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Absolutely zero standards. It's infuriating to read deluded opinions of how "we're improving" every time we scrape a win against some absolutely shit team. That second half performance against Newcastle was absolutely fucking unacceptable. People's standards have dropped way too much.
People live in reality. The team today was not good and highlights our lack of depth. Any reasonable person predicted us finishing 6-8 this season and that’s exactly where they are. Having higher standards is unrealistic and going to make you miserable.
Settling for mediocrity is not living in reality. The only reason we're at a decent position right now is because everyone else is shit, not because we've improved significantly. Finishing 6th was good on paper when the season started, but everyone else have been dropping far more points than expected. We're also still playing dire football and it's not improving.
the fucking mental gymnastics that goes on with Amorim is obscene. Ifs and Buts everywhere.
You can't be dropping points AT HOME against a team with 2 points in 18 and genuinely look one of the worst PL teams of all time. Oh but there's "progress" apparently... the club is a fucking circus and people accepting this level of general performance for over a year are clueless.
Their logic is "We sometimes will look shit before we look better." Meanwhile, when we look shit, it's embarrassingly shit with so many common themes through out. When we do look better, it's never sustainable or replicable or shows any real progress. They just drank the Kool-Aid and had to do these mental gymnastics to justify it.
We can’t break down a team at home with a low block. This is the type of criticism that got other United managers fired but for Amorim is “process is getting better” my god
Real life is not a Disney movie. Just because something is bad now doesn't mean it's promised to get better in the future. After more than a year we're still showing the same weaknesses and our only big improvement is in an area where we spend over 200 million for better players.
Completely agree, apart from him none of the others ever mention Amorim or anything he may have done wrong at all. Pointless having punditry when they won't talk about the main problem which is the manager
Agreed 100%. I havent listened to this episode yet but every week, Carl is the only one raising the problematic points that we all share while the rest pass one liners and try to make a joke of it. Carl seems to be the only one actually projecting the pain/annoyance like a regular fan/one of us.
Hearing the "we need to have patience... you can't keep sacking managers," line trotted out by Ian was infuriating. Yes you can! You can sack managers until you get the right one, and in a year under Amorim it should be clear to everyone that he is not the right one.
Carl so badly wants to say more, but he's probably worried that he'd be banned from press conferences if he's honest. I think Andy is in a similar boat but his inclination is always to back the team no matter what.
I still listen, but I’ve already switched my main United podcast to no question about that
TOTD is a little too prosaic and I’ll probably get lynched for saying it here, but I do find Andy, nice bloke that he is, a bit too twee and off topic and he never really gets off the fence with stuff.
They spoke about this on the guardian football weekly this week in regards to Newcastle. That the team aren’t really held to account because all the journalists covering the team are from the city and fans of the club. They’re all insiders and get good exclusives etc so it’s not really in their interest to question the team or hold them to account when they play poorly.
Carl said something really interesting about how the cycle of getting sixth>being safe>spending £65m on a midfielder to fit the system just continues this cycle. The managers constantly get given time and all the while our standards and expectations keep dropping. It’s actually a vicious circle.
Same here. Used to listen to every episode. I'd get so excited for the episode to drop after a big result. Now I've turned off notifications. It's the same 50 minutes of PR approved speak and devil's advocate responses anytime Carl has valid criticism.
Carl sounded like a man losing his mind when he was trying to square what Amorim said in his press conference with the fact it was possibly the worst team in Premier League history that we were playing. That's the sound of a man realising he's been gaslit for over a year and the lies are finally fracturing.
The standards at this club are in the toilet, and a large part of the reason for that is that the head coach has put them there. He convinced everyone it was okay to lose because it would all get better when his much vaunted system was in place. Well, he's been here a year and the best we've looked as a team in that time was when we stopped playing with three at the back and started playing more like Manchester United. We're still not winning and each time it's looked like this man might actually learn and adapt and be sensible, he goes back to his dogmatic principles of failure.
People saying he had a thread bare squad but he still had sesko and cunha who the club thought were worth 60-70m each last summer. Dorgu and Lammens were also signed during his tenure.
Ugarte is shit but he was Amorins man at Lisbon and the club spent big money on him too. He played last night alongside one of the most decorated and highly paid midfielders on the planet in Casimiro. Zirkzee was an Ineos signing and was whipped at half time.
They also chose to put the young cb they pipped real Madrid for on the bench.
352 or 433 is irrelevant. Results set the narrative not formations.
