I'm sick of long balls and crosses

We don’t need lesser crossing. We need more accurate crossing combined with players making back-post and front-post runs. If every cross is going to be aimed at Lukaku on the back-post, it is incredibly easy to defend.
 
Any team that even marginally presses us, we pass back to the keeper and he kicks it straight into the hands of the opposition.
 
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

You make that sound like it was a prominent feature of the Moyes era. But Mata and Kagawa only ever started 3-4 games together.
 
Is there a stat on how many players United have in the opposition box compared to other teams? Was just watching some goals from 07/08 and so many times there were like 4/5 United players in the box.
 
When Young plays LB he is too quick to hoof it at the sight of pressure. When he receives the ball high up he waves away every nearby passing option in favour of pumping a cross into the box. It's early to mid 2000s football he, Lukaku and Jose seem to favour
 
What really fecks me off is watching City, Liverpool and Chelsea play 1-2s in the oppositions pentalty box, whilst we aimlessly lump it in the box hoping Lukaku and Fellaini do something.

We have Pogba, Sanchez, Martial, Fred, Herrera. We shouldn’t be lumping balls in the box. 60min mark, bring on Fred for Matic for more energy and press more. Bring on Sanchez earlier for Lukaku and try work the ball in the final 3rd. I detest this Plan B of crossing and lumping it forward aimlessly.
 
At least under LVG you could see that he was trying to get the team to play a certain style, and for whatever reason the style failed. Mourinho seems to be clueless about the way he actually wants our team to play, you can see the confusion in the way the players play on the pitch. So little consistency and we rely on individual brilliance fro Pogba Martial, or sheer willpower (Juve away, with a bit of luck too.)
 
He talks about it at 2 mins


I haven`t really watched these before but could be more entertaining than the football soon , could get to AFTV levels even .
 
When Young plays LB he is too quick to hoof it at the sight of pressure. When he receives the ball high up he waves away every nearby passing option in favour of pumping a cross into the box. It's early to mid 2000s football he, Lukaku and Jose seem to favour
Early to mid 2000s had Arsenal and Man United play so good football
 
Any team that even marginally presses us, we pass back to the keeper and he kicks it straight into the hands of the opposition.

I noticed that.
If we play Fellaini up front, then he could chest down the long balls and feed Martial/Rashford/Sanchez, etc. That could be a way for us to bypass our midfield completely and get the ball to our attackers.
I know it sucks to be reading this, but that's what we are right now. We need to score goals...any which way and if that means using Fellaini, to get the ball to our attackers, then so be it. The more shots on goal we have, the more chance we have of scoring.
When we try to pass the ball on the ground (as we saw yesterday), we tend not to create many chances.

If we want to be able to create many chances, playing the ball along the ground, we'll need a new manager and possibly new coaches (Carrick and McKenna haven't covered themselves in glory).
 
I noticed that.
If we play Fellaini up front, then he could chest down the long balls and feed Martial/Rashford/Sanchez, etc. That could be a way for us to bypass our midfield completely and get the ball to our attackers.
I know it sucks to be reading this, but that's what we are right now. We need to score goals...any which way and if that means using Fellaini, to get the ball to our attackers, then so be it. The more shots on goal we have, the more chance we have of scoring.
When we try to pass the ball on the ground (as we saw yesterday), we tend not to create many chances.

If we want to be able to create many chances, playing the ball along the ground, we'll need a new manager and possibly new coaches (Carrick and McKenna haven't covered themselves in glory).

I must have been watching a different game as I saw us punting it up towards Lukaku pretty much for 90 minutes
 
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 ?

Sure. Blame Mourinho for it all. Even handing himself a contract extension and wasting a summer transfer window with no needed transfer business. Heck the bastard must be behind the nefarious plot to hand smalling a 150k a week extension whilst failing to sale Darmian. ....
 
Sure. Blame Mourinho for it all. Even handing himself a contract extension and wasting a summer transfer window with no needed transfer business. Heck the bastard must be behind the nefarious plot to hand smalling a 150k a week extension whilst failing to sale Darmian. ....
The contract extension for Mourinho wasnt an issue at all. Mourinho won cups in his first season and we had a good start the next season, it was reasonably okay to hand him a new contract as we all hoped Mourinho would keep improving. The only transfer we missed was a CB and our defence is crap, why is our attack so shite then? How is our poor attack blamed on Woodward?
 
