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Poor Squad Myth


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3 minutes ago, Lord Snooty said:

 

To be fair Carlos had them when they were 4 years younger and before the crippling injuries really took hold. 

Not sure he was tactically aware..dropping Lopez to shoehorn in the final and changing to a Fernando/Hooper pairing which had previously not clicked.  After season 1 the tactics were much more negative. Even though most of the squad were still in decent nick fitness wise. 

I think you underestimate his tactical ability. Yes season two was a very different approach, I didn’t understand the reasons for changing, and I certainly didn’t enjoy watching it. However, he managed to devise a system, and a way of playing, that made us very hard to beat. This revolved around using a central block, using very narrow wingers, that would shuffle from side to side. 
As I understand it, he devised this to make up for perceived shortcomings within the squad. Why we didn’t just bring in the two or three players, post Wembley, that would have allowed us to continue with our high pressing attacking game, we’ll never know. It does seem that he had little input into recruitment, and just worked out a way of playing that he thought suited the players he had. I’m not saying I enjoyed what he devised, but it did show that he had a degree of tactical awareness

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Most of our players are too old and tainted by lack of confidence that has come from failure at this club.

 

Furthermore. We don’t really have a ‘team’ - we mostly have a squad of individuals who don’t get the best out of each other and have just about enough individual moments of quality to tick us over floating around mid table, with peaks of form flirting us with the play offs. The league is also incredibly poor this year so that helped our promotion charge in November.

 

Bannan, as one example, is a quality individual midfield player who doesn’t really trust any of his other midfield counterparts to produce. This is why he’s not playing simple easy passes or through balls when he picks the ball up deep and just wants to ping the ball high and long....hoping something happens. 
 

I also truly think that a lot of them don’t want to be here anymore. 
 

So yes. The squad is poor. We need a massive personnel change and a culture change

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4 hours ago, jrh said:

It's really starting to frustrate me that many are convinced that a clear out is the only way forward. 

 

Even in the last year we have shown that we can be more than capable of competing in this league. Under Bruce we made a late play off push from looking like we had no chance and 8 games ago we were 3rd in the league. 

 

This whole downfall has been a result of countless bad decisions, tactics and problems caused by Monk. 

 

Even look at last night. We go to 3 at the back which you can make a strong argument for being a good formation with us I think most people with common sense would have had Iorfa at the right of the 3, Lees central and Borner left. Iorfa ended up being the central one more often than not and its just ridiculous. Then the left wing back. Well just wow. I prefer Forestieri on the left but on the left with limiting his defensive responsibility as much as possible. I actually thought he did an okay job to be honest and from left wing back still looked the most likely to make something happen in the first half. 

 

As for the players not being good enough. Well let's just have a look:

 

Goalkeepers: Dawson, Westwood both very good and Wildsmith not bad at all (having never really had a run of games). 

Centre Back: Lees, Iorfa and Borner have all been rubbish of late granted but have all shown they can be very good at this level. 

 

Full backs: Palmer is very steady, I have never rated Fox but you can't fault him the last couple of months. Still believe this position needs strengthening. 

 

Centre Mids: Bannan, Lee, Hutchinson, Luongo are all very very good players. They all have great ability and if instructed right then there won't be many better groups of 4 in the league. 

 

Wingers: Harris has been quality, yes the last month and a bit has been hard but most of what he has done when he gets the ball has still been pretty effective and he is dangerous. Forestieri (striker/left winger but I'd play him in the left side which is why I've put him here) is quality just lacks a bit of discipline at times. Reach's quality isn't the best but will always put you a shift in. 

 

Strikers: Fletcher obviously injured but has been quality this season. Da Cruz has looked very good so far, good touch, uses the ball well but it's difficult for anyone in the team currently because we are creating nothing. Rhodes has to be given chances to score and again in a team like this it's pointless because he isn't going to pick the ball up deep run at people and score. Winnall-the same. In my opinion Nuhiu should never start but is useful in the last 15 mins of games because he's just difficult (personally wouldn't renew the contract). Wickham has obvious class, needs some games and service. 

 

Put it this way if Chris Wilder had our squad I think we'd be doing pretty well. 

 

 

 

You can't seriously be advocating sticking with the same players that have failed continuously for 5 years ?

 

Who are you, Reach or Lees ?

