Some major overreaction in the matchday thread. Mata wasn’t terrible and we did go with a lightweight midfield. We didn’t have to. Then Louis makes a terrible sub in throwing on Fellaini for Herrera, further limiting our strength in midfield and people get all upset about Mata not being able to dominate a midfield with a clearly tired Bastian. And what does Fellaini do? What he was of course going to do unless he came on as a #10: slow us down and lose more possession.
Terrible about Shaw. Absolutely devastating.
But there are major positives in the game - this is where we saw Martial can become our main striker and we look threatening with him, he’s strong in holding up the ball and his link up play is top class for a 19 year old. Lining up with actual wingers makes us better. Maybe we’ll see youngsters get a chance on the right.
I think we were extremely unfortunate to lose the game. Bad mistakes for sure, but we looked much the better side IMV, until van Gaal made his subs.