[Banana Republic]

As well their passing accuracy keeps the ball in their possession almost all the time.

Correct.
Sloppy passers like Bruno would be out of the squad, no matter how many magic moments they create from time to time.
Consistent and reliable passing accuracy is clearly one of the prerequisites for any player getting into Pep’s teams, no matter what position they play in.

 

[Arnold Layne]

I hoped we would stay in the game for as long as we could and if we managed to get a draw it would have been a fantastic result after seeing the starting lineup. I don't like what I am beginning to see with some of the players attitudes it doesn't like good. The club needs to be dismantled from the top down for sure.

The rebuild should be methodical with a focus on the correct recruitment. We are far away at the moment This is a great club with a great history of fighting because we want to be the best and that should be the position we start from by recruiting players and management with those goals.

 

[georgieworst]

I can guarantee you that you will not witness another team gift Man City three goals and points all season...this lot are an absolute disgrace and absolute bang average... I'd like to think that ETH would have turned things around by now...or at least look like he was going to....and before you say...he needs time...yeah..the Spurs manager proving that the idea is a load of bull.

 

[Red in STL]

City players mostly don’t run like demons, they constantly move or drift into positions at all times.
Sometimes quickly, but mostly it’s like a rolling tide, often effortless and not energy sapping.
Nobody stands still. That’s key !

Every player receiving the ball immediately has at least one open passing option, but mostly 2 or 3 players available to pass to.
If they come under pressure, they can quickly pass safely.
If you give them a few seconds on the ball, the constant movement opens up more passing options.


.

They're running like demons in comparison to our players!

But you're not wrong

 

[Oranges038]

Correct.
Sloppy passers like Bruno would be out of the squad, no matter how many magic moments they create from time to time.
Consistent and reliable passing accuracy is clearly one of the prerequisites for any player getting into Pep’s teams, no matter what position they play in.

SAF had this requirement.

Every player had to be able to play quick 1 and 2 touch football. It's why he was able to win the league with players like Cleverly in midfield, every single player had to be able to play at speed and if they couldn't do it they were out.

 

[Ayrlad39]

Great, let's keep him and enjoy si
He is. No good coach takes off Amrabat and puts back McTominay in his position. McTominay hasn't got a defensive bone in his body. Let's players run off him, left, right and centre. There's more.a chance of turning this around without Ten Hag than with.

We had 2 shots on target both by McTominay in a forward role then at half time he's moved back to his worst position, very confusimg

 

[georgieworst]

Did anyone honestly expect anything different once the line ups were released?

We could put out our finest eleven and they'd still get trounced....this bunch of pretenders are just about the most gutless I've witnessed turn out in Utd's colours.

 

[georgieworst]

I hoped we would stay in the game for as long as we could and if we managed to get a draw it would have been a fantastic result after seeing the starting lineup. I don't like what I am beginning to see with some of the players attitudes it doesn't like good. The club needs to be dismantled from the top down for sure.

The rebuild should be methodical with a focus on the correct recruitment. We are far away at the moment This is a great club with a great history of fighting because we want to be the best and that should be the position we start from by recruiting players and management with those goals.

So the thirteen year rebuild continues?

 

[Jamie Shawcross]

I have always been behind Ten Hag and believed he is the man to turn our fortunes around but I have given up any hope. Sorry but not enough has changed in the time he has been here and in many ways we are actually regressing. How can so many multi millionaire footballers playing at one of the biggest clubs in the world just look so dejected and depressed playing for the club week in week out? Its so miserable. Still no clear strategy, still no clear style of play, still leagues behind our rivals despite the vast amounts spent, and year in year out the same conversations about how far behind we are. Today was no surprise, but when will we ever get to the point where it is a surprise? How much do we need to spend? When will we see this team play with some back bone against our rivals, at home? I give up. This is not it. There's no future with this setup.

 

[Jagared]

How our players consistently play like starangers don't cease to baffle me. I could count UpTo 4 times that two players were Impeding each other in this game. Playing McTominay in midfield is like playing a man less, now deciding to play him against Mancity all because of the 2 goals he scored as a late substitute makes me question the manager. I'll have had more fun if we'd lose playing with Gernacho, Hannibal, Kobe rather than the usual prima donas.

Up until this point, I'm supportive of the manager hoping he turns it around, but at this point, I'm not sure he's the guy.

 

[11101]

Who cares? We lost to the biggest example of systematic cheating in the history of football. I expected it and I don't care that it happened.

The only annoying thing was the yet again inconsistent use of VAR to screw us.

 

[Sied]

The apathy to our losses has kicked in that I generally start to feel a few months before the manager gets sacked.

 

[rooneyberbatov]

 

[Murder on Zidanes Floor]

This is why we never really improve or move on. We have picked the wrong individuals to build the team around and we still don't understand the profile of a top Premier League player in each position.

I quite like Bruno but when he's bad, he's awful, and we're not a side at the moment that can accommodate an inconsistent., mercurial footballer.

