-1 goal difference after 12 games

Sideshow Bob

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A very telling stat. The players struggle to defend as a team and struggle to attack as a team.
 
In truth we are weak in all areas of the pitch. There is a huge amount of work to do and we need to decide who is in charge to do it.
 
Until we sort out our mentality we won’t improve. We’re scared to attack whilst level.
 
I’d agree our back 4 aren’t good enough. But every other area of the pitch we’re good enough. Just don’t perform good enough. Or play the right players.
 
Probably true but I don't think a lot of our players are good enough

I'm repeating myself, but I am still of the belief that we're not seeing the best of players because of coaching and tactics. Someone like Pochettino would have the team performing to a higher level and the ability of the players would be viewed differently. The squad is massively underperforming.
 
I’m repeating myself. But I believe we play the way we do to protect a poor defence.
 
I would agree that another coach would get better from this team. But do you honestly think our players are even close to the other top teams. I really don't. How many of our midfield would get in any of the top 5 teams. Maybe pogba. Strikers the same. Martial maybe on a good day
 
At the moment the only player of ours that gets in City’s side is De Gea. Pogba could make their bench.
 
I’m repeating myself. But I believe we play the way we do to protect a poor defence.

There is more than one to protect a sub standard defence. Mourinho likes to defend from deep positions, where as a lot of other managers like to defend by pressing from the front. United invite pressure on the defence by defending in deep positions. United don't press or defend like a team.
 
We don’t do anything like a team. We seem to be stuck. I disagree with Poch or Zidane improving things though. Poch has a better squad and doesn’t do anything. Zidane had the best side ever assembled.
 
I think Spurs has an inferior squad and that Pochettino is overachieving with the players at his disposal. The graphic below says it all:

DqsuEM2X0AABWUe
 
Combined 11

De Gea

Trippier Vertonhen Aldierwierald Shaw

Sissoko Dembele Pogba

Lamela Kane Martial/Son

They’re the better side play for player
 
The graphic doesn’t show it all. It doesn’t take in to account we paid £75m for a striker. They magicked one up.
 
Not sure about that. Our squad is probably bigger but I am not sure about better, particularly the first 11. Again who would get in their first team. De gea, pogba, maybe martial. Not sure there's much more. I am not giving Jose a free a pass here because he is below teams who have nowhere near our quality of squad
 
Combined 11

De Gea

Trippier Vertonhen Aldierwierald Shaw

Sissoko Dembele Pogba

Lamela Kane Martial/Son

They’re the better side play for player

If we swapped managers the number of Spurs players in a combined XI would be significantly reduced. The influence of a manager cannot be underestimated.
 
I don’t see any players you could swap. Highlight to me the guys you think we could.
 
The graphic doesn’t show it all. It doesn’t take in to account we paid £75m for a striker. They magicked one up.

Spurs didn't magic one up. Their manager put faith in a young player. Kane had played 26 games in all competitions for Spurs prior to Pochettino's arrival and he also had underwhelming loan spells at Norwich and Leicester.
 
I certainly think poch is better with young players. He has shown good coaching and patience with Kane and developed him superbly. I don't think however that he would have developed rashford as quickly. Partly because rashford just isn't as good as Kane and partly because United managers don't get the same amount of time to develop them.
 
I don’t see any players you could swap. Highlight to me the guys you think we could.

I can't highlight any players because United's players are underperforming due to the manager. There are numerous examples in just this season alone where teams and players are performing to a higher level under new management.
 
I don't agree we play the way we do because of a poor defence, he'd still play this way with a good defence, if you're going to play this way you need a good defence not rely on one that isn't good enough. You also need midfielders/players that can turn defence to attack quickly, we either don't have them or they're not instructed to do so in favour of being more patient, either way it's all baffling to me.

I still feel our defensive problem is due to us inviting pressure on ourselves with a negative mindset, there's been games this season where we started with a back 5 and reverted to a back 6/7 in the opening 5 minutes with Matic and Fellaini dropping back, leaving us with no shield, I think it was the West Ham game, it was just wave after wave in the first half and was over by then. Newcastle at home, invited them on to us 2-0 down in opening 10.

