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Chelsea 1:0 Manchester United

Post-match discussion


Sun, 05 November 2017

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I'm surprised De Gea has a 6.7 average to be honest considering he made no effort for their goal when a dive and miss is much better than the fish out of water thing he did.

It landed in the left corner of the goal.
 
Gary Neville pretty much saying what i did in an earlier post and during the game:

Analysing the game further on the Gary Neville Podcast, he said: "The intent was there but if you haven't got quality and composure in midfield, you're going to struggle. Passes weren't connected, whereas with Chelsea, there was rhythm in their passing. Chelsea had rhythm, United only had moments.

"For me, Fabregas was the man of the match because he got control of the game and that was the difference for me. Chelsea's midfield gripped this game. I don't feel Manchester United's midfield did."
 
Great post and right on the money but to think our whole team is reliant on one player in form to have a bit of bite in the side, is a bit ridiculous after all the money spent. A true eye opener to all teams in the future, close down Pogba and Utd are lame.
I must agree with you about some people calling for Mourinho's head is a bit premature but I do feel he is getting off lightly for this mess and needs to address it sooner than later. Now it is up to him to show he is the Special One and not keep referring to his past accomplishments.

Problem is we do not have enough depth in that position I believe, we brought in Fellaini and he had done an alright job there until he got injured, even bagged a few goals. I think our biggest issue is we are not adapting, we have 1 plan per game and that's it. we either play long ball, let everything run through Pogba or we just try smash crosses. We need to mix it all up as we are way too predictable! Agreed, Mourinho does need to step up and take this one on his shoulders and pick the team up from this slump. The last international break hurt our momentum, hopefully this one can do the opposite. We need to come back against Newcastle with a bang! I wants us to score 4 again :(
 
Gary Neville pretty much saying what i did in an earlier post and during the game:

Analysing the game further on the Gary Neville Podcast, he said: "The intent was there but if you haven't got quality and composure in midfield, you're going to struggle. Passes weren't connected, whereas with Chelsea, there was rhythm in their passing. Chelsea had rhythm, United only had moments.

"For me, Fabregas was the man of the match because he got control of the game and that was the difference for me. Chelsea's midfield gripped this game. I don't feel Manchester United's midfield did."


#POGBACK
 
Talks of Jose' being asked to go is just daft, so let's not give such comments any energy. If anything, Jose has to fix this, because the teams, as he is so quick to let us know, play the way he chooses (finger to the lips after the Spurs game).

If he cannot see that he needs to provide an attacking strategy to his game plan to compliment his defensive set-up, then it's up to him. With little attacking subtlety, idea, invention, of expectation, he will only put the defence under even more pressure. We all enjoyed the beginning of the season, with a kind fixture schedule, but we knew we would be questioned when a key player became injured, and the fixtures became more difficult. We have been poor (going forward) since Liverpool, and I don't think it;s acceptable that Man Utd should be proud to play games without offering much in attack. I don't, Manchester United should represent more than that. That's what Mourinho will need to figure out. League Cup and Europa League success was superb in a first season, set a great, great platform. But against the better sides this season, we haven't looked impressive at all, and much of that is tactical, as much as the fact that the quality of our squad is being exposed. The disappointing thing is that I don't see Mourinho as a manager that develops players, making them better. That's where Pep has a huge amount over him it seems. Not only Pep from a tactical perspective, also think a Harry Redknapp etc (who can motivate players, despite his other 'ways'.... ). I sense an unease with the players, they certainly didn't look happy yesterday, and being a bully at Old Trafford isn't going to work for any manager.

I'm just saying that we need Jose to consider changing his style a fair bit, and stop being so ignorant, stubborn and down right miserable. It's reflecting the team. It's why we miss Pogba and Zlatan, and Carrick.. they know how to play in big, big games and deal with big personalities, big managers etc. But this dependence on getting players back concerns me, as it seems the squad lacks that backbone, guts, and verve that Manchester United should always have. It's one of the largest sporting institutions in the world.

