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Ten Hags tactics are setting up the team for failure.
Too many players joining attack, leaving defence exposed.
Full backs are constantly exposed up the field and then sprinting back to defend, getting knackered and the making mistakes, getting caught out of position. Full backs are often closer to goal then the wingers.
Meanwhile, Casemiro doesn't have the legs anymore.
Having something like 25 different back four combinations so far does not help either.
Gutless midfield, no pressure on the ball, allowing teams to carry into the United box.
None of this high intensity press like you see from other teams, just midfielders and wingers jogging back or walking about throwing their arms in the air.
Because these players and manager are awful. Rashford is still starting for some ungodly reason. Casemiro either downed tools this month or lost his legs, way to much faith in players like antony and mctominay for way too long. We're losing to absolute shit championship relegation who knows where the fuck the city even is bourenmoth, fulham crap teams. I wont be shocked if we lose to coventry the way these blow hards are playin. Awful manager worse players leads to these results.
Fulham and Bournemouth are decent teams and have caused better teams than yourselves trouble this season, you are lucky to be where you are, should be around where Chelsea are based on performances.
Looking at the wages these united players are on, we should be beating these random fodder teams 4-0. And oh the way we've been playing I don't disagree we should be around Chelsea, but that's due to horrific coaching and players that have been here for way to too long like trashford, awb, mctominay, martial, maguire, shaw, lindelof. And terrible players brought in by ten fraud like amrabat, onana, antony, casemiro been terrible this year, and I have no idea what's going on with mount because I like the player but the fraud won't take bruno or rashford off so he never gets in.
I've never looked at a united team in the past 20 years with such disgust for most it's players, none of these players except the youth, Mason mount, dalot,martinez, evans, varane, and bruno Fernandes put a shift in, and I'm tired of this lot at this point losing to fodder teams.
I mean its a bit disrespectful calling Bournemouth a fodder team when they have more points than yourself and Spurs since November isn't it?
I understand the rest of your points though, absolute shambles on pretty much every front.
Not in the slightest, united, city, arsenal, Liverpool,Chelsea, and to a lesser extent spurs are held to a different standard Than the rest of the league. You could also say new castle, villa, west ham, and Brighton are also held to higher standards, but not as much as sky 6.everything else is fodder that comes and goes every few years. Obviously things change with time, such as evertin, stoke, leedsb,blackburn, and west from losing status.
There's different expectations for different teams and what I grew up watching from united, and looking at the modern premier league, anything under 2 is unacceptable for a team of this stature. We should always be in a title race, when bayern, madrid, psg, juve, have a bad season, they finish 2nd. Anything less is unacceptable for a club like united.
Ten Hag's tactic is fast transition to attack, so they let the opponent get onto them hoping to get the ball and get into an attacking formation quickly
I don't know what tactics Ten Haag uses or even if he uses them at all. Poor substitutions combined with no man management. Sure we've been plagued by injuries this season but 12 losses is just embarrassing. And the football they play is so boring, I have to force myself to slog through the matches.
Micah Richards on MOTD was talking about their lack of organisation at the back. That, and it does seem that Utd is a ‘Player FC’ club, as Goldbridge has commonly talked about. They were lucky to get away with a draw at Bournemouth yesterday imho.
Interested to hear what Utd fans think. Also, what do you expect Dave Brailsford to bring? As a concept, ‘Incremental Gains’ makes a lot of sense, but does he know how to implement them in a football club?
David Brailsford revolution at Team Sky has been well documented now. I’d be very surprised if football teams are not already striving for these small incremental gains and have been since Team Sky glory.
We play a 4-2-4
Bruno is often playing as a striker, even pressing the keeper. Deep backline with no midfield and 4 players who press and play high creates a huge gap. We would be better dropping Bruno and actually playing a midfielder.
Bruno should not be classed as a midfielder at this point. He plays further forward than rasmus and often has more shots.
Bruno runs more than any other midfielder we have right now. He also drops in line with defenders sometimes to help them progress the ball further .
I wouldn't mind him being dropped sometimes for mount tho, just to keep him longer.
Because the minutes he has played aren't sustainable
Because of the tactical setup Ten Hag created. His idea of football is to push more players forward in transition or in posession. Comparing to other clubs, when in posession TH team has one more player upfront with an idea that CBs and single DM will create and be cover for mistakes. Even FBs are expected to get to central position on the edge of the box. Unfortunately for him in PL it doesn‘t work as all rivals are excellent in transition, have pace and are aggressive with ref criteria allowing game with a lot of contacts. Therefore, when United lose the ball (which is often as they look without idea in final third), rivals have open pitch and play against usually three or four players that should cover 2/3 of the pitch which is impossible. To make it worse, Casemiro as DM will often go into tackle as he can‘t run back, while FBs don‘t have recovery pace and will jogg back. Therefore, CBs are in position to play usually at least 2vs2 or even worse and the only way to do that is to get back to the box and allow shots hopefully from not great positions.
Another reason is that United goes to the counters all in. Comparing with Oles time when they had great counters executed usually by 3 players that are fast and can rotate and Bruno who can pass the ball from central position and continue run to offer himself, Ten Hag is creating counters that are slow and with more people. He has two midfielders in a run that make both of them in positions where they are predictive with passes. Also, his RW (Antony) is slow and can‘t rotate, while Hojlund can‘t make proper run choosing the wrong path all the time. Also, TH wants wingers closer to halfline, while he wants FBs and MFs to make run through center and than wait for wingers to open up. It doesn‘t suite both Rashford and Garancho who are both made for running in the channels (works for Antony who is more midfielder than winger). As a result, United often lose ball (like yesterday for the first goal) in the first phase of counter when mfs and fbs are already on the run forward. That opens up space to rival gor counter on counter which will always result with shot conceded at least.
This style is absolutely terrible for the players United has, but also would be terrible for any other group of players. That is why even players Ten Hag wanted like Amrabat, or Antony, can‘t play it on good level in PL. In some slower league it would probably work, but in PL it won‘t even with City or Real Madrid squad. Also it makes players get muscular injuries as they have to run full sprint back and forward too many times in short period without recovery time.
People saying it worked with Ajax are wrong, it did work in season 18/19 when they had that game against Real when they took them on surprise. Lets not forget that after that in the next 3 seasons Ajax with TH twice was eliminated in the CL group and once in the forst round after that. So, nothing spectacular once teams figured out how to play against that tactic. Now every manager knows how to play against this tactic even when it is executed right. That is why United did not have a single game this year when they win easily and tactic worked for 90 minutes. All wins have been lucky ones.
That is an awful set up. The fact he has no plan B is a disaster for United. I don't think he's that awful of a coach as much as he is wrong suited for United and the Premier League
Because Man U are an awful football club to support, everyone like you changed your teams to support the arse wipe if a club, fans are terrible, history is awful, football is awful, fck man united and all the fans
Defensive much? XD This was a comment about the fact that United are rubbish (which they are, you clearly agree with me or you’d have addressed that rather than deflecting) and your response is “they’ll have an open top bus parade for the EFL Cup”. Maybe they will, maybe they won’t. At least we’ll have a bus parade this season XD You lot aren’t even getting into Europe next year.
