ETH had set you up deep and to play on the counter on your own ground. A de-facto admission your not ready to contest the ball with Arsenal. Thats Arteta's doing, only Liverpool and Man City will seek to challenge us for the ball. All other teams will surrender possession to us home and away. We will therefore get more time on the ball, more touches in the final third increasing the chances of scoring. Saliba and Odegaard also missed sitters inside the box. We did enough to win the game, but the execution just wasn't there, at the front and back.
There was nothing controlled about that performance. When Saka scored all United fans were fearing the worst. But then one kick and chase moment and the game was upended.
I’ve seen some nonsense posted but this takes the biscuit for deluded and arrogant.
United dominated the ball the first 15 minutes and Eriksen missed a sitter at the back post.
The (rightly) disallowed goal interrupted our rhythm and you took control of possession and did very well. You then continued to dominate the ball into the second half but again didn’t do much with it bar the Odegaard chance which ended up nearer the corner flag than the goal.
The odd thing is your goal was actually from a counter attack in which Varane made an error and you used the turnover to play directly through our defence where he was out of position.
To brand the Bruno assist for the second goal as a ‘kick and chase moment’ is beyond stupid. In fact if that’s what you believe then it should concern you that the Saliba-Gabriel Axis can’t deal with such Sunday League football. It really says more about your team than it does United.
Finally the first goal saw 18 passes put together from all 11 United players. It wasn’t a ‘counter attack goal’ and it was the only sustained passage of play from both teams that showcased modern possession based football at its best.
I appreciate you’re still disappointed in the result but probably not the best idea to log on here and post lazy, misinformed nonsense as it shows you lack any objectivity and insight.
You need to remember United are at the very beginning of a rebuild under Ten Hag and his coaches. We aren’t playing how he wants us to play yet but we are doing it for spells in games. This has been evident in all our fixtures this season (see the Sancho goal v Liverpool and the Antony goal v Arsenal).
This will improve overtime and will likely require us to make further changes in personnel over the next windows. I suspect De Gea will be replaced as it’s clear he can’t help in the build up and this is one of the reasons we concede more possession currently as he’s often forced to kick long to avoid costly errors. See Brentford.
Given you’ve been through something similar with Arteta it’s very odd you are either unable, or unwilling, to accept this. What Ten Hag is doing well at the moment is adapting his philosophy with the tools he currently has. The alternative, which I know you’d enjoy, would be to stick exactly with it and continue to see mistakes playing from the back, in particularly from the goalkeeper, and watch results and morale tumble.
I’m glad he’s adapting as we know what he’s working towards in the long term whilst recognising the current limitations of what he’s inherited. That’s smart.
It won’t be a smooth ride for us this season but we understand that.