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Why are we so bloody bad at this!? The amount of times we get in behind defences and the final ball or pull back is just shocking.
One thing the Rags are annoyingly good at. Just head up and pick out your man. We waste so many of these chances.

Bridge'srightfoot wrote:Why are we so bloody bad at this!? The amount of times we get in behind defences and the final ball or pull back is just shocking.
One thing the Rags are annoyingly good at. Just head up and pick out your man. We waste so many of these chances.

Once again, we have been discussing this for more than two years.

It won't change under Mancini.

Look at Rooneys second goal against us. So simple,, so effective. Rafael didn't do anything special, just head up and picked out his man. We'd fuck that situation up 9/10 times.

Bridge'srightfoot wrote:Look at Rooneys second goal against us. So simple,, so effective. Rafael didn't do anything special, just head up and picked out his man. We'd fuck that situation up 9/10 times.

I would join in with this but we could literally find this same thread, with one of us giving the exact same example you have just given, two years ago. It's not just that we don't do it, we don't defend against it either. Look at Cavani's goal & Ajax's 1st over there. We were knocked out of the Champion's League twice with goals like that.

We seem to have a mental block against any kind of decent intelligent cross/pull back When someone gets it right, none of our strikers are there to score it. Maicon put in some good ones.

AJ was pretty good at this until bob had him neutered. zabba is the only one who tries it now.

It's one of the simplest things to do in football, one of the hardest to defend against (attackers running onto the ball, defenders having to turn to find it), and one of the most exciting to watch. Which of these is the reason City don't do it?

BobbyJ1956 wrote:It's one of the simplest things to do in football, one of the hardest to defend against (attackers running onto the ball, defenders having to turn to find it), and one of the most exciting to watch. Which of these is the reason City don't do it?

Its 50/50. Often the delivery is poor and even when it's decent we don't have anyone to tuck it home.
Watching United do it, Either Rooney/ hernandez or Van Persie attacks the front post, the other holds their run, Young comes in off the wing and one of the midfielders stays on the edge of the box. They get numbers forward so even if they miss they can get the rebound.
When we do it, we tend to only have one player to aim at.

BobbyJ1956 wrote:It's one of the simplest things to do in football, one of the hardest to defend against (attackers running onto the ball, defenders having to turn to find it), and one of the most exciting to watch. Which of these is the reason City don't do it?

Possibly because when there are 10 defenders in the area, most stood in the 6yd box, it becomes a lottery.
Put it behind the defenders and most on here will consider it too close to the keeper to be effective. Put it further away from the line and the accusation of feeding the defenders springs to mind.

Wanna buy a raffle ticket?

john68 wrote:

BobbyJ1956 wrote:It's one of the simplest things to do in football, one of the hardest to defend against (attackers running onto the ball, defenders having to turn to find it), and one of the most exciting to watch. Which of these is the reason City don't do it?

Possibly because when there are 10 defenders in the area, most stood in the 6yd box, it becomes a lottery.
Put it behind the defenders and most on here will consider it too close to the keeper to be effective. Put it further away from the line and the accusation of feeding the defenders springs to mind.

Wanna buy a raffle ticket?

Sure, John, better odds than tippy-tappy Arsenal-style football.
When we score straight from the kick off on Saturday with a run down the wing and a cut back to Aguero you can send me the winnings.

john68 wrote:

BobbyJ1956 wrote:It's one of the simplest things to do in football, one of the hardest to defend against (attackers running onto the ball, defenders having to turn to find it), and one of the most exciting to watch. Which of these is the reason City don't do it?

Possibly because when there are 10 defenders in the area, most stood in the 6yd box, it becomes a lottery.
Put it behind the defenders and most on here will consider it too close to the keeper to be effective. Put it further away from the line and the accusation of feeding the defenders springs to mind.

Wanna buy a raffle ticket?

And yet Ferguson has managed to win 12 Premier League titles & 2 Champions Leagues, mainly by getting his players to do exactly that.

I guess he must just buy lots of tickets ? Perhaps it's time we bought a few as, if you don't buy a ticket, you don't win the raffle.

Never, in all the football I have watched, has that applied more to team more than City, both with crossing & shooting. (apart of course from Arsenal & we have seen what has happened to them )

Ted Hughes wrote:

john68 wrote:

BobbyJ1956 wrote:It's one of the simplest things to do in football, one of the hardest to defend against (attackers running onto the ball, defenders having to turn to find it), and one of the most exciting to watch. Which of these is the reason City don't do it?

Possibly because when there are 10 defenders in the area, most stood in the 6yd box, it becomes a lottery.
Put it behind the defenders and most on here will consider it too close to the keeper to be effective. Put it further away from the line and the accusation of feeding the defenders springs to mind.

Wanna buy a raffle ticket?

And yet Ferguson has managed to win 12 Premier League titles & 2 Champions Leagues, mainly by getting his players to do exactly that.

