Int Break: Hard Truth Time

[Bladesman101]

This is a massive break for our club. It’s still early enough in the season for us to get a few points on table and see out a mid table finish and have this awful start as fuzzy memory come the end of the season. If we’re still in the bottom 3 at Xmas then it’s a different story.

What I would focus on in this break is to grab the players and manager and tell them to stop feeling sorry for themselves! And a bit of that goes to us fans as well!

Burrows and Campbell, both had magic moments at Wembley but it didn’t work out… GET OVER IT. 2 of my current favourite United players, look like shadows of what they were, and I believe it’s all a mentality issue.

Grab Seriki, Peck, Brooks, Cannon and shout at them that their careers are on the line!! Seriki has bundles of talent but hasn’t played well, brooks has shown glimpses of really good stuff but the amount of over hit crosses from him this year boarders on insanity. Peck, you HAVE to contribute to goals/assists, as you don’t make tackles and win headers in midfield enough for it to be okay that you don’t contribute. Cannon is a bit different as he has earned enough already to retire I imagine, but he needs a complete reality check, he’s been utterly dreadful.

Wilder, stop being stubborn!! The obsession with Peck in midfield like he’s the golden child is driving me mad. I hope Davies is fit enough for a a Davies Matos midfield next game. Also, the Mcburnie love in on the presser was just awful, that moron cost us £20m+ and once went 46 games without scoring. There’s not an ounce of me regretting that we didn’t get him back, an awful awful signing for us.

Stop feeling so sorry for ourselves United. Look over to Pig half of Sheffield to see how bad things can actually get. Get 2 up front and put some belief back in the team and smash Watford on 18th!!

 

[Edgar Allan Poo]

 

[finlaytheblade]

This is a massive break for our club. It’s still early enough in the season for us to get a few points on table and see out a mid table finish and have this awful start as fuzzy memory come the end of the season. If we’re still in the bottom 3 at Xmas then it’s a different story.

What I would focus on in this break is to grab the players and manager and tell them to stop feeling sorry for themselves! And a bit of that goes to us fans as well!

Burrows and Campbell, both had magic moments at Wembley but it didn’t work out… GET OVER IT. 2 of my current favourite United players, look like shadows of what they were, and I believe it’s all a mentality issue.

Grab Seriki, Peck, Brooks, Cannon and shout at them that their careers are on the line!! Seriki has bundles of talent but hasn’t played well, brooks has shown glimpses of really good stuff but the amount of over hit crosses from him this year boarders on insanity. Peck, you HAVE to contribute to goals/assists, as you don’t make tackles and win headers in midfield enough for it to be okay that you don’t contribute. Cannon is a bit different as he has earned enough already to retire I imagine, but he needs a complete reality check, he’s been utterly dreadful.

Wilder, stop being stubborn!! The obsession with Peck in midfield like he’s the golden child is driving me mad. I hope Davies is fit enough for a a Davies Matos midfield next game. Also, the Mcburnie love in on the presser was just awful, that moron cost us £20m+ and once went 46 games without scoring. There’s not an ounce of me regretting that we didn’t get him back, an awful awful signing for us.

Stop feeling so sorry for ourselves United. Look over to Pig half of Sheffield to see how bad things can actually get. Get 2 up front and put some belief back in the team and smash Watford on 18th!!

Agree with most of what you say but Mcbernie would ave been a great signing! Spent most of his career with us,yes he has been a frustration! He has now matured and we would benefit from what we have put in over the years.

 

[prescotblade]

Why did McBurnie win MOM on Saturday

 

[GreasyChipBeattie]

There has already been big improvements, but we need more.
Experienced, more mature players who can handle the pressure/disappointment of not yet getting results will be instrumental in turning things round.
But, and it's a fairly big but, it will be touch and go to be able to rescue some of them.

 

[Grappler]

The owners no doubt got together and decided to give Selles the elbow and bring CW back in from gardening leave. I am not sure how often they get together, as a group, but I don't think they will be sitting on their hands, glancing at the weekly results and thinking this is fine, it will all come good.

They should be (and probably are) speaking to Wilder and saying "what are our options?", "what, if anything, can we do to try and rectify this situation in as short a time as possible"?

If the answer is , "here are three players who are free agents who will immediately improves us and give us a fighting chance", then the board should act on that.

I did see on Twitter (I know, I know......) that talks are already taking place with possible players to bring in, in January, but it might be too late at that point, we need to go on a great run, right now.

