Positivity after City

Jericholyte2

Full Member
Joined
Oct 6, 2004
Messages
3,978
I’m sure this could get amalgamated into other threads, but I feel a little positive still after this.

Yes it was naive (at best) to have McT and Eriksen in the midfield two and the players completely froze, but last season we wouldn’t have won the second half.

Sure, City slowed down and made subs, but we scored the first goal in the second half and capitalised on the slower play of City. Last year we’d have given up straight away and lost 7 or 8 nil.

So, whilst it’s shit, we must admit that results like this will happen to m the early stages of this rebuild, but the mentality is most important at this point.
 
Jericholyte2 said:
I’m sure this could get amalgamated into other threads, but I feel a little positive still after this.

Yes it was naive (at best) to have McT and Eriksen in the midfield two and the players completely froze, but last season we wouldn’t have won the second half.

Sure, City slowed down and made subs, but we scored the first goal in the second half and capitalised on the slower play of City. Last year we’d have given up straight away and lost 7 or 8 nil.

So, whilst it’s shit, we must admit that results like this will happen to m the early stages of this rebuild, but the mentality is most important at this point.
Click to expand...

I agree with you. It's early days for ETH, and we must give him a chance.
 
City were still doing their heavy press in the 2nd half and we played through it at times. De Gea in particular looked far more composed playing the ball in the second half despite heavy pressure. Fred also looked half decent on the ball when he came on. I think the extra time and training sessions from missing a few games will have helped them a bit.
 
I'm definitely positive that I'll be having a few beers tonight after that
 
City are almost unarguably the best team on Earth right now, so it's not a total embarassment imo. The real positivity for me is:
We've played 7 games, 3 against LFC/AFC/MCFC. That's a tought ole start, moreso if you rate Brighton. And we're just behind Chelsea in 6th.

We've got some good new players in, and are bedding them into an entirely new system. There have been flashes of confidence and real cohesive football, but not consistent yet. We've also still to get Casemiro up to speed, who should in theory be answering the largest question we've had in the last decade.

We've also done that without a centre forward worthy of the name, imo.

ETH is a good coach, we have to give him time. We should have some more favourable runs of matches and let's evaluate where we are in the New Year.
 
Last edited:
What a complete waste of money Casemiro looks to be so far. I'm sure the situation will improve but much less sure about than when he signed.
 
It will breath fresh life in to the anti glazer movement.
 
Jericholyte2 said:
I’m sure this could get amalgamated into other threads, but I feel a little positive still after this.

Yes it was naive (at best) to have McT and Eriksen in the midfield two and the players completely froze, but last season we wouldn’t have won the second half.

Sure, City slowed down and made subs, but we scored the first goal in the second half and capitalised on the slower play of City. Last year we’d have given up straight away and lost 7 or 8 nil.

So, whilst it’s shit, we must admit that results like this will happen to m the early stages of this rebuild, but the mentality is most important at this point.
Click to expand...
Kind of how I felt after the game too. Seems strange after losing 6-3 but I had optimism in how we were so bad in the first half but showed signs of our good form in the second half. Yes the game was won but we didn’t just go into a shell and see it out for 4-0.

I do think they’ll be changes next game as opposed to an unchanged lineup. I can see Martial, Casemiro and possibly Shaw coming into the team as we’ll need to start rotating.
 
Jericholyte2 said:
I’m sure this could get amalgamated into other threads, but I feel a little positive still after this.

Yes it was naive (at best) to have McT and Eriksen in the midfield two and the players completely froze, but last season we wouldn’t have won the second half.

Sure, City slowed down and made subs, but we scored the first goal in the second half and capitalised on the slower play of City. Last year we’d have given up straight away and lost 7 or 8 nil.

So, whilst it’s shit, we must admit that results like this will happen to m the early stages of this rebuild, but the mentality is most important at this point.
Click to expand...
Last year we didn't lose this badly so I don't know how you can be sure we'd have done worse.
 
kouroux said:
Last year we didn't lose this badly so I don't know how you can be sure we'd have done worse.
Click to expand...
Last year the performance was way worse. City stopped trying last year after 2-0 we were so bad. They were so comfortable last year.
 
We had some nice passing sequences and Martial showing his pre-season form. We also looks like we have more technical players than before. Atleast that's something.
 
Beachryan said:
City are almost unarguably the best team on Earth right now, so it's not a total embarassment imo. The real positivity for me is:
We've played 7 games, 3 against LFC/AFC/MCFC. That's a tought ole start, moreso if you rate Brighton.

We've got some good new players in, and are bedding them into an entirely new system. There have been flashes of confidence and real cohesive football, but not consistent yet. We've also still to get Casemiro up to speed, who should in theory be answering the largest question we've had in the last decade.

We've also done that without a centre forward worthy of the name, imo.

ETH is a good coach, we have to give him time. We should have some more favourable runs of matches and let's evaluate where we are in the New Year.
Click to expand...
Yep. We have to keep some perspective. We’re not really challenging City for anything anytime soon. Get the team drilled i to a cohesive unit and start winning games we should be winning (lesser teams) regularly. It’s a process. Wins v Arsenal and pool might be important later if we do go on a run now.
 
This places is far too negative most of the time but jesus we just played our best team and got completely destroyed.

It’s a bit worrying tbh.
 
Well we came a few times toe to toe during second half. Against the best team in earth. Lotta new players. With rashford and fred. So there is that.
 
It's shit that they didn't show more spirit than they did, but in the grand scheme of the season, it's not our fight.

