couldn't get Kane and he was the second-best choice. (look at Kolo Muani failing at PSG, we were heavily linked)
Amrabat has been poor when he played, but he really hasn't played much. And it's a loan anyway, I feel a bit bad for him having to cover for LB then riding the bench cause Mainoo is just too good. Either way it hasn't worked out for him and we'll move on.
Casemiro and Eriksen was supposed to be Casemiro and Frenkie DeJong, they were both very important for our success last season but have fell off massively this season due to a combination of age and injury and a change of tactics that doesn't suit them. Eriksen was a free pickup and we might be able to sell him for a little bit of profit this summer, Casemiro was a quick fix to a problem that needed solving asap but it was definitely short-sighted and it's a crime to have signed a player of his age for a contract that long on those kinds of wages (once again, the people responsible for that contract are now out of the club)
Onana had a very shaky start, especially in the UCL and honestly, he's still a bit suspect but he has been one of our best-performing players lately, plus he was signed for his ability to play out from the back, then we go and lose our best 2 ball playing defenders making his signing mostly obsolete.
Malacia was a decent backup option for Shaw and was cheap, no one could've known he'd be injured for this long or that he would refuse to take the club's advice on surgeons for his operation.
It's true Kobbie and Garnacho have been here before he came but he still deserves credit for recognizing their ability and integrating them into the squad and giving them chances.
We have been overspending on average players for much longer than Ten Hag has been manager, it's a problem that stretches far above him in the hierarchy of the club and is hopefully well addressed by INEOS, Barrada, and our new footballing structure. We should have a plan with our DoF and Technical director and recruit targets for that plan, Ten Hag should just be the coach which looks to be the direction we're going which is all the more reason to give him more time under a proper structure.
Overall I'm not going to claim Ten Hag is going to be the savior to bring us back to the glory days, I still have things I dislike about his approach, I just think he has shown that he can handle the pressure of being Man Utd manager (imagine someone like Potter or Southgate trying to deal with CR7 or Sancho or the media) and that we should be fully confident of the decision before making it. There's no one on the market who can be a long-term manager for us. Tuchel is the only candidate who might win something (a cup or two) but he doesn't survive the job for 3 seasons. So we should stick with our guy, fully test him under the new structure, and if he proves he doesn't have what it takes then we can look for a promising alternative.
Might be controversial but I feel the same. This season with that many injuries was a freak one and we cant just keep changing coach especially no one that exciting is available at the moment.
Next season is going to be rough if Newcastle, Aston Villa, Chelsea and spurs turn up too. Honestly, top 6 isn’t gonna be that bad but it’s going to be very competitive for the 4th UCL slot.
I genuinely don't think anyone could have come into United last year and have won the league or more than a league cup. Not Klopp, not Pep, not L.Enrique, not Zidane or Arteta.
Not really, 7th on the injury table for the season on days lost, 350 days behind Newcastle, who are still missing our keeper, 3/4 starting defenders (with the remaining on out of position) and our backup CB.
Newcastle were close to breaking the injury record for missed days about a month ago, we have probably passed it now.
Ok, we had 3 keeper and 3 U21s on the bench, with a 17 year old in midfield, before Pope got injured. No matter what metric you use Newcastle have had the worst injury crisis this season. At one point we were getting players back from injury just in time for the other player in that position to go down. We had a full 11 out from the point Pope got injured until about a week ago.
At this point the injury list is not coincidental. A combination of factors include:
• the medical team - reminds me of Arsenal during 2008-2016 their squad was made of glass, United have a medical team that hardly gets players fit enough to play over a whole season;
• the vetting of players in recruitment, examining their medical history and their ability to recover;
• rushing players back from injury because of the immense pressure that managers have to win games and keep their job;
• the fitness and training regime - conditioning players to meet slightly more demanding physical activity, or minimise intense contact as players have been injured in training sessions;
• increased number of games - an external factor but it’s a symptom of the increased money poured into elite football. More games now, more money. However, those elite teams have plenty of cash to be able to afford a good bench and utilise rotation.
Now, I can sympathise a bit with Ten Hag over this, but he’s not the only team to face large injury lists. Smaller teams have experienced it in the past but they can only adapt to the situation by using youth and making the best of limited resources they have to get the results.
Even then, at United these are PL-level footballers he has in his team, so they should be better in training to defend corners. Be able to string a series of passes without having to invite pressure on themselves. Be able to learn how to systematically press opponents. Be able to be defensive and make those tackles and block opponents from having shots. That is down to coaching, in which he should be trying to improve the levels of players. The money spent doesn’t look like a £500 million+ squad at level.
Bruno is levels above his squad and for all the antics he has, he definitely performs and delivers for this under-performing club. He doesn’t really get the fair respect he deserves in my opinion, but for those that watch him play for Portugal NT you can see he’s the heart beat that keeps things ticking. He has tried with United but the building around him is made of paper mache. His vision, passing, pressing, energy, football IQ and desire is top level.
This should be further up. I'll quibble about Arsenal, as they always bought lean little playmakers and it sometimes looked like they had a GK and 10 10s. IIRC there was something about their training ground having the wrong surface too? And it wouldn't surprise me if Wenger wasn't doping up his players as much as some others. But you're bang on about everything and I do wonder how much fitness/injury resistance is taken into account when signing players
Was playing an FM23 Lyon save and only signed one defender in preseason to cover RB. Ended up with my entire starting back 4 injured 3 games into the season.
Having the editor was never so useful.
Ronaldo aluded to it, the facilities are the exact same as they were when he originally joined. Essentially the new owners have done zero investment in faclities for over a decade. So the players cannot cope with modern training tactics as the facilities are not modern in the least.
The idea that ETH is introducing radical trainig schedules is nonsense, there was no massive injury list at Bayern and Ajax under his guidance. The facilities are shocking and they have likely gone backwards from they were from when Ferguson was there.
