Regards this bit, you're just backing up my point. If this team is capable of a performance against the likes of Liverpool and Arsenal then yes, they should be able to also do it against Southampton and Brighton. Same formation, more or less the same team, they are all playing the same game. The reason they don't is that they are complacent, lazy and arrogant, and take teams such as Saints for granted. Brighton are a very good unit, they play attacking front foot football. They didn't come to Old Trafford to defend. Our team though, they just didn't put in the same intensity and concentration as they did against Liverpool. It's on them.
Don’t get me wrong, Chief, the players are effectively the ones kicking the ball, not the manager. However, management is not simply about tactics and formation. I would argue that a bulk of it is psychological and less so physiological. This is where the manager takes full responsibility in preparing the team to approach games with the right mindset. Let’s say we bring in three solid players, if the prevailing culture is that of laziness and complacency, then it will take 8 new players to overhaul that culture. Or, the manager can arrest the situation by finding psychological tools and means necessary to combat the culture. We know that simply buying new players has not helped us for the better part since Mourinho left. As for same formation and tactics for each of those games, perhaps this too is a problem. Why do we not have dynamic tactics and plan B against different sides, especially when things are not going well from the onset? This is where Amorim is lacking in my opinion. And why do we keep playing fkin Onana ffs?! I’m not suggesting we should switch the manager right now. But for that statement to remain in place, Amorim obviously needs to start showing that he is learning really fast to use the resources at his disposal beyond the best of his ability.
Only the manager, who then carries the can while the actual culprits skulk around in the background. Where you been all these years?
Sorry to see Zirkzee go off there with a hamstring injury, he was looking dangerous and there's a player in there for sure. With him, Diallo, Garnacho and Bruno pulling the strings it feels like a bit of time you'll have a good front line.
We have always had the squad. But the system is a massive farce. Playing the same sht every match day and always hoping for better outcome, absolute fkin madness! The players know how to move the ball around, side to side, but when it comes to creative play to create consequential chances, the system becomes self defeating. But hey, let’s just buy more players to fix a systemic problem.
They were ****e under the previous 'system', didn't you notice? I genuinely don't know if you're just some knobhead on the wind up half the time, you talk such utter ****e. Today's starting team; Bayindir- not good enough Mazaroui- good enough Lindelof- not good enough Yoro, good enough Dalot, - not good enough Ugarte - just about good enough Eriksen- not good enough Amass- decent enough prospect Garnacho, - needs to improve, quick Fernandes- good enough Zirkzee - good enough Half that team isn't up to scratch. And most of the subs were coming back from injury. Bar Hojlund, who, guess what, isn't up to scratch. But yeah, it's the system.
I've only seen you 7 or 8 games this season so may be way off but: For years Man Utd had enough consistently top quality performers that you could carry any "average" players or poor performances. Now you just seem to have too few good players trying to carry too much dead wood. I don't watch enough to know if the system is right/wrong or playing to your strengths but I say the top 7 all have better players and probably Brighton and Bournemouth do too. It's fine margins though, I still feel like your front line is ok (even ignoring Rashford and Sancho) but your midfield is a worry. Some of your players I can't quite work out. Garnacho has ability but lots of midtable players have ability, it's about how consistent you are. Alain St. Maximan was excellent for us 5-10 games a season and useless the rest of the time. More concerning is a feeling from the players of a lack of accountability, rather than buckling down when the match seems to slide there's more of a feeling of "oh well blow the whistle, we'll try again next match". Amorim still needs time, I'd have thought he's got until the end of next season at the least and 8-10th plus a cup run was the minimum requirements provided they back him in the summer. Think he'll be ok so long as the majority of fans are patient with it all. Good luck for the rest of the season.
Speaking of managers, even ETH would have got us 15 more points at this stage of the season. When a team underperforms perpetually, the lazy thing to do is to suggest that the collective players are somehow simply just not good enough. I mean, we have a thread of over 200 pages of waiting for the right players. In business, a strong execution strategy is able to overcome having average workers to gain competitive advantage. But a weak strategy will make invariably very strong workers look average. Football is no different!
A business won't overcome average workers. They'll get rid of the ones who got the previous manager sacked, and replace them with actual workers prepared to put in a shft. We don't have very strong workers to be able to make them average.
