[Sultan]

Christ!

Fabianski didn't have a fecking shot to save after we went behind.

Have our standards really fallen that much?

Expectations.

 

[Feed Me]

Yes I agree. We aren't creating chances as I mentioned in another post. We were virtually camping on the edge of their big box for most of the second half though.

So what?

That's just another way of saying we had all the ball as they sat and soaked up the pressure.

We did feck all with it, again.

I can't see where an improvement is coming from.

 

[Freak]

I actually now enjoy watching under 21's more than the first team.

I actually enjoy not watching us these days. Am usually on my phone during matches and opt not to wake up for midweek matches( which are usually around 3am in the morning). I haven't done any if these up until recently.

 

[Borys]

We were better than average. The problem is for all the possession we aren't creating many chances. That's a worry.

18 shots isn’t bad, van Persie could have scored three, Rojo, Blind all had their chances. Luck wasn’t on our side.

 

[Empire]

Results are key, of course. I think Herrera in midfield and Rooney up top - although not necessarily in a diamond - will lead us to consistent games. One game away at Swansea isn't a great enough sample size to write that theory off, however.

Exactly, not necessarily in a diamond therefore the shape isn't the main issue.

As for Rooney he had three shots all game and got the target once, he needs to improve if he is to start scoring consistently.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

We played good football but are so sloppy and lacking in focus defensively.

Also can we please stop treating rvp as if he owns the football club?

 

[Nik70]

18 shots isn’t bad, van Persie could have scored three, Rojo, Blind all had their chances. Luck wasn’t on our side.

I agree with that but we've had our fair share of luck in other games I suppose.

 

[Castia]

Our standards have fallen so low people think this was a good performance? it was piss poor.

 

[Nik70]

So what?

That's just another way of saying we had all the ball as they sat and soaked up the pressure.

We did feck all with it, again.

I can't see where an improvement is coming from.

It's a hell of a lot better than getting dominated by Burnley. That's what. Can't you see any positives in this game?

 

[sunama]

With any luck. We're blowing through supposedly world-class strikers like tissues.

I do find it strange that...

Rooney is not good enough
RVP is not good enough
Falcao is not good enough
Wellbeck is not good enough
Wilson is not good enough

Is this a training issue?

 

[Feed Me]

Expectations.

Indeed.

I'm sat here raging at Van Gaal. Sults, it's not even about the defeat for me.

I missed the first half, thought the pressure was building nicely in the second half though and we were doing all the right things - switching the play, creating little openings. Okay, we weren't really creating anything, but I felt we could maybe nick a second goal through sheer weight of pressure.

Then we conceded. Fair enough, shit happens. We've got over twenty minutes to work our way back into the game. Then, inexplicably, we resorted to launching it long to Fellaini every time. It became so obvious what our tactics were that suddenly Swansea, who had been hanging on a little, found the final part of the game easy to manage.

There's no improvement to our style of play. If I'm being totally honest, a part of me is glad we didn't equalise today, because Van Gaal would've taken the plaudits for "making us hard to beat".

 

[Sultan]

It's a hell of a lot better than getting dominated by Burnley. That's what. Can't you see any positives in this game?

No!

These days I'm actually hoping for a goal, than actually expecting a goal. Today was no different.

 

[matt23]

I've been trying to stay on board with van Gaal because unlike Moyes, I had that feeling that van Gaal could turn it all around and make us doubters look stupid, but I'm done with that. We've been consistently awful in almost every aspect of our game since September, the only difference between today and most of our previous 20 games was we ran out of luck, like Southampton at home. The default response to any criticism lately has been our league position and relatively decent results and that's fine, until your luck changes and lose a game, playing exactly the same dull, uninspired lifeless crap that you've produced for most of the season.

Our defenders still can't defend.
Our midfielders still can't pass properly
Di Maria is now barely more useful than Nani or Young
Mata has been isolated from the squad in favor of playing hoof ball
RvP starts every game when fit, despite offering near to nothing of any value to our attack
We play absolutely woeful football, I mean really, really bad football.

Not a lot going for van Gaal really, definitely seems to be getting to the point where we're in the top 4 in spite of his management and not because of it.

 

[Feed Me]

It's a hell of a lot better than getting dominated by Burnley. That's what. Can't you see any positives in this game?

I thought the beginning of the first half up to the goal we conceded was good from us in terms of general control.

That's about it.

 

[Yorkeontop]

Well done Swansea. We are toothless... and we cant defend.

We are shocking at times defensively!

 

[bosnian_red]

I thought the beginning of the first half up to the goal we conceded was good from us in terms of general control.

That's about it.

Second half we were very dominant, they just scored a very lucky goal from their first foray forward in about 30 minutes.

