How to fix us

[Exiled_red]

Kind of related I'm just wondering do we still have Steve Peters working with the squad? Because last season we were hearing a lot of good things about how he was helping the squad mentally prepare, this season the players look mentally weak.

[Lecter]

I asked about Peters in the other thread

[Exiled_red]

I asked about Peters in the other thread

I must have missed that, was there an answer?

[captainfog]

One of the problems we have is none of us really know what the best team is because nobody is demanding to be picked. There aren't any first names on the team sheet. Midfield is particularly confusing - Allen, Henderson, Lallana, Gerrard, Can. Flip a coin. I've no idea what our best line up is and I'm pretty sure Rodgers doesn't either. As for central defence, who do you pick? Kolo? No thanks. Skittles? No thanks. Lovren? No thanks. Sakho? No thanks.

How do you fix us? I don't really know, there is so much wrong. I suppose the quickest fix is to alter the set up to best fit our players and then give a settled side a decent run and hope we find form and confidence.

Longer term we need better players.

[Exiled_red]

One of the problems we have is none of us really know what the best team is because nobody is demanding to be picked. There aren't any first names on the team sheet. Midfield is particularly confusing - Allen, Henderson, Lallana, Gerrard, Can. Flip a coin. I've no idea what our best line up is and I'm pretty sure Rodgers doesn't either. As for central defence, who do you pick? Kolo? No thanks. Skittles? No thanks. Lovren? No thanks. Sakho? No thanks.

How do you fix us? I don't really know, there is so much wrong. I suppose the quickest fix is to alter the set up to best fit our players and then give a settled side a decent run and hope we find form and confidence.

Longer term we need better players.

On paper we have a stronger squad than we have had last season. The issue last season we were talking about was that if someone got injured their replacement is of much lower quality (an Aspas or Alberto to come in), undoubtedly we have improved on that. The issue for me is that they are all about the same level. No-one is staking a claim to play every game the competition for places hasn't seemed to make people step up a level in fact it may have had the opposite effect. There are some issues with individual players but they are all decent players for me the problems are with the system IMO. A star player or two obviously wouldn't hurt but the squad we have is seriously underperforming

[bradsdad]

its all about having world class players in the team look at every top team Barca Madrid Bayern Chelsea City Arsenal and dare i say it even the scum... compare the players they have that are world class with ours ... i fear we are never going to get there unless we spend daft money like scum to attract the best and i cant see that happening ... i thought we were actually getting somewhere last season but we are worse than ever now its so so depressing

[Lecter]

One of the problems we have is none of us really know what the best team is because nobody is demanding to be picked. There aren't any first names on the team sheet. Midfield is particularly confusing - Allen, Henderson, Lallana, Gerrard, Can. Flip a coin. I've no idea what our best line up is and I'm pretty sure Rodgers doesn't either. As for central defence, who do you pick? Kolo? No thanks. Skittles? No thanks. Lovren? No thanks. Sakho? No thanks.

How do you fix us? I don't really know, there is so much wrong. I suppose the quickest fix is to alter the set up to best fit our players and then give a settled side a decent run and hope we find form and confidence.

Longer term we need better players.

Personally I dont think its flip a coin except at centreback

To me most of the other positions pick themselves at this moment in time

Gerrard holding as none of the others can do that role

Henderson as one of the picks in front of him, and because I just dont rate Allen and hes been desperately bad the last 2 league games. I would go for Can in front (hes bigger, stronger and more progressive with the ball).

