Europa League Match Day 4

Manchester United 2:0 PAOK FC

Old Trafford

Kick-off
Thu, 7 November 2024 @ 8:00pm GMT
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    Gandalf said:
    Cutback was on but we never play them. You can criticize Rasmus for taking the open space for the cutback when he should know it is never coming from our wide players or you can criticize the fact that our wide players choose the wrong options all the time. In the end it is just a freezeframe of the last god knows how many years of this club, hopefully Amorim sorts it out.
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    Nowt wrong with the pass to Amad, it was good defending to clear it at the far post.
     
    Ruud obviously agreed with Ten Hag style of football.

    Inverted full back shite. Get rid if it. No clue going forward gaps still all over the place defending.
     
    santeria13 said:
    The problem is he has the same problems in the majority of games he's played for us. He's a great finisher but he's consistently in terrible positions and not making the right runs. I'm not sure that instinct is something you can coach into a player.

    Look at Nunez. Fantastic movement and terrible finishing to begin with, but the latter is something you can work on over time. The former is usually something you just have or you don't.
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    It’s easy to say this but there is literally no pattern of play from the wingers or Bruno and no concerted effort to get him the ball. He’s often in the 3rd or 4th phase of the attack before a cross-shot comes in and he’s then crowded. We have one man up front, if the wingers hold on too long the oppo pack the box and he has no chance. He’s not perfect by any stretch of the imagination but he’s basically set up to fail. Play to his strengths or it’s pointless him being on the pitch. You could make an argument for him being secondary to our attack and a non-scoring forward if the wingers offered something, but they don’t, they are worse finishers and less of a goal threat.

    Really hope Amorim changes this because they’re either brain dead or extremely greedy on the wings.
     
    We ran out of ideas towards the end of the half. Far too much reliance on Bruno. But I guess we all kinda know that.
     
    MDFC Manager said:
    Take away the captaincy and half the problem is solved, it makes him droppable
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    He's not a good captain, agreed. It's more the fact that he has a completely free role, offers extraodinarily little defensively and then has nights where he's outrageously sloppy. He's never had much athleticism and appears to be losing what he does have fast.

    Not many teams play a 10 these days. None are able to field one that is as unproductive as he's been this season.

    Hojland has been poor too, but he's alone with 2 CBs and almost no service, with his 10 never anywhere near him nor looking for him.
     
    HookedOnAPhelan said:
    Our players are fecking shit. That's our main issue right now. Anyone thinking Amorim is going to ride into town and fix this shite overnight is deluding themselves.

    We're a mid table team at best right now.
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    Yeah, ETH wasted a lot of money on shit players. Really fecked us bad with his mediocre signings.
     
    Pretty poor. Didn't expect us to suddenly look great under Ruud. Never thought the underperformance was due to a lack of effort, and I've not seen any major tactical changes under Ruud. Even if he wanted to make tactical changes, probably wasn't enough time and they're going to need to learn a completely different philosophy under Amorim anyway. This was why I was hoping we could get Amorim in immediately because unlike with Jose for example, the issue was never down to motivation imo.

    I do think the issue of goals could persist under Amorim though because we are lacking a reliable goalscorer and that is a major flaw of the recruitment team. I'm sure we'll address that in the summer, but I'm concerned about the rest of this season. Not ideal that after Ipswich and Everton, Amorim actually has a pretty tough run of fixtures too. I expect our defence will be better immediately, but still think we messed up badly not getting him in over last international break.
     
    McTerminator said:
    Something I always felt Ole had right, can’t score if you don’t shoot…
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    We looked infinitely more threatening under Ole than we have this season. I feel like Bruno is playing like someone has told him to go short unless its absolutely necessary.

    People would get at Bruno under Ole but at least then it felt like we might actually score a goal. Barring a 20 minute spell in the middle, that is probably one of the easiest halves of football PAOK's defenders have played all season. Their keeper is probably getting cold from standing about on a night like this. Hasn't had to do much moving has he?
     
    Castia said:
    If you knew nothing about football and watched United you wouldn’t believe they’re even a top flight team. Like we’re honestly so fecking bad there are championship level teams way more technical than us it’s mind boggling
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    Totally agree you can’t polish a turd, this United squad is a bottom 6 PL squad and we need to be honest about the ability of the players, we probably need another 7/8 players just to have a competitive squad.

