[GueRed]

Maguire and Shaw had good games

In what was a meh of a Manchester Derby

Covid Football to me just feels like glorified practise matches.

Hopefully next season Stadiums will be jam packed again

 

[londonredmaniac]

Next two games are absolutely critical, and will define whether the cowardly approach against City was advisable or not.

I don't think it was cowardly...that's a strong accusation tbf.

It was cautious, and somewhat expected after the disorganised clusterfeck that was the first 20 minutes Tuesday night.

But you feel that there was a time to push on and take advantage or City after we steadied that.

 

[Reddevildans]

Both teams looking terrified to lose and hoping to nick something where they can.

City came on strong during the middle of the second half, and I thought both sides should have scored first half.

All in all it was pretty mediocre. I thought it was similar to the Chelsea game at home tbf.

Games like this were what kept us rolling under Ole last year...which is a dangerous game.

I worry that we have to go to Chelsea, City, Arsenal, Spurs and Liverpool away in the second half of the season.

I think we may do better away from home. In fact we are and so are most teams.

 

[Feed Me]

I don't think it was cowardly...that's a strong accusation tbf.

It was cautious, and somewhat expected after the disorganised clusterfeck that was the first 20 minutes Tuesday night.

But you feel that there was a time to push on and take advantage or City after we steadied that.

Looking at the state of City, I think we should have been more on the front foot, looking to make a statement about ourselves and dealing them a blow.

As it happens, we offered up the same dross as against the likes of Arsenal and Chelsea – zero ambition on show – although the only mitigation is that the same can be said of our opponents.

If the City game was taken in isolation, maybe I wouldn’t be as strident in my view, but this is becoming a clear trend now.

Like I said, win against Sheff U and Leeds, and the point against City gets looked at favourably.

Don’t feck it up, lads...

 

[Member 113277]

For what it's worth, I thought it was a largely boring game, where both teams tactics were designed to stop the other team winning and to that degree, they succeeded.

I thought City were marginly better than us, althought not a lot in it and De Bruyne, in particular, had an ineffective game as did Bruno. One thing I noticed was that their first touch was generally better than ours and they retained possession more than we did, partly for this reason.

However, a point is a point and this is not a trivial or easy game - we need a couple of easy games to allow our mojo to recover and knock in a few goals.

Perhaps the most important part of this game, is that we kept a clean sheet for the first time since WBA, three weeks ago and against serious EPL competition since Chelsea on 24 October.

Our goals per game is now 1.6 and that needs to climb to 2.1/2.2 over the full season, if we wish to be competitive, which will mean hammering some lesser opposition - Soton and West Ham were good examples that we can achieve this.

But, we gave away 3 goals in scoing 6 and our goals conceded per game is 1.4 per game, which is unsustainable and needs to change quickly - that's why I am pleased on balance with the game v City. Now lets keep a clean sheet much more frequently and start to put the lesser teams away.

 

[Widow]

...and there we have it... cafe wisdom

fu+k me.

Oh look, another one.

 

[Judas]

Feels like such a missed opportunity. That was the worst City have looked at OT for years, I just can't get on board with such a timid display, especially with how wretched our home form is, we could have won yesterday with a bit of intent, but it just never looked likely.

 

[Rams]

Zzzzzzzzz... United playing on the counter whist City’s form made them struggle. United missing an attacker in the right, time to give Pellistri a chance? He does look a bit special from what I’ve see.

 

[::sonny::]

Players celebrating like winning the champions league

 

[Eric's-collar]

One of the worst derby's I can ever remember, 2 teams playing with fear

 

[Gasolin]

Absolute bollox

Trying to act as if you knew what would would happen like you have a magic third eye. Do we only win with Fred in the team now?

Truly hilarious

Yes, Fred contributes to keep the shape in the team, which results in two major points: the CBs are not sucked in to help the midfield, and the full backs are therefore able to keep the width and defend facing the opposition wingers.

