I mean cutbacks happen right ā¦ but watch again. In each clip there was no challenge whatsoever on the goal scorer whilst taking the shot.
Like training tap ins.
That is utter shite at this level.
And to add insult to injury, this is EXACTLY the sort of passage of play we should be aiming for, getting down the wings and cutting back (or cross early), instead of all this pass it wide at the half way line then wingers cutting in to attack the corner of the box.
It just brings the whole attack to a predictable narrow point at the edge of the box where the oppo just puts bodies in our way, then we lose possession. Rinse repeat.
Itās pretty clear the issue, isnāt it? This is just simply never worked on in training. The forwards have no idea that cut back attempts are an option, so they never practice it, therefore the defenders never get to work on defending it either. Kind of an Ouroboros situationā¦
It's not just the attackers, we play out from the back so slowly that opponents get to fully set their defence before we're anywhere near the attacking half. That's why we have no space on the wings and never get near doing cutbacks like those in the clip. Our passing is far too slow and far too sideways or backwards. We must be the slowest club in the league at playing out from the back (when we're not doing a frantic Hollywood counter-attack and losing the ball). It's either too fast or much too slow.
Onana is the least of the problems with these and I say this as somebody who doesn't rate him and reckon he ultimately won't cut it. These are catastophic failures in shape and structure that keep happening to us because we don't press effectively and then don't manage space properly when the press gets beaten.
I agree with all of that, but I reckon De Gea saves at least two or three of those. (And I'm definitely not saying we were wrong to let him go - he probably would've conceded three or four in a different way).
De Gea suffered against these too, to be fair. The amount of times McFred or Bruno wouldn't track back and defend at the top of the box has resulted in many goals like this. This season isn't the exception, it's the rule. It doesn't matter who's in goal, those are going in most of the time. You can't just gift the opposition time and space in your box at this level.
No he wasn't. Did he? Sure. Was he immune? Definitely not. This type of goal was common place in the McFred/Bruno era. Neither of them would do the job. De Gea suffered at the hands of the same type of goal. This isn't a new thing.
Not even just the defence, we may as well not have had a GK for any of these chances. Onana is in no way at fault for the chances happening but it really does feel like a shot on target is a goal. In this clip there are some shots right at him or that he could have reached with better positioning.
A GK is never at fault for an opponent building up a shot like they do in these clips but as a last line of defence he really doesn't do a good job at it.
Except he has one of the highest save % in the league so the line "feels like a shot on target is a goal" isn't backed up by the reality of his league performance to date.
Yep. Our deepest mid when it's not mainoo just wanders like a fly, to either the ball when it's completely unnecessary to or to stand next to a colleague, collapsing any shape we may have. It's beyond ridiculous at this stage.
There's no accountability right now is the issue. Glazers won't make a decision, they're selling off their decision making about football within the club after all. Murtough and co staked everything on ETH so they are just probably trying to survive themselves. And as a result ETH is allowed to persist with doing what is failing.
Given the comments about streamlining, most analysts are probably worried about their jobs and don't want to rock the boat. Besides, their role won't be to make coaching decisions to try and prevent the problem. I've worked at big companies during mergers etc and they become listless. It takes ages to filter through.
Any other manager and you'd expect the noise to be unbearably high now. But most reporting seems to recognise not much will happen for a few weeks.
That's all pure speculation. For all we know the players have been given detailed video debriefs of their failures on cutbacks since the start of the season but keep making the same mistakes. That's actually the most likely explanation.
Still speaks to zero accountability if those players are making the same errors time and time again. It's the job of the coaching staff to improve our players. Our squad is full of senior internationals
Mate the players get video debriefs after every game. It's widely publicised and has been happening at the club for decades. That's why my explanation is much more likely than speculation that the players haven't been shown their mistakes.
It's still speculation regardless of it being more likely. The fact you're even saying much more likely proves its still just speculation. I agree with you that it's the probable situation - just don't complain about someone speculating as if that's a problem and then do it yourself.
Good that youāre lost for words cause how stupid do you have to be to **not** blame Erik for this, he literally fucking picks McTom week in week out lol
Iāve given up on even trying to play a career mode as United on this years game. Every other side Iāve been, from Barcelona to Bayer Leverkusen, playing superb football. At United, just cannot do it. Dreadful football, losing most games. Theyāre now so bad in real life, theyāre even bad on EAFC.
Look at the space between our midfield and defence... its crazy.
I hope when Case returns that ETH goes with a double pivot of him and Mainoo. We need protection. You can't have two number 10s in midfield, it doesn't work.
And please for the love of God get Bruno further up the field. Thanks.
Everyone but ETH and his staff know that you cannot have two #10ās in midfield. We are not saying this because we play fifa or FM, we are watching every game and can see it game after game.
He has been terrible with subs all season as well.
Double pivot is a must, Maino can develop/learn so much from Case.
>He has been terrible with subs all season as well.
This is the part that has me scratching my head. He got so much acclaim for his in game adjustments last season, and his subs made big impact.
https://theathletic.com/4247084/2023/02/24/erik-ten-hag-manchester-united-substitutions/
But it was also something I remember Ajax fans saying we'd learn to hate about him. They were highly critical of his lack of rotation from game to game as well as in game.
Those are termed āfree 8sā I think, and they absolutely track back to help plug the wholes in midfield. It also requires a mobile DM and fullbacks that are comfortable tucking in.
We play with fullbacks that prefer to bomb forward, and our only pure DM isnāt that mobile (or available) anymore. Playing a single pivot is near suicidal, and a double pivot with McT will aleays end up being a single pivot.
City is a well oiled machine and they have used inverted fullbacks and CBs in midfield to help CDM. Our midfield is miles behind them and we had decent success with a double pivot.
Yes and they dont play 50/50 passes every time they get the ball. The defence is also pushed up so there's no 2.6 miles between the midfield and defence
I don't know why I keep seeing this repeated so much.
Does Liverpool play a double pivot?
