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Manchester United Thread

Re: Manchester United Supporters Thread.

Forgot about James - I think he's injured though, as he hasn't played for Reserves since he got back. We've taken Tunniclife to Marseille, which says something about how desperate we are!

Fergie has really overloaded the front of the pitch in terms of development and recruitment imo. At a push, we could play any of Roon, Berba, Hernandez, Owen, King or Bebe as a front man. But in midfield we're disasterously bare - our best 'Reserve' midfielder was Eikrem but he's been let go, so we might be forced into giving a debut to a player (Tunniclife or Pogba) who have never played for the first team, and only just this year made their RESERVE team debuts. In Europe.

With the news that Hargreaves is still with the physios, I think we can safely assume his career is over (sniff). This has to force Fergie's hand in the transfer market, value be damned.
 
Re: Manchester United Supporters Thread.

Has it been confirmed Anderson's out for 2 months? If so then we'll need to manage them over the next 5 games EXTREMELY carefully.

Throw Giggs into the CM pot and Rooney outwide will do.
 
Re: Manchester United Supporters Thread.

Wonder what Rooney would be like as a CM. Might actually bother to turn up and play, or he'd probably just get sent off for getting frustrated and making two terrible tackles.

Either way, play him there and play Berba and Hernandez up front and through some form of miracle we might do alright.

Giggsy'll have to play a lot then, good thing he's still brilliant. Good thing it's only Arsenal too, they're bound to fuck up at some point.

Or what about Pogba?
 
Re: Manchester United Supporters Thread.

Rooney in CM?! Eh no thanks. Injury to Anderson isn't that bad either, 2 weeks hopefully.
 
Re: Manchester United Supporters Thread.

Yeah, he and Giggs did alright in that role in 06' until we got smashed by Chelsea.

In theory Rooney on the left should work well with Berba leading the line, he can cut in all day be are "playmaker" from their with Evra adding the width but for some reason it always ends up with him playing a normal touchline winger who does more defending and fizzles out of the game.
 
Re: Manchester United Supporters Thread.

Rooney never is or ever was a "playmaker". He was a bull-raging centre-forward who would scare the living daylights out of defenders and thats what he needs to get back to doing.
 
Re: Manchester United Supporters Thread.

YoungGun_UK said:
It's crazy though, he's what 37? and he plays like a 21 year old winger that can run all day and is probably better than most aswell!

I don't think theirs ever been a better footballer at 37 years of age as Giggs currently is, surely not?
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Maldini made it to 39, won the CL at 38 I think, and Pippo single handedly keeps us in CL matches :D
 
Re: Manchester United Supporters Thread.

Yeah Maldini was very good at 38 but his position isn't I think as demanding as Giggs role on the wing.
 
Re: Manchester United Supporters Thread.

Gibson in the starting eleven. Oh God.

Anyway, let's hope for a moment of brilliance that will secure us an away goal and then try not to concede.
Mostly because I don't think we can completely outmatch the French side.
 
Re: Manchester United Supporters Thread.

Damn.... kinda crappy 1st half so far. Both sides are nowhere near their best and that's disappointing. United starting likes of Gibson and O'Shea with Rooney on left and Carrick having a bad 1st half so far with many misplaced passes. And OM missing key attacking players like Valbuena and Gignac (French Internationals) and where the hell is Taiwo?!

Putting Heinze against Nani these days is almost like suicide. They're lucky they haven't conceded because of that unfair match up yet. And even attacking wise, HEinze is offering nothing with crappy crosses provided when he has the ball on left.

I know Mathieu and Pierre-Andre are injured but what about Taiwo? There's no way Nani could do half the things he can do to Heinze against him being just as fast and even more powerful and attacking wise, he'd offer a lot more too.

I still think Heinze is useful actually but not as a left-back anymore and certainly not against Nani who's become a great player and profited from that Valencia injury big time. I would put him at CB alongside Diawara as he's still a good defender and can be a real threat in the air from corners etc. (In fact I can see him score a goal against Man U in this fashion) and put M'bia in his proper place in midfield instead of the past it Eduardo Cisse or the promising but still fairly green Kabore.

