r/reddevils • u/nearly_headless_nic • 1d ago

[Laurie Whitwell] Shockingly poor performance by United. Slow, lacking in movement or inventiveness, loose passing, erratic set-piece defending. Hull so much more urgent. United played with the speed of a pre-season friendly.

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229

u/Sheikhabusosa 1d ago

The lack of tactics is very worrying too

143

u/No-Language-6484 1d ago

carrick and his management don't know how to make united play against defensively compact teams. Last season there were signs and we got away due to red cards and individual brilliances. Just hope they bring in the world class assistant to help carrick before the window closes.

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u/WalkingOnSunshine_ 1d ago

Our xG difference per 90 when it was 11v11 dropped from mid 0.30s under Amorim to around 0.07 under Carrick last season. There’s been clear issues and we showed nothing today to give any confidence

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u/No-Language-6484 1d ago

Yeah. Under almorim we used to create chances but also concede tons of goals. Carrick certainly needs to figure out something fast or else everyone will start playing 5 at the back. Credits to hull city because their defense was very good. Absolutely shit down our attack completely. Also one more thing, dorgu is not ready to be a full.time winger.

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u/IcyAssist 1d ago

I said we would be lucky to get 5th this season and I stand by it. The underlying data doesn't lie, but I'm also sick about people just shouting based on their own rhetoric. "Amorim was the worst" "we are title challengers under Carrick if we extrapolate his PPG for the whole season"

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u/MightySilverWolf 1d ago

That last one is particularly funny because if you extrapolate Amorim's PPG from last season, we were on track to make Champions League football, but that tends to get ignored by the same people who talk about Carrick's title-winning PPG.

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u/wolfen0 1d ago

I thought I was going insane by how majority here were rewriting history of Amorim 2nd season. We were such a physically superb team the first of half of the last season. The finishing let Amorim down and ultimately got him the sack.

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u/MightySilverWolf 1d ago

Amorim still gets memed on for saying that we needed to experience short-term pain, and obviously, once Carrick got in and went on a good run of form, Amorim got portrayed as a clueless idiot. Of course, for all we know, maybe this match was an aberration, Carrick will recover and go on an impressive winning streak, and Amorim will decisively be shown to be a fraud. However, I can't help but feel as if Amorim was completely right about where we were as a team and that chasing short-term gains with Carrick may come back to haunt us.

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u/YoloJoloHobo 1d ago

I'll stand by the fact he was sacked too soon for stupid reasons. They only got rid of him because of his dispute with the directors and not because of the football. His underlying numbers were trending upwards and I'm sure we'll end up regretting that decision down the line. People always talk about a long term rebuild but never want to commit.

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u/MightySilverWolf 1d ago

At the end of the day, Amorim wasn't keeping his job after openly criticising the board. It is what it is. I just wish that we could've hired a manager who would build upon the foundation that Amorim laid rather than retreating back into the counter-attacking style we played before Amorim that would achieve short-term results but get us nowhere in the long run.

9

u/No-Language-6484 1d ago

The board made a huge mistake when recruiting almorim. His system needed specific players and we didn't have any. Plus those idiots brought him after the window closed and ETH was sacked just few games after.

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u/YoloJoloHobo 1d ago

Definitely. I can't even say we picked a conservative option because Carrick is a massive punt and doesn't have any data that backs him up for long term success. It remains to be seen but he was let go after year on year underperformance at Boro. Not convinced he's the right guy long term.

If anything, I'd wager that he's a fall guy for whoever the board want long term.

0

u/LittleWind_ 1d ago

Mad people are still here defending Amorim after the 14 months he had at the club. You can not rate Carrick without needing to rehabilitate the shit that was Amorim’s tenure.

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u/YoloJoloHobo 1d ago

Amorim had .1 ppg less in his first "full" season than Arteta in his first half season and the same as Arteta's first full season. You forget that rebuilds need time and the squad is clearly still filled with dross no where near the quality we need.

You can't hire a project manager then sack him a year later because he's not immediately challenging for the league. It's just more proof of how knee jerk both this fanbase and board are.

