[Red_Legion]

If was not for City our current shiteness would not stick out so much. In past season it would be seen as staying on course and being professional, getting the 3 points and a job well done albeit a tad(or very) unsexy. Unfortunately City are not only playing amazing footy but also getting the results so we're going through a double whammy of shite. Happy to just finish second unless we get a City mid seaon/post Xmas collapse.

 

[ManuMou]

The link between our midfield and attack is the main issue.

Pogba and Mkhi/Mata both provide the link. When Pogba was having a 6/10 performance and Mata 5/10 performance, our creation was not there.

Pogba is irreplaceable.

The biggest problem is both Mkhi and Mata consistently underperformed. They have to step up, otherwise I believe Jose will bring in someone asap.

 

[AmanNits04]

Take off the red tinted glasses mate and imagine if it had been Rashford who was down.

Rashford was down at one point and they did not stop and I accepted it as we didn't stop either. Their team and especially the goalkeeper were wasting time from the start of the game. Serves them right tbh.

 

[Foxbatt]

So we draw 0-0 at Liverpool and it was a shite performance and everyone having a go at Jose? Chelsea drew at Liverpool 1-1 after going a goal behind and it is a brilliant recovery?

 

[RedIke]

Sometimes Manchester United fans suck.

 

[LLMU]

Key positives are getting three points while playing badly and our top 4 rivals dropped points.

 

[prtk0811]

The team looked like saving their energy for more crunch moments later on in busy fixtures. Poor display and Poor ball circulation tempo and speed.

We kept slowing the pace of the game down and making it easy for brighton to defend. No or little movement up front , no penetrative passes through the middle. Non existent wing play. We were lucky to get 3 points via deflected strike, would have drawn if not got the goal. brighton showed more desire than us after the goal.

 

[prtk0811]

there's far too much pressure on Rashford/Martial to produce every week at their age

Some times i feel we should be the one after alexis sanchez too in jan or for free.

 

[Swift Football]

Our players look a bit tired today which is a worry for upcoming games. Rashford--Lukaku---Martial as front 3 does not look a unit. maybe because they all are quite direct players. Even when we have creative players like Mata/Mkhi and Pogba playing, we are struggling to create as much. I think we will see 4-2-3-1 in next game. Anyway, I am happy that we get 3 points.

Watford is going to be tough test, they have a good mixture of physicality and creativity and could prove too much for us to break down. Hopefully, we will play top of our game and score 0-4.

 

[Foxbatt]

Someone posted here that the Brighton player agreed that it was a corner. Can anyone please point out the link?

 

[yo@Kirk]

I think United's goal total in PL is deceptive because 20 goals were score in 5 matches (4 at home) vs West Ham(18th in PL), Swansea (19th), Everton (16th), Crystal Palace (20th), and Newcastle (13th). United have scored 5 goals in 6 matches vs top 12 PL teams. That's the kind of attack that competes for 4th place in the PL and domestic cup trophies, not PL and CL titles.

 

[The No.10!]

If was not for City our current shiteness would not stick out so much. In past season it would be seen as staying on course and being professional, getting the 3 points and a job well done albeit a tad(or very) unsexy. Unfortunately City are not only playing amazing footy but also getting the results so we're going through a double whammy of shite. Happy to just finish second unless we get a City mid seaon/post Xmas collapse.

That's a good point to make. Simply because City have been phenomenal, these performances are being slayed more than they need to. I understand the critics, but again, city's form has been ominous.

 

[Foxbatt]

I think United's goal total in PL is deceptive because 20 goals were score in 5 matches (4 at home) vs West Ham(18th in PL), Swansea (19th), Everton (16th), Crystal Palace (20th), and Newcastle (13th). United have scored 5 goals in 6 matches vs top 12 PL teams. That's the kind of attack that competes for 4th place in the PL and domestic cup trophies, not PL and CL titles.

Of those top 6 teams, United has played three. Two away and one at home and got 4 points. Drew one, and lost one away and won the home game. Those are good results. Chelsea lost at home and drew away and won one at home to United.

