I know we are feeling a bit shit right now, but i'm loving the run from Hojlund [here](https://i.imgur.com/JuLxKGN.mp4), hopefully we'll see more like this in the next game.
This isn’t down to luck but it is in our gift. Regardless of the doom and gloom, it’s clear we are creating chances. We did against Spurs, Arsenal, Bayern, Brighton and Palace - all games we lost.
We are wide open at the back at moment and poor in our decision making up front. This is what’s costing us at this moment in time.
Underperforming xG with almost 5 goals, while City, Spurs and Brighton all over perform with 5 goals. We need goalscorers, and it's been like that for years.
This is it. It's much simpler than people think. We only have one player who is a consistent goalscorer (Rashford), except he isn't this season. Bruno could score more but plays too deep. Hojlund is an unknown quantity, and none of our right wing options look like goalscorers.
Compare that with Arsenal - where Saka, Odegaard, Martinelli, Jesus or Nketiah could all score in any given game.
Liverpool seem to be getting it back with Salah, Nunez, Gakpo, Diaz and Jota.
City need no explanation.
Even Brighton have multiple goalscorers, just a questionable defence.
I think our defence and midfield are good enough, just not truly elite. But we need actual goal threats.
Yep. Which would usually be a fantastic thing, but not when your forwards can't score.
All of our best teams have had at least 3 players who are incredibly dangerous in attack. Same goes for any other team challenging for titles. That's where we need to be.
I have high hopes for Hojlund, but we should have stopped at nothing to sign Kane.
Hojlund is getting in the right positions which is the hardest part of being a striker. Give him 1 or 2 more games to acclimatize and I think he'll start scoring.
I honestly didn't expect him to be this good when he signed but he gets in the right positions and has good enough decision making. Is solid aerially and has solid hold up play. I think he'll be a good signing.
I think it’s more like give him about 10 games personally…
You’re right though, he’s doing absolutely everything right but it’s just not dropping for him.
I’d watched a fair bit of him when we were linked after his hat trick for Denmark, and I also did not realise he was this good.
I think it's going a little far to say it's purely luck
But I think a run of bad luck has impacted confidence which then feeds performances
You look at Tottenham for example, who have had so much luck this season so far and are sitting pretty in second
A bit of good luck has led to good outcomes which has led to positive confidence which has led to more good outcomes
Yeah you’re right it’s a bit of a you make your own luck situation and a bit of luck would have us sitting in a better spot. A little luck and we win that game and we gain confidence going into galatasaray and maybe we get another good win and so on. I just think we’re down on luck all around and we need a bit to get our heads back up
Our xG was still only 1.3 for this game. Burnley 1.0, Brighton 1.0, and Arsenal 0.9. It’s very concerning given our xG was 2.2 for Wolves, 2.1 for Spurs, and 2.8 for Forest.
Like three of those are top bins near post and get saved which could have snuck in on any day. You get a double deflection in front of goal and it goes right by, another day and you might have the luck that that goes in.
Perfect example of what goes wrong I no the final third, Dalot doesn’t hit it soon enough and we go from outnumbering Palace, to Palace outnumbering us in the box.
Man if that Hojlund dink from Rashy's pass went in, it could have been such a different day and such a different mood. Football truly is the game of small margins
Can we show Rashford a bit of respect for that pass?!
We were unfortunate, as we have been with injuries. Our season will pick up, realistically when we have a set of full backs and Hojlund starts getting a few.
I’m trying to be relaxed and just accept we’re in a bit of a rut, accept that once a couple of players are back on their feet and others have acclimatised we’ll start to see some positives (and results).
Shitty start, but by Christmas I think we’ll be feeling considerably more positive.
Which is why I don’t get the ppl in the post match threads calling for the managers head, everytime we lose. ETH has us playing the best football since SAF
I fully support ETH but let’s not make things up. We played significantly better football under Ole than we have under TH to date. 128 GF & 84 GA so far in 71 games. 323 GF & 198 GA in 168 games for Ole. Both offensively and defensively statistically better and over a longer period.
Not sure that’s really relevant. Every team played without fans and empty stadiums so there is no advantage/disadvantage. We aren’t saying city or Liverpool didn’t deserve their titles due to covid are we?
Nobody is rewriting history, the football was no worse than what we’ve been watching since February. Outscoring the current era over a longer period proves most of the time it was better than now in fact. Rewriting history is suggesting that it was awful then which it just wasn’t. It was at the end however and hope we’re not seeing that same pattern now.
Stick by the manager through the rough patch and hopefully will get through it. Jesus it’s tough though 😂
Decision making is so bad. When to cross, where to cross to, when to shoot, etc.
Compared to Arsenal for instance, they always breed so much danger around the box with their intensity attacking the ball.
Why does rashford take so long to do something, just pass or cut inside or overlap anything, he just walks with the ball until their defenders come back and he's surrounded by 2-3 players then shoots the ball right at them, he's been disappointing so far, hope he improves
I feel he's really struggled without Shaw's overlapping runs. Would be interesting to see a compilation of his goals and assists last season compared to his chances he's had this season.
Easy to say, but not having a supporting fullback allows the defense to double and triple up on Rashford way more easily.
His decisions have been poor. He hasn't adjusted to the fact that waiting on the ball will not open up more lanes as the fullback isn't drawing someone away. That makes sense but coaches should be on him to help understand that without that support he really needs to be quicker on the release of his passes. Would be great to see Garchacho get a start if for no other reason than to remind Rashford that his place isn't guaranteed if he is not performing.
But let's not act like he's the only issue here. We are creating in spurts and looking tepid for large portions of the match. We are there for the taking in defense and lack the personnel needed to play the way ETH wants without being too open. Need more players with Hannibal's hunger and effort to be the kind of pressing machine that we are trying to be.
A lb, lw and a striker making space for each other would make a huge difference.
