[manichester]

Created some good chances and showed some character to come back, there are signs of progress.

 

[bucky]

 

[Sir Erik ten Hag]

Deserved the win but we are experts at shooting ourselves in the foot and making things a lot harder than they need to be.

We have always been like that, even in Fergie's reign.

 

[MalaysianRed7]

The initial development process is starting to take shape nicely. We were very dominant in the first half and deserved to take a bigger lead into half-time - had all the chances and limited Everton to absolutely nothing aside from the screamer. In the second half, we were still very dominant and should have put the game to bed, albeit less so than the first. Overall, we put in a controlled away performance akin to those City carry out on a fortnightly basis, albeit with less finesse than them due to us still being in the early stage of ten Hag’s tenure.

Side notes:
1) Absolutely delighted that Ronaldo scored. With Martial injured again, we need him to go on a run of form now.

2) The refereeing in England is inconsistent and poor. Today alone, Scamacca and Antonio’s goals were allowed to stand despite clear handballs to control the ball into their respective paths, and Gabriel’s handball in the box where his hand was head level was not penalised. Those were much clearer and more deliberate handballs than Rashford’s, and yet weren’t called up. Joke.

 

[RedIan]

Enjoyed the game we pretty much controlled the first half after Evertons initial flurry. Great finish from Anthony. Erikson and Casamiro looks a decent pairing if you ignore the mistake for Evertons goal.
The result should have been much more comfortable, handball my arse.
we dug in at the end when they threw the big forwards on.
good win good 3 points.
much more like it.

Im giving CR7 the motm out of respect for his 700 up. He played well to - though Casamiro and luke shaw were also excellent.

 

[Fts 74]

Thought we played well a few sloppy moments aside.

2-1 flattered Everton.

 

[NLunited]

That was the most dominant first half performance I can remember away from home against a decent away team since LVG was at the club. We couldn't sustain it in the second half but it's something to build on.

This from Rio is also encouraging.

Absolutely. Out of Pool, Arsenal and City getting six points is really good. After a disastrous start, we are doing well and on track for a top four spot.

 

[Becks00]

We are a far better team than we are showing so far. Still feels like there is very little confidence in the team, a lot of the players are second guessing themselves and not yet trusting their instincts to play their natural game. Might be adjusting to the new system for a few of the players, but they need to back themselves and stop being afraid to make mistakes.

 

[Telsim]

Better side won, but an overall average performance. Decent first half, not good second half. So, so many mistakes all over the pitch. Again, no edge to the game. Passing was horrendous. We saw what that leads to against good sides. Work in progress, I guess.

Also, feck VAR.

 

[AltiUn]

Did pretty well for the most part. We're quietly having a decent season.

 

[AndyMUFC]

Thought we played well, controlled most of the game and limited them to very few chances bar the last 10 minutes when the home side is usually gonna be pushing for an equaliser if they're still in it. This had the potential to be a banana skin after the City game and not playing so well in mid week and we've got through it with another three points.

Shaw MOTM, keep signing left backs to give him competition because that is what apparently gets the best out of him. Lindelof and Martinez very solid and Eriksen had anothe good game.

 

[Mr Smith]

Just came here to say it's outrageous that they disallowed Rashford's goal. West Ham had two goals that VAR checked and cleared today where the goalscorer handled the ball in the build-up. The VAR officials are a disgrace.

 

[Zlaatan]

Everton were pretty shit tonight save for the last 10-15min but I'd like to think that was because we shut them down so well despite giving the ball away way too easily at times.
We still have a long way to go but it was so satisfying to see that we could beat the press and/or find space with a little movement and simple one or two touch passes in the middle of the pitch, something we haven't been able to do since I don't when.

 

[The Brown Bull]

Better passing in attack and we would have thumped them by 4 or 5. They are that bad.
Glad we held on at the end.

 

[Marwood]

I liked that. Probably our best performance of the season so far.

 

[KiD MoYeS]

Everton are the worst team we've played this season I think. I thought Ronaldo coming on killed our press from the front and we would have had a more comfortable second half, but I also think Ronaldo had a good game.

Deserved win. Next three league games are much tougher.

 

[Wheato]

 

[AlPistacho]

Played well for 75 minutes. Credit to Ronaldo, he was running back and winning the ball on the edge of our box and starting attacks. A very solid all round performance from him which didn’t get mentioned.

Casemiro looking good and will get even better. And at United he’ll get forward more than he did at Real.

 

[lysglimt]

Honestly, these things can happen when you present yourself for the ball and are an active force in the game. Watch most teams with top midfielders and you'll notice these things can happen. Happened to Scholes and Keane a multitude of times.

