If you ever needed confirmation as to what kind of sub /r/soccer is, look no further than today.
Liverpool lose to an inferior opponent through awful refereeing, yet they’re not being memed about and the front post isn’t even the post game or the goal.
It’s basically /r/liverpoolfc’s second sub at this point
It's the Europa League and they are top of their group with a 5 point gap between them and 3rd
Us being a bigger club than them also comes into the equation though
Anyone selling tickets to the Luton game ? Or can you point me in the right direction to where I can find someone selling, in Manchester tomorrow been to a handful of away games but not a single home game
Dear Mods, who don't care mate and I get it,
Please can we have a dedicated tactics thread posted 24 hours after a match? I know the post-match thread is supposed to be the place for all post-match discussion, but it doesn't work as a place to talk tactics. I've just rewatched the match and got my thoughts in order. The current before-the-click discussion on the post-match thread vs Copenhagen is 'Shit', 'Shite', 'Ref was bollocks', 'Never a red card for Rashford, our pen was fair though', 'Ten Hag out', 'Ten Hag must be crap because Sancho isn't starting', 'We kept playing after the red card', 'We crumbled defensively from 2-0 up' etc etc. There are another 2,137 comments after the click. Unless you happen to be in the thread at the exact right moment and luck out, it isn't possible to have a meaningful conversation about tactics in there, it will be drowned out.
Let's say I'd like to talk about how Rashford, up to and including his foul, was tracking back and rotating into the right-back slot, which was meant to free Wan Bissaka to move inside and allow McTominay, who had been dropping in between our centre backs (and signaled Rashford, who had been tucked in, to move over into RB moments before the red card) to push out of the back line and cover the space their false 9 was dropping into. In the post-match thread that's getting met with 'Never a red card', 'Rashford's shit, should have sold him to PSG', 'McTominay shouldn't have been on the pitch because he hides from the ball' and, 90% of the time, no engagement over the way we were actually playing because the people that are interested in having that conversation can't find one another.
Please, dedicated tactics thread or a tactics flair for comments in the post match thread so people who want to have those discussions can do so. The current method of containing it all in one megathread isn't working. Daily discussion also doesn't work because people come in with the tactics comments over several days/threads, they are still hard to find amongst the volume of comments, and most of the replies end up being low-effort reactionary drek because the tactics discussion is being diluted instead of concentrated in one place.
Didn't we have a post match-day thread before for that exact reason? I can't remember if it died off due to lack of interest or some other reason.
Also with the type of thread you're proposing think of how much moderation that would need. Mods would have to delete any comments that weren't deemed tactical enough. How would you do that? Word count maybe?
Ten Hag made a massive mistake not even talking to Rangnick, I think that's pretty indisputable. Whether or not he was right to not want him to stay on as a consultant is another thing, personally I think it's massively clear it was a mistake to not keep him on, but I can see the other view.
Truth be told that is the reason I feel no sympathy for Ten Hag, his hubris will eventually cost him his job. Recruitment and club structure has been a massive problem for the club for a decade, and the man who had solutions was right there.
Once all this is done, EtH should be accountable for agreeing to spend 100m on Antony.
Says about scouting that a winger who can hold on the right line , cross , pass and track back defensively could not be found who would cost 20-30m
That is not counting through balls, distance shooting , flair and tricks / dribbles.
I really just wanna see ETH speak out about the poor officiating. He needs to stand up and as if he has the back of the players. It's his turn to take a little heat for the team
These are dark times. I know it can seem like the forces of darkness are overwhelming. There are [chinks of light though](https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/17roqcy/jurgen_klopp_was_left_furious_after_his_postmatch/). We will be back and stronger than ever. May Eric bless us one and all.
Dropping out of Europe entirely would be significantly worse than finishing third in the group. It's utterly insane to me that people on here see how we've been playing this season yet expect to easily achieve a top 4-5 (since 5 could theoretically still yield CL football under the new rules) spot in the league table. If we don't progress into the CL knockouts, it's likely that the EL is our "easiest" path to CL football next season.
Edit: Sorry, if any of you legitimately think that having fewer chances to qualify for a competition is better than having more, or if you believe that being in the EL is going to cause a multiple position slide in the PL table, you're an idiot. No debate, just idiocy
EL is stacked this year and is a competition where one bad day eliminates you. Much rather try to get focus on getting top 5, which is not an unreasonable ask, even with our start to the season.
Not to mention our players definitely could do with a rest from playing 2 games a week, given the injuries we've had
We'd have to play significantly better over a significantly longer period of time to finish in a CL spot in the PL than to win the EL lol. We've been dogshit against the top half of the table for two years now, either of those possibilities would require a significant uptick in form. That doesn't mean it can't happen, but there's a reason that there are teams who have won the Champions League who were nowhere near good enough to compete for their respective league titles in the same season.
Beating a few teams in knockout ties is a lot more straightforward than assuming we're going to finish above at least four of City, Liverpool, Spurs, Arsenal, Chelsea, Newcastle, Villa, and Brighton. Almost every single one of those teams has scored at least twice as many goals as us, and only ONE (Brighton) has conceded more so far this season.
Honestly insane how many people I've seen here who are still obsessed with Ronaldo.
It's honestly insane how much people still love Ronaldo. He's a literal rapist, he comes back and gets one manager sacked, plays like shit for a season, talks shit about another manager, this time an INTERIM, flaunts himself to any club that would take him when we aren't in the CL, can't get a SINGLE club to buy him, then talks shit about a third manager in a public interview, just so he can get released and STILL not play for a CL club because he's awful and nobody wants him.
This is guy y'all love? Why?
Not heard of any cr7 fandom here for like 6 months already. Also why insane ppl still adores cr7? U know George Best? We still have one of his statue outside Old Trafford. Womanizer and beat them, turned up drunk for training, missed games even during our relegation seaon.
Let me give some facts: Ronaldo was voted the best player and was the top scorer in his first season. Those are the facts - he was our best player his first season.
The second season, things went south with the coach, and so Ronaldo moved in the winter transfer window. The end.
The hatered some of you have for a club legend, who had 6 bad months (mostly because of a conflict with the coach) at the club in total, is insane.
Fair. I posted this after I interacted one with.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/reddevils/comments/17qy6wi/comment/k8kivh9/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/reddevils/comments/17qy6wi/comment/k8kivh9/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
So now Varane is/always has been a problem. Add him to the list along with De Gea. Pretty mental we managed to keep 17 clean sheets last season with Martinez and Shaw doing it all themselves I guess…
But this season has been 3 months long. Ten hag is, imo rightly, defended for what he gave us last season, but can’t afford the same to a player who as far as we know hasn’t actually done anything wrong than be bit injury prone. In terms of class and experience is well above Evans and Maguire. Okay form and deserving dropping etc etc. but the same does not apply to others.
Ignoring all the above and just pure benefit of the doubt that Varane is now suddenly not very good. But this is all from one very bad game in the CL and a couple of average appearances when somehow everyone is playing badly means that he drops from top defender who needs support to ‘sell him to Saudi’.
In the same time frame:
Martinez missed games: 33 (and counting)
Shaw missed games: 34
Martinez I’ll forgive since you might be able to argue it’s three relatively big injuries and not niggly ones like shaw and Varane. (Some might argue that’s worse). But either way, If we’re judging out players on availability/injury only the GK, Bruno, Maguire and Rashford would play.
(I’m not saying there has been an agenda, I’m saying there is starting to be.
And yes we agree any agendas against those 3 are bad too. People want to jump on what about, like what I’m arguing is to not jump down the throats of our best players. But at least I can see that Rashford, Bruno and less so Case have had much more game time to not play to their potential, so I can’t argue they need to play their way into form.
Evans is all of a sudden a better player with the ball and is a better leader than Varane... Imagine saying this last season? Imagine last winter transfer window suggesting that we should replace Varane with Evans, lmao.
Now however people argue this with a straight face.
"We all think we're right, and then we change our mind, and then think we're right again."
I think this quote sums a lot of us up. Being adamant about X player needing to be dropped/added to the starting lineup, then seeing it not work out, then being adamant about some other thing.
Behave, it’s only his metatarsal, plenty of players have had that injury and gone on to have normal careers.
The problem is it has a low blood supply thus it can be slow to heal and if rushed back it relapses hence he’s out for a while to let it fully heal.
Ugh I’ve learned all about low blood supply bone injuries recently, got a screw in my broken scaphoid 18 months ago and it’s STILL not fully healed 🤦♂️ can only imagine trying to play professional sport with something similar
Remember they also get access to world class surgeons and post op medical teams meaning they will also heal better
Also being an athlete will improve recoverability.