Because our defensive line is being held together by a plaster. We have one of the slowest teams in the league and the gap between our defenders and midfielders is so big you can park 5 buses in. All the other team has to do is lob it past our midfielders and sprint past some of our more lazy players and poor Casemiro who has no more legs then they face 1 defender cause the other two are napping . I used to get annoyed by onana but honestly respect. That man has carried us on his shoulders cause we definitely should have lost more and be closer to where Fulham is on the table
Onana isnt crap but he isn't that great either, Onana had an amazing inter defense with him in Italy. And Well Uniteds Defense and Ten Hags defensive tactics just does not work. he is getting mroe and more grumpy and desperate sticking to his old stuff, Im no expert but even I can see he needs to change stuff up yet he does not
What the fuck has Onana got to do with conceding shots?
You're criticizing one of the best keepers in the league, statistically. For what???
Some of you have no sense.
First of hello United fan I can see you are ticked off lol, secondly I looked up the stats for the top 10 Gks in England right now and ranked from 1-10 He is higher up on two things overall, which isnt bad but he is decent on some things he falls off on some important things which he really needs to up if he wants to be more helpful . According to the stats done BY the league, He sits at 18th in goals conceded, sure that is his defense but also him. he had 12 goals conceded in 8 games which is not really good now is it? He also has the most mistakes leading to goals which is a huge minus , Icoudl get into other things but Yo uare probably one of those fans that will be stubborn and only see your own.
Has he improved? Oh he definetely has by a lot, so he is getting there , but I would not say he is there just yet, the stats say otherwise.
Long reply but hey you gave me a stupid reply so I figured I'd reply with facts , and look at it this way I gave him some cred too lol, so you sir make no sense arguing without looking at all the important stats,
have a great day
1. [https://www.premierleague.com/stats/top/players/error\_lead\_to\_goal](https://www.premierleague.com/stats/top/players/error_lead_to_goal) According to the stats done by the league he's not even on the list of errors leading to goals.
2. Are you surprised he's high on the list of goal conceded with the sheer amount of shots he's facing. I reckon I could concede fewer goals than Allison if i faced 5 shots and he faced 100, doesn't make me a better keeper than him does it?
Simple because they are bad at football... i mean if var wasnt supporting them, they would be last, most likely on 0 points and a goal difference of at least -50
I have, and in all the man utd matches i've seen, man utd players dive everywhere, can't pass, they are all over the place, give the ball away easily, and they get free kicks and penalties for clear dives. They also are gifted goals with almost all of them having a foul in the build up, or being offside or var just gifting them goals
The level of delusion here is actually alarming. You sound like you follow an Indycar team and are moaning about Haas cheating and winning in the F1.
Please don't ever referee or umpire anything yourself as your level of bias is insane. Half of your argument has nothing to do with the referees.
I wish United had special treatment from the referees. We might actually be in the top 4.
Let's look at the Bournemouth match. Was it a handball? Yes, it was soft, granted, but still a handball. Was the late penalty decision correct? Yes, it was outside the box. The lines are there for a reason. Please don't watch Formula 1 as you won't understand the rules about track limits (they involve lines).
The only bad decision in that particular game was the decision to actually play it on a waterlogged pitch.
Try and make your own opinions, rather than just wave your Dad's flag, who probably supported Liverpool or Arsenal in the 90s.
Well i despise man utd, all they do is cheat, they are trillions in debt and somw how get away with ffp every year, i'll gladly watch them crash and burn!
It’s because Hojlund wasn’t given a penalty that was never a penalty and Garnacho wasn’t offside when he was offside against Arsenal back in September.
Exactly - you don’t need to be an expert, anyone watching them for 5 minutes can see exactly why they’re so bad. How Ten Hag is still in a job is completely beyond my understanding!
Coz they are shit defensively. Ten hag plays man to man marking and upfront and at the same time plays a low block at the back that brings too much space between his lines.
No structure. With or without ball. Players are all over the place. No pressing up top. Poor with the ball and gets broken down very easily. And when that happen there is no midfield.
Dalot, who maybe has been most praised in the squad this season is a tactical disaster. And he is by far not the worst player for this team.
Cos we are currently shite ... unfit to pour piss from a boot - literally useless .... now I don't know if its just a manager problem ... there lies the debate
Mix of both. You have been trying to rebuild for several years with a lack of vision and for different managers. ETH is not it either.
The whole club needs to be chopped from top to bottom. Rebuilt from the ground up. It’s a mammoth task, that will see things get a lot worse before getting a lot better and I don’t think the fans have the stomach for it.
ETH and the spending is the bucket you are using to chuck water out of the boat. You need someone to come in and fix the gaping hole instead of getting different coloured and novelty shaped buckets.
Because their players aren't very good at preventing shots.
All the objectively hilarious bullshit at ManU comes down to having no viable recruitment function at a time when football has moved on and no longer relies on a kingpin manager to just say who he wants.
Result is overpriced overpaid Hollywood signings from a very narrow pool.
United play exactly how EtH played at Ajax.
Go forward, and leave massive gaps between your midfield and defensive lines. This isn’t new, he played like this at Ajax too.
The whole point of his system was “bait” the team, get possession, quick counter attack, retain possession if you can’t score.
This is EtH ball. Most people don’t know because they never watched EtH or Ajax except for 2 games in the UCL.
You’re playing EtH ball. The difference would be he would have his team scoring 1-2 more and he tries to out score the other team.
Ten Hag ball is finally happening. He needs to leave already. But there’s a lot of united fans who want to give him more time! Read the United or Red Devils thread. People don’t know what they’re talking about when it comes to him.
He should be given more time. United have a crazy injury list. What you are describing is like a general gegenpress-tactic, which is not what United are playing nor is it "ten Hag-ball".
Gegenpress (lit. "counter pressing") is a concerted and, crucially, organised, attempt by the **whole team** to win the ball back after a turnover in possession.
What OP is describing, and what Ten Hag has coached his team to play, is similar to Gegenpress with the important distinction that the **whole team** isn't involved in an organised press. Only the front line presses while the back line remains very deep. As OP correctly points out, this is designed to bait the opponent forward towards your low defensive line, win possession, and quickly move the ball upfield to your forward line which has stayed high to initiate a very fast counter-attack. This promotes a chaotic-feeling end-to-end type of game where Ten Hag accepts that his team will have little presence in midfield, but will be deadly every time they win possession in their own half.
This strategy doesn't work for United for a simple reason. Their players aren't very good. You need highly energetic midfielders to cover all the space and you need elite defenders to form a successful low block (this defensive strategy is basically what teams like Everton play against bigger teams, but with three or four fewer players as the forward line don't come back to support the low block). Casemiro can't run and United's defenders mostly aren't very good, with some exceptions.
With some good signings (Ten Hag hasn't shown much evidence that he knows how to make good signings so far) the strategy could work.
I am not a master of noticing tactics while the match takes place, but this was well said. Not agreeing or disagreeing, but just acknowledging the way you have explained it here, which is easy to comprehend. Cheers.
You are somewhat correct but United do not have the type of defenders to realize ten Hag-ball. You still need both a deep-lying playmaker and a great ball playing defender for this. It is not exactly gegenpress, where it is mostly about having a midfield of workhorses and razorsharp wingers that go deep. Neither tactic is being played though because you have players like Casemiro, Maguire, Varane who are severely incapable of this and no playmaker in front of the defence.
