PL W FA Premier League

Manchester United 1:0 Wolverhampton Wanderers

Post-match discussion


Mon, 14 August 2023

I would start Sancho RW Rashford LW and bring Martial back for Spurs. We need to buy Amrabat this week and put him straight in alongside Casemiro for this game. I would drop either of Mount/Bruno on tonights performance.

I have never been sure what Mount gives. And I still don't. Seen so much of him and he just seems to be not very outstanding.
 
Only pass marks for Verane, Shaw and Onana.
Several players looked unfit. Bruno, Casemiro, Martinez, AWB, all looked like it was the first game in preseason.
we gotta stop this tour before preseason. It’s just doesn’t work for us.
AWB was one of our best players, what are you on about?
 
After 12 months we still haven’t seen any progress in ETH style. People on social media are saying Ole played better football…
 
Was quite shocking how much faster, stronger and intense they were compared to us. Our players were bouncing off them.

Would feel bad for them being robbed but they’ve been my least favourite opponents to spectate for the past 4-5 years so balls to them.
 
Awful performance. We got away here with a win. Spurs might suit us better in terms of scoring goals, but if Richarlison get this many chances he will score.
 
Wolves were the better team, comfortably. More power, seemed fitter, more alert. more organised.

I am re-assessing my thoughts for the season based on that. I'm really disappointed.

Manchester United's standards have dropped. We no longer want the best players. Brighton identify and develop players better than what we do. Newcastle buy better players. How does that happen?

City, Arsenal, Liverpool would not tolerate the (lack) of quality that too many of our players have. Last season was fantastic because we made great strides from OGS.. but ETH has to realise the "..we have to raise the standards..." rhetoric will wear thin this season. Too many other clubs have improved and we need to do more.

And my fear is that we do not have the players. Some of our fans need to wake up and be realistic about some of the players we have.

We lack leaders. Antony and AWB cannot be players who make a Manchester United starting XI. Never. That cannot be our standard. No way. Our team has big problems because our right side is unreliable. You don't know what either AWB or Antony will do. How can they be good enough for Manchester United FC? How?

We do not know how we are supposed to play. Who is our ball player, who gets us to play? Eriksen was key for us last season before he got injured. Casimero was miles off. Mount a little lost but I do not blame him, not at all.

Defensively, we were so, so, so open.

That's an awful performance. Awful. Awful.
 
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Only pass marks for Verane, Shaw and Onana.
Several players looked unfit. Bruno, Casemiro, Martinez, AWB, all looked like it was the first game in preseason.
we gotta stop this tour before preseason. It’s just doesn’t work for us.
AWB was the best player on the pitch.
 
Why do managers find it so hard to instill a style of play with us post SAF?.
I mean when a manageer goes to another club, after a while you more often than not see a clear change in style of play, not with us though. In fact the only managaer post SAF that actually had a clear change in our stye was Van Gaal with the posession crap, which i wouldnt even mind back at this point as atleast we controlled teams under him.
 
Pathetic. How we walked away from this with 3 points and a clean sheet is beyond me. This team looked like they've never played together before today.

The (few) positives: Onana pretty great. AWB very good, MOTM for me. Varane was fine, I guess. Sancho looked lively when he came on. That's about it.

Rashford missing for most of the match. Bruno was a stranger, my god. What the hell happened there? Casemiro sloppy.

When we play against clubs with quality attackers we're gonna get turned inside out.
 
Bruno wasteful.
Casemiro slow.
Mount non existant.
Martinez off the pace.
Rashford running into men with the ball.
Onana shaky.

Awful performance. Ten Hag talks about control. This team cant control games.

bit unfair to suggest Onana was shaky. What makes you come to this conclusion? I assume the penalty appeal? That doesnt IMO make him shaky. He made a handful of decent (but expected) saves. Collected a few balls to relieve pressure. Cut out a couple of dangerous crosses and his distribution was good
 
I see we still aren’t doing any actual training, no combination play, positional sense none existent, passing absolutely dreadful and looked leggy from kick off. Shocking all round.

