PL L FA Premier League

Manchester City 1:0 Manchester United

Post-match discussion


Sun, 02 November 2014

Regarding the formation, we definitely need to go back to the diamond, but one of the established front three needs to be dropped.
 
Valencia - not a RB
Blind - not strong enough
Fellani - enough is enough, not the UTD i want to see with him being a target man
Januzaj - not a winger

4231 with Herrera back in the team.
We need a stronger CM (Strootman) and a winger with pace (Reus/Cuadrado (and Depay for back up)).
 
The red ruined the game. Hopefully Smalling learns from this.

Good performance considering the circumstances, and when you compare it to our game(s) against City last season you got to be optimistic about this season.
 
Regarding the formation, we definitely need to go back to the diamond, but one of the established front three needs to be dropped.

There are two things which I think we need to make the diamond work successfully:

(1) We need at least one of the two strikers with pace, ability to run behind defenses and who is comfortable picking up the ball in wide areas.
(2) We need Herrera to play a more box to box role than he is currently. So far he has been only brilliant in the attacking areas.
 
Funny, I've not seen one mention of 'need to give the manager time' in the press lately. Last year it was all they could waffle on about but now they'd rather mention the amount of money we spent in the summer.
 
Pleased with our effort. Yet again undone by an individual error.

We were clueless with 11 men, kings of aimless possession.

Sadly have to agree with your second point. Didn't look like having any cutting edge despite having lots of the ball.

We seem to struggle at times unless teams are coming at us allowing us to play on the break. Chelsea and City conceded possession at times but we didn't know what to do with it. Too many stray passes.
 
How about Leicester City? We largely got away with the narrow top heavy formation because we had an easy set of fixtures. Playing 2 centre forwards with a number 10 behind is insane at this level of football. The diamond won't work against anybody decent. Thankfully we didn't try it against Chelsea or City. We'd have got slaughtered.

The wingers give us and extra body in midfield and more solidity in wide areas. I'd go into more detail on the benefits of this but I'm tired and it shouldn't require explanation.

Leicester City was an anomaly where we've been slaughtered purely by referee and mistakes done by our defence - something that's happening no matter what formation we play, 352, 4141 or 442. We've had an easy set of fixtures? We've played against WBA with 4141 and looked horribly shit there, both of our goals came from our midfielders, WBA is hardly a tough fixture isn't it ?

Why won't diamond work against 'anybody decent'? Why shouldn't it require explanation? Wingers give us extra body in midfield? But playing with 4 midfielders - 1 CDM, 2 CMs and a #10 doesn't give us extra body in midfield? If anything, then you could see that quite often Shaw was not helped by ADM in defending ( Clichy, unmarked for the goal, where is his marker winger following him ? ) and same goes for the opposite wing of ours, Valencia and Januzaj both looked pretty clueless and isolated in attack and pretty bad in defence ( Valencia's positioning for Smalling's red card, obviously it's somehow justified because he's not a RB ). On top of that you're getting your striker isolated more often than not.

4141 without inverted wingers ( something that was done at Munich for example ) proves to be too reliant on crossing, something we're yet to benefit from. You'll see ADM crossing at every opportunity he has, he won't have so much opportunity to dribble because he's restricted by a sideline and any team that's not positionally inept will deal with us crossing like that, all you need is a tall CB - just like Lescott in WBA game.

On top of that, if you need any argument more really, then you'd expect us to play to our strengths. ADM looked ten times the player in the midfield than he looks on the wing and when Falcao is back, we're back into 3 strikers, 1 #10 2 positions problem ( which is a good problem to have ). Even when he isn't back then you can play Rooney and RVP in striker role and Mata in #10 ( don't want to get into that argument here as well because we're going through it every single week but I like Mata at #10 more than Rooney and Rooney should, imo, play at #9 ). You're getting then best out of your best offensive players. Current system seems to have been implemented mostly to accomodate Januzaj and this system would be fine if our wingers could be the goal scoring wingers, game winning players like Ribery or Robben, at the moment, they are not.
 
There are two things which I think we need to make the diamond work successfully:

(1) We need at least one of the two strikers with pace, ability to run behind defenses and who is comfortable picking up the ball in wide areas.
(2) We need Herrera to play a more box to box role than he is currently. So far he has been only brilliant in the attacking areas.
Herrera needs to play with more freedom, and need another anchor in the middle. The games he's played in has been with only Blind as a defensive player.
 
