Credit...

Originally Posted by Lok

True. I can't stand LvG but he was normally decent in the bigger games. There's no way he would have beaten that City team today either. But the first 30 minutes wouldn't have been so embarrassing.



Effort was lacking many times last year. The players motivated themselves for the big games but they just rolled over in some of the others. It is far from perfect right now but you can see the players are buying into it and it will eventually click. We're 4 games in and it's clear that we're still finding our feet.

Have to agree to disagree. For me tempo and occasionally collective belief was not sharp enough. But the senior attacking players who lacked dynamism last season look similar now. Zlatan the main difference in terms of productivity in the final third.

I'm not expecting Mata or Rooney to have massively inproved seasons this year. We have spent big on three attacking talents, and they really need to bring the team on.

Originally Posted by S/Side.Red

Don't think effort was ever really lacking last season either.

It's still very early but indications are as expected there's no massive improvement in individuals. We have better players now but they need a system that has balance that they all believe in. Looks a way off and quit disjointed right now but the nine early points on the board gives us some room for error while we figure it out.

Don't agree

Think we've seen clear improvement in some players however Martial is way off his best from last season

The problem today was that Pep's city team was a terrible match up for us
We couldn't press them with Ibra and Rooney up front and the Fellaini Pogba midfield combination was always going to get shown up by all those clever city attackers playing between the lines

Jose should have realised this and made so hard decisions like dropping either Rooney or Ibra and play an extra midfielder for better balance

I don't expect to see him make that mistake again

Originally Posted by ZiggyStardust

Don't agree

Think we've seen clear improvement in some players however Martial is way off his best from last season

The problem today was that Pep's city team was a terrible match up for us
We couldn't press them with Ibra and Rooney up front and the Fellaini Pogba midfield combination was always going to get shown up by all those clever city attackers playing between the lines

Jose should have realised this and made so hard decisions like dropping either Rooney or Ibra and play an extra midfielder for better balance

I don't expect to see him make that mistake again

Who has clearly improved? I think it's a bit early for this discussion anyway tbh.

I would agree with your last line but I didn't expect him to get it so wrong today either.

Finding it hard to credit the lads after that.