[shaggy]

Most frustrating thing is we would be 2 points off Arse and City had we beaten Stoke and Burnley at home... Same stuff happened last year under LvG - to many dropped points against gash sides.

 

[Triple.Threat]

thrilled to come out with all 3 points. Fellaini and Rojo are not what any top team should have in their lineup, they shouldn't even be on the bench.

 

[Inigo Montoya]

He did. We did exactly the same thing against Leicester. 4 goals up and second half we slowed the play down, hardly did anything going forward and invited pressure. Lucky for us they couldn't string two passes together that game and their only consolation was a class long range effort.

I think a cautious approach in winning positions will come back to bite us at some point.

It did against Stoke

 

[Nathan]

After seeing the lineup I was initially concerned but this was a professional performance in the first half. I think we must consider the carrack pogba midfield pairing with Herrera when he is back.

Some really good goals from pogba and ZLATAN, could have & should have been more.

The ZLATAN yellow card ruling him out of the Arsenal game is a real negative.

Otherwise it's 3 points on the road and I think we should applaud the team - job well done

 

[jackofalltrades]

Dull second half but coming after a EL game it made sense to take the foot off the gas, rather too much for my liking tho. Still, very comfortable win,albeit over an awfully bad side.

 

[#07]

Nice to see players perform at the level you'd expect. This is the kind of routine win we should get against teams far less expensively assembled. Against Stoke and Burnley we created even more chances, unfortunately our stars simply performed worse than expected in those fixtures. Today, thankfully, they showed up.

Good to see Zlatan's got his shooting boots back on, we really need that. Its annoying he's suspended for the Arsenal game, Arsenal don't look that secure at the back though and we have pacier options to test them when they push up. Also good to see Pogba running the game for us. Credit also to Wayne Rooney, looked like he has some of his old confidence back and he was never offside for what should've been our fourth.

 

[NinjaFletch]

The performance wasn't anything different to what we've been putting in against the likes of Burnley and Stoke, only their 'keeper didn't have a blinder.

In the second half we were pretty sloppy, and Zlatan's managed to rule himself out of the tie vs Arsenal.

Darmian looked tidy at LB, Pogba looks so much more comfortable alongside Carrick and Rooney's touch/ control were good for once.

Hopefully we can get at least a draw against Arsenal.

I'd say it was clearly worse in terms of what we did/didn't create. We were just more clinical today; we had three shots on target and scored them all vs a million against Burnley.

I'll take the win and take the three points, but there wasn't a huge amount to get excited about for me.

 

[.Rossi]

Did we create a chance in the 2nd half?

Nowt has changed. Swansea were just toss

 

[JustinC00]

didn't look interested in the game

I mean what was he suppose to do? Pace up and down the stadium stairs? Looked about what i'd expect a manager to look like serving a touchline ban with his team up 3-0 inside 35 minutes.

 

[littlepeasoup]

It did against Stoke

Even moreso going forward. Trying my best to forget that Stoke game tbf.

 

[Scholesy]

Did we create a chance in the 2nd half?

Nowt has changed. Swansea were just toss

We looked average in the 2nd half when Swansea began to try, that is worrying.

 

[amf_33]

You know Christmas is coming when Phil Jones manages to play 90 minutes without falling apart. Good win, Swansea were awful but who cares.

 

[facund]

The odd wingerless formation didn't seem to inhibit the team in the first 30 mins or so but beyond that it looked more than a little dysfunctional. Swansea didn't show up and we took full advantage but I would have liked to have seen the players push on towards a thoroughly confidence building result. No real drive from the players in the second half which I suppose you could argue was understandable given the schedule (conserve energy etc.) and the fact we had so little speed and cutting edge in forward areas.

Some good goals and a solid result but plenty of the same underlying issues that appear to limit the performances at the moment. If the team is going to shut down and settle for what they have then they really should be getting clean sheets in such games IMO.

 

[Leftback99]

Swansea are terrible but we still couldn't sustain any threatening attacks. Much needed points but still no signs of a cohesive system to move forward with.

 

[AXVnee7]

At home yes. Away from home, no.