At what stage does the manager and club take ownership of the situation? Why cant we beat ten man everton, wolves or west ham at old Trafford? How much longer to we need to wait until we can expect form thats better than a club like Aston villa?
Is this squad any worse than the squads Jose, Ole or Ten hag had? Why are we ok with 8th being the target.
If Amorim can't get any of these players to play well, then he shouldn't be here. That's his fucking job, he can't just implement a system then sit back and it all works perfectly. Good managers make good players.
And then we still have supposed fans shitting on academy lads playing their first minutes rather than on the under-performing senior internationals. I suspect some of them want to try and back up Amorim's dismissive comments about the academy.
the "fans" aka amorim stans constantly are blaming the players as w ell - what do you they even think a manager is meant to do? They way they act you think a Manager is basically irrelevant to performances. And one good result always wipes away the rubbish. It's been a year of fucking dross.
They'll just say shit like, "is Amorim supposed to coach Sesko not to miss from four yards out?"
I mean... yes. He's supposed to coach the entire squad and give them the tools and confidence to perform, and he's supposed to put the players in the best position to play well. Managers should make a player's job easier, not more complicated. He has a team of coaches around him who are supposed to assist him with that.
Exactly. Every loss or bad performance is always cause of individual mistakes or players doing things wrong, entirely absolving the manager of any responsibility
Players do have to take some responsibility, I mean you don’t need amazing coaching to go out and beat Wolves. That’s a mentality thing. Having said that, the sub decisions were appalling, and that’s on the manager.
if it was an unusual 1 off then yeah you can blame players having an off day - but's been a year+ of this. This sub seems to think players are all that matter and the manager is basically an irrelevance who just chooses a formation. FIFA brain.
Can’t imagine board getting rid of him yet though tbh
He'll likely have been told the expectations for this season is top 6 or so, which he's currently achieving, despite issues.
I'd wager that if we get to summer, and he misses european football, they'll see who is available. But it's not as if there's a load of available upgrades out there right now.
Also he played mainly CBs and DMs how can the players win when there's no attacking intent from the coach? Just on the pitch change formation and make their own subs?
You’ll never get it answered. Sorry. If they ask those questions of Amorim, they will lose their press pass credentials and therefore their access. Client journalism. Tale as old as time
The board including Omar and Jason went all in on Ruben as their man. They won the power struggle against Ashworth. They won't sack Amorim until there is no other answer and we miss Europe.
We have a barebones squad at the moment, although a draw against this wolves team is unacceptable, this is what happens when a team which is already barely a top 6-8 squad loses about 5 starters which includes the 3 best players.
Lol wolves are arguably the worst team in Premier league history who were also missing some of their starters. We also managed to buy their talisman last summer.
They're desperately short of players, and in isolation perhaps you could excuse it, but Man United's one-all draw with (statistically speaking) one of the worst Premier League teams in history fits a pattern of nearly-but-not-quite this season.
As we arrive in 2026, what can we expect from Ruben Amorim's team, and what standard should we demand? Is the Champions League too big an ask for a side that has achieved only one string of league victories?
It was a hugely deflating affair on Tuesday night but Leeds United, and their supporters, will show no sympathy when the Reds roll into Elland Road. Are they ready? Is Andy?
the players missing excuse doesn't fly when we played worse against 10 men everton with them, we drew to west ham with them and so on, there's only one constant here.
"yeah but we had injuries and also the players arent good and also wolves are on the up and also it was cold and wolves are scary animals you can't blame the manager"
This is it, it was a potential banana skin of a game, we did not have the attacking threat, sesko was so close, but there was no game changer from the bench, the lads done well off the bench but no one took the game by the scruff of the neck and dragged the team over the line, Cunha tried but there was no end product
Banana skin game, right up there with: Grimsby, Fulham, Brentford, Everton, West Ham, Forest, and Bournemouth--and that's just this season. Not really a banana skin issue when its half the games, is it?
No point 'trusting the process' when process itself is shit. The only reason why I think Amorim is safe is because Berrada went all out for him and firing him will make him look stupid.
This was the first match in years where I just walked away to play video games. I had the TV sound on nearby and the commentators never sounded excited enough for me to think something good was happening. Walked away at the half and only came back at the 87th to see if there would be a chance at late drama.
Celebrated Dorgus "goal" but immediately realized there was no way it'd be given.
Why can't some of you understand that we're not a good team? Without Bruno, Amad, Mbuemo, and De Ligt, there isn't much in this team attacking-wise. Blaming the "system" is stupid. What some of these players have done in the last few years proves that.
