Manchester United

We were boring against PSV but less so against Leicester. Still too many players that are not good enough at this level. Easy to blame the manager but you can only be as good as the players you have got.On todays performance, at least four of this side should be sold and replaced by better players. You only have to look at the players at City and Arsenal to see the difference. Their  problems are probably more management, not player quality.

Congrats to Jamie Vardy..

T'was the type of counter attacking goal Man Utd used to do so well.

Guess who? A team with a reputation for fast attack, attack, attack and never believing a game is lost, including the most exciting young attacking British, along with the one of the best up and coming left wing forwards and a defence with Schmeichel behind them...

And yet they won't finish in the top four.

Possibly. Could do the double though a team like that!! Well, I used to follow United as best as I could during the emergence of that team in the pre-internet clip era and with prohibitive TV costs, and I have to be honest inthat I'd rather see the underdog story go on with this team as long as it can. Being honest, too, no one thought it would last this long as it is. De Gea saved your blushes a bit in that game.

On chances created it could have been 4-4, but we should have been 2-0 down at half time. The press keep claiming that we have the best defense in the league but that is certainly not true. Every team we play looks likely to score from corners or free kicks. We are just lucky as we have a lot of ball watchers. Hard to understand how Mata keeps getting a start. Can only go sideways/backwards, and the reason is he is just too slow. Will find out next week - away to Bournemouth as they are a very attacking side and one of the most enjoyable  games I have seen was their 3-3 draw with Everton last week.

Personally I am, as usual, relatively optimistic. You may deny it Leggy but I believe our defence is pretty top notch. West Ham's best chances today came from out mistakes (De Gea mishandling, sharkty back pass) which are growingly uncharacteristic. Varela looked good but got a bit "fussed" in the closing minutes with two silly mistakes that lucky didn't lead to anything, but yet another good prospect.

If the first third of this season was about closing the defence, then we've done that, and now we're starting to create real chances. We had 21 attempts today and 9, a whole 9 were from inside the box (:P). We should've buried them. As Giggs said at the start of the 2007/08 season after Ronny, Tevez and Rooney were only winning games 1-0, "we're not too worried, if you're creating chances the goals will come."

Lingard really needs to tidy up that part of his game, and when he does he is looking like he will become a superb player. Cannot wait to watch him, Memphis, Martial, Januzaj and potentially Perreira next year. On the subject of Perreira, I really wish he could get a start. Him instead of Fellaini, or as you say, Mata.

I'm not sure if Mata is being played out of his favoured position or not but we're not getting any danger out of him at all. There's no cute passes, no dangerous shots, no runs, nothing. I would particularly like to see us play Perreira instead of Mata:

-----------------------------DDG

Young/Verela - Smalling - Blind/Jones - Darmian

-------------------- Carrick/Schmidfield

--------Lingard -------- Perreira -------- Memphis

----------------------------- Martial

With Shaw at left back, Darmian on the right and an in form front four (or one big signing) this would be a pretty sweet team.

Bournemouth will be one of those games, like Leicester last year, where they get up for it because Manchester United is in town or get kicked because they actually try and attack.

I am still optimistic, and you are right about some of the young players. The chances came from   mistakes from our defenders, so what I said still stands. The only place for Carrick is on the bench. He just keeps giving the ball away.  I usually watch the game 2/3 times and hone in on a couple of players. That is when you can see what they are made of. Smalling is another one. Can pass 10/15 metres but hitting anything more is not in his capabilities - they either get cut out or more often sail into touch. 

Am hoping LVG spends buckets on a top striker in January, because of the chances we will create we could beat any of the other teams.

It is no good pretending that all our players are fantastic. One has to be honest-- unlike some other supporters.

Yea those dishonest supporters who say all your players are good annoy me too.

I did say Welbeck was not up to it.

Oh I see. Just a casual reference to Arsenal fans at the end of your ManU post in the ManU thread, intimating that they are dishonest if they think Welbeck is any good. 

