Lack of fight - unacceptable.


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Can people not accept we were beaten by a quality side. For 20 minutes manu played us off the park which they can do to any team in the league. We put up a good performance after that and had more shots on goal than manu all game. We kept going and had a decent second half. Lack of fight though is a moronic comment .. The lads kept going and put in a decent performance.
 
Can people not accept we were beaten by a quality side. For 20 minutes manu played us off the park which they can do to any team in the league. We put up a good performance after that and had more shots on goal than manu all game. We kept going and had a decent second half. Lack of fight though is a moronic comment .. The lads kept going and put in a decent performance.

Good post, couldn't agree more.
 
I thought we put up a decent showing against one of the best teams in Europe.

Massively impressed with young Connor Wickham, the lad is growing on me, some of his hold up play and bringing other players into the game was first class, keep it up lad.
 
I was really happy with the performance today but it was another case of individual howlers costing us dearly. Cuellar is never a right back in a million years and the 1st and 3rd goals were shocking mistakes from O'Shea and Bramble/Cuellar.

I've been to Old Trafforf countless times and although I watched it on the box today I can honestly say that I've never seen us create as many chances or be as positive as we were.

A manager cannot legislate for individual brain farts but the spirit was there and attacking wise, I'm not sure we have played as well for a long time. Wickham, Sess, McClean and Gardner all had really good attacking displays. They weren't playing against donkeys either. Wickham is really starting to look like a player. Anyone that was critical of him last season as an 18 year old in his first PL season is quite frankly an absolute fuckwit. I'll be amazed if there have been many other 19 year olds play like he did today at Old Trafford.

It's the same old story with regards to the individual errors but they will always come when individually we have some poor players.

I'd love to see how other teams would do at Old Trafford without their Rose and Cattermole equivalents.

There was loads of encouragement today. We are starting to look like a team and with a few January reinforcements I feel there is a cause for optimism. However, we all know there are people itching for things to fail. The Exile, Mainze, festa etc are all massive shitbags.

I am not in any way itching for things to fail. I want them to get better. Kissing the players' and staffs' arses won't make that happen. The players are more often than not failing to turn up until the game is long gone - if that's not lacking fight, they've clearly changed the definition - and MoN is apparently hugely reluctant to change either the team or their attitude. He's not unable, because he did it this time last year.

I don't want us to be in the situation where we're relying on a throw of the dice in the transfer window to keep us up. Make no mistake, this blind assumption that we're simply going to buy our way out of this might cost us dearly. Teams don't have to sell and players don't have to sign. We could very well end up with nobody coming in, because we have no control over what other teams do. How do we think the squad will react then - 'I wanted to replace half of you, but I couldn't and now could you play for me please?' - it doesn't bear thinking about.

Get a grip of them MoN - encourage, cajole, bully if you have to - just don't throw your hands up and expect to buy your way out of trouble. Make the players you have better, because you might not be able to replace them.

Maybe I should throw in an insult or two to encourage people to agree with me.
 
I am not in any way itching for things to fail. I want them to get better. Kissing the players' and staffs' arses won't make that happen. The players are more often than not failing to turn up until the game is long gone - if that's not lacking fight, they've clearly changed the definition - and MoN is apparently hugely reluctant to change either the team or their attitude. He's not unable, because he did it this time last year.

I don't want us to be in the situation where we're relying on a throw of the dice in the transfer window to keep us up. Make no mistake, this blind assumption that we're simply going to buy our way out of this might cost us dearly. Teams don't have to sell and players don't have to sign. We could very well end up with nobody coming in, because we have no control over what other teams do. How do we think the squad will react then - 'I wanted to replace half of you, but I couldn't and now could you play for me please?' - it doesn't bear thinking about.

Get a grip of them MoN - encourage, cajole, bully if you have to - just don't throw your hands up and expect to buy your way out of trouble. Make the players you have better, because you might not be able to replace them.

Maybe I should throw in an insult or two to encourage people to agree with me.


Like pants shitters?
 
Can people not accept we were beaten by a quality side. For 20 minutes manu played us off the park which they can do to any team in the league. We put up a good performance after that and had more shots on goal than manu all game. We kept going and had a decent second half. Lack of fight though is a moronic comment .. The lads kept going and put in a decent performance.

It is accurate for the first 20 minutes sadly. The goals given away were due to terrible defending. Almost as if we were waiting to go 2-0 down.
 
