Manchester City v Manchester United - PL 03/03/24 3:30pm KO - Official Match Thread.

Originally Posted by marlo

And so what?

We are not down to our bare bones. As only 3 starting line up players were missing.

One minutes we need high standards the next minute we are feeling sorry for ourselves.
The City match shouldn’t be looked at in isolation, we are shit and have been since wolves away.
As shit as we are our squad is good enough to compete and even beat city.

If our players have shown this season they aren’t good enough, then so has the manager.
Every week he is £#%&!ing up in one way or the other, in game management, starting line ups, lack of cohesive football.

£#%&!ing hell, what a load of shit.

"We are not down to pur bare bones" - Jonny Evans, 36 starting at Centre back

Lindelof starting at LB and we have no LB on the bench

You're ignoring the point. "Only 3 starters are missing" - no, Maguires a starter if Martinez is injured but Maguire is also injured so we have to play Evans. Between you, just work out the various caveats of when players are out and who's replacing them.

You look at that team and bench from yesterday and still insist we aren't down to picking scraps?

AWB is a starter if the only other LB option is Amrabat or Lindelof but this is how it is most weeks.

Originally Posted by Bunker Buster

Only thing I'm mad about is the garnacho pen...

Still convinced he got a touch before he was CLATTERED...

pen for Me...

And a red card

Originally Posted by Danoli

And a red card

Agree.

Casemiros was deemed a red because he got the ball but followed through (ooh err).

What's the difference?

Originally Posted by magic_cantona

Ignoring the scale and longevity of the injury list is weird behaviour. No team in the league has had the problems we've had. I've never seen anything like it.

From something I read yesterday, both Newcastle and Brighton have had worse injury lists this season.

We can't even top the most injuries table.

Originally Posted by shenwen

From something I read yesterday, both Newcastle and Brighton have had worse injury lists this season.

We can't even top the most injuries table.

United have lost players for a combined 979 days this season, the sixth-most in the Premier League

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...e-Chelsea.html

The injuries have been given far too much prominence on here tbh, take out Martinez and it’s primarily old or injury prone players picking up injuries

Both sides of the argument can be right. We are missing important players, as well as their replacements. We've had Lindelof starting at left back FFS. It always going to make things harder.

But even with those injuries we've look far worse than we should do. It's not like when we were cruising along when we had Shaw and Hojlund available. We had some wins against lower half teams, but still looked far from convincing.

At the start of the season, we were looking forward to having Shaw and Martinez back and our back 4 functioning as well as it did last season - it's not happened for more than 2 games. When we lost Martinez at the arse end of last season, we went to shit. Even if it was just the single injury to Martinez, you can't underestimate the effect it has on the team. He's vitally important.

And then we have to replace him with Maguire, then 36 year old free agent Johny Evans - come on, it's ludicrous ffs.

Then there's Luke Shaw. When fit, he's brilliant. He's quality at getting forward and helping whoever is in front of him. Brilliant at bombing on and getting a cross in. He's permanently injured and his replacement is Lindelof. Or not even good enough for where he's supposed to play- Amrabat. Neither of them get forward or have any quality on the ball like Shaw. They're terrible replacements at Left Back. But this is ignored by people saying it's "only Shaw and Martinez". It's like taking two tyres off a car and saying "You've got two left ffs!"

It's an idiotic argument.

It’s not an idiotic argument because as said above there’s other teams that have had more injuries than us and others that have had around the same.

What’s idiotic is keep banging on about Martinez ffs. If Erik , two years in has his whole plan dependent on a centre back staying fit then he’s either incompetent or deluded or both.

I can imagine at his interview, of course, this three year structure to get United back to the top is reliant on the CB staying not getting injured. If that happens we should expect a mid table finish and an early exit from the CL.

I get it magic but that’s two positions and those injuries have been with us all season (and even before) in one form or another. Maybe we could have done something about them? Like maybe buy a proper CB (not Evans) in the summer or January rather than spending a huge chunk on mount? Maybe not letting go our loanee LB? I can remember criticising the Evans contract at the start of the season and being told not to worry as he’ll never play

Injuries are part of the game and while there’s no denying ETH has had a lot to deal with, it’s not enough to excuse the shit we’ve been served up for the entirety of this season.

Originally Posted by Gypsum Fantastic

It’s not an idiotic argument because as said above there’s other teams that have had more injuries than us and others that have had around the same.

What’s idiotic is keep banging on about Martinez ffs. If Erik , two years in has his whole plan dependent on a centre back staying fit then he’s either incompetent or deluded or both.

I can imagine at his interview, of course, this three year structure to get United back to the top is reliant on the CB staying not getting injured. If that happens we should expect a mid table finish and an early exit from the CL.

