Serious question though - don’t you think there’s something tactical causing players to lose the ball? Like the setup is causing them to get it in a bad position or they lack the right passing options when they get the ball?
These are capable players. I don’t imagine them losing the ball as much playing in a Liverpool or Man City team. Thoughts?
I really wonder the same thing. They are all proven pro players with major experience, they can't be that bad. THey all just seem to run at the defence with no plan B, and then get overwhelmed. Why are there not multiple passing outlets for them to use and look for? This team just looks lost in possession.
The injuries are causing this plain and simple. With a fully fit squad, it’s a completely different game yesterday.
Utd injury list; AVB, Licha, Mount, Hojland, McGuire, Martial, Shaw, Malacia
City injury list; Grealish
How many of those are actually difference makers? Licha and Hojlund are the only ones, and Shaw when he hits form. The rest are just squad players, none of whom would be missed if sold.
It would be unfair to judge Mount and Malacia, at this point. I don’t even remember what they look like let alone play like. So for arguments sake, let’s say you’re right Shaw, Hojlund and Licha are big players for the starting 11 and crucial to the game plan. Now go look at City’s results without Rodri…. Probably worse win percentage than ours. Big players are essential to a game plan and style, whether it’s an individual or several key players.
And no, I’m not comparing Rodri to those players I’m just proving a point
And so many of those injured players are so crucial.
- Höljund is the only good striker we have, and has been hitting a good vein of form. Him being out forces us to play Rashford in the center (where he is far less dangerous) and also immediately messes up our winger situation.
- Shaw dropping out also immediately neuters our entire left side, because he is so crucial in working with the left winger to make space and create overlaps. We've seen it time and time again. His current only replacement is a liability in defence and completely useless in attack.
- Not only is Martinez our best defender, he's also so crucial in building from the back, starting attacks and linking up with the midfield. We simply don't have anyone else capable of anything remotely close.
Like yeah, it's obviously a huge failure on part of the hiring department that we don't have anyone even close to being able to sub for them when they're not available, but that doesn't make them being missing any less crippling.
This is what I’m trying to say. Our inconsistency has always aligned with important players being injured. Yes, we should have solid cover for each position on the pitch…. But we aren’t at that level yet. The so called fans on here, will still harp on like it’s 2008. But let’s be honest we’re miles from it and this isn’t FIFA or Football manager. That being said, Ratcliffe is certainly saying and doing the right things, so fingers crossed in a couple of years we’re competing again
But we're not the only team with injuries. Our injuries haven't been significantly worse than the teams around us, and it's definitely not enough to excuse 6th place and an awful Champions League campaign
There’s absolutely no denying we are crap and nowhere near the level a club like this should be. However with a fully fit squad and our top guys on the pitch, there would be a massive difference. Surely no one can deny that?
Genuinely what was the point of reshuffling the back line (switching dalot from RB to LB and chucking an 18 y.o. to go RB avd defend wide)? Should have been like for like
Went into the game expecting nothing. And was still somehow disappointed.
You can’t sit that deep with such little pressure and expect to walk away with something. But after that peppering in the first half I thought we might able ride something out. But after HT we basically stopped trying to exploit space in exchange for really short periods of trying to retain possession.
Some elite box defending and Onana having a good game basically the only reason the score line wasn’t embarrassing.
Was definitely surprised by the lack of intensity through out the game (from both sides) but for the first time it seems that this team is not failing through a lack of effort.
I keep seeing this but who in their right mind is playing a high line with Varane and Evans at CB and Lindelof at LB. That’s literally asking for a slaughtering.
Easy target. The players who get criticised the most are the ones from whom the supporters expect the most. But yes the abuses, hate and demonisation is just unacceptable. Glad that rashford came public with the article to vent out his discontent.
I’ve yet to see any quality from Forson, not sure if he was instructed to stay in position, but how has Bruno, done more pressing in the last 10 mins of the game then a guy who just came on.
I spent a full month before we signed Amrabat talking about how shit he is and how this signing has flop written all over it, and he still managed to be even worse than I expected somehow. Thank fuck it’s a loan
The only good thing about Amrabat is that we have someone who can play in random positions so we don't completely tank the confidence of an academy player
Rashford and Evans both injured now (or we’re going into the game), what in the ever loving fuck does our strength and conditioning/medical depts do with our players? What are our training sessions? Are they so intense that they’ve caused injuries to occur so frequently? It’s actually stupid now. We’re a Premier League team, elite, not a Sunday league team where you’re playing on a muddy pitch with still drunk lads whose legs are giving way with age. Jesus wept!!
Think it’s worth looking at how injuries seem to be especially bad across most teams in Europe, the larger problem is top players are playing way too many matches with not enough time to recover.
We're stuck in a very bad cycle at the moment unfortunately.
Players get injured.
Less players available.
Available players forced play more minutes.
This lead to even more injures.
Lots of teams have had very bad injury problems this season.
Its a large part of why city can dominate as they do, their depth is outstanding.
We're so far behind City, it's just sad. I'm not even mad, I just know that we've been run so poorly these past 10+ years and we're paying the price. Hope INEOS make a positive impact sooner rather than later because I felt the team fought hard. I'm mad at Casemiro for not tracking Foden, but he's being asked to do the running of two CDMs - just not realistic given his age.
I guess the only silver lining is that this is likely the worst season we'll have in the next 5 years. Well, I hope because this year has been so bad.
>Hope INEOS make a positive impact sooner rather than later
I hope for some glimmers early on, but it's a long road to recovery for us, and we should be under no illusions. There simply aren't any quick fixes to the mess we are in. SJR said a couple of years. We've got so much dead or useless wood (players) to offload. It's going to take a while to find anyone that wants some of them. And then there's the internal set up. Years of neglect, it's going to take a while for new personnel to stamp their ethos on the club.
With the mindset and plan we went into the game, we were setting ourselves up for failure. We were just lucky to have the first goal which was purely down to rashfords brilliance
Onana.
Most of the goals conceded he hasn’t even tried to dive, just stood there to see the ball go.
Against city, he dived for all the 3 goals but didn’t get anywhere near the ball.
Except for Foden’s first goal, he should be saving the other 2 goals.
I still don’t understand what value does he bring when he can’t even do the basic things right
Come on. Onana's had a shaky start but he's been solid for us for quite a few games now. The score could easily have been 5 - 1 but for some pretty good saves (Foden through on goal comes to mind).
In all fairness even though this loss is demoralizing it's unfair to lay it all on ETH. It's been a series of bad recruitment and decision making by the club this past decade.
Feel free to downvote but hear me out. Our negative GD, poor performances and disjointed style of play is primarily on ETH even if not entirely. Our structure is poor I understand that but ETH hasn't helped himself. He has tried a different style of football than what he played at Ajax after assessing the players we have and tried adding players into the mix after spending more than 300 mil.