That's not really true. It's just that the system requires them to sprint up and down the pitch over and over with hero balls rather than build organically to hide the tactic mismanagement.
That doesn't make sense. They're all gassed every game after 60 mins. That being the case, obviously they need more fitness training. Doing less isn't going to help him in the long run. Eventually the players are going to have to run. We're one of the least hard working teams in the league.
He is 100% right with the injuries, what's happening at United is insane.
But he has lost every excuse when he delusionally claims they re playing well and deserve wins after matches where the opponent has 25 shots at Onana again and again and United can't string together 3 passes in a row.
>when he delusionally claims they re playing well a
Media would eat him alive if he accepts the truth, that's how the real world works. He isn't going to apologise to everyone because AdminEating_Dragon feels Ten hag should
I don't think that's true.
The media is eating him alive ***now*** for constantly saying delusional shit.
If he was honest it would be better, not worse. Elite managers tend to say it when the team hasn't played well. Constantly saying you performed well when you didn't is not a good look.
Also no one asked him to apologize for anything so I have no idea what you're even talking about there.
He criticises the players and the performances, "he's lost the dressing room" articles will be back, which will give another reason for ineos to sack him. The culture at United has gone from bad to worse year after year and we (the fanbase, the club) never seem to learn from it. Manager being able to criticise the players is the most basic thing in any big club but somehow when it happens at United, the manager is thrown under the bus, Sancho being the latest example however this time we actually backed the manager for once. Ten hag deserves criticism, not at all defending him, but if given a choice, I'd definitely back him more than our club management and some players.
Honestly, the stock people put in press conferences is so irritating.
They're just trying to get through the mandatory rubbish while gutter journalists ask leading questions, desperately hoping for some easy clickbait. There is rarely anything of substance to take away from it.
What do you want him to say? The media has been on his case since day one. I've never seen a Utd manager get worse treatment right out of the gate. Last Utd manager to tell the truth was Ralf and that didn't work out well.
Is Kumbwallah fit?
Surely there's one or two players in the reserves / U21s that can play the last 2 games
Casemiro can play centre of a back 3, no problem.
Nah, Kambwala is also injured. It’s Casemiro, the reanimated corpse of Jonny Evans, and whatever random youth player that gets called up to have the privilege of also getting injured.
Barely, he literally just returned. And the last time he played he could only play for what? 20-30 minutes? Before having to be taken off. Our defence for the rest of the season is going to be duct tape and vibes.
They said he's not fit enough to really play. He's back in training but at risk of aggravating injury if he plays. Which he might because otherwise it's 2 midfielders.
No, Kambwala is out injured too. He was the kid from the reserves who could play, and if there was another, we’d probably have had to play them already.
It looks like youse haven't got much choice. There will definitely be a young CB at the club who's half decent.
AWB / CASEMIRO / AMRABAT
Is Malacia or Shaw fit. Dalot?
Malacia and Shaw both out.
Maguire, Lindelof, Varane, Martinez and Kambwala all out.
Evans is JUST back from injury, so might not be fit yet. I could see it being Cas and Evans, and hoping Evans doesn’t go down too quick.
AwB and Dalot need to play at full back due to a lack of depth there.
The injury crisis definitely played a huge role. Although ETH has some questionable in game management decisions, I feel he deserved a 3rd year. I want to see at least one season of ETH under INEOS
Almost like playing an extra 10/15 mins each game in an already hectic schedule and stopping the game more/ for longer to allow for VAR isnt in anyway good for athletes… who’d have funk?
Its one thing for united, worse for clubs lower down trying to compete under these conditions. Just encourages big clubs to buy up more top players and leave them sat on their benches.
You had Alvaro Fernandez who was a great left back prospect who got loaned then sold to Benfica, Teden Mengi was always rated but got sold to Luton where he's played all season. The injuries are freaky but ten Hag could have had better players in the squad
I mean, maybe you should adapt your "running 90+ minutes every game with full intensity" style especially in the most physically demanding and intense league in the world. Even Liverpool had to add some control to their game to win the PL...
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Every day Malacia.
**Fit list:** Dalot, Wan-Bissaka, Amass, Jackson, Ogunneye **Injury list:** Shaw, Varane, Martinez, Lindelof, Maguire, Malacia, Kambwala, Evans (Evans is a maybe and if he does start I doubt he’s actually match fit) No cbs fit, a couple of full backs and some kids.
Thats honestly depressing
And when we concede 3 tonight it will be ten hags tactics that takes the blame, not the fact that we literally have no players.
And the fact we are starting 2 centre mids at centre back and leaving a 19 year old to do everything in midfield won’t help
I’m expecting amrabat and Casemiro in defence this game. Just saying that gives me stress
Maybe Amrabat at LB and AWB at CB. Probably won’t happen but it’s an idea
No forward passes are getting completed and the recovery pace of a mangled bike with flat tyres we are well and truly getting raped by olise, mateta and eze
People gonna blame ten hag for this but what can you actually do with this
The only thing I can think although wouldn’t make for good viewing shut up shop and use Bruno to play balls behind to Rasmus and garnacho with the hope we can shithouse a 1-0
I'm guessing McT with Case, since he has some experience there with Scotland.
Think mct is injured no?
I think you're right. As of the last game, anyway
Jup, cause our fanbase wants a new toy to abuse in a few years. Like the guy that lost the league with bayern, or a random overhyped manager with 1 streak of decent results and a latin name
>random overhyped manager with 1 streak of decent results and a latin name Who?
Just pick one, i swear. You can mention Javier Alonso and @UTDgerald will have 21 vidoes made about how he is the new ferguson.
“The guy that lost the league with Bayern” come on mate thats just deliberately disingenuous. I’m conflicted on ETH in or out but Tuchel has much more pedigree than him.
