PL D FA Premier League

Southampton 1:1 Manchester United

Post-match discussion

Sat, 31 August 2019

pseudo_canadian said:
There’s something deeply wrong with this club. And to be cliche, yes, that involves the Glazers.

Compare how well managed City and Liverpool have been the past 5 years - top to bottom. They’re in a different class altogether, and we’re being left behind.

It will get worse before it gets any better.
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We are slowly but steadily becoming post-2006 Arsenal.
 
This squad is set-up for playing on the counter. Rashford, Martial, James, and Lingard are all more comfortable on the counter. Chelsea helped us by attacking. Still, I'm seeing progress and actually liking watching these young players.

Southampton going down to 10 men did us no favours giving no room to our strikers to use their pace and were ultimately short of grass.
 
My prediction for this season was 8-12th place. If this form keeps on going on, even this prediction will look like a good season.
 
Tony247 said:
Mata's weakness is 1) his poor ball control 2) due to which he fares poorly against tight opponents 3) lacks pace

Today Southampton was pressing high from minute Go. They were throwing bodies in United half leaving ample space behind. This worked well for Mata as he started getting free 15-20 yards run. Even in that space he was not disciplined in maintaining his own position. May be that was the instruction so I would give him benefit of doubt on that. But overall he is a poor player when midfield is crowded, when there is midfied battle, when opposition is sitting back and crowding their defensing third. He is completely useless in those scenarios. Watch his games when he tries some fancy one-two, fancy sneaky pass and lose possession for the team.

A no. 10 is a creative player who unlocks the opposition in these above situations. Mata and Lingard don't have that in them.
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I agree but that wasn't the case today. Are Mata and Lingard the true 10s United need to create chances throughout matches, no. They have their limitations, but today isn't the day to beat them over it because they were closer to the solution than the problem.
 
groovyalbert said:
Are you suggesting that McTominay is better than Pogba...
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No I’m suggesting anyone is better than the precocious Pogba we currently have though. If he’s not fully here then he can feck off imho. Ronaldo didn’t down tools after being convinced to stay another season did he? It seems to me that Pogba went on strike today after being asked to play deeper that he personally wants. As soon as the ineffective Matic came on in the 70th minute and Pogba moved forward he started to play positively.
 
Mourinho's January (2018) transfer window. Mourinho's Summer (2018) transfer window. Ole's January (2019) transfer window. Ole's Summer (2019) transfer window.

All bang average. And people expect us to be flying. Nah, it doesn't work that way.
 
Sultan said:
This squad is set-up for playing on the counter. Rashford, Martial, James, and Lingard are all more comfortable on the counter. Chelsea helped us by attacking. Still, I'm seeing progress and actually liking watching these young players.

Southampton going down to 10 men did us no favours giving no room to our strikers to use their pace and were ultimately short of grass.
Click to expand...

Hate saying this but it's true, a Lukaku, Llorente or Fellaini option would have been nice today. United couldn't break them down with ground crosses or cutbacks.
 
Same old shit. Nothing much else to be said. We haven't been as good as our stature and finances dictate we should be for over 5 years and it doesn't look like changing anytime soon.
 
Sultan said:
This squad is set-up for playing on the counter. Rashford, Martial, James, and Lingard are all more comfortable on the counter. Chelsea helped us by attacking. Still, I'm seeing progress and actually liking watching these young players.

Southampton going down to 10 men did us no favours giving no room to our strikers to use their pace and were ultimately short of grass.
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Martial would have fared better I think, as he's got a lot more close control than Rashford, but still, in the "Old days" we didn't need to worry about teams going defensive. We'd give them a seismic battering, and they'd come away smashed.
 
edcunited1878 said:
I agree but that wasn't the case today. Are Mata and Lingard the true 10s United need to create chances throughout matches, no. They have their limitations, but today isn't the day to beat them over it because they were closer to the solution than the problem.
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Of course. Today's situation fits Mata well and hence he performed. Not taking that away. But if people are concluding that he is our consistent no. 10 from today's game then I believe that is erroneous.
 
Tony247 said:
Mourinho's January (2018) transfer window. Mourinho's Summer (2018) transfer window. Ole's January (2019) transfer window. Ole's Summer (2019) transfer window.
All bang average. And people expect us to be flying. Nah, it doesn't work that way.
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At least Ole got the right players in.
 
tjb said:
The way we build our attacks is fine, its the attackers that are our problem.We get the ball quickly to the front lines now, but the end product is horrible. Just not enough quality.
Lingard is poor and is inconsistent
Rashford has no consistency in his play and is not good at the simple reading of the game
Pereira isn't a utd player, just poor
Martial is just finding his way as a striker but is ineffective and inconsistent as a winger
Mata is poor on the flanks and finds it hard to cover spaces for defensive situations
Dan James has come in and reminded us how a utd winger should be in terms of being a consistent threat.

