Manchester United Thread 25/26 - Teamtalk/Transfers/Gossip Mod Note in OP 26.09.24

Didn't get to see the match due to power being down but got MOTD2, Maroc Silva seemed very adamant that Fulham were the much better team. An unconvincing 3 points so?

There were calls for Martinez to be dropped early on in Amorim's tenure. Martinez was certainly off form but calls to see him dropped were way OTT imo. We badly lack leadership on the pitch and he is a rare leader in the team. His distribution seems to play a key role in Amorim's system as well.

I'm still not sure how he is allowed or continues to do the idiotic two footed jump. It's only a matter of time before that goes wrong and he does some serious damage / gets a lengthy suspension.

But with 2 goals and 2 assists (all four contributions being very important).... Is he third only to Bruno and Amad in terms of attacking contributions since Amorim arrived? I'm not sure if anyone else in the squad betters that… It would be fairly daming (but not surprising) if a CB is up there ahead of our other attacking players.

Having been a backer of Hojlund for a long time (a backer... but he should never have been our first choice striker), the lad really looks like he has lost all confidence and it doesn't look like he is going to play himself out of it anytime soon. It's a hard watch. It seemed as if ETH was trying to turn him into the next Durcan Ferguson but we're still trying to play him as a target man with Amorim... And he's just not good at it at all.

Another thing on this is that you can see the ball is clearly well in motion in the frame above, the lines could well be drawn a frame before that and it might look completely different. Not saying this call is right or wrong, but it's a flawed system. I think when they need to zoom in on such a poor quality image, drawing manual lines they should just befit the attacker. Or they should have three people independently stop the video and do lines and take a majority or something.

I really hope that we're working on more than just Dorgu. We so badly need a striker who can offer more than Hojlund & Zirkzee. I'm not ruling either of them out just yet, although they both aren't even showing much of a spark at the minute. But we need someone who can take a bit of the goal scoring pressure off them. It would help for both of them to be coming on with half an hour left and us a goal or 2 up and cruising, rather than coming on under pressure to get the winner or equaliser.

how marginally is marginally, to you?

Like that would need to be defined and then it becomes the new law, you can be XX cms offside, and be onside

the issue is, the margin then moves and we have the same conversation

On the Amad one, I thought in real time there was an offside, and that was shown to be correct. I don't mind VAR for factual calls, and that is offside.

Sorry for spamming, but in the picture above, I think Blue can certainly be adjudged to be offside, the player is clearly more advanced than White, even if you take something like "centre of mass" as a marker for offside

yeah I agree with you, but in this instance offside is offside, to correct for it you need to redefine offside and leave nothing open to interpretation.

Do you not get what I'm saying about the player being clearly more advanced to the "naked eye" given the relative body positions. Can you not see what I'm saying there? To my eye, even without the line or 1cm of the knee, Blue is fairly obviously (to me) in a more advanced position than White.

Ahh, that'll teach me to skim read from sh*tty websites.

All makes sense but what doesn't make sense is… why aren't we seeing it! The only thing I can think of is that with Maguire being very good of late, that Amorim may feel he has to play him (and doesn't really want to play him wide), but that by playing him, he knows that he's compromising the ability to play out / play higher etc.

On not having players for wing backs. While it might not be ideal at all, I would class Dalot and Maz as fairly attacking full backs, I can't see a reason why both shouldn't be able to get further up the pitch. I keep going back to the Southampton game as it highlighted all that was wrong, but from that game, it didn't look like they were instructed to push on / there was ample time in the first half for a manager to get them to push up and it never happened.

I think Amorim has been a breath of fresh air but it's time to start seeing some improvements / solutions at this stage.

Dorgu plays RW too so may be a replacement.

And Rashford was back on the bench for the Newcastle game. That was his "in", from there all he had to do was shut up, work hard in training, sit on the bench for a few games and he would now likely be playing again.

Even if the club was still looking to sell and he still wanted to leave, the player should still be professional and work to get into the team while he is still at the club.

Like, Amorim is there about 10 minutes, its the easiest thing in the world to go into his office, apologise, say that you are going to work hard and do what is asked going forward. I have no doubt Amorim would respect that.

But it requires putting the ego to one side for a few minutes, and I guess that was too much to ask.

I get what you are saying… but I don't understand how when the reality is that he was offside by 1cm (the absolute tip of his knee is offside) you can say he is clearly more advanced. Like if you move him back by 1cm is he then clearly onside by your same interpreation of body angle etc?

No money for a striker and I genuinely can't think of a good loan option.

At best it will be Nkunku for one of the AM roles.

He obviously had issues under ETH and while I supported ETH I could never understand his loyalty to Rashford.

Maybe because of lack of attacking options within the squad he felt he had to appease Rashford but this ultimately played a part in him losing his job.