A well drilled side?

Red Warrior

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So after listening to the game and watching the highlights, it's pretty clear that Brighton are a well drilled side, along with the like of Crystal Palace and Burnley. Why do I not feel the same about Utd?

With these sides you know what you are going to get, hard working players and a style of play. Is it just because we have inconsistent player like Pogba, Martial and Rashford at the minute that make us look this way or are we really not a well drilled side? Surely they spend hours on the training field doing drills, practicing tactics etc?

I feel we sometimes get schooled by lesser teams that work harder. Thoughts?
 
I just had a look to see where the 3 teams you mentioned finished in the league last season. My thoughts are, please don't compare us with these teams as I have no wish for United to fall to such depths, were moving forward not backward.
And neither Burnley or Brighton are looking very well placed in the current table.
 
Utd have just stopped doing things that made us better in the second half of last season.

i also think word is out of our vulnerability which is when we lose the ball get your strikers in behind our centre backs quickly. One vs one both are vulnerable to speed and our keeper doesn’t sweep so if they’re up high you can quickly turn us around. How many teams are playing 2 up against us now? The teams who got beaten easily post lockdown were the teams who sat off us and we ripped them apart those who went for us really tested us. This lot don’t like it up em!

When we build from the back press the ball and force it wide our full backs are not great in possession they can’t hurt you. Press high because Utd never go long our forwards all come to feet no one runs in behind and forces your defence back and no one can really challenge for a long ball. When good teams get pressed they often go over the press it’s a key part of the tactic if they push on to you then you need players that can punish the space they’ve left.

I do think a lot of our attacking play is off the cuff still there doesn’t seem to be obvious tactics or moves being played out to expose an opponents weakness, it seems to be get our good players on the ball and see what they come up with. Teams know there’s little threat from crosses so they defend nice and narrow and almost let us have the wide areas when we attack as both wide players come inside so you block that route as best you can not always easy.

It just feels a bit nice and a bit tippy tippy there’s no real bite or aggression to our player that’s not booting people and being thuggish but it’s being all over your opponent physically rushing him and making him panic into bad decisions.
 
It just feels a bit nice and a bit tippy tippy there’s no real bite or aggression to our player that’s not booting people and being thuggish but it’s being all over your opponent physically rushing him and making him panic into bad decisions.
It has to be said, there were seasons when Fergie's teams as good as bullied there way to the title.
 
It has to be said, there were seasons when Fergie's teams as good as bullied there way to the title.

Oh they were physical and knew how and when to cross lines but they were very very rarely run off the pitch by the opponent, they nearly always matched the opponent for intensity and aggression. Utd were always up for a fight if you want a fight we win the fight if you want to play football then we’ll beat you at football unless you are Arsenal in that case we will make it a fight.

You can’t really be a thug anymore to many watching eyes with VAR.

A Utd side were on you from minute 1 putting you under pressure this Utd side look like they aren’t ready at kick off so opponents grow in confidence against us.

The game is so fast now and we’ve got 5 players in our starting XI who are all slower than Liverpool’s slowest player which I’m guessing is Van Dijk.

I don’t want to go to hard on Ole the messed up schedule means everyone is a bit rattled right now but I do think there’s still tactical questions to be answered but he hasn’t really built his full team in his image yet.
 
Liverpool’s slowest player isn’t anywhere near Van Dijk. You’re missing Henderson Thiago Wijnaldum Gomes and Robertson from what I guess is their best 11. Van Dijk tops speed isn’t that bad at all. He’s certainly no Lindelof or Maguire.

We are far from a slow side except at the back.
 
It was a toss up for me between Van Dijk and Gomez but all those players you named I reckon beat Maguire, Lindelof, Shaw, Matic and Pogba in a race and they certainly batter them when it comes to endurance.
 
I’d be surprised if anywhere near as fast as Pogba. The guy is fast just doesn’t like running.

