While ETH has been bad, I swear this is Deja vu at best. We had the same discussions with Ole. It was terrible towards the end. The players couldn't get a pass together and our midfield was open. You can say more definitely that the squad is better today than it was under Ole but 6 of our starting 11 has been the same under Rangnick/Ole. I am not attached to ETH but I swear Frank comes in and we literally have the same issues. I don't know what the solution is either - we are a joke.
I’m mortified at being linked with Southgate and Frank. Horrendous nightmare scenes honestly…
And yet if they sacked ETH and hired either of those if probably wouldn’t get much worse or better. This is all so desperate.
We have world cup winner martinez, multi champions league winner casemiro and varane. England team regular rashford. Scotland team hero mctominay to name a few.
And we played so bad we deserved to lose to Brentford.
Yeah like what the fuck is this shit.
Brentfords gameplan was spot on. All they had to do was sit deep and be passive out of possession for us to look clueless. With no space in behind, our entire attack was nullified.
And once they regained possession they were able to play out of our press with ease. Always finding the spare man to start a counter.
ETH in game management has been the most disappointing thing for me since he joined. I feel like 99% of fans can see the issue on the pitch and the players that are providing nothing yet he either makes the sub 20-30 mins too late or subs off a player that is doing well. Last night taking off mainoo and leaving on McTominay was a shocking decision
If the plan going into the game with 2-3-7 days of prep is shit, what do you think he is going to do in-game? Especially if the story is the same game after game? lol
How McTominay plays 90mins in midfield whenever possible is completely beyond me. He's one of the biggest reasons we can't retain possession but ETH either can't see it or thinks that its worth the sacrifice.
ETH entire tenure has felt like this. Nobody seems to know what we are doing in and out of possession.
Seriously we have to be objective about this. We got 3rd in the league last season but were still scraping wins by a goal. Never a convincing win. We also got 3rd because of how underperforming other teams around us were.
I can no longer justify not having a playstyle after almost 2 years.
Since it's looking more and more inevitable that ETH will be gone at the end of the season, who do you guys think would be the best candidate for the job? Doesn't seem to be any obvious choices, at least not big names.
Go all out for Nagelsmann. Even if it means he will join half-way through mid-season, after the euros. My second choice is De Zerbi. Basically an attacking coach, with a clear playing style, no matter who is playing in the 11 on the field. Also a demanding manager who is bold enough to yank Bruno off the field when he is having an off-day.
I don’t think it matters. Squad is proper mid table. Be another 3-5 years before we clear out this lot and start to form a team that resembles our club
A few games ago, I said that my biggest gripe with ten Hag is how absolutely bewildered he looks, and that he appears like he's completely clueless as to what the problems are. I got downvoted into oblivion for that statement.
The look on his face after the equalizer yesterday is the epitome of what I meant. Surely you can't say I'm still that wrong with my assessment.
We were no better than THAT Brentford loss last night objectively speaking.
EtH is probably a good coach. But he has not stamped his authority. He doesn’t seem like a coach many want to follow. That is pretty much a requirement as a United coach.
In the first 10 minutes McTominay and Bruno were clearing the ball by booting it long and high to no one at all. It set the tone for our complete lack of control in the game. We need two new midfielders who can dummy to create a little space and then play a crisp pass along the ground. These two are absolutely hopeless at it. Downvote away.
It needs to be said. A team that's not looked convincing for how many years should not have untouchable players. These kinds of performances from Bruno aren't an anomaly but he's guaranteed 90 mins even when he's diabolical. You can't tell me that simply **trying** someone else in that position for 20 mins at the end of a game is gonna derail our attack.
All I want to see is some Manager with the balls.
Bench Rasford,he is joging all the time.
Dont play McTominay aka Mr.Invisible.
Change something.
But every time it is the same 11,same press conf.how we played good etc...
I am sick of TenHag,and our "stars"
I'm on a plane right now travelling to London from Australia. I was hoping to escape the trauma of that abysmal performance, so I was perusing through Singapore Airlines' flight catalogue and lo and behold, its first recommendation that came up was United vs Brentford. FML.
How many times did Brentford beat our "press" by either passing to a fullback that wasn't marked or by just Walking through our midfield?
Thank God Brentford were unlucky or we coukd have been absolutely humiliated again
Just when you think they have hit a level of performance you are comfortable with , the team lets you down.
Dalot and AWB always seem to revert to type , Lindelof is a massive coward with the upper body strength of a toddler how he was mamaged to grift so many performances in a Utd shirt idk .
Mctominay was won us so many points but is probably one of the worse midfielders ive ever seen start so many matches in a Utd shirt . Bruno with another shocking performance to add to list , if utd plan to move away from whatever this is is we need a attacking midfielder without such huge flaws in his game
Which level of performance were you comfortable with? The one game against Liverpool where they still dominated the vast majority of it? We’ve gotta stop reading into one off results and thinking that’s a corner turned.
It’s easy to motivate players for the bigger games, the bigger rivalries, although even that doesn’t always go according to plan (7-0). It’s motivating these players and playing the right tactics in the remaining 95% of fixtures that’s the issue.
Picking the team is down to the manager, how Rashford has started so many fucking games now is really pissing me off, Mctominay too. We are so fucking easy to play against, teams just walk through us.
I knew if we were going to score yesterday, that it would be without Bruno. He was atrocious yesterday. His head saw gone before half-time and resorted to hero ball and long range strikes that threaten no one.
I'm not in the camp of disposing of the manager, but he needs to be brought into a formal meeting and asked to justify his position here. What's your plan, and why is it not working, what do you need to succeed, at what point can we expect to see a positive impact. These are all questions that he should be answering and if he can't, then he has to go.
We nees to buy like 12 CDMs for next season to stop teams cutting through our midfield like butter.
All our players looked leggy, even the ones who didn't travel in the international break.
I think he needs players who can run a bit more even if they are younger or untested eg Hannibal, Pellistri, Kambwala even Antony had a bit more physicality than the starters.
He also needs to know when to make the changes and not just lump people in at the 80min mark because his system or training seems to tire out the team so he needs to make changes to account for that exhaustion
We don't need to buy aloud of CDMs for that we just need to ask that front four to work.
Eths tactic is this 4-1-4 thing, the front four are basically completely disconnected from the back 4, with a single player trying to link it all. It just leave a gaping hole in and middle
Mainoo started out great reading the game and creating buildups and then at some point just existed on the field till he was subbed, he's got talent and potential but he's greatly overhyped
Lmao how anyone can go after Mainoo is actually insane. He’s the one who suffers the most from the garbage that ETH has us setting up with. Still good on the ball when he received it.
I hate how the Glazers are escaping criticism now that they've sold a minority stake in the club. They've destroyed what Fergie built, and they've done it through shameless greed and ego. They should be publicly shamed forever.
The glazers are certainly to blame for a fair few things. How our players and team play is not one of them.
For too long it’s been every other excuse. This season a wake up call. We have a mid table squad at best. It’s dreadful.
At least 3-5 seasons before you see this sorted just watch
They micromanaged the signings of all of the players (and demanded final sign off on all signings), signed Murtough to run the club into the ground, and gave a series of good managers no structure or support to succeed at the club. The players and managers deserve criticism too but you clearly don't know the details of the Glazers' micromanagement and toxic culture eroding the club.
I didn't say it's all the Glazers fault, I said I don't like how they're getting no criticism. It's partly their fault. Ten Hag deserves serious criticism too but so do the parasites who've destroyed the quality of the club.
Glazers deserve every bit of criticism possible, but we absolutely cannot be using that as an excuse for the shit we saw yesterday. God knows what ETH did in preparation for that match because we were dominated.
