Manchester United Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread - Mod Note in OP, 25/3

adox

Robson99 wrote: »

He spent the whole night fouling. He is just not a United player

He didn't and he is.

secman

adox wrote: »

So tonight's match has determined whether we finish top four or not?

Gimme a ****ing break.

Can hardly help morale, a continuing trend of poor play. . debatable decisions by LVG, reflecting a bad return on the €200 million spent, hard to find any positives.Blinds lack of pace really exposed, Playing a winger at right full, Jones reminding me how bad a player he is, Fellani will never be good enough for the shirt, totally wrong signing. Januzai has not pushed on at all. At this rate I worry about De Gea leaving. Hardly inspiring stuff.....

TheDoc

adox wrote: »

It was the usual nonsense loaded questions from the press. They were asking him did he regret chosing Falcao over Welbeck because he scored the winner tonight or words to that affect. The usual ****e from those journos.

More worrying was his proclamation that he thought Valencia was Utds best player.

oh

Yeah say Ogden already rolling out the line for tomorrow about Wellbeck proving Van gaal wrong, after that one goal. Thought Wellbeck was dire all game in fairness.

Not sure what I thought about the audible booing he got, normally former players get a good reception.

Sirsok

At the game tonight and the amount of negativity from fans is ridiculous. I don't know how it came across on tele but the travelling arsenal fans dominated our supporters. We have so many fans content with cheering a goal or chastising a mistake then spurring the team on. And it isn't right.

Cantona's Collars

Gowlasauras Rex wrote: »

I need to you break all the bells and whistles on that thread.

One better,I'll be at the game.

The_Kew_Tour

zerks wrote: »

One better,I'll be at the game.

I got the Match thread dude

Your Airbag

That was a tough watch.

ADM was a tool to be perfectly honest. Grabs the ref after blatant cheating? He wasn't thinking straight. Very foolish. Januzaj with a terrible dive too.

Ref was spot on for both, thats exactly how diving should be dealt with.

Val, shocking. Young Poor. Jones, Smalling and Shaw all looking poor and lacking confidence. Rojo was average.

Blind and Carrick were uninspiring and very average. Blind is not good enough imo and Carrick is well Carrick, we have the same issues with him we had for the past two seasons. He can be good but he's getting on and in this poor set up he struggles.

ADM and Januzaj seemed to have joing the Valencia and Young school of going from creative dangerous wingers to being uncreative and poor decision makers.

Rooney and Fellaini are the only two who looked semi respectable and thats very depressing. The whole team is at a low ebb and has been for a while. LVG doesn't seem to be able to get them play well and it looks like he isn't keen to change anything. That's worrying.

We were not poor all game and looked dangerous in spells but overall Arsenal were better and deserved to win. We have been 2nd best in a lot of recent games and I can only see it continuing.

4th will be hard if LVG doesn't try something different.

Cantona's Collars

Sirsok wrote: »

At the game tonight and the amount of negativity from fans is ridiculous. I don't know how it came across on tele but the travelling arsenal fans dominated our supporters. We have so many fans content with cheering a goal or chastising a mistake then spurring the team on. And it isn't right.

Was this you giving the camera the finger?

LandonRicketts

I still can't fathom on why he insists on playing Fellaini behind Rooney especially tonight where Arsenal ball play was too fast for him. Looked slow and clumsy committing poor tackles. Should be Juan Mata in that position.

I saw Falcao warming up and thought we might have gotten one back but when I saw Adnan coming one i knew that was it. Those two early subs changed the game for United

keeponhurling

Some in here saying Valencia, Fellaini or even Blind shouldn't have been playing.

These players have been very good in recent games, so of course they kept their places.

A stable team us needed after all the chopping and changing and 40 injuries at the start.

homerjay2005

adox wrote: »

So tonight's match has determined whether we finish top four or not?

Gimme a ****ing break.

momentum means an awful lot at this stage of season.

Cantona's Collars

keeponhurling wrote: »

Some in here saying Valencia, Fellaini or even Blind shouldn't have been playing.

These players have been very good in recent games, so of course they kept their places.

A stable team us needed after all the chopping and changing and 40 injuries at the start.

Valencia is pretty terrible,for a winger converted into a defender he should have some idea how to attack.Never has a nick name been so apt: Turn Back Tony.