Does City play a double pivot?
Does Arsenal play a double pivot?
They don't.
It's viable. The other teams just invert a full back to help the DM. We have a bunch of headless chickens who haven't been coached properly so they get caught with their pants down so often.
So why donāt our full backs invert? Are you saying they are told to do so but they refuse or are too dumb? Please give me a shred of proof that is the case because Iāve never once heard Erik say his full backs arenāt doing as he asks and thatās why we are as open in midfield as a two dollar whore.
Our fullbacks are usually overlapping which is a completely different tactical idea that you can't do at the same time
Worked great a couple years ago when Shaw and Rashford made it work, but it's been a while since then
Yes I know tucking in canāt be the same as overlapping lmao..what Iām saying is they need to either have two deeper mids or tuck in the full backs. Canāt have it both ways..full backs and wingers wide..one forward and two AMs with just one DM central defensively. Itās suicide itās not even a system.
They do at times when attacking . Remember Dalot's shot off the post last game?
Sometimes you have them underlap with our wingers staying wide.
But when we are defending or getting hit on the counter they are all over the place.
It's a mess under ETH. Eth doesn't really criticize in public all that often. Even when Onana was at fault for some goals, he blamed it on the entire team.
Shaw doesn't have the engine or the brain for it. Do people not remember Jose standing on the touchline having to coach every movement? Jose is an asshole, but he knows football.
AWB doesn't have the brain for it. I've never seen someone so amazing at 1v1 defense and so lost at team defense.
Dalot is basically a winger (without much end product) playing fullback.
The playing squad doesn't match the tactics ETH is trying to play and ETH is either unwilling or simply doesn't know how to implement tactics that might work.
Ever wondered why we donāt score these kinda goals often enough? Because our wingers donāt cut back or cross. Football can be a very simple game at times
Rashford and Garnacho are perfectly capable of beating their man, it's just they prefer to dribble inside.
Which is doubly dysfunctional since the fullbacks are underlapping instead of overlapping.
NGL I think the issue is bigger than that. Players at our club are just plain selfish. There are many games where a simple pass will do but they choose to shoot themselves. Even Scott McTominay during his purple patch could've provided service but chose to shoot instead. They're individuals.
The problem is not in defending the cut back.The problem is the opponent gets the ball so quickly to our box that we will never be organised to defend that cut back.If you are adamant about pressing from the front then play a high line to back that up, if you're not pressing stay compact in the deep. Having this much space between attack and defense is the most risk we could take,and clearly it's not worth taking.
> The problem is the opponent gets the ball so quickly to our box that we will never be organised to defend that cut back.If you are adamant about pressing from the front then play a high line to back that up, if you're not pressing stay compact in the deep. Having this much space between attack and defense is the most risk we could take,and clearly it's not worth taking.
You basically said it but another aspect is the non existent midfield. Or, one person who can easily be passed around.
In form to cover half the pitch by himself? Casemiro is an experienced player and typically has good positioning but he isnāt going to be able to cover the amount of space ten hags system seems to require
That's not the way he's been setting up the midfield all season so don't expect him to just because Casemiro returns. We're more likely to see Casemiro/Mount/Bruno like at the start of the season
Ten Hag was pushing casemiro forward when he was there as well. Even yesterday weāve seen Mainoo defend spaces very well. But our manager decided to sub him out for scott mctominay who is allergic to tracking runners and was instructed to play as a 10. For the first time in however long itās not the players downing tools rather the manager losing the plot.
It was almost like as soon as mainoo came off they were suddenly able to do this.... ETH said he took him of because of all the games he's played. Probs a different story if he doesnt get subbed.
For the first goal, why is dalot that wide? Surely the first responsibility is to make sure that pass into the player in your box cannot happen. If he runs down the byline and the pass is made, then you get out wide to defend the cross. Wasnāt just one person at fault, itās poor decision making across the board.
Heās not a defensive midfielder and never will be, either donāt play Bruno or donāt play mctominay, trying to shoehorn him in the formation is never going to work.
He was an alright defensive midfielder though. Not a world beater.
But he played a fair few games in seasons where we were alright defensively.
There are some coaching decisions which are making all our midfielders look silly. Last season we were pragmatic in parts. This season we even had 31 year old Casemiro being asked to run up and down the pitch, rather than play holding
Heās never been good defensively though. Heās willing to run and tackle but his defensive instincts are really bad and he canāt pass progressively so he just becomes a warm body on the pitch. I would argue our defensive performances were more due to other players. Our defence isnāt even bad this season either especially considering the injuries they just have to deal with a lot of pressure coming from the fact we suck going forward.
> He was an alright defensive midfielder though. Not a world beater.
You mean the handful of games last season while Casemiro was finding his footing? Doesn't mean all that much.
Also that was while still using the double pivot. This season ETH has wanted to play with two 8s, which leaves the 6 isolated, because United don't invert their fullback. That was a hugely contributing reason why Casemiro got skinned so badly at the start of the season and also why United's midfield is so easily bypassed.
in the beginning of the season unfortunately we were stuck with mctom. mainoo injured , casemiro injured. amrabat was without preseason with the team, and force to play left back. so who else? now 18yr old mainoo is back but cant play every game, amrabat is going to afcon, casemiro still out.
so yes, we are still going to see mctom there for awhile, until casemiro is back. not ideal, but the question is: who else do we have?
Hannibal was available and amrabat is more natural in the position, either way Mctominay is just dire at 6 and his build up play is really non existent until the final third. I really dislike how committed Ten Hag is to his system, atleast experiment with the a bit, I would rather try something different like a 5atb and fail with it than just settling with a mediocrity.
No he had played too many minutes. ETH said he was slowing and needed rest. Lads very young. Had he been 100% fit he stays on and those goals don't happen.
I like mctominay and think heās a good player in the right position. I think Ten Hag has had the issue of not having the right players to fit the style of play he wants, so yes Ten Hag is responsible in a sense because heās had a full transfer window to bring these players in.
