[ChaddyP]

Should have stuck to the potatoes.

 

[OnlyTwoDaSilvas]

The two Irish chaps sitting to my left at the game today missed all 3 goals. Went in early before half time and came out late, and then left well before the end.

Never understood that. Too many folk at games seem to concentrate more in beating queues than actually watching the football they've paid 40 or 50 quid to watch.

Hated going with my step dad when I was a kid. Always had to leave before the 85th minute to beat the traffic.



On an unrelated note; when Pantilimon caught the ball outside the area, is that not usually a red card? Martial (I think) was challenging for that ball. If it had not been caught, he had a fair chance of winning it, with Sunderland's net wide open. I remember Mark Beeney getting sent off for something kind of similar a long time ago. It was against us, and Lucas Radebe had to go in goal.

 

[Rezyuz]

Never understood that. Too many folk at games seem to concentrate more in beating queues than actually watching the football they've paid 40 or 50 quid to watch.

Hated going with my step dad when I was a kid. Always had to leave before the 85th minute to beat the traffic.



On an unrelated note; when Pantilimon caught the ball outside the area, is that not usually a red card? Martial (I think) was challenging for that ball. If it had not been caught, he had a fair chance of winning it, with Sunderland's net wide open. I remember Mark Beeney getting sent off for something kind of similar a long time ago. It was against us, and Lucas Radebe had to go in goal.

Exactly what i thought also, but found it so weird none of the commentators mentioned it.

 

[Rich_H_1989]

Not if it takes some of the pressure of Rodgers.

That depends my friend... If he gets the results to keep him in a job then chances are he gets the results that put them near a title race? I love that Rodgers is still in a job and Liverpool on the whole are struggling, but for a side struggling so much they are only 5 points behind us and all teams have a bad patch... I'm sure we will have a blip.

What I'm surprised by is the lack of comments in this thread. We've just beaten Sunderland 3-0. 3 goals, none conceded on a day where City got thumped, Chelsea failed to win again and Liverpool fell over the line to beat struggling Villa. Umm hello all but let's enjoy this. We are top!

 

[dsch]

What I'm surprised by is the lack of comments in this thread. We've just beaten Sunderland 3-0. 3 goals, none conceded on a day where City got thumped, Chelsea failed to win again and Liverpool fell over the line to beat struggling Villa.

Not much to complain about, and expressing satisfaction gets boring. "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

 

[Rich_H_1989]

Not much to complain about, and expressing satisfaction gets boring. "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

That can be the only reason mate... When we lose the thread gets in to the 10's of pages. It would seem defeat brings comments, a win that was expected that sends us top isn't worthy.

Just seen the highlights of Martial's game though and my god he's a handful! I love how he varies his play. He can hold it up, he'll go wide, he'll run in behind. He will go at players who pass it simply. He will try a trick or he will just go at someone with pace.

Today he offered us everything you'd want your number 9 to give you in our system. He drifted to allow Rooney in fill the space or Memphis, he played people in and created space for others. And something else he gives us that others will overlook is he's an outlet. Smalling can get his head up and drop it over the top for him to chase, in to his feet or play it high for him to challenge in the air. And the amount of free kicks this guy is going to win! Just in the clips I saw he must have won 5/6! That's invaluable to relieve pressure on the team. He gets stuck in and you can see he's already a fan favourite. His ability mixed with Workrate makes him a great character. The fans are up on their feet when he gets the ball.

 

[pierrethesnack]

@Rich_H_1989 I see you've got yerself a tagline? What happened?

 

[Rich_H_1989]

@pierrethesnack A tag line? What do you mean? Whatever it is... I don't know about it?

 

[Ferguson]

So are Newcastle and we couldn't beat them. Great performance today.

The difference is, as Mourinho noted today, that Newcastle can decide to be bothered to play. Newcastle are underachievers with a poor mentality.

Sunderland, on the other hand, are just poor.

 

[suheilsworld]

Complete performance. Bossed the game and De Gea was absolutely brilliant yet again! Although a tricky fixture list awaits, but I am looking forward to it!

 

[J-Stander]

Worst PL club I've seen in years. Hope they get relegated and never come back up.

 

[Sereques]

first the positives....

