[100]

Not that it matters, but how infuriating was Shelvey being allowed to kick anyone he wanted for 90 minutes? Kneed Herrera in the back and kicked the ball away too.

 

[RoadTrip]

Is it the job of the defence to get the attacking players in good positions then?

We had 65% possession. If we have nothing to build from then it's the fault of the attackers for not finding space and taking up positions where they can receive the ball and do something with it.

Sorry but that's such a narrow minded way of looking at it. Are the attackers to blame? Yes to a degree. But were they blessed with great supply? No they damn well weren't. Everyone needs to take responsibility, but it's highly ignorant to sit there and say the attackers are the culprit.

Don't you see that our team is so unbalanced it can't function? Mata wants runners, but our attacking players want to drop into the hole. Our midfield is static, a big no no. The style we are trying to play doesn't fit our players. In fact I'd go as far as saying no style fts these guys.

 

[Ash_G]

Nani did nothing except for the one drive up the middle of the pitch. But I'm not blaming this all on Nani. He came on late and was just one of many problems. Watch the match winner replay again and focus your eyes on Nani -- you will not be happy.

On the first goal, we had no midfield help defensively. Ki was wide open at the top of the box for the slotted goal. On the second goal Blackett invited the quick free kick, the Fellaini and Nani were caught ball watching.

It's been fukking years and years since Keane left us and we've never dealt with the most glaring need on the pitch. We cannot go another season like this. I love Darren Fletcher but he's simply not our answer.

I just think the nani comment is harsh. I'm sure he made a mistake in their goal, similarly I think Herrera didn't track his man for the first properly but there were plenty other errors throughout the game.

Yeah midfield is an issue but personally I think the defence/wingbacks were a bigger one today. Some of that is down to luck with injuries but some of it has ben complacency with loosing the players we have and being slow to react.

 

[manufanatic]

Maybe the plastic fans supporters and Ihni binni dimi diniwiny anitaime will just feck off. First game ffs

 

[Godfather]

No RvP, no Evans and no Shaw today.

Hernandez and Nani were poor, if not horrifying.

The refusal to address our most obvious need, defensive midfielder, manifested itself today. Fletcher and Fellaini are simply not up to the standard required of a putative prem champion.

What the feck are you on with Nani. There were about 8 players worse out there today.

 

[entropy]

Not at all, it's a definite possibility. The sooner the club realises this the better. We need to act.

Dont you think we are heading in the proper direction? we got rid of an underperforming manager who only got the job because of fergie. We got a couple of signings done(lot better than last season) and I am sure we will sign a player or two before the transfer window closes. If you ask me, never under fergie did fans feel confident about more signings to come after we already splurged on two top players.

 

[Walrus]

Tbf how much of that possession was in our defensive third. Pretty confident passes from smalling to x are probably amongst the highest number of passes today which isn't a great sign given he's probably the worst outfield player for passing we have.

I doubt they pass it around at the back just for the sheer joy of it - I believe that the midfielders and WBs need to do a better job of making themselves available - but that side of the game all comes from the front.

If you have Hernandez constantly on the shoulder of the defender like he should be, it forces the opposition back line deeper and creates space for the rest of the team.

 

[KiD MoYeS]

Swansea were dirty bastards but fair play to 'em, deserved their win. I'm concerned.

 

[Ole240599]

- need a dominant CB (pleased with blackett's debut but jones and smalling are not good enough with the ball)
- 2 x CM's (quality, quality, fecking quality - a passer or the ball and a midfielder that makes runs into the box)
- 1 x wide midfielder (must have pace)

Now to be completely controversial - sell/swap Rooney or RVP for a striker with real pace. An attack of Rooney, RVP and Mata is "pedestrian" and too easy to play against.

 

[RoadTrip]

I agree it will take time and maybe even longer than this season, who we do or don't sign between now and the end of the window will have a massive impact on whether we get straight back in the champions league or if we don't play in it for a few seasons.

Very true. In any case, whether spending or not fixes all our problems is irrelevant. It will fix some of them and it's a start. Many components need to fall into place to reach the top 4, either this year or the next or whenever, and one of them is certainly spending

 

[OutOfTowner]

Well that was a disappointing start after so much promise and goodwill in the preseason. We weren't really at the races today, were we? The defensive side of the first eleven was not good enough and cost us big in the end. I, like others in here, am also confused as to why LVG decided to take off Herrera, who had been having a great game keeping the play going and putting in tackles without fear, and put on Fellaini who though tidy, was otherwise ineffectual. A defeat today was not exactly the best start to our opening campaign and we can only get better from here.