What we have had over the last 10 years have been players who are consistently afraid of taking the ball in those areas and fans so quick to bash them when it doesn't come off. Maybe it's because our fans are not used to properly building out from the back and not having players mindlessly rotating possession across the back 4 like we have done since 2013. Mctominay barely has moments like that because he doesn't present himself for the ball.

In fact, I'll go as far as saying, on this forum, our most active and brave players are given far too much slack for the risks they are willing to take, yet their teammates aren't. From Bruno to Pogba to Di Maria, this has been a consistent theme here.

Eh no - it didnt happen to Keane a multitude of times. That was something Keane was extremely good at - not giving the ball away with his face to his own goal. As for willing to take risks - there is nothing wrong in taking risks but thes players you mention take too big risks. As much as I like Bruno - I will be the first to admit that his inability to decide when to make a risky pass rather than doing it all the time - is what separate him from the truly great players.

 

[Hughes35]

Thought we played sone nice stuff with good patterns of plsy but there was a lot of extremely sloppy play too.

Casemiro is bizarre. Sine brilliant stuff but some awful awful passes too.

 

[Yorkeontop]

There's a difference between saying its understandable that we're not very good and flat out pretending we played well when we didn't.

I think you and I are part of the glass half empty crowd. Everton are pretty gash and I guess folks are so thirsty to move on from that City mauling.

 

[Dominos]

I think you and I are part of the glass half empty crowd. Everton are pretty gash and I guess folks are so thirsty to move on from that City mauling.

Everyone is glad we've won the game.

The disagreement we have on here is that so many fans don't recognise the correlation between performances and results. If you can only ever scrape very narrow wins even against relegation fodder who are terrible like Southampton, Leicester and Everton then you're very likely to be dropping more points over the course of the season than a team who can win games convincingly.

This is why the vast majority of the forum were massive Ole supporters for 2 and a half years - they weren't judging the performances by the standards top teams should be judged by. They were only looking at the full time result, what happened in the game was almost irrelevant.

And no, I'm not comparing ETH to Ole. I'm a big ETH fan but there's nothing wrong with being realistic and recognising the performances aren't good at the moment.

 

[GaryLifo]

Nothing you said contradicted what I said?

Everton are relegation fodder and were worse than us, like I said.

Yet if they'd beat us they'd have gone above us in the table. They've also been keeping teams out over the last half dozen games.

United dominated about 70% of that game and should have been out of sight before we tired in the final 15 minutes. Everton had a week since their last game and united flew back from Cyprus yesterday.

 

[ElBarto]

Not much to add other than:
Can we please stop the BS short corner routine? arguably the greatest header of the ball ever and we faff around with it for no net result

 

[Chairman Steve]

Always good to get a win at that bogey ground. Nice to get it out the way too.

 

[caid]

Bit of a mixed bag. Plenty to be happy about, enough to be worried about too though.
Thought the general performance was good to very good, but thought we were wasteful and should have put the game to bed much earlier.
Eriksen looks excellent on the ball and is a bit of a gamechanger for our midfield but looks a bit hopeless defensively if i'm being brutally honest. Dalot struggled and had a pretty poor game, Rashford was kind of quiet, Shaw didn't get too involved going forward, Martial injured, Casemiro looked shaky as hell. But then Casemiro was frequently brilliant, De Gea looks to be growing into the role a bit, Antony had another strong game, Ronaldo looked a threat for a change and we defended well for most of the match. Created some good chances even against a packed defence.
Every match we play we look a step further along, we've added something extra to our game. We do the same stuff we were doing the previous week a bit better and with a bit more confidence. I feel very optimistic about Ten Hag but still think it'll take a while to build a squad for him to compete against the best.

 

[gerdm07]

Not much to add other than:
Can we please stop the BS short corner routine? arguably the greatest header of the ball ever and we faff around with it for no net result

You have to mix it up a little. The one with Antony shooting almost worked very well, just blocked.

- I'm starting to like this team and hope we continue to improve.
- Antony is very good and he is going to present many problems for opposing defenses. Everton showed a lot of respect by double teaming whenever possible. We finally have a good right winger after 9 long years. Maybe Jadon can learn and improve.
- I love Casimero's one-touch passing. Yes, sometimes it gets us in trouble but the overall effect is a big positive.
- Defense looked really good with the only blemish being Dalot's passing.
- 700 for Ronaldo, just amazing stat.
- Very nervy ending but we got the result we deserved.
- I thought Rashford was okay, I was hoping for more after his lively performance on Thursday night.

 

[NLunited]

I think you and I are part of the glass half empty crowd. Everton are pretty gash and I guess folks are so thirsty to move on from that City mauling.

First half was pretty good aside from the Cashmere mistake. Shoulda been three goals up.

 

[GaryLifo]

Lindelof was actually excellent tonight. He and Martinez can both play out from the back and we did that really well for the majority of the game.

