[bosnian_red]

Our formation is the problem. Shit in defence, shit in midfield, wrong people upfront.

Didn't deserve anything today. Just angry at how slow we are and how easy we are to stop! No pace, no innovation - nothing good today.

Defence and midfield was fine for the most part. Formation is the reason we are struggling up top though.

 

[sullydnl]

Think people are pinning too much blame on the formation. I mean it certainly doesn't help but I suspect a lot of the problems would be there regardless of how we shape up. There's no easy fix here, we just have to keep slowly building.

 

[Dumbstar]

We were quite good in defence today, i think you are overreacting a bit.

Similarly, I think a lot of Utd fans are overrating Southampton today. I thought Wanyama and Schneiderlin were poor on the ball for most parts. Only the arrival of Tadic brought a modicum of decent possession from them. Utd should at least have drawn today, Mata the main culprit. But then the last time Southampton had a storming performance you beat them 2-0 (or 3-0) so I'm sure they're happy with the result this time.

 

[Acole9]

Disappointing display today. We created very little in the final third and I am a bit concerned about all this slow pointless passing we insist upon doing in some matches. I don't think Southampton played as well as they have shown at times this season which is even more frustrating because I do feel if we had upped the tempo of our play we could've caused some real problems for them.

 

[Tibs]

Shit system, shit subs

 

[Lash]

I made my girlfriend watch this game with me on our trip to Paris. She'll never let me watch them again after that.

Poor performance, hope Di Maria can get back to full fitness, as he did look a tad rusty. Its only two points mind you, need to make everything count now.

 

[Crashoutcassius]

Think people are pinning too much blame on the formation. I mean it certainly doesn't help but I suspect a lot of the problems would be there regardless of how we shape up. There's no easy fix here, we just have to keep slowly building.

We need a scape goat and rather than doing what we did last season and blaming the manager we are now blaming something called '352' which is a sort of screen for blaming the manager that avoids saying that LVG hasn't got us playing the amazing, modern, continental football that every fan was 100% sure he would get us playing in the summer

 

[Speak]

We need a scape goat and rather than doing what we did last season and blaming the manager we are now blaming something called '352' which is a sort of screen for blaming the manager that avoids saying that LVG hasn't got us playing the amazing, modern, continental football that every fan was 100% sure he would get us playing in the summer

Pretty much.

 

[Roosney]

I'm not blaming the 3-5-2 fully yet but it's alarming we have 0 shots on target, at home. Apparently Mata can't make things click on his own.

 

[DomesticTadpole]

Course it is, but I thought we were talking about Rooney saying we deserved to win? You can lose and still be justified in saying you deserved to win.

Isn't that slightly the problem, that in LvG and Rooney's eyes it was almost an injustice that we didn't win. They feel badly done to. Some of the fault is not scoring. LvG playing Rooney in midfield and ADM as a striker. It is like they are diverting the blame away from themselves.

 

[YouOnlyLiveTwice]

Similarly, I think a lot of Utd fans are overrating Southampton today. I thought Wanyama and Schneiderlin were poor on the ball for most parts. Only the arrival of Tadic brought a modicum of decent possession from them. Utd should at least have drawn today, Mata the main culprit. But then the last time Southampton had a storming performance you beat them 2-0 (or 3-0) so I'm sure they're happy with the result this time.

Their offensive wasn't something to brag about, their goal came from our defenders taking a quick nap and that's football, but our organisation in defence was the best i've seen this season.

 

[DomesticTadpole]

Defence and midfield was fine for the most part. Formation is the reason we are struggling up top though.

I think the formation isn't completely wrong if you have the experienced personel to play it. Instead he is playing people out of position to make it work, unfortunately it isn't. So play a formation the players are comfortable with.
.

 

[Gannicus]

Southampton are a solid squad, but with the squad at Louis's disposal we should have been able to carve out at least one shot on goal.

Mind you, there isn't one player on the Southampton squad who would obviously start over any of our players today. They're strong across the board, but player for player we have the stronger squad. A shame the squad is being subjected to ill-conceived tactics, which I hope will be rectified in time for QPR.

 

[marlowe78]

Absolutely seething after this match. Anyone who looks at my past posts will see that I'm a supporter of van Gaal, but this one was a complete piss take. Formation, player selection, and substitutes IMO were completely wrong. I don't think today was a matter of Koeman outmanaging him, it was a matter of LVG being too stubborn and trying to be clever when there is no need.

