Manchester United Thread

Not bad at all. A late winner. Some nice ball movement some times but a certain lag of creativity in the final third. Lucky to get away with the Smalling challenge, clear penalty, and Evans not acting quite classy.
 
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Liverbird said:
Have Manchester United been lucky this season?
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It's a good article, in that the stats show United pretty much mid-range in most of the 'luck' categories - except of course having a very good goalkeeper.

The narrative is already written now in United matches. If United dominate possession, don't score in the first half, score midway through the second half and then close it out it is described as: 'lackluster', 'unconvincing', 'lacking that cutting edge' and 'somewhat fortuitous'.

If Chelsea give an identical showing it's described as 'the performance of champions', 'gritty', 'professional', 'hard fought'.

Or if Tottenham are crap for 85 minutes and then nick a late winner to take a 2-1 victory (which has happened literally once every two matches) it's a testament to Pocchetino's fitness regime. Wonder if anyone will mention Bentaleb's quality save today? Doubt it. If that's a United player it's back page stuff.

To fit the narrative, you have MOTD not showing Rooney's perfectly good goal against Newcastle which was wrongly disallowed for offside. Because that wouldn't go along with the pre-determined story.

One thing about being a United fan - we're the only team in the country who would have had that article written about them. Because the editors in the media know that any negative article about us will be read two-fold over anything else they can publish.
 
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You are getting old man.
Not asingle post without mentioning Chelsea and now you also picked Spurs.


United are lacklustre considering the money Van Gaal was able to spend. There is this Fantastic stat in the Chelsea thread that Terry and Ivanovic have scoredcmore than Falcao and Di Maria.
 
gerd said:
You are getting old man.
Not asingle post without mentioning Chelsea and now you also picked Spurs.


United are lacklustre considering the money Van Gaal was able to spend. There is this Fantastic stat in the Chelsea thread that Terry and Ivanovic have scoredcmore than Falcao and Di Maria.
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And Di Maria and Falcao are competing in line with players like Morientes, Shevchenko, Kezman and so forth. There are always flops in new leagues that you don't see coming. You could make a similar graphic that Terry and Ivanovic have scored more than Willian and Remy - those two defenders have been exceptional this year and I'm sure Chelsea will break the record for goals from defenders. Not sure what that has to do with anything?

I didn't mean to highlight Chelsea - just picked them as they're top of the table. You could swap out Chelsea for Alex Ferguson's United just as easily. We were dull but efficient for his last 2 years. Countless performances described as 'winning mentality', 'getting the job done' and so forth. LVG's United isn't that much worse, just slower.
 
Regardless of what the media writes and says (They all have an agenda and that is to garner more views or subscriptions, so really don't pay too much attention to what the media is saying) you have to agree after watching the matches that we are very dull. Yes, it provides results and we do win after grinding it out, but compared to how we used to play under SAF, we are just holding onto the possession and denying the other team of a chance rather than creating chances for ourselves. People won't call for LVG to quit or leave because of this, but as a first season in charge, you can see that he's being too cautious to ensure that we get the results first before he actually does anything attractive.

Then comes the notion that many of the big buys this summer weren't because LVG wanted them, but maybe management just putting big names in to attract sponsors for the season that they're out of Europe. Maybe this summer we'll see players that actually help the team. (Much like Blind and Rojo that came in the last days and how effective they have been in comparison to others)
 
The funny thing is that the best signing, Herrera, was a Moyes signing.

And the same could be said for arguably Utd's 2nd most influential player this season (Fellaini)

The big signings were Woodward signings.
 
Thats why all coaches need time. Unless they already have a wonderful squad, they need time to have their way played out. For the right players and such. Now does that mean that a manager shouldn't adapt to what he has? No, most can adapt, however, many are also very certain of their style of play which can win and need players who follow him.
 
Hi Gerd.

About Fellaini - maybe not in the media, but believe me, most of the fans still think he's shit and he's only useful for the "hoofball" tactic. Apart from 2 or 3 games where his physicality proved to be effective, he's been really bad even if he's a bit better than last season.

I still don't rate him as well, and the only difference from last season imo is that he should be a bench player (whereas last season I hoped we got rid of him). Still nowhere near the United starter quality we should be aspiring to. And it's not like we don't have way better players for the job than him (since he is used as an attacking player). Damn, we have Juan Mata, who practically is as good as David Silva and better than Oscar (imo).

It really makes no sense to have Fellaini in a team which strives towards a possession style, when you have a lock-picker/passing specialist like Mata on the bench...
 
It's a really good point on transfers - as many books on LVG have said - he believes in the system over the players. He doesn't create or tailor a system to work with the players he has, he prefers to fit players into the system he believes most effective.

So I'd expect a good fair new players more in line with Blind/Rojo than Falcao/Di Maria.
 