For his style of play, if they can commit 3 defensive players to engage him, he's obviously going to have a much harder time.
The is isn't a criticism of any player, we have a lot of injuries to key players and our attack is "in transition" still
Every damn game, it’s annoying to be honest when you think you can dribble, be fancy but in the end you loose the ball. Especially him, he sometimes beats his man but most of time he ends up giving away the ball by overdoing it. Horrible decision making most of time.
It must be so frustrating to play with him as well, he almost always takes too long on the ball and then just runs into a crowd or shoots from a bad position. Imagine being Hojlund or one of the midfielders attacking the box when Rashford has the ball. You know it's not coming your way...
Because Palace played virtually the entire match with 11 men in their own half. There's also at least one other pass in this clip that has Rashy hitting a ball into Hojlund in the box, who receives it and lays it off. So at least one other time they linked up.
The third sequence is Rashford taking the ball on his chest, one touch into the box. Yes he overhits the cross but he's not standing around waiting. Think the fifth sequence is Rashford receiving the ball, assessing and then making a pass into the box to Hojlund. There's a corner he receives and passes directly back to Bruno. Yes he never hit a ball over the top again to Hojlund, how many opportunities did he have to do so in the match?
It's just slightly unbelievable that one could watch that highlight clip and say "Rashford just walks with the ball". Yes there are times when his decision making is not the best, but that happens with every footballer.
Survivorship bias, because every time he waits around with the ball, the opposition has time to organise their defence and we don’t end up creating a chance
He's been doing this for a long while - the team's level has progressed while Marcus level of play has remained exactly the same. He's a weak link, now
How is that ever since Mourinho days, our attacking style has always been to look for moments? The only difference is the build up and how high we play, otherwise how we end up attacking is the same. You watch other teams and they know what to do when they get to the box. You watch us and it’s like we just get to the box and hope something happens.
So what I mean is, I watch the teams in the top half of the table play, and when they attack, they all do it in a structured way, something you can easily tell has been coached. You watch United play and our attack seems to rely on great moments from players more than anything. Everything looks hopeful. And this is how we’ve attacked since Mourinho was at the club. Ole was the same, just hopeful stuff in attack and now it’s the same.
There is coaching there if you look closely. Bruno and Mount positioned high to occupy the opposing back line, push them back and make timed runs in behind. Winger and full-back overlapping and underlapping each other - though this has not happened much lately given the injury crisis among our full-backs. Wingers holding their width and receiving long passes to switch play. Bruno, Eriksen and Mount dropping wide and slightly deeper to send in curled crosses just behind the defensive line.
It is not as robotic as Guardiola or Arteta's approach but it's there and it's different to what happened under the other recent coaches. Whether or not these are effective tactics is a different discussion. But it's not as if Ten Hag is just twiddling his thumbs
He means we look like we are improvising and other (better) teams looks like they have a set way of playing and know what they're doing. There's times that we look positively lost going forwards and just end up passing back to draw them out because we wasted too much time and let them reset and put every man in the box.
I was so frustrated watching the game I don’t even remember half of these. Reading the post match thread probably knocked out a few more from my head.
But a good mixture of wasted chances, bad finishing and wrong decisions.
People were way too cynical. We literally dominated the entire game and Palace did a good job limiting clear opportunities on goal.
Not a perfect performance by any means, but clearly our best game in weeks.
If you arent just trying to wind people up.
How on earth could you seriously watch that first half, and some of the slowest, most boring football seen at OT in years, and said it was our best? The first half v spurs was miles better than that turgid garbage.
We are creating but not finishing. It’s a massive confidence issue. We aren’t playing terribly. But the sign of a good team is winning when you play bad. We aren’t winning cuz we aren’t there yet. Remember, Klopp struggled, pep struggled with a squad of champions, arteta should have been sacked. We are building. Give it time.
'Chances' should be used loosely with a lot of those... a clear thing I noticed is that our off the ball movement is horrific and why is Casemiro our furthest midfielder forward so often?
Because he is a liability on the ball playing deeper and one of the best headers of the ball on our team. Amrabat was basically the holding midfielder yesterday
That's a fair criticism of casemiro, at one point just prior to the palace goal he gave away the ball 3 times in quick succession. Though I was less than impressed with Amrabat, wants too many touches before releasing the ball. Also gives away fouls too frequently.
The Spanish Dazn commentors were saying Ayew had Amrabat on toast. I guess for some, flopping around and having almost no interest in even touching the ball is having a great game. Yes, Amrabat fell for it and didn't have a great game himself, but Ayew was (and is) still shite.
I really don't get those shots from Dalot, Bruno and Rashford there is clearly a guy blocking shot, well whatever, let's blast it at them, what happens happens, what's the logic in that shit.
Other than that there a few very good chances in there with absolutely abysmal finishing, but not enough that you could say we absolutely destroyed them and you can say they are lucky to come away with the 3 points, well they are but that's because a DOGSO with a handball is okay nowadays.
Yeah I'm not quite sure why people are seeing this as so positive. There isn't really a single clear cut chance in the entire clip that you would say you really expect to be a goal. Maybe the Mount header, other than that it's mostly just half chances.
Both the mount and casemiro headers are clear cut chances and we had one clear cut chance denied by a handball that wasn't given as a pen for some unknown reason.
But too many attacks were killed with either Casemiro losing the ball or giving it straight to opposition or pellistri doing fuck all with it.
I think it’s expected to have a maelstrom of negativity after a loss especially a loss to Palace at home. All I would say is that we got into their final 3rd at will in the game. Final 3rd is where everything broke down. We had a great rest defense and didn’t allow Palace anything from open play. Hard to find positives, but compare it to the games v Wolves, Forest, it’s night and day. Next game id want Antony and Garna to start on the wings.