Why, in the name of God, would you switch Rooney and Di Maria, one for one, from their natural positions? Both players were poor today and playing them in their natural spots might have made no difference, but to put Rooney in the playmaking role while Di Maria is running around looking for service farther up the pitch is ridiculous. After the first half when it was clear this wasn't working, LVG should've switched the two and at least given Di Maria the chance to make runs and try to open up Southampton in the middle with Rooney in as striker. I'm okay with Rooney playing in a sort of rover position in midfield to take possession and stop advances, but only if he's given the freedom to push forward. From where Rooney was playing today, he was too far back to have any meaningful impact on the game.

All of this tinkering just completely unnecessary with a roster full of players for the first time in quite awhile. Mata, Valencia, and Blind IMO were the only players who acquitted themselves. I have tried to show faith in our defenders, but we had yet another blowup in the back that cost us in the midst of a 0-0 game. The entire backline was caught watching the ball instead of someone taking charge and clearing it. Smalling really needed to step up there as the main centreback (he should've come across and used his size to break up the attack when he saw Blackett floundering) but he failed miserably. By the way, RVP was shit, though he also didn't get much to work with.

So now we're level on points with our team last season, which is laughable considering the money we've spent since then. We did have an unbeaten run, but our play IMO has tailed off considerably the last few weeks. This is the second match where we played a club for the second time and so far it's been a draw and a loss. Not encouraging.

 

[RuudTom83]

Having a full strength squad might have spoilt LVG today, and he couldn't help himself playing his beloved 3 at the back! Although that was not solely to blame for the defeat today, the system doesn't seem to deliver any obvious benefits over a back 4.

As for the Di Maria debate, his style of play does result in possession being lost easily, something that doesn't particularly bother me but i can see LVG hating it! and therefore playing him wide or as a second striker makes him less accountably for keeping possession.

 

[SirBobbysCombover]

the most laboured, lacklustre performances at OT under LVG. I really went into the game with more hope of at least an attacking display, from minute 1 we played like the away team.

One thing from today's game, get Clyne in at right back, quality player, been saying it since he starred in palaces cup shock 3 seasons back. Miles better than Tony V and Rafael, would improve our team massively.

 

[sullydnl]

We need a scape goat and rather than doing what we did last season and blaming the manager we are now blaming something called '352' which is a sort of screen for blaming the manager that avoids saying that LVG hasn't got us playing the amazing, modern, continental football that every fan was 100% sure he would get us playing in the summer

Yep, pretty much.

I think people fell into the trap of thinking LvG would basically be the polar opposite of Moyes. Everyone seemed convinced he would jettison the deadwood (Young, Valencia, Fellaini), restore the caf favourites (Kagawa, Welbeck, Nani), fall out with Rooney and get us playing high tempo football that was both technically and tactically brilliant.

In reality what we've seen so far is actually quite similar to the football the Dutch produced in the wc. I also remember one of the Bayern posters criticising the slow possession based football he introduced there too. I guess we should have paid more attention to what we saw there.

Besides, there isn't even that much difference between a 3-5-2 and 4-4-2 with a midfield diamond, especially when one of those CBs is actually a midfielder.

 

[Stookie]

When teams play like that against United we need to be able to change the play. We could have played for another four hours without creating a chance never mind scoring. Really, in that situation we need to invite teams to attack and hit them on the break.and why take a striker off and replace him with a midfielder? Stinks of arrogance from LVG

 

[Will Singh]

Every time Southampton got the ball they moved the ball forward as quick as possible which is direct football. Every time we got the ball we looked for the easy pass just to keep possesion! That was the difference today, LVG is toooooo stubborn, he needs to drop this 3-5-2 and go back to 4-4-2 diamond which we played our best attacking football in.

When I watched Holland in the WC they had Robben who was giving defences nightmares and I thought if only we had a pacey player, then comes Di Maria who should have been the solution to the lack of pace but it's just not clicked!

I can't blame anyone except the manager who because of his stubbarness won't even approach the technical area!!!

 

[Sied]

Isn't that slightly the problem, that in LvG and Rooney's eyes it was almost an injustice that we didn't win. They feel badly done to. Some of the fault is not scoring. LvG playing Rooney in midfield and ADM as a striker. It is like they are diverting the blame away from themselves.

I think they both said something about us not taking our chances, but I guess in Rooney's view we created enough that he thinks we deserved to win. I know what you mean though and I can see your point that if you don't take those chances, you don't deserve to win.

To be honest I don't even agree with Rooney. I think a draw would have been a fair result. But at the end of the day we had 60% possession and could easily have scored at least 2 if Mata had his shooting boots on. Southampton on the other hand only had one shot on target, which was the goal. The only other remotely decent chance they had was Clyne within the first few minutes, which was a nothing chance really. That's why I can see Rooney's point.

 

[RuudTom83]

Good to see Blind back in the team but i'd like to see him in midfield, competition for places is a good thing, but what is happening at the moment is more a case of shuffling players every week to fit them into the same team.

