[MancFanFromManc]

I reckon we've used up our Get Out Of Jail cards now, certainly our away ones. We might have to actually start playing well soon... Novel idea is know

 

[Loon]

Yup. Definitely think they'll be more tears before this season is done. I hope we can manage to beat the dippers this time, and with a good performance.

 

[sizzling sausages]

Really important three points but poor performance, especially first half. Good to see that Van Gaal is willing to admit to a mistake and change it early at least.

Van Persie easily MOTM, definitely his best performance this season. Even without his goals he was one of our best players. Wasn't at all surprised that Smalling got injured as it's clear we aren't allowed to have three senior centre backs fit at the one time. Really felt for him though as he was just beginning to cement his place in the team. Evans looked very rusty. I thought Rojo was poor, as were Fellaini and Rooney. Great ball from Rooney for the second goal though. Mata was invisible. Carrick, Valencia and Young were all decent only. McNair was poor and could probably do with a break from the first team for a few weeks. Unfortunately injuries mean that probably won't be possible. De Gea keeps his good run of form going.

 

[VanGaalEra]

We shut them out pretty well after the second goal.

It was a relatively comfortable last 20-25 mins.

 

[Organic Potatoes]

We really need our 1st choice FBs back, regardless of what formation we line up in.

It is good to see Young redeem himself, but we are blunted down the right.

 

[dsch]

I can't tell if they pressed really well or we just played badly. The number of times the midfield go walkabout and the defenders are forced to pass between themselves ...

 

[SalfordRed1960]

I can't tell if they pressed really well or we just played badly. The number of times the midfield go walkabout and the defenders are forced to pass between themselves ...

It wasn't just the backs, the amount of time the midfield and Rooney played a ball backwards to the backs when they had a striker close by was unbelievable. This was a typical Rooney performance after a injury. He was playing crap, whingeing like fu*k and could quite easily have got himself another stupid booking and thus a sending off. Really needs to get a grip.

Nice to see some effort from RVP, hopefully his form is coming back. Definite bad day at the office for Fellani. I can see why everyone thinks he is all elbows. Thought he was very lucky today on Mane.

 

[Annihilate Now!]

I managed to watch only the last 30 minutes, without knowing about anything that came prior, and I thought we were alright!

Clearly I came in at the right time...

 

[Shark]

I've just finished watching a recording of the game and yes, we were dire for the most part. However, I think some fans need to appreciate the current situation a bit more. We've won 5 games on the trot and are pissing off our rivals to no end again. Beat the scousers on Sunday and I doubt anybody will give a feck how we played tonight. It's not as if we didn't see performances like that under SAF, even in title winning seasons.

 

[one340]

Southampton had a lot more shots yes but only a few were on target. Are closing on their attackers was actually is a positive sign. A few De Gea saves hides that fact I think. Still, they had more shots than us and slightly more possession, granted they were at home but we should still have done better in those regards. I think it should be noted that there were patches during the season when SAF was here that we won games by slim margins and through sheer resiliency and that's something we didn't have last season but we have to play better against Liverpool even though they themselves are struggling.

 

[bosnian_red]

I managed to watch only the last 30 minutes, without knowing about anything that came prior, and I thought we were alright!

Clearly I came in at the right time...

After about the 55th or 60th minute we were the better team and pushed forward a lot more. Before that we were terrible at passing the ball out from defence but they were a bit shit going forward so didn't do anything with our mistakes.

 

[rover]

looked like our players were having too much turkeys over the weekend. i wish this is the truth

 

[MDFC Manager]

Guys, as awful as we were, let's some credit to Southampton who pressed us like crazy. Much more than anything we've faced this season.

 

[utdalltheway]

Great win. Shite on a stick at times though

 

[Hamadovich86]

Absolutely SHITE for most of the game but the result is all that matters. Need to do something about those injuries.

 

[coolredwine]

Thank feck I didn't sacrifice my night's sleep going by the comments.

But anyway, 3 points are all that matter at this point. Doesn't matter how we beat the opposition.

 

[Sad Chris]

Individual shitness, but positional greatness in the happening. Great rid of the unforced errors and the non participants (Valencia today) bring back creativity and ffs stop this ridiculous injury cycle.

 

[Ixion]

Fellaini/Mata/Herrera just don't do as good a job as Carrick/Blind at dropping deep from midfield and taking possession from our defenders. Almost everytime we have struggled this season it is a result of our defense just hoofing the ball forward while being pressed and it coming straight back at us. Carrick and especially Blind always offer the defense an option and we retain possession better.

