Premier League 2021/22: Man Utd vs Wolves Mon 3rd Jan 17.30 KO

I didn't see that today. What I saw was too many players being forced to look for Cavani or Ronaldo instead of taking the man on. I saw Greenwood and Sancho both do this (although Greenwood also blasted a shot over instead of playing in someone). I see players with instructions that make them do too much second-guessing and not playing instinctively. Part of this is they have their pressing / defensive duties in their minds so any time they lose the ball (like AWB did a few times) suddenly they are miles up the pitch, leaving Varane 1v1 on too many occasions.

tl;dr we don't have the player for this system, and this system is basically modern football, not some crazy ass LVG style. We need upgrades on at least half the team. I'd opt for youth team players rather than persisting with senior players who can't perform.

Out of today's bunch I'd give passing marks to Jones, Varane, DeGea, Greenwood, and Sancho is on the fence. Everyone else was poor.

I mean in the wider squad.

There's a huge list of players that seems to grow every week of lads that just don't want to be at Utd anymore because they aren't playing. Henderson, Bailly, VDB, Martial, Lingard and Pogba all seem to want out, Cavani sounded like he would be up for a move too. Been saying it for a while and it maybe has been exagerrated by our early league cup exit but there's way to many players at this club with no Europa League this season he hasn't been able to rotate as much midweek as he normally would.

Those who are playing don't look happy Wan Bissaka, Shaw, Maguire, Rashford, Ronaldo, Bruno all look miserable whenever they are on the pitch.

It's only a personal theory but I think the dressing room/training ground is a negative place at the moment because there's to many unhappy people coming into work every day and that mood seems to show on the pitch. The buzz has totally gone from the squad and that'll be a tricky thing to bring back. For me getting a few of those unhappy faces out in January even if just on loan might be enough.

Another positive is for the next 2 weeks unless games get rescheduled which I doubt they will Utd actually have two full weeks of training so hopefully Rangnick can start getting some of his ideas across.
 
is it a coincidence the same happened at Juve after Ronaldo's arrival?
 
Didn't they win two back to back titles and finish runner up in year 3? He scored 101 goals in 134 games. He came in to try and give them a final push in Europe but reality is they never had a strong enough team to win that title midfield for them was a bit of a mess and defensively De Ligt struggled to settle in and the new rock they hoped he would be.

There's a lot of history being re-written about Ronaldo at Juventus.

Is it coincidence that they've looked much worse this season without him?

That said I don't think the Ronaldo signing has solved our problems from last season which were essentially we let in way to many goals and our midfield couldn't control games. Those two things are still true this season and would still be true if we hadn't signed Ronaldo.

That signing we all know was to stop him from joining City. If he'd gone to City he'd probably be on 20 goals and leading them to the title. Even for us he's scoring 1 in 2 in the league and 1 in 1 in champions league.

His movement up top is still very good but the problems with this team start further back than Ronaldo.
 
they were winning titles before he arrived.

Quite a few players have said his arrival was the start of the demise and their playing identity was changed. And it certainly seems we have gone backwards since.
 
they were winning titles before he arrived.

Quite a few players have said his arrival was the start of the demise and their playing identity was changed. And it certainly seems we have gone backwards since.

Yeah but funny how you blame the guy who isn't there anymore for your own cock ups isn't it?

Ronaldo joined a Juventus side that was on the slide he was the one final roll of the dice and it didn't work. The best Juve side was the one that lost to Barca in the 2015 CL final by the time he joined them most of that side was gone. The 2017 side was still good but it wasn't quite good enough to beat Ronaldo's Madrid in the final and same in 2018 when Madrid did them in the semi final.

Ronaldo didn't make them sack Allegri after one season then appoint Sarri then Pirlo then bring Allegri back.

The reason Juventus have lost their dominance in Italy is just years of bad decisions they didn't rebuild the side very well after 2017 and it just all went a bit stale as soon as a worthy opponent stepped up in Inter they were knocked off the top spot.

