[#07]

It's really amazes me that this even needs to be explained.

It needs to be explained because losing the ball invites pressure, which it did until Lukaku scored and opened up the game.

A better team than Swansea might have made the turnovers count, they were all over us for a good 20 minutes. Had they been more capable Mhki mightn't have had the chance to make the contributions he ultimately did.

However, everyone is happy to overlook that (myself included) cos we won. I hope in games against tougher teams Mhki puts in better all round performances. I'll say no more on his showing today.

 

[Freak]

4 assists in 2 games. Keep it going Micky!

 

[Minimalist]

I don't get this criticism that for 70mins he was crap and then 20mins he was great. It was a slog out there for everyone and Clement set Swansea up to stop all play through the middle (making Mkhi's life a nightmare).

He's not Messi, he's not going to beat two men and score a worldy - he's the Armenian spy, slinking and probing around the box and he showed it today. Linked play well, two assists and maybe should have done better when he made space for that shot on his right.

Oh stop it. Get out of here with your sensible analysis.

 

[MadMike]

It needs to be explained because losing the ball invites pressure, which it did until Lukaku scored and opened up the game.

A better team than Swansea might have made the turnovers count, they were all over us for a good 20 minutes. Had they been more capable Mhki mightn't have had the chance to make the contributions he ultimately did.

However, everyone is happy to overlook that (myself included) cos we won. I hope in games against tougher teams Mhki puts in better all round performances. I'll say no more on his showing today.

No, it really didn't. We had 60% possession and they had feck all chances. We were comfortable pretty much all game bar a 10 minute spell in the second half before the subs.

Your 2-3 most attacking players are always at liberty to try things and lose the ball in the final third. Or else you don't create and you don't score. It's that simple.

Mkhi's not on the pitch to dictate tempo and keep the ball moving. That's Matic and Pogba. Mkhi's job is to take players on and try hopeful passes and combinations until something works. And I'd say he's done a pretty good job of it.

 

[MThomas]

Youvr been negative in this thr

Amazing these 90 minute games. I bet you didn't experience the Fergie years. Support the team for 90 mins at least

Support the team It's a forum on the internet, pointing out issues during a match is hardly a problem. He gets criticism when he's doing something wrong and he gets praise when he does something good. Same against West Ham, gave him stick for his first half and praised his second half.

He's supposed to be an integral part of our attack, in tight games he's pretty much useless. He'll hold on to the ball too long, lose shoulder duels and lose the ball while trying to drible his way out when he's in dangerous areas. Did the match open up because he started playing better, no, it opened up because Swansea had to get higher up the pitch in hope of getting a point. Needs to improve his all round game.

 

[King.of.Red]

two nice assists.. love his assist to Lukaku.

 

[Jazz]

Guy doesn't do much for most of the game and still ends up with assists. Crazy

 

[Devil may care]

Strange game, he struggled to get into the match for 80 minutes and then came to life with 2 deft assists and Sky gave him MOTM.

 

[Mciahel Goodman]

Was superb after about 60mins. Did nothing of note up until then, but looked like a different player late on.

 

[wiz4231]

Plays better drifting off the right wing like he did today for the last 20 mins. Mata and Miki Should switch as Mata is the sharper penalty box player or bring in Herrera to allow Pogba to get further forward. Also martial needs to start ahead of Rashford, it also gives us better options off the bench as Rashford can come on as a winger or striker.

Lukaku
Martial...............Mata.........Mkhitaryan
Matic......Pogba

Or

Lukaku
Martial.........................Mkhitaryan
Pogba...........Herrera
Matic

Rashford + Fellaini/Herrera/Mata off the bench​

 

[Irrational.]

Class player, and you can see why Jose trusts him.

 

[DWelbz19]

Let's hope so. Tired of seeing De Bruyne, Eriksen et al. dominate these charts and our attackers not being close. Pogba and Mkhi will hopefully be top 5 by the end of the season.

Let's go Miki. I'm feeling a Dortmund tier 20+ assist season.

 

[Akshay]

Was superb after about 60mins. Did nothing of note up until then, but looked like a different player late on.

Yeah once the space starts to open up he became deadly. He's so good at laying the right pass off in and around the box if you give him a little pocket to operate in. I think most of our attackers struggled early on, though. Swansea played very defensively and had high work rate and concentration. You need great strength or pace to succeed in those situations and he's not tremendously blessed with either.