Valencia - not a RB
Blind - not strong enough
Fellani - enough is enough, not the UTD i want to see with him being a target man
Januzaj - not a winger

4231 with Herrera back in the team.
We need a stronger CM (Strootman) and a winger with pace (Reus/Cuadrado (and Depay for back up)).
You missed one. wiz4231 is melodramatic.
 
Herrera needs to play with more freedom, and need another anchor in the middle. The games he's played in has been with only Blind as a defensive player.

If we get another anchor to accompany Herrera then it means that he's moving to the #10. In 4141 it means that he's taking position from Rooney/Mata, in 442 diamond it implies that he'd take spot from ADM/Mata/one of our strikers. ( depending if we play with 3 strikers, 2 strikers and #10, etc. )

It really is fecked up, at the moment, you could say that we've got too many good options in CM :nervous:
 
I don't understand how some people got the impression we ''bossed the game'' before the red. I saw sloppy passing, difficulties creating good chances and a game that was more and more leaning in City's favour.
 
Thought the positives were:
Fellaini - Best game by some way for me. Looked good with the ball at his feet as well as in the air physically, should have done better with his header. But for me his best performance by a long way.
Carrick - Good to have him back.
Mcnair - Looked confident when he came on.
Rojo (up until injury) - Thought he was doing ok against Aguero first half, and looks confident with the ball at his feet
Rooney - Great performance from him, maybe he needs to replace RVP and get Herrera back in the middle for the Palace game.
Januzaj - Bit better from him compared to Chelsea game, thought he was causing Clichy problems.
De Gea - Good saves again. flapped at a corner but looked good again.
Character - First 25 mins we were looked really good up til final third, winning midfield battle tactics look good, we just need to be more clinical and not give the ball away. We didnt give up and could have levelled it in the end. Rooney should have shot himself and Fellaini header both could have resulted in goals. Although with 3 pens missed and Yaya missing some chances it could have been a few more too.

Fellaini and Rooney were both really good IMO, played well and linked up well first half dominating city's 2 in midfield.

Negatives:
Final Third - No killer instinct at all. Poor passing, first 25 mins we had a few chances to really go for it but awful final ball and no running at players meant we lacked the pace in the final third. Shaw had a few chances to attack the space and cut back, final pass was woeful a fair few times, bad to see that we cant create chances even when we have space
Smalling - Obvious scape goat but seriously that was the worst! I stick up for him as think he could be a top defender for us. But that is so bad it deserves a spell on the bench after the ban. Hope he gets slaughtered by LVG for it, cos there is no place for that!
Shaw - Thought he was terrible just looks like his decision making going forward especially is terrible. Not playing naturally at all currently, doesnt attack space and slows our play when in good positions, first half especially he was driving me mad with his play going forward
Di Maria - really dropped off when we needed him in the big games. Shouldn't be on corners if he cant beat the first man. I think maybe 85% across City and Chelsea games have hit the first man low and made for easy clearances.
LVG - surprised he didnt put Rooney on the same side as Valencia as for me Rooney would have supported him far more, Shaw should be the better full back and for me in a derby like that Rooney would have offered more support to the weaker player than Di Maria. The goal came down that side and from poor positioning of Valencia potentially Yaya's (really good) pass could have been dealt with better if Rooney was covering that side.
RVP - Awful just not at it at all at the moment. Needs to be dropped. He was our worst player yesterday for me.
Ref - He was awful they had 3 pens....potentially thats a positive for us.
 
Valencia - not a RB
Blind - not strong enough
Fellani - enough is enough, not the UTD i want to see with him being a target man
Januzaj - not a winger

4231 with Herrera back in the team.
We need a stronger CM (Strootman) and a winger with pace (Reus/Cuadrado (and Depay for back up)).
Blind is pressing to hinder counter-attacks, as we are a posession based team now and is doing it very well - i'd go as far as saying he is probably our best buy in a while, value wise and in terms of something missed in our midfield.

Fellaini was man of the match last game against Chelsea, nulling out Fabregas completely, and did fairly well in the city match, yet you don't believe him to be good enough? Good enough to be a starter? No, I can agree on that. But if he keeps his current level then he more than rightly deserves his place in the squad.

Januzaj is young, he can be brilliant at times & he can be wasteful at other times, it has nothing to do with him not having the abilities needed to be a winger. Inconsistency is what you get from youngsters you try to develop.
Would you rather not play him? Because he isn't going to get in at #10 before Mata or Rooney.

You want 4-2-3-1, but you don't want Januzaj on the wing and you don't think Blind is strong enough, and neither is Fellaini good enough.
How the feck would you line up with those premises?
We're still 2 months away from January, so you have to go with what you have.
 
