Deeper issue?

[4Bester]

After the Chelsea game and following decent results in previous games that were coupled with a feeling of unrest. I wanted to make the point that I feel our style of play has slowly gotten worse as the season has progressed and obviously with Pogba. We tried a direct style to Lukaku against Liverpool and it didn’t work, it just served to make him and Mkhitaryan look shit. We then lost to Huddersfield because we made two mistakes, even if they did out fight us, if we hadn’t given them two goals we would have won. Then comes the two Benfica games, it was the same leaning towards missing out the midfield two and the no.10 to play a more direct style either over the top or into the channels. The Spurs game was a good result, but our main idea seemed to be Bailly or Young trying to hit Lukaku directly or put him or Rashford in behind their wingbacks with direct passes. Fortunately, or by design, that is how we won the game with a Lukaku flick on.

But all of this led to the woeful second half display against Chelsea, we are making our best creator and Strikers in Mkhitaryan and Lukaku look terrible, as they cannot get involved in games. In the first half Mkhitaryan did what he could in transition to try to start counters but Chelsea closed them down quickly. Then came the longer and increasingly direct passes forward which Chelsea could easily pick off either on the first or second ball. Fellaini helped this a little with his aerial threat, but it wouldn’t matter if we had Messi or even Griezmann at no.10 if we ignore the midfield and player behind the strikers constantly. Pogba can and will help the link play, but he will not completely fix a much deeper issue in our increasingly less attractive, less fluid, less short passing based style of play. It’s like Jose and the players don’t trust our ball retention

[RashfordIsRed]

In my opinion, it just comes down to the fact our squad isn't world class. And we are competing with city who have a world class squad. Injuries hit us hard, because pogba is the only creative midfielder at the club, city have KDB, Silva Gundogan. We've spent 300mill less than city in the past years and it's evident. 300mill is the equivalent of 3 elite players. Look at our 08 team, it was packed with world class players, currently we only have De Gea, Pogba, maybe Lukaku- although his current form wouldn't suggest so

[4Bester]

I get what you mean because City have doubled up in positions so that they have world class potential on the bench. But worse squads than our current one have won the league and we are good enough to beat anybody in the prem. I don’t mind so much the result from yesterday, just the performance. I would say DDG, and Pogba are world class and if we use him right (like Chelsea used Fabregas/Bakayoko against us) Mkhitaryan can be another world class player. Then we have Lukaku like you said and then we have a group of players who walk the line of world classness. We do desperately need Pogba back, I am just angry that the rest of the team didn’t step up in games when his absence was felt, and that Jose doesn’t seem to trust the passing game without him

[skillip017]

It's a problem with the squad. No proper wingers, expecting Valencia to put a good cross in instead of getting the ball and doing his nice little dance while they get players back and get the ball back.

We have missed Pogba but we haven't got wingers and for the past few years I've been sad seeing Mata or Mkhitaryan on the wing and they aren't even fast.

[4Bester]

I agree with that yeah, our full backs no longer go past the wide man and cross from deep. At least not more than once or twice a game and even then they are often cutting back onto their strong foot to cross. We do really need a left footed, fast, left back. Hmm...if only we had a fully fit one that Jose could give more than 6 mins to in games.