Manchester United vs Copenhagen - Official Match Thread Europa League quarter-final. 8pm 10.8.20

Originally Posted by Mr_Ed

I think you're all forgetting this was Copenhagen not AC Milan in their pomp. We should have beaten them convincingly.

We were very suspect at the back, had little or no width, our full backs can't or refuse to cross the ball, Rashford only looks interested when things go his way (why not interchange him and Martial), we consistently try and play out of the back with players who don't seem to be technically able to do it very well, we keep playing players into trouble too.

One of the remaining teams in the tournament would have torn us a new one last night. Seville or Inter Milan will tear us apart... imagine if we get Inter in the final with balls bouncing off Lukaku's shins and Sanchez with a point to prove...?

They won’t though. They will attack us and we’re more likely to tear them apart. Inter and Sevilla would of struggled last night.

Originally Posted by Mr_Ed

Doesn’t matter what year it is... doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see what our flaws are and they need coaching out or the staff need replacing.

Odd, because it's only a month ago people were saying we're one signing away from being title challengers next season.

Originally Posted by Mr_Ed

I think you're all forgetting this was Copenhagen not AC Milan in their pomp. We should have beaten them convincingly.

We were very suspect at the back, had little or no width, our full backs can't or refuse to cross the ball, Rashford only looks interested when things go his way (why not interchange him and Martial), we consistently try and play out of the back with players who don't seem to be technically able to do it very well, we keep playing players into trouble too.

One of the remaining teams in the tournament would have torn us a new one last night. Seville or Inter Milan will tear us apart... imagine if we get Inter in the final with balls bouncing off Lukaku's shins and Sanchez with a point to prove...?

Just a very narrow and unsophisticated way of looking at it. We didn’t play particularly well last night but we matched the opposition and improved in the game to a point where we were pretty comfortably dominating it towards the end. We won. The chances suggest we absolutely dominated it but they don’t tell the whole picture and never have.

People then rush in with the tired, ‘we would have been ripped to bits of we’d have played x, y or z’. Well yes, if you ignore that we weren’t playing x,y or z. Teams generally alter their approach to fit the opposition- it frustrates me that that happens and the top teams do steam roller everyone they meet but even in our pomp, we often struggled against lesser opposition and then beat some of the best too.

To illustrate the point, we beat one of the best teams in Europe twice last season without looking completely out of our depth. We also played lesser opposition and have struggled to put the game to bed. Which was the case last night.

Plenty of room for improvement but not knicker wetting. The most encouraging thing for me was that we ended normal time looking a bit like we did 4 or 5 weeks ago rather than we did after that.

Originally Posted by Mr_Ed

I think you're all forgetting this was Copenhagen not AC Milan in their pomp. We should have beaten them convincingly.

We were very suspect at the back, had little or no width, our full backs can't or refuse to cross the ball, Rashford only looks interested when things go his way (why not interchange him and Martial), we consistently try and play out of the back with players who don't seem to be technically able to do it very well, we keep playing players into trouble too.

One of the remaining teams in the tournament would have torn us a new one last night. Seville or Inter Milan will tear us apart... imagine if we get Inter in the final with balls bouncing off Lukaku's shins and Sanchez with a point to prove...?

Keeper doesn't have the game of this life and this post means zip.

I don't buy this 'game of his life' line.

If the keeper is making that many saves, we're not clinical enough. Make three or four decent saves and people call it an amazing performance.

He made a lot of saves, but none were ones I wouldn't expect a good keeper to make.

We gave him a lot of saves to make instead of making him irrelevant.

Our best chances came in extra time against tired legs. The post hitting were a speculative shot from Bruno and excellent Mason (who, along with Martial and Maguire, came out of the game well)

In normal time, for most of the game, we didn't create much 'organically'. Against an average team who worked very hard.

Bruno and Martial the only ones making anything happen and Mason's clinical finishing were the only highlights.

Once again, we were so slow in starting and slow to react. Excusable in the final weeks of the season, but they should be fairly fresh after a break.

We've played worse, but let's not let a load of shots down the keepers throat fool us into thinking it was a good performance.

Enough to get through, but we can't perform like that in the semis or we'll lose.

Originally Posted by Hyman_Roth

Just a very narrow and unsophisticated way of looking at it. We didn’t play particularly well last night but we matched the opposition and improved in the game to a point where we were pretty comfortably dominating it towards the end. We won. The chances suggest we absolutely dominated it but they don’t tell the whole picture and never have.

People then rush in with the tired, ‘we would have been ripped to bits of we’d have played x, y or z’. Well yes, if you ignore that we weren’t playing x,y or z. Teams generally alter their approach to fit the opposition- it frustrates me that that happens and the top teams do steam roller everyone they meet but even in our pomp, we often struggled against lesser opposition and then beat some of the best too.

To illustrate the point, we beat one of the best teams in Europe twice last season without looking completely out of our depth. We also played lesser opposition and have struggled to put the game to bed. Which was the case last night.

