[soapythecat]

My heart goes out to those brilliant supporters that forked our 100 Euro, plus travel costs, to watch that bag of shit last night.
We may be second in the league, we maybe in a strong position in this round but this football is no, absolutely zero, improvement on LvG’s football. We get outplayed in every area of the pitch but supported by the best keeper in the world. He needs a £300k a week contract in this squad.

 

[NK86]

Like watching Don Revie's Leeds.

So far removed from what we should be it is not funny.

He should give the players more freedom.

Funny thing is I think he does, maybe too much. Mata and Sanchez ended on the same side of the pitch so many times I lost count. Mourinho seems to let the attackers do whatever they please and pull something out of the bag. However I think there is no coherent plan or passing movements or attacking tactics which he employs. It's the same tumescent shite every week because the midfielders only think of hoofing to Lukaku (who is woeful as a target man and as a technical striker) while the other attackers all try to take on the whole defense by themselves while trying to pull a rabbit out of their arse.

 

[sincher]

It was a very unsurprising result given the starting XI.

 

[Jaap]

According to @Jaap figures we only drew 0-0 in 3 knockout matches under SAF. So the idea that we did the same then is not backed up by the facts.

There were more than three (a couple more in the early years):

Galatasaray in 1993
Galatasaray in 1994
Porto in 1996
Monaco in 1998
Valencia in 2000
Real in 2000
Kiev in 2001
Valencia in 2001
Sporting Praga in 2004
Villareal in 2005
Barcelona in 2008
Villareal in 2008
Marseille in 2011

 

[el3mel]

You're kidding yourself if you thought it was mate

Last season and beginning of this one, it really was. We weren't dependent on Dave much. Now we're back to square one.

 

[ZAGREB RED]

Getting a 0-0 draw away in Europe isn't the issue, it's the fact that United will only be able to scrape and grind their way to a result like that against a certain level of team. Couldn't see that performance last night getting a draw away to PSG or Barcelona, or even Chelsea/City/Spurs/Liverpool, for that matter.

 

[Pass and Move]

Oh, ok, right. Obviously I have to defer to your depth of knowledge and superior judgement.

Judgement isn't required to notice a number of misplaced passes under little to no pressure.

 

[cyril C]

What? By "score draw" I mean if the result is 1-1, 2-2, 3-3 etc. at Old Trafford, Sevilla go through. In any case where a draw involves goals Sevilla will go through. How did Chelsea vs Barca get into this?!

If it is 0-0 draw, then go into extra time until one side score, if none then penalty kick.

 

[R'hllor]

This debate about 0-0 vs lost game, its not really black and white. Its just different mindset of home team starting a game on back of 0-0 in away tie.

 

[Catt]

We should be thankful the return leg is 3 weeks away. Give us time to hopefully come up some decent (ish) form.

 

[TheFlagStaysDown]

every time I go to a pub with people who dont watch much football or United in particular, I hope we could show something so they would say something like WOW, this is nice maybe I should start watching football or United but it always happens, we play the biggest shit ever. Only this time not to lose because of de God in the goal.

This is a fecking torture, just hope Edie Woodward is working on something to replace Mourinho. Crucial next few weeks for Mourinho not to get out of champions league and in his case get only get his one point from the tough games in the league. And I dont get this shit with missing players, we should be ready for these situations and play better. Sevilla was very uninspiring.

But surely we might get through battling it at home and then drawing Shacktor or something only to progress luckily further..

 

[Fully Fledged]

There were more than three (a couple more in the early years):

Galatasaray in 1993
Galatasaray in 1994
Porto in 1996
Monaco in 1998
Valencia in 2000
Real in 2000
Kiev in 2001
Valencia in 2001
Sporting Praga in 2004
Villareal in 2005
Barcelona in 2008
Villareal in 2008
Marseille in 2011

In the knockout stages?
Edit: If there were some earlier it doesn't change the 3 out of 17 in the years that you quoted. 3 out of 17 doesn't speak to me of a team playing for 0-0 in every away CL knockout fixture.

