Since Coutts’ injury...

[RossingtonBlade]

4 wins in 16, 1 clean sheet in 16 (league only). Complete lack of goals. Terrible displays against Birmingham, Millwall, Preston, Bolton, Pigs, Wolves and Hull. 1 game out of 16 we’ve totally dominated which came against bottom side Sunderland. I really can’t see why people still believe we can get play offs. The 4 wins have probably papered over the cracks for most. In our remaining 13 matches we are also playing 6 teams in the top 10.

The formation really has been very very ineffective, due to Coutts’ absence, O’Connell never seems to overlap Stevens anymore as Coutts was always dropping further back to cover therefore we are limiting our attacking options. As we know Stevens is also very limited as a wing back as he isn’t quick enough, doesn’t have the quality to take on a man and his final ball if he actually decides to put a ball in very rarely gets met by one of our strikers but is half decent defensively. Baldock on the other hand is a very attacking full back who has everything apart from the final ball. This means that we are very unbalanced on each flank which means teams are happy for us to play down the left.

Coutts’ persistence to play in the anchor role always made atleast 1 of their midfielders to press him leaving space for Duffy between the line of midfield and defence, however now he is unavailable Duffy is always found with limited space making his job even harder. Also with that happening we are no longer playing that killer pass which can tear teams to shreds and we are becoming a hit and hope side which at some times is painful to watch. Our build up has started to become predictable and far too slow allowing teams to get back into position making it very easy for them to defend.

Our set pieces have got to be one of the worst in the league. Fleck & Duffy can never beat their first man which also limits our chances from scoring from dead ball situations.

Just shows how reliant we were on one player.

 

[SteveBlade]

 

[Bladesman]

I thought we have played really well in some matches since then though and I reckon we were unlucky not to get some points against Bristol, Birmingham and Villa.

Wilder does seem to tinker with a winning side and that usually means we lose. It's not solely down to just losing Coutts even though that clearly knocked our momentum.

I think the loss of a tricky creative player like Brooks has hurt us more because if Duffy is not on form we struggle to create as much going forward. Friday night was perfect example of that.

 

[Bert]

Coutts. The greatest footballer ever to draw breath.

 

[Bladesman]

View attachment 37219

If there is pineapple on that pizza then I can see why he turned a gun himself for making such a poor choice.

 

[Stretch]

Hard to argue with how results have fallen away but as said above, performances have generally remained good.

One point I would pick up though, Coutts' set pieces/free kicks were nothing to shout about either and 1 corner kick in 10 maybe found a Blades head. Evans on the other hand...

 

[Inter_blade83]

4 wins in 16, 1 clean sheet in 16 (league only). Complete lack of goals. Terrible displays against Birmingham, Millwall, Preston, Bolton, Pigs, Wolves and Hull. 1 game out of 16 we’ve totally dominated which came against bottom side Sunderland. I really can’t see why people still believe we can get play offs. The 4 wins have probably papered over the cracks for most. In our remaining 13 matches we are also playing 6 teams in the top 10.

The formation really has been very very ineffective, due to Coutts’ absence, O’Connell never seems to overlap Stevens anymore as Coutts was always dropping further back to cover therefore we are limiting our attacking options. As we know Stevens is also very limited as a wing back as he isn’t quick enough, doesn’t have the quality to take on a man and his final ball if he actually decides to put a ball in very rarely gets met by one of our strikers but is half decent defensively. Baldock on the other hand is a very attacking full back who has everything apart from the final ball. This means that we are very unbalanced on each flank which means teams are happy for us to play down the left.

Coutts’ persistence to play in the anchor role always made atleast 1 of their midfielders to press him leaving space for Duffy between the line of midfield and defence, however now he is unavailable Duffy is always found with limited space making his job even harder. Also with that happening we are no longer playing that killer pass which can tear teams to shreds and we are becoming a hit and hope side which at some times is painful to watch. Our build up has started to become predictable and far too slow allowing teams to get back into position making it very easy for them to defend.

Our set pieces have got to be one of the worst in the league. Fleck & Duffy can never beat their first man which also limits our chances from scoring from dead ball situations.