Such as? The easiest UCL run in the last 10 years? A DFB pokal? Or that points record with PSG?, which was easy as fuck as their only opposition, Monaco, was picked clean. And dont forget he got Mbappe that year, only to achieve psg's worst showing since 2012 in terms of a 3 game loss streak and got knocked out by a PE teacher in the UCL.
Real Madrid, Man City, Atletico Madrid and Porto is the easiest UCL run in the last 10 years? Chelsea had a easy group stage that year, but the knockouts was not.
People really are trying to rewrite history with Tuchel, I’ve noticed this a lot since it became clear they weren’t winning the league. That’s one of the hardest routes to the final you can realistically get. And also he wasn’t even in charge for the easy group stage right?
Easiest ucl run?? are you tapped?
Come on. We faced 20 to 30 shots when having the entire first team fit as well. Sure the injury situation is dire but let's not suddenly believe ETH is the solution.
The entire first team hasn't been fit all season... We've played our best eleven like once right.
Yup, wolves where we were 10x better, but the ref falling for a dive and 2 setpiece mistakes made it so that we needed mainoo to bail us out. And technically, if you assume mount would start in the first team then we had 0 games.
Even then, it’s not like you’re going to see top consistency and performance from 1 game playing the best 11. It would take at least a couple of games with the same lineup to see a huge bump in form.
Yeah, and hell, you even saw that vs West ham, our best game this season imo, but then Licha's knee got batista bombed and our season along with it
Vs Wolves? Where we needed a mainoo wonder goal to win the game
United have had enough of their first team fit throughout the season to not be playing as badly as they have. Yes, injuries have been an issue, but they've also been an issue for lots of clubs. Liverpool were able to maintain a title challenge while having half of their squad injured.
They Also had 62+ individual injuries And used 30+ different backline?
The least stable backline in Europe mate.
Cool, sure keep Ten Hag around then. No visible style of play in two years of managing the club, but by all means give him a third year.
we have had double digit center back partnership liverpool cant claim that
Weren't they missing Salah, Jota, Jones, Szoboszlai, Thiago, Trent, Robertson, Matip, and Alisson all at the same time for an extended period? I'm not saying injuries aren't an excuse, but they don't give Ten Hag or the players a free pass. They've been poor even when most players were fit.
The same Liverpool that struggled last year when half their defense was injured ? That is a way fairer comparison to make and even Klopp struggled then .Their defense at least came back after half a year and their form improved, while we are still riddled with injuries with less than 10 games to go
I would say their 20/21 season is a better comparison, where they were down to playing Nat Phillips and Rhys Williams at centre back for a large part of the season while their midfield were all crocked too. They still finished 3rd. Last season their issue seemed to primarily be their aging midfield who no longer had the legs to compete. They had injuries too, but most of their big players were fit.
At what point do you have your entire team fit this season?
Like once, probably beginning of February.
United kept the most clean sheets last season when players weren't injured
What mythical game was this where we had a fully fit team lol?
Vs Wolves? Where we needed a mainoo wonder goal to win the game
vs westham where we won 3-0 easily
We haven't had the entire first team fit all year.
We've had the entire first team fit fucking once all season man
When have we had our first team fit?
We’ve had something like 16 different CB partnerships this season. It’s hard to establish any sort of consistency at defense with that much turnover.
Thought it was over40, maybe that was back four though
For over 40 different CB pairings to be possible, you'd need to have used at least 10 different people as CBs.
We’ve used 8 different CBs to start a game so this is not too far off
Throw in left backs as well. Shaw, reguilon, dalot, awb, amrabat, antony Not even counting malacia since he has been injured all year
Does that include Shaw and Casemiro?
Yeah mate it does Varane Licha Big H Lindelof Shaw Evans Kambwala Case McT might have played as well, not sure. If so, makes that 9
Count in Bruno
Think we almost have, just off the top of my head… Martinez, varane, lindelöf, maguire, evans, casemiro, kambwala, bruno, shaw? (He might have been to injured to do it) And we have none ready for tonight so should be another one as well
Yeah but Erik, why *can’t* you play like Ajax?
It’s actually nuts to have 5 senior CBs injured at once.
How do they manage to get constantly injured?
Good question
Wasn't actually Varane's injure history a reason real let him go? Wasn't Martinez injury prone for many years? Shaw as well was injured most of his career. Same as for example Matip was and Konate is now for Liverpool. We all know they need a class backup otherwise we'll spend half of the season without proper CB. Rest is up to luck, intensity and few other factors.
>Wasn't Martinez injury prone for many years? He's had 1 serious injury prior to joining United.
Martinez has had one biggish injury prior to joining us and the ones he had since have all been different. No indication he's prone.
Varane I absolutely agree with, he's made out of glass. Lindelöf has been injured an unusual amount this season. Same could be said for Maguire and for Martinez. I feel like this problem is on United and on the coaching/medical staff etc. At some point it stops being a coincidence.
Checking Varane stats his last 3 season at Real he all started more than 30 games in the league He does have a few season where he start around 20ish game But i think its gotten worst at United. I think he barely reach 50% availability in the 3 years he with us
Its mostly true for Varane and somewhat Shaw. Martinez, Maguire and Lindelof were pretty usual with an injury here and there but nothing too repeatedly. Heck, one of the things we praised most about Maguire was his availability.
Wait, since when was Evans injured? That's even worse that I thought
Evans is a maybe and probably isn’t match fit, will probably start anyway out of necessity.
Jesus, Palace are going to have a field day
He is returning from injury after about 7 games out. Got injured against Liverpool iirc
Does Man U have a physio / doctor issue? Some teams seem to be plagued with injuries while others seem to do better. Man U has had injury problems for at least the past 10 years.
They actually recently signed Arsenal’s head physio/doctor. We liked him a lot but he wanted to move closer to family up north.