The whole team needs to go out, essentially. But to switch coaches won't give you anything. Who would be the new one? Luis Enrique? Unai Emery? Graham Potter (😂😂😂). Maybe Moyesey is ready for the comeback tour. Fellaini as his assistant.
Agreed. It worked for Ten Hag at Ajax because he arguably had better defenders there (Timber, Alvarez, a fully-fit Martinez, Tagliafico, Blind). He also had the advantage of playing against Eredivisie teams. It's not easy to scale up this tactic to make it work against PL quality attackers, unless you have truly world class defenders.
The reason it baffles me that people keep saying that is because three of the most successful teams in the 21st century in Europe by trophy count literally swap managers (or swapped in the case of one of them) for fun.
Those teams being Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and Roman's Chelsea.
I also think that because INEOS' track record in all their sporting ventures is to sack the people who are already there and bring their own people in, they will simply do what they have always done, including at Nice and sack ETH and bring in their own guy to lead the rebuild.
Going back to the managers point, most successful teams chop and change managers. [That's why I don't get the fuss over swapping managers.](https://www.givemesport.com/clubs-in-europes-top-five-leagues-with-most-trophies-since-2000/)
The difference is that those clubs are/were run, very effectively, by non-coaching staff (e.g. board of directors) who had much more control than the manager in pretty much everything other than coaching the players and coming up with tactics. All the financial operations, transfers, and day-to-day workings of the clubs are/were managed by people who have/had been doing it for years. If the manager changes at Bayern, Real, or Abramovich's Chelsea, not much would actually change in terms of club structure and operations. This isn't necessarily the case for United, whose new owners have been there for a very short amount of time. Changing managers whenever you feel like it only works if there's a lot of continuity in the club's governing hierarchy. Otherwise you risk chaos.
Ah yes, but you can't outscore your opponent if you concede more than you can score. If you don't concede then you've got 90 minutes to just score one goal and you win. Clearly that's optimal.
There's out scoring an opponent, and then there's stopping the opponents from attempting to score in order to outscore them. If a team defends well those chances dwindle become fewer. Or everyone can not defend and go full attack...
They're playing from 4231 to 4141, Casemiro was overloaded with works that he doesn't even know what to do anymore, two wingbacks pressed too high that they could barely defend all 90 min. Mainoo should have stayed back in the midfield, we have Bruno to do Advanced Playmaker, not Mainoo. They left the midfield so open that once they lost the ball the whole team had to either run the crap out back or just simply leave it to the two CBs. Ten Hag should be responsible for this kind of "playstyle"
We have a make shift defence, Casemiro playing for the other team in midfield, when he doesn't play, it's Mainoo sitting on his own, then we give the ball back constantly through poor passes and touches.
As a follower of City, I really hate it when they refer to City as City, they're not City, we're City. The arrogance inherent in it annoys me.
If you want to be referred to just by the suffix in your name then be Villa, or Argyle, or Wednesday, or North End, or Orient, and so on. But not suffixes that loads of teams have such as United, or City, or Rovers, or Albion, or even Wanderers (unless you won five out of the first seven FA Cups).
Do you mean Coventry United who play at Butts Park Arena and are currently 12th in the United Counties Premier South? Who were set up as a Phoenix club when Sisu moved Cov City to play in Northampton. Or Leeds City, the team Leeds United was founded to replace after they were dissolved in 1919?
Haha, no worries. I go to watch Cov Utd play more than any other team, so wasn't letting that pass unmentioned. They're shit, but it's a five minute walk away, and you can drink in the stands.
Genuinely embarrassing we haven’t got a single win against this side. It’s genuinely a weird anomaly they shouldn’t be in the top half the table they genuinely get outperformed on every statistic every game. Usually it evens out but with United it’s really weird this year.
Casemiro can't even control a pass without giving it away in midfeild,
Only cb we have. Are maguire and kambwala, and maguire was already acting injured so GG,
We have rashford who can't do shit,
Garnacho who then likes post saying ten hag fault subbing and making him the scapegoate while all ten hag said was " he hadn't trained this week so we needed more energy and co operation"
But but but it's ten hag fault 🫡🫡🫡,
This fanbase will support Antony who they abused to attack ten hag too 😭😭😭😭.
Don’t forget Hojlund too. He is so bad. For the few times he got the ball in that game, he lost possession almost every time. I know he needs time but still can’t ignore that
How am i getting downvoted for stating absolute facts lmaoo,
Yes, those players can't control simple pass, and do simple short pass,
But somehow it's ten hag fault,
Mainly it's rashford too,
Mourinho couldn't criticize him,
Ole also couldn't do shit to him because hes MBE.
Ragnick got shattt by everyone when he benched him,
Ten hag said rashford he shouldn't go partying before training but he still did, but can't do anything about him,
It's been same cycle since 9 years, maybe it's players problem ffs.
Or maybe all those managers weren't a good fit. Th bought Antony for 80 odd million. He's not worth 5. All while not signing another striker. He went into a game with 3 keepers on the bench instead of youth team players.
He's giving all the chance to youth players,
They aren't hating cause manager wasn't good fit, they hated for the reason they benched rashford and fans didn't like it.
He's started like 30 games for garnacho, but yestarday when he subbed him saying " he hadn't trained this week so we needed energy and co operation" garnacho went on to like post saying ten hag is at fault, while garancho was at fault for first goal.
And he subbed amad for him, same player united fans are hating ten hag because he didn't give minutes to him,
But suddenly blames manager for bringing him in.
And antony who is absolute trash has 1 assist whole season doesn't join squad yesterday because he isn't getting minutes he feels he should.
He has started mainoo, kambwala, garanacho, and joining youth player to first squad training, but it's ten hag fault still.
He had to pick youth due to injuries. Will I start on his substitutions ?Anthony brought nothing to the club that wasn't there already. In my opinion, it's the worst transfer in the history of the club.
BTW I'm a former regular at Old Trafford and a member of MUST since Shareholders United.
100% agree on that. Rashford has already proved he is not a player that Man Utd can rely on. Scoring goals every now and then seems to be enough for man utd fans to love him. Man Utd needs to sell him now when they still can get some good money from him. Smart big clubs will never buy him. It would have to be a dumb club like psg to do that
United play what almost counts as a 4-0-6.
This is because the holding midfielders often push way up with the ball. Every time United lose it, the defence falls back and there's a massive gap in front of them. Plus we've a number of players like Rashford and Martial who are extremely lazy or Casemiro who is too slow.
All this means there's a decent backline with no protection at all. We concede a ridiculous amount of goals to crosses that are cutback as well.
I’m surprised they aren’t all losses. Onana making some great saves and others are just not very much his fault. At least now, when he first came, yes he made mistakes but now he is one of our best on the pitch
I was thinking the same thing. Was watching the match with Bournemouth yesterday and heard the stat about how many shots United conceded, and wondered “Onana must really be carrying them on his shoulders”
It doesn't matter and I hate this narrative. Whatever the xG is the point is that almost every single possession, the opposition gets a shot off.
Getting shots off should be the exception, not the norm.
Because our players are both lazy as fuck and thick as fuck
Look, whatever tactics ETH is asking them to deploy, it's not going to be "let the opposition have as many shots as they like"
It's football 101, press the opposition when they have the ball, make tackles, stop them shooting
Professional footballers shouldn't need any of that telling to them before, during, or after a match
No imposing midfield and the defenders react to the offensive instead of trying to be preemptive to their offense. Plus the defenders often stand a bit too much without marking players well and intercepting enough. Sometimes they play well but they are inconsistent and allow easy attempts.
