I think you have the same problem City had last year - players sitting back and congratulating themselves after winning the title and thus not really mentally ready to fight for it again this year. Retaining the title is always harder than winning it - even when Mourinho retained it back in 2006 it was after he'd spent another £100m and the race was a lot closer. Just shows how good SAF was at managing to motivate his players to get up there and challenge year after year after year.
No need for me to combust my RS friend. I have been and am calm. I don't think the RS striker will fit in our system at all. and I don't think he fits in yours either tbh.
To me it looks a bit more than the post title satiated effect. It almost looks that the chav players have relaxed and are cruising all at the same time. They have the look of the United team immediately post Fergie but with a better manager. I am not saying the Chav will be 7th but the look on Jose is one of a very worried man. When a team goes on the slide it is very difficult to stop. I said this upteen times and it does not apply only to United.
Things can change very quickly. Didn't Liverpool won 9 of first 10 games about seven years ago? It's great shooting out of the blocks but it doesn't always carry well throughout the season. As for United, I really like the strength in our midfield this time around. And the full backs are now starting to really fire well. If De Gea comes back focused, I think we will do just fine in remaining competitive for the title.
I think the problem with that thinking is you're only looking at the players in isolation (all very good) but not factoring in what the manager is doing with them. 1) Put a quality striker in, and even LVG's style of football will succeed. 2) Dont put a quality striker in, but with a more attacking manager and that squad will still succeed. BUT, 3) Dont put a quality striker in, and with LVG's style of football, it will only get you so far. IMO right now we're looking at 3)
We had Falcao and RVP last year if I remind you. It's all good and well to complain about striker but how many goals exactly have Costa and Aguero scored between them? Then you have Harry Kane. The point is that it is way too early to jump to a conclusion. We have enough attacking players in the side to score goals. We need to acknowledge that this a team in transition. Fergie left us in sht state. And even he would have needed to rebuild that very squad and his transition usually took at least two years. So please look at the big picture before completely going nuts about the manager.
Yep but you've inadvertently proved my point. RvP and Falcao didnt score. We scored goals from our other attacking players (as you said). The result... we got 4th. But if we want to progress and challenge for trophies including the title, simply relying on goals from elsewhere wont be enough. We'll also need 20-30 goals from a striker. May I remind you that's based on 13 months of football so no jumping to conclusions at all. Btw City will also need Aguero doing the same or they wont win it either. But once again you've inadvertently proved my point. Their style of football lends itself to that happening. So it's not just about the personnel but the manager's style of football. That's not complaining or going nuts either. Simply stating how it is.
100% spot on. City create so many chances they don't need their strikers firing on all cylinders. United on the other hand, create so few chances in Van Gaals system that any decent chances not being put away is being blamed on the striker not being clinical.
TBF there's some truth in that. Rooney hasn't been great, but our style of football hasn't helped him. I might add you could say the same about Falcao as well.
Now you're blaming Rooney's form on style of football. The same style of football that produced very clear chances for him this past weekend? That is just preposterous! You also starred in your previous post that you're basing everything on thirteen months of football and you think that is enough time to reconstruct a team? This is exactly what I mean by the fact that you need to get real with your expectations. Even Di Maria is now blaming LVG for his inability to perform when he came back from injury. LVG somehow misplaced all the passes on the pitch that made Ashley Young return to the fold? Heck, even Hernandez finds the easy target in LVG and not accept responsibility. Personally, I am enjoying watching United play again and I'm confident that the goals will come. I definitely didn't enjoy the last two years of Fergie even though we won the title. Then there was Mr. Moyes!
That's a bit strange. In the final two years of Alex Ferguson we came second in the league on goal difference and then won it in his final year. What bit of that is as painful as watching the plod of the current side? I can not get my head around that. It's not even like anyone can claim it's an 80's throw back, we played bloody good football under the likes of Atkinson, despite being hopeless at winning the league. Yes, we need a thorough rebuild and it was needed from when Ferguson left as too many players had grown old together and too many crucial positions had not had its key men replaced. Can't be arsed to explain to you why but let's just say as the penny finally dropped the purse strings have been released. The rebuild is now on-going but that and ****e football are not mutually exclusive. Rooney didn't have many chances on Sunday, he had two or three and buried none. Had he had many I'm sure, like hit and miss strikers such as Andy Cole before him, he'd have put a couple away.
Which is exactly what happened in the CL Qualifier. Against an open side like Brugge, we attack with swagger, but against any decent side with a well drilled and organised defence, our whole approach changes. Even that may be excusable but even when we have the chance to counter-attack or push home the advantage we slow the game down and invariable give up territorial advantage. It's strange why, it doesn't help Rooney. I've had my doubts about Rooney, but he has my sympathy also.
Have you ever noticed at World Cups a lot of the stars do not shine like they do in club football. A well drilled team that are set is a lot harder to break down than a team thats struggling to get players back which is what happens at the big international events. It's been a criticism of Arsenals teams in recent years that they just don't attack with pace anymore, there isn't that directness and they just pass for passing sake (they've improved upon this recently). Van Gaal does has taken this to even more extreme levels. Yes you dominate the ball far more but its usually in your own half and the other team is re-organised with all their men behind the ball. With all that space compressed and surrounded, it makes it much harder for the creative players to turn and run/be creative. It's no coincidence since the Leicester loss when United were far more expansive and direct, that Van Gaal has taken that out of you. Whether thats to protect your defence (if you have the ball, your defence can't get attacked) i don't know but he hasn't attempted to rectified that which is why United get far less clear cut chances nowadays.
That's the main problem. Teams have always block defended against us and we have had to use passing and possession to draw them out (just like now), the difference between the past and now is when we drew them out in the past we hit them fast and hard. Now we wait for the perfect chance and try to walk the ball into the net (Arsenal style).
We are four games into the season, guys. You're over-analyzing this like we are in March. United fans are spoiled!
Not really, when was the last time we beat a Premier League team by scoring 4 or 5 goals, it used to be quite often.
This isn't about 4 games into the season, this is about how Van Gaal has set the team up since September last year. Maybe he does't trust his defence still but you have 2 great passers of the ball who can dictate the tempo of the game and switch the ball in carrick/schweinsteiger, a great baller winner/box to box player in schneiderlin, a creative am whos being played on the wing as mata and a fast athletic winger in Depay. Even Young who is quick and can be direct. Then you have Herrera whos a creative player and even though i don't rate Rooney, he can be a fantastic player on his day with a bit of everything. The end result is you are still faffing around passing it around and recycling the ball in dangerous areas rather than going a bit more direct with a high risk killer ball or having depay running at players. Even then, where are the bodies flooding the box? That's not on the players, that must be on the instructions of Van Gaal not to lose the ball and get caught on the counter.
So what I'm seeing there is that prior to LVG, we were playing some of the most amazing football the land has ever seen. We all obviously know this not to be true. The United of old that you are referring to would be when Ronaldo played for us. Tevez as well. Once those two left, our play lost all the dynamism. To the point that there were lots of questions leveled at Ferguson. Yes, we won the title in his last year, but that only covered the cracks. Even Fergie was starting to experiment with this style of football in his latter years as he tried to fix Champion's League issue and we know that when Fergie was in charge, many of you were also calling for his head as the league was simply not enough for you. As for present day; this is a process and there is evidence to support the notion that it is getting better. But it is a process nonetheless.
