[UnitedFan93]

Did Ole have a touchline ban today? Couldn't believe his body language sat in the stands, he just doesn't seem like a winner. The team mirrored the manager today...uninterested. Klopp and Pep would have been kicking every ball today.

 

[Riz]

Awful for long periods. Bruno’s range completely off which is probably why (still so dependent on him to influence everything in attack). He was gassed at the end when Rashford had to take the corner.

We looked very clueless as to how to attack with all the strikers on the pitch which I guess is somewhat understandable since I can’t imagine much practice goes into that line up or shape. Still was very pedestrian considering it was 10 men and the worst side in the league.

Happy enough to get through to the semi’s though.

 

[Salus Populi Suprema Lex]

Ole's Lingard love is so fecking bizarre.

Lingard 100 per cent needs to go. That new contract is millions down the drain. He isn't the only one; there are quite a few players we need to upgrade.

 

[pascell]

Norwich had 10 men for a lot of the game, yet we didn't seem to have much of a clue. Not a good sign given our past struggles.

A lot of the game? Klose got sent off in the 89th minute, so they were down to 10 31 out of 120+ minutes. But to be fair, the game feel like it last hours

 

[Gomes]

United wasn't any better when Lingard came off, why are people still talking about him?

 

[Wumminator]

Norwich had 10 men for a lot of the game, yet we didn't seem to have much of a clue. Not a good sign given our past struggles.

It frustrated me as well. Norwich has ten men for so much of that game and we should be comfortably able to score against ten men in normal time.

 

[Sandikan]

Shows we can't afford to have too many squaddies starting at the same time.
Starting lineup lacked pace, but we still looked to be relatively comfortably going through without getting any sort of gear going.

Looked like the inevitable pen defeat though, so thank goodness we saw that through.

FA Cup nicely on hold until mid July now.

 

[Nikelesh Reddy]

A very poor performance.First half we were understandably sloppy...We had 3 rusty attacking players on the pitch so I could understand why we weren’t playing incisive football.Fred and Mctominay were good in the first half,but all our attacking players were poor.Bruno Fernandez in particular had a terrible game.
The 2nd half was only marginally better,Ighalo scored a good goal but there was absolutely no tempo or dynamism to our game.Our full backs and wingers weren’t putting enough pressure on them...
The 30 minutes of extra time was pedestrian,but fortunately Harry managed to sneak in a goal right at the end.It was interesting to see us play such a high defensive line,especially in the first half.Wonder if that tactic will be used more often in the future...

All in all it was a very dissapointing performance,and those extra 30 minutes could prove to be costly in the near future.Thankfully we are through to the last 4,but we have to play much much better than this if we want to reach the final...

 

[He'sRaldo]

Playing against 10 men hoping for a game to go to penalties is a lot harder than you would think. They basically put 10 men in the box the entire time. I actually thought them going to 10 was bad for us as they would basically go into a shell and rely on Krul game raising heroics.

While that is true, my eyes didn't see much of what is usually expected against a defensive team. Overlaps, width, runs, weren't really there and it all seemed improvised.

Not much different to before Bruno, so I'm not surprised or anything. Just an observation.

 

[Salus Populi Suprema Lex]

14 actually.

That pretty damn good, but you wouldn't have guessed from today's performance.

 

[Wumminator]

United wasn't any better when Lingard came off, why are people still talking about him?

You don’t get it.
He somtimes DABS!

 

[Rolaholic]

You can see Martial is radiating confidence at the moment, he was an instant threat the moment he came on and was showing off so much skill almost effortlessly

 

[Crackers]

Good result, pathetic performance. I understand we need to rest players, but the passing and movement was utterly dreadful. The team need better coaching, and fast. Having elite/great players isn't enough at the top.

 

[arnie_ni]

Cantwell is decent. Id buy him as a squad option

 

[Nep77]

I know. Why has he started so many games recently?

Why is he even starting any game though? What's his last meaningful contribution to the team? If Daniel James was dropped out of the squad just to start Lingard it makes it more bizarre considering we had feck all pace in attack.

 

[Acquire Me]

Never should have come to that but oh well, get in. No injuries and lots of match fitness is a plus too.

Yes, we did it in the end. No injuries and match fitness is a big plus for the rest of the season. Get in.

 

[KeanoMagicHat]

Did Ole have a touchline ban today? Couldn't believe his body language sat in the stands, he just doesn't seem like a winner. The team mirrored the manager today...uninterested. Klopp and Pep would have been kicking every ball today.

That the same Klopp who went on holidays rather than go to a FA Cup game?

 

[Ludens the Red]

Poor from the manager and coaching staff. Ighalo, Martial, Rashford, Greenwood, Bruno and Pogba, yet mentally we collapse into lumping it to Maguire in the box. It worked today, but isn’t effective football long term. A bit of a wake up call in what’s needed for top 4.

Hmm, that’s a very different take to what actually happened IMO. We seemed to be trying to thread our way through for pretty much the entirety of extra time. Maguire stayed forward after a few set pieces and managed to get on the end of something.

“lumping it into Maguire in the box” seems an extreme and actually quite incorrect take. He didn’t go up front or anything.

