[rooney1905]

Overall very pleased with the win. Not so thrilled with some stretches of the match. We didn't close it out as I would have liked. Bailly will be a beast for us. Martial seems hindered. Zlatan did well. At the end of the day it's about getting the win and building from here.

 

[ha_rooney]

"I have nothing to prove.... I believe I am good enough to to play"

 

[JSykes]

Like what I'm seeing so far, the back four was so cool to watch, especially Blind, MOTM for me today, Bailly close second.

 

[notcool]

We were defending scrappily at the end but at least it was us and not them. Seems odd for us to score 3 goals. Everything comfortable in the end and I liked how Mourinho wanted the team to sit back in the last ten minutes. Standard Mourinho, I guess, but Van Gaal didn't do that. Lots of players played well and now we have the next game to look forward to in only 5 days. After all the talking is done, Pogba will probably fit in really well in Mourinho's 4-2-3-1. I'm happy, we seemed much more in control today. The game was just... different. Mourinho might be very good for us.

 

[vivaronaldo]

Solid start , long year , ibra quality ....

 

[NinjaZombie]

I thought we were poor to be honest. That clusterfeck of a preseason having its effect.

Fellaini and Herrera did the same jobs on the ball when only having one of them would have sufficed. Never moved the ball around quickly enough.

Also thought Martial was worse than Rooney, who wasn't great either.

Bailly was one of the few positives. In fact, I thought all the back four did quite well. Blind and Shaw made some good interceptions and tackles, and Valencia is the best attacking outlet we've got at this point.

 

[Summit]

"I thought it was wayne"

 

[#07]

Very good three points. These are the games that win you titles. Van Gaal had good records in the big matches. Couldn't get results at places like Bournemouth.

Early days but a lot to like in today's performance. If you look at the team as still being several weeks from match fitness, the fact we looked relatively comfortable is a huge plus.

Disappointing we seemed to fall asleep after scoring the third, and we looked far too edgy in stoppage time. Still, wins will breed belief. With belief will come composure.

Bailly continues to take to English football like a duck to water. Herrera was good as was Blind. Need to see more of Martial running between the lines.

Special mention to Ibra, only because it's been far too long since we scored from outside of the box. If we did that more often we'd win a lot more.

Onwards and upwards lads.

 

[Rams]

Decent workman like performance. Blind was outstanding. Bailly, Fellaini and Herrera were also excellent. Great goal by Zlatan. Good start for José, up and onwards now.

 

[saivet]

Zlatan thought the MOTM was to give to Rooney

 

[Stretford End Phil]

Happy with that, nice start. Good Sunday afternoon footy but we need to tighten up in a few places.

 

[AnOutOfTowner]

solid performance from the lads. not a lot to complain about.

 

[Tiber]

Wtf was that motm award? Perfume? What happened the booze?

 

[shaggy]

Decent overall performance, though far from convincing. Very happy to get 3 points away to get our campaign off the ground.

Defensively we were good. Bailly and Blind were both very good. Bailly was myt MotM. Shaw and Valencia had a few small mistakes, though did well enough. Would've liked to see them both get forward more but maybe Jose told them not to.

Fellaini and Ander were both okay. I thought defensively Fellaini did well, but didn't get involved going forward. Herrera seems to want to play it backwards too much but showed some signs of evolving out of the LVG mentality. Mata was underwhelming. Gifted a goal, but otherwise doesn't do nearly enough for me. Martial has his moments where he looks threatening but he drifts out of games mentally at times and does not always do his defensive duties.

Rooney was absolutely awful in the first half. Did better in the second, but I still think he needs to be be benched. Ibra was missing for large spells of the match but you can see when chances comes he can provide a level of quality and composure that not many others can.

Miki didn't get as much times as I would have liked but I thought in a couple small patches of the play you could see he has got bags of talent. Put him into #10 role for Roo, bring in Pogba and Lingard with Rashford playing when speed is required and we will be a tough side to stop.

I disagree I thought it was a very convincing performance.

We were never going to play free-flowing Barca-esque football so I am not sure what you were expecting. This was an efficient away performance against a side that beat us last season. We looked solid at the back and next week we'll have Pogba in the side.

The only downside is Rooney.