It's true, it's our only idea, and it's barely an idea. Fanny around in the middle for a while, give it to Pogba (our 90 million pound man), or perhaps Matic (our 40 million pound man), and then let them pass it eventually to Young on the wing, who'll (maybe) put in a floaty cross sometimes, which is easily enough cleared.

It's not Young's fault. It's not Shaw's fault. It's not the fault of our isolated fullbacks when they eventually get far enough up the pitch to get involved. It's not Pogba or Matic's fault either. It's our shite clueless, slow and ploddy system's fault.

Jose should just go because this isn't good enough by half. I hate to compare us to Liverpool (especially Rodgers or early Klopp), but even when they had Lovren as their main defender and Henderson as their main midfielder, with Mignolet or Karius behind, you could clearly see a plan. The defence was shite, but you could see what they were trying to do....almost quite successfully. Missing out on a defender doesn't make a team shite; blaming the Ed for not buying Alderweireld is a side issue. We're playing shite because Jose isn't doing his job.
 
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.

Well we have zero actual wingers and our other fullbacks are even worse at crossing. We have 3 forwards to play on the left, 2 number 10s to play on the right, 2 ex wingers at fullback, and then Darmian and Shaw. It’s a disgrace.

Lukaku is one of the best crossers in the team which just negates itself because now he is not at the end of the cross.
 
Why wasn't Mourinho able to see that without Lukaku we were actually playing decent football? Whenever Lukaku comes in, our strategy is to fecking hoof it every time
 
We can not even make decent crosses nor corners. We don't have that wing or full backs who can cross. Free fall.
 
Sadly the writing was on the wall when Jose was coming out with statements such as

“It’s easier for Galatasaray to get me than Marouane,” he said. “If they need a manager, they can try and have a chance, but Marouane? Forget it. He’s too important for me.”

and pushing so hard for a contract renewal for him.

Not disrespecting Fellaini by any means but it made me fully prepared for our current playing style. Slow moving and ball hoofing.
 
Our problems start at the back. If I could choose 2 players in jan they would be Varane and Godin.

Madrid are in a mess, Jose signed Varane and he’s a Utd fan. I’d be happy to see Sanchez or lukaku go the other way.

Godin is in his last year. Both are realistic targets.

Hopefully they would tempt Dave to sign a new deal. Cant blame him for not wanting to play behind Smalling and Lindelof for another season.
 
The contract extension for Mourinho wasnt an issue at all. Mourinho won cups in his first season and we had a good start the next season, it was reasonably okay to hand him a new contract as we all hoped Mourinho would keep improving. The only transfer we missed was a CB and our defence is crap, why is our attack so shite then? How is our poor attack blamed on Woodward?
We have a dead right flank. No natural attacking full backs as back up. A shaky defence that requires cagey play to protect it. No competition at CF. Players Woodward has flat out refused to buy, especially last summer. Plus he keeps in the job a man he clearly doesn't trust with cash, nor judgement, who always builds teams back to front and has never been a front foot manager. Just a transition one. Yet 'you wonder why Woodward gets blame for our awful attack'. Amongst other things like keeping JM in the job
 
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Funny thing is we only have one player who's actually capable of taking advantage of this style,that person being obviously Fellaini.
Even Lukaku cant adjust to this horrific style and he's a big lump.
 
Is there a stat on how many players United have in the opposition box compared to other teams? Was just watching some goals from 07/08 and so many times there were like 4/5 United players in the box.
That's because we had a much more dominant midfield that allowed it. Our midfield is pretty average now.
 
We have a dead right flank. No natural attacking full backs as back up. A shaky defence that requires cagey play to protect it. No competition at CF. Players Woodward has flat out refused to buy, especially last summer. Plus he keeps in the job a man he clearly doesn't trust with cash, nor judgement, who always builds teams back to front and has never been a front foot manager. Just a transition one. Yet 'you wonder why Woodward gets blame for our awful attack'. Amongst other things like keeping JM in the job
Whose fault is that we don't have RW by now, our right flank was dead two years ago, it didn't happen suddenly, Willian is not the only RW in the world and even Barca couldn't buy him from Chelsea and you know what Barca did they bought another RW. Why wasn't Mourinho trying to sign that fella?