We can barely press a team, and our midfield can't pass between the lines. Ugarte and Case's passes are 9/10 sideways. We managed to cross "well" this game. Surprisingly, we never reach their backline for a pullback, which is "Amorim football." The bench was just kids also. It's hard to admit, but that's our level.
We had a full squad for most of the matches in November till middle of December, with really favorable schedule.
Its was no better then what we seen last night.
At this point I don’t even care who the manager is, I’m just tired of seeing the same plodders all over the pitch. I love Casemiro and what a career he’s had but I can’t believe he’s still here. Why is Shaw still here? Likewise Dalot. And Ugarte. A team full of players with no pace, no guile, just a drab nothingness everywhere. I hate comparing us to city but they’re the standard now and this just wouldn’t be happening down the road, we need to revolutionise and actually do some serious squad building and while we can hang a fair bit of this on the manager the people in charge of the club need to take responsibility too, the state we’re in beggars belief.
“Without our best players, we are not very good” - kind of an obvious statement no? Add Mount, Maz, Maguire, etc to that list and we’re essentially missing 2/3 of our starting XI. Our bench is literally the U21 team. We should have won and Amorim ain’t it, but we’re scraping the very bottom of the barrel with who we can field at the moment.
You’re spot on. It’s all semantics. There's two types of fan using the word expect differently.
Some say “we expect to win” because that’s the clubs identity.
Others are really just hoping for success, but they get accused of “lowering standards,” as if being realistic means accepting mediocrity. The truth is this squad isn’t winning anything right now. That’s not on the manager. It’s over a decades worth of underinvestment and mismanagement from the top. The culture has needed a reset for years, and this is it. It’s going to be a long road.
You can still demand high standards and want United back at the top while admitting the current team isn’t good enough. Those two meanings of “expect” keep getting mixed up, and that’s why the disappointment circlejerk here never ends.
We can win the odd game against City, Barcelona, Liverpool… but winning five games in a row? No, our squad just isn’t that strong. The fact that Luke Shaw (he’s been decent, yeah), Ugarte, and Malacia still manage to find themselves in the squad says everything.
Khusanov, after his horror start against City, barely gets a look-in. We can’t do that yet, but I believe in our board. It’s only been a year, and most of the signings are good (finally). After all these years, we’re finally going to get midfielders who can hold possession and protect our back line I believe.
For me, I look at that game and think in isolation it was rancid. Bereaft of ideas, desire, intensity from minute 1. Then what compounds on top of that is the amount of times we have seen that under this manager... where do we go from here?
I think it’s a story of two halves imo. First half the players had no intensity. Regardless of system, if you don’t close down quick enough they will play through you.
Second half, Amorim managed it so poorly. Both are to blame.
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Disappoint is too small a word for this one.
I’m as much disappointed in the general acceptance of these continued results as I am in this specific result.
Saw people defending it saying “wolves have only lost by 1 goal recently multiple times” just absolutely shameless
It’s disgusting how people blindly accept this shit.
Absolutely zero standards. It's infuriating to read deluded opinions of how "we're improving" every time we scrape a win against some absolutely shit team. That second half performance against Newcastle was absolutely fucking unacceptable. People's standards have dropped way too much.
People live in reality. The team today was not good and highlights our lack of depth. Any reasonable person predicted us finishing 6-8 this season and that’s exactly where they are. Having higher standards is unrealistic and going to make you miserable.
Settling for mediocrity is not living in reality. The only reason we're at a decent position right now is because everyone else is shit, not because we've improved significantly. Finishing 6th was good on paper when the season started, but everyone else have been dropping far more points than expected. We're also still playing dire football and it's not improving.
The match would be fine if this was one off. Missing key players, not our day, whatever. 1 stinker in 5 would be okay.
Under Amorim it's not one off. It's not even 2 off. More like 3-4 stinkers for every okay game.
the fucking mental gymnastics that goes on with Amorim is obscene. Ifs and Buts everywhere.
You can't be dropping points AT HOME against a team with 2 points in 18 and genuinely look one of the worst PL teams of all time. Oh but there's "progress" apparently... the club is a fucking circus and people accepting this level of general performance for over a year are clueless.
I saw someone said 33% win rate is still improvement because we are in rebuild mode the other day. Unironically.
Well it was 25% last season lmao
It's not mental gymnastics. It's accepting where we are as a team.
Other managers ended their year with more wins than losses
We've had worse squads perform better. People accepting this team is where it is - 31% win rate - as fine are off their rockers.
