We are an awfully coached team

[Champ]

It was a wicked deflection because he his kick was badly directed. Are you happy having our CB dragged out to the touchline because it has been happening for a while. That our left was getting overloaded. Our DM leaving his man in the centre just outside the box?
As for the set piece specialist, so far it's not been working. It may work given time but we all can see the corners were for Maguire. It's on the match day thread too.
Ole as a manager is good. His coaching staff so far has not been top class. It's three years now they have been at United. With the players we have we should be winning a trophy.

We were a spot kick away from winning a trophy last season, it's not like we are a million miles away.
You can't win a trophy 5 games into the season also, so pointless moaning about coaching now is it not?

Hypothetical situation:

What will happen if we carry on playing the same way yet win the league? Will that be down to good coaching??

 

[Amarsdd]

We were a spot kick away from winning a trophy last season, it's not like we are a million miles away.
You can't win a trophy 5 games into the season also, so pointless moaning about coaching now is it not?

Hypothetical situation:

What will happen if we carry on playing the same way yet win the league? Will that be down to good coaching??

Individual brilliance, good vibes, astonishing luck, other teams being shit etc etc

 

[ivaldo]

It was a wicked deflection because he his kick was badly directed. Are you happy having our CB dragged out to the touchline because it has been happening for a while. That our left was getting overloaded. Our DM leaving his man in the centre just outside the box?
As for the set piece specialist, so far it's not been working. It may work given time but we all can see the corners were for Maguire. It's on the match day thread too.
Ole as a manager is good. His coaching staff so far has not been top class. It's three years now they have been at United. With the players we have we should be winning a trophy.

Its incredible then, that with so many bad things happening all at once, West Ham weren't even able to work the ball into the box...

Fine. That's not working yet. We have, however scored 50% more goals than any other team from open play so far. So would you say our attacking coaches are doing a better job than any other in the league? Liverpool by comparison have scored as many goals from set plays ( 6) as they have from open play. Chelsea are having significantly more percentage of their possession in their own 3rd, meaning they're struggling to work in the final 3rd. Were also, statistically, the most balanced team in the league in terms of what side we attack down. We aren't relying on any on section of the pitch to create. I think if we're going to make these claims about coaching then we need to be consistent.

 

[VanDeBank]

We have carved open City at Etihad when they were looking unstoppable. It's more down to consistency and concentration when it's not a showpiece match that is lacking.

Carved open? Mate, they created loads of chances and could easily have scored 5 on another day. The score doesn't reflect how the game went.

 

[King Azaz the Unabridged]

We have, however scored 50% more goals than any other team from open play so far

From a tiny sample of games, further skewed by the fact that everyone's played different opposition, so I wouldn't rely on this as evidence of anything.

If we're still ahead of everyone else at the end of the season, then yes, the poor-coaching argument looks ... questionable at best

 

[Verminator]

It was a wicked deflection because he his kick was badly directed. Are you happy having our CB dragged out to the touchline because it has been happening for a while. That our left was getting overloaded. Our DM leaving his man in the centre just outside the box?
As for the set piece specialist, so far it's not been working. It may work given time but we all can see the corners were for Maguire. It's on the match day thread too.
Ole as a manager is good. His coaching staff so far has not been top class. It's three years now they have been at United. With the players we have we should be winning a trophy.

We have had very little chance to devote time to specialised training. Fixture congestion, Euros, international breaks, they all eat up time. This season especially so.

What trophy should we win in September?

 

[ivaldo]

From a tiny sample of games, further skewed by the fact that everyone's played different opposition, so I wouldn't rely on this as evidence of anything.

If we're still ahead of everyone else at the end of the season, then yes, the poor-coaching argument looks ... questionable at best

That goes both ways though. For now, things are looking very promising, and the accusations of poor coaching are at direction odds of how we performed compared to other teams.

 

[Dve]

I think he doesn't need you to explain it for him, especially if you can't keep the emotions out of discussion.

Oh, to state that you have no clue about what´s going on in training is hardly an emotion. And whether he needed my help our not, you seemingly needed to have it explained to you. But my pleasure, really, so you don´t need to say "thanks".

 

[Borys]

Curious as to what you mean by that, and what it is, specifically, you'd want improving. For me, we've undeniably improved the way we play. We're more assertive, our fullbacks are far more impactful, we have plenty of movement in behind, we aren't nearly as reliant on counter attacking. As a rule, the goals we've conceded have tended to come from a horrendous piece of misfortune, or individual error.