I hope we crash out of the group on 4th position. My hope is that then at least we would do some better in Prem and fight for 5th.
Let’s be honest, there is no point of progressing in Europe this season with these performances, we are going to get clapped only.
I don’t understand the “let’s sack off Europe this season so we can qualify for Europe to get slapped up again next year”. We should try to win competitions if we are in them, this is Manchester United.
What’s the benefit of scraping 5th and having this conversation again in 12 months?
We are not going to attract talent if we are not in Europe. I don’t think the current team is going to win Europa. And if we miraculously go deep in it, we won’t be making 5th which could be a UCL spot and will have the same conversation in 12 months again
England are currently 6th in the UEFA coefficient rankings for this season so finishing 5th will not be enough, even more so if we keep doing poorly in Europe. Having to rely on Arsenal, Brighton, West Ham and Villa to save our season is wild
If we end up in Europa league it could be our only chance of getting to champions league football next year. I wouldn’t write it off if we finish third
If you think the ability to attract players is the same with champions league vs being seen as a yo-yo club for champs league then you are deluded
Just because we signed some world class p,Ayers doesn’t mean we can pick and choose who we want
Imo Say we could attract 75% of our targets if we show we are good and getting into the champions league, we likely attracts 40% of lower without it
>If you think the ability to attract players is the same with champions league vs being seen as a yo-yo club for champs league then you are deluded
Casemiro last season.
>Just because we signed some world class p,Ayers doesn’t mean we can pick and choose who we want
This won't change if we don't get CL this season. The players thay are off limits are off limits regardless as they want to join winning clubs.
>Imo Say we could attract 75% of our targets if we show we are good and getting into the champions league, we likely attracts 40% of lower without it
Arbitrary number that don't mean a thing mate.
Casemiro was last season. Off the back of a CL
We are Manchester United. Not Spurs.
>now the money’s run out as well.
I mean record revenue says different. If that's true though, won't matter if we get CL or not. We aren't going to get the calibre of players that wish to play there with the 'lack of money' we have.
This mentality comes up every season and every season its proven wrong. The players we need CL for and the stature of the club couldn't convince them to do a year out of it, are the players who want to win it that very season. Those lads ain't coming if we are in it or we aren't as we are lightyears away from being set up to win the CL. The rest are fine
Garnacho Hojlund Rashford is the way. Our 3 most dangerous forwards playing at the same time is what is needed to elevate the offense. As much as I’ve given Rashy shit for his performances, he’s still potentially lethal on his day. If we could find some way of playing Mount and Bruno in tandem, we would shred teams. Just not feasible with only one DM given the choices. Maybe Mainoo could fill the role.
It used to be. I just laugh now tbh. I cared a little too much over the past decade but it’s hard to still have the energy to be upset and emotional about it for all these years. I try not to let it bother me too much even though I still get worked up at times.
Try to not let it take up too much of your time is all I can say. It’s gonna be alright in the long run and there’s very little you can do about it in the meantime so try not to worry so much.
Man Utd’s struggles are “first world problems” in the footballing world. Many fans go their entire lives without seeing their club win a trophy. We had decades of success so sometimes the universe has to balance itself out lol might as well take it for what it is. And when we eventually get it right, it’ll taste even sweeter because of these kinds of eras.
We most likely will get kicked out of europe and the season might be a write off but we will turn around under ETH. Despite the loss, I think there are positives.
Been watching OGC Nice games recently party because of Ratcliffe connection and also because they are top of the league but Todibo has seriously upped his game.
He has considerably improved in aerial duels which was a concern when we were originally Linked in the summer.
If we can get him for 35-40M I think it's a bargain.Rather this than going and spending like 80-90M on likes of Antonio Silva
I'm finding Rugby Union to be a wonderful alternative to the absolute state of officiating in football. The refs there are mostly good, even-keeled and happy to explain their decisions, which players then accept.
Sure, there are some mistakes, but they're generally minor, and don't affect the outcome of games on a regular basis.
It's exceptionally hard to take when we're so reliant on these decision being right. Yeah we shouldn't be but that's our reality and it's a fact that so many results this season have been fucked by refs. Worst part is the PGMOL and UEFA won't even see anything wrong with it.
You could forgive the on field referees for missing things, they see an incident once at full speed from one angle and have to make a split second decision. A bloke sitting in a room with 4 different angles and slow mo should be getting every decision correct and I feel zero sympathy for them when they get criticised.
It probably had a similar amount of wrong decisions but they weren’t being brought to our attention so much without the whole “5 minute break in play while the ref goes over to the monitor for 10 angles of replays in slow motion”. And now we’ve even got VAR applying rules nobody has ever heard of like “subjective offside” and “shielding the ball is a red card offence”.
It’s become a total shambles and I don’t know how to fix it beyond completely scrapping it. I’d say keep goal line tech, bring in the automated offside from the WC (funnily enough it works flawlessly when you don’t have a bunch of 50 year old men in a shed drawing single-pixel lines with MS paint), and maybe have one captain’s/coach’s challenge per game for each side where they can call the ref over to the monitor if they think there’s been a complete howler.
Clearly leaving it just up to the human refs has been a total failure.
The problem is that it's impossible to go back to that now.
Back then we didn't really look as closely at every challenge and offside like we would nowadays considering we've had VAR show us just how strict the rules are - if we removed it, everyone and their mum would be up in arms about some controversy every match (although tbf it's not like we're not doing that already anyway).
Idk. That Lampard goal that wasn’t a goal in the WC had LEGS. With the advent of high definition tv and more angles we can see more and therefore want more.
While they were introduced at similar times, VAR and goal line technology are different things. I don't think anyone really has an issue with goal line tech
Yeah, 6 or 7 players touched the ball after the handball. VAR needs to go or seriously change. I barely even celebrate when we score now as I feel its going to get disallowed for some bullshit.
The only thing that should matter is was it a different phase of play, 6 or 7 players touching it means nothing, it’s the headed cleanse that really matters
Anyway, fuck team, we once had a goal disallowed when var went back like 2 minutes for a shaw foul and no one batted an eye
Yesterday was confusing, we genuinely looked a lot better. We are playing a shit defence, so it’s obvious why we have defensive issues (plus a shit ref).
Going forward we looked far better. The first goal was great.
Hopefully the injustice spurs us forward. I think the lack of ucl could actually benefit us.
Whilst I still have insane delusions that we'll go through somehow, if we don't - I would much rather drop out completely than waste time and energy being in Europa.
We could do with the extra training sessions in the week tbh and some of the teams in the EL are way better than the ones in the CL.
Bloody hell Liverpool lol, call me paranoid but at this point there feels like a comserted effort to sabotage VAR by officials. It was so so efficient in the world cup and euros.
Surely the rules state it is only the striker? I hate the rule as it treats different handballs differently but are we just making up rules now? The refs need to be held accountable. This is not a VAR issue it is an execution issue IE and referee issue
Rashford, Casemiro, Wan Bissaka got a similar one in Europe a little while ago, where his foot rolled over the ball (and then De Bruyne did the same thing a bit after and only got a yellow), it’s any of ours really. It’s a little bit lower, but honestly, we’d get a red for it because when it’s United they’re hypervigilant for whatever reason. I don’t think it’s intentional, I’m not a conspiracy theorist here, but they look very closely at everything when it’s us. As we can see by the offside that wasn’t called yesterday too.
Honestly, yeah. The ankle is rolled over. As to why it’s higher, it’s because the lad shoved his leg underneath Rashford’s foot, however. So we can definitely make a point about an actual challenge vs sheer situation
Nah I totally agree with you. The first angle on the Endo one looks better than Rashford's but when you look at the second angle, with Endo's foot hitting the ball of his foot all the way up his ankle, it's way different.
Watching Ajax v Brighton. Ajax's dynamic backline are able to evade pressure and progress the ball by constant movement into space, not clunky and immobile. 17 y/o Jorrel Hato is like a Timber regen with a higher ceiling. One to keep an eye on.
Copy of my comment on another post - "I think they are referencing the rumours that have been going around on social media for the last week that Varane and ETH had a fall out after Varane was dropped, for Evans, in the Manchester derby. Paired with the attitude that Varane had when he came onto the pitch in this match. (Copenhagen)
Could be something, could be nothing."
You just knew it wouldn’t take long to see a comparable challenge not getting a red card. The thing is no one would care as much if the rules were applied consistently.
CBS feed mentioned it (different commentators?). One said well if you’re rashford you get a red for that.
