[Ixion]

We created more than enough chances to win, other than the first 10 minutes of the second half I thought was did well, that 10 minutes though ticked the clock close to the hour and then people start to get nervous and restless. Needed to start the second half like we started the first.

If Ibra had put that chance away at the start we'd probably have won easily. Just one of those games, De Gea saves that any other game.

 

[lem8sh]

One of those days, that's it really.

 

[Jaxdan]

We created enough chances to absolutely bury them. Their keeper had an awesome game and we hit the post from 5 yard out. I wouldn't call us average based on today's performance.

Finishing though is a huge part of it all, obviously. And other than our first half against Leicester it's been a problem. We've managed a few, but left a lot out there as well. Today it cost us 2 points. DDG is a great keeper, but even the best is going to let one in occasionally. It shouldn't have come down to that.

 

[Vida5Nick]

What are you talking about excuses. I'm giving you the reasons for the lost points. Mou should have switched something up? He made 3 changes, one of which was putting an attacker on for a midfielder. Did you watch the game at all?

Did you even watch the game?

Yes he made positive changes but it doesnt matter if we keep playing high balls instead of keeping it low. The whole thing reminded me of the Fulham game where we kept floating balls into the box under Moyes.

If it aint working, change it for something else!

 

[Jacko21]

Result aside, at the point, I'd be content with Mourinho appealing to the Old Trafford supporters for more vocal support.

He and the team need more.

The last three years have had a damaging impact on the atmosphere.

The support we're receiving at home is not the support Mourinho witnessed when he brought Chelsea, Inter and Real to Old Trafford.

We're not exerting any kind of home advantage in that aspect.

 

[Alex Styles]

This is Mourinho's first month with a new club, new squad. I expect United to beat bottom of the table teams as well, but I also expect any team, bottom of the premier league or bottom of league 2 to step up and raise the bar against United. Stoke did that today and their recent form should have been extra incentive for them to perform.

United could have been 3-0 at half time, it wasn't a bad performance. The title race has only just begun mate, it's September!

Is it???

 

[SirScholes]

I never said ddg should be taken out..
But this Lingard thing I don't understand.
I thought he played well and offered us pace and penetration. Should have scored but somehow that Kobe lookalike got his paws to it.

Pogba and Zlatan should have burried this game after 15 min.. I personally would have taken Zlatan out before Lingard.

How many games does he effect? If he wasnt a youth academy player would he stay in the team?
I'm talking about during the course of a game he does nothing, he has pace and runs round? That's not enough he needs to offer something, intelligence good finishing good crossing good passing good technique or dribbling he doesn't have any of those things. I've no idea how he keeps his place.
Zlatan and pogba should have done better but over the course of a season theyll win us more points than cost us games....lingard wont, he might not individually cost us a goal but his lack of threat means are attacks are blunt on one side of the pitch

 

[PitchFork]

People seriously have their heads in the sand if you think that was a good performance! Dreadful performance against a piss poor Stoke team with Joe Allen running the show!

Was this the pre-game or post-game show?

 

[PitchFork]

Is it???

oops! It's not September, it's October. Time is slow here.....

 

[Ephrem]

De gea made an mistake how often has he saved us but lingard did nothing! Just because he didn't cost us a goal doesn't mean he should start.
I've seen people write about who would have Rooney, who the hell would have lingard! He gives us nothing

Watch and comment mate .

 

[Duafc]

One of those days, that's it really.

Pretty much, don't see why so many are wetting their pants and typing out essay after essay.

We played well in the first half and should have buried them, Pogba and Ibra would score one or two each another day.

Shite second half.

 

[zeekey]

I think Hughes owes that Grant a beer after that, probably just saved him his job because he made 3-4 goal saving saves. With their goal my assumption was the initial shot took a deflection off Smalling which slightly wrong footed De Gea, might be wrong though.

 

[Eriku]

Watched the whole thing (from 20 minutes on at least).