Pushing Pogba up again may be a part solution to our problem in attack, as he is also effective. We also really need to give our younger players a chance, Greenwood, Chong and Gomes may be more effective than what we currently have up front. The next few windows should be about fixing our attacking and buying a defensive midfielder. Pogba deep is clearly not a solution, and it hampers Mctominay from playing his actual game. He's not a good defensive midfielder, Matic is legitmately our only defensive midfielder at the moment, and he's aging.
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We watched very different games just now. Agree on a DM though - was more needed than a CB
 
I agree with many posters here. Other than counters, we are clueless in attack. Everybody, from Sheffield to Wolves, is taking notes: park the bus vs Utd and throw long balls to Lindelof's position.
 
Sultan said:
Southampton going down to 10 men did us no favours giving no room to our strikers to use their pace and were ultimately short of grass.
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I can see what youre getting at here but the prospect of our opponent playing with LESS men than us and that being an advantage to them is absolutely hilarious, we are just a garbage team right now
 
Tony247 said:
Of course. Today's situation fits Mata well and hence he performed. Not taking that away. But if people are concluding that he is our consistent no. 10 from today's game then I believe that is erroneous.
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Yeah, no way is he the consistent 10 and I think most people see that. He has to be picked and played in specific situations which is fine.
 
edcunited1878 said:
Hate saying this but it's true, a Lukaku, Llorente or Fellaini option would have been nice today. United couldn't break them down with ground crosses or cutbacks.
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Except Lukaku wasn't especially strong in the air unlike the other two.
 
Unfortunately, the club was unable to sign one of Erikson, Dybala or Bruno who would have been ideal signings. Missing that final pass for teams defending deep.
 
SqueakyWeasel said:
No I’m suggesting anyone is better than the precocious Pogba we currently have though. If he’s not fully here then he can feck off imho. Ronaldo didn’t down tools after being convinced to stay another season did he? It seems to me that Pogba went on strike today after being asked to play deeper that he personally wants. As soon as the ineffective Matic came on in the 70th minute and Pogba moved forward he started to play positively.
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Agreed. Pogba giving a feck about 30% of a given match isn’t helping matters. I’m in the camp that believes we should have sold him early in the summer and brought in two midfielders. Now we have a man-child downing his tools every game because he didn’t get his move. It’s tedious to watch.
 
I'll go with what I think is the overall story here.

Mourinho done well with this squad to have the 'success' that he did - 2nd place, 2 Cups. Once Jose started to meltdown & the players lost it with him, he had to go. But we had got the idea that they were better than they actually are.

The 'Ole bounce' was very surprising to me but occurs at a part of the season where that is possible. And I think some players over-performed on what we could normally expect.

It then becomes apparent that we are shit. And I mean, genuinely shit. Important through here actually I think, is the decline of Matic. he was pretty good for a season & a bit & papered over a lot of cracks. Certainly for Mourinho he performed an important role - protection of those dodgy CBs.

So what now, well I don't really know. I don't think the team is great, although the defence is improved a fair bit & there is potential up top, but not enough bodies there or available in MF. What sort of team are we going to put out in the Cups & Europa League?

This needs to be a long term plan & accepted as such. Where 'this' IS changing the culture of the club & getting rid of the deadwood rather than stockpiling players brought in who are not good enough & pursuing marquee signings that will boost shirt sales.

We need to be patient but unless Martial or Rashford can stick the ball in the net this season then Ole will end up having to go too, unless OT attendances & belief can hold up, if you see what I'm saying.

Supporters wil at least need to be convinced that the future is bright, I suppose.

I'm on the fence. I don't trust Woodward, the Glazers or the influence of our social media fanbase. OGS remains unproven but talks a good game. He will need some results at some stage.

Ramble ends.
 
SqueakyWeasel said:
No I’m suggesting anyone is better than the precocious Pogba we currently have though. If he’s not fully here then he can feck off imho. Ronaldo didn’t down tools after being convinced to stay another season did he? It seems to me that Pogba went on strike today after being asked to play deeper that he personally wants. As soon as the ineffective Matic came on in the 70th minute and Pogba moved forward he started to play positively.
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Stop talking rubbish. He clearly didn’t lack effort, just sloppiness which the whole team had. He was much better in the 2nd half even when played deeper - his effort isn’t lacking so stop with this agenda.
 
We were so wasteful again... Created more than enough to score a few goals but our players snatched at the chances.

De Gea should have caught the ball instead of punching it weakly. His confidence looks shattered.

Lindelof lacks the physical ability, agression and composure to deal with high balls and crosses. He is being targeted by other teams and this won't be the last time we concede such goals.
 
I don't know what to say anymore. Southampton were so poor. We just make everything look so difficult. James was so good but not once was there anyone in the box ready to score.