MythicalMadMan

Your Airbag wrote: »

4th will be hard if LVG doesn't try something different.

We have played at least 4 formations this season and have 23 players who have played 10 games or more (including substitutes)

He has tried many different things but nothing really has worked out.

kryogen

Valencia is clearly only playing because Van Gaal has zero faith in Rafael to be disciplined defensively unfortunately. There is literally no other reason, and overall as right back Tony has not been a disgrace. He was awful tonight for his individual mistakes of course, though I don't blame him totally for the first, his apology of a tackle was just disgusting, but he had to follow in field originally as he had to cover for the centre back.

MisterAnarchy

homerjay2005 wrote: »

everybody on here was fapping themselves silly last september when we went off and panicked into signing a heap of players, for a heap of money - tonight showed that despite spending all this cash and pushing our wage bill to over £200m a year, we still are another £150m off being a top class team again. we need to sign 2 defenders, a winger, an attacking midfielder and perhaps a striker...not alot different to what we were saying this time last season is it?

If the club dont finish top 4 this season,and I honestly don't think they will ,then Woodward must not make a show of himself again like he did last summer .

He was like a kid in a candy shop just buying up marquee players for vastly inflated fees ,irrespective of whether they were needed or fit the style of play.

If top 4 is not attained ,clubs will have Utd over a barrel this summer,they will smell the desperation off them to regain top four status and look for huge transfer fees .

I'd prefer the club to go about their transfer business wisely and economically instead of panic buying trying to regain top 4.
Some semblance of a decent footballing style would give me hope that Van Gaal is making some progress but I feel the season is slipping by and the same poor players are being consistently played and the same tactical and technical mistakes are being repeated over and over again.

Your Airbag

MythicalMadMan wrote: »

We have played at least 4 formations this season and have 23 players who have played 10 games or more (including substitutes)

He has tried many different things but nothing really has worked out.

A lot of that 23 player stat is due to injury. Four different formations with the same pass the ball backwards style renders any formation creatively poor. A lot of formation switches have come due to injury and other formations such as 5-3-2 not working.

LVGs safety first approach has been a mainstay all season and we struggle against poor teams after 150m investment.

Some People seem unwilling to criticise LVG and buy into his confident persona too much. Its laughable. He has got much wrong and repeated many mistakes.

Cantona's Collars

One player we should splash the cash on is De Gea,pay him what it takes to keep him.

MisterAnarchy

zerks wrote: »

Valencia is pretty terrible,for a winger converted into a defender he should have some idea how to attack.Never has a nick name been so apt: Turn Back Tony.

I was under the impression Valencia was out of contract in the summer and was hoping Larry Goodman would be interested in buying him but alas it seems he has 2 more years left .:mad:

The Moldy Gowl

MisterAnarchy wrote: »

If the club dont finish top 4 this season,and I honestly don't think they will ,then Woodward must not make a show of himself again like he did last summer .

He was like a kid in a candy shop just buying up marquee players for vastly inflated fees ,irrespective of whether they were needed or fit the style of play.

If top 4 is not attained ,clubs will have Utd over a barrel this summer,they will smell the desperation off them to regain top four status and look for huge transfer fees .

I'd prefer the club to go about their transfer business wisely and economically instead of panic buying trying to regain top 4.
Some semblance of a decent footballing style would give me hope that Van Gaal is making some progress but I feel the season is slipping by and the same poor players are being consistently played and the same tactical and technical mistakes are being repeated over and over again.

Woodward made a fool of himself?

Wow.

kryogen

I liked the part where he just went out and bought marquee players best.

The Moldy Gowl

To be fair. I preferred the kid in the candy shop. Lvg is his daddy and not allowing him buy what he wants because that's not how it work.

MythicalMadMan

kryogen wrote: »

Valencia is clearly only playing because Van Gaal has zero faith in Rafael to be disciplined defensively unfortunately. There is literally no other reason, and overall as right back Tony has not been a disgrace. He was awful tonight for his individual mistakes of course, though I don't blame him totally for the first, his apology of a tackle was just disgusting, but he had to follow in field originally as he had to cover for the centre back.

I've wondered about the Valencia/rafa situtation. The one thing I can say about him is he can keep on running all game long never looks tired. Does LVG demand more of full backs running wise? Just wondering is he in the team based on that or does he cover a normal amount of ground for a FB.