I am not in any way itching for things to fail. I want them to get better. Kissing the players' and staffs' arses won't make that happen. The players are more often than not failing to turn up until the game is long gone - if that's not lacking fight, they've clearly changed the definition - and MoN is apparently hugely reluctant to change either the team or their attitude. He's not unable, because he did it this time last year.

I don't want us to be in the situation where we're relying on a throw of the dice in the transfer window to keep us up. Make no mistake, this blind assumption that we're simply going to buy our way out of this might cost us dearly. Teams don't have to sell and players don't have to sign. We could very well end up with nobody coming in, because we have no control over what other teams do. How do we think the squad will react then - 'I wanted to replace half of you, but I couldn't and now could you play for me please?' - it doesn't bear thinking about.

Get a grip of them MoN - encourage, cajole, bully if you have to - just don't throw your hands up and expect to buy your way out of trouble. Make the players you have better, because you might not be able to replace them.

Maybe I should throw in an insult or two to encourage people to agree with me.

Who is kissing players' arses? :confused: There isn't a single person that thinks the team or squad is good enough.

We have not once lacked any effort. Not once. The players are trying their hardest but lack confidence and in a lot of cases just aren't that good. You harp on about what happened when O'Neill first arrived and how we played then and want that again. Do you think this team is Champions League standard? That is what you are effectively saying. You want O'Neill to have this team playing at Champions League standard consistently. It is laughable. We have half of a good side and the rest are dump. In the last few weeks what do you think O'Neill could have done about hoying 2 in against West Brom? Bardsley messing up twice against Chelsea and the defensive efforts for the 1st and 3rd goals yesterday? What tactics or cajoling would have made a blind bit of difference to this individual howlers?

What do you suggest changing the team wise? Drop someone and bring in Campbell? Drop someone and bring in Vaughan or Kilgallon? Which players that are warming our bench will make a blind bit of difference?

Have you considered that this could be the best that these lot can muster? Look at the careers or the stage of the careers for a lot and tell me why anything other than a struggle should be expected.

We all accept January is a massive month. What else can we do? Pray that O'Shea and Cuellar are Benjamin Button and get younger and quicker? Pray that Bardsley learns what a football is? Make Gardner, Colback, Vaughan, Larsson and co anything other than relegation candidate plodders?

Everything that you're craving and suggesting O'Neill does is based on nothing but a whim and conjecture. It's fantasy stuff.

It is accurate for the first 20 minutes sadly. The goals given away were due to terrible defending. Almost as if we were waiting to go 2-0 down.

With all due respect that is a pile of crap. We'd looked relatively comfortable until the first goal which was an O'Shea howler. Nothing to do with a lack of fight. As for the 2nd, we were cut open by the team clear at the top of the league. Shocking, eh?
 
No, I was prodding people going to ridiculous extremes of hysteria - he wants to get us relegated on purpose, he's trying to lose games etc. When it was shit I was happy to say it was shit, and unfortunately it frequently was towards the end.

MoN had an excellent start and I was happy that we appointed him - although my choice would have been Mark Hughes, I admit (a certainty that this is the bit that will be highlighted in a pathetic attempt at one-upmanship) - a clear and unarguable improvement on Bruce, attracted mainly imho because we didn't punt Bruce after three games of a season. He had a brilliant start and could seemingly do no wrong.

Something has gone badly awry since then however, and I can't understand the frantic, almost desperately willing ignorance of the very clear problems we have. I don't want him out - I want him to get this set of players going again, I want him to abandon his apparent favouritism towards players who've consistently let him down, explore the options on the bench (Wickham a case in point) and I want him to boot a few of them right up the arse. I don't want to get to January having to buy players or get relegated.

So far this season there's only the Reading game where we've gone out there on the front foot, made our dominance count and earned the points. What exactly has gone wrong? He had a worse squad than this performing brilliantly this time last year, and under considerably more pressure than now.

The shrugging of shoulders and accusations of bedwetting are verging on the lunatic. Something is badly wrong here.

The fact that you can't see that people may think someone crying about a 'lack of fight' as the main reason why we've just lost 3-1 away to the team currently sitting six points clear at the top is in any way hysterical says a lot.

I don't think anyone on this thread will say MON is exempt from any criticism but the lack of consistency in your opinions between this and the last year of the Bruce era is baffling and strikes of an agenda.
 
