Manchester United Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread - 2013/14 mod warning post#7259

The_Kew_Tour

Teams drop stupid points all the time, including Champions, like us the past few seasons. The problem for us is making sure they are at a minimum all season.

Yesterday was all about the result. Our performance was ok maybe slightly above average, but nothing special.

But its a huge win for Moyes as a manager.

Arsenal may have been quiet, but some of that was down to our tactics also. So give Moyes some credit.

Lot of work still to do and performances would need to be improved, but overall after the Southampton game things look healthier indeed.

Lord TSC

RasTa wrote: »

Unbeaten in the CL and crap start in the league. Don't care about pre-season.

Funny, cause pre-season is when Moyes was impressing me the most, giving youth a real chance (Lingard and Zaha especially) and playing nice football.

"Unbeaten in the CL" really makes us sound far better than we really were though, and given the teams we were drawn against, we should have expected nothing more than being unbeaten.

Mitch Connor

The_Kew_Tour wrote: »

Teams drop stupid points all the time, including Champions, like us the past few seasons. The problem for us is making sure they are at a minimum all season.

Yesterday was all about the result. Our performance was ok maybe slightly above average, but nothing special.

But its a huge win for Moyes as a manager.

Arsenal may have been quiet, but some of that was down to our tactics also. So give Moyes some credit.

Lot of work still to do and performances would need to be improved, but overall after the Southampton game things look healthier indeed.

Main thing I took from yesterday is that our defence didn't look like it was going collapse at the mere thought of an attack coming at them. That, and Rooney running round like a mad man, not much else I could think to take from yesterdays game.

If that is the sign of defending to come, then hopefully the coaching will move towards improving the attacking play.

Julez

Teamshadowclan wrote: »

"Unbeaten in the CL" really makes us sound far better than we really were though, and given the teams we were drawn against, we should have expected nothing more than being unbeaten.

Bayer leverkusen are 3rd in the Budasliga, Sociada are 7th in Spain, Shakhtar are top of their league (not so relevent but not a bad side). Our group isn't an easy one at all and I think Moyes has coped very well in the CL.

DM_7

Some of the patterns emerging at the moment are only an indication of what should be expected for the rest of this season. Such as midfield getting bypassed.

If Moyes can get a quality midfielder and a winger (maybe Januzaj will get that spot) into the team next summer then how the ball is used will change even if the formation doesn't.

Things like defending as a unit, tight in midfield would continue beyond this season.

Your Airbag

Rene did a short Q&A session on twitter yesterday. Spoke very highly of the club & players and it seems like he really misses UTD. He also gave some insightful answers about players and what he thinks of them.


https://twitter.com/meulensteen_r

n32

Just home from the game. Hopefully that result will kick start a bit of a run for us. The sitting back in the second half illustrated how low on confidence we are. It was a great display of defending considering Vidic was gone off. RVP and especially Rooney did fantastic work closing down the Arsenal back 4 and Valencia in 1st half especially did some great closing down when we lost the ball. Fair play to Jones he had some game and showed his versatility by slotting into the backs after Vidic went off. Its worth a forutne to have players who are selfless enough to sacrifice their own game for the good of the team. Smalling was another who had a fine game defensivley. Pity he cant cross or score from 6 yard headers! Evra is an accident waiting to happen . Look how often the opposition attack his wing and he s trotting back over the half way line way out of position.
From the Stretford End yesterday in the first half it was hilarious to see how frightened GIroud looked when he had Vidic getting stuck into him . He was a very relieved man that DDG took Vidic out of it. Great atmosphere all through yesterday. The crowd really got behind the team and Moyes. It had the feel of a knockout game from start to finish yesterday

magnumbud

god we beat the team that people were creaming about on here saying we wouldnt have a chance against. kept ozil pretty much non existent(sagna actually caused the most heart stopping moments yesterday) to the fact i actually thought he was one of the players sent home sick until the 40 minute which must have been one of his first touches of the ball. while the second half wasnt spectacular its not like arsenal created chance after chance and that we were holding out for 45 minutes they had maybe 3 points where i actually thought they were gonna score but we dealt with it. but with all this the negativity on hear you would swear that we sneaked a goal and just sat back and defended for the rest of the 90 minutes.

right we have had a shaky start but we currently sit ahead of city and a point behind chelsea who are both the teams i would still consider the most dangerous title contenders thats not a bad position to be in. our performances have been improving game after game since the west brom game. rvp and rooney seem to be getting better working together and our defense seems to be improving too. have to say when i saw smalling was playing rb yesterday i nearly cried but he was fantastic. looking at our run up to january theres maybe the spurs game i would be nervous about the rest we should be picking up a lot of wins and have a real chance to get ourselves top by the new year

Timmyctc

Red Crow wrote: »

The subs bar Fellaini did nothing to relieve the pressure. Giggs held up the play nicely in a couple of instances but his lack of pace caused Arsenal to press further and we were left badly short because of his lack of legs. Arsenal could have easily scored in the second half. Let's not kid ourselves here as soon as Vidic went off we invited pressure on ourselves. I don't think Cleverley did anything particularly wrong but the game changed when he went in the middle instead if Jones. If we can get a right winger and a centre mid then I'll be a lot happier.

