[Still ill]

Bailly and Shaw in to the back 4 make an immediate difference. We were really solid looking without ever looking like we would cut them to shreds. As starts go, I'll take that.

 

[carlosp]

http://www.squawka.com/football-pla...08/2016#season#1#all-matches#total#desc#total

 

[Shimo]

Great to start with a good 3 points.

Biggest problem in the game I thought was no threat in behind. Was hoping to see Mkhitarayan or Rashford sooner.

Rooney - wouldn't say I am a fanboy but, don't think he normally deserves as much stick as he gets. Today though I did think he needed to come off as he really was struggling and hurting the team but, glad he got the goal.
Bailly - beast but, couple of those wild legs swung to clear the ball - he'll need to be a little more careful but, I don't mind it as it adds some needed bite
Blind - surely now can dismiss the idea that he does not make a quality cb. Yes, he has a bit of a weakness against the biggest forwards in the air but, he is very good. With him, Bailly and Smalling we should have be strong in that position.
Martial - he came alive in the 2nd half. Think in the first half we focused too much on the right and think we really need to find a way to get him more on the ball running at players. He just puts so much pressure on defenses.
Valencia, Fellaini and Zlatan - excellent. Zlatan's goal - brilliant.

Mata - happy for him. Still think him on the right is just too slow an option for us but, does leave acres of space for Valencia to run into.

Herrera, Shaw, DDG - solid

Once Pogba comes in, not only more quality but, another physical presence. Very early doors but, can't help feel very optimistic with the potential - especially under Mou.

 

[Sweet Square]

Well that was fun.

 

[CLARiiON]

Literally our last league game.

...against literally the same opposition.

 

[AltiUn]

Must be a combination of fitness + introduce him slowly to the league (and the team) thing. Won't read too much into it.

Edit: He probably does not want him to get exposed like Depay did last season.

Yeah that's probably true. Very sensible from Mourinho if that's what he's doing! The way he mentions him being the Bundesliga player of the year definitely shows that he's in his plans.

 

[peridigm]

For all its worth, I think Smalling should have a lot to do to get into the CB role with Bailly and Blind's display today. If rumors are true and we're looking to sign Fonte, even more competition for a starting spot between the 4. Would mean Rojo and Jones have no place in the squad. Valencia played well too. Making the RB spot his own under Jose. Darmian wont feature much at all I suppose unless he goes elsewhere. Loan to another prem club? Couple of nice DDG saves. Biggest coup of our recent transfer windows.

Fellaini/Herrera did well today but this was a fluke. There will be 4 players competing for the pairing with Pogba.

Rooney was typical performance. Anonymous, loses the ball, then scores the obligatory goal. Slows down our attack too much. Should have had a hat trick today.

Did not think we'd see Mata on the wing under Jose. Shows how much I know. Think he's going to stick around a bit longer until Micki is in form. Thought Martial was average today.

Zlatan is just Zlatan.

 

[top1whoisman]

 

[Al-T]

Nice to watch a game with a sense of anticipation and the players put in a performance to match. I think I will look forward to watching United again this season. That sense of joy has been absent last two campaigns. This feels totally different. Good players brought in and made an immediate lmpact. No mention of the process . Happy start!

 

[Oo0AahCantona]

Anyone know why Mkhitaryan isn't starting for us?

I think its politics to accommodate Mata and gain his trust back before the window closes. There tons of quality and depth in those attacking areas now with Miki, mata, martial, rashford, pogba, rooney, zlatan etc for 4 places. squad rotation is going to be key, and i think this is Jose's way of winning over the dressing room and getting everyone to pull in the same direction. I doubt it would go over amazingly well if his first action was to banish our second most productive player (mata) and probably a really popular one in the dressing room.

 

[Gasolin]

You would think with the money we are paying him he could afford to use the electricity?

It's for the light mate, for the light...

 

[LouisDanGaal]

For all its worth, I think Smalling should have a lot to do to get into the CB role with Bailly and Blind's display today. If rumors are true and we're looking to sign Fonte, even more competition for a starting spot between the 4. Would mean Rojo and Jones have no place in the squad. Valencia played well too. Making the RB spot his own under Jose. Darmian wont feature much at all I suppose unless he goes elsewhere. Loan to another prem club? Couple of nice DDG saves. Biggest coup of our recent transfer windows.

Fellaini/Herrera did well today but this was a fluke. There will be 4 players competing for the pairing with Pogba.

Rooney was typical performance. Anonymous, loses the ball, then scores the obligatory goal. Slows down our attack too much. Should have had a hat trick today.

Did not think we'd see Mata on the wing under Jose. Shows how much I know. Think he's going to stick around a bit longer until Micki is in form. Thought Martial was average today.

Zlatan is just Zlatan.

That is the thing with Mourinho, very pragmatic, what works at one club may not at another, it all depends on the squad and qualities of the players. Blind at CB is a big surprise to me as well but if it works he isn't going to change it.

