OFFICIAL: Chelsea v Manchester United|05.11.2017|16.30 BST|Sky Sports Premier League

Originally Posted by Sparky***

How exactly are you supposed to 'have a go' when your players can't string 5 passes together and crumble the minute they get put under pressure?

Seriously, i'm intrigued to know.

Are jones and smalling going to suddenly learn how to co-ordinate their feet and pass the ball better? Is Valencia going to stop being a one dimensional, one-footed, work horse? Is Ashley young suddenly going to become any good. At all?

Is Mkhitaryan going to stop vanishing and Lukaku learn how to actually play with his back to goal?

I'm all up for this 'up and at 'em' approach but surely somewhere along the line you have to have the ability to actually go and take the game to these teams? What is it about this particular squad of players that you've seen over the last 2-3 years that leads you to believe that they can just simply go "f*** it, let's just go for it"?

And we had a go at the start. We played two up top and we were buzzing around.

That quickly disintegrated once Chelsea got their shit together and exploited our weaknesses.

Then our confidence drained, as it so frequently has in the last couple of years.

Part of 'having a go' is having the confidence and belief in the first place.

Originally Posted by Sparky***

How exactly are you supposed to 'have a go' when your players can't string 5 passes together and crumble the minute they get put under pressure?

Seriously, i'm intrigued to know.

Are jones and smalling going to suddenly learn how to co-ordinate their feet and pass the ball better? Is Valencia going to stop being a one dimensional, one-footed, work horse? Is Ashley young suddenly going to become any good. At all?

Is Mkhitaryan going to stop vanishing and Lukaku learn how to actually play with his back to goal?

I'm all up for this 'up and at 'em' approach but surely somewhere along the line you have to have the ability to actually go and take the game to these teams? What is it about this particular squad of players that you've seen over the last 2-3 years that leads you to believe that they can just simply go "f*** it, let's just go for it"?

I reckon actually coaching them to do that might help. Quite obviously there isn't much of that going on, which, as distasteful as it may be to you, comes back to the man you have for years been hoping would 'save us'.

So get your players to work on their passing then. Don't just wring your hands and say oh it can't be done, don't blame me, blame the @#%&! who was sacked three years ago and never coached half these @#%&!s.

Originally Posted by Alan

I reckon actually coaching them to do that might help. Quite obviously there isn't much of that going on, which, as distasteful as it may be to you, comes back to the man you have for years been hoping would 'save us'.

One might argue that you can't simply coach players to have the bravery or nous to operate under the floodlights and intensity of a big game away from home. Anyone can do passing drills in their training ground 6 days a week, but when you're training alongside inferior players you're never going to be able to prepare yourself for what's to come when you play a top side.

If you're practicing passing drills every day at carrington and the bloke closing you down is Fellaini or Smalling, of course you're going to think that it's easy because they're £#%&!ing shit and slow. It's a different kettle of fish when players of actual substance start getting about you.

Originally Posted by andyroo

So get your players to work on their passing then. Don't just wring your hands and say oh it can't be done, don't blame me, blame the c*** who was sacked three years ago and never coached half these c***s.

Or sell them.

Which is what we should have done.

How on earth are Young, Fellaini, Smalling and Jones still seemingly so important to us?

They should be gone or the very least fringe players.

Antonio Valencia, a hard working winger converted to an ok right back is our captain ffs. He should he scrapping it out with one other player to be the club's back up.

Fellaini is still here. We still have the option of lumping balls up to him. Because we want to. If guardiola was in charge, he would have instantly sold him. Nothing personal, Maroune, but you have no role to play in what we're trying to do..

Not here though. No. We like him because he follows instructions well (said former coach and manager Ryan giggs). £#%&! me, is that the criteria now?.?

Originally Posted by Sparky***

How exactly are you supposed to 'have a go' when your players can't string 5 passes together and crumble the minute they get put under pressure?

Seriously, i'm intrigued to know.

Are jones and smalling going to suddenly learn how to co-ordinate their feet and pass the ball better? Is Valencia going to stop being a one dimensional, one-footed, work horse? Is Ashley young suddenly going to become any good. At all?