- Martial fantastic, strong, fast, good passer and he looks totally at home as our number 9
- good that despite disappointing performance from Memphis he still grabbed a goal
- Rooney despite lumbering a bit looked better as the game went on and liked his link up play in the last 20 mins
- not many centre half players can pass the ball like Blind
- Young again improved our attacking play
- Schweinsteiger again showing why he should be our captain - came on, took control and more attacking than Carrick/Schneiderlein
- Darmian more attacking on left (cos against Sunderland?) and Valencia pushing on gave us better balance
- top of the league!! woohoo
- 4 clean sheets and another 3 goals!

and the negatives
- we were so boring until Blind opened the game up - cool when we are winning but we will draw too many games
- took us about 60 minutes until we really played well - we toyed with Sunderland for long periods after that
- picking Carrick and Schneiderlein is overkill - far too defensively and it was great to see Bastian popping up on the left wing when he came on
- Martial.....far too reliant on this kid at the minute - when he went down in first half I shat myself
- bit disappointed Periera didn't get a run out but I suppose Phil Jones reintegration is more important

Just because we weren't smashing the ball at the Keeper or Post doesn't make us boring IMO. The idea is too get the first goal and take the game away from Sunderland. We control the game before that, after a while, sunderland players will become tired and numb which will open the gates. Running around pointlessly is not football. I don't see us drawing many games with the way we are playing.

 

[Sereques]

Watching Gullit on MOTD saying 2 passes goal is good football and 44 passes before a goal is not good football is a bit weird.

 

[golden_blunder]

Smalling and Blind had nothing to do but I'm sure if they did they would be capable of doing so, and De Gea pulled of a few great saves to keep our lead as strong as it was.

That statement contradicts itself

 

[Moonred]

Never needed to push ourselves as it should be against an unambitious poor Sunderland team and with Europe midweek. Routine win.

 

[Ixion]

Fair play to the referee for adding 4 minutes on in the first half by the way. They were time wasting from literally the first minute, the first goal was their own fault.

 

[golden_blunder]

Routine 3 points

Still despite it being the least attacking threat in the PL we were still slow and uninspiring in the first half.

On the plus side Rooney looked a different player once he scored. Hopefully he kicks on from here now.

Martial, what a player..such potential

 

[Blodssvik]

Game was just taking care of business. Not much entertainment value. Mostly because Sunderland is a horrific team to watch.

 

[Tincanalley]

Watching Gullit on MOTD saying 2 passes goal is good football and 44 passes before a goal is not good football is a bit weird.

I think it was its not necessarily good football: i.e. both have their place.

 

[Siorac]

On an unrelated note; when Pantilimon caught the ball outside the area, is that not usually a red card? Martial (I think) was challenging for that ball. If it had not been caught, he had a fair chance of winning it, with Sunderland's net wide open. I remember Mark Beeney getting sent off for something kind of similar a long time ago. It was against us, and Lucas Radebe had to go in goal.

Only if it denies an obvious goalscoring opportunity which this wasn't. I agree that Martial would have had a fair chance of winning the ball but that's not the same as a clear scoring chance.

He didn't even get a yellow though which I found surprising.

 

[buckooo1978]

Just because we weren't smashing the ball at the Keeper or Post doesn't make us boring IMO. The idea is too get the first goal and take the game away from Sunderland. We control the game before that, after a while, sunderland players will become tired and numb which will open the gates. Running around pointlessly is not football. I don't see us drawing many games with the way we are playing.

IMO we were boring and it wasn't due to us not 'running around pointlessly' which is a bit silly to suggest

We just weren't creative, weren't attacking with much purpose, hadn't worked their keeper and didn't look like scoring

Sunderland had actually probably fashioned a better chance with that one De Gea saved with his legs

If you think the tactic is to simply focus on tiring teams out rather than trying to score it's a pretty stupid one IMO

 

[Borys]

IMO we were boring and it wasn't due to us not 'running around pointlessly' which is a bit silly to suggest

We just weren't creative, weren't attacking with much purpose, hadn't worked their keeper and didn't look like scoring

Sunderland had actually probably fashioned a better chance with that one De Gea saved with his legs

If you think the tactic is to simply focus on tiring teams out rather than trying to score it's a pretty stupid one IMO

Yeah that's what I'm thinking. It's like we're playing super defensive midfield and 4 strikers, and our game plan is to make the opposition tired and then finish those few chances that occur.

If it's working is as effective as any tactic obviously, but I think this team hasn't reached its half potential.
It also might be that we're just saving energy.

 

[buckooo1978]

Yeah that's what I'm thinking. It's like we're playing super defensive midfield and 4 strikers, and our game plan is to make the opposition tired and then finish those few chances that occur.

If it's working is as effective as any tactic obviously, but I think this team hasn't reached its half potential.
It also might be that we're just saving energy.

so effectively football rope a dope!

 

[Rich_H_1989]

Just because we weren't smashing the ball at the Keeper or Post doesn't make us boring IMO. The idea is too get the first goal and take the game away from Sunderland. We control the game before that, after a while, sunderland players will become tired and numb which will open the gates. Running around pointlessly is not football. I don't see us drawing many games with the way we are playing.