 

[Gary_Walsh_Nou_Camp_Hell]

Great start for Jose at United, he's bought really well and seems like a boss who can motivate and bring the best out of existing players. His reputation alone brings back some fear into our opponents, they know he will get us organised and playing well.

I'm trying to resist getting carried away because when Moysie started with a 4-1 away win I though 'ah it's business as usual for United' and then with Louis it was very confident. And Jose does have the potential to go 'loco' but, touch wood, all will be good and we'll see a long run of composed performances.

Out of interest, how many times did United score 3 goals in a game under in the previous three seasons?

 

[RedElf]

Back four played pretty good, Herrera was a bit meh. Fellaini did ok, and Rooney was below average as per normal. Good win today, even though it was lacking some excitement. Adding Pogba can bring more drive from the midfield. Nice goal for Zlatan to kick off his PL tally.

 

[PieCrust]

Was nice to see the team moving the ball faster than under LVG. First half was still drab, but that poached goal from Mata changed things for the better.

Some of Ibra's touches and decisions are world class. He's very slow, but lots of skill and clearly has vision that we've lacked recently.

Bailly really looks like the real deal. Hopefully doesn't suffer any setbacks in form, similiar to Darmian last season.

 

[ColvaleGoa]

 

[stu_1992]

Slow start, but turned into a very decent performance and a good result. Shame about the fact we conceded the goal.

Bailey looking good again. Hope he keeps this up. Ibra looks to be easily proving the doubters wrong. I know Rooney scored, but damn he was poor. Very frustrating. Only. Other disappointme the was Martial. Fair play to Mata too.

 

[032Devil]

Solid.

Poor first half. Looked better in the 2nd.

Rooney needs to be fecked off.

i think we still suffer from the problems of the last 3 years in that when we allow pressure from the opposition, we leak goals - and this was Bournemouth.

After the third goal we seemed lost. It was almost as if the players didn't know if they should chill for the remaining 25 minutes or go on and absolutely destroy the opposition. In that confusion and uncertainty, Bournemouth scored. Had we continued to play the way we played in the second-half, we could have won by a larger margin.

 

[Loon]

Be interesting to see in future if, as planned, we start to dominate from midfield.

 

[Yorkeontop]

http://www.kickoff.com/mobile/news/...d-of-scoring-on-his-league-debut-for-new-club

so money

 

[032Devil]

• Never been happier that De Gea had a meh game
• The center backs were like a brick wall
• Shaw and Valencia added a lot of width
• Fellaini was damn near perfect for us
• Herrera took a while but he got going and did well
• Rooney was very very average
• Zlatan was Zlatan
• Martial took a while but started doing his thing
• Mata was pretty good

The footy was far better and we still have plenty to add in our team too

Rooney was average and too chilled. He needs a kick up the backside to get him playing with passion. I hope the new manager will do that. Great goal by him though.

Martial was almost awful. His strength, close control, has been absent for the last two games.

 

[Cantona's Collar]

Started slowly but grew into the game and took control as Bournemouth started to tire towards the end of the first half. Bailly MOTM for me with Blind, Valencia and Fellaini close behind. Was really impressed by Fellaini today to be honest, he was efficient in mopping up in midfield, clinical in the air and managed to go a whole 90 minutes without elbowing anyone in the face. As much as I expect Carrick and Pogba to be our most used midfield pairing this season I'm quite interested to see what a Fellaini (in this type of form) and Pogba midfield would look like. I thought Herrera was decent enough as well and can see him getting quite a few minutes this season. There were also some encouraging signs off Martial in the 2nd half. He looked out of sorts in pre season but he at least managed to show some glimpses of what he's about as the game wore on. To be honest the only really poor performance came from Rooney who still managed to bag a goal so can't really be too critical but I'm going to be anyway because he was absolutely gash apart from that. I've never really agreed with the hate Rooney gets on here but I do agree that when he's poor he's very poor.

Roll on Friday night. Hopefully Pogba will get a decent run out and we get to see a start or a good number of minutes for Mkhitaryan. I'm excited by what they can potentially bring to the team.

 

[sunama]

I thought we were poor to be honest. That clusterfeck of a preseason having its effect.

Get used to it dude.
This is a Mourinho team. It's all about winning.
LVG was all about dominating possession and the opponent. 1-0 wins were his target.
Jose focuses on the scoreline and puts a team to get the best possible score-line. In many cases, the on-pitch performance is not pretty or fluid, but we will win games.

I'd say that today was a typical Jose team performance and score line was exactly what I would expect of Jose team. I predicted us to win by 2 goals. Under LVG, I never predicted us to win by 2 goals. Ever.

The game I am looking forward to the Southampton game - that will feature P.Pogba - the most expensive player in the World. A player who Jose was desperate to buy, at any cost. I want to see just what Jose has in store for him and us.

 

[krazyrobus]

Literally our last league game.

...against literally the same opposition.

Killer response!