But you’ve shown in glimpses that you do have strong workers, when they can be bothered, and on paper you have a team full of A list footballers. Whilst I don’t advocate changing managers every 6 months, the manager has to take a huge amount of responsibility if he cannot get these players both playing consistently and being able to adapt to different styles.
Yes, on paper. When all are fit an firing then it's a decent first eleven, which Amorim has had them playing well. Well, I say that, but the reality is it's a decent nine, plus a ****e keeper and striker who contributes nothing. Both of whom ten Hag bought. But 95% of that squad he didn't sign, and a good few are Ten hag mistakes, which Amorim hasn't made. A manager like Amorim will want more of his own players in, completely and utterly 100% understandable. We've still got Mourinho's signings in the squad ffs. But gradually, they will all be culled. Consider what costly clangers ten Hag made, backed up by the previous regime; Got rid of De Gea and purchased Onana for big money. Got rid of Elanga for peanuts and purchased Antony for big money. Purchased Hojlund on a grossly over inflated fee, who turned out to be not able to adapt to the premier league. (I said when he signed he'd never be able to carry our goal burden on his own) Brought Mason Mount in, who turned out to be crocked and never able to get fit. Amorim inherited all this, and is never solving it, those players are what they are. Until we get a decent actual goal scoring, finished article, striker and a keeper who can make saves into this summer, we're ****ed essentially. And we also need Jose's signings like Lindelof & Shaw out of the door.
Actually you’re flat out wrong! Workers don’t get managers fired. Bad managers get themselves fired by not having control of their teams. When workers have no sense of direction, they invariably become average. But average workers can be moulded to produce with excellent leadership that will find techniques to hold them accountability. This is what they call turnaround ventures! Back to United! These are not even your average players. They are experienced! Like I said, they even know how to pass the ball around more than Arsenal and Newcastle. Sadly, they do it from left to right without ever making impact going forward. Here’s the reality regardless of how many times you deny it… football is more of psychological and strategic game than it simply physical. Amorim has failed to get the psychological aspect right by playing a fked up system that has repeatedly failed to not bring the best out of the players. Until he readapts to the needs and style of the Premier League, more time won’t make this any better. But he is far too stubborn to acknowledge that the system has failed to work. Perhaps he’s holding out for a massive payday by insisting with a failed method.
Your logic to always point to players that a manager didn’t sign is beyond flawed! How many managers in the league get to sign 11 players in a year. And even those that do like Chelsea don’t necessarily work out as we’ve seen. Surely we can’t be using this tired old silly argument that “they are not his players”. Absolutely fkin stupid! This is why modern football instituted Director of football. Which means the manager’s job is to work with whatever players he is given, coach them and make them better. And not simply think he deserves to go out with a blank cheque to bring him his flavour of FIFA 2026.
Can you not even see we have a ****e goalkeeper who costs us goals at one end, and a striker at the other who can currently barely control a ball, let alone shoot and score? Really, can't you see this? Or do you just not watch, and it's all about stats? It's right there in front of our eyes.
In the last few years, we have spent insane amounts across all positions on the pitch. There was once a time we thought a No. 9 was surely the missing puzzle even as other clubs outperformed us without an out and out No. 9s. We then got a number but predictably, we are short yet again because in recent years, there has not been a time of confidence in that problematic midfield and the way they are set up to play. The assumption has to be that we buy players with the expectation that they will bring something special to the team. But the reality against that assumption is that those players for one reason or another rarely live up to the expectation. Take Hojlund, I would argue that he was starting to show promise at the tail end of last year. He even showed flashes of his capability at the beginning of the campaign, but like many other players that we’ve invested in the last few years, he has succumbed to mediocrity which has now found a home at the club. This is why I believe that only the manager can enforce a structural change that will result in players reaching their best for the club. We have always been a club that turns rough around the edges and unknown players into household names. But if we can’t even come to the realization that how the players perform is a direct byproduct of the manager’s choices before and on match days, we will always come back to this junction whereby we lazily conclude that the players are simply not good enough. Critical, this time is particularly precarious for the club as we can’t simply spend our into fixing this problem.
Starting eleven looks decent. and then you look at the subs and wonder how the hell Obi Martin wasn't registered, yet Moorhouse, Kukonki and Kamason were, whoever they even are!
