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Manchester United Thread

The recent form of Carrick is a concern as well since he dictates the tempo of our general play. Hopefully, it's only a minor blip in the season but we need to regain our form and confidence.
 
Fernando was man of the match for me. Hulk was trying too hard to show off at the European stage.

If you don't get your act together for the second leg, I predict trouble...
 
I thought Hulk played very well. Might have been greedy at times but he kept our defence occupied throughout the whole match. Fernando reminds me in many ways of Costinha, great performance.
 
Listening to Talksport on the way home then, a Utd fan comes on and says "We'd have won 2-0 if we hadn't conceded those goals!" ... erm .... :LMAO:

All the Utd fans phoning up were saying the same thing about Ronaldo, his heart isn't in it and they're fed up with him throwing his arms around and sulking whereas Tevez gets on with it and chases everything.

Collymore basically said your midfield was rubbish tonight and it lacked any kind of pace and that was why you didn't play well?
 
Was quite funny at the AFC Liverpool game just then. Everyone was watching the AFC game then suddenly a huge roar went up from the stand where the bar was, people had seen Porto score and the whole side of the pitch roared in celebration :LOL: I think we realised fairly quickly what they were cheering for :)
 
DagsJT said:
Listening to Talksport on the way home then, a Utd fan comes on and says "We'd have won 2-0 if we hadn't conceded those goals!" ... erm .... :LMAO:

All the Utd fans phoning up were saying the same thing about Ronaldo, his heart isn't in it and they're fed up with him throwing his arms around and sulking whereas Tevez gets on with it and chases everything.

Collymore basically said your midfield was rubbish tonight and it lacked any kind of pace and that was why you didn't play well?
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:LMAO:
Ronaldo was one of our better players although he gave the ball away a few times. He even closed down Bruno Alves and forced him into the backpass that Rooney scored from, although obviously none of our "fans" will remember that. Carrick is out of form at the moment and Park didn't play very well either. Fletcher played well and Scholes tried to create opportunities but not a lot went right for him.
 
One positive is Ronaldo seems to be taking notice when the Strettie gets on his back when he loses the ball. A couple of times he's stopped mid-arm flail to get up and chase the ball.
 
Ohh that was another thing Collymore said. He's a big fan of how Ronaldo plays but hates that a 6'2" man falls over so easily whereas the likes of George Best would be drenched with rain and still ride tackles and glide around the pitch :LOL:
 
That's just football now though, nobody likes it. They play for fouls, Torres is the same and that's just two.
 
Jumbo_ said:
That's just football now though, nobody likes it. They play for fouls, Torres is the same and that's just two.
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Agree there. A lot of the attraction of non-league football for me is that the challenges are pretty meaty yet players are just getting back up and giving it back, none of this fairy nonsense.
 
Why didn't Ferguson use something like this:

------Tevez------
--Rooney---------
----------Ronaldo-
Giggs-----Fletcher
-----Carrick------
Evra--------Neville
----Vidic--Evans---
--------VDS--------

Tevez pressing the defense (specially Bruno Alves, that was clearly down after the goal) Rooney being the free guy, moving all around with tevez but supporting him and Ronaldo that starts the counter and moves to the center where the other 2 are. Giggs making the line and/or moving to the center for rooney/tevez. Fletcher holding the ball and Carrick distributing the tempo of the game, Evra making the work that Giggs can't do anymore and neville making to the half pitch and making some long balls to the attack, Vidic marking and Evans covering the counter.
I actually thought that ferguson would make something like this to prevent the counter attack of Porto andthe moving down the flanks of Cissokho and Sapunaru, but he misplayed that, focusing the game in rooney and the midfield, well it could have gone really bad.. Hope that Porto keeps this form in their Home game, cous you lot really seem empty and out of form.
 
Giggs played the whole match against Villa so Scholes replaced him as he cant play 2 games in a row so well these days. Tevez rarely starts in CL and also played most of Sundays game after travelling back from Bolivia so he was on the bench to start with.
 
great performance by porto, if there was a team that deserved to win it was them
to me, the man of the match was clearly fernando, he was a monster in that midfield
if porto plays at this level again at Dragão i think and hope they can win the game

ps: if you were impressed with hulk in this game, then wait to see what he can do when he plays well
 
I'm appalled by the players and the fans, it was just a bad night all round, and to cap it off, we saw some dickheads clearly from the rough parts of Manchester trying to start off something against some innocent Porto fans.

Gotta give credit to Porto though, they came here, played some lovely stuff and in all honesty should've won. They made it appear like we were the away team.

I think fighting on all fronts is taking its toll because the players look knackered. And that clean sheet run has had a massive effect on the defence and I fucking called it.
 
It was a lovely game today.

First time I ever seen Bruno Alves have a blunder like that.

Gotta tgive credit to Rooney though, he was already running towards the keeper long before Bruno Alves even had the ball.
 