 

[sammsky1]

Was superb after about 60mins. Did nothing of note up until then, but looked like a different player late on.

That's down to Swansea's organisational excellence as opposed to any major deficiency from him.

 

[ChaddyP]

That's down to Swansea's organisational excellence as opposed to any major deficiency from him.

this. The played with 5 at the back. Hard to break down. We had to be patient. Once Swansea came out their shell he sliced them up.

 

[Isotope]

My MotM. Not great first 70 min. but his final balls were the different.

 

[Mciahel Goodman]

Yeah once the space starts to open up he became deadly. He's so good at laying the right pass off in and around the box if you give him a little pocket to operate in. I think most of our attackers struggled early on, though. Swansea played very defensively and had high work rate and concentration. You need great strength or pace to succeed in those situations and he's not tremendously blessed with either.

He irritates me because he seems to over hit so many passes, or shoot from no hope areas. Then he does things which are brilliant, like his two assists. I think he needs the right conditions to play properly, open space as you say. Probably why he was so good in the EL last season as a lot of those games were quite open compared to our league games.

That's down to Swansea's organisational excellence as opposed to any major deficiency from him.

Maybe, but I still think he's hit and miss. Good assists today though.

 

[Sylar]

That's down to Swansea's organisational excellence as opposed to any major deficiency from him.

Which is fair. If players are shut out like most of our players are, then its not a case of a player being shit. The opposition deserve credit some times as frustrating as it was.

I do think Mkhi deserves credit and his link up play with martial also is fantastic.
Glad he got MOTM officially too.

 

[sammsky1]

He irritates me because he seems to over hit so many passes, or shoot from no hope areas. Then he does things which are brilliant, like his two assists. I think he needs the right conditions to play properly, open space as you say. Probably why he was so good in the EL last season as a lot of those games were quite open compared to our league games.


Maybe, but I still think he's hit and miss. Good assists today though.

He has also yet to convince me that he is top shelf and I worry about him in the really tough and physical games.

But maybe just like many others (including Mourinho), it takes a full season to truly adjust to Manchester United.

 

[ThomasEmil]

Think people expecting more are thinking of him as a different player.

 

[Akshay]

He irritates me because he seems to over hit so many passes, or shoot from no hope areas. Then he does things which are brilliant, like his two assists. I think he needs the right conditions to play properly, open space as you say. Probably why he was so good in the EL last season as a lot of those games were quite open compared to our league games.

I think the shots he took today were from decent areas, they were just horrible shots. He doesn't have the strength to give himself enough time when it's packed centrally. A little bit like Mata, but Mata's been in the PL long enough to adapt his game.

 

[sammsky1]

Think people expecting more are thinking of him as a different player.

In what sense?

 

[tomaldinho1]

Oh stop it. Get out of here with your sensible analysis.

Haha sorry - Lingard out, Fellaini's crap, Lukaku's first touch...better?

 

[Prongsy]

Mkhi had a silent game when Swansea were really trying to not let him be influential. Same goes with Pogba for most of it. Pogba even got frustrated and was almost gonna get sent off for nothing. But so calm is mkhi that though our attacking set up took time to get going, he never lost his composure and turned up when it mattered. Same can be said of Pogba of course, but there was moments where you thought maybe Pogba would probably lose his cool by being too impatient. Was very important we got the first goal. If not for that, could have been a different game.

But the minute we started attacking, mkhi was once again at heart of it all. His intelligence and speed of thought all working so efficiently in how we attack. Frankly we've barely had 10 mins of mkhi being as good as he can be and we've scored like 5 goals in those time these two games.

It's gonna be like that with our creative players this season. Sure they can have quiet days, but manager didn't take Pogba off even when he probably could have been sent off and same goes with mkhi. The fact he is older than Pogba means he can be more patient and still be as good when we are going. But he won't always be so ruthless like say a kdb. But when it matters hopefully he'll make difference.

 

[fellaini's barber]

I thought he was having a mare before he popped up with those assists. He loses the ball so needlessly at times. If there's space hell do good stuff, under any form of pressure he's frustrating. His intelligence with his final balls is great though

 

[Bloxy]

Support the team It's a forum on the internet, pointing out issues during a match is hardly a problem. He gets criticism when he's doing something wrong and he gets praise when he does something good. Same against West Ham, gave him stick for his first half and praised his second half.