Just shows how reliant we were on one player.

Bollocks. We've dominated most games.

 

[SwissBlade]

Bollocks. We've dominated most games.

Possession wise yes.

TomSUFC25 does have a point, to the extent that we haven't produced the same form since we lost Coutts.

We keep the ball well still, but we don't move the ball well enough or quickly enough. People can talk about the loss of Coutts or the fact that we don't have that much pace, but for me its the teams inability to move the ball quickly enough and destroy teams in the way we did before that worries me. Our struggle with set pieces is also worrying.

 

[grafikhaus]

Regardless of possession, domination etc. here are the (League) facts.

Coutts was injured in game 17 (Burton away) and had featured in 16 of our 17 games, scoring one goal. By the end of the Burton game, we had 36 points and were in second place.

W, L, L, W, W, W, W, L, W, W, L, W the game Coutts missed - Ipswich at home), W, W, L, W, W.

Since the injury (another 16 games) we've picked up just 16 points and are now in 8th place.

L, D, L, L, L, D, W, L, D, D, W, L, L, W, W, L.

 

[BornOnShorehamStreet]

Coutts. The greatest footballer ever to draw breath.

He may not be the greatest footballer ever to draw breath, but in the last two seasons, he's certainly been in the top 1

 

[Houston_Blade]

Regardless of possession, domination etc. here are the (League) facts.

Coutts was injured in game 17 (Burton away) and had featured in 16 of our 17 games, scoring one goal. By the end of the Burton game, we had 36 points and were in second place.

W, L, L, W, W, W, W, L, W, W, L, W the game Coutts missed - Ipswich at home), W, W, L, W, W.

Since the injury (another 16 games) we've picked up just 16 points and are now in 8th place.

L, D, L, L, L, D, W, L, D, D, W, L, L, W, W, L.

View attachment 37222

From that I deduce that when Coutts played we were in the bottom half for 2/3 weeks, since he got injured we've always been in the top half, therefore all this about Coutts being good is nonsense.

 

[Jim Chimmerney]

Coutts. The greatest footballer ever to draw breath.

I wonder how many games we won with Coutts in the team between 2014 and 2016 ?

 

[Cerberus Blade]

4 wins in 16, 1 clean sheet in 16 (league only). Complete lack of goals. Terrible displays against Birmingham, Millwall, Preston, Bolton, Pigs, Wolves and Hull. 1 game out of 16 we’ve totally dominated which came against bottom side Sunderland. I really can’t see why people still believe we can get play offs. The 4 wins have probably papered over the cracks for most. In our remaining 13 matches we are also playing 6 teams in the top 10.

The formation really has been very very ineffective, due to Coutts’ absence, O’Connell never seems to overlap Stevens anymore as Coutts was always dropping further back to cover therefore we are limiting our attacking options. As we know Stevens is also very limited as a wing back as he isn’t quick enough, doesn’t have the quality to take on a man and his final ball if he actually decides to put a ball in very rarely gets met by one of our strikers but is half decent defensively. Baldock on the other hand is a very attacking full back who has everything apart from the final ball. This means that we are very unbalanced on each flank which means teams are happy for us to play down the left.

Coutts’ persistence to play in the anchor role always made atleast 1 of their midfielders to press him leaving space for Duffy between the line of midfield and defence, however now he is unavailable Duffy is always found with limited space making his job even harder. Also with that happening we are no longer playing that killer pass which can tear teams to shreds and we are becoming a hit and hope side which at some times is painful to watch. Our build up has started to become predictable and far too slow allowing teams to get back into position making it very easy for them to defend.

Our set pieces have got to be one of the worst in the league. Fleck & Duffy can never beat their first man which also limits our chances from scoring from dead ball situations.

Just shows how reliant we were on one player.

There are some good points there and I agree totally that the loss of Coutts has been a major blow. I've said all along that we are too slow to build attacks - I was saying that when we were playing well and winning regularly in the early part of the season. No one is interested though in trying to improve when things are going well, they only start to listen when things go wrong. And they have gone wrong and been poor for several weeks now.

There is one thing that I have to disagree with you about though, and that's this...you've said...

