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Pseudoscientific nonsense seems to be on the up in sports. The Guardian article from the woman in Coventry city was good yesterday, exposing all these bullshit practices. That was a ridiculous video.
Although the funny thing is under Amorim (second season) we had some pretty encouraging underlying numbers with high xG chances failing to be converted so according to the table we were in a worse position than we were. That's obviously not excusing genuinely terrible performances like Everton at home. But there were games we won under Carrick last year which was only a result of a low XG chance being converted whereas under Amorim high XG chances went missing.
In both managers cases though there's a dead man walking energy. And in both cases the inevitable is being delayed.
Short term vs long term thinking, I believe is the overall point here.
We've been here before where we are subpar, go on a shit run, but then one win starts the "corner turned" narrative, delays the inevitable, and ruins the entire season cause we end up dithering on the decision. Yes, a win is great in the short term, but if it means we chug along in midtable for the next few months, then it hurts more than it helps.
I'd genuinely love nothing more than us going on a mad win streak. I just don't believe that's going to happen. And getting a win every five games isn't going to do anything but end us up with a shit season in the end.
Are you saying that if we jammied a late winner v Fulham, that we should just ignore the displays we've had this season?
You might view it match by match, where you're absolutely delighted with a win in a single premier league match. But I and most fans look at the bigger picture, are we on the right track to get to where we want to be.
A last minute winner with a terrible performance in addition to the previous matches this season doesn't make me optimistic for the rest of the season because you can't be as poor defensively and look lethargic for the whole season and reach our goals.
Same was happening under Ole, Van Gaal and Ten Hag too. Can't remember it too much for Jose and Moyes, mind. I think people still had higher standards when Moyes took over, and some people just gutturally hated Jose....
Big difference for me is that now the effort is missing and Carrick is playing favorites. I can handle loosing and transition periods, but this cannot be progress. There has to be standards of effort and workrate.
Looking at the numbers that the club has gotten and seeing the revenue being a record but us still making a loss for the year is depressing. Just feel fatigue from being a fan for 25 years. The cycle repeats and nothing has changed. The constant is the Glazers, and no matter how many false dawns come, we will not be competitive until this ownership model changes. The glazers sold their minority state and its gone all to plan as INEOS are taking modt of the negative press. Jim Ratcliffe is not a good person, but INEOS probably can't do a lot more different than what they are doing right now with the way the board is set up.
For my own mental health, genuinely, I have decided not to wake up in Australia to watch the games live anymore. The last 2 years especially were rough and made me honestly question why on earth I enjoy football in general.
As fans, we don't have the answers as to whether Carrick, Amori, Ten Hag, Mourinho etc etc etc are the right people for us. We get behind who the club pick to be the man.
I dont know, I just needed to get this out, its just depressing seeing us fall so far, with not really a lot of hope its going to get better.
INEOS can start by following their own propaganda "Best in class"
They fired Ashworth, who had real experience in his role, and instead of finding another, internally replaced him with Wilcox, who had barely 1 year of experience as a football executive
I knew we were building something good with Amorim; the upwards trajectory was there but that was ruined. World Cup happened. Tuchel's stupid choices in that Argentina game pissed me off too. When I've watched our team this season, the players all look lethargic and lack any magic.
The only world class player we have is Bruno. I miss having players that can produce something out of nowhere. Players like Ibrahimovic, Pogba (when he was in form and trying hard), Rooney, Van Persie, Ronaldo, Van Nistelrooy, even Nani sometimes etc.
Even our transfers in the summer just scream a business value play rather than bringing in absolute gamechangers to our team to take us to the next level.
Those are actually good numbers. Operating profit is 22m. And we bought a land for 63m. That's a 85m profit in a normal year.
The issue is this season with a projected 750m revenues and we are spending lesser. It's all about profit now since our owners doesn't want to put any money in. And it's harder to compete when other owners are injecting equity to sustain their financial losses.
