Manchester United

You watched it again? 

Can't blame Lukaku too much, after the service and chances he's been getting so far this season, he cut a very lonely figure up front feeding off mere scraps, no wonder his frustration threatened to boil over. Even De Gea was getting frustrated, cut to him a couple of times urging the team on - Just wish that message reverberated through the rest of them.

I'm hoping that if Bailly was available for the match we wouldn't have sat so deep - Bit of composure and confidence on the ball and the necessary speed to push a bit higher as needed but double back if a ball was played in behind. 

When Matic started dropping back in between Smalling and Jones at the start of the second half we essentially surrendered the midfield which was probably the most disappointing thing for me. Hence why I say we looked afraid. The only thing that makes me happier as a result of this game is that we're still 7 points ahead of Liverpool who appear to have caught our disease from last season.

As much as I agree it wasn't a good performance (we could have had better delivery from crosses, been better at keeping the ball and winning our tackles) it was the exact way you needed to play against Liverpool. Their strength is in their pace up top and finding gaps in between the lines. Why would you play in a way that allows that? 

Hence we set up to counter attack and compactly defend. United also couldn't press centrally and force turnovers in midfield as they have done in recent games because they were short three CMs. 

And Jose was right in saying that Liverpool never really went for it - their midfield was not going to do more than keep the ball and prevent counter attacks, and their fullbacks did not push forward to create overloads. He was hoping to exploit that part of Liverpool's game, but it never eventuated. 

I understand that Liverpool's defence has been there for the taking, but recent form is not so relevant in these games. Liverpool at home should have had more obligation to go for it but can understand why neither wanted to. 

Grafted win this morning. Seemed easy for us to defend, but couldn't make chances at the other end. Would have been good to have a home game next to get some momentum going forward, but two more away games coming up. 

On the other hand, maybe Huddersfield and Swansea at home will take more risks in attack than Liverpool :P

As talented as he is, he  would have to improve quite frankly.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-...

If Ozil is surrounded by players like Pogba and Lukaku I think he'd do better than when he's got Giroud and Cazorla.

Weird that you would pick two of our better players in that example. Fair enough if you said Welbeck and Coquelin, but both Giroud and Cazorla are actually decent, particularly Cazorla. 

Ozil probably played his best club football with Ronaldo around him. (Was it under Mourinho???)

I too would take him over Mkhi at this point in time. I think he'd work great with Rashford in particular.

Really poor first half at Huddersfield. 

2-0 down, to two very poor mistakes first from a poor touch from Mata and then a basic missed header from Lindelof. Phil Jones off injured after 20 odd minutes, and it just got worse from there. 

Don't know what it's been this week but it's been very poor to see us falling back into last seasons habits. Personnel issues aside it just looks like we've gone flat, no buzz, minimal movement, and poor decision making. Second half about to kick off. Hopefully we come out and actually look to accomplish something.

Aaron Mooy scored. There goes his value up another notch. When i first saw him play in the A League i was hoping the Nix might have gone after him, alas they didn't.

Just that one game every year when some small away team turns up to watch us and the ref lets the crowd ref the game.

Still think Rashford is best as a striker.

I can't pin what it is but Lindelöf just doesn't seem very good.

Desperately need Pogba back.

I always laugh when there's something like 4 minutes stoppage time, then we get blatant injuries and subs in stoppage time, and the game ends exactly on the 94th minute.

Have played a lot worse and won. We actually played better than we did against Liverpool and Benfica. Still have the same problems as before, giving the ball away and also players that are not good enough. Young gave away more balls that the rest combined. 

On a scale of headed goals, Lingard's was pretty bloody tops.

The main problem seems to be that we dont have players who are able to keep the ball, ensure that we retain the ball in the first few phases when we win the ball. The last few games we have struggled when we have had a low percentage of the possession. It definitely showed against Liverpool and even in the next few games, we have never been in control when in possession. 

The Herrera-Matic and Lindelof-Smalling partnerships just dont seem to have that same balance about them and those areas are pretty key in any team

@ Nelfoos

I'd take Carzola over Pogba any day if Ozil is the #10 in a 4-2-3-1

Very good result against Tottenham this morning.