 

[.Phil1968]

I can't see us getting top 4 though I hope I'm wrong started the game quite brightly but for all the possession we had in that second half their keeper didnt have to do a lot. I wish we'd shoot more from outside the area anything can happen as we've seen from that cnut Voldemort.We need to vary our attacks.

 

[finneh]

Our best performance in several weeks. It was a real hark back to Fergie days at 1-1, we were bombing forward and the only realistic result was going to be a United win. Then as happens in Football they had a lucky break and an even more lucky deflection and you are chasing a game that you should be comfortably winning, against a difficult team away from home.

The literal definition of gambling is "taking risky action in the hope of a desired result". Well today we gambled and ended up with nothing. On another day we'd have had 3 points and a great result.

Definite progress. The moaners will moan though, as they did in our title winning seasons.

 

[sullydnl]

We've played a lot worse than that this season while getting a result. No that that makes the result okay of course....

 

[Insanity]

Our standards have fallen so low people think this was a good performance? it was piss poor.

They quite literally have when this performance and Fellaini's play is considered good.

We have already become Arsenal - with our "top 4 is our priority" nonsense. Next step is Liverpool of the last 20 years; with our choice of players and managers we might not be very far off from that.

 

[Feed Me]

Second half we were very dominant, they just scored a very lucky goal from their first foray forward in about 30 minutes.

I wouldn't say we were dominant once they scored the second. We lost all our discipline and resorted to ling ball. That lost us the chance of getting a point.

 

[wiz4231]

I'd flog the pair of them. Falcao is gone, though. Certainly.

Why are Falcao and RVP getting so much flack, Rooney was just as poor as them, hardly in the game, its the tactics deployed by LVG that should be questioned not the players. Stop using Fellaini as a target man and we will turn things around

 

[bosnian_red]

I wouldn't say we were dominant once they scored the second. We lost all our discipline and resorted to ling ball. That lost us the chance of getting a point.

Well yeah the last 20 minutes just turned into hoofing it but I meant the 20-25 minute period before their second goal. Was a very strong period from us and we were just unfortunate to go behind.

 

[jojojo]

On the bright side we had possession in the right half of the field, particularly in the second half. I'll take that as progress and look forward to seeing more of it.

On the negative. It felt like every cross or setpiece from them, they got a shot or a header in.

Falling behind on a counterattack is just one of those things. It happens when you chase a winner and I wanted us to chase three points. What went on in our attack, a combination of poor final ball and poor striker performance - well maybe we didn't deserve to score.

Our goalscorers in our last 10 matches:
Herrera 3
Fellaini 2
Smalling 2
Wilson 2
RvP 1+1(pen)
Falcao
Rooney 1(pen)
Di Maria
Blind
Mata
Rojo
OG

Normally seeing goals distributed around the team like that would sound good, but not when it means your very well paid forwards are just simply not scoring.

 

[DomesticTadpole]

Our best performance in several weeks. It was a real hark back to Fergie days at 1-1, we were bombing forward and the only realistic result was going to be a United win. Then as happens in Football they had a lucky break and an even more lucky deflection and you are chasing a game that you should be comfortably winning, against a difficult team away from home.

The literal definition of gambling is "taking risky action in the hope of a desired result". Well today we gambled and ended up with nothing. On another day we'd have had 3 points and a great result.

Definite progress. The moaners will moan though, as they did in our title winning seasons.

We created chances, so that is good, but he chose the wrong defence and chances are no good if they cannot put them in the net. That needs to change.

 

[Sultan]

Definite progress. The moaners will moan though, as they did in our title winning seasons.

Progress compared to Moyesy?

 

[Ixion]

I thought we played alright compared to most games recently but we're toothless in attack and too prone to errors at the back.

 

[SalfordRed1960]

Just play the diamond, Herrera in midfield, Rooney up top, attacking football, that's what everybody wanted but now we lost it will be something else.

Exactly, I would rather watch us having a go - like today, than have total possession with no attack. Today the attacks just didn't quite happen. However, as our goal showed. When it works, it is a joy to watch.

Today is what LVG means by balance. You play with 5 attack minded players and 5 defensive minded players and the chances are you will get caught out, because the 5 attacking players will lose focus on their defensive duties. You could argue the way Shaw played we had 6 attack minded players today, 7 when Valencia came on.

I just think today luck was not on our side. But credit to Swansea defensive display.

 

[Crashoutcassius]

Thought we weer very good in second half once we started playing to our strengths and stretching them

Infuriating how badly positions McNair, Valencia and Shaw were over and over again. Nice to see Young bursting a gut to get into a good position when the ball was switched. So many times Fellaini got isolated vs the left back and Valencia could have been bombing beyond him and was just in our half

 

[Nik70]

I thought the beginning of the first half up to the goal we conceded was good from us in terms of general control.

That's about it.