He's supposed to be an integral part of our attack, in tight games he's pretty much useless. He'll hold on to the ball too long, lose shoulder duels and lose the ball while trying to drible his way out when he's in dangerous areas. Did the match open up because he started playing better, no, it opened up because Swansea had to get higher up the pitch in hope of getting a point. Needs to improve his all round game.

Your posts in this thread is just embarrassing. I'm not even going to bother pointing them out but have a quiet word yourself because the first 80 mins was tough for all of them but the way you just carried on about him was embarrassing.

 

[Jacob]

Who got the official MOTM vs West Ham?

 

[MiceOnMeth]

If he came off the bench and got those 2 assists we'd be begging Jose to start him, but we all saw the previous 80 and he just wasn't good enough again.

 

[dasty]

Swansea played 3 center backs and 2 DMs (yes, Fer dropped so deep he is basically a DM), of fecking course Mkhitaryan won't have much space to work with and won't impress you all. No matter what people say, it's fecking hard to do anything when you are playing in a space that has 5 players of the opposing team. Despite that, he still kept a 90% passing rate making 56 passes and came up with 2 assists. He is nowhere as terrible as some people here portrayed him to be.

 

[Jib]

Average performance even with the 2 assists

 

[Geekie]

Always feel deceived watching him. Did nothing of note until the crucial assist but so crucial was it that I was somehow made to think that he actually didn't do that bad before (huh?). Mikinception!

 

[Hugh Jass]

Swansea played 3 center backs and 2 DMs (yes, Fer dropped so deep he is basically a DM), of fecking course Mkhitaryan won't have much space to work with and won't impress you all. No matter what people say, it's fecking hard to do anything when you are playing in a space that has 5 players of the opposing team. Despite that, he still kept a 90% passing rate making 56 passes and came up with 2 assists. He is nowhere as terrible as some people here portrayed him to be.

This is exactly.

 

[ThomasEmil]

In what sense?

Think a lot of the criticism is harsh, considered he's not a one-to-one dribbler, he's not usian bolt neither is he Iniesta. But he's incredible at finding spaces and finding the perfect pass.

 

[Hugh Jass]

He is surrounded by defenders in the ten channel and unfortunately he does not have eyes on the back of his head. Of course he will lose the ball and give away passes, David Silva does the exact same. But eventually a pass gets through.

 

[shield]

Decent game. His performances are so mixed. Like, at one moment he is trying to make an impossible run and losing the ball and at another his doing something really brilliant. Think the brilliant bits outweighed the other bits in this match, especially towards the end of the match.

One more thing I noticed is, a number of times, he failed to spot Mata, who had positioned himself very well and would have had a clear goal scoring opportunity had Mkhi spotted and passed him the ball. It happened in the last match too.

 

[MThomas]

Your posts in this thread is just embarrassing. I'm not even going to bother pointing them out but have a quiet word yourself because the first 80 mins was tough for all of them but the way you just carried on about him was embarrassing.

Well, if you can't be bothered to point them out and say why it's wrong, then it's not really all that interesting to debate with you. Good luck.

 

[Footballsaurus]

I think he played well. A few points, he is following orders. If he had shit games Jose would bench him. Teams are going to actually put the most pressure on him cause they know that any space can lead to a potential play. The reason you have so many players on him is precisely because they want to shut him out. Another point, he can easily move to another top team. All our attacking players can. I don't see a reasonable replacement for him supposing he is shit, which I don't think so. Across all player ratings I think negative commentary is unreasonable.

 

[KM]

Swansea played 3 center backs and 2 DMs (yes, Fer dropped so deep he is basically a DM), of fecking course Mkhitaryan won't have much space to work with and won't impress you all. No matter what people say, it's fecking hard to do anything when you are playing in a space that has 5 players of the opposing team. Despite that, he still kept a 90% passing rate making 56 passes and came up with 2 assists. He is nowhere as terrible as some people here portrayed him to be.

1000 times this.

Swansea were very negative and still has 10 men behind the ball until the 70th minute.

 

[Di Maria's angel]

 

[Yagami]

Even before the onslaught I thought he did very well. A great start to the season from him.