manchester united are not an attacking team

rob smyth gets a bit carried away (sextonian!). can't see there being many invites to ot or carrington for him for a while.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog...premier-league
Five things we learned from the Premier League this weekend

Manchester United are negative, Birmingham should be more positive and Phil Brown fans are braced for the worst




Sir Alex Ferguson's Manchester United side produced 'the most spineless, lily-livered and unforgiveable performance of his 23 years at the club' at Anfield. Photograph: Carl Recine/Action Images
1. Manchester United are not an attacking team

Sir Alex Ferguson is happy to tell anyone who will listen that Manchester United's attacking traditions cannot be compromised, but this tiresome prattle – swallowed up unthinkingly by the masses – is incontrovertibly contradicted by the evidence of this decade. Ferguson was brainwashed first by a numbing but ultimately unfortunate defeat to Real Madrid in 1999-2000 and then by Carlos Queiroz, and changed his approach for the really big games, in which United's approach is invariably at best cagey and at worst catenaccio. Previously he wanted to score one more than the opposition; now he wants to concede one fewer. Previously the football Manchester United played was sexy; now it is Sextonian. A nadir was reached with their feeble surrender at Anfield yesterday, when United were well beaten by a desperately mediocre Liverpool side.
Such a conservative approach is not entirely without pragmatic merit, and has produced some very good results at Anfield, Camp Nou and Old Trafford in recent years, but those came when Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic were the best centre-back pairing in the Premier League. Yesterday United flounced around like a team waiting to concede, with the inexplicable exclusion of Anderson contributing to a catatonic attacking display until Fernando Torres's brilliantly taken opening goal.
It is not entirely inconceivable that this was the consequence of a collective loss of nerve among the players, but it has happened with such frequency over the last few years that all logic suggests they were adhering to instructions. On Friday, Ferguson said that Liverpool was "the game", but his disinclination to put the foot on Liverpool's throat showed a disconcerting lack of awareness of how much the contest really means. In context – with Liverpool in disarray and with a chance, maybe, to hound Rafael Benítez out of a job – this was the most spineless, lily-livered and unforgiveable performance of Ferguson's 23 years at the club. It betrayed the club's attacking tradition; even worse, it betrayed the tradition of never, ever giving Liverpool an even break.

Sounds about right to me.

I think he has a point.

I don't imagine Rob ever gets to go to Carrington.

The article doesn't adhere to the thread title.

Thread title is wrong. Article is spot on

I think its just about right. we are more attacking than any team against weak teams and probably most negative out of top 4 against top away teams.

I think you probably have to accept that when we have put one dire performance after another in european away games worse than liverpool's performances tbh.

It's bang on imo.

Well forgiving the obvious hyperbole, he has a point.

I think most supporters would accept losing to Liverpool each year if it means we still win the league. But for most, beating Liverpool each year comes a close second and for some inexplicable reason, the club seem to have forgotten that.

The worst performance of Fergie's 23 years though? At first I thought 'no' but on reflection, it maybe close. We were a shit team when City beat us 5 - 1.

Interested to hear what people think.

Read this yesterday and thought it was about right actually.

The sad thing is we have the players to go out and attack even the best team in the world, it just seems that Fergie is losing his bottle for the big games. Maybe as each year goes past there is less of a feeling of "oh well, there's always next year" and that is affecting his tactics.

Originally Posted by My Name is Keith

Well forgiving the obvious hyperbole, he has a point.

I think most supporters would accept losing to Liverpool each year if it means we still win the league. But for most, beating Liverpool each year comes a close second and for some inexplicable reason, the club seem to have forgotten that.

The worst performance of Fergie's 23 years though? At first I thought 'no' but on reflection, it maybe close. We were a shit team when City beat us 5 - 1.

Interested to hear what people think.

I can think of 2, 3 maybe even 4 recent derbies in which we were much, much worse against an inferior team even to Liverpool and showed similar lack of heart and desire and got beat. Funnily enough, we then went on long winning runs and won trophies galore. What're you going to do? Demand we win every game no matter the circumstances?

The article is right in some parts.

As I said after the game on Sunday, it has become the norm that United will put in a shift performance in a big domestic away game and will be lucky to get a draw. I don't expect anything other than a poor performance and a draw at best in big domestic away games now.

We had this problem away from home in the CL, we have managed to get rid of that and are now a good side away in Europe and have proved that winning the CL and getting to the final the year after. We need to get rid of it in big domestic away games and start good getting results.