Who is kissing players' arses? :confused: There isn't a single person that thinks the team or squad is good enough.

We have not once lacked any effort. Not once. The players are trying their hardest but lack confidence and in a lot of cases just aren't that good. You harp on about what happened when O'Neill first arrived and how we played then and want that again. Do you think this team is Champions League standard? That is what you are effectively saying. You want O'Neill to have this team playing at Champions League standard consistently. It is laughable. We have half of a good side and the rest are dump. In the last few weeks what do you think O'Neill could have done about hoying 2 in against West Brom? Bardsley messing up twice against Chelsea and the defensive efforts for the 1st and 3rd goals yesterday? What tactics or cajoling would have made a blind bit of difference to this individual howlers?

What do you suggest changing the team wise? Drop someone and bring in Campbell? Drop someone and bring in Vaughan or Kilgallon? Which players that are warming our bench will make a blind bit of difference?

Have you considered that this could be the best that these lot can muster? Look at the careers or the stage of the careers for a lot and tell me why anything other than a struggle should be expected.

We all accept January is a massive month. What else can we do? Pray that O'Shea and Cuellar are Benjamin Button and get younger and quicker? Pray that Bardsley learns what a football is? Make Gardner, Colback, Vaughan, Larsson and co anything other than relegation candidate plodders?

Everything that you're craving and suggesting O'Neill does is based on nothing but a whim and conjecture. It's fantasy stuff.

So those players who did so well have simply 'gone shit' and MoN is unable to do anything about it?

Coach them, organise them, work on their concentration to cut out individual errors. Give them a clear purpose and pattern of play. They don't even look fit half the time. I'm not expecting or demanding Champions League form, somewhere inbetween there and what we have now will be more than acceptable. That's the old trick of trying to make out I'm looking for some kind of unattainable perfection, when the reality is I'd like us to look capable of winning games occasionally in the Premier League. More capable than the newcomers to the division. Too much to ask?

Fantasy land. The basics are fantasy land? We really are in bother if that's the case. Managers with significantly poorer track records seem to be able to do this consistently, is it wrong to expect it of someone of MoN's stature in the game?

Before we get 'it's not his squad, he's only had one window' trotted out, our previous manager took a team he only had one window to work on to Old Trafford and was bloody unlucky not to win. Of course this'll be taken as me being a Bruce Lover, which automatically makes me hate MoN......
 
Have you considered that this could be the best that these lot can muster? Look at the careers or the stage of the careers for a lot and tell me why anything other than a struggle should be expected.

Fair post, obviously there is little O'Neill can do about individual mistakes other than highlighting them to the players involved and trying to train it out of them - which I'm sure he does.

The point above though could apply to lots of other teams. Stoke, Norwich and West Ham all have players in their sides who have been relegated in their careers. A good chunk of the Norwich team have played the majority of their football outside the top division. Their expectations may not be high but they demonstrate what can be achieved by assessing what the strengths of your side are and playing accordingly.

It's not necessarily about beating O'Neill with a stick, it's just fans asking if O'Neill has a plan that gets the best out of our players. How do we get the ball to the wingers higher up the pitch? How do we get more men into the box to get onto the end of their crosses? What is Sessegnon's best position or where would he be most useful to the team? How can we ease the pressure on our defence - is it about defending higher up field, is it keeping the ball better, is it having an extra man up front to hold the ball up? Is it a coincidence that our front 4 were all out of sorts at the same time or were we not helping them with the way we played?

That is the manager's job - managing what he has. As Fishpaste says, there is no way to necessarily say that changing things will make us more effective. O'Neill may believe that we're incapable of forcing ourselves onto teams and that the best thing to do is try to stay in games as long as possible to try and get some points on the board. Fair enough but people have the right to question is that is the best way forward.
 
I don't think anyone on this thread will say MON is exempt from any criticism but the lack of consistency in your opinions between this and the last year of the Bruce era is baffling and strikes of an agenda.

First part - anyone who criticises is absolutely hounded on here. Check the threads.

Part in bold - Bullshit. Find the posts. You'll not be the first to try and fail. I base opinions on what people do, not who they are.
 
So those players who did so well have simply 'gone shit' and MoN is unable to do anything about it?