Without him, we have some issues controlling the midfield the way we want, and it results in our shape being destroyed. We can try to overcome it in different ways, but in that PSG game, with Fred, our shape was good, the balance was good, we did have the ball often and could counter press.

If we score on one of the chances of Bruno, Martial or Cavani, Fred can be subbed and we can play more defensive. But until then, why sub him out? You've seen against Leipzig how a midfield of Matic and Scott with the same shape doesn't work well, and keeps getting AWB inside, which allows the opposition to have space. Telles is a nightmare defensively but that's another story. The key point was that we had zero control in that midfield. And it has consequences in the game.

 

[Gasolin]

Both teams looking terrified to lose and hoping to nick something where they can.

City came on strong during the middle of the second half, and I thought both sides should have scored first half.

All in all it was pretty mediocre. I thought it was similar to the Chelsea game at home tbf.

Games like this were what kept us rolling under Ole last year...which is a dangerous game.

I worry that we have to go to Chelsea, City, Arsenal, Spurs and Liverpool away in the second half of the season.

Why are you worried? What is clear is that all big teams are now fearing us and playing defensive. Yes, we will have to solve those issues at some point but it also means that almost all of them are going to play with 2 or 3 defensive / physical midfielders to protect their back line. So we shouldn't be too worried about it.

 

[jderbyshire]

We had a game similar to this 10 years ago at the Etihad.

It was a dull game but I found it hard to be annoyed by it seeing as I had expected us to lose.

I wanna say we need to get a run of form together, but we've not really got an easy month ahead of us.

Right now it's just about one game at a time and trying to stay near the top teams - but I wouldn't mind actually enjoying the games and seeing us play better... Is that touch much to ask, Santa??

 

[podurban2]

We had a game similar to this 10 years ago at the Etihad.

It was a dull game but I found it hard to be annoyed by it seeing as I had expected us to lose.

I wanna say we need to get a run of form together, but we've not really got an easy month ahead of us.

Right now it's just about one game at a time and trying to stay near the top teams - but I wouldn't mind actually enjoying the games and seeing is play better... Is that touch much to ask, Santa??

Sheffield United, Leeds, Leicester, Wolves without Jimenez, Villa. Out of those fixtures only Leicester is the really tough one. It’s a pretty easy schedule imo.

 

[jderbyshire]

Sheffield United, Leeds, Leicester, Wolves without Jimenez, Villa. Out of those fixtures only Leicester is the really tough one. It’s a pretty easy schedule imo.

I dunno, Leeds is a bit of a Derby - they will raise their game, Wolves are a kind of a bogey team for us and Villa have been decent this season.

Saying that mate, even if we were playing West Brom, Sheffield and Fulham, I still wouldn't be exactly rubbing my hands together.

 

[TsuWave]

Only Pogba, Maguire, Shaw and Fred were decent.

 

[Will Singh]

Id take a draw against a top side any day of the week but City were there for the taken and Ole failed to capitalise on that.

 

[Plymouth Red]

Sheffield United, Leeds, Leicester, Wolves without Jimenez, Villa. Out of those fixtures only Leicester is the really tough one. It’s a pretty easy schedule imo.

Logic says you’re right but this season, I struggle to be confident about our performance during a game let alone game by game.
The fact that individual players are so up and down even across 90 minutes is hugely frustrating.
Because of this, I would not rule out Sheffield getting their first three points against us, for example.
Obviously it’s a very long shot, but if it happened, it would not be a massive shock, somehow. Or we could put seven goals past a team.
Bonkers, really, so it’s not easy to see how we can finish as Champions when this is the context of the season so far.

 

[ColorsOfRainbow]

Maguire was very good defensively.

Because of one match says it all.. Does well in one match,messes up in the next 6...justification of 80 million

 

[noodlehair]

Under different circumstances it's an OK result. You can't call it better than that because drawing at home with anyone isn't great if your aim is to bechallenging for the league.