Even if the game didn't have lots of attacking cut and thrust or an onslaught of chances it was a riveting game in poor conditions. Good to see us get stuck in and not back down from confrontation. Really impressed with Matic in the engine room of midfield, thought he won a lot of good ball in those 50-50 situations, used his strength well and made some telling interventions. Ashley Young played well too, it's amazing what can happen if you stay on your feet for the majority of the match!

Phil Jones, as he has been all season - an absolute beast in defence. Thought he might have had a week off given his knock v Huddersfield last week, but credit to him came in and put in a solid shift for another clean sheet, and if you took the risk and selected him in fantasy premier league he got the 3 bonus points too! 

Much to like about the way we played, and miles ahead of what we produced at Anfield. Away at Chelsea next week, will be interested to see how we play that one.

Excellent result but Spurs were the better footballing side. 

Still too many players on the pitch today that are not up to taking us to the title. Spurs will be up there and City of course.

A  draw would have been a fairer result. 

Really need Pobga and Fellani back as well as Zlatan. 

I think the first half they were definitely. Better passing, better movement and more chances. Thought we bossed them a bit in the second half, and apart from Alli missing his golden chance from 6-7 yards I didn't think they offered much else. 

We pressed them hard and contested the 50-50's and I think it caught them off guard a bit, Alli, Eriksen, Sissoko, Dembele, Winks & Son didn't get the freedom and space that they've become accustomed too, and probably weren't expecting the level of physicality that we brought.

Also seeing a lot of chatter about, 'oh it would have been different had Kane been playing...' 

Well he wasn't, this is the Premier League - you have to play what's in front of you, talking hypothetical's doesn't change the outcome.

You have to be dead in the head to actually say this shark - it would've been different with Pogba as well.

Anywhooo...

Mkhi looks bang average lately. Martial and Rashford are by far our best attacking options. No idea why they can't both start.

You take the equivalent to Ibrahimovic and Pogba out of any team and they will be worse than what United has been without them. Add injuries to Jones, Bailly, Rojo, Fellaini and Carrick and you start to see that United has not done too badly lately. Individual errors at Huddersfield cannot be accounted for. 

When the games keep coming thick and fast, thats when the good teams will shine through and I am still skeptical that City will keep up their form. 

Radio NZ article about the time Manchester United came to New Zealand

^that was cool

Happy to see that Gareth Southgate agrees with me about Smalling.

I turned off when Rashford got subbed. 1-0 down, grow some nuts. Take Young off or something and go for it.

The Mkhitaryan experiment is over. He cannot perform against anyone other than minnows in the Europa league.

The 4-3-3 we had for the last 30 minutes is how we should have started. Except maybe Mata instead of Fellaini; Fellaini who gave away the ball twice from a ridiculous touch in front of goal. Chelsea should have scored both.

Zlatan is back next game apparently and I completely fail to see how he's going to inspire anything different yet some (deluded) fans think he'll offer something more than standing around and hoping to ball arrives on his head.

All that said I might go put a tenner on United winning the Champions League.

We have as  much chance of that as I have of winning 1st division  lotto.

I have just watched the game again and my take is just repetitive. We do not have enough quality  players to challenge the top teams.

If I could take 4/5 of the best  Chelsea player then we could certainly be champions. JM only had two players that he chose and inherited the rest. Some are pretty good players, others are not.

City will bolt in, but I said this months ago.

I don't know Leggy, right now these players are playing within the shell they've been given.

I knew we lost the second I saw us start with five at the back. Mourinho is happy grinding results but these players are not suited to beating opponents like that and the manager needs to acknowledge it. Lukaku is a waste of time if he can't get touches in the box. Martial and Rashford are wastes of times if they have to spend all their energy defending, and never get the ball at feet facing goal. Mkhi is a waste of time without ball. Herrera is a waste of time if he doesn't have a player to work the ball with (i.e., a Mata).

You can even go stretch it further and argue that Valencia and Young are a waste of time if they can never get forward. Jones, Bailly, and Smalling are a waste of time if they're asked to sit in a perfect structure and wait.

Mourinho setup a team to nullify Chelsea and effectively shackled our players. Chelsea sniffed blood and took it. 

Mourinho has scored 1 away goal in 900 minutes against "the big six". That's atrocious and I think he has to wear the blame for that.