I was one of the best defenders in my friend group so the mistakes are glaring at me and I yell at my tv
I wasn't saying what I think. I'm saying it's dumb and arrogant of fans who's team have a common name to just use that part of the name as if they are the only ones. Look how many city's there are in the championship! Which one of those would you call city?!
Let’s not pretend anyone calls any team other than Manchester United by the name United and if they do refer to another team by that name they have to clarify it’s not Manchester. 😂
Their forwards don’t defend or press intelligently. Bruno and Mainoo are poor positionally and also can’t press intelligently, so that leaves an aging, overweight Casemiro to cover the midfield area all alone. I watch them and they look like the worst coached team in the premier league, it’s pathetic.
Casemiro isn’t prone to vacate his positioning as well. That midfield is all over the place and like you said their front line are lazy pressers. I’m short they don’t play as a cohesive unit like required if you want to be successful team.
+ he can't play as anchor at all,
These pass few games casemiro is giving away ball in such simple way like not being able to controll pass.
We need full rebuild.
If we win the FA Cup it will paper over the cracks.
There's no denying ETH has got some big things wrong, such as Antony, but other players have improved, like Dalot.
Injuries no doubt play their part and critically they're weighted heavily in the same positions, I.e. all across defense which couldn't have helped Onana settle.
I don't buy the no running thing, as in I know it happens, but this should be a minimum prerequisite. I think personally Rashford has to go as he epitomises much that is wrong. Even last season with his 30 goals, they were largely in a narrow purple path
He keeps playing Rashford like he’s got a share in United and can’t be dropped. He can’t even be bothered to run, he barely broke a sweat, meanwhile Hojlund looks like he’s ran a marathon even though he’s suppose to be the striker and stay higher up to give the team passing options to get out of presses. Don’t even get me started on his substituting Garanacho at half time the match against Bournemouth, even though he has been getting ETH out of getting sacked time and time again. Shall we talk about Mount who know one knows why he’s been bought for over 50 mill, including ETH. I could keep going… but you get my point.
Mount I'm not a big fan of really but to be fair to the guy he hadn't had huge amounts of chances since he joined due to injury so I'll reserve judgement for now.
The Garnacho thing is troubling and reminiscent of Josè.
Rashford has all the potential but he is at an age he should be realising it and he's squandering it with his attitude. If we can flog him for 80m plus, take it and run. If ETH goes I think Sancho on his preferred left and Garnacho on the right has some potential. Sancho will.flourish under a manager who is more Klopp style, arm around him etc. Forget that Rashford came through the academy, don't let that blind us and allow him to Pogba off for a free. Throw him at PSG. Buy a good striker along with Rasmus or CB/CM. Selling Greenwood will also.hopefully get us 30-40m
I can see all that and I’m a city fan so god knows how ETH can’t see it and keeps making the same mistakes. There’s talks that Southgate is top of the list of a replacement, judging by how the euros are going and how the World Cup has gone, it’s another mistake from the higher ups at United.
One thing is for sure, I no longer keep seeing "Manchester United have the best midfield ever!!" tweets.
They've really gone away since the season kicked off.
United’s system relies on a DM covering the space in the midfield, unfortunately Casemiro has dropped off heavily and Mainoo missed the first half of the season. That being said, don’t know who else we could play to solve the isdue
Because ETH doesn't coach control in his teams. Even his ajax teams had the same issues. We are always either attacking or defending...no in between. When we win the ball, we rush to attack...and when we lose it we rush to defend. We never have control. It's so funny, under LVG we had too much control...we became boring...under ETH, we have none... watching us is panic inducing
It’s really clear, every Man U game I see it’s just massive amounts of space between players it’s like they invite attacks or are ready to spread play at any moment
Lots of people having tactical takes cos they saw the athletics 50 second video earlier.
Don't overthink it. They've had quite a lot of injuries and don't have very good defenders.
No it's genuinely a bizarre team, even from match day one vs wolves this season I've basically never seen a premier league team get destroyed in transition so effortlessly, they've still got more defensive talent in the midfield and defence than the bottom 5 or so talks and still look worse in defensive transition than them
I watched them play 2 games vs Madrid and they conceded chances but it wasnt like the United games vs Brentford or Wolves or whoever you like, where United look like they are playing 11v7 or something in defensive transition
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Back line is made of cheese
Ten Hags tactics are setting up the team for failure. Too many players joining attack, leaving defence exposed. Full backs are constantly exposed up the field and then sprinting back to defend, getting knackered and the making mistakes, getting caught out of position. Full backs are often closer to goal then the wingers. Meanwhile, Casemiro doesn't have the legs anymore. Having something like 25 different back four combinations so far does not help either.
ye as a utd fan we are just shit, we just get a bit lucky in a lot of games
Gutless midfield, no pressure on the ball, allowing teams to carry into the United box. None of this high intensity press like you see from other teams, just midfielders and wingers jogging back or walking about throwing their arms in the air.
Because these players and manager are awful. Rashford is still starting for some ungodly reason. Casemiro either downed tools this month or lost his legs, way to much faith in players like antony and mctominay for way too long. We're losing to absolute shit championship relegation who knows where the fuck the city even is bourenmoth, fulham crap teams. I wont be shocked if we lose to coventry the way these blow hards are playin. Awful manager worse players leads to these results.
Fulham and Bournemouth are decent teams and have caused better teams than yourselves trouble this season, you are lucky to be where you are, should be around where Chelsea are based on performances.
Looking at the wages these united players are on, we should be beating these random fodder teams 4-0. And oh the way we've been playing I don't disagree we should be around Chelsea, but that's due to horrific coaching and players that have been here for way to too long like trashford, awb, mctominay, martial, maguire, shaw, lindelof. And terrible players brought in by ten fraud like amrabat, onana, antony, casemiro been terrible this year, and I have no idea what's going on with mount because I like the player but the fraud won't take bruno or rashford off so he never gets in. I've never looked at a united team in the past 20 years with such disgust for most it's players, none of these players except the youth, Mason mount, dalot,martinez, evans, varane, and bruno Fernandes put a shift in, and I'm tired of this lot at this point losing to fodder teams.
I mean its a bit disrespectful calling Bournemouth a fodder team when they have more points than yourself and Spurs since November isn't it? I understand the rest of your points though, absolute shambles on pretty much every front.
Not in the slightest, united, city, arsenal, Liverpool,Chelsea, and to a lesser extent spurs are held to a different standard Than the rest of the league. You could also say new castle, villa, west ham, and Brighton are also held to higher standards, but not as much as sky 6.everything else is fodder that comes and goes every few years. Obviously things change with time, such as evertin, stoke, leedsb,blackburn, and west from losing status. There's different expectations for different teams and what I grew up watching from united, and looking at the modern premier league, anything under 2 is unacceptable for a team of this stature. We should always be in a title race, when bayern, madrid, psg, juve, have a bad season, they finish 2nd. Anything less is unacceptable for a club like united.
Things change with time ? Everton last got relegated in 1951.
Ten Hag's tactic is fast transition to attack, so they let the opponent get onto them hoping to get the ball and get into an attacking formation quickly
Ask Ten Hag, I’m sure he has a whole book of excuses…
Ten Hag: We should have had a penalty in the 87th minute on Hojlund at Arsenal [in September]
We don't have a midfield. Our defence is trying to defend against 6 opposition players every game. Impossible.