As for the rest I’d agree. We massively lack pace at the back. But i’d think most teams do and we’ve got the fastest front 3 in the league. We just don’t use their pace.
 
Don’t see Pogba get involved in many foot races these days.

His new role means he never really bursts behind teams but he’s always been a guy who runs forward much quicker than he runs backwards.

The point still sort of stands there’s not for of half a team that struggles to win a sprint.
 
Oh they were physical and knew how and when to cross lines but they were very very rarely run off the pitch by the opponent, they nearly always matched the opponent for intensity and aggression. Utd were always up for a fight if you want a fight we win the fight if you want to play football then we’ll beat you at football unless you are Arsenal in that case we will make it a fight.
What I would give to have those days back again. A fantastic era for English football.

I don’t want to go to hard on Ole the messed up schedule means everyone is a bit rattled right now but I do think there’s still tactical questions to be answered but he hasn’t really built his full team in his image yet.
There certainly is questions can be asked but he has also done a lot of good and you cant expect he could fix all that needed fixing in this short time. Remember, when we talk about poor tactics we are questioning the whole coaching team. Are we saying MP is no good anymore? and the rest of the coaching staff are incompetent alongside Ole?
I am going to keep believing we are making good strides and there is more to come. It is Ole's dream to lead the club he loves back to success.
 
I certainly think there’s questions to be asked over the quality of coaching.

We’ve got the old school that comes with Phelan with two young inexperienced coaches in McKenna and Carrick.

It’s coming up to 2 years under Ole and I’m still struggling to see where it’s going he’s certainly got some buzz and feel good spirit around the club again but that negativity creeps back in so easily here at the moment.

I’m still not sure if I know what an Ole Solskjaer team plays like.
 
I think the pace in our front 3 and the addition he would clearly love to make in Sancho tells us what an Ole team plays like. The fact that Ole is a Fergie throwback and wants to bring back the "the fans must be entertained" mentality tells us what an Ole team plays like.
It is still a work in progress and needs the support of true reds. Not blue neds.
 
I think the pace in our front 3 and the addition he would clearly love to make in Sancho tells us what an Ole team plays like. The fact that Ole is a Fergie throwback and wants to bring back the "the fans must be entertained" mentality tells us what an Ole team plays like.
It is still a work in progress and needs the support of true reds. Not blue neds.

The problem with looking to much to the past is you have to accept the world has changed and football has changed.

The Fergie ethos and mentality certainly has to be put back in the club being ruthless and fighting for every scrap to win a game but football has moved on. Fergie always put new faces with fresh ideas around him to keep the players motivated.

Yes the team needs speed and movement in the attack but it also needs the clever midfield players who control the game and defenders who don’t give the opponents a sniff.
 
Let's put 11 talented guys out there, give them a structure based on the oppo, and see what they can come up with. That's an Ole team it seems.

So no, we're far from a well drilled side.
 
I don't understnd united fans really.

Last season no club in the top 5 Euro leagues had more clean sheets yet our CB's are pap
We finished 3rd in a season we had Pogba missing, Rashford and Martial missing for large parts and had to play Pereira etc.
We made it to 3 semi finals.

What happened was, we ran out of steam, the squad is not deep enough. That's not Ole's fault, it doen't mean he's tactically lacking, of course you'll struggle to break teams down when you have MCtom, Pereira and Fred supplying.

This season, we are 5 or 6 games behind most other teams. Before the Palace games they had 5 sessions.

It's not tactically inept, or we are not well drilled, becasue our players can't pass the ball to each other at the moment. The players need to get match fit and quick. Pogba should be dropped.
 
Well Ole contributed he decided on a risky strategy post lockdown of sticking with a starting XI he didn't give his bench players a chance to play and get anywhere near up to speed so when he turned to them not only were they a drop in quality but they were no where near match ready. It paid off in the league but with the benefit of hindsight should those who had long seasons played in that Europa league tournament? In theory yes but obviously in reality he couldn't do that you have to fight for every title.