Then you factor in that City are below us, haven't been very good all season, and played pretty poorly even by their standards this season yesterday, and it becomes a disappointing result.

Then you factor in our performance, where the players didn't do too badly but where, due largely to our set up and reluctance to change anything, we spent most of the second half just sitting there hoping not to lose and not even trying to attack, and it becomes a pathetic result.

Playing for a draw against an off form team struggling to find their way towards the top of the league is what relegation fodder teams do. Its not what any team mid table or above should be doing, never mind a tem trying to "improve" on finishing 3rd.

I also don't get why the fact we went out of the CL shoul give Ole any more slack. I've been happy to back him the whole time, but if you feck up or fall below the standards expected, it SHOULD mean you are under more pressure, and it should mean less room to drop below stnadards in other competitions. It doesn't suddenly mean the standards expeced should drop.

We went out of the CL largely due to feck ups from Ole. Now we've dropped two potentially vital points in a ame we'll never know if we coould have won because Ole refused to try and win it. If the plan is to actually win things rather than be mediocre, then that's piss poor management.

 

[Maticmaker]

IMO what slowed City, especially in the first half, was our front three Rashford, Bruno and Greenwood did try to present something of a high press, it wasn't clinical, but it did continue for most of the first half and made it more difficult for City to sweep the ball forward quickly. That took the edge of the play of KDB and Co. tended to isolate the front two of Jesus and Sterling.
Greenwood was a bit naive again with a couple of chances, and Rashford sort of sloppy in his attempts, taking chances against anyone is important, but if we want to beat such as City it is vital.
Glad I was watching on TV rather than have struggled to visit the ground live, what a disappointment making your way home would have been last night!

 

[TMDaines]

With Chelsea losing to a previously dire Everton and Spurs dropping points at Palace, that point against City feels a lot more valuable. Consensus was we would lose ground to both those teams this week.

Just need those two results against Sheff Utd and Leeds now.

 

[lex talionis]

A strange one, isn’t it? A draw is actually a decent result for us, all things considered. But City were there for the taking.

But who among us really believes we have the quality to have beaten even this City side?

 

[McTerminator]

Next two games are absolutely critical, and will define whether the cowardly approach against City was advisable or not.

so if we go on a run (and it’s a massive if I know) will you stop calling the performance against city, which did what it set out to do, cowardly?

Question for all the “Cowardly” posters on here... Pretty sure Klopp set up defensively against us under Jose not long back... (think it was the season before last and it was part of the reason they didn’t win the league) was that cowardly too?

 

[tjb]

Looking at the game again, bot teams just cancelled each other out.We defended well, the difference between them nd us is that their midfield 2 are better at getting into the right offensive positions and passing between the lines.

 

[Renegade]

A strange one, isn’t it? A draw is actually a decent result for us, all things considered. But City were there for the taking.

But who among us really believes we have the quality to have beaten even this City side?

You do realise we beat them last season?

 

[Berbasbullet]

Looking at the game again, bot teams just cancelled each other out.We defended well, the difference between them nd us is that their midfield 2 are better at getting into the right offensive positions and passing between the lines.

You could argue it sums up both sides problems and maybe it proves that this 4231 just isn’t a good setup anymore? I dunno.

 

[Feed Me]

so if we go on a run (and it’s a massive if I know) will you stop calling the performance against city, which did what it set out to do, cowardly?

Question for all the “Cowardly” posters on here... Pretty sure Klopp set up defensively against us under Jose not long back... (think it was the season before last and it was part of the reason they didn’t win the league) was that cowardly too?

The City result will be judged in retrospect. If we go on a winning run, it can be viewed as a decent point. Let’s hope we beat Sheff U and Leeds though.

 

[TMDaines]

With Chelsea losing to a previously dire Everton and Spurs dropping points at Palace, that point against City feels a lot more valuable. Consensus was we would lose ground to both those teams this week.

Just need those two results against Sheff Utd and Leeds now.