Does our game reflect that?
 
I'm quite puzzled about this game. There seemed to be no one doing the basics. Bakoyoko was waltzing past our midfielders and receiving the ball in dangerous areas all game. No tracking of runners, no pressing (Fabregas and Hazard were given complete freedom this game), aimless hoofing whenever there was a turnover.

TBH it reminded me of the City game at OT last season. Mkhi put in a very similar performance, completely invisible.

It reminded me of games under Moyes. There is no plan and not one thing we do well, and countless things that you look at and think they could only really happen if we're not even trying to find solutions anymore.

All of their players constantly had time on the ball, yet we were not compact or closing out space or areas, so what WERE we doing?

We covered significantly less ground than them, so despite whatever we were doing clearly not working, we also thought it was ok to not work as hard as the other team.

We repeat the same mistakes over and over to the point we are either at Arsene Wenger levels of arrogance/refusing to accept we're doing anything wrong, or we have just straight up stopped trying.
 
Just got done watching MOTD 2. And our performance seemed much worse after the analysis.

Horrible display of football.

Morata single handedly bullied Bailly, Smalling and Jones.

Pathetic by almost everyone involved.

De Gea should just go play at a better club. He deserves to leave. I wouldn't feel bad if he goes to Manchester City too. They look like they're gonna be a force in Europe.

Herrera and Mkhitaryan were abysmal.

Disgusting performance regardless of the result.
I wouldn't feel bad if you went off and supported them too. Call yourself a United fan? Shameful.
 
Some of the comments are unbelievable. A lot of people blaming the tactics, yet we were ''too defensive and cowardly'' against Pool. However, we attacked more against Chelsea and people still aren't happy? The game was very end to end at times, actually a decent game for the any neutrals I met yesterday.

If we played attacking football vs Chelsea they would have murdered us. They were better than us all over the pitch. Yes we all wanted to win but we just weren't good enough to beat them.

People calling for Mourinho head is laughable. He's doing the best with what he got. Go support City if you want expansive attacking football with 100 attacking midfielders.

Very good points. I am sure we are all very disappointed but it is what it is. It was not a disaster but it all comes down to lack of creativity combined with strength in midfield. This has been our problem for many years now. Bringing Pogba has addressed this to a large extent but when is not around there is absolutely no compensation for it. Looking forward to seeing him back and I hope we are thinking of plan B when he is not available to play. New players?
 
The Stamford Bridge 'hoodoo' struck again, in the last ten years or so every time we go there in a PL fixture we seem to be able to get 15 to 20mins at the start, 5mins at the end where we look competitive and that we have some idea what we're doing, then for the other 65-70mins absolutely nothing but fits and starts in between.

Thanks to De Gea's acrobatics and at times Chelsea woeful misses in front of goal and our own inability to convert the one or two chances we had, we got away with a 1-0 defeat and in Tommy Doc's old words "we were lucky to get nil"!

Those PL teams who have been wondering about how good we might be this season, will have watched that and thought, 'nothing to worry about there'

Desperately need Pogba or Carrick back in mid-field, Matic and Herrera tried their best but against a Chelsea midfield three, with Kante and Fabregas back, we were sadly wanting. They say you can learn more from defeats than from victories, hope that's true about yesterday, but somehow I doubt it.
 
It doesn't matter where it landed, keepers should make an effort, it annoys me so much when a keeper just stands there like a lemon as though they're recording one of those stupid skill shot videos for youtube.


Think Dave was simply wrong footed. Appeared to lose concentration for a second or two and the header couldn’t have landed in a better spot.
 
I think people are overreacting this result. The best team with the best squad won. Not a tactical masterclass here. As Arrigo Sachi once said: "the best strategy is to have quality players.".

