News: The 2017/18 Season Preview, Discussion & Review Thread [R]

🗓 #MUFC's televised fixtures for March have been announced...

Monday 5: Crystal Palace (A), 20:00 GMT
Saturday 10: Liverpool (H), 12:30 GMT
Sunday 18: West Ham (A), 13:30 GMT (subject to FA Cup participation) pic.twitter.com/gnDesZxnha

— Manchester United (@ManUtd) January 24, 2018

 

4 - Marcus Rashford is the fourth different @ManUtd player to score 10 or more goals in all competitions in 2017/18 (with Lukaku, Lingard and Martial); @ManCity are the only Premier League team with as many (also four). Riches. pic.twitter.com/vgG9uY5i3R

— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) January 26, 2018

 

Best thing about that stat is that 2 of our folks are local lads that came up through the academy.

 

United will face the winner of Huddersfield/Birmingham away in the next round of the FA Cup.

www.bbc.com/sport/football/42863712

 

Besides us and WBA/Southampton, the Prem teams in the draw get lower league clubs. What are the odds of that happening? I'm sure nothing to do with heated balls or anything of the sort....

 

The games for February:
- Huddersfield, Feb 3rd (Prem - H)
- Newcastle, Feb 11th (Prem - A)
- Sevilla, Feb 21st (CL - A)
- Chelsea, Feb 25th (Prem - H)

Straightforward, not too congested month for United with only 4 games on offer. Have to get all 3pts vs Huddersfield at home (we owe them for the reverse fixture), Newcastle are tough and organized defensively, but we should find a way to get all 3pts.
In the CL vs Sevilla, will not presume anything against that team. Being on the road, a scoring draw is the minimum that is expected ahead of the return leg. And finally, Chelsea at home. We seem to be doing much better at home in games vs Spurs and Chelsea and hopefully that trend will continue, with United coming out with all 3pts.
A relatively easy but important month, especially in terms of getting a good foothold on second place and towards qualification for the CL 1/4s.

 

Sevilla under Berizzo would have been an easy one as they weren't doing well. Sevilla under Montella a different story. They knocked Athletico out of the Copa, and should have beaten Barca at the Camp Nou.

 

Forgot about the FA Cup tie.

 

Genuine cause for concern now IMO as our form is the result of some fundamental issues;

- Jose formation, player positions, tactics against decent oppo etc.

- our central midfield is looking broken; Pogs form has gone (see above), Matic looks gassed / ineffective / lonely, Herrera overlooked / poor when played / injured, Carrick injury / age, McT inexperienced / raw

- defence; Jones garbage against Spuds, Smalling garbage against Newcastle, Bailly injured, Rojo is Rojo

- attack; Lukaku lonely, Sanches not integrated, Rash injured / poor form, Martial played out of position (see above), Mata & Lingard inconsistent

- team as a whole can't defend set-pieces

Don't care about the FA Cup, but want to finish 2nd/3rd and above Liverpool + go out of CL to top team. If Jose doesn't turn things around quickly we could miss those targets which would not be good enough for what he has at his disposal.

 

No title race this season, but the competition for European places and relegation promise to be barn burners.
Such a pity too, as far as we are concerned, since we could have put some daylight with the pursuing pack, if it weren't for our recent form.

 

There's no serious argument that holds that we can win the EPL trophy or the CL trophy. And the FA Cup isn't much to brag about.

So we're in a bit of a limbo, or perhaps purgatory, playing to close out the season with the only serious goal being to hold a top four spot.

A shame we didn't beat a very beatable Newcastle side as it would be nice to wrap up league play in our last four games with youngsters like Gomes. As it stands now, we need to win games that we wouldn't have had to win had we done what we should have done against Newcastle, Burnley and Leicester City.

 

Have United lost their fear factor?

www.espn.co.uk/football/blog/the-match/60/post/3379949/manchester-united-have-lost-ther-fear-factor

 

They lost their fear factor since Fergie left. What kind of BS article is that?

 

Have you even read it before running your mouth? Because unless I'm mistaken, it touches on a point you've actually made recently about the mental fortitude of the team.
The title may be a bit misleading, because the team has lost it's killer instinct since SAF left (as the article exactly points out at the end). But one of the things that is surprising with the team, with Jose being at the club over a year now, is how weak to a certain extent this team is. And how it lacks big personalities and leaders...

 

An absurd article, the thesis of which is summed up here:

However, while those issues can be addressed on the training pitch, there seems to be a more fundamental -- perhaps more intangible -- problem: Opponents are not scared of United.​

There's only one club in the EPL that every other club is "scared of": Manchester City. Everyone else -- United, Chelsea, Spurs, Liverpool and Arsenal included -- are in the minds of their opponents beatable. Not better than those five clubs, but if the rub of the green goes the right way, those five can be beaten by the likes of Huddersfield, Newcastle and Bournemouth.

With the exception of the season Leicester City won the trophy the eventual winner over the last two decades had an aura about them that induced fear in their opponents. Chelsea's opponents were "scared" under Conte and Mourinho two seasons prior. Man City's opponents as well. United under Ferguson more often than not.

