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

MagicMarker

Headshot wrote: »

Happy enough with that. Room for alot improvement thou.

Especially loved Kag, Chico and Rooney performances

Kagawa was poor I thought.

J. Marston

Surprised to win that. I thought that midfield would be destroyed by what was a full strength Liverpool team (excluding Coutinho). Solid performance and a decent way to bounce back.

What's the deal with Zaha? He cost £15 million and I don't think he's played one minute.

SirDelboy18

We looked better than we have in a while, with many players who have barely seen a minute of action, against a near full strength Liverpool. That in itself is telling.

Nani, Evans, Kagawa (give him time), Hernandez etc will improve with each game.

If Moyes picks our best players he will easily manage to get through the current wave of criticism. If he doesn't pick them, he will struggle. It's that simple.

Kylo Ren

Happy with that.

Nearly Liverpool's strongest XI versus our midfield and a lot of non starters.

No doubt we'll get the easiest draw next.

Headshot

Yes he had a few bad touches but Kag showed glimpses tonight of good he will be. He just needs a few more games under his bet for utd

Kerrydude1981

Was worried after the first half but looked more solid in the second half,great finish by Chico,great movement for the goal,worked his socks off.

Thought Nani showed some nice touches at times and Kagawa just seemed to be growing in confidence and was getting into the game before he was taken off,all be it when Utd attacked.

After Sunday that was just the tonic needed.

Roll on West Brom and get things back on track.

Ordinary man

Good solid performance from the fringe players, hopefully moyes uses them more

Rayne Wooney

Not the best performance, I wonder when we're going to hit top gear, I can't remember the last United performance where I said "wow this is great football". We're Scraping by with average performances.

Nani played crap but was still miles better than Val and Young. Needs to be played every week to get the best out of him I think. He had a few good moments

Kagawa was average with a few great moments in the first half, I didn't expect anything more, playing left wing and having to track back a lot, he couldn't play his normal game. Hopefully that will change with Fellaini and Carrick in there.

Kylo Ren

Alpha Dog 1

Thought Smalling was very good, think it's time to replace Rio in the first team.

Mikeyt086

Well, that was needed.

Smalling and Evans were immense at the back. I really think it's time to have one of them, probably Evans at the mo, as our 1st choice CB pairing with Vidic. Phil Jones was excellent as well, as a destructive midfielder he did a great job, as he has done a number of times, but I'd rather see him used there sparingly. Rooney is our best player at the moment, and lads, Chicharito needs to start, the chap sniffs out chances like a customs dog smells drugs.

Nani and Kagawa were both a bit rusty, Nani more so, but they both showed glimpses of creativity that Young and Valencia just don't have in the locker, and both need to see more action.

All in all successful night, and a great pic here from the facebook page.

Kylo Ren

^^^^

Jaysus, Smalling looks eh.....happy.

Kerrydude1981

Mikeyt086 wrote: »

Well, that was needed.

Smalling and Evans were immense at the back. I really think it's time to have one of them, probably Evans at the mo, as our 1st choice CB pairing with Vidic. Phil Jones was excellent as well, as a destructive midfielder he did a great job, as he has done a number of times, but I'd rather see him used there sparingly. Rooney is our best player at the moment, and lads, Chicharito needs to start, the chap sniffs out chances like a customs dog smells drugs.

Nani and Kagawa were both a bit rusty, Nani more so, but they both showed glimpses of creativity that Young and Valencia just don't have in the locker, and both need to see more action.

All in all successful night, and a great pic here from the facebook page.

Pity we cant see what face Jones is pulling

Danye

Alpha Dog 1 wrote: »

Thought Smalling was very good, think it's time to replace Rio in the first team.

I'm in no position to comment as I missed the match but its mad how people's opinions differ. On Twitter there and people are slating Smalling.

SirDelboy18

Smalling was very good, no question.

Giggsy11

Second choice CBs, second or third choice LB, Nth choice CM pairing, 2 wingers who lacked match fitness/sharpness and 1 striker who started last game in the last season still did the job against full strength Liverpool team bar Johnson and Coutinho.

Not a very good performance but there are few positives for sure. Evans was class, probably our second best RB, Smalling was good too. Good to see a proper RB playing and it makes a lot of difference. Nani was decent, so was Kagawa after losing ball few times at the start.

Everything flows through Rooney, he is the heart beat of out team. Looked lively but it was so obvious that he was tired and could barely run at the end.

Danye

SirDelboy18 wrote: »

Smalling was very good, no question.

I'm not disputing it. I'm just saying it goes to show the difference of people's opinions.

Disappointed with Giggs starting though.

Your Airbag

Not great from stuff UTD. We defended well and matched Liverpools work rate but never controlled the game.