 

[saik]

So we draw 0-0 at Liverpool and it was a shite performance and everyone having a go at Jose? Chelsea drew at Liverpool 1-1 after going a goal behind and it is a brilliant recovery?

Did you watch their match ? People accepted our draw as a result vs Liverpool but not our performance in that match. Chelsea were pretty much attacking and having a go at their defence unlike us where we hesitated to even get out of our own half. Not sure you can compare both these games.

 

[Nakhon Phanom]

Apart from Young (and de Gea excepted) its hard to find anyone who had a decent game yesterday.
It was all so average from the rest,including the subs.....absolutely no cohesion at all.
Brighton can count themselves a bit unlucky not to get a point.
A wins a win,though.

 

[Clas Sified]

Apart from Young (and de Gea excepted) its hard to find anyone who had a decent game yesterday.
It was all so average from the rest,including the subs.....absolutely no cohesion at all.
Brighton can count themselves a bit unlucky not to get a point.
A wins a win,though.

Lindelof?

 

[Nakhon Phanom]

Yes,I missed him.I thought he did OK,getting better as the match progressed and seems quite composed on the ball.

 

[Cathy Ferguson]

Apart from Young (and de Gea excepted) its hard to find anyone who had a decent game yesterday.
It was all so average from the rest,including the subs.....absolutely no cohesion at all.
Brighton can count themselves a bit unlucky not to get a point.
A wins a win,though.

Pogba had another good game. Main issue for me is that our supposedly creative players Mata, Rashford and Martial all disappointed. Brighton made it hard for us and they are very well organized defensively but we lack a world class player dribbler (e.g. Hazard) to break down such a team. It is too much sideways passing to a player who is standing on his heels and not running at full pace, apart from the first 15 min where we played a very fluid football.

 

[Billy Blaggs]

We were crap but won.

 

[yo@Kirk]

Of those top 6 teams, United has played three. Two away and one at home and got 4 points. Drew one, and lost one away and won the home game. Those are good results. Chelsea lost at home and drew away and won one at home to United.

I was pointing out that United's attack struggles against top 12 PL clubs with 5 goals in 6 matches. Against top 6 PL clubs, United are even worse with 1 goal in 3 matches. I don't think that's good enough with what United pay in fees and wages for players and their manager. United are paying enough for a functional attack that utilizes the best attributes of it's attacking players. United are not getting what they pay for.

 

[moodyred]

Performance isn't great but with Tottenham, Chelsea and Liverpool dropping points, this result is one of the best we have had for a while.

 

[JoaquinJoaquin]

Fantastic result regardless of style of play. You cant play pretty all the time, abd with Morinhou as the coach, you orobably wont play pretty most of the time. And I'm fine with that. I don't think Morinhou is here to build a dynasty, abd he won't be our next Fergi regardless of results or style of play. Mou is a contractor for trophies, he'll bring back relevance to United, hopefully a title and a few good runs deep i to the CL knockouts and then he will go on to his next challenge. He will leave us better than when he came, a better base and a better name that players will want to come and play for.

We cant deny the fact that the prestige of play for Man Utd has gone down a bit with the years. A lot of players would prefer City, or Chelsea or even Atletico and Dortmund(not even speaking abour Real, Barca or Bayern). That must change and I'm sure that will by the time Mou is done with us.
.

Can't play pretty all the time? We rarely play pretty anymore that's part of the problem

The part about us not being prestigious as Atletico and Dortmund sounds like a load of excuses tbh. We are much more prestigious than those clubs.

 

[Foxbatt]

Did you watch their match ? People accepted our draw as a result vs Liverpool but not our performance in that match. Chelsea were pretty much attacking and having a go at their defence unlike us where we hesitated to even get out of our own half. Not sure you can compare both these games.

Of course we can. Chelsea was at full strength while we had so many injuries while we played Liverpool. We had 3 of our best players missing in that game. At the end they were lucky to score with a cross and with us Liverpool only had one chance and we had one chance too. Liverpool scored against Chelsea but they could not score against us.

 

[MacabbiUnited]

Can't play pretty all the time? We rarely play pretty anymore that's part of the problem

The part about us not being prestigious as Atletico and Dortmund sounds like a load of excuses tbh. We are much more prestigious than those clubs.

