Manchester United 0:1 Atletico Madrid (Sat 30th July, 12:45 UK time)

System wise. We're way better drilled than we used to be. However, personnel quality and mentality, it's a long way to go. Have no depth and even our supposed first choices ain't clinical enough. We may be fitter, which helped us with pressing game but overall athleticism of the team is still worryingly low. Atletico despite way behind in their pre season fitness program showed that they can here and there in certain sequence of play, just outpaced us. They did well to get into our players' heads too, and affected our game.

Good reality check.
 
Disappointing ending to what was a relatively positive display. 1st half was a good display where we should have scored a couple of goals, 2nd half was a drop off and their fresh players in the final 20min really punished our flagging team.

Atletico are a couple of weeks behind us in terms of fitness but they are years ahead of us in terms of developing a team, and I think it showed today. It’s only a friendly and we have to look at big picture.
 
Need two forwards and midfielders before the window ends. That's as plain as day after that game.
 
RedDevilQuebecois said:
If you can't beat a team lagging behind in preseason by 2 weeks, it is awful. Think about what it will be like against any solid opponent among our first 10 matches, fully prepared.

In any case, we have not been up to the job in 2 consecutive preseason games. It is really concerning.
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I don't think you understand the point of pre-season.
 
Don't worry, the king is back tomorrow, we will have more in attack with him as our effective captain :devil:
 
I thought we played very well first half. The much better team. When the intensity of the pressing dropped due to the heat and they made changes we struggled a bit more and it was an even game. Bruno and Elanga were pretty awful on the ball - we gained control again when Eriksen came on and Bruno went wide where Bruno ball does less damage to us. Missed some chances, should have had a few pens then felix - who is class - scored a great goal. Not worried for Brighton IF everyone is fit.

However, it’s weird that for all the abuse Mctominay, Fred and Maguire get that by far our biggest issue when everyone is fit is our front 3. We have zero depth, martial is very injury prone and as much as I do think there’s a player in Elanga he quite clearly isn’t ready to start with any regularity for a team with our apparent ambitions. We desperately need 2 top quality attackers.
 
Decent work out a defeat was harsh but need to react and win their opening PL game. Poor defending on the goal conceded.

Basic stats

1st half

Shots
United 7
A Madrid 3

On target
United 3
A Madrid 0

2nd half

Shots
United 6
A Madrid 4

On target
United 1
A Madrid 2
 
They brought in Morata Griezman and Felix and we brought in Pellistri.
It’s ridiculous how poor our depth is. And it’s gonna cost us points
 
Ace said:
I guess you missed him getting sent off for stamping on a player during a friendly.
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He didn't really stamp on though did he. More like stepped in a continuation of running.
If that's a stamp them Madrid should finish every game with just a keeper.
 
Had some nice combinations, Elanga should have scored twice, Maguire from the corner. But the issue with the defence getting exposed on counters remain and will be our Achilles heel this season
 
FatTails said:
We were good for the most part I thought. Not sure what people were watching.

Why have we never tried to go after Llorente?
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Why would he leave Atletico for us? Likely he's happy in his homeland. Atletico even as bad as their last season has been in better position than us. They won La Liga just 2 seasons ago.
 
Banat said:
What's the Atleti financial situation, any chance we can bid £100m for Felix. He is absolutely sensational, higher ceiling and better player than Greenwood, and a proper replacement. If we can get rid of Ronaldo and FDJ stays at Barca, we should go all in for this guy, he is easily worth £100-120m
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He is a attacking midfielder. If we buy him he will be part of the bloated AM contingent which consists of Bruno, Eriksen, VDB, Hannibal and Pellistri.
 
- Good runout for the team.
- DDG basically had nothing to do all game.
- DVB was like a training cone out there basically.
- Nice cameo from Eriksen.
- Maguire should of scored.
- Felix was class.
- Referee was trash.
 
Didn't see the game but what it does highlight is the drop off between Sancho and then having to play someone like Elanga. More signings are needed
 
It might work in his favour this defeat and the new football board think tank, which should at least acknowledge the midfield and attack need at least 2 players coming in.
 
Again, positives from the game.

We have our RB and LB sorted.
Both Malacia and Dalot looked good.

Fred was great until that dumb card. Could have gone without that.