Herrera and McTominay in defence, baffling. Just tug of war politics with Woodward.

Mourinho isn't totally to blame but a lot of fans seem oblivious to his nonsense and you know it's bad when you start agreeing with Souness.
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I think he would play the sane with a good defence. Obviously that would give us more points but it is debatable whether it gives us a better performance. I think we definitely need a modern, forward thinking coach. We have been here before but the next appointment needs to be the correct one. Somebody that has the boards confidence in terms of backing him. Somebody with an attacking identity. Somebody that Will develop what I believe is the best bunch of youngsters since the class of 92. Tall order to find that but essential nevertheless.
 
Spurs didn't magic one up. Their manager put faith in a young player. Kane had played 26 games in all competitions for Spurs prior to Pochettino's arrival and he also had underwhelming loan spells at Norwich and Leicester.

Everyone knew by the time Poch arrived that Spurs had a player in Kane. He also bought him in throughout the Europa league games and it was evident he had kicked on. They had no other option but to play him as their other striker in Soldado couldn’t hit a barn door.
 
You can point to the defence or the attack as the problem here the reality is in 2 and a bit seasons this team really isn't much better or worse than it was under LVG it's not able to challenge for a title and looks like a cup side who fight for top 4 and that's after pumping another couple of £100m into the squad.

I honestly think the warning signs were there last season despite us somehow finishing second far to many games where De Gea was motm the difference is this season he's not pulling off as many wonder saves and teams are being clinical.

I don't put this all at the managers door btw plenty of it goes about his head but I'm not sure he's making the most out of what he has at the club.
 
I think our squad is really poor in places, the defence in particular. I think the board have made huge erros and will continue to until they get some football people involved. How they are letting everyones contracts get so low is just a mystery.

But I do think we need a different coach now, I just can't see what Jose is trying to do, 8th in the league, it's not like his defensive ways are even working anymore. I am jsut losing a bit of faith in what's going on.

I don't think changing the manager will fix what the fundamental problems at the club are. But I just don't get what Jose is doing any more. Maybe a new coach now will set us for next season.

But, I know the club won't do this, becasue they have the wrong people in at board level.
 
The contract situation to me is simple the players are on fantastic money so they are reluctant to leave when the door is opened for them and Utd have given our top earners way to much money which means any player negotiating a new deal is asking for way more than they are worth.

There's a lack of strategy just look at this summer with Fellaini one minute he's gone the next he's allowed to stay because he can't find a better offer how is that being allowed to happen? What was the plan if Fellaini signed for someone else?

I don't think they really know who they want to keep and who they want to sell because we all know most of these players aren't good enough but no one seems to be working on a plan for how we change this squad over the next 2 years to build a team capable of winning the title back. We just muddle through season after season the team really doesn't change that much I mean yesterday think I'm right in saying that 9 of the starting XI were here under LVG only Lindelöf & Matic started the game.

There's another big problem when you've got a guy like Sanchez reported to be on £300k a week plus £75k appearance bonus and not performing when players come for the new contracts they use him as the benchmark. Not saying Martial will be asking for parity with Sanchez but if I was his agent I'd be using that as my benchmark to start negotiations I'm in the team, I'm scoring the goals therefore I should be getting the same money he is. When you've got big earners who aren't necessarily justifying the wages it make sorting contracts with your squad very difficult.

It's never been a worse time to attempt a squad overhaul given the prices in the market at the moment Utd really need to start unearthing gems again and spotting value signings like other clubs have done we can't just keep banging £50m down every time we want a player.
 
Big big changes need to be made within the club if we are ever to get back to being contenders. A lot of players need to go, the manager needs to go, Woodward needs to go. Until we make big changes we are going to continue to struggle.
 
@jsp, the money in football is simply ludicrous now and you look at the top sides and the money they are now spending, its sign that there isn't enough room for homegrown talent, or even spotting a lad abroad and taking a risk.

Chelsea - Kepa and Jorginho £60mil and £70 mil
Liverpool - Allison, Keita and Fabinho £40, £50 and £60 million !
City - Mahrez £60 mill !

Im not just saying this due to his poor performance yesterday, but Matic ? When we signed Matic there were better options than him whatever way you look at it, it was a lazy, ill prepared way out when we signed him.

