[siw2007]

Disappointing to come out with just the draw. We started the game really well and deserved to go ahead but we faded very quickly after Leicester got the equaliser, a bit like the fns who were right behind the team and were very frustrated after they scored. A draw was probably a fair result in the end but I'm annoyed we couldn't up our game enough to get the winner.

Not many outstanding displays from us, but Blind and Valencia looked quite lively. Rojo was terrible again and could have given away a penalty (from where I was sitting, Mahrez just ran into a stationary Rojo but since so many people and claiming it a penalty I will concede here) and Rooney was lucky not to be off after cutting an aggressive character all game and getting into trouble several times. Lingard was a bit unlucky not to get the decision when going through on goal, it might not have been a foul but the referee looked to have got caught up in the romance of the opposition winning to league and definitely would have given it if it was Ulloa, Okazaki or Mahrez running through.

We improved after Mata, Herrera and Memphis came on and obviously had the chance to win it at the end but we were a little unlucky with the penalty call. In hindsight we should have changed it quicker and we might have had a longer sustained period at the end as players like Fellaini, Lingard and Rashford were ineffective throughout the second half.

Top 4 was always going to be a tough shout after December's collapse, but if we won today we would have had a great chance. But with Norwich and West Ham away it would have been extremely difficult anyway.

 

[OnlyTwoDaSilvas]

Some of Rojo's crosses were very good, probably the only thing he does well. He put them in good areas, but nobody attacked them. Why was our tactic to get the ball wide and have Valencia and Rojo float crosses in when we had nobody in the middle of the box or running on to the crosses? Not only that, but we were crossing the ball onto the head of two centre backs who are more than comfortable putting their head on anything, and win the majority of their aerial duels.

We looked better when we brought on more mobile players, but it was too late then. Carrick, Fellaini and Rooney as a midfield 3 was quite horrible to watch.

 

[red_devil83]

Thought we were good in the first half. Would've been a different game if the ref had done his job - 2 reds and 2 pens

 

[Mr Pigeon]

Fa cup final?

Season is far from over

Agreed. Let's win the FA Cup and then we can sack him.

 

[Fitchett]

We started off well and deservedly went a goal up. Mahrez ran into Rojo in the first half, so no pen for me. Don't underestimate the influence that horrible cnut of a referee Michael Oliver played in repeatedly stopping our momentum by giving Leicester a string of unjustified free kicks. Leicester got back into the game as our momentum was slowed and it wan't until approaching the hour mark before we got three decisions in quick succession from him. Then he denied us a clear penalty when he sent off Drinkwater and inexplicably failed to give us two late corners. Okazaki was a nasty niggling aggressive sh*t too. We were the better side, but a lack of cutting edge in the final third cost us.

 

[Sky1981]

Agreed. Let's win the FA Cup and then we can sack him.

Football can be cruel sometimes, everytime we think it's a given we seems to lose... fingers crossed

 

[Acole9]

The commentators and pundits will all be crying into their pints tonight that we didn't allow Leicester to win.

 

[Freak]

We should announce LVG's departure before the FA cup final. That way it gives LVG a decent send off, and we won't be I'm a difficult position if he wins the cup.

 

[Mr Pigeon]

I for one am glad that we ruined Leicester's chance to win the title today. I'm sick of these arrogant big clubs coming here and expecting to win. It'll remind them not to under estimate teams like us in future. Now, it's time for us to focus on the Norwich and West Ham games. The Norwich one might be a little easier but with West Ham we need to make sure that they don't leap frog us in the league and take that Europa place we've worked hard for all season. I mean, sure; it would have been nice to get 4th again but we shouldn't be too greedy and we should just be thankful that we've achieved so much this season already. For fecking fecks sake...

 

[RedDevil@84]

Why do we keep getting Oliver in almost all big games? What a useless ref.

 

[RedDevil@84]

I think in 2nd half there was a moment when Valencia got the ball. He saw the he could cross, but then thought he is a s**t crosser. So he passes to Rooney as almost saying "I dont know what to do now".
Rooney passes it to someone else saying "What do you expect me to do with it now? I am s**t in almost everything now". Then it comes back to Rooney and he gives it back to Valencia, in the end doing feck with the ball.

 

[Laphroaig]

Any videos of Van Gaal pulling the reporter's hair?

 

[RaptorSlo]

Any videos of Van Gaal pulling the reporter's hair?