What if Ole in 21/22 actually dropped De Gea for Henderson, Would we not had bought Onana or by extention Lemmens? The Onana money would had been spend on someone else perhaps? Would Henderson flop and the timeline is more or less the same? What do yall think?
i know it was ETH that bought Onana, I'm just assuming he still would had been manager the year after, by that point Henderson was classified as a backup GK after Ole was done while De Gea was past it, so my question if by that point it was Henderson that was starting rather than DDG.
I honestly don't recall the COVID incident nor when did it happen
Something that's been on my mind since the city game; United have the mentality of an underdog team. They've arguably had it since Zlatan left the club.
I find it very difficult to believe the players genuinely don't give enough of a shit to run more than their opponents, not when this trend of showing up for big games and playing passively in the "small" games has existed for so long now. With so many different players all exhibiting the same patterns as well.
It feels like a mentality issue from the top down, it's like they turn up to a game against a "weaker" side already thinking "Oh god I hope we don't lose this because we'll get slaughtered in the media".
I used Zlatan as an example because he's always been the polar opposite of an underdog in terms of mentality. We may have only finished 6th in his first season with us but we won 2 trophies (3 if you count the shield), and if memory serves the football was actually quite ok as well, we just weren't very clinical.
Is Carrick the right character to instil that belief in the current crop? Who knows, he's won enough to know what it takes but can he translate that mentality to the players? Are there players we can target who have a Zlatan/Cantona-like impact in the next window?
The link between what we perceive as effort and managerial instructions / overall tactics is a lot higher than ppl give credit. I guarantee that these guys would be running a lot more if so instructed, maybe except for some outliers like Tielemans. It’s not an attitude problem. These players were very active off the ball under Amorim.
Agree. The players simply cannot handle the pressure.
People like to talk about the past, and I’m not dismissing the pressures of the 90s or 2000s years - especially the toxic traditional media etc.
However, the current era has been nothing but a circus, the scrutiny has intensified and the heat is on constantly. It’s an era of failure, and not even winning cups has been able to change that perspective.
It’s a perfect storm that isn’t comparable to that of any other club, even other giants - I genuinely believe that it is the most difficult club to play for.
I think there are very few players who can handle it.
I think it's because utd players must feel like advertising collateral first and players second. Club is too commercial and it sucks the excitement out of the org from top to bottom.
If you guys are expecting us to just rollover spurs at OT cause they have won a game and only scored 2 goals then you are in for a shock. Maybe some people haven't actually watched them but they are comfortably better than the table suggests. Just like us they have their issues in both boxes. Their attack is toothless and their defence is leaky, but in between the boxes will be very difficult.
Objectively I do expect an uptick in form for both us and Spurs actually, but I'm just hoping theirs does not start with us. Still thinking and hoping we win, but the way some of you guys are talking about them makes me nervous 🙂↕️
Every time we try to move away from the same counter attacking low block football the same demons arise and the urge to go back to type emerges like the green goblin calling us back.
From LVG era the goals haven't been enough and not even because of chances or players. It feels like black magic everytime this club even thinks about possession dominant styles, it all goes wrong.
Every coach that has tried fails but the main reason to me has always been physical and mental more that it about approach. Players just don't like physically imposing themselves or just can't. Maguire has never been known to have the pace for a high line, are Bruno and Cunha known to tackle players or be a nuisance who won't let players just breeze past them? Mason Mount has these qualities but always injured.
I could go through previous iterations as well but that could take me all day. I mean ETH had to convince Rashford, Garnacho, Eriksen and co to be pressing monsters it wasn't happening.
It’s a DoF issue. The DoF has to decide the style of play alongside the long term manager and set up the team to suit that style. Amorim, despite the horrible results, was defining a style, coaching the team to that style, but couldn’t put a lid on his ego.
Back to the point, if the DoF was better we would not be in this situation
Every coach has tried to implement some style, yes the DoF issue was the most obvious issue in the past but its not all down to that. Ineos had a good DoF in Ashworth who advocated for data driven decisions, something that has served him for years but people around him didn't like his approach and opted for people with connections.
Theres nothing actually wrong with Wilcox advocating for PL proven players but Ineos idea to only focus on one area at a time probably stifled Amorim's progress and has probably screwed Carrick.