I know people expectations were high, but I tend to keep my feet on the ground. In the beggining of the season a simple comparison between squads is always a good Don Quixote method :D
All you needed to do is to compare our squad to Chelsea, Man Shity, Spurs, Liverpool and Arsenal. In the end it was easy to realise that we are above Arsenal, just a bit above Liverpool, but Chelsea and Man City have much better squads. Come on, City just made a fantastic transfer market, they have reinforced really well, for the positions they needed.
And if Chelsea didn't had the "Costa incident", they would be more stable by now.

Come on, their squad options are much better than ours.
 
This isn't really a manager thing, it's a cr#p midfield without Pogba thing. But then other injuries mean we have to play the out of form Herrara.

Yes City have fewer injuries than us right now. But it's only November.
 
I cannot believe we did it again. I simply cannot understand the way we play. Is it just kicking the ball out from defense and guess where it might go? Most times it just drops in places where nobody even thinks of collecting the pass. The passes are unintended. The shots are unintended. The boys have no will to get to the goal and score. I'm often criticizing Jose for the way he plays football but i thought he would change his ways when he gets to Manchester United but sadly he hasn't. He has still kept his HOME records and his AWAY records which are in complete opposite to one another.

I know i'm being too hasty but i think the league title is now a very difficult task at hand. Not only are we 8 points adrift but we are playing the most ridiculous football ever. I'll tell you how and let's do from every player's perspective and position.

Keeper- De Gea: One of the best in the world. Saved many more than half chances and definitely our MOM.
CBs- Bailly: He is best suited to a back 4 line and struggled to play out the ball. Those clearances from him were awful and he could hardly connect well with Valencia, Matic or Herrera.
Smalling: Never a CB that likes to play the ball from the back. He is an old-school center back and needs to go.
Jones: He is generally the sane one but Chelsea got to him. They pulled him into mid-field and fed Morata which was a beautiful move and he would never see it coming in a million years.
Herrera: Often chasing down balls, getting and losing it. Cannot do a job without Pogba on the field.
Matic: More than most times our best player on the pitch. Short passes, keeping things simple, but even he was out of sorts on his return.
WBs- Valencia: On the big days, he and Young are not the characters to be on the field.
ATTACK- cannot complain about the attack because we hardly play the ball to the final thrid securely.

LOTS OF THINGS HAVE TO CHANGE OR WE ARE DOOMED AND WON'T EVEN GET 4th PLACE.
 
I've pretty much written off Stamford Bridge away as a loss. So the result doesn't really surprise me. We've gotten better results at places like Anfield and City but Bridge is our hoodoo ground.
 
I've pretty much written off Stamford Bridge away as a loss. So the result doesn't really surprise me. We've gotten better results at places like Anfield and City but Bridge is our hoodoo ground.

I'm sick of it. I knew we were beaten yesterday before kick off, which is never acceptable. Are we scared of those feckers or something?
 
[SOURCE : Reddit]

For the it's just 11 games crowd :

Moruinho's teams have finished in the same position he was in after the 12th game in most seasons:

02/03 - Porto - 1st after 12 games - 1st at end of season
03/04 - Porto - 1st after 12 games - 1st at end of season
04/05 - Chelsea - 1st after 12 games - 1st at end of season
05/06 - Chelsea - 1st after 12 games - 1st at end of season
06/07 - Chelsea - 2nd after 12 games - 2nd at end of season
08/09 - Inter - 1st after 12 games - 1st at end of season
09/10 - Inter - 1st after 12 games - 1st at end of season
10/11 - Madrid - 1st after 12 games - 2nd at end of season
11/12 - Madrid - 1st after 12 games - 1st at end of season
12/13 - Madrid - 3rd after 12 games - 2nd at end of season
13/14 - Chelsea - 3rd after 12 games - 3rd at end of season
14/15 - Chelsea - 1st after 12 games - 1st at end of season
16/17 - United - 6th after 12 games - 6th at end of season
Second would be quite good so there's that.
 