I am not sure in which period of time you're claiming those improvements (so I'm not disagreeing), but my short answer is since Bruno came here, we've improved our game slightly. We've improved massively on players, that's why you see Varane clearing headers that could cause Lindelof a problem, and on the other end Ronaldo/Greenwood is finishing chances that last season Martial and Rashford would've missed. That's the improvement I see. But in terms of team play, we still move the ball slow, players receiving the pass need to take a good look around to see what options they have and quite often they don't have any, and our midfield still seems to be functional only if McTominay and Fred play there.

A lot of people seem to get very nervous about this coaching issue because we're getting good results, but I also see we've been quite lucky recently and unfortunately I don't expect that to be a trend. Same as last year we had some bad luck with finishing, although we played some good stuff too and created good chances. That's why I don't see much improvement in terms of general play, we're pretty much on the same level as we were end of 19/20 and starting 20/21.

This squad of players has great potential which we're not using correctly due to our coaching limitations. This should not be an issue against West Hams of the world, but my prediction is we'll struggle massively against any top team. Right now we seem to struggle quite a bit against any team that isn't either playing careless football or totally giving up on pressing our midfield.

 

[Borys]

Oh, to state that you have no clue about what´s going on in training is hardly an emotion. And whether he needed my help our not, you seemingly needed to have it explained to you. But my pleasure, really, so you don´t need to say "thanks".

If you believe some random tweets will tell you what's happening in the club and in coaching sessions, then you don't need to watch our games - somebody else will tell you what to think.

 

[Flytan]

We have had very little chance to devote time to specialised training. Fixture congestion, Euros, international breaks, they all eat up time. This season especially so.

What trophy should we win in September?

So does every team. I swear the excuses Ole gets like other managers don't deal with them too.

 

[Verminator]

So does every team. I swear the excuses Ole gets like other managers don't deal with them too.

Klopp and Pep have had a settled side for a few years. They have not been in the process of a squad overhaul.
I swear that people hold our manager to different standards, deliberately.

 

[cyberman]

Carved open? Mate, they created loads of chances and could easily have scored 5 on another day. The score doesn't reflect how the game went.

The Etihad game last year? We dominated that game? They couldn’t get near us and it was hilarious

 

[Flytan]

Klopp and Pep have had a settled side for a few years. They have not been in the process of a squad overhaul.
I swear that people hold our manager to different standards, deliberately.

Pep won things his whole managerial career, so yes, of course he gets the benefit of the doubt when he has a few mishaps.
Klopp came into Liverpool and showed signs of improving almost immediately and then won a title a few years later. Of course he get's a few excuses
Ole came in after relegating Cardiff and managing in Norway. He's come here and not won anything and shows that he doesn't learn from his mistakes my making the same ones over and over again. We've spent more money than anyone else and people still complain we're missing players. He's put up HORRIBLE performances tactically in big knockout games.

Of course we hold him to a different standard. He hasn't earned the right to make mistakes like the other two.

 

[Verminator]

Pep won things his whole managerial career, so yes, of course he gets the benefit of the doubt when he has a few mishaps.
Klopp came into Liverpool and showed signs of improving almost immediately and then won a title a few years later. Of course he get's a few excuses
Ole came in after relegating Cardiff and managing in Norway. He's come here and not won anything and shows that he doesn't learn from his mistakes my making the same ones over and over again. We've spent more money than anyone else and people still complain we're missing players. He's put up HORRIBLE performances tactically in big knockout games.

Of course we hold him to a different standard. He hasn't earned the right to make mistakes like the other two.

Why mention Cardiff? Not ignoring it happened, but it was a broken club that nobody could have saved. He should never have taken that job.

This is his first big club, and he has improved it, year on year.
Trajectory cannot be ignored.

He has also pulled off some tactical masterclasses. Pep must be sick of the sight of him.

 

[Dve]

If you believe some random tweets will tell you what's happening in the club and in coaching sessions, then you don't need to watch our games - somebody else will tell you what to think.

Oh, I´ll still watch the games. And if any of them leaves me with any questions about the coaching, I have faith you will be kind enough to share the answers with me.

 

[VanDeBank]

The Etihad game last year? We dominated that game? They couldn’t get near us and it was hilarious

The one where Martial won a pen that Bruno buried and then Shaw scored a goal? Yeah not what happened, it was an "ugly" win.