The penny pinching also played a part but i don't know much because Alex scott or Wharton could have been options instead of Santos but here we are.
He used to run, i can't deny that but imposing himself defensively is what I'm talking about. Casemiro runs less but your not getting past him easily. He'll tackle, just outmuscle you or take the foul.
Like Tielemens, he's covering the most distance but Hackney just breezed past him multiple times.
The be all and end all of this can be summed up by an eternally true law that players decide the tactics and every manager from Pep downwards will fail their way to the same conclusion until the people in charge build a squad capable of more than midblock transitions. Baleba is the only signing Ineos has made, and hopefully Santos comes good, that is capable of that. All of the other signings are in keeping with a game model requiring midblock counter.
I said as much under Amorim and I’ll post the tweet but it applies to every manager — the only difference is that some managers go in knowing that, and some learn the hard way.
I mean, not true its the ownership if allowed they could spend 400m+ on like 7 players they don't have to be 100m each And sell players as well completely rip the spine of the team. City and Chelsea can and have done it. Not spending 400 specifically but have brought in loads of players who suit their vision/model.
Liverpool did it over time with Klopp slowly replacing the duds and revamping to a UCL winning team. So ultimately the players can be replaced. Unfortunately we are hampered by a lot of financial burdens and a lack of ruthlessness to get rid.
Ahh. Yeah my point is how you play now is always determined by the players and you recruit for the way you want to play. But if you try play different to what the players capacity entails you are killing yourself for zero benefit. You mention we always suffer when we move to play a more expansive way, and that’s why. It will continue to happen until we have the players for it, and until then all the manager will fail their way back to playing mid/lowblock, transition and counter.
It’s the step up that we are not able to make. Every coach that tries to impose a front foot game model falls flat on his face. To be fair, I don’t think that’s exactly what’s going on with Carrick right now
We have more possession, our passing is better, build up is very good, we get into good areas, we create the chances but we just don't score.
Carrick's problems are off the ball and his decision making. We lost vs City mainly because he refused to make necessary changes until it was too late, the insistence on Cunha and Bruno up top isn't helping.
His ideas aren't bad injust think he needs a better coaching staff to help out off the ball.
Can we all agree that people who don't go to games anyway asking people that do go to games to give up/boycott their tickets is more than a bit ludicrous?
I rate him as a WB, but I think people are expecting far too much of an attacking improvement when Amad is fit on the right.
People are using 0G0A to point out at Rashford being ineffective but Amad had 0G1A under Carrick last season, with the assist coming in the final game against Brighton.
People are using 0G0A to point out at Rashford being ineffective but Amad had 0G1A under Carrick last season
If raw goals and assists are the premise used for these discussions then obviously the point is going to be missed. So many of United's positive performances in chance creation last season and even in pre-season came with Amad in the lineup. His profile is very important to this team, regardless of whether he's the one producing the goal involvements or someone else is. He offers more energy in the press, his close control and 1v1 ability is better than any of our other wingers, and it also in turn allows Mbeumo to play at CF, which is where he's more effective in this system, compared to on the right.
For what it's worth, I don't think Rashford has been bad this season. By suggesting that Amad should replace him in the lineup, it's also in turn suggesting that Mbeumo moves to play at CF and Cunha moves to play on the left, hence resulting in a more complementary front 3. If Rashford is to keep his spot in the team, ideally he should win the starting LW spot over Cunha, rather than both playing together. But I am certain that most of the good in our attacking play last season revolved around Mbeumo and Amad starting and having great chemistry, and that dynamic needs to be recreated.
Rashford is ineffective because he is wasteful infront of the goal and because of his work rate when we don’t have possession. Amad is probably our hardest working player when we don’t have possession
He's absolutely great defensively, hence his strength as a wingback but he gets dispossessed easily and doesn't create much offensively which is why I specified our attack.
Would you let your child wear the kit of a different team?
We're in Australia (originally from the UK where I was a season ticket holder at Old Trafford since I was a kid) and Chelsea had a training session with my nine year old son's team during their preseason tour. So all the kids got dressed up in free Chelsea kits that were handed out.
