Manchester United Thread 25/26 - Teamtalk/Transfers/Gossip Mod Note in OP 12.02.26

16 points now...

FESTER

Go on Wolves!

What a great result that is…..

Slot right in 🤣🤣

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I'm saying nothing because this is when we usually bottle it....

He's out till april minimum

Yeah, its the fans who annoy me. They were in a title race with us many yrs ago and they still seem to have a chip on their shoulder about it.

Don't know what Sesko is like defending set pieces but would his height be needed to help with Dan Burn. Even more so if Maguire is sick. But I could also see us going back to Cunha, Mbeumo, and Amad for this game.

Hopefully Carrick can have us up for this game and we bring some intensity from minute one.

Newcastle have bullied us in games over the last few years and if we begin like the last few games we will be in trouble.

We are in a good league position but we have to be on the front foot and take advantage of it.

I don't think we have the squad to have been competing for the PL this year, regardless of manager.

While we can point to Amorim's rigidity and not playing a system that suited the players he had, it's also important to realize that our squad wasn't good enough to cope with AFCON and the injuries at that time.

Whether we would by X points better off is hard to say, Everton and Wolves (their recent results have shown that draw to be 'less worse') really stick in my mind, but maybe we don't get the wins against City and Arsenal (both of those games in particular) if we weren't on our new manager bounce.

You could go into other variables such as Sesko, who's goals have gotten us a lot of recent points. Was he not performing as well because of Amorim / Amorim's system, or would he have improved anyway after half a year settling in. Personally, I think Carrick gets a bit of credit for Sesko's improvement but it's hard to be definite.

I don't miss Amorim but I think Carrick has benefited from the likes of Cunha, Mbeumo, Lammens, Sesko all being that bit more settled into the team. Amorim probably/maybe would have gotten the benefit from that as well.

TLDR - I don't think we'd be anywhere near on course for 95 points with any manager. And I think we would probably only be a little (3-5 points max) better off with Carrick for the full season over Amorim.

I think things could have been better, but I don't think we could have challenged for a title. The limitations we are also seeing under Carrick (Midfield legs, fullback creativity/threat, depth) would have cost us regardless.

6 wins in 7 has been great, but within that you can argue we got the better of small margins vs Fulham, West Ham, Everton, Palace and even Spurs. I think after City and Arsenal, we have not been impressive, while getting results. and yes, results are what matters but I think over a season you also generally get the results your performances deserve. If we had drawn vs Fulham, lost to West Ham and drawn with palace would we be sitting here saying we were robbed on 3 points in those games?

I'll not argue there were cases a chance in tactics, particularly mid-game, could have won us the game under amorim - Everton and West Ham; but I also think there were (some) games where our performance didn't get the results it deserved. Bournemouth 4-4, and the loss to Villa sping to mind.

Maybe I am being mean regarding Carrick or defensive regarding Amorim (or both) but I do think there is an element of small margins going in Carricks favour, that Amorim saw go the other way. I do think there are elements of our player that were better under Amorim (our pressing was far better, I worry our fitness looked better and according to the stats our chance creation was better too). Under Carrick I think we are better defensively and get compact quicker. I think Bruno is more effective closer to the goal and I think Sesko is getting more support.

Given the squad we have, and the weaknesses of it, I think where we are right now is really the best we could have hoped for this season - maybe if we had bought a CM i'd think a bit differently.

Maguire found guilty in Greece and gets 15mths suspended sentence. He has launched an appeal.

Newcastle are 19th in the form table, lost 5 of their past 6 games. Missing their captain and arguably best player.

Carrick will lose games, thats inevitable, but I'd be disappointed if tonight was when it happened. Newcastle are in dire form and we should be beating them.