15 Feb 2021 14:36:03
I’m not an Ole defender but nor am I in the camp that he is useless and should be sacked immediately. I think I’m fairly objective and right now I am getting more and more frustrated. Here’s why.
These players have put in some very good performances this year but too often they look lethargic and off the pace. I know the season has been disrupted for everyone and games are coming thick and fast but too many of our players are bang out of form. Martial has been dreadful, Rashford has been up and down, mostly down lately, Greenwood is showing some signs of life, but he has also been less than great. Then there is Bruno; clearly he is very talented and has been talismanic for us but for the last month or 3 he has been absolute pants. He’ll pop up with great goal which then deflects just how ordinary he has been. Our front four are bang out of form, yet we are currently top scorers across the season as a whole.
DDG has been flaky for some time now, we need to be ruthless and look to the future. Hendo has had a full season in the EPL with Sheffield United, there are no fans in the grounds currently so pressure is massively reduced, if there is a time to integrate him in then it is clearly now yet DDG keeps getting picked.
Then we have Laurel and Hardy at CB. Lindelof is weak and ineffectual and is at best a squad player. Maguire had been playing pretty well but with the wrong partner he looks lost, and for £80M he should be able to stand on his own feet. He’s also Captain and whilst captains are different nowadays, he doesn’t give any impression of seniority or gravitas, the nonsense he came out with yesterday was embarrassing. Did we really approach the West Brom game thinking it was going to be tough? We should have gone intending to smash them.
Despite all that, the same players keep getting picked. When we need players to come off the bench they are beyond rusty as they have had no game time. Tuanzebe, Mata, DVDB, James hardly get a sniff. Why we bought DVDB is beyond me, we needed a CF, a CB, and a RW, and we bought someone who will rarely get a game for £40M. Staggering. If the players on the pitch aren’t performing (and they aren’t), try others, it’s not rocket science.
I listened to Ole talk about challenging City and putting some pressure on them, yet our current form is awful. Since the Southampton game we have lost 1 and drawn 3, the loss and 1 of the draws to the bottom 2 clubs, so talk of putting a run together seems ambitious, right now we need to stop the rot.
I have seen progress this year, and suggesting we are only 2nd because others have got worse supposes that the weird season hasn’t affected us when clearly it will have. We are top scorers, we haven’t lost away in the league for a year, we have secured more points from a losing position than any other team, and yet watching us is like a visit to the dentist, you have to do it, but you know you won’t enjoy it.
Either Ole is unable to clearly articulate to the players what is required, or they are unable to understand what he is asking. The defence keep conceding sloppy goals, AWB is forever playing teams onside, how hard is it to get a top defensive coach in to drill the defenders? Irrespective of this, I think the attitude and belief is all wrong, we need to give the players freedom and try and win as opposed to thinking West Brom will be a tough game.
We are promoting youngsters, we know we have some talent coming through, but we still have some weak positions and a bunch of players who are very inconsistent. The Bruno signing was inspired but was a one-off, a lot of the other signings were knee jerks. Cavani is a great example, he is looking lively and has scored some goals, but he was a last-minute panic buy. I mentioned DVDB earlier, it feels like someone has wasted £40M and I’m guessing it wasn’t Ole.
Excellent recruitment will help, a top-class CB and RW would be a good start, let Rashford try and find his form on the left, see if Maguire can be better with a stronger partner. But does anyone have any confidence we will sign the right players?
It is so FRUSTRATING!
15 Feb 2021 15:52:04
I agree with a lot of that, its the Jekyll and Hyde nature of our side currently that is so frustrating. It is the KNOWING that we can play better when we play poorly which is the kicker. Beating a side 9-0 one game then losing to the bottom side who had 1 win in 22 games the next game.
However, the issue is simple. How we play works for the most part, we are top scorers and we have won many tough games, we show the mental fortitude to fight back from losing positions and on the whole we play fairly well if not quite the scintillating football we all crave.
The issue is that we keep coming unstuck by silly individual errors. Lindelof beaten in the air again, Harry being in the wrong place or taking out one of our own players. DDG knocking the ball back into the danger zone for a tap in, or beaten at his near post yet again. Or maybe it was Fred giving the ball away in midfield or AWB falling asleep and playing someone onside.
How often when we concede is it due to some poor defending or a poor touch or a player switching off. Every bloody time. I can't remember the last goal we conceded where I've thought "fair play that was excellent football and there isn't much we could have done there".
I don't know if there is much we can do but to replace the players who seem unable to do their jobs properly or to a high enough standard. Had Maguire come through our academy he'd have been shown the door, same for Fred and Lindelof. Yet because we paid 35, 50 or even 80m for them we persist like one day they will wake up good footballers. Fact is we got taken for a ride, we bought players who aren't good enough for where we want to be.
When looking at recruitment a right winger would be third on my list of priorities. CB first, CDM second then a creative player who predominately plays RW but can play anywhere across the front line would be ideal.
Top scorers but only 8 sides have conceded more than us. We need to shore up our defence. I'd go out and bring in Jules Kounde who looks like a more developed version of Fofana and a likely world class player within a couple of years. Top CB's are hard to find. Ideally I would like two but the reality is we have a lot of players in that position and we would need to shift a load to make space for two. Then I'd sign Declan Rice. EPL proven, British and top class. In a United side he would free up McTominay to play in the same way Soucek does for West Ham. I think McTominay could easily add 10-15 goals a season if he was given the freedom to play like Soucek does at West Ham.
The final player I'd sign is Pedro Neto from Wolves, young talented a really worker and capable of playing RW, LW, CAM, ST and even CM. He's also EPL proven and with Wolves having a poor season compared to last season he could be one that could be pipped from them before other top teams realise the potential and swoop.
I don't think we would have enough money to look at any other players beyond those three in the current climate. It's not perfect, ideally we could do with signing a top ST such as Haaland and probably a second CB. But Haaland would cost upward of 80m with abiding war likely this summer, and another CB would be in the 40-60m range. A further 120-140m just isn't realistic and these signings might have to wait until the following summer.
I'm not normally the kind of person who says we need to buy our way out of trouble, but the reality is that simply the players we have aren't good enough and they never will be.