Look at Chelsea - Payed £40 million for Bakayoko, when they could of used Loftus Cheek instead, I know who I would rather have playing.

In our case, we need a major overhaul if we are to compete for anything, City were a class above yesterday - Kills me to say that but they really were.
 
@Ben Townsend There's still room to spot bargains and make clever moves not saying you can put a squad together on a shoe string anymore but you can spot value in players to improve squads. I think we tried a few of these with Darmian, Rojo & Blind but it didn't really work out for us although you could argue Blind contributed what we'd want from that sort of player then left for basically what we paid the other 2 have lingered like a smelly fart in a packed lift.

I dunno about Matic I think at the time the signing made a lot of sense he'd had a great season at Chelsea who'd won the league, he'd worked with the manager, on paper he solved a problem position, bought some winning experience to the dressing room but I just think he's been over worked and bit like Lukaku we are seeing the result of a hard season last year.

It feels to me like Utd can spot talent but we are not spotting the attitude problems players are coming to Utd for pay days not for glory at the moment and to an extent we are having to settle for second best at times in the transfer market. Utd years ago would've bullied Spurs into selling us Kane by now that's not bragging that's just the way it was but we don't have that muscle anymore so instead we have to take a chance on a guy like Lukaku. How the club ended up paying £75m for him is beyond me that was a ridiculous fee for a guy who hadn't played at the CL level yet and there were still question marks over. 2 years earlier that's what Barca paid for Suarez for example.

That's the state of where things are the prices are massively over inflated now and we've contributed to that with some of the fees we've paid for players £30m for Shaw, £60m for Di Maria, £90m for Pogba & £75m for Lukaku has raised the bar. City and Liverpool I think have been a bit smarter with the money they've not really gone from many proven products they've done the homework and largely made good decisions signing young hungry players who fit the plan. Utd just look for the biggest names possible and hope that when you stick it all together it works on the pitch.

Van Gaal has even been quoted somewhere saying Utd is a club that is money first football second in terms of priority it's safe to say the tail is currently wagging the dog at Utd.
 
It’s also more impossible for us to pick up the bargain players. If Leicester go in for player X then it’ll be £30m if we go in for the same Player X the club will quote us £45m. Because we’re United. Then when that player goes to Leicester because we refused to meet the valuation Leicester than want £60m from us for Player X.
 
No you just say we're prepared to pay £30m which is the same as Leicester surely the player will pick us over them anyway? I still never understood how we ended up paying Madrid £60m for Di Maria they were desperate to sell we were the only club in for him as PSG got hit with FFP yet we paid 50% more than what Arsenal spent on Ozil 2 years earlier. Utd are terrible negotiators in the transfer market because we use agents as negotiators as we don't have the skills in house to broker these deals.

I know that's not the point you were making but Utd need to be tough on their valuation of players eventually teams break and do the deal as the player forces it to happen really we need to start identifying these players before they go to Leicester if we want to use Maguire as the example.
 
Everyone knew by the time Poch arrived that Spurs had a player in Kane. He also bought him in throughout the Europa league games and it was evident he had kicked on. They had no other option but to play him as their other striker in Soldado couldn’t hit a barn door.

Kane made his first Premier League start for Spurs in April 2014. Pochettino was appointed manager of Spurs in May 2014. Kane was by no means considered a sure thing.

Back on subject, Mourinho is the biggest problem at the club. The squad is more than good enough to finish in the top four.
 
Mourinho is far from the biggest issue at the club. Cite Woodward who can’t even get David ‘if the club offer me a contract I want to sign it’ De Gea and ‘We didn’t sign Vertonghen or Maguire because they wouldn’t have improved our side’ Woodward.

The next biggest issue is the fact our CB’s starting CB’s wouldn’t make the bench if Spurs or City. Our only striker has gained two stone over the summer. You’re looking to blame someone and it’s the wrong person. But everyone loves the blame game if Mourinho is involved. It’s his fault Lukaku is out of shape. His fault Woodward undermined him.

And you may be right the squad may be good enough to finish top 4. Mourinho got it second last season and 2 cups the year before. Last I checked the league table didn’t close in November.
 

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