Plenty of room for improvement but not knicker wetting. The most encouraging thing for me was that we ended normal time looking a bit like we did 4 or 5 weeks ago rather than we did after that.

Fair point, but we've been huffing and puffing for a few weeks now.

We have ground out some good results and shown moments of quality, but we haven't played well over the course of a match for some time now.

Probably Villa away.

Last night didn't feel like an anomaly, but more of a tired team who have levelled out after a sparkling run post-Lockdown.

If we can step it up, then all is well, but I'm not sure we will

Ah well. At least a lot of people are miserable going into a European semi final.

Whatever way you dress it up, we were shite and need to be far better in the semi.

Originally Posted by Jethro

Ah well. At least a lot of people are miserable going into a European semi final.

Nobody is miserable*

Being happy we won and concerned by performance are not mutually exclusive.

*except Sparky

Originally Posted by Jethro

Ah well. At least a lot of people are miserable going into a European semi final.

Have you seen the teams we’ve played to get to the European semi? Admittedly you can only play who is in front of you but it should be expected given who we have played.

I’m pointing out where I see the team are flawed and if anyone wants to stop us playing they deny us width, press us high and don’t let us run in behind - easier said than done but we’ve been bang average for a while now , since Bournemouth I think, and if we are to win this competition, we need to improve.

Originally Posted by Coracao

Whatever way you dress it up, we were shite and need to be far better in the semi.

i think we're in a period where we're looking for a trend or marker of where we are... we've had a lot of false dawns in the past few months. doing well. then tanking....

i want to win the EL now and that, combined with 3rd place would be a huge achievement. 3rd best team in England behind Liverpool and City and a European trophy.

under no illusions next season it's going to be back to battling to get in the top 4 and surviving in the CL for as long as possible. When the going gets tough - like last night, there's no depth or spark in that squad to turn it around.

Is it one defeat in 24 games now? Another clean sheet. European Semi-final.

We're practically at crises point.

Originally Posted by Patty_b

Is it one defeat in 24 games now? Another clean sheet. European Semi-final.

We're practically at crises point.

Your spelling and grammar certainly is.

Originally Posted by elhombre

Your spelling and grammar certainly is.

I'm not being coached properly

Originally Posted by Patty_b

I'm not being coached properly

The Copenhagen player thanking ole for everything he is doing for Man Utd is probably the greatest thing I’ve seen on a football pitch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRUh9Ucr_yg

Originally Posted by puressence

The Copenhagen player thanking ole for everything he is doing for Man Utd is probably the greatest thing I’ve seen on a football pitch

Yes mate, made winning the treble feel like small fry nqat

We looked like what we are, a team that’s 2 or 3 additions away from being a match for anyone. We knew this before the season ended, and we knew this before yesterday’s game, so what’s changed? Anyone who can’t see that we’re much better positioned than we were at the beginning of the year should probably just do something else at this point because it’s probably never going to click. And that’s what we’re all about right now - progression.

Yesterday’s match was a typical one where the scoreline dictated the story but wasn’t the whole story. In a game of inches, the inches all went against us. Of course missing by 3 inches has the same net result on the scoreline as missing by 3 feet, but being so close so many times you know that on a normal day that game is 3-0, 4-0 and the narrative is completely different.

Positives: Fred played really well apart from one howler. Martial is looking different class atm. Greenwood still has a lot to learn in order to be a constant presence in the game, but that’s totally expected; as a finisher he’s the best teenager I’ve ever seen. Bruno grew into the game, Pogba was decent, Maguire wins everything in the air. Mata still has a use under some very specific circumstances.

Negatives: Rashford is still out of form. God knows how long this is going to last, but atm he’s the one most likely to drop out if Sancho comes. We still have no wide threat, everything’s going down the middle and it’s too one-dimensional and easy to defend against. Even if our preference is to attack the box centrally, having a threat out wide, either from your wide fowards or full-backs makes it easier to do that. As it is you can virtually ignore AWB which isn’t good.

Oh, and we still start way too slowly. It’s £#%&!ing annoying because we’re capable of so much more. No idea why.

That was a real struggle wasn’t it
We started to create a lot of chances near the end of the 2nd half and definitely in extra time as they got really tired

Against a team of that quality we shouldn’t need them to tire before we start creating really good chances
We make scoring goals look really hard as it seems someone has to do something brilliant for us to score from open play

The biggest thing Ole has to do on the training pitch is working on patterns of play going forward
Everything seems off the cuff in attack and if an individual doesn’t do something great then nothing happens
We need to score more simple goals that can be repeated game after game

Clear we need more attacking options as only Martial was on it last night so we need more options from the bench
More obvious than ever after Fred’s performance that DM is a priority as only Matic can really play that role in our squad

Anyway through to the next round but we need our big players to improve significantly if we are to get to the final

Biggest game in many of the Copenhagen players life tbf. They worked their %@#$&!s off for the first hour. Not an excuse by any stretch, we should be swatting them aside, but fair play to them.