Absolutely delighted for Moyes because he got it right yesterday. Jones had another big game performance ala Real Madrid. Smalling did well but he's not a RB I think we missed Rafael on the right as an attacking threat as Valencia has gone so far backwards.

It was not Giggs Lack of Legs that piled the pressure on us. It was Evra's. Giggs was oft' left deeper than Evra because Evra was bombing up the wing and sauntering back because he was wrecked.

Will I Amnt

Julez wrote: »

Bayer leverkusen are 3rd in the Budasliga, Sociada are 7th in Spain, Shakhtar are top of their league (not so relevent but not a bad side). Our group isn't an easy one at all and I think Moyes has coped very well in the CL.

Toughest group we have had in a long time.

bucketybuck

magnumbud wrote: »

but with all this the negativity on hear you would swear that we sneaked a goal and just sat back and defended for the rest of the 90 minutes.

Thats pretty much what we did, yeah. Did we not only have 2 shots on goal?

Timmyctc

bucketybuck wrote: »

Thats pretty much what we did, yeah. Did we not only have 2 shots on goal?

In reality it was much more comfortable than that made out in the quote. I don't think arsenal had a single shot in the first half. Not a successful one (one that wasnt blocked) by any means. Second half they put in two dangerous crosses and the ball almost broke for Giroud once but that aside they didnt threaten us. We had RvP's goal Smalling's sitter and a few weak enough attempts but we had a whole lot of wing play/crosses and chances from set pieces.

bucketybuck

Timmyctc wrote: »

In reality it was much more comfortable than that made out in the quote. I don't think arsenal had a single shot in the first half. Not a successful one (one that wasnt blocked) by any means. Second half they put in two dangerous crosses and the ball almost broke for Giroud once but that aside they didnt threaten us. We had RvP's goal Smalling's sitter and a few weak enough attempts but we had a whole lot of wing play/crosses and chances from set pieces.

Which comes back to what I said earlier. Yes, delighted to get the win, but the win didn't come from any significant improvement in our play.

Valencia was still devoid of any attacking intent, Kagawa is still wasted out on the left, Rooney again worked extremely hard but created nothing, Van Persie again did very little except score another winner, and our midfield again offered absolutely zero in an attacking sense.

That paragraph could apply to any game this season, so yesterday was no improvement in that regard whatsoever. We were solid at the back and Arsenal didn't show up, thats about it.

Mitch Connor

bucketybuck wrote: »

the win didn't come from any significant improvement in our play.

There was great improvement in our defensive play, to be fair. Attacking wise we were a non-entity like we have been a lot this season.

jameshayes

win when you're not playing well!

Isn't that what fergie said!

n32

Timmyctc wrote: »

It was not Giggs Lack of Legs that piled the pressure on us. It was Evra's. Giggs was oft' left deeper than Evra because Evra was bombing up the wing and sauntering back because he was wrecked.

He wasnt wrecked it was just laziness from evra and its become a habit of his to saunter back when the opposition are countering. You could havr driven a bus down his wing in the 2nd half. Kagawa offered no resistance either just token tackling. He needs to realisr you have to get stuck in like rooney did yesterday to justify your his selection in games v top 6. People scoff ay jones and cream over kagawa but at least jones can never be faulted for bravery or guts. Kagawa gets a very easy ride from fans considering he has produced **** all so far

bucketybuck

Mitch Connor wrote: »

There was great improvement in our defensive play, to be fair. Attacking wise we were a non-entity like we have been a lot this season.

We did look solid defensively and it was good to see it.

Unfortunately it is the attacking side that continues to concern me. Don't really want to play the "what if" game, but if Arsenal had gotten an early goal yesterday instead of us could you really have seen us winning the game?