We looked decent in the first half but Stoke were just as good, the game could have gone either way - and Stoke were by FAR the better team at the start of the second half, until we scored and suddenly looked brilliant.

Same deal against Leicester, we were shite right up until we scored and then suddenly some world class football came out.

How can you think we were playing well based on that first half? Stoke are not a particularly good side and we looked poor against them.

Because I've seen plenty of games during better times where we didn't look as incisive and on it as we did for large parts of the match, and we created some damn big chances.

Make no mistake, we should have done better, but we looked fluid, we looked interested, and we looked close to a goal all match.

 

[SirScholes]

Unlucky today. Could have been 3-0 up by half time, after that Stoke's confidence grew. Some positives though, as long as the expectations are realistic. Created opportunities to score with good movement and some slick passing. Just couldn't take the chances, that happens. Stoke get a soft goal and Pogba hits the bar in extra time; what can you say other than, "One of those days"?
Mourinho is building a team, he's got some playing staff he maybe would rather not have but he's got to work with what he's got. Let's not start blaming the manager when we can all clearly see an improvement to the last three seasons.

If Pogba, Ibra, Herrera and maybe Mata had had a little more luck then we would be discussing a great performance all around. I'm looking forward to Liverpool, United will play better against sides who attack.

At what point do we worry when we are having "one of the days" every other game?

 

[DevilRed]

Crowd was an absolute disgrace today as well.

Sitting there quietly in the second half. Absolute disgrace.

 

[reelworld]

Unlucky today. Could have been 3-0 up by half time, after that Stoke's confidence grew. Some positives though, as long as the expectations are realistic. Created opportunities to score with good movement and some slick passing. Just couldn't take the chances, that happens. Stoke get a soft goal and Pogba hits the bar in extra time; what can you say other than, "One of those days"?
Mourinho is building a team, he's got some playing staff he maybe would rather not have but he's got to work with what he's got. Let's not start blaming the manager when we can all clearly see an improvement to the last three seasons.

If Pogba, Ibra, Herrera and maybe Mata had had a little more luck then we would be discussing a great performance all around. I'm looking forward to Liverpool, United will play better against sides who attack.

Basically this.
Played well, created lots of chances. Would've scored at least 5 if not for their goalkeeper. Shit happens. We won't waste 4-5 chances every game.
Some of the reactions here are embarrassing though. Have a word with yourself

 

[#07]

We created more than enough chances to win it, the game should have been out of sight by half-time. Even after Stoke scored we created enough to win it.

We cannot ignore the fact that De Gea literally gifted Stoke a point though. If he simply pushes the ball around the post they don't score. I suppose every so often he is going to make mistakes. Cost us today though. No escaping that.

 

[reelworld]

At what point do we worry when we are having "one of the days" every other game?

Not 7 games into the season?

 

[SirScholes]

Watch and comment mate .

Watched and commented

 

[SirScholes]

Not 7 games into the season?

So after teams at the top have pulled away and we've dropped points against poor teams at home

 

[SirScholes]

We created more than enough chances to win it, the game should have been out of sight by half-time. Even after Stoke scored we created enough to win it.

We cannot ignore the fact that De Gea literally gifted Stoke a point though. If he simply pushes the ball around the post they don't score. I suppose every so often he is going to make mistakes. Cost us today though. No escaping that.

I personally think are strikers cost us today, de gea made a mistake but it shouldn't come down to him being 100% perfect every match

 

[montpelier]

Not finding the net enough from open play, would be my main criticism.

Defence is doing OK, mistakes happen.

Competing for Top 4, better footy than last season (which it is) is OK, for me, overall.

 

[arthurka]

How many games does he effect? If he wasnt a youth academy player would he stay in the team?
I'm talking about during the course of a game he does nothing, he has pace and runs round? That's not enough he needs to offer something, intelligence good finishing good crossing good passing good technique or dribbling he doesn't have any of those things. I've no idea how he keeps his place.
Zlatan and pogba should have done better but over the course of a season theyll win us more points than cost us games....lingard wont, he might not individually cost us a goal but his lack of threat means are attacks are blunt on one side of the pitch

I strangely thought we were talking about this game...

