Manchester United vs. Arsenal

The ref probably helped Arsenal more than anything. It would have been far easier for us if Wilshere had been sent off earlier than he was as he should have been.

Cleverley then wouldn't have made that second challenge as Wilshere was rightly off.

I think Mike Dean was a bit card-happy but we always talk about consistency being key and tbf to Dean he was consistent.
 
Forevergiggs said:
I guess. But may be if Wilshire was sent off earlier, Clevers wouldn't have had to make that challenge later.
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It's all hypotheticals really.

In my view, Dean shouldn't have booked either of them in the first half, but then he just loves giving yellow cards.

All in all, I'll take 2-1 for that display. We've now got two home league games in a row so we'll see how we go from here.
 
alastair said:
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In my view, Dean shouldn't have booked either of them in the first half, but then he just loves giving yellow cards.
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A bit irrelevant anyway since Wilshere was clearly going to get sent off at some stage. Wenger should have taken him off, he takes the blame here not Dean.
 
alastair said:
Yeh. If the ref had actually been consistent, Wilshere would have gone first, then Cleverley.



I didn't blame the ref for the result, I'm merely saying he was one of various factors in why we lost the game.
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Let's be honest if Wilshere is sent off first (which should have happened we all agree) then what makes you say that the same events would occur and that Cleverley would still make that foul ??
Ultimately the sequence is altered if Wishere is sent off in the first place, the rest is just pointless conjectures.
Biggest mistake was letting Wilshere on the pitch and not just because he was yellow carded but more importantly he lacks proper match fitness and sharpness.Playing away at OT was too much for him, physically and psychologically.When Walcott came on, it's Wilshire who should have went and not Ramsey
 
Can't believe Wenger is moaning. He should be thanking his lucky stars that he somehow got away without another 8-2 mauling.
 
5-1 would have been a fairer scoreline. Any gooner with any more to say than 'phew' is missing the fundamentals of what happened today. As fans do.
 
In the second half, I'm not sure who it was but there were a couple of awesome, long, raking balls into Valencia/ Rafael on the right wing. Does anyone remember who they were by? Obviously Scholes is passing his knowledge onto the next generation.
 
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One of my mates - lifelong United supporter - was dressed in a Borussia Dortmund shirt because he wanted to be on TV! Anyone see him or any pictures of him?
 
Yikes. Pretty disappointing, even with the low expectations I had. The front three was awful all day and after a while, it looked like Cazorla gave up on them. I can't remember the last time I saw so many passes for a player who was on a different wavelength. Hopefully that is just one of those things that improves over time.

Good game from Mike Dean. Cleverley could have been sent off but whatever, we got what we deserved from this match. Dean had 7 or 8 calls to make and got all but one of them right (or all, depending on your point of view). That's good enough for me.

The boy from Brazil was awful. He is constantly trying to make cute touches in dangerous areas, he gets caught upfield constantly, tucks in way too much and doesn't hustle back. Gibbs can't come back soon enough.

I usually read some of the player threads on here and see superlative comments and since I don't watch all United games I think "oh, he must have had an excellent match". But I watched today and I see the same comments. Evans and Rafael had good performances and they are good players with the potential to be great but today wasn't nearly as good as the multiple pages of drooling would have you believe.
 
Whilst I thought Dean was going overboard with the yellows during a game that wasn't particularly dirty, I do like how he handled Wilshere and Cleverley in the second half. He gave them both separately final warnings for incidents where they probably should've expected a yellow - Sir Alex then made his decision to replace Cleverley, but Wilshere was left on to make another challenge that resulted in the second booking. I can't really fault Dean for giving them both an extra chance and trying to keep 22 on the pitch; sensible refereeing.
 
Antisocial said:
Whilst I thought Dean was going overboard with the yellows during a game that wasn't particularly dirty, I do like how he handled Wilshere and Cleverley in the second half. He gave them both separately final warnings for incidents where they probably should've expected a yellow - Sir Alex then made his decision to replace Cleverley, but Wilshere was left on to make another challenge that resulted in the second booking. I can't really fault Dean for giving them both an extra chance and trying to keep 22 on the pitch; sensible refereeing.
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perfectly summed up
 
Say Goodbye said:
In the second half, I'm not sure who it was but there were a couple of awesome, long, raking balls into Valencia/ Rafael on the right wing. Does anyone remember who they were by? Obviously Scholes is passing his knowledge onto the next generation.
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A couple of Rooney stunners to go with the Evans one, courtesy of mdanani in the Newbies:

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It's been noticeable for a few years now that a lot of our players can do these compared to other clubs, even including Real and Barca. I think having Scholes around is genuinely the reason for it.