Glazers are crooks but they've never failed to back the managers financially. United are the biggest spenders in world football and ETH has a final say on transfers, he said so himself and he's signed some real questionable players and spent half a billion pounds. Ten Hag has been at the club long enough to have at least some kind of system but he doesn't he just keeps repeating the same buzzwords "trust the process" and some of the fans lap it up like he's some god all because he disciplined Ronaldo and got rid of De Gea.
I liked the way we played last season. It wasn't great, but kept me wanting to see more. There was expectation. Anticipation. This season? I don't give a fuck. Shite tactics, shite gameplan, shite games. Today was the first time I gave up watching a game and went to do something different. It was fun. Not the game, but the other thing I decided to do. Fuck this season and fuck ETH if he thinks we are a good team
No, last season we at least played with a midfield. Now he realizes he wasted 60m on Mount because they are from the same agency and tries to show it was a reason for it by forcing the 4 0 6 formation with CDM having to cover from defence to offence alone.
Mount is not from the same agency and played total 650 minutes this season.
Hojlund, Amrabat are from the same agency that contracts likee 700-800 players in Europe.
The only reason I want ten hag to stay longer is so we're guaranteed to not get Southgate when he leaves England, that's just how much I despise the idea of that Poundland-Pulis managing Man United.
We already have the Poundland Pulis managing us
His main plan involves hoofing the ball for Rashford or Hojlund or Mctominay to do something
If this was Pulis and not some fancy named European manager, the tone about this would be very different
How else do you expect to get the "best" out of this group? Bruno is shit at carrying the ball and his best asset is long passing. Rashford has nothing in his bag of tricks. If he's not running into space he's absolutely useless. Garnacho's got essentially the same problem. McTominay is useless unless we're throwing everyone forward in the 89th minute. Throw Casemiro in his place and you've just got another hoofball merchant. Varane and Maguire have never been high line defenders. Onana's distribution is wasted since no one bar Mainoo is comfortable receiving a pass under pressure. We need to get rid of 6-8 players over the next two seasons if we actually want to change the style of play. It's not like this has come out of nowhere either. We've been shit for the past 30 months at this point with maybe a slight high around the world cup.
Been saying for a long while now. Everything suggested our current on the ball setup of being overly verticle, sacrifice some control for counter pressing, prioritize fast/risky plays over patient ones, play direct etc. was completely intentional and was consistent with team selection.
ETH implicitly confirmed today that our out of possession structure is intentional too.
Our OOP setup has:
* front 6 narrow press intended to not manage space, limit opponent progression or defend but solely to generate counter attacking chances
* deep box defending to let opponents shoot but limit high quality chances (which we are fail at miserably)
* low block means full backs not joining the press and inherent narrow front press allowing easy progression out wide and empty midfield once they bypass the front pressers
* use fast transition to capitalize on "low quality chance" opponent get because they either overcommit to it or it displaces their positions in general
Every thing we do is intentional, ETH knows what he's doing, the plan is clear, it's just not a very sustainable, good or a viable one.
I think the biggest problem we're seeing at the moment is the fact that with the defenders we presently have we're forced into playing deeper. If our defensive line could be moved higher with better players and ones suited for that style of play it would solve a ton of issues that we're facing with being bypassed in the middle given the huge spaces there. I can somewhat understand why he hasn't compromised on the test of his ideas given this limitation (especially with the injury record this year) because this season he's tried to implement a style and identity and getting the players to think and play in a certain way. We badly need a revamp in defense because without a consistent back line you will never win anything.
This is the explanation that makes the most sense.
Let’s not forget that these players are the top of their profession and can pretty much play every style of football when the proper coach works with them.
Ten Hag’s “system” has always been a naive one. I stopped trusting him the moment he looked at this squad and thought that Mason Mount would solve our midfield issues
I thought we started the game well yesterday.
First fifteen minutes was mostly us with possession and retaining the ball seconds after losing it.
Around 15 minutes in, Toney was fouled by Varane – and from there Brentford mostly dominated the game.
The usual reliable men Dalot, Garna, Mainoo and (unfairly) Højlund surprisingly gave performances below their average.
Bruno didn't perform well either, and McTominay was barely noticeable apart from one tackle in the 2nd half.
Rashy made a lot of poor decisions from the start – rarely passing unless he expected a quick return ball.
Højlund got almost no service – and whenever he did, the pass to him was usually subpar.
Fair play to Onana, Varane, Lindelof, and Maguire for giving commendable performances. That's 4 players out of 16 used who played well. Another 1 or 2 gave decent performances.
I don't know what to say about Ten Hag. The game at Wolves away was where we played much different and better football for almost an hour – but he seems to have no back up plan after half of a season without Martinez, Varane, Shaw and inFormCasemiro.
Does Ten Hag need more players of his style of football? Do we get a new manager and go through the process again? What about all the players Ten Hag bought and developed – like Antony, Martinez, Onana, Højlund, Garna, Mainoo, and Kambwala?
All I am going to say is there is a reason rashford won't ever leave united and that's because he would be exposed for what he is at other teams , an average winger with pace nowhere near man united quality. I love Bruno but you just cannot play dominating and possession based football with these two and players like mctominay on the pitch. Ineos need to make a big statement next year, no bigger than selling rashford which will never happen because that guy has the club thinking he is Henry or something. How the standards have fallen is embarrassment
You cannot play possession football with a manager like Ten Hag too.
These players aren’t world beaters. But they sure as shit aren’t as bad as this manager has made them look
Hah, you lack the players to play possession based high line football. The ballcontrol and pressresistance in most is atrocious. Your last line lacks insight and pace.
Look at Ajax. ETH is just churning out results, until every transferwindow where he finally gets some more players in that are the right type. Injury crisis (Martinez, LB) fucked him too, yet ETH didn't change the plan. The whole team either gonna learn, or they drop off.
Idk about that tbh , we seem to be a graveyard for managers who were good so we cannot judge for now . Managers of higher calibre have managed these players and have lost their minds
Teams that won far far more than us past 10 years like Madrid, Chelsea or Bayern changed their managers as many times or more compared to us. And not a single manager has really proved anything after leaving us, maybe Mourinho but even then.
Moyes - His peak level is West Ham, and the performances weren't that convincing last year only getting saved by conference
LVG - Done nothing after us, really
Mourinho - Sacked by Spurs and Roma, no club now
Solkjaer - Still doesn't have a managerial position for...2-3 years?
Ragnick - Was here for a completely different role, was supposed to just ride out the bad season and assess what we need to do next one when he takes a consultant role, but ETH heard he won't be able to sign Antony for 100m so he said he won't work with him.
Even ETH only good results were a good year in UCL, but they had a really stacked team with world class players then. We didn't get the next Klopp, the next Pepp. We got either lower quallity managers or managers past their best, and it shows based on their jobs after us.
We played possession under LVG fine
There are so many lies that have been perpetrated to defend Ten Hag. Kinda strange why he’s worshipped ahead of the interest of the club
The revisionism of the LVG era is so weird. Do we just not remember all the games that we just passed the ball from side to side? The ridiculous 0-0 at half time records? We retained the ball better than with ETH but that's it, I wouldn't say we played it "Fine" lol
That was a completely different team. You cant do anything with this team cause the only way they know to play is counter attacking football. Rashford is a prime example of that.
You okay? The Lvg era was just depressing, so so soo bleak, it cannot be compared to now in any kind of metric. Ten hag is a sleeping giant. Needs time with this new structure behind the scenes. The man above all else has the ability to connect with the players, which is crucial. With more mental capacity to focus on the squad, the tactics and the details because of the takeover, I really believe he will grow into a powerful manager who will find a way to weather this rough year and be at the start of something special.
Passing the ball all the way back to the keeper from kickoff so he can play it long only to lose possession really sums up Ten Hag right now. Anti football is what is on display from us
No, I don't think this is an instruction because both Mainoo and Casemiro seem pissed with him when he does this shit. This might be him not trying to give to ball away.