 

[Flytan]

Why mention Cardiff? Not ignoring it happened, but it was a broken club that nobody could have saved. He should never have taken that job.

This is his first big club, and he has improved it, year on year.
Trajectory cannot be ignored.

He has also pulled off some tactical masterclasses. Pep must be sick of the sight of him.

Why would I mention Cardiff? What are we just going to ignore part of his history? The team was made worse after his appointment. Just because it's a difficult situation doesn't excuse his failure.
Trajectory can't be ignored, but lack of trophies can't either. Finishing second by 15 points isn't better than 4th and a Europa League victory. He has to win eventually instead of just shitting the bed every time he has expectations to win. We've also invested more than pretty much any club except City/Chelsea so being worse than Liverpool etc is unacceptable.

Yes he has, good for him. Pep won trophies in those seasons though, we didn't. So I doubt Pep even thinks about him.

 

[ivaldo]

I am not sure in which period of time you're claiming those improvements (so I'm not disagreeing), but my short answer is since Bruno came here, we've improved our game slightly. We've improved massively on players, that's why you see Varane clearing headers that could cause Lindelof a problem, and on the other end Ronaldo/Greenwood is finishing chances that last season Martial and Rashford would've missed. That's the improvement I see. But in terms of team play, we still move the ball slow, players receiving the pass need to take a good look around to see what options they have and quite often they don't have any, and our midfield still seems to be functional only if McTominay and Fred play there.

A lot of people seem to get very nervous about this coaching issue because we're getting good results, but I also see we've been quite lucky recently and unfortunately I don't expect that to be a trend. Same as last year we had some bad luck with finishing, although we played some good stuff too and created good chances. That's why I don't see much improvement in terms of general play, we're pretty much on the same level as we were end of 19/20 and starting 20/21.

This squad of players has great potential which we're not using correctly due to our coaching limitations. This should not be an issue against West Hams of the world, but my prediction is we'll struggle massively against any top team. Right now we seem to struggle quite a bit against any team that isn't either playing careless football or totally giving up on pressing our midfield.

I'm not seeing that at all. We move the ball pretty quickly, and that's reflected in the stats so far this season, in terms of where we've had the ball, how many short passes are being played, possession etc. We're also scoring more goals from open play compared to other teams. Just look at the second penalty claim against WH. Fluid, one touch football. We've been seeing flicks, one-twos and no look passes from the likes of Ronaldo and Bruno. None of it adds up to struggling for options or moving the ball slowly.

Lucky? We've been anything but lucky. 2 clear penalties turned down, conceding from 2 wild deflections, one being an own goal.

And this is the crux of it. When we ask specifically what needs to be done by the coaches, no one ever really has an answer. It's 'patterns,' or ' we need to move the ball quicker,' something vague. But when we actually supply stats that show that to be untrue, we pivot and start again. I wonder how much of Chelsea, City and Liverpool people actually watch. Imagine if we were dominated in the first half like Chelsea were by Spurs, or if we had a penalty outlandishly overturned in our favour to scrape a draw like City did against Southampton, or if we relied as heavily on set pieces and long balls as Liverpool have. Imagine if we capitulated like Liverpool did last season when we had a couple of first team players out. Does this demonstrate serious coaching issues in all those teams, or is that forgotten about.

When we are in a new season, and everything is currently in our favour, complaints about awful coaching should be left well alone. It's not adding up.

 

[King Azaz the Unabridged]

We've also invested more than pretty much any club except City/Chelsea so being worse than Liverpool etc is unacceptable.

Only if we were on equal footing with Liverpool before said investment, which we clearly weren't.

 

[ivaldo]

So does every team. I swear the excuses Ole gets like other managers don't deal with them too.

And we've scored the most goals in the league, most goals in open play, and we've level on points with first. You're going to have to try harder.

 

[cyberman]

The one where Martial won a pen that Bruno buried and then Shaw scored a goal? Yeah not what happened, it was an "ugly" win.

No, we dominated them and were far the better side

 

[ivaldo]

Only if we were on equal footing with Liverpool before said investment, which we clearly weren't.

Yeah that Liverpool that capitulated when their best player was out. We're the only ones that rely on individual talent though...

 

[Flytan]

Only if we were on equal footing with Liverpool before said investment, which we clearly weren't.

Yes, I'm referring to the last few seasons. We should always be ahead of them now. Our squad and investment is far superior. The only thing worse is our manager.