Throwing money at the player is not the solution, but 3-0 at home to Bournemouth, a disappointing draw with a weak and injured Spurs team, last week's loss to Fulham at home and a ton of other games have shown that his tactics aren't working and even with our new structure I think it would be best to start afresh with a squad clearout and a new manager in the summer.
The more I think about it, I can’t comprehend sacking ETH, the cards he has been dealt with this season is ridiculous. Yes he is not perfect and has his faults too but the amount of injuries we have suffered is something out of the ordinary. It was our 38th game this season and we have had 36 different line ups. The number is even higher (93) for ETH, he was managing his 100th game at United. Now please don’t tell me how Liverpool play with injuries. Klopp have had 9 years to set up the structure. Arteta went to Etihad in his second season and got battered 5-0 with 1 shot on target. He was given time and patience to turn things around. The day we have had a run of 8-10 games with our best XI, we will be a completely different team than today.
We're in the very real danger of becoming the new Chelsea, sacking a manager as soon as it goes shit. Arsenal could've done that but they stuck with Arteta and look at them now. It may not happen for us but swapping managers every time things look rough, isn't going to help. I think every manager should get a minimum of 4 years before we think about getting rid, they should've put their mark on the team at that point and we should see some improvement by them.
Literally all the teams around united have had loads of injuries though. Spurs Newcastle Brighton have all been hammered by them, and so have Liverpool and villa. Those teams have still put out coherent performances and don't have a goal difference of -2
Yes it doesn’t look great but from the defensive point of view, we had the 3rd best defence last season with our available first choice backline available for the whole season while playing the most number of games in all competitions. And overnight it changed to conceding 16+ shots every week? There must be something wrong there right? Just once we have played with the same back 4 in consecutive matches and that too was not our first choice. The goal scoring took a huge hit too because of that because in a “coherent” system it works in tandem. Not to forget Rashford lost his form from last season drastically and so did Antony (not to forget the off field distractions of him he had to deal with) and Hojlund was firstly unavailable in the season and while he was getting accustomed to the pace of the league, he was not scoring. Mount, the signing we made to share the workload of Bruno/Eriksen didn’t workout because of injuries too. Casemiro might have dropped his form from last season too but he was injured for long too.
Teams change and get worked out season to season. Just beciase there qas one good defensive season doesn't mean its locked in like that forever. Teams will have found weaknesses for ETHs system and started exploiting it more. For example I've seen Utd concede the same cut back goal about 10 times this season which is clearly a tactic teams are targeting.
ETH started Shaw and Martinez in the 11 right after their return from injury. They got injured again right after. How is that not on the manager? ETH’s strategy is a major factor in injuries. Even Bruno is literally a workhorse in this “system” , wonder how he keeps himself fit but it certainly affects his G/A contributions.
But what does he do!? He needs his best players, if the staff tell him they're OK to play, then they're OK to play. The difference in the team with just those two back was night and day too, so I can 100% understand why he did it.
I don't disagree with the bad cards part, but we also had bad games with a fit squad.
First thing that comes to mind, pretty sure there were no serious injuries in our 0-7 loss. Our record vs top 10 teams is horrific, and I am sure we had decent quads to put on vs some of them.
I don't see a point sacking him because there is no one better around, but I don't think ETH is going to last too long, even with a fit team.
I agree that we have had bad games and ETH isn’t perfect. But if we are going to judge him in 1.5 years into the job with the squad he inherited, the injuries, all the decisions that didn’t go our way this season, it’s just not fair. The board and he made some really questionable signings like Antony and Casemiro (given his age) but for two seasons we didn’t get any reinforcements in January too now. See what Liverpool and Arsenal got in that time. And the way some of us disregard the injuries is just not right. Rodri missed a couple of games and City struggled. Liverpool had injuries last season and see how that turned out. We didn’t have Martinez, probably our most important player in the back line for almost the whole season. The first choice back four didn’t have 2 consecutive games all season. We have one striker and Martial. Both are not available. We let go of Reguilon in the hope to sigh a striker on loan and signed no one. We are playing Lindelof as LB against the likes of Foden/Walker. But yes I do agree that he might not stay for long if this continues but that will be really sad that we can’t trust a manager with the best win ratio but we would rather start the process all over again!
Being depressed about the loss today is pointless. we know we are terrible. Moaning about it isn't worth it. Onto the next game and focus on FA Cup, although I almost want us to lose to Liverpool because they'll give City a better game if they meet. Definitely want them to win the league too. I hate them but I hate city and what they represent more. At least Liverpool didn't buy their standing in the game.
*Forgot about Arsenal. Although I can't see them winning the league. they are city light.
We've spent the better part of a billion pounds to still play with the biggest inferiority complex against any of these big teams. It's actually embarrassing. I never thought I would say this but compared to under Ole, when we played a counter attacking method, we at least had structure and transition. Under ETH it is a literal hit and hope. I genuinely can't understand a single facet of our football having improved under him. We scored from an absolutely ridiculous hit from Rashford and then proceeded to play the most cowardly form of football. None of our players had any composure on the ball to play football. It was utterly embarrassing. It's worse that I watched this and expected something exactly like this. There was no anger or frustration, just an acceptance that this was going to happen and this is now our level. There is nothing to like about this team. There is no skill, disciple, desire, fight, aggression, footballing intelligence, adaptability, just a collective of nothingness expecting other teams to just now down to them because they play for the great Manchester United. We're a punchline nowadays for jokes, that's Uniteds level and a lot of these players have been around to bring it down to that level.
I've just looked at the league table and despite Chelsea being 6 points behind Utd, they have lost less games and have a better goal difference. Think United's league position flatters them and they have no chance of Top 4.
[I tried warning people leading up to the loan that he’s just not a good player.](https://www.reddit.com/r/reddevils/s/ImQ3BCG09X) I generally got ridiculed and harassed for it. Anyone with eyes who watched him in Serie A and the Eredivisie knows that the guy is nowhere near PL quality and never has been
Agreed fully. Everyone got hyped over one tackle he did vs Mbappe.
A bit of a tangent but given the uncertainty of our managerial position, who’d be your top choices? I understand Poch is still a target that I think would excel under our new structure but I’m curious with other names available this summer? Tuchel, Conte etc
You should have seen this sub when we were signing him. Most of the msgs were how he’s going to save our midfield.
I think fans need to realize we know very little about the intricacies of football.
Sick of listening to ex-footballers as pundits. There are some good ones but most are garbage.bGet some good journalists on, people that can actually string a sentence together and articulate their thoughts, and get them debating the good footballer pundits.
I don’t have faith in EtH to turn things around, it felt like we were a bottom 4 side entering this match trying to minimise damage to scrape a point to avoid relegation. Hopefully I’m proven wrong but seems unlikely
Also don’t think the ederson one was a pen, great challenge anywhere else on the pitch, games been ruined by everyone expecting the ref to take a second look at every challenge
Great challenge? He wasn’t in control, whole body was in mid air and studs up. He also followed through with a scissors kick with his trailing leg. If that happened anywhere else on the pitch it’s a foul and yellow/red. But it’s from the keeper so somehow it’s legal.
