03 Nov 2017 11:52:23
Welsh Red Devil makes a point about our style of play and suggests that people must have forgotten the 70s and 80s. Not at all mate.
Tommy Docherty knew how to play, young pacey wingers and a direct style. He was building something and it was an indiscretion that saw him leave before he could take us to the next level.
We then had the Sexton years which were dire, I sat through them and it was pretty painful stuff.
On to Atkinson who also liked wingers and also played a direct entertaining style for the most part. He seemed to be on the way to success but after a fantastic start we finished third and it was downhill the following season before he was sacked.
And then SAF. A couple of difficult years whilst he bought and sold, chopped and changed, restructured the youth before we finally set on 2 wide players and an attacking style. Everyone seems to suggest that "SAF didn't always entertain" which is true but for the most part he did, and he sought to build teams that did, it was part of his understanding of United
So, other than Sexton we have had Managers since 1975 whose first instinct was to entertain and they key point here is that this isn't Jose's first instinct. I'm not trying to diss him as he has been very successful and pre international break we were playing pretty well although possibly flattering to deceive a little.
I have seen comments that winning is all that matters and I completely disagree. If we turn into a boring team that grinds out result after result to win a trophy (as in under LVG) then I am not interested, that is not the United way. I get there are odd games we need to do it, or team selection may dictate it occasionally but for the most part our approach should be to make the opposition worry about us. That is what we have done since Sir Matt, with only the odd interruption. When LVG was in charge there were a few games I simply didn't watch; the football was painful, I had other things to do and I just wasn't prepared to sit through another shocker of a game. Don't give me the 'support your team whatever' line. Of course I support them, always have and always will but the LVG years were dreadful.
It remains to be seen if Jose will 'let the horses run free' often enough. Perhaps when he feels he has the players he wants we will do it but other than a short spell at Chelsea he has been pragmatic for the most part. You pays your money, you makes your choice but here's the question: does anyone think we would have attacked Real the way Spurs did this week? Me neither.
03 Nov 2017 12:10:22
You make some good points Tony, my post wasn’t an attack on any one supporter but to remind people that tho it may not be the attack attack attack of a Fergie it is far from as bad as we have seen, Sexton you point out, LVG of course but my point is that Jose’s job is to win, get us back to the top competing at the highest level, he was brought into do that and he has and is, so I find it hard to say it’s not good enough when we have sat thru some recent painful years and have had eras playing some dire stuff, much worse than now and when actually we are playing quite well other than Liverpool away onward and that ‘blip’ we had.
Spurs v Real yes was good stuff from Spurs, in the Prem against us, or without Kane, not so much, so it does basically boil down to style or substance then and who likes one without the other cz obvs we would all like the ideal of both, but ask an arsenal fan who play great footy but come nowhere every year if they are happy with that, I’d think not.
I get what your saying it’s a tradition and I loved the Fergie years, brought up on videos of best law and Charlton but it is a competition and so we’ve got to be competing so until we come across someone to do that with both ideals we have a successful Jose.
My other point is when we get a manager in who plays the way we all want, will he be given time to build and have our patience while he does so, I hope so but recent history suggests managers even at a club like ours don't seem to be given that luxury.
03 Nov 2017 12:57:38
Jose won't change we are not going to play the free flowing footy of barce or city .
It will be the tactical organised maybe even methodical footy we saw from Jose Chelsea teams .
It can be good to watch but it has its own style, his Madrid team scored goal but it was organised.
Rule 1 don't conced .
03 Nov 2017 13:29:54
Rule 2 - sod the history, ethos of the club and the reason you get the exposure/ money you do.
We are where we are now because the game has gone global and we had "entertainment" written all over us during the key time of football's global PR growth. A generation ago it was different and the points AJH and WRD make are valid imo, however the game is different now. We are spending world record amounts of money on talent from all over the world. We have dominated the best league in the world for 20 years - so our current entertainment value can not possibly be compared to 70's/ 80's football. It was a working class game back then, passion, excitement but yes poor football now it is more like a choreographed boring opera. If I want to be bored I have other things I'd rather do.
We are closer to the 70's/ 80's football than we are to the 90's/ 00's football - that is a travesty considering the investment and learnings we should have taken over the recent past. We had a massive head start on our rivals, we are now going backwards. I like AJH find myself less bothered about games, I used to stay up all night if overseas to watch us, I would plan flights around the time we kicked off, meetings, everything was based on what time Utd were playing. Now I don't lose sleep if I miss a game, as I can pretty much copy and paste the match report every week. Been the same since SAF left.
Winning is great, but there always has to be a winner by default - you can be the best of a bad bunch. Winning in style is special, and frankly we look like doing neither at the moment.
I'm looking forward to the next manager coming in already, I just hope that we make the correct decision next time factoring in the main reason why we have hundreds of million to spend on players every summer - Man Utd stood for excitement, it now stands for something a whole lot different in my book. Most fans wouldn't want Jose gone because they think he will bring us success, or they have some sort of degree in football restructuring and the impact on clubs (show me proof frequently changing a manager is bad for a club) . We should be more ruthless in the boardroom, on the pitch and our fans should care more about what we stand for rather than a remote chance we win the league playing dull stuff.
03 Nov 2017 13:31:27
Good post Tony.
Agreed Jred, 1st rule is not to concede. From that we hopefully can nick a goal or two, maybe more.
03 Nov 2017 14:27:03
The Docherty team played fantastic football and was highly entertaining. I firmly believe that United would've won the league under Docherty if he hadn't been sacked for his affair.