"I really can’t see why people still believe we can get play offs"

And my answer to that is simple...

Despite being poor and inconsistent over the last few months, we're still only just outside the play-offs with a game in hand on most above us. That's why I believe we'll make it.

 

[raul]

If there is pineapple on that pizza then I can see why he turned a gun himself for making such a poor choice.

I'd delete that before Foxy sees it and you get Durdened.

 

[grafikhaus]

From that I deduce that when Coutts played we were in the bottom half for 2/3 weeks, since he got injured we've always been in the top half, therefore all this about Coutts being good is nonsense.

I see what you did there!

 

[Foxy]

I'd delete that before Foxy sees it and you get Durdened.

Chortle.

Pineapple on a pizza is a wrongness that only the likes of raul would support.

 

[pommpey]

Regardless of possession, domination etc. here are the (League) facts.

Coutts was injured in game 17 (Burton away) and had featured in 16 of our 17 games, scoring one goal. By the end of the Burton game, we had 36 points and were in second place.

W, L, L, W, W, W, W, L, W, W, L, W the game Coutts missed - Ipswich at home), W, W, L, W, W.

Since the injury (another 16 games) we've picked up just 16 points and are now in 8th place.

L, D, L, L, L, D, W, L, D, D, W, L, L, W, W, L.

View attachment 37222

Look, will you pack it in with facts backing up actualities, eh?

Stick to putting witticisms like 'the greatest player to draw breath' and steering the conversation away from the real situation that strength in depth is something we were never good at achieving and any subsequent tinkering and acquisitions have been fruitless.

You can put results up all you want, but utter one word of that negativity, and you'll end up either threatened, or better still, banned.

pommpey

 

[Cerberus Blade]

I thought we have played really well in some matches since then though and I reckon we were unlucky not to get some points against Bristol, Birmingham and Villa.

Wilder does seem to tinker with a winning side and that usually means we lose. It's not solely down to just losing Coutts even though that clearly knocked our momentum.

I think the loss of a tricky creative player like Brooks has hurt us more because if Duffy is not on form we struggle to create as much going forward. Friday night was perfect example of that.

I disagree that the loss of Brooks or Duffy has hurt us more than the loss of Coutts. Don't get me wrong, I think Brooks is sensational on his day and can be a real match-winner. And I think Duffy is our most creative player and we sorely miss him when he's left out of the team. But Coutts was more than either of those things - every single move on the pitch started with Coutts, picking it up from the keeper and circulating it around the pitch, picking it back up off the defenders, then moving it up into midfield, picking it up off the midfielders then playing it to the strikers, and so on. He was almost like a recycling plant for the ball. He was constantly all around the pitch, picking it up, distributing it, taking it back, distributing it again, and so on.

When things were bad at the start of Wilder's reign 2 years ago, I said we needed to find a place in the team for Coutts, because at least he could pass the ball and hold onto it. And that's something we just weren't doing. And that's exactly what happened when he got back in the team - and results never looked back after that.

So where we are now is in a similar situation, not points wise of course, but we've hit a period where we just don't seem to be able to pass the bloody ball again. You look back at any video of our recent games and just count the number of 50/50 balls that we keep hitting, passes going wildly astray.

That's why we are struggling more than anything else. We are giving the ball away far too cheaply. And certain players are very guilty of that - players who are otherwise good, but have all of a sudden gone into "panic mode" when the ball comes to them and they want rid of it like a hot potato.

That's where Coutt's came in. He took the ball in those situations and kept possession all over the park. That's why he's so important and that's also why we miss him more than any other player in the entire squad.

 

[Woodwardfan]

Serious injuries affect all players in the squad.

We have seen Coutts, Freeman and Lavery get serious long term injuries that could in fact have been or are career threatening.

Players can wonder if the cause is the total commitment that the manager demands and whether it might be them next. For some it just might be in the back of their minds on the pitch, subconscious even.

Added to that the tempo we were playing just has to take it's toll over the months, especially for the older players and we have a number.

Coutts was a key player, maybe the key player in tandem with Fleck. He didn't provide many goal assists or key passes but he was reliable in possession and ticked things along superbly. He was not great defensively in the tackle but held his position very well.

