[RedFanaticTattooist]

The first promising match since Amorim arrived. Mostly good performances from the players, apart from de Ligt (i expected it, i don't see him as a very good signing anyway) and Mainoo. Bruno was very good.

 

[mctrials23]

There are a lot of opposition fans that hate watch our games. I'm constantly amazed how many fans of other sides watch us play the worst sides in the league just so they have a chance to try and bait United fans if we are playing shit. Look at the ratios of the commentary and user messages on the BBC live text. Despite being irrelevant for over a decade in footballing terms there is still nothing that gets rival fans quite so excited as a change to shit on us.

 

[Dominos]

Really happy with the performance today.

Seems very much like the players only have the right mentality for certain games in terms of effort, intensity and focus. Anfield and Etihad being our 2 better performances, and dreadful performances in easier games on paper.

 

[BenitoSTARR]

 

[cj_sparky]

Was extremely worried we would be on the end of a hiding. Really happy with the performance from the players, hopefully something they can build upon.

 

[Escobar]

I loved the positivity and confidence in our passing. A huge difference and overall a top performance against the top team currently

 

[George The Best]

Where have these players been the last few weeks? Superb performance, Dalot finally showed he can play. Lots of stand out players but I thought Ugarte was key tonight.

 

[Sandikan]

Having 2 giant centre backs certainly makes us feel like we have a threat for once.
Until now with just one of them it's too easy to deal with.

 

[lex talionis]

A superb performance by almost every player. This might just well be the beginning of the resurrection.

 

[Bastian]

Those two crunching tackles in the space of a minute from de Ligt and then Maguire (I think both on Diaz) where a thing of beauty. That type of thing really raises the spirit of a team.

 

[Stookie]

Playing a team bang in form, top of the league, your biggest rivals, away whilst your team is having a nightmare season and coming away with a point is quality. We took the game to them and really should have won it. They got their inevitable penalty and I was impressed that our heads didn’t go down and we got an equaliser. That’s massive in my opinion. A really good game. The managers best yet for us.

 

[EdinburghDevil]

That performance today needs to be the rule and not the exception to the rule. Next few weeks will tell which it was.

More time on the training pitch can't be a bad thing.

Hoping that he can start picking a more settled side and the organisation and desire that was shown today becomes the norm.

 

[SuperMicky]

In his post match interview, Arne Slot claimed Liverpool dominated and had 75% of the game.
According to him, Utd just kicked the ball long and got a bit of luck.


.

So far he's had it easy, he(at times) got schooled today in his own gaff, that's why he's talking crap, he probably thought he'd be basking in the glow of a Liverpool cricket score. We'll see how good he is when he hits his first bump, and or Salah leaves.

 

[mark.ward82]

The first promising match since Amorim arrived. Mostly good performances from the players, apart from de Ligt (i expected it, i don't see him as a very good signing anyway) and Mainoo. Bruno was very good.

I thought Mainoo was complete class. Made jones look invisible. Does so much in possession that doesn’t seem like much but creates space and angles to work the ball around.

 

[Red00012]

I still don’t get XG

I’ll tell you what it is . Complete and utter tribe

 

[NewGlory]

I agree. Just need to build on it now. Please let’s get a bit of consistency now, especially against the so called lesser teams.

Yeap. Both Amorim and Bruno said the same thing in their post-match, that they are not just happy, they are more angry that if this is how they can play, wtf was the last several weeks...

So they know....

I think WHO plays also matters a lot. Casemiro and Rashford can never play again. They need to go. Eriksen cannot be blamed for lack of effort, but he simply doesn't have legs, anymore.

Dalot, Licha, and Onana are the ones that turned it on today, but were crap in pervious games. Let's hope they can find some consistency, but better yet - we really HAVE to sign a decent left wingback in January. If we can raise money by selling Casemiro or Rashford - so be it. If we need to sell the likes of Garna or Dalot - we still have to sign a top left wingback or two. Sacrificing Zirzkee to bring-in a striker that fits us, also makes sense

 

[Mike Smalling]

I still don’t get XG

Obviously you start by deducting 0.9 or so from Liverpool for the penalty. Total coincidence.

But on top that, I simply don’t understand how that system arrives at approx 1 xG for United. How does it make sense that the chances for our two goals, Højlunds chance, Maguires chance, and Amad’s header combined is expected to result in one goal? It’s nonsense.

 

[Paul McMinn]

His right arm was offside. Goal would have counted.

Yup I wanted to be offside when he missed but looked back shoulder was on ffs

 

[Heinzesight]

 

[MyBloodIsRed]

If we play like that against any other side, we win a lot more matches. We’ve made things far too easy for most teams.

