Rashford has become inconsistent, but I don't for a minute doubt his ability, but I seriously doubt his application - and that really pisses me off, particularly given his new contract and the faith that ETH has shown. When our forward play breaks down, he trots around, no awareness of where the play might develop and reappears only at corners or set plays. Hojlund still harries and presses, Bruno does the same once his petulant fit is over - but at least they get involved. Rashford just watches and waits, he might as well bring a packed lunch onto the pitch for all the involvement he has. One or two decent runs a game doesn't cut it.
As I’ve said many times, why blame everything under the sun before acknowledging that the responsibility for how we play starts and ends with the manager. If we think a said player is actually sht but keeps getting picked to play, who do we blame for that? The player? At this point, the fixation on players is pointless. They simply execute as trained and setup to play. Our problem has nothing to do with injuries, little to do with specific players, and certainly not due to lack of quality in the squad. The world’s greatest 11 will struggle to produce under this system. Now, please show me precisely where I’ve asked for the manager to be sacked. I’ve called for the system to change. If that isn’t possible, then it implies that the manager is not capable.
Except they don't just execute the system. Do you honestly think that Rashford is told to do the same thing everytime which is, assuming he's actually controlled the pass to him in the first place, which isn't often, to cut inside and run into the nearest tackle/ blind alley so that the opposition overturns the ball, and/or to not look up to see if a colleague is in space to pass to, and blindly shoot wildly instead. You think that's 'the plan'? Any plan is being poorly executed by our wide players, especially the one in question, because after he has lost the ball he does nothing to help win it back and just strolls around until he's is given another opportunity to miscontrol a pass. This is why he is singled out. Because he's just not cutting it and makes limited effort. If you can't see it, not my issue, but I will continue to comment on it. Antony gets dogs abuse for this, but what he does do is make every effort to win the ball back and make tackles. Which Rashford simply shirks. Where I hold Ten Hag responsible is that he continues to pick him and try the same thing over and over.
The logic doesn’t play out, Chief. As you’ve put it, the players are simply not executing to the system. That idea is flawed and I’ll go into why. But first, I bet you would struggle to lay out what this ETH’s system is supposed to be. In other works of life, employees are expected to do as the business manager lays out based on a plan for success. When the employees are not executing to plan, it is the business manager’s job to identify why and rectify the cause of the poor execution. It is rarely feasible for a manager to simply sack all his employees because they somehow just don’t execute. The very lack of execution from employees inherently demonstrates weaknesses in the strategy. This is what we have at Manchester United. If we are honest with ourselves, we would have a consensus that ETH has not shown that there is a clear end to end plan. I badly want to see one, but it’s just not there. Where we have seen semblance of some method is how we play is when we play the ball out of from the back. It is clearly an ETH thing. But then when you have a disjointed team who are lethargic at creating spaces, I don’t know if that’s a risk this team should be taking. In the current system, it has created far more problems for us than imposing on games. Another area of success is the graduation of youth players into the senior squad. I think ETH has been largely successful at this. But again, we run the risk of those players become victims of the overall system. Those are some of the examples where we have some success, yet no broader plan that speaks to a bigger picture of style that any of us can communicate. Hence my position that it is flat out lazy to continue the fixation on blaming the players without acknowledging that the players are in the manager’s image.
Can I just point out in the last 5 match threads I've done, we've had 2 wins, 2 draws, and only 1 loss. That is Top 4 levels, just saying
It would be meaningless if they're comparing the same 18 month period for both, so it must be Fergie's total win record. Which of course also makes it meaningless!
It should also be noted that 25 wins out of 38 games will certainly win you the league back in Sir Alex days. But oil money has pushed up that threshold dramatically.
If it is first 18 months, then it shows how long a proper rebuild actually takes and that sticking with a manager can turn out well. It's been said often enough that Fergies first three, even four, years were not great trophy and result wise, but he had the backing of those above him. No social media in those days, no dickheads making videos calling for the manager to be sacked, way less media noise. Ratcliffe should be sitting down with ten Hag and listening to what he proposes for the future. Probably already has. Need a promising second half to the season.