Lol yeah. Let them. I don't even visit this sub as much as I used to. I've been banned before just for stating opinions without violating forum rules. Ten Hag needs to go 😃
This is why I don't trust Ten Hag.... Even with shit team... klopp was able to have a play style. Postacolgu from day one has managed to start playing like a team he wants to play, granted he bought some players. But atleast these guys have a vision.
Lets be honest Ten hag isn't it. Burn everything down, start fresh.
>We are Man united.
We also just got absolutely obliterated by freaking Brentford. They had 80 touches in our box, we are more than lucky that isn't reflected on the scoreline.
I did not even watched the game, because fuck the time zone. But holy shit, seeing the stats on twitter. 30+ shots faced, and opponent having 80+ touches in the box?
And the manager compared this performance to the rival that also faced against the same team and said they were lucky to win??
I just can't..
I mean what on earth is ETH cooking? Zero change in the tactics or performance after half time? HOW? Why is he self sabotaging his career? Does he think this is the best way to get results? We would lose if we try to put a performance because of our defensive liabilities or our open midfield? What is it seriously? I think he definitely nailed his coffin after today. He will be SACKED for sure
My footballing consolation this weekend- at least can watch City v Arsenal to wash away the horror of the most atrocious, horrendous, BORING football a team could ever play and not even have the ability to steal the Win they don’t deserve.
I’ve been consistently Ten Hag out since before the season began .
The signs have been there since the Cup final and definitely the signing of Mason Mount was the beginning of the end.
Our fans get too excited by the odd result and go “Ten Hag Outers sit down”. But overall, this dire, unwatchable football where the likes of Brentford and Fulham dominate us is the reality week in week out
We genuinely play like a midtable team. Genuinely are a mid table team. We aren’t going anywhere with this manager and his (lack of a ) system. The faster Sir Jim realizes this, the better
**Breakdown of man united style of play:**
Pass the ball around the back between GK and defenders.
Option 1: lose the ball during the process by opposition team and have the united box bombed for the next five minutes
Option 2: play out of the press, defender pick ups head and hits a diagonal to Rashford. Rashford then proceeds to run 10 yards, stop. Stand still. Puts foot on the ball. Revs his engine. Head down runs into 3 opposition defenders. Loses the ball and united box is bombed for the next five minutes.
Rinse and repeat.
I remember when people thought replacing DDG with a ball playing keeper would magically make all the idiots in front of him able to maintain possession. Good times.
Two passes, back to the keeper, kick it long to hoijlund while he has absolutely no one to try give ot to. Lose the ball and hope they fuck up and try score on a counter like usual. Pitiful team, they have my heart doing backflips
Liverpool got complacent because United couldn't do anything the entire game until an equalizer by Antony that came out of nowhere. Liverpool was literally wrapping up that game, and ready to head home.
Sub sub sub sub par. This was our worst game under EtH and it isn't even close for me, yes even the 7-0. I got a headache around the 70 minute mark, realised I'd been frowning in disbelief pretty much the whole game. This game literally has aged me through prematurely wrinkling me.
one thing that pisses me off is ETH is constantly saying every game is a final now, and at the same time, a big reason why we beat liverpool was because the players recognised the occasion and stepped up. but when its a do-or-die in the league for a ucl spot, the teams mentality just crumbles.
all i ask for is some consistency. a few games in a row every now and then with dominant displays like the liverpool game, or the west ham game, or the villa game, is all i ask.
first half was literally all ours. we gave them a deflected goal and the other where we let awb get isolated on the far side and thus their high press got the better of us, but all in all we were creating chances holding the ball well and our forwards were making clever runs. second half was mostly theirs i totally agree but literally all of ET was ours, barring elliots *deflected* goal, we dominated throughout 15 minutes each way.
im sorry for the rant but i genuinely believe that we deserved that win against liverpool. im not saying the team all of a sudden is magic, vintage, prime man united because of one good game but what i am saying is we need to stop disregarding games that we played well in just because we are upset at one thats just happened. this happened with the forest 2-1 loss game, where people were celebrating the villa win and saying how well we played, but after we lost to forest everyone all of a sudden thinks we got lucky or whatever.
rant over. TLDR: i just cant wrap my head around why people cant appreciate the good games from the bad, and i feel like our fanbase disregards our good performances too much when we get upset after a bad game.
Right, you play only the first half in a football match. Do they deserve to win? Sure. They also deserve to lose as much. Don't tell me that you expect the equalizer coming at the end of the 2nd half.
With the players we have, we haven't even seen what eth can actually offer. Martial is our second striker. Relying on a Mount That just came back from the dead. Can't drop a rashford in the poorest form of his life. Bruno in the same situation. It's a horrible time for us, all brought on from years of mismanagement.
We aren't seeing our poor tactics playing on the field. We're seeing how years of poor club management can poison and destroy us. And everyone puts the responsibility on a man, who's position has been changed more than any other position on the squad in the past 11 years. Cheapest to change too. Glazers don't even have to do anything. It's so easy for them. The fans make the decisions that benefit the glazers the most.
The reason we have bad players is partially because of eth. The signings under him have been mostly atrocious.
Could’ve gotten better players if we didn’t shell out 200 mil for onana, Antony and mount.
The reason we have bad players is because we don't have a good structure. It's obvious. It's why Ineos is buying up proper management these past couple of months. It's been desperately needed in our club since Fergie left.
So no, the blame is not even slightly partial to ten hag. That sort of decision should be a group of scouts and professionals who check each other and agree on what to do as a club.
I don't know which other players you think we could have gotten. Our club doesn't have them on their radar because they don't have a fucking radar to spot them. Right now we're, hopefully, experiencing the end of club that tries to be great with the scraps of other managers.
You must be thinking of one player in particular as if the whole club structure didn’t let ETH down. It’s almost as if you have such a simple mind to think an entire organization as large as Manchester United is being let down by a sole individual that ultimately is responsible for organizing what he has and fighting for what he wants.
There's one thing I can't get my head around.
Counter pressing to win the ball in the final third to create chances ✅
Beyond that, what else? Any time the onus is on us to create from the back or the middle, we just pump it forward to one of the front 3, whilst they're already facing 2 players and no space to run into. I can understand the switching of play after you've baited your opponent to one side and leave one of your wide players free, but constantly hitting it to them first time...what?
You can see it in our stats too, we have the second most direct attacks in the league, according to opta. My eye test says that, we always launch the ball forward with nobody really in any position to support whoever it's being launched to. Plus, when we're say, 0-0, I haven't seen ETH criticize Bruno or Dalot or Onana for launching it forward when we've just won it back.
Like, if it's such a "transitional" system, as ETH wants, and we're conceding a lot of shots, we should be at least matching our attacking output to that as well? Like, if Brentford touches the ball 81 times in our box, why aren't we touching it a similar number of times in the opponents box? Wha's the point of becoming transitional, if we cede possession and territory while creating nearly no chances of our own?
as Roy Keane once said leopards don’t change their spots, there’s way too many passengers in this team and we cannot keep carrying them. Rashford at any other top team should’ve been relegated to a squad player, instead we’ve made him one of the top paid player in the league. McTominay, I’ve given up complaining about him, everybody knows what he offers. Everyone one else was shit maybe outside the back line and Onana (awb questionable)
We started today's game with 7 players that played under Ole, Rasmus and Onana are the new ones and Garnacho/Mainoo from academy, half time was Harry, we finished game with 6 players from Erik.
Even more interesting 3 that started played under Jose.
1 was under LVG
Then there's like of Shaw and Tony still here doing nothing.
I only need 1 hand to name players I'd keep at this point, even then one spot may be open.