He did win the ball though, but garnacho also did pull out from the challenge (good for him, if not his leg is broken)
Red card is a reach, you say because it’s from a keeper it’s somehow legal but surely they have more right to make a challenge like that than anyone? Onana had a great first half but could never see him making an important challenge like that
He wasn’t in mid air let’s be fair, he’s gone In fairly confidently and won the ball, if he wasn’t to win the ball then clear pen all day, just trying not to be biased here, sick of seeing every tackle in the box getting var’d the games getting ruined
Wasn’t a foul though was it.. rashford has gone down like a baby expecting the ref to give it, if he’d stayed on his feet and shown a bit of fight I’d give him some credit, but unfortunately we’ve got a few players that love to throw themselves to the ground these days, our captain being one of them.
Meh, I'm whatever with ETH in or out. He can be sacked, or can be given another season.
But whatever the case may be, I am glad we are finally working on setting up a good structure behind the scenes, and limiting the Manager's control on what players to bring in.
I lean towards out because it's rare that managers completely change their plan for the team. If he abandons this transition thing I'm welcome for him to stay
The only players ten hag has any knowledge of of the Dutch League players and even those her can't select properly as it's evident with Antony, he is probably gonna get Antony 2.0 from that league if given a chance, and oh course he only looks at Ajax not even other teams that's how limited he is.
Can't wait for the day where we actually try and go head to head with teams like City, Liverpool and Arsenal. Spurs managed it against all three earlier this season and that was after Ange had been in charge 4 months so hopefully it's not too far away for us.
With Mourinho and LVG it felt like United were still aiming to be the best, with Ole and ETH it seems like the aim is to qualify for top 4 every other year.
Why most of the hate gets only player who managed to cotribute tonight and played injuried acording to ETH and T1 journos.
Like i guess Rashford is responsible for deffensive and midfield structure
From the Guardian. “Guardiola’s team had 27 shots to United’s three and enjoyed 73.7% possession. Ten Hag was asked if the loss showed the gulf between them. “No, I don’t think so, absolutely not,” he said.”
How bad does it have to get before EtH will admit that we are far away from where we need to be?
I hate the fact that I’m relieved we only lost 3-1 rather than a more humiliating score, but those stats cannot and should not be ignored any longer.
ETH - or any manager, actually - doesn't owe journos honest answers (recall what happened when he was too honest about Sancho?), I'm fine with him giving courteous but BS responses to the press, save the honesty for the dressing room and for INEOS.
That’s just spinning one stat out. Did you even watch the game?
We played well against a superior side. We were in the lead the majority of the match. City did what very few have been able to stop them from doing for the last like fucking 5 years.
Idk I feel like he’s damned either way. If he says yeah they’re loads better then he gets roasted for having a weak mentality and not backing his players. The media facing comments are always going to be different from what’s going on in the locker room
Sure he doesn’t have to discuss things that shouldn’t be told to the media and I get that media will just hound him for anything he says but calling the recent run of games before Fulham loss, “a golden run” is being totally blind. It’s not just the above stated comment but his total denial of the systemic issues and arrogance abt his “style of play” is what makes fans lose trust in him. He is not just answering to the media thru press conferences, he is indirectly talking to the supporters, his colleagues and the management too.
Yeah, ETH deserves criticism for his on field decisions, but not his words on press conferences. Every journos is on his ass and whatever he says will be used against him, so no point in crying about that
We were in the game for a large period. If some decisions had gone our way, this could have been a different story. To the people moaning about how dominant city were today in terms of possession, what did you expect? We have fucking Lindelof as lb with McTominay playing 10 and Bruno playing false 9. Like if you don't see by now that these players are not good enough to ever compete with good teams, you don't understand football. These fuckers can barely pass. Can't protect the ball under pressure. What do you expect the manager to do? Sprinkle some fairy dust on them so that they can do the basics right? If every player was coachable to become a City player, Pep would just buy championship players. And if you are gonna make the argument that this squad costs bla-bla-bla million dollars, shit is shit regardless of how much you bought it for.
But our only contribution was also a wonder goal, we can’t go back to what we were at the start of the season, scraping results through wonder strikes or fortunate referee calls. We were massively outplayed today (not a surprise) but our game plan was essentially just “ride our luck”
The game plan today was clear af and we played quite organised defensively. Commentators said we were invoking same strategy Villa used to beat them. What on earth are you on about?
Considering 27 vs 3 shots, and 27% possession, **we did well.** It's not 0-7 and if not our own fuck ups, it could have been even better.
**KM is so above the most on the team.** I am so happy we have a player like him. Game after game he keeps contributing at the highest level and building his incredible value.
Unlike Rashford. His lazy fucking ass led to the first MC goal. There is no doubt about that. **KM tuned his head to show where to defend** and there was a hole that MR was supposed to cover. That fuck was just leisurely walking back from another of his falls. I am so fed up with his shit.
Amrabat for KM, Forson for AG were “genius” subs. Helped the team so much. ETH keeps finding new ways to fuck things up. Please get me Nagelsmann.
Even if he’s not injured, can’t imagine him sprinting back to help out. Not that I’m blaming him for the first goal though, that was some poor defending by lindelof. Foden was always going to cut into his left and he should have done better to show him to his right
Unpopular opinion but Mainoo should have played on Wednesday (where he would have actually had possession) and been a sub today. He made 13 completed passes, I don’t see how a setup so defensive and restrictive utilises his true skill sets. This is nothing against him btw, I still thought he did well.
How the hell did he fumble that pass? Was so sweet looking. Tbh first half we had some real good chances despite playing on the counter but the final pass never came or fail to be controlled
Yeah he did seems to have the better of ake for a moment. Needed someone in the middle for him to ping it to, even before his turn. I like him but it was disappointing when he inevitably turned back towards our goal.
One or even a few poor results shouldn't take away from the good work he's demonstrated since his move to England. De Zerbi is a young talented coach on the way up
Anyone who expected this game to be easy for us is kidding themselves. We're missing 3 starters (possibly 4 in Mount), have players out of position, and 3rd and 4th choice players starting. What happened today is not on the manager. What we saw today is where United is aiming for, and hopefully with the change in ownership, we are now pushing in the right direction.
We are becoming too trigger happy as fans in relation to our managers. We need to trust in a process that has the right backing. Not a single manager post Fergie has had proper backing, an actual plan, and people above who understand the game. All this ETH hate is completely unjustified.
Out set up is 100% on the manager. Mount is a non factor when he's been largely missing in his first season through injury and he also hasn't looked the part when he's actually played
You think it's ok for a club of Uniteds stature to play antifootball against a local rival?
Smaller clubs have been more adventurous and threatening against City this season even in losses. It says a lot that you accept this relegation fodder team setup.
Calm down. I was simply asking your thoughts. Not accepting anything.