 

[Sandikan]

It frustrated me as well. Norwich has ten men for so much of that game and we should be comfortably able to score against ten men in normal time.

You've surely watched as much footy as most of us by now to realise 10men is often an arse to break down.

We did it eventually, forget it and we move on knowing better is needed.

 

[Wumminator]

That pretty damn good, but you wouldn't have guessed from today's performance.

Exactly!

Who cares about FACTS or STATISTICS. Based on today’s game we’ve probably lost ten of the last fourteen! Ole out!

 

[RedTiger]

Fixed that for you.

 

[He'sRaldo]

It frustrated me as well. Norwich has ten men for so much of that game and we should be comfortably able to score against ten men in normal time.

Everyone seemed off the pace. It's not great to watch and does bring back some unpleasant memories, but we got through and that's most important.

The true test will be the league games.

 

[Schmeichel's Cartwheel]

Awful.

Pogba & Martial changed the game. Ighalo good.

Fernandes really poor, yet still our most creative outlet until Pogba came on.

 

[diarm]

BBC should have football taken off them full stop. They don't deserve it with that level of wank in place of punditry and analysis.

As for the match, we started with a rake of players who had no minutes in their legs and then made a load of changes. A sharp and cohesive performance was always unlikely.

 

[SirAnderson]

Fecking Lineker hahaha

 

[Dante]

United wasn't any better when Lingard came off, why are people still talking about him?

Redcafe is like any other social media platform.

People like to gang up and hate on a shared target. It makes them feel like their part of a group.

 

[RedStarUnited]

Why didnt Ole go for it with Martial in the 90 minutes? Now we had to play Bruno 120 minutes needlessly.

 

[UpWithRivers]

It was painful to watch at times but ugly hard fought wins are what good sides do. We will face a lot of these teams till the end of the season. Brighton wont be easy to break down thats for sure.

 

[SirAnderson]

Redcafe is like any other social media platform.

People like to gang up and hate on a shared target. It makes them feel like their part of a group.

Preach it brother. Preach.

 

[mu4c_20le]

It frustrated me as well. Norwich has ten men for so much of that game and we should be comfortably able to score against ten men in normal time.

Not if they sit back like that

 

[acnumber9]

It was painful to watch at times but ugly hard fought wins are what good sides do. We will face a lot of these teams till the end of the season. Brighton wont be easy to break down thats for sure.

We won’t get two hours to beat those teams though.

 

[He'sRaldo]

A lot of the game? Klose got sent off in the 89th minute, so they were down to 10 31 out of 120+ minutes. But to be fair, the game feel like it last hours

Oh really? Haha it did seem a lot longer, although to be fair Norwich were the better team on balance before the sendoff.

In any case we're through, so hopefully that doesn't affect our next league games to much.

 

[Wumminator]

That the same Klopp who went on holidays rather than go to a FA Cup game?

Yeah but my mate works in Linkekar’s bar in Ayia Napa and he said when Liverpool scored in the FA Cup when he was on holiday he got everyone goldfish bowls and when he went out of the comp he left the foam party early.

 

[OnlyTwoDaSilvas]

Tim Krul is far too good to be playing at the bottom of the league.

Always nice to see Ighalo get a goal.

We're through. Cool.

 

[Wumminator]

Why didnt Ole go for it with Martial in the 90 minutes? Now we had to play Bruno 120 minutes needlessly.

I know.
why didn’t Ole just ignore the subs rules and bring Martial on?

 

[baskinginthesun]

That's unfair. We tried lumping it, passing through them and crossing it in. Norwich were so deep and compact that it was clear they were playing for penalties. Didn't give any space in the 18 yard box. Also - clear as day that Bruno got tired towards the end, but he was still there making that tackle near our goal line just before HM scored.

When Plan A is not working, it's good to mix it up. I didn't see a problem with that. This team needs to win a few dirty games like this to start building a foundation for success.

Yup, they put all 10 players in their own box to see the clock out. We found a way through. I would say that's a good thing.

 

[red woppit]

And those who said we should have started with a stronger team looking to finish the game early then make subs were right. These many changes at once feck us over and we ended up playing the started all the way to overtime.

Yep, agree. It's something that SAF used to do a lot, in fact several times we lost to much lower placed clubs than us due to him giving too many non regular players a run out. I fully understand why managers do it, but as seen today, it completely disrupts any cohesive play. It was patently obvious that we had no cutting edge up front with Lingard and Mata, Ighalo had no support, albeit his touch let him down a couple of times, but first half we were abysmal, and again sat back after we scored, although we were certainly looking more likely to score second half.

 

[My only Eric]

Not every match is gonna be dream stuff. Sometimes easy matches become difficult, sometimes difficult matches becomes easy. At the end, we got the job done. Onto the next game.
Oh.. we still have a lot of work to do in the market

 

[Deery]

We would’ve lost that before so good progress

 

[UnitedChampionsAgain]

Really worried that we had our most creative players on the pitch but could barely break down ten man Norwich.
We're unlikely to find anyone more creative for next season so where does that leave us? Probably where we are now..