FA L FA Cup Quarter-Finals

Wolverhampton Wanderers 2:1 Manchester United

Post-match discussion


Sat, 16 March 2019

We were shite. Dire, Jose level dire. LVG level dire. Awful. The squad is still shite. We need 8, 9 new players. 3 years probably until we can compete for the title. Compare to City who were also poor today but their quality shone through and they could come back and win.
With a shit load of luck!
 
Considering what we have been through all season under Jose, and Ole did take us back to challenge again on top four and got us to the last 8 of the C.L then it still okay, but we need a big reaction after that stupid international break, we need to get back to the winning ways start from Watford game. I trust Ole in this.
 
2 shots on target against a team everyone said we should win easily against.
Based on what though? Why has everyone got so over confident? Have they not seen Wolves play this season?
 
With a shit load of luck!
You make your own luck. How many touches did we have in their area? I dont blame Ole for tonight, players were awful coming off a week's rest, there's no excuse. If the argument is that Wolves are a good enough side to make us look that bad then we need new players.
 
I thought we got tactically & physically worked over, tbh. And ran out of a bit of heart & belief in the last 1/4 of the game.
 
Based on what though? Why has everyone got so over confident? Have they not seen Wolves play this season?
But is that the benchmark for Utd? We've beaten better teams.

It was the level of performance that was the worry
 
Ole gets a long rope because of what we played till now and of course injuries and all. But that was horrific to watch
 
We were shite. Dire, Jose level dire. LVG level dire. Awful. The squad is still shite. We need 8, 9 new players. 3 years probably until we can compete for the title. Compare to City who were also poor today but their quality shone through and they could come back and win.
We got 1 WC player who plays in goal. a very good player on his day in Pogba, but is erratic. 3-4 decent players. City got a load of WC players
 
I thought we were really poor today, especially given the circumstances. Most realistic chance of a trophy and flowing up a fairly poor showing at Arsenal by coming out the traps in zombie mode again was frustrating to watch.
 
Had a feeling that we would lose the game after watching the first 30 minutes. I could just feel it, and that obviously happened. Wolves were better than us in every way today and deserved to go through. Such a disappointing way to go out since this was realistically the only silverware we could win this season.

Can't even bother to write about the players. All of them were disappointing, especially the front line. Romero was excellent, but should have done much better on their second goal.
 
Very disappointed tonight, this was realistically our only chance of silverware this season.

I really wanted Ole to go all guns blazing and try to win this competition and go some way to prove that he's the man for the job but he seems to be a reactionary manager rather than a proactive one.

Looking at Wolves performance tonight and how they were able to pass and move in a way that seemed beyond our players tells me that you don't have to spend an absolute fortune to compete.
 
They were better, that's just how it goes sometimes. I think Rashford needs a rest.
 
Players back from injury and did not look match fit to me. Disappointing result but Liverpool also lost there and struggled, its a very hard place to go to.
 
But is that the benchmark for Utd? We've beaten better teams.

It was the level of performance that was the worry
We've beaten better teams (Arsenal, Spurs, Chelsea, PSG?) when we've been at our best and/or they've been poor/unlucky. We're not at a consistent level where we can go into these games 'expecting' comfortable victories.

The 'benchmark for Utd' is a different thing to how good we actually are.
 
They don't let you play much do they? Their entire set up seems to be based on the other team having the ball. They like to put a foot in too. I wouldn't want to watch them every week.

Not a defence of our lads, but not easy to play against unless you can scare them with quality in the final 1/3 - which obviously didn't happen.
 
Wolves played very well
We were very poor. No ideas, poor in the final third, too slow and too many touches. Afraid to play balls into feet in attack areas.
If a team sits then keep it simple; on the flanks get a cross in and pack the box but oh no too much poor play easy to defend against.
Too many players back from injury. Would have played McTominay for more bite
Shaw needs to attack more with runs with ball
Pogba really has to sort himself out; poor decisions and too much dilly-dallying. I know you may have no runners but keep passing and moving. I fear it's too late in his career to make the penny drop against deep defensive teams. Needs a long hard look at what he wants to do with the ball.

Ole has his work to do and I'll back him all the way.
That goal at the end will do the team a world of good.
 
I'm really not too fussed about this result to be honest. As nice as it would be to win the cup, our priority right now is the longer term project to get back to the top of European football. That is better served by finishing top 4 so we can have a proper transfer window under a manager who the squad believes in.

We play Wolves away again in a few days time. For some reason in football, whenever two teams play each other in quick succession, you hardly ever get one side winning both games, regardles of the gap in quality. It must be one of those psychological quirks like playing better at home or passing with greater urgency in the final 10 minutes or playing for your lives during a derby. Whatever the case, I never expect to see one team dominate both matches of a double header (two-legged cup ties not withstanding - since they're basically 180 minute long games).

I expect United to be more fired up now for the league game in April.

If I had to hypothetically pick one game to lose and one to win, I'd pick winning the PL game everytime. I'm actually more confident of that happening now. Fingers crossed that today gives the squad the push they need.
 
They were the better team. Fair play to them. We need to be a lot better on the ball than our current levels.
 
We've been trying the diamond since Fergie days, I can't recall it working once.
 