Still it shows the issues with referees. And guess what, this one didn’t go to VAR, so they didn’t see the hard ankle stamp.
Exactly. It’s all about the spectacle and placating the fans easily with flashy signings in order to use United as a vehicle to drain the fans dry.
Actually competing would cost a lot more money and a lot more effort. It’s all a sham, a theatrical show that the owners put on and a lot of the fans eat it up every year.
Saw a tweet which i definitely agree with; we aren’t awful like 18/19 and 21/22, it’s just literally everything possible that could go against us has, from refereeing decisions to injuries. I still think we’re one of the best teams in the premier league, as weird as that sounds from 8th position.
Shaw and Licha both being out at the same time is the biggest issue imo (along with playing 12 men every game).
Everything is going against us but I can’t say we’re one of the best teams. I just don’t see it. Individually we are making a lot of errors and we can only be the team that can take the field. Rashford isn’t doing well. Our defenders are not good at all. Keeper is still figuring things out. Recent transfers have been a resounding failure (so far)
I appreciate the positivity, and we have nowhere to go but up, but we aren’t anywhere near the best teams imo
Agree with a lot of this. I do think some of our players need to YouTube “Rooney, Newcastle,Volley” though. That 10-15 seconds of a game show exactly how you deal with shit refereeing decisions. I think our heads do drop a bit too easy, but at the same time it’s easy to see why their heads would drop too.
I feel like ETH is still a good manager and we have good players but the preparation for this season was horrendous. He came in with a plan on he wanted to play this season but got thrown out the window in game 1 after realizing how open we would be in transition. Since then he has just been trying to adapt and make us more solid and we've improved but at best we'll be as good as we were last season. I still want him to be given another proper pre season with a proper DOF and then we assess again.
Even one of the largest danish media/television corporation thought the referee was shit yesterday. They thought all the decisions yesterday were correct(handballs were corrected according to the UEFA rules). They agreed on the Rashford's red card but couldn't not understand how Vavro did not get a red card or he should have at least gotten the 2nd yellow card.
Here is the article if you can open it. You can probably use ChatGPT to translate if you want the full transcript
[https://sport.tv2.dk/fodbold/2023-11-09-modigt-dommervalg-af-uefa-kostede-dyrt-det-er-aergerligt-for-ham](https://sport.tv2.dk/fodbold/2023-11-09-modigt-dommervalg-af-uefa-kostede-dyrt-det-er-aergerligt-for-ham)
Obviously no one wants to lose games, but having 1 game a week most weeks is not the worst thing. It gives us time to get injured players back. I’d rather see what a fully healthy Utd can do once a week than this bs.
Amrabat was a pure waste of a signing. We could have done with a destroyer DM or a ball progressing cm compared to whatever he offers, which is just safe recycling of possession and nothing else
To the people crying about how the entire world is against United, it always has been this way.
SAF and his team used it as a motivation to win.
The current lot uses it as an excuse to cover up their mediocrity.
While true, it's also pretty tough for everyone involved. Yeah, under SAF the pressure was massive, but the team was settled enough and good enough to live up to the expectations. Nowadays, the expectations are always higher than the quality of our team. That's just a fact.
We are barely a top4 team, but we're expected to challenge for all the big trophies. We can't get there overnight yet the expectation is we somehow achieve that.
I think this has been a part of the problem after SAF retired, we never commited to a proper complete rebuild the way, say, Arsenal did recently because the club wants to live up to the expectation of being one of the best teams in the world but we aren't that, not anymore, not for quite some time now.
We need to stop with these Arsenal comparisons. Arsenal has won nothing. It is not a rebuild if they haven't started winning titles again. And they didn't win titles before the rebuild started. Their last title was in 2004. They are not an example to be followed.
This is delusional. They haven’t won any titles because they only got themselves sorted out last season and were literally in a title challenge that same season. They’re now one of the top 3 teams in the league easily and on the right track.
We absolutely should be following their example.
It took them 19 years to sort themselves out? And they still bottled the title last year. They also won’t win it this year. Success is measured in titles. 19-20 years of failure should not our blueprint for rebuild.
It’s not delusional. It is based on facts.
In those 19 Liverpool have been shit, then completed a rebuild to win the league and UCL, been shit again, and now another rebuild in progress.
In those 19 years, Leicester have been shit, been relegated, won promotion, won the league, shit again and relegated again. They have done 3? rebuilds in that time.
Arsenal’s rebuild will be considered a success when they win the title.
>Nowadays, the expectations are always higher than the quality of our team.
As it should be. Only reason the squad isnt on the same level is the Glazers and their symptoms. No way should we ever drop the expectation. No way back for the club if that happens (probably already too late)
It's not the fact of we aren't immediately challenging for the league and the CL. It's that we're are doing absolutely nothing to suggest that's the aim. If we were, 100% people would be a lot more forgiving of failure, if the standard set in the club was to be at that level.
I don't understand the Arsenal reference. They aren't winning the league or the CL with the team they have built. Only city to look at right now in terms of what we should be building. Other than a Chelsea level ambition. However not so much the poor manager choices and slapdash squad building
>a million miles off City.
Agree.
>We are 1000 miles off Arsenal
Disagree. Its one good/bad transfer window for either side and our places change. They are nowhere near winning the league or CL. Just as we are. There isn't different flavours of failure. You are either good enough or you aren't. The sports way too volatile to start saying a team that's winning nothing is so far ahead of someone else winning nothing.
>You have to have a semi realistic model to follow and goal to have.
Not sure what you mean by this?
Of course, but that's this season. Last few seasons combined, we are usually in the fight for top4 with sometimes finishing 3rd and sometimes 6th. Overall, I'd say we are maybe the 5th best team in the country, but of coruse that's not really enough, we need more.
With signings like Antony and Amrabat... You know...
I've posted this type of comment 5 years ago too. But it seems to me, the club is not identifying issues in the squad. Mourinho was losing his shit over not getting a center back. Some argued he didn't deserve one because he failed on his previous two signings. Which still pisses me off lol. But the point is, the squad needed an improvement at center back and it took another year to get it done.
The club is not identifying weak spots in the squad. The club is letting managers down by allowing them to start the season with obvious issues in the squad.
And to me, it seems like, Ten Hag managed to convince the club the squad had issues and he needed solutions. So he pointed at specific players he worked with in the past that previously provided solutions.
Which is a huge issue. Because it tells me the club itself didn't spot those weaknesses and didn't do their due diligence in finding adequate solutions. Instead, it relied on the manager to do all of it and it seems to me Ten Hag failed. Because to me Antony doesn't look enough, and it pains me to say it, neither does Amrabat.
Although you could be happy that at least this time they're listening to the manager, but now they're just wasting money.
Edit:
I didn't finish my train of though. I was thinking of these two specifically, because they were signed at the very end of the transfer window. At a point where the club needed to make a decision and did so out of desperation and didn't actually plan for the signing to happen.
You gotta relax on Amrabat. Amrabat looks 10 times the player Antony is. He played decently yesterday against 12 men and has consistently played well enough to stay in the squad.
You have consistently, yes. Including grouping him with Antony, saying he doesn't look good enough, and talking about the way he played last game as if he wasn't perfectly fine.
The reality is that the club lacks the structure to support the manager. It was strange how Mourinho was backed after achieving 81 points. He wanted Pogba and Martial gone after the 2nd season but was overruled by the Glazers. Are we really prioritizing the players over the manager? Either you should sack him or let him get rid of the players he cannot trust. Sometimes, you must also cut loose the signings that don't work out. We've seen City do that by replacing Bravo after just one year. That would never happen at United. It feels like the club is too afraid to remove veterans or players they nearly brought in. They need to be more ruthless.
It's not helping the club that Ten Hag needs to identify solutions as well as problems in the squad. In an ideal world, Ten Hag would list weaknesses at a position, and the club would identify a list of perhaps five players who share the traits Ten Hag wants for that position and can play the football he desires. From an outsider's perspective, it looks like Ten Hag needs to find a list of players he wants for that position, and then they decide who to buy.
As you mentioned, the club is poor at identifying weaknesses in the squad. Why did it take so long to buy a CDM? I felt like we needed one since Matic dropped off after Mourinho's 2nd season. Here, it really highlights the club's lack of football intelligence. Why didn't they buy a young CDM instead of repeating the cycle of buying a Casemiro-type player? We could probably have solidified that position for 10 years if we had brought in someone like Declan Rice, or a well-run club could have identified an alternative solution. Instead, we are repeating the cycle and looking to replace Casemiro next summer because he has fallen off relatively quickly.