 

[Tincanalley]

every time I go to a pub with people who dont watch much football or United in particular, I hope we could show something so they would say something like WOW, this is nice maybe I should start watching football or United but it always happens, we play the biggest shit ever.

Do you get a lot of non-football derision then? Maybe you hang out with a rugby crowd who say, please can we change channel, this is like, sooo, tiresome. Wow, that out-half is tiny! Best of luck with converting them to United. Fair play to you for loyalty though. If you had to choose, what team do you think would get them that old wow factor and improv your social standing? Shams?

 

[mk7]

I thought that we got better as soon as Alexis left the pitch, as if Pogba now wanted to play. This would not be a good sign.

 

[Fully Fledged]

Was anyone really expecting us to go out there and win 2/3-0??? This is Mourinho we're talking about and he always does this.. Tactical brilliance. Yeah the away goal would have been the icing on the cake but it's a great 1st leg European result regardless. Win at OT and we're through.

A strong defensive performance where we didn't leak 20+ shots in a match would have been one thing. Sitting there letting Sevilla walk through us at will while offering nothing going forward is another thing entirely.

If not for DDG we would be nowhere near top 4 or the knockout stages of the CL.

 

[theyneverlearn]

A strong defensive performance where we didn't leak 20+ shots in a match would have been one thing. Sitting there letting Sevilla walk through us at will while offering nothing going forward is another thing entirely.

If not for DDG we would be nowhere near top 4 or the knockout stages of the CL.

I think if you take out the best performing player in City (De Bruyne), Tottenham (Kane), Chelsea (Hazard) etc. they'd all be on less points too.

Just because our top performer is a GK doesn't really change that fact.

As for last night, it was shocking but Sevilla are strong at home with 1 loss in 30+ games. We played bad and got a decent 0-0 score line to build on at OT.

 

[ghagua]

Hope Woody inserted a contingency plan into that contract Mourinho signed. I am already at the point where I was with LvG in charge. This team is going nowhere with this shite we are playing. An annual battle for the top 4 is what we are going to be looking forward to.

 

[TheFlagStaysDown]

Do you get a lot of non-football derision then? Maybe you hang out with a rugby crowd who say, please can we change channel, this is like, sooo, tiresome. Wow, that out-half is tiny! Best of luck with converting them to United. Fair play to you for loyalty though. If you had to choose, what team do you think would get them that old wow factor and improv your social standing? Shams?

 

[Catt]

If you can set up defensively while being rock solid and still produce some chances that's great. But we're basically in no mans land, not doing anything well right now.

 

[ants7]

Decent result indeed. Performance was dreadful and I have no idea what Jose is playing at and where this team is going, or is supposed to be going overall. Some fans will argue that no way that Jose will play the same style against Chelsea at OT - are you sure? I have my doubts about it but let's wait and see.

Is it possible to be in the 2nd place in the league table and still be really worried about the club and team?

 

[tomaldinho1]

Very true.....except we are in the fecking knock outstages

haha I realised when I posted, I'm sure you got my jist.

If we play the same way at OT I'll be so disappointed

 

[GiddyUp]

We are a very expensive average side. No direction, no composure, no clue

I would go as far as to say we are not even a team. Our players haven't got a clue what their teammate is about to do next. We don't have any dynamic partnerships on the pitch anymore.
I do believe our biggest change this summer should be a shake up of the coaching staff. I dhad read somewhere that nearly all of the coaches surrounding Mourinho are fitness coaches, that seems pretty evident considering our tactics in attack. Not acceptable. Our back room staff need to get the balance of this team right and correct the glaring fact that we are one of the worst 1st half sides in Europe. A decent 2nd half and a few last 10 minutes goals shouldn't gloss over the fact that we don't turn up for the 1st half of the game.
An example of our overly cautious style yesterday was when Sevilla had a break but their player didn't control the ball and it bounced over to Young 10 yards inside our half. In an instant we had 6 players behind the ball leaving 4 players in the opposition half against the whole of the Sevilla team. There was also 25 yards of space or more between these 4 players. Why not sustain the pressure and force the play in their direction. Slow transitions with no intelligent attacking play has been our m.o. since November, same last season. Where will it end? They are all to blame I'm sure but someone on that pitch needs to take responsibility.
It's also pretty pathetic watching this team of individuals applauding each other for another misplaced pass or over hit cross.
I still trust the manager to get us where we need to go but he needs to take bigger risks to justify the massive amounts of cas being spent. But at the moment we are Manchester United, where football goes to die since 2014.

