Fecking woeful.
Lack of ability and lack of composure are terrifying.
3 points but overall fecking dreadful
We won. Awful performance but somehow got it. Needed confidence booster and hopefully get a couple new signings in before next week.
Really fortunate to get away with that. Southampton created a lot of chances and our decision making in attack was pretty poor
I picked these messages because they were in the first couple of pages, but I easily could’ve picked 50 more in the following 8 pages. Some fairly dire analysis there.
While no one will argue it was a vintage performance, and that we badly missed Martial’s ability to hold the ball, turn and bring others into the game, the performance on the whole was very comfortable.
For the first 60 minutes we looked like the only team capable of scoring. Somehow we missed that triple chance in the first half and it was frankly a miracle that Southampton didn’t go in behind. Second half we started brightly and scored a superb team goal with some intelligent movement, crisp passing and a delightfully clinical finish from Bruno. At that point we were enjoying 60% possession and looked extremely comfortable.
After that the criticism is that we didn’t hold the ball well enough and we lacked an out ball. Sancho tired and went off, but had been terrific up until then. Unfortunately Rashford really didn’t offer much today and that was a great disappointment. I saw one post saying that Elanga is like playing with ten men. But he played a vital role in the goal with excellent interchange and movement between him and Dalot.
Despite retreating to a low block for the last 30 minutes, I thought we looked extremely comfortable. Aside from the odd scrappy set piece, I don’t remember a single Southampton chance and the only save of note from De Gea in the 90, was a simple one from A quick turn and shot straight at him from Che Adams.
Varane and Martinez were superb again, as were the fullbacks. This is exactly the sort of game we’d have drawn or lost last season, but there was a clear resilience and composure to our defending this time around. Delighted personally to see solid foundations being shown. This was the sort of mature, rather than lucky, away win that we haven’t seen for a while. Some ways to go until we are playing the sort of free flowing, dominant, attacking football we all want, but a really excellent follow up to the Liverpool game, in the sense that we showed we can win another way, and do so without riding our luck.
Bringing in a forward or two is frankly essential. Ronaldo offered nothing when he came on. Rashford is not a CF. Martial was badly missed as he knits that front line together. I hope we get the Antony deal over the line because we need quality reinforcements, but on current evidence, we also desperately need a CF that can hold the ball up and bring others into play, to rotate with Martial.
Eriksen dictated play beautifully, but his influence waned as we went deeper and deeper. Fernandes never stopped running and produced another Captain’s performance. McTominay has put in two disciplined performances at 6, back to back. Well done him. Nevertheless, Casemiro will be a huge upgrade with his positioning and reading of the game.
Not everything has to be fireworks. Very satisfied that we are headed in the right direction. Excited to see what we can do in the last week of the window, and getting Casemiro and Martial into the team.
Cheer up. Rome wasn’t built in a day.