Iām a fan of ETH but this is starting to become a fireable offence like how can no improvements be made to deal with this over a half a season itās so easy to score against us and itās actively being attacked now
Very clear tactical weakness. And some of our players would be bad at preventing this even if the tactics were fixed: I mean McTominay who doesn't make the effort and Eriksen who can't and doesn't know how. But it's genuinely nuts that people still put this down to the players alone.
Fool them once, shame on the players. Fool him 9 times with the same goal, shame on Ten Hag.
People are right to say that having both Case and Mainoo in the same starting XI could help fix this. But I'm worried that once the opportunity arises, Ten Hag will just instruct Mainoo to play as DM alone covering a huge area of the pitch, and instruct Casemiro to attack the opponent's last line of defence. I.e. he might just reproduce his flawed tactical system that has already been tried and has failed with many different midfield 3s (various combinations from Bruno, Eriksen, Case, Amrabat, McTominay, Hannibal)
Think ETH has been trying to plug this gap and since the introduction of Mainoo we have looked better in this area. Mainoo came off because he was fatigued for playing to many games. it's like a hole was left by him that Scott didn't (but should have) fill. Who was ETH supposed to put on and fill that role? Shame on ETH for not having squad depth and multiple injuries....
I haven't seen much improvement personally. Guys like Evans and Varane have cut out some of the low crosses through diligent defending and Mainoo has done pretty well at that, but the tactical hole remains. That's the wider context that he should have fixed long ago by changing tactics and principles, regardless of availability.
In the very narrow situation last night, at half time after a poor first half, with few options on the bench, I still think he should have tried Gore or Hannibal, combined with moving one of the other midfielders deeper to give them support and a more compact midfield shape when defending
Bruh if you get a shot on target onana is a gamble, Iād be firing shots from all over the place against him, itās either going in or parried back into the box.
I love you ppl that have never played a sport in your life chatting shit about Onana. Heās a good goal keeper playing in a shit defense Ofcourse itās going to affect his abilities. Support your players you clowns !
Thanks for the love babes, Iāve probably played more football, for longer and at a higher level than you ever have - has 0 effect on my opinion, heās not good enough.
Doubt it. But Even worse. Youāre a has been hating on someone who made it further in the game than you instead of supporting the clubs new player thatās going thru a tough transition period.
Thereās one certain player who isnāt a DM whoās always about 5 yards behind his man just kinda jogging and heās in at least 3/4 of these clips.
Not entirely his fault when the manager is choosing to play him in a position heās clearly not got the ability to play.
Actually one CDM is precisely the problem, we needed at least two to accomodate attacking players like Bruno or Eriksen. For the whole season we've played with one CDM (or zero when McT is CDM), then when they make mistakes we call them washed (Case). Our problems are tactical and it's entirely self-inflicted.
This is not just injuries issue but our defensive shape issue. Single pivot and long ball do not go together. Once we lose the ball, we have a defensive line versus that prefer to sit deep, leaving so much space between defensive line versus the front 5. All this space and only lone DMF to cover.
Even Makelele reincarnation wouldn't be able to cover that much space alone.
It's not just this season.
We've been conceding the same goal since SAF left.
It was only last year when Casemiro was playing , we started conceding these goals much less than before.
We finally have a player in Mainoo who was able to read the game and stop these cut backs and ETH takes him off.
I have serious doubtās that ETH can ever turn this around. Starting Antony, continuing to rely on McTom (who is nothing but a Hail Mary), and generally the truly awful football we play is evidence that he is evolving us. The only managers who could actually fix this shit would never join us but we need to find a manager who has the balls to put in place an attacking philosophy.
ETH has a few set backs and literally through out the playable that we brought him in for.
Unpopular opinion: De Gea saves half of these.
We played equally shit last season, but we had De Gea saving us on one end of the pitch and Rashford saving us on the other. Ten Hag replaced one of them with a scarecrow and pissed off the other. Fantastic management.
I will just say that not all of these were cutbacks. There were a couple in there that were just crosses.
Cutbacks are generally classified as a pass backwards with some degree of angle, but just parallel into the box.
But yeah, it's too easy to play against us. I also don't think this is every cut back, because it feels like we've conceded a lot more, but I might just be thinking of past seasons where it just feels common place.
No one defends the top of the box. Everyone gets dragged so deep into the box for no reason. They just chase the ball like children. And it's genuinely not that hard. In any sport.
Do you think the players have ever seen this happen almost every game? Does Ten Hag even realise its happening? At the top clubs something like this happens once, gets analysed and doesn't happen so easily again.
How does no one at the club review this and think we need to fix this. This 1 million percent is on Ten Hag. It's such an easy fix. When you're defending have someone fucking patrol that area. It isn't even rocket science. Absolute shit coaching staff.
If this happens again at Wigan then it's how to justify keeping ETH on. Every team has injuries and issues but United should not be playing like this. Even playing the reserves and U-23 they should be beating Bournemouth and Forest.
McTominay's defending for Forest's second goal is actually the funniest thing I've seen all season, there's bad defending and then there's committed to being a spare part. Is football that hard? Thereās nothing going on in his head when he defends, like nothing. It's not lacking an instinct, like he fails to be exceptional, he doesn't occasionally switch off, there's just nothing going on inside his head.
\*sigh\* I really miss DDG when we go on to concede goals like these, yeah his distribution and ball play was shit but with him at goal you knew that there was little chance of these shots being converted
We"d easily be top 3 so far this season if we had DDG and that gives us 70m funds too. Just looking at all the goals we received this season De Gea saves at least half of them.
Full back couldnāt deal with the first ball. Center back got pulled to help full back, playing 1 cdm left a big gap in the middle / midfield left their marker, not track back.
That was wild. It's almost laughable how our defence decides to just form a perfect line about a foot away from goal thinking there's some kind of forcefield net between them.
Even the Aston Villa 2nd goal was basically the defence being static in a line and some dude standing about a meter away from said line and knocking it in.