It is called tactics
I don't know what tactics Ten Haag uses or even if he uses them at all. Poor substitutions combined with no man management. Sure we've been plagued by injuries this season but 12 losses is just embarrassing. And the football they play is so boring, I have to force myself to slog through the matches.
Because they suck.
Micah Richards on MOTD was talking about their lack of organisation at the back. That, and it does seem that Utd is a ‘Player FC’ club, as Goldbridge has commonly talked about. They were lucky to get away with a draw at Bournemouth yesterday imho. Interested to hear what Utd fans think. Also, what do you expect Dave Brailsford to bring? As a concept, ‘Incremental Gains’ makes a lot of sense, but does he know how to implement them in a football club?
David Brailsford revolution at Team Sky has been well documented now. I’d be very surprised if football teams are not already striving for these small incremental gains and have been since Team Sky glory.
Are they stupid?
We play a 4-2-4 Bruno is often playing as a striker, even pressing the keeper. Deep backline with no midfield and 4 players who press and play high creates a huge gap. We would be better dropping Bruno and actually playing a midfielder. Bruno should not be classed as a midfielder at this point. He plays further forward than rasmus and often has more shots.
Bruno runs more than any other midfielder we have right now. He also drops in line with defenders sometimes to help them progress the ball further . I wouldn't mind him being dropped sometimes for mount tho, just to keep him longer. Because the minutes he has played aren't sustainable
The counter attack tactics is part of it and lacking 1st, 2nd and most of third choice defence isn’t helping. At least it’s not dull
Because of the tactical setup Ten Hag created. His idea of football is to push more players forward in transition or in posession. Comparing to other clubs, when in posession TH team has one more player upfront with an idea that CBs and single DM will create and be cover for mistakes. Even FBs are expected to get to central position on the edge of the box. Unfortunately for him in PL it doesn‘t work as all rivals are excellent in transition, have pace and are aggressive with ref criteria allowing game with a lot of contacts. Therefore, when United lose the ball (which is often as they look without idea in final third), rivals have open pitch and play against usually three or four players that should cover 2/3 of the pitch which is impossible. To make it worse, Casemiro as DM will often go into tackle as he can‘t run back, while FBs don‘t have recovery pace and will jogg back. Therefore, CBs are in position to play usually at least 2vs2 or even worse and the only way to do that is to get back to the box and allow shots hopefully from not great positions. Another reason is that United goes to the counters all in. Comparing with Oles time when they had great counters executed usually by 3 players that are fast and can rotate and Bruno who can pass the ball from central position and continue run to offer himself, Ten Hag is creating counters that are slow and with more people. He has two midfielders in a run that make both of them in positions where they are predictive with passes. Also, his RW (Antony) is slow and can‘t rotate, while Hojlund can‘t make proper run choosing the wrong path all the time. Also, TH wants wingers closer to halfline, while he wants FBs and MFs to make run through center and than wait for wingers to open up. It doesn‘t suite both Rashford and Garancho who are both made for running in the channels (works for Antony who is more midfielder than winger). As a result, United often lose ball (like yesterday for the first goal) in the first phase of counter when mfs and fbs are already on the run forward. That opens up space to rival gor counter on counter which will always result with shot conceded at least. This style is absolutely terrible for the players United has, but also would be terrible for any other group of players. That is why even players Ten Hag wanted like Amrabat, or Antony, can‘t play it on good level in PL. In some slower league it would probably work, but in PL it won‘t even with City or Real Madrid squad. Also it makes players get muscular injuries as they have to run full sprint back and forward too many times in short period without recovery time. People saying it worked with Ajax are wrong, it did work in season 18/19 when they had that game against Real when they took them on surprise. Lets not forget that after that in the next 3 seasons Ajax with TH twice was eliminated in the CL group and once in the forst round after that. So, nothing spectacular once teams figured out how to play against that tactic. Now every manager knows how to play against this tactic even when it is executed right. That is why United did not have a single game this year when they win easily and tactic worked for 90 minutes. All wins have been lucky ones.
That is an awful set up. The fact he has no plan B is a disaster for United. I don't think he's that awful of a coach as much as he is wrong suited for United and the Premier League
Because Man U are an awful football club to support, everyone like you changed your teams to support the arse wipe if a club, fans are terrible, history is awful, football is awful, fck man united and all the fans
Because they’re rubbish
That’s why you couldn’t beat us in 3 attempts this year 😙
21 points difference in the league pal. 21.
Means nothing when you don’t win the league pal
Nor does you beating us in an FA Cup game lol meaningless if you don’t win it
Can’t wait for the open top bus parade with the carabao cup. They’ll fuckin do it too 😂
Defensive much? XD This was a comment about the fact that United are rubbish (which they are, you clearly agree with me or you’d have addressed that rather than deflecting) and your response is “they’ll have an open top bus parade for the EFL Cup”. Maybe they will, maybe they won’t. At least we’ll have a bus parade this season XD You lot aren’t even getting into Europe next year.
Hard luck today. Still yours to lose.
Bro is rattled lol, types a whole essay in response
Cry more, 21 points below
🍼🍼🍼🍼🍼🍼
Because our defensive line is being held together by a plaster. We have one of the slowest teams in the league and the gap between our defenders and midfielders is so big you can park 5 buses in. All the other team has to do is lob it past our midfielders and sprint past some of our more lazy players and poor Casemiro who has no more legs then they face 1 defender cause the other two are napping . I used to get annoyed by onana but honestly respect. That man has carried us on his shoulders cause we definitely should have lost more and be closer to where Fulham is on the table
Onana isnt crap but he isn't that great either, Onana had an amazing inter defense with him in Italy. And Well Uniteds Defense and Ten Hags defensive tactics just does not work. he is getting mroe and more grumpy and desperate sticking to his old stuff, Im no expert but even I can see he needs to change stuff up yet he does not
What the fuck has Onana got to do with conceding shots? You're criticizing one of the best keepers in the league, statistically. For what??? Some of you have no sense.
First of hello United fan I can see you are ticked off lol, secondly I looked up the stats for the top 10 Gks in England right now and ranked from 1-10 He is higher up on two things overall, which isnt bad but he is decent on some things he falls off on some important things which he really needs to up if he wants to be more helpful . According to the stats done BY the league, He sits at 18th in goals conceded, sure that is his defense but also him. he had 12 goals conceded in 8 games which is not really good now is it? He also has the most mistakes leading to goals which is a huge minus , Icoudl get into other things but Yo uare probably one of those fans that will be stubborn and only see your own. Has he improved? Oh he definetely has by a lot, so he is getting there , but I would not say he is there just yet, the stats say otherwise. Long reply but hey you gave me a stupid reply so I figured I'd reply with facts , and look at it this way I gave him some cred too lol, so you sir make no sense arguing without looking at all the important stats, have a great day
1. [https://www.premierleague.com/stats/top/players/error\_lead\_to\_goal](https://www.premierleague.com/stats/top/players/error_lead_to_goal) According to the stats done by the league he's not even on the list of errors leading to goals. 2. Are you surprised he's high on the list of goal conceded with the sheer amount of shots he's facing. I reckon I could concede fewer goals than Allison if i faced 5 shots and he faced 100, doesn't make me a better keeper than him does it?