Pro. F

LVG has been substandard all season, he was awful tonight.

It should have been obvious that if you take off Herrera - our best CM for controlling possession - and instead play Carrick and Blind together - two CMs who are not good at controlling possession - then you are going to lose control of the game. But LVG did it anyway, and so we lost control of the game.

The repeated justification for LVG's poor management decisions from his fans has been that his tactics/philosophy demand those decisions. Again tonight we're told that Herrera had to come off because he probably wasn't fitting into LVG's tactics and his philosophy doesn't allow that. Cool. So we ended up weakening our central midfield in the second half because LVG was unwilling to adapt his tactics/philosophy to the squad he had available.

We should not forget that LVG was manager when Herrera was signed, that there aren't many other viable creative-CM options in the squad and that LVG has had significant money and two transfer windows to work with. This should be ringing major alarm bells for anybody who cares about the medium term future of the club. Big, loud, how-much-money-does-this-manager-who-never-lasts-long-in-a-job-need alarm bells.

n32 wrote: »

in fairness to fellaini, he was winning ball but had no body around him to pick up the second ball. near the end he took a ball down on his chest and was surorounded by 4 blue jerseys and no united man on the screen

We're not tactically committed to playing long-balls - that requires setting up the team to get lots of bodies around the target man for the knock-downs - so we're always going to have that problem.

MythicalMadMan

Your Airbag wrote: »

A lot of that 23 player stat is due to injury. Four different formations with the same pass the ball backwards style renders any formation creatively poor. A lot of formation switches have come due to injury and other formations such as 5-3-2 not working.

LVGs safety first approach has been a mainstay all season and we struggle against poor teams after 150m investment.

Some People seem unwilling to criticise LVG and buy into his confident persona too much. Its laughable. He has got much wrong and repeated many mistakes.

I wouldnt disagree with much of what you say but he gets a lot of misplaced critisism in this thread. I think most people would agree there is stuff to criticise and people who look like they are defending him are often just replying to hyperbolic generic critisism that isnt warranted.

Not saying your OP was but felt he has tried many things myself.

kryogen

Is it possible Herrera picked up a knock?

Was he asked why he came off like and what did he say?

Maximus Alexander

zerks wrote: »

http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/12087/9751579/real-madrid-are-seriously-considering-sacking-coach-carlo-ancelotti-says-guillem-balague

Real Madrid manager Carlo Ancelotti's inability to get his team functioning properly is likely to cost the Italian his job with the European champions this summer, says Sky Sports' Spanish football expert Guillem Balague...

Let the 2+2=5 games begin......Although I've a feeling he'll be at City next season.

Sign him up so. He'll be right at home.

Charlie19

kryogen wrote: »

Is it possible Herrera picked up a knock?

Was he asked why he came off like and what did he say?

He was on a yellow, maybe it was down to that.

kryogen

Charlie19 wrote: »

He was on a yellow, maybe it was down to that.

Could be I guess and didnt wanna risk it with the Spurs game at the weekend. Would like to see what Van Gaal has/had to say about it

The Moldy Gowl

I agreed with Roy keane when he said the fans who want lvg out don't have a clue about the game.

This soccer forum really is a great example of that. I'm no manager or tactition myself but some fans here really can really be clueless.

Charlie19

kryogen wrote: »

Could be I guess and didnt wanna risk it with the Spurs game at the weekend. Would like to see what Van Gaal has/had to say about it

I didn't see any interviews from the utd camp after the game, bbc just had Wenger on.

UnitedIrishman

Pro. F wrote: »

LVG has been substandard all season, he was awful tonight.

It should have been obvious that if you take off Herrera - our best CM for controlling possession - and instead play Carrick and Blind together - two CMs who are not good at controlling possession - then you are going to lose control of the game. But LVG did it anyway, and so we lost control of the game.

I'm a big fan of Herrera but he was anonymous tonight. He's also fairly headless with some of his attempts at tackling. But I agree with the latter, Carrick and Blind in midfield was an absolute disaster. Neither have any pace and both want to drop so far back to receive the ball.

Your Airbag

MythicalMadMan wrote: »

I wouldnt disagree with much of what you say but he gets a lot of misplaced critisism in this thread. I think most people would agree there is stuff to criticise and people who look like they are defending him are often just replying to hyperbolic generic critisism that isnt warranted.