Is Mkhitaryan going to stop vanishing and Lukaku learn how to actually play with his back to goal?

I'm all up for this 'up and at 'em' approach but surely somewhere along the line you have to have the ability to actually go and take the game to these teams? What is it about this particular squad of players that you've seen over the last 2-3 years that leads you to believe that they can just simply go "£#%&! it, let's just go for it"?

I don’t know; what was it about Raheem Sterling’s general shitness over the past three years that convinced you he’d look like scoring every game this year? Or Salah when he bombed out at Chelsea? What about De Bruyne told you he’d be running every game when he couldn’t get in Chelsea’s first team, or Mane lighting up games when he was decent but not much more than that at Southampton? Surely our players have the same potential to step it up as they’ve all done, and if not then at least we’ll know.

Why did we suddenly look like world beaters for a very brief moment in Van Gaal’s first season, with largely the same players we have now? It was a small window but it can be done, though not if we go into every game with the message that they’re better than us and the best we can hope for is a punchers chance.

Nothing is written in stone unless we decide ahead of time that it is. Are you really telling me you don’t see that Liverpool game as the moment all our momentum got crushed?

Originally Posted by Alan

Silva 23
Mendy 23
Sterling 22
Jesus 20
De Bruyne 26
Walker is 27 btw he is not older than Perisic

How many of those are just young players with potential? They're all good enough NOW. This idea that young players only provide potential and that to get anyone consistent you need to sign older players is balls. They're all top quality too, not average journeymen like Perisic.

Short term planning is exactly what has £#%&!ed United since Fergie left. Allowing Mourinho to blow £40m on average players on a relatively limited budget is not the answer. City can afford to chuck whatever they did at Nolito and bin him off a year later. United can't.

United need to sign the right players, whether they're 22 or 29 who gives a flying £#%&!

We've also signed younger players over the last few seasons you £#%&!ing nugget, point is because we're lacking in quality through out the squad those younger players are expected to be instant first team players. City have a squad full of quality established players to take the load off of the younger players when the inevitable inconsistent run of form happens

Would Perisic improve us? Yes
Is he better than what we've currently got in his position? Yes, by a distance

But because he's not 16 and classed as a 'wonder kid' on championship manager you say he's not good enough

Originally Posted by utd99

I don’t know; what was it about Raheem Sterling’s general shitness over the past three years that convinced you he’d look like scoring every game this year? Or Salah when he bombed out at Chelsea? What about De Bruyne told you he’d be running every game when he couldn’t get in Chelsea’s first team, or Mane lighting up games when he was decent but not much more than that at Southampton? Surely our players have the same potential to step it up as they’ve all done, and if not then at least we’ll know.

Why did we suddenly look like world beaters for a very brief moment in Van Gaal’s first season, with largely the same players we have now? It was a small window but it can be done, though not if we go into every game with the message that they’re better than us and the best we can hope for is a punchers chance.

Nothing is written in stone unless we decide ahead of time that it is. Are you really telling me you don’t see that Liverpool game as the moment all our momentum got crushed?

We got a kind fixture list at the start of the season where we had literally the worst teams in the league one after the other. We beat them with some decent performances before they started trailing off just before we played Liverpool. The Southampton game was a labour and Even the palace game we looked laboured before we ran in late goals.

We just reverted to type. It's a squad that's largely struggled to score goals for 3 years. That's not going to change by adding 4 players.

We've had 4 managers in 4 years yet all the problems seem to be the same. Spineless performances, lack of creativity, over dependence on 2 or 3 players to score all the goals, lack of composure when faced with pressure.

that's not down to 1 game or 1 manager telling players to do this or that. It's a £#%&!ing deep rot that's going to take years to fix.

We finished 7th, 4th, 5th and then 6th for a reason.

If we cannot play an attacking game against our biggest rivals then the problem is one of three things: either the forwards are not up to it, the defence and holder can’t be relied upon to do their job against the counter or the manager isn’t doing his job. Personally I’d like to know which it is, because unless you know how can you change it? How are you ever going to know if you can do a certain thing unless you try to do it and fail?