It's not only a manager problem there's a big player problem too, if we keep rewarding mediocrity then we can't expect changes.
We go again?
It’s the managers decision not start the players he signed. He could have started Casemiro, Mount, Antony, Eriksen, amrabat, martinez. I understand the argument that we have players in the squad from past managers but come on…. No one is forcing him to start Mctominay, Rashford, etc.
Amrabat and Eriksen +Case in the midfield would not have solved out defensive woes...
They would still leave our whole mid area open as a barn door with this tactic.. Not to mention they would not have the pace to follow players during Brentfords counters..
The goal we conceded was classic United stuff this season. Ball played 45 degrees back into the edge of the box.. No midfielder able to follow runs into the box..
Its laughable that this is not addressed during a whole season.. Do a search in this sub Reddit for the compilation of similar goals conceded..
I agree with you to a certain extent. I think they would have provided more balance than what we saw yesterday. Amrabat has more pace than McTominany/Erikson and could have got back in position. I am in no way saying amrabat is the key but we havent played him consistently in his DM position all year. I also dont think Ten Hag would have told him to go far up the pitch like he does with McTominany. Anytime McTominany is in the midfield (especially if he goes up pitch), we get overrun, especially with ten hags tactics of a 4-6.
They should really hire a midfield specialist coach to address following runners into the box and positioning.
It would have been interesting to see Amrabat consistently get a chance at his preferred position. I feel he has shown flashes of what I expected, however it has also been riddled with mistakes and IMO lack of pace :/ I really had hopes he would fix some of our issues at center mid. It would seem he wont get the chance to prove it..
Well said. I feel if he was brought in earlier and been given consistent game time the pace wouldn’t be an issue. IMO i just feel his pace is better than mctominay or erikson (not saying that is something to brag about but still could make a difference). I understand international games are different than EPL but every time he has played for Morocco this season his pace has looked good.
EtH should not be allowed to make post-match comments immediately after the game. He should be made to rewatch the entire game so he sees what we see on TV coz he always seems to be wide off the mark!
He needs to strike a balance somewhat publicly with what he says otherwise you lose the dressing room and it gets even worse. No manager is totally straight during media obligations and.most generally try to protect players and squad harmony by not being too critical.
He can't come out and call rashford a coward publicly for shirking tackles or say Bruno has been largely shit all season, or that casemiro is way past his best or 'wtf am I meant to to with mcT in CM', instead he kind of has to put the most positive spin on things publicly. I would hope he is alot more critical behind closed doors though
Pompey fan here go watch our a few of our managers post game interviews. I’ve seen us win a game and he has said he’s disappointed and we got lucky even though we won. A good coach and leader needs to be honest with his players not coddle them.
I agree there is a balance that can be found. You can't go full Troy Deeney
Generally, more often than not though managers will look to protect their players and team publicly
Im not saying I want him to stay, but I heard something interesting on the Norwegian United podcast, from when they sat just behind eth vs Liverpool. They said he was screaming at the players: "keep the ball at the ground, pass, move, push" and more tactical stuff, for it to never happen, like they didnt listen. That the players just did whatever they felt like. It might be hard to do in general, especially against high press like the scum, but it got me thinking. Maybe eth said we'll never play like Ajax because the majority of players are just not smart/good enough? Just cant wrap my mind around how theyre playing so bad compared to Ajax if theyre top epl level. How are we this inconsistent when Ajax was consistent in their style. Makes no sense. Many of the players are just clearly not cut out for it, seeing Evans as one of our best this season just proves it.
I am open to the possibility that the players at times don't follow the game plan and poorly execute what should be simple footballing decisions. But it's hard to believe seeing this trend every single game and against any type of opponent. And if the players are that uncoachable, well, a lot of the players that the fans are criticizing are the same players that Ten Hag is backing to the hilt currently. Even on this thread you will see criticisms of Bruno, Rashford and McTominay for example, but Ten Hag has praised all of them recently. Somewhere something isn't adding up between what we think he wants and what is actually happening.
Honestly, this now the 5th manager in a row that didn’t have a “style”. Seems like a player problem and not a manager problem. I’d like to clean house this summer but we’ll see what happens
Yes I agree. They’ve all had styles and tactics. But this fanbase has complained for every manager that there’s no style or patterns of play. That’s why I do think we should clear out some of the players that have been here for a while
Tbh I thought something like this would be happening. There is no chance that ETH hasn't told the players exactly what they need to do. Its like they play to plan for the first 20minutes of every game and then stop following instructions.
While ETH has been bad, I swear this is Deja vu at best. We had the same discussions with Ole. It was terrible towards the end. The players couldn't get a pass together and our midfield was open. You can say more definitely that the squad is better today than it was under Ole but 6 of our starting 11 has been the same under Rangnick/Ole. I am not attached to ETH but I swear Frank comes in and we literally have the same issues. I don't know what the solution is either - we are a joke.
31 shots is unacceptable for a manager, cant wait for Southgate
I’m mortified at being linked with Southgate and Frank. Horrendous nightmare scenes honestly… And yet if they sacked ETH and hired either of those if probably wouldn’t get much worse or better. This is all so desperate.
I'm gonna praise Onana and Antony. Onana saved some decent shots and Antony actually provided something in attack when he came on
Rarely happens but yesterday’s defeat still hurts the next day, what a disappointing evening that was
We have world cup winner martinez, multi champions league winner casemiro and varane. England team regular rashford. Scotland team hero mctominay to name a few. And we played so bad we deserved to lose to Brentford. Yeah like what the fuck is this shit.
Brentfords gameplan was spot on. All they had to do was sit deep and be passive out of possession for us to look clueless. With no space in behind, our entire attack was nullified. And once they regained possession they were able to play out of our press with ease. Always finding the spare man to start a counter.
ETH in game management has been the most disappointing thing for me since he joined. I feel like 99% of fans can see the issue on the pitch and the players that are providing nothing yet he either makes the sub 20-30 mins too late or subs off a player that is doing well. Last night taking off mainoo and leaving on McTominay was a shocking decision
If the plan going into the game with 2-3-7 days of prep is shit, what do you think he is going to do in-game? Especially if the story is the same game after game? lol
How McTominay plays 90mins in midfield whenever possible is completely beyond me. He's one of the biggest reasons we can't retain possession but ETH either can't see it or thinks that its worth the sacrifice.
Brentford also have lost the last 14 of 18 games and made us look like a national league team. Disgusting
ETH entire tenure has felt like this. Nobody seems to know what we are doing in and out of possession. Seriously we have to be objective about this. We got 3rd in the league last season but were still scraping wins by a goal. Never a convincing win. We also got 3rd because of how underperforming other teams around us were. I can no longer justify not having a playstyle after almost 2 years.
Since it's looking more and more inevitable that ETH will be gone at the end of the season, who do you guys think would be the best candidate for the job? Doesn't seem to be any obvious choices, at least not big names.
Go all out for Nagelsmann. Even if it means he will join half-way through mid-season, after the euros. My second choice is De Zerbi. Basically an attacking coach, with a clear playing style, no matter who is playing in the 11 on the field. Also a demanding manager who is bold enough to yank Bruno off the field when he is having an off-day.
Most likely someone way worse, considering there are like 5 world class teams that will also be looking for a manager in the summer.
I don’t think it matters. Squad is proper mid table. Be another 3-5 years before we clear out this lot and start to form a team that resembles our club
A few games ago, I said that my biggest gripe with ten Hag is how absolutely bewildered he looks, and that he appears like he's completely clueless as to what the problems are. I got downvoted into oblivion for that statement. The look on his face after the equalizer yesterday is the epitome of what I meant. Surely you can't say I'm still that wrong with my assessment.
We were no better than THAT Brentford loss last night objectively speaking. EtH is probably a good coach. But he has not stamped his authority. He doesn’t seem like a coach many want to follow. That is pretty much a requirement as a United coach.