I was surprised at the amount of time and space Chelsea were allowed last night. Fabregas and Hazard could have taken a nap and have a cup of coffee and United players would still get nowhere near them. Mourinho is known for being very dilligent and meticulous in his tactical preparation. He must have known that this Chelsea side struggles to get anything going when they're being pressed high up the pitch yet United did none of that throughout the game. They just parked the bus (and not a good one, at that) and let Chelsea have the ball. Very odd.
 
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My original point is that we've been as good (actually better, statistically) than Real Madrid this season.

What has that got to do with anything? They are in Spain ffs what has their position got to do with this discussion? They've been the best team in the world for the past 3 seasons or so while we've been finishing 6th, how is any of that relevant to the current discussion? That's like saying we're better than Barca because Bayern never trashed us 7-2 before
 
We lack the team to win the league.....yet
 
I see nothing about our attacking player that gives me confidence in whatever Jose is doing with it. It's simply passing the ball around waiting for our players to come up with something, which doesn't happen because most of them are bang average, or crossing and hoping on Lukaku or Fellaini, shit crosses most of the time. No pattern,plan, vision or anything.
 
Mourinho knows we're not good enough (yet) to go away against top sides and play open attacking football, hence going defensive at Anfield, I feel he got talked out of doing the same at Chelsea because of recent pressure from Liverpool fans, then media and even some of us, Stamford Bridge, a ground where none of us ever really feel we will get anything, not in recent years anyway, a point there is good, so he went for it a bit more and shock! We weren't good enough and lost.

Like it or not, he's right to set up not to lose at big teams away at the moment, then let's try and beat the other sides more often than our rivals do.

Unpopular opinion this I'm sure..
 
This isn't really a manager thing, it's a cr#p midfield without Pogba thing. But then other injuries mean we have to play the out of form Herrara.

Yes City have fewer injuries than us right now. But it's only November.
It really is. What is actually our style/approach of play ? What kinda football do we use as a baseline to play matches ? This is exactly what any manager has to do, create an identity to his team. Mourinho is all over the place. Even with Pogba fit, we still play disjointed football, with players too isolated from one another.
 
It doesn't matter where it landed, keepers should make an effort, it annoys me so much when a keeper just stands there like a lemon as though they're recording one of those stupid skill shot videos for youtube.

Well it happens to every keeper, same way every attacking player miss hits shots/crosses or lose out on tackles, its football, it happens, don't know why you have to pick up on that of all the shit things that happened in that game. De Gea should have just dived for fun after a ball he was never going to catch so he does not annoy you?
 
Mourinho knows we're not good enough (yet) to go away against top sides and play open attacking football, hence going defensive at Anfield, I feel he got talked out of doing the same at Chelsea because of recent pressure from Liverpool fans, then media and even some of us, Stamford Bridge, a ground where none of us ever really feel we will get anything, not in recent years anyway, a point there is good, so he went for it a bit more and shock! We weren't good enough and lost.

Like it or not, he's right to set up not to lose at big teams away at the moment, then let's try and beat the other sides more often than our rivals do.

Unpopular opinion this I'm sure..

What has stopped us from being 'good enough' then, I thought that was his fecking job? It's not his first season ffs
 
Some of you are acting like we got thrashed 0-4 again. We lost by one goal- a goal that only came about as a result of one defender having a lapse of judgment and straying out of position- at a ground we've historically struggled at against the second best squad in the league, and we were missing our world class midfielder and one of the best strikers of the 21st century.

Do you think Chelsea would've bossed the midfield in the second half if they were without Kante or Cesc? I think not.

People need to keep things in perspective. How anyone can be upset that we're sitting 2nd after 11 games with a great goal differential is beyond me. The title was always going to be City's to lose this season. We're realistically competing to finish 2nd or 3rd this term.
 
Some of you are acting like we got thrashed 0-4 again. We lost by one goal- a goal that only came about as a result of one defender having a lapse of judgment and straying out of position- at a ground we've historically struggled at against the second best squad in the league, and we were missing our world class midfielder and one of the best strikers of the 21st century.