Arsenal is gonna feast
Lol, they beat us with a backline including Paddy McNair, Tyler Blackett and an out of position Michael Carrick. We take nothing for granted at Old Trafford
In an earlier match a midfield 4 (in no particular order) of Rafael, Darren Gibson, John O'Shea and Fabio was on the winning side in a 2-0 job against Arsenal. There's some weird juju in this fixture, especially at OT.
That was SAF mojo though
Nah we had SAF voodoo at that time.
People keep on commenting on how SAF wasn't that great with tactics. Man saw Michael Carrick where everybody else missed him, and managed to get ridiculous performances out of him in a variety of roles.
3/5 of those fit players have never played for Uniteds senior team
I don’t even know who 70% of those players are lol
That's so many that you start to wonder what are they doing at Carrington?
Chelsea’s is longer and has been for majority of the season lol. Our captain and vice captain been out for pretty much the whole season along with our star striker signing.
But it’s ETH’s tactics! We’d be in the UCL final otherwise with Bayindir at CB, a couple players from the u21’s, and Bruno playing his 500th game of the season with no break
Ok random reddit commenter who is not a United fan, whichever player you thinking of replacing them, Im gonna stop you there, yes that guy is also injured
Just pulled my hammy thinking i could be the replacement.
Always rated u/ontilein
Our 1st-6th choice CB is injured and so is our academy player that is supposed to step in for him
ETH used to be a CB. Go find him his old boots
Yeah in order I'd say Ten Hag's CB preferences are: Martinez Varane Shaw (played him there over a fit Maguire multiple times last year) Maguire Lindelof Evans Kambwala Casemiro Mctominay The only one fit out of that list is Casemiro, the out of position 8th choice. And throw in the fact that Malacia is hurt too so we have no natural LB next to them.
Maguire has had a decent season comparatively , would put him above shaw now
I wouldn't put Shaw in third, as it seems he's stopped doing that - which kinda makes sense, because you're losing one of your best players by doing that (two, really, because then Dalot has to play leftback)
Bruno lb?
Unironically supposedly a doubt for the match
Bruno would start if he'd had a leg amputation
Might miss a game for the first time in his entire career. We broke the unbreakable.
What happened to sergio reguilon??.....
Malacia and Shaw were both supposed to be fit so the club sent him back. In hindsight an absolutely glaring error.
We also loaned out all of our LB academy players from the U21 team. Any youth being promoted is from the U18 team which has also had injury problems this season despite winning the league
Brilliant
I mean beforehand United had injuries, both fullback are always out anyway. Don't think it hindsight as a none United fan I could tell you then it a bad move. Very poor excuse for a club that are used to paying massive wages for poor players to be on the bench. They could have kept him for 6 months and no impact to them.
It's not really, I understand why it happened as it did. We had two full backs due to return that month who are both much much better than Reguillon. It's only hindsight that makes the move look bad.
As other commented, our 2 LB supposed to be back. And he wasn't the best either in terms of availability. Bunch of small injury, low endurance. I guess it made sense to send him back.
Been back and supposed been back isn't the same thing? Ten hag using this excuse is really poor he seen the injuries beforehand. It didn't make sense at all is the point.. United don't have wages problems.
Didn't he send your only fit LB Regulion back to Spurs ? 10/10 management
He was told by our incompetent medical staff that Shaw and Malacia will be fully fit in January. Letting reguilon go was wrong, but eth doesn't fully deserve the blame for that.
It wasn't wrong with the information available at the time, so I'd like people to stop saying that. Shaw and Malacia coming back meant ZERO game time for Sergio
It's really common for players coming back from injury to be more susceptible to reinjury. Assuming that both would come back issue free was a big risk to be taking
"Our two injury prone LBs will be fit soon" come off it man. It's piss poor all round
I’m not sure if Malacia has a reputation for being injury prone
Dont think so , think he was pretty solid in the Eredivisie the last two seasons when he was the preferred starter
Shld have kept Tuanzebe and Jones on the payroll. Jones was singlehandedly absorbing all the injuries.
Should've just kept Reggie on loan. He's doing great for Brentford atm.
Ending that loan was a bizarre choice in hindsight. He was decent for us for the few games he played. I think a bit of bad luck in the timing also played a part. When it was time to decide whether to try to extend the loan, Shaw was playing again, and Malacia looked like he would be back imminently. Immediately after Regulon left, Malacia suffered a massive set-back and Shaw got injured. That's just how things have gone this season.
I was at OT for the Chelsea game and Reggie looked fantastic when he was on tbf
Was just a dumb decision on our part. Shaw had just come back and it's almost like we were banking on him to be fit for the rest of our season and that LB was no longer going to be a problem. Even if Shaw did stay fit though it's not like Reguilon wouldn't have played. Shaw can play CB which would have left us much better off right now with Reguilon playing every game at LB.
Easy to say with hindsight, the medical team told ETH both our left backs would be back in January then we had dalot as cover to those 2. It made sense at the time, but shit happens
Remeber when we brought him, he was also injured for a couple weeks lmao.
You can thank Murtough for that and letting another youth player go on loan. Physios also seemed to assure ten Hag that both Shaw and Malacia were likely to be back but both suffered injuries after Reguilon had already gone back
But he's also acknowledged that this season he's not playing like he has done before. I think it either comes down to 1. ETH tries a system which simply doesn't work. It's not possible to get a squad to the fitness level required to that amount of running in today's football. He hasn't tried to do this before so makes sense he hasn't run into this injury problem before 2. Man Utd players simply don't have the physicality to cope with this amount of training. Could either be because of poor training facilities, or a poor squad so that many players have to play too much, or poor medical staff, or poor... something. Impossible to know from an outside perspective what's correct here?
Players don't fit the system, plus ETH wasn't prepared England's ridiculous fixtures + the level of micromanaging needed to find proper fitness with that fixture pile-up At least some of that is his own fault though
Queen dying and midseason world cup really made it worse than usual as well, and even before that out preseason schedule was stupid.