It's obviously not fine. No one is saying. It's just part of the process of getting better.
Jesus Christ dude, what has this man given you?
What you do is play shit and lose for 14 months and then it magically imrpoves
Their logic is "We sometimes will look shit before we look better." Meanwhile, when we look shit, it's embarrassingly shit with so many common themes through out. When we do look better, it's never sustainable or replicable or shows any real progress. They just drank the Kool-Aid and had to do these mental gymnastics to justify it.
Remind me how playing shit and losing more games than we win for a year is the process?
We can’t break down a team at home with a low block. This is the type of criticism that got other United managers fired but for Amorim is “process is getting better” my god
Real life is not a Disney movie. Just because something is bad now doesn't mean it's promised to get better in the future. After more than a year we're still showing the same weaknesses and our only big improvement is in an area where we spend over 200 million for better players.
can’t listen to these anymore, Carl is the only one with the balls to speak the truth
the others just dance around trying to keep the club onside
Completely agree, apart from him none of the others ever mention Amorim or anything he may have done wrong at all. Pointless having punditry when they won't talk about the main problem which is the manager
Agreed 100%. I havent listened to this episode yet but every week, Carl is the only one raising the problematic points that we all share while the rest pass one liners and try to make a joke of it. Carl seems to be the only one actually projecting the pain/annoyance like a regular fan/one of us.
Hearing the "we need to have patience... you can't keep sacking managers," line trotted out by Ian was infuriating. Yes you can! You can sack managers until you get the right one, and in a year under Amorim it should be clear to everyone that he is not the right one.
Carl so badly wants to say more, but he's probably worried that he'd be banned from press conferences if he's honest. I think Andy is in a similar boat but his inclination is always to back the team no matter what.
your first paragraph is the exact words that have been coming out of my mouth mate, sack until you find a good one
find it absolutely baffling that people think you have to give anyone you hire at least a year or anything more
yeah, i feel for Carl you could tell he’d been fed up for ages even when i stopped listening a while back
I still listen, but I’ve already switched my main United podcast to no question about that
TOTD is a little too prosaic and I’ll probably get lynched for saying it here, but I do find Andy, nice bloke that he is, a bit too twee and off topic and he never really gets off the fence with stuff.
don’t think you’re wrong tbh, really like Andy but he uses a lot of words to say very little a lot of the time
They spoke about this on the guardian football weekly this week in regards to Newcastle. That the team aren’t really held to account because all the journalists covering the team are from the city and fans of the club. They’re all insiders and get good exclusives etc so it’s not really in their interest to question the team or hold them to account when they play poorly.
Carl said something really interesting about how the cycle of getting sixth>being safe>spending £65m on a midfielder to fit the system just continues this cycle. The managers constantly get given time and all the while our standards and expectations keep dropping. It’s actually a vicious circle.
Same here. Used to listen to every episode. I'd get so excited for the episode to drop after a big result. Now I've turned off notifications. It's the same 50 minutes of PR approved speak and devil's advocate responses anytime Carl has valid criticism.
Carl does sound very frustrated.
Carl sounded like a man losing his mind when he was trying to square what Amorim said in his press conference with the fact it was possibly the worst team in Premier League history that we were playing. That's the sound of a man realising he's been gaslit for over a year and the lies are finally fracturing.
The standards at this club are in the toilet, and a large part of the reason for that is that the head coach has put them there. He convinced everyone it was okay to lose because it would all get better when his much vaunted system was in place. Well, he's been here a year and the best we've looked as a team in that time was when we stopped playing with three at the back and started playing more like Manchester United. We're still not winning and each time it's looked like this man might actually learn and adapt and be sensible, he goes back to his dogmatic principles of failure.
Carl has been critical of Amorim for a very long time
Only Carl and Critch get it.
People saying he had a thread bare squad but he still had sesko and cunha who the club thought were worth 60-70m each last summer. Dorgu and Lammens were also signed during his tenure.
Ugarte is shit but he was Amorins man at Lisbon and the club spent big money on him too. He played last night alongside one of the most decorated and highly paid midfielders on the planet in Casimiro. Zirkzee was an Ineos signing and was whipped at half time.
They also chose to put the young cb they pipped real Madrid for on the bench.
352 or 433 is irrelevant. Results set the narrative not formations.
At what stage does the manager and club take ownership of the situation? Why cant we beat ten man everton, wolves or west ham at old Trafford? How much longer to we need to wait until we can expect form thats better than a club like Aston villa? Is this squad any worse than the squads Jose, Ole or Ten hag had? Why are we ok with 8th being the target.