I dunno. Maybe I like to put a lot more hope into our players than most but I still believe Ronaldo has more to offer us. We can always buy great players but to me that never compares to seeing a player like Ronaldo grow up with us at this club and become a great player. Regardless of how this season ends, we've still already had a good year and I'm sure if Ronaldo's still with us next season, he'll be more like the player we used to love seeing.
 
Hopefully we'll have Anderson & Rio back for the 2nd leg.
Before Ando got injured he was playing some fantastic through balls, so that along with his pace would (for me) warrant him playing instead of Scholes.

I think our recent problems have been down to a lot of players thinking we deserve to win just by turning up. We may have a big squad, but due to injuries players like Evra haven't got anyone pushing them for a place (Fabio injured, O'Shea covering elsewhere), so maybe that's why they're slacking a bit.

I know a lot of people say it would be different if.... but I really think that if Brown (wasn't he a week away from returning several weeks ago) & Hargreaves were fit we would have put in much better performances lately.

Does anyone know if Rio will be back for the Sunderland game, seeing as Evans will probably be out?
 
Nobody thinks all of this started when we beat you then? That hasn't played a part in encouraging teams to attack or shatter your confidence?
 
Points:
1. Ronaldo was our second best player, I was impressed with him last night. Certainly not his fault our defense has forgotten how to mark.
2. Carrick and Scholes cannot dominate a match as a central pairing. I'm not sure how many more times we're going to have to suffer through it, but at some point surely Fergie will realise?
3. Park put in the worst performance I think I've ever seen from a United player, period. At least Fergie hauled him off.
4. Evra has been replaced by one of his non-footballing 24 siblings.
5. We need coaching. The players are good enough, but we're not set up the right way, and we're not plaing the right way. Standing off and letting the attackers come at us is not working, it's that simple.

Fergie's fault this one...
 
DagsJT said:
Nobody thinks all of this started when we beat you then? That hasn't played a part in encouraging teams to attack or shatter your confidence?
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We've not been able to play Rio and Vida together since then, because of injuries/vida's ban, and I think that has been the major factor.

Certainly the pool win was confidence shattering, but I think people are forgetting that our first choice back 4 haven't played once this season, and our £18m defensive midfielder, bought for games like last night, also hasn't featured. If we'd had brown, rio, vida and evra with support from Hargreaves, we'd be a very different prospect.

Still, we needed a performance last night, and didn't get one.
 
But then you didn't have that back four before the Liverpool game and you managed alright then? Including the Liverpool game, you've lost two games and drew two games that you (arguably?) should've lost (Villa and Porto).

I just think the defeat to Liverpool has affected Utd more than people realise to be honest.
 
DagsJT said:
But then you didn't have that back four before the Liverpool game and you managed alright then? Including the Liverpool game, you've lost two games and drew two games that you (arguably?) should've lost (Villa and Porto).

I just think the defeat to Liverpool has affected Utd more than people realise to be honest.
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I think that's what Rafa wants everyone to believe. We were very poor against Newcastle and Blackburn before the pool game - but sneaked quite fortunate wins. Hell we only managed to squeeze past some random team in the WCC final.

Our team is not balanced this season, it hasn't looked nearly as good as last year. I think all of somewhat intelligent fan base no this. We've been edging our way through matches without looking like dominating or creating many chances. Scholes has been utter tosh, but is getting games because Anderson has been injured half the season and Hargreaves has been injured the whole season. Carrick and Ronaldo basically have to play every minute of every game, and we've played more than any other team in England this year.

I think our ambition has made us icarus-like. Trying to compete on 5 fronts has never been done by any team, ever. And with all these injuries/tired performances, we're seeing why.

That said, with our personnel, injuries permitting I expect us to be very, very good next season.
 
You think you'll bring someone in during the Summer? Surely Giggs, Scholes and Neville can't pull out another season and have an impact?
 
DagsJT said:
You think you'll bring someone in during the Summer? Surely Giggs, Scholes and Neville can't pull out another season and have an impact?
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I've said before that I want us to remain with more or less the current squad, as I think it'll help and the players we have are good enough. Assuming everyone heals up, we would have:

GK: EVDS, Foster, Kuszack, Amos
RB: Rafael, Wes Brown
CB: Evans, Rio, Vida, O'Shea
LB: Evra, Fabio
CM: Fletcher, Carrick, Hargreaves, Anderson, Gibson, Possebon
SMF: Nani, Tosic, Park, Ronaldo, Martin
FW: Berbatov, Rooney, Tevez, Welbeck, (maybe Macheda)

That's a pretty reasonable squad imo, with the addtion of Llajic (who looks pretty good) in January, and maybe a few other youngsters (Eckersley, James) coming through.

Most useful person we could get would be a defensive minded utility man in the O'Shea mold (but good) who could play across the back 4. We didn't adequately replace Silvestre tbh.
 
Lucho is fucking world class. I said that earlier, and he's proven me right.

Shocking performance.
 
Lucho is fucking world class. I said that earlier, and he's proven me right.

Shocking performance.
 
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