 

[Paul 084]

Overall I'm quite happy with that, Good solid display for day 1. Defence looked assured apart from a few moments and they'll be disappointed to have conceded, there's just a few little things they need to improve but I'm sure that will come with match fitness. I also thought that, whilst it wasn't the most entertaining of games, we did have a decent amount of attempts so that was a good sign.

Standout moment was definitely that Ibrahimovic goal, it just came out of nowhere. Also a neat bit of skill to beat his man on the break and also a good free-kick. On a similar note, I was impressed with Memphis's cameo at the end. As for everyone else, Bailly and Blind were excellent in my opinion, I was surprised at how well Blind played with Bailly having been critical of him last year. Also Valencia played well again.

My main gripes with the game would probably be the midfield passing back a lot during the first half, I felt we needed Carrick at that moment in time, and also Rooney's lack of pace on the counter.

 

[sizzling sausages]

Promising performance, especially in the second half. Great for Zlatan to score and Bailly looked very good in defence. Still room for improvement of course but can't ask for much more than that in the first match under a new manager.

 

[DevilRed]

How good will we be when Miki and Pogba get into the team? Or WILL they get in the team

One of the best away performances in a while. We made it look easy. Our spine is definately much more physically imposing and no longer will we get pushed over so easily. The likes of Bailly, Ibra and even Fellaini just bullied bournemouth today. Refreshing to see that after 3 years of simply being soft.

Terrific from Valencia. Darmian is going to have a hard time getting back in the team. Antonio Valencia has been given a new lease of life under Mourinho and he just seems to be the perfect type of player for his system. Him and Bailly shut out everything too.

Rooney got the goal but fluffed quite a few chances. Clear to see he has lost a step or three. Hopefully he keeps improving and shows more mobility like his performance in the FA Cup final.

Great start and cant wait till Friday! Pogback!

 

[Oo0AahCantona]

 

[Manchie]

Impressive! Can't wait to see Pogba and Mike

 

[ThanksBoss26]

Good result that. Things to work on but a more than decent start in a tricky fixture.

Bailly continues to look very promising and Fellaini broke things up well in midfield.

Valencia has started well under Mourinho too.

 

[Theonas]

Zlatan thought the MOTM was to give to Rooney

I swear it sometimes feels like some grand conspiracy among Manchester United managers, players and the media trolling us about how good Rooney is

 

[Ballache]

Wtf was that motm award? Perfume? What happened the booze?

A lot of Muslim players were rejecting it so they changed.

 

[Sigma]

Fellaini, Bailly, Zlatan, Martial and Herrera all had good games.

Fellani, Zlatan, Martial and Herrera did not have good matches. Herrera had an OK game, the rest were ineffective. Valencia, Blind and Bailly were the best 3 players on the park

 

[Dan]

"I thought it was wayne"

 

[Reddevildans]

Typical performance for a team that has ambition's to win the league. Controlled and composed. Bit disappointed with us taking the foot off the pedal. Think we could have scored 1 or 2 more. Felliani was good but baillie was absolutely immense. The most encouraging aspect of the game was not conceding many chances and de gae being quiet.

 

[Chorley1974]

Delighted with that considering the preseason debacle.

 

[drmuji]

Can't understand why people are so negative here about Herrera. I mean, he played very well. Made sure of his presence throughout match. His short passing football and dynamism made sure that Bournemouth midfield couldn't get a stronghold especially after 25 minutes

 

[saivet]

Fellani, Zlatan, Martial and Herrera did not have good matches. Herrera had an OK game, the rest were ineffective. Valencia, Blind and Bailly were the best 3 players on the park

come off it. Fellaini, ineffective today?!

 

[MrSingh2002]

Rooney OUT...... buy a world class CAM with the 50m we get from China.....

 

[MDFC Manager]

Jose looks like he wants to cry, every single interview it's the same

 

[mazhar13]

That's a typical Mourinho win right there. We looked comfortable and organised throughout the match, and going forward, we had a plan and knew what we were doing. We didn't look lost at all going forward, and even when we struggled to build up attacks in the first half, we kept our cool and didn't capitulate under pressure. Even Adam Smith's wonder goal didn't phase us as we continued to look comfortable.

