Manchester United vs. Chelsea

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Think Moyes needs to pick an experienced and battle hardened team who knows the rhythms of a game like this. Old Trafford will be packed and up for it to celebrate Moyes first game at home so Im guessing the atmosphere will be as good as it ever has been. That helps our team, but it also adds to the pressure and tension and we need players who revel in such surroundings.

For that reason Rooney has to play. If the club is not going to sell to Chelsea, its a great way to make that clear to them and Rooney. I also think Rooney's professional instincts and love for football will quickly ensure he goes into auto-pilot and delivers a performance. Net net, if Rooney is staying, we need to use him properly.

Despite being at home, we have to be smart about how we deal with Chelsea's fluid front 4 and assume that they will score at some stage. And so, for me that means a midfeld 3 that can run.


DDG
Jones Vidic Ferdinand Evra
Fellaini Carrick Anderson
Valencia Rooney
Van Persie


Im coming thanks to Sultan! cant wait :)
 
Annihilate Now! said:
He's average at best (Personally, I'd go with 'naff'). I'm amazed Mourinho hasn't brought in new/better CB's... Cahill/Terry is nowhere near the standard that Terry/Carvalho was during his first tenure. It's not even close.
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So considering we had the third best defence in the league last season, 4 goals better off than United, which of our defenders are good? Only i;ve not heard a single mention of which of our defenders are good, only Cahill/Terry being no good now Luiz being an accident waiting to happen and Cole being too old.

I think its a bit of a myth. Very quick to say how average our defence is but when presented with the facts no-one can seem to say which of our defenders are actually very good, considering the results. Nowhere near Terry/Carvalho of course, but its not exactly a Wigan defence.
 
ItsEssexRob said:
So considering we had the third best defence in the league last season, 4 goals better off than United, which of our defenders are good? Only i;ve not heard a single mention of which of our defenders are good, only Cahill/Terry being no good now Luiz being an accident waiting to happen and Cole being too old.

I think its a bit of a myth. Very quick to say how average our defence is but when presented with the facts no-one can seem to say which of our defenders are actually very good, considering the results. Nowhere near Terry/Carvalho of course, but its not exactly a Wigan defence.
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You are aware that our defence was, for large parts of last season, crap... right? Particularly in the first half of the season where we shipped goals for fun... so using it as a favourable comparison hardly does your lot any favours. It was fairly well and widely reported that defences weren't on-top last season.

Terry's still good enough - just not as good as he used to be. Same with Cole. Ivanovic is a good defender, and Luiz can be very good when he's not being mental. Bertrand and Cesar Az... are also promising. Cahill is the weakest defender you have in my opinion... the point still stands, your defence is nowhere near the level your last Mourinho defence was ,(not sure you'd find many people who would dispute that.)... and considering that was a large part of what your success under him was largely built on, is it good enough? It's not like you have a player of Makelele's ability running around in front of them either.
 
Annihilate Now! said:
You are aware that our defence was, for large parts of last season, crap... right? Particularly in the first half of the season where we shipped goals for fun... so using it as a favourable comparison hardly does your lot any favours. It was fairly well and widely reported that defences weren't on-top last season.

Terry's still good enough - just not as good as he used to be. Same with Cole. Ivanovic is a good defender, and Luiz can be very good when he's not being mental. Bertrand and Cesar Az... are also promising. Cahill is the weakest defender you have in my opinion... the point still stands, your defence is nowhere near the level your last Mourinho defence was ,(not sure you'd find many people who would dispute that.)... and considering that was a large part of what your success under him was largely built on, is it good enough? It's not like you have a player of Makelele's ability running around in front of them either.
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Agree AN ... and an ageing 34 year old Scottish striker turned Cahill inside out in last weeks international.
 
7dan said:
Refresh my memory, which of the countless dodgy decisions wev had against Chelsea was he involved with?
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2010-2011 (SB): Free kick didn't exist, Terry scored from an offside position
2010-2011 (OT): Drogba scores from an offside position, Macheda scored with hand
2011-2012 (SB): We had a penalty appeal turned off, Chelsea got a dodgy penalty from which they scored the winner. David Luiz made two tackles for which he should get the second yellow.

Terrible appointment really, not long ago Chelsea won more than 95% of games when Atkinson refereed. Fortunately for us he didn't get an appointment in the last games against Chelsea, but shit happens.
 
A lot of focus is naturally on the high profile appointment of the ref yet a good team of assistant referees is also important, indeed i think they should be encouraged to be more forthright than they sometimes are.
 
Brightonian said:
I quite liked the look of Valencia against Swansea. His offensive contribution still wasn't quite where it is when he's on top form, but he looked like the defensive beast of old again. The more people we can include who are good at winning the ball back high up the pitch (before it gets to Mata etc) the better.

I wouldn't complain if we started Nani, though. But there's no real proof that he's back to form either.
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Valenica is a physical beast, no question.

It seemed to me that his greatest success at United has come from whipping in hard low crosses from the wing, mostly onto the head of Wayne Rooney. I'd be happy to see him do more of that, Persie is great in the air and so are Welbeck and Cheech.
 
gooDevil said:
Valenica is a physical beast, no question.

