Their manager bloke is Finnish surely. They ought to have just got Viktor instead :-)
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Was talking to a United fan over the weekend and explaining what I thought the problem was. It had never occurred to him at all.....
Spurs are an odd one. They are a very well run club from a financial point of view. Their problem is that Levy doesn't understand football. In terms of the gap between strategy and coaching, their approach of signing younger players who will develop and then appointing Mourinho and Conte (coaches who have made a career of short tenure/ experienced top class players) is about the best example I can think of.
United's ownership model is an absolute disaster and when you couple that with the impatience of the mentality of 'biggest club in the world', I can't see how you fix it.
We had the same problem when Emery was here. Poor guy never stood a chance with the war going on above him. Transfers were all over the place. Once Edu and Arteta arrived we developed a strategy and accepted as a club that we'd be **** for a couple of years and rebuilt the entire squad from top to bottom. United need to do similar but.....
The Grimsby fans singing, you fat bstad to Mbeuono encapsulated the moment. They?ve spent big, bought really poorly and find themselves in an even worse position. I actually think that kid they stole from us had more to his attacking game than Sheshko. Could have saved them a few quid upfront too.
The back three would really concern me. It is really old fashioned and he doesn't have the players to make it work. And they haven't signed him any. Those three forward signings show a real lack of imagination.
And they have to get rid of the toxic tossers, even if you have to give them away.
2 things.
1. I don't really get football cos I only watch and care about us. But the papers are saying he's too wedded to his 3-4-3 formation. Doesn't that mean they'll always be over-run in MF? Ars?ne was a classic 4-4-2 chap but he realised the world had changed and switched to 4-3-3 at the start of one season and made all our yoof teams do likewise.
I know there are different variants of 4-3-3: You can have 2 DMs in a sort of 4-2-3-1 or two no.10s in a 4-1-2-3 and you can invert a FB when attacking to have a box between the 3 at the back and the 3 at the front.
Maybe it works if you're the best team in Portugal. But if it doesn't work here, and he won't change, and his whole window has been based on buying players for this system, then Ganpati willing, they'll get relegated.
2. Do they have a MUfanTV I can go and have a gander at?
This bloke has a 2m followers so I assume he?s monetising their misery.
https://youtube.com/@unitedstand?si=B_gG9qTgZN1BFtJk
Traditionally, the back three left you stronger in the centre of the pitch as it used to be employed as effectively 3-4-1-2, or 3-4-2-1. But it leaves you weaker on the flanks. England teams have used it to make up for our lack of technical ability.
The modern version tends to look more like 3-4-3, and you are right- you effectively lose the tip of the three man midfield.
Arteta used it for a year when he joined because he simply didn't trust his defenders (with good reason, they were ****e!). We ended up hopelessly static and went on a run where I think we scored once from open play in 8 games. He was close to the sack before Christmas, and switched to a back four, bringing in Saka, Smith Rowe and Martinelli behind Lacazette, in what looked like our current formation. We beat Chelsea 3-0, then West Brom 4-0 and never looked back.
I think the biggest problem with any formation is having the players to perform it. Wing back is a horrible and difficult job, and you need the right guys. I don't think he has them. And as most sides play one up front, you have three guys doing not that much apart from getting dragged out to the channels by the likes of Salah or Saka. You are vulnerable to cross fields passes.
When I managed a Sunday team we used it, but we played it as 5 at the back, with the wing backs as full backs. Sat in, crowded our defensive third and waited for mistakes. I only did that because we were too **** to play four at the back :-)