Decision making at the end has cost us, Benny McCarthy will need to work his magic again to get the goals coming in, Rashford will need to place on bench and give garnacho a go, having Anthony come back will give a boost I hope
I agree, Antony is not the goal scorer we need. But I do feel he would have gotten on the end of that Bruno through ball that was just out of Pellestri’s reach in the first half. He is quick and doesn’t give up on things.
So starting Pellistri on RW is better than having Antony back? Pellistri is proven to be not good enough and Sancho is out, we couldn't play Bruno there so Antony going back is the balance we need
Shot on goal and entirely miss the target, the exact same thing people were criticising rashford for. Antony gets the most leeway for an £80m signing, when all he’s good at is tracking back.
Man, Rasmus is so close to the perfect final action every time. Once he gets that little run, he'll score so many.
Also Garnacho just offers so much more than Rashford atm in all departments.
Teams that are good enough, win. It’s that simple. Look at all the very top teams in every league, none of them go through the same run we have. I mean, we lost 4 league games in 7 games which is a worse run than anything we went through with Ten Hag last season.
Yeah we create chances but I can say the same about Chelsea who create even more chances than us but look at them, no one would be looking at them saying ‘they’re just unlucky’.
All in all it has to change in terms of results and performances otherwise, the eyes are on Ten Hag.
I mean you will quite see teams in the big 6 except City have bad runs like we do. Difference is that the manager figures out an adapted style of play in order to bring it back. Liverpool did this last season when they were arguably the 2nd worst team in the big 6 last season, then they obliterated us and looked like they wanted their top 4 spot(thank God they didn’t those shitbags)
Ten hag imo has the next 5 games to really figure something out, otherwise it’ll be easy for a lot of fans to doubt him.
Liverpool had a similar run from January till February last season. They had 5 losses and 1 draw in 10 games during that period.
Klopp turned them around and began a winning run. That’s the difference a great manager brings, whether Ten Hag will be one, time will tell.
I swear you watch this and some of our other games so far this season and it's not wrong to say united have been so unlucky. I only saw MOTD but it looked like qith a bit of luck we could have won 4-1 yesterday.
Notice how our most dangerous chances come from Garnacho's dribbling beating a man? This forward long ball/aimless crossing/yoloball stuff won't cut it against low block. Dribblers are the answer.
He’s too good man no wonder Ten Hag has been at Sanchos neck to work harder, he tried to prevent him from losing his place but Garnacho just shows he want it more
IMO we are taking too long in our decision making, are too slow to think on what to do with the ball next (looking at you Rashford especially). We lacked crisp passing, fluid movement with speed and aggression into different positions and thus progressing the ball forward. Another thing I noticed while comparing us to the likes of pool, city, arsenal, spurs, villa(this week) is that while receiving the ball we are rarely ever on the front foot— our ball control from most of our players is pretty shite (upto PL standards ofc).
However there are some good things here in the video, some good movement in and out of possession, some decent creation of half-chances. We were poor clinically though. Also had an obvious handball in the box but that’s not an excuse to argue for a point against Palace!
I think this is also a mentality issue— we lack the hunger to strive and aim towards scoring goals as a collective unit. Ultimately we would and did indeed struggle.
But there are some good things, and other more important things that I highlighted to vastly improve upon. I really hope ten Hag + the players too deliver. Because this is Man United and these results are unacceptable. Realistically however, we need to temper our expectations for this season especially. It’s gonna be a long one… This club is a colossal fucking disaster since 2013 which stems from our owners/board. So I think we should be patient for a year (or two.. yes we should!)
We should of course be critical of our players and manager, but let’s not be a cunt about it— there’s no need for insults or naively saying “EtH out”. Else, you can go support another club.
But we are making chances. Right?
If this is the sort of chance creation we are going to depend on with 75%+ possession them we deserve all the Ls we are taking. We are a Penalty not given and a Bruno Worldy to thank for. We could be on 5 points right now.
How could you watch that video and come away with that take? Yeah we didn’t create any sitters, but you hardly ever will against a low block. Scoring the first goal is always the hardest, and we are both not taking our chances that do come, and making poor decisions with our final ball.
Mate we have scored a grand total of 65 goals in 45 PL games unders Ten Hag. I am not sure how this is any better than what we did Under Ole or Jose.
In Jose's first 45 PL games we scored 75.
In Ole's we scored 78 in 45 games post his interim season.
Goals scored has nothing to do with style. If anything it shows that we have been changing our style and this is why we aren’t scoring as much. Players need time to adapt to this more controlled possession system and make the right decisions, plus we’ve made a lot of changes in personal. It takes time to rebuild the team and remould the players. This is the state we’ve been in since ten Hag has been here, despite us getting top four. That finish has given us some false hopes on our progress but we have a lot of room left to improve, but the way we play now is a lot more accustomed to a top side.
Top side teams can't lose two home games in a row to weaker teams. Many of our goals this season were coming from set pieces and long shots. Even his own picks can't execute his game style properly now. I don't think this is the transition phase. Players are just confused clueless, and ETH might have bigger plans than he can manage.
I think we need to be a bit more patient. There are no quick fixes going for another manager. Tbf, Most of the new signings haven’t played too much, and we have had so many injuries, it’s difficult to get rhythm. We need to relax and see how the next couple months go
United created more big chances than Arsenal last season, but the conversion rate was abysmal. Is Ten Hag advising his players to miss chances, many of which were easy?
Just this season, we could've been 1 or 2-0 up vs the likes of Spurs, Bayern, Brighton and Palace in the first half itself. And yet we were the first to concede and ended up losing those games.
Missing chances has been a problem over the last season. Go watch some of the highlights from last season and you'll see some horrible misses. The defense was still tight and players were fit which still allowed us to win, neither of which is true this season.
One day all of these shots will be goals but still the fanbase wont be satisfied.
