*Official Match Thread* - Arsenal v Manchester United 4/10/15

Arsenal's defence isn't good enough to win the league IMO. I don't think they have a good enough number 9 either.

I still think we'll finish above them.

Originally Posted by That Boy Ronaldo!

I think Arsenal will come pretty close, all depends how they do against City.

Even though everyone knows how to play against them?

Originally Posted by S/Side.Red

Don't think anyone on here is in doubt that the tactics didn't work, pal.

But it's a different play style to what we're used to, and will perhaps struggle more with different sides. I remember Arsenal giving a couple of Pep's teams major problems with blistering starts at the Emirates, exploiting the same willingness of the opposition to press aggressively.

The best side of this generation were charicterised by their intense pressing. That meant leaving huge gaps. You were only ever breaking that first press away from hitting Barca's penalty area with one pass. Same with Bayern under Pep (Welbz at OT against Neuer ) because they also take insane risks and leave 1v1s and crazy gaps at the back.

I'm all for that being the end game. But you have to accept it will leave us horribly exposed at times, especially as we're still building. Just hopefully not often to the cost of two goals in a minute early doors.

We're all for that being the end game, but it's Pep's end game, Van Gaal is the gateway drug. If we ended up playing Bayern I'd fear it being a cricket score, not because we should get hammered regardless but because Van Gaal would want to play the same way ().

I read something interesting from James Scrowcroft on Twitter (don't hear that everyday), he's got good ties at Ipswich (despite being a Top Red) & said the scouts there told him the exact same thing about United. A quick early start, pressing, continually upsets us, as we've seen many times, & it feels very strange to see a side go out & do the same thing over & over & over again. The better sides simply will punish you.

Thanks for reminding us all about Welbeck's shambolic dink, appreciate that :shakehead:

Originally Posted by Baron

We're all for that being the end game, but it's Pep's end game, Van Gaal is the gateway drug. If we ended up playing Bayern I'd fear it being a cricket score, not because we should get hammered regardless but because Van Gaal would want to play the same way ().

I read something interesting from James Scrowcroft on Twitter (don't hear that everyday), he's got good ties at Ipswich (despite being a Top Red) & said the scouts there told him the exact same thing about United. A quick early start, pressing, continually upsets us, as we've seen many times, & it feels very strange to see a side go out & do the same thing over & over & over again. The better sides simply will punish you.

Thanks for reminding us all about Welbeck's shambolic dink, appreciate that :shakehead:

Used to be United's thing in Europe in the '90s. Get these fancy foreign sides to Old Trafford with their technique and passing and just £#%&!ing fly at them. Often put the shits right up them. Poor LvG is realising he'll get that often in the Premier League. Up to him to either make it work or find the balance, but my money would be on him living or dying by it.

Tbh this last few weeks is much more what I expected under van Gaal initially. Games with lots of goals, unpredictability and to be frank the occasional raping received. Just a shame we haven't been able to dish out more of those. Maybe when Rooney £#%&!s off

I'd love to say arsenal did well against us due to our aggressive pressing, but that really wasn't it. you could accuse darmian of not exactly standing off, but isn't the idea of pressing to have more than one person doing it? and I'm not even sure I'd call what schweini was doing pressing.

Originally Posted by Baron

Does the disarray not come from a combination of poor team selection, tactics & intensity against the most one dimensional side in the land? It really takes something to know that Arsenal play the exact same way, every time, & Wenger is staunch in his defending of that play style & then you do everything in your power to make them look good & us £#%&!ing shit. Negligent springs to mind.

Arsenal played their part, but everyone knows United are vulnerable to early pressing - so to send out Basti to abandon his post to press at every opportunity was actually mental, likewise Darmian was CLEARLY told to sprint to Sanchez at every opportunity only to see him skip past. Rather than use his own experience he's well aware that non-compliance results in retribution from Van Gaal. So they all kept making the same mistakes.That's the German World Cup winning captain & Italian national fullback unable to use their own experience to stop making the same mistakes - madness. Not sure that reflects well on Van Gaal in my opinion.

