Tonight's football 5/4/17 if anyone's remotely arsed

Originally Posted by jem

this again?

if you play 4-2-3-1, you really shouldn't expect the 2 to be getting past the striker (and two of the 3 are probably rashford, martial or mata, who do and the third could be mkhitaryan or lingard, who also do). not that we always play that, but herrera has been used in a more defensive role than he should be and pogba also. carrick is never getting beyond the striker - not this season and not any season. fellaini does pop up in the box. meanwhile, our fullbacks (especially valencia) are often the furthest man forward.

so... what you state is the real problem just isn't. soz.

the real problem is that our forward players don't have much idea how to play together and our midfield lacks balance.

We don't need a 2 at home so one is free to make runs whilst the other sits. Needs to be the mobile one who can shoot and hopefully head but given our woeful delivery on set pieces, Mata aside, may as well be 5' tall.

Originally Posted by Bunker Buster

Nothing to do with his price tag...

He's under performing

Yeah. Although, I do think he made a difference when he came on the other night.

In the first half, they were just cutting through our midfield. At times, it actually looked like it was just Carrick... Had nó idea where Fellaini and Hererra were

Originally Posted by S/Side.Red

Didn't Macheda play about five games for us?

Seriously, the talent in Martial was evident across the previous two seasons during which he was excellent for Monaco and then us. And you haven't forgotten what Rashford did last year. They're allowed frustrating periods. Giving up on them would be mental.

Rashford isn't even playing as badly as you guys make out. He's certainly been a lot better than Pogba in their respective recent showings. And I say that as someone who loved the Pogba signing and has faith in him. But he's letting us down more than a 19yo kid.

Just a shame that real life isn't FIFA where a good young player develops in a linear fashion and wins the lot by the time he's 24.

As for Rashford, I think the main problem is that his "gram is to poppin' to £#%&! her"...or something

Originally Posted by Bunker Buster

Nothing to do with his price tag...

He's under performing

Yeah you mentioned....


My point was, so is everyone. With pogba it's the same as Martial, Rashford and (to a point) Mkhitaryan - it's disappointing because the talent is obviously there. But it's not just about the individual, the team has too many sub standard individuals and therefore it's not likely we're going to start playing amazing football any time soon without a change of personnel.

At the very least I think we need a worldy CB, midfielder and attacker in the summer....

United could sign Messi and Suarez and struggle for goals, the way we make it so easy for opponents to mob the box.

Originally Posted by Whip Hubley

But it's not just about the individual, the team has too many sub standard individuals

Originally Posted by Whip Hubley

Yeah you mentioned....


My point was, so is everyone. With pogba it's the same as Martial, Rashford and (to a point) Mkhitaryan - it's disappointing because the talent is obviously there. But it's not just about the individual, the team has too many sub standard individuals and therefore it's not likely we're going to start playing amazing football any time soon without a change of personnel.

At the very least I think we need a worldy CB, midfielder and attacker in the summer....

Yeah you mentioned....

We need to buy more worldies to accommodate the faux one we bought from Juve...

Originally Posted by ZiggyStardust

I don't think Sparky or Marlo understand that this club became great through developing young players

A little patience is required

Didn't a lot of people on RI want to sell Ronaldo

United fans want to see exciting football but have no time to see players who can provide it develop

Originally Posted by Bunker Buster

Yeah you mentioned....

We need to buy more worldies to get the best out of the one we bought from Juve...

glad we're on the same page

Originally Posted by andyroo

sup pal?

Originally Posted by redhegemony

We don't need a 2 at home so one is free to make runs whilst the other sits. Needs to be the mobile one who can shoot and hopefully head but given our woeful delivery on set pieces, Mata aside, may as well be 5' tall.

oh... I agree. we probably don't need a back four either - just two central defenders and a decent defensive midfielder in front of them. however, we have been playing carrick and fellaini.

to be fair, despite being called shit recently, herrera had a cracking left foot shot from outside the area tipped aside by robles, hit the bar after being the first to react to the free kick save and also provided the cross for ibra's "offside" goal. not completely shite, then.

nominally, we were playing 4-3-3 in that game.