We had another fullback that we bought this season and who is fit. Mourinho doens't have the balls to play him, look at Crystal Palace they have a 20 yr old academy kid playing as their RB this season.
 
It’s a messed up attacking system mainly due to us being so heavily one sided. No right flank. Right backs are garbage - it’s an utter dead end any time the ball is passed out to young/Valencia/darmian out there because they all do not have the skill nor the courage to actually play football. Hoof ball or kick and run. No right winger is not so much a problem because you don’t really need a winger. Just a capable player out there that can actually recieve a pass to feet from their right back once that right back has actually dribbled and played football to unsettle the opposition.

Second main problem is Lukaku. His role is so essential to the team dynamics. Him having a stroke and forgetting how to do anything with a football has eliminated any form of confidence of playing football on the ground in attack.

No one is coached to hoof ball come on. If you’ve ever played a football match you know hoof ball is only ever played when there is a complete lack of confidence in yourself or your teammates ability to trap a ball to feet. Also when there is a lack of personal desire to dribble and show courage with the ball. It’s completely in your head. ‘Hoof ball’ is completely fine when you’re chasing a game in the last couple minutes, that’s about it.
 
We don’t need lesser crossing. We need more accurate crossing combined with players making back-post and front-post runs. If every cross is going to be aimed at Lukaku on the back-post, it is incredibly easy to defend.

This is our whole problem. Poor movement and no accuracy in our passing so attacks just break down or barely happen. We see it on counters especially, when a crap pass just ruins it, and we see it on crosses where it's aimless and all the defenders are positioned perfectly because of the lack of movement and intensity to get there.
 
Our problems start at the back. If I could choose 2 players in jan they would be Varane and Godin.

Madrid are in a mess, Jose signed Varane and he’s a Utd fan. I’d be happy to see Sanchez or lukaku go the other way.

Godin is in his last year. Both are realistic targets.

Hopefully they would tempt Dave to sign a new deal. Cant blame him for not wanting to play behind Smalling and Lindelof for another season.

Er... I don’t think both clubs would want to sell their best defenders, and both players would want to come...
 
Whose fault is that we don't have RW by now,
Woodward, obviously. He signs the players remember? He refused every right winger target JM asked him to buy. Dalot is also just the 2nd natural attacking fullback signing in a problem area of fullbacks since SAF left. Under 3 different managers....

our right flank was dead two years ago, it didn't happen suddenly, .....
And he has consistently been the one refusing to get anyone capable of playing there....go figure....

Willian is not the only RW in the world .....
Like get is the ONLY right song target we have ever had. Under LVG it was Mane. We didn't get him. Under JM its been a two blank winter like Persic from day one. Then note recently Willian, Rebic. Even An Arnautovic who can play with right and upfront. Surprise, surprise none of them are at United right now....go figure....

....Barca did they bought another RW. Why wasn't Mourinho trying to sign that fella?
BecauseWoodward wouldn't buy him rather. Cit in his a) not being a galactico and b) being 'no better than lingard or mata' ( similar to his rubbish excuse for turning down all our cb targets to replace rojo and jones)....


We had another fullback that we bought this season and who is fit. Mourinho doens't have the balls to play him, look at Crystal Palace they have a 20 yr old academy kid playing as their RB this season.
:lol: So it would have been better for JM to employ a young player there who isn't close to ready for the role full time under him (remember Shaw struggles?)
Rather than send him on loan for guranteed playing time to get his ready? You think 'mere balls' miraculously makes players ready?

Some of you just let your hatred of the current wrong man we have as manager blind you to the truth of how United's football operations is being run incompetently.
 
Woodward, obviously. He signs the players remember? He refused every right winger target JM asked him to buy. Dalot is also just the 2nd natural attacking fullback signing in a problem area of fullbacks since SAF left. Under 3 different managers....


And he has consistently been the one refusing to get anyone capable of playing there....go figure....


Like get is the ONLY right song target we have ever had. Under LVG it was Mane. We didn't get him. Under JM its been a two blank winter like Persic from day one. Then note recently Willian, Rebic. Even An Arnautovic who can play with right and upfront. Surprise, surprise none of them are at United right now....go figure....