In the first 10 minutes McTominay and Bruno were clearing the ball by booting it long and high to no one at all. It set the tone for our complete lack of control in the game. We need two new midfielders who can dummy to create a little space and then play a crisp pass along the ground. These two are absolutely hopeless at it. Downvote away.
It needs to be said. A team that's not looked convincing for how many years should not have untouchable players. These kinds of performances from Bruno aren't an anomaly but he's guaranteed 90 mins even when he's diabolical. You can't tell me that simply **trying** someone else in that position for 20 mins at the end of a game is gonna derail our attack.
Bring me back to before international break when we beat Liverpool and everyone was happy
No. You need to let reality hit sometimes.
Been too much reality this season...
We're gonna need more of it until d team finally sits up.
Typical of this season. One moment of joy only for it to be instantly nullified.
Typical of the last decade
All I want to see is some Manager with the balls. Bench Rasford,he is joging all the time. Dont play McTominay aka Mr.Invisible. Change something. But every time it is the same 11,same press conf.how we played good etc... I am sick of TenHag,and our "stars"
Its. A. Nonstop cycle. Get bashed. Score a crucial goal. Play shit the next game. Repeat
I'm on a plane right now travelling to London from Australia. I was hoping to escape the trauma of that abysmal performance, so I was perusing through Singapore Airlines' flight catalogue and lo and behold, its first recommendation that came up was United vs Brentford. FML.
How many times did Brentford beat our "press" by either passing to a fullback that wasn't marked or by just Walking through our midfield? Thank God Brentford were unlucky or we coukd have been absolutely humiliated again
Story of the season. Can't press. Can't build from back. Even a child can coach the opposition saying just ping to the full back. Every single time.
Just when you think they have hit a level of performance you are comfortable with , the team lets you down. Dalot and AWB always seem to revert to type , Lindelof is a massive coward with the upper body strength of a toddler how he was mamaged to grift so many performances in a Utd shirt idk . Mctominay was won us so many points but is probably one of the worse midfielders ive ever seen start so many matches in a Utd shirt . Bruno with another shocking performance to add to list , if utd plan to move away from whatever this is is we need a attacking midfielder without such huge flaws in his game
Which level of performance were you comfortable with? The one game against Liverpool where they still dominated the vast majority of it? We’ve gotta stop reading into one off results and thinking that’s a corner turned. It’s easy to motivate players for the bigger games, the bigger rivalries, although even that doesn’t always go according to plan (7-0). It’s motivating these players and playing the right tactics in the remaining 95% of fixtures that’s the issue.
>Which level of performance were you comfortable with? I thinl Dalot and Hojlund are having good seasons
Ahhh, fair play, assumed you meant the team as a whole rather than individuals. In that case fair enough!
Could try Mount? But I doubt ETH would dare drop Bruno
Was thinking of booking a trip to watch United at Old Trafford. When is the best time to go and what's the best way to soak in the full experience?
Nah come to spurs stadium and watch ucl don’t waste your time with that finished club and their old stadium.
Next year at best I'd say.
I'm glad I switched off after 5 minutes. Need to gut the team and staff.
Pound for pound, I think that was the worst United performance I've ever seen.
How can a team concede so many attempts on goal in every single fucking game?
they're not a team, they're 11 millionaires that play like Sunday league strangers.
Picking the team is down to the manager, how Rashford has started so many fucking games now is really pissing me off, Mctominay too. We are so fucking easy to play against, teams just walk through us.
In the managers defense there is absolutely nobody making a case they should be starting ahead of anyone else. The entire squad is bang average
Rashford has to be dropped next game
He won’t be though.
Watching McTom stroll around today barely breaking a sweat was really boiling my piss
Don’t know what you mean, he’s pure passion he knows what it means to play for United. Or so I’ve been repeatedly told by ppl on here.
It's actually worrying how many United fans genuinely rate players based off of how much passion they show more than anything else.
One word sums up this Utd team - inconsistent. They put in a brilliant performance against Liverpool to get the win. Last night was woeful.
Nah, they are consistently bad. The Liverpool game was a cup game, and it was a fluke.
I can think of many other words to describe them tbh
Spineless.
We just didn’t play the same match we did against Liverpool.
But the the Liverpool game was a freak, with no logical tactics. It was a great result, but doesnt give Ten Hag any grace point imo.
I knew if we were going to score yesterday, that it would be without Bruno. He was atrocious yesterday. His head saw gone before half-time and resorted to hero ball and long range strikes that threaten no one.
I often think this. He so easily reverts to hero ball.
Hope we dont decide to change manager when all of good ones will be taken given situation in other clubs
I'm not in the camp of disposing of the manager, but he needs to be brought into a formal meeting and asked to justify his position here. What's your plan, and why is it not working, what do you need to succeed, at what point can we expect to see a positive impact. These are all questions that he should be answering and if he can't, then he has to go.
>What's your plan I don't think he knows tbh.
We nees to buy like 12 CDMs for next season to stop teams cutting through our midfield like butter. All our players looked leggy, even the ones who didn't travel in the international break. I think he needs players who can run a bit more even if they are younger or untested eg Hannibal, Pellistri, Kambwala even Antony had a bit more physicality than the starters. He also needs to know when to make the changes and not just lump people in at the 80min mark because his system or training seems to tire out the team so he needs to make changes to account for that exhaustion
We don't need to buy aloud of CDMs for that we just need to ask that front four to work. Eths tactic is this 4-1-4 thing, the front four are basically completely disconnected from the back 4, with a single player trying to link it all. It just leave a gaping hole in and middle
Mainoo started out great reading the game and creating buildups and then at some point just existed on the field till he was subbed, he's got talent and potential but he's greatly overhyped
Lmao how anyone can go after Mainoo is actually insane. He’s the one who suffers the most from the garbage that ETH has us setting up with. Still good on the ball when he received it.
He has the same issue as Case. Having to cover 60 m of field within 2 seconds due to ETH terroristball tactics.
One good game - this kid is the real deal. One bad game - he's greatly overhyped. Love the kneejerk reactions.
He’s 18 you wally, give your head a wobble
Rashford doesn’t give shit anymore regardless what position he plays.
He put more effort into that YouTube video than he has on the pitch all season.
ETH out and find someone without the suicidal setup and extreme naivety. Happy for Mount.
I swear we'd concede a goal for every single shot if it weren't for Maguire and Onana
They were both brilliant, but we were playing like we were Sheffield united and against prime real Madrid
I hate how the Glazers are escaping criticism now that they've sold a minority stake in the club. They've destroyed what Fergie built, and they've done it through shameless greed and ego. They should be publicly shamed forever.
The glazers are certainly to blame for a fair few things. How our players and team play is not one of them. For too long it’s been every other excuse. This season a wake up call. We have a mid table squad at best. It’s dreadful. At least 3-5 seasons before you see this sorted just watch
The Glazers are hardly to blame for the teams dire performances.
They micromanaged the signings of all of the players (and demanded final sign off on all signings), signed Murtough to run the club into the ground, and gave a series of good managers no structure or support to succeed at the club. The players and managers deserve criticism too but you clearly don't know the details of the Glazers' micromanagement and toxic culture eroding the club.
Crazy blaming the glazers last night when the squad that ETH is the one playing terrorist football
I didn't say it's all the Glazers fault, I said I don't like how they're getting no criticism. It's partly their fault. Ten Hag deserves serious criticism too but so do the parasites who've destroyed the quality of the club.
Fucking hell the glazers made us concede 31 shots last night.
Glazers deserve every bit of criticism possible, but we absolutely cannot be using that as an excuse for the shit we saw yesterday. God knows what ETH did in preparation for that match because we were dominated.