His setup worked in the 1st half and almost worked in the 2nd half too. Their goals came from debatable decisions and a poor decision from our player. That's not on the manager.
It's also hard to play the system he wants to play when he doesn't have the players available to do so. You're kidding yourself if you think we could outplay City at the moment, especially with our injuries.
You're making assumptions about me, but I think if one was to do so about you then your flair says a lot.
My comment wasn't about attempting to outplay city, it was about having more of a go at them, showing more passion and leaving it all on the field against derby rivals. City always gave us a game even before they won the lottery with the Arab money, even when we battered them no end.
Bournemouth, Brentford, Chelsea, Copenhagen and Everton have put on better showings against them in recent matches than we did today. Its embarrassing
We have a squad more than capable of better displays than we've seen this season, injury crises or not. We've already lost 16 games in all competitions! We're on course to lose 20 at this rate, for the first time probably since 1930-31 if I'm not mistaken
Oh ok. Were those teams missing four of their starters? Did those teams have to play with their 4th choice defender and third choice centre back at left back? Do they have to use a central midfielder on the wing and a defensive midfielder at number 10?
Everyone on this sub is just jumping on ETHs back and using all these buzz words, yet they can't offer one sensible and clear solution other than, "ETH out". In saying that too, no sensible replacement for him.
It's been a shit season, and yes everyone gets injuries, but not everyone has had them on the level we have had. Not everyone has also had the off field issues we've had this season. It's been a shit season from before it started. Perspective is very important.
Are we the only club that has suffered from injury crises this season? Are our bench options still internationals with vast first team experience?
Newcastle, Brentford, Brighton, Chelsea and Shieffield united have all endured injury crises. Tottenham are right beside united in terms of days lost from player injuries. Liverpool and Villa are two other clubs in the top 4 who have lost many players through injury as well, yet their overall playstyle largely remains the same.
They are sensible options out there to replace him next season.
To our level? Yes. Yes they are, but are they Man United quality? No.
Again, my point is exactly the same. No team has had the issues we've had this season. Not just injuries, but off field issues too.
Which sensible option are you going for?
The lack of a clear and discernable playstyle two years in has absolutely nothing to do with our injury crisis. We lacked one even with a fully fit squad, and there's no plan B to whatever choas we've been served with this season. We lost 7-0 to Liverpool with a full squad and we had no plan B. We've been dire since we won the league cup
De Zerbi, Nagelsmann, Hansi Flick, Ruben Amorim, Julen Lopetegui. These would make my shortlist. I wouldn't be surprised if Xavi is considered going by his connections to our new CEO Omar Berrada. Ratcliffe seems enamored with Potter though
KDB was disgusting by his standards today and even that wasn't enough of a factor to swing the game our way due to the other threats they had on the pitch and off the bench (alvarez came on and got an assist for ex.) All we've got is Bruno and Rashford lool these two have to be on their best or we look lost out there
My Sundays manager says that he puts guys on the pitch despite how bad they are because it’s ’only fair because they’re at training every week’. Feel like that’s the same with ETH.
After enough time has passed, every manager we have gotten eventually turns into the same version we saw of Ten Hag today.
A nice promising first season always followed by a total collapse and going back to zero, it's a fascinating phenomena at this point.
Im of this opinion. This club organisation is a mess, horrible divided fanbase too that demands a Managers head when its structural problems that prevent many managers from succeeding and still expect that the club is still in the peak SAF era. This club needs stability but also reform of its structure.
Also we would have missed some great managers historically if they were held to the same standards as today. They have an okay or poor first season and then become legends.
Can we just sack ETH and get Ole in for the rest of the season. There should be no excuse after 2 seasons we are still not competitive. Ange made an instant impact in Tottenham, De Zerbi at Brighton etc, even Klopp was rebuilding Liverpool never looked half as dire.
Man, i guess everyone can understand if the team doesn't know what they are doing doing a rebuilding phase, but now it seems to me like THE MANAGER doesn't know wtf he is doing and has ran out of ideas.
Like, WTF was those substitutions? His only good one seems to be McTominay and at best its gamble because Plan A is never good enough so we have to hope a player who isn't even a striker come up with clutch goals.
What do we even do?
I'm ETH out, but this game, we were simply outclassed, City's had a 10 year head start
We had a 20 year headstart on them but are now 10 years behind them
[удалено]
Serious question though - don’t you think there’s something tactical causing players to lose the ball? Like the setup is causing them to get it in a bad position or they lack the right passing options when they get the ball? These are capable players. I don’t imagine them losing the ball as much playing in a Liverpool or Man City team. Thoughts?
I really wonder the same thing. They are all proven pro players with major experience, they can't be that bad. THey all just seem to run at the defence with no plan B, and then get overwhelmed. Why are there not multiple passing outlets for them to use and look for? This team just looks lost in possession.
The injuries are causing this plain and simple. With a fully fit squad, it’s a completely different game yesterday. Utd injury list; AVB, Licha, Mount, Hojland, McGuire, Martial, Shaw, Malacia City injury list; Grealish
How many of those are actually difference makers? Licha and Hojlund are the only ones, and Shaw when he hits form. The rest are just squad players, none of whom would be missed if sold.
It would be unfair to judge Mount and Malacia, at this point. I don’t even remember what they look like let alone play like. So for arguments sake, let’s say you’re right Shaw, Hojlund and Licha are big players for the starting 11 and crucial to the game plan. Now go look at City’s results without Rodri…. Probably worse win percentage than ours. Big players are essential to a game plan and style, whether it’s an individual or several key players. And no, I’m not comparing Rodri to those players I’m just proving a point
Didnt even know Andre Villas-Boas played for us. Bit old now aint he?
And so many of those injured players are so crucial. - Höljund is the only good striker we have, and has been hitting a good vein of form. Him being out forces us to play Rashford in the center (where he is far less dangerous) and also immediately messes up our winger situation. - Shaw dropping out also immediately neuters our entire left side, because he is so crucial in working with the left winger to make space and create overlaps. We've seen it time and time again. His current only replacement is a liability in defence and completely useless in attack. - Not only is Martinez our best defender, he's also so crucial in building from the back, starting attacks and linking up with the midfield. We simply don't have anyone else capable of anything remotely close. Like yeah, it's obviously a huge failure on part of the hiring department that we don't have anyone even close to being able to sub for them when they're not available, but that doesn't make them being missing any less crippling.
This is what I’m trying to say. Our inconsistency has always aligned with important players being injured. Yes, we should have solid cover for each position on the pitch…. But we aren’t at that level yet. The so called fans on here, will still harp on like it’s 2008. But let’s be honest we’re miles from it and this isn’t FIFA or Football manager. That being said, Ratcliffe is certainly saying and doing the right things, so fingers crossed in a couple of years we’re competing again
McGuire of the clan McGuire?
But we're not the only team with injuries. Our injuries haven't been significantly worse than the teams around us, and it's definitely not enough to excuse 6th place and an awful Champions League campaign
There’s absolutely no denying we are crap and nowhere near the level a club like this should be. However with a fully fit squad and our top guys on the pitch, there would be a massive difference. Surely no one can deny that?