Not saying your OP was but felt he has tried many things myself.

Your spot on with people reacting to "hyperbolic generic critisism" but you'll always get that in the thread. We have #Woodward out tonight ffs but when there is a lot of hyperbolic generic critisism it usually means things are going wrong a lot on the pitch.

We are in a dangerous position. Fourth with teams all around us hitting form and we are playing poorly and the mistakes continue game after game.

LVGs chopped and changed a bit but its been between a 5-3-2 system that didn't work from the get go. In the first game of the season at home to Swansea he changed from this at half time and we still lost.

When he went to a more favourable formation he played players in bizarre positions. AMD as a forward, Rooney deep in midfeild.

I get the long term thinking thing. He doesn't have confidence in defense and I can't blame him so he plays safe possesion football but teams are dealing with it well now and we look nervous a lot.

With so many players playing poorly you have to ask questions. There is pleny of valid non hyperbolic generic critisism to look at.

I would rather, as I'm sure you would too, a more direct style of play with our best players in there best positions as much as possible in a formation that works so everybody knows what there doing.

Injury aside I don't think this is too much to ask but its been beyond LVG much of this season.

UnitedIrishman

zerks wrote: »

One player we should splash the cash on is De Gea,pay him what it takes to keep him.

I really don't care what we have to pay him. Just pay him. And a bit more. Pay his girlfriend aswell.

Your Airbag

UnitedIrishman wrote: »

I'm a big fan of Herrera but he was anonymous tonight. He's also fairly headless with some of his attempts at tackling. But I agree with the latter, Carrick and Blind in midfield was an absolute disaster. Neither have any pace and both want to drop so far back to receive the ball.

Agree. He's a little hyped in here. Tonight he offered little and sturggled when pressed. I can't remeber too many games where he was great creatively.

A lot of calls for him to start and praise of his performances and abilites has been a little over the top imo. He's been not far off average so far, good enough but could do better I'd say.

Pro. F

Gowlasauras Rex wrote: »

I agreed with Roy keane when he said the fans who want lvg out don't have a clue about the game.

This soccer forum really is a great example of that. I'm no manager or tactition myself but some fans here really can really be clueless.

Any chance of you growing a set of balls and putting names on who you think is clueless and what they've said that is clueless?

The Moldy Gowl

Pro. F wrote: »

Any chance of you growing a set of balls and putting names on who you think is clueless and what they've said that is clueless?

The likes of Bangkok, Titan16, and robson lately anyway, can almost throw mister anarchy onto that pile for his last post, few blow ins in the match thread and after in here.

I know you kinda half said it but it wasn't in the ermahgerd lvg out he is poison, we are Manchester United let's beat our chest, we should be scoring 1 million goals with our super wow world class super on form strikers. Spoofers the lot of them.

At least you actually tried to use your brain instead of smashing your face on the keyboard. It will be the same in work tomorrow with casual fans being the worst and not trying to think for themselves and happy to listen to the daily mail and just looking to go with the flow.


I can understand why you feel like you do because you chose your words and don't generally look to be hyperbolic.


My post wasn't aimed at you.

The Moldy Gowl

Haha mister anarchy thanked your post.


You're in good company pro. F

MisterAnarchy

Gowlasauras Rex wrote: »

Haha mister anarchy thanked your post.

You're in good company pro. F

As are you with the select few arrogant posters who seem to think that they own this forum and are like a bloody propaganda machine ,spouting the same gibberish week in week out.

I rarely post in the Utd forum anymore because of "blow ins" like yourself who talk down to other posters ,hence I keep my posts short .

How long are you posting on here ,less than a year ,gas man calling people blow ins :rolleyes:

Pro. F

UnitedIrishman wrote: »

I'm a big fan of Herrera but he was anonymous tonight. He's also fairly headless with some of his attempts at tackling. But I agree with the latter, Carrick and Blind in midfield was an absolute disaster. Neither have any pace and both want to drop so far back to receive the ball.

I had no trouble identifying him while he was on. He got on the ball plenty and was involved in keeping the ball moving where we needed it moving. We controlled the game when he was on and lost control when he went off. He wasn't amazing, it was only Arsenal after all, but he was important.