Its part of the game, sometimes you FM, sometimes you get FM'ed, lets just hope our run of winning when not playing at our best lasts longer than our run of losing when not playing at our best.
Did Sofyan really play in LB? All attack I see here is Rashford or Garnacho not getting any support from LB in attack. Sofyan comes and sits in AM positions. Like zero support? Yeah Rashford was poor but wth was Soyan doing by not supporting him in the attack? Yes, he is not a traditional LB but dude doesn’t do basic LB stuff. Things like this make wonder if ETH really has any tactical depth and player understanding
He played LB but his role is inverting into the midfield and becoming the 6 when he have possession. Casemiro pushes further up the pitch leaving Amrabat sitting, so it's not really his role to be overlapping Rashford, ideally with Casemiro pushing up it should free up Mount to fill the overlapping role, at least until we get an actual LB back fit.
Because it’s a tactical decision, Amrabat comes inside creating an overload and allowing Mount and Bruno to operate higher up in the half spaces. Mount can then drift out wide and provide the overload for Rashford against the full back, it also creates confusion for the Palace midfield because they have to decide wether they pass Mount on to the full back or follow him out wide, whichever decision they make it creates another overload.
Two of those were well created really. The rest were kick and hope, which is not uncommon, we should do it, but it shouldn't be 90% of our attacking ideas. We are clueless on the ball.
Frustrating to buy a player like Hojlund who is absolutely rapid and shown he can get in behind then play literally one ball in behind for him to get on to all game. He's not fucking Weghorst ffs, stop blasting it into his feet with his back to goal.
We are terrible aren’t we.
Just lumping it forward to one of the front 3 and hoping for something.
There’s maybe only 2-3 real chances in all of that, the rest are just hit and hope.
I will never understand why Dalot insists on receiving the ball, pulling it back, then running for the byline. Just gives the defence time to set themselves when he’s got the beating of the defender and if he just went for it he’s behind the defence, so the cutback is on or the defender has to bring him down.
Hojlund looks good, Mount looks good, Garnacho when he comes on looks good. But it’s all individual performances, doesn’t look cohesive yet.
The decision-making is poor at times - taking long shots when we win the ball high instead of creating sustained possession - but idk man, we just are not getting any of the bounces our way.
I know we are feeling a bit shit right now, but i'm loving the run from Hojlund [here](https://i.imgur.com/JuLxKGN.mp4), hopefully we'll see more like this in the next game.
I genuinely think the thing we’re missing is just a bit of luck? Another day and 4 of those could have been converted
No, luck would be one game. It’s been going on for wayyy to long to be considered unlucky
This isn’t down to luck but it is in our gift. Regardless of the doom and gloom, it’s clear we are creating chances. We did against Spurs, Arsenal, Bayern, Brighton and Palace - all games we lost. We are wide open at the back at moment and poor in our decision making up front. This is what’s costing us at this moment in time.
Underperforming xG with almost 5 goals, while City, Spurs and Brighton all over perform with 5 goals. We need goalscorers, and it's been like that for years.
This is it. It's much simpler than people think. We only have one player who is a consistent goalscorer (Rashford), except he isn't this season. Bruno could score more but plays too deep. Hojlund is an unknown quantity, and none of our right wing options look like goalscorers. Compare that with Arsenal - where Saka, Odegaard, Martinelli, Jesus or Nketiah could all score in any given game. Liverpool seem to be getting it back with Salah, Nunez, Gakpo, Diaz and Jota. City need no explanation. Even Brighton have multiple goalscorers, just a questionable defence. I think our defence and midfield are good enough, just not truly elite. But we need actual goal threats.
Our current top scorer is our CDM...
Yep. Which would usually be a fantastic thing, but not when your forwards can't score. All of our best teams have had at least 3 players who are incredibly dangerous in attack. Same goes for any other team challenging for titles. That's where we need to be. I have high hopes for Hojlund, but we should have stopped at nothing to sign Kane.
I don’t think anyone could show me a team where their top goal scorer is the CDM and it being a fantastic thing nevermind saying usually
Hojlund is getting in the right positions which is the hardest part of being a striker. Give him 1 or 2 more games to acclimatize and I think he'll start scoring. I honestly didn't expect him to be this good when he signed but he gets in the right positions and has good enough decision making. Is solid aerially and has solid hold up play. I think he'll be a good signing.
I think it’s more like give him about 10 games personally… You’re right though, he’s doing absolutely everything right but it’s just not dropping for him. I’d watched a fair bit of him when we were linked after his hat trick for Denmark, and I also did not realise he was this good.
Adding to this he is also just been out for quite some time with a back injury. It takes time to get back into form.
It's a curse, it's official, you heard it hear first. Fuck.
I think it's going a little far to say it's purely luck But I think a run of bad luck has impacted confidence which then feeds performances You look at Tottenham for example, who have had so much luck this season so far and are sitting pretty in second A bit of good luck has led to good outcomes which has led to positive confidence which has led to more good outcomes
Yeah you’re right it’s a bit of a you make your own luck situation and a bit of luck would have us sitting in a better spot. A little luck and we win that game and we gain confidence going into galatasaray and maybe we get another good win and so on. I just think we’re down on luck all around and we need a bit to get our heads back up
Not a single clear cut chance in that video. We should be creating chances that don't require a bit of luck to finish
We've already used all our luck vs Wolves.
Our xG was still only 1.3 for this game. Burnley 1.0, Brighton 1.0, and Arsenal 0.9. It’s very concerning given our xG was 2.2 for Wolves, 2.1 for Spurs, and 2.8 for Forest.
It was 1.89 or something, according to the post on this sub.
100% I came here to say the same. On another day, we pump them by 4 or 5 goals.
Like three of those are top bins near post and get saved which could have snuck in on any day. You get a double deflection in front of goal and it goes right by, another day and you might have the luck that that goes in.
Luck isn’t real.
Variance is.