Think it was posted somewhere in this thread.

e: Lets see if linking a specific post works.
https://www.redcafe.net/threads/post-match-vs-leicester-city.416906/page-4#post-19121842

 

[BeforeKeanetherewasRobson]

I for one am glad that we ruined Leicester's chance to win the title today. I'm sick of these arrogant big clubs coming here and expecting to win. It'll remind them not to under estimate teams like us in future. Now, it's time for us to focus on the Norwich and West Ham games. The Norwich one might be a little easier but with West Ham we need to make sure that they don't leap frog us in the league and take that Europa place we've worked hard for all season. I mean, sure; it would have been nice to get 4th again but we shouldn't be too greedy and we should just be thankful that we've achieved so much this season already. For fecking fecks sake...

Funny.....

 

[Paul the Wolf]

Started well, finished poorly.
Martial and Valencia best performers
At least City played far worse than we did.
Win our last 3 and bank on Arsenal

 

[newgiz]

Started well, finished poorly.
Martial and Valencia best performers
At least City played far worse than we did.
Win our last 3 and bank on Arsenal

That's not enough isn't it? Even if City lose against Arsenal and we win our next they are still a point ahead of us. I can't see us making the top 4. City have Swansea as their last fixture and I don't see them losing or even drawing that.

We still have to play West Ham as well so it would have to be a miracle if we are to make top 4.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

We started superbly and gave Leicester a way back into the game with our woeful set piece marking of Morgan. After that, I don't know why our entire game fell to pieces. Our whole game plan seemed to be Rojo whipping crosses, which was obviously failing consistently yet we did little about it. Leicester were happy to let him have it and cross it (poorly).

 

[Sandikan]

We started superbly and gave Leicester a way back into the game with our woeful set piece marking of Morgan. After that, I don't know why our entire game fell to pieces. Our whole game plan seemed to be Rojo whipping crosses, which was obviously failing consistently yet we did little about it. Leicester were happy to let him have it and cross it (poorly).

Why on earth was Rojo marking Morgan when he clearly couldn't handle him. Surely Fellaini on him would have made more sense. Bizarre one.

Certainly don't think Mourinho will let us line up so aerially weak though. Bound to bring a dominant centre back in with Smalling, and might even get a beefier right back In too, Ivanovic style

 

[amolbhatia50k]

Why on earth was Rojo marking Morgan when he clearly couldn't handle him. Surely Fellaini on him would have made more sense. Bizarre one.

Certainly don't think Mourinho will let us line up so aerially weak though. Bound to bring a dominant centre back in with Smalling, and might even get a beefier right back In too, Ivanovic style

It's more about how we were doing it rather than who. There's no excuse for the kind of marking Rojo and particularly Valencia were doing (think it was his mistake that lead to the goal?).

They should maybe possibly attempt tonwin the header rather than focusing only on the attacker.

 

[Paul the Wolf]

That's not enough isn't it? Even if City lose against Arsenal and we win our next they are still a point ahead of us. I can't see us making the top 4. City have Swansea as their last fixture and I don't see them losing or even drawing that.

We still have to play West Ham as well so it would have to be a miracle if we are to make top 4.

They only have 2 matches left, so if they lose against or even draw against Arsenal and we win our three, we finish above them. question is can we win our last 3

 

[Who Ate All Depay's]

Disappointed in the result especially after seeing the City game but can't say I'm rely surprised as it's whats been going on all season. Thought Valencia played very well today and Martial was yet again the highlight of the team. Ref bottled it on both penalty decisions so result was pretty much a fair one in my opinion.

 

[Bwuk]

I missed the game as I woke up in hospital after my Sunday league game - head knock.

Reading this doesn't make me want to catch up on it either.

 

[newgiz]

I missed the game as I woke up in hospital after my Sunday league game - head knock.

Reading this doesn't make me want to catch up on it either.

You can watch the first 10 mins. After that you can take rest or go back to sleep. Also I hope you are ok.

 

[buckooo1978]

a missed opportunity

started well but we were bordering between pathetic and apathetic for the next 60 mins...... only Tony Martial looked like creating something and I can't believe he waited so long into the second half to change things

we could blame Oliver's ineptitude but it would disguise the fact we simply weren't good enough and aren't good enough

Europa League is our level right now and, with the right manager and signings, we can challenge for the title next year and give players like Fosu-Mensah, Borthwick-Jackson, Januzaj, Pereira, Memphis and others plenty of game time in the Europa

 

[Sparky_Hughes]

We just have absolutely zero leaders and no fight in this team. Carrick remains the least combative cm I've seen in my life

 

[XdanielredX]

Was at the game today.

Absolutely trash 2nd half, gave the ball away a ridiculous amount, stupid bloody mistakes.. and with City losing would have been the entrance we needed but yet again we screw it up...