Added to all that we were fine while Clarke was scoring but every team needs a goalscorer in good form and ours have been patchy.

Added to all that we concede 'worldies' almost every week for some unknown reason. Look at Wolves since we played them, couldn't hit a barn door, nor Snodgrass and so on.

We have missed Freeman so much too.

 

[pommpey]

There is one thing that I have to disagree with you about though, and that's this...you've said...

"I really can’t see why people still believe we can get play offs"

And my answer to that is simple...

Despite being poor and inconsistent over the last few months, we're still only just outside the play-offs with a game in hand on most above us. That's why I believe we'll make it.

Thing is, playoffs are playoffs, aren't they? We clearly don't have the team to match those already in the mix (evident by our performances against them) and given Friday's pretty abject showing, aren't likely to pick up the points in the games to come anyway.

And besides all this, and its a question some need to answer level-headedly, please: which of the current squad would you reckon is good enough to go up against Bournemouth, Stoke, Watford or any of the looking-like-they-are-already-relegated clubs next season? Imagine fluking a promotion (because that's how it would be) and being the basement club, jettisoned by Xmas this year on single figure points? It took us long enough to recover last time we dropped (and that wasn't that bad a season all things considered apart from the end)

pommpey

 

[super_pig]

Thing is, playoffs are playoffs, aren't they? We clearly don't have the team to match those already in the mix (evident by our performances against them) and given Friday's pretty abject showing, aren't likely to pick up the points in the games to come anyway.

And besides all this, and its a question some need to answer level-headedly, please: which of the current squad would you reckon is good enough to go up against Bournemouth, Stoke, Watford or any of the looking-like-they-are-already-relegated clubs next season? Imagine fluking a promotion (because that's how it would be) and being the basement club, jettisoned by Xmas this year on single figure points? It took us long enough to recover last time we dropped (and that wasn't that bad a season all things considered apart from the end)

pommpey

i reckon we could give all of those teams a game.. our second 11 only just lost to Leicester a couple of weeks ago..
when is Coutts due back?

 

[Grizzly blade]

It was obvious to all who were prepared to listen, that the two players in this team we could not afford to lose were Fleck and Coutts.
It’s as simple as that.

Coutts ability to receive the ball under pressure in midfield but STILL retain possession and find a team mate is a skill that is saved only for some of the best players in the game. Yes he lacks the ability to spray passes 60 yds plus to feet 9 times out of 10, or the ability to smash one in from 20 yards plus and if he could then he really would be one of the best there is, but in this league and to this team the value of his ability was understated.
Everything revolved around him, the tempo of the side, his presence gave Bash and JOC the confidence to overlap, Fleck the confidence to look for give and go’s.
And while Lundstram has done his best, and Evans came in and showed some ability passing wise, neither have ever allowed this team to play with the same attacking flair and intensity as Coutts.

I fear that the way we have been playing since his injury has put the writing on the wall for promotion, and no matter what Wilder has tried to reverse the form it ultimately isn’t enough. And much as I hate saying it, his January window arrivals appear to be making very little impact over a month in.

The best we can hope, is that Coutts comes back the same as he was and we retain the services of our big players for another crack next season. Otherwise we look unlikely to see our overlapping centre halves again.

 

[LS16Blade]

I wonder how many games we won with Coutts in the team between 2014 and 2016 ?

Even before Wilder took the reigns, we were a better side with Coutts in the team. Being one of the Blades who recognised Coutts as, in the gaffer's parlance, 'a proper footballer' right from the off, I merely attach what I posted back in December 2016:

As we all know, Clough brought Coutts in when he was making his way back from a long and serious injury lay-off. That created justifiable frustration because the signing was unlikely to deliver the immediate impact that we needed to push for promotion. It was surely clear to anyone who has watched any football, however, that Coutts is an intelligent player with outstanding touch and ball skills.

Over the years, we've had plenty of players who you could watch and think, "he really can't do anything with the ball that I couldn't actually do myself"; players who were unquestionably more athletic and physically fitter than yourself but not necessarily good footballers. Coutts certainly doesn't fall in that category. He is quite obviously an extremely skilful and intelligent footballer.