Originally Posted by andyroo

United could sign Messi and Suarez and struggle for goals,

I genuinely don't think we would tbh.

Originally Posted by marlo

The thing is we hype up our young players too much and they almost always disappear after 2 seasons of hype then reality hits as they find their level just like adnan janujaz.
Rashford is about the same level as iwobi, kelechi and that Davis as Everton which is why I can't believe a team trying to get top 4 or even win the league is affording so much playing time to someone average a goal OR ASSIST every 6.5 games.
While martial I thought would be one of the best players in the world one day and sadly I think I'm very wrong about that. Looks almost one dimensional and hasn't got that intelligence or finesse to even see out one of his off days with a average performance.

this is complete nonsense.

you may hype or anti-hype players, or soak up the stuff the pundits are banging on about etc ...

but all that is just on the periphery of the actual game itself and has next to nothing to do with it.

with young players it's about patience, not about short-termism. the fact rashford was sensational when he first burst into the team is evidence of what he can achieve with patience. and evidence of what he can be coached to achieve with patience.

rashford showed very quickly an innate sense of the movement around him and showed that he was able to manipulate that to either have an attempt at goal himself or to set other players up for a chance to shoot. he works beautifully in combination play, is quick, is brave, can dribble, can beeat a man, can shoot off both sides, can also head goals and is technically excellent, even adding dead balls to his repertoire it seems...

he began this season already knowing that he had dropped down the pecking order and would rarely get a go at 9. as a young kid this led to him trying too hard and had exactly the outcome I predicted - namely that mourinho would drop him straight back out without hesitation.

however, despite so few chances to play in anything like a full strength united team in his preferred position through the middle, and despite his frustrations and, as mourinho has put it, his desperation to score, he has still progressed this season. we will see in the summer whether mourinho has been paying lip service to this boy's "phenomenal" talent, or whether he means it.

It's weird how critical some people are on here when it comes to our youngsters

We're in a position where most of our senior players aren't good enough, so we're having to overly rely on the kids coming through. It's not their fault, by and large, it's more to do with our horrendous recruitment policy over the years

Rashford is quality and will prove it over time (fingers crossed) - we should all want to see him succeed, not rush to be the "i told you so" guy

Reading through some of these replies is proper

Some of you lot are going on as if you're used to see our squad full of "galactico" level talent, it's never been like that at United and i for one don't want it to be that.

We've always been team>individuals, for every Ronald, RvP & Cantona, we've had the likes of Park, Fletcher and O'shea - all of which did more good than bad for us over the years.

I don't personally think we have a problem identifying top level talent, we're just lacking the level below to supplement them when they're having an off day.

Originally Posted by jem

this again?

if you play 4-2-3-1, you really shouldn't expect the 2 to be getting past the striker (and two of the 3 are probably rashford, martial or mata, who do and the third could be mkhitaryan or lingard, who also do). not that we always play that, but herrera has been used in a more defensive role than he should be and pogba also. carrick is never getting beyond the striker - not this season and not any season. fellaini does pop up in the box. meanwhile, our fullbacks (especially valencia) are often the furthest man forward.

so... what you state is the real problem just isn't. soz.

the real problem is that our forward players don't have much idea how to play together and our midfield lacks balance.

4-2-3-1 is more than capable of being used to allow freedom to one of the two centre mids/holding mids, or to release them entirely, depending on who you have behind them. at the moment we have bailey who is an exceptional athlete, with carrick in front of him, who isn't and who has gone off the boil.

much of our success this season has come in a 4-3-3 anyway. getting the balance right with mhiki and pogba is the reason for deviation away from that more than anything, especially with the left side attack not really working due to the issues at LB.