 

[noodlehair]

Yet another game where we were good for the first 15 minutes, and then again towards the end, but spent the middle hour or so pratting around like we were 6-0 up.

- Is there something in Rooney's contract where he gets deducted pay every time he picks up the balll and DOESN'T play a 50 yard cross field pass to Antonio Valencia? He constantly ignores much easier and better passing options to do this. It'd be annoying enough if he wasn't also slightly crap at it. Also why do commentators keep referring to him as a "quarterback" when he does this? What kind of quarterback would only throw sideways passes?

- Blind had one of those games where you see people saying he's a good centreback and want to throttle their necks. I lost count of the amount of times he cropped up in a position a centreback should never be seen in, within the first 20 minutes. At one point he appeared on the right wing, another he was just milling about on the edge of the Leicester box, for no reason. At another point Leicester nearly scored because one of what looked like our midfielders just left his man and sprinted off up the pitch despite us not being in possession, and I thought "what the feck are you doing Rooney"...then on the replay it turned out it was Blind, and Rooney was sprinting back trying to cover for him. What goes through his brain for him to do these things? Is he clinically insane?

- Are all Argentinian players dumber than should be humanely possible or is it just the ones we end up with?

- For the goal, I was wondering why Rojo was marking the best attacker of a ball on the opposition team, when Fellaini and Smalling were playing. It turns out because Fellaini had a much more important job...standing in the wall...and not in the middle of the wall or anywhere that would force the freekick taker to get the ball over his head either. On the edge of the wall, doing absolutely nothing. Well done.

- Do we actually ever win a header when defending a set piece, unless the opposition for some reason cross it AT Fellaini? I bet we're awful at defending set pieces because we spend alll of our set piece time in training practicing those stupid fecking short corner routines, which never make it as far as a cross being made in the first place.

- What was Fellaini's position in this game? What was his role? In fact, in any game Fellaini plays in. What is it he's supposed to be doing? I don't mean this as a sarcastic comment. I genuinely don't know. He just seems to stand in places where he can't really do anything and then occasionally he elbows someone or the ball hits him in the face.

- I know people like Lingard, but he suffers from this thing where he can't pass a football to someone standing literally two yards away from him. He does it all the time. He somehow passes the ball so badly the player has to run further to get it than the distance they were away from Lingard in the first place.

So yeah I wasn't overly impressed. We've had worse games but this was one we really needed to win...we spent most of it clowning around like pricks and yet again people like Rooney and Carrick looked like they were at some kind of forced labour camp and wanted to make a very public show of how unhappy they were about it.


Michael Oliver - Every game he referees it's a mess trying to figure out what the final score should have been, because he misses so many obvious things and keeps changing his mind mid game about what rules apply to who. Today for example. Fellaini should have been sent off, but then also should have had a penalty, then Rooney got booked for absolutelly nothing, then commited a blatant yellow card foul which was ignored, so he should have been sent off, but he shouldn't have? Then Drinkwater got sent off for a foul that was clearly inside the area, but also wasn't a foul or a yelllow card even if it was...so he should have given a penalty, or not? Or at least shouldn't have sent anyone off? He somehow manages not only to make mistakes, but make mistakes that contradict themselves and entangle with other mistakes so no one has a fecking clue what's going on or what he's going to do next. He does it every game. I don't think he even knows that he's a referee.


Sky - No one cares if Ranieri is going to watch the Spurs game. I don't care, Leicester fans don't care, even Ranieri clearly doesn't care. So why ask him about it THREE times? Especially when after the first time he made it clear he couldn't watch it because he'd be on a plane at the time...which he probably only said to try and avoid being asked the same question again.

 

[justboy68]

Great match review as always.

 

[7even]

I'm so angry!!

First I want a manager who coach his team similar to Simeoni

 

[Cathy Ferguson]

Why did LvG tell Rojo to man mark man mountain Morgan? Why not Fellaini? Why did LvG persist once Morgan had scored?

I hope to see much less of Mata, Rooney and Carrick next season. They are just too slow. Lingard and Fellaini are also not good enough to start games for us, even if Fellaini is good at something. If the opponents nullify Martial then we don't have a plan B.

 

[Stretford End Phil]

From a bang to a whimper, pretty much describes our season. Rooney again showed that in midfield he is very hit or miss. Against a packed midfield and defence he has no presence to unlock a determined defensive opponent. His leadership skills are not exactly prominent. Smalling is our lynchpin player and yet having improved so much since his sending off against the Bitters, he has started to over grapple with opponents at set pieces and corners. He grapples at every opportunity and misses the game - he looked as if he was beginning to read the game but that side of play has also waned. Rojo is either very good or exceptionally poor. Blind still shows he's not a natural CB. Lingard runs into dead ens - the number of wasted runs and lost ball was quite noticeable. Fellaini is plainly ridiculous with his elbows and timid bouts of aggression. If we lost DDG we should buy young Schmeicel.

