[Moriarty]

Thought Jonny Evans did well tonight despite the tiff with Cisse. He kept his concentration well when he otherwise might have lost it. Young needs the ball a lot sooner to allow him to run at his full back. All this sideways passing tends to negate a lot of what our wingers do well. Januzaj didn't really get into the game and Tony V was his usual self but he did do some sterling defensive work. De Gea was superb when he needed to be and really kept us in the game with some excellent saves. A good three points and a much-needed away win. Tough fixtures coming up and dropping points tonight might have put the kibosh on top four.

 

[Mali_Zeus]

Call me crazy but I dont care about performances, just get that CL spot. We'll bother about our football next year.

Saying all that I again didnt watch it. Instead I checked the result on livescore every 5 minutes.

 

[TheRedDevil'sAdvocate]

I think we were the better team, it felt like a game at OT when the opposition defends with ten men behind the ball and lets us do whatever we want in the 2/3 of the pitch. I think we expected a different approach from Newcastle, some pressing for instance, and in the end it seemed like we tried to make things difficult for ourselves.

Before the start of the game, playing Fellaini up front seemed to be a logical option. Newcastle played with two lines of four therefore Fellaini could help in the midfield by dropping deeper and becoming a third midfielder. Herrera and Blind aren't ball carriers, their game is more pass n' move based and Fellaini's ability to hold onto the ball creates a good option for them. But Newcastle didn't press us at all in the midfield, Fellaini stayed in his advanced position where he can offer very little. He could get at the end of crosses but our crosses were awful today. He simply doesn't have the positional awareness and vision to make runs into the box whenever Rooney tries to create space with his off the ball movement.

That meant that we solely relied on the wingers, the full backs and Rooney to create chances. We didn't get anything from our wingers today and Young was lucky to score that goal. We had 90 minutes of aimless crosses and failed attempts of our creative players to get past defenders. Add to that the fact that both Herrera and Blind were very hesitant to attempt forward runs but seemed afraid to leave space behind them for a Newcastle counter and you see why we didn't commit many players forward though we needed to score.

I don't expect us to start playing wonderful football by some miracle until the end of the season. It's going to be about the three points from now on, especially in the upcoming fixtures in which three won points for us are also three lost points for our rivals for the CL spot. By the way, i really want to see how LvG intends to use Carrick now that he's back from injury.

 

[bosnian_red]

Yep. We weren't great and should have done better but Newcastle were never a threat. We completely outplayed them, we were "lucky" we actually took one of our chances, it just so happened to be a late one.

If both teams could actually finish today it would have finished 4-2 United

Yep. Off the top of my head, Rooney's chance in the first half, Fellaini's open header, Rooney's half chance where a better touch for sure would have been a goal after Coloccini fell, then in the second half first Fellaini and then Young's chances in the one play, then Rooney's goal being wrongly ruled out for offside... 6 clear cut chances really, not counting the one we actually scored from. They had the penalty, the 2 Riviere chances and the Cisse chance. Piss poor finishing from both sides, but we clearly had far more chances then them.

 

[Momochiru]

A game of two keepers. Both were saving every shot until one of them fecked up

 

[SqueakyWeasel]

Now I know why he's called Savage

 

[yamo123x]

It isn't that we aren't playing well we are just not good enough. Simple.

LVG baffles me and goodness knows what giggsy and SAF must be thinking.

 

[steve zizou]

I struggle to think of more than a handful of performances this season where I can say we looked comfortable for the 90 minutes and played well for the duration of the game.

That rarely ever happens in top level football though. Even when Germany were trouncing Brazil, the Brazilians still had moments.

Lucky to score like we did, sure, but then using the same logic we were unlucky to miss the several chances we did, and have a good goal wrongly flagged offside.

Newcastle certainly weren't deserving of anything. If it had ended in a draw, they'd have been significantly "luckier" to get any points.

We've been lucky to get points countless times this season, and this was far closer to "earning" it than many of them.

Thank you!

 

[RedOldBoy]

We got the result but performance-wise it was horrible. No style, no flair and I've seen more movement in an old peoples' home. Dull, unproductive and extremely lucky. Also there were too many players pulling wide instead of occupying positions in the centre of the park. We only had Fellaini and Rooney in the middle making it difficult to find space and resorted to Young/Januzaj beating two men to whip in a cross

 

[Mockney]

They had just as many good chances and clearly should have had a pen.

They didn't though. We had at least five very clear chances (Rooney twice 1st half, Fellaini and Young 2nd, plus the goal) to their two, and as half chances go, Rooney & Fellaini's headers were as good, if not better chances than the one DDG saved last minute....Plus their pen was levelled by our perfectly good offside goal. And all of that is ignoring our significant domination of the play.

Rojo should have got a 2nd bookable, and both Evans and Cisse could have been off too.

We could have been 9 men vs 10 and having given them a penalty which they should have scored. In fact, if Smalling was called for the penalty he might have been off as well...