Having said all that, I'm sure Deschamps has his reasons for the team selection the way he has and although a fairly ineffectual 1st half, he's one of the few managers I fully respect and trust though I don't agree with today.

Maybe Taiwo is injured? Suspended?

Anyway... hope the 2nd half is better and it should be said, 1st-legs in general are typically more cagey and cautious anyway and it's the 2nd-legs where teams know it's do or die. That's why both teams have been fairly cautious and come defensive-minded I think.
 
Re: Manchester United Supporters Thread.

PLF said:
Maybe Taiwo is injured? Suspended?
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Deschamps doesn't trust him defensively. I agree with him, I also would have prefered Heinze for a game like this, but unlucky for us Heinze sucks (that's new). Maybe too much pressure.
 
Re: Manchester United Supporters Thread.

He was better in the 2nd half anyway but I don't like that decision.

Yes Taiwo is more attack-minded but similar to Cissokho of Lyon at left-back, they're just so fast and powerful that they will cover a LOT of ground and even if they get beat defensively, they can always recover. Cissochko was also a match for Ronaldo / Di Maria the other day for majority of the game even though he's not the greatest defender either and he also gets forward a lot.

Anyway I hope to see him in 2nd leg which should be a LOT more interesting along with a fit Valbuena and Gignac. Today when Matheiu came on, he looked like he's 60% fit or something lol. I looked more fit and could run faster than he did.

OM wasted many Freekicks and corners by not getting the ball past FIRST f'n defender (near post). A real shame for them. Bad deliveries by Valbuena when he came on and Lucho (who doesn't look like the great player he was anymore either) before that.

Cheyrou should probably start in Old Trafford as well instead of Cisse.
 
Re: Manchester United Supporters Thread.

knh4 said:
Rooney never is or ever was a "playmaker". He was a bull-raging centre-forward who would scare the living daylights out of defenders and thats what he needs to get back to doing.
Click to expand...

He's not been that player since he did his metatarsal against Chelsea in 05/06, then even less so when he did it again against Reading in 07/08.

We'll never get the player who terrorized defences at Euro 2004 anymore, he's completely different to the player we signed.

It's better in some respects but he's nowhere near as exciting and fearsome as he was (the same has been true for a few years now, so it's not just a reaction to his poor form this season).

Anyways, I actually went for a shower at about 55 minutes tonight because it was that disappointing. From what I saw, we were dire but it was a typical away performance in Europe for us, just lucky that Marseille weren't very good going forward. Second leg Valbuena will make a difference because he's a lovely little tricky player. I'm not worried about Gignac though, he's just crap.

I'd say we'll probably see a moment of magic from Nani and sneak a 1-0 without ever being truly convincing in the second leg.
 
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Re: Manchester United Supporters Thread.

No desire to score from either team really. Disappointed by both for setting out so defensively.

Scary thing is, I'm not sure what we would have changed if we had our first XI available. Maybe Giggsy in the midfield 3, but that's about it.

Carrick/Fletcher/Gibson is not good enough.
 
Re: Manchester United Supporters Thread.

As soon as I saw the formation I had a bad feeling about it.

What is with United putting on a 4-3-3 whenever they're playing away in the CL?

Sure, maybe against Barca, but Marseille? Come on, they're not the most unbeatable team in the world, and even with 2 central midfielders we could have outplayed them. We saw glimpses of it when Scholesy came on and Fletcher switched to the right. But that was too little too late.

And sticking Rooney on the left is a horrible horrible idea. I don't think I've ever seen a single good performance from him whenever he's played there. He just looks lost and out of place. SAF probably knows better, but I think that if we are to play this formation, he should have the balls to drop either Rooney or Berbatov, no matter how good they are.

And finally, playing Carrick, Fletch and Gibbo at the same time looks wrong as well. None of them are creative enough to provide United with attacking options.

Oh, how I miss Jason, Tony V and us putting on an offensive display every once in a while in the CL. I'm sure we'll go through as I don't see Marseille winning or drawing the return leg, but this was too painful to watch.
 
Re: Manchester United Supporters Thread.

That was a really poor game overall. Didn't help that our squad was stretched in terms of available midfield options. Still, 9 wins out of our last 11 away CL matches is a great record.
 