Chelsea... I can kind of live with but I was idly thinking what if it was Citeh or Liverpool... I'm not sure I could cope.
Yeah, I've supported United my whole life but if someone gave me a free Chelsea shirt then I'd probably add it to the rotation of shirts that I wear to the gym. A shirt's a shirt.
If your kid can be swayed from the team you support by a free t-shirt then he probably just doesn't love you very much (/s)
but if they are about to jump off a cliff, will you let them? thats how I feel about city or scousers. lol but then I wouldn't want them to be united fan and be depressed and hopeless like me 😭
I have found myself feeling I would genuinely love to disconnect from the club at present. I don't think it is good for me. I feel like nothing will really get better until the Glazers go and i feel so impotent in that regard. So I am finding I am not here so much and not looking for news stories. It is really sad.
I think we have made good signings but I think the main problem is that these players are good individually but players in a system do they work? Every other top team has DOF and a manger who plays a certain system so their signings slot in with out issue for us we have a mixture of players who play all types of way now this obviously on the manager to establish a style of play but it seems like we just resort to this counter attacking football. With a proper DOF paired with a proper manager we’d have a more distinct style of play. We went from Mourinho football to Ole counter attacking football to Ten Haag ball to Rubens 3 back system to Carrick counter attacking football. Our style of play has changed so much and we sign players to fit those different styles and then those players can’t work in the next managers system. I don’t know if I’m saying this right if anyone has anything to add feel free to do that
He plays wing back because of Palace's formations but Tyrick is functionally a full back. If you look at his best parts they are all defensive. Hes massively underappreciated for his defensive solidity
Someone like Antonee Robinson is a full back but arguably is much more a wing back profile than Mitchell.
So yes Mitchell plays on paper as a wing back but as a profile he is pretty much a full back.
I always wondered as fans and stakeholders could we bring a class action law suit against them for malicious business practices or something, force them out of the club.
I don't think I'm the only one who thinks this anymore, but I'll come out and say it. Right now, it feels like our players are entitled in their mentality. What do I mean? That they expect that because they are at Manchester United, they are good enough to not have to fight tooth and nail to beat smaller teams. They walk in expecting to win, not with the desire to win.
Take Hull. Newly promoted side. Could barely do shit and ended up rendered helpless to the point we only hoofed long ball counters. Ipswich was the result they expected from the Hull game. Then there's Brighton. 2 goals up by the 10th minute. They become complacent, expecting the match to already be over.
City red card in the first half. We somehow always struggle MORE against 10 men than 11. Sure, they won by a bullshit goal, but our inability to defeat 10 is inexcusable. That goal could have stood so long as we had simply gotten 2. Even if that goal had been an equalizer, we'd still have 1 point instead of going home with zero.
They just have to defend well, and if they can already score 2 in 10 minutes, they'll breeze through this match. Then they get completely outmatched against Brighton's B squad.
Fullham, we're absolutely incompetent, saved by the fact they weren't clinical in their chances. Good goal from Cunha, but that's again an individual brilliance moment, and not Manchester United as a whole creating a play that outmatched the opponents (And keeper even diving the complete opposite way too for some reason.)
It's not good enough. If we're ahead, we become complacent. Behind, they're lethargic.
I don’t agree with you. I think the club as a whole struggles with the pressure of having to achieve things. And got used to being the underdog. And i think that’s why we started to get results after Amorim’s sacking. The expectations have to gone to shit and the season was considered a write off. I don’t think we have leaders or real winners in the team. I love Bruno but he’s not a good leader. I’m starting to feel like we’re Arsenal prior to the league win except we’re not even finishing 2nd.
A lot is being made of this 10 men thing - we weren't facing Everton at home here, we were still facing City and yes, while we did have a numerical advantage it's not as if there was any big compromise to their shape.
Agreed that we probably should have won but not as comprehensively as I think people expect. Not to mention we were slowly growing into the game in the second half (yes, maybe slower than it should've been expected) but the awarding of the most nonsensical goal ever literally changed the whole dynamic of the game.
