[simonhch]

First 60 minutes is the best I’ve seen us play in a while. Some of the football was sumptuous. But the manager made us worse with the subs. Taking off Amad and Zirkzee hurt us. Should’ve straight swapped Garnacho, whose race was run, for Rashford and carried on as is.

Lots and lots to be positive about. The midfield and one touch passing today was superb. And we should’ve been 2 or 3 up by 60 mins, but bad luck, great saves and poor finishing did for us, and the changes destroyed our control of the game.

Amad is such a good player. We missed him badly when he went off, as we did Zirkzee, whose hold up play was crucial. If we needed to sub Zirkzee, we’d have been better off with Mount. At least we looked like a proper football team today. And that back four is very, very good. I’m loving the look of De Ligt. He’s a monster.

 

[Parma Dewol]

Gutted not to get the three points, but overall, on our long road to recovery, there were some promising signs. Played some really good football and controlled large parts of the game. Bit more clinical in the final third and that could have been a comfortable three points.

 

[Orange Tree]

Onana MotM for the double saves and generally looked assured.

Garnacho and Eriksen were excellent in the first half. Dropped off in the second half, especially Garnacho who was invisible.

Bruno is back with his erratic passing.

 

[Adz_99]

I don't think that's a bad result for a side with top 4 aspirations.

Spurs on Sunday is must win though. A point at home isn't going to cut it.

 

[Globule]

Would have been nice if someone had told the players on the pitch that we weren't winning in the last 20 minutes. It's like we were seeing out a comfortable victory.

 

[Nep77]

Bruno Behind Rashford, Garnacho and Hojlund wont ever work. Momentum was killed when Zirkzee was taken off and compounded when Amad and Eriksen came off and letting Bruno to do his Hollywood shit show again.

 

[MonkeysMagic]

This game is precisely why we wont bother the top 4. You saw all the other contenders play poorly but manage a win...because they can take their chances! I just don't see an ETH team string wins together...there is always a reason why we end up fecking up on chances.

 

[Andersons Dietician]

We played well for most of the game, we certainly overcomplicated play at times and players acting like we were 6 up.
This shows how important it is we can get someone else in like Eriksen because as soon as the likes of himself, Zirkzee and Amad went off we pretty much lost all control. Players who could get on the ball and keep it moving and recirculate it when nothing was on.

The way we want to play should be more clear to the people that said they can’t see it and it doesn’t exist as that was more akin to the way we want to play.

 

[Dr. Dwayne]

11th!

 

[Buster15]

Decent first half followed by a sloppy second half. Nothings really changed.

Defensively better and we certainly had more control but we still can't finish and we have no consistency.

Good summary. We ran out of steam in the 2nd half after a pretty good first half. But lack of goals is a real problem.

 

[1988]

Flabbergasted at the negativity. Can't believe what I am reading. We played such a good game but lacked a bit cynicism and perhaps a bit of luck. You're all too fecking negative and miserable if you didn't enjoy our approach this evening.

 

[killerboi2]

It was like the final level of the Walking Dead video game with all that zombie passing.

The better team maybe but we didn't dominate. Palace had some good chances but lucky for us, Eze messed up his chance.

This still isn't nearly good enough despite some improvement.

 

[House Mkhitaryan]

No urgency at all last half hour. I just don't understand how we can sit around wasting so much time when the game is there to be won.

 

[Zen]

Everywhere that rates players based off the stats - has Bruno in the top 3 performers.... yet you'd think he'd dropped an absolutely clanger according to the live thread. Really weird expectations on him.

The performance was good to be fair. But I'm now wondering how key Zirkzee was to that, because his finishing does indeed leave a lot to be desired.

 

[OnlyTwoDaSilvas]

Played well for the most part. Should have been out of sight in the first half. Second half not as good, controlled the game, but lacked urgency particularly towards the end.

Lost the ability to move the ball quickly after Zirkzee came off. And Bruno must have double figures for losing possession. He kills everything, but like Rooney in 15/16, he's captain so he's untouchable.

 

[onemanarmy]

First half was very good. Loved our football. Should have been 2 or 3 up. Terrible finishing. Ten Hag set us up really good.

He got the subs wrong though. Didn't work out. Second half wasn't good.

We really need to start finishing those chances.

We need to bench Bruno for a bit.

 

[Yakuza_devils]

Passing it around the back four in the 93rd minute. Desire.

It was so frustrated that 0-0 starting from 83 mins, Martinez was slowly passing around the back. Martinez slowed down the game so much. It used to be Onana.

 

[daveskimufc]

Just not good enough… yes we played great in the first half, blah blah blah…. The table doesn’t lie and 7 points out of 15 just isn’t acceptable.

I don’t know why, out this game in particular has left me really jaded watching this team and I feel like I almost can’t be bothered any more after 40+ years…. but that’s just me.

I see your point but after last season and the start of this, the performances in the last few weeks have been quietly positive. Just can't score. Hojlund being available is really good

 

[dcrompton]

What do you call a team that can’t score

Arse-nil?