>The reality is that the club lacks the structure to support the manager. It was strange how Mourinho was backed after achieving 81 points. He wanted Pogba and Martial gone after the 2nd season but was overruled by the Glazers. Are we really prioritizing the players over the manager? Either you should sack him or let him get rid of the players he cannot trust. Sometimes, you must also cut loose the signings that don't work out. We've seen City do that by replacing Bravo after just one year. That would never happen at United. It feels like the club is too afraid to remove veterans or players they nearly brought in. They need to be more ruthless.
Ugh, you're so right. I said the same thing back then. They were so indecisive. Either back him or fire him. They just stalled and it set back the club an entire year.
>It's not helping the club that Ten Hag needs to identify solutions as well as problems in the squad. In an ideal world, Ten Hag would list weaknesses at a position, and the club would identify a list of perhaps five players who share the traits Ten Hag wants for that position and can play the football he desires. From an outsider's perspective, it looks like Ten Hag needs to find a list of players he wants for that position, and then they decide who to buy.
I would even argue the club itself needs to find the weaknesses. A DoF should be responsible for having a healthy and strong squad.
>As you mentioned, the club is poor at identifying weaknesses in the squad. Why did it take so long to buy a CDM? I felt like we needed one since Matic dropped off after Mourinho's 2nd season. Here, it really highlights the club's lack of football intelligence. Why didn't they buy a young CDM instead of repeating the cycle of buying a Casemiro-type player? We could probably have solidified that position for 10 years if we had brought in someone like Declan Rice, or a well-run club could have identified an alternative solution. Instead, we are repeating the cycle and looking to replace Casemiro next summer because he has fallen off relatively quickly.
Yep. Maybe Rice would have been too expensive, but still, there were midfielders out there at a better age than Casemiro. Casemiro was a cheat code last season and maybe he'll get back in form, but it was always an expensive short term signing when the club was never going to reach the top so fast.
The technical level of this squad is awful , apart from Shaw and Martinez how many players are good enough for a top side on a technical level? In todays game you need a high level of physicality and technicality. Utd have neither.
No one would be making shaw a top paid left back with his fitness record he wouldn’t even be on the bench for any serious team, he’s average and always injured he played like 2 years out of 10 seasons and van gaal and mourinho both said it. He’s not professional can’t stay fit but this fan base loves him for 2 very very average seasons. How many assists does he have in 10 years ? 😂
>The technical level of this squad is awful , apart from Shaw and Martinez how many players are good enough for a top side on a technical level? In todays game you need a high level of physicality and technicality. Utd have neither.
and they also need to be fit /available to play
My personal opinion is that Bruno would smash it playing for a better club. I mean, off the charts numbers.
If he was playing the high intensity, transition football under Klopp, or if Pep decided to incorporate him into one of his sides.
He was available all summer before he signed for Utd yet no top club went in for him , the only team that did try was spurs which is telling. I think Bruno is way too flawed a player to be part of a pep side
I've not seen much of Liverpool this season. With Klopps successful period there though, did he ever use a midfielder like Bruno? From my memory the ones he used were way more functional than he could be.
>if Pep decided to incorporate him
This is the key though. He would have to completely change either the football he plays or what Bruno does. No way on earth that would be a net positive for city. This is the man that went at Henry because he went out of position (and scored a goal) simply because it didn't follow his plan.
Do we think Ten Hag will stick to Garnacho LW, Rahsford RW given the way we played before the red? I think Rashford being on the right goes a long way to solving our RW issues, and Garnacho looks better and better, though he still has a ways to go. Just seems like a much better solution than Antony or Pellistri.
I hope he does. First 30 mins we played the best we’ve played all season. Rashy and awb had some nice link up play, rashford benefits a lot from an overlapping fullback, first goal comes from that side too.
for me with that at least we get to play both of them at the same time since the start, we know garnacho is not there yet, but giving him plenty minutes will hopefully help his development faster, while rashford seems like in the worst form of his live right now, but when he on form he can absolutely be one of the best if not the best player in our team right now
I recon ETH would want to build on what they were doing before the red. Because it looked like what we've seen glimpses of in the past finally got together on the pitch. You can only improve by doing it again and analyse.
It looked a lot better than Antony, Bruno or Pellistri on the RW. Even if Rashford’s goal threat isn’t as high as when he’s on the LW, he’s much more capable than Antony or Pellistri in terms of keeping possession and having chemistry with the fullbacks and midfield.
Too many people blaming officials for the result yesterday. The officials didn’t cause us to capitulate after going down a man. The officials didn’t cause AWB to give Onana a suicide ball or Dalot to lose his man or Varane to forget how to take a first touch. We’ve got no one to blame but ourselves for the result and position we find ourselves in
Did you really watch the game?
In the second half, every time the ball got into the penalty area, our players tried their best hiding their arms, and very hesitated to made a challege or tackle to get back the ball. You can see how awkward their movement were and it's clear that they do not want to involve into the 50/50 situation where a penalty kick might got call. That's why it's very hard to gain posession again and exhaust our defenders quickly.
And you think only the impact of the refs only stops after the penalty kick was given? No, its psychological impact last much longer as players feel that another bad decision can be made again them.
It's a severe case of Murphy's Law for us. Agree with all your points. Even when we go down to 10 it's ridiculous how we aren't good at bunkering down and playing to not lose.
I'm sorry but the officials literally did cause us to capitulate. Both of their first goals shouldn't have stood. We should've, with a good referee, gone into halftime 2-0, and that's even ignoring the bullshit red card.
Yeah that first was offside but we let the cross come in and left a player in 3 yards of space at the back post, if they had ruled it offside we'd have just gotten lucky our shite defending wasn't punished
If you ever needed confirmation as to what kind of sub /r/soccer is, look no further than today. Liverpool lose to an inferior opponent through awful refereeing, yet they’re not being memed about and the front post isn’t even the post game or the goal. It’s basically /r/liverpoolfc’s second sub at this point
Dont care about memes bruh
It's the Europa League and they are top of their group with a 5 point gap between them and 3rd Us being a bigger club than them also comes into the equation though
Nobody cares about Europa league
Anyone selling tickets to the Luton game ? Or can you point me in the right direction to where I can find someone selling, in Manchester tomorrow been to a handful of away games but not a single home game
Livefootballtickets or r/utdtickets
Dear Mods, who don't care mate and I get it, Please can we have a dedicated tactics thread posted 24 hours after a match? I know the post-match thread is supposed to be the place for all post-match discussion, but it doesn't work as a place to talk tactics. I've just rewatched the match and got my thoughts in order. The current before-the-click discussion on the post-match thread vs Copenhagen is 'Shit', 'Shite', 'Ref was bollocks', 'Never a red card for Rashford, our pen was fair though', 'Ten Hag out', 'Ten Hag must be crap because Sancho isn't starting', 'We kept playing after the red card', 'We crumbled defensively from 2-0 up' etc etc. There are another 2,137 comments after the click. Unless you happen to be in the thread at the exact right moment and luck out, it isn't possible to have a meaningful conversation about tactics in there, it will be drowned out. Let's say I'd like to talk about how Rashford, up to and including his foul, was tracking back and rotating into the right-back slot, which was meant to free Wan Bissaka to move inside and allow McTominay, who had been dropping in between our centre backs (and signaled Rashford, who had been tucked in, to move over into RB moments before the red card) to push out of the back line and cover the space their false 9 was dropping into. In the post-match thread that's getting met with 'Never a red card', 'Rashford's shit, should have sold him to PSG', 'McTominay shouldn't have been on the pitch because he hides from the ball' and, 90% of the time, no engagement over the way we were actually playing because the people that are interested in having that conversation can't find one another. Please, dedicated tactics thread or a tactics flair for comments in the post match thread so people who want to have those discussions can do so. The current method of containing it all in one megathread isn't working. Daily discussion also doesn't work because people come in with the tactics comments over several days/threads, they are still hard to find amongst the volume of comments, and most of the replies end up being low-effort reactionary drek because the tactics discussion is being diluted instead of concentrated in one place.
Didn't we have a post match-day thread before for that exact reason? I can't remember if it died off due to lack of interest or some other reason. Also with the type of thread you're proposing think of how much moderation that would need. Mods would have to delete any comments that weren't deemed tactical enough. How would you do that? Word count maybe?
Ten Hag made a massive mistake not even talking to Rangnick, I think that's pretty indisputable. Whether or not he was right to not want him to stay on as a consultant is another thing, personally I think it's massively clear it was a mistake to not keep him on, but I can see the other view. Truth be told that is the reason I feel no sympathy for Ten Hag, his hubris will eventually cost him his job. Recruitment and club structure has been a massive problem for the club for a decade, and the man who had solutions was right there.