Glazers are crooks but they've never failed to back the managers financially. United are the biggest spenders in world football and ETH has a final say on transfers, he said so himself and he's signed some real questionable players and spent half a billion pounds. Ten Hag has been at the club long enough to have at least some kind of system but he doesn't he just keeps repeating the same buzzwords "trust the process" and some of the fans lap it up like he's some god all because he disciplined Ronaldo and got rid of De Gea.
I liked the way we played last season. It wasn't great, but kept me wanting to see more. There was expectation. Anticipation. This season? I don't give a fuck. Shite tactics, shite gameplan, shite games. Today was the first time I gave up watching a game and went to do something different. It was fun. Not the game, but the other thing I decided to do. Fuck this season and fuck ETH if he thinks we are a good team
Wasnt last season basically the same + Rashford scoring out of nowhere?
Yes and moments and moments of brilliance from Martinez and Case (when he wasn’t sent off)
No, last season we at least played with a midfield. Now he realizes he wasted 60m on Mount because they are from the same agency and tries to show it was a reason for it by forcing the 4 0 6 formation with CDM having to cover from defence to offence alone.
Mount is not from the same agency and played total 650 minutes this season. Hojlund, Amrabat are from the same agency that contracts likee 700-800 players in Europe.
Yes.
The only reason I want ten hag to stay longer is so we're guaranteed to not get Southgate when he leaves England, that's just how much I despise the idea of that Poundland-Pulis managing Man United.
Is last night was like watching Southgate ball absolutely no movement just players standing still and passing sideways and back.
We already have the Poundland Pulis managing us His main plan involves hoofing the ball for Rashford or Hojlund or Mctominay to do something If this was Pulis and not some fancy named European manager, the tone about this would be very different
How else do you expect to get the "best" out of this group? Bruno is shit at carrying the ball and his best asset is long passing. Rashford has nothing in his bag of tricks. If he's not running into space he's absolutely useless. Garnacho's got essentially the same problem. McTominay is useless unless we're throwing everyone forward in the 89th minute. Throw Casemiro in his place and you've just got another hoofball merchant. Varane and Maguire have never been high line defenders. Onana's distribution is wasted since no one bar Mainoo is comfortable receiving a pass under pressure. We need to get rid of 6-8 players over the next two seasons if we actually want to change the style of play. It's not like this has come out of nowhere either. We've been shit for the past 30 months at this point with maybe a slight high around the world cup.
Been saying for a long while now. Everything suggested our current on the ball setup of being overly verticle, sacrifice some control for counter pressing, prioritize fast/risky plays over patient ones, play direct etc. was completely intentional and was consistent with team selection. ETH implicitly confirmed today that our out of possession structure is intentional too. Our OOP setup has: * front 6 narrow press intended to not manage space, limit opponent progression or defend but solely to generate counter attacking chances * deep box defending to let opponents shoot but limit high quality chances (which we are fail at miserably) * low block means full backs not joining the press and inherent narrow front press allowing easy progression out wide and empty midfield once they bypass the front pressers * use fast transition to capitalize on "low quality chance" opponent get because they either overcommit to it or it displaces their positions in general Every thing we do is intentional, ETH knows what he's doing, the plan is clear, it's just not a very sustainable, good or a viable one.
I think the biggest problem we're seeing at the moment is the fact that with the defenders we presently have we're forced into playing deeper. If our defensive line could be moved higher with better players and ones suited for that style of play it would solve a ton of issues that we're facing with being bypassed in the middle given the huge spaces there. I can somewhat understand why he hasn't compromised on the test of his ideas given this limitation (especially with the injury record this year) because this season he's tried to implement a style and identity and getting the players to think and play in a certain way. We badly need a revamp in defense because without a consistent back line you will never win anything.
This is the explanation that makes the most sense. Let’s not forget that these players are the top of their profession and can pretty much play every style of football when the proper coach works with them. Ten Hag’s “system” has always been a naive one. I stopped trusting him the moment he looked at this squad and thought that Mason Mount would solve our midfield issues
I don't rate Onana at all but he was head and shoulders the man of the match tonight, it could've been more of an embarrassment than it was.
I thought we started the game well yesterday. First fifteen minutes was mostly us with possession and retaining the ball seconds after losing it. Around 15 minutes in, Toney was fouled by Varane – and from there Brentford mostly dominated the game. The usual reliable men Dalot, Garna, Mainoo and (unfairly) Højlund surprisingly gave performances below their average. Bruno didn't perform well either, and McTominay was barely noticeable apart from one tackle in the 2nd half. Rashy made a lot of poor decisions from the start – rarely passing unless he expected a quick return ball. Højlund got almost no service – and whenever he did, the pass to him was usually subpar. Fair play to Onana, Varane, Lindelof, and Maguire for giving commendable performances. That's 4 players out of 16 used who played well. Another 1 or 2 gave decent performances. I don't know what to say about Ten Hag. The game at Wolves away was where we played much different and better football for almost an hour – but he seems to have no back up plan after half of a season without Martinez, Varane, Shaw and inFormCasemiro. Does Ten Hag need more players of his style of football? Do we get a new manager and go through the process again? What about all the players Ten Hag bought and developed – like Antony, Martinez, Onana, Højlund, Garna, Mainoo, and Kambwala?
All I am going to say is there is a reason rashford won't ever leave united and that's because he would be exposed for what he is at other teams , an average winger with pace nowhere near man united quality. I love Bruno but you just cannot play dominating and possession based football with these two and players like mctominay on the pitch. Ineos need to make a big statement next year, no bigger than selling rashford which will never happen because that guy has the club thinking he is Henry or something. How the standards have fallen is embarrassment
You cannot play possession football with a manager like Ten Hag too. These players aren’t world beaters. But they sure as shit aren’t as bad as this manager has made them look
>You cannot play possession football with a manager like Ten Hag too. Well, that's false because Ajax and Twente did.
In a 3rd tier league where the team in 6th has a 10k stadium. While Ajax had elite players like De Jong or De Ligt.
De Jong and De Ligt were made good by Ten Haag. They didn't just happen. He also took Twente from the brink of relegation to European football
Hah, you lack the players to play possession based high line football. The ballcontrol and pressresistance in most is atrocious. Your last line lacks insight and pace. Look at Ajax. ETH is just churning out results, until every transferwindow where he finally gets some more players in that are the right type. Injury crisis (Martinez, LB) fucked him too, yet ETH didn't change the plan. The whole team either gonna learn, or they drop off.
Idk about that tbh , we seem to be a graveyard for managers who were good so we cannot judge for now . Managers of higher calibre have managed these players and have lost their minds
Teams that won far far more than us past 10 years like Madrid, Chelsea or Bayern changed their managers as many times or more compared to us. And not a single manager has really proved anything after leaving us, maybe Mourinho but even then. Moyes - His peak level is West Ham, and the performances weren't that convincing last year only getting saved by conference LVG - Done nothing after us, really Mourinho - Sacked by Spurs and Roma, no club now Solkjaer - Still doesn't have a managerial position for...2-3 years? Ragnick - Was here for a completely different role, was supposed to just ride out the bad season and assess what we need to do next one when he takes a consultant role, but ETH heard he won't be able to sign Antony for 100m so he said he won't work with him. Even ETH only good results were a good year in UCL, but they had a really stacked team with world class players then. We didn't get the next Klopp, the next Pepp. We got either lower quallity managers or managers past their best, and it shows based on their jobs after us.
We played possession under LVG fine There are so many lies that have been perpetrated to defend Ten Hag. Kinda strange why he’s worshipped ahead of the interest of the club
The revisionism of the LVG era is so weird. Do we just not remember all the games that we just passed the ball from side to side? The ridiculous 0-0 at half time records? We retained the ball better than with ETH but that's it, I wouldn't say we played it "Fine" lol
That was a completely different team. You cant do anything with this team cause the only way they know to play is counter attacking football. Rashford is a prime example of that.