If Amorim can't get any of these players to play well, then he shouldn't be here. That's his fucking job, he can't just implement a system then sit back and it all works perfectly. Good managers make good players.
And then we still have supposed fans shitting on academy lads playing their first minutes rather than on the under-performing senior internationals. I suspect some of them want to try and back up Amorim's dismissive comments about the academy.
More than half our squad is missing. Six players in total. We are playing with backups
Because fan standards are rock bottom
the "fans" aka amorim stans constantly are blaming the players as w ell - what do you they even think a manager is meant to do? They way they act you think a Manager is basically irrelevant to performances. And one good result always wipes away the rubbish. It's been a year of fucking dross.
They'll just say shit like, "is Amorim supposed to coach Sesko not to miss from four yards out?"
I mean... yes. He's supposed to coach the entire squad and give them the tools and confidence to perform, and he's supposed to put the players in the best position to play well. Managers should make a player's job easier, not more complicated. He has a team of coaches around him who are supposed to assist him with that.
Exactly. Every loss or bad performance is always cause of individual mistakes or players doing things wrong, entirely absolving the manager of any responsibility
Players do have to take some responsibility, I mean you don’t need amazing coaching to go out and beat Wolves. That’s a mentality thing. Having said that, the sub decisions were appalling, and that’s on the manager.
if it was an unusual 1 off then yeah you can blame players having an off day - but's been a year+ of this. This sub seems to think players are all that matter and the manager is basically an irrelevance who just chooses a formation. FIFA brain.
Yes it’s very draining. Can’t imagine board getting rid of him yet though tbh
He'll likely have been told the expectations for this season is top 6 or so, which he's currently achieving, despite issues.
I'd wager that if we get to summer, and he misses european football, they'll see who is available. But it's not as if there's a load of available upgrades out there right now.
Also he played mainly CBs and DMs how can the players win when there's no attacking intent from the coach? Just on the pitch change formation and make their own subs?
I would like the TOTD crew to answer my question tbh as they've an opportunity to ask Amorin these questions
You’ll never get it answered. Sorry. If they ask those questions of Amorim, they will lose their press pass credentials and therefore their access. Client journalism. Tale as old as time
The board including Omar and Jason went all in on Ruben as their man. They won the power struggle against Ashworth. They won't sack Amorim until there is no other answer and we miss Europe.
I think both zirkzee and ugarte are gone soon
Its like a new signing.
Joking aside we cant depend on our academy so of we sell them we need to sign at least a squad player.
Id be happy with garner if no starters are available.
I’d say it’s undoubtedly a worse squad than what Ole and Mourinho had for sure.
We have a barebones squad at the moment, although a draw against this wolves team is unacceptable, this is what happens when a team which is already barely a top 6-8 squad loses about 5 starters which includes the 3 best players.
Can't talk sense in here mate
Wolves had players out too, we had starters who are sufficient quality to beat wolves
Lol wolves are arguably the worst team in Premier league history who were also missing some of their starters. We also managed to buy their talisman last summer.
We drew with them at home...
I agree results set the narrative.
I’m curious where you expected us to be in the league by this stage of the season?
Higher than we currently are due to the points dropped against teams in poor form.
Fair enough.
We are performing pretty much as I expected at the start of the season. These results are not really a surprise but still extremely frustrating.
They're desperately short of players, and in isolation perhaps you could excuse it, but Man United's one-all draw with (statistically speaking) one of the worst Premier League teams in history fits a pattern of nearly-but-not-quite this season. As we arrive in 2026, what can we expect from Ruben Amorim's team, and what standard should we demand? Is the Champions League too big an ask for a side that has achieved only one string of league victories? It was a hugely deflating affair on Tuesday night but Leeds United, and their supporters, will show no sympathy when the Reds roll into Elland Road. Are they ready? Is Andy?
the players missing excuse doesn't fly when we played worse against 10 men everton with them, we drew to west ham with them and so on, there's only one constant here.
"oh buit theres progress"
there's some truth to that, compared to amorim's last season there is progress, that's it tho for any other manager this is a horrible season
So all we have to do is lose all the time and play terrible every week for over a year in order get better.
It's the winning formula. Progress!
It's statistically the worst team in the history of the Prem bar none after 19 games...