But I agree with you his stats don't give much credit and that Pogba and Zlatan will win us more games.
But like I said he didn't do anything wrong today.. Until we get Miki firing I don't have anything against him playing there..

 

[Fully Fledged]

To be fair he somehow fluked the "assist" to Martial. But yes he was shit. Why on earth is he even taking corners?

What assist? It was a Stoke player who played the through ball to Tony M. Pieters I think.

 

[#07]

I personally think are strikers cost us today, de gea made a mistake but it shouldn't come down to him being 100% perfect every match

A top class goalkeeper has to deal with that kind of shot. If the ball had been one of Ronaldo's rockets you could accept it. That was not a difficult shot to palm out of danger. A two handed punch would've gone out for a throw in.

 

[pjaya]

Crowd was an absolute disgrace today as well.

Sitting there quietly in the second half. Absolute disgrace.

Agree with that, but on the other hand most fans probably being served with poor performance for the past 3 years and most of them got jaded with these so probably it's understandable (not saying today performance was bad but the first 20mins after the restart of 2nd half was very bad)

 

[PitchFork]

At what point do we worry when we are having "one of the days" every other game?

It's not every other game. Will admit it can feel like that sometimes. Begin to worry when it looks like the team has no direction, no plan, is getting consistently* whipped by the big fish and held up by the small fish. I haven't seen that so far this season. On the contrary.

*Edit.

 

[TheRedDevil'sAdvocate]

We created chances and we should have been out of sight quite early in the game. That's one way to look at it, especially when you consider that Stoke haven't shown anything thus far in the season. But there's also another way to look at it...

The biggest problem this team has is that it finds it very difficult to raise the tempo of games and play on the front foot for two or three periods of 15-20 minutes during a game in order to pin down the opposition and subsequently find goals through rhythm. The absence of a tempo setter in the midfield is more than evident but things become even more difficult by the lack of wide players who can unbalance compact defenses with their 1v1 skills. Rahsford does the best he can but he's very young, he lacks experience and has the usual blips in form even through the 90 minutes of a game. The result of all this is that most of the time we try to pass our way to a clear cut chance which isn't really our forte. And the fact that Mourinho is a speed merchant, he creates sides which are lethal on the counter, complicates things even more. Fergie had Carrick in his prime and, moreover, he was willing to overuse the long diagonal in order to get the early cross in the box. Jose likes to go through the middle more... his team, his tactics, his responsibility to work it out.

Another issue is the #10 role. Rooney deserves all the stick he gets on this forum but games like this one (and against Zorya) when we face 10 men behind the ball defending in avery compact shape show that Mata isn't a good fit for the position either. Where we need a play maker who is good in tight areas in order to find pockets of space in between the lines, who will try to link up with the other attackers and spot opportunities for late runs in the box, we have a player who moves as far (deep or wide) as he can from his teammates just to find enough space and time on the ball that will allow him to turn and raise his head in order to see his options. Having Zlatan in the same team dropping deeper doesn't help either.

Third point, very little off the ball movement in the attacking half of the pitch. Some good moves from Zlatan but today we mostly relied on Lingard's diagonal movenet in the half zones to create decent overloads. Other than that, we were rather predictable: Zlatan will drop deep and this will force Mata to go beyond him and try to stretch the defense but Mata is no threat for big CBs, so that's an less option. Rashford/Martial will hug the touchline and wait to get on the ball and take on defenders while Pogba is the only threat from the midfield. Valencia isn't considered a serious threat by anyone in English football anymore and Blind can cross the ball from the left but if you put the opposition's best creative/attacking player on his side you can count on him staying deep because he lacks pace to track back his man from a very advanced position. That's about it.