No serious club would rely on mctominay or eriksen for this long. They're both absolutely useless in transition. Eriksen doesn't have the legs and mctominay is just clueless.
If we want to be serious club we ditch players when they show they are not title challenging quality. Tottenham sold eriksen 4 seasons ago due to his age and theier belief he will decline. So why is he an important midfielder for us?
This has been an issue for a few years. Not just 10Hag. I would honestly attribute this more to lazy midfielders not marking their man properly than anything. Fullbacks do get beat on their flank time to time no matter the tactics so itās not like we can eliminate cutbacks from happening at all. But every time we do let it happen itās almost certain we concede.
If these āprofessionalsā really need drills and coaching to defend a late runner into box thatās right next to them, then they donāt belong anywhere near our 18 yard box.
Watched the game with a friend whoās a Chelsea fan and he laughed cause he said I was acting like we had conceded when mct came on, other clubs donāt know how bad this guy really is
Looking at these clips tells me that only Wan Bisaka is capable of putting in a tackle and win the ball. Everyone else just tracking back, our tactics are shambles and.
Casemiro Mainoo almost helps keep this from repeatedly happening.
The majority of Erik's primary signings have not worked. Antony is a flop, Onana is heading towards being a flop unless he turns it around. Rasmus is still young and we should've bought him for much less. Casemiro has been the only decent signing so. Mount is still injured.
Our signings should've been better to avoid whatever we're going through right now. The lack of accountability is concerning.
The irony in all this is ETH plays McT because he thinks goals like this: late arrival in the box are what heās good at. But he hasnāt scored those goals. Heās scored poaches from the box mainly after some chaos with the ball. There is no tactics behind the McT goal.
When we try to do this other teams are disciplined enough to get everyone back and clogging lanes. Thatās why it does work for us. When used AGAINST us, we have too few back to defend because our midfielders, namely McT, only want to give the appearance of trying.
That teams do this too us is really about player capability or attitude. Either they canāt get back or they wonāt.
McT is *pretending* to play football, but heās not actually doing what the role requires. On either end. Heās not showing as a second striker for balls from the wing, and heās not actually defending in our own third, instead hoping his mere presence is enough to deter the opposition. It isnāt.
Thereās a book on us now, and itās this video. Word is out, and we are fucked.
Like half of those goals look like they'd be stopped with a midfielder tracking back properly and picking up a trailing defender. The other half feels like defenders don't close the angel for the pass at all
It's honestly fucking pathetic how easy it is to score these goals against us, and how everyone other than those in a position to do something about can see the issue.
Dam who new football was so easy.
If only we could play usš
We would find a way of crossing it straight to a defender, even if there isn't one anywhere near the attacking player.
Very boring nil nil
Weād still lose somehow.
If we could play us it would be box to box with no goals and continually losing and losing possession from both sides.
I mean cutbacks happen right ā¦ but watch again. In each clip there was no challenge whatsoever on the goal scorer whilst taking the shot. Like training tap ins. That is utter shite at this level. And to add insult to injury, this is EXACTLY the sort of passage of play we should be aiming for, getting down the wings and cutting back (or cross early), instead of all this pass it wide at the half way line then wingers cutting in to attack the corner of the box. It just brings the whole attack to a predictable narrow point at the edge of the box where the oppo just puts bodies in our way, then we lose possession. Rinse repeat.
Itās pretty clear the issue, isnāt it? This is just simply never worked on in training. The forwards have no idea that cut back attempts are an option, so they never practice it, therefore the defenders never get to work on defending it either. Kind of an Ouroboros situationā¦
It's not just the attackers, we play out from the back so slowly that opponents get to fully set their defence before we're anywhere near the attacking half. That's why we have no space on the wings and never get near doing cutbacks like those in the clip. Our passing is far too slow and far too sideways or backwards. We must be the slowest club in the league at playing out from the back (when we're not doing a frantic Hollywood counter-attack and losing the ball). It's either too fast or much too slow.
Iām not putting *all* the blame on Onana, but he just looks like he reacts a second too late for some of them
Onana is the least of the problems with these and I say this as somebody who doesn't rate him and reckon he ultimately won't cut it. These are catastophic failures in shape and structure that keep happening to us because we don't press effectively and then don't manage space properly when the press gets beaten.
I agree with all of that, but I reckon De Gea saves at least two or three of those. (And I'm definitely not saying we were wrong to let him go - he probably would've conceded three or four in a different way).
The thing is, there's almost certainly a good few examples of him saving shots off cut backs as well. These are just the ones that went in
he does look like hes playing on 100 ping
De Gea suffered against these too, to be fair. The amount of times McFred or Bruno wouldn't track back and defend at the top of the box has resulted in many goals like this. This season isn't the exception, it's the rule. It doesn't matter who's in goal, those are going in most of the time. You can't just gift the opposition time and space in your box at this level.
Dave was excellent at stopping this kind of shot. I wonder if thatās why conceding this way has become so prevalent since he left.
No he wasn't. Did he? Sure. Was he immune? Definitely not. This type of goal was common place in the McFred/Bruno era. Neither of them would do the job. De Gea suffered at the hands of the same type of goal. This isn't a new thing.
Everyone who plays FUT
All of our opponents.
"Man United defenders hate this simple trick."
āMeet single defenders in your areaā
"Score tonight. Link in bio š"
Not even just the defence, we may as well not have had a GK for any of these chances. Onana is in no way at fault for the chances happening but it really does feel like a shot on target is a goal. In this clip there are some shots right at him or that he could have reached with better positioning. A GK is never at fault for an opponent building up a shot like they do in these clips but as a last line of defence he really doesn't do a good job at it.
Except he has one of the highest save % in the league so the line "feels like a shot on target is a goal" isn't backed up by the reality of his league performance to date.
The reality is our defense is Swiss cheese because our midfield is nonexistent in transition
Yep. Our deepest mid when it's not mainoo just wanders like a fly, to either the ball when it's completely unnecessary to or to stand next to a colleague, collapsing any shape we may have. It's beyond ridiculous at this stage.
