[kundalini]

Young produced a fair amount of quality and some poor moments too. Good to see Falcao score. Di Maria was ridiculously greedy.

Fletcher as poor as you'd expect. Evans continued his awful form.

Hard to believe we played the last 25 mins against 10 men given how little we created.

RVP wasted a great opportunity early in the 2nd half.

Overall a gutless display. Too slow. Too safe. Too many stupid little fouls conceded that allowed them to make use of Benteke.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

We lost our fluidity and goal threat after equalising, oddly enough. I thought that including our time with the man advantage was actually possibly our worst phase all game.

At the same time I'm happy with our response when we went a goal down because it was excellent.

With regards to tactics, I still don't luke the 352.

Overall, a decent point. We weren't going to win every game. But maybe we've got to work on fading in Away games during parts of the game.

 

[Galactic]

We shouldn't be needing added time to score against 10 men really.

Anyway, we wouldn't have scored even if we got 5-6 mins.

 

[bishblaize]

There are no guarantees RvP would've scored. Wilson provided fresh legs and a bit of pace.

As Ive said before, pace is only any use if you can do something with it. Wilson to me looks like he needs a loan spell to get his eye in at senior level.

 

[Man-United]

Di Maria has only been out for 3 weeks, but he was just awful when coming on, I mean what did he do out there? He can't have been 100% fit from his injury.

 

[Red Dreams]

no worries lads...weill be getting some top players jan 1st

 

[Hed Zitin]

Shows our level. The wins have been nice, but we've been just as slow, just as poor in possession, lacking creativity and just as crap at the back in those games as today.

Vlaar is a proper CB, not the mediocre lot we have. He cleans up the way a CB is meant to.

 

[Viral United]

when LVG understand 3 at back will never work.
ronney should be playing on top.
Evans and Jones should be our wrost defending pair.

 

[togg]

Am I the only one ok with a draw? We didn't play that well, but we weren't dire. We haven't really played that brilliantly at all this season, so any game is a bit of a lottery for us really. Aston villa basically parked the bus most of the time and the worst thing that happened was they got a player sent off. I mean how many times has a ten man team defended for their lives deep etc. 10 men teams are becoming less and less of an advantage in modern football.

 

[Raoul]

As Ive said before, pace is only any use if you can do something with it. Wilson to me looks like he needs a loan spell to get his eye in at senior level.

Yep, agreed. He is too raw to be playing consistently at this point. Much in the same vein as Januzaj.

 

[siw2007]

I'm okay with the draw, it was probably a fair result. We could have pushed more for the winner after the red but we were very poor in the first half and we did well to get the goal back.

Fletcher really looks a player at the end of the line. I know he hasn't had a lot of game time but he was well off the pace today. Though Mata wasn't awful, he was poor and is starting to look like he only turns up at Old Trafford. Fair play to Young who had a decent game and Falcao who scored a great header which hopefully will get him going.

Hopefully a better performance against Newcastle on boxing day!!

 

[Djemba-Djemba]

It's a crap result and really disappointing but it's nothing too damaging.

We were always going to drop points eventually.

 

[pseudo_canadian]

The one and only positive to come out of this game is that Falcao scored and played the full 90 min. Once Falcao and Di Maria start getting more regular game time the football will begin to look better.

 

[Acole9]

Why was RVP taken off?

 

[Mersault]

The 'hoof it and hope' strategy doesn't really work when we don't have Fellaini in there.

We need another playmaker besides ADM who can beat a man off the dribble and create something. The last 20 minutes were pointless...

present tense
We really really do.

 

[Raoul]

Why was RVP taken off?

Why should he have stayed on ?

 

[ItsEssexRob]

I thought the United luckathon was going to carry on after the red card but it didn't which was refreshing. United were poor again and Villa were Villa. Makes a change for VP not to be an automatic 3 pointer for you guys though. DDG imperious once again.

 

[WyoManU]

I thought we were mostly very average. Not nearly enough of a work rate from a lot of our guys. AV ran their socks off because they care. It seems that quite a few of our lads don't care so much. They are highly paid professionals and should be expected to give life and limb every single second of every match. To be honest, I think we were fortunate at 1:1 even after Villa went down a man as they were still more likely to score.

Defense was up and down today. AV didn't create a ton but they have big physical guys who were getting on or near several balls from the likes of Delph who was the man of the match. Made our guys look slow.

Fletcher is done. I doubt he will ever play again for the first team. Good lad, loves United, not nearly good enough. We instantly looked better at the start of the second half when he came off.

I thought Rooney put in a good shift but he needs to be up front.

Mata---I know why Mourinho sold him. He doesn't work. You get maybe one moment of brilliance a game but for the rest of the 95 minutes he is more liability and dead space on the field. Not consistent enough and not doing enough to justify being here for me.

RVP--Okay, he has scored a few. I still think he looks mostly past it. It will only get worse next year as his age ticks upward. Time to go after this season.

Hard to blame Falcao. Got his goal. Worked modestly hard. Looked rusty.

Jones was quietly okay in the back. Evans is a waste for me. Young, Valencia..meh. Too much meh in our squad. Carrick stitches things together. We need more penetration and drive. Right now the philosophy of passing the ball back is frustrating and easy for well organized teams to defend against.