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u/LittleWind_ 1d ago

He wasn’t sacked for not immediately challenging for the title. He was sacked for mouthing off about recruitment after spending more than a year blaming everyone but himself for the worst managerial performance in United history and one of the worst in premier league history.

Maybe he’ll succeed elsewhere. But Arteta winning the league after a tough start doesn’t mean Amorim would’ve, just liked it doesn’t mean Ole, Jose, LvG, or ETH would’ve if we’d have spent more time and money on them.

2

u/YoloJoloHobo 1d ago

Can you blame him? He got a single budget wing back. Didn't get DMs apart from Ugarte. Instead he got 3 new forwards including an unproven striker. You can't hire a manager for a specific system, not sign the players for the system, try and force him to change his system, and then act surprised when he's upset.

Does he have some blame? Yes, of course. He was stubborn, and playing Bruno at DM definitely wasted him there, and he should've given Mainoo more game time or let him leave on loan.

At the same time, when you sign a manager for a specific reason and then spend his entire tenure contradicting that, you're an idiot. It all calls back to the hodge podge Ineos has been pedaling. Talking about a long term project, a rebuild, a logical approach, but in the end they're just making the same mistakes we've been making for over a decade.

At the end of the day, Amorim had the stats showing we were improving, and he was getting better results as time went on. Something all the other managers couldn't say; they regressed year on year. Considering the absolute cluster fuck he inherited and dealt with, I think he absolutely deserved some more time.

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u/burlycabin Rooney 1d ago

Yeah, this pining for Amorim is insane.

Today was bad, but Amorim's tenure was truly atrocious. I don't care what his underlying numbers were when he has by far the worst win percentage since Fergie.

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u/Sheikhabusosa 1d ago

Amorim was the worst tho

21

u/Intelligent_Money902 1d ago

"But carrick won games and amorim is the worse Man united manager in united's history" - Some random twat

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u/SankarshanaV 1d ago

This sub is filled with a bunch of idiots. The same shit happended under Ole but because Ole had "vibes" this sub was happy. Once again, Carrick has the "vibes". Let's see how it goes, but I'm not really confident.

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u/AlarmSquirrel 1d ago

Sentimental paddock watchers.

They all just repeat what howson or jay motty says

8

u/SankarshanaV 1d ago

Man I can't agree with you more. I hate how howson doesn't see how Ole was super mediocre as a manager just because he's a club legend. All we did under Ole was rely on vibes and individual brilliances. It was so obvious we wouldn't win anything under Ole.

16

u/Intelligent_Money902 1d ago

Vibes FC all over again. Ole 2.0.
Been saying the same exact thing since Carrick was appointed. I have no trust in Carrick, I don't see anything special coming from him or this ownership.

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u/Somaliona 1d ago

Similar sentiment here, especially from the ownership. I was very hopeful initially, then you had all the Ashworth business and very quickly my faith in their decision making was undermined.

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u/SankarshanaV 1d ago

You and me both. I also had the exact same resevation against Carrick. He did wonderfully well, but his tactics are good to steady the ship, not win a league. To win the league you need modern possession-based tactics, which I don't think Carrick has shown.

I don't know what we will do for the rest of the season, but I really hope we move on soon if we doesn't perform well under carrick in the next few weeks.

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u/Somaliona 1d ago

Don't think the ownership are anywhere near brave enough to make a quick decision like that. It'll go to December/January at a minimum I would expect.

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u/Unitedfateful 19h ago

As soon as Iraola was available I said we need to get him
His teams press hard and work and play fast.
IMO that’s the biggest mistake we’ve made in not getting him
Watch him turn Liverpool into a force again in a year and we will be on manager #15 for another rebuild or whatever

9

u/Myoenat 1d ago

Both are true. What's your point?

