Manchester United need to get rid of their two best players and not even Bukayo Saka or Mohamed Salah would work in Ruben Amorim’s system.
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Bruno Fernandes gaslighting
First off, that save from Dalot probably changed the game. It was frankly extraordinary, impossible. We go into half time ahead, the rest of the match is very different.
Second, then: when you sign a manager, there are many things that you have to consider. There are personal traits, behaviours and skills. But also there has to be consideration of how the squad of players you have aligns with the manager’s tactics.
Amorim has all of the first set. The question is then does the squad align with that vision and is getting it right achievable in a reasonable time frame.
When fully fit there are enough suitable players to fill the roles in the short term, although when you take Shaw and Mount in particular out, that quickly drops to borderline. However, it doesn’t reflect where the strengths of the team are. We started this season with arguably too many wing options, where at least two of our best players play. Now we have a formation that doesn’t use wingers at all.
If you question why that is a concern, I ask you this: where would Saka or Salah fit in that formation? And, critically, would they want to change from what works?
Then we consider timing. With the change coming half way through the season, it means many of the players will have to learn a fundamentally different way of playing on the fly, during matches. That is inevitably going to make the ride bumpy.
Then, for kicks, let’s throw in a problem player or two. You’re assuming those players who suddenly don’t fit in the team shape and want to leave, but I’m thinking the glaring issue that’s plagued and gaslighted us for years: Bruno.
He talks nicely, runs a lot and is rarely injured. But also, this is the guy who has been at the centre of the worst period in recent times for the club. A guy who has talent and effort but also glaring weaknesses. A guy who loves a Hollywood pass but has a blind spot for passing to strikers (the striker received 2 passes that didn’t come from defence yesterday, and people have the audacity to say Højlund isn’t good enough) and cannot retain possession. A guy who takes every shot he can but rarely hits the target. A guy who can’t beat the first man with a set piece a shocking amount of the time, yet no one else gets a look in.
A guy who is captain but also massively petulant, and has now cost us with red cards 3 times this season and missed over 10 big game-changing chances.
Meanwhile, Eriksen is sat on the bench, who does all of the above.
So, where does that leave us? Plans are afoot to solve the left side, and possibly keeper. We’re likely to sell our two biggest assets as they don’t fit the system, and a number more will leave. The team will learn how to play this system in time. Bruno is 30, so we only have to deal with him for a couple more years. In the summer we’ll likely add a couple of more suitable midfielders. We just have to stabilise to get there.
In the meantime, I’d love to see us promote some of the younger players and give them a chance to show if they can make the grade instead of the ones who’ve proven they can’t. If we’re going rebuild, lean in. We’ve already seen far too many good talents go on the cheap rather than try them (e.g. Angel Gomes, Alvaro, Oyedele with Amass and Collyer possibly next). And we aren’t preserving Garnacho’s value by playing him out of position.
It’s time to pick the players who fit the roles best, not try to fit our best players into a system they don’t.
We also absolutely need to get a set piece coach in, stat.
Badwolf
It’s all Ed Woodward’s fault
Agree with the people saying United have lost the ‘magic’ that SAF had brought. Not sure I agree that it necessarily means the club is still not a juggernaut simply because in the end spending brings results. Regardless, where we are today is the end of the Ed Woodward era. An era of such abject incompetence that it should serve as a course in management schools. Wasteful, arrogant, ignorant and above all lacking any sense of humility or hubris. This is a broken squad, built without a plan for a decade by a petty man elevated beyond any sense of his actual ability.
So the question becomes: are United fans finally ready to go through the pain required to actually crawl out of this hole? Personally, I’m all for it. It’s going to get worse before it gets better, because the only way forward now is to stick with Amorim, give him and his system time and resources, and that will not bear fruit until at the earliest this time next year. We could stick around in the bottom half til then. Will we allow him that?
For example, Ole and then ETH’s teams flourished by taking the chances created by Bruno, often finished by Rashford. Neither of those players work in this system, and both are looking finished physically. The only replacement purchased for Bruno is Mount, who appears to no longer be a footballer. If we continue with this system, how do we score without the two main goal outlets on the pitch, and without funds to replace them?
And the reason there should be no funds is because Amorim’s entire structure is predicated on wing backs, and we have none in the squad. None. So January has to see two come in, imo, or else nothing will change.
So INEOS, let’s see how brave you are. Stick with Amorim, support him, and we should finally move forward. Or listen to fan channels and look for the next shiny new manager.
Ryan, Bermuda (that said, an experienced ref wouldn’t have sent Bruno off for two such borderline yellow cards, but it’s fun for the bantz)
Liverpool’s money maker
I sent an email a few weeks ago offering an opinion on Chelsea’s transfer approach, now it’s the turn of Liverpool. Also run by American moneymen, Liverpool’s owners identified their own sporting advantage, but instead of amortisation and contracts, FSG trusted data analysis as the means through which they could leverage benefit.