Having an autonomous play style is clearly a ridiculously difficult & finely balanced thing to achieve, but removing dynamic decision making from the players is £#%&!ing madness. You simply cannot have forecast every possible scenario in the lead up to the game etc, so when you get it so catastrophically wrong Van Gaal should trust his players to adapt. He should also pick the right side from the start & not turn to Valencia & Fellaini when things go to shit, as they are preciously one dimensional performers that even Arsenal can shut up shop against.

Sunday was £#%&!ing pathetic, I find the reasoning for defending so many mistakes from everyone involved Scouse-like, criticism & debate is to be encouraged, the same way Van Gaal does himself. Head in the sand "that won't happen again" %@#$&!s is painful, the reason it won't happen again is because it's never happened before, not under any United manager in the modern era. So chalk that statistic up for the big man.

The only thing that interests me now is what happens next, because if there isn't a reaction, if Van Gaal digs his heels in & continues to make such poor decisions against the good sides we're going to be playing, it won't reflect well on him - results dependent. Results & performance depending for me.

Excellent post.

If LVG really is the great manager he's supposed to be, a positive reaction is exactly what I would expect, hopefully similar to the on we got after the FA cup loss to Arsenal last season but more sustained this time.

sure.... like he learned from underestimating psv (a) and sending out a two-man midfield (with herrera as one of them)?

meh. it's only everton.

The second goal on Sunday was symptomatic of what I think is our biggest problem right now, namely a lack of confidence.

Carrick has the ball fifteen yards or so inside their half on the right. He could have hit Rooney on the verge of their final third, chose not to, could have rolled it into Schweinsteiger showing for it and moved us forward, chose not to. Instead he decided the best thing to do at that moment was turn and knock it back to Smalling, the worst passer on the team, back in our defensive third. Why? Why was this the best thing that could happen? When did Michael Carrick, one of our best ball players start making decisions like this and what does it say about us?

Obviously the rest played out in the most depressingly predictable way it could have. Smalling stands on the ball clearly not having a clue what to do with it for as long as he could until Sanchez decided to press him, at which time he took his usual hump and hope, fell over and gave the ball directly to them. If we know anything about Smalling, it's that his forward balls never, ever reach a United player. 13 seconds later it was in the back of the net. This is not the stuff of champions.

It wasn't the passage of play itself that was as interesting as how both teams seemed to view the possession. Arsenal acted as if it were an opportunity, with Cazorla immediately looking to penetrate forward past a typically wrong side Rooney, and hit Sanchez quickly, confident of his own ability and that of Sanchez to use it, which he promptly did. We however seem to view possession as an end in itself, something not to be lost, with the accompanying fear of what happens if we do lose it. So possession itself becomes the end game rather than the opportunity it represents. This is arse-backwards.

We fell in love with the 45 pass move against Southampton, but this is an anomaly, not a realistic aspiration. Probability will tell you the more passes you attempt in a move the more likely it will break down, and every extra second of passive possession diminishes the probability of scoring, if for no other reason than the opportunity you are affording the opposition to organize. You can't play this way.

There is a very fine line between disciplined organization and excessive regimentation. The latter is a confidence killer. Van Gaal needs to find the balance between the two because we are playing like frightened rabbits.

Anyone else just think it was a freak result ?

7 minutes of football from kick off that hasn't and won't happen again ? At least this season.....

Like the city 6-1 etc....

You may not of liked the starting 11 or the defending for the goals but when your three down before 20 minutes all this analysis of tactics and Van gaals set up and play is irrelevant.... It's just one of those 20 minutes that happens in football...

Not sure why people are getting so hung up on it....if we were beat 3-1 with arsenal coming from behind in the second half to win it, then crack on with your football blogs..

These things happen in football, we're not above it happening to us especially with a relatively new side and with some lads brains still in the dressing room...

It doesn't worry or depress me as much as a Swansea or a Newcastle.

You could play that game another 50 times and check the score board on 25minutes and it would be very different..