It's also time for CW, AK and the rest of the coaching staff to sit down and take a long hard look at how we are set up and who is playing and who is on the bench and make some tough choices.

Last season, we had fans moaning because we were scraping 1-0 wins and the product on display was not very entertaining. I don't think any of us would say no to scrappy, boring, 1-0 wins for the rest of this season. If we have to go 4-4-2, hoofball, whatever, as long as it gets the result, we have to do it.

 

[raimond]

Why did McBurnie win MOM on Saturday

Ah class, need some cheering up on a Monday morning! I don't know, why did McBurnie win MOM on Saturday?

 

[Snowflake]

Ah class, need some cheering up on a Monday morning! I don't know, why did McBurnie win MOM on Saturday?

Because he was better than the rest of the poorly performing players ?

 

[HOT CURRIE 10]

There has already been big improvements, but we need more.
Experienced, more mature players who can handle the pressure/disappointment of not yet getting results will be instrumental in turning things round.
But, and it's a fairly big but, it will be touch and go to be able to rescue some of them.

Big improvements,please tell me where ?

 

[54yrblade]

Agree with most of what you say but Mcbernie would ave been a great signing! Spent most of his career with us,yes he has been a frustration! He has now matured and we would benefit from what we have put in over the years.

26 goals in 5 years I think it was. He'd be wasted here.

He proved that I'm afraid

GLTTL. He's now got a manager who knows, so far, how to play to his strengths and he's reaping the rewards

 

[bornablade]

How many minutes has Seriki played this season to warrant telling him his career is on the line?

 

[Willglynning]

There has already been big improvements, but we need more.

I think this narrative is really not helping the situation; and it’s the sort of rhetoric that sees teams sleepwalk into relegation.

Whilst we haven’t had games with scorelines like the Bristol City or Ipswich game, I would say it’s really disingenuous to imply there’s been ‘big improvements’.

I don’t think we’ve looked dramatically better under Wilder than we did under Selles- and arguably the best performance we’ve had all season was still that first 45 minutes against Bristol City.

If anything performances haven’t actually been that much different from what they were like under Wilder over much of last season, except with results going against us instead of scraping through with wins.

Obviously I want Wilder to succeed, as it means the club succeeds, but if you somehow weren’t aware that there’d been any managerial change at all I doubt you’d be saying that there’s been ‘big improvements’.

I don’t agree with some of the more specific details in the OPs post, but the management and playing staff need to get out of this malaise because the football we’ve been playing was unacceptable under Selles and Wilder’s return has done little to galvanise the team, at all.

 

[CrookesBlade]

I think this narrative is really not helping the situation; and it’s the sort of rhetoric that sees teams sleepwalk into relegation.

Whilst we haven’t had games with scorelines like the Bristol City or Ipswich game, I would say it’s really disingenuous to imply there’s been ‘big improvements’.

I don’t think we’ve looked dramatically better under Wilder than we did under Selles- and arguably the best performance we’ve had all season was still that first 45 minutes against Bristol City.

If anything performances haven’t actually been that much different from what they were like under Wilder over much of last season, except with results going against us instead of scraping through with wins.

Obviously I want Wilder to succeed, as it means the club succeeds, but if you somehow weren’t aware that there’d been any managerial change at all I doubt you’d be saying that there’s been ‘big improvements’.

I don’t agree with some of the more specific details in the OPs post, but the management and playing staff need to get out of this malaise because the football we’ve been playing was unacceptable under Selles and Wilder’s return has done little to galvanise the team, at all.

To me there has been a noticeable improvement, albeit from a very low base. We start games purposefully for the first 20 mins or so, the players actually look like they have been introduced to each other prior to kick off and there is less “Nick Hancock’s football nightmares” style defending, just fairly workaday bad defending.

So improvement - yes. But nowhere near enough.

 

[bakeblade]

Why did McBurnie win MOM on Saturday

McB was their best defender, attacking wise he was just OK.
Richard Kone was the one we should have gone for

 

[bladesmanluke]

What's with all the Peck criticism recently? Unless Davies is on the pitch he's been a one man midfield.

 

[Davalon]

Certainly been some small steps forward but you can hardly say notable improvements when we've scored two goals since Wilder came back.

If we start against Watford with the same formation as we have done so far, I think I'll feel the same as I did when Selles put that team out at Boro.

Unless of course there's a dramatic improvement in performance.