 

[sunama]

It's been a very long time since I saw any MUFC player dominate physically 1 opposition player. Let alone 2 opposition players.
When we bought Bastian I thought that we would have a combative player. Unfortunately, he was injured a lot and never imposed himself on any of our games.
The ultimate proof of what a bunch of pussies we'd become (and that we'd accepted that we were pussies), was when a WHUFC player carried Herrera off the pitch. Never in my life have seen an injured player carried off by an opponent. Under LVG, our players simply did not possess any combative/fighting qualities.

Now, I feel that we not only have a manager with a mentality who wants to fight tooth and nail for everything, but we also have the players to implement that combative mentality on the pitch.
This season, when opponents play us, they'll know that to beat us, they'll need to put up one heck of a fight....just as was the case when Fergie managed us and Keane was MUFC Captain.

 

[Valdemar]

I can't understand how people can be negative after a 3-1 win in our first league match. Brilliant result and a pretty decent performance as well. Last season we could hardly win away and could hardly score a single goal. Today we got three goals which even included a long range effort. Much, much better than last season in which ever way you look at it. Won't get any worse when the team really starts to gel and Pogba get this groove going! Great day!

 

[davidmichael]

Bailly looked really good for his first game in the league and although he'll come up against much better strikers this season if was still an away game when we've not played a lot pre season.

Ibrahamovic was class without even being at his best as he's still not match fit after the Euro's and once he's at his sharpest he'll take some stopping with pace around him, Martial wasn't at his best but slowly came into the game and is another who'll get much better in a few weeks once he's match fit.

Rooney really slowed our game up as every time the ball came to him he would take a touch to control it but his touch would let him down so he'd go the way the ball came from then lay the ball off to the person it came from, he needed to take the ball on the turn and go forward with it as there were times we outnumbered the Bournemouth defence if he'd turned and gone at their defence and it just adds fuel to the fire of those who want him out of our best 11 for the good of the whole team.

Valencia and Shaw provided a decent amount going forward which was nice although I think with either Lingard or Mhkitarayan on the right they'd probably not need to go forward as much as Mata cutting in all the time from the right means Valencia needed too bomb forward, with Smalling and Pogba to come back in as well as Mhkitarayan on the right I'm excited by what we can do.

 

[Acole9]

Good start to the season, we was a bit patchy at times and the first half we was really slow but the second half was much better. I agree with Mourinho it is going to take time to get a few of the players to get out of the van Gaal passing side ways routine out of their system.

Another thing which was good to see is how comfortable we looked at the back.

 

[DevilRed]

Loved the fact that we battered them physically too. Bailly and Ibra just throwing their weight around and rag dolling people. Fellaini got in on the act too. Valencia solid as ever.

Its a great start to the season and a stepping stone to greater things. Really looking forward to us adding Pogba into the mix. It might just mean we are the most physically imposing team in the league.

 

[utdalltheway]

Top of the league, only another 37 left to play.

 

[manichester]

Happy with that we put up a fight and didn't roll over, looked solid from front to back.

 

[royboy16]

Missed the game but the comments in here are encouraging and great to read.
Looking forward to MOTD2.

 

[Mr Anderson]

Solid out today. First to most balls. Bailly very impressive today, Blind also showing when the ball is on the ground he reads things so well.

Herrera done well in midfield, broke up a bit of play - even Fellaini did similar.

Zlatan gives us a good option to hold up the ball and leave people peel off or he can also do something himself.

All in all very positive

 

[dogwithabone]

A typical Mourinho title winning type performance. Defended well, generally controlled the tempo of the game and had enough cutting edge to see it through comfortably.

It may have just been the camera angle - perhaps I'm doing Bournemouth a disservice - but the pitch looked very small and hemmed in. Look forward to seeing us on the more expansive pitches.

All in all much more upbeat about what's ahead this season compared to the last three.

 

[Cantonagotmehere]

Good game. Especially if we consider that we didn't have a proper pre-season. Rooney always needs time but he already scored, so there is hope! Baily seems great, hopefully he will form a great partnership with Smalling. We all expect that Pogba will offer something special, we'll see. I am still not convinced that Miki is not another Kagawa, he seems very weak.

In no way is Miki weak. He can hold his own physically for sure.

 

[ants7]

Would take that away win any day.

Really solid performance to start the season with. It'll get tougher but we'll build on today's result and performance and go from there.

 

[Escobar]

You saw shades of what this team is capable off. Once Mata came central and Zlatan was more involved, we were fluid, quick and played nice football. This needs to happen much more and I'm sure it will in a couple of months

 

[Tincanalley]

Great win. Especial mentions for Bailly, Blind, Mata, Rooney and Mata. Fellaini had a great game too. Very well taken goal by Ibra. Maybe Shaw a bit rusty, but he will be fine. This is the kind of game we were drawing or losing last year.

 

[pierrethesnack]

You would think with the money we are paying him he could afford to use the electricity?

Maybe Juve forgot to pay his electricity bill.

 

[Acole9]

I love the Ibrahimovic chant that is brilliant.

I also heard a Mata chant too but couldn't make out how it goes, does anyone know?