Blind and Bailly looks like a very good partnership so far. Blind did a great job sweeping the game and reading it well. Bailly looked strong, and his aggression was off-putting for Bournemouth's attacking players. It's not just pure physical aggression, though. Unlike Mangala or David Luiz, Bailly shows good composure in his defender and an appreciation of the space that he has to cover. His reading of the game and his positioning is quite good, and he shows a good awareness of what Bournemouth were doing in their attacks. There were 1 or 2 moments where he seemed to be a bit off, but that's where Blind comes in with his sweeping and reading of the game. The full backs were also amazing. Both Shaw and Valencia were great at their marking and difficult to get past. Both offered good support going forward as well though I was hoping for the team to play more often through the left to get Shaw more involved.

The midfield worked out quite well in the end. They looked assured in possession, and their positioning allowed us to maintain our attacks whilst playing players into space. Herrera in particular was quite good at this with his movement allowing him to be a good outlet to the defence, and he linked up well with the attacking players as well, allowing them to get involved and move the ball forward. Bournemouth tried to give him space as his passing range isn't that good, but they struggled to keep up with our front 4's movement, which is what allowed us to be more threatening going forward, especially in the second half. Fellaini did his job well. He won the ball frequently, and his closing down and physicality prevented Bournemouth's midfielders from settling and moving the ball forward. Overall, the team's organization really helped Fellaini as he was able to win many balls with his strong tackling and aggression.

In the first half, our front 4 seemed a bit slow off the mark and didn't settle into the match until the 20-minute mark, but once they did settle, we looked more dangerous going forward. Martial started to get going, and he really improved in the second half with his movement and dribbling. If our passing was more accurate in the final third, we could have threatened Bournemouth much more with Martial and Ibra. Ibra did a great job as the #9. I honestly thought that he and Rooney would struggle together, but in the second half in particular, he was causing Bournemouth lots of problems with his presence. They wanted to close him down but were afraid to leave spaces for others.

In the second half, when Bournemouth started to push up higher, Mourinho's game plan started coming to fruition. That's when we looked even more threatening, and I honestly think that this will work very well this season with the lower Premier League teams feeling more confident about getting points off of the big boys. It's a great first win, and it's honestly the first time in a while that we looked this comfortable. This is the Manchester United I wanted, and I'm happy to finally have it.

 

[ryan cook]

I thought Shaw done a great job on the defensive side.

 

[Reddevildans]

I think our CM pairing will be Fellaini and Pogba next game which will give us great size. Also maybe Jose is bringing Miki on slowly to allow him to adapt and relieve him of any pressure.

Agree about Henrik. But can't see fellaini not being displaced by Pogba. I think it'll be Pogba plus Carrick in most games.

 

[Natener]

Considering how scrappy yesterday's fixtures went, our opening game is about as composed a performance as there is this round so far. Great start to the Mourinho era.

 

[Mani]

Great start to the season,fantastic goal by Zaltan,overall happy with the performance.

 

[Ecstatic]

- The first 25 minutes were disappointing.

- Bailly is a typical 'Mourinho defender signing'

- Many players scored and played decently, including some who will have probably limited game time this season

- Mourinho trying to get the trust of the whole dressing room: no black list (with the exception of Schweini). 'Politics' will matter in the first weeks. The strategy is to get results before making hard choices by the end of January (transfer window)

- Ibra doesn't need to be good to create chances and score. As usual.

- Pogba will bring more punch/pace in the midfield

- Too early to say if we will have decent/good Rooney-Fellaini-Herrera-Mata in the coming months

- But we already know that Bailly & Zlatan are ready

I told you there was no need to sign Pogba

1st post in this thread

 

[Cooksen]

 

[Yorkeontop]

These are the fixtures than win you the league.

 

[Nogbadthebad]

Good result, and a decent first game performance.

The longer we played, the better it all looked. There are signs of something there with the zlatan/rooney partnership, great at teh back, I think Bailly has easily been the best of the new signings so far, and really solid in the middle once they got into it after about 20 minutes.

Fellaini already looks a different player, as does valencia. Lots of promise and with Pogba, Miki, Jesse and and Rashford to bring real pace and trickery as well when needed, this has real potential as a squad.

I think this will be a good season for us.

 

[Maroo]

Fellani, Zlatan, Martial and Herrera did not have good matches. Herrera had an OK game, the rest were ineffective. Valencia, Blind and Bailly were the best 3 players on the park

Fellaini had a TOP game, won balls & headers and did all that was asked of him.