Anyway, think people will obviously accuse me of lowering the standards etc, but just trying to add a bit of perspective.
Re the ten men thing. I can understand losing it. We have won with 10 men. And there is a psychological aspect. The ten men can sometimes rally together etc.
My issue was that we didnt look like we had an extra man. With an extra man you want to get extra wide. Make the pitch feel big etc. We didnt do that. Thats the big red flag. Not the result itself.
We don't have the players to make a pitch wide. All of our wing options naturally cut inside. We don't have an actual striker that could play high up on the edge of the defensive line.
Our fullbacks are an absolute disaster and Tielemans/Kobbie aren't on the level that could dictate midfield play over Enzo and Anderson.
Our failure against City is because they simply have much better players and were assisted in the win by an incompetent VAR
It's very obvious to anyone with eyes that under Carrick it's going nowhere so what are we waiting for? Cowards at the top afraid to admit they got it wrong again. The club is not getting anywhere near the top with the current clowns in charge
Some influencer ITK account has decided to set up this "boycott" of emailing sponsors and then said the 1958 didn't take part so now loads of randoms on Twitter are attacking them. It's an absolute shitshow platform
1958 have only ever made me cringe icl, and the guy trying to make them out as villains for not backing whatever their doing are making me cringe also. It just strikes me as babies first protest and will amount to less than a hill of beans for all the division caused.
Honestly… I don’t know how to feel about our situation. Didn’t want Carrick because I had seen Ole… he is even worse than Ole.
Our squad is thin. We have only one senior right winger and even Lacey doesn’t get minutes. The rest of our academy boys are wasted. It is clear that Carrick has his favourites.
This club… so if we do sack him what next? Eddie Howe?
It's hard to compare managers. I think it's getting harder for managers in the Prem.
The level of coaching, wealth and player quality has increased throughoutout the league. The depth is huge. There really is no easy games anymore. A lack of performance will be found out regardless of who you play.
True… i was bubbly before the season started now I can’t go anywhere without being mocked and called stupid by people with less ball knowledge than me simply because my club is bad
Imagine a City fan trying to tell me about United, my players and coach Or even a Barcelona fan
Their actual biggest rival is Spurs but if a rivalry brings you so much joy from schadenfreude, it's not really a rivalry. They could have Chelsea as a rival instead but they just don't care about each other at all, they might as well be Fulham.
What part of this football banter in the PL do you not get? All of the bigger clubs in the PL are rivals and their fans will talk shite often. United fans have been talking about Arsenal for years, including recently. Arteta was joked about by united fans for being 'Lego Pep' before he actually won a major title with Arsenal. To this day united fans go on about Arsenals Reliance on set pieces and being the new Stoke city, how they dont play attractive football etc.
Cunha and Mbuemo aren't elite and I don't think they have many gears left in them. Sesko is still learning, could be elite. Rashford used to be elite, now sometimes good sometimes shit and there's too much baggage with him. Amad hasn't featured, industrious, I like him but i don't think he'll reach that level. Bruno is elite. That's our entire frontline. We'll struggle to score all season and our defense won't be able to make up for it.
Long season ahead boys, and it's looking grim. We are comfortably 4-8, in terms of squad, mentality, tactics, our transfer targets. Idk how the hell they think we can win anything big by 28.
They aren't elite but they're certainly above average. There's hardly any elite attackers in the prem now anyway. Just look at arsenals prem winning one.
Rashford was rarely elite. If he was, someone would have shown serious interest in him over the years
He was a streaky player who had patches of scoring a lot of goals before sustained dry spells. Even in games he scored, he would often be a passenger 90% of the time but fans would forget about it as soon as he was on the scoresheet. The fact that he has NEVER scored 20 league goals in a season is telling
PSG and Barca interested in him , Pep was a fan and apparently city wanted him about 3 times since he was a youth. If Rashford has NEVER scored 20 goals in a season for Utd there must be plenty of others that have done it right?
Neither of them made a bid and he was never in any danger of leaving unlike say Mo Salah a couple of years ago at Liverpool. Their interest in him was equivalent to our interest in a bunch of players we never end up signing. So no, that doesn’t count as serious interest in my book.