You're being deliberately disingenuous. I'm not saying Martinez is the sole reason we do well or don't. I'm saying that it's a huge part of that. He was available for most of last season and we kept more clean sheets than anyone. Now, he's injured - ok, fair enough. In comes Maguire. Shouldn't be at the club but he tries hard and has a great attitude. He does ok for an understudy. Then he gets injured too and we're down to a 36 year old that we got rid of 12 years or more ago. Add to that Shaws inability to stay fit and his replacement isn't even a basic left back ffs. I'm just saying you can't ignore how badly this affects our entire ability to defend and start from the back.

Our squad has been decimated and the players that we have to come and replace our starters are absolutely shit (Mainoo apart).

Originally Posted by shenwen

I get it magic but that’s two positions and those injuries have been with us all season (and even before) in one form or another. Maybe we could have done something about them? Like maybe buy a proper CB (not Evans) in the summer or January rather than spending a huge chunk on mount? Maybe not letting go our loanee LB? I can remember criticising the Evans contract at the start of the season and being told not to worry as he’ll never play

Injuries are part of the game and while there’s no denying ETH has had a lot to deal with, it’s not enough to excuse the shit we’ve been served up for the entirety of this season.

Yeah agree. Do you reckon EtH wanted to spend that much on Mount or are we back to the total mismanagement of the club and its transfers? Maybe when EtH is gone, he'll reveal what was what and who ludicrously paid massively over the odds for Mount and Antony and why we were left with Evans as our only option as a CB signing.

If EtH sanctioned both Mount and Antony at those prices, he's absolutely 100% culpable. But we all know the absolute shit show which has been Woodward, Murtough, Arnold and The Glazers since Ferguson left.

He obviously doesn’t negotiate the fees, but he must get an idea of how many players he’s getting in or how much is in the kitty, therefore 60M on Mount is going to mean that if you want a forward and a keeper - you might not get another midfielder if you buy Mount.

He mentioned FFP last week, he’s obviously more in the loop than his fans pretend.

Originally Posted by magic_cantona

Then there's Luke Shaw. When fit, he's brilliant. He's quality at getting forward and helping whoever is in front of him. Brilliant at bombing on and getting a cross in. He's permanently injured and his replacement is Lindelof. Or not even good enough for where he's supposed to play- Amrabat. Neither of them get forward or have any quality on the ball like Shaw. They're terrible replacements at Left Back.

right. amrabat doesn't get forward or have quality on the ball. so, against forest, that was a different player popping up in the box and knocking cross-field balls? he certainly isn't a left-back.

we've been unlucky with martinez (and cb replacements), but the lack of a left-back is totally self-inflicted. we had a competent specialist left-back in reguilon. he had played well for us. we let him go.

there is no excuse for this shit*.

Evans has always been and still is a far better player than Maguire.
Anything that keeps slab off the pitch can only be viewed as a positive.

Originally Posted by Stickman

He obviously doesn’t negotiate the fees, but he must get an idea of how many players he’s getting in or how much is in the kitty, therefore 60M on Mount is going to mean that if you want a forward and a keeper - you might not get another midfielder if you buy Mount.

He mentioned FFP last week, he’s obviously more in the loop than his fans pretend.

I'm not making excuses for him btw, I'm just pointing out how horrendous our luck with injuries is.

As for FFP and what input he has, all managers have had this shit since Ferguson left. Moyes reckoned he could've had Kroos but was negotiated down to a last gasp Fellaini. There's a whole slew of massively over priced, ill conceived transfers from Di Maria to Pogba to Antony so I don't see how EtH is any different from the anyone else in that department. Nothing has been right for well over a decade and now, hopefully, it MIGHT start to change.

Originally Posted by jem

right. amrabat doesn't get forward or have quality on the ball. so, against forest, that was a different player popping up in the box and knocking cross-field balls? he certainly isn't a left-back.

we've been unlucky with martinez (and cb replacements), but the lack of a left-back is totally self-inflicted. we had a competent specialist left-back in reguilon. he had played well for us. we let him go.

there is no excuse for this shit*.

Ive got absolutely no idea why we'd let Reguilon go considering how prone Shaw is and how averse EtH is to playing AWB at LB instead of Lindelof. It's all ridiculous.

Originally Posted by magic_cantona

Ive got absolutely no idea why we'd let Reguilon go considering how prone Shaw is and how averse EtH is to playing AWB at LB instead of Lindelof. It's all ridiculous.

yup. also, given our other big injury concern was martinez, shaw provided excellent cover at cb, but only if we had another lb.

there is no level on which this decision made sense, as was said at the time. only a bunch of incompetent idiots would have allowed this to happen.

Martinez should not have been a big injury concern. His situation is solely down to the medical team. He had a broken foot, his head hadn't fallen off for Christ sake. He was signed off to play while taking painkillers. Then suffered the same injury. Everyone involved should have been sacked immediately... and thrown in the canal.

No mention of Tony Martial? Does this mean he is raring to go with the gloves actually off? Has a good record vs Everton tbf

Then there’s Mason Mount. Don’t know what his role would be. Maybe LB?