Makes sense. Can't see how I didn't pick that up, silly me.

LOL.  Nowhere did I mention anything about Arsenal fans being dishonest. 

I could care less what you believe, but really, trying to make something out of what I said on different threads tells me that any mention of Arsenal is sacrosanct.

Oh so it is ManU fans that are being dishonest - that's what I thought you meant, but was thrown by your mention of an Arsenal player.

So my original comment can stand. 

I really have better and more important things to do, so I will try once more.

I was making a comment on Utd fans. In another thread you agreed with me. I then mentioned DW. I have mentioned him before as not being up to it, so I said his name once again-------------- all of a sudden you can't wait to bag me. Let a life Paul.

A pity we don't play like that every game. Created more chances in this game than we have in the last five.

All the Smalling fans who probably think I have been harsh on him should watch this game and see how really average he is. Carrick and Smalling cost us the three goals. However, for once we looked good going forward. LVG should spend big on a class defender and another striker.

Not sure how letting your man go at one set piece means you are an average player. Smalling has been crucial to our defensive record and saying that he is average based on today is silly. Yes he didnt stand up when he was needed but there is no doubting he has played well this season. Schweinsteiger was also average today and was at fault for a goal too. 

I am more concerned about the inability to keep a lead. The first 5-10 mins after you score is all about keeping control of the game and United have conceded too many goals straight after they have scored one. Thats where a leader is missing who can keep everyone focussed. 

Today however showed that the criticism of LVG is maybe somewhat misdirected - he can only tell the players how to play and if they dont take they chances or pick up their man at set pieces then what more can he do? One more season in experience for the likes of Darmain, Depay, Martial and Lingard will do them a world of good. But yes, a striker or two is definitely needed to complete he squad

Smalling has improved out of sight this season, as he knew that on past performance LVG was ready to dump him. In saying that, in my opinion he is an average defender, not just cause he did not pick up the man. ( who did score) My feeling on him is that he has believed all the accolades that he has had this season .BS dived in, but Smalling had no chance of getting to the ball as he misjudged it completely.

Michael Owen summed it up earlier this week when he said' Even I could play defender for Utd at the moment ' Any side will not be successful unless they have good defenders. Had we had those today we would have won.I have been watching Smalling for 5 years and he just not do it for me, and at 26 years old he is slowly running out of time.

I guess I have been spoiled by watching top Utd defenders such as Bruce, Vidic,Stam, to name a few.

A lot of them are average IMO when you consider that the club aspires to be up alongside and markets itself globally as being equal to Barca, Real & Bayern. For me van Gaal has lost his way.

Europa League it is then. Possibly a good thing. Give the coach a chance. Fergusson nearly lost his job after 2 seasons and look what happened when it clicked into place.

Man Utd have conceded the least amount of goals in the premier league, but are "just lucky as we have a lot of ball watchers"

Smalling "can pass 10/15 metres but hitting anything more is not in his capabilities" and is no where near as good as Bruce, Vidic and Stam who were obviously raking 50 yard passes all over the pitch whenever they played. The 3 players you mentioned all were pure defenders who could barely pass wind, and were played along side another ball-playing (passing) centre back - Pallister, Ferdinand and Ronnie Johnson (or possibly Ferdinand) respectively.

Not sure why you have such a soft-on for Smalling but he is playing as well as he ever has, is they key component in the best defence in the premier league (and if you think that anything Owen says about football anything has any merit then you are more deluded than I thought) and is the number 1 England centreback at the moment. Not sure what else he can do, or who you realistically think you can replace him with. This may upset you Leggy, but if Man Utd buy another centre back it will be to play alongside Smalling, and not in place of him.

I've still no idea what you're on about with talk of other threads, I just purely commented on what you said here, and I was just being tongue-in-cheek anyway. 
I then misinterpreted what you were on about when you bought up Welbeck, so anything after that is really just silliness, I shouldn't have kept on at you in hindsight, your comments are fair about me taking a chance to bag. In this case I got it a bit wrong.

