Yeah but that's Ange ball, so they're title contenders apparently. Well, top at Christmas title contenders anyway. All they have to do is avoid inuries like everyone else has had and then..............
I really don’t get it. All these overly critical stuff about “not playing well”. Even Phill McNasty on bbc wrote just a week ago that sees good stuff coming from Chelsea. But United? Oh no! That’s just a sht team that has no future even though they are winning games. I’d take that!
It is not necessarily just the media that have low expectations but also the heirarchy within the club/boardroom and some fans. Instead of looking down at the likes of Chelsea and Newcastle, we should be looking up. It's never a choice between performance or results. One leads to the other.
There is no turn key to just go from zero to 100%. We were in dire situation. Now we are winning games that we are expected to win. The stuff about performance is pointless even when we look above. Looking up, we are 6 points off mighty Arsenal that were lucky to get a win against us at home when it should have been a loss for them.
Results without performances will only ever be short-term measures. If you want to build anything long-term, you have to underpin it with a sustained period of consistent performances that reflect a style of play. Name me any club whose success has not been built on that and I'll happily stfu. Fwiw I thought there were periods in that 2nd half when we played well against Everton and showed glimpses of what we should be doing. And the next game we should be looking to build on that performance, not the result.
Such a ridiculous statement! If we get a result in the next game, it would mean that the performance earned it! If we don’t, then we wouldn’t have been good enough. No one loses 5 out of 13 games because of bad luck. Conversely, you don’t win 8 out of 13 games from bad performances.
Goes both ways. In our case, hopefully the performances will now follow the results. Especially as the injury list shortens.
Ancelotti being tipped to replace ETH next season in some of the Spanish sporting press. My tip for the top actually.
For those who say our performances (especially that last one against Everton) were fine and not as bad as the press, media, fans say should just look at the chances created and shots on target. In almost all these recent matches their shots (on and off target) have equalled or bettered ours. We’ve won these recent matches because these teams had poor attacks and/or couldn’t finish. As soon as we encounter a decent attack that put their chances away we are ****ed big time. That’s why our GD is a fat 0. That’s why our performances had to improve otherwise the results will just dry up. We've lost to a top half opposition every time we played them. It’s time to correct that. A draw wouldn’t be such a bad result.
I think our results have often masked how fragile we are. As you say, when we come up against a decent side those prior results count for very little. The game against City and the LC match against Newcastle demonstrated that. It's also why we're likely to be out of both competitions before long. The one thing we need is our injured players back. That's really what's going to change our performances and move us forward. But the question has to be asked, why can we not perform with those injuries? This is precisely one of the things a manager is measured by.
I sometimes wonder if we are starting to believe our own bad press. We are 6th, 6 points off the top of the league - two games adrift of the leaders with 25 games still to play with a host of top players still missing with injuries, but many due to return to action in a month or so. let's keep struggling as we are, winning ugly, and see what happens in the new year - I think we might be surprised.....
I don't read or listen to the press. I'd go as far as to say the only person I've heard talk about United is Gary Neville and disagree with every effort he makes in trying to overcompensate for being a United player and trying to pass himself off as neutral. The 6 points off the top means very little imo. I pay more attention to the fact we've been well beaten in two cup competitions which highlights that other results have meant very little in terms of progress. Things like injuries and poor performances have impacted far more. I agree on the rest though, as I said, players returning will hopefully turn things around. The thing that worries me is that our performances don't just drop when players are injured, they plummet. That is on the manager.
Are these not the same teams that other top ten clubs have played and struggled against? Look at the matches these season and teams that the top teams have lost to and you will see a common trend that winning a match is not easy. This is why we are only six points off the top. That is not to suggest that performance shouldn’t be better, but we must acknowledge that progress is a gradual game. What the team is displaying right now is discipline and spirit to compete, and I’m good with that. Going on and on about performances is useless if the results are not there. We have the results, and we can build on the performances and getting more goals. Here are few good things that have happened in the last seven league games: 1/ The defenders are doing much better. Maguire is better now. Onana is more reliable as well. 2/ We started to get goals across the team instead of relying on the front men. 3/ Ultimately, we are winning games. You add to those three points - with more goals from the frontline, we are bound to transform the goal difference as well.
Don't get me wrong. I welcome like the next fan these wins no matter how unlikely or unexpected or undeserved. But they all come against teams that struggle to score. Yes other top teams may have struggled against them but the point is that we still concede chances. In many of these wins we didn’t shut the attack down or defended imperiously. They really could/should have scored 2 or more. what would be welcome is a good defensive performance, reducing the chances the opponents have as well as our attack being effective and causing problems to the opposition. Beginning tonight at Galatasaray. We need to win so let’s give a good performance. All the previous results in the CL were due to our own **** ups.