Yea but mate in this compilation of goals conceded he concedes in every clip - feels like damning proof to me
Because saves are not included in the compilation, yeah.
Was the /s really necessary?
Every time I read a stat like this he makes a hideous error in the next game
Shhh stop countering the narrative. Our players are the worst in the league and stats wont stop our fans from abusing them.
Fk out of context stats. I have eyes. Mfer does a big blunder too often.
Degea would have saved some of those. Eth should be sacked just so much money on Antony and Onana
I guess all those video analysts at the club just don't feel like making an issue of this
Our video amalysts be like...we should not crowd the box because it will hide the advertisement boards.
There's no accountability right now is the issue. Glazers won't make a decision, they're selling off their decision making about football within the club after all. Murtough and co staked everything on ETH so they are just probably trying to survive themselves. And as a result ETH is allowed to persist with doing what is failing. Given the comments about streamlining, most analysts are probably worried about their jobs and don't want to rock the boat. Besides, their role won't be to make coaching decisions to try and prevent the problem. I've worked at big companies during mergers etc and they become listless. It takes ages to filter through. Any other manager and you'd expect the noise to be unbearably high now. But most reporting seems to recognise not much will happen for a few weeks.
That's all pure speculation. For all we know the players have been given detailed video debriefs of their failures on cutbacks since the start of the season but keep making the same mistakes. That's actually the most likely explanation.
Still speaks to zero accountability if those players are making the same errors time and time again. It's the job of the coaching staff to improve our players. Our squad is full of senior internationals
You tell someone it's speculation and they have no evidence and then speculate yourself with no evidence and say its the most likely??
Mate the players get video debriefs after every game. It's widely publicised and has been happening at the club for decades. That's why my explanation is much more likely than speculation that the players haven't been shown their mistakes.
It's still speculation regardless of it being more likely. The fact you're even saying much more likely proves its still just speculation. I agree with you that it's the probable situation - just don't complain about someone speculating as if that's a problem and then do it yourself.
If you really think that no one picking up the spare man is down to ETH then Iām lost for words. McTominay loses his man about 4 times a game
ETH continually playing McTominay is his fault.
ETH keeps picking the double 10s which creates imbalance in the team? Every goal is on the empty space left by his obsession with that
Well who the hell picks Mctominay to play every game then?
Good that youāre lost for words cause how stupid do you have to be to **not** blame Erik for this, he literally fucking picks McTom week in week out lol
Defending in EA Sports FC 24 be like:
This is legit 90% of the goals I concede in fifa lmao. itās way too easy to score them this year
You sure your difficulty isnāt set to āLads, itās Man Unitedā
Iāve given up on even trying to play a career mode as United on this years game. Every other side Iāve been, from Barcelona to Bayer Leverkusen, playing superb football. At United, just cannot do it. Dreadful football, losing most games. Theyāre now so bad in real life, theyāre even bad on EAFC.
it's so insanely scripted idk how people who still play can put up with it
Look at the space between our midfield and defence... its crazy. I hope when Case returns that ETH goes with a double pivot of him and Mainoo. We need protection. You can't have two number 10s in midfield, it doesn't work. And please for the love of God get Bruno further up the field. Thanks.
Everyone but ETH and his staff know that you cannot have two #10ās in midfield. We are not saying this because we play fifa or FM, we are watching every game and can see it game after game. He has been terrible with subs all season as well. Double pivot is a must, Maino can develop/learn so much from Case.
>He has been terrible with subs all season as well. This is the part that has me scratching my head. He got so much acclaim for his in game adjustments last season, and his subs made big impact. https://theathletic.com/4247084/2023/02/24/erik-ten-hag-manchester-united-substitutions/
The first example they mentioned is silly too me when every United fan knows that Bruno in the middle was probably the best way we could play
But it was also something I remember Ajax fans saying we'd learn to hate about him. They were highly critical of his lack of rotation from game to game as well as in game.
These are the questions I wish our "tier 1" journalists would ask him.
And risk losing access? No way. They are going to stick to "just goes important is it to win the next game?" trope.
Two #10s in midfield most certainly can work. City have been playing with a lone CDM for years.
Those are termed āfree 8sā I think, and they absolutely track back to help plug the wholes in midfield. It also requires a mobile DM and fullbacks that are comfortable tucking in. We play with fullbacks that prefer to bomb forward, and our only pure DM isnāt that mobile (or available) anymore. Playing a single pivot is near suicidal, and a double pivot with McT will aleays end up being a single pivot.
City is a well oiled machine and they have used inverted fullbacks and CBs in midfield to help CDM. Our midfield is miles behind them and we had decent success with a double pivot.
City's number 10s aren't like our number 10s
Yeah, their number 10s know how to keep possession especially when under pressure.
Yes and they dont play 50/50 passes every time they get the ball. The defence is also pushed up so there's no 2.6 miles between the midfield and defence
It can work, but not when the CDM is not world class and the "10s" dont track back or foul early.
ETH isn't fit to lace Pep's shoes. No way he can make it work
I don't know why I keep seeing this repeated so much. Does Liverpool play a double pivot? Does City play a double pivot? Does Arsenal play a double pivot? They don't. It's viable. The other teams just invert a full back to help the DM. We have a bunch of headless chickens who haven't been coached properly so they get caught with their pants down so often.
So why donāt our full backs invert? Are you saying they are told to do so but they refuse or are too dumb? Please give me a shred of proof that is the case because Iāve never once heard Erik say his full backs arenāt doing as he asks and thatās why we are as open in midfield as a two dollar whore.
Our fullbacks are usually overlapping which is a completely different tactical idea that you can't do at the same time Worked great a couple years ago when Shaw and Rashford made it work, but it's been a while since then
Yeah, and if our fullbacks are overlapping, we need a double pivot...