Re: Manchester United Supporters Thread.

the squad was stretched to its limit really, doesn't change the fact we were poor but that was down to Carrick not dictating the game for us and unfortunately It seems we NEED Anderson or Scholes otherwise the front 3 aren't going to get enough of the ball.

I was worried prior and even more now, 1-0 with 30 minutes to go and Marseille are banging on the door :ANX:
 
Re: Manchester United Supporters Thread.

Yep, hint of Lille about this one. Away goal could be killer.

We're just not very good right now. Makes you realise how spoilt we've been over the past 20 years in terms of footballing entertainment!
 
Re: Manchester United Supporters Thread.

I don't get why some people think it was a good result. Even if we'll probably dominate them at Old Trafford, a single fluke goal and we'll be be in deep trouble.

Hopefully we'll start playing better now. The last 2 games were some of the poorest I've seen from United in years.
 
Re: Manchester United Supporters Thread.

How poor has Fletcher been this season? Off the back of two very good seasons, where he managed to break into the starting lineup after appearing sporadically in our double winning season, he's been below-par.

At least Anderson will be back in a couple of weeks. Valencia's been earmarked for the cup game against Leyton Orient/Arsenal, which is great news.
 
Re: Manchester United Supporters Thread.

It's not a popular opinion, but I've never really rated Fletcher as a true central midfielder. He is most useful when running around and harrying is what is required - but that's not really a 'talent' so much as desire and fitness. He's never really had the ability to thread passes through to the forwards, or play quick tempo first time football. It's not that he's bad, it's that he's not 'class'.

This used to be disguised by the fact that we had Ronaldo, Rooney, Tevez and either Giggs or Nani playing as well, which basically meant the opposition couldn't focus on our CMF because the attack was so potent that they needed to double up there.

Now that our forwards are weaker, it has allowed opposition's defences to harry our midfield duo, and Fletcher (and Carrick) just don't have the ability to deal with that.

The Marseille was a great example of our deficiencies - in a 442 it's fine for your midfield 2 to be mainly ball winners and distributors out to the wings, but in a 433 you need play to build through the middle. And Gibbo/Fletcher/Carrick do not have the ability to do this. We still tried to go out wide, and had Nani double or triple teamed, and even when he got the ball in it was only Berbatov slinking about in the box. Utter failure from a tactics point of view.

Given his historic ruthlessness, I can only assume that Fergie has been told we're broke, or else he would never have let our quality fall to such a low level in such an important area of the pitch. He puts a brave face on for interviews, but you know he must be absolutely gutted by what our style of football has become.
 
Re: Manchester United Supporters Thread.

As negative as it sounds, we need another player like Ronaldo or Tevez that can singlehandedly destroy teams. As good as he is, Berba cant do it cuz he's not that kind of player.
Like you said, our midfield needs its space for them to operate like in the past. And thats only gonna happen if some of the attention was taking off them from the opponents.

Our only hope is when Valencia comes back, we can fit Giggs back into midfield. Things might change from there.
 
Re: Manchester United Supporters Thread.

RuneEdge said:
As negative as it sounds, we need another player like Ronaldo or Tevez that can singlehandedly destroy teams. As good as he is, Berba cant do it cuz he's not that kind of player.
Click to expand...
Nani's well on his way to becoming that player.
 
Re: Manchester United Supporters Thread.

Were really not that far off lads, I know some might be panicking with thinking were on the way down but I really think (excluding the Keeper) were 1 big signing and a squad player away from being 07/08 good again.

Replacing Scholes is the key (the management will decide whether Anderson's future is playing from deep or further forward) and then purchasing someone to fill the blank (Deep - Modric, Banega and Sahin) or (Advanced (probably needs to be able to operate from the left for our 4-4-2) - Pastore, Kagawa and maybe Sanchez) adding that player will be massive for our team and we'll bring him in the summer im sure and along with Anderson be able to give our forwards plenty to work with.

Fletcher has been poor this season but the reason is he's also the only option we have when it comes to "that" type of player because Hargreaves has fallen of the planet, so Fletcher could be a little burned out but adding a 2ndry player doing that "harassing" job is essential.

just patience is needed lads :))
 
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