Will I Amnt

n32 wrote: »

He wasnt wrecked it was just laziness from evra and its become a habit of his to saunter back when the opposition are countering. You could havr driven a bus down his wing in the 2nd half. Kagawa offered no resistance either just token tackling. He needs to realisr you have to get stuck in like rooney did yesterday to justify your his selection in games v top 6. People scoff ay jones and cream over kagawa but at least jones can never be faulted for bravery or guts. Kagawa gets a very easy ride from fans considering he has produced **** all so far

Tracking back and getting stuck in is not his thing. It would have been known or at least I hope it would have been known when he was brought in.

bucketybuck

n32 wrote: »

Kagawa offered no resistance either just token tackling. He needs to realisr you have to get stuck in like rooney did yesterday to justify your his selection in games v top 6. People scoff ay jones and cream over kagawa but at least jones can never be faulted for bravery or guts.

Bravery, guts and getting stuck in are all well and good for hanging onto a slender lead, but I know what I would rather have if we needed to go out and score a goal.

magnumbud

bucketybuck wrote: »

Thats pretty much what we did, yeah. Did we not only have 2 shots on goal?

wouldnt agree with that. we only got 2 on target yes but we had a lot of positive play going forward and by what i meant in the post was that it wasnt like we let arsenal have chance after chance. we restricted them to only 2 shots on target too. of the 10 shots that arsenal had i would say very few troubled us. first half i dont remember them troubling us at all and second half maybe about 15-20 minutes we were backs against the wall but to say that we sneaked a goal and sat back and let them come at us for 90 minutes is a disservice to the team

Winston Payne

He's underrated Kagawa's defensive shift massively. He covered far better than Giggs, and Giggs was completely fresh coming on. It was alarming from Giggs actually.

Your Airbag

Mitch Connor

bucketybuck wrote: »

We did look solid defensively and it was good to see it.

Unfortunately it is the attacking side that continues to concern me. Don't really want to play the "what if" game, but if Arsenal had gotten an early goal yesterday instead of us could you really have seen us winning the game?

I agree - but I do think Moyes was right to concentrate on fixing the terrible defensive issues we have had since pre-season. You have to be good in defence first, imo.

Hopefully the defensive side of the game is getting where he wants it to be, and now we can start concentrating on the attacking plans.

Of course the worry is that this is all we are going to get - remember reading David Weir (i think) saying that Moyes is a defensive coach and leaves the attacking coaches to other - he views the game from a defenders perspective. Unfortunately we have moved on our attack minded coach (Rene) and brought in the same back room staff he had at Everton, so maybe we won't see the improvement in the attack I would like to see.

As it stands though, I can't see any reason not to give him time to sort out the attacking side of the game. Bit by bit he seems to be tackling issues with out squad and approach.

He has tried all the defenders and seems to have picked his hierarchy. He has tried his wingers and Januzaj/Kagawa seem to be selected ahead of Young/Nani now. Anderson has been moved aside and basically forgotten about (deserved on performances).

Defence and mifield have taken shape bit by bit, from a defensive view point anyway - so hopefully the same approach will be taken to the attack - bit by bit we will see improvements and changes.

bucketybuck

magnumbud wrote: »

wouldnt agree with that. we only got 2 on target yes but we had a lot of positive play going forward and by what i meant in the post was that it wasnt like we let arsenal have chance after chance. we restricted them to only 2 shots on target too. of the 10 shots that arsenal had i would say very few troubled us. first half i dont remember them troubling us at all and second half maybe about 15-20 minutes we were backs against the wall but to say that we sneaked a goal and sat back and let them come at us for 90 minutes is a disservice to the team

No, it certainly wasn't a "park the bus" performance by any fashion, we were more assured than that.

In a way that makes the attacking performance more disappointing. We had a solid platform and some good possession, if we had a bit more about us attack wise you have to wonder if we could have put a very flat Arsenal to the sword?

magnumbud

bucketybuck wrote: »

No, it certainly wasn't a "park the bus" performance by any fashion, we were more assured than that.

In a way that makes the attacking performance more disappointing. We had a solid platform and some good possession, if we had a bit more about us attack wise you have to wonder if we could have put Arsenal to the sword?

yeah i mean i wasnt too impressed by valencia and as other have said have no idea whats happened to him in the last 2 years but he is not the player he was. while im a big fan of kagawa he has begun to frustrate me on the left(i know he is not a winger) but he never seems to stay out wide. i get he might not be happy out there but he should do the task he is asked to do. how often has rooney been deployed out there and still puts in a shift. it just narrows us too much on that side. have no problem with him cutting in but alot of the time the ball went out left and it was rooney not kagawa going after it

stesaurus

Your Airbag wrote: »

Eugh that joke really irritates me for some reason. It's used pretty much every match where a big player has a quiet game. It's just so goddamn un-original.