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OP is a great example of blue tinted glasses at its finest.  We have a very ordinary squad with a number of ageing players, a few with allegedly questionable attitudes and no promising youngsters to suggest better days are ahead.  There is no one in the current squad who could ever survive in the Premier League.

 

Is Monk the right man?  I very much doubt it, but it would take something special (and probably the calibre of manager we could not attract / afford) to make a decent team out of this lot.

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Disagree so much with that OP.

 

On paper.....we have a decent squad. I guess we do because they’ve managed to fool several managers.

 

The harsh truth is that many of them are mentally fragile, collectively even worse.

 

And, despite all the evidence, even if you disagree with that there are only a small handful that have shown anywhere near the kind of consistency in performance required to be successful in this league or any other.

 

There is not one player I’d desperately want to keep.

 

Clear the decks and get some fight and character in the squad.

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3 hours ago, HirstWhoScoredIt said:

Wilder has a squad that is incredibly fit with players that rarely get injured and thus he plays at an incredible tempo.  His goalkeeper, back 5 and midfield 3 have hardly had an injury for 3 years.

 

What on earth makes you look at our squad and think that Wilder could get that out of our players when they have constantly proved that the one thing you can rely upon them to do is get injured.

 

Also, the real myth is our fans thinking that Wilder has got United promoted with a rubbish set of players just because he didn't pay much money for them.

 

Henderson is a fantastic keeper.  Egan and O'Connell have barely put a foot wrong for 2 years.  Stevens was as good last season as any full back I've seen at this level.

 

Norwood and Fleck are superb players and Billy Sharp was that elusive 20 goal striker that we cannot get.

 

Our squad is aging, lacks athleticism and is injury prone.

You are very right with that first part and having a squad that gets very little injuries is impressive in itself. However not everyone in the squad is the same. Mouset or however you spel his name has been a fans favourite this year for them and has had a few injuries but he is tactically smart enough to change their game plans to not rely on having his pace and still get results.

 

However, I definitely don't believe that they had rubbish players but they over performed with the finances used to finish top 2. He took players such as Clarke, Mcgoldrick, O'connell that weren't wanted by their previous clubs and deemed not good enough and made them successful. 

 

Egan is the only player that they really spent any money on. 

 

What makes me think that about Wilder is that he gets the best (and more) out of seemingly all of his players! Something that we don't do and Monk most certainly isn't. 

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11 minutes ago, Mr Farrell said:

 

You can't seriously be advocating sticking with the same players that have failed continuously for 5 years ?

 

Who are you, Reach or Lees ?

I'm not saying we can't improve whatsoever but the whole point is you make incremental improvements not just do the immature and impulsive thing that most of our fans do and say get rid of them all. Who do people expect to come in to replace these players when we can't spend any money? Players that aren't as good most likely. 

 

As for Reach, I said from the first season he came that he was an okay squad player but doesn't have the quality to be a starting player to get you out of this division. 

Edited by jrh
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20 minutes ago, jrh said:

I'm not saying we can't improve whatsoever but the whole point is you make incremental improvements not just do the immature and impulsive thing that most of our fans do and say get rid of them all. Who do people expect to come in to replace these players when we can't spend any money? Players that aren't as good most likely. 

 

As for Reach, I said from the first season he came that he was an okay squad player but doesn't have the quality to be a starting player to get you out of this division. 

 

Incremental improvements needed to happen 4 years ago.

 

This squad is pretty much a write off.

 

It needs major work. No point sugar coating it.

 

The benefit to this is the huge wages we'll free up.

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No matter weather we sack Monk or not, the manager has to work with the squad we have until the summer.

Monk must be pulling his hair out on match day when players do not work on what  they have been practicing in the week, yes he didn't help himself last night, but he has to try some thing to break this run.

It seem's that no matter what formation we play the players are not up to it.

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4 hours ago, jrh said:

It's really starting to frustrate me that many are convinced that a clear out is the only way forward. 

 

Even in the last year we have shown that we can be more than capable of competing in this league. Under Bruce we made a late play off push from looking like we had no chance and 8 games ago we were 3rd in the league. 

 

This whole downfall has been a result of countless bad decisions, tactics and problems caused by Monk. 

