Was Man United a watershed?

[LDG]

I take the valid points people are making that we are not 'shit' relative to the whole of the league, and yes, other teams may well bottle it.

But like Wenger, I prefer to look at our own team. And I have come to the conclusion that we are underperforming badly given the players and the resources at our disposal. We have the top scorer for the best team in France last season, and a very experience German international up front - yet they are misfiring badly. We have the best RB in the league; a prodigy from Spain as our creative MF; the fastest winger (and one of the best finishers) in the league. We have (in Arteta) one of the most reliable MF's around....and we are looking like a dog's dinner.

Its not the relative strengths of our players on paper, or the below par performances of other teams that concerns me - its the fact that we are clearly not playing to our players' strengths, have no real game plan, adn most importantly, no character, no life, no heart in this team of ours. Lets face it - when did we last go on a proper run when we played with proper fluency, and consistently prevailed against the opposition. We might have a scinitillating game, go on a little run of victories, but ultimately, it all comes back to performances like Norwich, like Manure. This seems somehow to be the default setting of Wenger's current teams - and there is something fundamentally wrong with this. The exception seems to be where you have utter prodigies like RVP or Fabregas - but for me this is a stupid way to set up your teams. The building blocks should be a system that gets the whole team playing to its strengths - with individual creativity/talent as the icing on the cake. We seem to do the opposite. I think that AW's whole style of play, while it might be suited to a team with Barca-like talent, is ill suited for the players that we are willing to attract to the club, and ill-suited for the EPL. That the manager persists regardless is stubborn and myopic.

And yes - be careful what you wish for etc. But there has to come a time where enough's enough. If this were the early years of transition - fair enough. But really, how many times over the past 7/8 years have we been where we are now? And every transfer season, its groundhog day. Clearly, the players can smell where we are going - and when you feature the talent that we lose every year, its hard to escape the conclusion that we are not just stagnating, we are in sharp decline.

Completely agree. Enough is enough now.

Szczesny, Sagna, Mertesecker, Vermaelen, Gibbs, Arteta, Cazorla, Wilshere, Walcott, Podolski, Giroud, Arshavin, Diaby, Kocielney, Rosicky etc etc

A clever, creative, experienced, fast, clinical, international, technical, powerful, goalscoring, quality squad.

Unfortunately, most of the time, they are: Lazy, inconsistent, head-turned, slow, wasteful, mistake-ridden, injured, arrogant, unfocused and poor.

Backed up by a second string who are just not good enough.

With a manager who won't spend, won't adapt, doesn't rate tactics, prioritises posession over everything else, doesn't shout, does nothing on the touchline, is more interested in business and politics.

Muddle that all together, and you have a complete and utter mess.

[Kano]

and that focus comes from the management.

if you have a group of guys you manage anywhere, you'll have some who you can leave to their own devices fully aware they'll knuckle down and always work hard but in the main, you leave a group unmanaged and they will find distractions and lose a lot of productivity.

it was always said that wenger had something of a 'hands off' approach to managing his teams, often not explaining decisions to them as he believed they should be smart enough to figure it out. which was fine when we had your pires', henrys', vieira's etc but when the personnel changes every season, you can't expect the old approach to keep working. it just isn't.

[Japan Shaking All Over]

Completely agree. Enough is enough now.

Szczesny, Sagna, Mertesecker, Vermaelen, Gibbs, Arteta, Cazorla, Wilshere, Walcott, Podolski, Giroud, Arshavin, Diaby, Kocielney, Rosicky etc etc

A clever, creative, experienced, fast, clinical, international, technical, powerful, goalscoring, quality squad.

Unfortunately, most of the time, they are: Lazy, inconsistent, head-turned, slow, wasteful, mistake-ridden, injured, arrogant, unfocused and poor.

Backed up by a second string who are just not good enough.

With a manager who won't spend, won't adapt, doesn't rate tactics, prioritises posession over everything else, doesn't shout, does nothing on the touchline, is more interested in business and politics.

Muddle that all together, and you have a complete and utter mess.

TBF LDG mate, I think our second string would have put up a better fight!

[Power n Glory]

I'm not convinced by the way they're playing at the moment. The way we were early season looked pretty good.
I don't know what's gone wrong recently but I don't believe we've suddenly become a poor side. Hopefully we can sort it out.

We really haven't. We have only won 4 games. Liverpool was an open game against a new squad with a new coach that's adapting. Southampton are a newly promoted team. In our opening two games we struggled to create anything and it's been the same pattern in the majority of our games. We scraped a win against West Ham and QPR. We haven't looked good at all this season.

[Letters]

We really haven't. We have only won 4 games. Liverpool was an open game against a new squad with a new coach that's adapting. Southampton are a newly promoted team. In our opening two games we struggled to create anything and it's been the same pattern in the majority of our games. We scraped a win against West Ham and QPR. We haven't looked good at all this season.

I go to games. Early season we were looking good, plenty of people on here were saying so. It wasn't just me.

[Power n Glory]

I go to games. Early season we were looking good, plenty of people on here were saying so. It wasn't just me.

Early season optimism. We failed to create much against Sunderland and Stoke but we looked more solid in defence. Now that the new boys have settled in a bit more, that hungry has gone, we are still having the same creative problems but now the defence has lost the plot too. We weren't playing free flowing football.

[Letters]

There was no early season optimism. Before the season started after the RvP and Song sales everyone on here was
Show me a thread (apart from the mindless one) indicating much optimism?
The optimism early season was because of the results and performances.

[LDG]

Early season optimism. We failed to create much against Sunderland and Stoke but we looked more solid in defence. Now that the new boys have settled in a bit more, that hungry has gone, we are still having the same creative problems but now the defence has lost the plot too. We weren't playing free flowing football.

Got to agree.

Fans can't be blamed for being optimistic. Hell, I was too. You have to have hope. Sadly, for me, it is being dashed with every pitiful performance.

Reading was great, purely because it's not often that we'll see games like that, or have the euphoria of pegging back a four goal deficit. But ultimately, the first half was an embarrassment.

We have been poor this season, and most of it is down to the manager, his wierd political gambles, and his unbelievable knack for humiliating the fans.

Are people seriously telling me that Szczesny has taken all this time to recover from an ankle injury, sustained in a match where he played the full second half, after he was injured?

Are we meant to believe that Walcott is really fifth in line to the starting line up, and that Ramsey is a right winger?

[Syn]

I think we'll start playing free-flowing football very soon when Jack gets fully up to speed. It's going to be Wilshere FC this season in our race for 4th.

[Kano]

Are people seriously telling me that Szczesny has taken all this time to recover from an ankle injury, sustained in a match where he played the full second half, after he was injured?

Are we meant to believe that Walcott is really fifth in line to the starting line up, and that Ramsey is a right winger?

yes, a little bit.