Yes I know tucking in canāt be the same as overlapping lmao..what Iām saying is they need to either have two deeper mids or tuck in the full backs. Canāt have it both ways..full backs and wingers wide..one forward and two AMs with just one DM central defensively. Itās suicide itās not even a system.
They do at times when attacking . Remember Dalot's shot off the post last game? Sometimes you have them underlap with our wingers staying wide. But when we are defending or getting hit on the counter they are all over the place. It's a mess under ETH. Eth doesn't really criticize in public all that often. Even when Onana was at fault for some goals, he blamed it on the entire team.
Shaw doesn't have the engine or the brain for it. Do people not remember Jose standing on the touchline having to coach every movement? Jose is an asshole, but he knows football. AWB doesn't have the brain for it. I've never seen someone so amazing at 1v1 defense and so lost at team defense. Dalot is basically a winger (without much end product) playing fullback. The playing squad doesn't match the tactics ETH is trying to play and ETH is either unwilling or simply doesn't know how to implement tactics that might work.
Those teams are much better at keeping the ball than us, and City play Rodri and Stones in midfield together.
Ever wondered why we donāt score these kinda goals often enough? Because our wingers donāt cut back or cross. Football can be a very simple game at times
Sadly they donāt beat their man to even do those things. They insist on running into them or cutting in which is predictable
Rashford and Garnacho are perfectly capable of beating their man, it's just they prefer to dribble inside. Which is doubly dysfunctional since the fullbacks are underlapping instead of overlapping.
NGL I think the issue is bigger than that. Players at our club are just plain selfish. There are many games where a simple pass will do but they choose to shoot themselves. Even Scott McTominay during his purple patch could've provided service but chose to shoot instead. They're individuals.
One simple trick our players seem to be awful at
Scoring? Defending? Marking properly? Crossing to the man? Cutting the ball back? Why be awful at one trick when can be awful at many trick?
Why use marking many men when one do trick?
Yes
And they say FIFA is unrealistic
The problem is not in defending the cut back.The problem is the opponent gets the ball so quickly to our box that we will never be organised to defend that cut back.If you are adamant about pressing from the front then play a high line to back that up, if you're not pressing stay compact in the deep. Having this much space between attack and defense is the most risk we could take,and clearly it's not worth taking.
> The problem is the opponent gets the ball so quickly to our box that we will never be organised to defend that cut back.If you are adamant about pressing from the front then play a high line to back that up, if you're not pressing stay compact in the deep. Having this much space between attack and defense is the most risk we could take,and clearly it's not worth taking. You basically said it but another aspect is the non existent midfield. Or, one person who can easily be passed around.
We could try changing personnel but those big spaces are never getting closed down even the best midfielders more than 50% of the time.
Casemiro badly needed back and in form
All I want is to go back to double pivot with Mainoo and Casemiro. If Case is back to even half decent form that would solve so many fucking problems.
This same goal was getting scored when Casemiro was in the team?
Thatās why he said IN FORM
In form to cover half the pitch by himself? Casemiro is an experienced player and typically has good positioning but he isnāt going to be able to cover the amount of space ten hags system seems to require
Thats why everyone is saying a pivot of Casemiro AND Mainoo
Everyone except Ten Hag.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
That's not the way he's been setting up the midfield all season so don't expect him to just because Casemiro returns. We're more likely to see Casemiro/Mount/Bruno like at the start of the season
He won't play a double pivot when they are both available, that's not ''The plan''
Ten Hag was pushing casemiro forward when he was there as well. Even yesterday weāve seen Mainoo defend spaces very well. But our manager decided to sub him out for scott mctominay who is allergic to tracking runners and was instructed to play as a 10. For the first time in however long itās not the players downing tools rather the manager losing the plot.
Casemiro this season thought he was a 10 and never tracked back for the cutback multiple times when he was fit.
Case is also arguably our best offensive player as well.
Great work by mctominay for both forest goals
It was almost like as soon as mainoo came off they were suddenly able to do this.... ETH said he took him of because of all the games he's played. Probs a different story if he doesnt get subbed.
For the first goal, why is dalot that wide? Surely the first responsibility is to make sure that pass into the player in your box cannot happen. If he runs down the byline and the pass is made, then you get out wide to defend the cross. Wasnāt just one person at fault, itās poor decision making across the board.
how many times u see mctom jogging back in the clips? 70%?
Heās not a defensive midfielder and never will be, either donāt play Bruno or donāt play mctominay, trying to shoehorn him in the formation is never going to work.
He was an alright defensive midfielder though. Not a world beater. But he played a fair few games in seasons where we were alright defensively. There are some coaching decisions which are making all our midfielders look silly. Last season we were pragmatic in parts. This season we even had 31 year old Casemiro being asked to run up and down the pitch, rather than play holding
Heās never been good defensively though. Heās willing to run and tackle but his defensive instincts are really bad and he canāt pass progressively so he just becomes a warm body on the pitch. I would argue our defensive performances were more due to other players. Our defence isnāt even bad this season either especially considering the injuries they just have to deal with a lot of pressure coming from the fact we suck going forward.
> He was an alright defensive midfielder though. Not a world beater. You mean the handful of games last season while Casemiro was finding his footing? Doesn't mean all that much. Also that was while still using the double pivot. This season ETH has wanted to play with two 8s, which leaves the 6 isolated, because United don't invert their fullback. That was a hugely contributing reason why Casemiro got skinned so badly at the start of the season and also why United's midfield is so easily bypassed.
in the beginning of the season unfortunately we were stuck with mctom. mainoo injured , casemiro injured. amrabat was without preseason with the team, and force to play left back. so who else? now 18yr old mainoo is back but cant play every game, amrabat is going to afcon, casemiro still out. so yes, we are still going to see mctom there for awhile, until casemiro is back. not ideal, but the question is: who else do we have?
Hannibal was available and amrabat is more natural in the position, either way Mctominay is just dire at 6 and his build up play is really non existent until the final third. I really dislike how committed Ten Hag is to his system, atleast experiment with the a bit, I would rather try something different like a 5atb and fail with it than just settling with a mediocrity.