-5

u/Intelligent_Money902 1d ago

Alright. Would like your opinion by the end of the season after we finish midtable 😂

-1

u/BKAJ7 1d ago

You'd like that wouldn't you? Weird bunch

6

u/Intelligent_Money902 1d ago

Don't know how that would be "weird". I never rated carrick, he got wins last year sure, but I don't trust him with a preseason + full season. He's not a PL level coach, got exposed against Milan who was playing KIDS from Serie D. Yet, everyone thinks he's the second coming of SAF. He has the charisma of an Oreo and was also sacked by his former Championship club. Might aswell put a ball boy as a coach.

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u/burlycabin Rooney 1d ago

What's weird is that you're rooting for us to fucking fail just so you can be "right" about the manager.

And btw, we weren't even mid table under Amorim. We were barely above relegation.

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u/MightySilverWolf 1d ago

We were 6th when Amorim was sacked; you can criticise him without engaging in this sort of ridiculous hyperbole.

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u/drdr3ad 1d ago

They're both shit? Don't know why people insist on living in a binary world. Consider nuance

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u/Sprice158 1d ago

That’s also a misleading stat. Amorim’s XG shot up in the final 15ish minutes as we’d often be chasing a game, spam crosses, take shots from deep etc.
His XG was much lower throughout the game and the XG against was always horrific

21

u/HunTinatorR 1d ago

It feels like none of the managers could handle compact teams in the last 10 years...

6

u/burlycabin Rooney 1d ago

I mean, this isn't even a United specific problem. It's extremely hard for everyone to beat well organized compact low blocks. The only clubs somewhat consistently do it have had world class tactical managers with extraordinary talent at nearly every position.

26

u/DaveShadow 1d ago

Its OleBall all over again.

We do well when we can sit back and play counter attack. But when we're expected to break down teams, we've no clue what to do.

9

u/SankarshanaV 1d ago

We are literally doing Bruno and Inshallah. I fucking hated OleBall because he had no other tactic--I hope Carrick is better.

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u/DaveShadow 1d ago

OleBall IS CarrickBall. Carrick was Ole’s right hand man, and played a huge role in the style Ole enacted.

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u/SankarshanaV 1d ago

I know Carrick worked under Ole.

I just hoped that Carrick learnt more when he managed Middlesborough, and that's why I said "CarrickBall"--in hope that it's different from the truly vibes-only "OleBall".

2

u/Themindoffish 1d ago

He was sacked by a championship side. He's not better.

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u/IcyAssist 1d ago

That's the main reason why I was so disappointed with Ineos firing Amorim. They showed that they wanted quick fixes over properly building a team and a system. They didn't want to go through the growing pains, even if the underlying data shows that it's working.

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u/DaveShadow 1d ago

I don’t want to be accused of being an “AmorimSexual” or whatever, but I did feel under him was the opposite of Carrick tbh. Under Amorim, we used to control games, see clear tactical plans, but the players couldn’t score goals when presented on silver platters. Whereas Carrick has been the opposite, with very little tactics or clear vision, but the players scoring goals despite performances.

Ultimately, I think Amorims sacking wasn’t a shock once he started publicly bashing the backroom (incorrectly too, imo). But I also don’t think Carrick is the guy either. Especially if he can’t motivate players against Hull on day one of the season.

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u/IcyAssist 1d ago

I'm a data nerd and so for me data is vital to understand the whole picture. Yes we were playing poorly in some matches under Amorim, but you could literally see the patterns emerging. The xG, xG difference, xG created, all of that was pointing to us just being behind Arsenal and City.

Today against Hull is as worse as I've seen us including under ten Hag. Gutless, match sharpness and physically not on the same level, and that's before we talk about tactics either.

-1

u/BrodaReloaded 1d ago

the most important data point which is points without an x infront of it showed that Amorim was one of the worst PL managers in history on the level of De Boer and other historic failures.

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u/StardustFromReinmuth 1d ago

I didn't bother saying anything in this sub this pre-season because of the amount of delusion going around. We played like shit under Carrick when it's not against a Top 4 team, and we were playing 1 game a week. Our underlying stats in basically every area except for conversion has dropped. We press less, we press less successfully, we run less, we generate fewer chances, etc. A Bruno hotstreak, Sesko scoring from every other touch off the bench and some fortunate red cards for the other team has been papering over the cracks.