Herrera needs to play with more freedom, and need another anchor in the middle. The games he's played in has been with only Blind as a defensive player.

I am afraid that is what he has done so far; play as if there are two men anchoring behind him. For the diamond to work he needs to have more defensive contribution. More like a role that Henderson played for Liverpool last season. As of now, due to both Di Maria and him bombing forward Blind is left with the impossible task to anchor on his own. Which would have been fine if he was Matic, we had solid central defenders and didn't play such a high line; unfortunately we have neither.
 
I am afraid that is what he has done so far; play as if there are two men anchoring behind him. For the diamond to work he needs to have more defensive contribution. More like a role that Henderson played for Liverpool last season. As of now, due to both Di Maria and him bombing forward Blind is left with the impossible task to anchor on his own. Which would have been fine if he was Matic, we had solid central defenders and didn't play such a high line; unfortunately we have neither.

Thats a little unfair as Herrera does his fair share of defensive work from what I have seen and you never see him loose the ball and let a midfielder run past him.
 
Thats a little unfair as Herrera does his fair share of defensive work from what I have seen and you never see him loose the ball and let a midfielder run past him.

May be I was exaggerating a little to get my point across. Though I think he needs to provide more support to Blind when we play the diamond. Both him and Rooney actually, who needs to drop back to cover the spaces Di Maria leaves behind when he goes forward.
 
I don't understand how some people got the impression we ''bossed the game'' before the red. I saw sloppy passing, difficulties creating good chances and a game that was more and more leaning in City's favour.

Agreed. I don't think we'd had a shot on target at that stage. How can you be in control of a game if you're creating no chances.
 
is anyone else really fecking confused by what happened yesterday?

Usually by 24 hours after a game I can rationalise what happened and decide whether our performance was encouraging or not. I've been all over the place with this one and I still don't know what to make of it.

When it was 11 v 11 we looked decent enough. More possession than we would usually have against them. But they created 2 or 3 good chances and we created nothing. So that's not good. But we didn't concede. Which is good. But they should have had a penalty. Which isn't good. When we went a man down they were all over us. Which is to be expected. But we generally defended well. Which was good. But they should have had another penalty. Not good. They eventually scored. Also not good. But we came back at them, despite being a man down. Which is great. And didn't concede again. Also good. But maybe they were there for the taking? Or maybe they'd regrouped after a couple of poor results and were really fired up for this one? They didn't have Silva though. He's a huge loss. We didn't have Falcao. Or Rafael. And had someone sent off. So that's a point in our favour, right? But maybe if we had better defenders we wouldn't get silly red cards? Although perhaps they just need better luck with injuries, so they can play a run of games together? But what about our lack of creativity? What the feck has happened to Di Maria anyway? And Januzaj, wasn't he supposed to be up and running after that Chelsea game? Or Van Persie? Is he turning the corner? Or is he completely shot? Fellaini's playing well. Which is nice. But we all wanted rid of him in the summer. So why's he starting ahead of Hererra and Carrick? So confused...

Yeah, this game has my head wrecked. Genuinely don't know how to feel right now.
 
is anyone else really fecking confused by what happened yesterday?

Usually by 24 hours after a game I can rationalise what happened and decide whether our performance was encouraging or not. I've been all over the place with this one and I still don't know what to make of it.

When it was 11 v 11 we looked decent enough. More possession than we would usually have against them. But they created 2 or 3 good chances and we created nothing. So that's not good. But we didn't concede. Which is good. But they should have had a penalty. Which isn't good. When we went a man down they were all over us. Which is to be expected. But we generally defended well. Which was good. But they should have had another penalty. Not good. They eventually scored. Also not good. But we came back at them, despite being a man down. Which is great. And didn't concede again. Also good. But maybe they were there for the taking? Or maybe they'd regrouped after a couple of poor results and were really fired up for this one? They didn't have Silva though. He's a huge loss. We didn't have Falcao. Or Rafael. And had someone sent off. So that's a point in our favour, right? But maybe if we had better defenders we wouldn't get silly red cards? Although perhaps they just need better luck with injuries, so they can play a run of games together? But what about our lack of creativity? What the feck has happened to Di Maria anyway? And Januzaj, wasn't he supposed to be up and running after that Chelsea game? Or Van Persie? Is he turning the corner? Or is he completely shot? Fellaini's playing well. Which is nice. But we all wanted rid of him in the summer. So why's he starting ahead of Hererra and Carrick? So confused...