Coach them, organise them, work on their concentration to cut out individual errors. Give them a clear purpose and pattern of play. They don't even look fit half the time. I'm not expecting or demanding Champions League form, somewhere inbetween there and what we have now will be more than acceptable. That's the old trick of trying to make out I'm looking for some kind of unattainable perfection, when the reality is I'd like us to look capable of winning games occasionally in the Premier League. More capable than the newcomers to the division. Too much to ask?

Fantasy land. The basics are fantasy land? We really are in bother if that's the case. Managers with significantly poorer track records seem to be able to do this consistently, is it wrong to expect it of someone of MoN's stature in the game?

Before we get 'it's not his squad, he's only had one window' trotted out, our previous manager took a team he only had one window to work on to Old Trafford and was bloody unlucky not to win. Of course this'll be taken as me being a Bruce Lover, which automatically makes me hate MoN......

How on earth do you know that isn't the case? Because you've simply decided it isn't so?

These players haven't 'gone shit', they've been shit for most of their careers or are now way over the hill.

There is about 3 decent 'footballers' between them.

What about the other results Bruce mustered with that squad? Why are you only picking one good one and why don't you mention all of the crap and humiliating ones? :neutral:

We have a strategy and have gained some good solid draws by remaining compact and sitting back. Have you forgot about this as well? We have a clear style but it isn't very pretty so is just dismissed.

In reality we have tried all kinds this season and nothing has really worked. The players just aren't good enough. O'Neill knows this, we all know this and as long as he keeps them fighting and working hard then I'm happy to scramble to January where we can hopefully get a couple of reinforcements in key areas that will see us OK.

There is absolutely no evidence that O'Neill is trying all he can to get this lot to play well.

Fair post, obviously there is little O'Neill can do about individual mistakes other than highlighting them to the players involved and trying to train it out of them - which I'm sure he does.

The point above though could apply to lots of other teams. Stoke, Norwich and West Ham all have players in their sides who have been relegated in their careers. A good chunk of the Norwich team have played the majority of their football outside the top division. Their expectations may not be high but they demonstrate what can be achieved by assessing what the strengths of your side are and playing accordingly.

It's not necessarily about beating O'Neill with a stick, it's just fans asking if O'Neill has a plan that gets the best out of our players. How do we get the ball to the wingers higher up the pitch? How do we get more men into the box to get onto the end of their crosses? What is Sessegnon's best position or where would he be most useful to the team? How can we ease the pressure on our defence - is it about defending higher up field, is it keeping the ball better, is it having an extra man up front to hold the ball up? Is it a coincidence that our front 4 were all out of sorts at the same time or were we not helping them with the way we played?

That is the manager's job - managing what he has. As Fishpaste says, there is no way to necessarily say that changing things will make us more effective. O'Neill may believe that we're incapable of forcing ourselves onto teams and that the best thing to do is try to stay in games as long as possible to try and get some points on the board. Fair enough but people have the right to question is that is the best way forward.

O'Neill has tried all kinds of this to answer those questions and nothing has really worked. I don't agree with some of the things tried and some of our selections and have criticised them where I've seen fit. Ultimately though, I know that this squad and team are so lacking in vital areas that any difference will be minimal and a change of playing personnel is the only real way forward.
 
There is absolutely no evidence that O'Neill is trying all he can to get this lot to play well.

Suspect you've missed a couple of letters in there somewhere :lol:;)

O'Neill has tried all kinds of this to answer those questions and nothing has really worked. I don't agree with some of the things tried and some of our selections and have criticised them where I've seen fit. Ultimately though, I know that this squad and team are so lacking in vital areas that any difference will be minimal and a change of playing personnel is the only real way forward.

What is the difference with sides like Norwich, Stoke and West Ham though?
 
Dont agree at all. We knew before the game we were beaten. Just damage limitation.

Unbelievable, why would any team go into a game knowing they were going to be beat? Which is what we did in the first half yesterday. Can't work us out at the minute.
 
Suspect you've missed a couple of letters in there somewhere :lol:;)

What is the difference with sides like Norwich, Stoke and West Ham though?

:oops: I never proofread. But you know I meant.

The difference with Norwich is that they have players that are really comfortable on the football and pass it around and move it comfortably in the midfield. Not big names on paper but they're better footballers than we have and are in the key positions.

Stoke have an extremely strong and powerful spine. Shawcross, Huth, N'Zonzi, Crouch etc give them so much height and power. They use that strength superbly to grind out results. Our spine is as weak as piss.