There's a few on here that wanted this, craved this scoreline, had posts already written ready for the CnP..

Relax.

Ffs.

Originally Posted by Bunker Buster

Anyone else just think it was a freak result ?

7 minutes of football from kick off that hasn't and won't happen again ? At least this season.....

Like the city 6-1 etc....

You may not of liked the starting 11 or the defending for the goals but when your three down before 20 minutes all this analysis of tactics and Van gaals set up and play is irrelevant.... It's just one of those 20 minutes that happens in football...

Not sure why people are getting so hung up on it....if we were beat 3-1 with arsenal coming from behind in the second half to win it, then crack on with your football blogs..

These things happen in football, we're not above it happening to us especially with a relatively new side and with some lads brains still in the dressing room...

It doesn't worry or depress me as much as a Swansea or a Newcastle.

You could play that game another 50 times and check the score board on 25minutes and it would be very different..

There's a few on here that wanted this, craved this scoreline, had posts already written ready for the CnP..

Relax.

Ffs.

Bunks

Originally Posted by Bunker Buster

Anyone else just think it was a freak result ?

7 minutes of football from kick off that hasn't and won't happen again ? At least this season.....

Like the city 6-1 etc....

You may not of liked the starting 11 or the defending for the goals but when your three down before 20 minutes all this analysis of tactics and Van gaals set up and play is irrelevant.... It's just one of those 20 minutes that happens in football...

Not sure why people are getting so hung up on it....if we were beat 3-1 with arsenal coming from behind in the second half to win it, then crack on with your football blogs..

These things happen in football, we're not above it happening to us especially with a relatively new side and with some lads brains still in the dressing room...

It doesn't worry or depress me as much as a Swansea or a Newcastle.

You could play that game another 50 times and check the score board on 25minutes and it would be very different..

There's a few on here that wanted this, craved this scoreline, had posts already written ready for the CnP..

Relax.

Ffs.

all of this from the big guy.

Especially regarding comparing it to the swansea loss. This was one of those games. If we had won the way arsenal had, the same people would be calling it a fluke; "we were outplayed in the second half" etc.
Louis can't keep relying on individual performances etc.

Just to back up some text they stuck to on a forum where nobody knows their real name.

Originally Posted by Bunker Buster

Anyone else just think it was a freak result ?

7 minutes of football from kick off that hasn't and won't happen again ? At least this season.....

Like the city 6-1 etc....

You may not of liked the starting 11 or the defending for the goals but when your three down before 20 minutes all this analysis of tactics and Van gaals set up and play is irrelevant.... It's just one of those 20 minutes that happens in football...

Not sure why people are getting so hung up on it....if we were beat 3-1 with arsenal coming from behind in the second half to win it, then crack on with your football blogs..

These things happen in football, we're not above it happening to us especially with a relatively new side and with some lads brains still in the dressing room...

It doesn't worry or depress me as much as a Swansea or a Newcastle.

You could play that game another 50 times and check the score board on 25minutes and it would be very different..

There's a few on here that wanted this, craved this scoreline, had posts already written ready for the CnP..

Relax.

Ffs.

Completely agree.

We had a bad day at the office, and were beaten by an Arsenal team who were absolutely rampant for about ten minutes. Beaten by the better side on the day. It happens. They're a very good footballing side when they click.

Like you say, the other results were far harder to take. We lost to Swansea because of our own shortcomings, not because they played particularly well.

Originally Posted by itisme_panaflex

all of this from the big guy.

Especially regarding comparing it to the swansea loss. This was one of those games. If we had won the way arsenal had, the same people would be calling it a fluke; "we were outplayed in the second half" etc.
Louis can't keep relying on individual performances etc.

Just to back up some text they stuck to on a forum where nobody knows their real name.

This place is ridiculous for that tbh.

Most, sane reasonably balanced people are able to adapt their opinions over time as the evidence before them constantly changes. Some people on here will still be bleating on about how one of their posts about Vidic when he first signed was vindicated after a game in September 2015.