Rashford is rubbish. I'm not going to go down the 'I told you so' route, but I have posts on here going back 5+ years saying he's nowhere near the level he's been built up to be - but the club desperately needed/wanted a local lad to put front and centre for feelgood factor/PR.

On transfers, we've bought in a number of CBs over the last few seasons and yet have still not cottoned on to the idea that having one who doesn't move at the speed of a turtle reversing would be an advantage. Maguire is slow, Lindelof is slow, Varane now looks slow, Evans is slow and Martinez is slow.

Similarly in midfield, whilst our rivals sign big, powerful, athletic specimens, we're bringing in Casemiro, who's the wrong side of 30 and looks like he spent pre-season drinking only gravy, and Eriksen who has many attributes - but none of them physical.

Physical attributes are non-negotiable in the modern game. The first questions I would ask of any potential signing are "is this lad in the top 20% for pace, strength, workrate and stamina". If the answer is 'no' to any of those then it's a non-starter

Last paragraph, amen.

 

[Godfather]

Turning point

 

[DomesticTadpole]

Turning point

Might be but not in a good way.

 

[Slevs]

Physical attributes are non-negotiable in the modern game. The first questions I would ask of any potential signing are "is this lad in the top 20% for pace, strength, workrate and stamina". If the answer is 'no' to any of those then it's a non-starter

This line should hit like a motherfecker to the higher ups that keep making signing decisions.

 

[Strelok]

First half it's not very good but at least he got it right.
Second half, we all knew we'd get thrashed when we pushed forward. But if we did not our only chance would be waiting for them to make a mistake. Either way we'd lose anyway imo.

I'm probably of the very few who still believe in ETH. Hope Martinez and Shaw would be available soon to save his ass though. And us from watching this crap.

 

[Get In Scholesy]

Growing exhausted of watching these bozos attempt to play football tbh

 

[Shanghai Red]

Not all bad today. Onana played a blinder and kept it down to 3, so maybe he really is coming good? Couldn’t really blame Maguire for any of the goals and the effort was clearly there. They are Champions of Europe and the treble holders, so it was always going to be tough. Because, let’s face it, they’re light years ahead of us. We need to get up and dust ourselves down and move on. Objective number one is not to get dragged into a relegation dog fight (I’d fear for us if we did). Keep beating the cannon fodder teams, secure our status and then move on from there.

On a brighter note, I thought that both sets of fans behaved impeccably regarding Sir Bobby.

Chin up lads, tomorrow is another day.

 

[T Red]

I am struggling to understand why these guys look so fragile, so easy to dribble past and why they constantly pull out of every fifty fifty challenge/aerial balls. I can't remember Rashford ever winning an aerial battle.

If you're not technically good enough to play some decent football, at the very least you should be able to win tackles for goodness sake.

Eth is clearly loosing it at this point. What on earth was that lineup and changes for crying out loud

 

[pascell]

Pathetic.

 

[Mr Pigeon]

I'm insulted. A game against that plastic lot at home, and our courageous salt of the earth lads didn't give one single fecking shit yet again. Can't even out-pashun City let alone compete with them on a technical level. Feck the lot of them. Feck Bruno. Feck Rashford. Feck Ten Hag and his equally useless dickhead of an assistant as they spent the entire game sitting in their chairs like a couple of morons watching a house go on fire, spending hours scrawling little notes on a piece of paper instead of doing something that would actually help.

When we went two nil down you could see Pep jumping around on the touchline egging his players to push forward. I mean, sure, he was probably coked out of his fecking nut but at least it was motivating his players. Our shower of shite clearly don't give a shit and if the manager can't do anything about it either then they all need thrown in the bin.

Keep Onana and Højlund, Martinez and Shaw. The rest of them have zero bite. Nothing. You can have all the skill in the world but if you can't be arsed applying it then take off our fecking shirt because you don't deserve to wear it.

That dressing room has been filled for a long time with players who don't care. They probably tell new signings "don't worry about pressure, just enjoy the cash and keep your Instagram updated because the owners are away walking dogs in baby buggies anyway!" After the league cup they thought they did enough, like that lazy fecker we all have at work who does one task and then spends the rest of the week flipping through videos on YouTube.

 

[sparx99]

These interviews never come across well. If you are too harsh like Mourinho you get slaughtered. If you are too positive like Ole or ETH you sound delusional.

 

[arthurka]

I have defended ETH but it stops now. On what planet is he? We didn't have a clue

 

[OleGunnar20]

It’s mad that every player and manager we sign seems to fall apart at United. That United seems to uniquely destroy everything it touches.

But this manager needs to go, he’s clearly not good enough to run a dumping facility, we need somebody with experience at shovelling more sh*t through a toxic waste factory.

And somebody who can also do a nixer job on the roof. Deal with sexual harassment issues. Sad player issues. Owner issues. Lack of infrastructure compared to rivals issues. Legacy mish mash squad issues. Transfer i

And maybe the least important is managing the squad.