Do you think Chelsea would've bossed the midfield in the second half if they were without Kante or Cesc? I think not.

People need to keep things in perspective. How anyone can be upset that we're sitting 2nd after 11 games with a great goal differential is beyond me. The title was always going to be City's to lose this season. We're realistically competing to finish 2nd or 3rd this term.
Who is to know? Anyway the point is Chelsea have them and they are part of a whole that tries to play top class football using its top class assets, something we are tactically shying away from in the games against major rivals.
On Fabregas, he sometimes seems a half hearted player but I would love to see him threading, dinking and prodding the passes metronome style with Matic blocking and Pogba a horse running free in the Utd midfield.
 
My thoughts : Rashford should have buried his early chance, who knows what would have occurred after that. We never came out for the second half apart from kicking lumps out of Hazard early on. Morata scored a good goal and is clearly in better form than Lukaku who appears to be suffering a lack of confidence, though he was well marshaled and does not hold the ball up well with his back to goal.

I thought prior to the game we should have gone with Martial and Rashford up top, and given Chelsea something different to think about. All in all though I must also give credit to Chelsea who played and battled well, it was their day.

At least we did not park the bus and it wasn't a yawn fest like some previous 'top 6' away matches.

Yes, we need to improve, and Pogba is a miss, particularly with Mhiki in such bad form..... may be Mata would have done better.

disappointed but certainly not down hearted - things will improve.
 
Can we play only small teams from now on please. Clueless stuff.
Being Bayern must be so much fun. To be fair we would have been Bayern in the premier League, if financial doping from corrupt people hadn't deformed the premier league landscape.
 
What has stopped us from being 'good enough' then, I thought that was his fecking job? It's not his first season ffs

Fair comment, but are you saying that in just over a season we have every right to expect Mourinho or any other manager, to have taken us from being bang average (let's take all biase out of this) to champions, and anything less and he deserves the sack?

If that's what anyone expects then I can understand why so many are so stressed about United at present, but it's their own fault for having ridiculous and naive expectations.
 
It really is. What is actually our style/approach of play ? What kinda football do we use as a baseline to play matches ? This is exactly what any manager has to do, create an identity to his team. Mourinho is all over the place. Even with Pogba fit, we still play disjointed football, with players too isolated from one another.

Didn't we keep winning 4-nil every time Matic and Pogba played?
 
I'm surprised De Gea has a 6.7 average to be honest considering he made no effort for their goal when a dive and miss is much better than the fish out of water thing he did.
The goal went into left corner. There was little De Gea could do.. He did do a worldie when needed.
 
It really is. What is actually our style/approach of play ? What kinda football do we use as a baseline to play matches ? This is exactly what any manager has to do, create an identity to his team. Mourinho is all over the place. Even with Pogba fit, we still play disjointed football, with players too isolated from one another.

There is an identity and Mourinho has been trying to implement this since he started last year. We've seen it in majority of our games this year and the moment it stopped working, everyone started throwing their toys out of their prams. We're quite clearly a compact, defensively organised team that bases attacks by countering the opposition. We did it against West Ham, not just the last three goals, but look at the first goal, we did it against Swansea, Everton etc.

However, our main play makers have fallen away, but still people refuse to see this. Mkhi was actually very decent at the beginning of the season and was key in most, if not all, our attacks. The obvious link between defense and attack was the little matter of last years most expensive and our best player - Pogba. His injury has clearly hurt us and the only other player who could play a similar role is 36 and injured himself.

Our philosophy, style or whatever you want to call it is glaringly obvious. And it has been incredible effective, up until recently. I think people are too caught up in the moment. We didn't play disjointed football at the beginning of the season. We were very calculated with a clear plan, counter, tire, then counter again. The numbers, results and performances were there to be seen but there are just far too many people who refuse to open their eyes to the reality. You'd think, that after three years of pure rubbish, we'd be more accepting of our current predicament - which is hardly in line with the apocalypse it's been made out to be.
 