 

[toledo]

There are still questions on what our team tactical plan is that all the players are asked to follow.

At this point, would we take the '1-0, sit back' approach from last year? Yes we would.

However, and its a big however, the overall tactical plan has to change and it requires a 100% review by the manager on what the tactical plan should be.

Have we improved since CW came back? Mmmm, yep, but as we are all seeing, the same tactical plan to last years isn't working, not with this set of players.

I think its impossible that we will come out of the break and immediately climb the table. Not with this set of players. Recruitment was not a coordinated approach, we signed too many players that lacked the individualism to take hold of a game and push the team forward.

I don't know the answer, other than if CW and team expect to win games with a fragmented team, a lack of captaincy on the field, and an expectation that the midfield can keep us in games, thats a recipe for disaster.

To ley Anel and Vini go without replacement was tantamount to making a battlefield mistake.

What I do know, as many have pointed out, if we expect to play to last season's tactical plan with this group of players, we are doomed.... Whoever put the list of players to be recruited under Selles is accountable: it was never going to work....

toledo

 

[Bladesman]

Certainly been some small steps forward but you can hardly say notable improvements when we've scored two goals since Wilder came back.

If we start against Watford with the same formation as we have done so far, I think I'll feel the same as I did when Selles put that team out at Boro.

Unless of course there's a dramatic improvement in performance.

We looked better second half and oddly enough when we went two up top. As we did when we switched to that in the play-offs.

1 up top in this current formation won't score enough goals.

 

[GreasyChipBeattie]

Big improvements,please tell me where ?

Compared to the Selles performances. Surely you can see that?

 

[GreasyChipBeattie]

I think this narrative is really not helping the situation; and it’s the sort of rhetoric that sees teams sleepwalk into relegation.

Whilst we haven’t had games with scorelines like the Bristol City or Ipswich game, I would say it’s really disingenuous to imply there’s been ‘big improvements’.

I don’t think we’ve looked dramatically better under Wilder than we did under Selles- and arguably the best performance we’ve had all season was still that first 45 minutes against Bristol City.

If anything performances haven’t actually been that much different from what they were like under Wilder over much of last season, except with results going against us instead of scraping through with wins.

Obviously I want Wilder to succeed, as it means the club succeeds, but if you somehow weren’t aware that there’d been any managerial change at all I doubt you’d be saying that there’s been ‘big improvements’.

I don’t agree with some of the more specific details in the OPs post, but the management and playing staff need to get out of this malaise because the football we’ve been playing was unacceptable under Selles and Wilder’s return has done little to galvanise the team, at all.

I guess 'big improvements' is subjective, but there are objective facts that would support that we have seen improvements compared to the Selles disaster, big or otherwise
0 shots on goal was a regular occurrence with Selles in charge.
We've steadily increased possession, shots on target etc with Wilder in charge
At Hull we had 61% possession, 13 shots with 4 on target.
Compared to Selles, in opinion that's a big improvement.

 

[KMC-1889]

I guess 'big improvements' is subjective, but there are objective facts that would support that we have seen improvements compared to the Selles disaster, big or otherwise

I clearly remember last season being lectured that performances and stats didn’t matter because should be judged on results. We should have been delighted with the boring 1-0 wins and not pointing out that it was unsustainable.

Weird how the narrative has flipped.

Wilder’s lost it and no one at the club has any idea what to do next.

 

[Tezza1889]

We know Wilder is a slow starter, we know its usually 4 games before we see any real impact on what he brings to a team...

So this break should be perfect for him to start working properly with his new team, the real blessing is half the players know what's coming, so it should be easier..

Its a relegation fight now, that has to be the mantra till we start scoring a goal or two...

If we were losing 3-2 with a dodgy decision or an individual mistake, I wouldn't say relegation fight, but we aren't scoring, and if that carries on, you're down..

 

[CPB]

It's been a car crash of a summer basically. Like we've all said, mostly driven by boardroom errors.
Change manager when we didn't need too and could have looked to have built on last season with freshening up the squad.
But OK fair enough instead go a different direction (OK that's fine) but with no real plan in place aside from a wee bit of AI data it would seem. Selles is hardly a standout coach based on his previous history would be my thinking and was my thinking at the time too. Just hoped there was something there.

Recruit slowly and whilst most of the new signings are still in the moment of being yet to be decided upon. Certainly some on paper questionable signings.
Albeit a few which made alot of sense, mainly in Tanganga, Mee and even Ings. In theory others make a bit of sense too and I'm not writing anyone off.
But it often tells it's own story when their previous clubs fans are either not fussed on losing the player at all. Or question whether the championship is too high of a level for them.