I agree that his tackling is an issue, but imo it did not justify taking him off when the alternative meant ceding so much possession and initiative.

kryogen wrote: »

Is it possible Herrera picked up a knock?

Was he asked why he came off like and what did he say?

It's possible, I haven't seen LVG asked about it. If it comes out later that that was the reason then I'd regain some optimism, although the lack of depth for that creative CM role would still be a big issue.

Pro. F

Gowlasauras Rex wrote: »

My post wasn't aimed at you.

Good.

UnitedIrishman

Pro. F wrote: »

I had no trouble identifying him while he was on anyway. He got on the ball plenty and was involved in keeping the ball moving where we needed it moving. We controlled the game when he was on and lost control when he went off. He wasn't amazing, it was only Arsenal after all, but he was important.

I agree that his tackling is an issue, but imo it did not justify taking him off when the alternative meant ceding so much possession and initiative.

It wasn't that I couldn't identify him, it's that I didn't think he was doing all that much on that ball. You're spot on with the balance aspect of things and I think the lack of control was more to do with how our center mids lined up in that second half rather than whether he was on or not. Both Carrick and Blind dropped far to deep which meant there was too much of a gap between themselves and Fellaini and it allowed their midfield a lot of space on the ball. We ended up in a sort of weird 4-2-3-1 shape with Fellaini getting surrounded by 3-4 players at a time and having to do all the pressing.

The Moldy Gowl

MisterAnarchy wrote: »

As are you with the select few arrogant posters who seem to think that they own this forum and are like a bloody propaganda machine ,spouting the same gibberish week in week out.

I rarely post in the Utd forum anymore because of "blow ins" like yourself who talk down to other posters ,hence I keep my posts short . I also have more posts than you so now, egg on your face.

How long are you posting on here ,less than a year ,gas man calling people blow ins :rolleyes:

Haha accusing me of talking down to people then bring up the fact I have been posting here a year thus cheapening my posts? Next you will accuse me if not having a life.
How am I blow in? I have been a constant in here for ages posting ****e and annoying people with idiotic knee jerk opinions.

Well excuse me for not having such a pessimistic view on life and actions I cannot change or influence. I try to keep my life positive, getting so stressed and angry or some of the things in here is pointless.

Your last post wasn't short, it was idiotic. There was no propaganda. As much as it pains you, we are talking about professionals who do know what they are doing and have been doing for a long time, fair enough, it's a sport and it's not going to go 100% right everytime and I accept that. I just can't accept the everyone at the club is a spoofer rhetoric.

bradlente

kryogen wrote: »

Valencia is clearly only playing because Van Gaal has zero faith in Rafael to be disciplined defensively unfortunately. There is literally no other reason, and overall as right back Tony has not been a disgrace.

Have to disagree there,he's been pretty dreadful over the years since he first deputised at full-back.He's been out of position a lot of times over the last few seasons when goals have arrived from that area.I'd rather Jones,Smalling or Rafael playing out there consistently.

Pro. F

UnitedIrishman wrote: »

It wasn't that I couldn't identify him, it's that I didn't think he was doing all that much on that ball. You're spot on with the balance aspect of things and I think the lack of control was more to do with how our center mids lined up in that second half rather than whether he was on or not. Both Carrick and Blind dropped far to deep which meant there was too much of a gap between themselves and Fellaini and it allowed their midfield a lot of space on the ball. We ended up in a sort of weird 4-2-3-1 shape with Fellaini getting surrounded by 3-4 players at a time and having to do all the pressing.

The way I read it, Carrick and Blind dropped deeper when in possession because they were looking for too much space to receive a pass, because their weak first touch and close control means they can't receive and turn when tightly marked. They're both clever and disciplined players, they won't show for the ball if there's a significant danger they'll be dispossessed. That means they won't do the simple but important job that Herrera was doing, because they know that if they try they'll just get tackled.

Then, because the team were out of possession so much, Blind and Carrick ended up defending more often, which also meant staying deeper more often.

MisterAnarchy

Gowlasauras Rex wrote: »

Haha accusing me of talking down to people then bring up the fact I have been posting here a year thus cheapening my posts? Next you will accuse me if not having a life.
How am I blow in? I have been a constant in here for ages posting ****e and annoying people with idiotic knee jerk opinions.