Ronaldo is probably part of that problem they gambled everything on 1 superstar signing rather than rebuild the squad they surrounded him with average players or older players then try to pin the blame on him?

You could argue it's a similar thing at Utd but Utd didn't spend silly money to bring him in they got him pretty cheap they've just neglected a key are of the team for to long which is the midfield. It doesn't really matter what Ronaldo does up top because the team create zero chances for him to finish off and they give away so many silly goals which has nothing to do with Ronaldo.
 
Ronaldo seems to be an easy scapegoat and I see Merson on SS is also spouting about how he was right when he said Ronaldo has thrown out our plans. However, if we hadn’t signed Ronaldo would we be doing any better with the guys we have? We haven’t had Ronaldo the last couple of years and we haven’t at times been much better than the dross served up yesterday.

If we didn’t have Ronaldo then Rashford would be up top I presume and he’s not exactly in great form. Also like jsp touched on above if we don’t have the creativity from midfield then we are getting nowhere fast. I still think the midfield is a huge perform and has been since we lost the likes of Carrick and Scholes - the signings have not been good. I still feel we add some high quality replacements for Fred, Matic and McT then we have one hell of a team/squad.

It’s just all very depressing right now but all is not lost. We are still a stones throw from top four and in the CL last 16. It should rightly be doom and gloom after yesterdays showing but I don’t think the season is a write off by any means.
 
Whilst we continue to play a midield that consist of 2 from Matic and McFred we'll get nowhere. People talk about Maguire not getting in to other top teams (Nonsense) but Liverpool City's and Chelsea fourth choice midfielders get in to our starting 2.

As for Ronaldo being a problem. Give me a break. Was no need to sign him but he's certainly not a problem.
 
I would put it simply as he hasn't solved a problem in the same way he hasn't created one.

The only problem I felt the signing of Ronaldo created was an overload of attacking players I think other clubs would have moved Martial and possible even Cavani out to make space for Ronaldo.

Big squads are great when you're winning and playing well because those on the bench aren't sitting thinking I should be starting but when you aren't winning everyone must be watching thinking how is he getting picked ahead of me.

The big issue I felt vs Wolves was one their manager tactically gave us a problem we didn't solve until Bruno came on when we basically matched the 3-4-3 system at that point we really took control of the game. Secondly in the middle of the park they matched our work rate but they also had the quality Moutinho/Neves dominated against Matic/McTominay providing better quality to their attacking players and Moutinho popped up with the goal.

Was a bit annoyed that they took Greenwood off ahead of Cavani who just wasn't in the game at all.
 
Spot on about Ronaldo. He's not caused any problems he's there to put chances away. Our midfield can't ge the ball to our forwards to create any.

I'm actually shocked we've not been in for Neves at some point.
 
Do you think we'd playing this system if we hadn't got Ronaldo.

I'm not here saying he's pap. I'm saying he's set us back, he wasn't the right signing for club at that time.

And I'm glad Ralf has told him and Bruo to improve their on pitch body language.

And I also agree, he is not the main problem, but he is an additional one.

I think only certain posts, or parts of posts are picked up. And not the bigger picture of the post.

We all know the midfield is the major problem, and after hefty investment, CB remains a problem. And our full backs aren't really up to standard.

So every position really :)

I still think, a better manager than we have had since Alex left, would get more out of this team. Not much more, but they wouldn't look as out of their depth as the currently do.
 
Why wouldn't we be playing this system if we didn't get Ronaldo? It's the system Ragnick plays. It certainly doesn't suit Ronaldo he's looked better in the 4-2-3-1 system with Bruno behind him but then others wanted Bruno dropped. What happens when you drop Bruno is you lack any creativity at all.

Get Bruno back get Pogba fit and stop with the McFred and we'll move up the table. Ronaldo will put chances away but someone has to create them.
 
he has to stop going for glory every time he gets the ball.

Although this does partially go back to my point about no out ball.
 