Originally Posted by dunk

I can think of 2, 3 maybe even 4 recent derbies in which we were much, much worse against an inferior team even to Liverpool and showed similar lack of heart and desire and got beat. Funnily enough, we then went on long winning runs and won trophies galore. What're you going to do? Demand we win every game no matter the circumstances?

Eh? Not sure how you've pulled the above point from my post.

I was simply saying that most fans love it when we beat Liverpool. It remains the biggest league fixture of our season. They are our biggest rivals. United fans and Liverpool fans pretty much hate each other and have done as long as I've been alive.

With me so far?

So consequently, it's a real shame that the team seemingly didn't treat the fixture with the same importance. So no, I'm not demanding that we win every game, but I do expect a United team to at least have a decent go and I thought exactly the same in the derby matches you refer to. Go easy against Fulham - I couldn't give a shit but don't go easy against Liverpool.

Dear Keith,

You know I love you like a ginger stepchild, but can I point out the following fact:

Manchester City is the biggest league game of the season and only JCL OOTs like Fergie say otherwise.

All the best,

Charles

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2.../sport.comment

I forgot how good that article was.

The article is right in so far as what it says in between the usual post-United defeat post-mortem, is that actually United try and vary their tactics according to who they are playing. That is not a bad thing. SAF identified after Barca 99 that the gung ho United will not flourish in Europe particularly and of course we all know that is always his Holy Grail for the club. Hence he brings a known technician/tactician in Carlos to the club. OK we can debate whether Carlos' 1st stint of the club was a disaster or not, but his 2nd most certainly wasn't and he left us much more tactically flexible than just about any other team in Europe, certainly in the PL.

Euro aways are more pragmatic than they used to be and sometimes even in the PL we don't set the world alight, but take away arsenal at their best, who is better than we are offensively?

This is typical post-defeat ABU-ism where we are now shit and responsible for all that is wrong in football and the world.

Originally Posted by redrose

SAF identified after Barca 99 that the gung ho United will not flourish in Europe particularly

I think it was more after losing to Madrid a year later.

Originally Posted by redrose

This is typical post-defeat ABU-ism where we are now shit and responsible for all that is wrong in football and the world.

correct. rob smythe is the worst sort of moaning @#%&! united 'fan', never got a good word to say about united, fergie, rooney etc.


we were very attacking against city, ripped arsenal a new one in both cl semis last year, flew at inter away from home etc.

there's clearly an element of rebuilding going on, no surprise there, and we picked the wrong team on sunday, we can all see that (with hindsight) and lacked fire. no excuses for giggs, evra, vidic, rio, carrick and rooney all having shockers on the same day, but drawing cheap 'end of an era', 'not the team they were' conclusions is something only a moron would do.


after 10 games
2007: 2nd place, 23pts, +12 gd
2008: 3rd place, 21pts, +11 gd
2009: 2nd place, 22pts, +10 gd

big crisis

Originally Posted by borsuk

correct. rob smythe is the worst sort of moaning @#%&! united 'fan', never got a good word to say about united, fergie, rooney etc.


we were very attacking against city, ripped arsenal a new one in both cl semis last year, flew at inter away from home etc.

there's clearly an element of rebuilding going on, no surprise there, and we picked the wrong team on sunday, we can all see that (with hindsight) and lacked fire. no excuses for giggs, evra, vidic, rio, carrick and rooney all having shockers on the same day, but drawing cheap 'end of an era', 'not the team they were' conclusions is something only a moron would do.


after 10 games
2007: 2nd place, 23pts, +12 gd
2008: 3rd place, 21pts, +11 gd
2009: 2nd place, 22pts, +10 gd

big crisis

Spot on that, we also played some fantastic stuff against Spurs this season.

Originally Posted by Charlestown Rouge

Dear Keith,

You know I love you like a ginger stepchild, but can I point out the following fact:

Manchester City is the biggest league game of the season and only JCL OOTs like Fergie say otherwise.

All the best,

Charles

Well yes. If I'm honest, there are only two league fixtures that are really important to me. City and Liverpool. Leeds used to up there but obviously no more.

On a pure fixture basis (ignoring the league consequences of actually losing), losing to Arsenal or Chelsea feels gutting whereas losing to City or Liverpool has that 'curled up in a ball in the corner of a desolate, unfurnished and lonely bedsit in Colne' sort of feeling.

Originally Posted by Zorg

I think it was more after losing to Madrid a year later.

Well that's what the article says, but I just didn't want to agree with the c***! In actual fact I think you'll find that SAF himself has been quoted as saying it was '99 that changed everything. Still let's not argue over the detail.