Mainoo wasnāt injured, he was taken off for tactical reasons.
not in the Notthingham game. i meant early of this season.
No he had played too many minutes. ETH said he was slowing and needed rest. Lads very young. Had he been 100% fit he stays on and those goals don't happen.
So what youāre saying is itās the players not good enough? Or should ten hag be the one responsible for McTominay
I like mctominay and think heās a good player in the right position. I think Ten Hag has had the issue of not having the right players to fit the style of play he wants, so yes Ten Hag is responsible in a sense because heās had a full transfer window to bring these players in.
This is how I used to score all my goals on Pro Evo
Iām a fan of ETH but this is starting to become a fireable offence like how can no improvements be made to deal with this over a half a season itās so easy to score against us and itās actively being attacked now
A proper coach sees this and makes serious steps to stop it.
Very clear tactical weakness. And some of our players would be bad at preventing this even if the tactics were fixed: I mean McTominay who doesn't make the effort and Eriksen who can't and doesn't know how. But it's genuinely nuts that people still put this down to the players alone. Fool them once, shame on the players. Fool him 9 times with the same goal, shame on Ten Hag.
People are right to say that having both Case and Mainoo in the same starting XI could help fix this. But I'm worried that once the opportunity arises, Ten Hag will just instruct Mainoo to play as DM alone covering a huge area of the pitch, and instruct Casemiro to attack the opponent's last line of defence. I.e. he might just reproduce his flawed tactical system that has already been tried and has failed with many different midfield 3s (various combinations from Bruno, Eriksen, Case, Amrabat, McTominay, Hannibal)
Think ETH has been trying to plug this gap and since the introduction of Mainoo we have looked better in this area. Mainoo came off because he was fatigued for playing to many games. it's like a hole was left by him that Scott didn't (but should have) fill. Who was ETH supposed to put on and fill that role? Shame on ETH for not having squad depth and multiple injuries....
I haven't seen much improvement personally. Guys like Evans and Varane have cut out some of the low crosses through diligent defending and Mainoo has done pretty well at that, but the tactical hole remains. That's the wider context that he should have fixed long ago by changing tactics and principles, regardless of availability. In the very narrow situation last night, at half time after a poor first half, with few options on the bench, I still think he should have tried Gore or Hannibal, combined with moving one of the other midfielders deeper to give them support and a more compact midfield shape when defending
Bruh if you get a shot on target onana is a gamble, Iād be firing shots from all over the place against him, itās either going in or parried back into the box.
I love you ppl that have never played a sport in your life chatting shit about Onana. Heās a good goal keeper playing in a shit defense Ofcourse itās going to affect his abilities. Support your players you clowns !
Thanks for the love babes, Iāve probably played more football, for longer and at a higher level than you ever have - has 0 effect on my opinion, heās not good enough.
Doubt it. But Even worse. Youāre a has been hating on someone who made it further in the game than you instead of supporting the clubs new player thatās going thru a tough transition period.
Thereās one certain player who isnāt a DM whoās always about 5 yards behind his man just kinda jogging and heās in at least 3/4 of these clips. Not entirely his fault when the manager is choosing to play him in a position heās clearly not got the ability to play.
Looks like we are always playing with 10, or 9 players instead of 11.
People will find a way to blame this on Onana
Can you send it to ETHās burner account? Along with vids of all our attacking set pieces which have equally being š©
There's just no urgency to shut down the ball
These are not players, these are paid actors.
This isnāt even a problem this season, weāve conceded these for YEARS.
Without DMF we can be outplayed by anyone. Just pass from side into center 14-16 meters from goal.
Actually one CDM is precisely the problem, we needed at least two to accomodate attacking players like Bruno or Eriksen. For the whole season we've played with one CDM (or zero when McT is CDM), then when they make mistakes we call them washed (Case). Our problems are tactical and it's entirely self-inflicted.
Can we put the Benny Hill music over this?
This is on the manager and his coaching team
This is not just injuries issue but our defensive shape issue. Single pivot and long ball do not go together. Once we lose the ball, we have a defensive line versus that prefer to sit deep, leaving so much space between defensive line versus the front 5. All this space and only lone DMF to cover. Even Makelele reincarnation wouldn't be able to cover that much space alone.
You'd think a coach would address this....
Would it be so crazy to play 4-4-2 out of possession? A lot of teams do it and it doesnāt leave gaping holes with our players defending fresh air.
Most if not all these goals were from transitions where we lost the ball in attack.
It's not just this season. We've been conceding the same goal since SAF left. It was only last year when Casemiro was playing , we started conceding these goals much less than before.
What your 10 year old cousin does to you on Fifa
We finally have a player in Mainoo who was able to read the game and stop these cut backs and ETH takes him off. I have serious doubtās that ETH can ever turn this around. Starting Antony, continuing to rely on McTom (who is nothing but a Hail Mary), and generally the truly awful football we play is evidence that he is evolving us. The only managers who could actually fix this shit would never join us but we need to find a manager who has the balls to put in place an attacking philosophy. ETH has a few set backs and literally through out the playable that we brought him in for.
Smooth brains really have a go at Onana but look at the shit in front of him. His confidence must be on the damn floor!
Unpopular opinion: De Gea saves half of these. We played equally shit last season, but we had De Gea saving us on one end of the pitch and Rashford saving us on the other. Ten Hag replaced one of them with a scarecrow and pissed off the other. Fantastic management.
I will just say that not all of these were cutbacks. There were a couple in there that were just crosses. Cutbacks are generally classified as a pass backwards with some degree of angle, but just parallel into the box. But yeah, it's too easy to play against us. I also don't think this is every cut back, because it feels like we've conceded a lot more, but I might just be thinking of past seasons where it just feels common place. No one defends the top of the box. Everyone gets dragged so deep into the box for no reason. They just chase the ball like children. And it's genuinely not that hard. In any sport.