Mourinho said that his aim isn't to create a defensive wall at OT. That's good to know but the teams he deploys are ones who are willing to take considerable defensive risks that don't pay off as often as we would like. But if he leaves the same spaces open in between our lines at Anfield, we are going to get annihilated.

 

[SirScholes]

I strangely thought we were talking about this game...

But I agree with you his stats don't give much credit and that Pogba and Zlatan will win us more games.
But like I said he didn't do anything wrong today.. Until we get Miki firing I don't have anything against him playing there..

But he doesn't offer us anything! How can you have no problem with a player playing for man United that is more effective when he doesn't have the ball.
Martial Rashford depay mhiki all deserve his place, martial might go quite in a game but he always looks dangerous lingard is a massive passenger

 

[Ephrem]

Watched and commented

Great understanding of football then

 

[sunama]

I can't go through another season of false dawns.
One solid, progressive performance followed up by a ponderous, impotent performance. Rinse and repeat.

This has been going on for 2 seasons now and is continuing into the 3rd season.
It's very frustrating and short of buying Messi and Neymar, I honestly don't understand how to solve this.
Meanwhile before today, MCFC have won every game, comfortably, currently sitting on a huge GD.

 

[SirScholes]

A top class goalkeeper has to deal with that kind of shot. If the ball had been one of Ronaldo's rockets you could accept it. That was not a difficult shot to palm out of danger. A two handed punch would've gone out for a throw in.

But the team shouldn't be relying on him to be 100% every game, shouldn't of come down to that, yes his mistake cost us a goal but the team in front cost us the game

 

[DomesticTadpole]

This sums it up from the M.E.N. players ratings.

Rooney Lucky his slowness led to Martial's goal. 5

 

[SirScholes]

It's not every other game. Will admit it can feel like that sometimes. Begin to worry when it looks like the team has no direction, no plan, is getting consistently* whipped by the big fish and held up by the small fish. I haven't seen that so far this season. On the contrary.

*Edit.

Must be watching different games, I've seen maybe 2 really good games 3/4 absolute shit games and some ok ones

 

[Garethw]

What a kick in the sack that game was.

 

[SirScholes]

Great understanding of football then

Better than some that's for sure, can either comment on the game or I'll stop reading attacks on the poster

 

[arthurka]

But he doesn't offer us anything! How can you have no problem with a player playing for man United that is more effective when he doesn't have the ball.
Martial Rashford depay mhiki all deserve his place, martial might go quite in a game but he always looks dangerous lingard is a massive passenger

Martial has been terrible this season hanging his head and not tracking his man, Mhiki has been injured and not shown much.. Depay should be sold so that leaves us Lingard.. He is hardworking and pacey.. Again if we had buried half of our sitters we wouldn't be having this conversation..

 

[CS@SG]

I feel amazed that people actually blame that goal leaked?

 

[reelworld]

So after teams at the top have pulled away and we've dropped points against poor teams at home

Top teams getting points at October doesn't bother me really. Dropping points at poor team at home has been happening every single season in every our title winning season. I'd be worry if we're 8 points behind in January. But it's fecking October. There'll be 31 more games to go.
We're not going to waste 4 chances every game. Last season we would be lucky to create 2 chances a game.

 

[Cro]

It really irritates me, that we are so inconsistent during games. You see teams blow hot and cold over two or more games, but we manage to do that in different periods over a game. You'll always bring the opposition back into play that way, which is really annoying and something that will cost us a lot more points over the season, if we don't sort that out quickly. With this problem in hand, I can't see us challenging for the title overall, which is not the end of the world. It's still early on and this is no overreaction to the game, but teams like Tottenham, City and Arsenal look much more like a functioning unit overall. Quite understandable, as the core of those teams played together for much longer, but still.

Thought we played some good stuff at times, especially in the first half, where we should have put the bed to game already. No one other to blame than ourselves with the chances we had. Considering all other rivals until now won their games, it hurts even more to drop two points today. And if it wasn't bad enough, the stupid international games are coming up now. Can't describe how much I hate them in the frequent set up they come at the start of the season.