 

[NoPace]

We simply aren't good enough to outplay a team pressing that well when we're not at home.

Van Gaal used the 3-5-2 to good effect. Just like with the Dutch, he's made it an effective formation when we're playing on the counter and the worse team.If we make the CL next year, I expect to see it some more.

Also, he diagnosed a problem and made an aggressive sub that worked.

In the bigger picture, it is worrisome that we aren't very good, Mata has gone impotent and Herrera didn't start.

Blind would have helped a bit, maybe, but the real losses here were probably Shaw and Rafael. We need Di Maria back, Herrera starting and in the summer, a wide player with some pace who is a threat on the counter.

 

[marukomu]

Look at those stats! And wtf is Evans doing in the post match interview. Young should be there. He was the 2nd best player tonight.

It was probably to remind everyone what he looks like.

 

[Sarni]

We were due another win like this one, earlier into the season we battered Leicester and West Brom and they scored at all their attempts to take points from us - now it evens out like the display yesterday or Arsenal game.

 

[gasmanc]

Leicester is definitely a game where I think the players, rather than the tactics/formation etc were at fault. We completely dominated that game and then mentally imploded when they got back into it. But results have a huge impact on perception, and the Arsenal & Soton results naturally give the impression our set up was justified, while the Leicester one will always be viewed in hindsight as a huge managerial failure.

I think both of these are wrong headed, but I completely understand them.

To be fair to LVG and his tactics it really does him no favours when 3-4 players can't even play a standard 5m pass to feet. Nerves are playing a huge role in our play, we need to be braver and go in search of the football, we're not giving ourselves a pass out at times, but until our confidence is back it makes that extremely difficult.

We might see the perfect emergence of the 3-5-2 once Blind returns, Carrick in centre of the defensive 3 with Blind in front offers a huge measure of control and composure, something we've genuinely missed.

 

[sport2793]

We simply aren't good enough to outplay a team pressing that well when we're not at home.

Van Gaal used the 3-5-2 to good effect. Just like with the Dutch, he's made it an effective formation when we're playing on the counter and the worse team.If we make the CL next year, I expect to see it some more.

Also, he diagnosed a problem and made an aggressive sub that worked.

In the bigger picture, it is worrisome that we aren't very good, Mata has gone impotent and Herrera didn't start.

Blind would have helped a bit, maybe, but the real losses here were probably Shaw and Rafael. We need Di Maria back, Herrera starting and in the summer, a wide player with some pace who is a threat on the counter.

Actually Ashley Young was very very good today. The issue is with our constant, unavoidable rotation of CBs. Pretty much all of their chances came from sloppy passes, and pretty much all of the sloppy passes with the exception of Fellaini's terrible pass came from the back 3.

 

[ghagua]

I guess 3 points is all that matters, but the first half was one of the worst performances i have witnessed for a long, long time. Reminded me of the game against Barcelona in 2009, but that was against a supreme team. Every single player forgot how to make a simple pass, and looked terrified when they had the ball at their feet. Every time we play that 5 at the back crap, the players look confused and clueless.

 

[Feed Me]

I stopped watching around the 65th min mark cos I couldn't take it and needed a break before I broke my laptop. But then I saw it was 2:1 and left it just incase I jinxed it.

I am delighted we won but this 3-5-2 madness needs to stop. We are playing Liverpool next and we cannot play this again

352 wasn't the issue yesterday. Smalling's injury was the destabilising factor. We were quite comfortable up to that point.

The bigger issue for me was having Fellaini and Mata in the same midfield. No wonder we couldn't retain the ball.

 

[Feed Me]

Generally abysmal performance, but there is a pattern to our improvement:

- 5 game winning run
- We are now at the stage where we are pretty much dominating our home games
- Things are still a bit hairy away from home, but we're getting results now - the next stage to our development is to play in such an assured way away from home

We should be very confident of winning the Liverpool game. If we do, I think we've got a top four spot in the bag.

 

[El Zoido]

People keep saying we were lucky, and I guess we were in the first half, but I felt we were the better team in the second.

 

[Mark_GrumpyLion]

Liked this from the telegraph:

'As Van Gaal is proving, when life gives you lemons, you throw them out, promote the cherries from the youth team to mature, and buy a massive steak in the meantime.'

