[Sandikan]

Difference in the second half when we actually had a midfielder who showed for the ball, rather than positioning themselves behind an opposition player giving the defenders no out ball. Fred & McTommy should now have to earn another chance, as Eriksen showed exactly what they simply do not do.
Hope the Glazer creature who turned up is proud of his recruitment departments pathetic efforts at improving vital areas.
Genuine need for a quality holding midfielder, right-back and another striker all very evident.

Eriksen's passing ability was one of the few positives in the second half. Not much else really.

Dalot is so average, imagine having Lamptey instead.

Very nervous about the centre back combo. Martinez simply won't win headers against players who are way taller, and he'll get worked over by pacy players too.
He'll work in games we have 90% of the ball and the opposition having little interest in attacking.

 

[Fortitude]

What should be a bigger concern is that everyone will have had a proper look at us and we won’t be afforded any of that first 20 minute respect again.

As things stand, there’s nothing to respect or fear in our team and there’s absolutely no reason not to test and stretch this midfield to get at the backline.

Better sides than Brighton will find ways to exasperate us and exploit everything we don’t do well, which is a veritable smorgasbord of calamities.

 

[Kag]

Dogshit, which most people expected, because lots of the players aren’t very good.

Ten Hag doesn’t stand a chance here.

 

[Trex]

No way in hell can you play possession football with Mcfred, that's the biggest take away from this match.

 

[r0663664]

Guess what, I won't be surprised the are bottom 3 after 1st month. Maybe only relegation is the only time that Glazers will consider selling Utd.

 

[Kinky Melinky]

David de Gea
Harry Maguire
Luke Shaw
Diogo Dalot
Bruno Fernandez
Scott McTominay
Fred
Marcus Rashford

Every player above was in our squad starting 2019. This is why the work in progress argument really gets frustrating, especially when we had all Summer to bring in players. The problem isn't just inability, it's more so the bad attitude and lack of motivation which is often more difficult to find a solution for.

 

[The Stain]

I'm ashamed for our club. Feck me.

 

[lex talionis]

Deserved win by Brighton, but apart from finishing their two legitimate chances they didn’t look anything special. We gave them three points on a platter because we couldn’t finish on our chances and McFred were beyond poor.

Much more to say about this display but it belongs on player performances threads. Suffice it tohere that we learned a lot about who’s up for it this and who’s not.

 

[FreakyJim]

The only silver lining would be players like Shaw and Rashford will miss the World Cup squad. As they can’t be motivated or punished any other way, at least they’ll get that.

Early signs of different football under Ten Hag also nonexistent.

It’s all doomers’ fault.

 

[Meino]

Im sure there still are people blaming the managers.
These players are so bang-on average and far from man utd class, im sure alot of people autiomaticly rate these players as good just because they play for united.
No stars and just a bunch of grunts thinking they already "made it"

 

[Paul the Wolf]

McFred lost us the match in the first half. Overrun in midfield.

McT thinks he's far better than he is and loses the ball so often and so slow and passive. Fred back to getting caught out unawares.

Full backs poor and Rashford and Sancho far too quiet and passive.

Ronaldo's not fit. We urgently need a de Jong or equivalent and we'll look much better.

 

[Jersey Heel]

I, for one, am very excited for the season now knowing that a mere 9 or 10 players need to be signed to turn this thing around!

 

[Andersonson]

Run ragged by Welbeck.

 

[TMDaines]

Never been a more simple summary of our woes and Brighton’s effectiveness:

 

[Jazz]

We have several players in the team who not only lack the required technical ability but also the mentality to play in the United pressure cooker. There's no way around that. They don't seem able to replicate what they do in training in the matches. What can anyone do except replace them all and that is not feasible at this moment.

 

[Chairman Woodie]

I was disappointed with the first half. There was nobody running in behind the Brighton defence and there was no crosses going into the box. The second half was better. United were better going forward, getting more balls into the box. Using Eriksen to play as a deep-lying playmaker had an impact. Pity about the result.

 

[Dargonk]

New season, same United

 

[RedDevilRoshi]

We got what we deserved. Brighton comfortably the better team.

 

[Solius]

Also the amount of stupid decisions the players make continues to baffle me. Small things like weight/type of pass, direction of pass or choosing to hold on to it for longer. It’s so fecking stupid I’m exasperated for most of the game.

 

[Devil81]

Absolutely astonished at how poor we were, I know Ten Hag said he'd continue with the players if he couldn't get his man but the reality is that's suicide.

Mcfred don't belong at United, neither player is good enough to play for us.

 

[BusbyMalone]

What should be a bigger concern is that everyone will have had a proper look at us and we won’t be afforded any of that first 20 minute respect again.

As things stand, there’s nothing to respect or fear in our team and there’s absolutely no reason not to test and stretch this midfield to get at the backline.

Better sides than Brighton will find ways to exasperate us and exploit everything we don’t do well, which is a veritable smorgasbord of calamities.

I mean, when was the last time that actually happened? Not over the past few years. That respect has gone.