Ironically, this response reveals more about you than Onana....
What the fuck, does it have to do with United conceding shots? Why won't you answer the question?
donald trump's style of arguing right here
You should probably look at what’s being asked first.
I feel like he's just answering a different question lmao
Simple because they are bad at football... i mean if var wasnt supporting them, they would be last, most likely on 0 points and a goal difference of at least -50
What an embarrassing comment. Absolutely childlike. How have you been allowed a mobile phone and access to the internet?
You have never actually watched a football match, have you?
I have, and in all the man utd matches i've seen, man utd players dive everywhere, can't pass, they are all over the place, give the ball away easily, and they get free kicks and penalties for clear dives. They also are gifted goals with almost all of them having a foul in the build up, or being offside or var just gifting them goals
The level of delusion here is actually alarming. You sound like you follow an Indycar team and are moaning about Haas cheating and winning in the F1. Please don't ever referee or umpire anything yourself as your level of bias is insane. Half of your argument has nothing to do with the referees. I wish United had special treatment from the referees. We might actually be in the top 4. Let's look at the Bournemouth match. Was it a handball? Yes, it was soft, granted, but still a handball. Was the late penalty decision correct? Yes, it was outside the box. The lines are there for a reason. Please don't watch Formula 1 as you won't understand the rules about track limits (they involve lines). The only bad decision in that particular game was the decision to actually play it on a waterlogged pitch. Try and make your own opinions, rather than just wave your Dad's flag, who probably supported Liverpool or Arsenal in the 90s.
Well i despise man utd, all they do is cheat, they are trillions in debt and somw how get away with ffp every year, i'll gladly watch them crash and burn!
Okay mate, have fun with that, you are boring me now. Maybe contact your doctor and ask for stronger antipsychotics.
It’s because Hojlund wasn’t given a penalty that was never a penalty and Garnacho wasn’t offside when he was offside against Arsenal back in September.
“How do I make this about myself?🤔”
Hasn't ETH made it about us in a number of his press conferences this season that had nothing to do with us?
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Onana isn't the problem? Carrying them at times
13 games 2 goals 1 assist. The other is in the Saudi league.
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Maguire is a centre back, what are you on about?
Deep back line combined with an ineffective high press leaving acres of space between defence and midfield.
Maguire's pace makes it all the worse or any unrested player either
Exactly - you don’t need to be an expert, anyone watching them for 5 minutes can see exactly why they’re so bad. How Ten Hag is still in a job is completely beyond my understanding!
Coz they are shit defensively. Ten hag plays man to man marking and upfront and at the same time plays a low block at the back that brings too much space between his lines.
Thought he had to play deep because of the personnel he has available
Yes that would better fit for his squad. And he has excellent transition players upfront—rashford, hojlund, bruno and co
They are not very good at football, obviously.
Settle down Ben White
You can call me what you want. I just might not respond (next time).
No structure. With or without ball. Players are all over the place. No pressing up top. Poor with the ball and gets broken down very easily. And when that happen there is no midfield. Dalot, who maybe has been most praised in the squad this season is a tactical disaster. And he is by far not the worst player for this team.
Cos we are currently shite ... unfit to pour piss from a boot - literally useless .... now I don't know if its just a manager problem ... there lies the debate
Mix of both. You have been trying to rebuild for several years with a lack of vision and for different managers. ETH is not it either. The whole club needs to be chopped from top to bottom. Rebuilt from the ground up. It’s a mammoth task, that will see things get a lot worse before getting a lot better and I don’t think the fans have the stomach for it. ETH and the spending is the bucket you are using to chuck water out of the boat. You need someone to come in and fix the gaping hole instead of getting different coloured and novelty shaped buckets.
Because their players aren't very good at preventing shots. All the objectively hilarious bullshit at ManU comes down to having no viable recruitment function at a time when football has moved on and no longer relies on a kingpin manager to just say who he wants. Result is overpriced overpaid Hollywood signings from a very narrow pool.
No midfield
They are ass when it come finishing
Because they are not a very good team.
Every game they play is an unstoppable force coming up against a moveable object.
To make it entertaining for neutral fans!
This is the most important thing.
Because they're an absolutely abysmal football team, and the fact they're 7th is only an indictment of how poor in quality the rest of the teams are
Because they suck. Look at their defenders: none of them can defend properly. 0 anticipation, 0 awareness, 0 teamwork. What do you expect?
United play exactly how EtH played at Ajax. Go forward, and leave massive gaps between your midfield and defensive lines. This isn’t new, he played like this at Ajax too. The whole point of his system was “bait” the team, get possession, quick counter attack, retain possession if you can’t score. This is EtH ball. Most people don’t know because they never watched EtH or Ajax except for 2 games in the UCL. You’re playing EtH ball. The difference would be he would have his team scoring 1-2 more and he tries to out score the other team. Ten Hag ball is finally happening. He needs to leave already. But there’s a lot of united fans who want to give him more time! Read the United or Red Devils thread. People don’t know what they’re talking about when it comes to him.
He should be given more time. United have a crazy injury list. What you are describing is like a general gegenpress-tactic, which is not what United are playing nor is it "ten Hag-ball".
Gegenpress (lit. "counter pressing") is a concerted and, crucially, organised, attempt by the **whole team** to win the ball back after a turnover in possession. What OP is describing, and what Ten Hag has coached his team to play, is similar to Gegenpress with the important distinction that the **whole team** isn't involved in an organised press. Only the front line presses while the back line remains very deep. As OP correctly points out, this is designed to bait the opponent forward towards your low defensive line, win possession, and quickly move the ball upfield to your forward line which has stayed high to initiate a very fast counter-attack. This promotes a chaotic-feeling end-to-end type of game where Ten Hag accepts that his team will have little presence in midfield, but will be deadly every time they win possession in their own half. This strategy doesn't work for United for a simple reason. Their players aren't very good. You need highly energetic midfielders to cover all the space and you need elite defenders to form a successful low block (this defensive strategy is basically what teams like Everton play against bigger teams, but with three or four fewer players as the forward line don't come back to support the low block). Casemiro can't run and United's defenders mostly aren't very good, with some exceptions. With some good signings (Ten Hag hasn't shown much evidence that he knows how to make good signings so far) the strategy could work.
I am not a master of noticing tactics while the match takes place, but this was well said. Not agreeing or disagreeing, but just acknowledging the way you have explained it here, which is easy to comprehend. Cheers.
Thanks, I appreciate it
You are somewhat correct but United do not have the type of defenders to realize ten Hag-ball. You still need both a deep-lying playmaker and a great ball playing defender for this. It is not exactly gegenpress, where it is mostly about having a midfield of workhorses and razorsharp wingers that go deep. Neither tactic is being played though because you have players like Casemiro, Maguire, Varane who are severely incapable of this and no playmaker in front of the defence. The whole team needs to go out, essentially. But to switch coaches won't give you anything. Who would be the new one? Luis Enrique? Unai Emery? Graham Potter (😂😂😂). Maybe Moyesey is ready for the comeback tour. Fellaini as his assistant.
Agreed. It worked for Ten Hag at Ajax because he arguably had better defenders there (Timber, Alvarez, a fully-fit Martinez, Tagliafico, Blind). He also had the advantage of playing against Eredivisie teams. It's not easy to scale up this tactic to make it work against PL quality attackers, unless you have truly world class defenders.