"yeah but we had injuries and also the players arent good and also wolves are on the up and also it was cold and wolves are scary animals you can't blame the manager"
You give wolves the squad we had available last night and theyre not getting relegated
Wolves may be statistically worse, but they are on UP.
Arsenal 1st, they lost on Own Goal. Liverpool next, they were better team in 2nd half. This match they are held the center of pitch well.
Edward is working for them, United game is game they finally get the point.
But Continue RageBait.
2 points in 18. At home. They are fucking diabolical. The only ragebait here is you.
This is it, it was a potential banana skin of a game, we did not have the attacking threat, sesko was so close, but there was no game changer from the bench, the lads done well off the bench but no one took the game by the scruff of the neck and dragged the team over the line, Cunha tried but there was no end product
Banana skin game, right up there with: Grimsby, Fulham, Brentford, Everton, West Ham, Forest, and Bournemouth--and that's just this season. Not really a banana skin issue when its half the games, is it?
Carl is all of us rightly infuriated with this fucking bullshit
No point 'trusting the process' when process itself is shit. The only reason why I think Amorim is safe is because Berrada went all out for him and firing him will make him look stupid.
Sunk cost fallacy. Stop this nonsense
This was the first match in years where I just walked away to play video games. I had the TV sound on nearby and the commentators never sounded excited enough for me to think something good was happening. Walked away at the half and only came back at the 87th to see if there would be a chance at late drama.
Celebrated Dorgus "goal" but immediately realized there was no way it'd be given.
Why can't some of you understand that we're not a good team? Without Bruno, Amad, Mbuemo, and De Ligt, there isn't much in this team attacking-wise. Blaming the "system" is stupid. What some of these players have done in the last few years proves that.
We can barely press a team, and our midfield can't pass between the lines. Ugarte and Case's passes are 9/10 sideways. We managed to cross "well" this game. Surprisingly, we never reach their backline for a pullback, which is "Amorim football." The bench was just kids also. It's hard to admit, but that's our level.
We had a full squad for most of the matches in November till middle of December, with really favorable schedule. Its was no better then what we seen last night.
At this point I don’t even care who the manager is, I’m just tired of seeing the same plodders all over the pitch. I love Casemiro and what a career he’s had but I can’t believe he’s still here. Why is Shaw still here? Likewise Dalot. And Ugarte. A team full of players with no pace, no guile, just a drab nothingness everywhere. I hate comparing us to city but they’re the standard now and this just wouldn’t be happening down the road, we need to revolutionise and actually do some serious squad building and while we can hang a fair bit of this on the manager the people in charge of the club need to take responsibility too, the state we’re in beggars belief.
Wolves are borderline a league 1 side. Dropping points at home to them is a crime.
“Without our best players, we are not very good” - kind of an obvious statement no? Add Mount, Maz, Maguire, etc to that list and we’re essentially missing 2/3 of our starting XI. Our bench is literally the U21 team. We should have won and Amorim ain’t it, but we’re scraping the very bottom of the barrel with who we can field at the moment.
You’re spot on. It’s all semantics. There's two types of fan using the word expect differently.
Some say “we expect to win” because that’s the clubs identity.
Others are really just hoping for success, but they get accused of “lowering standards,” as if being realistic means accepting mediocrity. The truth is this squad isn’t winning anything right now. That’s not on the manager. It’s over a decades worth of underinvestment and mismanagement from the top. The culture has needed a reset for years, and this is it. It’s going to be a long road.
You can still demand high standards and want United back at the top while admitting the current team isn’t good enough. Those two meanings of “expect” keep getting mixed up, and that’s why the disappointment circlejerk here never ends.
We can win the odd game against City, Barcelona, Liverpool… but winning five games in a row? No, our squad just isn’t that strong. The fact that Luke Shaw (he’s been decent, yeah), Ugarte, and Malacia still manage to find themselves in the squad says everything.
Khusanov, after his horror start against City, barely gets a look-in. We can’t do that yet, but I believe in our board. It’s only been a year, and most of the signings are good (finally). After all these years, we’re finally going to get midfielders who can hold possession and protect our back line I believe.
For me, I look at that game and think in isolation it was rancid. Bereaft of ideas, desire, intensity from minute 1. Then what compounds on top of that is the amount of times we have seen that under this manager... where do we go from here?
I think it’s a story of two halves imo. First half the players had no intensity. Regardless of system, if you don’t close down quick enough they will play through you.
Second half, Amorim managed it so poorly. Both are to blame.
I understand the disappointment but with the absences and the way the squad is built if we are 8th or better coming out of Afcon I would be happy.