I guess he must just buy lots of tickets ? Perhaps it's time we bought a few as, if you don't buy a ticket, you don't win the raffle.

Never, in all the football I have watched, has that applied more to team more than City, both with crossing & shooting. (apart of course from Arsenal & we have seen what has happened to them )

.
You saved me the hassle of posting the same.

Sideshow Bob wrote:AJ was pretty good at this until bob had him neutered. zabba is the only one who tries it now.

And there is the problem. The delivery from the scum's wingers is so much better than that from our fullbacks. Maicon can deliver a good ball, but isn't as good defensively. The time it worked best was when he played Maicon and Kolorov to pull us back in the spuds match.

I think the main difference is the way teams set up against us and them.


United play a game of percentages which works in England as the majority of managers are tactically inept but no longer works against well managed teams on the contenient. The majority (Probably 90%+) of their goals come from crosses into the box. When you watch them, especially when they are behind, they just pepper the box with crosses from the byline, from deep by their fullbacks or edge of the box from the likes of Carrick/Scholes they put so many in that one is bound to fall kindly or the opposition defence switch off like Newcastle did at the weekend.....Rarely at Old Trafford a team holds out like Spurs did.

Added to this that teams think the rags are beatable which creates a more expansive game.....Newcastle and Reading have both put 3 past them this season for crying out loud.

By contrast our style of play means we have the majority of the possesion with fluid passing and movement (granted the latter two have not been evident so far this season) again we suffer from the tactical failings of managers in England who deem the only way to defend against this is by 'parking the bus'. Added to this we have Mancini's reluctance to change things up and throw a wide player on till it is generally too late. His decision to bring Sinclair on against Reading changed the game; although his contribution wasn't great the threat of a wide player with the pace to run at and get behind the fullback to whip in a cross had an effect on Reading as they had something new to worry about, this didn't happen against Sunerland and we paid the price.

NZBlue wrote:I think the main difference is the way teams set up against us and them.


United play a game of percentages which works in England as the majority of managers are tactically inept but no longer works against well managed teams on the contenient. The majority (Probably 90%+) of their goals come from crosses into the box. When you watch them, especially when they are behind, they just pepper the box with crosses from the byline, from deep by their fullbacks or edge of the box from the likes of Carrick/Scholes they put so many in that one is bound to fall kindly or the opposition defence switch off like Newcastle did at the weekend.....Rarely at Old Trafford a team holds out like Spurs did.

Added to this that teams think the rags are beatable which creates a more expansive game.....Newcastle and Reading have both put 3 past them this season for crying out loud.

By contrast our style of play means we have the majority of the possesion with fluid passing and movement (granted the latter two have not been evident so far this season) again we suffer from the tactical failings of managers in England who deem the only way to defend against this is by 'parking the bus'. Added to this we have Mancini's reluctance to change things up and throw a wide player on till it is generally too late. His decision to bring Sinclair on against Reading changed the game; although his contribution wasn't great the threat of a wide player with the pace to run at and get behind the fullback to whip in a cross had an effect on Reading as they had something new to worry about, this didn't happen against Sunerland and we paid the price.

You should post more often.

NZBlue wrote:I think the main difference is the way teams set up against us and them.

United play a game of percentages which works in England as the majority of managers are tactically inept but no longer works against well managed teams on the contenient. The majority (Probably 90%+) of their goals come from crosses into the box. When you watch them, especially when they are behind, they just pepper the box with crosses from the byline, from deep by their fullbacks or edge of the box from the likes of Carrick/Scholes they put so many in that one is bound to fall kindly or the opposition defence switch off like Newcastle did at the weekend.....Rarely at Old Trafford a team holds out like Spurs did.

Added to this that teams think the rags are beatable which creates a more expansive game.....Newcastle and Reading have both put 3 past them this season for crying out loud.

By contrast our style of play means we have the majority of the possesion with fluid passing and movement (granted the latter two have not been evident so far this season) again we suffer from the tactical failings of managers in England who deem the only way to defend against this is by 'parking the bus'. Added to this we have Mancini's reluctance to change things up and throw a wide player on till it is generally too late. His decision to bring Sinclair on against Reading changed the game; although his contribution wasn't great the threat of a wide player with the pace to run at and get behind the fullback to whip in a cross had an effect on Reading as they had something new to worry about, this didn't happen against Sunerland and we paid the price.

Close......the main issue is not the peppering of the box with crosses, it is the pace they get to the point they cross or play the killer ball behind the defence eg, when they do it, there may be 3 defenders in the box facing goal.

When we move forwards, we drag play back until by the time we hit a cross in, its against 8 or 9 defenders in the box.

That is the key difference, but other than that, you are bang on.

Ted Hughes wrote:

john68 wrote:

BobbyJ1956 wrote:It's one of the simplest things to do in football, one of the hardest to defend against (attackers running onto the ball, defenders having to turn to find it), and one of the most exciting to watch. Which of these is the reason City don't do it?