I thought we were better in the second half but I agree with you in regards to looking toothless.

 

[wiz4231]

I do find it strange that...

Rooney is not good enough
RVP is not good enough
Falcao is not good enough
Wellbeck is not good enough
Wilson is not good enough

Is this a training issue?

Yes, using Fellaini as the target man instead of any 1 of those striker

 

[Nik70]

Our goal was worked beautifully though.

 

[JustAFan]

Seeing a few posts around talking about us having possession etc. Wasn't it not very long ago we used to laugh at Arsenal and Liverpool when they talked about having all this possession but did not get results?

 

[TheRedDevil'sAdvocate]

I'm pretty sure we can blame today's result on many different reasons. There were a lot of things that didn't go as planed, after all. I can understand the Jones- Rojo pairing at the back as we intended to play with a relatively high defensive line and we needed to cope with Rutledge's and Gomis' pace. But both Jones and Rojo looked very shaky and their bad decision making led to most of Swansea's chances.

But the truth is they didn't get any help from Blind either. Unfortunately, Daley didn't provide could cover in front of the back four while his forward passing was slightly off too. He hasn't been on form for a series of games now and this is worrying since Carrick is also missing. In the two formations we've been using this season it i crucial to get a decent, at least, performance from our holding midfielder.

The decision to start McNair proved to be wrong and i must admit that i find the continuation of this little "experiment" rather bizarre. McNair simply doesn't have the pace to deal with natural wingers in 1v1 situations and that makes him a target, a weakness in our team that our opponents will always try to take advantage of. The equalizing goal shows pretty much that, Swansea overloaded the side, Jones moved to the right to assist McNair, easy pass to Shelvey (Herrera barely marks him), cross and Kim is all alone in our box.

Di Maria was our best player in the first half but he still doesn't have the energy levels to keep it up for the whole 90 minutes and that makes him a defensive liability too as the game progresses. Rooney was ok, worked hard to create pockets of space in between the lines but it didn't matter cause all the others were too busy trying to finf Fellaini. Herrera had a good game, he's becoming better and better in that supporting midfielder role. He also scored an incredible goal, attacking the central channels from a deeper position. Why we didn't try to do that more often, it eludes me.

RvP was anonymous yet again while Valencia and Young were decent. But when we bring Young on (i have nothing against him) to put in a good cross in the box, well that really shows how poor we were in the final third. Fellaini doesn't deserve the stick he gets here. He was the one who followed the manager's instructions to the letter and helped a lot at keeping possession up front. It was simply comical that trying to cross the the ball to him in the far post was the only way we chose to attack during the whole game.

Some will say we did ok offensively but i disagree, we were devoid of ideas and that cost us against a very average side. Except the goal we scored we never really troubled Fabiansky. We must show improvement if we want to finish in the top four...

 

[Walters_19_MuFc]

It's probably the best we've played in a while, which I guess shows how poor we've been really. Yet, the time we played decently, which we were in the second half, camping Swansea back into their own half, they score out of nowhere.

When they scored, they come back into the game, and we really didn't pose a threat in the last 10 minutes. All we did was punt it forward to Fellaini, which didn't really work.

I think what killed us was conceding so early after scoring. Had we been able to see it out to half time, I think we would have took control of the game, and possibly scored a second.

 

[Berbaclass]

Seeing a few posts around talking about us having possession etc. Wasn't it not very long ago we used to laugh at Arsenal and Liverpool when they talked about having all this possession but did not get results?

Exactly

Spoiler

 

[SalfordRed1960]

Our best performance in several weeks. It was a real hark back to Fergie days at 1-1, we were bombing forward and the only realistic result was going to be a United win. Then as happens in Football they had a lucky break and an even more lucky deflection and you are chasing a game that you should be comfortably winning, against a difficult team away from home.

The literal definition of gambling is "taking risky action in the hope of a desired result". Well today we gambled and ended up with nothing. On another day we'd have had 3 points and a great result.

Definite progress. The moaners will moan though, as they did in our title winning seasons.

Totally agree.

Its the fashion to blame LVG though, rather than just accept we got sucker punched today.

 

[Someone]

At times i thought that was one of our best away performances this season, but some players are really out of form, rvp is just playing by reputation only now, rooney wasn't impressive either, we were really toothless upfront.

The one thing i can blame on van gaal is the whole felliani tactic, we had plenty of time to create chances after we went behind, but we chose to only one road to take, that was really poor from van gaal.

 

[Will Absolute]

A decent enough performance until we went behind. Then we fell apart.

Shit happens. Unfortunately at this stage we need the rub of the green, not Lady Luck pissing in our porridge.

 

[Asger]

RvP needs to move on. We need a proper striker.

We can say the same about Rooney. Now 2 games in the row as striker and only one shoot at the goal.