Still, on the upside, at least this came at the very start and hasn't cost us hugely. There are still 37 matches to make it right. This will go a long way to showing LVG that some on the payroll aren't earning their crust and need to be shipped out. The one little point that I found encouraging was that LVG wasn't afraid to change our formation in the second half when it was clear the 3-5-2 wasn't working and paid dividends before it all ended up being undone. I've seen United sides of the past go behind and keep going with a style that clearly isn't working, hoping that a miracle will happen. It goes to show, if things don't go his way, he'll not be afraid to change things to make things happen.

 

[PedroMendez]

caf goes into meltdown?

dire performance. The defence is really shaky and the offence is missing a winger. van Gaal is relying on winger who can beat their men. Januzaj is the only player in the squad who can do that.

 

[Mister_Stubbs]

Maybe the plastic fans supporters and Ihni binni dimi diniwiny anitaime will just feck off. First game ffs

I really don't get this sort of statement. So because it's only the first game we should just think "meh, it doesn't matter that we lost"? Despite a terrible home performance after a promising pre-season?

Today showed what a lot of us have been saying and that is that the squad is simply not good enough.

 

[RoadTrip]

- need a dominant CB (pleased with blackett's debut but jones and smalling are not good enough with the ball)
- 2 x CM's (quality, quality, fecking quality - a passer or the ball and a midfielder that makes runs into the box)
- 1 x wide midfielder (must have pace)

Now to be completely controversial - sell/swap Rooney or RVP for a striker with real pace. An attack of Rooney, RVP and Mata is "pedestrian" and too easy to play against.

I don't think it's that controversial. Many said it last year and rightly so. RVP and Rooney are too similar.

 

[#07]

If Moyes had taken off Herrera for Fellaini, and then we'd lost our momentum and lost the game, the Caf would have flayed him already.

Everyone will blame the players but Van Gaal made mistakes today. How many teams would succeed playing 4-4-1-1 with one midfielder so high up he's looking for knockdowns, and the #10 equally advanced? Herrera coming off left us with one midfielder in the middle. Swansea found it easy to run at us in the end.

Could've been very different too: when Herrera came off we were easily on top. A manager can only make a small difference to a side but today, unusually and unfortunately, LVG tipped the scale the wrong way.

 

[jojojo]

I'm going to give a very controversial opinion here and say, that was only one game. Just to remind everybody, we won our first game last season, and we lost our first game the season before.

You're not wrong. We had decent possession let down by a lack of penetration and the kind of errors inexperienced defenders and inexperienced defences make.

The trouble is for the past couple of years we've always reached a point in the season where Carrick or someone has ended up playing central defender. We've lost two central defenders and swapped a seldom injured fullback for an unknown quantity and we've changed the formation so we need 5 effective defenders. Something doesn't add up and it can't add up.

 

[An Irish Red]

Then sign them for crying out load, sign Cuadrado or Di Maria, hell why the feck weren't we even in for Sanchez, all runners, but no lets go for a renaissenace of Young and Nani...

How do you know we weren't? for all we know he turned us down.

 

[Walrus]

Sorry but that's such a narrow minded way of looking at it. Are the attackers to blame? Yes to a degree. But were they blessed with great supply? No they damn well weren't. Everyone needs to take responsibility, but it's highly ignorant to sit there and say the attackers are the culprit.

Don't you see that our team is so unbalanced it can't function? Mata wants runners, but our attacking players want to drop into the hole. Our midfield is static, a big no no. The style we are trying to play doesn't fit our players. In fact I'd go as far as saying no style fts these guys.

Right - we play a formation (3-5-2) with pretty much the sole purpose of allowing us to field Mata behind two strikers, he is the playmaker and his job is to create. He didn't do that.

No part of the team is completely blameless, but those just claiming that the defence is to blame need to wake up.