It seemed to me that his greatest success at United has come from whipping in hard low crosses from the wing, mostly onto the head of Wayne Rooney. I'd be happy to see him do more of that, Persie is great in the air and so are Welbeck and Cheech.
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Not always onto the head - he often finds the feet of people like Rooney and RVP deep in the box. But either way yes, those fierce flat crosses which are more like a very fast pass than a traditional curling cross are one of the best things about him. A smaller club with worse strikers probably wouldn't benefit from them so much, because it's incredibly hard to get the timing right and hit one of those right in. (RVP's 8th and 9th goals for us, against Stoke and Chelsea, are excellent examples.)

But since our strikers can handle those crosses they're a huge asset, because there's very little the defence can do about them once the ball's past the first man. They move so fast that any touch from anyone is liable to turn the ball into the goal.
 
If we get Fellaini, then I'd like to see him and Carrick sitting, with Rooney in front of them similarly to how he was doing behind Hernandez in 2011. Welbeck, Persie and preferably Nani ahead of them and we should have enough I think.
 
ItsEssexRob said:
So considering we had the third best defence in the league last season, 4 goals better off than United, which of our defenders are good? Only i;ve not heard a single mention of which of our defenders are good, only Cahill/Terry being no good now Luiz being an accident waiting to happen and Cole being too old.

I think its a bit of a myth. Very quick to say how average our defence is but when presented with the facts no-one can seem to say which of our defenders are actually very good, considering the results. Nowhere near Terry/Carvalho of course, but its not exactly a Wigan defence.
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Your defence as a unit will certainly be much stronger under Mourinho. That 2-0 and then shut up shop job on the weekend showed that.
Although I got the feeling a United or City would have gone on to beat them 4 or 5-0. But still early days.

Cole is still top notch, Ivanovic is solid, and Cech is right up there.

Don't think Cahill should be anywhere near a Chelsea team, and Terry is clinging on in his latter days.

Luiz I don't like at all, but then he starts for Brazil and Barcelona are after him, so what do I know!
 
Revan said:
2010-2011 (SB): Free kick didn't exist, Terry scored from an offside position
2010-2011 (OT): Drogba scores from an offside position, Macheda scored with hand
2011-2012 (SB): We had a penalty appeal turned off, Chelsea got a dodgy penalty from which they scored the winner. David Luiz made two tackles for which he should get the second yellow.

Terrible appointment really, not long ago Chelsea won more than 95% of games when Atkinson refereed. Fortunately for us he didn't get an appointment in the last games against Chelsea, but shit happens.
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Wrong season for all of those; second example wasn't Atkinson (it was Dean, but the official responsible for that error was Simon Beck).
 
Now Mou has seen another game where he can correct his team's mistakes and better prepare for the United game.
 
Positives, Chelsea have been largely average and I expect our centre halves to deal with any striker they play.

Negatives, the fecking referee worries me, especially after Chelsea got rescued tonight by the ref's performance.
 
Positives, our strikers will probably have a field day with their defense.

Negatives, the fecking referee worries me, especially after Chelsea got rescued tonight by the ref's performance.
 
De Gea

Rafael
Vidic
Ferdinand
Evra

Carrick
Fellaini

Valencia
Kagawa
Nani

v Persie

Would love to see that and would be more than enough in an 11 v 11. huge worries about the ref though.
 
Why did some of you put Fellani on the starting 11 like it's a matter of fact that he'll be our player by Monday, and that he'll be thrown right in the mix? It's baffling.
 
To get you in the mood ahead of the Martin Atkinson show, have some stats: Ref us 23 times, Chelsea 25:
- Chelsea's loss % with Atkinson: 8%
- United's loss % with Atkinson: 22% (!!!)
- Chelsea's penalties for with Atkinson: 7
- United's penalties for with Atkinson: 0 (!!!)
 
Stop posting referee statistics as a pre made excuse! :p

You want to worry more about your defence than the ref as Mata, Hazard and Ramires had a field day last season. Going for 2-2.
 
ItsEssexRob said:
Stop posting referee statistics as a pre made excuse! :p

You want to worry more about your defence than the ref as Mata, Hazard and Ramires had a field day last season. Going for 2-2.
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Even you have to admit that Atkinson loves your team.
 
ItsEssexRob said:
Stop posting referee statistics as a pre made excuse! :p

You want to worry more about your defence than the ref as Mata, Hazard and Ramires had a field day last season. Going for 2-2.
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The midfield was and will be the problem, not the defence.
 
RedRossi said:
After watching your two games this season so far, we have nothing to worry about apart from Twatkinson
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Dont watch the two games, doesnt matter what form or team we have we are always go toe to toe with United. What you have to worry about is that we often get a result against United regardless. Going to be a brilliant match.
 
We would've started preparing for this game already, can't see any new signings being played (if weve made any).

I think we will go with the same XI as Swansea but with Rooney in for Giggs. Will try to soak up and sit fairly deep, and break with Welbeck and Valencia on the wings.
 
ItsEssexRob said:
Dont watch the two games, doesnt matter what form or team we have we are always go toe to toe with United. What you have to worry about is that we often get a result against United regardless. Going to be a brilliant match.
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In the last four you haven't lost one. In the six before that you hadn't won one.

In my experience, the 'form going out the window' point applies to both teams. It's just one of those games. Plus unfortunately referees tend to have an active role in the result, which makes it even less predictable. When Chelsea pay to have Atkinson in charge, that is.
 
2-1 to us. Van Persie to score another brace (he's going to score 40+ this season) and a Lampard penalty for them.
 
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