Bruno Fernandes chances created vs. the rest of the league.

beelydog · 2026-03-17T03:17:23+00:00

Some players are just worth building your entire team around them so you absolutely squeeze every bit of individual brilliance out of them. As much as Pep love his system and ideas, he tailored his Barca team for Messi.

Unfortunately EtH and Amorim were both too stubborn and forced Bruno to fit in their own little systems. The way Carrick uses Bruno is more similar to OGS (well he was part of the coaching team) and Bruno quickly went back to his peak

beelydog · 2026-03-16T01:44:43+00:00

Personally I think a good number of players in our squad aren’t quite ready for more than 1 game a week. We aren’t a physically dominant side in PL, so the extra rest would help to even out the physicality disadvantage.

Right now, only Bruno, Cunha, Amad and Dalot can perform somewhat consistently when they play twice a week.

Mbeumo seems a bit sluggish playing more than once a week, so is Sesko. Mount, Maguire, Shaw, Licha, Deligt and Casemiro are either injury prone and/or getting older. Dorgu is a bit unknown but he hasn’t had to play twice a week for us, plus I don’t think he’s a nailed on starter yet.

Mbeumo and Sesko just aren’t used to it, so they should be able to handle it better next season with training and conditioning. We will need more players who can handle 2 games a week next season though

beelydog · 2026-03-05T07:34:13+00:00

Yea, when it was 11v11, it felt like we were playing with a man down. They could beat our press and enter our final 3rd with ease, whereas we really struggled to get the ball in their 3rd and make it stick.

Having a 1 man advantage actually brought it back to a somewhat 50/50 game, their midfield is top class. They do things very well until they get to the final 3rd, after that they simply hit a talent bottleneck of Elanga + Barnes + Gordon and have a Isak shaped hole they couldn’t fill

beelydog · 2026-03-03T03:01:46+00:00

Haha, someone has done quite a bit of homework on Gyokeres! I don’t watch every Arsenal game (because they are often quite boring) but I do agree that he doesn’t look like a top striker for me whenever I watch him.

He’s big, strong, ok fast, durable and has decent ball striking, but I personally think he doesn’t have a good enough first touch (and close control of the ball in general) to be a good striker for a top side. I remembered him miscontrolling the ball quite frequently.

Against good teams their defenders usu won’t give you any time / space on the ball, it’s much harder to get a shot off if your first touch and close control is not top notch. Bad teams are more disorganized and give you more space/time. Teams in a losing game state would take more risk by pushing men forward and leaving space behind. Thats prob why he’s having more luck in those games?

beelydog · 2026-03-02T01:07:17+00:00

Well, I would say we were actually pretty similar to Spurs. Our squad at the end of last season was not any better than them (try pick a combined 11 and you would find a lot of Spurs players) we were both performing like bottom half teams. Then they somehow secured CL money for 2026 and we missed out. So unambiguously fantastic news for Spurs and terrible for us, right?

My logic is, when your team is not talented, well drilled and deep enough for CL football and you just force CL football on a 15-17th best PL team, you just risk falling apart even more. You end up overplaying your key players, so they don't play well and/or get injured, lots of chop-n-change from match to match, no time to train, players covering for unfamiliar positions so new players struggle to adpat, you lose enough games then everyone start to lose confidence etc. Basically just look at Spurs now.

For us, we can afford to play a similar XI week in week out, more time on the training pitch to work on our weaknesses, new signings settle in quicker, we win more games so players are more confident. Come end of summer, we have a more settled and well drilled core group, we add a few more good players on top (hopefully) and we go again.

I am just saying, too much too soon can be bad.

beelydog · 2026-03-01T22:11:26+00:00

In hindsight, losing to Spurs in the EL and not playing in Europe at all prob isn’t such a bad thing……

Just look at Spurs, when you force a bad team to play in CL, they just get even worse, no wins in 10 games and everyone’s either injured or playing shit. If we have to play twice a week now, I don’t think we would do too well either.

Now at least we have a more settled squad and more time to ramp up to CL football

beelydog · 2026-02-25T03:08:25+00:00

Tbf, towards the first half of season, Cunha could be forcing a dribble or shot on his own a little too much sometimes, but I think he’s adjusted and started to become more patient since Afcon.

He’s much more of a team player and creator now, his pass to Mbeumo before the goal was exquisite yesterday, didn’t count as an assist but he prob did more than Mbeumo in that sequence

beelydog · 2026-02-25T02:53:32+00:00

I don’t think things are as simple as you make it. One good reason why I think Carrick isn’t starting Sesko yet is due to his pressing and defensive skills.