BecauseWoodward wouldn't buy him rather. Cit in his a) not being a galactico and b) being 'no better than lingard or mata' ( similar to his rubbish excuse for turning down all our cb targets to replace rojo and jones)....



:lol: So it would have been better for JM to employ a young player there who isn't close to ready for the role full time under him (remember Shaw struggles?)
Rather than send him on loan for guranteed playing time to get his ready? You think 'mere balls' miraculously makes players ready?

Some of you just let your hatred of the current wrong man we have as manager blind you to the truth of how United's football operations is being run incompetently.
You are the one letting your love for the manager blind you from truth and stop your critical thinking.

How do you state it like a fact that Woodward flat out refused to buy a RW? May be Mournhos infamous lists didn't have a RW. The only RW we actually targetted was Willian IIRC. Rebic was obviously a bullshit rumor probably spread by his agent. And again I don't think we were ever linked with Mane under LvG, he left to Liverpool to no competition. Perisic is a LW and signing him probably meant Martial going the other way which would have been catastrophic. We did sign a player who played at RW quite well but Mourinho didn't play him there and whose fault is that? Did Woodward prevent Mourinho from playing Sanchez there?
 
You are the one letting your love for the manager blind you from truth and stop your critical thinking.
'That's rich coming from a person so obviously blinded by Mourinho hate that You foolishly imagine I posses ANY love for Mourinho simply because I don't hold to the misguided views you do.

I've never liked him. Never believed he was right for the job and I have been proved right 1000%. Go figure.....

How do you state it like a fact that Woodward flat out refused to buy a RW?
Because he has refused to sign Persic who can play there sinne JM arrived. That's how. that's for starters....

May be Mournhos infamous lists didn't have a RW.
The only RW we actually targetted was Willian IIRC.
Mourinho hate talking for you again....

At which club in his ENTIRE managerial history has Mourinho been a 'this player or no other' type operater in the transfer market? His M.O
has always been at least 2 to 3 preffered targets for a given role he wants to recruits for.

....
Rebic was obviously a bullshit rumor probably spread by his agent. And again I don't think we were ever linked with Mane under LvG, he left to Liverpool to no competition.
How I'll informed you are. Rebic was
indeed a United target that Woodward simply wasn't impressed with. Whilst Mane himself less than a month ago admitted he had the chance to sigbln for United but the deal didn't materialise.


....

Perisic is a LW and signing him probably meant Martial going the other way which would have been catastrophic. ......

Why does literally EVERY Mourinho hater on here trump up this idiotic excuse for not signing Perisic?


First, Persic is an ambidextrous player who can COMFORTABLY operate on the right and left flank. He is a genuine two flank player whilst Martial is NONE of those things and can't operate wide right at all.

Second, when Mourinho first arrived Inter wanted 40m. They never wanted 'Martial in exchange' neither did the one you hate have any plans of 'exchanging him' then. So the 'it would have meant us exchanging Martial for Persic' is just a figment of your imagination feed by the pressure infamous transfer rumour mill
..



....
We did sign a player who played at RW quite well but Mourinho didn't play him there and whose fault is that? Did Woodward prevent Mourinho from playing Sanchez there?
Alexis was signed to play in his best role. That isn't right wing either. So trying to excuse Woodward because JM isnt competent enough to even try Alexis wide right doesnt fly. If Woodward was blameless he'd never have signed a player who a) was set to block Martial's development and b) had no known desire to operate wide right.

He did neither. Go figure. But some how only the clown he insists on employing is to blame :lol:
 
Solution : Stop watching adult films and don't go to churches.

...Sorry I had to.
 
Chief, are using a kane to type, or something? It's all over the place.
 
I don't understand our squad. We bring an oaf upfront but we barely have any players who can whip a cross. What's the point of that? Also name me big successful clubs who play direct football these days. Sure you must always have a tall player upfront as an option. However you don't see anyone building his squad around big players anymore.

I think we need to go to basics ie 2 CBs who can actually defend, two full backs who can actually cross (and are real fullbacks not failed wingers), a DM who still have the legs to run, a box to box midfielder, a creative midfielder, two wingers full of trickery and a striker who actually got a first touch.
 