 

[tjb]

Bit of a mixed bag. Plenty to be happy about, enough to be worried about too though.
Thought the general performance was good to very good, but thought we were wasteful and should have put the game to bed much earlier.
Eriksen looks excellent on the ball and is a bit of a gamechanger for our midfield but looks a bit hopeless defensively if i'm being brutally honest. Dalot struggled and had a pretty poor game, Rashford was kind of quiet, Shaw didn't get too involved going forward, Martial injured, Casemiro looked shaky as hell. But then Casemiro was frequently brilliant, De Gea looks to be growing into the role a bit, Antony had another strong game, Ronaldo looked a threat for a change and we defended well for most of the match. Created some good chances even against a packed defence.
Every match we play we look a step further along, we've added something extra to our game. We do the same stuff we were doing the previous week a bit better and with a bit more confidence. I feel very optimistic about Ten Hag but still think it'll take a while to build a squad for him to compete against the best.

Think our next spending window will spark the complete change. I feel the addition of a truly active striker will change the dynamic of our attack. We would also have someone a bit more reliable than Martial in the rotation

Getting another DM that can be an 8 or 6 would be very useful too, both for depth, but to cover Eriksen.
In terms of what we currently have, I think we already have a squad good enough to compete. Think we have a lot of strong talent. However to match City, you need depth. A level of consistency to attack all fronts.

 

[Frank Grimes]

Always good to get a win at that bogey ground. Nice to get it out the way too.

Goodison a bogey ground? Not sure about that, our record there since the PL began is very decent imo.

 

[LDUred]

I thought it was mostly good today: 2-1 clearly flattered Everton and it seemed like luck and officialdom were what was keeping Everton in the contest. In real time, it looked as if Onana had fouled Casemiro and on the replays he was indeed fouled - the contact was marginal but Onana made contact with Casemiro before he touched the ball. That's a clear foul.

The disallowed goal towards the end was even worse. If you are Marcus Rashford you want to know exactly why Antonio's and Scamacca's goals stand but yours is ruled out for handball.

Of the three, I would say that Rashford's was the least deliberate and yet he is the one penalized.

 

[Paolo Di Canio]

Shaw done fantastic and hard to see Malacia getting back in if he keeps it up

Dalot makes me nervous, not sure hes up to scratch

 

[Boondog]

What a great image that is.

 

[Boondog]

You have to mix it up a little. The one with Antony shooting almost worked very well, just blocked.

- I'm starting to like this team and hope we continue to improve.
- Antony is very good and he is going to present many problems for opposing defenses. Everton showed a lot of respect by double teaming whenever possible. We finally have a good right winger after 9 long years. Maybe Jadon can learn and improve.
- I love Casimero's one-touch passing. Yes, sometimes it gets us in trouble but the overall effect is a big positive.
- Defense looked really good with the only blemish being Dalot's passing.
- 700 for Ronaldo, just amazing stat.
- Very nervy ending but we got the result we deserved.
- I thought Rashford was okay, I was hoping for more after his lively performance on Thursday night.

Yeah seemed like there were a lot of turnovers but I was ok with them because they were so good in transition on defense. That allows you to take some chances on your passes and actually push the ball which had to happen to get the result. I mean Case had some good some bad but overall was excellent I thought. It felt good to see him out there making a difference. He needs to be a core player the guy is just wired the right way, he is mentally tough.

Antony needs to work on his approach on the offensive end. He is most effective with his trademark left cut and far post strike but he needs to start playing games with Dalot when he makes runs. He needs to start pushing that far side and using that space even if it's on a run by himself.

So disappointed to see Martial get hurt again. He is one hell of a player but it makes it even worse when he instantly gets injured. If we could have him healthy with Rash & Antony as our prime forwards we're in business.

 

[pratyush_utd]

How is this not a handball then? I am so confused with handball rule now

 

[Doracle]

How is this not a handball then? I am so confused with handball rule now

He didn’t score directly from it presumably. It’s a moronic distinction and one that needs to be removed from the rules asap.

 

[Gasolin]

How is this not a handball then? I am so confused with handball rule now

It's worst because I don't think Rashford even touches with his arms. He's using his head so... just nonsense referring for me.

 

[Boondog]

Seems like VAR's complete and total focus is finding any reason to not allow a score. That is not fun. I think it's fecking stupid in fact and I'd rather have to deal with the occasional wrong result than to endure VAR. Because in the end they still get things wrong and everything becomes about waiting on the refs for the answer to come down from on high.

The NFL and US sports have pushed this mentality of getting everything perfect but it is not good for the fans. If any league should be able to overcome that, and realize it and make the right decision for the fans it's the PL.

 

[Galactic]

Luckily DCL didn’t come on sooner. We were in sixes and sevens at the end.