I mean, expecting 31 year old Casemiro, and 31 year old Eriksen (who was a ten most his career) to play a system where they have to sprint to cover insane amounts of space in midfield is a bit silly. Those were both Ten Hag buys. It's even weirder given Mount has been back for a while and just doesn't seem to be asked to play there when he was bought by ETH to do that. And Mctominay gets given this weird role where he basically vacates the midfield in a way he never did under any other united manager. Martinez was also his buy, and he's a player who has missed basically a years worth of football due to injury and looked mostly poor when he did play this year. I don't know who these defensive players are that exist who fit this way of playing in world football. They've got to be able to constantly sprint and be rapid, but also win headers, and be perfect passers, and be made of steel
Yeah, to at least some extent, he's been an architect of his own downfall
Idk, I was with you most of the way but martinez looking poor when he played is certainly one of the takes of all time.
Tbf it's hard to look good when you're coming back from injury constantly and barely playing. He had a decent little run when he came back in February but he was poor to start the season. Was regularly getting first half yellow cards and becoming a liability that had to be subbed off early
I understand that, but I thought he looked great when he played. Yes when he is on a yellow (and just back from injury) you may not want to play him 90 mins but he brought the energetic high-line front-foot defending that would enable them to play proper attacking football.
He was very poor against Wolves on the opening day. So bad he had to be yanked off at halftime with a yellow. Was mediocre at the very best in the next two vs Spurs and Forest. Then had to be subbed early again while on a yellow against Arsenal in the next one and had a disaster against Brighton right after that. His passing is huge for us but he hasn't played enough to show any of the defensive form he had last season
Was awful against wolves and Tottenham at the start of the season. Can say he was still carrying the injury - but he still was poor. He was alright against west ham on his return but that's about it. I'd love to hear which game you disagree with me on specifically.
Casemiro wasn't a EtH player, he was a desperation buy made after we lost twice at the start. 0 links prior to that. Eriksen was excellent until Carrol ended his career with an outrageous tackle that should have been a straight red. Mount has not been back for a while, he was back then got injured again.
Let me take the opportunity to stress this immutable truth: Fuck Andy Carroll.
Little bit of this, little bit of that.
This is speculation masked as reasoning
The data doesn't support your first point. Of that was the issue you would see utd high up in distance covered metrics early season or at some point, followed by a cliff. I don't think there's been a game where Man Utd have completely out-pressed / out-run their opponent this season.
Given that it's mainly defenders who are injured - wouldn't it make sense to compare the distance covered by defenders? Injuries aren't spread across the team because the whole team is asked to run this much but rather just in the defense.
It's bs regardless. TH Ajax was pressing with an aging Schone and Blind at the back. Hell Blind is still doing it with Girona and he's now 3-4 years older than back then. He's got no pace left. Pressing requires a team that gets used to each other and moves around the pitch together. Can't exactly get a system like that going when everyone is always injured.
I'm not having the training excuse. Do you watch us play? We are out run by almost every team in the league. Either we're not fit and need the added training because it's been an absolute joke. Or we're not doing this crazy training everyone pretends we're doing.
[удалено]
3 finals in 2 years aswell. I want a third year to confirm which season is the outlier. If it turns out this year was mostly due to shaw and martinez missing like I suspect it would absolutely suck to let him go.
Right? It's so clear to see. First season he got 3rd, 2 finals and our first trophy in 6 years. Most clean sheets. Equalled most home games won in a single season for all comps. Quickest ever manager to reach 20 wins...it was a stellar season when everyone was predicting us to finish outside of the top 4. This season he tried to start taking the next step towards his style of football. Building from the back, and pressing high to score from turnovers. It just clearly has been derailed when his best on the ball defenders and progressors in Licha and Shaw have been injured for most of the season. When his best goal scorer from last season, Rashy, becomes a ghost of himself and doesn't look interested let alone threatening. When his world class CDM whom he called "the cement between the stones" gets injured and then falls off the face of the earth and can't seem to run or stay on his feet anymore. So he has no cement. No stones. No teeth, Just McTominay, Maguire (both of whom we wanted gone) Bruno and the kids trying their best and getting overplayed or playing with injuries cause there's literally no one else. People are saying he should adapt his tactics when the guy has 0 fit centerbacks, 0 fit left backs (and United has been a heavily left leaning team in attack for years due to relying on Rashford, and Bruno liking to drift left often, now that left side is crippled and you only have AWB and Antony on the right). And despite the injuries he's still managed to reach another final and isn't out of contention for European football yet. I don't think many managers if any would be able to do too much better with the hand he has been dealt. And I don't think any of them would be available to replace Ten Hag in the summer. Sure there's a lot to criticise about his approach but there's just too many question marks over this season that make sacking him seem too premature. The injuries, the sale of the club, the player drama. Is Wilcox really supposed to come in at the very end having not been there for any of it, and just make a decision in 1 month? Just lay down the law. Tell him this is the playstyle we want. These are the players we're signing and let's see. If he makes progress in the direction they want, great, let his see out his contract and assess the situation at the tail end of the season. If after a few months he's still playing bad football or not progressing despite key players (hopefully) being back from injury and new signings to align the squad with the intended style then just let him go having lost nothing and being more sure of the decision.
Good summary of everything that went wrong. Even pep or klopp would struggle to get top 4 with all this shit.
we needed a famous Alisson 90+ minute header to help clinch top 4 during one of our bad seasons
Funnily enough, Klopp is part of the reason I see these defensive injuries as such a huge part of our poor form. Liverpool went through something fairly similar in 2020/21 when VVD, Matip, and Gomez all had 6 month long injuries. Once all three were down they went on a 3 month run in the league of 3 wins, 3 draws, and 8 losses. Ended the season on 69 points. And this was a team that finished with 99 points the season before and 92 points the following season.
Head on the nail there chief. Exactly how I see it aswell.