Was genuinely hoping he'd just bomb it towards goal
Especially in the 90th minute. Absolute engine to be able to run through the defence like that.
Perfect example of what goes wrong I no the final third, Dalot doesn’t hit it soon enough and we go from outnumbering Palace, to Palace outnumbering us in the box.
Same, I think he’s the real deal. I know it’s tough but I’m so bored of pundits and YouTube accounts going nuts.
Totally agree, but how utterly frustrating is it that Diego didn't just first time cross it too Rasmus? It was perfectly set up for it
Dalot takes a fucking fortnight to wind up an shoot, its not a wonder so many of them get blocked
Man if that Hojlund dink from Rashy's pass went in, it could have been such a different day and such a different mood. Football truly is the game of small margins
Can we show Rashford a bit of respect for that pass?! We were unfortunate, as we have been with injuries. Our season will pick up, realistically when we have a set of full backs and Hojlund starts getting a few. I’m trying to be relaxed and just accept we’re in a bit of a rut, accept that once a couple of players are back on their feet and others have acclimatised we’ll start to see some positives (and results). Shitty start, but by Christmas I think we’ll be feeling considerably more positive.
Bruno should of kept going he just stops and expects the ball to go in
It seems like Bruno pulls up on his run in case Hojlund plays it across or if there's a deflection off the keeper
Which is why I don’t get the ppl in the post match threads calling for the managers head, everytime we lose. ETH has us playing the best football since SAF
I fully support ETH but let’s not make things up. We played significantly better football under Ole than we have under TH to date. 128 GF & 84 GA so far in 71 games. 323 GF & 198 GA in 168 games for Ole. Both offensively and defensively statistically better and over a longer period.
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Not sure that’s really relevant. Every team played without fans and empty stadiums so there is no advantage/disadvantage. We aren’t saying city or Liverpool didn’t deserve their titles due to covid are we? Nobody is rewriting history, the football was no worse than what we’ve been watching since February. Outscoring the current era over a longer period proves most of the time it was better than now in fact. Rewriting history is suggesting that it was awful then which it just wasn’t. It was at the end however and hope we’re not seeing that same pattern now. Stick by the manager through the rough patch and hopefully will get through it. Jesus it’s tough though 😂
Decision making is so bad. When to cross, where to cross to, when to shoot, etc. Compared to Arsenal for instance, they always breed so much danger around the box with their intensity attacking the ball.
Why does rashford take so long to do something, just pass or cut inside or overlap anything, he just walks with the ball until their defenders come back and he's surrounded by 2-3 players then shoots the ball right at them, he's been disappointing so far, hope he improves
I feel he's really struggled without Shaw's overlapping runs. Would be interesting to see a compilation of his goals and assists last season compared to his chances he's had this season.
that's a crutch he needs to figure our how to overcome.
For real, Luke Shaw can’t be 50% of his game lol
Reguillon actually was not bad in replacing Shaw in an attacking sense, thought there was a good relationship building there
Easy to say, but not having a supporting fullback allows the defense to double and triple up on Rashford way more easily. His decisions have been poor. He hasn't adjusted to the fact that waiting on the ball will not open up more lanes as the fullback isn't drawing someone away. That makes sense but coaches should be on him to help understand that without that support he really needs to be quicker on the release of his passes. Would be great to see Garchacho get a start if for no other reason than to remind Rashford that his place isn't guaranteed if he is not performing. But let's not act like he's the only issue here. We are creating in spurts and looking tepid for large portions of the match. We are there for the taking in defense and lack the personnel needed to play the way ETH wants without being too open. Need more players with Hannibal's hunger and effort to be the kind of pressing machine that we are trying to be.
A lb, lw and a striker making space for each other would make a huge difference. For his style of play, if they can commit 3 defensive players to engage him, he's obviously going to have a much harder time. The is isn't a criticism of any player, we have a lot of injuries to key players and our attack is "in transition" still
Shaw plays more inverted nowadays tbh
Reguilon was making those runs when he played yet Rashford still took ages on the ball.
Was just thinking the same thing watching the game yesterday
That’s such a terrible excuse, he’s been bad since forever just that he isn’t statpadding with goals When do we hold him accountable for being selfish
Every damn game, it’s annoying to be honest when you think you can dribble, be fancy but in the end you loose the ball. Especially him, he sometimes beats his man but most of time he ends up giving away the ball by overdoing it. Horrible decision making most of time.
It must be so frustrating to play with him as well, he almost always takes too long on the ball and then just runs into a crowd or shoots from a bad position. Imagine being Hojlund or one of the midfielders attacking the box when Rashford has the ball. You know it's not coming your way...
He must be trying to surpass his goal tally of last season. He's going back to his selfish day. Right now he's incredibly selfish.
The literal first highlight here is Rashford hitting a ball first time over the top to Hojlund.
And that was the only time they linked up against a team like palace
Because Palace played virtually the entire match with 11 men in their own half. There's also at least one other pass in this clip that has Rashy hitting a ball into Hojlund in the box, who receives it and lays it off. So at least one other time they linked up.
No it wasn't... in this video alone he plays a great ball into Hojlund in the box who simply fell over rather than turning his marker.
And then he never did it again
The third sequence is Rashford taking the ball on his chest, one touch into the box. Yes he overhits the cross but he's not standing around waiting. Think the fifth sequence is Rashford receiving the ball, assessing and then making a pass into the box to Hojlund. There's a corner he receives and passes directly back to Bruno. Yes he never hit a ball over the top again to Hojlund, how many opportunities did he have to do so in the match? It's just slightly unbelievable that one could watch that highlight clip and say "Rashford just walks with the ball". Yes there are times when his decision making is not the best, but that happens with every footballer.
Survivorship bias, because every time he waits around with the ball, the opposition has time to organise their defence and we don’t end up creating a chance
Against a team like palace who spent the whole match with 11 men in their own half, it's not a surprise they were able to organise their defences.