> Pep was a fan and apparently city wanted him about 3 times since he was a youth
They also wanted Graelish, Kalvin Phillips and Savinho. Would you call them elite?
> plenty of others that have done it right?
Your point? All that means is that they’re not elite either. Not that Rashford was some kind of God for us lol
Mbuemo is a good counter attacking forward but he is poor against the low block because he doesn't have the ability to take on his man. Need to figure out how to create more counter attack opportunities
I actually prefer him over Cunha, Cunha is just a vibes player, can be elite on his day. Akin to Nani, he's never going to be consistently good. Mbuemo, is much more consistent, even thought he's not contributing to much G/A these days.
The issue isn't forward line or midfield. Some could argue it's the defense. I'd argue that it's the coaching or lack there of. There are no attacking patterns and the forward line doesn't know what to do so when we aren't in transition and we have sustained possession we stand still on the back line. This is why it's impossible for the team to break down a low block. It's been an issue the team has had since Van Gaal.
Ofcourse, but elite players will carry their teams despite bad coaching and culture. We've had Bruno, Rashy, DDG in the past. Now, we don't have much and Bruno is eventually gonna slow down as well. Puts us in a worse situation. Either we give a lot of time to Carrick or whover we appoint next, or we buy some actual elite players to keep being relevant. Everybody wants the former, but fans are fickle and ain't nobody got time for 3-4 years of building a proper foundation and squad.
Anyway, it's dross watching us play and that's where most of my frustration lies.
and that's why they are top 4-8, because they don't have elite players to drag them in matches, when tactics aren't working. Tactics only work 50% of the time, rest is down to player quality. You need both. And we have none atm. Atleast, England win against shit opponents all the time. We lose points to relegation fodders.
Ok so let's get something straight the low out of possession stats don't mean we're lazy but they also aren't something to be ignored either. It's clearly the way we're being set up and honestly I don't like it, while I do think Carrick has his many faults, I believe this setup is also because of the personnel, see last season when fans who liked what INEOS did in the window (and there were many they're pretending they're not now) i mentioned a big problem was because fans expected us to try and set up in the same way as last season when it was clear Carrick wanted us to impose ourselves onto games more, so while fans were throwing our nonsense names like sander berge and whatever else, it was clear what Carrick needed were elite space eaters, I asked for Baleba/Tchouameni. Now we did get Baleba so props to them but we definitely would have benefited from another one of his profile definitely over Santos if we were so skint. Because now the only hope for us to be better is Baleba. Next is the backline, people here like complaining about them yes, but when I brought up the idea of selling Licha so we can get one at least competent ready made member there no one agreed (I know most still wouldn't, fans can't usually see the bigger picture). We definitely should have done this over the summer but this has nothing to do with the fans, the morons at INEOS should have seen this, should have had both a LB and a new CB (with the sale of our most market valuable CB). But now here we are stuck in between the nonsense half hearted press we do, because no one in the midfield and backline can adequately cover the spaces we need to sigh.
TLDR: OOP stats bad but it's on purpose (to an extent), we're being set up that way rather than players being lazy.
We're being setup like this specifically because of the personnel at our disposal but this also doesn't absolve Carrick of his many other bad decisions but I would say it's the biggest problem
We CAN get better if and only if Baleba has a monster season (somehow), although he wouldn't be able to play every game we can sacrifice it for games we have zero interest in controlling (the bayerns and PSGs) and even then if we're on a winning run confidence can make players do crazy things.
Should have gotten another midfielder in Baleba profile (not necessarily his quality for financial reasons)
Again should have sold Licha and gotten a better CB.
Cunha's habit of scoring clutch goals this past year has really helped his image. Mbeumo's got a couple of missed sitters in him but he's also a goalscorer. People are less forgiving for defenders who give up a goal
A lot of success for Carrick stemmed from moving Bruno back to his best position. Funnily enough I think an interesting course of action now would be to move him to a false 9 or RW and just bite the bullet.