Neither Rojo or Cisse were definite reds. Both were seen by the ref and let go. You can go through countless games and find potentially game changing 50/50s like that if you like. Even with them I'd still put us in the black for a deserved win.

I reckon you'd be hard pressed to find a Newcastle fan who thought they were robbed tonight. So any United fan thinking it is snuggling up to their inner Grinch for me.

 

[vibe]

We won. Top 4. 3 points. Everything is fine, no reason to panic.

 

[Will Singh]

I'm not bothered about performance and the philosophy rubbish, I just want results!!!

 

[CR#7]

GET THE feck IN YOUNGY!!!!!!!!!!!! COME ON LADS

 

[Stretford End Phil]

Happy with that. Much better performance, the manager has come out punching and we won leaving us with a better goal difference over the Dippers. Can go with the flow in the FA cup and ready for the next EPL game against the Spuds. However, Scholes is right we need to be challenging for the top spot next season and this season we should be expressing higher priorities.

 

[Annihilate Now!]

John Carver can feck off about this throw-in bollocks - difficult one to spot for the lino - and so much shit happens between then and the goal, and the only people at fault for it are the Newcastle defence.

 

[Jazz]

Can't believe anyone can be negative about tonight. We had a late winner - one of the things I've been missing with United. I thought we did well in the 1st half, but we should have scored at least two. The longer the match went on and stayed level, the more nervous you'll become because the stakes are so high. So I give the lads a pass for a not so great 2nd half. Had they just gotten one of those earlier chances they would have played with more freedom. Let's hope they keep working and fighting for 3rd!

 

[Mister_Stubbs]

John Carver can feck off about this throw-in bollocks - difficult one to spot for the lino - and so much shit happens between then and the goal, and the only people at fault for it are the Newcastle defence.

"Jonas told me it hit there player".. yeah because footballers are honest creatures aren't they.

 

[SalfordRed1960]

Call me crazy but I dont care about performances, just get that CL spot. We'll bother about our football next year.

Saying all that I again didnt watch it. Instead I checked the result on livescore every 5 minutes.

Teams appear to have noticed that we are not very creative around the box. So teams, e.g. Swansea, Newcastle, Sunderland - just to name a few, now sit back and hit us on the break at speed.

Today, it felt like 80 minutes of the game was played in the Newcastle half. Sometimes we broke at speed, but made a bad decision or had bad ball control, or we casually passed it around until Newcastle had players in position before we attacked them. They attacked us at speed and had a number of chances they really should have put away. Nobody from United played bad, nobody played outstanding, things just didn't happen A few of the players in form, e.g. Young and Herrera didn't turn up in that they performed lower than usual. DDG made some outstanding saves. Newcastle really made a dreadful mistake and Young took advantage. 3 points done and dusted.

 

[Tosicsleftpeg]

Awful to watch, however we did totally control the game. I think things are very slowly coming together playing style wise we just need to create a bit more and we will rapidly improve. With the likes of Young being our best player quite often with all the other talent avaliable it just shows how poorly we are doing.

 

[mattsville]

I thought it was a very good performance, difficult place to go and we were under a lot of pressure to win. We dominated the game as we have done in a lot of fixtures but here the speed and accuracy of our passing was very high, the movement was better and there was a purpose about us, it was forward thinking, we created enough good chances to comfortably and deservedly win the game. Good to see us going right until the end and not give up and settle, that was another positive, must have been hard for the chasing pack to see us score late in a tricky away game too, that is also a positive mentally. I have criticised the performances a lot this season but you have to praise the lads for that effort in a high pressure must win game.

 

[pseudo_canadian]

I thought we played quite well, we just had horrible finishing on the chances and half-chances that were created.

Newcastle are pretty shit though.

 

[GloryHunter07]

Call me crazy but I dont care about performances, just get that CL spot. We'll bother about our football next year.

Saying all that I again didnt watch it. Instead I checked the result on livescore every 5 minutes.

If you are crazy, then so am i. Top 4 is all that matters.

 

[J-Stander]

Was pretty happy with the performance. Created a good few chances, relied on De Gea again but it was a lot better.

 

[Walters_19_MuFc]

A wins a win. Vital three points, given the results of the teams around us.

 

[dsch]

Anyone have a gif of the Evans incident? I couldn't see anything in my muddy river the five times they replayed it.

 

[WyoManU]

I thought we were pretty poor overall. Again, a better side and we get punished on more than a couple occasions. We never look good or entertaining. However, at this point in the season, all we want are wins, no matter how we get them. I still don't fancy us for top 4 finish, but we are in the mix and that is all we can ask for.

 

[Catt]

Have to watch the match again because I didn't think we were as bad as many on here do.

 

[El-Manos]

This is the thing for me. Urgency.

There's this myth for the last two seasons that from 1992 to Fergie's retirement we played outstanding football all the time. Now no doubt, we have been incredibly dull and ordinary this seasons and last. We have never been so consistently bad for so long before. But we had plenty of games where we played very ordinary football. I remember plenty of games like this in Fergie's last couple of seasons and I remember plenty of grumbling on here.