FSG have done this before, famously with the Boston Red Sox. That itself was an evolution of the Billy Bean/Moneyball philosophy of data analysis driving baseball player acquisition. However, although I am analysing the transfer approach predominantly, I think it is important to state that Liverpool do not use data solely for player recruitment. Every aspect of the club is analysed through the prism of acquiring data that provides insight and then analysing/modelling benefit from it.
To understand the benefits of this, let’s take the example of training – If you can acquire data on varying intensities of training and the injuries accumulated through that period, compared with differing times of year and amount of games played, perhaps you can identify optimal intensity for training for the periods of pre-season/Christmas/April-May so as to minimise the chances of players getting injured. Of course, the reality is this would actually be incredibly complex and involves a lot of variables, but there might perhaps be correlations that can provide insight into the optimum intensity for differing periods of the year.
Liverpool will analyse data for every possible facet of the club, its facilities, the fans, the media, the opposition, the league and any other area they can get their grubby hands on. It is their philosophy. Find the data, then understand what it tells you. Every other conventional way of understanding players, teams etc can still be used. You do not stop scouting players and trusting the opinions of extremely talented individuals because you also have a data analysis tool to provide you additional insight. Instead, you utilise both and where there is strong correlation you can be even more convinced of both opinions
Interestingly, it is not FSG that runs the data analysis operation at Liverpool, but the data research team originally headed up by Dr Ian Graham and then taken on by Will Spearman. I say this because I think it is significant. We started with a theoretical physicist from Cambridge and graduated to a particle physicist from Harvard. Data geeks is tongue-in-cheek, what they are is exceptionally intelligent individuals capable of analysing the most complex phenomena in the universe and then using physics and mathematics to model and explain what they are witnessing. Thankfully for Liverpool, instead of being camped at CERN (where Spearman was working before Liverpool nabbed him) they have been tasked with analysing the supremely complex maelstrom of activity that is professional football and deriving value and understanding from the nuances of a game that, for all its action across 90+ minutes, can often be decided by a single goal.
There is so much to talk about with the data research team at Liverpool that they literally wrote a book ‘How to Win the Premier League,’ but I think the most important aspect of it is the Possession Value model. This is Liverpool’s money maker. This single tool does something incredibly useful. It looks at any individual action on the pitch and values it, from a shot to a pass to a run to simply the movement around the pitch and how a player being in a position benefits their team. Once you know what every single individual action is worth, you can add up the actions each player completes and have an understanding of their value. It sounds simple but finding a tool to accurately gauge the value of all the bits that make up football is in fact enormously complex. That we have spent years honing this tool means that should other clubs look at Liverpool’s approach and feel they need to mirror this, it is not s as simple as suddenly paying attention to the goal and assists charts. Data is widely used, modelling that data into a value defining parameter is not, and constructing such a tool is a time consuming and complex task.
A team without such a tool is Manchester Utd. Utd seem to evaluate their performance in the old school, ‘what do my eyes tell me’ approach. They can see from the table what the black and white results are and when they are not good enough. They probably have an idea who they think their best players are and will bring in a raft of shiny, new players to replace the worse ones, but there appears a lack of refinement. It’s a scattergun approach whereby every summer you buy a player who has just had a good season and then assume that will make your team better because good players equal a successful team. Liverpool on the other hand, have an objective understanding of the value of each player. Not an opinion based on the whims of form, prejudiced by recency bias or affected by the fads of what’s desirable from your modern-day players. Simply a tool to evaluate everything they have ever done for the club, provide the output of what those actions were worth and then produce a very accurate value for the player based on that output. This same tool, thanks to the ubiquity of data, allows you to understand what every other player in the league/top 5 leagues is objectively worth. It is not perfect, because nothing is, but it is constantly sculpted, refined and updated and thus will inevitably get better. But right now, if I was Liverpool’s hierarchy looking at the results, I would be feeling pretty good. They have the 7th highest net spend in the Prem for the last 5 years – £550m less than Chelsea and £300m less than Utd, have possibly the best squad in the league, and despite the experts, pundits and journalists insisting that not spending in the summer means they would go backward this season, actually they sit top of England and Europe at Christmas.
Its all too early to conclude that they have mastered the art od squad building and football governance. there is a long way to go in the league and Liverpool might yet fall foul of injuries and poor form and win nothing, but regardless of their success, it is difficult not to be impressed with the efficacy of their data led approach. The real question now is how long can they continue to rely on this advantage?
Ed Ern
Jhon Duran’s assault
If Bruno’s celebration of a goal that was slammed off his arm by a panicky defender having a terrible day at the office was the most embarrassing thing Andy Funstar has seen in many a year, wait ’til he sees what his club’s c*nt of a goalkeeper did with Golden Glove trophy at the World Cup!
Also, Jhon Duran’s assault on Schar was clearly intentional. He put the studs of booth boots into him during a single fall — the right boot, twice, ffs! — and he visibly aimed the right foot. How Andy could expect VAR to overturn a red card based on that video is beyond me. Also, while he’s whinging, he might want to recall that two Newcastle goals were reviewed and ruled out by VAR, saving his club from an even more humiliating loss.
Chris C, Toon Army DC (Didn’t think anything could make beating Villa like a drum any better, but here we are.)