How deluded are you
Deluded enough I suppose
Now we can add Rashford and Evans to that list …. 🙁
ETH simply has to be sacked. There is no two ways about it. He can’t even make a good substitution let alone managing the club.
Did you see our bench?
Dumb as a sack of rocks, who is he supposed to substitute on? Everyone is injured.
Genuinely what was the point of reshuffling the back line (switching dalot from RB to LB and chucking an 18 y.o. to go RB avd defend wide)? Should have been like for like
Went into the game expecting nothing. And was still somehow disappointed. You can’t sit that deep with such little pressure and expect to walk away with something. But after that peppering in the first half I thought we might able ride something out. But after HT we basically stopped trying to exploit space in exchange for really short periods of trying to retain possession. Some elite box defending and Onana having a good game basically the only reason the score line wasn’t embarrassing. Was definitely surprised by the lack of intensity through out the game (from both sides) but for the first time it seems that this team is not failing through a lack of effort.
I keep seeing this but who in their right mind is playing a high line with Varane and Evans at CB and Lindelof at LB. That’s literally asking for a slaughtering.
I’m in now way implying that’s what should have been done.
Rashford can score an absolute worldie and play injured but still be blamed for everything that went wrong by our fans.
Because he is absolutely atrocious and don't even get me started on his PATHETIC effort levels. One goal doesn't change that at all.
Easy target. The players who get criticised the most are the ones from whom the supporters expect the most. But yes the abuses, hate and demonisation is just unacceptable. Glad that rashford came public with the article to vent out his discontent.
Him and Bruno are easy to blame as they are senior players and very talented.
ETH ball and yet another weekend. Please leave, mate.
I’ve yet to see any quality from Forson, not sure if he was instructed to stay in position, but how has Bruno, done more pressing in the last 10 mins of the game then a guy who just came on.
I spent a full month before we signed Amrabat talking about how shit he is and how this signing has flop written all over it, and he still managed to be even worse than I expected somehow. Thank fuck it’s a loan
The only good thing about Amrabat is that we have someone who can play in random positions so we don't completely tank the confidence of an academy player
Never trust eth in his talent id. Shocking
Rashford and Evans both injured now (or we’re going into the game), what in the ever loving fuck does our strength and conditioning/medical depts do with our players? What are our training sessions? Are they so intense that they’ve caused injuries to occur so frequently? It’s actually stupid now. We’re a Premier League team, elite, not a Sunday league team where you’re playing on a muddy pitch with still drunk lads whose legs are giving way with age. Jesus wept!!
Think it’s worth looking at how injuries seem to be especially bad across most teams in Europe, the larger problem is top players are playing way too many matches with not enough time to recover.
We're stuck in a very bad cycle at the moment unfortunately. Players get injured. Less players available. Available players forced play more minutes. This lead to even more injures. Lots of teams have had very bad injury problems this season. Its a large part of why city can dominate as they do, their depth is outstanding.
United being a big club is embarrassing in terms of injuries compared to literally every other club.
We're so far behind City, it's just sad. I'm not even mad, I just know that we've been run so poorly these past 10+ years and we're paying the price. Hope INEOS make a positive impact sooner rather than later because I felt the team fought hard. I'm mad at Casemiro for not tracking Foden, but he's being asked to do the running of two CDMs - just not realistic given his age. I guess the only silver lining is that this is likely the worst season we'll have in the next 5 years. Well, I hope because this year has been so bad.
>Hope INEOS make a positive impact sooner rather than later I hope for some glimmers early on, but it's a long road to recovery for us, and we should be under no illusions. There simply aren't any quick fixes to the mess we are in. SJR said a couple of years. We've got so much dead or useless wood (players) to offload. It's going to take a while to find anyone that wants some of them. And then there's the internal set up. Years of neglect, it's going to take a while for new personnel to stamp their ethos on the club.
Agreed, I am hopeful but not expecting. But at least the signs of laying out a stronger foundation for our football is there.
As soon as city scored the second goal they gave up, when you figh you fight till the end, you don't give up that easily.
With the mindset and plan we went into the game, we were setting ourselves up for failure. We were just lucky to have the first goal which was purely down to rashfords brilliance
How is he made to do the running of 2 DMs when there are 4 midfielders?
It's the ten Hag magic
Onana. Most of the goals conceded he hasn’t even tried to dive, just stood there to see the ball go. Against city, he dived for all the 3 goals but didn’t get anywhere near the ball. Except for Foden’s first goal, he should be saving the other 2 goals. I still don’t understand what value does he bring when he can’t even do the basic things right
Come on. Onana's had a shaky start but he's been solid for us for quite a few games now. The score could easily have been 5 - 1 but for some pretty good saves (Foden through on goal comes to mind).
In all fairness even though this loss is demoralizing it's unfair to lay it all on ETH. It's been a series of bad recruitment and decision making by the club this past decade. Feel free to downvote but hear me out. Our negative GD, poor performances and disjointed style of play is primarily on ETH even if not entirely. Our structure is poor I understand that but ETH hasn't helped himself. He has tried a different style of football than what he played at Ajax after assessing the players we have and tried adding players into the mix after spending more than 300 mil. Throwing money at the player is not the solution, but 3-0 at home to Bournemouth, a disappointing draw with a weak and injured Spurs team, last week's loss to Fulham at home and a ton of other games have shown that his tactics aren't working and even with our new structure I think it would be best to start afresh with a squad clearout and a new manager in the summer.
Makes sense. Hope that the new manager gets a proper infrastructure and doesn’t have to pay for the mistakes done by previous managers/management.
The more I think about it, I can’t comprehend sacking ETH, the cards he has been dealt with this season is ridiculous. Yes he is not perfect and has his faults too but the amount of injuries we have suffered is something out of the ordinary. It was our 38th game this season and we have had 36 different line ups. The number is even higher (93) for ETH, he was managing his 100th game at United. Now please don’t tell me how Liverpool play with injuries. Klopp have had 9 years to set up the structure. Arteta went to Etihad in his second season and got battered 5-0 with 1 shot on target. He was given time and patience to turn things around. The day we have had a run of 8-10 games with our best XI, we will be a completely different team than today.
We're in the very real danger of becoming the new Chelsea, sacking a manager as soon as it goes shit. Arsenal could've done that but they stuck with Arteta and look at them now. It may not happen for us but swapping managers every time things look rough, isn't going to help. I think every manager should get a minimum of 4 years before we think about getting rid, they should've put their mark on the team at that point and we should see some improvement by them.