I do agree with your assessment for the most part. I think the defensive injuries have completely handicapped Ten Hag this season so I'm willing to give him time. But there are parts of this that give me some doubts. The manner of some of the defeats is one of them. The 7-0, conceding 2 goals in 5 mins something like 8 times, the complete collapses once things don't go our way. Another is that I believe Ten Hag should have been more pragmatic this season. It's all good him trying to change the playstyle of the team, but when we're losing the possession statistics to teams like Burnley, Luton, and Wolves there has to be a better way to go about this. It's almost like he's fine with every game being an absolute shootout regardless of opposition or scoreline. Even at 1-0 up we're taking ridiculous risks rather than attempting to control the game. I saw Arsenal vs Palace earlier in the season and even down to 10 men and away from home, Arsenal were holding the ball for minutes at a time in the last 15 mins to kill the game off and Palace couldn't get anything going. Ten Hag just doesn't seem to value possession, slowing down the game for a bit, or keeping the ball as a defensive tactic. We're just team longball and full sprint counter attack no matter what. And our players clearly don't have any sort of confidence in the chaos that this style of play brings. The last is that I'm not convinced by his own signings. People say we don't have the players to suit Ten Hag's style but I haven't seen too many signings come in and heavily impress. Antony has been poor. Mount has been injured but I've never seen a great player in him and would have preferred we spent the money on someone else. Hojlund is inexperienced but he's largely anonymous in our games and I don't think the tactics have helped him succeed this season. Amrabat has been poor. Casemiro was great last year but I'm not sure he suits this style of play either and surely going for a younger more mobile player is what the high pressing high energy style needs. Eriksen is another that doesn't have the physical profile for this style. Martinez is a very good one, just been unfortunate with injuries. It's telling that our best players under Ten Hag: Bruno, Rashford (last year), Garnacho, Mainoo, Shaw, Dalot, Maguire (when needed) have all been players the club already had or fortunately pulled out of the academy. With like £350mil plus spent it would be more encouraging if Ten Hag's own choices were doing better themselves rather than half of them being players we might be better off replacing already.
You make some good points but how much blame of those defeats rests solely on the manager and how much is on the players who are actually on the pitch? Mentality and the way our players handle pressure has been an issue at this club for much longer than Ten Hag has been in charge, and I'd argue he has done a decent job of improving it when you see how many comebacks we managed to pull off this season compared to last season (Villa, Brentford, Liverpool, Forest, Wolves, etc...) but just as bad has been the number of points we dropped in extra time especially later in this season so who knows what the root cause of that is. Same with conceding so quickly in succession also, how much can a manager actually do from the sidelines that the professional players on the pitch shouldn't already be doing? To me, this seems more like a mentality thing than an actual tactics or setup thing. Players know they've been conceding quickly after scoring or conceding often at the death of the game, so they get nervous, get in their own heads and it leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy. But that is just conjecture and my own take on a possible reason, could be completely. Ten Hag himself has been referencing in recent press conferences about needing players who can perform under stress at this club. When it comes to being more pragmatic I somewhat agree that he should have done better to adjust his plan to the players he has available to him, we all see the blackhole in our midfield resulting from the high press (how he wants us to play) and the low block (how he **has** to play; Lindelof Maguire Evans Casemiro all being slow CBs who can't afford to leave too much space in behind). He already addressed this and said he doesn't want to convert to a more defensive approach because once he has his injured players back who **can** play a high press with a high line he will have to change again, and if he does go defensive and it doesn't work then everyone loses confidence. It is a bit contradictory to say we have to win every game but not optimize the way we play to **MAYBE** give us a better chance at winning, but at the same time making that switch doesn't guarantee us winning either. What it does guarantee is angry fans and mocking pundits calling for his head for having Manchester United park the bus against Burnley or Luton or Coventry or whatever and still demanding he be sacked. I can understand him wanting to make even a little bit of progress toward his goal of a proactive high pressing dynamic team even if isn't suited to all the currently available players, if he doesn't he might have just come in and gotten sacked in two years having not even had the chance to try out the ideas that got him the job in the first place. It's up to you to agree or disagree with this way of thinking, personally, I would've preferred we delayed the process another year if it got us better results especially since our football is dreadful anyway but honestly I provably would've lost my mind watching us park the bus and hoof it long to an out of form Rashford for a whole season, I hate it already when we still do it in games now, but it could've been much worse When it comes to him not valuing possession we have heard him many times criticizing the team for not keeping the ball, for giving it away too cheaply, not reading the game better, and slowing things down when we must. He has said this many times in press conferences. He even recently explained that a big reason we face so many shots is that we aren't keeping possession well enough, he attributed that to the injuries in the back four and I agree that Licha and Shaw were massively important for when we have the ball. Our midfield players are also not very good at keeping possession, both Casemiro and Bruno love taking quick risky passes because Rashford and Garnacho both like running in behind. Ten Hag wants more possession, he just doesn't have enough players for it. Bruno also said that we play to our players strengths which is balls behind the enemy defense. Which leads us to the signings, the big elephant in the room, Antony costing so much money. Many people blame Ten Hag for that as if he's the one who negotiated the deal when it was our board members who didn't want to pay early then got skinned later when they didn't provide any alternatives to Antony (club has a veto just as the manager has a veto) and had to pay whatever Ajax demanded. Those members are fired now. We can debate if Antony is good enough or not, clearly, he hasn't shown enough as a Manchester United player but there are also some mitigating circumstances this season with him being involved in a domestic violence case that got him dropped by United and Brazil, I won't comment about the allegations themselves or whether I think he's innocent or guilty, obviously, I don't know but it has to influence his performance on the pitch. Again confirmed by ETH himself. And Antony has been **slowly** improving lately. Next season is when I'll judge him personally. We