Would have taken gaining ground on Chelsea, and not losing out to Spurs, Liverpool and City. Gotta get the other wins this week now to make Christmas more relaxing.

 

[gerdm07]

I didn't get to watch the match and have only seen extended highlights.

- I like that Shaw is taking corners as they were pretty good and this relieves Bruno of some responsibilities. In the previous match Bruno taking so many corners took a toll IMO.

- There is nothing wrong with this result as it keeps us in touch with the leaders.

 

[Hughie77]

I was more disappointed with the two misses from the near post corners. If we start to do near post corners we are going to score a few eventually. Scott should have scored and so should have Lindelof and Maguire.

Agree , it was the first game we've got on the positive end of a corner, they have been just slung in and hope. It looked like they worked on this. Set plays are important especially in tight games like yesterday

 

[city-puma]

The other results show how positive the point we got from this match. We played really well. The only complaints are the beginning and the last phases of the game. We were still a little tight in nerve in the beginning phase but showed composure. We should have given Martial ten more minutes. His body language for me suggested he almost climbed out of the pitfall he put into his mind. I hope Ole can keep introducing our speedy attackers in the second half or the last phase of the match, when the opponents tire out, rather than always put the strongest from the beginning. But to do it, we need Matic and VDB really standing up.

 

[McTerminator]

The City result will be judged in retrospect. If we go on a winning run, it can be viewed as a decent point. Let’s hope we beat Sheff U and Leeds though.

Agreed, so far with other results this weekend it is looking a decent point

 

[Mr PG]

We usually only win when Bruno either assists or scores himself and games like these he's tired as feck. The guy runs and runs himself into the ground. He will become an even better player if he learns to focus on his strengths instead of tracking back all the time when there's defenders covering.
I didn't particularly like the moment he went on a mad dash closing down all city defenders as they tried to play from the back.
That energy is better spent elsewhere.

 

[lex talionis]

You do realise we beat them last season?

Of course I do. But surely you must realize that we're a club which is reeling these days -- open discussion of sacking the manager and our marquee player openly mocking the club -- scraping wins over West Brom, Southampton and West Ham and then getting dumped out of the CL. We've got the talent to be a very strong squad, but if we're going to be honest we're vastly underperforming as a squad this season.

I'll take the point, all things considered. I just wish that once we realized during the game that City had run out of ideas that we had at least tried to put pressure on City. But we never really did, did we?

 

[Mr PG]

I don't care what people say. Cautious approach was wise after a tough away cl match considering city had easy fixture and was able to rest players. Our team had heavy legs towards the end and Ole was wary of the effect that losing has on our fanbase....it's all Ol out after every loss

 

[Member 113277]

I don't care what people say. Cautious approach was wise after a tough away cl match considering city had easy fixture and was able to rest players. Our team had heavy legs towards the end and Ole was wary of the effect that losing has on our fanbase....it's all Ol out after every loss

I tend to agree. Even though City were off form, open up and we could have been two or three down in a flash. I was happy to see the solidity, in this context.

Reading the thread, some posters seem to confuse City with Sheff Utd.

 

[TwoSheds]

Although I wasn't upset about the way we set up I do think it's a shame we didn't get Van de Beek on for McT and have a go in the last 10 mins. End of the day they had 2 fairly average DMs on, it wasn't likely to result in a terrible mismatch in the midfield considering we'd still have had 4 CMs on the pitch anyway.

 

[gregor]

I think this formation should be way forward. I liked how McTominay dropped back as 3rd CB and helped Bissaka. Also Pogba did a good job on left side. Maybe we were a bit short in attack but I'd think this could be improved.

 

[Water Melon]

I don't care what people say. Cautious approach was wise after a tough away cl match considering city had easy fixture and was able to rest players. Our team had heavy legs towards the end and Ole was wary of the effect that losing has on our fanbase....it's all Ol out after every loss

He could not care less about what fans think of him. He was managing us when we had one of the worst spells in our history, and even that did nothing to his career here.