 

[Bojan11]

- need a dominant CB (pleased with blackett's debut but jones and smalling are not good enough with the ball)
- 2 x CM's (quality, quality, fecking quality - a passer or the ball and a midfielder that makes runs into the box)
- 1 x wide midfielder (must have pace)

Now to be completely controversial - sell/swap Rooney or RVP for a striker with real pace. An attack of Rooney, RVP and Mata is "pedestrian" and too easy to play against.

Don't think it is controversial.

We must have one of the slowest attack in world football.

Look at all the other top teams and they have frightening pace. Someone like Di Maria would add a new dimension to our attack.

 

[PSingh]

I think we should have started as a 4,3,3 or 4,4,1,1 whatever. I think we'll struggle outwide offensively in this formation. It's negative and we've shown the last two games a lack of invention. Get wide players playing attacking the final third. We were unlucky because swansea scored with their two shots basically but still there's no point dominating the ball if you have no end product.

Against the top teams, maybe we should be more defensive - but against Swansea at home I think we should know we've the better players irrespective of if we think they're good enough.

Hmm not sure I would change the system we have worked on it all summer, I wouldn't judge it off one game. Today we played with our 3rd or 4th choice right wing back and our second choice left wing back, so it's no surprise that the quality from the wide areas were not there.

I think we missed Welbeck a lot today. He stretches the defence with his pace and offers something different up front.

We didn't defend that badly, it was the transition from defence to attack that killed us IMO. I like the idea of playing out of the back but we did it too slowly we don't have the quality in midfield to play that slowly and still be able to create something. Pick up the tempo and I'm sure we will stretch teams a lot more, which will create more space for the front 3 to play.

 

[OutOfTowner]

over-reaction galore....first game of the season ffs. The more i browse through the posts the more i believe that this forum has been taken over by 10 yr olds

Such is the level of hyperbole that surrounds all facets of this board that a reaction of this magnitude was always going to occur today. It seems like perspective is an alien concept to quite a few denizens.

 

[JohnDoe]

So many spoilt fans it's ridiculous.

Man City started terribly last season, they didn't end up doing too badly

I think people are mainly concerned that we're playing pretty much exactly as badly as we did last season, which is absolutely fair.

 

[Mister Ed]

You don't need to tell me, I know ffs.

Yea sorry man, just so fecking frustrated, steam is coming out of my ears.

 

[RoadTrip]

Let's get Carrick, Rafael, Evans, Welbeck and Shaw back. Sign the players we've obviously been working on and go from there. Not sure why we've allowed ourselves to be in this position though. We all knew we needed signings, plus Manchester United and an injury list longer than your arm are about as synonymous as can be. No-one to blame but ourselves really.

This is the thing, I just don't understand what the club is playing at. A fecking dog could tell you we needed to sign players. It's like they're turning a blind eye in the hope that we might actually be ok. That was my fear when we sacked Moyes - that the club might just think he was the only problem and LVG could fix it easily.

 

[Fergie's Man]

The better team won. Nothing else needs saying. They were far more cohesive and better than the sum of their parts.

 

[RoadTrip]

Right - we play a formation (3-5-2) with pretty much the sole purpose of allowing us to field Mata behind two strikers, he is the playmaker and his job is to create. He didn't do that.

No part of the team is completely blameless, but those just claiming that the defence is to blame need to wake up.

I agree - it isn't just the defence. The whole team lacks balance. We have many problems to fix, but if someone said that our defence is probably a priority, I don't think that's such a ridiculous statement to make

 

[OutOfTowner]

The better team won. Nothing else needs saying. They were far more cohesive and better than the sum of their parts.

I'd have to agree. They obviously had a game plan and they played it very well, making good use of possession when they had it. No surprise their goal came as a result of speed and accuracy.

 

[Feed Me]

Christ! He's world class, and when we settle down and play a more possession based game, he's thrive. Some of you need to calm down a bit.

We didn't need him. It was a vanity purchase when there are other areas of the team in desperate need of improvement.

 

[RoadTrip]

Yea sorry man, just so fecking frustrated, steam is coming out of my ears.

Aren't we all buddy.

It's like everyone at our club has buried their heads in sand. The decision making is shockingly bad.

 

[Brown Toothpick]

Thought this may interest you guys.

Tareq Al-Jalahmah, one of BeIn Sports pundits, just tweeted that the one and only David Moyes, who is also a BeIn Sports pundit, told him off-air that now most people will blame him for the loss, for the deadwood and average players he left behind.