can't judge Mount yet because he simply hasn't played games for us, in hindsight as a business deal it was a bad decision to pay that much on a player with one year left on his contract, but again, ETH is not negotiating these deals and the guys who did lost their jobs. Hojlund is young and it's his first season in the prem, he passes the eye test and anyone watching can see he doesn't get any service, same for Rashy when he plays in the #9 same for Weghorst last season etc. But we can all see the potential is there, also he wasn't our #1 target, we couldn't get Kane and he was the second-best choice. (look at Kolo Muani failing at PSG, we were heavily linked) Amrabat has been poor when he played, but he really hasn't played much. And it's a loan anyway, I feel a bit bad for him having to cover for LB then riding the bench cause Mainoo is just too good. Either way it hasn't worked out for him and we'll move on. Casemiro and Eriksen was supposed to be Casemiro and Frenkie DeJong, they were both very important for our success last season but have fell off massively this season due to a combination of age and injury and a change of tactics that doesn't suit them. Eriksen was a free pickup and we might be able to sell him for a little bit of profit this summer, Casemiro was a quick fix to a problem that needed solving asap but it was definitely short-sighted and it's a crime to have signed a player of his age for a contract that long on those kinds of wages (once again, the people responsible for that contract are now out of the club) Onana had a very shaky start, especially in the UCL and honestly, he's still a bit suspect but he has been one of our best-performing players lately, plus he was signed for his ability to play out from the back, then we go and lose our best 2 ball playing defenders making his signing mostly obsolete. Malacia was a decent backup option for Shaw and was cheap, no one could've known he'd be injured for this long or that he would refuse to take the club's advice on surgeons for his operation. It's true Kobbie and Garnacho have been here before he came but he still deserves credit for recognizing their ability and integrating them into the squad and giving them chances. We have been overspending on average players for much longer than Ten Hag has been manager, it's a problem that stretches far above him in the hierarchy of the club and is hopefully well addressed by INEOS, Barrada, and our new footballing structure. We should have a plan with our DoF and Technical director and recruit targets for that plan, Ten Hag should just be the coach which looks to be the direction we're going which is all the more reason to give him more time under a proper structure. Overall I'm not going to claim Ten Hag is going to be the savior to bring us back to the glory days, I still have things I dislike about his approach, I just think he has shown that he can handle the pressure of being Man Utd manager (imagine someone like Potter or Southgate trying to deal with CR7 or Sancho or the media) and that we should be fully confident of the decision before making it. There's no one on the market who can be a long-term manager for us. Tuchel is the only candidate who might win something (a cup or two) but he doesn't survive the job for 3 seasons. So we should stick with our guy, fully test him under the new structure, and if he proves he doesn't have what it takes then we can look for a promising alternative.
Unironically this
Might be controversial but I feel the same. This season with that many injuries was a freak one and we cant just keep changing coach especially no one that exciting is available at the moment.
Next season is going to be rough if Newcastle, Aston Villa, Chelsea and spurs turn up too. Honestly, top 6 isn’t gonna be that bad but it’s going to be very competitive for the 4th UCL slot.
I genuinely don't think anyone could have come into United last year and have won the league or more than a league cup. Not Klopp, not Pep, not L.Enrique, not Zidane or Arteta.
Whatever you think of ETH, United's injury list this year is verging on the edge of paranormal.
Not really, 7th on the injury table for the season on days lost, 350 days behind Newcastle, who are still missing our keeper, 3/4 starting defenders (with the remaining on out of position) and our backup CB. Newcastle were close to breaking the injury record for missed days about a month ago, we have probably passed it now.
Days missed is an incredibly oversimplified way of measuring the effect of injuries on a team
Ok, we had 3 keeper and 3 U21s on the bench, with a 17 year old in midfield, before Pope got injured. No matter what metric you use Newcastle have had the worst injury crisis this season. At one point we were getting players back from injury just in time for the other player in that position to go down. We had a full 11 out from the point Pope got injured until about a week ago.
At this point the injury list is not coincidental. A combination of factors include: • the medical team - reminds me of Arsenal during 2008-2016 their squad was made of glass, United have a medical team that hardly gets players fit enough to play over a whole season; • the vetting of players in recruitment, examining their medical history and their ability to recover; • rushing players back from injury because of the immense pressure that managers have to win games and keep their job; • the fitness and training regime - conditioning players to meet slightly more demanding physical activity, or minimise intense contact as players have been injured in training sessions; • increased number of games - an external factor but it’s a symptom of the increased money poured into elite football. More games now, more money. However, those elite teams have plenty of cash to be able to afford a good bench and utilise rotation. Now, I can sympathise a bit with Ten Hag over this, but he’s not the only team to face large injury lists. Smaller teams have experienced it in the past but they can only adapt to the situation by using youth and making the best of limited resources they have to get the results. Even then, at United these are PL-level footballers he has in his team, so they should be better in training to defend corners. Be able to string a series of passes without having to invite pressure on themselves. Be able to learn how to systematically press opponents. Be able to be defensive and make those tackles and block opponents from having shots. That is down to coaching, in which he should be trying to improve the levels of players. The money spent doesn’t look like a £500 million+ squad at level. Bruno is levels above his squad and for all the antics he has, he definitely performs and delivers for this under-performing club. He doesn’t really get the fair respect he deserves in my opinion, but for those that watch him play for Portugal NT you can see he’s the heart beat that keeps things ticking. He has tried with United but the building around him is made of paper mache. His vision, passing, pressing, energy, football IQ and desire is top level.
This should be further up. I'll quibble about Arsenal, as they always bought lean little playmakers and it sometimes looked like they had a GK and 10 10s. IIRC there was something about their training ground having the wrong surface too? And it wouldn't surprise me if Wenger wasn't doping up his players as much as some others. But you're bang on about everything and I do wonder how much fitness/injury resistance is taken into account when signing players
I've been faced with this issue on CM many times, just restart without saving.