In Scholes and Rooney we have two players who are as good at it as anyone in the world. Alonso and Pirlo probably come next, but neither of them do it as regularly or with such consistent perfection.
 
Antisocial said:
Whilst I thought Dean was going overboard with the yellows during a game that wasn't particularly dirty, I do like how he handled Wilshere and Cleverley in the second half. He gave them both separately final warnings for incidents where they probably should've expected a yellow - Sir Alex then made his decision to replace Cleverley, but Wilshere was left on to make another challenge that resulted in the second booking. I can't really fault Dean for giving them both an extra chance and trying to keep 22 on the pitch; sensible refereeing.
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I don't really get the line of reasoning that it's sensible refereeing not to book players for fouls that warranted yellow cards.

What he should have done was not be so card-happy in the first place so that when they did inevitably commit a proper yellow card offence, he could give the correct decision. It just brings the game into disrepute when Cleverley clearly commits a yellow card offence and the referee is forced to ignore it because he knows his earlier foul probably wasn't worthy of a booking.
 
alastair said:
I don't really get the line of reasoning that it's sensible refereeing not to book players for fouls that warranted yellow cards.

What he should have done was not be so card-happy in the first place so that when they did inevitably commit a proper yellow card offence, he could give the correct decision. It just brings the game into disrepute when Cleverley clearly commits a yellow card offence and the referee is forced to ignore it because he knows his earlier foul probably wasn't worthy of a booking.
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As I mentioned in that last post, I agree he was too card-happy given the nature of the game (was it 9 bookings in total? You'd think it had been a Stoke match based on that alone) but he couldn't really avoid booking Wilshere in the first half for the foul on Cleverley, which obviously puts him on a bit of a tight rope. Maybe he could've let Cleverley off with a warning in the first half, but booking him when he did wasn't the worst decision in the world obviously. That leads both into the second half in the same position - Wilshere goes in on RVP and should be booked. Cleverley later goes in on Wilshere and should be booked. Instead Dean uses discretion to give each a talking to and a final warning - I think this was reasonable from Dean and fair as he gives Cleverley the same chance he's given Wilshere shortly before, and sensible as he controlled the situations and manages to keep the game 11 a-side. When Wilshere goes in again then he has no choice as he's given him the chance to cool down.

I can't really agree about the 'disrepute' angle as the referee has used his discretion and remains in control of the situation throughout.

I'm no Dean fan but I think he handled it sensibly.
 
Brightonian said:
It's been noticeable for a few years now that a lot of our players can do these compared to other clubs, even including Real and Barca. I think having Scholes around is genuinely the reason for it.

In Scholes and Rooney we have two players who are as good at it as anyone in the world. Alonso and Pirlo probably come next, but neither of them do it as regularly or with such consistent perfection.
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You should really focus on Xabi Alonso then.The guy is the best when it comes to crossfield passes.
Just an example here

That pass easily beats the two gifs
 
kouroux said:
You should really focus on Xabi Alonso then.The guy is the best when it comes to crossfield passes.
Just an example here

That pass easily beats the two gifs
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Yeah, he has quality crossfield pass, but in some games he is forsing it too much, lot of times he has better solutions but he decides to play it crossfield. Plus, often he produces home run too.
 
kouroux said:
You should really focus on Xabi Alonso then.The guy is the best when it comes to crossfield passes.
Just an example here

That pass easily beats the two gifs
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I usually agree with you but I'm afraid you are paying huge disservice to Scholes.
 
Scholes is great long passer but Alonso for me is a little better specially with the ground his passes can cover.The longer the distance and the more difficult it is too keep them accurate.I was not trying to belittle Scholes, he's a great player but it's not a sin to say there are players who are better than him in certain aspects of the game
 
BBC Sport's Juliette Ferrington on Twitter: "No Darren Fletcher, Phil Jones, Nick Powell or Kagawa at open training ahead of trip to Braga."

I'd expect three of those but no Fletcher? Thought he'd start the game, maybe he's on a strict training regime or something.
 
kouroux said:
Scholes is great long passer but Alonso for me is a little better specially with the ground his passes can cover.The longer the distance and the more difficult it is too keep them accurate.I was not trying to belittle Scholes, he's a great player but it's not a sin to say there are players who are better than him in certain aspects of the game
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My problem is you are talking about Scholes' main asset. I know there are plenty of cms who are better defensively, physically and so on. As far as long range passing goes it really baffled me though.



Look at his passes against Arsenal, you certainly would expect him to lose a bit of precision during his 6 months' retirement. Remember the ball around 45 sec mark (the volley one), it convinced me he's still the greatest long-range passer of the ball I've seen.

EDIT: I'd certainly trust Scholes and not Alonso if my life depended on one long diagonal
 
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