 

[RoadTrip]

I have to admit, I knew Fergie leaving would be big. I was prepared for our footballing quality to suffer. But I completely ignored the fact that he probably made many decisions around the club. I didn't even consider the fact that we might make dumb decisions.

The way we have acted in the past 14 months or so is truly baffling. I really don't have any words for it.

 

[JTW95]

We wasted the entire pre season working on the 3-5-2. We looked better when we changed to four at the back. We need to play a formation with wingers to accommodate Januzaj. If today proved anything it is that he is one of our best players.

Our squad is apparently unbalanced yet I see us doing nothing to make it balanced. We need signings and we need them this week.

A positive outlook though. The last time we lost our first game of the season we went on the win the league by about 10 points. Its not the end of the world but we need to improve.

 

[Feed Me]

We overpaid by 7m or so and he was a luxury signing sure, these are valid arguments, but he is world class and consistantly one of our best players game after game, just wasn't today

We paid nearly £40m for a player who was in no way needed. Meanwhile, there are other areas of the team in urgent need of repair that are being habitually ignored.

 

[pseudo_canadian]

Can't remember who posted it but they were spot on in the regard that Mourinho was a genius is selling Mata. He's a player that unless the circumstances and players around him are completely perfect and suited to him, he'll be caught out and look average.

 

[RoadTrip]

Thought this may interest you guys.

Tareq Al-Jalahmah, one of BeIn Sports pundits, just tweeted that the one and only David Moyes, who is also a BeIn Sports pundit, told him off-air that now most people will blame him for the loss, for the deadwood and average players he left behind.

I'm sure he plays a part, but the crux of the issues in this situation firmly lie at the feat of Ferguson unfortunately, and LVG unless he turns around our transfer activity in the next 2 weeks.

 

[villain]

It's ridiculousness like this which is why we are in this position.

So that means everyone should be happy about today's result?

Such a ridiculous post it's untrue.

Not particularly, but we've seen this team play very well in pre season over a larger amount of games so that gives me confidence.
Of course it's different when there's points up for grabs, but at least we've witnessed this team play good football under the system. Unlike last year where even in pre-season the signs were there. LVG said it will take time for us to fully adapt, were missing at least 9 players and still have time to sign more.

Therefore while I'm upset at the result I'm not going to act as though this is how were going to play for the rest if the season.
And if anything I hope this acts as a catalyst for us to sign players now considering how much LVG hates to lose.

 

[Crashoutcassius]

It is not the first game in my head, it is the 39th prem game since SAF left and we can have been looking at the squad this whole time I believe. That special era is over and we need to assess as objectively as possible.

That said, we should all trust LVG to do a good job building this team. I just think calls for united for the title after a few pre season wins are ridiculous

 

[itso 7]

You can't create chances when the forwards are stationery and you are playing at zombie pace . We needed to pass it around quicker with players making runs around the player with the ball giving him options. I was particularly disappointed with our midfield tracking runners for their goals.
I also think LvG should tackle the bull by it's horns and solve the Rooney/Mata/RvP dilemma, if you can't play them effectively play the ones that are in form and have wingers giving options, stretching play.

 

[RoadTrip]

The better team won. Nothing else needs saying. They were far more cohesive and better than the sum of their parts.

In a nutshell, that's pretty much the right summary.

 

[Ash_G]

I doubt they pass it around at the back just for the sheer joy of it - I believe that the midfielders and WBs need to do a better job of making themselves available - but that side of the game all comes from the front.

If you have Hernandez constantly on the shoulder of the defender like he should be, it forces the opposition back line deeper and creates space for the rest of the team.

I think they pass it around there because none of the three (although Blackett has potential) are particularly good passing defenders nor do they look to advance that well, particularly so Smalling. That just means that their strikers know they don't really need to press them, they can drop off and sit on our midfielders which is what happened and happened against Valencia. This makes it hard for the midfielders to do anything because they just don't have the time as they effectively have 1/2 more players pressing them then they typiclly would.

This in turn forces Mata deeper as well and just has a general knock on impact. Similarly for me with the wingbacks bar Januzaj who don't carry the ball with intent, the ball kept coming back inside where there was just no pace.