So there are two schools of thought:
1) Solskjaer's Manchester United are rubbish because our manager is rubbish and the players are rubbish (with worse close control than the other teams in the division) and that's why we have been so unimpressive since the start of the season, unlike the second half of last season.
2) Our players lack sharpness because the Europa campaign took a chunk out of an already short summer break, meaning we had less training, no real pre-season and have faced teams that are physically fitter than us.
To test the latter proposition, let's look at the league form of the other teams who also had truncated pre-seasons:
Manchester City (freed from European obligations earlier than us) won one, lost one (first time Guardiola side has ever conceded 5)
Wolves (also free earlier than United) - one win, two defeats including humiliation at the hands of David Moyes
Bayern München - won one, lost one
PSG - already lost twice in the league they always walk
Lyon - won one out of five games
Barcelona - longer break, currently cruising in their first game
Sevilla - longer break, played and won first league game today
Looks like a bit of a pattern to me.
Truncated pre-seasons
posted on 27/9/20
comment by rosso - for your protection, we’ve installed this camera (U17054)
posted 18 minutes ago
comment by Manfrombelmonty (U1705)
posted 47 minutes ago
Days between last match of 19/20 and first of 20/21
Liverpool 34
manu 34
Wolves 34
Man City 37
Seems like other teams having a longer preseason could be interpreted as a bit of an excuse.
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Nice try.
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What?
posted on 27/9/20
comment by Red Russian (U4715)
posted 13 minutes ago
comment by Manfrombelmonty (U1705)
posted 11 minutes ago
comment by Don Draper's dandruff (U20155)
posted 4 minutes ago
comment by Manfrombelmonty (U1705)
posted 4 minutes ago
comment by Don Draper's dandruff (U20155)
posted 3 minutes ago
comment by Manfrombelmonty (U1705)
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It’s traditionally seen as the first game of the season isn’t it?
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from the FA's point of view, yes; from the clubs', it's usually seen as one last pre-season warm up game.
but if it makes you feel better to pretend that a charity shield appearance is as intense a match as a european QF/SF, good luck.
and given that you lot claimed that your squad didn't care about any of the results after your title was confirmed - the players were on the beach/hungover - bit rich to be claiming that you've had the same break as everyone else.
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Liverpool haven’t had the same break as everyone else. Some clubs had a longer break.
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also ignoring the fact that you then had 2 weeks off after the charity shield (normally one), because of the international break, which happened before the european-involved clubs had actually started their season.
so whilst united's league season kicked off on the 19th, a lot of their players were away on international duty in early august.
of course if you redid your numbers using the charity shield as the start of your season, and the international break as the start of the season for the big clubs, suddenly doesn't look quite so supportive of your argument.
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What argument? I’m just presenting the unarguable Facts supported by stats.
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Facts and stats that are irrelevant to the premise of the discussion - i.e. the respective league form of teams involved / not involved in post-season European football.
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How do you portray league form without facts and stats?
posted on 27/9/20
Liverpool had their first pre season game three weeks before their first premier league game. Manchester United had theirs one week before their first premier league game. One clearly had a longer pre season than the other.
posted on 27/9/20
Does anyone think had we not put in the effort into our EL games we might be in a better position this season?
I was one who felt any real effort to go and win the EL would have a big effect on our rest and pre season. Obviously we didn’t win it and the earliest we would have realistically been knocked out was only 1 round earlier. But I still think giving the vast majority of our first XI a break soon after the Leicester game would have been very beneficial to this season.
posted on 27/9/20
comment by manutd1982 (U6633)
posted 2 minutes ago
Does anyone think had we not put in the effort into our EL games we might be in a better position this season?
I was one who felt any real effort to go and win the EL would have a big effect on our rest and pre season. Obviously we didn’t win it and the earliest we would have realistically been knocked out was only 1 round earlier. But I still think giving the vast majority of our first XI a break soon after the Leicester game would have been very beneficial to this season.
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yep, i was in this camp too...you don't really want to throw a competition, but we were in a unique position - CL secured, EL finishing a month after the league, messy pre-season, and ridiculously congested season itself - with a major tournament (possibly) following immediately after, giving us a messy 2 years.
So yeah, i'd have told most of the first xi to find a nice beach, in a nice non-quarantine country, and watch the EL with a margarita and some of those spicy little rice crackers.
posted on 27/9/20
I think that probably would have been the case. There was talk back in August that clubs were going to be allowed to start two weeks later if they’d played in Europe, and that the European qualifiers were going to drop out of the league cup for the season due to the schedule. Unfortunately this didn’t happen, as that would have given us better preparation for the season.
Even just an extra week off for the prem could have helped us, to be honest. We could have used the league cup game as a pre season and started our season this weekend.
posted on 28/9/20
Although correlation does not always mean causation, it is striking that the teams with less of a preseason have under performed. Surely can't be a coincidence?
posted on 28/9/20
It's certainly a small sample size, MMM, so I don't think anyone should take it as hard evidence. For me, the fact that our players didn't come back to training until much later than most other teams, further complicated by the international break, is in itself far more significant than that set of results.
posted on 28/9/20
comment by Don Draper's dandruff (U20155)
posted 15 hours, 34 minutes ago
comment by Devonshirespur (U6316)
posted 1 minute ago
I'd say the disadvantage is not the length of break but the length of pre-season. Every game played is more sharpness gained and united are 1 game behind most...hope it last into the weekend bu which time Spurs have played ANOTHER 2 games
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your schedule this week is brutal.
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No biggies. Same as last week!
posted on 28/9/20
No it isn’t. You’ve got to play two midweek games this week, you had one last week.