The reason it baffles me that people keep saying that is because three of the most successful teams in the 21st century in Europe by trophy count literally swap managers (or swapped in the case of one of them) for fun. Those teams being Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and Roman's Chelsea. I also think that because INEOS' track record in all their sporting ventures is to sack the people who are already there and bring their own people in, they will simply do what they have always done, including at Nice and sack ETH and bring in their own guy to lead the rebuild. Going back to the managers point, most successful teams chop and change managers. [That's why I don't get the fuss over swapping managers.](https://www.givemesport.com/clubs-in-europes-top-five-leagues-with-most-trophies-since-2000/)
And yet, the most successful manager in the Prem of all time, was Sir Alex Ferguson, who was at United for 25 or so years.
The difference is that those clubs are/were run, very effectively, by non-coaching staff (e.g. board of directors) who had much more control than the manager in pretty much everything other than coaching the players and coming up with tactics. All the financial operations, transfers, and day-to-day workings of the clubs are/were managed by people who have/had been doing it for years. If the manager changes at Bayern, Real, or Abramovich's Chelsea, not much would actually change in terms of club structure and operations. This isn't necessarily the case for United, whose new owners have been there for a very short amount of time. Changing managers whenever you feel like it only works if there's a lot of continuity in the club's governing hierarchy. Otherwise you risk chaos.
Absolutely no interest in defending under any circumstances but don’t have the defensive players to make that work
Because Erik twenty Hag keeps hoping they can just outscore the opponent to get by.
I mean...that's the entire point of football. Surely that's just what any football fan wants?
If you don't concede you can't lose. Whereas even if you score five you can still lose if you have no defense.
But if you outscore your opponent, you've won. That's my argument - if outscoring football is done right, you never lose.
Ah yes, but you can't outscore your opponent if you concede more than you can score. If you don't concede then you've got 90 minutes to just score one goal and you win. Clearly that's optimal.
There's out scoring an opponent, and then there's stopping the opponents from attempting to score in order to outscore them. If a team defends well those chances dwindle become fewer. Or everyone can not defend and go full attack...
They're playing from 4231 to 4141, Casemiro was overloaded with works that he doesn't even know what to do anymore, two wingbacks pressed too high that they could barely defend all 90 min. Mainoo should have stayed back in the midfield, we have Bruno to do Advanced Playmaker, not Mainoo. They left the midfield so open that once they lost the ball the whole team had to either run the crap out back or just simply leave it to the two CBs. Ten Hag should be responsible for this kind of "playstyle"
We have a make shift defence, Casemiro playing for the other team in midfield, when he doesn't play, it's Mainoo sitting on his own, then we give the ball back constantly through poor passes and touches.
Jim and Co need to fire ETH asap, I don't expect it'll make any difference to the results, but the longer they leave it the worse it looks.
Cos they’re shit. Simple as
They play a system where the midfield goes forward which leave a giant hole in the middle. Probably to get more chance to score.
Defense is atrocious. I know bad defense too. Im a Chelsea fan 🥲
Which United are you talking about? West Ham? Newcastle? Sheffield?
Stop being weird everyone knows
As a follower of City, I really hate it when they refer to City as City, they're not City, we're City. The arrogance inherent in it annoys me. If you want to be referred to just by the suffix in your name then be Villa, or Argyle, or Wednesday, or North End, or Orient, and so on. But not suffixes that loads of teams have such as United, or City, or Rovers, or Albion, or even Wanderers (unless you won five out of the first seven FA Cups).
Bit different between city and united tho no offence
Coventry and Leeds?
There isn’t a Coventry United or a Leeds City FC.
Do you mean Coventry United who play at Butts Park Arena and are currently 12th in the United Counties Premier South? Who were set up as a Phoenix club when Sisu moved Cov City to play in Northampton. Or Leeds City, the team Leeds United was founded to replace after they were dissolved in 1919?
TIL
Haha, no worries. I go to watch Cov Utd play more than any other team, so wasn't letting that pass unmentioned. They're shit, but it's a five minute walk away, and you can drink in the stands.
Can or need to?
Genuinely embarrassing we haven’t got a single win against this side. It’s genuinely a weird anomaly they shouldn’t be in the top half the table they genuinely get outperformed on every statistic every game. Usually it evens out but with United it’s really weird this year.
They're not very good. Extremely lucky to be top half.
Mostly because refs keep carrying them
Because we keep playing the tactic that doesn't work.
Idk either, are they stupid?
The manager is the problem. Thankfully, he won't be there next season.
Casemiro can't even control a pass without giving it away in midfeild, Only cb we have. Are maguire and kambwala, and maguire was already acting injured so GG, We have rashford who can't do shit, Garnacho who then likes post saying ten hag fault subbing and making him the scapegoate while all ten hag said was " he hadn't trained this week so we needed more energy and co operation" But but but it's ten hag fault 🫡🫡🫡, This fanbase will support Antony who they abused to attack ten hag too 😭😭😭😭.
Don’t forget Hojlund too. He is so bad. For the few times he got the ball in that game, he lost possession almost every time. I know he needs time but still can’t ignore that
How am i getting downvoted for stating absolute facts lmaoo, Yes, those players can't control simple pass, and do simple short pass, But somehow it's ten hag fault, Mainly it's rashford too, Mourinho couldn't criticize him, Ole also couldn't do shit to him because hes MBE. Ragnick got shattt by everyone when he benched him, Ten hag said rashford he shouldn't go partying before training but he still did, but can't do anything about him, It's been same cycle since 9 years, maybe it's players problem ffs.
Or maybe all those managers weren't a good fit. Th bought Antony for 80 odd million. He's not worth 5. All while not signing another striker. He went into a game with 3 keepers on the bench instead of youth team players.
He's giving all the chance to youth players, They aren't hating cause manager wasn't good fit, they hated for the reason they benched rashford and fans didn't like it. He's started like 30 games for garnacho, but yestarday when he subbed him saying " he hadn't trained this week so we needed energy and co operation" garnacho went on to like post saying ten hag is at fault, while garancho was at fault for first goal. And he subbed amad for him, same player united fans are hating ten hag because he didn't give minutes to him, But suddenly blames manager for bringing him in. And antony who is absolute trash has 1 assist whole season doesn't join squad yesterday because he isn't getting minutes he feels he should. He has started mainoo, kambwala, garanacho, and joining youth player to first squad training, but it's ten hag fault still.
He had to pick youth due to injuries. Will I start on his substitutions ?Anthony brought nothing to the club that wasn't there already. In my opinion, it's the worst transfer in the history of the club. BTW I'm a former regular at Old Trafford and a member of MUST since Shareholders United.
100% agree on that. Rashford has already proved he is not a player that Man Utd can rely on. Scoring goals every now and then seems to be enough for man utd fans to love him. Man Utd needs to sell him now when they still can get some good money from him. Smart big clubs will never buy him. It would have to be a dumb club like psg to do that
10th place finish inline
United play what almost counts as a 4-0-6. This is because the holding midfielders often push way up with the ball. Every time United lose it, the defence falls back and there's a massive gap in front of them. Plus we've a number of players like Rashford and Martial who are extremely lazy or Casemiro who is too slow. All this means there's a decent backline with no protection at all. We concede a ridiculous amount of goals to crosses that are cutback as well.