Yeah, this game has my head wrecked. Genuinely don't know how to feel right now.
Thinking about something else, looking ahead, when Herrera played well he was linking up with Rafael. They were causing problems for teams down that side. If Rafa is out for a while is that going to cause another problem if we change formation. This is doing my head in. :lol:
 
is anyone else really fecking confused by what happened yesterday?

Usually by 24 hours after a game I can rationalise what happened and decide whether our performance was encouraging or not. I've been all over the place with this one and I still don't know what to make of it.

When it was 11 v 11 we looked decent enough. More possession than we would usually have against them. But they created 2 or 3 good chances and we created nothing. So that's not good. But we didn't concede. Which is good. But they should have had a penalty. Which isn't good. When we went a man down they were all over us. Which is to be expected. But we generally defended well. Which was good. But they should have had another penalty. Not good. They eventually scored. Also not good. But we came back at them, despite being a man down. Which is great. And didn't concede again. Also good. But maybe they were there for the taking? Or maybe they'd regrouped after a couple of poor results and were really fired up for this one? They didn't have Silva though. He's a huge loss. We didn't have Falcao. Or Rafael. And had someone sent off. So that's a point in our favour, right? But maybe if we had better defenders we wouldn't get silly red cards? Although perhaps they just need better luck with injuries, so they can play a run of games together? But what about our lack of creativity? What the feck has happened to Di Maria anyway? And Januzaj, wasn't he supposed to be up and running after that Chelsea game? Or Van Persie? Is he turning the corner? Or is he completely shot? Fellaini's playing well. Which is nice. But we all wanted rid of him in the summer. So why's he starting ahead of Hererra and Carrick? So confused...

Yeah, this game has my head wrecked. Genuinely don't know how to feel right now.

I am struggling with some of those questions too. We didn't dominate until City decided to get back into their shell against 10 men. Possibly a sign of their low confidence right now with two successive defeats against mediocre opposition before the game last night. Pellegrini really didn't want to take any chances and just shut shop.

About the bolded part; that is a meaningless stat unless it gives meaningful possession. Passing the ball between De Gea, Rojo, Smalling and Blind for 5 minutes means absolute zilch to me. Unless someone comes with a way to measure "useful/productive possession", I have decided not to pay heed to it.
 
I am struggling with some of those questions too. We didn't dominate until City decided to get back into their shell against 10 men. Possibly a sign of their low confidence right now with two successive defeats against mediocre opposition before the game last night. Pellegrini really didn't want to take any chances and just shut shop.

About the bolded part; that is a meaningless stat unless it gives meaningful possession. Passing the ball between De Gea, Rojo, Smalling and Blind for 5 minutes means absolute zilch to me. Unless someone comes with a way to measure "useful/productive possession", I have decided not to pay heed to it.

I'm not talking about the stat, just the pattern of play. We were relatively evenly matched in that we saw more of the ball and spent more time in their half than we would usually do. Let's not forget that our last few visits to that same ground under Fergie saw us utterly dominated. Any change to that pattern should be cause for at least a little optimism.
 
Their midfield was there to be got at. I think we missed a trick and should have had di Maria further up running at City. Rooney and RVP up top, we would have scored at least once (if we had managed to keep 11 on the pitch).

Good performance though. Di Maria has been poor for a couple games and we don't look completely lost, which is good I guess.
 
While we did play well towards the end, let's not pretend City were anything like their best. They were as shite as they've been in their last three games which they failed to win, and could have been got at but a mixture of shite defending and Smalling not having a braincell led to us being cut apart time and time apart.
 
I'm not talking about the stat, just the pattern of play. We were relatively evenly matched in that we saw more of the ball and spent more time in their half than we would usually do. Let's not forget that our last few visits to that same ground under Fergie saw us utterly dominated. Any change to that pattern should be cause for at least a little optimism.

I have already been accused of being overly negative a couple of times today, but I am afraid I'll have to continue in that vein. Please bear with me.

This is not the same City team that we met last season.
  • They are low on confidence
  • Yaya isn't at his best, yet
  • Fernando is not as good as Fernandinho was last season.
  • Pellegrini decided to go with a 442, no Silva and Nasri left them a man short in central midfield.
  • Given their lack of form, he wanted to exploit our weakness against the counter. Which they did with the free runs Serge got at De Gea.
  • We did spend more time in their half after they retreated back around the 60th minute to protect their lead.
  • In the initial stages, we either passed it around the back or gave it away as soon as we moved the ball towards their goal.
If my memory serves me right, then in the Fergie game with Van Persie we setup to counter and got a two goal lead before they came back to level, and then VP eventually won it with his free-kick in the dying minutes.
 