Because we pay better. How many CL finals and semi's Atletico had in that past few years? More thanwe had group stage appearances probably.
We are the bigger clubs but we cant seem to attract big names. Zlatan came because of Morinhuo. Pogba grew up at United so fine. Maybe Di Maria is a top player(or was), other than that every player we bought was plain average. Morinhuo brought us Lukaku and Matic which is a start. Hopefully we can build on that.

And as I said, with Morinhuo as your coach, you probably wont play pretty most of the time.

 

[Foxbatt]

It is obvious that Moyes being our manager no one decent would want to come and play for us. LVG got a few good players and with Jose now I hope that we get a few more. There is also the problem, that being United a lot of clubs ask for ridiculous amount of money.

 

[Revaulx]

We are the bigger clubs but we cant seem to attract big names. Zlatan came because of Morinhuo. Pogba grew up at United so fine. Maybe Di Maria is a top player(or was), other than that every player we bought was plain average.

Martial might be inconsistent but he isn’t plain average. Di Maria is a bad example because he really didn’t want to come to United.

I agree our recruitment in recent years has been atrocious and a great deal of money has been squandered, but surely that’s down to targeting the wrong players rather than the right players not wanting to come to OT. LVG in particular had clear views on how the game should be played, but was clueless in recruiting players to implement that vision.

 

[ZupZup]

The performance was fecking embarrassing. More embarrassing was the complete lack of sportsman spirit that we showed today when their player was down and when the ball was put out for a throw in but we didn't return it back. Classless

Sportsman spirit? Is time wasting sportsman spirit too? Knockaert was clearly time wasting (like their players had been for the previous 20 minutes). At one point, Lindelöf contemplated kicking it out and the fans were screaming at him to play on.

It wasn’t a head injury so you can carry on... as for throwing it back, if he was genuinely injured then I would have some sympathy but he just wanted to run the clock down. If you want sportsmanlike behaviour from the other team, maybe show some yourselves.

 

[SachinJ22]

All fair points, but what's the alternative? Renew Mourinho's contract and watch him serve up buckets more of this dross?

I don't think Mourinho's work would go to waste to be honest. If you look at when Wenger joined Arsenal, he took a team which was brilliantly organised, bolted on a decent attack and created one of the best teams in Europe. Mourinho's got our defence so well-drilled that I don't think anyone could waste that. Not even Klopp

Mourinho has a 3 year contract and no one here is asking the contract to be renewed at this moment, I would guess the renewal depends on this season and next season. Hopefully the board has a better plan when Mourinho leaves and don't repeat the same mistakes again. At least it's better than the dross which we had under Moyes and LVG, any manager would struggle to improve this team after Moyes and LVG but Mourinho has done well. He could do better but last season we won the EL, this season we are 2nd in the league and will qualify for the next round of CL. I don't think we can ask for anything more.

 

[DomesticTadpole]

Performance isn't great but with Tottenham, Chelsea and Liverpool dropping points, this result is one of the best we have had for a while.

Brighton's form has been good recently and they are very well organised. WBA were in the middle of a slump, have the prospect of Alan Pardew hanging over them. Spurs will be really disappointed they couldn't beat them.

 

[Bestietom]

Just not up to scratch. Forwards were not at their best and Midfield is still a problem area. We need another top Leader in midfield.

 

[SachinJ22]

I want Pogba pushing forward (very little defensive work) and Matic defending (support back four, simple passing). A midfield 3 allows that.

With a midfield 2 (whether 4231 or 442) they have to have support both ways around them, not sure they'd get much support from Zlatan, Martial or Mkhi.

Know what you mean about Mkhi position but I wouldn't have Mkhi anywhere near first XI regardless of formation (and that's not jumping on the bandwagon, not been a fan (as posted) since start of the season).

Think it's 4-3-3 (4-5-1) until we get another MF and wide/creative player.