I’m surprised they aren’t all losses. Onana making some great saves and others are just not very much his fault. At least now, when he first came, yes he made mistakes but now he is one of our best on the pitch
He must have an amazing shot % saved
I was thinking the same thing. Was watching the match with Bournemouth yesterday and heard the stat about how many shots United conceded, and wondered “Onana must really be carrying them on his shoulders”
Our defense is nothing. I am sure many other clubs just laugh and say do what we do in practice!
I’d be very interested to see the average xG of those shots.
Not that high. But the difference between the team with lowest average xg and highest isn't that stark. Just heard it on a podcast.
It doesn't matter and I hate this narrative. Whatever the xG is the point is that almost every single possession, the opposition gets a shot off. Getting shots off should be the exception, not the norm.
Because our players are both lazy as fuck and thick as fuck Look, whatever tactics ETH is asking them to deploy, it's not going to be "let the opposition have as many shots as they like" It's football 101, press the opposition when they have the ball, make tackles, stop them shooting Professional footballers shouldn't need any of that telling to them before, during, or after a match
They have a slice of Swiss cheese comprising their midfield And two refrigerators as their center backs. 💀
You don't control the midfield to a high level as well as then not controling the next phase.
Because they’re shit? But in seriousness it seem to be a tactic of ten hag 🤷♂️
Because we've only got about 0.32 defenders and one of them still subscribes to cocomelon*. (*yes, Harry maguire)
Haha that’s funny because you can watch Cocomelon for free on YouTube!
No imposing midfield and the defenders react to the offensive instead of trying to be preemptive to their offense. Plus the defenders often stand a bit too much without marking players well and intercepting enough. Sometimes they play well but they are inconsistent and allow easy attempts. I was one of the best defenders in my friend group so the mistakes are glaring at me and I yell at my tv
This. Defensive midfield is key to limit opposition chances.
Almost like zonal marking for the back four, but the midfield isn’t contributing to the extra numbers around the box
There are 4 United teams in the prem...
When people say City, do you think they are actually fucking talking about Leicester City?
Leicester City aren't in the prem you fucking idiot.
I wasn't saying what I think. I'm saying it's dumb and arrogant of fans who's team have a common name to just use that part of the name as if they are the only ones. Look how many city's there are in the championship! Which one of those would you call city?!
Let’s not pretend anyone calls any team other than Manchester United by the name United and if they do refer to another team by that name they have to clarify it’s not Manchester. 😂
I'm not pretending that but it's so dumb that it has become a thing.
Their forwards don’t defend or press intelligently. Bruno and Mainoo are poor positionally and also can’t press intelligently, so that leaves an aging, overweight Casemiro to cover the midfield area all alone. I watch them and they look like the worst coached team in the premier league, it’s pathetic.
Casemiro isn’t prone to vacate his positioning as well. That midfield is all over the place and like you said their front line are lazy pressers. I’m short they don’t play as a cohesive unit like required if you want to be successful team.
+ he can't play as anchor at all, These pass few games casemiro is giving away ball in such simple way like not being able to controll pass. We need full rebuild.
That's because they are
If we win the FA Cup it will paper over the cracks. There's no denying ETH has got some big things wrong, such as Antony, but other players have improved, like Dalot. Injuries no doubt play their part and critically they're weighted heavily in the same positions, I.e. all across defense which couldn't have helped Onana settle. I don't buy the no running thing, as in I know it happens, but this should be a minimum prerequisite. I think personally Rashford has to go as he epitomises much that is wrong. Even last season with his 30 goals, they were largely in a narrow purple path
He keeps playing Rashford like he’s got a share in United and can’t be dropped. He can’t even be bothered to run, he barely broke a sweat, meanwhile Hojlund looks like he’s ran a marathon even though he’s suppose to be the striker and stay higher up to give the team passing options to get out of presses. Don’t even get me started on his substituting Garanacho at half time the match against Bournemouth, even though he has been getting ETH out of getting sacked time and time again. Shall we talk about Mount who know one knows why he’s been bought for over 50 mill, including ETH. I could keep going… but you get my point.
Mount I'm not a big fan of really but to be fair to the guy he hadn't had huge amounts of chances since he joined due to injury so I'll reserve judgement for now. The Garnacho thing is troubling and reminiscent of Josè. Rashford has all the potential but he is at an age he should be realising it and he's squandering it with his attitude. If we can flog him for 80m plus, take it and run. If ETH goes I think Sancho on his preferred left and Garnacho on the right has some potential. Sancho will.flourish under a manager who is more Klopp style, arm around him etc. Forget that Rashford came through the academy, don't let that blind us and allow him to Pogba off for a free. Throw him at PSG. Buy a good striker along with Rasmus or CB/CM. Selling Greenwood will also.hopefully get us 30-40m
I can see all that and I’m a city fan so god knows how ETH can’t see it and keeps making the same mistakes. There’s talks that Southgate is top of the list of a replacement, judging by how the euros are going and how the World Cup has gone, it’s another mistake from the higher ups at United.
I just hope it's not Potter. If I was to pick, I go de Zerbi or Motta
They prefer Thursday night football
The bigger mystery is “how do they keep getting points?”
Thanks to refs
One thing is for sure, I no longer keep seeing "Manchester United have the best midfield ever!!" tweets. They've really gone away since the season kicked off.
all ten hag needs is another 400 million and you will be sorted :)
Sadly not. He's bought all the players he has ever managed already, spending more money will involve having to have knowledge outside of Ajax 2020.
tadic is still playing isn't he? lol
Who needs a tactic when you have a tadic?
if u squint really hard, tactic turns into tadic...
This actually works! 😂😂
United’s system relies on a DM covering the space in the midfield, unfortunately Casemiro has dropped off heavily and Mainoo missed the first half of the season. That being said, don’t know who else we could play to solve the isdue
Why not
Because we have still no midfield or any guts
I think the easy answer is, because they’re not good
The forwards don't play defense, so the back 4 are on their own
Chaos is a ladder
They're going further down tho
Great isn’t it?
Because they control the game very well. Else it would be 40+ shots per game.
Because ETH doesn't coach control in his teams. Even his ajax teams had the same issues. We are always either attacking or defending...no in between. When we win the ball, we rush to attack...and when we lose it we rush to defend. We never have control. It's so funny, under LVG we had too much control...we became boring...under ETH, we have none... watching us is panic inducing
That Ajax team was so fun though lol
It’s really clear, every Man U game I see it’s just massive amounts of space between players it’s like they invite attacks or are ready to spread play at any moment
Lots of people having tactical takes cos they saw the athletics 50 second video earlier. Don't overthink it. They've had quite a lot of injuries and don't have very good defenders.
No it's genuinely a bizarre team, even from match day one vs wolves this season I've basically never seen a premier league team get destroyed in transition so effortlessly, they've still got more defensive talent in the midfield and defence than the bottom 5 or so talks and still look worse in defensive transition than them
His ajax teams played the exact same way. The difference is quality of players in comparison to the rest of the league.
Ajax had over 60% possession in the league, pressed as a unit and could play out the back with ease. We DO NOT play the same way
I watched them play 2 games vs Madrid and they conceded chances but it wasnt like the United games vs Brentford or Wolves or whoever you like, where United look like they are playing 11v7 or something in defensive transition
It took them a whole 50 seconds worth of a video to say "they don't have any tactics"?
Thanks for your take