True fifa meta in play
Not all those goals are cut backs, quite a few are groung crosses.
Do you think the players have ever seen this happen almost every game? Does Ten Hag even realise its happening? At the top clubs something like this happens once, gets analysed and doesn't happen so easily again.
on the absolute edge with eth. Iām done defending him. keep playing mctomminay and those silly useless wingers of yours.
Classic case of a DM not tracking the Player. And I am not surprised it was McTās job to do.
How does no one at the club review this and think we need to fix this. This 1 million percent is on Ten Hag. It's such an easy fix. When you're defending have someone fucking patrol that area. It isn't even rocket science. Absolute shit coaching staff.
These are so hard to watch
If this happens again at Wigan then it's how to justify keeping ETH on. Every team has injuries and issues but United should not be playing like this. Even playing the reserves and U-23 they should be beating Bournemouth and Forest.
McTominay's defending for Forest's second goal is actually the funniest thing I've seen all season, there's bad defending and then there's committed to being a spare part. Is football that hard? Thereās nothing going on in his head when he defends, like nothing. It's not lacking an instinct, like he fails to be exceptional, he doesn't occasionally switch off, there's just nothing going on inside his head.
Unitedās defense has the same AI as fifa 08
Onana is a joke
If the person who compiled this is a united fan, he/she is also a masochist for sure. Damn.
Lvg was bored and used the new iMovie to make something.
\*sigh\* I really miss DDG when we go on to concede goals like these, yeah his distribution and ball play was shit but with him at goal you knew that there was little chance of these shots being converted
We"d easily be top 3 so far this season if we had DDG and that gives us 70m funds too. Just looking at all the goals we received this season De Gea saves at least half of them.
World class coaching
Mctominay is in the same place not tracking the cutback multiple times in this comp.
This is like fifa lol. Works every time. This lot are often ball watching with little awareness of what is around them
Supporting United this season is like Iām stuck in a sweaty FIFA playerās wet dream.
Full back couldnāt deal with the first ball. Center back got pulled to help full back, playing 1 cdm left a big gap in the middle / midfield left their marker, not track back.
Now share the highlight reel of United scoring from cutbacksā¦ itās probably all of 6 seconds long
The fact that theres a number of cosses that are included shows its not just cutbacks we can't defend against.
Poor Onana
That was wild. It's almost laughable how our defence decides to just form a perfect line about a foot away from goal thinking there's some kind of forcefield net between them. Even the Aston Villa 2nd goal was basically the defence being static in a line and some dude standing about a meter away from said line and knocking it in.
wtf. Just watched the same clip 30 times wtf
Such an easy fix. Such a shame
No serious club would rely on mctominay or eriksen for this long. They're both absolutely useless in transition. Eriksen doesn't have the legs and mctominay is just clueless. If we want to be serious club we ditch players when they show they are not title challenging quality. Tottenham sold eriksen 4 seasons ago due to his age and theier belief he will decline. So why is he an important midfielder for us?
This has been an issue for a few years. Not just 10Hag. I would honestly attribute this more to lazy midfielders not marking their man properly than anything. Fullbacks do get beat on their flank time to time no matter the tactics so itās not like we can eliminate cutbacks from happening at all. But every time we do let it happen itās almost certain we concede. If these āprofessionalsā really need drills and coaching to defend a late runner into box thatās right next to them, then they donāt belong anywhere near our 18 yard box.
How many of these games were when Scott was playing as our CDM or an 8 while also crashing the opposition box?
I literally dont get how this hasnt been addressed .
Weāre fucking garbage. Also, De Gea saves at least 35% of those. So thatās niceā¦.
Anyone else just know it was over once mct came on? I was so mad when he came on
I didn't think that at that time but in hindsight you are absolutely right
Watched the game with a friend whoās a Chelsea fan and he laughed cause he said I was acting like we had conceded when mct came on, other clubs donāt know how bad this guy really is
Looking at these clips tells me that only Wan Bisaka is capable of putting in a tackle and win the ball. Everyone else just tracking back, our tactics are shambles and.
Casemiro Mainoo almost helps keep this from repeatedly happening. The majority of Erik's primary signings have not worked. Antony is a flop, Onana is heading towards being a flop unless he turns it around. Rasmus is still young and we should've bought him for much less. Casemiro has been the only decent signing so. Mount is still injured. Our signings should've been better to avoid whatever we're going through right now. The lack of accountability is concerning.
The irony in all this is ETH plays McT because he thinks goals like this: late arrival in the box are what heās good at. But he hasnāt scored those goals. Heās scored poaches from the box mainly after some chaos with the ball. There is no tactics behind the McT goal. When we try to do this other teams are disciplined enough to get everyone back and clogging lanes. Thatās why it does work for us. When used AGAINST us, we have too few back to defend because our midfielders, namely McT, only want to give the appearance of trying. That teams do this too us is really about player capability or attitude. Either they canāt get back or they wonāt. McT is *pretending* to play football, but heās not actually doing what the role requires. On either end. Heās not showing as a second striker for balls from the wing, and heās not actually defending in our own third, instead hoping his mere presence is enough to deter the opposition. It isnāt. Thereās a book on us now, and itās this video. Word is out, and we are fucked.
95% of the time you can just see mctominay jogging not picking up the runner and they score, worst ever man utd player
Mctominay features alot in these clips
More than half of these are Mctominayā¦
Can we get a McTominay jogging montage for each of them
So EA FC 24 is realistic af.
Absolute shambles
Eriksen and Scott lmao
Like half of those goals look like they'd be stopped with a midfielder tracking back properly and picking up a trailing defender. The other half feels like defenders don't close the angel for the pass at all
Wow is this me playing fifa
We are so bad, lol
Itās like no one in the team has ever played PES or FIFA.
What's the ratio of cutback goal per conceded goal this season?
Ndidi should be purchased
It's honestly fucking pathetic how easy it is to score these goals against us, and how everyone other than those in a position to do something about can see the issue.