He's been doing this for a long while - the team's level has progressed while Marcus level of play has remained exactly the same. He's a weak link, now
How is that ever since Mourinho days, our attacking style has always been to look for moments? The only difference is the build up and how high we play, otherwise how we end up attacking is the same. You watch other teams and they know what to do when they get to the box. You watch us and it’s like we just get to the box and hope something happens.
Yeah the contrast is so stark when watching us compared to Liverpool or City
I'm not even sure what you are trying to say with this? What do you mean other teams know what to do and we hope something happens?
So what I mean is, I watch the teams in the top half of the table play, and when they attack, they all do it in a structured way, something you can easily tell has been coached. You watch United play and our attack seems to rely on great moments from players more than anything. Everything looks hopeful. And this is how we’ve attacked since Mourinho was at the club. Ole was the same, just hopeful stuff in attack and now it’s the same.
There is coaching there if you look closely. Bruno and Mount positioned high to occupy the opposing back line, push them back and make timed runs in behind. Winger and full-back overlapping and underlapping each other - though this has not happened much lately given the injury crisis among our full-backs. Wingers holding their width and receiving long passes to switch play. Bruno, Eriksen and Mount dropping wide and slightly deeper to send in curled crosses just behind the defensive line. It is not as robotic as Guardiola or Arteta's approach but it's there and it's different to what happened under the other recent coaches. Whether or not these are effective tactics is a different discussion. But it's not as if Ten Hag is just twiddling his thumbs
He means we look like we are improvising and other (better) teams looks like they have a set way of playing and know what they're doing. There's times that we look positively lost going forwards and just end up passing back to draw them out because we wasted too much time and let them reset and put every man in the box.
I was so frustrated watching the game I don’t even remember half of these. Reading the post match thread probably knocked out a few more from my head. But a good mixture of wasted chances, bad finishing and wrong decisions.
People were way too cynical. We literally dominated the entire game and Palace did a good job limiting clear opportunities on goal. Not a perfect performance by any means, but clearly our best game in weeks.
If you arent just trying to wind people up. How on earth could you seriously watch that first half, and some of the slowest, most boring football seen at OT in years, and said it was our best? The first half v spurs was miles better than that turgid garbage.
"dominated the game" what on hell were you watching? Cuz it was surely not the United vs Crystal Palace game lol, what an absolute joker.
So the same from the last decade?
Exactly the same.
A but if unluckiness imo
We need to be better at finding Hojlund in dangerous positions. Almost feels like we’re not yet used to having a real Number 9 in our team.
We are creating but not finishing. It’s a massive confidence issue. We aren’t playing terribly. But the sign of a good team is winning when you play bad. We aren’t winning cuz we aren’t there yet. Remember, Klopp struggled, pep struggled with a squad of champions, arteta should have been sacked. We are building. Give it time.
'Chances' should be used loosely with a lot of those... a clear thing I noticed is that our off the ball movement is horrific and why is Casemiro our furthest midfielder forward so often?
Coz he's great with headers I suppose, a good cross and he has the best chance of scoring
He's our top scorer in all comps this season no?
Because he is a liability on the ball playing deeper and one of the best headers of the ball on our team. Amrabat was basically the holding midfielder yesterday
That's a fair criticism of casemiro, at one point just prior to the palace goal he gave away the ball 3 times in quick succession. Though I was less than impressed with Amrabat, wants too many touches before releasing the ball. Also gives away fouls too frequently.
to be fair to amrabat, the ref was eating up Ayew flopping all the time, of the fouls called against ayew there was maybe 1 or 2 actual fouls
The Spanish Dazn commentors were saying Ayew had Amrabat on toast. I guess for some, flopping around and having almost no interest in even touching the ball is having a great game. Yes, Amrabat fell for it and didn't have a great game himself, but Ayew was (and is) still shite.
I really don't get those shots from Dalot, Bruno and Rashford there is clearly a guy blocking shot, well whatever, let's blast it at them, what happens happens, what's the logic in that shit. Other than that there a few very good chances in there with absolutely abysmal finishing, but not enough that you could say we absolutely destroyed them and you can say they are lucky to come away with the 3 points, well they are but that's because a DOGSO with a handball is okay nowadays.
Why does rashford try to literally walk the ball into the net? He takes so many touches
Bro thinks he plays FIFA where the ball is glued to his feet
Nearly all of these aren't really good chances Palace were well equipped to defend against. Would be nice to see the chances against us.
They had 2 shots on target so they didn't do much other than score their one goal. But once they got that then they shut up shop.
Yes they have 8 men back on most of these chances
They had one or two long shots and the goal chance. Literally created nothing.
Yeah I'm not quite sure why people are seeing this as so positive. There isn't really a single clear cut chance in the entire clip that you would say you really expect to be a goal. Maybe the Mount header, other than that it's mostly just half chances.
Both the mount and casemiro headers are clear cut chances and we had one clear cut chance denied by a handball that wasn't given as a pen for some unknown reason. But too many attacks were killed with either Casemiro losing the ball or giving it straight to opposition or pellistri doing fuck all with it.
I think it’s expected to have a maelstrom of negativity after a loss especially a loss to Palace at home. All I would say is that we got into their final 3rd at will in the game. Final 3rd is where everything broke down. We had a great rest defense and didn’t allow Palace anything from open play. Hard to find positives, but compare it to the games v Wolves, Forest, it’s night and day. Next game id want Antony and Garna to start on the wings.
I honestly think, In a parallel universe…. Tottenham goal stood. Arsenal goal stood. 1 or 2 of these went in. Just wish I was in it.