Liverpool were on top for the majority and controlled a lot of the play, we sat and contained then hit them on the break. Against a better team more clever with their possesion we could have been beaten. Poor defending from a corner won it for us, we had a few chances on the counter but were wasteful.

A win is a win and against Liverpool its always good but again we lacked ideas and were very rigid. Its not inspiring stuff. Moyes doesn't seem to have a gameplan or approach yet. We approach a lot of games the same way.

Rayne Wooney

I always saw Smalling as Vidic's replacement.

Think you need a different type of player to compliment him

Paul Tergat

Danye wrote: »

I'm in no position to comment as I missed the match but its mad how people's opinions differ. On Twitter there and people are slating Smalling.

I think I see the problem, yes, wait, there it is

edgecutter

Much improved today. First time we actually put together some good attacks. Nani has proven he is light years ahead of Tony and young and I will be extremely angry with Moyes if he persists with them.

Quandary

Badly badly needed win there. Moyes will be very relived to have won that.

Delighted for Chico, he is a machine. If we end up selling him I'll be utterly devastated.

Thought Kag was a mixed bag. Understandable though considering how much he has played.

Nani was similar but IMO showed even without match fitness he is eons ahead of Valencia and young. A fully match fit Nani should be one of the first names on the team sheet.

Giggs was pretty anonymous for much of the game meaning Roonwy had to play deep.

I thought Jones had a very good game all things considered.

Back 4 were quite good considering the amount of time they each have had on the pitch this season.

Also delighted to see Moyes give Januzaj a run out. He did look very nervous in the first 10 minutes but I thought he came into it in the last 10 or so.

All in all, not too bad. We have a bit of breathing room. Hopefully Moyes and the team can kick on from this now with the next few games.

tallaghtmick

Danye wrote: »

I'm not disputing it. I'm just saying it goes to show the difference of people's opinions.

Disappointed with Giggs starting though.

Giggs played well though.

Headshot

come on easy draw

edgecutter

fingers crossed we get an easy draw. It hasnt happened for a long time.

Headshot

we will get city

Mikeyt086

Headshot wrote: »

come on easy draw

Home to Norwich.

Hmm...

SirDelboy18

I might be a gluten for punishment but I want City away. Want to correct that performance ASAP.

Mars Bar

Headshot wrote: »

we will get city

You were right

Giggsy11

Headshot wrote: »

come on easy draw

When is the draw?

Headshot

not bad, but why cant we ever get a team outside the pl

edgecutter

We never seemed to get lower league teams anymore.

2moreMinutes

Nani was terrible but even so, was more productive than Young. Hopefully he gets a run of games to get him back to where he can be. Kagawa showed glimpses of what he can do. Giggs was impressive considering he's 103. Thought Buttner was very good.

Quandary

At home to Norwich is not bad at all.

edgecutter

2moreMinutes wrote: »

Nani was terrible but even so, was more productive than Young. Hopefully he gets a run of games to get him back to where he can be. Kagawa showed glimpses of what he can do. Giggs was impressive considering he's 103. Thought Buttner was very good.

Nani was far from terrible, your standards must be through the roof.

Backstreet Moyes

2moreMinutes wrote: »

Nani was terrible but even so, was more productive than Young. Hopefully he gets a run of games to get him back to where he can be. Kagawa showed glimpses of what he can do. Giggs was impressive considering he's 103. Thought Buttner was very good.

Nani and Kagawa both showed glimpses of what they can do. None of them were outstanding but have a game under their belt. I don't know how you can say Nani was terrible himself and Kagawa performed about the same level.

tallaghtmick

If Buttner plays like that more often I'd be happy.

Burlap_Sack

Much needed morale boost. Bring on West Brom.

Anybody think chico was rested for it or just lacking match fitness?

2moreMinutes

Nuts102 wrote: »

Nani and Kagawa both showed glimpses of what they can do. None of them were outstanding but have a game under their belt. I don't know how you can say Nani was terrible himself and Kagawa performed about the same level.

Both obviously do different things. Kagawa showed glimpses of what he can do. Nani showed he's at the run into cul de sacs and be frustrating as hell stage of his "comeback".

yabadabado

good win but a poor performance overall.
I was very disappointed with Kagawa and Nani but at least they got some game time and imo can only improve from here.
The next 5 league are all very winnable and it would be brilliant to get 15 points from them and give moyes and the squad some breathing space.

ericzeking

Big positives for me were Raf and Evans.

MF did well getting amongst them but not much in possession.

The 3 of kag-roo-nani showed promise if given a more solid footing possession wise.

Chicharito was his usual self but looked majorly p!ssed to be taken off.

The Smalling thing was possibly him giving one sloppy ball away in 2nd but he played very well overall.

The_Kew_Tour

Rooney was head and shoulders above any player on the pitch.