West Ham have more pace and power than ourselves and have a good footballing midfield.

Our strengths are throttled by the ineptitude of the rest of the team. Ie, McClean and Johnson getting no service whatsoever and having to try to beat 10 defenders from their own half.
 
First part - anyone who criticises is absolutely hounded on here. Check the threads.

Part in bold - Bullshit. Find the posts. You'll not be the first to try and fail. I base opinions on what people do, not who they are.

There are plenty of posts criticising MON that don't get hounded. People only get hounded when they post bollocks. I mean in your reply to randle above you talk about us not having tactics or a gameplan. That is one thing we do have. It may not always be the correct gameplan but there is definitely one there. If you had said the same when Bruce was here then I wouldn't have disputed that.

And I can't be arsed to search through your posting history but I know for a fact that when people were going daft in their criticism of Bruce, you were one of the loudest in shouting them down. Yet now that things aren't great under MON, you are one of the ones going daft.
 
In reality we have tried all kinds this season and nothing has really worked. The players just aren't good enough. O'Neill knows this, we all know this and as long as he keeps them fighting and working hard then I'm happy to scramble to January where we can hopefully get a couple of reinforcements in key areas that will see us OK.

There is absolutely no evidence that O'Neill is trying all he can to get this lot to play well.



O'Neill has tried all kinds of this to answer those questions and nothing has really worked. I don't agree with some of the things tried and some of our selections and have criticised them where I've seen fit. Ultimately though, I know that this squad and team are so lacking in vital areas that any difference will be minimal and a change of playing personnel is the only real way forward.

If he knows this, why didn't he try to bring in a couple more in the summer? I'm sure Short would have backed him. Certainly a lot cheaper than the desperate scramble we now face in January.

Don't get me wrong - MoN is not totally at fault for this. He's been hoodwinked by three or four players who did it to Bruce as well. They have their fair share of blame to shoulder. Ultimately though, MoN is the man in charge and nobody would begrudge him a big boot up the arse of several of these gutless shirkers. I want him to fix this because I like him, more than I ever liked Bruce.
 
If he knows this, why didn't he try to bring in a couple more in the summer? I'm sure Short would have backed him. Certainly a lot cheaper than the desperate scramble we now face in January.

Don't get me wrong - MoN is not totally at fault for this. He's been hoodwinked by three or four players who did it to Bruce as well. They have their fair share of blame to shoulder. Ultimately though, MoN is the man in charge and nobody would begrudge him a big boot up the arse of several of these gutless shirkers. I want him to fix this because I like him, more than I ever liked Bruce.

Funds were spent on Fletcher and Johnson, end of. Do you not think o'neill wanted to get more players in?
 
There are plenty of posts criticising MON that don't get hounded. People only get hounded when they post bollocks. I mean in your reply to randle above you talk about us not having tactics or a gameplan. That is one thing we do have. It may not always be the correct gameplan but there is definitely one there. If you had said the same when Bruce was here then I wouldn't have disputed that.

And I can't be arsed to search through your posting history but I know for a fact that when people were going daft in their criticism of Bruce, you were one of the loudest in shouting them down. Yet now that things aren't great under MON, you are one of the ones going daft.

I'm not going daft. I'm asking sensible questions.

Why do we only start to play with freedom when we're a couple of goals down?
Why is the first instinct of every player to turn towards their own goal?
Why do we camp on our 18 yard line, regardless of the quality of the opposition?
Where's the high pressure game that worked so well gone?
Why do we give in so easily?

I'm not saying MoN is trying to lose games on purpose or that he's trying to get us relegated (two pearlers from the special people on here about Bruce). I'm saying we have very real problems that we may not be able to solve with the budget we have, so alternative options have to be considered and all the signs suggest this is not happening.
 
If he knows this, why didn't he try to bring in a couple more in the summer? I'm sure Short would have backed him. Certainly a lot cheaper than the desperate scramble we now face in January.

Don't get me wrong - MoN is not totally at fault for this. He's been hoodwinked by three or four players who did it to Bruce as well. They have their fair share of blame to shoulder. Ultimately though, MoN is the man in charge and nobody would begrudge him a big boot up the arse of several of these gutless shirkers. I want him to fix this because I like him, more than I ever liked Bruce.

He probably did - maybe the players available weren't offering value for money; heaven forbid an SAFC manager should take a step back and save our coin rather than spend it for the sake of spending it.
 
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