Manchester United Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread - Mod Note in OP, 25/08

Zico wrote: »

What qualifies you to judge his judgement?

What have you done in your life that has allowed you to identify these crucial considerations Paul Scholes has overlooked?

You may disagree with him but it's coming across as though you think you know better, which is a bit of a fantasy unless you are actually a professional coach at one of the world's biggest clubs.

This is all I have done:
- Watched a lot of football, both in the flesh and on TV
- Played a little bit of football
- Read four or five coaching/tacitcs books
- Watched about three or four good coaching videos and a lot of shorter and/or lower quality ones
- Read a few autobiographies
- Read a lot of websites of widely varying quality
- Spent a lot of my time talking and thinking about football on here over the last five years or so

Now with that background, I've formed an opinion that a static back line of 5 defenders with only two midfielders protecting the entire width of the pitch in front of them is not going to work defensively. I've never seen any team play like that successfully and I have never heard of any coach or thinker on the game advocating it as a good idea.

Any defensive tactical work I have seen, heard or read talks about the importance of balance, width and depth in defence. Any analysis or explanation of the 3CB/2WB system I have seen talks about the importance of players (be it midfielders or wing-backs) moving between the two defensive lines (back-line and midfield) to fill in the gaps to keep the width and depth when defending.

When you watch United defending at the moment you can see that this is clearly not happening. When defending, the three CBs and two WBs most often line up in a straight line across the pitch and the two central midfielders are left to chase shadows trying to cover the width of the pitch (they get occasional help from the front three). That leaves oceans of space for the opposition in front of our back line and allows them to play through balls and long shots with ease.

I would argue that that is by far the biggest issue with the defence at the moment (it's very early days yet, most likely LvG will sort it) and I argued that it would cause these problems when I watched games in pre-season. Both goals on Saturday were scored by unmarked men in front of our deepest line of defenders. So to criticise our young centre-backs in a long and detailed written piece, making specific reference to the last game, with not a single mention of this problem with the team shape is not in any way convincing that Scholes has a valid opinion on what is going on defensively.

Now, you can go ahead and mock my lack of experience in the game and how I have educated myself on the subject. I have no authority to appeal to beyond a reasonable knowledge I searched out myself and a well formed argument. You can go ahead and assume that because Scholes was a great creative central midfielder that his opinion is automatically more valid. You can assume that even though he didn't mention any of it in his long and detailed article, where he criticised the defenders, that he does indeed know about the defensive shape issue but just chose not to, or forgot, to mention it. However, given the number of great players who we have seen to go on to be awful managers and pundits, I think those are very ill-advised assumptions to make.

Leroy42 wrote: »

Madrid owe us nothing. You'll find the the players we sold them wanted to go and they paid us for them.

Ronaldo was the bargain of the century.

secman wrote: »

Scholes vision on a pitch was just quite unbelievable.. a treasure to behold...... can't be that bad off a pitch ..just sayin

Vision when in possession on the pitch has more to do with a player's control of the ball than something special about their eyes or understanding of formations and tactics. When a player can control the ball well (and Scholes was near perfect at it) then they can spend more time looking around for the right pass or shot (and he had the skill to execute both of those perfectly too).

When he was defending, Scholes' positioning and tracking of runs was adequate at best. So there's an entire half of the game that he didn't read so well.

Your Airbag wrote: »

I was thinking the exact same myself. He was all laughs doing his ice bucket challenge the other day too.

He seems to have little care about trying to push himself and become good player and a starter for UTD in one of our most in need areas. If he wanted to push himself he could become something as the need is there but he looks perfectly happy to be a bench warmer taking a wage from the club and joking around with the lads.

Ahh lads, Ando has long been the character in the dressing room.

He was saying his goodbyes after the confirmation on his Fiorentina loan, this mercenary line used on him is ott.

Peist2007 wrote: »

What basic type of defensive knowledge do you think he has? Do you not see how presumptuous and laden with guesswork the above is?

I also thought United were playing with wing-backs and 3 centre halves rather than a "flat back 5"

I specifically said: "As of this moment Scholes has done nothing to prove that he is a reliable judge of centre-backs, that he has anything more than a basic midfielder's understanding of defensive organisation or that he has any understanding of the defensive shape of a 3412."

Scholes could be a defensive genius with a special interest in the workings of 3 centre-back systems, but as of now he has expressed none of that. In fact he neglected to mention any details about the defensive set up when he was criticising our young centre-backs. In his playing days he was at best an adequate midfield defender, so assuming that he has a midfielders' type of basic understanding of defensive organisation is reasonable.

Lord TSC wrote: »

Reading on Reddit that Woodward's office number leaked today online, and that he's had to disconnect it now, since they were getting loads of calls telling (his secretary) to sign DiMaria....

...and hopefully Vidal too.

The transfer saga of summer 2014.

bucketybuck wrote: »

No, this whole argument began when Scholes mildly criticised our defenders and then one poster said Scholes opinion should be disregarded because of blah blah reasons.

I just think people are entitled to disagree with Scholes. They might be wrong, but they're not automatically wrong because it's Scholes. That's all I'm saying.

This "what have you done in the game to have the right to question him" stuff irritates me.

Maximus Alexander wrote: »

I just think people are entitled to disagree with Scholes. They might be wrong, but they're not automatically wrong because it's Scholes. That's all I'm saying.

This "what have you done in the game to have the right to question him" stuff irritates me.

True. Your point is a valid one. People used to say the same thing about Fergie. Nobody is infallible. As successful as he was, he made some howlers both tactically and transfer wise. That's football. Nobody is right all the time.]

Don't get me wrong, I agree with everything he said. In my opinion, Scholes is right on the money. But it's the content of the message, not who says it that's important. If he claimed everything was hunky dory I wouldn't take it as gospel just because it was Scholes who said it.

Liverpool U21 v United U21's on BT Sport 2 tomorrow night, starting to appreciate signing up at 12.35 last Saturday now

Pro. F wrote: »

Re Scholes' article:
He is brutally honest and his inside information is very interesting. But in truth, so far he is just another great player who has not gone on to being a great pundit.

I wouldn't go as far as saying he's a poor pundit already, I think he definitely lacks the incite on the defensive side of the game which is a fairer comment to make.

beno619 wrote: »

Ronaldo was the bargain of the century.

Hindsight is wonderful. At the time most fans were happy to see him go for the money received.

Pro. F wrote: »

This is all I have done:

Not reading all that.

We all disagree with the opinions of people in the game who really know a lot more than we ever will.

Pro F, I'm not a fan of your posting style, but find you gave a very honest and realistic opinion there.

Remember I said style, but always appreciated your knowledge on the subject.

Good work