Official Match Thread .. Man Utd V Everton 8pm Bt sports ..

An awful lot of whining about not very much - By rights and based on the performance - we should have had a 3-1 win last night against a decent everton side who'd had the weekend off.

Agree about lukookoo, one dimensional.

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Originally Posted by dunk

The players aren't good at what he's telling them to do. He's using the tactics he favoured when he had a couple of the World's best in each position to bail him out and then wondering why it isn't working.

Surely it's not too much to ask for him to be trying something different?

And work on that when exactly? We haven't got entire 6 days to train like Chelsea and Liverpool. We play, recover, one days training then play.... rinse repeat for the next 6 weeks.

Originally Posted by Zorg

It's the bach four imo

It's all the chopin and changing

Originally Posted by Whip Hubley

There seems to be this illusion that if we start with Martial, Rashford, Lingard and Mkhitaryan we'll start playing incredible football.

really? I think there may be some illusion about this illusion.

Originally Posted by Tumescent Throb

it kind of is. for me the single biggest problem we have is that the centre mids cannot take a player on and run by them, can barely shoot either on the run or moving onto a pass, have almost zero combination play around the edge of the box, and almost never run beyond the striker - which is pretty £#%&!ing important in a lone striker system.

i have no idea wtf has happened to herrera but he's been mostly useless for 3 years now. he looked as if he was re-finding his talent earlier this season but has gone back into his shell. and pogba, who has in glimpses shown everything we need, is erratic and half-arsed, and lacks discipline in the central midfield role. we need 2 centre mids with energy, power, attacking instinct and goals.

I find the idea that mkhitaryan, pogba and herrera (throw in mata, lingard, schweini, rooney...) are unable to take a player on or play intricate passes or shoot slightly preposterous. I agree that herrera and mkhitaryan have had a couple of poor games recently. the problem is really the way we play, fellaini having a squad number and mourinho's ridiculous negative tactics giving the intiative to the opposition. midfield is a £#%&!ing problem, but it's not the one you suggest.

Originally Posted by Tiberian

Hope Mourinho stays away from Lukaku in the Summer. Caused plenty of problems last night with his running power, hold up play, pulling wide against Rojo mainly. His decision making was terrible though, tunnel vision when a little awareness of team-mates could have killed that game.

Not technically good enough either, teams are always going to park the bus at OT, without space to work in he can look a quite basic player. Big unit to lump the ball at though.

lukaku looks brilliant in some games. it is doubtful he will ever be mostly brilliant, though. it's good that he was basically shit against us, because we have a habit of buying players on the basis of how they have played for the opposition.

Originally Posted by S/Side.Red

Especially as I have defended Rojo on here down the years/months

I like Rojo, but as per last night he has at least 1 mistake in him most games. Reminds me of another argentian defender we had a few years ago, except that Rojo isn't a complete @#%&!.

Originally Posted by jem

I find the idea that mkhitaryan, pogba and herrera (throw in mata, lingard, schweini, rooney...) are unable to take a player on or play intricate passes or shoot slightly preposterous. I agree that herrera and mkhitaryan have had a couple of poor games recently. the problem is really the way we play, fellaini having a squad number and mourinho's ridiculous negative tactics giving the intiative to the opposition. midfield is a £#%&!ing problem, but it's not the one you suggest.

We were virtually camped in their half for 80% of the game last night? If Rojo hadn't had his usual brain fart, we would have probably found it far easier to score the way they were set up.

Originally Posted by Ranier Wolfcastle

It's all the chopin and changing

Jose seems to Ravel in it.

We were chatting about this at the game last night - has football evolved to the point now where we're seeing what was seen in Italy in the 90s, where defence becomes king? Has defending got better or have teams run out of imagination going forwards?

I think we've not seeing, with the way the balls now move in the air, not enough shots from distance. Possession stats have proved to be a fallacy - the only statistic that matters is the one in the top left of the screen when you're sat watching Match of the Day.

Or is it simply that there's more "sport science" involved and teams have studied United and sussed us out. They park the bus and hope for the likely mistake to happen or fluke a goal like last night.