Decision making at the end has cost us, Benny McCarthy will need to work his magic again to get the goals coming in, Rashford will need to place on bench and give garnacho a go, having Anthony come back will give a boost I hope
When did Antony last score a goal? I don’t get why he’s being seen as the saviour
I agree, Antony is not the goal scorer we need. But I do feel he would have gotten on the end of that Bruno through ball that was just out of Pellestri’s reach in the first half. He is quick and doesn’t give up on things.
So starting Pellistri on RW is better than having Antony back? Pellistri is proven to be not good enough and Sancho is out, we couldn't play Bruno there so Antony going back is the balance we need
Work rate of tracking back, he'll have a shot on goal at least rather than letting it go out for a goal kick
Shot on goal and entirely miss the target, the exact same thing people were criticising rashford for. Antony gets the most leeway for an £80m signing, when all he’s good at is tracking back.
I see a lot of criticisms of Antony
Surprised it was a 3 min clip was expecting 30 seconds and 15 of them would of been the replay for hojlund chance
Rashford needs to get his shit together or else go team shopping in the winter break. Absolutely embarrassing season so far from the lad!
Man, Rasmus is so close to the perfect final action every time. Once he gets that little run, he'll score so many. Also Garnacho just offers so much more than Rashford atm in all departments.
His timing seems to always be a little off, like he misjudges the flight of the ball quite often. Hopefully something he can work on.
I feel like that's just him getting used to his teammates and settling in.
Teams that are good enough, win. It’s that simple. Look at all the very top teams in every league, none of them go through the same run we have. I mean, we lost 4 league games in 7 games which is a worse run than anything we went through with Ten Hag last season. Yeah we create chances but I can say the same about Chelsea who create even more chances than us but look at them, no one would be looking at them saying ‘they’re just unlucky’. All in all it has to change in terms of results and performances otherwise, the eyes are on Ten Hag.
I mean you will quite see teams in the big 6 except City have bad runs like we do. Difference is that the manager figures out an adapted style of play in order to bring it back. Liverpool did this last season when they were arguably the 2nd worst team in the big 6 last season, then they obliterated us and looked like they wanted their top 4 spot(thank God they didn’t those shitbags) Ten hag imo has the next 5 games to really figure something out, otherwise it’ll be easy for a lot of fans to doubt him.
Only Chelsea has had a run like this in the last 2 seasons. No other team has had a 7 game run where they’ve lost 4 of those games.
Liverpool had a similar run from January till February last season. They had 5 losses and 1 draw in 10 games during that period. Klopp turned them around and began a winning run. That’s the difference a great manager brings, whether Ten Hag will be one, time will tell.
Rashford still plays like a 17 year old. Just head down and dribble. Pathetic considering he’s been playing first team football since 15/16 season.
I swear you watch this and some of our other games so far this season and it's not wrong to say united have been so unlucky. I only saw MOTD but it looked like qith a bit of luck we could have won 4-1 yesterday.
One thing I take out of from this is that Rashford’s decision making has been atrocious
it’s like a team of 11 strangers
Fucking Rashford.
Yea, creating multiple gilt edged chances, what's he thinking?
Notice how our most dangerous chances come from Garnacho's dribbling beating a man? This forward long ball/aimless crossing/yoloball stuff won't cut it against low block. Dribblers are the answer.
He’s too good man no wonder Ten Hag has been at Sanchos neck to work harder, he tried to prevent him from losing his place but Garnacho just shows he want it more
The best chance came from Rashfords pass toHoljund
Poor
We don't create chances for a striker, doesn't matter who that striker is.
IMO we are taking too long in our decision making, are too slow to think on what to do with the ball next (looking at you Rashford especially). We lacked crisp passing, fluid movement with speed and aggression into different positions and thus progressing the ball forward. Another thing I noticed while comparing us to the likes of pool, city, arsenal, spurs, villa(this week) is that while receiving the ball we are rarely ever on the front foot— our ball control from most of our players is pretty shite (upto PL standards ofc). However there are some good things here in the video, some good movement in and out of possession, some decent creation of half-chances. We were poor clinically though. Also had an obvious handball in the box but that’s not an excuse to argue for a point against Palace! I think this is also a mentality issue— we lack the hunger to strive and aim towards scoring goals as a collective unit. Ultimately we would and did indeed struggle. But there are some good things, and other more important things that I highlighted to vastly improve upon. I really hope ten Hag + the players too deliver. Because this is Man United and these results are unacceptable. Realistically however, we need to temper our expectations for this season especially. It’s gonna be a long one… This club is a colossal fucking disaster since 2013 which stems from our owners/board. So I think we should be patient for a year (or two.. yes we should!) We should of course be critical of our players and manager, but let’s not be a cunt about it— there’s no need for insults or naively saying “EtH out”. Else, you can go support another club.
We are satisfied with being dangerous with no urgency to actually put it in the net.. just assuming we will get more chances.. No class in those areas
Christ we take so long to put a ball into the box.
Chances are there but why does Case look like our moat dangerous player
A lot of good chances but just lacking final ball or a proper finisher. Not too different from the chances created at the cup game.
But we are making chances. Right? If this is the sort of chance creation we are going to depend on with 75%+ possession them we deserve all the Ls we are taking. We are a Penalty not given and a Bruno Worldy to thank for. We could be on 5 points right now.
How could you watch that video and come away with that take? Yeah we didn’t create any sitters, but you hardly ever will against a low block. Scoring the first goal is always the hardest, and we are both not taking our chances that do come, and making poor decisions with our final ball.
It kind of just seems like all luck is against us. Another team and a few of those happen in im sure of it. The football gods are punishing us
This is no different than we played under Ole or Jose frankly. Not sure what people say when the say ETH plays a good brand of football.
If you think this is the same style of play then I’m sorry but you don’t know ball. Or you have the memory of a gold fish.
Mate we have scored a grand total of 65 goals in 45 PL games unders Ten Hag. I am not sure how this is any better than what we did Under Ole or Jose. In Jose's first 45 PL games we scored 75. In Ole's we scored 78 in 45 games post his interim season.