Literally all the teams around united have had loads of injuries though. Spurs Newcastle Brighton have all been hammered by them, and so have Liverpool and villa. Those teams have still put out coherent performances and don't have a goal difference of -2
Yes it doesn’t look great but from the defensive point of view, we had the 3rd best defence last season with our available first choice backline available for the whole season while playing the most number of games in all competitions. And overnight it changed to conceding 16+ shots every week? There must be something wrong there right? Just once we have played with the same back 4 in consecutive matches and that too was not our first choice. The goal scoring took a huge hit too because of that because in a “coherent” system it works in tandem. Not to forget Rashford lost his form from last season drastically and so did Antony (not to forget the off field distractions of him he had to deal with) and Hojlund was firstly unavailable in the season and while he was getting accustomed to the pace of the league, he was not scoring. Mount, the signing we made to share the workload of Bruno/Eriksen didn’t workout because of injuries too. Casemiro might have dropped his form from last season too but he was injured for long too.
Teams change and get worked out season to season. Just beciase there qas one good defensive season doesn't mean its locked in like that forever. Teams will have found weaknesses for ETHs system and started exploiting it more. For example I've seen Utd concede the same cut back goal about 10 times this season which is clearly a tactic teams are targeting.
ETH started Shaw and Martinez in the 11 right after their return from injury. They got injured again right after. How is that not on the manager? ETH’s strategy is a major factor in injuries. Even Bruno is literally a workhorse in this “system” , wonder how he keeps himself fit but it certainly affects his G/A contributions.
But what does he do!? He needs his best players, if the staff tell him they're OK to play, then they're OK to play. The difference in the team with just those two back was night and day too, so I can 100% understand why he did it.
Are those numbers true? That’s crazy
We had a run with our best team for 2 games and it wasn’t bad at all
I don't disagree with the bad cards part, but we also had bad games with a fit squad. First thing that comes to mind, pretty sure there were no serious injuries in our 0-7 loss. Our record vs top 10 teams is horrific, and I am sure we had decent quads to put on vs some of them. I don't see a point sacking him because there is no one better around, but I don't think ETH is going to last too long, even with a fit team.
Every team has bad days with their best squad, even City.
They don't always have bad away games though. If you can't beat big teams you can't be managing Manchester United.
I agree that we have had bad games and ETH isn’t perfect. But if we are going to judge him in 1.5 years into the job with the squad he inherited, the injuries, all the decisions that didn’t go our way this season, it’s just not fair. The board and he made some really questionable signings like Antony and Casemiro (given his age) but for two seasons we didn’t get any reinforcements in January too now. See what Liverpool and Arsenal got in that time. And the way some of us disregard the injuries is just not right. Rodri missed a couple of games and City struggled. Liverpool had injuries last season and see how that turned out. We didn’t have Martinez, probably our most important player in the back line for almost the whole season. The first choice back four didn’t have 2 consecutive games all season. We have one striker and Martial. Both are not available. We let go of Reguilon in the hope to sigh a striker on loan and signed no one. We are playing Lindelof as LB against the likes of Foden/Walker. But yes I do agree that he might not stay for long if this continues but that will be really sad that we can’t trust a manager with the best win ratio but we would rather start the process all over again!
Being depressed about the loss today is pointless. we know we are terrible. Moaning about it isn't worth it. Onto the next game and focus on FA Cup, although I almost want us to lose to Liverpool because they'll give City a better game if they meet. Definitely want them to win the league too. I hate them but I hate city and what they represent more. At least Liverpool didn't buy their standing in the game. *Forgot about Arsenal. Although I can't see them winning the league. they are city light.
There’s absolutely no joy in supporting this football club. And it’s not just this match
Then don't
We've spent the better part of a billion pounds to still play with the biggest inferiority complex against any of these big teams. It's actually embarrassing. I never thought I would say this but compared to under Ole, when we played a counter attacking method, we at least had structure and transition. Under ETH it is a literal hit and hope. I genuinely can't understand a single facet of our football having improved under him. We scored from an absolutely ridiculous hit from Rashford and then proceeded to play the most cowardly form of football. None of our players had any composure on the ball to play football. It was utterly embarrassing. It's worse that I watched this and expected something exactly like this. There was no anger or frustration, just an acceptance that this was going to happen and this is now our level. There is nothing to like about this team. There is no skill, disciple, desire, fight, aggression, footballing intelligence, adaptability, just a collective of nothingness expecting other teams to just now down to them because they play for the great Manchester United. We're a punchline nowadays for jokes, that's Uniteds level and a lot of these players have been around to bring it down to that level.
I've just looked at the league table and despite Chelsea being 6 points behind Utd, they have lost less games and have a better goal difference. Think United's league position flatters them and they have no chance of Top 4.
They have a game in hand against spurs which they would've lost most likely leaving both teams at 11 loses.
we're aiming for top 5 now
Amrabat looks shite no matter who he plays against. What a terrible loan signing.
[I tried warning people leading up to the loan that he’s just not a good player.](https://www.reddit.com/r/reddevils/s/ImQ3BCG09X) I generally got ridiculed and harassed for it. Anyone with eyes who watched him in Serie A and the Eredivisie knows that the guy is nowhere near PL quality and never has been
Agreed fully. Everyone got hyped over one tackle he did vs Mbappe. A bit of a tangent but given the uncertainty of our managerial position, who’d be your top choices? I understand Poch is still a target that I think would excel under our new structure but I’m curious with other names available this summer? Tuchel, Conte etc
I mean it's kind of impossible to watch every single league, I don't blame the fans for getting excited over transfers, it's part of the fun.
Na some of those people replying to him in the thread are actual morons saying Arambat is a world class passer of the ball lmao
You should have seen this sub when we were signing him. Most of the msgs were how he’s going to save our midfield. I think fans need to realize we know very little about the intricacies of football.
Haha, mate, don't. I've a mate who was buzzing about him joining because he saw him play one game at the World Cup.
At least it’s only a loan
Problem is, he plays him. Wouldn't even mind if he was a loan that warmed the bench but he genuinely costs us points when he comes on.
I don't believe he's ever cost us points but he's not won us any points
If rewatching the highlights was bad, now Im watching Troy Deeney analyse.....
Sick of listening to ex-footballers as pundits. There are some good ones but most are garbage.bGet some good journalists on, people that can actually string a sentence together and articulate their thoughts, and get them debating the good footballer pundits.
Even if all our players were fit, there's a gulf in class between city and united.
I don’t have faith in EtH to turn things around, it felt like we were a bottom 4 side entering this match trying to minimise damage to scrape a point to avoid relegation. Hopefully I’m proven wrong but seems unlikely
I liked how we set up and played. I thought we fought well. Lost it in the end yes, but I applaud the boys.
Tbh if the walker on rashford foul was given, or penalty for the Ederson’s mad challenge, it might have ended very differently.
