I'm sick of long balls and crosses

Gandalf Greyhame

If in doubt, follow your nose!
Scout
Joined
Dec 7, 2013
Messages
7,591
Location
Red Card for Casemiro!
This the only plan we have of attacking, right now. Long balls to Lukaku, hoping he wins them and lays it off to someone. And crosses from our full backs, which are over hit half the time and can't clear the first defender the others. Our corners suck. Our set piece deliveries suck. Our clearances from defence suck. De Gea's punt upfield sucks.

And we have no plan B. Even 20th fecking placed Newcastle have a better gameplan than us. If they had our players, they would be in a better league position for sure.

Cross and hope. Clear and hope. Jose has no tactical acumen left in him. He's a past it beaten man who picks up petty fights with media and players using his past achievements as an excuse.
 
It'd be alright if we had an actual target man and wingers capable of crossing the ball. But we don't. Yet we still insist on this garbage system, if you can even call it a system.
 
Gandalf Greyhame said:
This the only plan we have of attacking, right now. Long balls to Lukaku, hoping he wins them and lays it off to someone. And crosses from our full backs, which are over hit half the time and can't clear the first defender the others. Our corners suck. Our set piece deliveries suck. Our clearances from defence suck. De Gea's punt upfield sucks.

And we have no plan B. Even 20th fecking placed Newcastle have a better gameplan than us. If they had our players, they would be in a better league position for sure.

Cross and hope. Clear and hope. Jose has no tactical acumen left in him. He's a past it beaten man who picks up petty fights with media and players using his past achievements as an excuse.
Click to expand...

We have a plan B. Long balls to Fellaini. Our plan B wasnt avaible tonight though
 
You know what, you aren't wrong and I agree completely. We're constantly trying these massive long balls from our own half, just hitting and hoping, and 95% of the time they just give the ball away. It's so frustrating to watch.
 
Has anyone observed matas corners. High and slow. Even if someone gets a head to it the ball won't go in.
 
Juve had their easiest night of the season.

Defending against our long balls, and watching us trying to hammer balls onto Lukaku's hooves must've been a piece of cake.
 
Raw said:
It'd be alright if we had an actual target man and wingers capable of crossing the ball. But we don't. Yet we still insist on this garbage system, if you can even call it a system.
Click to expand...

The number of times we had a chance to actually do something if we'd crossed, and Young/Mata overhit it for a goal kick.
 
Crossing is the lowest common denominator in terms of footballing approach because it is the most widely used for teams overcome gaps of quality.
What I mean to say is this..... as a top, top club, if you're reliant on a methodology that is a staple approach for non-premier league sides, then, you have become unsophisticated, and what's worse, easy to defend against.
 
I'd like a mix ideally. It's not so much long balls and crosses that bother me (they can be quality with the right players), it's the predictability. It's so easy to play against United.
 
It's been the hallmark of this post SAF era. Many new players, different managers but still ends with pointless crosses and hoofing. I could understand if we had top wingers and actual target man but we don't. We never cross with any zip or pace. It's always the floated one and that's easy to defend.
 
This sums us up these days. When Mourinho goes, he can take Lukaku & Fellaini with him.
 
I love a good long ball, and an ample amount of crossing. The problem is, the way we do it, is just dumb.
There is no bigger picture, there is no idea behind the passes that maybe they'll lead to some form of an attack. It's all about getting rid of the ball and surrendering responsibility.

Martial plays a high cross, quite far from the goal, towards Mata. What's the plan there? A guy who is the size of my seven year old is supposed to beat Chiellini and Alex Sandro in the air, even if so, he's to far from the goal to do anything but head it into space.

Ashley Young only plays those kinds of passes, that's why he mostly flourishes when Fellaini plays, the only guy who can work with high, lofted passes on the far side.
His crossing is without thought, his play from the back is abysmal. No triangles, nothing done on full steam, just like there is no idea how to play forward on tempo. Most times he settles on passing a long ball down the channel to no one, or a for a Lukaku header.
Now where is the thought in that? A guy who is struggling to get on the ball is expected to beat out Bonucci and Chiellini, and knock it down to the next United player 20 meters away from him? There is no idea there, it's just a pass to relieve yourself from the ball.

We do this so often, almost no one can move or pass between the lines, when put under any kind of pressure we pass it backwards for the defenders or De Gea to hoof it forward without any idea on how to build up from that.
 
Gandalf Greyhame said:
This the only plan we have of attacking, right now. Long balls to Lukaku, hoping he wins them and lays it off to someone. And crosses from our full backs, which are over hit half the time and can't clear the first defender the others. Our corners suck. Our set piece deliveries suck. Our clearances from defence suck. De Gea's punt upfield sucks.

And we have no plan B. Even 20th fecking placed Newcastle have a better gameplan than us. If they had our players, they would be in a better league position for sure.

Cross and hope. Clear and hope. Jose has no tactical acumen left in him. He's a past it beaten man who picks up petty fights with media and players using his past achievements as an excuse.
Click to expand...

Juventus played plenty of long balls tonight. And Scholes was saying at half time thats what we should be trying, more long balls up to Lukaku. So even if he was playing thats what we would have done.
 
