31 Dec 2023 12:36:50
I've not posted in a while as wanted to see how this team would stand up and be counted and to see what ETH sees in his analysis and quite frankly I see neither.
The team, no matter what team is selected (bar Mainoo and Nacho) appear to be lacking in cohesion, effort, consistency and whatever about ownership and a poor footballing department the last 10 years, the performances, lack of identity, in game management and substitutes fall on the manager and his staff.
I do believe we have players not good enough, some even who have simply downed tools and yes we have injuries but look at Ange at Spurs, RDZ at Brighton, they also have injuries but whether there are injuries or not you see a style of play with those teams and managers regardless, I see nothing with this United team.
I'm hopeful that SJR and his appointments of Brailsford, Blanc and Mitchell will at least see a competent running of the department and I know the profile they want in a manager and playing staff will take some time but there is no excuse for the performances we are seeing and the ridiculous analysis of the subs and overview of the game ETH is making/ saying, it reeks of a man desperately trying anything.
I don't expect us to win any match we go into and I genuinely feel sorry for Hoijlund getting zero service from Antony and Bruno, relying on a kid in Nacho to be the main man, on Mainoo to knit out midfield, bar these 3 and Licha I could care less if I see any of the rest in a United shirt again.
As much as it bores me to watch United play, I'll be watching each week cz that's what fans do and I'll be hopeful ten hag can turn it around but there's being supportive and then there's being deluded and we have very average footballers in that squad and the ones of higher quality are suffering because of it or what's worse in the case of Rash they are hiding or not trying.
Anyway, onto 2024 and as Ralf Rangnick said maybe it doesn't take so long to see improvements but we do need to be ruthless and competent under this new regime and unfortunately I feel that starts with a new manager.
Happy New Year all posters and Eds x.

1.) 31 Dec 2023
31 Dec 2023 13:27:13
Good post Welsh. I think last night was the end of ten hag. Its so bad its criminal. but to take off our only holding midfielder is insanity which led to the defeat. That's on him and its happening over and over again. basically ten hag is an awful manager. With 8 days to the next game the club needs something different, a spark and that's a new manager. No way whoever is running the football side can let this carry on.

2.) 31 Dec 2023
31 Dec 2023 14:38:12
Utd obviously wanted a bit of what Ajax were showing in recent years. Attractive and positive, not quite the Total Football of the 70s perhaps but touch and move at the least, creative, always having an option. Maybe there was a belief that many (myself included) were left imagining what the same manager could do with better players. Maybe it was a bit of an insult to suggest we had better players. I certainly don't think the side he left would have done nearly as well in the Prem where there literally isn't a second to breath, and the defending is supposedly the best in the world.
Jump forward a few years and the manager has already said he can't play like that with these players (I think he felt he could at one point but has underestimated the league and overestimated what he inherited) so has pushed them instead down the counter-attacking route that suits Fernandes, Rashford et al, our best players at the time he came in yet who supposedly aren't intelligent enough to play a different way. How hard is it?
Worryingly, EtH has signed a fair few of these players, so by this logic Antony, a player he developed - one our own staff valued at £20-30m - should be like Cruyff on one wing and Mount, who I've yet to even see in a Utd shirt, should be orchestrating things in the middle like Johan Neeskens, playing in exactly the way the manager wants. Instead our third most expensive ever signing looks like he belongs in a pub team.
I really want things to work out for Erik and genuinely feel for him as he's had no control over so much that has gone wrong. There seems to be a tale around practically everyone in the squad from the goalkeeper to the failure to sign an experienced centre-forward, Greenwood, Sancho, the midfield debacle, the awful fullback scenario, re-signing a centre-back nearing the end of his career (ironically now a first-teamer) . Whatever could go wrong, has, and more. Investing in a few areas that weren't as crucial as others, which has backfired massively.
I am genuinely interested to see how this side develops in the next few weeks as all these players return - there has to be a definite style and improvement very soon, if we've not already passed that point.

3.) 31 Dec 2023
31 Dec 2023 15:12:01
East end

I get the venting that comes with a loss. Do you think we played better in the second half or first half offensively. Its easy to vent and blame taking Mainoo off on the loss. we were rubbish first half and awb deflected shot is all we could muster. You guys make it sound we took off Zidane. lol

Garnacho was poor all game so were a lot of guys like ericksen, Bruno, but blame the subbing of main of maninoo.

Played golf today with yorkie and he thinks 7 of these players who started would not even make the fergie squad. Asked him about every player and weird he said Garnacho is decent and so is hoiland but nothing special. Still thinks rash is our best player in our squad but thinks a lot of these players are not united quality and also thinks the manager is average.

from starting line up he thought rash, garnacho, bruno, dalot would be good enough for his time at united to make the squad.

only positive I took from yesterday is Amad. the rest collectively were so poor.