 

[TheRedDevil'sAdvocate]

Started the game with two players that could link up play, finished it with none. As the wise say: "What you put in, you get back".

 

[JBG]

Really is mind-boggling how we can miss the chances we had. Played so well up to those subs, which killed our momentum totally.

Also agree that maybe it is time to try a match or two without Bruno... maybe Zirksee as the 10 and Højlund ahead of him or Mount as the 10 if he's fit.

 

[stu_1992]

You can only be disappointed coming away from that. We no doubt should hwve finished one of our many chances. We also let the game fizzle out and seemed quite pedestrian at the end which was disappointing.

I'm sure many will point at the manager but that result is not on him as far as I'm concerned. I've seen some point at his subs already, but I don't see too much else I would have done differently. Bruno is always a possibility to come up with something so difficult to take him off.

 

[r0663664]

What football is ETH coaching? With minutes counting down, we have Martinez happily passing the football behind. There is no desire to win where it seems ETH is happy with a points. This is our standard now, 7 points from 5 games. Happy beating promotion teams and beating lower tier teams in cups. Yay, ETH must be happy with the results since we have not won since 2020. Congratulations! What an achievement! Looking forward to more medicore performance.

 

[M Bison]

Flat second half, was never confident we’d score even when we were on top in first half. Although I fancied palace for a late sucker punch so that’s a positive at least.

 

[Walters_19_MuFc]

Bruno our best, Hendo theirs. Shame we couldn't win it.

Bruno was far from our best player.

 

[December_16]

Could’ve won comfortably in the first half, ah well. 2 points dropped, inconsistency remains.


the worst part is that I was looking forward to the game so much.

 

[Iron Stove]

Not clinical enough. Great performance creating a lot of chances for 60 minutes or so. But just can't put the goal in net. You watch other teams and it feels like United needs about 3x the created chances to put the goal in net.

 

[Annihilate Now!]

That second half was absolute gash.

 

[leontas]

Performance in last 30 minutes was embarrassing to watch. No urgency, no chances and could’ve easily conceded.

 

[YouOnlyLiveTwice]

Unlucky today. We should continue like first half, and not be too down over this result.

 

[Ludens the Red]

Played well first half but that’s sort of expected when you play against a team with no midfield. I can see why Palace have struggled this season now.

They tightened up second half but also their manager spent most of the game subbing off all their attackers for defensive players and we still couldn’t win which is really disappointing. Too much inexperience up front for us to be a team who score goals. There’ll be a fair few blanks in the coming months I’d imagine.

 

[reelworld]

Agree, that's when the game turned. Zirkzee is elite in connecting everything and created two of the best chances of the game himself.

Honestly I didn't think the game at that point needed subs. We were still controlling and creating very well.

I think Eriksen needs to be subbed as he just played full 90 minutes in midweek. But if anyone else needs to be subbed, it's Bruno. Fecking atrocious performance

 

[Valencia Shin Crosses]

As someone who's not very much "sunshine and rainbows" about our team in recent times... that's the best we've played possibly since ETH came here. Went and played Palace off the park for the majority of that game, excellent combination play, created a bunch of huge chances.

I think the decision to take off Zirkzee was the wrong one and I didn't like how out of ideas we were late in the game, but as a whole I'm much more encouraged by today than scraping some shitty 1-0 where we were clearly the worse team.

 

[Buster15]

Played really well up until Zirkzee was taken off but that substitution killed our play completely.

Yes it did.

 

[Freak]

What do you call a team that can’t score

An ETH team? Ba-dum-tish!

 

[Red & White]

Superb first half but very poor result. Completely lost interest in winning the game for the last 25 minutes. Bruno’s passing was absolutely woeful. Martinez just strolling around with the ball before passing it back x 20 for the last quarter of the game was great. Anyone want to win or is this where we are now?

 

[MadDogg]

I watched the last 20 minutes.

I knew we were shite, but I didn't think we were so shite.

There's absolutely no point in watching our games.

You need to stop watching our games. That was pretty much the exact moment we started playing like shit, so I'm blaming you.

Before that we'd played fairly well, and indeed for the first 55 minutes or so it was probably some of the best football we've played under ETH (unfortunately we just couldn't get the ball in the back of the net).

 

[DavelinaJolie]

That first half was a sight for sure, but not scoring any of the chances it felt like a draw was inevitable.

 

[Dike_Manc]

Not impressed with Martinez today. He took every opportunity to kill our momentum. Started with that silly stomp.
Bruno's performance should not surprise anyone, he has been bad all season and cannot thrive in a controlled team. Just not possible.
I have said this many times before, never underestimate Bruno and Garnacho's ability to miss chances. You just can't rely on them for goals.

 

[Gordon S]

Our away record is abysmal so a 1 point is not terrible here. And we were clearly the stronger team atleast. A step forward.

But how we manage to not score in the first half is beyond me.
And where were the desire to get the winner in the end? We were clearly just happy to not let Palace have it. Erik ten Hag… still not a fan