    I’m starting to think that 3 or 4 of our attacking options might need to go and 3 or 4 come in. Simply no urgency, so many of these players are stealing a living from the club, I think Hojlund, Zirkzee, Rashford all on trial to the end of the season, Antony already left the building and Mount and Bruno need to be seriously concerned too!
     
    2 man midfield said:
    No pace, no urgency, everything done at a snails pace. It’s the exact opposite of sporting the other night. It’s like I’m watching us play on 0.5 speed.

    I don’t know how Amorim is going to get this lot to do anything without putting cocaine into their half time cocoa or something.
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    Will be interesting to see what he can achieve with this bunch. I am afraid he needs 6 new first teamers.
     
    whitbyviking said:
    It’s easy to say this but there is literally no pattern of play from the wingers or Bruno and no concerted effort to get him the ball. He’s often in the 3rd or 4th phase of the attack before a cross-shot comes in and he’s then crowded. We have one man up front, if the wingers hold on too long the oppo pack the box and he has no chance. He’s not perfect by any stretch of the imagination but he’s basically set up to fail. Play to his strengths or it’s pointless him being on the pitch. You could make an argument for him being secondary to our attack and a non-scoring forward if the wingers offered something, but they don’t, they are worse finishers and less of a goal threat.

    Really hope Amorim changes this because they’re either brain dead or extremely greedy on the wings.
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    I agree to an extent, but we're literally seeing a 31 year old Casemiro make twice as many dangerous runs into the box as our centre forward. That's unacceptable. Yeah the ball doesn't usually find him because our passing is dogshit, but you can see the run was dangerous. We very rarely, if ever see that from Hojlund.
     
    Joseunited said:
    He hasn't got a chance though has he,nobody near him,amad and garnacho both on ythe touchline.bruno either wide left or too deep.
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    I’m telling you, this ten hag system fecking sucks for any sort of attacking threat unless you have these ideal niche profiles to pull it off. Wingers are told to sit super wide, fullbacks underlap or invert constantly and are tasked with playing penatrative passes to box crashing midfielders? Ironically it’s why McToninay was so dangerous in it, because the players that get the most space and freedom in the final third are those late runner midfielders or fullbacks.

    Strikers and wingers are constantly doubled
     
    On a positive note Ugarte is starting to look sharp.

    Maz played left back against Chelsea and was excellent so why the swap to right back ? Dalot really struggles at left back.

    Quite a lot of sloppy passes have made it a frustrating half but I think we will score early in the second.

    Casemiro puts a lovely cross in. Also good to see him look more comfortable he didn’t deserve a lot of the abuse he was getting.
     
    Xaviboy said:
    Ruud obviously agreed with Ten Hag style of football.

    Inverted full back shite. Get rid if it. No clue going forward gaps still all over the place defending.
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    Yeah, he doesn’t seem to have changed much at all (other than playing Ugarte more).
     
    pascell said:
    Someone needs to show Garnacho on the training pitch and iron out his flaws, because there's a lot of them. Every game his passing is wildly inconsistent and it has been since he broke through.

    Good luck to Amorim
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    Very poor today. Højlund too.
     
    Dazzmondo said:
    Pretty poor. Didn't expect us to suddenly look great under Ruud. Never thought the underperformance was due to a lack of effort, and I've not seen any major tactical changes under Ruud. Even if he wanted to make tactical changes, probably wasn't enough time and they're going to need to learn a completely different philosophy under Amorim anyway. This was why I was hoping we could get Amorim in immediately because unlike with Jose for example, the issue was never down to motivation imo.

    I do think the issue of goals could persist under Amorim though because we are lacking a reliable goalscorer and that is a major flaw of the recruitment team. I'm sure we'll address that in the summer, but I'm concerned about the rest of this season. Not ideal that after Ipswich and Everton, Amorim actually has a pretty tough run of fixtures too. I expect our defence will be better immediately, but still think we messed up badly not getting him in over last international break.
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    It baffles me that we spent 50m on Zirkzee when there was multiple proven options available.
     