4.) 31 Dec 2023
31 Dec 2023 15:27:24
If yorke rates Dalot he’s clearly stupid
Just because he’s played doesn’t make his opinion any more valid than ours!
To me rashford is not our best player because best players turn up every game and deliver. He is a disgrace to the shirt 90 per cent of the time, an awful example to young football players of desire, commitment and application.
While Dalot has all of them in abundance to be fair he’s just extremely limited in every way .

5.) 31 Dec 2023
31 Dec 2023 15:39:56
chris

I take his opinion who has played and with more credibility than guys like myself or others here serious. He is adamant rash is the best player we have no questions and think people are clueless if they don't get it.

He maybe clueless or maybe we are. he does think most fans are clueless in terms of what is going on inside a squad lol

thinks eth should have sent guys like maguire, mc, martail, DVB, and many others to the reserves to force a move:)

6.) 31 Dec 2023
31 Dec 2023 17:07:52
Yorke is stupid he sha99ed jordan without strapping up didn’t he.

7.) 31 Dec 2023
31 Dec 2023 19:38:55
Welsh, if we look at Ange at Spurs and we see a team that has had a massive drop off in form during a period of time where they have had 4 or 5 first team players injured.

We've had 5-6 minimum injured for every single games for the entire season.

I think that just backs up the point about how much the injuries are impacting us.

While Brighton are one of the best run clubs in the league, they have for many years now worked with a single vision. They have recruited players to play a specific style of play, and they have hired managers to suit that style. They didn't sign players to suit Potter they hired Potter because he suited the vision.

When he left RDZ was not high on anyone's list, none of he bookies had him as a serious candidate, they were looking at the usual names.

Yet Brighton had been keeping tabs on several managers whose style of play suited their vision and the squad they created. RDZ was high on that list and was a manager they were able to sign.

As such they went against the tide with who the media or fans wanted and instead hired the right man for the plan and the squad they had created.

As such he was able to be very successful.

RDZ is clearly a good manager, but he's probably not as amazing as he seems at Brighton simply because he is at a club that is seemingly perfectly set up for him.

This is why Potter despite being a very good manager failed miserably at Chelsea. At Brighton he was at a well run club, that was set up to be almost ideal for him. As such he flourished. Chelsea were at the opposite end of the spectrum at the time and we're in disarray with many of the key personnel leaving and new people starting in key roles. As such Potter couldn't be that man who pulled them through it. Even Pochettino is struggling now despite things being calmer behind the scenes at Chelsea now.

United currently is probably in a worse state behind the scenes than Chelsea have been in. Not only have we had 10 years of utterly awful and nigh on useless people making key decisions and running the club, we now still have the same people, but with a year of them dillydallying over any decisions due to the potential sale and uncertainty.

EtH in my opinion has handled that better than most would be able to. He's steered us through some very turbulent waters and done a decent job.

Unfortunately this season any chance of even a the smallest level of consistency has been totally kiboshed by the frankly ridiculous injuries we have been plagued with.

The key players who he started to build a side around have been out injured or seem their form nose dive due to the instability caused by the injuries in defence and midfield.

Even many of his summer signings, brought in to build on last season have had their own injury issues which has impacted their ability to settle.

Højlund and Amrabat joined injured and couldn't play for weeks, Mount, Evans and Reguilon (signed to cover for both Shaw and Malacia being injured) have had their own injuries. Only Onana of the summer signings has avoided injury so far. Although we will now lose him to the AFCON for at least a month maybe longer.

People wonder why we aren't playing like prime Barcelona or peak Ajax while ignoring that we had a back four of AWB, Maguire, Lindelof and Dalot playing LB despite being a RB. Then in front of them we had McTominay and a steady rotation of Mainoo, Amrabat and Eriksen depending on who was actually fit at that time.
People complain that EtH has his favourites and won't drop a player like Antony, but refuse to say who they would play instead of the Brazilian. Greenwood was supposed to be back in the squad, only to be shipped out on loan far too late to have any chance to bring in a replacement, all because those above EtH got cold feet when the press wrote some unkind things about their decision. Sancho has imploded. EtH has bent over backwards to try and help the kid, called in favours and even allowed him time off last season to go get his head straight and improve his fitness. Only to see his support thrown back in his face by an ungrateful, spoiled brat. Who has then shown his petulance by refusing to apologise for his actions. Sancho himself has ruled himself out of contention.
That really leaves Amad, who himself was injured and unavailable all season until yesterday.

Other than that it's play Garnacho or Rashford out of position. Ones a kid with less than half a season under his belt at the start of this season, the other is a player whose in terrible form, partially caused by being forced to move about and play out of position to cover for injuries.

Neither seem like great candidates to play out of position. While we could only do that if we had enough other players fit to do so. When Rashford has to play CF like yesterday due to Højlund and Martial being unavailable then we really don't have anyone else to play RW.