One of the few bright spots towards the end of the 2014/15 season under Clough was the emergence of a seemingly telepathic link-up down the right flank between Coutts and Brayford. They played some excellent stuff within which there was enough evidence to show that Coutts is a class above the third division. Unfortunately, due to Clough's bizarre transfer policy leaving us bereft at central defence, that was disrupted when Brayford had to switch to centre-half.

Coutts was injured and/or out of favour at the start of Adkins' reign. After the wheels had started to come off with the 2 defeats and a draw against Bury, Colchester and Bradford, Coutts was brought back in at Doncaster and we won. Coutts was then restored to the side consistently in October and we had a run of just 2 defeats in 16 league games (albeit with lots of draws) to get back in contention - and of those 2 defeats, Coutts didn't play in the 2-4 home debacle against Shrewsbury.

Adkins apparently made Coutts carry the can for the home defeat to Wigan and he was dropped to the bench. In his absence, we had the awful defeats at Bury, Rochdale and Millwall, and draw at Fleetwood. Coutts was then restored at home to Crewe and we had the run of 4 wins and a draw from 6 games in March and April that gave us a glimmer of getting in the top 6, until the fade-out in the final 3 games. It seems that those miserable last games of last season, particularly the defeats to Coventry and Scunthorpe, cast a long shadow, because the rest of the season showed that we performed far better with Coutts in the side than without. And that was when he was playing in a poor side with no shape or direction for a manager without a plan.

We're now seeing Coutts in a side with a plan, a proper shape and other footballers playing where they should be. It's good to again be watching a United side that has proper midfielders, and I'm convinced that if Coutts, Fleck and Duffy can play the vast majority of the remaining 26 league games together, we'll win the league.

Cerberus Blade is spot on. Losing Coutts wasn't so much about losing a midfielder, it was about losing the team's 'brain'. Of course, you can stick another midfielder in to try to perform the same role (and I think Evans and Lundstrum have at times done reasonably well in Coutts' position) but Coutts is a more intelligent player than anyone else we have in the squad.

Watch how Coutts receives the ball from the defenders on the 'half-turn' because he has already decided where he is going to move the ball; he always dictated the direction of our play and the big part of our success in the first third of the season was that Coutts instinctively knew whether a given attack should be down the left, right or the middle, depending on which area we had an overload on the opposition.

Now, just watch how our other midfielders receive the ball 'square on' to the defender that has passed to them. They have their back to the strikers, can't see how the play is unfolding, have nowhere to go and consequently, invariably end up passing the ball straight back to one of the defenders. Opposition teams are then shepherding our play back into tight corners and, ultimately, it often ends with the defender hitting it long.

When Coutts got injured I said that he was the one single player that we could not afford to lose; he is literally the brain of the team. I also said that, regardless of Coutts' actual value on the open market, it would cost us £15m to replace what he does within our system (Woods at Brentford is the closest I've seen to what Coutts does).

Obviously, we were never going to spend millions. With the hindsight of what has happened since November 17th 2017, though, what we perhaps should have tried to find in January was a 'Gordon Cowans type' intelligent player coming to the end of his career, who had the intelligence to come in and do what Coutts did so brilliantly in the first part of the season.

In fact, Cowans is a salutary example of how losing one cog in the machine can be absolutely critical, even if most or all of the other players, who are excellent in their own right, are still in place. I've no doubt that had United persuaded Cowans to do another season, with the quality assembled in the rest of Howard Kendall's squad, we would have romped to promotion in the 1996/97 season.

 

[HighfieldBlade]

Just think. If Coutts were in London on 2nd September 1666, he could've pissed on that small fire in Pudding Lane and prevented the greatest conflagration this nation has ever seen. If only, if only...

 

[Geordie Blade]

Look, will you pack it in with facts backing up actualities, eh?

Stick to putting witticisms like 'the greatest player to draw breath' and steering the conversation away from the real situation that strength in depth is something we were never good at achieving and any subsequent tinkering and acquisitions have been fruitless.