I'm really not too fussed about this result to be honest. As nice as it would be to win the cup, our priority right now is the longer term project to get back to the top of European football. That is better served by finishing top 4 so we can have a proper transfer window under a manager who the squad believes in.

We play Wolves away again in a few days time. For some reason in football, whenever two teams play each other in quick succession, you hardly ever get one side winning both games, regardles of the gap in quality. It must be one of those psychological quirks like playing better at home or passing with greater urgency in the final 10 minutes or playing for your lives during a derby. Whatever the case, I never expect to see one team dominate both sides of double header (two-legged cup ties not withstanding).

I expect United to be more fired up now for the league game in April.

If I had to hypothetically pick one game to lose and one to win, I'd pick winning the PL game everytime. I'm actually more confident of that happening now. Fingers crossed that today gives the squad the push they need.
Actually we play Watford next in 2 weeks.
 
It's become clear to me that we are a very good counter attacking side but really struggle against other counter attacking sides. Arsenal and Wolves weren't anything special but were really committed defensively and this made us look so poor on both occasions.

I don't understand why our players don't move around and show for the ball when we have to take the game to other teams. It's this that makes the players on the ball appear to concede possession cheaply or run into trouble. I'm not suggesting individual errors don't happen but they are too many and too often from decent quality players. If your team mates won't help you and move to receive the ball you will lose it and look shite, you certainly won't trouble the other team if you're whole front line are pretty much static. Very basic stuff so I don't understand why one of the biggest clubs in the world can't get it right. Ole needs to improve this side of things very quickly if we are to challenge for the top 4.
 
Glaring lack of creativity today. We've had a really tough run of fixtures with major injuries so it explains some of it, but our performances have been flat for a good few games on the trot.

Martial for me will not be a top player. He'll always be very talented but he has far too many anonymous performances. Thought Ole was a bit slow to make a sub too considering Wolves were clearly getting the better of us and we looked like we needed to change things in attack.

Ah well, onto the next one.
 
FA Cup is notorious for upsets but Wolves out planned and played us tonight. They deserved it, we didn’t turn up and found no answer to their movement.

I think our management team knew they had a problem by the first 20 minutes with their key players for this game who were not clicking. They were stifled: Rashford looked isolated, Pogba was working away but unable to break into space, Jesse was not play-making, Matic was chasing rather than taking the ball, and Martial was unable to make his runs. Ander was having to cover a lot of ground and the defence seemed very lethargic.

Time to bring back Chico?
 
After Paris, you could forgive the Arsenal result. This however, was really annoying.. Spineless comes to mind. We are not that good that we can just turn up and expect to beat teams, you have to remain humble and more importantly hungry. The lack of movement of the front three, was astounding both Martial and Rashford need to take a good look in the mirror, woeful. You'd have thought the season ended in Paris, guess what, it might just have.
 
To sum it up...

We decided to not apply any high-pressing tactics at any stage of the game, probably because we knew that they're one of the best teams in the Prem when playing on the counter. This meant that we would have to build our attacks from the back. But they marked our two FBs, which are essential to us moving the ball forward, out of the game in the first phase of the build-up. Which meant that Pogba would have to drop all the way back to our half in order to get us going. And this led to the front three being totally isolated for the most part of the game. And these particular three, when they are afforded no room to run with the ball or to get in behind but they're forced to create with the ball in tight spaces and from standing positions instead, they have very little to offer. You could absolutely tell 20-30 mins in the game that we were looking very shaky out there and devoid of any good ideas.

I'm not mad at Ole because it's not his team, plus we've already seen this numerous times under Mourinho. And the two signings the latter made in order to address this, Lukaku as a focal point and someone able to draw defenders and Sanchez as the top-class skilled on the ball attacker, have been flops.

I think this can be a real eye-opener for Ole in terms of in which positions we need to recruit during the next transfer window.
 

Player Ratings

4.5 Total Average Rating

Highest Rated Player

Lowest Rated Player

Compiled from 335 ratings.

Score Predictions

380,39,27
  • Man Utd win
  • Wolves win
  • Draw

Detailed Results

  • 30% Wolves 1:2 Man Utd
  • 17% Wolves 0:2 Man Utd
  • 16% Wolves 1:3 Man Utd
  • 7% Wolves 0:1 Man Utd
  • 6% Wolves 0:3 Man Utd
  • 3% Wolves 2:3 Man Utd
  • 3% Wolves 1:1 Man Utd
  • 3% Wolves 2:1 Man Utd
  • 2% Wolves 0:4 Man Utd
  • 2% Wolves 2:0 Man Utd
  • 2% Wolves 1:0 Man Utd
  • 1% Wolves 0:5 Man Utd
  • 1% Wolves 0:0 Man Utd
  • 1% Wolves 2:2 Man Utd
  • 1% Wolves 1:4 Man Utd
  • 1% Wolves 5:0 Man Utd
  • 0% Wolves 3:1 Man Utd
  • 0% Wolves 5:5 Man Utd
  • 0% Wolves 3:0 Man Utd
  • 0% Wolves 3:2 Man Utd
Compiled from 446 predictions.
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Match Stats

  1. Wolves
  2. Man Utd
Possession
38% 62%
Shots
17 11
Shots on Target
7 2
Corners
10 6
Fouls
12 5

Referee

Martin Atkinson