Possibly because when there are 10 defenders in the area, most stood in the 6yd box, it becomes a lottery.
Put it behind the defenders and most on here will consider it too close to the keeper to be effective. Put it further away from the line and the accusation of feeding the defenders springs to mind.

Wanna buy a raffle ticket?

And yet Ferguson has managed to win 12 Premier League titles & 2 Champions Leagues, mainly by getting his players to do exactly that.

I guess he must just buy lots of tickets ? Perhaps it's time we bought a few as, if you don't buy a ticket, you don't win the raffle.

Never, in all the football I have watched, has that applied more to team more than City, both with crossing & shooting. (apart of course from Arsenal & we have seen what has happened to them )

Good job you are not getting involved in his thread.

Well in NZ Blue,as Sparty posted, you are almost there mate and Sparty, you have improved it. Thank fuck that at least some on here know what direction to think in.

The missing bit is the important bit. It's the bit that considers there is another team on the pitch and what they do is absolutely crucial. This season particularly, teams are having a go at the rags, attacking their poor defence with some success. The rags have let in almost twice the goals we have. Attacking the rags means pushing players forward and leaving more spaces at the back for the rags to operate in. If the rags move quickly enough, they face fewer and less well organised defenders...simples.

On the other hand, and Reading were a great example. They rarely foraged forward and never in numbers, leaving far less space at the back. As soon as we got possession in our own half, they immediately gave up the midfield and set a defensive line of 5 with a sliding 4 in front of them. This very quickly became a 6 man defensive wall with a sliding 3, which compressed itself into its own 6yd box. Their whole focus was to defend their 6yd box and its environs with as many bodies as they could as quickly as they could.

Martin O'Neill worked that out last year with success. Basically, ignore what City are doing and get yer arses back in front of you own goal line as fast as you can. If you remember the excellent Chuckle 1 analysis, O'Neill even gave up defending the flanks and allowed us to cross into their box unchallenged.

Under those circumstances, it is easier to get back and defend than it is to effectively attack it. The only way is to draw out the defence to create space but if a defence refuses to be drawn out, you can't force em out. Maybe by the scruff of the neck?

It was Pullis. And you can bring them out by giving them a chance by playing more expansive passes and having more men make forwaRD RUNS AND HAVING WIDE MEN TAKE ON PLAYERS EVEN THOUGH THEY MIGHT LOSE IT. rEMEMBER TWO FELLAS CALLED sHAUN wRIGHT pHILLIPS AND cRAIG bALLAMY? tHEY HAD TO GO. tHEY THOUGHT WHAT mANCINI WAS DOING WAS BOLLOCKS. sILLY PEOPLE.aPOLS CAPS LOL

Im_Spartacus wrote:

NZBlue wrote:I think the main difference is the way teams set up against us and them.

United play a game of percentages which works in England as the majority of managers are tactically inept but no longer works against well managed teams on the contenient. The majority (Probably 90%+) of their goals come from crosses into the box. When you watch them, especially when they are behind, they just pepper the box with crosses from the byline, from deep by their fullbacks or edge of the box from the likes of Carrick/Scholes they put so many in that one is bound to fall kindly or the opposition defence switch off like Newcastle did at the weekend.....Rarely at Old Trafford a team holds out like Spurs did.

Added to this that teams think the rags are beatable which creates a more expansive game.....Newcastle and Reading have both put 3 past them this season for crying out loud.

By contrast our style of play means we have the majority of the possesion with fluid passing and movement (granted the latter two have not been evident so far this season) again we suffer from the tactical failings of managers in England who deem the only way to defend against this is by 'parking the bus'. Added to this we have Mancini's reluctance to change things up and throw a wide player on till it is generally too late. His decision to bring Sinclair on against Reading changed the game; although his contribution wasn't great the threat of a wide player with the pace to run at and get behind the fullback to whip in a cross had an effect on Reading as they had something new to worry about, this didn't happen against Sunerland and we paid the price.

Close......the main issue is not the peppering of the box with crosses, it is the pace they get to the point they cross or play the killer ball behind the defence eg, when they do it, there may be 3 defenders in the box facing goal.

When we move forwards, we drag play back until by the time we hit a cross in, its against 8 or 9 defenders in the box.

That is the key difference, but other than that, you are bang on.

Im_Spartacus I agree totally with what you say, the speed in which they attack and are able to get a cross in is and always has been their main strength.

My comment about them peppering the box with crosses was meant for when they are chasing the game in the last 10-15mins, just using the Spurs loss as a reference you will see United firing in cross after cross. When the defence clears a cross there is another one coming straight back in which pulls defenders out of position, causing confusion and usually leading to the envitable happening in the last minute. In similar situations we show more composure on the ball which gives the opposition more time to regroup and we will relunctantly 'put it in the mixer' only as a last resort.........or if it's Kolarov :-)