I think in some games against poor opposition it's a tactic that works... But against tougher opposition it doesn't always work and that's my issue. Gary Neville said after the Swansea game that from the first minute we play as if we are 1-0 up. It's very slow and methodical rather than fast and trying to open up the opposition.

 

[Acole9]

Watching Gullit on MOTD saying 2 passes goal is good football and 44 passes before a goal is not good football is a bit weird.

I kind of understand his point of view though, we are guilty of making an awful lot of monotonous passes in our own half and sideways at times. Yes that goal against Southampton was a nice goal but not all of the passes made in the passage of play were of any significance in the move.

 

[Parma Dewol]

I think I'm in the minority here, but I'm starting to like the way we're playing. Sunderland weren't posing much of a threat and were trying to time waste from the off, but we were patient, kept the ball well and the goals eventually came. If anything, we should have had more than three.

At first I kind of missed the gung-ho United of old. Now I'm starting to think if we have the lion's share of the ball, rarely concede, and start scoring three every game... well, that'll just have to do.

 

[DomesticTadpole]

I think I'm in the minority here, but I'm starting to like the way we're playing. Sunderland weren't posing much of a threat and were trying to time waste from the off, but we were patient, kept the ball well and the goals eventually came. If anything, we should have had more than three.

At first I kind of missed the gung-ho United of old. Now I'm starting to think if we have the lion's share of the ball, rarely concede, and start scoring three every game... well, that'll just have to do.

I agree. I like the gungho football, but people have to remember that we had some magnificent defences in those days. Last season the defence was decimated by injury and this season there is still some disruption due to injury and bedding players in. If we had played gungho last season we likely would have lost more games.

 

[dsch]

I kind of understand his point of view though, we are guilty of making an awful lot of monotonous passes in our own half and sideways at times. Yes that goal against Southampton was a nice goal but not all of the passes made in the passage of play were of any significance in the move.

Don't see why keeping possession is a bad thing when already leading in the second half, especially now that we can keep possession and not panic whenever we're pressed.

 

[Red-Jeff]

Really love the way we're playing, some of the intricacy of the passing and movement is great! Still a lot of work to do but we are looking good. Last year we had issues beating the smaller teams sometimes and we seem to have improved in that aspect, hopefully we can continue playing well against the bigger teams like we did last year.

 

[Andy Jones]

Firstly, congratulations on the win. On the whole, you deserved it. Not even the most hardened Sunderland fan like myself expected us to get anything out of but I do have a few things to note.

• We were unlucky to go into half time 1-0 down. There was a little bit of time wasting going on, not something I like to see but I accept it is now an important tactic in football. There was never 4 minutes of time to be added. 2 or 3 but never 4. That rankles a bit.
• I thought United were poor, we defended OK in the first half. Your class showed through on occasions but nothing over the top that made me think "oh bloody hell, we could be on to a hiding here." Rooney's goal was extremely fortunate. It was poor defensive player from us but if you look at it, had Cattermole not pushed Rooney onto the ball then I think Pantilimon would have got a hand to it.
• To all those saying we were unambitious, I suggest you look again. We did have a few chances. Lens went through and shot at De Gea when had he picked his head up Borini was standing ready for a easy shot at goal. Van Aanholt and I think it was Borini had shots saved by De Gea. If we had held on to half time, there's every chance the game could have been different.
• Smalling finally looks to be growing into the top class centre half that Fergie knew he could be. As an England fan, I hope both him and Jones continue to perform at the top winning Premier Leagues and competing in the Champions League.
• Martial showed he's more about scoring goals. He held the ball up well and linked up well with Rooney and Depay.
• Finally, Schneiderlin is a dirty bugger.

 

[Annihilate Now!]

Firstly, congratulations on the win. On the whole, you deserved it. Not even the most hardened Sunderland fan like myself expected us to get anything out of but I do have a few things to note.

• We were unlucky to go into half time 1-0 down. There was a little bit of time wasting going on, not something I like to see but I accept it is now an important tactic in football. There was never 4 minutes of time to be added. 2 or 3 but never 4. That rankles a bit.
• I thought United were poor, we defended OK in the first half. Your class showed through on occasions but nothing over the top that made me think "oh bloody hell, we could be on to a hiding here." Rooney's goal was extremely fortunate. It was poor defensive player from us but if you look at it, had Cattermole not pushed Rooney onto the ball then I think Pantilimon would have got a hand to it.
• To all those saying we were unambitious, I suggest you look again. We did have a few chances. Lens went through and shot at De Gea when had he picked his head up Borini was standing ready for a easy shot at goal. Van Aanholt and I think it was Borini had shots saved by De Gea. If we had held on to half time, there's every chance the game could have been different.
• Smalling finally looks to be growing into the top class centre half that Fergie knew he could be. As an England fan, I hope both him and Jones continue to perform at the top winning Premier Leagues and company

To be fair, there were a few injuries in the first half wasn't there? Martial went down for a period of time, and a Sunderland player did as well (might have been a 3rd long stoppage, but can't rightly remember). That coupled with the time wasting probably took it to 4 minutes.

