Post-match: Southampton Home

Vidic on our good spell of football:

"Again, we went 1-0 down, and it was not a great start, but I think we had a spell of maybe 20-30 minutes of good football where we had a few chances and scored the two goals. We stopped after that. I don't know why. The last 10 minutes of the first half, we just stopped but sometimes you have these type of games and you still have to win."

I don't know why either Vidic.
 
I always laugh when I see people declare a performance "embarrassing" What's embarrassing about United winning a game of football? Who is embarrassed?
 
the second half was pretty shit though Nevs
 
Our form speaks for itself though...

dwwwdwwwww
 
The late goal we conceded last time was probably playing in the players heads. They probably jlust want to make sure they defend in numbers and with grit and determination. Not really pleasant viewing but aren't we such a spoilt bunch of football fans. Other clubs fans would enter the Taliban's army camp alone to get what we got tonight.
 
scholesy legend said:
The late goal we conceded last time was probably playing in the players heads. They probably jlust want to make sure they defend in numbers and with grit and determination. Not really pleasant viewing but aren't we such a spoilt bunch of football fans. Other clubs fans would enter the Taliban's army camp alone to get what we got tonight.
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How exactly were we defending with grit and determination in those last minutes? We were fortunate.
 
I had to miss the second half (work) but it appears that's a good thing.

All that matters is the restoration of our 7 point lead, but the poor performance of Ando today (the 20 minutes I saw he did look shite) could prompt Fergie to consider a deal for a midfielder tomorrow. I doubt it, but you never know.

Job done, even if the performance was a bit crap. I look forward to reading the latest on the De Gea thread.
 
Would have preferred a spanking, but given the pre match circumstances, delighted with a win. Gives us the flexibility we might need for february, given the very tough Champions League challenge vs Madrid.

If we can enter March still in the Champions League and on top of the premiership, it will have been a great month.
 
I'm always right said:
Serious? I thought he was absolutely awful, especially on the ball, got caught out on a good few occasions too, also gave away the most retarded easy corner I've possibly ever seen.
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I don't recall him getting caught out and the corner you are talking about, what you wanted him to risk heading it to DDG? Can't be serious if that is what you wanted at that point.

I guess I saw the opposite then, a few times he actually was getting pressured and was able to turn away from it.
 
I made point in the thread about why teams attack us that our counter-attacking play has been poor this season and today was another example of that. We had the chances today to counter-attack but, just flubbed our lines. One particularly when Rooney was set free but, couldn't get the ball out from under his feet (pitch issue?).

If teams don't fear that we can be lethal on the break then they are going to be a lot more likely to push up and make it hard for us to get out of our own half like we did in the second half. Hope we find that side of our game soon.

Obviously our counter-attacking play stems from being able to make the correct passes out but, even when we do get the ball out, we just aren't very free.
 
Well that was interesting. Such a strange game. The pitch has to be sorted but I'm not sure it can be this late in the season. We'll lose an edge because of it. Yes both teams have to play on it but we'll lose the edge we have of better passing and the hoofers will benefit. 3 points in the bag when we made Soton look like Brazil in their yellow shirts - stuff of Champions, play like crap and get 3 points while rivals only get 1. Good week really.
 
Very happy with the win specially after that performance.There are always a few weird matches at OT against lower league sides but I was basically shitting it at the thought of drawing it.A big relief in the end and in a match like this the poor performance can't be excused IMHO
 
2nd half the players looked like there wasn't enough in the tank to play the pressing game and just wanted to get out of there.
 
Didn't see but one replay of the offside goal but read that apparently Clyne was playing him on. Any truth to that?
 
Some perspective:

Man city 3-2 Southampton
Chelsea 2-2 Southampton

They're a good team in the mould of Swansea. 6 points off them is a very good return.
Isn't playing badly and winning the hallmark of champions?
 
Haven't seen the game.

I don't like the idea of us using two people who can't play out wide in wide positions. It makes no sense for self explanatory reasons. We're obsessed with using players in roles and systems they can't really play in.

That said, it sounds like we were doing fine and then either died or started pratting around...again. If it's the latter I'm glad I missed the game as it would have infuriated me.
 
Ruud_boy_10 said:
Some perspective:

Man city 3-2 Southampton
Chelsea 2-2 Southampton

They're a good team in the mould of Swansea. 6 points off them is a very good return.
Isn't playing badly and winning the hallmark of champions?
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To some degree yes Ruud. However we went from playing quite well to not having the slightest clue of what to do. Usually that notion you are asking about pertains to the whole match.

It's not the same narrative as "despite a poor performance, United found a way to win". That's the association we have got over the years. No matter how bad we play, you can never count Manchester United out. Like Ryan Giggs, used to say, "Manchester United don't lose, we just run out of time". This implies some sort of comeback. One which we made in the first half whilst playing well.

How does that apply to yesterday's match? We built up a lead and then almost threw it away. If anything it was more akin to that Everton match.

This match was nothing like Liverpool away or Southampton away or Villa away. Those were matches we didn't really play well throughout the 90 minutes but we did enough to get the win. That's the hallmark of champions.

Playing like you're hanging on for dear life and can't wait for the match to finish is more so just being fortunate.

It's a small distinction that I think needs to be made.
 
Other way to look at it is that Soton can be a good side and while we started off well, they probably got a little nervous after getting pegged back and then per our usual we got too comfortable and stopped playing. A perpetual problem of our this season, we don't push on as a team after getting a goal lead.

After half time they adjusted and got a lot better and we didn't adjust. So in the end it's a good 3 points in that Soton can be quite a handful on their day and for a half, they were that and then some.
 
Platato said:
This match was nothing like Liverpool away or Southampton away or Villa away. Those were matches we didn't really play well throughout the 90 minutes but we did enough to get the win. That's the hallmark of champions.
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There was nothing hallmark of champions about that performance at Anfield.

There is a special room at Carrington called the "refuse to learn basic lessons from previous games" room, which I think about 75% of our training sessions for the past 3 years have been spent in.

Mike Phelan lost the keys for a couple of days in August, during which time someone suggested we should stop pratting around with and wasting nearly all our corner kicks. Luckily such traces of intelligence and independent thought were re-eradicated before anyone suggested we should stop trying to sit on fragile leads, or wait until the other team score before trying hard to win.
 
Oh FFS, knew there'd be a thread like this. It wasn't the performance that was embarrassing, this shit is.

Find me one season where we won the league and didn't drop stupid points to a team we should, and no disrespect to Southampton, have battered. Or if that's too difficult (or impossible), one where we didn't scrape a victory we didn't deserve on the day.

"But the performance!"

That's why Arsenal haven't won the league in years, they lost their experience to grind out a result when it was a bad day at the office.

Spoilt twats, you should be celebrating the ugly wins too. We've won or drawn everything since Everton haven't we?
 
nothing to be embarrassed about we got out played at times by their total effort and we couldn't match their work rate,
Its games like these that win you the league when you pick up three points despite being well below par.
I take my hat off to saints fans who made the long journey up it took me double the time to get there with the traffic
 
noodlehair said:
There was nothing hallmark of champions about that performance at Anfield.

There is a special room at Carrington called the "refuse to learn basic lessons from previous games" room, which I think about 75% of our training sessions for the past 3 years have been spent in.

Mike Phelan lost the keys for a couple of days in August, during which time someone suggested we should stop pratting around with and wasting nearly all our corner kicks. Luckily such traces of intelligence and independent thought were re-eradicated before anyone suggested we should stop trying to sit on fragile leads, or wait until the other team score before trying hard to win.
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Alright mate. Take your pick of games this season which you think resembles the hallmark of champions.
 
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