Manchester United Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread 2015

RobertKK

Now we just need Liverpool and Man City to slip up, hoping West Ham close this game out without drama.

Then people were concerned about having Romero between the posts for us.

JamboMac

Liam O wrote: »

Must be useless so.

I've said it all along it ain't his position, Rooney claims its where belongs then he will have to prove it as he ain't doing sh!t there.

Sand

The results and performances of the rivals might put the squad quality, and yesterdays result and performance into its proper context. Arsenal, Chelsea and Man City all have their own gaps in their squads, and both Arsenal and Chelsea are having poor starts.

homerjay2005

RobertKK wrote: »

Now we just need Liverpool and Man City to slip up, hoping West Ham close this game out without drama.

Then people were concerned about having Romero between the posts for us.

in fairness, the defending for both goals was absolutely appalling.

KH25

Rooney wasn't great yesterday. Hopefully it's just a bit of rust.

RobertKK

homerjay2005 wrote: »

in fairness, the defending for both goals was absolutely appalling.

Well first goal cech punched the air, second goal he left the door wide open to his right side.
Yes the defending was poor, but Cech was even poorer.

ElChe32

Arsenal losing at home to West Ham puts our result into perspective. We didn't play anywhere near our full potential and still beat a top 6 side.

#ChooChoo

JaMarcusHustle

ElChe32 wrote: »

Arsenal losing at home to West Ham puts our result into perspective. We didn't play anywhere near our full potential and still beat a top 6 side.

#ChooChoo

The only perspective I have on Arsenal losing is that I'm absolutely delighted for that Orange2 boy.

Alex Meier

Sand wrote: »

The results and performances of the rivals might put the squad quality, and yesterdays result and performance into its proper context. Arsenal, Chelsea and Man City all have their own gaps in their squads, and both Arsenal and Chelsea are having poor starts.

The performance of rivals is irrelevant.

Adamocovic

Alex Meier wrote: »

The performance of rivals is irrelevant.

Might have some relevance considering we're competing with them

Sand

Alex Meier wrote: »

The performance of rivals is irrelevant.

Of course the performance of rivals is relevant.

Alex Meier

Adamocovic wrote: »

Might have some relevance considering we're competing with them

So a poor United performance is justifiable because Arsenal lost?

That's nonsense talk

Adamocovic

First week of course most teams won't be firing at all cylinders, but like many have said despite our poor performance results from our main rivals might lead this to be a good opening weekend.

3 points with Chelsea, Spurs and looks like Arsenal all dropping points. Pool and City yet to play.

Hopefully next week there is an improvement in the teams performance but definitely a positive week with us getting the win, rivals dropping points and some good promising individual performances.

homerjay2005

astradave wrote: »

Jaysus Arsenal are tearing West ham apart (!)

they have been shocking in the second half, as bad as we were yesterday.

still though, as has been pointed out we shouldnt be using the poor performances of our rivals to make our own poor showing more acceptable though of course its great that we have picked up more points than them as every thing like that counts at the business end of the season.

irishfeen

3 points gained on Arsenal

Adamocovic

Alex Meier wrote: »

So a poor United performance is justifiable because Arsenal lost?

That's nonsense talk

It doesn't make the performance "justifiable" but like the OP you replied to said with Chelsea, Spurs, Arsenal and Everton not playing well and dropping points it puts it into context how every team isn't firing at all cylinders yet and that most squads still have problems to address not just United. People I feel think there is a bigger gap than their is between Uniteds chances and squad quality compared to other rivals.

I don't classify that as "nonsense talk" but then again that's your view. Personally I think to say our rivals performances are "irrelevant" is "nonsense talk", of course it's relevant, they are the teams we are up against for position, compared with and will have to play.

Kerrydude1981

West Ham start with a 16 year old and then the most experienced player on the pitch has a bad day at the office,

So not only do we get a pissed off Jose we now get a pissed off Wenger as well,a great start.

yabadabado

homerjay2005 wrote: »

reports from Spain suggest that Pedro was lead to believe two weeks ago that all was agreed between United and Barca but United are trying to get a better deal and as yet, thats why no bid has gone in.

Pedro said to be getting really pissed off now as, as far as he was concerned he should be a United player well before now.

By all accounts Barca arent looking for huge money for Pedro so its baffling to think United are playing hardball over a few million quid.Pay the fee and get him signed.