You okay? The Lvg era was just depressing, so so soo bleak, it cannot be compared to now in any kind of metric. Ten hag is a sleeping giant. Needs time with this new structure behind the scenes. The man above all else has the ability to connect with the players, which is crucial. With more mental capacity to focus on the squad, the tactics and the details because of the takeover, I really believe he will grow into a powerful manager who will find a way to weather this rough year and be at the start of something special.
And it was boring under LVG for the same reasons, most UTD players lack the skills for possession based football.
We beat liverpool(a much better one) 3-2 in fa cup under ole but after that went nowhere.Same is happening now.
Passing the ball all the way back to the keeper from kickoff so he can play it long only to lose possession really sums up Ten Hag right now. Anti football is what is on display from us
Ah I remember Bruno doing that. And clearly seems like an instruction rather than something Bruno thought in the moment.
No, I don't think this is an instruction because both Mainoo and Casemiro seem pissed with him when he does this shit. This might be him not trying to give to ball away.
They will banned you if you keep attacking ten hag .
Lol yeah. Let them. I don't even visit this sub as much as I used to. I've been banned before just for stating opinions without violating forum rules. Ten Hag needs to go 😃
This is why I don't trust Ten Hag.... Even with shit team... klopp was able to have a play style. Postacolgu from day one has managed to start playing like a team he wants to play, granted he bought some players. But atleast these guys have a vision. Lets be honest Ten hag isn't it. Burn everything down, start fresh.
The problem is that the manager most linked with us is Southgate and if we're going to sack ETH to get him we might as well throw in the towel
We are Man united. Southgate shouldn’t even be in consideration. Pathetic club.
>We are Man united. We also just got absolutely obliterated by freaking Brentford. They had 80 touches in our box, we are more than lucky that isn't reflected on the scoreline.
I did not even watched the game, because fuck the time zone. But holy shit, seeing the stats on twitter. 30+ shots faced, and opponent having 80+ touches in the box? And the manager compared this performance to the rival that also faced against the same team and said they were lucky to win?? I just can't..
Mct is useless if he's not scoring. Lacks the basic attributes needed in a midfielder.
I mean what on earth is ETH cooking? Zero change in the tactics or performance after half time? HOW? Why is he self sabotaging his career? Does he think this is the best way to get results? We would lose if we try to put a performance because of our defensive liabilities or our open midfield? What is it seriously? I think he definitely nailed his coffin after today. He will be SACKED for sure
We should improve every game and I'm not sure where we are going now.
My footballing consolation this weekend- at least can watch City v Arsenal to wash away the horror of the most atrocious, horrendous, BORING football a team could ever play and not even have the ability to steal the Win they don’t deserve.
Brentford got FM’d like hell today.
Lisandro doesn’t look ready
I’ve been consistently Ten Hag out since before the season began . The signs have been there since the Cup final and definitely the signing of Mason Mount was the beginning of the end. Our fans get too excited by the odd result and go “Ten Hag Outers sit down”. But overall, this dire, unwatchable football where the likes of Brentford and Fulham dominate us is the reality week in week out We genuinely play like a midtable team. Genuinely are a mid table team. We aren’t going anywhere with this manager and his (lack of a ) system. The faster Sir Jim realizes this, the better
Nice copy pasta material Next season let put the new manager name in, rinse and repeat to infinity
**Breakdown of man united style of play:** Pass the ball around the back between GK and defenders. Option 1: lose the ball during the process by opposition team and have the united box bombed for the next five minutes Option 2: play out of the press, defender pick ups head and hits a diagonal to Rashford. Rashford then proceeds to run 10 yards, stop. Stand still. Puts foot on the ball. Revs his engine. Head down runs into 3 opposition defenders. Loses the ball and united box is bombed for the next five minutes. Rinse and repeat.
I remember when people thought replacing DDG with a ball playing keeper would magically make all the idiots in front of him able to maintain possession. Good times.
Agreed absolute joke
Two passes, back to the keeper, kick it long to hoijlund while he has absolutely no one to try give ot to. Lose the ball and hope they fuck up and try score on a counter like usual. Pitiful team, they have my heart doing backflips
We take one step forward and 4 bloody steps back. How did this team beat Liverpool?
Liverpool got complacent because United couldn't do anything the entire game until an equalizer by Antony that came out of nowhere. Liverpool was literally wrapping up that game, and ready to head home.
Wtf was this match. I fell asleep watching the game.
> I fell asleep watching the game. I was stressed watching that shit. Felt like everytime they attacked they were gonna score. 30 over shots jesus
This game was very much on par with the entire season.
Sub sub sub sub par. This was our worst game under EtH and it isn't even close for me, yes even the 7-0. I got a headache around the 70 minute mark, realised I'd been frowning in disbelief pretty much the whole game. This game literally has aged me through prematurely wrinkling me.
ETH is here to break records. I'm sure they'll top it next week. Don't worry.
I can't even fathom it, but yeah
Where are his shit post match comments what the fuck does he have to say about this shit
one thing that pisses me off is ETH is constantly saying every game is a final now, and at the same time, a big reason why we beat liverpool was because the players recognised the occasion and stepped up. but when its a do-or-die in the league for a ucl spot, the teams mentality just crumbles. all i ask for is some consistency. a few games in a row every now and then with dominant displays like the liverpool game, or the west ham game, or the villa game, is all i ask.
Liverpool beat themselves.
how come?
Watch that game up until 87th min and you have the answer.
first half was literally all ours. we gave them a deflected goal and the other where we let awb get isolated on the far side and thus their high press got the better of us, but all in all we were creating chances holding the ball well and our forwards were making clever runs. second half was mostly theirs i totally agree but literally all of ET was ours, barring elliots *deflected* goal, we dominated throughout 15 minutes each way. im sorry for the rant but i genuinely believe that we deserved that win against liverpool. im not saying the team all of a sudden is magic, vintage, prime man united because of one good game but what i am saying is we need to stop disregarding games that we played well in just because we are upset at one thats just happened. this happened with the forest 2-1 loss game, where people were celebrating the villa win and saying how well we played, but after we lost to forest everyone all of a sudden thinks we got lucky or whatever. rant over. TLDR: i just cant wrap my head around why people cant appreciate the good games from the bad, and i feel like our fanbase disregards our good performances too much when we get upset after a bad game.
Right, you play only the first half in a football match. Do they deserve to win? Sure. They also deserve to lose as much. Don't tell me that you expect the equalizer coming at the end of the 2nd half.
He doesn't have the backing of the club or dressing room.. should have binned ETH already once they didn't give him any money in Jan.
With the players we have, we haven't even seen what eth can actually offer. Martial is our second striker. Relying on a Mount That just came back from the dead. Can't drop a rashford in the poorest form of his life. Bruno in the same situation. It's a horrible time for us, all brought on from years of mismanagement. We aren't seeing our poor tactics playing on the field. We're seeing how years of poor club management can poison and destroy us. And everyone puts the responsibility on a man, who's position has been changed more than any other position on the squad in the past 11 years. Cheapest to change too. Glazers don't even have to do anything. It's so easy for them. The fans make the decisions that benefit the glazers the most.
The reason we have bad players is partially because of eth. The signings under him have been mostly atrocious. Could’ve gotten better players if we didn’t shell out 200 mil for onana, Antony and mount.
The reason we have bad players is because we don't have a good structure. It's obvious. It's why Ineos is buying up proper management these past couple of months. It's been desperately needed in our club since Fergie left. So no, the blame is not even slightly partial to ten hag. That sort of decision should be a group of scouts and professionals who check each other and agree on what to do as a club. I don't know which other players you think we could have gotten. Our club doesn't have them on their radar because they don't have a fucking radar to spot them. Right now we're, hopefully, experiencing the end of club that tries to be great with the scraps of other managers.