The exact same happened in his first season he flogged a team to breaking point for months and when they eventually broke the season collapsed and Utd blew a chance at top 4 as every other team also collapsed.

This season he's not had a chance to build up the fitness pre season because of the mad schedule.

A lot of it is just built up frustration we've been here before the warning signs are all going off this side looks like it's going to get off to another bad start and have to play catch up. A good performance and a win vs Spurs at the weekend will probably change the mood especially if there's a few players out and in as well then it's an international break for 2 weeks.

It's not all on him once again the club have struggled to do the business they need to do in the window to change the squad.

There is one lingering thing that will hang over Ole until he has success and that's his track record as a manager there isn't much to cling to other than blind faith that he can actually get this right because there's nothing you can point to in his past to say stick with it and this will work.
 
and there is nothing you can point to say it won't. Who could he bring on during lockdown to give his first 11 a rest? Lingard? Pereira? James? they are not good enough, you are better off with a 60% Bruno.

He did enough last season to show me he has what it takes. He's already out performed Moyes, Van Gall and Jose for me.

The only problem with this side is the squad is way too shallow.
 
and there is nothing you can point to say it won't. Who could he bring on during lockdown to give his first 11 a rest? Lingard? Pereira? James? they are not good enough, you are better off with a 60% Bruno.

He did enough last season to show me he has what it takes. He's already out performed Moyes, Van Gall and Jose for me.

The only problem with this side is the squad is way too shallow.

Well he could have started Fred or McTominay in a few of the games, he could easily have started Lingard or James in a game and then looked to the bench for support. Did he need to play Bruno vs Norwich in the FA Cup 1/4 final? Did he need to play Rashford in the semi final? There were chances to make some changes but he went the other way and in the league it paid off.

2 of those managers will say they won trophies and delivered a better points total than Ole the other is Moyes.

The squad is bloody huge though 30 first team players it's not shallow it just lacks quality there's 10 players they need to be out the door. No one is saying that isn't a huge task but as Ole reminds us that isn't his job he can only use the tools he has.

I do think we have to be able to say is he using those tools to the best of their ability is he giving them clear instruction on how to expose the opponents weakness and dominate the game or is he basically saying you're all good players go work it out for yourself.
 
The squad is bloody huge though 30 first team players it's not shallow it just lacks quality there's 10 players they need to be out the door. No one is saying that isn't a huge task but as Ole reminds us that isn't his job he can only use the tools he has.
o_O what! we have 30 first team players, they are crap but that doesn't make our squad shallow! are you for real.

Bar the starting 11 and a few others, the squad is shallow. And that is not Ole's fault, it's the board who bought the players, and renewed contracts.

I'm absolutely amazed any fan can point fingers at Ole when he came 3rd and made 3 semi's with that squad. A few on here, probably you JSP, wanted him gone last Christmas. You don't want him there and just won't give him the credit he deserves.

I have faith in Ole, none in the board. If they don't bring players in this month then they will have let another manager down and signed his P45.

This spiel that he has no tactical nous blah blah, absolute nonsense and is disrespectful. There is no evidence to prove that.

As for Moyes/Van Gaal and Jose, those 3 managers nearly made me stop watching/listening to Man Utd, absolute garbage football. Ole has brought me back onside.
 
I like Ole and really want him to succeed. We have defo moved on from that horrible LVG/Jose era and a squad i detested for 5 years. Ole has come in and done what should have happened a long time ago, there is more to be done but I am confident he will sort the squad. Being backed with transfers is a different story again. One thing is we DO know our best XI or there abouts (we certainly did the second part of last season). DVB may make us question Pogbas place but Pogba will bounce back.

My only worry, hence the treat, is that we still look like strangers on the pitch. We had that brilliant purple patch when we would beaten anyone then it drifted off again and is still off. Does Ole have it tactically? His subs, timings of subs and occasional XI's are strange. We look at the minute like we did when Jose was in charge, just a bit lost. Interesting comments from all though, good insight to see how everyone thinks where we are.