But the difference was, if we needed a goal with 10 minutes to go we bombarded the opposition and more often than not, we got the goal. Fine, today we got it too and it was a bit of urgency from Rooney that forced their error, but it was a huge slice of luck. We didn't spend the entire last 10 minutes bombarding them.

With 5 minutes to go, Valencia got booked and Rooney went to argue with the ref. I know as captain he takes it as his duty to defend his players, but come on, five minutes to go and we badly need a goal and he's having a chat with the ref. My point is that to rely on getting that late goal you have to put pressure on and make chances. How many chances did we create in the last ten? Yeah, we got the goal, but as I said, it was a huge slice of luck.

That, along with the penalty that wasn't given, means we can count ourselves very lucky tonight.

Yup, noticed that too.

 

[El-Manos]

To be fair, we were good the first half. With a bit of luck we could have been up 2-0. The 2nd half however we played like shit.

 

[Will Absolute]

We were by miles the better team, had complete control, Fellaini, Rooney and Young all missed sitters. That could easily have been 4-0. Easily. People still moaning though. It wasn't perfect, but it was a hell of a lot better.

I really liked the 4-3-3 tbh. Hope we stick with it.

If you check your old post, Sam, I think you'll find the letter notifying you that your glasses prescription is well overdue for renewal.

 

[Sam]

If you check your old post, Sam, I think you'll find the letter notifying you that your glasses prescription is well overdue for renewal.

Were we miles the better team? Yes
Did we have complete control? Yes
Did Fellaini, Young and Rooney all miss sitters? Yes
Could those sitters plus Rooney's wrongly disallowed goal mean we could have been 4-0 up? Yes
Was it better then some of the shite we've seen this season? Yes
Was it perfect? No

 

[JUPITER]

It was a good away performance, really important.

Utterly dominated the game and Van Gaal got every decision right.

Just need to stick with Rooney up top and let him get used to that position again!

Overall we look like a very good team who plays boring football if that makes sense - like we're just missing that 1 element of spark.

 

[Acole9]

We played alright, got some very good fortune on the goal but I'll take that .

 

[iBoss]

Good first half. Newcastle were shite though.

 

[AngeloHenriquez]

Were we miles the better team? Yes
Did we have complete control? Yes
Did Fellaini, Young and Rooney all miss sitters? Yes
Could those sitters plus Rooney's wrongly disallowed goal mean we could have been 4-0 up? Yes
Was it better then some of the shite we've seen this season? Yes
Was it perfect? No

We didn't play 433 that I saw? We started with wingers

 

[Parry Gallister]

Had the better of it but could easily have lost, despite the final pass and shooting being shoddy that might have been one of our better games this season.

 

[Oneunited26]

The big concern like I have said on many occasions, we must score first or we do not win the game. If we look at the VG stats on the PL home and away, VG has failed to win games from losing positions, only time he's done it was against Preston in the fa cup.

It's a tight rope when we are going into games, hoping we don't go a goal behind. Glad we won, but let's not make no mistake about it, the away form if it's not picked up, we won't qualify for the top 4. Liverpool Everton and Chelsea away is fixtures that is a concern for all of us

 

[naturalized]

Was a Man Utd fan hit by a projectile from ours?

There was a chap surrounded by police medics and stewards at the end. Couldn't see what happened though.

 

[The-Natural]

A mixture of joy and frustration as we should have been playing with a lone striker long ago and tonight we saw the benefit. An accomplished away display and a MASSIVE victory. Rooney takes those chances and it's 2-0 at half time. We had to play our way back in to the 2nd half but we persisted and regardless of the element of fortune in our goal it was no less than what we deserved and I will not listen to the contrary. The stats don't lie we dominated them but this time we made it count. Swap fellaini for mata and we are good to go I think. Begrudging credit to the Dutchman for (at last) seeing the light on our formation. Honestly this was the most progressive display of the season and at just the right time. Let the dogfight commence.

 

[rover]

from lvg's prospective, when he picked giggs to be his no 2 he should have expected giggs to guide him into the club's culture in order to avoid making any silly mistakes. in exchange he provides giggs an opportunity to have a close look how he conducts the game in various aspects including training, preparations, tactics... etc. certainly giggs can contribute his insight of the game but fairly speaking it doesn't look like lvg would have a need to rely on him in this area

for giggs i don't know what exactly he was thinking when he took this job, but if i were him then i would think about:

1. learn from lvg of everything he knows about the game. especially if the class 92 rates mourinho so highly and this is no secret he was mentored by lvg;

2. develop my own vision of the game on top of what was learnt from both saf & lvg. prepare myself and make sure i'm ready when the time lvg going to step down

giggs is different from other class 92 members. they can express their views as club fans. but giggs has a career here. now he's only being an assistant. about performance, no matter good or bad, it's about lvg, not him. if i were him i would be relaxed and focus in just taking what i need, make sure my tools box is not empty when time is come