[NewGlory]

We start Maguire, Lindelof, Ronaldo and lose.

I mean... Everybody can think whatever they want, but it's kinda clear who are the problem.

 

[Rustyspider13]

That's a horrible way to lose. An absolutely shocking call made by multiple officials. At this rate, defenders will have to cut off their arms to avoid penalties. The amount of times we got fouled to stop counters with no yellows was annoying as well but not surprising as it was against Spanish opposition. Ridiculous officiating all around.

Also, I know people lose their shit in match day threads, but the amount of reactionary posts saying "we are back to our level", "false dawn" etc. etc. are just extremely annoying and makes me feel like like I'm on twitter. We made enough chances for Ronaldo and then Sancho to win that game, even with our second team. We're clearly not where we need to be but we're getting there and should still qualify.

 

[captaincantona]

Cashemiro

That’s irritating

 

[My only Eric]

That’s what happens when you don’t have any midfielder capable of holding the ball under pressure. Teams that win titles have at least 3 of those in their squad.

 

[Pronewbie]

I completely overestimated our 2nd stringers. Never again.

 

[Matthew1972]

I think it's clear why Maguire and Lindelof should be kept sitting. Also Fred, he is horrible. Finally, it's time for Ronaldo to call it a career. His effort was a slap in the face to United fans.

 

[NewGlory]

I could not give one flying feck about this competition, the players, it seems are the exact same. Beat Palace next up and i'll be happy.

The feck we need to give is that - we may not make top 4 this year in EPL, and winning this competition could be our only chance to play UCL again next year. Also, winning something is better than not having won anything in years.

 

[Hugh Jass]

There’s a reason the 5 lads that’s started tonight haven’t played in the PL. They weren’t fit or sharp enough to do much that game but it’s time to uo your game or get shipped out next summer. Casemiro looked rusty as hell but I’m confident he’ll come good.

Yea agree. The two CBs, Fred and ronaldo were very poor.

 

[2 man midfield]

We looked like 11 people who only met each other this afternoon. An unchanged team and we win that comfortably, but the rotation was needed.

VAR not over turning that pen was absolutely mental. I’ve not seen a more obvious wrong penalty in years, and they continued to allow it to stand.

 

[Gaidal]

Martinez and Eriksen is gonna have to start and play every single game. Without them we just dont have good enough passers so we cant create or keep on the pressure.

Fred really is a runner and not a footballer, has he ever not underhit a pass?

 

[Solius]

Took me back to Ralf days, we were shit.
Credit to Real Sociedad, they played well, very organized and smart, men against boys.

Put 20 English teams and 20 Spanish team in the same league and the Spanish teams would do miles better, always been the case and always will be.

Having said that, we should beating them at home.

What? They were rubbish. Had the same amount of shots on target as us (including the shamefully given one) and committed 16 fouls. Both teams were poor.

 

[Plant0x84]

They was toilet, we was robbed!

 

[JoeyJoJoJrShabadoo]

Ronaldo and Casemiro just not up to speed at all

 

[crossy1686]

Yea agree. The two CBs, Fred and ronaldo were very poor.

Definitely, let’s just hope it’s match sharpness and they at least up their intensity if nothing else. Otherwise they don’t play again this season

 

[VidaRed]

Too many passengers in the team.

Ronaldo is finished. Fred lacks quality and maguire/lindelof lack urgency and technique.

 

[El-Manos]

Was to be expected when you play the b team. I’d be happy to ship out ronaldo maguire lindelof awb shaw de Gea next summer and completely rebuild.

 

[MinGin]

Shite Referee and VAR, EL referee is worst than PL.
No way a handball foul after a reflection during a free falling motion. Not a chance.
Real Sociedad had nothing to create before the goal and we lost some control in the final third.

We need a CF no matter what in the Jan window, R7 cannot be in start XI, his leg is gone already, and Martial is not consistant due to his injury.
Also, Bruno should learn how to claim down when 0-1, kick a high ball into final third is the most less effective when you still have 10-20mins to play.

Well, will they need to run the ground with ETH tomorrow ?

 

[Flying_Heckfish]

Absolutely dreadful penalty decision. This game should've been a 0-0, neither team showed enough to win.

Maguire looks so out of place again, just dawdling on the ball all the time.

Ronaldo shouldn't have lasted the 90.

Casemiro also a bit slow.

Fred at 10 was a failed experiment - I get the idea, keep him away from the danger zone, as we saw in the second half, when he moved back, he always has a brainfart in him - but he didn't really have an impact.

Eriksen is massive for us it seems, we need that link man and no one else we have seems suited.

Overall its clear this mish-mash team wasn't ready to play EtH's style, maybe we should have started strong after all.

 

[Judas]

Ronaldo looks so off the pace it's unreal. He looks his age basically. Hopefully he sharpens up, but he looks miles off it.

 

[fallengt]

Eriksen is so important to us. United looks like sunday league team without him

 

[Teja]

Funnily enough, one of the few recent games where we had great control defensively and should've won (1.54 npXG - 0.8 npxG).

Just one of those games. If Fred didn't start at #10 I think we could've won but I really wanted to see that experiment with the Casemiro - Eriksen midfield pairing.

Crap game but generally trending in the right direction in so many different areas, so not especially bothered.