This myth that "Perisic was our target for right wing" should die and fast. He isn't a right winger. Jose wanted him because of his performance as Left winger. This is one more curious case of "Why can't Manutd just buy Right wingers instead of playing players out of position".
 
There were times on Saturday I felt like crying or self harming. Our football is dog shit mixed with pig shit. No pattern to our play. Cross and hope.
I can't wait for it to end.
 
Well atleast we aren’t giving him more money to buy more crap.
 
'That's rich coming from a person so obviously blinded by Mourinho hate that You foolishly imagine I posses ANY love for Mourinho simply because I don't hold to the misguided views you do.

I've never liked him. Never believed he was right for the job and I have been proved right 1000%. Go figure.....


Because he has refused to sign Persic who can play there sinne JM arrived. That's how. that's for starters....

Mourinho hate talking for you again....

At which club in his ENTIRE managerial history has Mourinho been a 'this player or no other' type operater in the transfer market? His M.O
has always been at least 2 to 3 preffered targets for a given role he wants to recruits for.


How I'll informed you are. Rebic was
indeed a United target that Woodward simply wasn't impressed with. Whilst Mane himself less than a month ago admitted he had the chance to sigbln for United but the deal didn't materialise.




Why does literally EVERY Mourinho hater on here trump up this idiotic excuse for not signing Perisic?


First, Persic is an ambidextrous player who can COMFORTABLY operate on the right and left flank. He is a genuine two flank player whilst Martial is NONE of those things and can't operate wide right at all.

Second, when Mourinho first arrived Inter wanted 40m. They never wanted 'Martial in exchange' neither did the one you hate have any plans of 'exchanging him' then. So the 'it would have meant us exchanging Martial for Persic' is just a figment of your imagination feed by the pressure infamous transfer rumour mill
..




Alexis was signed to play in his best role. That isn't right wing either. So trying to excuse Woodward because JM isnt competent enough to even try Alexis wide right doesnt fly. If Woodward was blameless he'd never have signed a player who a) was set to block Martial's development and b) had no known desire to operate wide right.

He did neither. Go figure. But some how only the clown he insists on employing is to blame :lol:
I stand corrected. You may not like Mourinho much but your hatred for Woodward is making you blind it seems.

Perisic is not a right winger at all, he is comfortable with two feet doesn't mean he would be pulling trees in the opposite wing, and Inter never wanted to sell Perisic for 40m, we tried to buy him for 40m because Inter were in financial troubles for that exact sum with FFP regulations and we hoped that we could tempt them into selling him but Inter sold other players and remedied their financial troubles. Once that was done there was no way we could get Perisic for 40m, you may have forgotten but they kept upping the fee required first and then stated demanding players for exchange particularly Martial. There was nothing we could do because Perisic acted professionally and didn't put enough pressure on Inter to sell him. We definitely would have bought Perisic for a money deal and their requisite of a player in exchange was what made the deal impossible.

If you choose to believe all the bullshit rumours then that's on you, plenty of players get linked to United and Rebic was one of those, and not one top BuLi club were interested in him, neither were PL clubs or La Liga clubs. He is also 25 years old and extremely streaky. We never were in for Rebic.

Another lie that Woodward rejected Mane when he clearly states that he wasn't interested in signing for us,

https://www.manchestereveningnews.c...er-news/man-utd-liverpool-sadio-mane-15089654

We signed Martial as Mane's replacement apparently. Oh and Mane also seems to be playing in the LW than the right wing.

For what fecking purpose we bought Sanchez I have no idea, but if Perisic is an ambidextrous player capable of playing for Manchester United then so is Alexis Sanchez who can play on both wings but Mourinho chose to use him as a LW and he would have done the same if we had ever bought Perisic.

Mourinho cannot stop moaning about a lack of CB this year and he would have done the same if he had ever deemed the RW as a priority and seeing as he isn't making a big deal out it, it looks like his list didn't have anyone apart from Willian.


Woodward has never acted like a DoF here at all, all he is doing is trying to sign players the managers ask him, the only case he has denied a manager is Mourinho with the CB and he was right in putting his foot on buying bang average players like Yerry Mina(who Mourinho was keen on signing once he knew that Alderweireld and Maguire were impossible to sign).