[DM07]

ok, so where the hell is Giggs in this equation? Someone who was brought up in a totally different footballing education? What the feck is he doing?

Lapping up to Van Gaal so he could take over the job when Van Gaal leaves.

 

[kouroux]

Was that one shot the Martial chance at the end?

Rooney FK.

 

[MyOnlySolskjaer]

Disgraceful.

 

[Sweet Square]

like most of us. I nodded off quite a few times during that game.

Reminded me of being in a pointless work meeting in a windowless room just after lunch. It was painful to keep my eyes open.

Yeah I watched the first half and then thought feck I can't waste another 45 mins on this and left the house.Really struggling to care about United games at the moment.

 

[Chorley1974]

I missed Time Team having a gangbang with brewlio's mum for that.

 

[Wumminator]

I wish we still had Welbeck.

There I said it.

 

[Utd7]

I pray Pep doesn't sign an extension. At least if he's available this summer, we can justify replacing LvG a year early.

 

[Black Adder]

Attacking play in final third in non-existent.

 

[Phil]

LVG is sucking out my love of football.

This

 

[Al-T]

like most of us. I nodded off quite a few times during that game.

Reminded me of being in a pointless work meeting in a windowless room just after lunch. It was painful to keep my eyes open.

One of the reasons I was glad to retire!!

Never thought I'd see the day when United were consistently this dull to watch!!

 

[Iron Stove]

This was just too depressing. United playing for a draw at Palace..

 

[DevilRed]

It's baffling that people seem to be fixated on our strikers when the whole attack is contributing nothing at the moment. We play with 1 striker and we probably have a very good one in Martial if he's moved back there. We have no genuine right sided player in the squad, so we've stuck Mata there who has been invisible in every game since Wolfsburg. Our left sided players are underwhelming and Herrera is not contributing a lot as our #10 really, despite being neat and tidy (he's a central midfielder).

The players have been given instruction to stay in their areas and seemingly not attempt any runs or take any risks. Its fecking appalling football. It means we need to literally create a miracle before we can score a goal.

Most of the time the forward players are outnumbered 2 or 3 against one.

I just hope its part of a grand plan to slowly fix this team. Yes we have seemingly sorted the midfield and defence (in a way). But the attack is broken and will stay that way unless things change. LVG really isn't getting the best out of Rooney with these tactics.

 

[CLARiiON]

Some wise man once told:

insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result

LVG clearly hates that wise man!

 

[Randall Flagg]

It's frustrating, there is a realistic title challenge this season ready to be taken but we just don't look like taking it

 

[Hed Zitin]

I honestly didn't think we'd score today after the first 15 minutes of the second half.

 

[stu_1992]

Unbelievably frustrating stuff there. Especially as we've fallen further behind now. Always gonna be a tough game, but I never felt like we gave it a real go. At least we've a easier fixture coming up now (on paper at least). We need to hammer some team soon!

 

[mu77]

shit

 

[bleedred]

Just waiting on Gaz's view of how its a defensive masterclass performance on a tough away ground.

 

[sunama]

ok, so where the hell is Giggs in this equation? Someone who was brought up in a totally different footballing education? What the feck is he doing?

He doesnt really talk much, so perhaps he is just sitting quietly, watching whats going on and thinking..."hmmmmm".

 

[Natener]

No point blaming Rooney IMO. Particularly considering that there was no difference when he went wide and Martial went up top.

We looked like we didn't have a game plan at all. Pointless balls over the top, no urgency whatsoever. Giving the ball away cheaply. Dire performance.

We were terrible all over the pitch today.

There was a difference. We began channeling our attacking play almost entirely down the right and center. And Rojo's difficult time handling Bolasie got worse.

 

[sunama]

I wish we still had Welbeck.

There I said it.

Wellbeck isn't a prolific striker.
Maybe he'd score 5-10 goals this season. But Rooney can also do that. Falcao is in the same bracket.

 

[Roboc7]

Let's be realistic we aren't going to win the league, we are playing for top four and taking into account the game midweek the result isn't a disaster especially as palace we by far the better team.

We just aren't enough up front, teams are not going to be scared of playing against that front four, there is only one player with ability to burst pass players and who caries any kind of threat in terms of pace so it's easy to stop. I think if you gave any defence the choice of playing against mata and Rooney or Vardy and Maghrez. Ost would opt for the former.

Unless teams give us time and space on the ball or we can take the lead we struggle to even create 2-3 chances let alone score 2-3 goals, we are pretty dependent on clinical finishing which isn't going to happen every game.

 

[Will Singh]

I'm trying to think of something positive to say but there isn't nothing apart from we didn't lose!

 

[Randall Flagg]

Wellbeck isn't a prolific striker.
Maybe he'd score 5-10 goals this season. But Rooney can also do that. Falcao is in the same bracket.

Welbeck made things happen and offered something different.

But that ship has sailed now

 

[Wumminator]

Wellbeck isn't a prolific striker.
Maybe he'd score 5-10 goals this season. But Rooney can also do that. Falcao is in the same bracket.

I feel like he added movement.

As far as I'm concerned Jesse Lingard needs to start at the moment. He's half the player Mata is but contributes twice as much.

 

[Question234]

[

Rooney again was not as bad as everyone wants to make him out to be.

Fellaini is absolutely awful in aerial duels.