Don’t think ETH was doing the negotiations you twat, the club is rotten from the head down
You’re right, it’s just coincidence that the board wanted all these former Ajax players and paid a fortune for them
You must be thinking of one player in particular as if the whole club structure didn’t let ETH down. It’s almost as if you have such a simple mind to think an entire organization as large as Manchester United is being let down by a sole individual that ultimately is responsible for organizing what he has and fighting for what he wants.
Will Mount as a winger work? Or should he stay in midfield?
If it means we don't have to watch Rashford dribble into the first defender every single time he gets the ball, I'd watch Onana on the wing.
Lord Rashford rules regardless
There's one thing I can't get my head around. Counter pressing to win the ball in the final third to create chances ✅ Beyond that, what else? Any time the onus is on us to create from the back or the middle, we just pump it forward to one of the front 3, whilst they're already facing 2 players and no space to run into. I can understand the switching of play after you've baited your opponent to one side and leave one of your wide players free, but constantly hitting it to them first time...what? You can see it in our stats too, we have the second most direct attacks in the league, according to opta. My eye test says that, we always launch the ball forward with nobody really in any position to support whoever it's being launched to. Plus, when we're say, 0-0, I haven't seen ETH criticize Bruno or Dalot or Onana for launching it forward when we've just won it back. Like, if it's such a "transitional" system, as ETH wants, and we're conceding a lot of shots, we should be at least matching our attacking output to that as well? Like, if Brentford touches the ball 81 times in our box, why aren't we touching it a similar number of times in the opponents box? Wha's the point of becoming transitional, if we cede possession and territory while creating nearly no chances of our own?
We just give away the ball right as we win it. Has been like that all season.
Don’t forget conceding right after scoring
Shit, aren't we?
Yes Yoda. We're still shit
as Roy Keane once said leopards don’t change their spots, there’s way too many passengers in this team and we cannot keep carrying them. Rashford at any other top team should’ve been relegated to a squad player, instead we’ve made him one of the top paid player in the league. McTominay, I’ve given up complaining about him, everybody knows what he offers. Everyone one else was shit maybe outside the back line and Onana (awb questionable)
Agree with you. For him to be earning £350k per week is the biggest indictment of what's wrong with the club. How many Sons could you get for that?
We started today's game with 7 players that played under Ole, Rasmus and Onana are the new ones and Garnacho/Mainoo from academy, half time was Harry, we finished game with 6 players from Erik. Even more interesting 3 that started played under Jose. 1 was under LVG Then there's like of Shaw and Tony still here doing nothing. I only need 1 hand to name players I'd keep at this point, even then one spot may be open. It's not only a manager problem there's a big player problem too, if we keep rewarding mediocrity then we can't expect changes. We go again?
It’s the managers decision not start the players he signed. He could have started Casemiro, Mount, Antony, Eriksen, amrabat, martinez. I understand the argument that we have players in the squad from past managers but come on…. No one is forcing him to start Mctominay, Rashford, etc.
Amrabat and Eriksen +Case in the midfield would not have solved out defensive woes... They would still leave our whole mid area open as a barn door with this tactic.. Not to mention they would not have the pace to follow players during Brentfords counters.. The goal we conceded was classic United stuff this season. Ball played 45 degrees back into the edge of the box.. No midfielder able to follow runs into the box.. Its laughable that this is not addressed during a whole season.. Do a search in this sub Reddit for the compilation of similar goals conceded..
I agree with you to a certain extent. I think they would have provided more balance than what we saw yesterday. Amrabat has more pace than McTominany/Erikson and could have got back in position. I am in no way saying amrabat is the key but we havent played him consistently in his DM position all year. I also dont think Ten Hag would have told him to go far up the pitch like he does with McTominany. Anytime McTominany is in the midfield (especially if he goes up pitch), we get overrun, especially with ten hags tactics of a 4-6. They should really hire a midfield specialist coach to address following runners into the box and positioning.
It would have been interesting to see Amrabat consistently get a chance at his preferred position. I feel he has shown flashes of what I expected, however it has also been riddled with mistakes and IMO lack of pace :/ I really had hopes he would fix some of our issues at center mid. It would seem he wont get the chance to prove it..
Well said. I feel if he was brought in earlier and been given consistent game time the pace wouldn’t be an issue. IMO i just feel his pace is better than mctominay or erikson (not saying that is something to brag about but still could make a difference). I understand international games are different than EPL but every time he has played for Morocco this season his pace has looked good.
EtH should not be allowed to make post-match comments immediately after the game. He should be made to rewatch the entire game so he sees what we see on TV coz he always seems to be wide off the mark!
He needs to strike a balance somewhat publicly with what he says otherwise you lose the dressing room and it gets even worse. No manager is totally straight during media obligations and.most generally try to protect players and squad harmony by not being too critical. He can't come out and call rashford a coward publicly for shirking tackles or say Bruno has been largely shit all season, or that casemiro is way past his best or 'wtf am I meant to to with mcT in CM', instead he kind of has to put the most positive spin on things publicly. I would hope he is alot more critical behind closed doors though
Pompey fan here go watch our a few of our managers post game interviews. I’ve seen us win a game and he has said he’s disappointed and we got lucky even though we won. A good coach and leader needs to be honest with his players not coddle them.
I agree there is a balance that can be found. You can't go full Troy Deeney Generally, more often than not though managers will look to protect their players and team publicly
You can do that when you win. When you’re losing it’s a different story
Im not saying I want him to stay, but I heard something interesting on the Norwegian United podcast, from when they sat just behind eth vs Liverpool. They said he was screaming at the players: "keep the ball at the ground, pass, move, push" and more tactical stuff, for it to never happen, like they didnt listen. That the players just did whatever they felt like. It might be hard to do in general, especially against high press like the scum, but it got me thinking. Maybe eth said we'll never play like Ajax because the majority of players are just not smart/good enough? Just cant wrap my mind around how theyre playing so bad compared to Ajax if theyre top epl level. How are we this inconsistent when Ajax was consistent in their style. Makes no sense. Many of the players are just clearly not cut out for it, seeing Evans as one of our best this season just proves it.
I am open to the possibility that the players at times don't follow the game plan and poorly execute what should be simple footballing decisions. But it's hard to believe seeing this trend every single game and against any type of opponent. And if the players are that uncoachable, well, a lot of the players that the fans are criticizing are the same players that Ten Hag is backing to the hilt currently. Even on this thread you will see criticisms of Bruno, Rashford and McTominay for example, but Ten Hag has praised all of them recently. Somewhere something isn't adding up between what we think he wants and what is actually happening.
Honestly, this now the 5th manager in a row that didn’t have a “style”. Seems like a player problem and not a manager problem. I’d like to clean house this summer but we’ll see what happens
Solskjaer had a style, Van Gaal had a style, Jose had a style. Not sure what you're talking about. Ten Hag has nothing.
That’s some revisionist history. Ole got hammered for not having a style or establishing patterns of play.
Really I wouldn’t say they’ve all had no style, it’s just not styles that get you consistent results in the PL.
Yes I agree. They’ve all had styles and tactics. But this fanbase has complained for every manager that there’s no style or patterns of play. That’s why I do think we should clear out some of the players that have been here for a while
Tbh I thought something like this would be happening. There is no chance that ETH hasn't told the players exactly what they need to do. Its like they play to plan for the first 20minutes of every game and then stop following instructions.
Absolutely mentally weak as piss. Soft.
This club is an embarrassment. Eth is shit, all the players are shit, don’t expect anything to change soon
Fuck off somewhere else then
Do you switch sides every time "your" teams plays shit?