 

[DomesticTadpole]

Fellaini/Mata/Herrera just don't do as good a job as Carrick/Blind at dropping deep from midfield and taking possession from our defenders. Almost everytime we have struggled this season it is a result of our defense just hoofing the ball forward while being pressed and it coming straight back at us. Carrick and especially Blind always offer the defense an option and we retain possession better.

That is our big problem. Until Blind is back, if Michael is going to have to play at CB and tbh LvG goes out and buys some defenders in January, we might have to put up with this form. The club cannot close their eyes to the situation at the back. He need reinforcements there. The defensive injuries are impacting on the form of the rest of the team as they cannot play their normal game.

 

[HabeasC]

God I hope that Rafael is back for the Pool game. Valencia offers absolutely nothing.

With Angel, Rafael and hopefully Smalling back I am confident we can get 3 points.

 

[Insanity]

God I hope that Rafael is back for the Pool game. Valencia offers absolutely nothing.

With Angel, Rafael and hopefully Smalling back I am confident we can get 3 points.

Don't think we'll see him again this year.

 

[Melvyn]

We had plenty of games like this in the 12/13 season where RVP saved our arses and we got 3 points even though we were outplayed. I don't think Southampton were that much better than us anyway. A 'fair' result would be a draw but as Carragher said, the difference between us and them was that we were more clinical, which is what separates teams at the very top level.

 

[Nighteyes]

Winning games while playing shit football.

We are back!

 

[MDFC Manager]

We had plenty of games like this in the 12/13 season where RVP saved our arses and we got 3 points even though we were outplayed. I don't think Southampton were that much better than us anyway. A 'fair' result would be a draw but as Carragher said, the difference between us and them was that we were more clinical, which is what separates teams at the very top level.

RvP reminded us what he's worth to us really, which a lot of us had forgotten. He's probably the only one in the squad who can win us the game when every other outfielder has a woeful game.

 

[Raptori]

You've been fortunate not to see worst performance of the season.

You think that was pain? Never watch the first half, for your own sake

we were fantastic in the second half compared to the first...

It was a brilliant performance compared with the first half. That was a total abomination.

Hmm... I was planning on watching the full game today... Sounds like I might have to reconsider that decision

 

[NJM78]

Awful display close to our worst this season (MK Dons). So slow and nervous and Evans is just a calamity, his fans on here really need to open their eyes, bog standard average player who shits himself anytime he has the ball!
Great 3 points though as we cannot really play any worse than that so I'm expecting us to play a lot better against Liverpool which we'll need to do, hopefully Di Maria will be back to inject some pace into the team, I think we may need to drop Fellaini for this one and play Herrera with Mata in midfield, the two link up so well and with us being at home we need to take the game to them.
Roll on 6 wins in a row...

 

[Smores]

Awful really awful, what was the stat? Least shots on target since 2003 and that with a star trio up front.

I thought we desperately needed that extra man in the midfield really as theyre pressing just killed us and with little support wide we were restricted.

The points are what matters though, i just hope we're moving towards improvement and not another long season of this

 

[Getsme]

Awful display close to our worst this season (MK Dons). So slow and nervous and Evans is just a calamity, his fans on here really need to open their eyes, bog standard average player who shits himself anytime he has the ball!
Great 3 points though as we cannot really play any worse than that so I'm expecting us to play a lot better against Liverpool which we'll need to do, hopefully Di Maria will be back to inject some pace into the team, I think we may need to drop Fellaini for this one and play Herrera with Mata in midfield, the two link up so well and with us being at home we need to take the game to them.
Roll on 6 wins in a row...

The same has been said about Fellaini, Valencia, Young, De Gea, Van Persie, Mata, Jones, Smalling and that's just out of our current squad.
Maybe some fans can see beyond the odd game he's had this season.

 

[NJM78]

The same has been said about Fellaini, Valencia, Young, De Gea, Van Persie, Mata, Jones, Smalling and that's just out of our current squad.
Maybe some fans can see beyond the odd game he's had this season.

Yes everyone played shite but Evans IS shite that's the difference, and I can see very clearly thank you very much!

 

[Escobar]

At one point, we have to get better. After a good performance, it's always another step back. Our injury crisis is a joke but not everything can be blamed on that. Our player's horrible, stupid passing yesterday had nothing to do with it for example and I just dont like that LVG is constantly changing formation and plays his players out of position. Mata so deep, Rooney out wide left and Carrick in defence even though it was obvious we missed him badly in midfield

Let's just hope our season with good football starts next Sunday