Well excuse me for not having such a pessimistic view on life and actions I cannot change or influence. I try to keep my life positive, getting so stressed and angry or some of the things in here is pointless.

Your last post wasn't short, it was idiotic. There was no propaganda. As much as it pains you, we are talking about professionals who do know what they are doing and have been doing for a long time, fair enough, it's a sport and it's not going to go 100% right everytime and I accept that. I just can't accept the everyone at the club is a spoofer rhetoric.

I have rarely if ever used the word spoofer on this forum ,I havent even been critical of Van Gaal this season,and almost my first post mildly criticising him tonight ,you jump on me and accuse me of having such a pessimistic view on life and holding the belief that everyone at the club is a spoofer .
Do you think I am naive enough to believe everyone at the club is a spoofer ,where did I ever imply this ??

For someone who likes to claim that they try to live their life positively you seem to go out of your way to put down other posters if they don't agree with your mantra.

I think you may be confusing pessimism with realism.
Realism is Utd are not playing good football ,are struggling for fourth place in the league ,have alot of players performing below par ,have an extremely difficult run in,an inexperienced chairman and football wise dont seem to be improving under Van Gaal in the last few months .

I have been a constant in here for ages posting ****e and annoying people

Well at least you are honest

kryogen

bradlente wrote: »

Have to disagree there,he's been pretty dreadful over the years since he first deputised at full-back.He's been out of position a lot of times over the last few seasons when goals have arrived from that area.I'd rather Jones,Smalling or Rafael playing out there consistently.

Jones and Smalling are awful right backs and should never be played there, I would play Rafael if it was me. No question and I am not saying Valencia has been great, I said he has not been a disgrace. I think it would be harsh to label him as that.

mcratsix

Beyond gutted.

I agree with LVG that we gave the game away, not just with our errors for the goals, but because arsenal allowed us have so much possession and we just couldn't use it.

Going from defence to midfield, we are just brutal. The only option we have is for blind or Carrick to drop incredibly deep, so when they pick it up they're basically acting as defenders. We look incredibly tentative and nervous to play any kind of pass that is risky. Even if we played the ball into a midfielder, more often that not its just sent back from where it came. The entire game I had the feeling that we were a disaster waiting to happen. Smalling had a few heavy touches, Shaw likewise, whenever we lost it in midfield we hacked down their players.

I thought arsenal would dominate possession and we'd counter, like has happened so often over the years. Van Gaal seems to prefer a lot of possession in every game, and I have no problem with that, but with our current players, on current form, we're actually safer and less likely to concede when we let the opposition have the ball most of the time.

Liam O

I say this as someone who still thinks Moyes shouldn't have been sacked but I'm at the stage of not caring whether LVG stays or goes. A few weeks ago I would have been staunchly in favour of him staying, even if there was a 5th place finish but leaving the likes of Falcao and Mata on the bench or taking them off when they do play and have contributed positively to the team among a litany of other mistakes is just so infuriating.

Last season Moyes didn't have the luxury of building his own team and was at least on the right track of learning from his mistakes with Kagawa playing more and others dropping to the bench. Targets such as Herrera and Shaw were earmarked for the 2 major problem areas in the squad so he'd clearly already made decisions on players who were not up to it and Valencia and Young were slowly being dropped out of the team. I don't think with Moyes the defense even with the exact same personnel would be as bad as it is now and there would be some sort of a coherent system that lasted for more than 5 games before moving onto the next one.

Bridge93

Saw it mentioned again a few pages back and am curious to know the definition of a 'united player' or 'the united way' of playing? It strikes me at times to be lazy terms thrown in when people can't construct a proper argument as to why they dislike a player or the style as if there is some god given right to play the way united did a few seasons under Ferguson. It sounds awfully ignorant and cliche at times to those not supporting the club.

Why is Fellaini 'not a united player'?
What is the 'united way' of playing the game?

These sayings come out nearly weekly at least once as if they somehow suffice to answer questions about problem players and the team are having.

Turtwig

If you removed DDG from the current season where would United be in the table? It seems to me like DDG has kept LVG in his job. Anyway, what midfielders would you guys like for next season?
Every effort should be made to poach koké from Atletico Madrid and Schneiderlin from Southampton. Both would strengthen your team immensely and create space four players such as Mata to live in.