Originally Posted by Bunker Buster

Anyone else just think it was a freak result ?

7 minutes of football from kick off that hasn't and won't happen again ? At least this season.....

Like the city 6-1 etc....

You may not of liked the starting 11 or the defending for the goals but when your three down before 20 minutes all this analysis of tactics and Van gaals set up and play is irrelevant.... It's just one of those 20 minutes that happens in football...

Not sure why people are getting so hung up on it....if we were beat 3-1 with arsenal coming from behind in the second half to win it, then crack on with your football blogs..

These things happen in football, we're not above it happening to us especially with a relatively new side and with some lads brains still in the dressing room...

It doesn't worry or depress me as much as a Swansea or a Newcastle.

You could play that game another 50 times and check the score board on 25minutes and it would be very different..

There's a few on here that wanted this, craved this scoreline, had posts already written ready for the CnP..

Relax.

Ffs.

Yeah, agreed. They came out flying and caught us cold, Sanchez is in great form, he'd rip most fullbacks to bits and Ozil actually showed up for 20 minutes

Not that worried tbh.

Originally Posted by Big Norm

This place is ridiculous for that tbh.

Most, sane reasonably balanced people are able to adapt their opinions over time as the evidence before them constantly changes. Some people on here will still be bleating on about how one of their posts about Vidic when he first signed was vindicated after a game in September 2015.

The whole i called it thing was a joke to begin with. A sarcastic self slap on the back.
but some are now taking it seriously.

Look, i posted something vague 4 months ago, a specific recent event kind of fits in what I said back then.

So insecure.

Originally Posted by Bunker Buster

Anyone else just think it was a freak result ?

7 minutes of football from kick off that hasn't and won't happen again ? At least this season.....

Like the city 6-1 etc....

You may not of liked the starting 11 or the defending for the goals but when your three down before 20 minutes all this analysis of tactics and Van gaals set up and play is irrelevant.... It's just one of those 20 minutes that happens in football...

Not sure why people are getting so hung up on it....if we were beat 3-1 with arsenal coming from behind in the second half to win it, then crack on with your football blogs..

These things happen in football, we're not above it happening to us especially with a relatively new side and with some lads brains still in the dressing room...

It doesn't worry or depress me as much as a Swansea or a Newcastle.

You could play that game another 50 times and check the score board on 25minutes and it would be very different..

There's a few on here that wanted this, craved this scoreline, had posts already written ready for the CnP..

Relax.

Ffs.

it was a freak result, because arsenal don't normally take their chances. but it wasn't, by any stretch, a freak performance.

no one is getting excited.

but it was not all down to bad luck. it was down to bad selection and the way we play.

so, yes.... we're still two points off top. but we have no hope of winning the title playing like this. and it's not because we lost against arsenal.

and, of course, no wanted us to lose 3-0 to arsenal so they could c&p their pre-written posts. no one. soz. don't believe that for a second. you probably believe in curses, but that's not really appropriate to a sensible discussion.

Originally Posted by itisme_panaflex

The whole i called it thing was a joke to begin with. A sarcastic self slap on the back.
but some are now taking it seriously.

Look, i posted something vague 4 months ago, a specific recent event kind of fits in what I said back then.

So insecure.

I've noticed more than one fredster posting contradictory views just so they can bttt whichever turns out to be accurate later on.

Originally Posted by Zorg

I've noticed more than one fredster posting contradictory views just so they can bttt whichever turns out to be accurate later on.

Terrible behaviour tbf. Shocking.

Originally Posted by jem

it was a freak result, because arsenal don't normally take their chances.

Just the five goals in the previous league game iirc.

Originally Posted by Bunker Buster

Oh and trust me, there's people in here with posts in their phones 'notes' ready to skip in and destroy MUFC from the manager down...

The "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore" precooked meals on wheels, ready and waiting. People will agree with this, I am so peeved my sports team has not managed to win each game it plays etc. PEEVED. Check out my posts. Now check out that guys. looks like I called this one right again eh guys?