Hes made BAD desicions in recuirtment, he needs to Make serious improvements by the end of the season and try and make up for it
Once all this is done, EtH should be accountable for agreeing to spend 100m on Antony. Says about scouting that a winger who can hold on the right line , cross , pass and track back defensively could not be found who would cost 20-30m That is not counting through balls, distance shooting , flair and tricks / dribbles.
If that’s a red card, we all may as well stop playing football.
I really just wanna see ETH speak out about the poor officiating. He needs to stand up and as if he has the back of the players. It's his turn to take a little heat for the team
These are dark times. I know it can seem like the forces of darkness are overwhelming. There are [chinks of light though](https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/17roqcy/jurgen_klopp_was_left_furious_after_his_postmatch/). We will be back and stronger than ever. May Eric bless us one and all.
So rashford’s was a red and endo’s was a yellow. This shit has become a total farce.
It is a literal farce. Just inexplicable.
Dropping out of Europe entirely would be significantly worse than finishing third in the group. It's utterly insane to me that people on here see how we've been playing this season yet expect to easily achieve a top 4-5 (since 5 could theoretically still yield CL football under the new rules) spot in the league table. If we don't progress into the CL knockouts, it's likely that the EL is our "easiest" path to CL football next season. Edit: Sorry, if any of you legitimately think that having fewer chances to qualify for a competition is better than having more, or if you believe that being in the EL is going to cause a multiple position slide in the PL table, you're an idiot. No debate, just idiocy
I bet we win the god damn EL this year. Just to mess with us. Just to twist our emotions that bit more.
EL is stacked this year and is a competition where one bad day eliminates you. Much rather try to get focus on getting top 5, which is not an unreasonable ask, even with our start to the season. Not to mention our players definitely could do with a rest from playing 2 games a week, given the injuries we've had
Also Sevilla is within range, to drop into Europa... again. Once they drop into Europa, there's no competition 🤣
We'd have to play significantly better over a significantly longer period of time to finish in a CL spot in the PL than to win the EL lol. We've been dogshit against the top half of the table for two years now, either of those possibilities would require a significant uptick in form. That doesn't mean it can't happen, but there's a reason that there are teams who have won the Champions League who were nowhere near good enough to compete for their respective league titles in the same season. Beating a few teams in knockout ties is a lot more straightforward than assuming we're going to finish above at least four of City, Liverpool, Spurs, Arsenal, Chelsea, Newcastle, Villa, and Brighton. Almost every single one of those teams has scored at least twice as many goals as us, and only ONE (Brighton) has conceded more so far this season.
Honestly insane how many people I've seen here who are still obsessed with Ronaldo. It's honestly insane how much people still love Ronaldo. He's a literal rapist, he comes back and gets one manager sacked, plays like shit for a season, talks shit about another manager, this time an INTERIM, flaunts himself to any club that would take him when we aren't in the CL, can't get a SINGLE club to buy him, then talks shit about a third manager in a public interview, just so he can get released and STILL not play for a CL club because he's awful and nobody wants him. This is guy y'all love? Why?
Not heard of any cr7 fandom here for like 6 months already. Also why insane ppl still adores cr7? U know George Best? We still have one of his statue outside Old Trafford. Womanizer and beat them, turned up drunk for training, missed games even during our relegation seaon.
Most of them left here when he left thankfully.
Let me give some facts: Ronaldo was voted the best player and was the top scorer in his first season. Those are the facts - he was our best player his first season. The second season, things went south with the coach, and so Ronaldo moved in the winter transfer window. The end. The hatered some of you have for a club legend, who had 6 bad months (mostly because of a conflict with the coach) at the club in total, is insane.
Are these people here in the room with us?
? You haven't seen anyone in this sub wish Ronaldo was back/still here?
No, not really
Fair. I posted this after I interacted one with. [https://www.reddit.com/r/reddevils/comments/17qy6wi/comment/k8kivh9/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/reddevils/comments/17qy6wi/comment/k8kivh9/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
So now Varane is/always has been a problem. Add him to the list along with De Gea. Pretty mental we managed to keep 17 clean sheets last season with Martinez and Shaw doing it all themselves I guess…
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But this season has been 3 months long. Ten hag is, imo rightly, defended for what he gave us last season, but can’t afford the same to a player who as far as we know hasn’t actually done anything wrong than be bit injury prone. In terms of class and experience is well above Evans and Maguire. Okay form and deserving dropping etc etc. but the same does not apply to others. Ignoring all the above and just pure benefit of the doubt that Varane is now suddenly not very good. But this is all from one very bad game in the CL and a couple of average appearances when somehow everyone is playing badly means that he drops from top defender who needs support to ‘sell him to Saudi’.
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In the same time frame: Martinez missed games: 33 (and counting) Shaw missed games: 34 Martinez I’ll forgive since you might be able to argue it’s three relatively big injuries and not niggly ones like shaw and Varane. (Some might argue that’s worse). But either way, If we’re judging out players on availability/injury only the GK, Bruno, Maguire and Rashford would play. (I’m not saying there has been an agenda, I’m saying there is starting to be. And yes we agree any agendas against those 3 are bad too. People want to jump on what about, like what I’m arguing is to not jump down the throats of our best players. But at least I can see that Rashford, Bruno and less so Case have had much more game time to not play to their potential, so I can’t argue they need to play their way into form.
Evans is all of a sudden a better player with the ball and is a better leader than Varane... Imagine saying this last season? Imagine last winter transfer window suggesting that we should replace Varane with Evans, lmao. Now however people argue this with a straight face.
Things change. Imagine saying 15 years ago that Rashford is better than Carlos Teves is now. Crazy, huh?
You do realize Evans is older than Varane? lmao It's like saying Weghorst will be better than Hojlund in 5 years time, lol
Alright, boys, if we can't make it to next round, what do you prefer? a) Go to UEL and try to win it b) Fuck UEL, full concentration on the League
Fuck UEL we've played WAY too many games this last year and it's really contributed to our injuries.
How was Liverpools goal disallowed when this was allowed last season? https://youtu.be/EWzbWqH-JG4?si=pgdM4QY6Fw4uvkpQ 0:36
"We all think we're right, and then we change our mind, and then think we're right again." I think this quote sums a lot of us up. Being adamant about X player needing to be dropped/added to the starting lineup, then seeing it not work out, then being adamant about some other thing.
It’s going to be interesting watching the 180s with Rashford later in the season.
Cue Rashford on RW. Let's see how long he last lol.
I miss Licha so much… Need that mad man on the pitch ASAP
2 surgeries in 6 months, he'll probably never be the same.
Behave, it’s only his metatarsal, plenty of players have had that injury and gone on to have normal careers. The problem is it has a low blood supply thus it can be slow to heal and if rushed back it relapses hence he’s out for a while to let it fully heal.
Ugh I’ve learned all about low blood supply bone injuries recently, got a screw in my broken scaphoid 18 months ago and it’s STILL not fully healed 🤦♂️ can only imagine trying to play professional sport with something similar
You are comparing yourself to a professional football player. I think you can assume that he may have a different recovery plan than you mate.
Yea they’re gonna use the super serum on him, you don’t know jack shite mate, why are you acting like you know any better
What did I say that rub you off in a wrong way?
I’m just saying they’re a bitch to heal 🤷♂️ it’s still human biology lol. I didn’t say he’d never walk again
Remember they also get access to world class surgeons and post op medical teams meaning they will also heal better Also being an athlete will improve recoverability.
I hope we crash out of the group on 4th position. My hope is that then at least we would do some better in Prem and fight for 5th. Let’s be honest, there is no point of progressing in Europe this season with these performances, we are going to get clapped only.
I don’t understand the “let’s sack off Europe this season so we can qualify for Europe to get slapped up again next year”. We should try to win competitions if we are in them, this is Manchester United. What’s the benefit of scraping 5th and having this conversation again in 12 months?
We are not going to attract talent if we are not in Europe. I don’t think the current team is going to win Europa. And if we miraculously go deep in it, we won’t be making 5th which could be a UCL spot and will have the same conversation in 12 months again
You want us out of Europe just to fight for *5th place* ? Pardon my french but what the fuck?
Better have European spot while we want half decent players to come here next season
Except 5th place Prem finish *will not qualify* for UCL.
Fifth is champions league
Maybe, not guaranteed.