I general I didn't think your lot were quite as terrible as I'd predicted... still not great though, l think there's a major lack of quality in your side, particularly at CB (Kaboul?!) and up front... I'm not confident Borini is the answer, as he's not anywhere near good enough to lead a line, or be relied upon consistently.

Thought Cattermole also had an excellent first half, but faded badly in the second.

 

[Ixion]

Pantilimon was wasting time from literally the first goal kick and every chance after that. He must have wasted 2-3 minutes on his own and should have been booked (and should have been booked for the handball). I was pleased the ref didn't fall for it and added on the four minutes, Sunderland brought it on themselves.

 

[Andy Jones]

To be fair, there were a few injuries in the first half wasn't there? Martial went down for a period of time, and a Sunderland player did as well (might have been a 3rd long stoppage, but can't rightly remember). That coupled with the time wasting probably took it to 4 minutes.

I general I didn't think your lot were quite as terrible as I'd predicted... still not great though, l think there's a major lack of quality in your side, particularly at CB (Kaboul?!) and up front... as I'm not confident Borini is anywhere near good enough to lead a line.

Thought Cattermole also had an excellent first half, but faded badly in the second.

It's gone now but I thought 2 or 3 minutes were enough. Kaboul was OK in the first half with O'Shea although he never seems to learn from his mistakes. He's not good or quick enough to try and Nick the ball from strikers yet he constantly tries to do it and gets caught out of position time and time again. I think Borini will score goals, as will Defoe and Lens providing we continue to create chances but Advocaat needs to tweak his system as we have nobody to hold the ball up. Thought Cattermole was excellent for 47 minutes but then switched off letting Mata go for the first goal and then bundling Rooney into the ball for the second.

As you say, he faded in the second but I expected nothing less as United grew and controlled the game.

 

[hbgreg]

When the other team parks the bus the game will be boring.

 

[hbgreg]

There was never 4 minutes of time to be added. 2 or 3 but never 4. That rankles a bit.

Borini and Martial were down for a few minutes each, should of been 5 in my opinion.

 

[Lennon7]

Yes..I thought Darmian was great.

Haha, apologies, for some reason I thought you were questioning why the other poster thought he didn't look vulnerable by saying he played well... I thought you didn't know what vulnerable means

 

[manichester]

Think the ref got the added time right at the end of the first half also sent a signal to Sunderland that any more time wasting in the second half would be added.

 

[LR7]

When your team are deliberately wasting time (esp in the first half) you have no right to complain about the amount added on. Four minutes was about right but I think referees should add even more on to discourage it.

 

[Dr Fink]

Martial looked the business again. Great holding up play and sharp turn of pace. We saw another side to his game. Completely un-phased by any treatment he gets from defenders. Darmian looked comfortable on the left and is an option. Valencia created loads of space and pushed up the pitch; sadly his delivery was his usual standard otherwise more chances. Smalling is an absolute rock. Nobody seems to get past him one on one. Blind looked solid too. I do think Young should start and Memphis be an option as a sub as he is the one that is under-performing. He needs to get used to the pace of the game - he snatched at his one-on-one.

DDG exhibiting Schmeichel-esque concentration: sat watching his team mates dominate the play and possession, but still sharp when called upon. Particularly with his legs.

Great result and far better performance second half. Some tough games to come though.

 

[Annihilate Now!]

It's gone now but I thought 2 or 3 minutes were enough. Kaboul was OK in the first half with O'Shea although he never seems to learn from his mistakes. He's not good or quick enough to try and Nick the ball from strikers yet he constantly tries to do it and gets caught out of position time and time again. I think Borini will score goals, as will Defoe and Lens providing we continue to create chances but Advocaat needs to tweak his system as we have nobody to hold the ball up. Thought Cattermole was excellent for 47 minutes but then switched off letting Mata go for the first goal and then bundling Rooney into the ball for the second.

As you say, he faded in the second but I expected nothing less as United grew and controlled the game.

Hmm, you sound fairly upbeat all things considered - so can you see things turning around for Sunderland anytime soon? Something obviously has to change (bar the obvious "play better") - but, from an outsiders perspective, it's difficult to see how/what you can do... apart from change the manager of course (which does seem to be the go too way for instant Sunderland results) but who would you get in? And would they really be able to get anymore out of these players then Advocaat is getting?