To be fair you are the king of bagging Arsenal at every turn so I'm sure you understand ;)

I agree about another centre back and I don't think he will be replaced. As you mentioned he will play along side him. He is not a leader and that is what you need in that position. The fact that he is playing as well as he ever had does not mean anything.The players I mentioned could at least organize the defense around them. 

Of course this is my opinion and you are obviously the expert. As you say,  Michael Owen knows nothing about the game.

Last time we were in the Europa we ended up equal points for the EPL, beat Chelsea at home 3-1 and the one to remember was 8-2 at home to Arsenal. :)

Atleast get some decent banter, this is the meme of a 13 year old and... oh.

In other news, our 3 most experienced players made 3 stupid mistakes.

Fellaini is an embarrassment to this club. How confident would you be if you saw that buffoon lining up against you in CM? Even if you weren't the tallest player you'd just wait for him to bring it down when no doubt his touch would have the ball flying 50 yards anyway. That's if you hadn't already gone down holding your face because he's decided his best chance of winning the ball is to take a elbow you in the face.

If Smalling played for Barcelona he'd be a 95 on Fifa 16 and everyone would be standing around a fire tossing themselves on how good he is. Why the hell would he need to fire a 50 yard pass? On the contrary I actually think he's a relatively decent dribbler, unfortunetly he doesn't have an afro or he'd play CM.

I'm not hating on LVG here, I just wish we could play 3 good CMs (Schweiny, Carrick/Sch/Herrera, Mata) and 3 decent attackers (Martial, Memphis, Lingard) at the same time. Unfortunately there's always someone by the name of Fellaini or (spoken very sadly) Rooney or Mata (being played out of position) on at the same time.

He can't, not bright enough.

Is it time for Rooney to move on to someone else now?

Might be pretty difficult finding a club willing to pay £300k a week through to 2019!

or that is simple and effective

Is he still worth it?

No one is worth that, but he is still an outstanding talent, but not playing that well.

Again Leggy, I have to disagree with you there - Rooney is a busted flush. His body is shot due to the sheer number of games he has played (started young and not had any serious injuries) coupled with the fact that he does not look after himself in the manner that a professional sportsman should. He famously took the piss out of Ferdinand and Giggs when they took up yoga in an attempt to prolong their careers, something that he would never consider. He looks painfully laborious now, and that will only get worse over the remaining years of his contract (of which there are 3 after this one, I think).

Also, I don't buy the "no one is worth that" line - football is a multi-billion pound industry and I much prefer large percentages of that money going to the players as opposed to any owners or agents.

Can someone explain United's game plan at Bournemouth? They looked really in-cohesive with no real direction. Who was captain and not leading the team. Sorry but your guys deserved to lose that one. Horrible game plan or lack of.

Did I ever tell you that I hate touch screen keyboards?? Fixed up the large number of blunders.

Let's get rid of the gaffer.

Horrible defending, and I've been saying it for a long time. Smalling was not playing but that does not excuse players at this level looking like schoolboys. The worry for me in todays game was the lack of ' bottle. '

Your attack is awful too. Watching you going forward is like a trip to the dentist, painful.

The players have to take some blame. A lot of them are hiding and many are not good enough.

Keep blaming the players.... LVG is the one who trimmed the squad so far back that he is relying on youth team players to cover injuries. LVG is the guy who has spent a massive amount of money and left us weak in certain areas. LVG is the guy who keeps playing Rooney who game after game after game is sub standard. LVG is the guy who sets the tactical approach and the style of football that lacks intent, pace or imagination. LVG is the guy who has a team which creates close to half the number of chances Fergies side created but even more damning he is the guy who sets out a team which creates less chances per game that Moyes did.

Hey but thats all ok, lets blame the players. He bought them, he picks them, he tells them the style of play to play.

LVG is becoming as much of a joke as Moyes was. 

I can't see any belief in the players.