If we play 4-3-3 then either Lukaku or Ibra have to play on the wings. Ibra can't do that and I don't know how effective Lukaku will be in that position. We have only 3 other players other than Mkhi to play on the wings. Mata doesn't have the pace or physicality, Lingard isn't good enough to start games at least against the good teams and Rashford also isn't comfortable playing there. I still think Mkhi can do the job as an RW because we have no other option right now.

 

[LeftyBlaster]

He hasn't been playing well but neither have many of the very good players around him. It's easy to bemoan not signing players like Salah, Mane and whoever else but we don't play football in the way Liverpool do.

Quoted for truth. There's so much bullshit being spouted about the lack of quality when it's a clear systemic problem offensively. We have no movement off the ball, no quick interchange, nothing.

 

[Ji_Maria]

First off Brighton were time-wasting from the start so feck them and I'm proud of our boys for not stopping play.

In fact, I wish the PL would institute a policy that if you go down and require medics to come on the field, you MUST be substituted. And if you go down in apparent agony requiring the stopping of play, you MUST sit out for 5 minutes of play while you get inspected and looked over by the medic. That should discourage all these pathetic displays of fake injuries, which have become really unique to the sport of football.

Also, one thing that wasn't really mentioned is the absolutely horrid conditions. It is pretty well accepted that rain slows down players and makes pretty much everything harder. Rain impacts better players more, because rain acts as a limitation on top speed and rapid changes in direction, which would have by itself mitigated any advantage Rashford, Pogba and Martial may have had in speed and agility. If you look at other sports, shithouse teams love it when it rains/snows because it decreases the raw talent advantage of the top teams.

That's why Rashford looked absolutely gassed when he came off (same with Rashford). I was surprised Pogba and Lukaku made it all the way to the end.

If it was dry, I am confident we would have smashed these jokers 4-0.

 

[saik]

Of course we can. Chelsea was at full strength while we had so many injuries while we played Liverpool. We had 3 of our best players missing in that game. At the end they were lucky to score with a cross and with us Liverpool only had one chance and we had one chance too. Liverpool scored against Chelsea but they could not score against us.

Our only big miss in that match was Pogba and even with him in the team I'm pretty sure going by Mourinho's past we would have played in the same manner against Liverpool.

Edit: People criticized us for our performance in that game and rightly so. I agree with you that Chelsea scored with a fluke goal but on the balance of the game they probably deserved that draw.

 

[Perseus]

Someone posted here that the Brighton player agreed that it was a corner. Can anyone please point out the link?

That was not the point though. Misdirection scene, to avoid a post-match suspension for the Lukaku incident.

 

[Karlkim SK]

Lindelof shows what he is capable. He is good with the ball and has good passing range that he can help breaking down opponent's defense. Hope he is settling down now after the good performance. I'd like him to play with Bailly and Jones/Smalling in 3-5-2 formation.

 

[manunited1919]

Someone posted here that the Brighton player agreed that it was a corner. Can anyone please point out the link?

I too heard this in a TV interview. The reporter asked a Brighton player if the team felt aggrieved because it had not been a corner (In a court of law, that would be deemed leading the witness, the way the reporter asked). But the Brighton player replied that his temmate had said the ball came off him, so it was a corner.

 

[TimScoreboard]

Hard watching, mediocre at best yesterday

 

[Klopp_De_Klown]

In the light of all this weekends, post-euro games.

Our result was a well won 3 points. We did no worse than most the others who also needed a touch of luck to secure the 3 points or in Chelsea's case a point. Don't think any of them played really that well.

I do think we, the fans, underestimate how good and organised other sides are and if they have rested midweek and others, namely United, have not. They do tend to give teams a good work out. Spurs Chelsea and Pool all dropped points on us. So that's good but with 4 tough games on the horizon, hope we make a quick recovery.

Watford are no bad side, Arsenal are bipolar, CSKA are facing a second string(Basel XI) and City... well city don't exist.
If we could take 10 of the 12 on offer it would be a job well done. In comparison, the following 9 games are all very win-able. Should we prepare correctly and not think we have already won by simply turning up. Play hard and positively, we should have enough to win them all.

 

[Andy_Cole]

My favourite part of the match was when the Brighton player went down and we didn’t kick it off. Haha.