Jesus to think at one stage I wanted him out.

Not one of my finer moments.

8-10

Burlap_Sack wrote: »

Much needed morale boost. Bring on West Brom.

Arsenal did United a big favour there tonight! They'll be wrecked after that. Guaranteed 3pts this weekend

Lord TSC

I've been one of Nani's biggest critics over the last two years, but being honest, he showed more attacking prowess tonight than Val has since the season began. He, and Kags, will need consistant game time to get into form, but should be given it tbh.

MagicMarker

Yeah Rooney played well for a fattie on the decline. Some people really were spouting some shíte about him before the season started.

Paul Tergat

MagicMarker wrote: »

Yeah Rooney played well for a fattie on the decline. Some people really were spouting some shíte about him before the season started.

It was always very clear we should keep him and he would be our best performer

Cypher_sounds

MagicMarker wrote: »

Yeah Rooney played well for a fattie on the decline. Some people really were spouting some shíte about him before the season started.

I was genuinely shocked and suprised how some prominent posters in here oer the summer were literally writing Rooney off as a has been. As I've said throughout the summer it was imperative that e stayed if we wanted to challenge for trophies, the fulcrum to a substantial amount of our good play.

KombuchaMshroom

Always find its best to avoid this place after a disaster like we had at the weekend, but think now might be a much better to post my thoughts on the current situation, the basic jist of which is that things are far better than many would have you believe at the moment.

Firstly the 4-1 at the weekend. Terrible performance no 2 ways about, but i think (or i hope) that a lot has been learnt from it. Once Moyes switched to 3 in the middle we were far better, and probably the better team for the final 35 minutes, though city knew they had it won by then so can't read too much into that. There was a point in that match around 50 minutes in where things looked very very bleak, but looking back on it all city only had 5 shots on target, they were just very clinical on the day. Rooney missed a sitter and Evra hit the post, im not saying we would ever realistically looked like winning that but it wouldn't have taken a massive change of fortune for the scoreline to be a lot less embarrassing.

On the general state of affairs at the moment, the current bad impression held by a lot of people is mostly caused by a combination of Liverpool type fans piling the blame on Moyes to try and reassure themselves that we are in turmoil and their time has come, and other people just over reading situations that aren't too dissimilar to those Ferguson has found himself in. We have often started seasons just as badly if not worse under Fergie (07/08 when we did the double I'm pretty sure we only got 2 points from first 3 matches against much weaker opposition), and results like those at the weekend have happened a few times recently too (1-6 lose to city and 1-4 lose to liverpool at home were both worse than the weekend).

When looking at the squad as a whole there are plenty of areas where we can be very optimistic and expect to see plenty of improvement in the future.

Starting at the back, between Jones, Evans and Smalling, I think it is time one of them is moved into first choice over Rio, all are hugely promising and have always performed when needed in the big games. Jones has also shown on numerous occasions now he is very capable of doing an excellent job in an out and out defensive midfield role in tougher matches when needed.
Rafael coming back is a huge boost. Smalling found himself in great positions many times at the weekend but doesn't have the ability of Rafa to capitalise. Getting him back into the team will add a massive threat down our right hand side.

Looking at Nani tonight, he was far from spectacular, but easy to see even from tonight that he is far more talented and creative than our other wingers. It was a performance to be happy with, things never went perfect for him but it just looked like a lack of match sharpness, he was very close to creating on many occasions and was involved in a lot of our better play.
Kagawa is in a similar position, some poor touches tonight but now that we have a nice run of matches coming up he should be given a chance to feature regularly and find his form and place in the team and show us all what we have been missing.
Fellaini has been solid but unspectacular since he has signed, but he needs time to settle. I am still adamant that he is a fantastic signing for us and will go a long way towards making our midfield far more solid and tougher to get around.

This has probably dragged on quite a bit, but to conclude, I think the next 4 or 5 weeks are massive for us now, even though the fixtures aren't the toughest. With all our players coming back to fitness this is the important time to get Rafael, Nani, Kagawa and Fellaini into the team into their correct positions and playing to the best of their ability. If this all happens I think we could be in a fine position by the end of November, and well set up to challenge on numerous fronts.

Apologies for the long post.




P.S. early days but i absolutely love Januzaj. Amazing composure and confidence for his age. Genuinely believe he will be the Iniesta of his generation. Moyesie Moyesie sign him up

The_Kew_Tour

KombuchaMshroom wrote: »

P.S. early days but i absolutely love Januzaj. Amazing composure and confidence for his age. Genuinely believe he will be the Iniesta of his generation. Moyesie Moyesie sign him up

even tonight had few decent runs.

looks the business.

Moyes deserves credit for showing faith in him.

Headshot

Is Zaha injured?