I have stated this several times, and I will say it again. I fear that we will not get into top 4 for CL. I could easily see us dropping several in a row and losing any confidence that we may have gained recently. As a team we still look disorganized and don't do the simple things well. We need everyone on the field to work hard and for each other. When you have one or two guys walking around, of which we have some, then it is too easy for even modest teams like Villa to pass it around and through us. I'm very disappointed and have been even for most of the games during our recent run of wins. We are running out of time this season. I hope we get a few guys in for the January window cause we need it.

 

[Mickson]

LvGs fault. Wrong tactics and wrong subs. How Mata stayed on I don't know. Rubbish.

 

[Dex_Utd]

Can't understand why RVP was subbed and Mata played on. Mata in away games is really pointless, I don't know why LVG can not see the obvious.

 

[MoskvaRed]

Definitely 2 points dropped. Stupid football for the last 20 minutes - no presence on the left and swinging in crosses to a strike force no one could mistake for Andy Carroll. Fletcher sad to say should not be playing and Evans should be planning for pastures new.

 

[Jerch]

If there was a good chance it would've happened by then. He didn't seem like scoring any more than anyone else. The thinking with Wilson was probably to infuse our approach with pace whilst they were down to 10.

He have the best chances for us and his movement was great. He was our most dangerous player till he was subbed.

Di Maria shoud come on instead of Mata who didn't played that great or instead of Evans if we wanted to shift to 4 at the back. To sub Wilson with Valencia was just another mistake because we were dangerous on the wings with Valencia and Young. Their RB was useless and it was stupid to take Valencia off and shift Young on the right because Young was big trouble for them on the left.

They played compact with lot of bodies in the middle and let us attack on the wings and we troubled them till Wilson came on.

 

[PvsNP]

I still don't get why we still play the 3-5-2. We haven't really won games because of it, it's more in spite of it. Our players look so confused out there.

Anyway, good game from Young. He did really well, should've stayed on the left though.

 

[Spielmacher]

Why did we play a 3-5-2 against Aston fecking Villa in the first place?

 

[sajeev]

We lost two points due to poor decisions by the manager. From the formation to the substitutions - he got most things wrong, and unfortunately even De Gea couldn't save that strike from Benteke

 

[Jazz]

I still think the uncertainty at the back is causing a bit of a problem. However, we just need to hang on to January and get someone in. Overall, really disappointed we didn't get the win, but won't be dwelling on it. On to the next game and a win which we need to keep those behind us behind!

On another note, maybe Sir Alex should do the team talks instead of Giggs?! May help with our crap mentality and make us more intense? Just joking!!

 

[kouroux]

Why should he have stayed on ?

Because we needed a goal ?

 

[Dunk]

Brendan Rodgers would have won that game. Awful, awful, awful performance from Van Gaal. Complete trash.

 

[FC Ronaldo]

In the second half we played in spells. There was generally no positive note coming from the middle of the park for us. Rooney and Mata were anonymous for large spells of the half when we needed them most.

Poor show today on the whole. In hindsight the back 3 and Fletch were bad calls. 4-3-1-2 would have served us better.

 

[Ady87]

I know, let's bench or exclude two of the players important in our 6 win streak.

 

[markhrad]

I am not surprised either. I must come across as a stuck record but game after game Rvp and now Falcao as well get very little service. The constant passing to Valencia is 9/10 a waste of time. For a while when carrick moved out of defense you could see him trying to create chances centrally.
Taking off RVP was a mistake I think because he has shown, on his present form, that he can create a goal out of nothing and considering the lack of service our forwards get we need that kind of player.
The defensive issues we have are a given but we must address the lack of service for the strikers. Mata is not what we need and when he scores the odd goal people forget that he is really not very creative.
Both RVP and Falcao clearly like passing to each other around the box and prefer that kind of service rather than waiting on crosses, despite the fact that falcao did score from a cross.
It is a shame that we have two world class striker and yet they get such little supply.

 

[FreakyJim]

I don't care about the point.

Watching us play is painful. We lack...everything. This is not a team that enjoys football, even a little bit. Soul destroying stuff every week.
Mr. Pompous van Gaal hasn't changed a single thing. Apart from making us play that awkward 3-5-2.

 

[sunama]

Its strange.
We maintain our unbeaten run.
But the draw feels depressing...almost like a loss.

 

[bosnian_red]

I know, let's bench or exclude two of the players important in our 6 win streak.

Who?

 

[Dex_Utd]

And this posession football is sometimes really boring when there is no penetration. Everyone keeps playing easy passes and after about 2-3 mins of this it still ends with someone having to play a hoof ball. Apart from Rooney (and Hererra) no one seems capable of doing anything creative.

 

[Amar__]

Time to bump the zombie passing thread.

 

[B20]

present tense
We really really do.

Di Maria, Mata, Rooney, Januzaj isn't enough?

 

[Freak]

This 352 nonsense is sucking our creativity.

 

[stepic]

I just think these kind of games are inevitable when the team still has a number of passengers starting.

From today's starting line up:

Evans, Valencia, Young (despite producing the odd decent moment) and Fletcher aren't starting quality. Mata struggles a little too often too. I mean that's almost half the starting line up straight away. Too easy to blame LVG and the subs -- the team still needs additions.

 

[legball]

1 - Evans isn't a good defender [you can shoot me]. He's too unsure and puts pressure on the rest of the backline.
2 - What does Mata do? Fine player, but goes missing most of the time.
3 - Why did LVG move Young to the right, and ADM to the left?
4 - After Villa went a man down, we became worse, why?
5 - We create so little, with the attacking players we have, it's criminal.
6 - LVG, you do tinker a lot.