I'm no tactical expert but wasn't one of the biggest issues that the midfield were overrun/easy to play through, pretty much every match?
I would suggest that not having a LB most of the season and playing/relying on slow and old CBs means that any time your midfielders/forwards push up you either end up with a big gap between your defence/midfield or you leave masses of space to play around the midfield. Good time generally stay compact to avoid this. Having Martinez back along with a better CB alongside him will make a massive difference. Having an attack minded LB also helps a lot.
Football is a much more complex game these days than it was 10-20 years ago and an issue in one area of the pitch can show up all over the place and make it very hard to play the way you want. When you are constantly losing the ball and your defence is slow and passive, it affects everything.
Hopefully Zirkzee will help out yes, hopefully, but it remains to be seen, he's not proven in the EPL.
There absolutely needs to be more goals from all players, United were 10th in the league in terms of goals scroed last season!
Yes, we need more goals but why would we not have that with more players available. You score goals as a team. You can attack more when you have a solid foundation. Players who can pass the ball from the back. A keeper who can play out from the back more because his defenders aren't going to lose the ball if he sends it to them.
My point was that, this coming season, if it fails due to injuries then that's not going to wash. Agreed regarding buying a whole new squad but given above point about midfield and also previous point about aging squad, will much change here without new blood.
I would have thought it will, we have brought in 4 new players.
With a squad of Onana, Mazroui, Yoro/De Ligt, Shaw, Casemiro, Mainoo, Fernandes, Amad, Garnacho and Hojlund we would have an avg. age of around 24 I imagine. The only aging players in the squad that are likely to get game time are Casemiro and perhaps Eriksen but even then it will be as a sub for Eriksen.
Was it a one-off? Rashford was on a mad one and Liverpool (and Chelsea?) underpeformed.
That happens almost every season. There aren't that many season where all the "big 6" are firing on all cylinders. Will Liverpool do well this season? No incoming and new manager. Taking over from one of the best managers ever? Will Chelsea magically come good? I don't think it takes that much to get top 4 honestly. Even up until about March (I think) we were still looking up at top 4 and thinking it was very possible if we stopped being **** and thats considering how awful we were.
Where does Mount fit? Isn't he a like-for-like replacement for Bruno? Is he really the player we need?
No idea, hes played so little we have literally no idea. Again, look at it positively or negatively.
Him in form is probably 10-15 goals, which will be welcome but until then he's probably going to sulk and just generally be a child on the pitch. Thankfully we have Garnacho! On that note, hopefully Antony either shows his worth or Amad is given more time.
Based on pre-season and his performances, I can't see Amad being anything but first choice on that side.
Was De Ligt even good for Bayern (easier league)? How come they got rid? One benefit of new players is new mindsets, although most player do tend to go backwards when they join, hopefully that's changing now.
Money, doesn't fit the managers plans, wages. There are loads of reasons players move. By all accounts Bayern fans don't want him to leave.
I'm not particulary annoyed by this - have simply accepted that the club is years away from being decent.
That depends on what decent is. I think we can be decent this season. I don't think we can be competing for anything serious for another 2-3 years even if things go well but we can be decent and decent is all you need to be top 4 in the PL at the moment.