 

[JG3001]

We were a spot kick away from winning a trophy last season, it's not like we are a million miles away.
You can't win a trophy 5 games into the season also, so pointless moaning about coaching now is it not?

Hypothetical situation:

What will happen if we carry on playing the same way yet win the league? Will that be down to good coaching??

The point is that final should not have gone to a final spot kick, call it arrogance, call it disrespectful, but we should not have been playing for penalties against a team that finished 7th in La Liga, at least, if we’re as good as some claim us to be.

Contrary to all the antagonism and hypotheticals on here, if it gets us the league this year, myself and many others will shut up and get behind the coach, at least for the next season anyway.

However, we can only go by evidence on previous seasons at the moment. That is to say, it will take us so far (comfortable at the business end), but not get us over the final hurdle.

 

[King Azaz the Unabridged]

And this is the crux of it. When we ask specifically what needs to be done by the coaches, no one ever really has an answer. It's 'patterns,' or ' we need to move the ball quicker,' something vague. But when we actually supply stats that show that to be untrue, we pivot and start again.

What stats show it to be untrue, though?

My problem with our coaching has been the same for the last three managers now - we just don't create enough chances over the season, which means we don't win enough games.

A passing glance at the last few seasons tells me we were 4th in the league in xG last season (more reliable than just looking at the goals column - especially when 15 of your 73 goals came in 2 out of 38 games), 5th the season before that*, 3rd in 18/19, 5th in 17/18. And the actual numbers have hovered in the 60s pretty much the entire time, which is never going to get us to league-winning levels. That's what needs to be improved, especially with all the firepower we've now accumulated.

* I can accept this one because that was the one season since Fergie retired that we didn't have a top-four level squad going into the season. But the fact that we barely improved this number in 2020/21 despite having Fernandes and Pogba (and Shaw 2.0) for the full season reinforces what Borys is saying. We've improved the squad without necessarily playing much better.

Yes, I'm referring to the last few seasons. We should always be ahead of them now.

But how many is "last few"? We were actually ahead of them last season. They had the best squad in the league the season before that, and nobody in their right mind expected us to be ahead of them.

Sounds like there's no problem unless we go on to finish miles behind them this season.

 

[ivaldo]

What stats show it to be untrue, though?

My problem with our coaching has been the same for the last three managers now - we just don't create enough chances over the season, which means we don't win enough games.

A passing glance at the last few seasons tells me we were 4th in the league in xG last season (more reliable than just looking at the goals column - especially when 15 of your 73 goals came in 2 out of 38 games), 5th the season before that, 3rd in 18/19, 5th in 17/18. And the actual numbers have hovered in the 60s pretty much the entire time, which is never going to get us to league-winning levels. That's what needs to be improved, especially with all the firepower we've now accumulated.

Possession, territory, short passing, goals from open play; it all looks very favourable so far. If we were dallying on the ball and struggling for options we wouldn't have significantly less of the ball in our own third compared to Chelsea, for example, or we wouldn't be playing markedly less long balls compared to Liverpool.

Pogba currently leads the assists charts. Only 8 players have created 3 or more 'big' chances so far this season. Shaw has created 3 and Bruno 4. The only other player to create 4 is TAA. As Liverpool has scored half of their 12 goals from set pieces, it's likely Bruno has created more from open play. While I accept the criticisms made about xG, I'd add a caveat in that almost every fan believed we needed more creative players, and now we have that.

 

[King Azaz the Unabridged]

I'd be looking for a new club if i was Hannibal or Elanga

And, almost in a direct attempt to illustrate what I was saying a few posts earlier about the need to separate legitimate criticism of the coaching from Twitter babble, in comes Dunk the Lunk to disrupt a perfectly reasonable sequence of posts in order to scream about how Solskjaer - who has improved literally all of our young players in his time here and handled their game time near-immaculately - is too much of a "coward" to toss an 18-year-old with 9 minutes of senior football to date straight into the center of midfield against Premier League opposition.

Read your post back. And really think about it.

 

[Sean_RedDevil]

So many crosses for who

 

[The Hilton]

Carved open? Mate, they created loads of chances and could easily have scored 5 on another day. The score doesn't reflect how the game went.

The one where Martial won a pen that Bruno buried and then Shaw scored a goal? Yeah not what happened, it was an "ugly" win.

There's no pleasing some people. City away last season we were by far the better team, and dominated them for most of the match, featuring Martial's best performance of the season (not a high bar, but he was brilliant).