Barring James, Maguire and AWB, the rest were awful. I can forgive Lindelof and Pogba, Lindelof will get better and the Southampton defender was fecking huge. Pogba was isolated, tried his best but it wasn't working, games like this are why we needed to sign another midfielder.

The rest of them though...

Lingard is truly shit and will cost Ole his job in my opinion
Rashford is inconsistent and needs competition
Matic/Scott/Young/ are not good enough, Scott needs competition because he gave it away and placed some horrific passes
Mata was okay
Pereira was shit, almost forgot he was playing
 
montpelier said:
I'll go with what I think is the overall story here.

Mourinho done well with this squad to have the 'success' that he did - 2nd place, 2 Cups. Once Jose started to meltdown & the players lost it with him, he had to go. But we had got the idea that they were better than they actually are.

The 'Ole bounce' was very surprising to me but occurs at a part of the season where that is possible. And I think some players over-performed on what we could normally expect.

It then becomes apparent that we are shit. And I mean, genuinely shit. Important through here actually I think, is the decline of Matic. he was pretty good for a season & a bit & papered over a lot of cracks. Certainly for Mourinho he performed an important role - protection of those dodgy CBs.

So what now, well I don't really know. I don't think the team is great, although the defence is improved a fair bit & there is potential up top, but not enough bodies there or available in MF. What sort of team are we going to put out in the Cups & Europa League?

This needs to be a long term plan & accepted as such. Where 'this' IS changing the culture of the club & getting rid of the deadwood rather than stockpiling players brought in who are not good enough & pursuing marquee signings that will boost shirt sales.

We need to be patient but unless Martial or Rashford can stick the ball in the net this season then Ole will end up having to go too, unless OT attendances & belief can hold up, if you see what I'm saying.

Supporters wil at least need to be convinced that the future is bright, I suppose.

Ramble ends.
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I think in January , we ll sign a striker like Ole used to be - someone who tap in the ball (with a decent work rate not like Lukaku).
 
Sultan said:
This squad is set-up for playing on the counter. Rashford, Martial, James, and Lingard are all more comfortable on the counter. Chelsea helped us by attacking. Still, I'm seeing progress and actually liking watching these young players.

Southampton going down to 10 men did us no favours giving no room to our strikers to use their pace and were ultimately short of grass.
Click to expand...
Agreed
 
We need to go with the following for the next game:


----------------Martial----------------
James---------Pogba-------Greenwood
------------Fred--------McT-----------
Shaw*---Maguire---Tuanzebe---AWB
----------------Romero----------------

So sick of underperforming players like Rashford, Lingard, DDG and Lindelof constantly starting.
 
RedSky said:
Aye, thats summed up all my opinions from the previous few pages into a neat post. Completely agree with every point. It's damage limitation until we reach the Janauary transfer window and at that point we can assess our squad and fill in the gaps. It shouldn't have got to that point if Ole had been backed a bit more in the Summer but shit happens.

If nothing else the poor form of our seniors should speedup the introduction of our promising youngsters.
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For me, if we are poor this season, we as fans should relax and wait. The patience we give now will pay off in a year or two. Our starting attack and midifield will not be the group of players we saw today, and that will only happen if we give the team space to fail ( gomes, garner, williams, chong and greenwood) and ole time to buy in future. I like our direction, our strategy. Let's keep it. If Ole isn't the guy to be our manager, I would push him to that director role as his vision and execution of it has been spot on so far.
 
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Man of the Match

Daniel James image Daniel James 83% of 716 votes

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Score Predictions

372,100,121
  • Man Utd win
  • Southampton win
  • Draw

Detailed Results

  • 21% Southampton 1:2 Man Utd
  • 18% Southampton 0:2 Man Utd
  • 14% Southampton 1:1 Man Utd
  • 8% Southampton 0:3 Man Utd
  • 7% Southampton 1:3 Man Utd
  • 6% Southampton 0:1 Man Utd
  • 6% Southampton 2:1 Man Utd
  • 5% Southampton 2:0 Man Utd
  • 4% Southampton 2:2 Man Utd
  • 3% Southampton 0:0 Man Utd
  • 3% Southampton 1:0 Man Utd
  • 1% Southampton 5:0 Man Utd
  • 1% Southampton 0:4 Man Utd
  • 1% Southampton 3:1 Man Utd
  • 1% Southampton 0:5 Man Utd
  • 1% Southampton 3:0 Man Utd
  • 1% Southampton 1:4 Man Utd
  • 1% Southampton 3:2 Man Utd
  • 0% Southampton 2:3 Man Utd
  • 0% Southampton 1:5 Man Utd
  • 0% Southampton 2:4 Man Utd
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Match Stats

  1. Southampton
  2. Man Utd
Possession
41% 59%
Shots
10 21
Shots on Target
2 8
Corners
2 3
Fouls
17 7

Referee

Mike Dean

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