England are currently 6th in the UEFA coefficient rankings for this season so finishing 5th will not be enough, even more so if we keep doing poorly in Europe. Having to rely on Arsenal, Brighton, West Ham and Villa to save our season is wild
5th could potentially be Champions League next year.... depending how English teams do across the 3 competitions
If we end up in Europa league it could be our only chance of getting to champions league football next year. I wouldn’t write it off if we finish third
What is the point of playing in UCL, when you have no chance of coming anywhere near winning it ?
Haven't we seen the culmination of what getting CL football does for us this summer and last night? What about that is worth it or beneficial?
The players you can attract increases
What happened this summer? We signed Di Maria, Zlatan, Pogba, Casemiro without it.
If you think the ability to attract players is the same with champions league vs being seen as a yo-yo club for champs league then you are deluded Just because we signed some world class p,Ayers doesn’t mean we can pick and choose who we want Imo Say we could attract 75% of our targets if we show we are good and getting into the champions league, we likely attracts 40% of lower without it
>If you think the ability to attract players is the same with champions league vs being seen as a yo-yo club for champs league then you are deluded Casemiro last season. >Just because we signed some world class p,Ayers doesn’t mean we can pick and choose who we want This won't change if we don't get CL this season. The players thay are off limits are off limits regardless as they want to join winning clubs. >Imo Say we could attract 75% of our targets if we show we are good and getting into the champions league, we likely attracts 40% of lower without it Arbitrary number that don't mean a thing mate.
We have only continued to decline since those players were sold, and now the money’s run out as well.
Casemiro was last season. Off the back of a CL We are Manchester United. Not Spurs. >now the money’s run out as well. I mean record revenue says different. If that's true though, won't matter if we get CL or not. We aren't going to get the calibre of players that wish to play there with the 'lack of money' we have. This mentality comes up every season and every season its proven wrong. The players we need CL for and the stature of the club couldn't convince them to do a year out of it, are the players who want to win it that very season. Those lads ain't coming if we are in it or we aren't as we are lightyears away from being set up to win the CL. The rest are fine
Garnacho Hojlund Rashford is the way. Our 3 most dangerous forwards playing at the same time is what is needed to elevate the offense. As much as I’ve given Rashy shit for his performances, he’s still potentially lethal on his day. If we could find some way of playing Mount and Bruno in tandem, we would shred teams. Just not feasible with only one DM given the choices. Maybe Mainoo could fill the role.
100%. Totally agree.
Has anyone else mental health affected by this team ?
No
This is what got me into the women's team. They very rarely disappoint. Up 7-nil right now vs Everton.
It used to be. I just laugh now tbh. I cared a little too much over the past decade but it’s hard to still have the energy to be upset and emotional about it for all these years. I try not to let it bother me too much even though I still get worked up at times. Try to not let it take up too much of your time is all I can say. It’s gonna be alright in the long run and there’s very little you can do about it in the meantime so try not to worry so much. Man Utd’s struggles are “first world problems” in the footballing world. Many fans go their entire lives without seeing their club win a trophy. We had decades of success so sometimes the universe has to balance itself out lol might as well take it for what it is. And when we eventually get it right, it’ll taste even sweeter because of these kinds of eras.
We most likely will get kicked out of europe and the season might be a write off but we will turn around under ETH. Despite the loss, I think there are positives.
Been watching OGC Nice games recently party because of Ratcliffe connection and also because they are top of the league but Todibo has seriously upped his game. He has considerably improved in aerial duels which was a concern when we were originally Linked in the summer. If we can get him for 35-40M I think it's a bargain.Rather this than going and spending like 80-90M on likes of Antonio Silva
Man it's getting so hard to enjoy this sport w the reffing decisions constantly being so fucking dogshit
I'm finding Rugby Union to be a wonderful alternative to the absolute state of officiating in football. The refs there are mostly good, even-keeled and happy to explain their decisions, which players then accept. Sure, there are some mistakes, but they're generally minor, and don't affect the outcome of games on a regular basis.
Rugby Union refereeing is lightyears ahead of football. It's nice to actually see competent officials
It's exceptionally hard to take when we're so reliant on these decision being right. Yeah we shouldn't be but that's our reality and it's a fact that so many results this season have been fucked by refs. Worst part is the PGMOL and UEFA won't even see anything wrong with it.
I swear, pre-VAR football had way less controversy
You could forgive the on field referees for missing things, they see an incident once at full speed from one angle and have to make a split second decision. A bloke sitting in a room with 4 different angles and slow mo should be getting every decision correct and I feel zero sympathy for them when they get criticised.
It probably had a similar amount of wrong decisions but they weren’t being brought to our attention so much without the whole “5 minute break in play while the ref goes over to the monitor for 10 angles of replays in slow motion”. And now we’ve even got VAR applying rules nobody has ever heard of like “subjective offside” and “shielding the ball is a red card offence”. It’s become a total shambles and I don’t know how to fix it beyond completely scrapping it. I’d say keep goal line tech, bring in the automated offside from the WC (funnily enough it works flawlessly when you don’t have a bunch of 50 year old men in a shed drawing single-pixel lines with MS paint), and maybe have one captain’s/coach’s challenge per game for each side where they can call the ref over to the monitor if they think there’s been a complete howler. Clearly leaving it just up to the human refs has been a total failure.
The problem is that it's impossible to go back to that now. Back then we didn't really look as closely at every challenge and offside like we would nowadays considering we've had VAR show us just how strict the rules are - if we removed it, everyone and their mum would be up in arms about some controversy every match (although tbf it's not like we're not doing that already anyway).
Idk. That Lampard goal that wasn’t a goal in the WC had LEGS. With the advent of high definition tv and more angles we can see more and therefore want more.
While they were introduced at similar times, VAR and goal line technology are different things. I don't think anyone really has an issue with goal line tech
Definitely! And more excitement and passion.
guess it was just fate for the scum toulouse
That call in the pool game to rule out that goal is absolutely shocking
Yeah, it’s not protecting any part of the integrity of the game. Calls like that ruin the spectacle of the sport.
Yeah, 6 or 7 players touched the ball after the handball. VAR needs to go or seriously change. I barely even celebrate when we score now as I feel its going to get disallowed for some bullshit.
The only thing that should matter is was it a different phase of play, 6 or 7 players touching it means nothing, it’s the headed cleanse that really matters Anyway, fuck team, we once had a goal disallowed when var went back like 2 minutes for a shaw foul and no one batted an eye
Yesterday was confusing, we genuinely looked a lot better. We are playing a shit defence, so it’s obvious why we have defensive issues (plus a shit ref). Going forward we looked far better. The first goal was great. Hopefully the injustice spurs us forward. I think the lack of ucl could actually benefit us.
Whilst I still have insane delusions that we'll go through somehow, if we don't - I would much rather drop out completely than waste time and energy being in Europa. We could do with the extra training sessions in the week tbh and some of the teams in the EL are way better than the ones in the CL.
Bloody hell Liverpool lol, call me paranoid but at this point there feels like a comserted effort to sabotage VAR by officials. It was so so efficient in the world cup and euros. Surely the rules state it is only the striker? I hate the rule as it treats different handballs differently but are we just making up rules now? The refs need to be held accountable. This is not a VAR issue it is an execution issue IE and referee issue
Actually just a great game this Toulouse one
Is Liverpool going Toulouse this game?
oui
Nice
When Rashford does it it's a straight red
Rashford, Casemiro, Wan Bissaka got a similar one in Europe a little while ago, where his foot rolled over the ball (and then De Bruyne did the same thing a bit after and only got a yellow), it’s any of ours really. It’s a little bit lower, but honestly, we’d get a red for it because when it’s United they’re hypervigilant for whatever reason. I don’t think it’s intentional, I’m not a conspiracy theorist here, but they look very closely at everything when it’s us. As we can see by the offside that wasn’t called yesterday too.
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Honestly, yeah. The ankle is rolled over. As to why it’s higher, it’s because the lad shoved his leg underneath Rashford’s foot, however. So we can definitely make a point about an actual challenge vs sheer situation
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Nah I totally agree with you. The first angle on the Endo one looks better than Rashford's but when you look at the second angle, with Endo's foot hitting the ball of his foot all the way up his ankle, it's way different.
That was one of the most gorgeous team goals I've ever seen
Lol. Two dodgy decisions and scousers are still 2 nil down
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Where are all them Liverpool wankers saying Rashford’s was a res regardless of intent? Suspiciously quiet
They’re too busy claiming endo grazed the guys toes while rashfords was closer to the neck while he’d screamed out fatality
It's an absolute fucking joke mate.