    Schmeichels pinky said:
    I agree this has been one of his worst games. And it’s fine to criticize a players’ performance. I just think many are tired of the OTT bashing.
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    What was ott of saying Hojlund should have been on the end of that ball by Garnacho? I think that's a perfectly reasonable comment. I didn't say he was absolutely terrible and should be binned. I praise and criticise all our players depending on how they perform in individual matches
     
    Also so fecking tired of having everything go through Bruno expecting his wildly inconsistent heroball will lead to something
     
    I think we're playing constantly with a really poor striker, there is literally zero target man. The wingers have nothing to feed into, no target to hit.

    I'm sick of hearing this Hojlund talk now, he's absolutely bang average and it's impacted us right through the team.

    I've been saying it for ages and have been shouted down so many times on here but the proof is in the pudding. He's not even finding space or creating himself an opening against weaker sides.
     
    Our work rate is non-existent. I thought my internet connection had frozen, but no, 10 seconds later our players were in almost the same position whilst PAOK were all in our half taking pot shots. Keane was right - this team just doesn’t run.
     
    #07 said:
    I really hoped that Ruud had been sitting next to Ten Hag secretly seething about how the team was being sent out to play. Clearly not.

    Carrick made more changes from Ole than Ruud has from Erik. Clearly their ideas on football are not too dissimilar.

    I am starting to wonder whether we showed more or less intent under Van Gaal. The fact its even a debate is worrying.

    The quicker Amorim can come in the better. As for this talk of Ruud staying on. Give over.
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    Yeah i had hoped Ruud would have mixed things up more like Carrick did.
     
    #07 said:
    We looked infinitely more threatening under Ole than we have this season. I feel like Bruno is playing like someone has told him to go short unless its absolutely necessary.

    People would get at Bruno under Ole but at least then it felt like we might actually score a goal. Barring a 20 minute spell in the middle, that is probably one of the easiest halves of football PAOK's defenders have played all season. Their keeper is probably getting cold from standing about on a night like this. Hasn't had to do much moving has he?
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    Ole had Bruno in the best form Bruno has ever had, he had a not yet broken version of Paul Pogba. He had the best version of Martial and Rashford. He had -whoshallnotbenamed- and the last season of Ronaldo where Ronaldo still had some ability. Ole had much better attackers so im not suprised his team could look more threatening going forward.
     
    Bon1803 said:
    On a positive note Ugarte is starting to look sharp.

    Maz played left back against Chelsea and was excellent so why the swap to right back ? Dalot really struggles at left back.

    Quite a lot of sloppy passes have made it a frustrating half but I think we will score early in the second.

    Casemiro puts a lovely cross in. Also good to see him look more comfortable he didn’t deserve a lot of the abuse he was getting.
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    Casemiro, well, if he'd played like he has tonight, I don't think he'd have gotten that abuse. Glad to see he's approaching something like form. Bruno too.
     
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Post-match discussion

Man of the Match

Amad Diallo image Amad Diallo 97% of 196 votes

Runners-up

Player Ratings

5.9 Total Average Rating

Highest Rated Player

Lowest Rated Player

Compiled from 171 ratings.
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Score Predictions

164,3,5
  • Man Utd win
  • PAOK FC win
  • Draw

Detailed Results

  • 28% Man Utd 3:0 PAOK FC
  • 23% Man Utd 2:0 PAOK FC
  • 12% Man Utd 3:1 PAOK FC
  • 10% Man Utd 4:0 PAOK FC
  • 9% Man Utd 2:1 PAOK FC
  • 6% Man Utd 4:1 PAOK FC
  • 4% Man Utd 5:0 PAOK FC
  • 2% Man Utd 1:0 PAOK FC
  • 2% Man Utd 1:1 PAOK FC
  • 1% Man Utd 0:0 PAOK FC
  • 1% Man Utd 0:1 PAOK FC
  • 1% Man Utd 7:1 PAOK FC
  • 1% Man Utd 2:2 PAOK FC
  • 1% Man Utd 0:2 PAOK FC
  • 1% Man Utd 1:3 PAOK FC
Compiled from 172 predictions.
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Match Stats

  1. Man Utd
  2. PAOK FC
Overall Possession
52.4% 47.6%
Shots
16 8
Shots on target
4 4
Shots off target
5 2
Blocked shots
7 2
Total touches in the box
42 12
Goalkeeper saves
4 2
Fouls
10 15
Corners
9 2

Man Utd Lineup

Substitutes

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