Just a matter of easing Lisandro instead of Maguire.
Somehow make Eriksen a starting 11 player.
He's got chances up his sleeve.

Bad ones from the whole preseason:

Elanga isn't good enough.
We need a striker. Putting all our hope in Tony and Rash will cost us.
Harry is subpar player and a subpar captain.

Missed Sancho today.
We need more quality players.

Frenkie needs to come.
 
I almost feel like I watched a different game. Thought we played well mostly. Elanga isn't good enough but that's about it. Eriksen looks fantastic. Don't want to blame Maguire to much for the miss. I reckon he was surprised by the quality of the corner. He will bang in the next one.
Don't want to be to harsh on Fred either. Morata seems like a cnut and AM are Shithousery FC so the need to kick those feckers got the best of him.

Overall we played better than last season. Improvements are clear as day.
 
Good and bad things to take from the game.

Need a better wide forward to cover for Sancho/Rashford than Elanga or we have a large drop in quality if either get injured. Need another striker 100% if Ronaldo leaves. Fred will be important for us this season and Eriksen will be vital.

FdJ would make a big difference to this team but we are also lacking a lot of fitness. It will be interesting to see how EtH deals with our lack of fitness for the first part of the season.

Quietly confident that we will get top 4 this season and even if we don't I think we will make massive progress.
 
This is reminder that we need quality in midfield to control tempo of games if we want to beat the like of Atletico that are well drilled defensively.
 
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Not exactly the performance we were hoping for, but there were some positive signs. Best to let this one go.
 
RonaldoVII said:
I must've missed the rule that says he's suspended in the league too?
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Are you saying you’re not familiar with the last two first team players we’ve had suspended at the start of a season for getting sent off in preseason? They were relatively important players for our club, perhaps you’ve heard of them or atleast seen them referenced in this thread if you haven’t been supporting that long.
 
We created plenty of opportunities. Atletico had 2 shots on target all game.

We had 13 shots. On another day we bury a couple of those.

Yet some think we were awful :wenger:
 
ETH is a good manager but he's no miracle worker. We all know that this squad is...erm....shit. Let's hope that he won't be made to carry the mistakes made by the Cardiff generation.
 
I must say malacia looked good.

Elanga was the weak link in the team.

A good tough match.
 
Shame about the result but we could’ve scored 2 easily today but just wasn’t to be. Too many people see the score and just deem it to be an awful performance. Im not sure how many of those people actually watched the game because there were things to be impressed by:

1. Whilst not crisp for the full 90, there were periods of really good passing and it’s clear EtH asks them to play along the ground

2. our pressing and urgency to get the ball back was excellent throughout I thought

3. Maguire was very good and unfortunate not to get a goal

4. Malacia looks a steal

5. Eriksen was silky smooth and looked right at home immediately, huge asset to the midfield.

There are some areas of improvement and we clearly lack depth in RW plus we became a bit toothless in attack in the 2nd half. The doom mongering is not justified imo.
 
Eriksen is our best acquisition this transfer window.
 
Come on man. Why are you lot so pessimistic? Yet again we got so many chances, ATL have great players in both rotations. I hate everything about them, but you cant say they dont have quality players. We can all see we are lacking the depth - but god i hope we are signing the right players and not just like all the other years, just signing random players to keep the fanbase happy. We play more inspiring, fluid and better football. Now we just need the right players to come in. Eriksen looked class once again, that golden boot - first corner should have been a goal, first cross should have been a goal. The future is bright, but maybe not this year. But in 2-3 years we have the team to compete in the PL titel race.
 
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big rons sovereign said:
He didn't really stamp on though did he. More like stepped in a continuation of running.
If that's a stamp them Madrid should finish every game with just a keeper.
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Atletico are as dirty as it comes, but that was by far the worst challenge of the day. Straight red any day of the week.
 
UnitedSofa said:
Cue the over reactions from a game that showed we have vastly improved and where De Gea was for the majority of the match a spectator.
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We have certainly vastly improved over the utter shite we were serving up for the last few weeks of the season.

We looked a lot like we did in Ralf’s early days though: well organised, hard working, creating chances but failing to finish. Anyone saying we were “dominated“ can safely be ignored, but we need to start scoring against defences that aren’t terrible. If we don’t, heads will start to drop.
 
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