Why do we never play Mata on the left? When they switched their fullbacks, it would have been worth a shot to have Martial running at the fullback on a booking on our right.

Darmian is still far short of his early season form.

Jesus christ are you serious ?

 

[DevilRed]

There was a difference. We began channeling our attacking play almost entirely down the right and center. And Rojo's difficult time handling Bolasie got worse.

Sadly the other players didn't have the legs to keep up with Martial at that point. He was mostly running into maybe 3-4 palace players all by himself. Herrera and Mata were nowhere to be seen.

It really does mean that we need to buy a right winger or another forward with some pace. This is even assuming that Memphis comes good eventually. We are just too slow with Mata and Rooney as two of our 3 attackers.

 

[Ixion]

We should have lost. No urgency or creativity from anyone (except Martial a little).

Our possession stats are bollocks as well. Teams just let us have the ball because we do feck all with it and they want to counter us, against a good team that presses us we wouldn't be able to maintain possession, too many of our players lack composure when pressed.

 

[LARulz]

What has Van Gaal said post game?

 

[SalfordRed1960]

Didn't get a working stream so listened on the radio. Last 30 mins sounded pretty much one way traffic in Palace favour.

Did seem a couple of our players got psyched out by the pressing of Palace. But it also didn't really sound like Palace created anything. Just in our last third a lot, but poor on quality.

Going forward seem to improve when Young and Lingard came on with Rooney moved from striker role. It is no coincidence that since Rooney has been the striker the goals have dried up. Saying that I didn't hear a lot of Rooney losing the ball or bad passing.

 

[DevilRed]

I feel like he added movement.

As far as I'm concerned Jesse Lingard needs to start at the moment. He's half the player Mata is but contributes twice as much.

Problem with Mata is its too easy to force him back towards our own goal. When he can get the ball in space and run at a defence he is fantastic at making something happen. Sadly this doesn't occur very often in our current tactical state. Defenders know they can just press up against him without any risk of him being able to turn and beat them.

 

[EverReddy]

tumescent, tedious, timid. It's painful to watch.

 

[DevilRed]

Didn't get a working stream so listened on the radio. Last 30 mins sounded pretty much one way traffic in Palace favour.

Did seem a couple of our players got psyched out by the pressing of Palace. But it also didn't really sound like Palace created anything. Just in our last third a lot, but poor on quality.

Going forward seem to improve when Young and Lingard came on with Rooney moved from striker role. It is no coincidence that since Rooney has been the striker the goals have dried up. Saying that I didn't hear a lot of Rooney losing the ball or bad passing.

palace are one of the worse goalscoring teams in the league. It showed today. If they had a proper striker they might have won. They fashioned some great chances in the second half.

Although I do have to say that we could have scored on a few occasions too.

 

[The United Irishman]

This system is shit, and it's making the football unbearable to watch. It really does not work in the premier league, he needs to change things up and I'm not just talking about Rooney, there are a lot of players in our team that have looked shit, obviously they have or will escape criticism, but this is a management problem not a player problem.

 

[Nik70]

Starting to lose faith in LVG. Shocking display. Rooney needs to be dropped.

 

[The Red Thinker]

Worst performance of the season imo. Worse than Arsenal away.

Oh Come off it. You'd rather lose 3-0 in 25 mins is it.

Fans here need to get a grip! Seen Chelsea lately anyone? We're stale going forward. That can be fixed. Let's not act like this was worse than a fecking drubbing.

 

[Sunny Jim]

1 more point than we had yesterday

progress

 

[facund]

A slow first 20 minutes but we worked ourselves in the game as the half wore on, fully expecting us to build on that in the second but we showed absolutely no drive to take the game to them.

Incredibly worrying that opposition teams seem to want it more than us, Palace probably deserved to edge it.

Why Mata came off when he has played the fewest minutes in the last week I just can't understand. He wasn't great (reasonably ineffective actually) but both Herrera and Rooney were far more deserving of the chop. The Fellaini for Bastian switch, which seems to be a stock substitution these days, really annoys me as well. Fellaini doesn't offer anything special whilst deep and it is becoming increasingly dubious that he provides any additional threat offensively in our system. Not his fault, he is one of the few who consistently seems to give a sh*t, but he is the player he always has been.

I'm having to hold back my sense of disappointment after watching 300+minutes of football lacking a goal without really thinking we were particularly hard done by. The desire and will to win doesn't seem to be in this team.

It isn't a bad result in isolation but I can't help feel we didn't really give it a go.

 

[sunama]

This Rooney situation is extremely weird. What is this mysterious reason that keeps Rooney on the pitch for 90 minutes no matter how shit he is?

Firstly, today's draw and the (penalty) loss against Middlesborough were not Rooney's fault. So we can't keep blaming him for everything.
But with regards to Rooney & LVG: LVG has stated many times, the Captain ALWAYS plays. I think our fans don't realise this. Rooney can score an own-goal hat-trick and will still get picked for the next game. He is undroppable and will play every game.

That is just not true. We scored 1 out of 4 penalties in the shootout the other day.

LOL, even that's an embarrassing stat.

 

[bosnian_red]

4 dribbles, 5 shots, 1 on target.... No, not an individual's players stats, our overall team stats for today

Interested in what Van Gaal has to say about that, and no goals in over 5 hours.