 

[siw2007]

I am very disappointed to lose this game. It is never nice to lose at home and it leaves a bitter taste in the mouth when you lose to a rival for the position you are vying for. It wasn't a great performance but I don't think it was as bad as people are saying, after all De Gea didn't have to do much in the game, we lost for other reasons.

Looking at individual performances I felt though Jones was poor today, Smalling and Blind were good in defence, Shaw was assured on the left hand side, while Valencia played very well on the right. Carrick didn't quite cut in midfield today but was by no means terrible. Rooney and Mata were decent and provided some good moments. Van Persie put in a good shift up top, Di Maria did well when running at Southampton but the end product was not there.

Louis Van Gaal lost the game with system. There is a time and place for the 352 when we can just occupy spaces left by the opposition and just pass the team to death but it definitely was not today. The formation was just too slow and played into the hands of Southampton who defended excellently all game. Though the forwards did well in parts of the game, we really were relying on individual moments of brilliance to create chances and score goals. Koeman made a good point in his post conference that we didn't change to to break them down but stuck with the same slow build up which they were largely comfortable with. We would have been better switching to a 442 or 433. LVG has gotten us playing better with the ball and we are finding better angles when passing but it is still to slow and mundane and we need to play with more pace and penetration to win a game like this.

 

[Burrow]

Dont really get those who said that Southampton deserved the win. They were equally as terrible as us, and barely created anything at all. We were the better team, though none of the teams out there deserved anything but 1 point. If anything, both teams deserved to lose.

 

[bosnian_red]

Some people are criticizing the player selection today but I don't agree with that. It's just where they played that is the problem. Why not use a 4-2-3-1 with the players we had out today?

De Gea
Valencia Smalling Jones Shaw
Carrick Blind
Mata Rooney Di Maria
RvP​

Plenty of defensive cover and a lot more control in midfield with having the double pivot, both moving around and helping out and picking up possession. Having both Carrick and Blind in the 3-5-2 helped with possession today, but it still stifled the others because of the formation and essentially wasted them.

We were too cautious and over wary of their potential counter attacking threat, which they basically had none of. They went forward about 3 times the whole game, got a lucky goal but we still should have created more chances with the players we had and the possession we had that conceding one wouldn't have mattered.

 

[Sassy Colin]

You might be on to something there.

And maybe Van Gaal is being too cautious and setting out teams not to lose (albeit not working today) rather than win because he's desperate for that top 4 spot.

I'd still rather seeing us going balls to the wall like Leicester away rather than this tumescent stuff though.

And lose 5-3 every week?

I doubt you'd be so keen after a very short time.

 

[JamesB__]

Failing to see what this 'philosophy' is that van Gaal is supposed to have brought to you guys, but every time I've seen one of your games its been dreadful.

 

[Walters_19_MuFc]

Kept possession well, but didn't really create any great opportunities. We were never really going to trouble Southampton through the middle, with Wanyama and Schneiderlin sitting in front of the back four, so we needed to get it wide more often that we did. In the first half, we created a few problems for them with Valencia down the right, who I felt had a good game today. In the second half - however, we very rarely got into wide areas. The few times we did, we created chances, and Mata's three opportunities we created after Southampton scored, come from getting it wide and getting it into the box.

Having said that, with Rooney and Mata, we were never going to penetrate through a compact Southampton. They kept it well enough, but we lacked someone who could take on players through the middle, thus creating more space for others or themselves. Like Carragher said in his post analysis, Di Maria was that player, and should have swapped positions with Rooney.

Away from that, though, I think we defended well enough. Felt Smalling was dominant, and we were pretty good playing out from the back. Unfortunately, the players ahead of them didn't create much.

 

[Ibi Dreams]

And lose 5-3 every week?

I doubt you'd be so keen after a very short time.

That was a freak result and it didn't need to happen. We were comfortably beating them 3-1 and could have played a very different second half if we were smarter

 

[SirFergie]

All about risk taking and gambling for me. There were too many unwilling to take someone on, too many unwilling to grab hold of the ball and hit and too many unwilling to bust a bollock getting onto the ball when it went into the box.

 

[DomesticTadpole]

Kept possession well, but didn't really create any great opportunities. We were never really going to trouble Southampton through the middle, with Wanyama and Schneiderlin sitting in front of the back four, so we needed to get it wide more often that we did. In the first half, we created a few problems for them with Valencia down the right, who I felt had a good game today. In the second half - however, we very rarely got into wide areas. The few times we did, we created chances, and Mata's three opportunities we created after Southampton scored, come from getting it wide and getting it into the box.

Having said that, with Rooney and Mata, we were never going to penetrate through a compact Southampton. They kept it well enough, but we lacked someone who could take on players through the middle, thus creating more space for others or themselves. Like Carragher said in his post analysis, Di Maria was that player, and should have swapped positions with Rooney, instead of Herrera replacing Di Maria.

