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Lessons from the enemy

Liverpool and Man City are clearly the standard we should aspire to be at as first team. When Jose famously declared our players gave their all but still couldn’t compete physically with Liverpool after his final game in charge, that hit a nerve with some at the club. Jose’s sack had been impending but that result and his words forced the board into a corner and saw them show him the door. Tough as those words may sound, there is some truth to that.

Growing up in the 90s and 2000’s, we had our football and the marketing juggernaut to lord our all our rivals. Liverpool trolled themselves for the most part, their penchant for signing Championship level British talent, fielding a string of howler keepers and imploded at the first hint of a title race. Man City were nowhere to be seen. A decade or so later we are a complete shambles back to front with an untested manager, average squad and our shambolic recruitment. It is time to face the bitter truth and to take our medicine. Some things we could learn from our rivals:

1. Physicality - Liverpool look pretty physically imposing when I watched them play Arsenal last week and crucially when the bullied Barcelona in the Champions League last year to fight their way back into the tie.

2. Set piece delivery - Liverpool scores 23 goals last season from set pieces more than any other team in the premier league. I would be surprised if we even managed to find another United player 23 times in our set piece delivery whole of last year. I haven’t seen us attack corners and free kicks with a vengeance since the days of Sir Alex mostly due to terrible delivery. Standards are so bad that I actually was clapping Luke Shaw for putting a decent corner in, never mind nothing came of it.

3. Relentless score running - Liverpool and City want to run up the score board regardless of who they play. Once they have their foot on the opponents throat they don’t take it out at all. Had we put 2-3 past Wolves in the first half when we squeezed them completely we would have been able to have come out with 3 points from that game.

4. Sporting Director - Need one, it is beyond a joke now that Ed Woodward decides who we sign and who we don’t. We don’t need a yes man but the best person for the job.

[gridironsoccer-blog]

Heartbreaking from Manutd against Palace

Hello! It wasn’t a great weekend if you were a United fan with the same theme of a lack of cutting edge and quality in attack from the last six years returning to haunt us. Here is my break down of the takeaways

Negatives:

1. Ponderous build up play with no cutting edge - for all the talk from Ole, this performance could have been any United team in the post Fergie era.

2. Dave no longer the unflappable giant between the sticks - In hindsight how we would have liked the Old Dave to have kept the shot out from Van Aanholt and helped us to a draw.

3. Most of our starters would have been squad players in a Fergie era team and probably not break into any of the other top 5 teams. Mctominay, Lingard, Shaw wouldn’t make the bench of any of the other top 5. Blooding academy players in is perfectly fine but relying on Greenwood, a 17 year old to save your skin when trailing at home to a relegation favorite is just plain scary.

4. Gulf between us and City, Liverpool and Spurs is very real and growing - Watching Liverpool batter Arsenal was a reminder of how stark the gulf in quality is between us and Liverpool, City and even Spurs. Nothing from our back room staff to our boardroom to our very average squad is best in class or even in the same planet as the top teams. This is most concerning as it means what comes next could be wilderness ranging between the 90s Liverpool to 2000’s (relegated) Leeds. The Board has sucked the club dry but when will they wake up to realize they are cannibalizing their own investement’s future returns. Manutd the brand could take a very real hit if the decline of the football organization isn’t arrested soon.

Positives

1. Defeats and poor performances will force the board into action again in January - If we struggle to score and have performances like this at OT, the board will be forced to either back Ole in the window or see us struggle to finish in the European spots. It’s all very well that Ole‘s at the wheel but the board needs to give him gas money.

2. New signings Maguire, AWB and James - All our new signings looked decent and actually played better than the rest of the team. Endemic to our struggles in the post Fergie era has been failed transfers, with Zlatan being the only silver lining. Our recruitment this year looks like it has finally turned the corner and we are starting to sign proper United players.

3. Ole is class - There is something resoundingly Manutd about how Ole resolutely sticks up for his players. Even in the post match presser today, he backed Rashford to score a penalty soon same as he did with Pogba last week. All of this a far cry from Mourinho’s acrimony and bullying of players publicly. While Ole still needs to deliver at least his players know he is willing to stick his neck out and take a few hits for them from the press.