Tip of diamond is biggest choice, at present I would go for Lallana just in terms of pressing

When Sturridge returns thats when you might have to switch and swap positions

[baitman]

agree we need to drop johnson and allen for manquillo and can.

we need to drop balotelli for borini, and play sterling alongside him. more mobile pressing and will put a shift in.
sterling out wide was fine with suarez/sturridge in the middle but now we have one of our best players too isolated and a peripheral figure.

lallana in the centre behind the front two.

the 'diamond' is also an issue. we need to be more like 4-3-1-2
it is allowing gerrard to coast in and out of the game. we need him more central in front of the centre backs. currently our midfield is far too wide open. we need to set up with hendo, gerrard and can across the middle, gerrard holding to middle of the pitch, and the other two covering the ground and doing the pressing.
gerrard isnt doing the DM so stop playing him at the base of the diamond. he can still play a less mobile role but he needs to be 10-15 yards further forward in front of the centre backs or whats the point. we cannot afford any passengers, so he needs to be involved more.

if lucas covers for steve he doesnt drop as deep and although he isnt as good he does at least have a better starting position to engage the oppo midfield and try and disrupt play further in front of our centre backs.
this is critical, and will allow other players to pick off any stray balls from the challenges of gerrard or lucas/can.

[Lecter]

agree we need to drop johnson and allen for manquillo and can.

we need to drop balotelli for borini, and play sterling alongside him. more mobile pressing and will put a shift in.
sterling out wide was fine with suarez/sturridge in the middle but now we have one of our best players too isolated and a peripheral figure.

lallana in the centre behind the front two.

the 'diamond' is also an issue. we need to be more like 4-3-1-2
it is allowing gerrard to coast in and out of the game. we need him more central in front of the centre backs. currently our midfield is far too wide open. we need to set up with hendo, gerrard and can across the middle, gerrard holding to middle of the pitch, and the other two covering the ground and doing the pressing.
gerrard isnt doing the DM so stop playing him at the base of the diamond. he can still play a less mobile role but he needs to be 10-15 yards further forward in front of the centre backs or whats the point. we cannot afford any passengers, so he needs to be involved more.

if lucas covers for steve he doesnt drop as deep and although he isnt as good he does at least have a better starting position to engage the oppo midfield and try and disrupt play further in front of our centre backs.
this is critical, and will allow other players to pick off any stray balls from the challenges of gerrard or lucas/can.

I dont think weve played a diamond this season, except at Spurs

That imo is our issue

The diamond allows the players in front of the pivot position (holder) to press higher, the fullbacks also squeeze up also pressing them right back and condensing the play

Now what we are doing is a 4-2-3-1 / 4-1-4-1 imo but this change has meant the midfielders are too deep and this not only creates a problem in terms of pressing high but it also leaves your lone forward isolated too often

[BigChief]

But the problem with the diamond is two-fold:

Firstly everyone has worked out how to bust it by targeting no-legs Gerrard (even Pardew mentioned in the interview he knew exactly how Brendan was going to play, i.e. diamond, but was caught by surprise with us sitting back and playing 3 at the back)

Secondly we don't have the strikers. He's obviously looking to bench BAB asap and play Sturridge on his own.

Which means going through learning curve pains all over again (remember the pain of accommodating Suarez before it clicked into place?). If we're going to be a big club (i.e. European club) then we'll need more than one slick way of playing all the time. We're not Man Ud who'll just give Di Maria the ball and hope he does something and call it a genius masterplan.

[Lecter]

But the problem with the diamond is two-fold:

Firstly everyone has worked out how to bust it by targeting no-legs Gerrard (even Pardew mentioned in the interview he knew exactly how Brendan was going to play, i.e. diamond, but was caught by surprise with us sitting back and playing 3 at the back)

Secondly we don't have the strikers. He's obviously looking to bench BAB asap and play Sturridge on his own.

Which means going through learning curve pains all over again (remember the pain of accommodating Suarez before it clicked into place?). If we're going to be a big club (i.e. European club) then we'll need more than one slick way of playing all the time. We're not Man Ud who'll just give Di Maria the ball and hope he does something and call it a genius masterplan.

Pardew is a slimey **** who loves blowing his own tactical nous trumpet. Complete cunt of a man imo

Still dont think we have played a diamond this season barring 1 game

As for Sturridge as a lone striker, thats unappealling also and basically you are then asking Sturridge to be exactly what you are criticising United for, ie hoping he creates something out of nothing

[BigChief]

Pardew is a slimey **** who loves blowing his own tactical nous trumpet. Complete cunt of a man imo

Still dont think we have played a diamond this season barring 1 game

As for Sturridge as a lone striker, thats unappealling also and basically you are then asking Sturridge to be exactly what you are criticising United for, ie hoping he creates something out of nothing

I think Pardew's ok. When the whole world is constantly against him he's entitled to be feel a bit defensive.