You can put results up all you want, but utter one word of that negativity, and you'll end up either threatened, or better still, banned.

pommpey

Actually, the 'facts' were precursed by:

Regardless of possession, domination etc. here are the (League) facts.

So, the 'facts' did not include things like possession, domination, shots on goal, goals scored. In other words, they were selective facts picked to back up an argument, which isn't really much better than witticisms.

Football is a funny game. We are all told that "the only fact that matters is the league table", but the problem with the league table is that it doesn't account for good luck and bad luck. If one of our four efforts that hit the woodwork had gone in against Bristol City, I'm sure we would have won that game and would be sitting the play-off spots now, with a game in hand. In sport, people are very often too quick to attribute a bad (or good) run of results to some tangible change, rather than just accept that sometimes randomness throws up sequences that deceptively appear to mean something. The bad managers respond to these little runs with knee-jerk reactions, whilst the good ones stick to what is working. For the most part, Wilder is pretty good at keeping a calm head, but in the last six or seven games, I think he's been a bit guilty of change for change's sake.

In short, yes, we can look at facts, but the best analysis is wider still.

 

[DronnieBlade]

Even before Wilder took the reigns, we were a better side with Coutts in the team. Being one of the Blades who recognised Coutts as, in the gaffer's parlance, 'a proper footballer' right from the off, I merely attach what I posted back in December 2016:



Cerberus Blade is spot on. Losing Coutts wasn't so much about losing a midfielder, it was about losing the team's 'brain'. Of course, you can stick another midfielder in to try to perform the same role (and I think Evans and Lundstrum have at times done reasonably well in Coutts' position) but Coutts is a more intelligent player than anyone else we have in the squad.

Watch how Coutts receives the ball from the defenders on the 'half-turn' because he has already decided where he is going to move the ball; he always dictated the direction of our play and the big part of our success in the first third of the season was that Coutts instinctively knew whether a given attack should be down the left, right or the middle, depending on which area we had an overload on the opposition.

Now, just watch how our other midfielders receive the ball 'square on' to the defender that has passed to them. They have their back to the strikers, can't see how the play is unfolding, have nowhere to go and consequently, invariably end up passing the ball straight back to one of the defenders. Opposition teams are then shepherding our play back into tight corners and, ultimately, it often ends with the defender hitting it long.

When Coutts got injured I said that he was the one single player that we could not afford to lose; he is literally the brain of the team. I also said that, regardless of Coutts' actual value on the open market, it would cost us £15m to replace what he does within our system (Woods at Brentford is the closest I've seen to what Coutts does).

Obviously, we were never going to spend millions. With the hindsight of what has happened since November 17th 2017, though, what we perhaps should have tried to find in January was a 'Gordon Cowans type' intelligent player coming to the end of his career, who had the intelligence to come in and do what Coutts did so brilliantly in the first part of the season.

In fact, Cowans is a salutary example of how losing one cog in the machine can be absolutely critical, even if most or all of the other players, who are excellent in their own right, are still in place. I've no doubt that had United persuaded Cowans to do another season, with the quality assembled in the rest of Howard Kendall's squad, we would have romped to promotion in the 1996/97 season.

As good a post as I have read on here for many a moon.

UTB

 

[Esablade]

There it is...or rather, isn’t.

 

[Sheffsteel]

The thread starter highlights the loss of Coutts and how our results have suffered.

However what about the loss of Brooks?
And he’s due back very soon.

Agree with some of the other posters, although results have been poor
Some of the performances have been really good. Since Leon has stopped scoring we’ve struggled.

 

[ChipButtyBlade]

Guess who he scored this goal against.



















Yes them thats coming up nect.

 

[SUFC Guy]

Our set pieces have got to be one of the worst in the league. Fleck & Duffy can never beat their first man which also limits our chances from scoring from dead ball situations.

Haven't you thought that maybe some of our corners that don't beat the first man may actually be played near post on purpose? It could be that the opposition is blocking the players run to get there. Happens all of the time in every match. When this happens it appears that it was a useless corner - not always the case imo

I do tend to agree that our record from corners is very poor conversion wise.

Holmes will sort the edge of the box free kicks out