Against Swansea (relegation candidates)... then definitely yes

 

[Inigo Montoya]

Dull second half but coming after a EL game it made sense to take the foot off the gas, rather too much for my liking tho. Still, very comfortable win,albeit over an awfully bad side.

When you consider that all the teams who played midweek didn't win this weekend (bar us) it shows how demanding it is.
City draw
Arsenal draw
Spurs Draw
Leicester ?
Soton Lost

 

[marlowe78]

Badly-needed win, regardless of the opponent and whether they tried or not. Ibra scoring felt a relief, nice to see him bury his chances.

Assertive game also from Pogba and Carrick. Both totally controlled the 1st half. Mata was also good at points but in the 2nd 45 he, unfortunately, showed again why he's a defensive liability.

This team needs to do something about its defending, real fast. Swansea had no real threat until the free kick and naturally, we got our marking completely wrong. Luckily we were too far ahead for Swansea to pose a real threat of getting back in it.

For those of you wondering what I was angry about in the match thread, I think Jose's in-game management was beyond poor. Ibra and Pogba were begging for yellow cards in the second half. Was Jose even aware that these two could miss the Arsenal game? This is supposed to be one of the world's best managers yet he pulls an LVG and takes no action. That is poor, and highly disappointing.

Anyways, it was a good response from us overall. Arsenal will be a completely different game but at least we go in having scored a few and won for a change. Final grade today is 6/10.

 

[mazhar13]

I thought that this would have been the match where we would have sent a message out to the world and really come out all guns blazing, but we just petered out to the end with a horrible second half performance. The whole team seemed too lackadaisical to continue playing, thinking that they already won the match just from the first half. This seemed to be epitomised by Fellaini who was in no-mans land for the whole of the second half and made us feel like we were playing with 10 men. Rooney was a completely different player in the second half as well. In the first half, his movement was excellent, and he was causing havoc to Rangel and van der Hoorn with his runs as well as his link-up play. In the second half, he became stagnant in his game and was very easy to defend against for Swansea. Pogba had to frequently play two roles on the attach (Rooney's inside left role as well as the left central midfield role) with Rooney playing as sluggishly as he was.

Defensively, we looked very good, and when they stepped it up, at least we were able to thwart them though we did concede a stupid set-piece goal. Darmian looked like his normal self, and Young was okay too if unspectacular. Jones looked comfortable and assured after being out for so long, and bar one dumb mistake, Rojo looked comfortable as well and shows that he's naturally a central defender rather than a left back.

Carrick was crucial to how we played, and he set the foundation for the team to do as well as it did. His passing opened up Swansea consistently and played the likes of Ibrahimovic and Rooney into spaces. It helped Pogba as well as he then had the freedom to push forward and influence the game in the final third rather than sit deep and try to dictate the play. Fellaini didn't do much of note the whole match, and I thought we would have been better off with someone who could have done more there instead of him. He wasn't really needed against such a poor Swansea side.

In the end, this careless, lazy mentality is horrible to see. I thought that we'd be like Chelsea were against Everton and really rip them apart whilst having fun playing football. Instead, the players just got disinterested and didn't appear to want to play any more football. They were probably glad that they only conceded 1 goal in the end.

 

[Inigo Montoya]

Swansea are terrible but we still couldn't sustain any threatening attacks. Much needed points but still no signs of a cohesive system to move forward with.

Given the line up, people were predicting a loss.

Get over it, it's much easier to build cohesion after a win

 

[Sereques]

6 points away from City. Not the end of the world. We should stop dropping silly points aka Stoke and Burnley and we will make Top 3.

 

[Inigo Montoya]

We looked average in the 2nd half when Swansea began to try, that is worrying.

Game over at HT

 

[Antisocial]

Slow and steady wins the match against Swansea it seems.

 

[Reddevildans]

Missed the game but lets hope its not another false dawn. We have struggled away to teams as poor as Swansea in the past few seasons so its an important win. More importantly the international break has come at a good time to get some players back, especially in defence.

 

[mu4c_20le]

You know Christmas is coming when Phil Jones manages to play 90 minutes without falling apart. Good win, Swansea were awful but who cares.