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They were there for the taking and we actually outplayed them inspite of having a right back, central midfielder and two 19yr olds in our defense. Smalling is an idiot.

No we didn't. Barring the last 15-20 mins and the first 10 (when we kept the ball in our half most of the time), they had the best chances even before the red card. We were lucky not to conceded at least 2 penalties and go down to 9 men.
 
is anyone else really fecking confused by what happened yesterday?

Usually by 24 hours after a game I can rationalise what happened and decide whether our performance was encouraging or not. I've been all over the place with this one and I still don't know what to make of it.

When it was 11 v 11 we looked decent enough. More possession than we would usually have against them. But they created 2 or 3 good chances and we created nothing. So that's not good. But we didn't concede. Which is good. But they should have had a penalty. Which isn't good. When we went a man down they were all over us. Which is to be expected. But we generally defended well. Which was good. But they should have had another penalty. Not good. They eventually scored. Also not good. But we came back at them, despite being a man down. Which is great. And didn't concede again. Also good. But maybe they were there for the taking? Or maybe they'd regrouped after a couple of poor results and were really fired up for this one? They didn't have Silva though. He's a huge loss. We didn't have Falcao. Or Rafael. And had someone sent off. So that's a point in our favour, right? But maybe if we had better defenders we wouldn't get silly red cards? Although perhaps they just need better luck with injuries, so they can play a run of games together? But what about our lack of creativity? What the feck has happened to Di Maria anyway? And Januzaj, wasn't he supposed to be up and running after that Chelsea game? Or Van Persie? Is he turning the corner? Or is he completely shot? Fellaini's playing well. Which is nice. But we all wanted rid of him in the summer. So why's he starting ahead of Hererra and Carrick? So confused...

Yeah, this game has my head wrecked. Genuinely don't know how to feel right now.
Regarding ADM and his recent lack of form, it's purely down to position and tactics.

ADM is at his best when playing on the left side of a midfield diamond, running from deep directly at the left channel cutting in and out as he wishes. He was a success with Real Madrid, playing this role.

Now with our switch from a midfield diamond to the 4-2-3-1/4-1-4-1 formation, he either plays as a left winger hugging the touch line in the final third chucking in crosses or a right winger cutting in to pass or shoot. With this role, he obviously has less space to run and less options to attack. His pace becomes less influential because of this and he has become somewhat predictable when he is on the right.

Januzaj is now double teamed wherever he goes, so he's nullified as well.

I have been already accused of being overly negative a couple of times already, but I am afraid I'll have to continue in that vein. Please bear with me.

This is not the same City team that we met last season.
  • They are low on confidence
  • Yaya isn't at his best, yet
  • Fernando is not as good as Fernandinho was last season.
  • Pellegrini decided to go with a 442, no Silva and Nasri left them a man short in central midfield.
  • Given their lack of form, he wanted to exploit our weakness against the counter. Which they did with the free runs Serge got at De Gea.
  • We did spend more time in their half after they retreated back around the 60th minute to protect their lead.
  • In the initial stages, we either passed it around the back or gave it away as soon as we moved the ball towards their goal.
If my memory serves me right, then in the Fergie game with Van Persie we setup to counter and got a two goal lead before they came back to level, and then VP eventually won it with his free-kick in the dying minutes.
Yeah. In the past, we set up to counter and they were the possession team. Now it's the total opposite. We set up for possession and they set up to counter.

But seriously dude. Be more positive a bit. lol. At least the team wasn't steamrollered like last season.
 
Yeah. In the past, we set up to counter and they were the possession team. Now it's the total opposite. We set up for possession and they set up to counter.

But seriously dude. Be more positive a bit. lol. At least the team wasn't steamrollered like last season.

Don't know whether to credit Michael Oliver or Van Gaal for that. :p

There are two positives for me so far:

(1) The team doesn't look as scared of a football as they did last season
(2) Di Maria, Herrera, Blind and Shaw look like top signings so far
 
Gary Neville made a good point during commentary that for the first 15 mins or so, our 3 in central midfield were bossing City's 2. Then for some reason, Rooney started to think he was Steven Gerrard and began pinging 70 yard crossfield passes to Januzaj that were easily cut out and we lost our way a little.
Januzaj was poor again. He is not a winger if he can't take someone down the line and get a cross in. A few times in the first half he was 1-1 with Clichy and cut inside every time.
Fellaini played well I thought, but should have buried that header.
RVP was crap - again. Out muscled every single time by Kompany. Was a complete passenger and should have been hooked at half time. Anyone know when Falcao is back?
 