City tried last year and failed, so they got rid of all the people who couldn’t be relied on - Zabaletta, Kolorov, Bravo, Navas, Nasri, Nolito, Toure- and replaced them with people who could, but one thing never changed; they never stopped playing on the front foot.

Mourinho teams simply don’t score goals in big games away from home. Something isn’t right.

Originally Posted by AK14

United need to sign the right players, whether they're 22 or 29 who gives a flying £#%&!

We've also signed younger players over the last few seasons you £#%&!ing nugget, point is because we're lacking in quality through out the squad those younger players are expected to be instant first team players. City have a squad full of quality established players to take the load off of the younger players when the inevitable inconsistent run of form happens

Would Perisic improve us? Yes
Is he better than what we've currently got in his position? Yes, by a distance

But because he's not 16 and classed as a 'wonder kid' on championship manager you say he's not good enough

By all accounts Woody wouldn’t stump up the extra five or six because he has no sell on value. City wouldn’t have blinked.

That money could have been made and more by selling three or four players we know are shit to he likes of West Brom and Sunderland, but instead we kept them. Kept them and continue to play them expecting different results.

Two-bob.

"If United play an open game, are they good enough?"

Good points from Carragher.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0Pt5xM153k

Genuinely £#%&!ing amazes me that people always call out Smalling and Jones for our problems when the defence is pretty much the only part of the team that's done it's job properly the last 3 years, no they aren't Baresi and Costacurta but they do the main bit of the defences job which is stopping the ball going in the net as well as any defence in the league, the idea that the defence has to step out with the ball to be in with a chance in this league is shit, as long as they can pass it to a midfielder (and contrary to witless truisms on here they both can) that's their job done.

The last few games are down to the midfield sitting deep and leaving the 3 attacking players isolated, since Pogba has been injured the midfield has dropped deeper and deeper. I'm sick of watching passages of play that go, Smalling to Matic to Jones To Herrera to Jones to Matic to Valencia to Matic followed by a hopeful punt that ends up with the opposition centre half. It's like we're playing a training exercise where one team of 7 has to get the ball across the midfield to a second team of three without it touching the ground in between, when we actually get the midfield up in support we look a lot more dangerous.

Take Rashford off corners as well for £#%&!s sake, if he's the best we've got we're £#%&!ed because he's shite at them, waist high to the first man is not an effective set piece, especially when you've paid £75million to buy a big target man.

Originally Posted by utd99

I don’t know; what was it about Raheem Sterling’s general shitness over the past three years that convinced you he’d look like scoring every game this year? Or Salah when he bombed out at Chelsea? What about De Bruyne told you he’d be running every game when he couldn’t get in Chelsea’s first team, or Mane lighting up games when he was decent but not much more than that at Southampton? Surely our players have the same potential to step it up as they’ve all done, and if not then at least we’ll know.

Why did we suddenly look like world beaters for a very brief moment in Van Gaal’s first season, with largely the same players we have now? It was a small window but it can be done, though not if we go into every game with the message that they’re better than us and the best we can hope for is a punchers chance.

Nothing is written in stone unless we decide ahead of time that it is. Are you really telling me you don’t see that Liverpool game as the moment all our momentum got crushed?

Are we really now comparing the likes of De Bryne, Mane, Sterling and Salah with Fellaini etc?

All of those you mentioned showed signs of playing quality football at their previous clubs, it's why they're current clubs payed millions for them. So it's no great shock that they're playing good football where they are now.... they're good footballers

Those four games in which we looked soooooooo good under lvg were by in large because of the great tactic of using fellaini to bring the forwards into the game..... the same thing Mourinho gets slated for.

Originally Posted by AK14

Are we really now comparing the likes of De Bryne, Mane, Sterling and Salah with Fellaini etc?

All of those you mentioned showed signs of playing quality football at their previous clubs, it's why they're current clubs payed millions for them. So it's no great shock that they're playing good football where they are now.... they're good footballers

They've also got something that no other United player has aside from martial and rashford - rapid pace and the ability to run with the ball at defenders.

Originally Posted by Sparky***

They've also got something that no other United player has aside from martial and rashford - rapid pace and the ability to run with the ball at defenders.

