23 Aug 2015 05:42:45
This a neutral post. I am asking questions here not sharing my conclusions.
How much time is really acceptable for a team to start playing well and establish a legitimate style of their own?
I realize that there is no fixed answer to this but how long before we unanimously(maybe 80% of the fans) say "that's it we've had enough"
Please note that I am not saying that time has come, I am not saying we should sack LvG I am just saying that i don't really know how long will it be considered as acceptable.
LvG has approximately been incharge of of 50 odd competitive games in all competitions and our gameplay is extremely basic. There is no real signature style that we have. Well uninventive passing so that you don't lose the ball is not really a signature style, is it?
Would any other high profile manager take the team Moyes left then spend 250odd million and have us play like we have been playing?
LEts not talk about winning trophies or anything and just focus on the gameplay.
Wouldn't any other high profile manager have us playing better football than what we do now?
Yes we look a bit stable defensively but hasn't that come at a cost of stifling our attack? Ie the fact that we don't have fast attacking players stopping us from playing good football?
Koeman also took over last summmer but he didn't seem to have a problem with that aspect of the game.
I don't want people to misunderstand. This is not a post calling for LvGs head or asking for drastic measures to be taken. this is just a post where I ask questions I don't know the answers to.
Would appreciate comments.
23 Aug 2015 06:31:18
I simply do not understand why the amount of money being spent is being equalised to the quality of football. You do realise that with 200 million, he has acquired individual players and NOT a team. It's not an individual game. It's a team game and the team needs time to gel before you see the "good" football being played. You keep making wholesale changes to the team, then how do you expect them to play. Yesterday we had 6 New faces starting the game ( I have included Shaw) in this count. These players have known each other For not more than a month.
Give the "team" time to know each other and gel in. I am sure we will see the style return.
On another note, saw An analysis on lvg in the pre game show, it is always been like this. Fewer goals scored and a hell lot fewer conceded. So I do not think we should expect the United of old banging in goals for fun. The word I believe they used was "pragmatic" United.
23 Aug 2015 07:05:30
Shan I think you have looked at the post negatively.
I mentioned multiple times that this is not the post to criticize LvG or anything, I am just looking for answers.
Koeman took over last season and basically created a new team but we all remember how brilliant they were in the first 10-12 games. The were in top 2 if I remember correctly.
Pellegrini in his 2 seasons has brought in 12 players(+4 this season), majority of them 1st teamers but their game play is brilliant.
(Note that I am not talking about winning trophies but just about the gameplay)
23 Aug 2015 08:03:32
@mumbai I asked Jose a similar question the other day as he seems to have a grasp of what lvg is aiming for, I'm sure he said he's a coach.
He said we're doing everything the way lvg wants us to do it just not finishing.
Once the goals start to go in we will start to look a very good side.
Possession high , shots against low, it's not that we didn't have attempts at goal against Newcastle we just couldn't finish, how can anyone blame lvg for that?
23 Aug 2015 08:15:27
strebor if you read my post carefully I am not talking about results or goals at all. Yes we had a legal goal ruled offside and were good for 20 odd minutes.
My point is how much time is really acceptable for a team to have a consistent signature style of play. I am sure you would agree we still don't have that.
23 Aug 2015 08:31:36
We have a signature style of play mumbai boy
You(and many others including me) just don't like me
23 Aug 2015 08:32:09
*it instead of me
Damn that sounded emo.
23 Aug 2015 08:33:06
Strebor, the reason people are blaming LVG for the fact we aren't finishing is because people feel that if certain players were played in their natural positions but we still played with this style we would probably create more chances.
For example a long running debate has been about where Juan Mata fits. No one doubts his quality but he shouldn't be playing on the right. Why not try swapping Januzaj and him for 20 mins yesterday? It's obvious Mata wants to cut inside as he did it all game and Januzaj has far more chance of going past a man than Mata. Things like this are frustrating fans. It's almost as if he is sticking to things that are not quite working just to show his philosophy works. Sometimes you have to try something different from your usual to win a game. He did it at times last season for example with Fellaini but he also stuck with 3 at the back for longer than he should have.
We need to play with a bit more urgency as even towards the end of the game yesterday when things were getting desperate it was more of the safe pass than anything.