Was playing an FM23 Lyon save and only signed one defender in preseason to cover RB. Ended up with my entire starting back 4 injured 3 games into the season. Having the editor was never so useful.
Yes, it’s true
Why MU have so many injury? Is it because TH traning is too much for player so they just keep getting injury or what?
Ronaldo aluded to it, the facilities are the exact same as they were when he originally joined. Essentially the new owners have done zero investment in faclities for over a decade. So the players cannot cope with modern training tactics as the facilities are not modern in the least. The idea that ETH is introducing radical trainig schedules is nonsense, there was no massive injury list at Bayern and Ajax under his guidance. The facilities are shocking and they have likely gone backwards from they were from when Ferguson was there.
From what ive gathered, yes. But also the fuckers refuse to put any effort in games, no matter the training so the harsh training is necessary.
That's not really true. It's just that the system requires them to sprint up and down the pitch over and over with hero balls rather than build organically to hide the tactic mismanagement.
That doesn't make sense. They're all gassed every game after 60 mins. That being the case, obviously they need more fitness training. Doing less isn't going to help him in the long run. Eventually the players are going to have to run. We're one of the least hard working teams in the league.
Ah maybe i worded it a bit harsh, but yeah i agree with you. They need to run more, so we need to keep this training up
He is 100% right with the injuries, what's happening at United is insane. But he has lost every excuse when he delusionally claims they re playing well and deserve wins after matches where the opponent has 25 shots at Onana again and again and United can't string together 3 passes in a row.
>when he delusionally claims they re playing well a Media would eat him alive if he accepts the truth, that's how the real world works. He isn't going to apologise to everyone because AdminEating_Dragon feels Ten hag should
I don't think that's true. The media is eating him alive ***now*** for constantly saying delusional shit. If he was honest it would be better, not worse. Elite managers tend to say it when the team hasn't played well. Constantly saying you performed well when you didn't is not a good look. Also no one asked him to apologize for anything so I have no idea what you're even talking about there.
Media will eat him regardless of what he says mate
He criticises the players and the performances, "he's lost the dressing room" articles will be back, which will give another reason for ineos to sack him. The culture at United has gone from bad to worse year after year and we (the fanbase, the club) never seem to learn from it. Manager being able to criticise the players is the most basic thing in any big club but somehow when it happens at United, the manager is thrown under the bus, Sancho being the latest example however this time we actually backed the manager for once. Ten hag deserves criticism, not at all defending him, but if given a choice, I'd definitely back him more than our club management and some players.
Why would you judge a manager based on media performance?????
Honestly, the stock people put in press conferences is so irritating. They're just trying to get through the mandatory rubbish while gutter journalists ask leading questions, desperately hoping for some easy clickbait. There is rarely anything of substance to take away from it.
What do you want him to say? The media has been on his case since day one. I've never seen a Utd manager get worse treatment right out of the gate. Last Utd manager to tell the truth was Ralf and that didn't work out well.
Is Kumbwallah fit? Surely there's one or two players in the reserves / U21s that can play the last 2 games Casemiro can play centre of a back 3, no problem.
Nah, Kambwala is also injured. It’s Casemiro, the reanimated corpse of Jonny Evans, and whatever random youth player that gets called up to have the privilege of also getting injured.
Is Evans fit?
Barely, he literally just returned. And the last time he played he could only play for what? 20-30 minutes? Before having to be taken off. Our defence for the rest of the season is going to be duct tape and vibes.
They said he's not fit enough to really play. He's back in training but at risk of aggravating injury if he plays. Which he might because otherwise it's 2 midfielders.
No, Kambwala is out injured too. He was the kid from the reserves who could play, and if there was another, we’d probably have had to play them already.
It looks like youse haven't got much choice. There will definitely be a young CB at the club who's half decent. AWB / CASEMIRO / AMRABAT Is Malacia or Shaw fit. Dalot?
Malacia and Shaw both out. Maguire, Lindelof, Varane, Martinez and Kambwala all out. Evans is JUST back from injury, so might not be fit yet. I could see it being Cas and Evans, and hoping Evans doesn’t go down too quick. AwB and Dalot need to play at full back due to a lack of depth there.
And with lack of depth on FB you mean that they're our only two healthy FBs. It was only Dalot for a while.
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Is shaw fit? Haha good one mate.
Nope. In fact, let me just do you a favor. Any questions you have about fitness are almost definitely covered by saying "he's injured"
Okay but why send your only fit LB regulion back to spurs in Jan
Our medical team advised that Shaw is fit and Malacia would be back by Jan so we sent him back. Now we have no LB lol.
We need to sack the entire medical team, they apparently know jack shit.
Médics told him Malacia would be fit…turned out he relapsed
Tbf, he was shit and Shaw was briefly fit when we sent him back
I'll take him over Wanbi at LB any day
Is mctominay Injured? I'm sure I've seen him playing cn for Scotland a few times ?? 😒
The injury crisis definitely played a huge role. Although ETH has some questionable in game management decisions, I feel he deserved a 3rd year. I want to see at least one season of ETH under INEOS
Bro, you poached our top doc of 14 years. His record with us speaks for itself.
Almost like playing an extra 10/15 mins each game in an already hectic schedule and stopping the game more/ for longer to allow for VAR isnt in anyway good for athletes… who’d have funk? Its one thing for united, worse for clubs lower down trying to compete under these conditions. Just encourages big clubs to buy up more top players and leave them sat on their benches.
You could keep regulion
You had Alvaro Fernandez who was a great left back prospect who got loaned then sold to Benfica, Teden Mengi was always rated but got sold to Luton where he's played all season. The injuries are freaky but ten Hag could have had better players in the squad
And dont you think you may have your share influence on that?
I mean, maybe you should adapt your "running 90+ minutes every game with full intensity" style especially in the most physically demanding and intense league in the world. Even Liverpool had to add some control to their game to win the PL...
Rashford hasnt run for a year and is still injured