This was the best time to play City and we blew it. Its really our own mistakes which are costing us and that is the annoying thing. Sendings off, goals from set pieces, silly defensive errors etc. I didn't think we played as well as we did against Chelsea. We should have actually been more defensively minded and difficult to break down after we went down to 10 men yet there were holes everywhere. I think we should have gone with Fellani, Blind and Herrera all in the lineup which would have given us some control in the middle of the park and some cover for our defence.

Its all well and good talking about 'philosphy' and 'moving in the right direction' but it means diddly squat if you don't pick up any points.
 
No we didn't. Barring the last 15-20 mins and the first 10 (when we kept the ball in our half most of the time), they had the best chances even before the red card. We were lucky not to conceded at least 2 penalties and go down to 9 men.

We had the backline I mentioned in the last part of the game only. Thought it was implied and pretty clear that I was talking about that phase only.
 
I don't understand how some people got the impression we ''bossed the game'' before the red. I saw sloppy passing, difficulties creating good chances and a game that was more and more leaning in City's favour.
Bossed is probably too strong a word.

Navas had done very little up to that point, Shaw had kept him very quite. Zabaleta was not really doing his overlaps, Yaya was pretty quite. I think it would be fair too say that we were fairly comfortable, and maybe shaded it for the first 25 minutes. Ref could probably of handed out a few more yellows to some of the City players for their blatant and repetitive fouling at that stage. As you say, from that point on I think City started to play better and had two really good chances, that they fluffed. The team defended well as a team. I think we were fortunate with the 2nd and 3rd penalty appeals. The first one I thought he just went down as he got touched, rather than he was actually fouled.

I didn't really see the sloppy passing other than Rooney and Adnan. Rooney got better as the game progressed.
 
I have already been accused of being overly negative a couple of times today, but I am afraid I'll have to continue in that vein. Please bear with me.

This is not the same City team that we met last season.
  • They are low on confidence
  • Yaya isn't at his best, yet
  • Fernando is not as good as Fernandinho was last season.
  • Pellegrini decided to go with a 442, no Silva and Nasri left them a man short in central midfield.
  • Given their lack of form, he wanted to exploit our weakness against the counter. Which they did with the free runs Serge got at De Gea.
  • We did spend more time in their half after they retreated back around the 60th minute to protect their lead.
  • In the initial stages, we either passed it around the back or gave it away as soon as we moved the ball towards their goal.
If my memory serves me right, then in the Fergie game with Van Persie we setup to counter and got a two goal lead before they came back to level, and then VP eventually won it with his free-kick in the dying minutes.

Fergie also took us there where we only needed a draw and did not have 1 shot in 90+ minutes. We lost 1-0.

This is the same City team that is 3rd in the table having scored 20 goals and beaten Liverpool and Spurs with ease.

People are making too much of the negative. With a consistently changing back line we have had no consistency and all opponents are testing our defense to the limit. Neither Chelsea or City caused that much hardship. We struggled more against Leicester and WHU. I think City had 6 shots on target all game. City were struggling to break down a weak defense due to them being well organized. Don't forget we brought into the side 2 players that had not played for 3 or more games, had Fellani and Adnan playing their second 90 mins of the season.

City have a well established squad that has been together for quite some time. No new players in this game and playing a formation they know very well. We are not too far away from them, but definitely behind them.
 
Gary Neville made a good point during commentary that for the first 15 mins or so, our 3 in central midfield were bossing City's 2. Then for some reason, Rooney started to think he was Steven Gerrard and began pinging 70 yard crossfield passes to Januzaj that were easily cut out and we lost our way a little.
Januzaj was poor again. He is not a winger if he can't take someone down the line and get a cross in. A few times in the first half he was 1-1 with Clichy and cut inside every time.

Exactly this. Some people talk about the range of passing and Rooney certainly has this kind of passes in him, but it's also about decision making and those long passes, even if you can pull them of, don't always make sense. When we play against a defensive team, where one side of the field is packed with players and we need to make room, it certainly makes sense to shift the game with a long ball to the other side. It also applies to normal or big games, when the receiving player has a lot of room for himself or if you play those kind of ball into space from the beginning, where the player runs into. But if you play those long balls, which are in the air for a pretty long time, directly at the player and the opponent stands near by him, those are so easily to cut out and we lose the ball.