Rant over, well kind of

Great atmosphere yesterday, really pleased with the result but....I'm still really unhappy with how they're playing and haven't seen the reasons people seem to be so positive. Even Moyes seems to think we're playing better. I just don't see it. We create next to nothing from open play, defend too deep and invite teams onto us and don't seem to have a clue how to retain possession. At least we have looked slightly better defensively

KH25

Agree with Rene, Gundogan would be an incredible purchase for United.

Your Airbag

UTD are scouting Fulhams Moussa Dembele. Another striker?


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2497051/Manchester-United-want-Fulhams-Moussa-Dembele.html

Timmyctc

Your Airbag wrote: »

UTD are scouting Fulhams Moussa Dembele. Another striker?


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2497051/Manchester-United-want-Fulhams-Moussa-Dembele.html

He is a Cm

Mocha Joe

Timmyctc wrote: »

He is a Cm

Different player, same name. The one at Fulham now is a striker.

Your Airbag

Timmyctc wrote: »

He is a Cm

Its another, should have pointed that out. He's a teenager and being touted as the new Drogba

magnumbud

also he is french not belgian

Backstreet Moyes

I really feared when Vidic went off yesterday but Jones was brilliant. We already know Evans proved he is capable of being first choice nice to see Jones and Smalling impressing. My only hope is Smalling playing well yesterday doesn't mean he will be rotated with Rafael.

On Rooney yesterday is the first time in awhile i seen him running past players he looks really hungry. RVP's celebration dismissed the nonsense he is not happy under Moyes. Rooney especially has looked very hungry.

From a defensive point of view it was a big step in the right direction. Attacking wise again it was poor but i think the quality is just not their. Our wingers are totally out of form and we have no creative cm player. I will be delighted to just finish in the top 4 this season and bring in some signings in January or the summer.

RasTa

"Arsenal are my past now. I shown them respect last year & they didn't repay the favour so I thought I'd celebrate." - Robin van Persie

Maximus Alexander

s.welstead wrote: »

Even Moyes seems to think we're playing better. I just don't see it.

To be fair, you can't assume that anything a manager says in a post match interview represents their actual feelings or opinions. Everything is said to send a message of some type to someone, to have a certain effect on the attitude or morale of the squad, to placate the press, or what have you.

magnumbud

the goal celebration from yesterday made me think back to the swansea and laugh at the fuss that was made about the celebrations in that game

The_Kew_Tour

RasTa wrote: »

I was glad he did.

He got more abuse last season for showing respect and got him nowhere.

SherlockWatson

n32 wrote: »

Kagawa gets a very easy ride from fans considering he has produced **** all so far

Some fans like to actually watch football other than united, which allows us to judge players like Kagawa before he plays for us, and he is exceptional, he is being wasted out on the left wing.



Its almost like people are forgetting he scored 6 goals in 20 games last year, many of which were sub performances.

Dicky Pride

Page 666.

The_Kew_Tour

Dicky Pride wrote: »

Page 666.

We are the Red Devils!

Kylo Ren

Dicky Pride wrote: »

Page 666.

250*.

Boards, you're doing it wrong.

homerjay2005

RasTa wrote: »

Unbeaten in the CL and crap start in the league. Don't care about pre-season.

I think Pelligrini has City playing better football than us at times yet we are above them.

Too soon to see any patterns

City are f*cked without Kompany. they are playing great football and being fair, have lost games they shouldnt have.

once Kompany is back, they will shoot up the table.

xtal191

RasTa wrote: »

Fake quote

Sport Witness ‏@Sport_Witness 7h

The Robin van Persie quote doing the rounds which begins with "Arsenal are my past now..." is completely fake.

Sport Witness ‏@Sport_Witness 7h

The Robin van Persie quote was made up by someone on Twitter to prove how easily people fell for anything within quotation marks. It worked.

Timmyctc

xtal191 wrote: »

Fake quote

Was thinking that myself.

Donnielighto

Thought smalling should have been motm. Immense. Defense really showed up yesterday.

RasTa

homerjay2005 wrote: »

City are f*cked without Kompany. they are playing great football and being fair, have lost games they shouldnt have.

once Kompany is back, they will shoot up the table.

You could argue that they are playing well and still losing, Kompany did play in one of their defeats to Villa.

We aren't even playing well and are ahead of them so let's see what happens when they hit a bad run and we hit our stride

homerjay2005

Evans described yesterday as the best atmosphere ever at Old Trafford that he has experienced.

it was pretty bouncing alright, how did it sound on TV?

Mars Bar

I couldn't tell if it was because the T.V is so loud in the pub but it sounded great!

Kylo Ren

10,000.

kryogen

10001?