 

Even look at last night. We go to 3 at the back which you can make a strong argument for being a good formation with us I think most people with common sense would have had Iorfa at the right of the 3, Lees central and Borner left. Iorfa ended up being the central one more often than not and its just ridiculous. Then the left wing back. Well just wow. I prefer Forestieri on the left but on the left with limiting his defensive responsibility as much as possible. I actually thought he did an okay job to be honest and from left wing back still looked the most likely to make something happen in the first half. 

 

As for the players not being good enough. Well let's just have a look:

 

Goalkeepers: Dawson, Westwood both very good and Wildsmith not bad at all (having never really had a run of games). 

Centre Back: Lees, Iorfa and Borner have all been rubbish of late granted but have all shown they can be very good at this level. 

 

Full backs: Palmer is very steady, I have never rated Fox but you can't fault him the last couple of months. Still believe this position needs strengthening. 

 

Centre Mids: Bannan, Lee, Hutchinson, Luongo are all very very good players. They all have great ability and if instructed right then there won't be many better groups of 4 in the league

 

Wingers: Harris has been quality, yes the last month and a bit has been hard but most of what he has done when he gets the ball has still been pretty effective and he is dangerous. Forestieri (striker/left winger but I'd play him in the left side which is why I've put him here) is quality just lacks a bit of discipline at times. Reach's quality isn't the best but will always put you a shift in. 

 

Strikers: Fletcher obviously injured but has been quality this season. Da Cruz has looked very good so far, good touch, uses the ball well but it's difficult for anyone in the team currently because we are creating nothing. Rhodes has to be given chances to score and again in a team like this it's pointless because he isn't going to pick the ball up deep run at people and score. Winnall-the same. In my opinion Nuhiu should never start but is useful in the last 15 mins of games because he's just difficult (personally wouldn't renew the contract). Wickham has obvious class, needs some games and service. 

 

Put it this way if Chris Wilder had our squad I think we'd be doing pretty well. 

 

 

You lost me at that, Luongo makes that just about a Lower mid table championship midfield 

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23 minutes ago, jrh said:

I'm not saying we can't improve whatsoever but the whole point is you make incremental improvements not just do the immature and impulsive thing that most of our fans do and say get rid of them all. Who do people expect to come in to replace these players when we can't spend any money? Players that aren't as good most likely. 

 

As for Reach, I said from the first season he came that he was an okay squad player but doesn't have the quality to be a starting player to get you out of this division. 

I’ll admit I quite like Reach, although acknowledge he has been relatively poor this season.  Despite this, he’s still more likely than most to have a positive impact on games with his assists.

 

If Reach doesn’t have the quality to be a starter for a club aiming to get out of the Championship (you might be right on this), where does that leave most of the other wasters?  On this basis, not sure how you can claim we have a good squad.  The fact that you regard Bannan, Lee, Hutchinson and Luongo as “very very good players” also causes me to question your view.

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4 hours ago, HirstWhoScoredIt said:

Wilder has a squad that is incredibly fit with players that rarely get injured and thus he plays at an incredible tempo.  His goalkeeper, back 5 and midfield 3 have hardly had an injury for 3 years.

 

What on earth makes you look at our squad and think that Wilder could get that out of our players when they have constantly proved that the one thing you can rely upon them to do is get injured.

 

Also, the real myth is our fans thinking that Wilder has got United promoted with a rubbish set of players just because he didn't pay much money for them.

 

Henderson is a fantastic keeper.  Egan and O'Connell have barely put a foot wrong for 2 years.  Stevens was as good last season as any full back I've seen at this level.

 

Norwood and Fleck are superb players and Billy Sharp was that elusive 20 goal striker that we cannot get.

 

Our squad is aging, lacks athleticism and is injury prone.

From what I'm led to believe, our fitness training is hardly what you would describe as intense...hence the high level of injuries that we seem to sustain and possibly the lack of energy and tempo in our performances.

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4 hours ago, WelshOwl74 said:

Absolute rubbish

 

The players have failed time and time again

 

Can't keep blaming managers for the players f#ckups 

 

Players are far to protected today

 

And its about time they are getting called out and need to realise that the time of them taking the p!55 out of the club and fans has ended 

Could be the ultimate p!55 take if they let us get relegated. Needed to keep them

on board until we are safe. 
Shouldn’t even need to be safe. This team of players is better than they are performing now.

Its the tactics. 

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5 hours ago, jrh said:

It's really starting to frustrate me that many are convinced that a clear out is the only way forward. 