 

[crossy1686]

It’s a good job we don’t really care about the EL because if that was a CL game and the ref did that with VAR’s help we’d be going ape shit in here

 

[tjb]

The frontline wasn't good at all. Initially, Antony was the only one chasing down anything. Things picked up a bit at half time when Bruno came on, but for the most part....Ronaldo and Elanga hardly put Real Sociedad's defence under any pressure. Fred did to an extent, but his lack of touch and balance hurt him in that regard.

You could also see the stark differences with and without Martinez and Malacia in this game. Lindelof and Maghire don't have any urgency in thier play. Casemiro was a bit off the pace, but I'm sure that's something that will get better with fitness and learning the system. It wasn't horrible, but we really need to start making home games really easy.

 

[jymufc20]

Ref was terrible, was never a penalty. Our depth is a worry, we should focus on the league feck the cups.

 

[Mickeza]

You could tell within minutes that half of them couldn’t be arsed. Zero intensity off the ball from some of them and the holy trinity of Maguire, Ronaldo and Casemiro having a contest around who can move slower. It’s a very simple message from ETH - if you do not play with intensity and effort you will lose games. It was the same shit as last year and Brentford it’s no coincidence Ronaldo and Maguire were on the pitch.

 

[Solius]

You could tell within minutes that half of them couldn’t be arsed. Zero intensity off the ball from some of them and the holy trinity of Maguire, Ronaldo and Casemiro having a contest around who can move slower. It’s a very simple message from ETH - if you do not play with intensity and effort you will lose games. It was the same shit as last year and Brentford it’s no coincidence Ronaldo and Maguire were on the pitch.

Not disagreeing with most but we would’ve drawn 0 - 0 if the ref didn’t have sludge for brains.

 

[MinGin]

Took me back to Ralf days, we were shit.
Credit to Real Sociedad, they played well, very organized and smart, men against boys.

Put 20 English teams and 20 Spanish team in the same league and the Spanish teams would do miles better, always been the case and always will be.

Having said that, we should beating them at home.

They played well to waste time from the first minute and got the advantage from the blind referee and VAR only. They created Nothing and both team just played a shite game.

 

[DSG]

What’s the fecking point of VAR when anyone with eyeballs and a rule book can see it’s the very definition of not a penalty. Seriously, who is the clown who is sitting at a monitor? Can UEFA terminate him/her? Suspiciously corrupt if you ask me. How much was the VAR/ref getting paid?

aside from that, pretty much all progress was gone from an attacking point of view.

I also think the team is tired.

Disappointed that EtH didn’t Klopp / Conte style berate and scream at the officials.

 

[2 man midfield]

He's very slow isn't he. He can still pick a pass and he's strong. But, very slow. He might be useful for the next couple of years. But, I don't know what we're going to do with him during the back half of his contract.

I assumed he was the legs of that midfield, as Kroos and Modric are snails. How did such a slow midfield manage to just ignore that blatant weakness?

 

[CarbonStoolBites]

What? They were rubbish. Had the same amount of shots on target as us (including the shamefully given one) and committed 16 fouls. Both teams were poor.

Played like Fergie’s United did many times away from home in the CL, defended well, got the result that’s all that matters.

 

[Frank Grimes]

Gutted.

 

[SirSean]

Not playing great in first half, but we controlled it and created chances and defending with ease. Second half, don’t know what happened but we lost control totally.

Well, Eriksen went off. He's the closest we've had that ressembles Scholes/Carrick in a long long time. All about control in that midfield.

 

[Unam333]

Not too bothered about the result. You can't win every game. We could and should have won the game, but the awful penalty decision changed the flow of the game. After that we just couldn't control the game.

I'm just annoyed that we have no strength in depth. Hopefully the (reserve) players can step up in training and improve, or else this season will be a nasty one.

 

[Mickeza]

Not disagreeing with most but we would’ve drawn 0 - 0 if the ref didn’t have sludge for brains.

The performance is what interests me and I don’t think many of those players can say we deserved more than they got. That decision was appalling though - worse in many ways than the others we’ve seen recently as they were subjective - this was someone who doesn’t actually know the fecking rules.

 

[caid]

Ah well.
The recent wins were hard fought and close. A loss by a narrow margin was probably due and I'd say a lot of players showed why they're 2nd choice. We wont get much room to maneuver in terms of resting players before we drop a level. I have no particular complaints, no one was particularly bad, rusty and a bit slow moving the ball but no particular complaints re attitude and work rate.

 

[The Hustler]

That clown in charge of VAR should be named 'Errati' not 'Irrati'.....

 

[Solius]

Played like Fergie’s United did many times away from home in the CL, defended well, got the result that’s all that matters.

But you said they played well.

 

[Elcabron]

The three minutes was almost as annoying as the the pen decision.

We need a striker. Casemiro off the pace. Thought it was poor decision to put Lindelof at right back instead of AWB.

Not the end of the world by any means.

 

[Telsim]

Not disagreeing with most but we would’ve drawn 0 - 0 if the ref didn’t have sludge for brains.

We are playing the 6th in La Liga last season at home. Should have closed this game long before VAR became a problem.

 

[Adebisi's Hat]

Too slooow, but Erik is quickly finding who he can rely on. I see now how Casemeiro had not started before, he needs to build match fitness. Never a pen, what's the point of VAR? Martinez great again. Ronaldo is just not capable of starting games now, sad to see but he can still impact from the bench in certain situations, hopefully.

Oh and Sociedad were pretty rubbish too, a little bit of pressure and they would have folded, but we could not sustain any pressure.