Good to see the players play with some passion

 

[Zed 101]

Thats because it usually is broadly correct. No it doesn't tell you how much a team dominated. It doesn't tell you whether you put in 10 crosses that were 1 inch away from a tap in for your striker but its broadly correct and anyone saying otherwise is an idiot. Its literally statistics with massive datasets. Its not made up. Its not some bloke going "I reckon a player sticks that in the net about 3 times out of 10".

Better players will allow you to outperform your xG a bit and worse player will underperform. It simply tells us the overall quality of chance that were missed where a player had an attempt on goal. Its a useful metric. Its much more useful when you put it in the context of watching the game however if you care about anything more than pure goals...

Aye but it also ignores many factors like; who had the shot, a one legged blind man gives the same xg as peak RVN.... whether a shot falls to a right footed player on the wrong side of the goal or vice versa, it does not differentiate between a player like Lineker who pretty much scored all his goals within the 6 yard box is treated the same as a player like Paul Scholes who mostly scored from outside the area, a 16 year old defender making their debut or a 35 year old veteran who has never scored in 500 games, it does not account for recent form of the player who is shooting, it does not take into account the actual moment of a match i.e. the fatigue levels of a player, whether or not a team has already scored, whether a team has been building pressure, whether the keeper is having a worldie, the wind, the rain, the state of the pitch, the pace or quality of the pass, whether the ball bobbles etc.etc.etc.....

Effectively it is as shite as Duckworth Lewis and worse as it serves no actual purpose, it picks certain things which somebody has decided are relevant, and in the vacuum of a spreadsheet they may well be but in the real world there are a whole host of much more important factors that are simply ignored, XG will roughly be right with a large enough dataset, however on a game by game basis it is about as inciteful as a conversation between Piers Morgan and Donald Trump (unless the incite you obtain is that both should be put out of our misery).

 

[The Oracle]

Fantastic performance from the team.

Before today our last goal at Anfield was Lingard in December 2018 (just over 6 years ago), I was actually ecstatic when Martinez scored, an absolute rocket to end our goal drought there.

We could have actually won it at the end as well, really annoyed that we didn't, but I have to look at the bigger picture and say that a draw at Anfield against a team in fantastic form, and the fact that we scored a couple of goals too, was a good result overall.

Has to be onwards and upwards from here.

 

[mctrials23]

Aye but it also ignores some many factors like; who had the shot, a one legged blind man gives the same xg as peak RVN.... whether a shot falls to a right footed player on the wrong side of the goal or vice versa, it does not differentiate between a player like Lineker who pretty much scored all his goals within the 6 yard box is treated the same as a player like Paul Scholes who mostly scored from outside the area, a 16 year old defender making their debut or a 35 year old veteran who has never scored in 500 games, it does not account for recent form of the player who is shooting, it does not take into account the actual moment of a match whether, i.e. the fatigue levels of a player, whether or not a team has already scored, whether a team has been building pressure, whether the keeper is having a worldie etc.etc.etc.....

Of course it broadly takes these things into account as they are baked into the statistics. Thats quite literally how statistics work. With thousands of data points the stats tend to become more and more accurate. If your left footed donkey of a defender missing a good chance on his right foot happens a lot then the stats will start to reflect that. If its a once in a blue moon then its not going to be showing up in your xG very often so its hard to suggest that xG is inaccurate because it doesn't take that into account. Either something happens a lot and its baked in or its an outlier and the fact its an outlier means that you can't use it as proof of a failure in the stats.

No its not perfect but its useful. Its not the be all, end all but its useful. It tells you what sort of chances you are creating as a team. So perhaps on a game by game basis its not amazing but as a statistic to look at over a longer period I would say its very useful. People talk about statistics all the time in football and that seems accepted. xG just seems to wind some people up. They are quite happy to point at possession, shots on target, pass completion % etc. Not sure why xG seems to get so much derision.

 

[TwoSheds]

Robbed. Cheating Scouse twat refs.

 

[friendlytramp]

Biggest differences were Dalot playing on the front foot and everyone pressing with intensity straight away, centre backs jumping out of defence to put pressure on players and win balls. Playing without fear.

 

[NinjaZombie]

50 minute breakdown on Trent and nothing on our performance ffs.

Now you know how Bournemouth, Wolves and all those other clubs feel.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

50 minute breakdown on Trent and nothing on our performance ffs.

MOTD2 well worth a watch.

 

[Paul McMinn]

That was as well as I can recall us playing at Anfield since the LVG win and Mata double.