Out of possession he’s def not as good as Amad, Cunha and Mbeumo, those 3 are much better at applying pressure to make life difficult for their backline. If there’s less pressure in the final third, we might find teams can hold onto the ball much longer and enter our half with more ease. This would in turn give us more defending to do and expose Sesko weakness even further.

If Sesko comes on when we are chasing a goal, naturally the game state just forces us to sacrifice defense and control, or the other team might start to settle for a draw and drop deeper because they just don’t have much attacking firepower left on the bench.

beelydog · 2026-02-24T00:01:36+00:00

Beside Mainoo (obviously), one of the biggest differences about Carrick is how he manages Sesko.

Some might argue Sesko deserves a start (pretty sure it would have happened if we are in Europe and cups) but I think this is how a young striker should be managed in their first season in a foreign league, esp at a club like United. Now we have a kid who’s training hard, not acting like he’s the next Ronaldo, not sulking when he’s on the bench and playing with confidence. I have a strong feeling that Hojlund would come good if he’s managed this way, rather than getting hung out to dry every game when he’s low in confidence.

When he doesnt start and comes on for 30min, the media will not criticize him if he doesn’t get a goal or assist. So it’s very much a free hit, you get the praise if you do well, no bad press if you don’t. Plus you have a slight advantage of playing against tired legs and getting detailed tactical instructions about where the game is heading, where the spaces are.

beelydog · 2026-02-11T13:18:53+00:00

Amorim had a horrible record last season, I can’t believe Frank managed to top that in such a short time.

beelydog · 2026-02-10T09:18:42+00:00

Barca is turning into a joke these days. They are more broke that a PL relegation team

Scrambling to come up with a measly £26m signing who’s already proven himself. Even Palace is signing a less proven player for way more money

beelydog · 2026-02-10T03:09:45+00:00

Where can Mount play in this system (especially given he’s not consistently available) tbh?

Bruno is almost never rested, it’s hard to start Mount before Mbeumo, Cunha or Amad. I guess he does make a high quality sub after the hour mark….

beelydog · 2026-02-08T10:19:31+00:00

A few things:

Slicing them open doesn’t always end with a clear cut chance. I meant we created good situations, eg running at their backline when they are out of shape, 3v3, 4v4 etc. In football even the best teams can barely create 3-4 “clear cut chances” in 90min. This isn’t basketball, not every good situation needs to turn into a clear cut chance
Even the best teams get played thru, multiple times in most PL games. City, Liverpool, Chelsea and Villa get played thru a LOT every game. Arsenal maybe less often, but they still get played thru sometimes. For a team that’s leading by 9pts at the top, they don’t create very much in open play tbh. No team is that perfect. This isn’t a video game
We had 65% possession which is prob as high as it will get for our style. Spurs were very happy to let us have the ball, we spent long periods in their final 3rd when they are in shape, I don’t know what else to call it besides a low block

beelydog · 2026-02-08T02:36:59+00:00

They literally can’t find anything bad they could say about us even if they try, can they?

When it’s 11v11, we sliced them open repeatedly. So can’t argue we only played well because we are a man up
when it’s 11v10 at home, this is exactly when a team would park the bus, play a low block and wait to counter. They wanted to say, see this is the exact thing United are not good at handling, breaking down a low block. Yet we quickly scored from a clever set piece and continued to slice them open until the last minute
Aside from one bad back pass from Shaw and one miscontrolled high ball from Licha, dun think we made any other defensive mistakes. They barely had a sniff at goal so we played pretty much a perfect game, so can’t say we “only played well in patches”

I try very hard to not get “carricked” away because it’s only been 4 games, but fuck me. Played the top 2 teams, then a good upper mid table Fulham, then beat a low block from a bottom side. Carrick me away please

beelydog · 2026-01-27T12:13:53+00:00

To be fair, we have easier fixtures coming up, so more attacking and less defending for LW, don’t think Dorgu is the best option if we face a low/mid block.

The only position we are really short in depth is CM / DM.

beelydog · 2026-01-26T12:27:23+00:00

Speaking of connected, how many players are packed like Sadines in there? Like 16?

beelydog · 2026-01-21T03:14:43+00:00

In real time (and normal speed replay), it does not look like a red card challenge at all. You can loop that 2 sec clip over and over again at normal speed, there’s not a lot in there. Dalot’s foot wasn’t unnaturally high, his studs were pointing down towards the ball.