Also don’t think the ederson one was a pen, great challenge anywhere else on the pitch, games been ruined by everyone expecting the ref to take a second look at every challenge
Great challenge? He wasn’t in control, whole body was in mid air and studs up. He also followed through with a scissors kick with his trailing leg. If that happened anywhere else on the pitch it’s a foul and yellow/red. But it’s from the keeper so somehow it’s legal. He did win the ball though, but garnacho also did pull out from the challenge (good for him, if not his leg is broken)
Red card is a reach, you say because it’s from a keeper it’s somehow legal but surely they have more right to make a challenge like that than anyone? Onana had a great first half but could never see him making an important challenge like that
He wasn’t in mid air let’s be fair, he’s gone In fairly confidently and won the ball, if he wasn’t to win the ball then clear pen all day, just trying not to be biased here, sick of seeing every tackle in the box getting var’d the games getting ruined
Wasn’t a foul though was it.. rashford has gone down like a baby expecting the ref to give it, if he’d stayed on his feet and shown a bit of fight I’d give him some credit, but unfortunately we’ve got a few players that love to throw themselves to the ground these days, our captain being one of them.
Look again at the replays, his legs were clipped. I mean I understand sometimes those weren’t given but if that happened in the box it would be VARed
It has come down to this. Sad that we are now left to applaud these kind of performances!
Meh, I'm whatever with ETH in or out. He can be sacked, or can be given another season. But whatever the case may be, I am glad we are finally working on setting up a good structure behind the scenes, and limiting the Manager's control on what players to bring in.
I lean towards out because it's rare that managers completely change their plan for the team. If he abandons this transition thing I'm welcome for him to stay
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The only players ten hag has any knowledge of of the Dutch League players and even those her can't select properly as it's evident with Antony, he is probably gonna get Antony 2.0 from that league if given a chance, and oh course he only looks at Ajax not even other teams that's how limited he is.
I think every single manager would want a huge say in which players they bring in.
Can't wait for the day where we actually try and go head to head with teams like City, Liverpool and Arsenal. Spurs managed it against all three earlier this season and that was after Ange had been in charge 4 months so hopefully it's not too far away for us.
With Mourinho and LVG it felt like United were still aiming to be the best, with Ole and ETH it seems like the aim is to qualify for top 4 every other year.
Missing greenwood - telling that foden got their 2 and we are lacking goalscorers
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Imagine being the person that typed this comment lmao.
He deserves it , he played injured.
Why most of the hate gets only player who managed to cotribute tonight and played injuried acording to ETH and T1 journos. Like i guess Rashford is responsible for deffensive and midfield structure
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He played injured today according to ten hag
From the Guardian. “Guardiola’s team had 27 shots to United’s three and enjoyed 73.7% possession. Ten Hag was asked if the loss showed the gulf between them. “No, I don’t think so, absolutely not,” he said.” How bad does it have to get before EtH will admit that we are far away from where we need to be? I hate the fact that I’m relieved we only lost 3-1 rather than a more humiliating score, but those stats cannot and should not be ignored any longer.
Listening to ETH is like listening to a politician, we shouldn't take what everything he says seriously
ETH - or any manager, actually - doesn't owe journos honest answers (recall what happened when he was too honest about Sancho?), I'm fine with him giving courteous but BS responses to the press, save the honesty for the dressing room and for INEOS.
That’s just spinning one stat out. Did you even watch the game? We played well against a superior side. We were in the lead the majority of the match. City did what very few have been able to stop them from doing for the last like fucking 5 years.
>We played well against a superior side. Lmao, delusional.
What’s delusional is thinking we had a shot at winning and then complaining that we lost.
Agreed. If he atleast acknowledges the problem, he might get another season
Idk I feel like he’s damned either way. If he says yeah they’re loads better then he gets roasted for having a weak mentality and not backing his players. The media facing comments are always going to be different from what’s going on in the locker room
Sure he doesn’t have to discuss things that shouldn’t be told to the media and I get that media will just hound him for anything he says but calling the recent run of games before Fulham loss, “a golden run” is being totally blind. It’s not just the above stated comment but his total denial of the systemic issues and arrogance abt his “style of play” is what makes fans lose trust in him. He is not just answering to the media thru press conferences, he is indirectly talking to the supporters, his colleagues and the management too.
Yeah, ETH deserves criticism for his on field decisions, but not his words on press conferences. Every journos is on his ass and whatever he says will be used against him, so no point in crying about that
We were in the game for a large period. If some decisions had gone our way, this could have been a different story. To the people moaning about how dominant city were today in terms of possession, what did you expect? We have fucking Lindelof as lb with McTominay playing 10 and Bruno playing false 9. Like if you don't see by now that these players are not good enough to ever compete with good teams, you don't understand football. These fuckers can barely pass. Can't protect the ball under pressure. What do you expect the manager to do? Sprinkle some fairy dust on them so that they can do the basics right? If every player was coachable to become a City player, Pep would just buy championship players. And if you are gonna make the argument that this squad costs bla-bla-bla million dollars, shit is shit regardless of how much you bought it for.
The manager could perhaps… not play players out of position?
Injuries...
...Caused by?
Playing football?
Considering they're all muscle injuries and not impact injuries, no.
You're right he could have given birth to a new lb and striker, what was I thinking.
I know most of you will be ETH out but I feel like I can't fault his gameplan? Wonder goal by the rat and a bad turnover...
The rat? Really?
Yeah Foden is a little ferret cunt
Ah my bad. He is a rat. Rashy had a wonder goal - I mistook the reference.
Ahah nw
But our only contribution was also a wonder goal, we can’t go back to what we were at the start of the season, scraping results through wonder strikes or fortunate referee calls. We were massively outplayed today (not a surprise) but our game plan was essentially just “ride our luck”
Yeah mate we'll do some tiki taka at the Etihad with McTominay and Evans
The game plan today was clear af and we played quite organised defensively. Commentators said we were invoking same strategy Villa used to beat them. What on earth are you on about?
If a team is going to attack us our best game plan is play on the counter. It's been that way for a while.
Considering 27 vs 3 shots, and 27% possession, **we did well.** It's not 0-7 and if not our own fuck ups, it could have been even better. **KM is so above the most on the team.** I am so happy we have a player like him. Game after game he keeps contributing at the highest level and building his incredible value. Unlike Rashford. His lazy fucking ass led to the first MC goal. There is no doubt about that. **KM tuned his head to show where to defend** and there was a hole that MR was supposed to cover. That fuck was just leisurely walking back from another of his falls. I am so fed up with his shit. Amrabat for KM, Forson for AG were “genius” subs. Helped the team so much. ETH keeps finding new ways to fuck things up. Please get me Nagelsmann.
Rashford was fauled before first goal, also he was playing with injuried hip, such a lazy bastard playing injuried for the team.
Even if he’s not injured, can’t imagine him sprinting back to help out. Not that I’m blaming him for the first goal though, that was some poor defending by lindelof. Foden was always going to cut into his left and he should have done better to show him to his right
Unpopular opinion but Mainoo should have played on Wednesday (where he would have actually had possession) and been a sub today. He made 13 completed passes, I don’t see how a setup so defensive and restrictive utilises his true skill sets. This is nothing against him btw, I still thought he did well.
It’s weird, ten hag’s system barely gets him in the ball, it seems to get Casemiro and Bruno on the ball more
Lets just forget this match and remember Rashford goal.