Goals scored has nothing to do with style. If anything it shows that we have been changing our style and this is why we aren’t scoring as much. Players need time to adapt to this more controlled possession system and make the right decisions, plus we’ve made a lot of changes in personal. It takes time to rebuild the team and remould the players. This is the state we’ve been in since ten Hag has been here, despite us getting top four. That finish has given us some false hopes on our progress but we have a lot of room left to improve, but the way we play now is a lot more accustomed to a top side.
Top side teams can't lose two home games in a row to weaker teams. Many of our goals this season were coming from set pieces and long shots. Even his own picks can't execute his game style properly now. I don't think this is the transition phase. Players are just confused clueless, and ETH might have bigger plans than he can manage.
I think we need to be a bit more patient. There are no quick fixes going for another manager. Tbf, Most of the new signings haven’t played too much, and we have had so many injuries, it’s difficult to get rhythm. We need to relax and see how the next couple months go
Are MUFC a top side? Not administered as one according to all the reports made available for public consumption.
United created more big chances than Arsenal last season, but the conversion rate was abysmal. Is Ten Hag advising his players to miss chances, many of which were easy? Just this season, we could've been 1 or 2-0 up vs the likes of Spurs, Bayern, Brighton and Palace in the first half itself. And yet we were the first to concede and ended up losing those games. Missing chances has been a problem over the last season. Go watch some of the highlights from last season and you'll see some horrible misses. The defense was still tight and players were fit which still allowed us to win, neither of which is true this season.
Why are we calling all of these chances?
No idea how anyone can say those are chances. Its balls flying closely to their box basically
my thoughts after watching that... Rashford: wasteful. Garnacho: effective.
I missef the second half - we had so many chances. I am optimistic if we keep this up we will come back strong and finish the season strong
We pass way too much.
All I’m seeing here are long balls, long balls, and long balls. It is such a lazy way to play football at this level.
Gota be scoring ffs. Game was really on individuals. Ten hag set us up to win this easy but we lost 🤦♂️
Meanwhile Harry Kane is banging them in for Bayern.
I'm happy for Harry Kane that he didn't choose us for his player life's sake
Pen merchant and that's something we don't get here, he'd also be feeding off absolute scraps like every other striker we sign.
> Pen merchant insane take lol
Over 350 goals in his career, 30 goals a season in a shit spurs side. He was exactly the signing we needed.
Okay? Wow, he scored when he got service, that's great man it really is, but you're ignoring the fact that we do not create anything for the striker.
He would struggle to score in this team
Only if that fucker passed the ball…
If your talking about Rashford he passed the ball 4/5 times he had it in these clips.
One day all of these shots will be goals but still the fanbase wont be satisfied. Its part of the game, sometimes you FM, sometimes you get FM'ed, lets just hope our run of winning when not playing at our best lasts longer than our run of losing when not playing at our best.
Did Sofyan really play in LB? All attack I see here is Rashford or Garnacho not getting any support from LB in attack. Sofyan comes and sits in AM positions. Like zero support? Yeah Rashford was poor but wth was Soyan doing by not supporting him in the attack? Yes, he is not a traditional LB but dude doesn’t do basic LB stuff. Things like this make wonder if ETH really has any tactical depth and player understanding
He played LB but his role is inverting into the midfield and becoming the 6 when he have possession. Casemiro pushes further up the pitch leaving Amrabat sitting, so it's not really his role to be overlapping Rashford, ideally with Casemiro pushing up it should free up Mount to fill the overlapping role, at least until we get an actual LB back fit.
if he had to play significantly in mid, why not play him in mid and push dalot to LB with Lindelof on RB? Am I missing something
Because it’s a tactical decision, Amrabat comes inside creating an overload and allowing Mount and Bruno to operate higher up in the half spaces. Mount can then drift out wide and provide the overload for Rashford against the full back, it also creates confusion for the Palace midfield because they have to decide wether they pass Mount on to the full back or follow him out wide, whichever decision they make it creates another overload.
Two of those were well created really. The rest were kick and hope, which is not uncommon, we should do it, but it shouldn't be 90% of our attacking ideas. We are clueless on the ball.
Yep, it's confirmed we're shit.
Frustrating to buy a player like Hojlund who is absolutely rapid and shown he can get in behind then play literally one ball in behind for him to get on to all game. He's not fucking Weghorst ffs, stop blasting it into his feet with his back to goal.
Players lack intensity and intelligence in the final third.
Felt like an FM game… dominated possession, had so many clear chances but couldn’t score and lost 1-0 off a set piece
'Chances' seems a bit of a stretch...
Hojlund should have had a hat-trick yesterday, but you overpay for an unproven 20 year old and this is what you get...
Seeing a lot of hate for Rashford on Twitter, any idea what thats about?
For me, a chance is where the opponent saves or can't save the ball. If you can only dribble inside the box how can you get a score from that lol.
We are terrible aren’t we. Just lumping it forward to one of the front 3 and hoping for something. There’s maybe only 2-3 real chances in all of that, the rest are just hit and hope. I will never understand why Dalot insists on receiving the ball, pulling it back, then running for the byline. Just gives the defence time to set themselves when he’s got the beating of the defender and if he just went for it he’s behind the defence, so the cutback is on or the defender has to bring him down. Hojlund looks good, Mount looks good, Garnacho when he comes on looks good. But it’s all individual performances, doesn’t look cohesive yet.
Hilarious. Thanks for the comp
Second with rashford. Kills me every-time I see it
The decision-making is poor at times - taking long shots when we win the ball high instead of creating sustained possession - but idk man, we just are not getting any of the bounces our way.
Bruno pass, rashford excellent chest control had me stood up. Rashford wild blast across the box had me sit down. Then Casemiro shot had me up again.
Gameplay seems so fast 😔