23 Aug 2015 08:56:02
Mumbai - In direct answer to your questions:
1. I think 2 seasons is sufficient for any manager to have fully stamped their identity on a team and to not be able to hide behind any excuses. So I think LVG needs a bit more time as the teams and philosophy required by LVG is so different from what he inherited.
2. It doesn't matter what us fans think, the board will sack him until only they have had enough. That will happen once profits and revenue dip. He needs to be successful in order for us to keep growing the brand and improving the share price. So most fans may not enjoy the football, but on this site most people it seems prefer trophies/success to the brand of football (not me but when asked the other day 90& of the people said titles over performance). The board will be thinking the same.
3. It is a signature of how he wants to play. He needs a magician to score the goals because we create so little, it's like a computer at the moment and he is relying on crashes for goals. We have shown several times we can play this way with tempo and have looked very good, but we don't maintain it, I would ask is that because the manager stops it because we are too open, or the players are simply not capable of following all of his instructions and maintaining a high tempo yet?
Most professional managers would have expected to do more with the budget and players at his disposal. This has been a wasted period for me, because even if the manager succeeds in totally changing the clubs philosophy, the chances of his replacement maintaining it are virtually nil. I don't see the point in searching for this unique style of play which has fundamental flaws in the modern game (teams just camp and break now 90% of the time). We were lucky last season, this season we are going to concede so few and the attackers will need to pull rabbits out the hat - that isn't good management, it's a stubborn lecturer demanding more than he is putting in if you ask me.
He needs more time if the board are happy with the style. I hate it and think we have blown a great opportunity because even when/if it all clicks we are still in a very weak position because he over complicates certain things with players out of position and relies too heavily on magic to score. Our magicians aren't on stage long enough and unfortunately don't look capable of performing regularly enough. Expect a lot of 1-0 or 0-0 games for the foreseeable.
I'd sack him tomorrow and bring in a young manager with a more progressive style of play, one that actually makes all the transfer money bring back exciting play rather than fine tuning a pretty dull machine.
23 Aug 2015 09:08:45
I know you can never be sure exactly what money changes hands but according to reports our net spend on transfer fees since LVG took over is more like £120m which in 2 years is not that much for a club the size of ours undergoing a major transition. The reality is we simply haven't made any true marquee player signings except for ADM and that didn't work out. We were clearly never his preferred destination, which seems to be a common theme running through the last few years - all things being equal the top players are going somewhere else.
The reasons for this apparent state of affairs have been much discussed but whatever your opinion, LVG is left with few options, one of which is youth, and the other is a goal threat comprised of Mata, Rooney and Fellaini.
23 Aug 2015 09:12:39
Mumbai
The problem is , this is how a lvg plays.
His team's haven't been great to watch for some time I've made the point many times his Munich team was awful to watch but as people keep saying he won the league .
This is what u get with lvg,
23 Aug 2015 09:47:50
@rj didn't we have 20 attempts at goal yesterday ? How many chances do we need to create
23 Aug 2015 10:02:19
In answer to the question, I think it will be until the manager wants to go which given his age is relevant or until the board feel the direction is not right and or the results are unacceptable.
Some months ago I posted on here that the club must have made a decision when going down the LvG route that they wanted to stamp an identity on the style of play that we have not done previously. The club must have known what LvG was going to do and bought into it. My guess would be that he will have explained the structure of how he was going to do it, the time it would take to change and the long term benefits. If the club opted out now I would say the decision to appoint LvG in the first place would have to be questioned and that would have to cost Woodward his job. So I see this continuing until the structure is there and it is the next manager that is going to be interesting.
What I saw yesterday and why I think LvG was saying fantastic is that we are playing his system closer to what he wants. That is not to say I liked watching it because at the moment it is month of the goal rather than the other way round.
I posted yesterday that we played like Barcelona prior to Suarez and Neymar arriving but when Messi was injured. The structure of their play was there but no one to break the opposition defence. In honesty this style needs a genius like Messi to succeed and we don't have one.
Given this is a major overhaul of our style and method of playing I think the club will see where we are at the end of the season especially given the managers age, his tendency to undertake short sharp change management roles and the likely availability as things stand of at least three younger top managers in Pep, Klopp and Ancelotti.
23 Aug 2015 12:59:25
Strebor, how many of them were clear cut chances? Hernandez 1 on 1, Rooney's disallowed goal. Not many other than that. We need a finisher or players who will carve out more clear cut chances rather than half chances or shots from 25 yards.