 

[Todd]

We looked absolutely toothless, but let's not forget that Sevilla have one of the best home records in CL history, and the biggest reason they've had so much success in cups these past 15 years is because they constantly get results at home.

Things will look much different at OT; we'll take it to them and get a win. Still confident of final 8.

 

[GiddyUp]

Do we? Player selection is rational, and other than playing McTominay ahead of Pogba in a CL match, we set-up like always.

Previous game against Huddersfield, Sanchez-Lukaku-Mata combo works, so they play again. Same one with playing 3 in midfield. Pogba is off form.

Lukaku should score early on, but no.. funny after scoring two and literally being sharp and clinical previous game.

Need Herrera and McTominay to help our fullbacks, against Sevilla's wing play. I prefer if Carrick plays but nvm.

McTominay again give another solid performance and better, sign of improvement and finding his feet?

Matic looks knackered.

Simply, Our world class players failed to perform except David de God.

Towards the end, Pogba start to perform better, and both Martial-Rashford provides width and gives balance to the force, so encouraging signs.

The biggest factor of our form since xmas in my opinion. He plays nearly every minute of every game. We should play Carrick and Blind there for a week or two and let Matic recoup for the run in.

 

[Paxi]

What excellent European performances where we went and outplayed the opposition and won convincingly do you remember? I only really remember Roma in 2008 and Schalke in 2011 in the knockout stages from Fergie's last decade.

Lyon, Roma 07, Porto, Milan 07, Bayern, Inter were all very ordinary performances where we either drew or lost too, off the top of my head, from the last decade.

We hardly ever dominated teams away from home in Europe in Fergie's last years as manager.

I was replying to another poster. The fact that you say an away perfomance against Inter was very ordinary says it all. It was a very good perfomance and the one that quickly comes to mind.

Also there is hell of revisionism going on here with our CL days under SAF. It had certainly nowhere as bad a performance as we did last night. Maybe the two times that we went out at the group stage but never so shocking, disjointed and cowardly as the last time.

Inter (2009), Porto (2009), Arsenal (2009), Roma (2008), Milan (2010), Bayern Munich (2010), Schalke (2011), Real Madrid (2013), Chelsea (2011)

Okay, it's not a dozen but all of those games were in knock out stages. And in all of those games - we were very good to absolutely fecking superb. Certainly not the performances we've been seeing lately.
And yes, of course we had dire perfomances in Europe under SAF but games that I mentioned more than made up for those games at Milan, Benfica, Villareal.

 

[RedDevil@84]

If I remember correctly, Matic had some 10 days off during some break and then when he came in, he looked tired again.
So I am not so sure if a 2 week break for him will do any better.
In other words, maybe it is not being tired that is an issue.

 

[Sarni]

I was replying to another poster. The fact that you say an away perfomance against Inter was very ordinary says it all. It was a very good perfomance and the one that quickly comes to mind.

Also there is hell of revisionism going on here with our CL days under SAF. It had certainly nowhere as bad a performance as we did last night. Maybe the two times that we went out at the group stage but never so shocking, disjointed and cowardly as the last time.

Bayern 2010 was a bad performance.

 

[gerdm07]

We looked absolutely toothless, but let's not forget that Sevilla have one of the best home records in CL history, and the biggest reason they've had so much success in cups these past 15 years is because they constantly get results at home.

Things will look much different at OT; we'll take it to them and get a win. Still confident of final 8.

Sure, we might get to the final 8, but then what? I cringe thinking about watching us go against one of the better clubs.

 

[El-Manos]

It's not just about the result, it's the way we got to that result. If we got that result after seeing some decent football, there would be a lot less complaining. Last night however, was diabolical.

 

[Paxi]

Bayern 2010 was a bad performance.

