[Livewire1974]

Yet more evidence that LVG is out of his depth. A clown.

 

[Wowi]

Long ball United. Another pathetic performance, apart from the goal and a good spell after Young came on. Utterly toothless up front and LVG waits until Swansea scores to try and fix it. RVP and Fellaini getting the full 90 minutes says it all.

 

[Igor Drefljak]

'At least we had most possession' - LvG


Passing it around the back doesn't count, and then when we fall behind, lets hoof it up. Might aswell buy Crouch, at least he would do something with them balls

 

[saivet]

What's worrying is that I thought we played okay, well in the first half anyway. Despite having a lot of the ball we really didn't create all that much. Once again.

 

[RedSky]

Our reaction to the goal hurts more than anything, we just gave up on trying to attack our way and start hoofing it, there was plenty of time left to go and play but we just gave up.

That's my worry. Happened under Dave and now it's happening under Van Gaal. Hoofing it up the pitch is not something we should be doing, where's this patience philosophy gone?

 

[Ringo 07]

We have no defense and no central midfield and Van Gaal ignored advise at the start of the season that our current central defenders were not up to it. We dominated Swansea who had 2 chances all game and took both of them and that's because we don't have a decent defense or midfield.

We can't perform away from home so we have no hope of top 4 now

4 transfer windows have passed since Moyes and Van Gaal have been in charge to buy a decent box to box midfielder and a decent right sided central defender.......The money we have spent since the start of Moyes reign on Transfers right up until now has been appalling.

How come Shelvey had a free shot on goal? Who was to blame? Herrera or Blind?

 

[kouroux]

We have a stupid manager who uses a formation that's showed that it's not working with these players. A player like RVP is finished and shouldn't start anymore. Fellaini should be used off the bench and never as a starter. Get a CM close to Blind.

 

[JustAFan]

Say goodbye to De Gea when we finish 6th this season. Rodgers will take Liverpool to the title before we get into the CL again. Our great run is over be ready for 5 or more years of this

 

[Verminator]

RVP and Di Maria cost us that gamem in what was otherwise a good performance.
Will LVG ever sub off his son?

 

[Annihilate Now!]

Blind, Fellaini, Di Maria and RVP were incredibly poor.

 

[vidic blood & sand]

Don't see us getting top 4 to be honest. Di Maria losing form, Falcao, not getting picked, Fellaini can't pass or run, Mata can't get a game, no speed, no movement around the box.
But what annoys me the most is that Van Gaal just sits on the bench watching 50 shades of giggs's balding grey.

 

[senorgregster]

So depressing to watch. How can we have so many great attacking players and create so few chances and end up playing hoof ball to Fellaini?

 

[Empire]

Rooney up top and Herrera in midfield is exactly the right call and it should continue. This result doesn't alter that.

I'm just saying 3-5-2 wasn't the problem, back then everybody wanted the diamond and then they wanted Rooney up top and Herrera in the middle, talking as if the solution to our problems was that simple but now it will be something else.

 

[OnlyTwoDaSilvas]

Van Persie is muck, yet a guaranteed starter. Never seen a player have so many shots yet not one troubled the keeper. It was just scuffs and swipes. He slowed down so many attacks and needlessly lost the ball. Him being our top scorer is quite amazing really.

 

[theyneverlearn]

Di Maria spent the entire game trying to give Fabianski catching practise.

 

[Raven Blade]

Our most watchable game in a while but we lose it. Other than some slack defending we played well for periods and created some decent chances, but we still can't harness the full potential of our attack. A few of our players have been surviving in the team on reputation alone and it's starting to catch up with us.

 

[RORY65]

We've played worse than that several times and won, it was about time we dropped points in a game where we deserved at least 1 if not all 3 but at least the performance was improved until they took the lead. Not sure where we're going though, Van Gaal was meant to be the man who would change the club and make a contribution to us long term like he did at Barca and Bayern. At the moment there's no continuity to selection, tactics, the squad still needs several players despite massive investment and we seem to lurch between slow, not threatening possession play and long ball football.