Originally Posted by Tronics

It's weird how critical some people are on here when it comes to our youngsters

We're in a position where most of our senior players aren't good enough, so we're having to overly rely on the kids coming through. It's not their fault, by and large, it's more to do with our horrendous recruitment policy over the years

Rashford is quality and will prove it over time (fingers crossed) - we should all want to see him succeed, not rush to be the "i told you so" guy

Reading through some of these replies is proper

Some of you lot are going on as if you're used to see our squad full of "galactico" level talent, it's never been like that at United and i for one don't want it to be that.

We've always been team>individuals, for every Ronald, RvP & Cantona, we've had the likes of Park, Fletcher and O'shea - all of which did more good than bad for us over the years.

I don't personally think we have a problem identifying top level talent, we're just lacking the level below to supplement them when they're having an off day.

We are also not getting the best out of what we have. We have plenty of good players, but the problem of 4 managers with 4 very different styles in a short period of time has created a squad with so little chemistry. Who among our attacking players would you say have a good understanding. Mata with Herrera and Miki?. Zlatan and Pogba?

Look at the Liverpool team against Bournemouth. Mignolet, Clyne, Klavan, Lovren, Milner, Can, Lucas, Wijnaldum, Firmino, Origi, Coutinho. A very average side.

Originally Posted by Ranier Wolfcastle

Didn't a lot of people on RI want to sell Ronaldo

"A show pony with no end product"

Originally Posted by Tumescent Throb

the real problem is that the centre mids are almost never getting beyond the 9, and they aren't shooting from outside the box anywhere even close to enough either ...

Herrera and pogba are always shooting from outside the box. We've had loads of,shots from outside the box from all kinds of players. To the point people have been moaning about it because they miss. Last season the moans were that they didn't shoot form outside the box.

Originally Posted by S/Side.Red

Didn't Macheda play about five games for us?

Seriously, the talent in Martial was evident across the previous two seasons during which he was excellent for Monaco and then us. And you haven't forgotten what Rashford did last year. They're allowed frustrating periods. Giving up on them would be mental.

It would be like giving up on Fergie back in 89. Or even giving up on ronaldo back in 2005 or so, as many were criticising him back then. If the talent is there, you don't just dispose of it because of a bad run. Much as you shouldn't give a player a huge pay rise because of a good run, which so often happens.

Originally Posted by Sparky***

Macheda played 36 times for United.

Fletcher played even more before he started to look a useful player. One thing Fergie never did was discard a player too soon.

Originally Posted by Jammy Dodger

Fletcher played even more before he started to look a useful player. One thing Fergie never did was discard a player too soon.

"not sure if serious"

(Though to be fair to Freggle, he's doing his level best to prove him right.)

Originally Posted by marlo

Poggy plays in midfield. for the first season in a while our midfield isn't all over the shop. we are not being over run, teams are not walking through our midfield. Poggy is drifting in and out of games but he is doing his job, crisp passes, has won us games with his goals and vital assists. We expect a lot of him but he is at that point above average but maybe just below our expectation.

Although he's not been as good as he should, I still think Pogba has been the key player this season. We only started looking shit again because he was knackered, which eventually lead to his injury. Pogba and carrick were key to our improvement. Carrick now looks past it and pogba was knackered so we lost our way a little. Top 4 is in our own hands and Pogba will be the key if we get there.

Originally Posted by Mr_Ed

Tend to agree with sparks that we should have a first team that is hard to get into with established quality. Under fergie we could blood the new talent because, for the most part, the rest of the team could carry them if they stank the place out - he was good at that.

Fergie fielded teams full of absolute dross a lot of the time. And still won.

Originally Posted by andyroo

"not sure if serious"

(Though to be fair to Freggle, he's doing his level best to prove him right.)

An exception which proves the rule. Only Fergie could answer why he showed more faith in fletcher whilst giving him over 50 chances despite the fans think he was shit, and virtually no faith in Pogba.

Or indeed, why he started Gibson ahead of him. Possibly the final insult