Mantis Toboggan

yabadabado wrote: »

By all accounts Barca arent looking for huge money for Pedro so its baffling to think United are playing hardball over a few million quid.Pay the fee and get him signed.

Probably only so much money available and there waiting to see if they need to use that money on a goalkeeper first. Whatever happens, we're likely to be involved in transfer deadline day.

yabadabado

Dennis Reynolds wrote: »

Probably only so much money available and there waiting to see if they need to use that money on a goalkeeper first. Whatever happens, we're likely to be involved in transfer deadline day.

Do you really think a few million is going to be a stumbling block to United signing players?

ADM has left for 40 odd million so no way is cash flow a problem.

JamboMac

yabadabado wrote: »

By all accounts Barca arent looking for huge money for Pedro so its baffling to think United are playing hardball over a few million quid.Pay the fee and get him signed.

Maybe we're not trying to sign pedro at all.

Del007

Adamocovic wrote: »

Not much of an improvement on last season? It's 90 minutes of football, how are you coming to that conclusion. Last year we lost opening game, so I'd wager an improvement so far.

Performance wasn't the best but a clean sheet, no injuries and most importantly 3 points. Result was main thing and thankfully we got it.

How am I coming to that conclusion? I thought it was pretty obvious really. They were Lethargic in attack, I'm sure they only had one shot on goal.

On a positive note, I thought that both Smalling and Darmian played very well

Adamocovic

Del007 wrote: »

How am I coming to that conclusion? I thought it was pretty obvious really. They were Lethargic in attack, I'm sure they only had one shot on goal.

On a positive note, I thought that both Smalling and Darmian played very well

I just think one game, opener of the season, with players making debuts and not firing on all cylinders is not a great sample size to judge whether or not there is an improvement in our performance level compared to last season.

I have spent too many posts previously with other people talking about this and probably annoying others users so I'd say let's just agree we have different opinions.

I agree Smalling and Darmian were very good, like Sneiderlins positional sense too, was great at filling the space. Shaw looked very fit and up for it too.

Hopefully they can put in a better display in the attacking third next week.

Del007

Adamocovic wrote: »

I just think one game, opener of the season, with players making debuts and not firing on all cylinders is not a great sample size to judge whether or not there is an improvement in our performance level compared to last season.

I have spent too many posts previously with other people talking about this and probably annoying others users so I'd say let's just agree we have different opinions.

I agree Smalling and Darmian were very good, like Sneiderlins positional sense too, was great at filling the space. Shaw looked very fit and up for it too.

Hopefully they can put in a better display in the attacking third next week.

We're all entitled to our opinions, that's what boards is all about.

Roll on Villa this coming Friday night

Adamocovic

Del007 wrote: »

We're all entitled to our opinions, that's what boards is all about.

Roll on Villa this coming Friday night

Yup! Going to be weird watching us play on a Friday! Hopefully we see more from our attack too.

homerjay2005

81 long balls yesterday, the PL average was 67...its pretty shocking that we of all teams are so far above the average when we should be well below it.

156 long balls in total in the game as opposed to only 108 in the Chelsea V Swansea game so Spurs also were at it though they won 61% of the aerial battles.

again this is carrying on from last year and its a reason why we struggled against the dross in the league.

ericzeking

The difference between this and last season is plain...we started last season a defensive mess through injury and implementing of new systems, we then progressed to be pretty decent defensively, that procesh continued yesterday albeit having to integrate a couple of new heads.

I would look at it as us now having the foundation on which to build an attack, that's what I would expect anyway.
It's exactly the same template José and every other decent manager bar Wenger uses.
LVG has acknowledged as much by saying we need to add a pacy attacker.

Also, Ashley Young is getting a disproportionate amount of heat...he played well and laid on the goal.

Del007

Del007 wrote: »

We're all entitled to our opinions, that's what boards is all about.

Roll on Villa this coming Friday night

and it'll be a 'top of the table' clash!

Giggsy11

homerjay2005 wrote: »

81 long balls yesterday, the PL average was 67...its pretty shocking that we of all teams are so far above the average when we should be well below it.

156 long balls in total in the game as opposed to only 108 in the Chelsea V Swansea game so Spurs also were at it though they won 61% of the aerial battles.

again this is carrying on from last year and its a reason why we struggled against the dross in the league.