We'll learn a lot more about where we are from how consistently we can beat most of the shite teams we'll be playing twice a week from now until the World Cup. City are winning the league at a canter again anyway, and we just need to make sure we're not behind three of Arsenal/Spurs/Chelsea/Liverpool as well.
 
We won the second half and Martial came on and scored 2 goals, good to see him back (fingers crossed he can stay fit)
 
Still within touching distance of the top 4, which to be honest was always going to represent our most realistic ambition this season.

Need to bounce back again though, can’t go into a downward spiral of abject performances like last season.
 
I really hate the whole "winning the second half thing" when we get massacred in these games as City clearly got a bit complacent in the last twenty minutes but in the spirit of the thread I'd say:
  • Antony's goal was a worldie, nice to know he's got that in his locker
  • Martial winning a penalty is something that we've missed. He did tend to do that a lot under Ole and, well, it gets goals :D . Good desire for his other goal too.
  • Shaw was pretty naff defensively and played Foden onside for the goal but the attacking contribution was better down that flank with him on the pitch
  • Dalot had a nightmare but got a better in the second half
  • As one poster said we are making a painful transition from a mostly counter attack style to a team more confident in possession. You can see glimpses of it here and there. I do believe in our manager that we can play better football under him.
That's it for positivity, i'm out :lol:
 
Jericholyte2 said:
I’m sure this could get amalgamated into other threads, but I feel a little positive still after this.

Yes it was naive (at best) to have McT and Eriksen in the midfield two and the players completely froze, but last season we wouldn’t have won the second half.

Sure, City slowed down and made subs, but we scored the first goal in the second half and capitalised on the slower play of City. Last year we’d have given up straight away and lost 7 or 8 nil.

So, whilst it’s shit, we must admit that results like this will happen to m the early stages of this rebuild, but the mentality is most important at this point.
Click to expand...

Where was that mentality ten minutes to HT, positives are Antony's goal and Martial's two.
 
People who are getting intensely worked up after this showing by a United team in transition against arguably the PL’s best ever team away from home need to get a reality check.
This was expected. Many other top PL teams will receive a similar spanking at the Emirates this season. Yes, ETH could have done a few things differently, particularly in midfield, but that wouldn’t have changed anything meaningfully.

Look forward to the run of games after this one.
 
We got thrashed 4 -0 by Brentford and went on to beat Liverpool and go on a mini run that was stopped by a cowardly Premier league afraid of upsetting all the royalist loving morons.

Martial scored two goals which is always a positive for striker, especially coming back from injury.

Antony scored a great goal to show that he has potential to get us ten plus goals from the wing.
 
I don't know how positive it's going to be perceived but this game confirms things that we already know about certain players, things that we for example saw against Arsenal or Liverpool. The back four wasn't bad in my opinion, the differece between this opponent and the aforementioned opponents is that City are probably the best possession team around, if you can't recycle and transition at an above average level they will beat the brakes out of you.

It may sound silly but we are not that far from where we want to be, we have three problems in the starting eleven one that is fixed if our number one sicknote is healty, one is fixed by someone that is currently on the bench and the third one is a bit more difficult to change because he is popular and we don't have that one midfielder that could replace him without creating a PR nightmare.
 
TheLord said:
People who are getting intensely worked up after this showing by a United team in transition against arguably the PL’s best ever team away from home need to get a reality check.
This was expected. Many other top PL teams will receive a similar spanking at the Emirates this season. Yes, ETH could have done a few things differently, particularly in midfield, but that wouldn’t have changed anything meaningfully.

Look forward to the run of games after this one.
Click to expand...

Try Etihad
 
At least ETH now sees that likes of Sancho, Bruno, Rashford need replacing ASAP, these are players he probably thought could become important first team players but now he's seeing that these players have consistently failed to live up to expectation.

He's realised he needs another 2 windows like the one gone by, and what needs to be done.

That's the only positive I can see.
 
Never understood how people predict losses then act like it's the end of the world when you do indeed lose the game.

Most in here predicted we'd lose which happened. And people predicted that for a good reason, being that currently City are a better team than us. Losing against them shouldn't warrant calls for sacking everyone and whatsnot.

Most are or should be aware of the fact that we're a work in progress therefore defeat such as today against the likes of City isn't necessarily a surprise. All we ought to do is learn from this and move on.
 
I'm optimistic and can see a lot of signs of progress. If there was ever a time where we need to be patient it is now.

This isn't going to be a great season but it'll be much better than the last one.
 
Look at the overall picture so far...

In the opening 7 league games of the season, we have taken 6 points from the matches involving Liverpool, Arsenal, and City.

As someone once said, "Don't be sad, 'cause two (wins) out of three ain't bad" :)
 
We learned nothing new. We knew City were lightyears ahead of us as a club before a ball was kicked today. Our rebuild continues. Top four is still very much possible, and I had written off our chances after the first two games. Ten Hag will have learned from today, he quickly realised he couldn't rely on Maguire and I am sure his opinion on some of the players may have shifted today too.
 
Sweet Square said:
This places is far too negative most of the time but jesus we just played our best team and got completely destroyed.

It’s a bit worrying tbh.
Click to expand...
I don't think that's our best team. I'd have a midfield of Fred/Eriksen/Casemiro and Rashford/Martial/Antony up top
 
This is the sort of drubbing we badly needed so ETH can continue refining his tactics and formations for the rest of the year. Very encouraged by Antony, the return of Martial, as well as the fact that we have alot of options on the bench. Full confident we will continue to improve as ETH makes adjustments.
 
They are several levels above us and no other team we face this season is likely to dismantle us like they did today. So chalk this one up to the game and move on.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.