There is an identity and Mourinho has been trying to implement this since he started last year. We've seen it in majority of our games this year and the moment it stopped working, everyone started throwing their toys out of their prams. We're quite clearly a compact, defensively organised team that bases attacks by countering the opposition. We did it against West Ham, not just the last three goals, but look at the first goal, we did it against Swansea, Everton etc.

However, our main play makers have fallen away, but still people refuse to see this. Mkhi was actually very decent at the beginning of the season and was key in most, if not all, our attacks. The obvious link between defense and attack was the little matter of last years most expensive and our best player - Pogba. His injury has clearly hurt us and the only other player who could play a similar role is 36 and injured himself.

Our philosophy, style or whatever you want to call it is glaringly obvious. And it has been incredible effective, up until recently. I think people are too caught up in the moment. We didn't play disjointed football at the beginning of the season. We were very calculated with a clear plan, counter, tire, then counter again. The numbers, results and performances were there to be seen but there are just far too many people who refuse to open their eyes to the reality. You'd think, that after three years of pure rubbish, we'd be more accepting of our current predicament - which is hardly in line with the apocalypse it's been made out to be.
The main problem I think is how easily Pogba injury has affected us. I mean it is ridiculous that a team can't do anything proper in absence of Pogba. And to mention that Pogba didn't even look out of the world in the matches. I believe that whatever combination we pick from Herrera, Mata, Miki, Lukaku, Martial, Rashford, Lingard should be able to do a job. But somehow the players seem to not be able to create anything over 90 mins, whatever combination we take. People are calling for Rashford, Martial to work together and all kinds of combination.. IMO, it is only wishful thinking that the combinations will work.
 
Yesterday was so disheartening. We looked like a mid table team, I don’t think that’s any exaggeration. I’m really struggling to take any positives out of the performance. How often do we have these games where you feel it’s finally time for us to step up and show what we’re made of, yet we end up falling short. Two weeks until the next game is even more irritating.
 
Well and truly outclassed yesterday, Chelsea deserved the win, we didn't even look like scoring. Towards the end some of them looked too scared to move the ball up the pitch.

The key to the match was in midfield, there's was a cut above ours, Matic and Herrera are running on empty, both need a rest. Fabregas was top class, Bakayoko has been a good signing for them (posters on here saying he was rubbish have no clue)

We need to find a young version of Carrick and also an upgrade on the number 10's we currently have.
 
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Score Predictions

334,104,231
  • Man Utd win
  • Chelsea win
  • Draw

Detailed Results

  • 20% Chelsea 0:1 Man Utd
  • 17% Chelsea 1:1 Man Utd
  • 17% Chelsea 0:0 Man Utd
  • 13% Chelsea 1:2 Man Utd
  • 12% Chelsea 0:2 Man Utd
  • 5% Chelsea 1:0 Man Utd
  • 4% Chelsea 2:1 Man Utd
  • 4% Chelsea 2:0 Man Utd
  • 2% Chelsea 1:3 Man Utd
  • 1% Chelsea 0:5 Man Utd
  • 1% Chelsea 0:4 Man Utd
  • 1% Chelsea 0:3 Man Utd
  • 1% Chelsea 2:2 Man Utd
  • 1% Chelsea 3:0 Man Utd
  • 1% Chelsea 3:1 Man Utd
  • 0% Chelsea 5:0 Man Utd
  • 0% Chelsea 4:0 Man Utd
  • 0% Chelsea 2:3 Man Utd
  • 0% Chelsea 2:4 Man Utd
  • 0% Chelsea 3:3 Man Utd
Compiled from 669 predictions.
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Match Stats

  1. Chelsea
  2. Man Utd
Possession
54% 46%
Shots
18 10
Shots on Target
8 2
Corners
4 7
Fouls
16 20

Referee

Anthony Taylor