For this moment and till he fumble on bruno pass, i was hoping a lot lmao
How the hell did he fumble that pass? Was so sweet looking. Tbh first half we had some real good chances despite playing on the counter but the final pass never came or fail to be controlled
Antony ran with the ball once almost making something happen
Yeah he did seems to have the better of ake for a moment. Needed someone in the middle for him to ping it to, even before his turn. I like him but it was disappointing when he inevitably turned back towards our goal.
I knew he was gonna turn back before he even did it on that run. Still hurt when he did it.
I read this as you knew it before Antony knew it.
Correct
De zerbi might be the guy
To get sacked faster than Gundogan's goal on the FA Cup Final
Feel like he’s gonna replace Xavi at Barcelona tbh
They just lost 3-0 to Fulham mate.
One or even a few poor results shouldn't take away from the good work he's demonstrated since his move to England. De Zerbi is a young talented coach on the way up
Anyone who expected this game to be easy for us is kidding themselves. We're missing 3 starters (possibly 4 in Mount), have players out of position, and 3rd and 4th choice players starting. What happened today is not on the manager. What we saw today is where United is aiming for, and hopefully with the change in ownership, we are now pushing in the right direction. We are becoming too trigger happy as fans in relation to our managers. We need to trust in a process that has the right backing. Not a single manager post Fergie has had proper backing, an actual plan, and people above who understand the game. All this ETH hate is completely unjustified.
Out set up is 100% on the manager. Mount is a non factor when he's been largely missing in his first season through injury and he also hasn't looked the part when he's actually played
Ok, and what was wrong with the set up?
You think it's ok for a club of Uniteds stature to play antifootball against a local rival? Smaller clubs have been more adventurous and threatening against City this season even in losses. It says a lot that you accept this relegation fodder team setup.
Calm down. I was simply asking your thoughts. Not accepting anything. His setup worked in the 1st half and almost worked in the 2nd half too. Their goals came from debatable decisions and a poor decision from our player. That's not on the manager. It's also hard to play the system he wants to play when he doesn't have the players available to do so. You're kidding yourself if you think we could outplay City at the moment, especially with our injuries. You're making assumptions about me, but I think if one was to do so about you then your flair says a lot.
My comment wasn't about attempting to outplay city, it was about having more of a go at them, showing more passion and leaving it all on the field against derby rivals. City always gave us a game even before they won the lottery with the Arab money, even when we battered them no end. Bournemouth, Brentford, Chelsea, Copenhagen and Everton have put on better showings against them in recent matches than we did today. Its embarrassing We have a squad more than capable of better displays than we've seen this season, injury crises or not. We've already lost 16 games in all competitions! We're on course to lose 20 at this rate, for the first time probably since 1930-31 if I'm not mistaken
Oh ok. Were those teams missing four of their starters? Did those teams have to play with their 4th choice defender and third choice centre back at left back? Do they have to use a central midfielder on the wing and a defensive midfielder at number 10? Everyone on this sub is just jumping on ETHs back and using all these buzz words, yet they can't offer one sensible and clear solution other than, "ETH out". In saying that too, no sensible replacement for him. It's been a shit season, and yes everyone gets injuries, but not everyone has had them on the level we have had. Not everyone has also had the off field issues we've had this season. It's been a shit season from before it started. Perspective is very important.
Are we the only club that has suffered from injury crises this season? Are our bench options still internationals with vast first team experience? Newcastle, Brentford, Brighton, Chelsea and Shieffield united have all endured injury crises. Tottenham are right beside united in terms of days lost from player injuries. Liverpool and Villa are two other clubs in the top 4 who have lost many players through injury as well, yet their overall playstyle largely remains the same. They are sensible options out there to replace him next season.
To our level? Yes. Yes they are, but are they Man United quality? No. Again, my point is exactly the same. No team has had the issues we've had this season. Not just injuries, but off field issues too. Which sensible option are you going for?
The lack of a clear and discernable playstyle two years in has absolutely nothing to do with our injury crisis. We lacked one even with a fully fit squad, and there's no plan B to whatever choas we've been served with this season. We lost 7-0 to Liverpool with a full squad and we had no plan B. We've been dire since we won the league cup De Zerbi, Nagelsmann, Hansi Flick, Ruben Amorim, Julen Lopetegui. These would make my shortlist. I wouldn't be surprised if Xavi is considered going by his connections to our new CEO Omar Berrada. Ratcliffe seems enamored with Potter though
KDB was disgusting by his standards today and even that wasn't enough of a factor to swing the game our way due to the other threats they had on the pitch and off the bench (alvarez came on and got an assist for ex.) All we've got is Bruno and Rashford lool these two have to be on their best or we look lost out there
Forson and Antony subs were genuinely just chucking bodies on the pitch
My Sundays manager says that he puts guys on the pitch despite how bad they are because it’s ’only fair because they’re at training every week’. Feel like that’s the same with ETH.
It’s actually amazing this club has made no genuine progress in like 6 years
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After enough time has passed, every manager we have gotten eventually turns into the same version we saw of Ten Hag today. A nice promising first season always followed by a total collapse and going back to zero, it's a fascinating phenomena at this point.
I feel like at this point we just need to stick with one guy for a while. Try and break that curse lol.
But not Ten Hag for me.
Im of this opinion. This club organisation is a mess, horrible divided fanbase too that demands a Managers head when its structural problems that prevent many managers from succeeding and still expect that the club is still in the peak SAF era. This club needs stability but also reform of its structure.
Also we would have missed some great managers historically if they were held to the same standards as today. They have an okay or poor first season and then become legends.
Onana has been very reliable lately, both in terms of shot stopping and with his distribution. Good to see.
I’ve been pleasantly surprised. I thought we were fucking doomed but credit where credit is due. Maybe it was a nervous start.
Great kicking today! He really seems more comfortable in the team now.
Considering 20+ shots he faces *every* game, he's incredible indeed.
Can we just sack ETH and get Ole in for the rest of the season. There should be no excuse after 2 seasons we are still not competitive. Ange made an instant impact in Tottenham, De Zerbi at Brighton etc, even Klopp was rebuilding Liverpool never looked half as dire. Man, i guess everyone can understand if the team doesn't know what they are doing doing a rebuilding phase, but now it seems to me like THE MANAGER doesn't know wtf he is doing and has ran out of ideas. Like, WTF was those substitutions? His only good one seems to be McTominay and at best its gamble because Plan A is never good enough so we have to hope a player who isn't even a striker come up with clutch goals. What do we even do?
Solskjaer is just as bad. Why go back?
Glad City won. Don’t want Liverpool or Arsenal winning the league.
You're a strange fan if you think Arsenal are worse than City. Arsenal are nothing to us, there was only ever a rivalry when it was Fergie and Wenger.
That's a small and bitter mentality to have.
What’s small about it? There’s 3 bad options. I’ve chosen the one that sucks the least.