 

[Livewire1974]

Best part of £150m spent in the summer and we can't find a win away. Questions have to be asked.

 

[Get In Scholesy]

Thats was a pain to watch. We played some decent stuff at times but we got caught out a few times, one of them leading to a goal. With the way we were playing I always felt that we would need 3 goals to win this game. We had our chances - albeit not very much shots on target - but we just didn't do enough with the ball in the final 3rd and the result is exactly what happens when you don't make use of the ball.

Although you can argue we were a bit unlucky, doesn't take away from the fact that we didn't deserve to win this game.

 

[crimsonife]

Shocking really. Corners were shite as usual, no urgency in our play until we went down one and nothing gained from our long spells of passing it around. Our possession football won't work if all we do is sit and pass back and forth.

 

[The White Pele]

Our lack of composure after going behind is shocking. Lumping it to Fellaini is an act of desperation and easy to defend against. We used to have the perfect blend of urgency and intelligence when chasing a lead i.e increasing the tempo but working the ball into the final third before putting it into the box. The opposition naturally retreats in the latter stages and it becomes easier to do

 

[Chicharito_]

When teams sit back agaisnt us there is absolutely nothing we can do so we resort to hoofing it to Felliani which is just plain shit. With the talent we have it's almost impressive to have us playing this bad.

 

[Borys]

The first time I doubt if LvG is the right manager for us.

That's odd. Subbing Shaw was questionable IMO. And RvP obviously.

We played some good football today (at times).

 

[Matty7]

Unbelievable... we keep playing dead weight. How does mate continue to sit on the bench while RvP and Fellaini start. Why cant we play our quality players?

-------------DDG--------------
Valencia--Jones--Rojo---Shaw
----Herrera-----Blind----------
ADM---------Mata-----Young
-----------Rooney----------

What is wrong with that?

Thats all i want to see as well. This way we get more width and the defence has more protection, also means we have a bit more pace up the top of the field. But expect to see the same shit next game with RVP or Falcao starting, probs 2 up top still which clearly doesn't work. In fact I cant think of top team that plays 2 up front anymore?

 

[Deleted member 78215]

Van Persie out

Chicharito in


Fellaini/Chicharito could be the new Heskey-Owen.

You say that like it's a good thing.

 

[Jazz]

He should have taken RVP off or better yet, not started with him at all.

Regardless of anything else though, those individual players not performing need to step up and take responsibility. Stealing a living that lot.

 

[ForlansHair]

3 wins in 12 away games and we plan on doing what exactly if we do get to Europe, get spanked? That's not good enough by Van Gaal, you can try defend it all you want but all that 3 in 12 says to any manager at a ''top club'' is you're gonna be sacked.

Would Chelsea, Bayern, City, Barca, Madrid put up with that? you know the answer.

I've been pro VG since the start but we're turning no corners playing football like that.

We won the league by winning 5 (?) away from home in 2010-11 I believe.

Agree on the general sentiment though.

 

[OneUnited24]

Thought today was one of our better performances. We were unlucky to lose it

 

[Zoo]

We were dominant in that 2nd half but got hit by a deflected Shelvey sucker punch, which is all he's good for. If we don't force the issue and work their keeper this is what can happen. So many corners but we're useless at them, might as well have just kicked each one out of play and given them a goalkick. Van Gaal got his subs wrong, not a good day for him.

 

[Eto'odinho]

Our major problem is slow tempo and unless we address that we will keep winning the possessions stats and not create much. Our approach looks laboured compared to other possession focused teams simply because of tempo. It was disheartening to see several seemingly promising moves nit yield fruits because of slow build up and a lack of movement in the final third.

 

[Mister Ed]

Hopefully RVP will benched for the remainder of the season Rooney and Wilson/Fellaini up top for me until the summer can't stand him anymore, just want to fecking punch his face for doing absolutley nothing with every ball he gets ! He was supposed to be beter under Van Gaal not worse than last season !