One thing was apparent last night, which is that much of the movement is awful. Unfortunately Daley seems to still be under LvG's spell of caution at all costs and never took a risk, always playing the ball backwards infield, leaving Marcus looking frustrated time and time again. On the other side of the pitch, Young would run forward with the ball and Lingard wasn't making any runs for him. You also had Zlatan in the middle "doing a Rooney" and having to come back into midfield to get the ball. He'd link up with Rashford well but that left us with nobody in the box to play the killer pass to. Three in midfield is killing us.

We look confident until the final third and can get there quickly and confidently then things fall apart for whatever reason.

Originally Posted by Whip Hubley

We were virtually camped in their half for 80% of the game last night? If Rojo hadn't had his usual brain fart, we would have probably found it far easier to score the way they were set up.

obviously, I wasn't talking about last night in isolation.

Teams have been parking the bus at OT for 25 years. It is nothing new and based on how easily the PL teams have been carved open in Europe I would hardly say that we are seeing a golden age of defending. Is there a CB in the league who would even be in discussion for a world 11?

Our attacking play is shit, relying on moments of individual quality rather than any definable structure.

Originally Posted by Tiberian

Teams have been parking the bus at OT for 25 years. It is nothing new and based on how easily the PL teams have been carved open in Europe I would hardly say that we are seeing a golden age of defending. Is there a CB in the league who would even be in discussion for a world 11?

Our attacking play is shit, relying on moments of individual quality rather than any definable structure.

It's not about a single player when you park the bus though; it's about teams playing better as a unit, defending with ten behind the ball while we rely on an individual defender not £#%&!ing up when they hit us on the break.

Originally Posted by Tiberian

Teams have been parking the bus at OT for 25 years. It is nothing new and based on how easily the PL teams have been carved open in Europe I would hardly say that we are seeing a golden age of defending. Is there a CB in the league who would even be in discussion for a world 11?

Our attacking play is shit, relying on moments of individual quality rather than any definable structure.

Agree. We start too slowly and let opponents settle.

Contrast to £#%&!ing Spurs who always seem to score early at home and that changes the dynamic of the game completely. Opponents at some point will have to push up.....and you have space to counter.

Originally Posted by Tiberian

Teams have been parking the bus at OT for 25 years. It is nothing new and based on how easily the PL teams have been carved open in Europe I would hardly say that we are seeing a golden age of defending. Is there a CB in the league who would even be in discussion for a world 11?

Our attacking play is shit, relying on moments of individual quality rather than any definable structure.

absolutely this.
'park the bus' is a £#%&!ing red herring.

If our players were half as good as they think they are we wouldn't be scrambling about the Europa League places & drawing at home every £#%&!ing week.

Originally Posted by Tiberian

Our attacking play is shit, relying on moments of individual quality rather than any definable structure.

this has always been true. only the quality has changed.

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Teams have become more confident about playing for a draw these days because it's more than they expected. I blame the par league.

Originally Posted by Whip Hubley

I like Rojo, but as per last night he has at least 1 mistake in him most games. Reminds me of another argentian defender we had a few years ago, except that Rojo isn't a complete @#%&!.

He's a decent player, which has always been the main defence. Not as bad as people used to say he was.

But again last night, just brainless defending. Both he and Bailly are good defending in open spaces, stopping counter attacks, but I worry about the pair of them when it comes to intelligently dealing with a marker or concentrating on the attacker and the cross.

Originally Posted by S/Side.Red

He's a decent player, which has always been the main defence. Not as bad as people used to say he was.

But again last night, just brainless defending. Both he and Bailly are good defending in open spaces, stopping counter attacks, but I worry about the pair of them when it comes to intelligently dealing with a marker or concentrating on the attacker and the cross.

Problem is we had Rio and Vida, a nigh on perfect central pairing


If I hadn't seen such riches....

Goalkick

https://streamable.com/c6rfl

The problem earlier on this season against the likes of Burnley and Stoke was that we weren't finishing the plethora of chances we were creating

Since the 2nd leg against Hull the problem is much more serious as we're just not creating as many clear chances as we should be
This is due to a complete loss of confidence in pretty much all our attacking players

We are still the better side in these games and should be winning them by the odd goal like we did under LvG at home when we'd nick a lot of wins from 1 or 2 clear chances

Personally I blame that something tells me song
Since that aired at Hull we've been absolute dogshit