Graham Taylor worked out at Watford that the more times you hoof the ball into the box the more chances you have to score. It was Moneyball before the insidious metrics were even thought of to analyse sport. Mourinho seems to like probability statistics, too, sadly.
 
Hoof The Ball said:
Crossing is the lowest common denominator in terms of footballing approach because it is the most widely used for teams overcome gaps of quality.
What I mean to say is this..... as a top, top club, if you're reliant on a methodology that is a staple approach for non-premier league sides, then, you have become unsophisticated, and what's worse, easy to defend against.
Click to expand...
Unsophisticated describes us perfectly. There are multiple levels of quality between us and top clubs
 
If almost everyone are sick of the crossing style why do they want Zidane again ?
 
Why don't we play through the middle? Does this team not know what a through ball is? I love a good through ball with the striker latching on to it with pace. Can't remember the last time I saw it at united. I agree I hate seeing these hoofs. We rarely get any joy out of them seeing as our giant team can't head balls or anticipate flick ons. It's hardly worked before even with felliani on.
 
Raw said:
It'd be alright if we had an actual target man and wingers capable of crossing the ball. But we don't. Yet we still insist on this garbage system, if you can even call it a system.
Click to expand...
Name another top team that has pinging the ball in as plan b. Getting the ball out wide is cowardly way of playing because it requires zero creativity and leads to less counter attacks. It kinda reminds me of certain someone's personality.
 
I'm really sick of those long balls, yep. Watching us hoof it up like that to Fellaini, and fail to do even that properly, is really heartbreaking.

What a travesty.
 
We don't cross enough IMO.
We have nothing from the right while Martial and Rashford can't find a man to save their lives.
 
Even when Fellaini is not on, all we do is wait for Young to hit a shit cross into the box. Open ourselves on counter, rinse and repeat.

It's appalling how after 6 years we still lack a quality crosser at the club even though that's our primary tactics.
 
We have come full circle and are back to being the team we were under Moyes, same level and same tactics. We are so far behind in terms of our tactics and approach to the top five that it’s hard to comprehend.
 
Roboc7 said:
We have come full circle and are back to being the team we were under Moyes, same level and same tactics. We are so far behind in terms of our tactics and approach to the top five that it’s hard to comprehend.
Click to expand...

Under Moyes we had Kagawa and Mata playing some nice neat football, it just never resulted in nice passes for chances. The passes went out onto the wings and fullbacks who put as many crosses as possible into the box.

Honestly it was better to watch than this
 
How dare you say this is on Mourinho. This is happening because Woodward is not capable of sell off Jones, Rojo etc, its because Woodward didn't buy a new shiny CB like Yerry Mina, a CB with the ability to sign for Barcelona, it's because Glazers are ruining the club(who the feck cares that we won titles, reached 3 CL finals under them), it's because Rashford, Shaw, Martial, Lingard lack character, maturity and cojones, Mourinho is never to blame, he is the best manager in the PL right now, remember he won three titles for Chelsea, a treble for Inter. Am I doing this right @cheeky_backheel @haram @Reddy Rederson @CA1 @VP89 ?
 
We are not even good at long balls, yet its the safe tactic for our players. The fact that the manager hasn't cut that out means he agreea with it. Dark days.
 
redIndianDevil said:
How dare you say this is on Mourinho. This is happening because Woodward is not capable of sell off Jones, Rojo etc, its because Woodward didn't buy a new shiny CB like Yerry Mina, a CB with the ability to sign for Barcelona, it's because Glazers are ruining the club(who the feck cares that we won titles, reached 3 CL finals under them), it's because Rashford, Shaw, Martial, Lingard lack character, maturity and cojones, Mourinho is never to blame, he is the best manager in the PL right now, remember he won three titles for Chelsea, a treble for Inter. Am I doing this right @cheeky_backheel @haram @Reddy Rederson @CA1 @VP89 ?
Click to expand...

Well, it’s got to be better than you thinking wenger is the man to lead us forward.
 
The problem I see is that we're so slow from back to front that even mediocre crossers perform worse than comparable crossers at other clubs. Darmian ends up with an even lower chance of beating the first defender because they have so much time work out what's going on. With how we play we are never going to get results from our crossing, even with better crossers. We need to change the insufferable football being played up to that point to see any change here.

Getting to Lukaku, he's clearly not a target man who should can hold up the ball. The ball needs to be played in front of him. Quicker transitions from defence to attack and some earlier (or better variety of) crosses would make a difference to him. It's downright dangerous to play balls into him when he's stationary because he'll shin it back into our half.

The manager is the one who needs to take some responsibility and make whatever changes are needed to improve this transition play. It'll be the key to unlocking any value from this current set of players, or an additions he makes.
 
People blame Lukaku and Fellaini. But the actual problem is Ashley Young.

He had 11 crosses today. That’s 11 times he failed to deliver a good one. Look at Robertson for Liverpool and how instrumental he is to their attack... Young isn’t even close. He makes us worse by just being on the field because the only thing we ever do when he’s on, is pass it out the wing so he can hit the first man with a cross.

He’s rubbish man. This is why I’d rather see Darmian at LB... at least we’ll play it more through the middle instead of constantly using Ashley fecking Young as our primary attacking outlet. For a club of our size, that’s fecking embarrassing.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.