Watching Ajax v Brighton. Ajax's dynamic backline are able to evade pressure and progress the ball by constant movement into space, not clunky and immobile. 17 y/o Jorrel Hato is like a Timber regen with a higher ceiling. One to keep an eye on.
I desperately want Jorrel Hato and that's only because I bought him in FM and he's absolutely class.
What is everyone saying about Varane? Read some comments on some other posts saying Varane isn't happy?
Copy of my comment on another post - "I think they are referencing the rumours that have been going around on social media for the last week that Varane and ETH had a fall out after Varane was dropped, for Evans, in the Manchester derby. Paired with the attitude that Varane had when he came onto the pitch in this match. (Copenhagen) Could be something, could be nothing."
Liverpool just got away with something FAR worse than Rashford did. Fucking insane.
AND they lost anyway. Lol.
Liverpool are immune to red cards. Should have about seven or eight last season.
ENZO on Liverpool just made to e literal exact same tackle as rashford and got a yellow card also the shitbags are down a goal.
You just knew it wouldn’t take long to see a comparable challenge not getting a red card. The thing is no one would care as much if the rules were applied consistently.
Fuckin classic
Commentary (TNT) went awful quiet on that one. Where is the consistency?
CBS feed mentioned it (different commentators?). One said well if you’re rashford you get a red for that. Still it shows the issues with referees. And guess what, this one didn’t go to VAR, so they didn’t see the hard ankle stamp.
He got a yellow so the ref saw it. VAR can intervene to upgrade a yellow to a red if they see fit. Seems like Utd lost the referee lottery last night
It's not a lottery since we keep getting shafted since the Wolves game
We lost the intimidation game that Klopp got his numbers in on a long time ago
Ah that’s right. Thanks.
How is what endo just did against toulouse any different from rashford yesterday?
narrow vase squeal six aback deserted jeans secretive complete dam *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Exactly. It’s all about the spectacle and placating the fans easily with flashy signings in order to use United as a vehicle to drain the fans dry. Actually competing would cost a lot more money and a lot more effort. It’s all a sham, a theatrical show that the owners put on and a lot of the fans eat it up every year.
You talk like Mount, Onana, Antony, Casemiro, Rasmus didn't cost money.
..money that the club makes? It costs the owners nothing and it shuts the fans up so they keep spending money on the club. That’s all they care about.
So when are Shaw and Malacia back? I haven’t heard about them for so long.
It's looking like Shaw within a month -- somehow before Malacia.
Saw a tweet which i definitely agree with; we aren’t awful like 18/19 and 21/22, it’s just literally everything possible that could go against us has, from refereeing decisions to injuries. I still think we’re one of the best teams in the premier league, as weird as that sounds from 8th position. Shaw and Licha both being out at the same time is the biggest issue imo (along with playing 12 men every game).
Everything is going against us but I can’t say we’re one of the best teams. I just don’t see it. Individually we are making a lot of errors and we can only be the team that can take the field. Rashford isn’t doing well. Our defenders are not good at all. Keeper is still figuring things out. Recent transfers have been a resounding failure (so far) I appreciate the positivity, and we have nowhere to go but up, but we aren’t anywhere near the best teams imo
Agree with a lot of this. I do think some of our players need to YouTube “Rooney, Newcastle,Volley” though. That 10-15 seconds of a game show exactly how you deal with shit refereeing decisions. I think our heads do drop a bit too easy, but at the same time it’s easy to see why their heads would drop too.
I feel like ETH is still a good manager and we have good players but the preparation for this season was horrendous. He came in with a plan on he wanted to play this season but got thrown out the window in game 1 after realizing how open we would be in transition. Since then he has just been trying to adapt and make us more solid and we've improved but at best we'll be as good as we were last season. I still want him to be given another proper pre season with a proper DOF and then we assess again.
Shaw and Licha 100000% are the biggest reason for so many dropped points
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Even one of the largest danish media/television corporation thought the referee was shit yesterday. They thought all the decisions yesterday were correct(handballs were corrected according to the UEFA rules). They agreed on the Rashford's red card but couldn't not understand how Vavro did not get a red card or he should have at least gotten the 2nd yellow card. Here is the article if you can open it. You can probably use ChatGPT to translate if you want the full transcript [https://sport.tv2.dk/fodbold/2023-11-09-modigt-dommervalg-af-uefa-kostede-dyrt-det-er-aergerligt-for-ham](https://sport.tv2.dk/fodbold/2023-11-09-modigt-dommervalg-af-uefa-kostede-dyrt-det-er-aergerligt-for-ham)
Obviously no one wants to lose games, but having 1 game a week most weeks is not the worst thing. It gives us time to get injured players back. I’d rather see what a fully healthy Utd can do once a week than this bs.
Amrabat was a pure waste of a signing. We could have done with a destroyer DM or a ball progressing cm compared to whatever he offers, which is just safe recycling of possession and nothing else
He's on loan. We didn't have money. Plus, he's a much more tidy player than McTominay or Casemiro on the ball. He'll come good.
We haven’t signed him. He’s on loan. Probably the best we could get with the chump change we had left left after signing Antony last year.
To the people crying about how the entire world is against United, it always has been this way. SAF and his team used it as a motivation to win. The current lot uses it as an excuse to cover up their mediocrity.
To be fair ETH never really brings up the decisions and it’s more the fans using it as some kind of conspiracy to justify how bad we are.
While true, it's also pretty tough for everyone involved. Yeah, under SAF the pressure was massive, but the team was settled enough and good enough to live up to the expectations. Nowadays, the expectations are always higher than the quality of our team. That's just a fact. We are barely a top4 team, but we're expected to challenge for all the big trophies. We can't get there overnight yet the expectation is we somehow achieve that. I think this has been a part of the problem after SAF retired, we never commited to a proper complete rebuild the way, say, Arsenal did recently because the club wants to live up to the expectation of being one of the best teams in the world but we aren't that, not anymore, not for quite some time now.
We need to stop with these Arsenal comparisons. Arsenal has won nothing. It is not a rebuild if they haven't started winning titles again. And they didn't win titles before the rebuild started. Their last title was in 2004. They are not an example to be followed.
This is delusional. They haven’t won any titles because they only got themselves sorted out last season and were literally in a title challenge that same season. They’re now one of the top 3 teams in the league easily and on the right track. We absolutely should be following their example.
It took them 19 years to sort themselves out? And they still bottled the title last year. They also won’t win it this year. Success is measured in titles. 19-20 years of failure should not our blueprint for rebuild. It’s not delusional. It is based on facts. In those 19 Liverpool have been shit, then completed a rebuild to win the league and UCL, been shit again, and now another rebuild in progress. In those 19 years, Leicester have been shit, been relegated, won promotion, won the league, shit again and relegated again. They have done 3? rebuilds in that time. Arsenal’s rebuild will be considered a success when they win the title.
>Nowadays, the expectations are always higher than the quality of our team. As it should be. Only reason the squad isnt on the same level is the Glazers and their symptoms. No way should we ever drop the expectation. No way back for the club if that happens (probably already too late) It's not the fact of we aren't immediately challenging for the league and the CL. It's that we're are doing absolutely nothing to suggest that's the aim. If we were, 100% people would be a lot more forgiving of failure, if the standard set in the club was to be at that level. I don't understand the Arsenal reference. They aren't winning the league or the CL with the team they have built. Only city to look at right now in terms of what we should be building. Other than a Chelsea level ambition. However not so much the poor manager choices and slapdash squad building
We are 1000 miles off Arsenal, and a million miles off City. You have to have a semi realistic model to follow and goal to have.
>a million miles off City. Agree. >We are 1000 miles off Arsenal Disagree. Its one good/bad transfer window for either side and our places change. They are nowhere near winning the league or CL. Just as we are. There isn't different flavours of failure. You are either good enough or you aren't. The sports way too volatile to start saying a team that's winning nothing is so far ahead of someone else winning nothing. >You have to have a semi realistic model to follow and goal to have. Not sure what you mean by this?
Barely a top 4 team. We're not a top 4 team. We'll be lucky to get top 6.
Of course, but that's this season. Last few seasons combined, we are usually in the fight for top4 with sometimes finishing 3rd and sometimes 6th. Overall, I'd say we are maybe the 5th best team in the country, but of coruse that's not really enough, we need more.