Very misleading stat. Long ball is not just lumping ball forward. Even switching the ball is a long ball, Blind passing the ball to Smalling who will be at other end is also long ball.

homerjay2005

Giggsy11 wrote: »

Very misleading stat. Long ball is not just lumping ball forward. Even switching the ball is a long ball, Blind passing the ball to Smalling who will be at other end is also long ball.

its in no way misleading, it shows one of the reasons why our final 3rd was so poor and why our striker and front 3 were completely anonymous. you can "switch" the play all you want, will do f*ck all if smalling and Blind are passing to each other. i was also at the game and the amount of balls we lumped up into the air towards Mata and Rooney was shocking, hence why i checked as it appeared during the game that all we were going was just launching it, as opposed to high tempo, quick touch football.

we only got into wide positions deep in the opposition half 10 times in the entire game, mainly due to the fact that we just lumped the ball into the corner as opposed to "switching" it as you said.

deaddonkey15

homerjay2005 wrote: »

its in no way misleading, it shows one of the reasons why our final 3rd was so poor and why our striker and front 3 were completely anonymous. you can "switch" the play all you want, will do f*ck all if smalling and Blind are passing to each other. i was also at the game and the amount of balls we lumped up into the air towards Mata and Rooney was shocking, hence why i checked as it appeared during the game that all we were going was just launching it, as opposed to high tempo, quick touch football.

we only got into wide positions deep in the opposition half 10 times in the entire game, mainly due to the fact that we just lumped the ball into the corner as opposed to "switching" it as you said.

Calm down. It's the first game of the season, against a very decent side, with 4 new players making their debut and a 5th coming off the bench and United won it. Things can only improve performance wise as the season goes on. We'll probably see at least one more player joining before the season ends too.

homerjay2005

deaddonkey15 wrote: »

Calm down. It's the first game of the season, against a very decent side, with 4 new players making their debut and a 5th coming off the bench and United won it. Things can only improve performance wise as the season goes on. We'll probably see at least one more player joining before the season ends too.

this is not really just about yesterday, our long ball average over the course of the entire season last year was 80 long balls per game, 1 less than QPR who were top on 81.


the 3 teams who finished above us had 3 of the 4 lowest long balls per game, at an average of 53 per game, thats a huge difference to us.

this signifies an issue with our set up, formation and approach and IMO part of the reason why Di Maria, Rooney, Falcao and RVP were so s*it last year. if we are just lumping balls at the same level as a team who were relegated, no wonder our final 1/3 was so poor.

Robson99

deaddonkey15 wrote: »

Calm down. It's the first game of the season, against a very decent side, with 4 new players making their debut and a 5th coming off the bench and United won it. Things can only improve performance wise as the season goes on. We'll probably see at least one more player joining before the season ends too.

Its no excuse for dog and duck style football though. We always had a tradition of playing good football and being an entertaining team. Didn't happen in fergies last couple of seasons, didn't happen under Moyes and is not happening under LVG. He needs to get the finger out and soon

Nalz

Giggsy11 wrote: »

Very misleading stat. Long ball is not just lumping ball forward. Even switching the ball is a long ball, Blind passing the ball to Smalling who will be at other end is also long ball.

+1 - it is misleading in some regards. However, there are concerns.

The legit excuses are its the start of the season and we have a lot of new players on board... it will take time regardless of the amount of practice or friendlies you play.

The positives are we know Schneiderlin will come good and be vital for us. Darmain looks like a solid FB. Shaw will have a better second season we suspect. Schweinstieger will be a great influence. Memphis, he "could" be a game winner on his own you never know.

The worrying side of things is LVGs shoehorning (Blind, Mata, Fellaini, Januzaj, Valencia) of players into their not so favoured positions), our style at times can be a robust, boring, rigid, demanding and at times too narrow.

Also our squad still needs tweeking. We need a GK - De Gea is going to leave, as is Valdes and Lindergaard. Romero, Johnstone are good understudies.

A ST is a necessity. Is Rooney going to cut it, especially in this formation\philosophy?

A CB would be nice, as would be another AMC\Winger. But the GK situation and a ST trumps those two for me right now.

Mitch Connor

have to say I have given up on United being an exciting team to watch under LVG. It just isn't going to happen. He is a conservative manager and if you don't play his conservative way, you aren't going to play. Look at Herrera for example, his game is getting neutered in order to actually play. Rafael kicked out and Valencia stays as RB because he will do exactly as he is told. LVG doesn't like or allow instinctive play.