I've been critical of Januzaj myself in recent times and whilst he wasn't exactly playing good yesterday, I have to come to his and probably Di Marias defence for the City game. As we all know, our wing play over the past two years was far large periods not good enough. A lot of people were criticising Valencia, Young and Nani and to a certain level it was also down to their quality, but we played with Januzaj and Di Maria in the last two games and we couldn't really bring them into play. Nobody argues about the quality of these two players, as they are capable of beating their man due to their technical abilities, running into space as they are pretty quick and able of playing key passes to create chances. It is important to dominate the centre in the modern game, but the most damage in games is still done by wide players. Look at Real, Barca or Bayern as an example and whilst you see that they dominate the centre, they get their wide players into dangerous positions and therefore score goals. We haven't been able to that and that's a real concern for the whole attacking power we have in our squad.
 
Granted the current formation has made us look slightly more solid at the back, but we still look like where going to concede and look far more pridicable going forward so is it really worth it?

Our plan for the past two weeks has basically been knock it out to the wingers, which has been proved time and time again is easy for teams to defend against in the modern game.

At least before with di Maria more involved we looked frightening going forward. The best part of our play is when we used the diamond was the midfield of di Maria, Herrera and blind, which looked like it was starting create an understanding and nucleus we could build our team round.

We've thrown that all away to play one dimensional football, (with pretty much identical tactics to what moyes was so heavily criticised for) that still looks like it's going to concede.

The strongest part of this team is the attack, we need to play on that strength, And the diamond is the best way to do that.
Leicester City was an anomaly where we've been slaughtered purely by referee and mistakes done by our defence - something that's happening no matter what formation we play, 352, 4141 or 442. We've had an easy set of fixtures? We've played against WBA with 4141 and looked horribly shit there, both of our goals came from our midfielders, WBA is hardly a tough fixture isn't it ?

Why won't diamond work against 'anybody decent'? Why shouldn't it require explanation? Wingers give us extra body in midfield? But playing with 4 midfielders - 1 CDM, 2 CMs and a #10 doesn't give us extra body in midfield? If anything, then you could see that quite often Shaw was not helped by ADM in defending ( Clichy, unmarked for the goal, where is his marker winger following him ? ) and same goes for the opposite wing of ours, Valencia and Januzaj both looked pretty clueless and isolated in attack and pretty bad in defence ( Valencia's positioning for Smalling's red card, obviously it's somehow justified because he's not a RB ). On top of that you're getting your striker isolated more often than not.

4141 without inverted wingers ( something that was done at Munich for example ) proves to be too reliant on crossing, something we're yet to benefit from. You'll see ADM crossing at every opportunity he has, he won't have so much opportunity to dribble because he's restricted by a sideline and any team that's not positionally inept will deal with us crossing like that, all you need is a tall CB - just like Lescott in WBA game.

On top of that, if you need any argument more really, then you'd expect us to play to our strengths. ADM looked ten times the player in the midfield than he looks on the wing and when Falcao is back, we're back into 3 strikers, 1 #10 2 positions problem ( which is a good problem to have ). Even when he isn't back then you can play Rooney and RVP in striker role and Mata in #10 ( don't want to get into that argument here as well because we're going through it every single week but I like Mata at #10 more than Rooney and Rooney should, imo, play at #9 ). You're getting then best out of your best offensive players. Current system seems to have been implemented mostly to accomodate Januzaj and this system would be fine if our wingers could be the goal scoring wingers, game winning players like Ribery or Robben, at the moment, they are not.

Guys. I think you're both mad. Pogue summed it up for me in the "can we go back to the diamond thread" or whatever its called so I'm not going to bother.
 
Januzaj was poor again. He is not a winger if he can't take someone down the line and get a cross in. A few times in the first half he was 1-1 with Clichy and cut inside every time.
I think this was a specific instruction from van Gaal.

Fergie was very much a manager who believed in crosses. LvG seems to vary it up depending on the opposition. Yesterday, it felt like our first priority was to keep possession at all costs.

In our last 2 games against City and Chelsea we've put in 14 and 16 crosses respectively. Whereas in the previous 2 against West Brom and Everton it was 41 and 31. I'm not sure if this is the manager's new philosophy finally coming to fruition or just a sign of respect for the opposition we were facing.
 
Blind is pressing to hinder counter-attacks, as we are a posession based team now and is doing it very well - i'd go as far as saying he is probably our best buy in a while, value wise and in terms of something missed in our midfield.

Fellaini was man of the match last game against Chelsea, nulling out Fabregas completely, and did fairly well in the city match, yet you don't believe him to be good enough? Good enough to be a starter? No, I can agree on that. But if he keeps his current level then he more than rightly deserves his place in the squad.