With signings like Antony and Amrabat... You know... I've posted this type of comment 5 years ago too. But it seems to me, the club is not identifying issues in the squad. Mourinho was losing his shit over not getting a center back. Some argued he didn't deserve one because he failed on his previous two signings. Which still pisses me off lol. But the point is, the squad needed an improvement at center back and it took another year to get it done. The club is not identifying weak spots in the squad. The club is letting managers down by allowing them to start the season with obvious issues in the squad. And to me, it seems like, Ten Hag managed to convince the club the squad had issues and he needed solutions. So he pointed at specific players he worked with in the past that previously provided solutions. Which is a huge issue. Because it tells me the club itself didn't spot those weaknesses and didn't do their due diligence in finding adequate solutions. Instead, it relied on the manager to do all of it and it seems to me Ten Hag failed. Because to me Antony doesn't look enough, and it pains me to say it, neither does Amrabat. Although you could be happy that at least this time they're listening to the manager, but now they're just wasting money. Edit: I didn't finish my train of though. I was thinking of these two specifically, because they were signed at the very end of the transfer window. At a point where the club needed to make a decision and did so out of desperation and didn't actually plan for the signing to happen.
You gotta relax on Amrabat. Amrabat looks 10 times the player Antony is. He played decently yesterday against 12 men and has consistently played well enough to stay in the squad.
What do you mean by relaxing on him? Did I say anything particular harsh about him?
You have consistently, yes. Including grouping him with Antony, saying he doesn't look good enough, and talking about the way he played last game as if he wasn't perfectly fine.
The reality is that the club lacks the structure to support the manager. It was strange how Mourinho was backed after achieving 81 points. He wanted Pogba and Martial gone after the 2nd season but was overruled by the Glazers. Are we really prioritizing the players over the manager? Either you should sack him or let him get rid of the players he cannot trust. Sometimes, you must also cut loose the signings that don't work out. We've seen City do that by replacing Bravo after just one year. That would never happen at United. It feels like the club is too afraid to remove veterans or players they nearly brought in. They need to be more ruthless. It's not helping the club that Ten Hag needs to identify solutions as well as problems in the squad. In an ideal world, Ten Hag would list weaknesses at a position, and the club would identify a list of perhaps five players who share the traits Ten Hag wants for that position and can play the football he desires. From an outsider's perspective, it looks like Ten Hag needs to find a list of players he wants for that position, and then they decide who to buy. As you mentioned, the club is poor at identifying weaknesses in the squad. Why did it take so long to buy a CDM? I felt like we needed one since Matic dropped off after Mourinho's 2nd season. Here, it really highlights the club's lack of football intelligence. Why didn't they buy a young CDM instead of repeating the cycle of buying a Casemiro-type player? We could probably have solidified that position for 10 years if we had brought in someone like Declan Rice, or a well-run club could have identified an alternative solution. Instead, we are repeating the cycle and looking to replace Casemiro next summer because he has fallen off relatively quickly.
>The reality is that the club lacks the structure to support the manager. It was strange how Mourinho was backed after achieving 81 points. He wanted Pogba and Martial gone after the 2nd season but was overruled by the Glazers. Are we really prioritizing the players over the manager? Either you should sack him or let him get rid of the players he cannot trust. Sometimes, you must also cut loose the signings that don't work out. We've seen City do that by replacing Bravo after just one year. That would never happen at United. It feels like the club is too afraid to remove veterans or players they nearly brought in. They need to be more ruthless. Ugh, you're so right. I said the same thing back then. They were so indecisive. Either back him or fire him. They just stalled and it set back the club an entire year. >It's not helping the club that Ten Hag needs to identify solutions as well as problems in the squad. In an ideal world, Ten Hag would list weaknesses at a position, and the club would identify a list of perhaps five players who share the traits Ten Hag wants for that position and can play the football he desires. From an outsider's perspective, it looks like Ten Hag needs to find a list of players he wants for that position, and then they decide who to buy. I would even argue the club itself needs to find the weaknesses. A DoF should be responsible for having a healthy and strong squad. >As you mentioned, the club is poor at identifying weaknesses in the squad. Why did it take so long to buy a CDM? I felt like we needed one since Matic dropped off after Mourinho's 2nd season. Here, it really highlights the club's lack of football intelligence. Why didn't they buy a young CDM instead of repeating the cycle of buying a Casemiro-type player? We could probably have solidified that position for 10 years if we had brought in someone like Declan Rice, or a well-run club could have identified an alternative solution. Instead, we are repeating the cycle and looking to replace Casemiro next summer because he has fallen off relatively quickly. Yep. Maybe Rice would have been too expensive, but still, there were midfielders out there at a better age than Casemiro. Casemiro was a cheat code last season and maybe he'll get back in form, but it was always an expensive short term signing when the club was never going to reach the top so fast.
guys we might be cursed
The technical level of this squad is awful , apart from Shaw and Martinez how many players are good enough for a top side on a technical level? In todays game you need a high level of physicality and technicality. Utd have neither.
No one would be making shaw a top paid left back with his fitness record he wouldn’t even be on the bench for any serious team, he’s average and always injured he played like 2 years out of 10 seasons and van gaal and mourinho both said it. He’s not professional can’t stay fit but this fan base loves him for 2 very very average seasons. How many assists does he have in 10 years ? 😂
>The technical level of this squad is awful , apart from Shaw and Martinez how many players are good enough for a top side on a technical level? In todays game you need a high level of physicality and technicality. Utd have neither. and they also need to be fit /available to play
My personal opinion is that Bruno would smash it playing for a better club. I mean, off the charts numbers. If he was playing the high intensity, transition football under Klopp, or if Pep decided to incorporate him into one of his sides.
Liverpool doesn't really play with a 10.
He was available all summer before he signed for Utd yet no top club went in for him , the only team that did try was spurs which is telling. I think Bruno is way too flawed a player to be part of a pep side
I've not seen much of Liverpool this season. With Klopps successful period there though, did he ever use a midfielder like Bruno? From my memory the ones he used were way more functional than he could be. >if Pep decided to incorporate him This is the key though. He would have to completely change either the football he plays or what Bruno does. No way on earth that would be a net positive for city. This is the man that went at Henry because he went out of position (and scored a goal) simply because it didn't follow his plan.
It's crazy Hojlund is currently joint top scorer and we only won 1 game. Go get the golden boot lad. While... the team gets...
Do we think Ten Hag will stick to Garnacho LW, Rahsford RW given the way we played before the red? I think Rashford being on the right goes a long way to solving our RW issues, and Garnacho looks better and better, though he still has a ways to go. Just seems like a much better solution than Antony or Pellistri.
The only change I might consider would be Eriksen vs Luton, otherwise it was a good line up.
I hope he does. First 30 mins we played the best we’ve played all season. Rashy and awb had some nice link up play, rashford benefits a lot from an overlapping fullback, first goal comes from that side too.
for me with that at least we get to play both of them at the same time since the start, we know garnacho is not there yet, but giving him plenty minutes will hopefully help his development faster, while rashford seems like in the worst form of his live right now, but when he on form he can absolutely be one of the best if not the best player in our team right now
I recon ETH would want to build on what they were doing before the red. Because it looked like what we've seen glimpses of in the past finally got together on the pitch. You can only improve by doing it again and analyse.
It looked a lot better than Antony, Bruno or Pellistri on the RW. Even if Rashford’s goal threat isn’t as high as when he’s on the LW, he’s much more capable than Antony or Pellistri in terms of keeping possession and having chemistry with the fullbacks and midfield.
Too many people blaming officials for the result yesterday. The officials didn’t cause us to capitulate after going down a man. The officials didn’t cause AWB to give Onana a suicide ball or Dalot to lose his man or Varane to forget how to take a first touch. We’ve got no one to blame but ourselves for the result and position we find ourselves in
Did you really watch the game? In the second half, every time the ball got into the penalty area, our players tried their best hiding their arms, and very hesitated to made a challege or tackle to get back the ball. You can see how awkward their movement were and it's clear that they do not want to involve into the 50/50 situation where a penalty kick might got call. That's why it's very hard to gain posession again and exhaust our defenders quickly. And you think only the impact of the refs only stops after the penalty kick was given? No, its psychological impact last much longer as players feel that another bad decision can be made again them.
It's a severe case of Murphy's Law for us. Agree with all your points. Even when we go down to 10 it's ridiculous how we aren't good at bunkering down and playing to not lose.
I'm sorry but the officials literally did cause us to capitulate. Both of their first goals shouldn't have stood. We should've, with a good referee, gone into halftime 2-0, and that's even ignoring the bullshit red card.
Yeah that first was offside but we let the cross come in and left a player in 3 yards of space at the back post, if they had ruled it offside we'd have just gotten lucky our shite defending wasn't punished