Like I said yesterday we are not just top of the injuries league table, but we have had 22% MORE injuries than the second placed side. We've had nearly 88% more injuries than SEVEN other EPL sides. We've had more than DOUBLE the number of injuries for 16 of the other 19 EPL sides.

To suggest all sides have injuries and we should just cope with them like the other sides is akin to saying that all people have some physical issues so the Paralympians should just compete with the physically able Olympians.

People really aren't being fair to the manager or the players when they dismiss the injuries.

8.) 31 Dec 2023
31 Dec 2023 23:55:01
Ahmad I couldn’t care less who he’s played for and what he says, I watch it every single week, Marcus rashford is not our best player, in fact in order to start again I’d be cashing in on him this summer because he’s quite frankly too erratic and turns up when he can be bothered! To me that’s not a good player! To your mate Yorke that might be fine but to a paying ticket holder no chance! He also goes on about how ETH should have dealt with certain players, I’m telling you now Fergie would have sold rashford two years ago for his behaviour and inconsistency!

9.) 01 Jan 2024
01 Jan 2024 00:47:34
Chris. Yorke was literally World Class. He played in our best ever side as a professional footballer. He knows far more than any of us, and will know much more insider info than we do.

Shappy - love your posts, but by gosh they’re long.

Happy New Year chaps. Here’s to some positive change at our great club in 2024.

10.) 01 Jan 2024
01 Jan 2024 08:47:15
Eric he was very good no doubt he wasn’t world class

That’s irrelevant anyway, of course he’s entitled to an opinion but so are we . And I am not being told that rashford is our best player or anything along those lines . He epitomises everything that’s wrong with us currently.

11.) 01 Jan 2024
01 Jan 2024 09:36:13
is exactly my point Shappy, with or without injuries spurs and Ange have an identity and style of play no matter who comes in player wise, same for Brighton, we don’t, yes we’ve a lot of injuries but so do they and just because Licha and Case are missing, basically the 2 we really miss, we shouldn’t suddenly be lacking a style of play, the whole squad trains in the same manner and just as Skipp and Hojberg (not good enough for spurs) come in and do a job because they’ve trained to that same style of play, our squad players should also be able to come in and do what’s been impressed upon them, injuries just an excuse for me as all clubs have them as is my point above and tbh I didn’t see much style of play consistently last season either and that’s with our fully fit squad.
Of this squad, Martinez, Shaw, Mainoo, Bruno, Garnacho and Hoijlund are the only ones I’d keep and I’m skeptical on Shaw and Bruno tbh, they’ve epitomised some of our worst displays and defeats, all that money spent and £420k Nacho our best player by a mile being relied upon to drag us through games, remarkable really.

12.) 01 Jan 2024
01 Jan 2024 09:39:03
You're probably right ahmad the whole team was just awful but taking mainoo off was nuts, if it was an injury you can't blame him. but for tactical reasons ? its a long list of bewildering tactics by ten hag. if he loses to wigan, boy it's not worth thinking about.

13.) 01 Jan 2024
01 Jan 2024 12:57:13
East End

I was so upset it really ruined the day for me and i wa mentally shattered and I topped it off with blowing a boat load on the golf course too which i should hav enever had the kind of bets given how bad my head was

I get the frustration that comes with watching a pathetic loss to a average team like forest. Its human nature to look for blaming something but in all honesty we were poor all game, we were worst in the first half and i was trying to understand why Bruno and ericsen were doing and Antony and Garnacho were poor and Rashford is not a striker and he si bang average when you play him there.

It was no Mainoo substitution that had an outcome on the game which i assume we wanted to win but collectively we were sh. t.

14.) 01 Jan 2024
01 Jan 2024 15:23:38
Last part was spot on ? were just plain sh. t.

15.) 01 Jan 2024
01 Jan 2024 19:12:03
Ahmad, all due respect but I question your intelligence and loyalty for posting headlines such as ‘Dwight Yorke thinks most fans are stupid’ on an open forum. He may be right, but I’m not sure what your mate would think if he read that.

Regardless of what Dwight Yorke actually thinks, I watch Rashford week in and week out and can tell you he’s a lazy so and so who thinks he’s much better than he actually is. Ex players feeding his ego does not help the situation either.

He’s a big time Charlie on and off the pitch, one of be happy to see the back of (amongst others) .

16.) 02 Jan 2024
02 Jan 2024 08:15:24
Wazza

He is a united ambassador and has access to a lot more stuff than any of us here. I don't post everything he says or shows me on what's app as some of it would not be for the public domain. It has nothing to do with being disrespectful to the fans.

You can disagree with his view but I tend to listen to someone who has played the game at his level and knows what is going to on to some extend inside the club. For him, Its not a debate who is the best player in terms of ability in our squad. He artes many of the rest very average along the lines of some of the views here but not to that extreme.

You can view Rash as a big time Charlie and that's your choice bud.