It was a far better performance than that , juanfield game had two smashing boss but we played mustve second half a man and two nil up and still just hung on, we went toe to toe against a far better Liverpool team today and should’ve won

 

[TMDaines]

Better today, but we were still second best. I liked Amorim not being too impressed as well. Shows the standards he has and that he knows that we need to perform better than we did today.

 

[VivaRonaldo85]

What we saw today that we haven’t seen so far under Amorim,

1) quick slick & accurate passing
2) aggression from the centre halves pressing high to make tackles in the midfield
3) Diogo Dalot taking on a man on the left side rather than passing backwards with his right foot
4) Mainoo looking back to his form from last season
5) Bruno looking back to his form from his first season
6) generally winning second balls all over the pitch

Where has this lot been this season?

 

[cpresc]

This was away against a team that has been steam rolling everyone recently too

Great great great performance, loved it

 

[El Zoido]

Obviously you start by deducting 0.9 or so from Liverpool for the penalty. Total coincidence.

But on top that, I simply don’t understand how that system arrives at approx 1 xG for United. How does it make sense that the chances for our two goals, Højlunds chance, Maguires chance, and Amad’s header combined is expected to result in one goal? It’s nonsense.

xG philosophy has it at 3.01 to 1.33. They have Maguires’s chance alone at 0.62. And of course, xG is not an exact science and there isn’t a standard. Different football analytic groups have different methodologies for defining xG. Even 1.33 seems low for us in this game imo.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Better today, but we were still second best. I liked Amorim not being too impressed as well. Shows the standards he has and that he knows that we need to perform better than we did today.

Funny way to describe a draw where we missed an open goal which would have won it in the final seconds.

You also seem to have misunderstood Amorim. He was happy with this performance. Because it was very good. He was pissed off about us being capable of playing this well but not doing it in every match.

 

[Regulus Arcturus Black]

Claiming Ugarte was better than Bruno today is a really terrible take for someone who prides themselves on analysing football.

 

[dinostar77]

As they said on MOTD2, this is the first time Amorim has had a week to work with the players on the tactics, formation, how he wants to play etc and it made a big difference. Give the guy a proper preseason to drill the players and it will be very different next season.

 

[DRJosh]

I’d say the future is actually looking decent as long as we keep up these performances. The results are secondary for me at this stage.

I hope we get a striker on loan in Jan. Hojlund and Zirkzee lack that imposing presence. A player in the guise of Zlatan (in his prime) would be great to add some physicality and tenacity.

 

[Salford_Red83]

Pretty similar to Yoro's challenge in the box, only this time Salah went down like a flopping salmon.

 

[MrBest]

My prediction for the game was wildly wrong and I'm happy to eat my hat. Even though we didn't win, I'm not sure I can remember a proper performance like that in a long time. Passion, desire, fight, determination, all in existence. Still a long way to go to where we need to get to and these players need to prove they can do it consistently but I am delighted with that result, more importantly, given where we are in the league, the performance. This was much better than the city game, we won that but played average and rode our luck against a poor city team. We played the best team in the league today, a team that had dropped points in only 3 games all season, and we fought the toe to toe.

Well done to the lads, credit where due and let it continue.

P.s, anyone else glad that garnacho has changed his hair colour back to normal?

 

[Yakuza_devils]

Who say our players are bad? Not technical enough? Can't play modern tactics? Don't have the football IQ? Can't play high press and high intensity game?

Today's game prove all that very wrong. We were the better team than the so called best team in Europe now at their own backyard.

Our problem is the workrate, desire and consistency. We have the right manager and players. But the players need to increase their workrate and outrun the opponent in every single game! They need to work harder and show much more every game.

Hope this is not another false dawn.

 

[Gator Nate]

What a match! I secretly thought that Amorim might have picked a weaker team last week to rest up for this. Maybe, but... Today's was definitely what I believe to be our strongest available lineup.

Bruno was my MOTM, but Ugarte deserves it, too. Dalot also had a great game. I'm not going to give anyone stick for today's performance - I expect a little over-excitement and a few brainfarts in a derby. It wasn't the norm over the course of the game, and we were OK for it. Some are still getting used to the system.

That's only maybe the second match (City being the first) where I've seen a full team effort over the whole 90+ minutes. Today, no one held back. Now the players have their own efforts on record to show they can play like that. The R word should be relegated from our vocabulary for the rest of the season.

We have seven days to the next match, and Arsenal are beatable. We could repeat the FA Cup again, and take the Europa League to boot, if there's enough belief in effort within the squad.

Amorim's system can certainly work, and after a week of training, we looked better. Another week and we should be even more ready. After that, we just have to show up for the next three. Not only are Southampton bottom of the table, but both Brighton and Fulham are on four draws in the last five. We should pull 9 points.