It's not been the magical return of Wilder thus far. What I would say though is we are not giving up the amount of chances to the opposition like we previously did. But creating good goalscoring chances and taking them is just not yet there.

I would say we can feel a bit hard done too that we haven't picked up more than 3 points.
Personally vs Charlton I would say that Charlton missed a few good chances before they scored and we really had just the one moment that was blocked. So a loss was about right.
Oxford we shaded just about, but a draw could have been fair.
Southampton we did enough to at least draw that game and a different referee might have enabled that. Again we could have won with missing a few chances.
Hull again we did enough to draw that game at least. Unlucky with their goal, Hamer hitting the post and a crap penalty.
We could be sitting on between 5 and 7 points instead of the 3. BUT we aren't and that is the most important factor isn't it.

In Selles' games in charge I'd argue that the only game we deserved more out of was Millwall at home. We fluffed a few opportunities 2nd half. In the Bristol City game in the first half I'd argue we should have gone in at half time 3-2 up perhaps but 2nd half they could have scored 4 goals. Rest were very bad at both ends with the Swansea and Boro defeats slightly lucky they were by a single goal.

It's a bit of an improvement but it's certainly not enough as of yet. Perhaps if we can can a couple of wins the confidence can return enough to get a little run going and out of this mess.

 

[Cheeky Blade]

Why did McBurnie win MOM on Saturday

I like McBurnie and would have welcomed him back but was puzzled by his MoM on Saturday. Thought he was quiet and the stats, with just 3/13 (23%) arial duels won and one shot on target ( from a sloppy mistake) seem to back this up.

 

[Harry's Game]

I think this narrative is really not helping the situation; and it’s the sort of rhetoric that sees teams sleepwalk into relegation.

Whilst we haven’t had games with scorelines like the Bristol City or Ipswich game, I would say it’s really disingenuous to imply there’s been ‘big improvements’.

I don’t think we’ve looked dramatically better under Wilder than we did under Selles- and arguably the best performance we’ve had all season was still that first 45 minutes against Bristol City.

If anything performances haven’t actually been that much different from what they were like under Wilder over much of last season, except with results going against us instead of scraping through with wins.

Obviously I want Wilder to succeed, as it means the club succeeds, but if you somehow weren’t aware that there’d been any managerial change at all I doubt you’d be saying that there’s been ‘big improvements’.

I don’t agree with some of the more specific details in the OPs post, but the management and playing staff need to get out of this malaise because the football we’ve been playing was unacceptable under Selles and Wilder’s return has done little to galvanise the team, at all.

All of This ^^^^

 

[Houston_Blade]

I clearly remember last season being lectured that performances and stats didn’t matter because should be judged on results. We should have been delighted with the boring 1-0 wins and not pointing out that it was unsustainable.

Weird how the narrative has flipped.

Wilder’s lost it and no one at the club has any idea what to do next.

He’s actually hamstrung himself with the post pig interview/rant, he wanted to tell people that we were the better side statistically at the weekend. He then realised that he announced that stats don’t matter when you’ve lost 1 nil and backtracked.

 

[themaninblack]

I clearly remember last season being lectured that performances and stats didn’t matter because should be judged on results. We should have been delighted with the boring 1-0 wins and not pointing out that it was unsustainable.

Weird how the narrative has flipped.

Wilder’s lost it and no one at the club has any idea what to do next.

Well you weren't 'being lectured' on here were you as you only signed up in July...unless you were here under another name?

 

[KMC-1889]

Well you weren't 'being lectured' on here were you as you only signed up in July...unless you were here under another name?

Not that it particularly matters but I had account years ago linked to a different email address I can’t access any more, I browsed as a guest until recently when I gave up on X/FB cause I was sick of the people crying over wilder.

 

[Maidenhead]

I like McBurnie and would have welcomed him back but was puzzled by his MoM on Saturday. Thought he was quiet and the stats, with just 3/13 (23%) arial duels won and one shot on target ( from a sloppy mistake) seem to back this up.

3/13 arial duels won?

That's nonsense.

I saw him win the first header at more than three corners with my own eyes.

 

[Coolblade]

An “aerial duel” is defined as “Winning a header in a direct contest with an opponent”. Some of his headers weren’t contested.