Away from that, though, I think we defended well enough. Felt Smalling was dominant, and we were pretty good playing out from the back. Unfortunately, the players ahead of them didn't create much.

Herrera replaced RvP. I agree, it should have just been that Rooney went up front on his own or with Mata behind with Herrera and ADM in midfield. The Rooney/ADM thing is utter madness. Fellaini came on for ADM.

 

[DomesticTadpole]

All about risk taking and gambling for me. There were too many unwilling to take someone on, too many unwilling to grab hold of the ball and hit and too many unwilling to bust a bollock getting onto the ball when it went into the box.

I have an awful fear that they are being told to hold the ball. They were playing great earlier in the season from the QPR game and then the Leicester game happened and LvG lost his nerve a bit, but the games at home after that were good. For someone who seems to have so much confidence, LvG seems to have lost his balls a bit.

 

[Ainu]

Dont really get those who said that Southampton deserved the win. They were equally as terrible as us, and barely created anything at all. We were the better team, though none of the teams out there deserved anything but 1 point. If anything, both teams deserved to lose.

Pretty much. They weren't any better than us, they just scored their only golden chance while we missed ours. That makes you win a match, but that doesn't mean they actually played any better. But they're the smaller side so people will always overstate their achievement.

 

[CassiusClaymore]

And lose 5-3 every week?

I doubt you'd be so keen after a very short time.

Yes Colin. That's exactly what I meant. I want us to specially lose by 5 goals to 3 every week.

 

[Sweet Square]

Away from that, though, I think we defended well enough. Felt Smalling was dominant, and we were pretty good playing out from the back. Unfortunately, the players ahead of them didn't create much.

Yep the only saving grace of the game was the defending was good (Barring the goal of course)and over the course of the season it's got better although the same can't be said for the rest of the team.

 

[Kounan]

I don't know why is anyone mentioning our defenders and the build up. It has nothing to with them, but more with our midfielders. most of the time we were high up, so we did take the ball to them, but our midfielders don't do anything with it, but sadly it's not the individual players fault, as they do the best you can expect in these situation, but it's LVG with his choice of players and positions.

 

[RedRover]

I'm baffled by some of the reactions from the spoiled armchair huggers that populate our fan base - mainly those on twitter.

We've conceded 4 goals in 7 games. Stop looking for scapegoats in our defence when the Van Gaalacticos can't produce a shot on target.

Good post. I've issues with the overalls performances if some of the back kind this year but this isn't their fault.

Total lack of creativity and slow, predictable patters of play are the problem.

 

[Rezyuz]

They were poor, but a lot of it was down to the 3-5-2 I think. At least with Rooney and Di Maria. Di Maria had to deal with hoofs and basically play as a striker, when he's a midfielder/winger, and Rooney had to play as a midfielder and create and all that, when he's a striker. Just pointless fecking around with the selection. There was just no need for the 3-5-2 at home against a team who plays with 1 up top, it was basically too defensive and Southampton hardly even tried going forward, apart from their goal. We kept the ball well enough until going a goal down but due to the formation, the passing was just too far back to have any impact on the game.

How is a formation to blame for rooney and di maria not being able to control a ball or pass acurately over 5 yrds? They made mistakes like they were amatures. This hd nothig to do with the formation.

 

[Walters_19_MuFc]

Herrera replaced RvP. I agree, it should have just been that Rooney went up front on his own or with Mata behind with Herrera and ADM in midfield. The Rooney/ADM thing is utter madness. Fellaini came on for ADM.

Oh, my bad. I'll edit it now, but ye, we should have left Di Maria on, in my opinion. That way, if we played him in the LCM position, we could have used his great crossing ability to get the ball into the box, especially when Fellaini come on.

 

[jem]

Another minor, yet annoying thing (and sorry if it's already been mentioned): Why on earth does Di Maria take any of our set pieces? He's awful at them, particularly the corners.

 

[ThaReaper01]

Failing to see what this 'philosophy' is that van Gaal is supposed to have brought to you guys, but every time I've seen one of your games its been dreadful.

I feel the same way. I haven't seen anything different from the last two regimes other than the number of defenders. Just so lethargic. I honestly cannot handle Rooney and Mata in the same side, in nearly the same role. Both of them slow down the play far too much, especially Mata who needs to play out wide in my opinion because he gets crowded out far too much down the middle. Rooney needs to be the #10 until someone better emerges. Might be better off playing vP at that spot as he can make space for himself and make incisive passes. Rooney always looks to spread it out wide. Mata the same. Di Maria just kinda runs. See what vP can do there and play Rooney/Falcao at the 9.