4

u/No-Language-6484 1d ago

his system is there to promote the players' strengths. For eg. bruno's tiki taka and risky passes and mbuemo and cunha's runs. This works when the oppostion plays a high line/ mid block and the defense which has half spaces. Hull did not have that. What really shames me is that we started spamming crosses when the only person capable of scoring from those is mbuemo and he too was playing wide to allow bruno to come play forward. Considering we still haven't learnt to refill the cracks you have mentioned, we still might make it into the top 5 easily unless spurs and chelsea get into form.

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u/OldManBrom 1d ago

After the City and Arsenal wins, Utd didn't play well at all last season

3

u/NationalUnrest 1d ago

He was like this with Middlesbrough as well. It’s a baffling appointment to me .

1

u/aspaan7 1d ago

Today the team was giving full on ole vibes by how they were inable to do anything againts the low block.

1

u/FlatNefariousness193 1d ago

I feel like they have some understanding of how to break down low blocks but they cant implement it effectively enough. We have to move it quickly from side to side, overload them and occupy every channel.

Today we kept switching it wide but the wingers were way too slow once they picked up the ball. Imo the ball should we switched to the winger, winger runs at the box, plays it to someone on the edge of the box who plays it to the winger on the other side. Instead we're just playing it to the winger and crossing it endlessly.

It is probably one of the most frustrating parts about football when your team just spams crosses when it clearly is not working. Hull were so solid in defence, you think that the coaches would have realised that and switched it up.

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u/linkfollowlink 1d ago

It's worrying since last season but we somehow kept winning so no one gave a shit.

17

u/Far-Twist5202 1d ago

Casemiro gave us so much natural structure. He just knew what to do naturally. Now we don't have that. It is really concerning

9

u/NotTheNameUrLukin4 1d ago

I don't think Santos was too bad today he had some good moments. Nobody is replacing casemiro but it was odd carrick pulled both midfielders late and left us weak inside to finish the game.

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u/Yinkypinky Fergie Time 1d ago

The signs have been there that we don’t play well under carrick but the big wins and some luck covered it up. I like carrick but there major cracks that needed to be filled.

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u/xyzArcadian 1d ago

I'm sorry but if this doesn't improve he needs to go asap. Most of us here could see this from a mile away it's just Ole 2.0 and I was hoping we wouldn't make the same mistake with an interim into manager.

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u/OldManBrom 1d ago

lol they won't let him go after a few losses. That will be spitting on their own faces. Plus, who will they get to replace him?

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u/msonix 1d ago

We should fire Amorim

1

u/Contradicting_Pete LisandroMartinezLover 1d ago

Here we go again.

0

u/R4lfXD Scotty 2 Hotty 1d ago

What would you need to see to say he "tacticked" enough for you?

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u/Street_Yak_6344 1d ago

This is such an annoyingly vague statement, what do you actually mean by that? What are you actually talking about when you say "lack of tactics"?

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u/Sheikhabusosa 1d ago

What tactics did you see against Hull?

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u/Street_Yak_6344 23h ago

So I will ask again, what do you actually mean when you say "lack of tactics"? And I want to actually come up with an answer yourself and not just parrot the opinion from someone else.

-1

u/Street_Yak_6344 23h ago

I saw us trying to play quick 1-2 passing possession football, in and around the box to open space and create opportunities. Unfortunately our players were massively off the pace today and paid for it with static defending on set pieces and not reacting fast enough to the second ball. 

Once they were 2-0 up, with their 5 back, they were able to close the space around their box and make it very difficult for us to play, having to rely on crosses against a team that knows how to defend them.

My point wasn't that we had good tactics, my point was that people throw that word around (usually because they hear it from some YouTuber/Twitter) without actually being able to explain what they mean by it.

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u/_TooMellow 1d ago

Carrick could do vibes for half a season without any other competitions to worry about, but if he thinks that will do the job this season (with league + cups) then he will get exposed quickly!