@Shoot makes no difference where those teams i mentioned finished, their squads were all assembled for the cost of Tony Martial alone but all of the have beaten us at some point. Point I was making is you know what you get with them and they are well drilled. I'm sure even you can agree on that. Their issue is they have no start players with flair where we have an abundance of them.
 
o_O what! we have 30 first team players, they are crap but that doesn't make our squad shallow! are you for real.

Bar the starting 11 and a few others, the squad is shallow. And that is not Ole's fault, it's the board who bought the players, and renewed contracts.

I'm absolutely amazed any fan can point fingers at Ole when he came 3rd and made 3 semi's with that squad. A few on here, probably you JSP, wanted him gone last Christmas. You don't want him there and just won't give him the credit he deserves.

I have faith in Ole, none in the board. If they don't bring players in this month then they will have let another manager down and signed his P45.

This spiel that he has no tactical nous blah blah, absolute nonsense and is disrespectful. There is no evidence to prove that.

As for Moyes/Van Gaal and Jose, those 3 managers nearly made me stop watching/listening to Man Utd, absolute garbage football. Ole has brought me back onside.

My point might look petty but on paper he's got 30 players in his squad we know a lot are crap but the squad being that size isn't really his doing and I haven't really had a go at him for that. The decisions on moving players in or out under him I think has been bang on so far but it's a slow process because he isn't the man fully in charge of that.

I wasn't on board with Ole from day one I'll admit that but he's grown on me a little but I'm judging him against the best around and he isn't that from what I see on the pitch. The football under Ole until Xmas was as bad as anything we saw under previous managers again mitigating factors over missing key players but going forward we were awful slow sideways garbage with no cutting edge Bruno radically changed that.

The second half of last season recover has obvious bought him more time but I'm still allowed to have doubts about a man who's got the job because he's an ex player not because he has an impressive coaching record.

I question Ole the same way we'd question Utd signing a striker out of the championship you'd have to have doubts over how well he will do.

You just seem to want to focus on the negative things I say about Ole and not the positives.
 
I think my take on ole is if we are to continue with the plan, which means spending quite a lot of money, I am happy that ole is in charge. If we have to make do with largely what we have, or players who aren't top class, then we need a better tactician than ole. The flip side is the 2 previous managers were supposed to bring that and didn't.
I think the bottom line us this is still at the door of the owners.
 
@ JSP You don't seem say anything positive. You come accross to me as someone as who doesn't like him, doesn't want him there and wants him to fail.

You answered your own doubts in that reply, the football before Christmas was a personel problem. I'm not sure you need to have a CV to be a success, plenty of managers through history have gone from backroom to main job and done really well.

I think everyone likes to focus on Cardiff, that club was a nightmare at that time, it was always going to go horribly wrong.

Rather than looking back, I am looking forward. He got us a finish no-one expected from him, he's clearing the squad, improving players and he knows exacty what he wants from any potential signings. We need to move more out and bring some quality in. That's down to the board.

I think Ole has done really well, considering the pressure you have at united, the press had him sacked beofre last Christmas.
 
I think ole has done very well with what he gas but unless he gets quality backing from the owners he won't be able to implement " the plan" and improve our position. The minute we stop still he will be under terrible pressure, you saw a bit of that after losing a single game
 
@ JSP You don't seem say anything positive. You come accross to me as someone as who doesn't like him, doesn't want him there and wants him to fail.

You answered your own doubts in that reply, the football before Christmas was a personel problem. I'm not sure you need to have a CV to be a success, plenty of managers through history have gone from backroom to main job and done really well.

I think everyone likes to focus on Cardiff, that club was a nightmare at that time, it was always going to go horribly wrong.

Rather than looking back, I am looking forward. He got us a finish no-one expected from him, he's clearing the squad, improving players and he knows exacty what he wants from any potential signings. We need to move more out and bring some quality in. That's down to the board.

