Hugh Jass
Shave Dass
- Joined
- Apr 16, 2016
- Messages
- 11,501
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.
The players were tired.