I don't think it was. We played decently. Rooney got injured and a bad mistake for Ollic to score. After the game I was shitting myself because Rooney limped off but I thought, we'll do these. Of course we very nearly did. And probably would have had Rafael not been sent off. All in all, I can remember solid away performances throughout Fergies era with few blips and some naive ones in early mid 2000's against Madrid and Milan mainly.

 

[Todd]

Sure, we might get to the final 8, but then what? I cringe thinking about watching us go against one of the better clubs.

Then, for where this squad is at these days, you're playing with house money anyway. There's nothing to lose.

 

[Mozza]

Dreadful, we are regressing

 

[tony54]

Our fanbase has now reached a new level of delusion, people think that if we put red shirts on players with limited technical ability and average players they will suddenly become world class players just because they play for Man Utd.

Half of our starting lineup last night shouldn't be starting for this club at this level. Smalling, Valencia, Young, Mctominay and Mata. And then people ask themselves why we play shit and Mourinho keeps it defensive.

You can carry one or two of these players on this level but they can't make up half of your starting eleven.
This is not Mourinhos fault, but the Glazers and their economics because we should of spent some money when the market was different. This team still needs 4-5 players. Two midfielders, fullbacks and right winger.

You have valid points there and also you can include some unchoice injuries, but surely he can get them to play as a team. With 3 or 4 new players next season we will see if he can get the team to play football and gel as a team.

 

[ghagua]

Decent result indeed. Performance was dreadful and I have no idea what Jose is playing at and where this team is going, or is supposed to be going overall. Some fans will argue that no way that Jose will play the same style against Chelsea at OT - are you sure? I have my doubts about it but let's wait and see.

Is it possible to be in the 2nd place in the league table and still be really worried about the club and team?

Yes it is and I am worried. We just extended the manager's contract. A 0-0 draw away against Sevilla is not a bad result, but it's the way we played, and the way we have played against any half decent opposition the whole season, it's absolutely shocking. But It's all OK, it's all Smalling and Jones fault.

 

[Roboc7]

If we had been up against a better team then that kind of performance would have been understandable but they are an average side and we still can’t go there and win.

The reality is we are one of the worst teams left in the competition and if we come against anyone decent we will park the bus for both legs and get beaten unless we are extremely lucky. We still look like a team going nowhere and throwing money at it again in the summer won’t change that.

 

[Offsideagain]

Did we look like a CL winning team? He’ll no, so why bother? We all know as soon as we come up against a side with pace and a plan, we’re out. Won’t even go out fighting.

 

[oldhand]

My heart goes out to those brilliant supporters that forked our 100 Euro, plus travel costs, to watch that bag of shit last night.
We may be second in the league, we maybe in a strong position in this round but this football is no, absolutely zero, improvement on LvG’s football. We get outplayed in every area of the pitch but supported by the best keeper in the world. He needs a £300k a week contract in this squad.

But still had a great time in Seville, what a lovely place, wonderful weather and welcoming people, glad I stayed 3 nights

 

[oldhand]

Did we look like a CL winning team? He’ll no, so why bother? We all know as soon as we come up against a side with pace and a plan, we’re out. Won’t even go out fighting.

Anyone who thinks we can win the champions league with this team is deluded. Most of the teams left are playing better than us at the moment.

 

[Foxbatt]

Gullit gave very good opinion last night. It is not possible to play any decent level of football the way we are set up. It is now obvious why players like Martial, Sanchez and Rashford are forced to carry the ball alone because there is no one in front of them apart from Lukaku.
Also if Pogba is going forward, then let him stay forward even if he loses the ball instead of asking him to run back another 40 yards. Let another player cover for him. I think Jose has lost his ideas. His critics may be right that what tactics that was successful a few years back is not so successful anymore.
This is not CL league class let alone PL class. This is Championship or 2nd division class. We need a manager who can fully utilize the best talents that we already have now at this club instead of letting some of them leave the club out of frustration.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

Horrible anti-football football. No place in the starting line up for Pogba, Martial or Rashford. Seems Lukaku and Sanchez are Jose's new favorites.