 

[Feed Me]

Had my thread locked so I'll post it here:

That was the most pathetic final twenty minutes I've seen from United.

Every time we got the ball, we launched it long for Fellaini. No attempt to play intelligently and no attempt to do the things that had helped us dominate prior to conceding.

There's no element of surprise if you do exactly the same thing over and again.

We spent £60m on Di Maria, £38 on Mata, we have players like Rooney and Van Persie, we had Januzaj on the bench, and yet we resort to pre-historic football.

Fuck off.

Where is the improvement in performance? Why did we resorting to long balls and nothing else in the final 20 minutes?

 

[Freak]

We need a proper clear out in the summer. RVP, Falcao, Jones, Evans can all feck off. Get some new strikers, and defenders.

 

[Empire]

Playing 2 up front doesn't work anymore in football. It leaves us short in midfield, congested up top and weakens us defensively. Other than that we looked pretty decent up until Shelvey scored. Also we need to start playing players who want to be here. Adnan is better than RVP/Falcao and deserves to play on the wing instead of either of those fools up front.

Herrera man of the match by a country mile for us.

Playing two up top is fine in a 4-4-2 since when played properly it's basically a support striker dropping deeper and the other looking to make runs in behind.

With the diamond if that happens then the striker gets in the way of the 10, it's usually better with more dynamic strikers who can roam wide.

Our problem is that too often the strikers are just standing together up top, there is no dynamic movement from them.

 

[Stobzilla]

You say that like it's a good thing.

Those two won a shite side more than we will persisting with Van Persie.

 

[Feed Me]

Best part of £150m spent in the summer and we can't find a win away. Questions have to be asked.

You'd think so, but it's suddenly become very 1984 round here.

 

[Kag]

I'm just saying 3-5-2 wasn't the problem, back then everybody wanted the diamond and then they wanted Rooney up top and Herrera in the middle, talking as if the solution to our problems was that simple but now it will be something else.

It was a problem, we couldn't play it. There is nothing we can do right now that will completely "solve" everything. We just have to make the best of what we have, which wasn't happening over the past couple of months. Rooney and Herrera on the field in their best positions is a start.

 

[dsch]

Did RVP pick up a knock towards the end? Hope we don't see him again for a while.

We were playing well for about twenty minutes in the second half, but even then, you can see that for all the neat passing the only idea for the final ball was still cross to Fellaini at the back post and get him to head across.

 

[DevilRed]

Luck has finally run out for us today. The second goal they scored against the run of play basically confirmed that.

We didn't play poorly and I thought we dominated the second half once Valencia and Young came on. However, it shouldn't have been Shaw to come off but rather RVP.

Fellaini was poor as well and his inclusion basically encourages us to play some terrible football.

I just don't understand why LVG doesn't play the 4-3-3 he used at Bayern? Rooney could be the tip of the midfield 3 and have Herrera/Blind/Carrick behind him. It would just provide us with so much more dominance in midfield and also gives us the balance and width we crave. Our fullbacks/central defenders also wouldn't be so exposed.

The 2 strikers upfront thing just isn't working. It hasn't since we started using it from day one. The likes of RVP and Falcao are just not suited to playing in a striker partnership and it shows. Terrible form from RVP today who basically wasted all his chances and provided nothing. You cant even blame Fellaini because when he is on the pitch there is only one way to play and that is direct. I just don't understand why we have to play this way when we have Janujaz and Mata on the bench who would be great in a 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1 type of style?

We are in real danger of missing out on CL football yet again. Simply because we cant get it right away from home. We can play whatever we want at Old Trafford and probably win 90% of the time but away from home we need to be more diligent and not commit two or three players up top.

 

[Wowi]

Even during the period where we were "excellent" we only managed to create half chances. We're simply not creating enough clear-cut ones, as in all the previous games. I don't see our attacking play improving at all either, which is frankly scary considering the attacking talent we have.