Its disappointing, but it is the reality of the situation imo. Pedro, if we ever do sign him (and I don't think we will at this stage), isn't going to make a massive change there either.

Del007

Cork city are at home Friday night, not sure if I'll go to that game or watch the Utd game.

I think I read somewhere that there's going to be lots of games on Friday nights next season

ericzeking

homerjay2005 wrote: »

this is not really just about yesterday, our long ball average over the course of the entire season last year was 80 long balls per game, 1 less than QPR who were top on 81.


the 3 teams who finished above us had 3 of the 4 lowest long balls per game, at an average of 53 per game, thats a huge difference to us.

this signifies an issue with our set up, formation and approach and IMO part of the reason why Di Maria, Rooney, Falcao and RVP were so s*it last year. if we are just lumping balls at the same level as a team who were relegated, no wonder our final 1/3 was so poor.

How did we fare out when this is converted to a percentage? Were we close to the top of the possession stats last season, so if we had more passes overall then we are going to have more long passes..... I wouldn't say we are a long ball team and it couldn't be the intention since we are buying ball playing keepers and playing Blind at CB.

Adamocovic

Del007 wrote: »

Cork city are at home Friday night, not sure if I'll go to that game or watch the Utd game.

I think I read somewhere that there's going to be lots of games on Friday nights next season

Yeah I remember seeing they've brought in Friday night matches next season. Probably be like Monday so reckon one on most Fridays.

pmasterson95

ericzeking wrote: »

The difference between this and last season is plain...we started last season a defensive mess through injury and implementing of new systems, we then progressed to be pretty decent defensively, that procesh continued yesterday albeit having to integrate a couple of new heads.

I would look at it as us now having the foundation on which to build an attack, that's what I would expect anyway.
It's exactly the same template José and every other decent manager bar Wenger uses.
LVG has acknowledged as much by saying we need to add a pacy attacker.

Also, Ashley Young is getting a disproportionate amount of heat...he played well and laid on the goal.

Ah now ya cant be using logic post-matchday.

Alex Meier

Mitch Connor wrote: »

have to say I have given up on United being an exciting team to watch under LVG. It just isn't going to happen. He is a conservative manager and if you don't play his conservative way, you aren't going to play. Look at Herrera for example, his game is getting neutered in order to actually play. Rafael kicked out and Valencia stays as RB because he will do exactly as he is told. LVG doesn't like or allow instinctive play.

Its disappointing, but it is the reality of the situation imo. Pedro, if we ever do sign him (and I don't think we will at this stage), isn't going to make a massive change there either.

Anyone who watched LvG closely when he was at Bayern Munich will know that the same is occurring at United.

homerjay2005

ericzeking wrote: »

How did we fare out when this is converted to a percentage? Were we close to the top of the possession stats last season, so if we had more passes overall then we are going to have more long passes..... I wouldn't say we are a long ball team and it couldn't be the intention since we are buying ball playing keepers and playing Blind at CB.

16.5% of total passes were long balls, which is still crazy high. by contrast, Arsenal (9.3%) and City (9.7%) for example. even Everton, Swansea and Spurs and co were way better than us and in fact we are closer to long ball stats % of Stoke and Newcastle than we are to the teams who finished in the top 6.

one thing to note however, our passing/possession stats are grossly inflated by 100s every game that go backwards and sidewards and about 20 times last year we played against team who just crowded our their own half and allowed us to have the ball at the back.

for example Paddy mcnair had a pass completion rate of 86.7% but Di Maria and Young were only at 79.3% between them. Smalling completed 930 passes all season, Di Maria was 657 despite playing 2 games more.

pmasterson95

Alex Meier wrote: »

Anyone who watched LvG closely when he was at Bayern Munich will know that the same is occurring at United.

We definitely dont want that. It was a disgrace him moving Schweinsteiger to CM
Imagine winning a domestic double & getting to CL final sure thats miles away from what we want.

Alex Meier

pmasterson95 wrote: »

We definitely dont want that. It was a disgrace him moving Schweinsteiger to CM
Imagine winning a domestic double & getting to CL final sure thats miles away from what we want.

He got sacked when BM were out of the Champions League spots as the league was coming to an end.

He got sacked at Barcelona when they were in the bottom half of La Liga. . . BARCELONA FFS!

RobertKK

We need United to become again like the Kilkenny hurling team, there most years at the business end when the trophies are there to be won.