There is some  truth in in your comments. We should not be playing 3 at the back as they are not good enough. I still think that Morata would have been a better buy for us than Lukaku, but we are not good enough to play him as the lone ranger. Still reckon that we have too many player that are not up to it. If you talk quality then De Gea and Matic are it with a few other good players and the rest squad players.

We may get to be in the top 3 but don't deserve any better. You have to laugh ---- we are still second. 

Why is everyone so doom and gloom? United are second in the league, still in the Carabao cup and are 4 from 4 in the Champions League. We have played reasonably well so far this season and have just had a flat month. 

During that time Bailly, Jones and Fellaini missed games, while Carrick and Pogba didn't play at all. Add Rojo and Zlatan to that and most other teams would not have coped with those sort of unavailabilities, especially when they are all in the same positions. 

While the quality of the performances have not been the best, I would argue that the main issue has been individual performances, not the tactics / intent etc. The ball control and passing quality has been so poor. No one has consistently played well. 

A point at Anfield, a win against Spurs and two wins against Benfica is not bad during a flat period. Everyone has moments in the season and maybe they will be worse.

Personally I rather enjoyed that game. Great to see Martial and Rashford both start, which I have been harping on about for a while :P

Rashford had patches through the 2nd half where he appeared to look like he was playing as a proper striker. Funnily enough I think that is both Rashford's and Martial's best position.

Pogba has proved himself instrumental in his own way. I still hear people quip about how he is useless and we're clearly at a point now where anyone making this assessment does not watch him play.

First game for a while that we played well and was good to watch. Pobga made a huge difference and even Smalling had an excellent game for a change. Should have scored a lot more and we need to win the next three games at least.

Realistically there was not much different from that game to the other recent games, except Pogba and Mata had more quality in keeping possession. Apart from the first 20 mins, Newcastle didn't put any decent pressure on the team and even Lindelof looked comfortable. 

Cant wait for the goals to start raining in, as the defense has already been very solid again this year

My wife said to me after 20 mins that the biggest difference was the ball movement was quicker-- which it was.

Yeah, Mata much better than Mkhitaryan for that sort of game.

I'm not entirely sold on Lindelof but he does appear to be a good ball player. Pogbas range of passing makes a good difference to the team, small things like rolling away from his player on a throw in and hitting a first time switch ball to the other side of the field with the outside of his foot, makes it easier to stretch the oppo. I still feel like we isolate Lukaku a bit much at times though.

Lukaku is involved more, if not the same as any other premier league strikers. Yes all the teams have different styles but this is a decent indicator that there is no problem with his involvement (I couldn't easily get total touches per game anywhere, so passes was next best)

Passes per 90mins:

Lukaku - 21.2
Kane - 18.4
Aguero - 25.6
Morata - 21.3

As usual, somehow there is no issue being made about Kane's involvement, even though it is noticeably worse than the others.

Seen else where. Completely agree. The Fellaini experiment has to stop. Play him as a striker or not at all.

Tuanzebe and Fosu-Mensah both would've put in better shifts than Darmian and Blind today yet they've been more or less written off by Mourinho.

Some tragic stuff.

I am going to disagree - it was not the midfield's fault, it was the wingers not providing enough width. So I was glad that both Martial and Lingard got subbed, and you can understand Pogba coming off. You would think that Jose is telling them to hold the width and provide delivery for Lukaku / Fellaini, if they both are in the box expecting crosses. 

You could argue that when Martial came off, a winger should have come on, but Zlatan needed to come on so adjustments were made.  

Agree that the full backs were awful and I just can't believe how badly both of them defended 1v1 - I wouldn't be surprised if Rojo played more at LB when all the CBs are fit. 

I just thought Basel played the game tactically very well, pack the middle of the park and hope the delivery is poor. Which it was. United never got going in the second half, which was disappointing given how many chances they created in the first half. 

He certainly wasn't the worst player on the park today and has played well in most games he has played all season. Is actually good in possession also. The delivery was letting him and Lukaku down as both wingers and fullbacks could not produce any decent delivery. 

Not sure that Tuanzebe and Fosu-Mensah have been written off either - sending TFM on loan to get games is definitely the right call and while both have played as fullbacks, both are ultimately CBs / DMs.