Phil Jones

I don't see Jones (or anyone else) marking Ronaldo. If we do, Mourinho will reorganise his lineup to leave Ronaldo free to go walkabout and Ronaldo's old enough and smart enough to use a man marker to cause trouble. Ozil and Khedira will have a field day.

He's also very fast once he hits a sprint and it'll be difficult for any man marker to get through a match without two yellow cards - not that I'm saying Jones would be tempted to trip him up or pull him back if he started to lose him of course. :D
 
jojojo;12975597[B said:
]I don't see Jones (or anyone else) marking Ronaldo[/B]. If we do, Mourinho will reorganise his lineup to leave Ronaldo free to go walkabout and Ronaldo's old enough and smart enough to use a man marker to cause trouble. Ozil and Khedira will have a field day.

He's also very fast once he hits a sprint and it'll be difficult for any man marker to get through a match without two yellow cards - not that I'm saying Jones would be tempted to trip him up or pull him back if he started to lose him of course. :D
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You don't think SAF will give him extra attention? I would be convinced we would try to man mark him, shut him out the game..
 
jojojo said:
I don't see Jones (or anyone else) marking Ronaldo. If we do, Mourinho will reorganise his lineup to leave Ronaldo free to go walkabout and Ronaldo's old enough and smart enough to use a man marker to cause trouble. Ozil and Khedira will have a field day.

He's also very fast once he hits a sprint and it'll be difficult for any man marker to get through a match without two yellow cards - not that I'm saying Jones would be tempted to trip him up or pull him back if he started to lose him of course. :D
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Ronaldo is a gazelle and our Phil is the lion. I know who I am backing!
 
I think Ferguson will be looking at set pieces also, Jones gives us power there in both ends of the field.
 
I also agree that marking Ronaldo would't br a good tactic. If we can silence Ozil and Alonso, then I don't think that Ronaldo can do much.
 
Jaybezia said:
And without your red glasses Phil is a baby lion more like a cat and CR is a Gazelle on hormone fecking steroids.
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:lol:

Fair point. Though tonight is a night for some players to announce themselves on the world stage, Phil Jones being one.
 
Jaybezia said:
You don't think SAF will give him extra attention? I would be convinced we would try to man mark him, shut him out the game..
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I'm sure we'll give him extra attention but that's not the same thing.

The safest thing to do with Ronaldo is keep him wide and stop him getting the ball :devil: You can keep him wide by giving him work to do - like Barcelona do, or by getting a Madrid player sent off at the start. You can keep the ball away by dispossessing the injured (easy meat for any sort of lion) Alonso and blocking Ozil.

If you can't keep him wide then you need to get bodies in the middle - three central defenders, a defensive midfielder ahead of two central defenders, if sweepers still existed you'd use one of them - that's where the extra attention comes in. The tricky thing is we seldom play that way, but then we seldom use manmarking and we seldom play Real Madrid.

The other thing is how will Madrid play - with/without Di Maria will signify two different kinds of team.
 
Huge credit to him. I said he was a disaster waiting to happen before the game and he proved me brilliantly wrong. So pleased for him and that'll do great things for his confidence. Bring on the home leg.
 
Very good. Deserved his start after that performance.
 
He's gonna be a top class defender. He's almost ruthless in the way he refuses to get beaten. Marking Ronaldo is no easy feat but he did it as well as we could hope. I can't remember the amount of times he cleared danger from our box as well.

Just terrific all round.
 
Twigginater said:
He's just absolutely pissed all over those who said he will never be a midfielder.
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Shut up you utter pleb.

He had one task, stop Ronaldo, he was as much a midfielder as either of our central defenders were tonight. If anything it showed how good a defender he will be.

feck sake, you'll do anything to make our midfield look good when in reality it was the glaring weakspot of an otherwise superb team performance tonight.
 
He was excellent. Didn't lose his head.

Only 20 years old, birthday in a week's time.

Raphael (22), Kagawa (23), De Gea (22), Welbeck (22) --- There's some young talent in United's squad alright. The three best players for United against Madrid in the Bernabeu were all in their early twenties.
 
Cina said:
Shut up you utter pleb.

He had one task, stop Ronaldo, he was as much a midfielder as either of our central defenders were tonight. If anything it showed how good a defender he will be.

feck sake, you'll do anything to make our midfield look good when in reality it was the glaring weakspot of an otherwise superb team performance tonight.
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:lol:

It must piss you off to see a performance like that.
 
Ferguson said:
He was excellent. Didn't lose his head.

Only 20 years old, birthday in a week's time.

Raphael (22), Kagawa (23), De Gea (22), Welbeck (22) --- There's some young talent in United's squad alright. The three best players for United against Madrid in the Bernabeu were all in their early twenties.
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I was thinking that too. What wonderful experience for all of them. Have to keep this bunch together so they form the spine of out next great team.
 
He's been great playing this central midfield role over the past few weeks and he's only 20, I think this will be his position for the coming years and he can only get better with experience.
 
He really did very well tonight. Think we predictably suffered in terms of possession play because he was there instead of Cleverley, but fair play that was impressive.
 
Played a decent game. Basically used to shield the back four and did that fairly well. Got a bit lucky when he went shoulder to shoulder and pushed the madrid player in the box as that could have easily been given considering we were away from home.

Overall he broke up play well, just needs to be a little more careful in getting in players backs/sides and muscling them off the ball. Against these types of teams more often than not it results in a freekick. Saying that even when he got it wrong it generally broke up play effectively.
 
Tonight is a good indicator as to why we forked out £16m for this guy. This is only the beginning too, he's going to be one class player.
 
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