Spot on about Ronaldo. He's not caused any problems he's there to put chances away. Our midfield can't ge the ball to our forwards to create any.

I'm actually shocked we've not been in for Neves at some point.

I'd be amazed if clubs hadn't asked about Neves but my guess is Wolves haven't been willing to sell for anything less than a crazy fee and the Wolves owners are well backed. Could be that he quite likes it at Wolves the mini Portuguese community thing they kind of had going feels comfortable there and hasn't been desperate to move up.

He's still only 24 got 18 months left on his deal you'd think a club like Utd should be considering a decent bid for him as he's much better than what we currently have. You'd like to think £35-40m would get you a player like him?

Given his contract situation you have to assume they're cashing in on him soon unless they think they can get him to extend.

He walks into this team stands out against us every time we play them and seems like an obvious upgrade on what we have.
 
he has to stop going for glory every time he gets the ball.

Although this does partially go back to my point about no out ball.

It's kind of his job to go for glory and last night this certainly wasn't the case with Ronaldo.

If you've got a lethal finisher like him you want him taking shots in and around the box he didn't try anything to crazy last night.

Cavani was much worse trying to bang in a 30 yarder out of pure frustration rather than slide in Greenwood and Ronaldo also rightly stepped aside to let Bruno take the last minute free kick.

Ronaldo should never be taking free kicks when Bruno is on the field.
 
Sancho should have been playing Ronaldo in about 10 minutes in. The ball from Greenwood was excellent and Sancho ran in to traffic whilst Ronaldo was open to his left.
 
as an aside, anyone noticed there might a problem between Greenwood and Ronaldo? Not that that is unusual in football.
 
Sancho should have been playing Ronaldo in about 10 minutes in. The ball from Greenwood was excellent and Sancho ran in to traffic whilst Ronaldo was open to his left.

I dunno I think Sancho made the right call to use Ronaldo as the decoy as you are going wide to Ronaldo on his weaker left foot cutting inside for me was the right move he just didn't pull it off.

Ronaldo made that run knowing he'd likely be the decoy.
 
I mean in the wider squad.

There's a huge list of players that seems to grow every week of lads that just don't want to be at Utd anymore because they aren't playing. Henderson, Bailly, VDB, Martial, Lingard and Pogba all seem to want out, Cavani sounded like he would be up for a move too. Been saying it for a while and it maybe has been exagerrated by our early league cup exit but there's way to many players at this club with no Europa League this season he hasn't been able to rotate as much midweek as he normally would.

Those who are playing don't look happy Wan Bissaka, Shaw, Maguire, Rashford, Ronaldo, Bruno all look miserable whenever they are on the pitch.

It's only a personal theory but I think the dressing room/training ground is a negative place at the moment because there's to many unhappy people coming into work every day and that mood seems to show on the pitch. The buzz has totally gone from the squad and that'll be a tricky thing to bring back. For me getting a few of those unhappy faces out in January even if just on loan might be enough.

Another positive is for the next 2 weeks unless games get rescheduled which I doubt they will Utd actually have two full weeks of training so hopefully Rangnick can start getting some of his ideas across.
Step inside VDB's head for a moment: trained like a pro every day, promised he'd get his chances (taken to mean games, not minutes at end of meaningless games), and sat on his arse for a year. He's unhappy, a club comes in for him, and the manager refused to let him go. New manager comes in and doesn't give him a look. How would you feel? I'd imagine players around VDB are sympathetic, especially if it's not their starting position under threat. What is the point of training hard every day and watching the shit-show we saw against Wolves/Newcastle et al.?
 
Step inside VDB's head for a moment: trained like a pro every day, promised he'd get his chances (taken to mean games, not minutes at end of meaningless games), and sat on his arse for a year. He's unhappy, a club comes in for him, and the manager refused to let him go. New manager comes in and doesn't give him a look. How would you feel? I'd imagine players around VDB are sympathetic, especially if it's not their starting position under threat. What is the point of training hard every day and watching the shit-show we saw against Wolves/Newcastle et al.?