Really happy for him, always been a fan of his style. Glad to see him brought back into the fold. A lot of people slated him when he was out but he was always a consistent part of LVG's side when he beat the big teams.

 

[Get In Scholesy]

Nah, Burnley were worse despite the GK's performance

That's fair.

Not sure why people are overly bothered by this when it was probably the worst back four we've played this season...

Even with that we still could have come out with a clean sheet. We weren't giving up chances all match.

 

[Irrational.]

I'd say it was clearly worse in terms of what we did/didn't create. We were just more clinical today; we had three shots on target and scored them all vs a million against Burnley.

I'll take the win and take the three points, but there wasn't a huge amount to get excited about for me.

Agreed. Bog standard performance against arguably the worst team in the league.

There have been far too many false dawns for me to get my hopes up now

 

[Ibi Dreams]

Did we create a chance in the 2nd half?

Nowt has changed. Swansea were just toss

I can think of three off the top of my head that we created in the second half. Rooney's pass to Mata, Rooney's offside (looked onside to me) and a ball over the top to Pogba on the left that he should have hit first time but didn't

 

[SkeppyRed]

When we were dominating possession in the second half we had no movement or change of pace in our attacks. No one was threatening them in behind and you cant pass it around forever without attacking.

 

[Jazz]

Well at least we have some time off before Arse. Wish Pogba could get some rest instead of playing in this shit international break.

3 points is all that matters from now on. Let's get it anyway we can.

 

[Irrational.]

Any post match comments from Jose?

 

[harms]

A shame that Ibra will be out of the arse match after rediscovering his goal scoring touch.

Why? Is it the yellow cards already? Or am I missing something

 

[mazhar13]

Why? Is it the yellow cards already? Or am I missing something

Yeah, he got 5 yellow cards accumulated in the Premier League.

 

[woodhouseparkred]

Why? Is it the yellow cards already? Or am I missing something

Yes, he has 5 yellow cards which means a one-match ban i.e. Misses the match against Arsenal.

 

[efraim]

Good win, but the players need to show more fight after taking a comfortable lead. It's like the players don't even care and think the game has been won before the final whistle, we could've gone with a clean sheet against a horrible Swansea side but our lack of fight put them back into the game. Luckily we met Swansea today, any other team would almost guaranteed make us pay. Something Jose and the team needs to work on. On a positive note Wayne Rooney was decent today, much better than his previous performances this season. Zlatan was sharp infront of goal and in the build-up play, Pogba is slowly finding his form and he will sooner or later be worth that 90 million we paid for him.

Now the rest of November is all home games and it's time to go on a winning streak to put us back in the title race.

 

[harms]

Yeah, he got 5 yellow cards accumulated in the Premier League.

ffs

 

[Sweet Square]

Good win and that Pogba strike

 

[Rossa]

is it possible to watch the first half in a recorded stream somewhere? Please PM me

 

[EyeInTheSky]

Gutted by the Zlatan yellow. He would have terroised arseanl with Rashford infront of him. How someone running through you and judo throwing you to the floor results in a booking I do not know.

 

[Hugh Jass]

Badly-needed win, regardless of the opponent and whether they tried or not. Ibra scoring felt a relief, nice to see him bury his chances.

Assertive game also from Pogba and Carrick. Both totally controlled the 1st half. Mata was also good at points but in the 2nd 45 he, unfortunately, showed again why he's a defensive liability.

This team needs to do something about its defending, real fast. Swansea had no real threat until the free kick and naturally, we got our marking completely wrong. Luckily we were too far ahead for Swansea to pose a real threat of getting back in it.

For those of you wondering what I was angry about in the match thread, I think Jose's in-game management was beyond poor. Ibra and Pogba were begging for yellow cards in the second half. Was Jose even aware that these two could miss the Arsenal game? This is supposed to be one of the world's best managers yet he pulls an LVG and takes no action. That is poor, and highly disappointing.

Anyways, it was a good response from us overall. Arsenal will be a completely different game but at least we go in having scored a few and won for a change. Final grade today is 6/10.

This is nonsense ok. He cant control what Zlatan and other players do. Jesus Christ!!!!

 

[Zoo]