Literally nobody is arguing that you shouldn’t ever take a long shot, or that we should only resort to ‘floaty’ crosses.
Some strong strawmanning going on here.
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Emmm! from whom?
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We had more shooting opportunities than we actually took. As we didn’t actually work it through to many clear cut chances talk of waiting for better chances doesn’t actually make much sense.
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If the opposition effectively blocks your chances of walking the ball into the back of the net then other options need to be deployed. I would argue you always should mix it up however at the same time avoid as much as possible exposing yourself.
Not caring isn’t going to help!
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Yeah, because that was obviously meant to be an exhaustive list.
The point is that having long shots can be productive but they have to be timed correctly to catch the opposition off guard. Just passing sideways in front of a packed defence often gets you nowhere, as Saturday’s match amply demonstrated.
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At least we can all agree that the most important thing about playing against a packed defense is tempo of play.
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… and movement! 
Fixed it for you.
We didn’t score from our 7 long shots either, taking them didn’t make much sense.
Football’s pretty easy in hindsight.
So are we all in agreement that winning penalties is the way to go?
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So after 3093 posts we’ve answered the question at the top of this thread “Who would you buy”
I’d buy penalties.
Man U aren’t looking to sell, at any price.
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Edwards Out
FSG Out
Penandes in.
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17 shots from inside the box with 1 goal from the penalty spot!
40 crosses 10 successful without a goal!
24 shots 7 on target!
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I don’t mind a shot from distance, but there has to be a route to goal. Frequently such a tactic just end with blaming the ball hopelessly into a wall of bodies.
I don’t think some people realise how effective teams can be at blocking shooting angles to goal.
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Edwards out!? He is indeed out at the hotel finalizing the contract with Mbappe. And then with Haaland. And then with Andy Carroll.
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I reckon in open play to create the best chances you need to get the opposition defense on the back foot.That’s fairly easy on the counter as the defense is already high and will have a tendance to back off. The problem is when the defense doesn’t give any space in behind to exploit. to create that chance in general you get in behind by dribbling to the byline (then inside if possible) and cutting a ball back or a cross into players attacking the ball. If this isn’t working as they are blocking the wide channels well one way of getting in behind is a long shot and an advatage of the long shot is that it doesn’t expose you to that dangerous counter attack as much as other methods (where deeper players end up commiting to entering the box).
As an alternative I’ll propose a Firmino type player who offers that between the lines excellence holding the ball waiting for Salah or Mané to get inside.Capable of releasing a long shot but also so much better at just feeding one of our attackers with a great ball. (He also has the option of dribbling through himself). Against Chelsea with 10 men I think this would have been more effective than Jota but it wasn’t to be (He had a good 1st half before injury (just wasn’t getting on the end of those crosses where as at 11 vs 11 Jota was or at least a lot closer).
I don’t think people realise how much thought ARD and myself put into this. I repeat we are not idiots and are capable of a decent discussion about all sorts of solutions. We don’t need to go to extremes all the time to try and shut down discussion.
Wow, we are buying longshots!!!
Another Eddy masterclass
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Fellas, we are arguing about a 1 match sample against a side with 10 men. Nothing definitive can be drawn from this stat wise. A larger sample would need to be considered…this is silly.
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Just getting a few early season adjustments made… the next few games we will win 8-0.