Having to listen to Danny Murphy commentate on a United match is the biggest f*ck you to United fans I've ever had to endure.

His bias is absolutely shocking. I mean, what the hell?
 
Di Maria s sending off was 100% correct. Professional world class player my ass. Those La Like like dives and hissy fits don't belong in the PL. We miss traditional hard working Utd-like balls of steel atm. Save for Rooney and DDG.
First half we played well and thought we d easily walk away with this. Then another collapse.
 
Wow, just saw a replay of the sending off. Not as outrageous as Twitter made it sound, but you can't touch referees like Oliver. Unless you're Joe Hart, of course.

Think a more mature ref would have had a chat, it wasn't aggressive at all. I've seen far worse from players down the years. It is strictly true you can't touch a ref, so fair play to Oliver, but that's a bit like holding on corners. You gotta call em all if you're going to call one, imo.

Painful loss, our season is over. No balance, really poor from LVG again. Bit of a shame Danny chose to celebrate as he did - there's almost no player in England who owes more to a single club than Welbeck.

I think we'll finish 7th again.
 
As an aside, being a United fan this year is pretty rotten. Haven't even made time to watch the last 3 matches - that hasn't happened in about 15 years.

The results don't really bother me, but there's something soul-destroying about seeing this collection of players incapable of creating chances. I mean, Mata, Herrera, Rooney, Di Maria - those 4 HAVE to be better than this.

And we have nothing to look forward to. Our best player will be off when Mendes decides it's time. Di Maria looks like he has the spine of a jellyfish and doesn't want to be here. We took a gamble on Falcao and it failed. Gambled on Jones and Smalling and they're both worse than 5 years ago. Valencia at RB. Fellaini.

All pretty bleak.
 
i was curious what will you say about this stats and if they are true, since i don´t watch United matches.. but i hear and read a lot about their tactics going wrong way this season..
 
beachryan said:
Wow, just saw a replay of the sending off. Not as outrageous as Twitter made it sound, but you can't touch referees like Oliver. Unless you're Joe Hart, of course.

Think a more mature ref would have had a chat, it wasn't aggressive at all. I've seen far worse from players down the years. It is strictly true you can't touch a ref, so fair play to Oliver, but that's a bit like holding on corners. You gotta call em all if you're going to call one, imo.

Painful loss, our season is over. No balance, really poor from LVG again. Bit of a shame Danny chose to celebrate as he did - there's almost no player in England who owes more to a single club than Welbeck.

I think we'll finish 7th again.
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I think the referee had a decent game in all, he was consistent throughout which was refreshing to see. As for the red card, i think he'd just gotten sick of United players throwing tantrums and screaming at him so when di Maria grabbed his shirt it was probably because he'd had enough and thought he had to put a stop to it. It's not very often a player grabs a referee but when they do they're usually punished.
 
You can't touch a ref, so that's a correct sending off. However, there are some fouls which weren't called as the diving reputation of some go ahead of them, so when they do dive, it was a clear card. Before there were two fouls that weren't whistled. It should be either a foul or a booking for a dive. (Anywayz, I hate divers and feel that some united players really need to cut that part out).

And Valencia....both goals were from mistakes from him and I must say that while he's been poor this game, the worst player on the field for me is still Smalling. If Giroud was on from the start, it'd probably be 3 or 4 goals already from all the mistakes Smalling did.
 
I stood by LVG until he came out after the match and said Valencia was our best player.

He's on a wind up. This is all an immense parody of himself. Or the Premier League. Or something. It's a Dutch punked and RVP is the victim? Please?
 
Listening to TalkSports after the match.... Losing to The Arsenal brought out all the frustration out on MUTD. I mean from Keane to Schimiechel " it's Mutd uncharacteristic side" The fone ins from fans bashing Fellaini and putting his brute tactic snd one dimensional style is a bit harsh. I think his fouls go unnoticed like they mention 8 fouls before he gets book imo seems more of a ' speculation foul' where it seems more clumsy then antics.

I think Coq for being thin ( weaker) , he was all over the place like a terrier. He was Violating Fellaini's personal space at every moment. The diving wasn't clever the contact was so minimal they were feeling the pressure . The ref didn't have the best calls , but Arsenal don't have that diplomacy like Rooney always putting a bug in the ref's ear at every whistle the ref made. I think Smalling kept running up the pitch trying to pass the ball on the floor into an Arsenal player ,then kept getting caught off position. He was doing that regularly I say he had the hardest job on the night .
 
Bebo, I don't think the ref had bad calls. I thought he was impressive because he ignored the pressure and booked the players who dived blatantly and made an example of them. The Di Maria thing, well he brought it on himself.

A lesser referee would shy away from those calls against the away team for sure.
 
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