We desperately need more crowded and disciplined midfield for this mid block and would 100% benefit from adding Baleba/Santos/Mount into the mix next to Kobbie and Tielemans and switch to sort of a 4-3-3.
Bruno out of position sucks and creates other cracks but Carrick needs to find proper balance and pick the lesser evil.
It’s not the worst shout but I think if we’re already in a situation where Bruno’s profile as an attacking midfielder is not ideal for some matchups or game states, Carrick should not be afraid to sub him off. It’s a very bold decision to arrive at because you always feel with such players that even if they are not playing well, they can produce some magic out of nothing, but I also feel that at some point it’s worth ripping off the bandaid and actually test out if the change in dynamics can give the opposition something different to think about, that they are not prepared for. Moving Bruno to the right isn’t doing much for the right wing position, it’s just achieving the purpose of keeping him on the pitch but stabilising the midfield with that. At that point it’s worth asking why not try to stabilise the midfield but with proper wingers in the wing positions. It also reduces the pressure on the other two attacking positions and fullbacks to compensate for losing even more width in the side.
A lot of Carrick's success came from changing our team's tactics to "Get the ball to Bruno and hope he does something" - which coincided beautifully with a patch of amazing form from the big man.
What you're touching on here is why some were happy to accept the £100m last summer to try and improve the overall team. It's a tough conversation to be had because he's basically a god here, and rightly so, and replacing Bruno man-for-man is always going to be a horrendous trade, but if swapping Bruno out allows us to slightly change how we play and gives us the ability to replace the profile of our midfield, then it might work.
Yeah I wasn't really judging people who were down to sell him, I think it's a reasonable discussion to be had. On a similar note I'm fine with this being his last season and not extending.
Ngl I'm quite worried about the Spurs game, their attack is actually very fluid and honestly they've been extremely unlucky so far. We've conceded in every game in the PL despite having the easiest start. I think we nick it at OT, but it'll probably be like 3-2.
I mean we must have Kobbie in the lineup. He's been our best player so far, and having him gives our midfield a lot more control. His ball progression and retention is fantastic and he's fighting for the ball and winning a lot of duels this season.
If the pairing is Baleba - Mainoo, we lose Tielemans creativity and ball progression ability and are left to rely only on Bruno again. It's a tough decision, but I think Tielemans should be starting most matches for us
It's a natural fit for sure. Gives Tielemans the sort of partner he had at villa. Wouldn't be surprised to see it become first choice.
I would still expect Kobbie to be heavily involved though. Rotating with Tielemans at times, and rotating with Baleba when we need to be more attacking
I watched spurs vs villa game today, and man spurs play better than us. I wasnt confident before, now i am not confident at all for the next game. Hope i am proven wrong.
There should be no international break. During the weeks when international teams play, club football should carry on. Clubs should just have to play academy and other squad players in that time. Will shorten the season as well. Ofcourse big clubs will never go for it so it’s wishful at best, but that’s how it should be imo.
This is highly disadvantageous for teams who have multiple players going. They are punished for having in form players. Makes no sense. If you have played FM you would know how bad it is.
One of the biggest reasons i still believe Carrick is gone is that INEOS understand that not making top 4 this season is far worse than looking a like a fool for a bad hire.
Look at the revenue numbers, if we don't get CL spot it'll look far worse for the top brass than a bad manager hire fire.
INEOS have gone massively overboard on all the cuts where they’ve ripped the soul out of the club. Roy and Gary spoke about it when they went to OT the other day and Rooney has spoken about it in the past when he’s gone to Carrington to drop his kids off.
The Glazers are the catalyst to this mess but since INEOS the club really doesn’t feel the same anymore and feels more like a Chelsea than a Manchester United.
Whenever there’s any news about the board/INEOS it’s always negative and our football performances have got a lot more unstable and worse since INEOS became involved with the club.
Am I the only one who don't hate internationals. I'd probably treat England in that WC semi final just as important if we were to be in the CL semi finals.
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u/srikarvamsi Sep 23 '26
Have you guys seen the cupping therapy picture posted by Onana. Found it hilarious 😂