 

Even in the last year we have shown that we can be more than capable of competing in this league. Under Bruce we made a late play off push from looking like we had no chance and 8 games ago we were 3rd in the league. 

 

This whole downfall has been a result of countless bad decisions, tactics and problems caused by Monk. 

 

Even look at last night. We go to 3 at the back which you can make a strong argument for being a good formation with us I think most people with common sense would have had Iorfa at the right of the 3, Lees central and Borner left. Iorfa ended up being the central one more often than not and its just ridiculous. Then the left wing back. Well just wow. I prefer Forestieri on the left but on the left with limiting his defensive responsibility as much as possible. I actually thought he did an okay job to be honest and from left wing back still looked the most likely to make something happen in the first half. 

 

As for the players not being good enough. Well let's just have a look:

 

Goalkeepers: Dawson, Westwood both very good and Wildsmith not bad at all (having never really had a run of games). 

Centre Back: Lees, Iorfa and Borner have all been rubbish of late granted but have all shown they can be very good at this level. 

 

Full backs: Palmer is very steady, I have never rated Fox but you can't fault him the last couple of months. Still believe this position needs strengthening. 

 

Centre Mids: Bannan, Lee, Hutchinson, Luongo are all very very good players. They all have great ability and if instructed right then there won't be many better groups of 4 in the league. 

 

Wingers: Harris has been quality, yes the last month and a bit has been hard but most of what he has done when he gets the ball has still been pretty effective and he is dangerous. Forestieri (striker/left winger but I'd play him in the left side which is why I've put him here) is quality just lacks a bit of discipline at times. Reach's quality isn't the best but will always put you a shift in. 

 

Strikers: Fletcher obviously injured but has been quality this season. Da Cruz has looked very good so far, good touch, uses the ball well but it's difficult for anyone in the team currently because we are creating nothing. Rhodes has to be given chances to score and again in a team like this it's pointless because he isn't going to pick the ball up deep run at people and score. Winnall-the same. In my opinion Nuhiu should never start but is useful in the last 15 mins of games because he's just difficult (personally wouldn't renew the contract). Wickham has obvious class, needs some games and service. 

 

Put it this way if Chris Wilder had our squad I think we'd be doing pretty well. 

 

 

Far too many ‘very’s’ in there... as in ‘very good’.... good would do or average in a few cases

Edited by unkastav
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You'll get negged cos you mentioned Wilder but you're right. He would have this squad easily in the top 6. 

 

That squad he got promoted to the premier League was pretty much the same squad that most on here said would get relegated back to league one. 

 

Even now, when those 'league one' players are sat 5th in the premier League dreaming about champions League qualification, you'll still see many of our fans living in pure denial. 

 

Keeping wilder is absolutely vital for them. Because losing him would be catastrophic and would see them plummet. 

 

We havent got an amazing squad of players but we certainly have one that should be at least in the mix for a playoff spot. 

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5 hours ago, McRightSide said:


You are part of the problem.

 

You accept and hold on to mediocrity 

 

I loathe this self-indulgent currency of judging support on how angry one gets or how much complaining is done or calling for some kind of revolution all the time.

 

As usual looking at this thread, our squad is simultaneously promotion ready and inevitably getting relegated. It seems to me, that the truth lies exactly in between (notwithstanding the recent alarming slump which may indicate something more fundamental at work).

 

Nuance seems to be an endangered concept these days. Everything is either glorious or desperate; no in between allowed.

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53 minutes ago, Bleeder said:

From what I'm led to believe, our fitness training is hardly what you would describe as intense...hence the high level of injuries that we seem to sustain and possibly the lack of energy and tempo in our performances.

Our fitness levels are appalling. It pains me to say it but watching United I couldn't help thinking how much fitter their players were compared to ours. But I suppose our style of play makes any player look leggy slow and lethargic.

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5 minutes ago, Ronnie Starling said:

Our fitness levels are appalling. It pains me to say it but watching United I couldn't help thinking how much fitter their players were compared to ours. But I suppose our style of play makes any player look leggy slow and lethargic.

Think the style of play, and probably the players enthusiasm, or lack of it, to play that way, is a factor, yes. Much was made of Carlos’s supposed lack of attention to fitness levels, but that high pressing game he employed, certainly demanded a level of fitness. Players usually take on a different demeanour if they are in enjoying their football, or believe in what the coach is asking them to do. Is that the case now, are players enjoying what they are being asked to do

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