And 10 other top quality footballers to pass the ball too.

Originally Posted by AK14

And 10 other top quality footballers to pass the ball too.

It helps when you bomb forward and your team mates are there with you or making runs to leave you space. Too often we give Rashford or Martial the ball and sort of just stand there and expect them to beat everybody on their own.

Originally Posted by ScholesGingerSheen

Genuinely £#%&!ing amazes me that people always call out Smalling and Jones for our problems when the defence is pretty much the only part of the team that's done it's job properly the last 3 years, no they aren't Baresi and Costacurta but they do the main bit of the defences job which is stopping the ball going in the net as well as any defence in the league, the idea that the defence has to step out with the ball to be in with a chance in this league is shit, as long as they can pass it to a midfielder (and contrary to witless truisms on here they both can) that's their job done.

The last few games are down to the midfield sitting deep and leaving the 3 attacking players isolated, since Pogba has been injured the midfield has dropped deeper and deeper. I'm sick of watching passages of play that go, Smalling to Matic to Jones To Herrera to Jones to Matic to Valencia to Matic followed by a hopeful punt that ends up with the opposition centre half. It's like we're playing a training exercise where one team of 7 has to get the ball across the midfield to a second team of three without it touching the ground in between, when we actually get the midfield up in support we look a lot more dangerous.

Take Rashford off corners as well for £#%&!s sake, if he's the best we've got we're £#%&!ed because he's shite at them, waist high to the first man is not an effective set piece, especially when you've paid £75million to buy a big target man.

The reason the defence has been so good the last three years is because the two managers have realised how shit it is so has done every thing to protect it

Mourinho by 'parking the bus' as some would call it and Van Gaal who's main tactic was to have 99% possession of ball.

Originally Posted by Sparky***

It helps when you bomb forward and your team mates are there with you or making runs to leave you space. Too often we give Rashford or Martial the ball and sort of just stand there and expect them to beat everybody on their own.

That is the closest to any criticism of Mou from you this evening.

Originally Posted by utd99

If we cannot play an attacking game against our biggest rivals then the problem is one of three things: either the forwards are not up to it, the defence and holder can’t be relied upon to do their job against the counter or the manager isn’t doing his job. Personally I’d like to know which it is, because unless you know how can you change it? How are you ever going to know if you can do a certain thing unless you try to do it and fail?

City tried last year and failed, so they got rid of all the people who couldn’t be relied on - Zabaletta, Kolorov, Bravo, Navas, Nasri, Nolito, Toure- and replaced them with people who could, but one thing never changed; they never stopped playing on the front foot.

Mourinho teams simply don’t score goals in big games away from home. Something isn’t right.



By all accounts Woody wouldn’t stump up the extra five or six because he has no sell on value. City wouldn’t have blinked.

That money could have been made and more by selling three or four players we know are shit to he likes of West Brom and Sunderland, but instead we kept them. Kept them and continue to play them expecting different results.

Two-bob.

I agree

If a manager identifies the player he wants then then go out and get the £#%&!er. Maybe woody was put off because of van gaals duds (and let's be fair there was a few)

Before the start of last season there was a bit of talk about the atletico sporting director coming in. Perhaps Mourinho could see a future struggle with Woodward and it was his people sounding this fella out?

Originally Posted by Tiberian

That is the closest to any criticism of Mou from you this evening.

It's not good enough no matter how you paint it. So the proof will be in the pudding, if he doesn't turn it around in the next 7 months then i can honestly see him walking or him getting sacked. Then I suppose the circus continues to the next victim.

Originally Posted by AK14

Would Perisic improve us? Yes
Is he better than what we've currently got in his position? Yes, by a distance

But because he's not 16 and classed as a 'wonder kid' on championship manager you say he's not good enough

What position would Perisic improve us at? Not left wing or number 10, he has fewer goals and assists than Martial or Mkhitaryan despite starting every game for Inter and playing full games for most of them.

Perisic is just another excuse, it's always something else, the players are shit the boards tight and shit, so we didn't sign him, he's Ivan Perisic not £#%&!ing Neymar.