Thing with him is there's obviously a reason Ole and now Ralf are picking others ahead of him there's obviously something they see in others that they prefer but we don't know what that is. As I always say with him he needs to show us more when he does get on the pitch to make you think he has to be in the team when this lad doesn't play our fan base go on about him like he's Paul Scholes then when he does play it's all a bit 6/10.

The offer for VDB from memory was a last minute season long loan offer from Everton which Utd turned down as the loan fee would not cover his FFP value for the season and it gave Utd no time to sort a replacement. Had Everton offered to buy at a reasonable fee Utd might have allowed him to leave but I don't think they saw the value in letting him go on loan.

Well it's your job part of being a pro player is dealing with these situations and turning up to training a day and doing your best. Yeah if I was him I'd be asking to sit down with Ralf and saying I have to play more if I can't get that here let me leave. There are certainly rumours that Utd will let him go on loan but like Martial they want the wages paid and a loan fee so it's now on his agent to go find him a club that are willing to meet those terms. I fully expect him to be a player who's up for sale in the summer.

You compare that to players like Dalot and Telles had a run of games both played well now both seem to have been dropped for the last 2 games how must they feel? Especially Dalot watching AWB trip over the ball and look like a giraffe on roller skates.
 
Spot on about Ronaldo. He's not caused any problems he's there to put chances away. Our midfield can't ge the ball to our forwards to create any.

I'm actually shocked we've not been in for Neves at some point.
Just read we are going to bid this window, he wants to play in the CL.

I'm not sure I'd be joining united at the moment if that was my goal. He'll get two games. in the next 2 years :rolleyes:
 
Just read we are going to bid this window, he wants to play in the CL.

I'm not sure I'd be joining united at the moment if that was my goal. He'll get two games. in the next 2 years :rolleyes:

2 games more than he'll get a Wolves.

He's certainly a player all the top prem sides should be looking at with his contract running down but I doubt Wolves sell mid season unless someone pays a big premium.
 
As per usual, we are rumoured to be offering under their 40+ valuation.

Not quite sure what 40+ plus means, surely 40.

If he wants to play CL I assume he means often, and not just till we get knocked out. He must be looking at CL side for next year.
 
As per usual, we are rumoured to be offering under their 40+ valuation.

Not quite sure what 40+ plus means, surely 40.

If he wants to play CL I assume he means often, and not just till we get knocked out. He must be looking at CL side for next year.

Well is he worth more than 40m? He’s only got 18 months on his deal so Wolves have a weakening hand to play.

I’d say he’s worth around 40m but I guess any club will be looking at structuring the deal with some bonus payments.

I doubt Utd are in negotiations sounds very paper talk but I’d be happy to have him.
 
He might not be worth 40m to City or Liverpool, but with a club who relies on McFred he's worth a bomb
 
He might not be worth 40m to City or Liverpool, but with a club who relies on McFred he's worth a bomb

A players worth is what he's worth to the selling club not the buying club. From an FFP or financial point of view Wolves don't need to worry about that but from a football point of view he's a key player for them alongside Jiminez he's their star man so he's vital to them.

40m these days feels a bit like chump change if we could get him for that I'd be pretty happy but it all depends what route we are going down if we're going for this ultra modern high pressing football is Neves that kind of player?

He ticks a lot of boxes for me as he seems settled in England, he knows the league, he's still young, he's shown leadership qualities (captained Porto as a teenager), he sticks his foot in and he's really good on the ball.
 
I'm looking forward to JC explaining how McT hasn't been awful this half.

But he’s an academy lad so it doesn’t matter!

Ahh look, two of my biggest fans on the forum thinking of me in my absence, and when a match is in progress as well, it's humbling, i'm filling up here ....

Hope you both had both hands on your keyboard/pad when yous were typing fellas.

Laterz.
 

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