Januzaj is young, he can be brilliant at times & he can be wasteful at other times, it has nothing to do with him not having the abilities needed to be a winger. Inconsistency is what you get from youngsters you try to develop.
Would you rather not play him? Because he isn't going to get in at #10 before Mata or Rooney.

You want 4-2-3-1, but you don't want Januzaj on the wing and you don't think Blind is strong enough, and neither is Fellaini good enough.
How the feck would you line up with those premises?
We're still 2 months away from January, so you have to go with what you have.

1) I didn't say Blind is a bad player or that he is not good enough. I said he is not strong enough and nor is he tall enough, hes not great at high balls and there nothing wrong in saying that. He is a very good buy and has done well for us but we need someone more physically imposing.

2) Fellaini has done well, he came on to do a job and did it well but the problem is our reliance on lumping the ball forward at him to get it in the final third. What this does is restricts the freedom of the #10 in this case Rooney. I would like to see Rooney move freely behind the striker than to be restricted to 1 side.
Fellaini is good when he need to do job on someone but he shouldn't be the style of football UTD play/start with. As a plan B he good but not the plan A.

3) Januzaj is a top player with WC potential. I personally don't see him as a winger and it's showing because he's finding it hard to beat his man. What has impressed me about Januzaj is his forward passing that get behind the defensive line. Also he is trying a lot of lay off that at times are not coming off and i think it because he doesn't have enough players around him. His qualities as a player would be better suited to a #10 (back up to Rooney) where he is closer to goal.

4) you probably won't agree, with all players fit
De Gea
Rafael....Smalling....Rojo....Shaw
Herrera....Carrick
Di Maria.......Rooney.........Young
RVP
Carrick over Blind because of Height. Both are similar players and similar strength.
Herrera over Fellaini because he can play the holding role as well as Carrick (drop deep to collect the ball).
Young (i know he's crap) over Januzaj because of pace. Wingers can also swap to get crosses in.
RVP or Falcao doesnt matter who as long as they can score goals.

In Jan we need to let go of a few players. We need to bring in another quality winger (Replace Young) and a more physical CM (Replace Carrick). Defense probs need upgrading too but i'd wait to see if any of them could form a decent partnership.
 
No Utd team should have Young as first choice. Just no.

We will be back to the diamond on Saturday i think.
 
Score line flattered United. De Gea made two great saves and City should've had at least one penalty. United were poor even before the sending off. Gave away possession far too easily.

The fight back in the last 20 was decent but nothing to really to make a big deal about imo. We made one clear cut chance in that period with the Di Maria shot. RVP an Fellaini were just half chances.

De Gea isn't a United player or what is he in the team for? He was doing his job. LOL.
 

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Score Predictions

437,254,173
  • Man Utd win
  • Man City win
  • Draw

Detailed Results

  • 24% Man City 1:2 Man Utd
  • 11% Man City 2:2 Man Utd
  • 8% Man City 3:1 Man Utd
  • 8% Man City 2:1 Man Utd
  • 7% Man City 2:3 Man Utd
  • 6% Man City 1:3 Man Utd
  • 5% Man City 1:1 Man Utd
  • 4% Man City 0:2 Man Utd
  • 3% Man City 2:0 Man Utd
  • 3% Man City 0:1 Man Utd
  • 3% Man City 0:5 Man Utd
  • 2% Man City 0:0 Man Utd
  • 2% Man City 3:0 Man Utd
  • 2% Man City 3:2 Man Utd
  • 2% Man City 4:1 Man Utd
  • 1% Man City 5:0 Man Utd
  • 1% Man City 1:0 Man Utd
  • 1% Man City 2:4 Man Utd
  • 1% Man City 0:3 Man Utd
  • 1% Man City 1:5 Man Utd
  • 1% Man City 3:3 Man Utd
  • 0% Man City 1:4 Man Utd
  • 0% Man City 4:0 Man Utd
  • 0% Man City 4:2 Man Utd
  • 0% Man City 5:1 Man Utd
  • 0% Man City 2:5 Man Utd
  • 0% Man City 3:4 Man Utd
  • 0% Man City 0:4 Man Utd
  • 0% Man City 5:2 Man Utd
  • 0% Man City 5:3 Man Utd
  • 0% Man City 5:5 Man Utd
  • 0% Man City 4:4 Man Utd
  • 0% Man City 4:5 Man Utd
Compiled from 864 predictions.
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Match Stats

  1. Man City
  2. Man Utd
Possession
52% 48%
Shots
17 9
Shots on Target
6 2
Corners
7 4
Fouls
15 9

Referee

Michael Oliver