MOTM vs Arsenal - Make your choice

Originally Posted by Baron_van_Marlon

One in a million, it was a loss of concentration from Diaby, Giggs put it in a decent area but you'd never, ever expect that to be headed into the defenders own net. It was a shocking bit of defending & papered over enormous cracks.

It was poor defending I agree, it was also a great delivery. Anyway i don't think it particularly papered over the cracks, we were very poor first half but better in the second and dug out a result which was good enough after battering Wigan. We are definitely a work in progress though.

you must have been gutted at the performance & lack of balls in playing though? Given who we've lost, you'd of thought this time around we would play to our strengths, as it was it seemed we put the most lightweight of midfields out, left Fletcher to do it all & any potential creativity was eroded from utterly dogshit passing. I barely remember us being so comprehensively outplayed & fluking the win. & this, we all remember seeing as no money is being spent, was against a team assembled for £#%&!ing peanuts in comparison to what we had on the bench & were too scared to start with.

Anderson.

Originally Posted by Baron_van_Marlon

you must have been gutted at the performance & lack of balls in playing though? Given who we've lost, you'd of thought this time around we would play to our strengths, as it was it seemed we put the most lightweight of midfields out, left Fletcher to do it all & any potential creativity was eroded from utterly dogshit passing. I barely remember us being so comprehensively outplayed & fluking the win. & this, we all remember seeing as no money is being spent, was against a team assembled for £#%&!ing peanuts in comparison to what we had on the bench & were too scared to start with.

the formation was very similar to the Rome final and we created a stack of situations that could have led to goals. Giggs in that position did work, and had the tempo in the 1st half been the same as it was in the 2nd it would've worked even better. I was all for going at them at the start and still beleive a 4-4-2 would've caught Wenger out. disappointing that Berbatov didn't get the nod over Valencia but then it was also disappointing that we couldn't get Valencia in behind Clichy even when he had the chance in that 1st half. Berbatov would've given us the ball retention we lacked in the opening exchanges though I can see why the outside midfielder option was selected bearing in mind Rooney was surprisingly used quite rigidly down the centre. very encouraging overall from my point of view, since we will rightly imo be seeing that formation used a fair few times throughout the campaign as usual. we didn't get comprehensively out-played at all. Foster made one save. we had more goal attempts, more possession and more goals. this view that everything was left to Fletcher is also a strange one, since each player had their part to play and they played it. not everyone was on blob of course, but that's a different story. for me, those who say Fletcher in Rome was the single biggest influence on the outcome of the final had their case reinforced considerably on saturday. not that I thought he was especially good with the ball because he wasn't. but he was everywhere, and he did piss Arsenal off.

a game of two halves. united simply didn't turn up for the first 45 minutes and arsenal dominated. they were very unlucky not to lead by more. i don't think there was much wrong with the formation or the team selection, and neither did fergie by the looks of things because he didn't make any changes at the break in terms of personnel or tactics. nevertheless, in the second half we fair dominated and could have scored more than we did.

in the second half the players in m/f supported each other much better, giving the man in possession options and support and meaning that we contested the ball much more quickly and more effectively when possession was lost. arsenal's pressing was very effective in the first half - i'd be surprised if wenger hadn't analysed the barca match and attempted to reproduce barca's high tempo all-field pressing which worked so well against us - but was nullified in large part in the second by much better work from fletcher, carrick and giggs. nani also was particularly good at providing an out ball from deep.

all in all i thought we weathered the storm and turned the screw in the second half. the goals were lucky, of course, but we could have scored from several other situations.

all credit to fergie - he resisted the temptation to blame the 11 at half time and instead read the game perfectly and sent them out with the instructions they needed.

Originally Posted by borsuk

a game of two halves. united simply didn't turn up for the first 45 minutes and arsenal dominated. they were very unlucky not to lead by more. i don't think there was much wrong with the formation or the team selection, and neither did fergie by the looks of things because he didn't make any changes at the break in terms of personnel or tactics. nevertheless, in the second half we fair dominated and could have scored more than we did.

in the second half the players in m/f supported each other much better, giving the man in possession options and support and meaning that we contested the ball much more quickly and more effectively when possession was lost. arsenal's pressing was very effective in the first half - i'd be surprised if wenger hadn't analysed the barca match and attempted to reproduce barca's high tempo all-field pressing which worked so well against us - but was nullified in large part in the second by much better work from fletcher, carrick and giggs. nani also was particularly good at providing an out ball from deep.

all in all i thought we weathered the storm and turned the screw in the second half. the goals were lucky, of course, but we could have scored from several other situations.

all credit to fergie - he resisted the temptation to blame the 11 at half time and instead read the game perfectly and sent them out with the instructions they needed.

fergie might have written that himself.

I expect you think park was a good first sub too?

our formation... to counter arsenal... playing at home.... was a joke. put berbatov on, leave valencia out and let them worry about us.

Originally Posted by jem

fergie might have written that himself.

I expect you think park was a good first sub too?

our formation... to counter arsenal... playing at home.... was a joke. put berbatov on, leave valencia out and let them worry about us.

Agreed. Even if he was adament he wanted a five in midfield he should've put Berbatov up front and given Rooney a license to support him from behind or out wide, instead of having Carrick wandering round as a spectator as Fletcher did the work. Far too negative.

if berbatov had given us 90 minutes of air shots, I'd still be calling for fergie's head.

Originally Posted by jem

if berbatov had given us 90 minutes of air shots, I'd still be calling for fergie's head.

Originally Posted by carlosartorial

Agreed. Even if he was adament he wanted a five in midfield he should've put Berbatov up front and given Rooney a license to support him from behind or out wide, instead of having Carrick wandering round as a spectator as Fletcher did the work. Far too negative.

i thought i was the only one who thought fletcher was doing two peoples jobs while carrick just erm....well....he was on the pitch....

Originally Posted by borsuk

in the second half the players in m/f supported each other much better, giving the man in possession options and support and meaning that we contested the ball much more quickly and more effectively when possession was lost. arsenal's pressing was very effective in the first half - i'd be surprised if wenger hadn't analysed the barca match and attempted to reproduce barca's high tempo all-field pressing which worked so well against us - but was nullified in large part in the second by much better work from fletcher, carrick and giggs. nani also was particularly good at providing an out ball from deep.

all in all i thought we weathered the storm and turned the screw in the second half. the goals were lucky, of course, but we could have scored from several other situations.

all credit to fergie - he resisted the temptation to blame the 11 at half time and instead read the game perfectly and sent them out with the instructions they needed.

you mean the midfield decided to 'play football'

Originally Posted by marlo

you mean the midfield decided to 'play football'

no, i mean in the second half the players in m/f supported each other much better, giving the man in possession options and support.

hth.

Originally Posted by borsuk

no, i mean in the second half the players in m/f supported each other much better, giving the man in possession options and support.

hth.

yep you wouldnt expect a top flight midfield to give players in possession options and support.

Originally Posted by marlo

yep you wouldnt expect a top flight midfield to give players in possession options and support.

yeah, that's exactly it. well done.

we upped the tempo and pressed better in the second half, meaning we regained possession more quickly and therefore we were, as a team not just a midfield, more compact more often

i imagine the H/T instructions were probably identical to those given before the first half, although possibly with a round of £#%&!s thrown in

Originally Posted by Tumescent Throb

i imagine the H/T instructions were probably identical to those given before the first half, although possibly with a round of £#%&!s thrown in

Originally Posted by borsuk

yeah, that's exactly it. well done.

honest question.

have you ever played football?

Originally Posted by marlo

honest question.

have you ever played football?