MythicalMadMan

To me Memphis has a lot of potential in a central position, last season we founf it hard to unlock defences, they set back deep while we had loads of possesion.

The lad is strong, quick, two footed, can shoot from distance, seems to have good awareness, good first touch and has plenty of flicks and tricks in his locker he will cause many defenders headaches this season. I'm not sure what his passing is like in tight areas but if its good then we good be onto a real winner.

Playing at 10 he will get on the ball more than he would on the wing, which is something we want if he starts living up to his potential.


De Gea was a big loss yesterday for our possesion game, the guys passsing is superb for a goalie both short and long, Romero did well having only been at the club a short time. I just don't think spurs would have had as much joy with thier pressing if he was playing.

I'd love to see us with him in goals a fit Schw and Debay in full flow at 10, I think we could be a serious outfit.


Yes yesterday was hard to watch at time but its not like Spurs are a bad team and at least we ground out the result sometimes.

I really hope Rooney finds his first touch as I feel he slows out attack down too much anytime we get a sniff of a counter attack.

DM_7

United need a winning approach, the start of this season is vital, needs to see victories. New players need to settle in, the way to do that is start them off in a strong team. Yesterday's selection was safe, Young, Carrick, Blind were all safe picks.

Against Spurs that is justifiable considering they have a similar idea on how to play and are a strong opponent. Safe is a good option against the quality sides when those games are about getting 3 points rather than progressive football. Overall that approach worked last season in those games.

At home, against weaker sides United played better and in the vast majority won those games with three points.

The thing that needs to change is the away performances against weaker sides, all the outfield players brought in will help with parts of that. United had problems when they lost possession in those games, they were open to counter attacks and struggled to break down the opposition play in situations that left space for United to counter in. Schneiderlain helps there and brings some bite to midfield.

United were burned badly v Leicester last season when they played too open away from home and is a good example of what can quickly go wrong in the premier league away from home.

Herrera and Schweinsteiger will link things together better when they play, and they will play. Probably only see them both in Europe and against weaker sides.

United do need to replace Di Maria, van Gaal has said that. If that happens United will be well set up for a good season and challenging, a nice change from last couple of seasons. If it does not then they will come up short.

MythicalMadMan

homerjay2005 wrote: »

we finished 4th last year due to the fact that Everton, Spurs and Liverpool regressed at insane levels from the year before, mainly due IMO to the fact they had European distractions last season and overall played well below the levels they hit in 13/14.

if even one of them played like they did the previous seasons, we'd be preparing for a Europa League campaign this year IMO.

Last season we took 4 points from the Spurs game and 6 from Liverpool.

The season before we got 0 from Liverpool and 1 from Spurs

Thats a 12 point swing via Liverpool and a 6 point swing against spurs.

If either of them got the results from the season under Moyes they would have got Champions League football before us.

We beat them we took those points that we didnt take the season previous you make out like it was handed to us.



If LVG can get the mix right against the weaker teams this season and we perform similary versus the big sides we will walk the top4 and should mount a challenge for the Title.

I didnt include Everton as I dont rate Martinez and I think coming in off the back of Moyes defensive work helped him a lot in his first season. I'll stand to be corrected on this but top 10 is the very best I see them doing

Bret Hart

Couple of good results for us this weekend with Arsenal losing and Chelsea drawing. Hopefully West Brom can do us a favour tomorrow and it'd be a good start to our title run.

MythicalMadMan

homerjay2005 wrote: »

81 long balls yesterday, the PL average was 67...its pretty shocking that we of all teams are so far above the average when we should be well below it.

156 long balls in total in the game as opposed to only 108 in the Chelsea V Swansea game so Spurs also were at it though they won 61% of the aerial battles.

again this is carrying on from last year and its a reason why we struggled against the dross in the league.

We were playing a team who a very adepth at pressing, missing a key player (DeGea) and his replacement was a ring rusty goalkeeper who wasnt up to speed with our style of play. Its not like we could change or whole system we have been training towards for a year now, in a few days.

Fellaini was a big loss against teams who will press us high, especially when our front 4 arent overfully tall. Its one of the reasons I'd like us to sign a player for the front 4 who is good in the air.

As it would complement the plan B when playing out from the back.

irishfeen

United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, Spurs all very poor... at this time of the year its really the 3 points we need, performances will come! Win Friday night and momentum slowly builds.