 

[Dembeza]

Would playing a 433 help with having more control of the game?

 

[sullydnl]

A passing glance at the last few seasons tells me we were 4th in the league in xG last season (more reliable than just looking at the goals column - especially when 15 of your 73 goals came in 2 out of 38 games), 5th the season before that*, 3rd in 18/19, 5th in 17/18. And the actual numbers have hovered in the 60s pretty much the entire time, which is never going to get us to league-winning levels. That's what needs to be improved, especially with all the firepower we've now accumulated.

Looking beyond specific instances of bad play (which tbf rely on subjective opinion to a large extent), this is where I'd want to see improvement too. If those underlying expected stats showed our ability to create and restrict chances improving significantly then I'd have fewer concerns about how we function systematically.

Looking at last season's xG stats for example, Man City's xG difference was +42.0, Chelsea's was +31.2, ours was +18.0. That's quite a gap.

And while xG isn't everything (as Brighton proved last season), I'd feel more confident if our underlying numbers were trending on par with those of our rivals.

 

[Flytan]

I don't understand our goal in this game. We're crossing everything into the box despite not having anyone who can score from a header. We came out flat AGAIN (we come out flat every single game under Ole). I don't even think we're playing that badly but we have no one who can finish and our typical poor start fecked us.

 

[VanDeBank]

There's no pleasing some people. City away last season we were by far the better team, and dominated them for most of the match, featuring Martial's best performance of the season (not a high bar, but he was brilliant).

No need for that, I was just as happy as anybody we won, but you understand the result of the game doesn't always indicate who was the better team? We were not better against Wolves, yet we won. Young Boys wasn't better than us, we deserved a draw, etc. You're deluding yourself if you think we dominated. Probably because you were happy, but it's still deluded. We barely saw the ball and they created loads.

 

[King Azaz the Unabridged]

You're deluding yourself if you think we dominated. Probably because you were happy, but it's still deluded.

Since we're talking about xG a few posts above, this is another good use for it - a way to assess how both teams performed in a game without relying on the scoreline.

Understat tells me the numbers for this game were 2.11 for us and 1.28 for City. So we obviously didn't dominate, but I don't think it's fair to say the other person is deluded after claiming City "could easily have scored 5".

 

[Schmeichel's Cartwheel]

There's no pleasing some people. City away last season we were by far the better team, and dominated them for most of the match, featuring Martial's best performance of the season (not a high bar, but he was brilliant).

We’re Manchester United & we haven’t won a trophy since May 2017.

“there’s no pleasing some people”

 

[The Hilton]

No need for that, I was just as happy as anybody we won, but you understand the result of the game doesn't always indicate who was the better team? We were not better against Wolves, yet we won. Young Boys wasn't better than us, we deserved a draw, etc. You're deluding yourself if you think we dominated. Probably because you were happy, but it's still deluded. We barely saw the ball, they created loads and were unlucky to score so little.

The irony of you saying there's no need for that, and then using the word "deluded" a bunch of times. I'm not talking about Wolves, or Young Boys, and I'm not deluding myself at all.

We were by far the better team, City had more possession obviously but we created the much better chances, as evidenced by us finishing the match with an xG of around double theirs. Maybe in your giddiness you remembered a bunch of chances they didn't have? Or mixed it up with previous visits to the Etihad where they've created more?

 

[The Hilton]

We’re Manchester United & we haven’t won a trophy since May 2017.

“there’s no pleasing some people”

Haha that's totally out of context and you know it. I'm referring specifically to our best performance away to City since they started existing in 2008, that another poster is trying to downplay to suit their agenda. I'm not debating the thread title, but if you couldn't enjoy us outplaying City on their own turf, as a United fan, then there really is no pleasing you.

 

[The Hilton]

Since we're talking about xG a few posts above, this is another good use for it - a way to assess how both teams performed in a game without relying on the scoreline.

Understat tells me the numbers for this game were 2.11 for us and 1.28 for City. So we obviously didn't dominate, but I don't think it's fair to say the other person is deluded after claiming City "could easily have scored 5".

Have a look more into the "chances" City had to accumulate that xG, they're all really low percentage efforts. They only had 1 chance that was above 0.1 xG, compared to our 4. We created by far the better chances, and limited them to speculative efforts.

 

[thesheriffjw]

You dont score goals with no movement

Martial might aswell be made of concrete. Stiff and in one place

He is awful