Frustration, a Noun
It’s the hope that kills you, right? The frustration in scoring just once from 24 shots at goal is not that United failed to beat Stoke City at Old Trafford, but that José Mourinho’s side should have won by a cricket score. United created “no sustained pressure,” claimed Stoke manager Mark Hughes. Who was he kidding; this was the Reds’ best performance of the season to date. In this week’s show Ed & Paul also discuss United’s Europa League victory over Zorya Luhansk.
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I am writing this without hearing the podcast. I felt our performance against Stoke was good but it was good in patches. We played very well in the first quarter of the match but suddenly the intensity in our passing just vanishes. We started the second half really poorly, it was as if we had scored 4 goals in the first half again. While I do feel we were unlucky not to win but we need to pass the ball with much more purpose and intensity. Looking at how spurs and Liverpool played at the weekend at this moment if you ask me, I think we are going to struggle to make it to the top four. Also is it just me who thinks that we just don’t get in behind the defences frequently enough in matches or am I wrong??
And lastly I hope we have a great October coz that’s going to decide what’s our aim is going to be for the rest of the season.
Thanks for the pod. Just to pick up on the mentally weak thing, I disagree a bit. I think Smalling, Carrick and Rooney are all mentally fragile in their own way. I think Rooney’s problem is mainly mental. Physically he’s declined but there’s till enough to work with, it’s just all the things about his positional play, first touch etc are psychological and they get worse the more the pressure is on. Look at all the bad England and United performances of recent years and in my memory I can see Rooney in headless chicken mode, hustling and bustling in the wrong parts of the pitch creating anxiety and confusion throughout the team.
For me Carrick is mentally fragile. Plays great when we’re in control but can’t change a game when it’s going the wrong way, just seems to be giving the ball away and vainly watching players running past him. Can’t take a game by the scruff of the neck, shout at a few players.
Smalling similar. If you hear him interviewed he has a very meek persona. I think he’s an intelligent footballer but there’s no fire in him at all.
I think having those three players as our spine has been a big part in the story of our decline. When Smalling had Vidic or Ferdinand, Carrick had Scholes or even Fletcher and Rooney had van Persie, or Ronaldo etc they had more aggressive players that covered their shortcomings in that department.
MUFC missed 2 important(easy) points.
If we loose points against weak teams its very difficult to make place in top 4.
On third party ownership, can you tell me what the difference is between a ‘third party’ owning a player and a club owning a player? It’s still a kind of bondage that could be descibed as ‘modern slavery’. It’s just that the slavemaster isn’t the club and since the clubs run football it seems to me that third party ownership is the wrong kind of slavery. I haven’t looked into it extensively I admit, but just skimming the surface it looks that way to me….
Aside from the lack of accountancy and transparency, which leads to all kinds of potential corruption inhabiting the game, it’s the farming that’s a real problem. Third party agencies hoovering up young poor kids in Africa, South America etc, promising them riches and then, offering nothing real. Also distorts the market of course…
Really, 3rd party owners don’t have accountants? Well, anyway, seems like those problems are what regulations are for. Only regulations stop clubs doing the same thing. I’m not sure how it distorts the market other than shifting profits away from clubs….
Accountability