Tony V looked our most accomplished mature player - skilled, positioning and power plays. Martial and Rashford become channelled quite easily by avergae defenders. They need more time to develop, we need one or two extra forwards to take the pressure off their constant selection.

Other than the first 15 we were clueless. It seemed to be all about denying Leicester the glory than actually playing properly. By 60 minutes were looked a rabble. Horrible to watch and the fans vented their displeasure with silent indifference in the end.

 

[Silverman]

The amount of possession that our full backs get, it would make a massive difference if we had Shaw and a RB that was comfortable crossing the ball throughout the season. (Not a dig at Valencia or Darmian, just a fact)

 

[sunama]

...when Valencia got the ball. He saw the he could cross, but then thought he is a s**t crosser. So he passes to Rooney as almost saying "I dont know what to do now".
Rooney passes it to someone else saying "What do you expect me to do with it now? I am s**t in almost everything now". Then it comes back to Rooney and he gives it back to Valencia, in the end doing feck with the ball.

 

[SalfordRed1960]

From a bang to a whimper, pretty much describes our season. Rooney again showed that in midfield he is very hit or miss. Against a packed midfield and defence he has no presence to unlock a determined defensive opponent. His leadership skills are not exactly prominent. Smalling is our lynchpin player and yet ha ing improved so much since his sending off against the Bitters, he has started to over grapple with opponents at set pieces and corners. He grapples at every opportunity amd misses the game - he looked as if he was beginning to read the game but that side of play has lso waned. Rojo is either very good or exc3ptionally poor. Blind still shows he's not a natural CB. Lingard runs into dead ens - the number of wasted runs and lost ball was quite noticeable. Fellaini is plainly ridiculous with his elbows and timid bouta of aggression. If we lost DDG we should by young Schmeicel.

Tony V looked our most accomplished marure player - skilled, positioning and power plays. Martial and Rashford become channelled quite easily by avergae defenders. They need more time to develop, we need one or two extra forwards to take the pressure off their constant selection.

Other than the first 15 we were clueless. It seemed to be all about denying Leicester the glory than actually playing properly. By 60 minutes were looked a rabble. Horrible to watch and the fans vented their displeasure with silent indifference in the end.

Pretty much my view.

From winning the early tackles and loose balls, we just died after their equaliser.

Lots of the ball, but the passing in the final third was pretty poor.

Over the season, Leicester have proven to be the best or more consistent team, but they were there for the taking today. Bad result.

 

[ghagua]

We need a big brute at the back to clear the ball at set pieces. Our defenders get mounted more times than the Kardashian sisters.

 

[Crashoutcassius]

Was at the game today.

Absolutely trash 2nd half, gave the ball away a ridiculous amount, stupid bloody mistakes.. and with City losing would have been the entrance we needed but yet again we screw it up...

Hard to play vs champions that are happy to play for a draw and run the clock down though. Not much recognition that we were playing against the best defensive side in the league, who didn't care about winning... doesn't sound so easy when it's put like that.

 

[.Rossi]

Furious!

I don't know why this is the match that gets me to that stage, but it is and I'm fuming

 

[ti vu]

Hard to play vs champions that are happy to play for a draw and run the clock down though. Not much recognition that we were playing against the best defensive side in the league, who didn't care about winning... doesn't sound so easy when it's put like that.

It does sound that way. However, our players just simply gave the ball away cheaply in midfield with bad touch or rubbish pass. Remember the last piece of play: Blind take a long measure from the back and still lob a terrible ball up front! Feck. Just put it out on wing and learn to put a good cross.

 

[Jazz]

Furious!

I don't know why this is the match that gets me to that stage, but it is and I'm fuming

Because it's always one step forward and ten steps back. I already got broken before today's results. Ed Woodward must surely know we can't go through another inconsistent season like this.

 

[CG1010]

I for one am glad that we ruined Leicester's chance to win the title today. I'm sick of these arrogant big clubs coming here and expecting to win. It'll remind them not to under estimate teams like us in future. Now, it's time for us to focus on the Norwich and West Ham games. The Norwich one might be a little easier but with West Ham we need to make sure that they don't leap frog us in the league and take that Europa place we've worked hard for all season. I mean, sure; it would have been nice to get 4th again but we shouldn't be too greedy and we should just be thankful that we've achieved so much this season already. For fecking fecks sake...