I think Ole has done really well, considering the pressure you have at united, the press had him sacked beofre last Christmas.

I've said he's helping us make better decisions when it comes to signing players, I've said he's making the right decisions about moving players on, I said he's got a team that's got a bit of spirit about it and togetherness again, he's got the fans engaged with the club again. How are they not positive things?

I said his plan to just go with his best XI non stop in the league after shutdown paid off in the end but it probably hurt us in Europa League and maybe is still hurting us now. I think managing his squad through a season to get the best out of everyone is something he needs to improve on so when he turns to a guy who isn't brilliant that player comes in fit and firing.

However, sometimes you don't have all the tools you need to be perfect so you need to find another solution that's where I've got doubts over Ole can he make us greater than the sum of our parts.

I don't think he's done really well I think he's hit the minimum target of what the club should achieve at the start of last season CL qualification was a realistic possibility and he got it. Goal reached now the bar gets raised he needs to do it again and try to turn those annoying draws from last season into wins so we can increase our points total.
 
Klopps seasons, 8,4,4,2,1

the jump being made after huge investment in areas that needed it. I don't remember any Liverpool fans calling for his head.

Ole, assuming we're calling the first season his, 5th 3rd.

Ole is doing really well in my book.

I don't see Arsenal fans, Chelsea fans or City fans bitching about their manager. Just ours...... and Spurs hahaha
 
Klopps seasons, 8,4,4,2,1

the jump being made after huge investment in areas that needed it. I don't remember any Liverpool fans calling for his head.

Just as a side conversation, did they not call for his head due to lack of expectation after 30 years not winning the league? Is our expectation too big because of our name and not for what we have on the pitch. Are people getting this mixed up?
 
I think the press called for his head, not the fans.

I think a lot of fans have been used to the Fergie years, and not realsied that his was an extraordinary record.

I don't think, even when the club is where we want it to be, playing staff wise, you can expect to win the league. It's a tough league to win. I think if you are there or there abouts then that's ok.
But I do expect us to be nearer, points wise, when we have a decent squad. Martial isn't firing, and we don't have a decent sub. I think our defence is ok, I mentioned elsewhere, most clean sheets in the top 5 leagues last year. But of course it can be improved. And I think a decision needs to made on Pogba. If you drop him, you know the fallout from brother and agent will keep us on the back pages. And that is where Ole will be tested.

I see lots of benefit in Jiminez if Sancho falls through. We don't score enough.
 
Believe me before they signed Van Dijk plenty of Merseyside were sick of the teams rubbish defending and calamity goalkeepers Klopp was getting the reputation of the nearly man as he kept getting beaten in finals and pressure was building on him. Klopp however came as a title winner in Germany and you could see that they were only a few players away. From day one you say Klopp input his style on his team just took time for them to get all the right pieces in to play it to perfection.

Ole has done a fine job so far and it's ok to have some doubt about him as a manager but I 100% want him to succeed but we can't be in the same position at the half way point this season as we were last season.
 
Our defence is disorganised, which is our biggest weakness. We are not good enough at playing the ball out of the back of the defence, or distributing the ball from goal.

Our Full Backs cannot function effectively as wingback, they have too little end product attacking.

Our Midfield is coming together and should be good enough to control games, a top quality deep lying playmaker or box to box midfielder would help playing out from defence as an outlet.

Our Attackers are of good quality, technical and pacey, but, other than counter attacks (when we move the ball quick enough that is) there doesn't seem to be any clear method we use to create goals; other than individual effort on the part of key players.

While having heroes in key positions on the pitch, that can effect games individually, is important; we should have an effective plan for putting the ball into the opposition net, while keeping it out of ours.

We currently have an over reliance on heroes for creating and scoring a majority of our goals.

Until this changes, I would not consider our team as well drilled.
 
We currently have an over reliance on heroes for creating and scoring a majority of our goals.

Until this changes, I would not consider our team as well drilled.

My point in a nutshell, I couldn't put it better mate, well said!
 

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