 

[Scriblerus]

Is anyone really surprised by this? ETH looks like a good coach, but needs to adjust to the PL. We start the game with a player who has never been false 9 playing at false 9 because we have one striker injured and another who made it impossible for ETH to pick him and retain his authority. We've got a centre back who hasn't had a preseason with us. And we're up against a coach who knows how to organised a team on the pitch. But we were shit…and what really y bothers me is that anyone who looks at that team can see that the spine needs fixing, and the midfield pairing is proven not to work but in spite of having shed central midfielders to the point where we need 2 signings there, not one, all we have done is chase FdJ for three months. Surely a competent regime would have a shortlist that would have at least one gettable target on it. It's going to take at least 2 seasons to have a competitive side, but we should be further on with first pick replacements by now to even be on track for that.

 

[joedirt87]

it needs to be the end of bruno. play eriksen, fred, and vdb while developing iqbal/savage if they are not going to get de frenkie or any other midfield signing done.

 

[GwilDor]

I’m not gonna go all doom after one match, cause while it left a lot (A LOT) to be desired, it wasn’t ALL bad.
First fifteen minutes or so were quite good. Especially movement while in posession was much better than the rest of the first half. Which makes me think it might be a question of more time to get ETH’s ideas into the spine of the team. When shit hit the fan with 0-1, everyone reverted to playing without thinking much, which leaves the likes of Fred in pass shadow, rather than becoming available. Leads to us passing on first movement rather than exploiting the space left by the first movement etc.

If this season can follow an opposite trajectory of last season, i’ll happily keep ETH for next season. We need patience this season, i think that is apparent.

 

[crossy1686]

Also the amount of stupid decisions the players make continues to baffle me. Small things like weight/type of pass, direction of pass or choosing to hold on to it for longer. It’s so fecking stupid I’m exasperated for most of the game.

Passing blind into space or taking too many touches also, absolute shocking stuff from pro's

 

[MrBest]

Signings badly needed, Maguire, Rashord, Mcfred should not be starting, Shaw is lazy and questionable. Cannot believe the players I saw on that line up after all the talk back in April about a new beginning. It will be a very long season, spurs, arsenal, Liverpool, City, Chelsea are miles ahead.

 

[predator]

That second goal was of theirs was a disgeace. They ran right through us. That shouldn't happen at this level. Very very worrying.

 

[The Purley King]

There was a massive fecking hole in the centre of our midfield ALL GAME.
The number of times Martinez and Maguire looked for a central pass and there were only blue shirts there.
Fdj or no fdj you can’t play without a central midfield.
Hugely disappointing not sure what eth was thinking in the first half but that was utter dogshit.

 

[blackhawk747]

When Graham Potter saw the start XI it is easy to put out the game plan. Press Mcfred and suffocate their passing lane. It means nothing to criticize the attackers when they couldn’t get the ball at their feet.

 

[Savlehest]

McT and Fred are horrible footballers. If you see the match again, look at McT - he just run straight up to the attacking line, no build up at all.

Eriksen should go back deep.

although this was a horrible game. I can see a bright light. We just need new DMs and a CF, and a RB, and GK

 

[patch1]

He has played basically the same midfield as last season,what made him think that he could turn cart horses in to classic winners. No new centre forward and spending 8 weeks chasing a midfielder who does Not want to come.This team needed at least 7 new quality faces.What a wasted summer.

 

[pre Munich Red]

DeJong will not be joining, any other midfield options available immediately?

 

[djembatheking]

Going to be a long slog this season, Ten Hag has got no chance and could get messy when we have a few injuries.

 

[OneUnited24]

I honestly felt optimistic this season. I felt looking at this season through the Lens of last was not fair… but I was wrong. Too many of our players aren’t good enough. I’m going to give EtH all the time in the world because we have some trash playing for us right now

 

[SirAnderson]

Replace Gross with Maupay, and I present the cafe today:

 

[Kinky Melinky]

Definition of insanity.

Nail on the head

 

[saik]

I don't get how people expected top 4 in all honesty. Even if we get FDJ, top 4 is unrealistic. We have too many gaps in our squad and too many average players to compete for top 4.

Rashford did feck all in this game and has been the same for more than an year now. You put him 1 on 1 with a keeper and if he misses, there's not a lot that you can do as a manager. Sancho was anonymous, Bruno terrible with his quick hollywood passes all the time and missed a good opportunity in the first half where he couldn't even get his shot on target. And to add to that we don't have any reliable backups for them.

Like it or not but Ralph was spot on that this squad needs an overhaul.

 

[Hoof the ball]

My issue with this club for a number of years is that there's no real meritocracy and there's no seeming desire to foster legitimate competition.

How many years now has Rashford coasted from one game to the next completely without merit, and yet has retained his place, yet talented young players have found their minutes drastically limited to mere minutes at the tail end of games in order to facilitate Rashford playing so frequently? The argument, of course, is always "They're not ready", which begs the question, "how can they ever hope to be ready if they don't have the minutes to answer that question definitively?"

 

[Orange Tree]

It's ridiculous that anyone can think going to the season with a starting midfield of McTominay and Fred is fine.

The thing is, we already know this. We have all these months to prepare and we get hung up on FdJ and got no midfielder to start the season. Utter incompetence.

 

[Resch]

Maguire played Welbeck onside for the first goal. He's useless.

Bullsh%t our DM covered nothing, Sancho forgot to defend, deGea could not save anything. We had not control over the wings, they had time and space. Any average team would score against such a team without afford. Our defence was not the problem....