I would love to see the diamond more. Balotelli and Borini/Lambert up front with Coutinho at the tip and Sterling / Hendo on the sides we'd have picked up at least 5 more points this season easily.

But we need to evolve. Rodgers is obviously judging the hits we're going to take with the final product he's trying to deliver. I think Venton said it best with setting milestones, etc. Even negative milestones are still milestones. That's not to say he'll get it right, this latest product he's trying to deliver may break him. But he's got the courage to go with it at least.

[Lecter]

I think Pardew's ok. When the whole world is constantly against him he's entitled to be feel a bit defensive.

I would love to see the diamond more. Balotelli and Borini/Lambert up front with Coutinho at the tip and Sterling / Hendo on the sides we'd have picked up at least 5 more points this season easily.

But we need to evolve. Rodgers is obviously judging the hits we're going to take with the final product he's trying to deliver. I think Venton said it best with setting milestones, etc. Even negative milestones are still milestones. That's not to say he'll get it right, this latest product he's trying to deliver may break him. But he's got the courage to go with it at least.

We might have needed to evolve but he's completely changed tact back to the system he tried with very limited success during his first season

To me he's made a massive error of judgement, he can correct it by switching back to what served him well last season but at the very best he's going to be worse off where we were last season

I fear he is going to be too stubborn and it will cost him his job, shame because he was on the right lines last year. Yeah things needed tweaking but he's ripped up the lot and gone back to the old defective formula he had first season and Swansea

[RichC]

It's entirely possible he's gone 1 up top at the moment as he's not seeing the players to play the two up top diamond formation thst served us so well last season without Sturridge in the side.

I know posters will say play Sterling up there but has he ever played as a front man and we might have looked at it in training and it just doesn't suit him obviously he could be being stubborn.
He has also tried to make us more solid in the past couple of games and without yet another stupid individual mistake yesterday we wouldn't have lost to Newcastle.

Not moving Borini on and getting someone he actually wanted seems like a bit of a mistake at the moment as bar Sturridge I'm not sure he's happy with any of our forwards and what they have to offer, hopefully with a fit Sturridge we'll revert back to the two up top.
Problem we have is Origi will be coming in next summer so unless we shift someone or even a couple on I'm not sure how we can bring someone else in up top especially with FFP restraints.

[calvoboy]

I dont think weve played a diamond this season, except at Spurs

That imo is our issue

The diamond allows the players in front of the pivot position (holder) to press higher, the fullbacks also squeeze up also pressing them right back and condensing the play

and I agree with your proposed solution above. I'm baffled by suggestions in this thread and others that the diamond is an issue - we've only played the diamond once this season and that was Spurs. Otherwise it's had a few minutes here and there when we've been tinkering to chase games.

It's entirely possible he's gone 1 up top at the moment as he's not seeing the players to play the two up top diamond formation thst served us so well last season without Sturridge in the side.

I think this is it, and Brendan has hinted as much in interviews. Last year he made a big mistake of trying to cling onto the same formation with unsuitable players, and we got outplayed by Southampton with four centre-halves in a back four (diamond relies on attacking full-backs getting ahead of the midfield going forward, and they weren't good enough defensively either). This year, perhaps determined not to make the same mistake again, he's made an arguably bigger one in ditching the formation because he doesn't believe we have the strikers for it.

But without the diamond there's little movement ahead of the ball, which negates the talents of Coutinho and Sterling, and we play Henderson deeper which negates his energy, work-rate and presence (both attacking and defending) in the final third. So whilst we might not have the ideal strikers for a diamond with Sturridge out, we certainly don't have the ideal players for the varieties of 4-2-3-1 and 4-1-4-1 that we have been trying to play, and it's been obvious for a while now.