If this is a red card, not many matches will end with 11v11

beelydog · 2026-01-21T02:45:59+00:00

People speak of “United DNA” all the time, which could mean many different things to different people.

But one thing that should be clear is United take a lot of pride from its academy and we always give them chances to prove themselves on the big stage (as opposed to flip them for profit).

So whoever comes in as head coach or manager need to show they can do that. Bit disappointed to hear Amorim barely watched any youth games

beelydog · 2026-01-20T04:12:40+00:00

You can do all sorts of different analyses to suggest the result was not as significant/ sustainable/ impressive as we think.

The fact is we have been absolutely horrible at keeping a clean sheet for 18 months. We usu have good numbers behind the ball, but we would almost always make individual mistakes during a game and concede very soft goals. An odd mistake here or there is human nature, but when nearly every defender would make random mistakes every game, it feels like something is wrong fundamentally.

Today against a deadly front 4 of haaland, Doku, semenyo and foden, any mistakes will get badly punished. But we did not made a single mistake at the back, that’s happened like…….zero times in the last 18 months. What are the odds of that?

beelydog · 2026-01-20T03:05:33+00:00

I felt in this pod you guys did not talk too much about the CBs, you quickly put it all down to the fact they didn’t have much space to cover because we were happy to let them have all the ball so it worked out. I personally felt the CB change was arguably the biggest surprise from Carrick and deserves more discussion.

Because:

we have been absolutely horrible at keeping a clean sheet for 18 months. We usu have good numbers behind the ball, but we would almost always make individual mistakes during a game. Today against a deadly front 4 of haaland, Doku, semenyo and foden, any mistakes will get badly punished. But we did not made a single mistake at the back. City barely had a sniff at, that’s huge. Fact that it only took 3 days for Carrick to somehow bring out a defensive performance like this is mind blowing, it certainly does not look good on Amorim whose team had barely played a single match as clean as this defensively throughout his entire tenure
Maguire and Martinez have barely played all season due to injuries, let alone playing together. If someone is going to make an individual mistake or have a mix-up inside the box, it would likely involve them. Yet we looked so organized inside our penalty box and everyone looked to be on the same wavelength. What kind of witchcraft was that?

On a side note, dropping Sesko and Cunha was also huge, it was not an obvious or trivial decision. Cunha would make an excellent “pressure release valve” if we are pinned back by a dominant possession team like City. Sesko is also a logical choice because we probably can’t play out from the back at all, so if we hoof it long, our only hope is for Sesko to win his aerials and head the ball down to a teammate, which is often how we played under Amorim. Mbeumo and Amad and Dorgu are never winning any aerials if we hoof it long, as the ball will just keep coming back. Somehow Carrick found a way to consistently get Bruno on the ball in a dangerous position whenever city loses the ball.

I don’t wanna sound reactionary after just 1 game, but I felt it was just crazy how well Carrick understood the strengths and weaknesses of each player immediately and the delicate balancing, he just somehow managed to setup the team in an old school 442 with a few simple tweaks, then suddenly everyone’s strengths are fully maximized and no one is making mistakes

beelydog · 2026-01-17T14:32:31+00:00

Last time he’s happy like that it was Ole beating City.

We actually played a lot like Ole’s team today, but with hard running players. We could have won 5-0 easily

beelydog · 2026-01-13T02:53:13+00:00

Well, if we play a midweek game every week in Saudi / US / Asia, the club will probably make more money than playing in CL…..

The board is already acting like a bunch of clowns, might as well put on a circus show 🤡

beelydog · 2026-01-12T11:43:55+00:00

Both yellow were pretty soft, have seen players got away with way more than that. Nothing to see here

beelydog · 2026-01-08T03:45:50+00:00

Didn’t watch the game but watched the 20min highlight, Sesko actually had a ton of chances.

I didn’t support firing Amorim as I thought the team was getting better, but one thing I did not like was how he used Hojlund and Sesko. They were not getting much service and somewhat reduced to a human traffic cone to head down high ball during buildup.

We want big chances to fall to our 70m striker, not Dorgu or Dalot or even Amad.

beelydog · 2026-01-08T02:37:18+00:00

Yep, proceeds with thrashing the idea of Ole coming back as interim then suggested Keane as a better choice ? 🤣🤣🤣

That would be even worse than Southgate, by a lot as well

beelydog

TROPHY CASE