De Gea revisionism
I can’t have been the only person to be amused by Aman’s hilarious revisionist history of the latter part of David De Gea’s United career.
He may be dishing out motm performances for Fiorentina now (after quite a shaky start) but let’s not start pretending it wasn’t time for him to go. He was positively woeful in his final couple of seasons, making error after error that gifted goals. Plus his comical inability to save penalties (until he moved to Italy anyway) hilariously and predictably cost you a uefa cup.
He needed to go, the fact that the club is a clown car steered by abject morons who’ve made an utter hash of every decision they’ve had to make shouldn’t change that. It is glorious to watch though and I for one can’t wait to see what the idiots screw up next.
Andy, formerly London now Cambridge (via everywhere)
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Pandering to Arteta
Can someone please explain to me why Arsenal get an extended rest between their Xmas games? I mean most okay again on Sunday with a few games on Monday. Not a single game on Tuesday then arsenal play on Wednesday. Why?? 5 days between games when most of the rest have 3? Pandering to Arteta?
Alex
City haven’t even been sanctioned yet
Talking about preseason predictions, if someone had said that Man City would be 1 point behind Bournemouth and 6 points behind Nottingham Forest on Boxing Day, what would everyone think had transpired?
Pretty sure the words “30 point deduction” would have cropped up a lot. They really are having as great season as we are a terrible one.
Nick
Ed Sheeran tour shirt
I really don’t think enough has been said about how humiliating it must be for the Ipswich players to take the field each week wearing what is, in effect, an Ed Sheeran tour t-shirt.
Lewis, Busby Way
Liverpool fan bets against Liverpool
Having suffered from; Macheda during Fergie time, Gerrard slipping (although the bigger issue here was Henderson getting sent off against City), Kompany’s screamer against Leicester, Stones’ goal line clearance, Rodri’s handball and Gerrard’s Villa capitulation when 2 up with 15 to go, my little heart can’t take the strain without a possible upside.
So, even though I know I’ll catch some flack for this, I have taken steps to guarantee my happiness.
Should Liverpool go on to win the title, I will get to celebrate with Liverpool fans for the first time in my lifetime. That was so cruelly robbed away in 2020. All I ever wanted as a kid surrounded by Utd fans was for Liverpool to win the title and to be able to properly celebrate (though I didn’t imagine this having to be a caveat at the time).
If someone said to me: Give me a grand and I guarantee Liverpool will win the title, I would hand over the readies. Should they fail to deliver, they pay for a nice weeklong holiday for me and the fam.
Therefore, I have played the odds to guarantee happiness.
I have taken that grand and spent it as follows: £750 on Arsenal at 9/2. £150 on Chelsea at 16/1 and £100 on City at 55/1.
Should Liverpool come good, I’ve made that deal and bought my inner child happiness for £1k – an absolute bargain.
Should they fail, I will have a nice holiday from the proceeds to take my mind off the football.
Win win (win win). Though I bet it makes me some sort of terrible abomination to bet against my team right? I can’t be the only one that does this.
Dom
Van Dijk the fun sponge
I thought I’d add to the conversation about which is your favourite version of your supported team and also echo what both the spurs and city fans said.
My favourite version of Liverpool was 17/18. You might expect if choose a year which we won the champions league or the league but actually by that point the football played had changed quite significantly. In 17/18 it was balls to the wall non stop pressing and goal scoring with not much thought to defending as we conceded a lot, we just scored way more.
But it wasn’t just the scoring that made it fun we were generally very energetic and positive and relentless, it was great to watch. Everyone swarming like angry bees all over the pitch both pressing and attacking. Coincidentally it was salahs highest scoring season as well as he broke ronaldos premier league goals record (before haaland broke salahs a few years later). All three strikers swapping positions and roaming around was superb to watch.
There was a lot of less positional discipline and a lot more energy. After signing van dijk and then later Allison there was a clear shift in tactics as suddenly people stayed in their position and both midfield and attack were given far more defensive duties, and as a result it was less fun to watch, but ultimately way more successful.
There’s a reason why a lot of fans enjoy watching Newcastle (unless allardyce in charge) or spurs because when you’re a neutral they’re excellent games 99% of the time. That’s how football is supposed to be played, with fun, spontaneity and excitement. The reason for brasils decline is largely because the European based players get that trained out of them now and aren’t given the same free reign they used to so even skilfull creative players end being well drilled workhorses that don’t take chances.
You get more success with discipline and rigid tactics but you get more enjoyment without it. You can try and strike a balance but you end up not really committing to either and therefore nullifying the usefulness of both. I’ve never enjoyed peps teams because that spontaneity gets drilled out of everyone except Messi, I started to enjoy klopps Liverpool less for the same reasons.
I always watch spurs and Newcastle games because in this league that’s largely the last remaining vestiges of joga bonito. You might think you’d swap it for success but once it’s gone you’ll pine for it’s return, as recent letters show.
Unless you’re a Chelsea fan , they seem to love dark arts, defending and questionable diving – mainly, I guess because it’s been so successful for them.
Lee