Moyes, LVG and Mourinho all play cautious football which is totally alien to our club. I think there is a balance between entertaining football and cautious football. Mourinho is on the wrong side of cautious. Pochettino has the best balance at Spurs. Entertaining but very solid defensively.
I yearn for someone like Pochettino to take over and actually return the club back to its values.
03 Nov 2017 14:28:13
Beast
Jose won't change, it's his style and while I don't think it's the greatest football in the world to watch it's not the worse or anywhere near as bad as you like to make out .
Won 11 drew 2 lost 1Â
Scored 37 conceded 6 . Â
It's no where near as dull as you make out .
For the vast majority of the season we have been good .
Fergy had spells of poor football Barcelona took apart a very good United team playing a brand of football fergy never matched.
Just my own opinion but I don't think it's anywhere near as bad as you make out .
I also enjoyed the spurs game for example .
I agree 100% it shouldn't be all about winning LVG got sacked after winning the fa cup and many on here wanted him gone because of his style of footy .
But there is a middle ground, some of the football under fergy was great but he could and did grind out a lot of results especially in Europe. He said him self he change his philosophy after getting knocked out by Madrid in 2000 (I think) in what was 2 very entertaining games . We where never as gung ho after that .
03 Nov 2017 14:44:31
I think there is another part to this that people are missing or doesn't seem to have been mentioned, the difference in style depending on the quality of the opponent. Go back and watch United games under Fergie against the top teams at the time, plenty of hard fought 1-0 wins, plenty of games where we played tactically, but obviously also lots of games where we smashed much inferior teams to pieces.
These days the inferior teams are not as bad as they used to be so it is not easy, but we are still seeing us do that. We are in the middle of a tricky run of fixtures and we are playing without our best midfielder, some people seem to be ignoring that, Herrera and Miki have been poor since Pogba got injured and Fellaini was in the best form of his united career before the last international break cut him down.
I also think winning has to come first, results breed confidence, we are 37 games unbeaten at home and you can see the confidence and belief that they will not lose at home when we play. Martial and Rashford at their best are getting me off my seat every week at OT. The confidence then allows a team to play with more freedom and the belief you will win from any position then allows the more exciting play.
Beast, we have not dominated the best league in the world for 20 years, we have won it once in the last 6 and that was 4 years ago, we are rebuilding and results have to come before performances, even if both is the ideal for everybody.
03 Nov 2017 15:28:59
Some really good points being made. I don think we are as bad as Be
East makes out, I enjoyed our games pre intl break but I do think some of the score line should flattered us. However, we were creating chances so the play was much better than last year.
Good point from Schmid, cautious football is alien to our club and it remains to be seen how cautious Jose will be. He set up positively for Spurs but we were at home and we have scored plenty in the early games so who knows?
GDS is spot on, I don't think we can get Pogba back quick enough, he was starting to look the real deal before his pull.
I'm currently on the fence probably because of my antithapy towards Jose as an individual and his grating public persona. However, I will never accept that winning is everything or the only thing that matters.
03 Nov 2017 16:32:26
GDS problem with the whole fergie did it too logic is fergie never set out to get a draw, we always started the game with let's win this match attitude, with mourinho i know that there will be 4-5 games of the 38 where we will set out to not lose rather than win. That is not the utd way however much you may bring SAF or Sexton or whoever. Last season against liverpool we had no injuries to pogba or anybody what the excuse then to not even try, it was worse against city and arsenal. Pogba's injury had little to do with the Liverpool tactics this season, that is on mourinho refusing to even consider attacking his top 4 rivals away from home.
03 Nov 2017 17:08:02
Mourinho is much more pragmatic than Fergie. Substance over style when it's a big game.
We knew what we were getting when mourinho signed on. And to be honest you'd swear we haven't ever played well. Only behind city in terms of goals.
03 Nov 2017 19:32:22
Priority to win or play with style? Sexton's last six games before he was sacked were all wins!
04 Nov 2017 01:24:27
Good debate lads, but I think too many people are looking at the goals tally and automatically think we must be playing well. Goals can be an indicator for sure, but most of those goals were scored in blitzes, our actual performance in games has been remarkably stable and similar, even if we draw 0-0 or win 4-0. The games we have hammered teams we have been clinical or lucky in front of goal, the games we drew or scored few we were not clinical or unlucky in front of goal - what happened before those micro-seconds was same same.
Our build up play, style of play and team structure (defence first) has been remarkably similar, we have much less of the ball now as well - that is what Jose brings to the table, but it also means if you don't like what you see one game there is a strong chance you won't like what you see for almost every game. I hate what I see most games because I know we are capable of so much more.
How about stop protecting our defence (that we have invested heavily in) and start testing the opposition defence. We treat most half decent teams like we are inferior, it doesn't sit right with me, especially as that complex is hard to shake when we play teams like Huddersfield or Stoke for example.
I'll be glad when he takes over England after Southgate. Our expectations for England are so low it is perfect for him and frankly watching England is like watching Utd, so most of our fans will love watching us beat Andorra 4-0 and then parking the bus against Slovenia hoping Kane nicks a goal. At least then we might get our Man Utd back, the real one that dazzzled and had us on the edge of our seats. Wasted opportunity this period in our history.
04 Nov 2017 09:24:14
Can some of you who advocate winning at all costs and sod the entertainment explain to me why you spend time and money watching football and following a football club? What do you get out of it?