Our clubs a mess and some of you think there’s any manager out there who can make this work. Seriously?

“Yeh but most other top clubs would sack….” Most other top clubs don’t CONSISTENTLY have the exact same problems that we do without fixing them. Why do we end up in the exact same spot with every f**king manager if replacing the manager is the answer?

I’m fully with ETH, I don’t think we have had an unluckier manager.

Agreed.

He does need to improve though. Rashford and Bruno need to be dropped. The players need to start showing some battle at the very least.

And he can't be given such free reign over transfers, for the love of God the money we've wasted ..

A top DOF would help immensely, though it'll take a while to show I'm sure.

 

[Godfather]

These interviews never come across well. If you are too harsh like Mourinho you get slaughtered. If you are too positive like Ole or ETH you sound delusional.

Pisses me off too. If he really thinks this first half was good then God help us. If he doesn't then don't tell. This players have had enough protection. They don't give a feck.

 

[Irrational.]

We were alright until that joke pen call. Then it all unravelled after that. Those kind of calls can change the whole dynamic of the game.

Klopp would be demanding an apology.

In the end, we were outclassed by the better team as initially expected. Nothing will change until the Glazers leave which is impossible now that Rat is here. The only way was a clean buyout.

 

[GL21]

New CB partnership which does not consist of Jonny Evans or Lindelof, get AWB back, hopefully a fit LB, stint on the bench for Rashford and Bruno. In should come Hannibal and Garnacho and others who want it

 

[JediSith]

It used to hurt, now it doesn't.

Now it’s a celebration that it wasn’t 6 or more

 

[Woodzy]

Am I the only one that thinks we could have easily been 2 or 3 down after the first half? Haaland could have easily had a hat trick on another day, their chances were much better than ours.

 

[JediSith]

Today is the first time where ETH has looked clueless. Especially with his subs.

 

[JediSith]

Am I the only one that thinks we could have easily been 2 or 3 down after the first half? Haaland could have easily had a hat trick on another day, their chances were much better than ours.

Onana kept the score somewhat respectable

 

[sparx99]

Pisses me off too. If he really thinks this first half was good then God help us. If he doesn't then don't tell. This players have had enough protection. They don't give a feck.

Yeah, I’d love some actual home truths and quite frankly analysis of the game. But then a simple ‘Sancho didn’t train well’ blew up massively so I don’t blame him basically being boring.

I don’t think there was a single moment in the game where you think a Utd player should score. Perhaps Hojlund going through in the first half but he never got into a shooting position. You can’t win games if you don’t make chances.

 

[sparx99]

Am I the only one that thinks we could have easily been 2 or 3 down after the first half? Haaland could have easily had a hat trick on another day, their chances were much better than ours.

The header for sure. There was another scramble where Onana and Maguire got it off the line. I can’t remember if that was before or after the pen though.

Other than that I don’t think they had big chances. Onana made some routine saves first half from Grealish etc.

Could quite easily been 3-0 though.

 

[NotoriousISSY]

It's alarming how each game against city this calendar year we've gotten progressively worse.

They haven't had to play well to get the two wins, but today was pretty convincing from them.

The manager has to look at the middle of the pitch and think of ways to restructure this team. It's pathetic how easy they were dribbling and playing simple triangles to progress up the pitch.

If he loses in the CL this week (which ultimately ends all hope of progression) and has another bad result when we face Liverpool, he's surely gone? That's ignoring the other games in between and assuming we can get a few results

 

[VARsenal]

City are a team built to be frontrunners, the gifted first goal made a huge difference to their game.

Nah that's a poor excuse, United won this game last season coming from behind.

 

[Big Andy]

So so predictable to ship the second a mere 5 minutes after half time.

I’m getting sick to death of teams just putting more effort in, but today was more than that, even when we had chances to build play we just can’t keep the ball, and when we do make a chance we snatch at them and can’t finish.

its shit rotten from top to bottom and I can’t see us ever dragging ourselves out from this dip, the gulf in money and ownership is too far gone now, everyone has cash so we can’t cherry pick the best talents any more, and there are 6 or 7 teams gunning for positions 3-7.

It’s a long way back to the top table, and we’ve not got the bollocks for the fight.

 

[Roboc7]

It was no different to being completely outclassed 9 years ago and losing 3-0 at home to them. Moyes to ETH and nothing has changed.

 

[sparx99]

There was something ETH spoke about midweek regarding being a ‘transition’ team and I know that’s been derided. He said we are at the top or near the top for creating turnovers and the stats support that. We just do nothing with it when we do get the ball.

What concerned me is that he said ‘we don’t have time to train this’ referring to the players turning those turnovers into goals. Maybe he was referring to finishing but presumably he was referring to the decisions in those attacking moments too.

But if we are going to relying on those turnovers surely we need to also train the other part of it. Because our attackers are not working together to convert those opportunities into even half chances. That should be the main drill right now because our attacking play is the biggest issue by far.