The real issue isn't who's "scared of" of whom, but why United have dropped so many stupid points this season, such as what we saw against Newcastle. The reasons, like everything like, are complex, but it has nothing to do with opponents shitting their pants the moment they realize United is next up on the fixture list. It's all about performance, or the lack thereof, that enables sides with lesser quality to beat superior sides. Improve the performance (start with better tactics in our particular case) and positive results will come.

Against Newcastle we failed to properly finish on three glorious chances -- Martial in the first half, Sanchez in the second half and Martial again in the second half -- and we conceded a bonehead free kick goal from a relatively unpromising position on the pitch. That's really it. True, we should have created more scoring chances but our finishing was such that we could have created a dozen more scoring chances and still not scored.

Give credit to Newcastle for brave defending, but they hardly had a go at us and troubled De Gea only on the one shot that had any chance at all in beating him. And that's all it took to beat United.

 

What I am saying is we (Bigsoccer United posters) knew that for years, all of a sudden the media ran out of stories.

the UCL tie is the biggest since Fergie left because we are expected to win due to our current attacking players but yet we lack that "mental fortitude".

 

Not surprising at all. The club havnt had a real captain since Rio.

Karloski has regularly discussed how mentally weak this team is, even before Jose.

 

Agree completely. That's why when looking for transfer targets, more than ever, it's vital for us to look for players with character and charisma, on top of being talented.
We clearly have missed that for some time now and it shows.

Edit: I think it's obvious that Jose is fully aware of this and it bothers him as well. So hopefully he'll actively do something about it.

 

Apart from Carrick, since Keane / Scholes how many "world class" CMs have we had? If "world class" means get into most other top teams midfield??

Matic, Herrera, Blind, Fellaini, Fletcher, Cleverley, Anderson, Gibson, Hargreaves, Djemba Djemba, Kleberson etc. Doesn't read well for a club of our status.

SAF had a blind-spot for CM in his later years and was continued by Moyes / LVG.

Often a position you look to for leadership / captains.

Carrick has done it in his later years owing to experience (but not natural to his character). Matic looked like he was going to be a talker in first few games but has gone to the shadows. Herrera has potential as captain but his form is off and not a regular starter. Pogs looked like a captain candidate but his recent antics show why maybe not until he matures (if that is going to happen).

Robson to Keane to Carrick to ??

 

This in particular is precisely why, while my ideal choice for 8 would be Saul or Sergej, like most here, but one of my fallback options if we can't either one of them, is still Vidal.
I get that he's not young anymore and would be nothing more than a stopgap, but he's got the combination of talent, experience and that rugged mentality we desperately need in the team (and in midfield).
He is said to be happy at Bayern, but his contract is coming to an end and Goretzka coming this summer is not going to do him much favors in terms of playing time.

 

Why picking up Vidal might be a fantastic option.

Edit: I'm 30 minutes late on this post because I had to do some work after reading Benni's post. I'm better than you Ashur.

 

Some pressing issues United need to address at this time.

www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2018/02/13/five-pressing-questions-manchester-united-jose-mourinhos-grip/

 

The accusation of "mental weakness" can't be laid at the feet of all or even most of our players.

I can go through 20-25 to demonstrate the point if it would be helpful but in truth only 4-5 players could be fairly described as "mentally weak".

Smalling leads the pack, without question. He's been a disappointment for most of his career and his dive against Newcastle in midfield was atrocious.

Jones, probably. He's played well here and there but then puts in horror performances, such as against Spurs.

Martial can be fairly described as "mentally weak", if what we really mean by that is failing to perform at a consistently high level.

Lukaku? I actually don't think so. He hasn't scored as many goals as I think he should have, but he's remained a consistently hard worker who's put in pretty decent shifts away from the box.

Let's just go down the list, excluding fringe players such as Darmian, Blind and Lindelof.

De Gea. Nope.
Valencia. Nope.
Shaw. Nope.
Young. Nope.
Matic. Nope.
Pogba. Nope. I know some of us would like to take a swipe at him, but until Sanchez arrived he was our only clear world class outfield player but a player who's been consistently played out of position by his manager.
Mata. Not really. He's physically weak, but not mentally weak.
Lingard. He's playing out of his skin.
Rashford. Still a boy.
Herrera. Our best outfield player last season who's been misused this season and as a result has been poor.

Miki was mentally weak and he's gone now. Fellaini isn't mentally weak as much as he is a player who has little technical ability and virtually no vision whatsoever. Romero...no complaints from me.

 

I don't think it's all of a sudden that it's a big story: what's mystifying is that it's obviously an issue despite having a manager like Mourinho in charge. Someone who is notorious for having not just powerful teams physically, but tough upstairs as well.
The fact that we have a tough time getting back into games we fall behind in is very symptomatic of this lack of mental toughness. We need more guys who can pick up games by the scruff of the neck and drag the team back up in the process, when necessary. We don't have that type of player, especially in midfield.
It's nothing new and something that every United fan surely is aware that has been lacking since SAF left. And frankly it's annoying because that flies in the face of what United is: never say die attitudes, a propensity for comebacks are as much a part of the club's DNA as attacking football are tbh.
That's why as mentioned above, football talent and abilities matter, but the type of characters they are (rough rider types) is as equally as important, so far as I'm concerned.