I’d be interested to know how many times we gave possession away. Seemed like every other pass.
 
Bruno said it wasn't a penalty, Wolves made it difficult to play between the lines, we played too many early crosses and we gave Wolves too much space in the middle.
 
Yeah? Where did I say we won every challenge? I said I saw fight, I didn't say I saw success. You can give it your all in a boxing match against Mike Tyson but still get knocked out.

You can’t say we fought well when we lost virtually every challenge. This was United against a relegation candidate at Old Trafford not exactly David vs Goliath.
 
What an absolute shower of shite this game was. AWB, Shaw, Varane and Onana bailing us out. Garnacho wtf? Cost us two yellow cards in first half. Casemiro Sunday league fitness levels, Mount showed some flashes of willingness to fight and gets substituted first? Eriksen invisible, Sancho with his regular pacifist fighting spirit. Bruno, Anthony wasteful. Rashford starved of service and ineffective.

Other than our defense must commend Wolves on effort. New manager bounce. Played like it's a world cup final.

Garnacho should not be starting and is more effective at this stage coming on as a substitute. Sancho should be be recalled into the team as a false 9 with Rashford playing out wide.
 
After 12 months we still haven’t seen any progress in ETH style. People on social media are saying Ole played better football…
The same ones who said Ole was shit, I presume. It’s a work in progress, for sure, but it’s the first game of the season and at least we won, eh?
 
That was really poor;

1. Cant wait to see Hojlund in action, we need a no9 who can hold up the ball and bully defenders. This evening showed why we needed a CF so bad this summer, the ball kept coming back as soon as it went forwards

2. Early days, but im not sure mount is the answer at no8. Looked too light weight and often left casemiro stranded as he went off chasing the ball. When eriksen came on, he was closer to casemiro and not leaving him so isolated. He was also a ball magnet, something mount isnt at present.

3. We need an experienced midfielder with legs in alongside Casemiro who can control the tempo. Hopefully Amrabat will be that player.

4. We definetly wont see the best of antony until we sign a attacking fullback, we need one to do the overlaps and open up the right half space for antony to attack.

5. Casemiro is trying to do too much, which is why he looks knackered going into the last quarter of the game. He needs help to take the weight off him.

6. Most worrying we didnt look like a well drilled team, off the ball and on the ball. Its still early so i hope that aspect will improve.

Finishing on a positive Onana looked good.
 
Casemiro was very worrying in midfield. If the opposition breaks the Mount / Bruno line, even if it's deep in their half, Casemiro has to be more disciplined and drop deep to cover the space. He cannot afford to dive into and miss challenges (he seemed to do this repeatedly in the second half), after which our entire backline is exposed to runners.
 
Stop all these commercial friendlies. All these flying here and there doesn't help the team. If we want to win something then the players must be ready from day 1. Casemiro was shit, Antony always has an excuse with poor decision making, Mount running around like headless chicken, oh Garnacho what a time for a worst performance. I think these front won't work, we need 1 MF and 1 ST and maybe throw in a RW.
 
Very very worrying watching that.

Far too open in midfield - just not going to work with that 3... And that was against Wolves, imagine vs City, Arsenal, Liverpool etc. And wtf was that last 15 minutes, sat on our box - why do we insist on seeing games out like that?!

Everything looked off, energy, passing, physicality, cohesion.
 
Well that was a bit nervy to say the least :nervous:

No cutting edge up front, midfield was poor at times and full backs looked nervy first half but saved us with some massive blocks (good assist from AWB too).

Lost in our first game last year so this is progress. A bit worried by how easy it was to run straight through us at times.
 
Mount will find it an uphill struggle at United, he was past his peak a year ago. He does not do anything at a high level and has a poor range of passing, does not complement Fernandez.
Think ETH just as this idea of playing similar to pep with 2 10s and 1 6 but it just isn’t working for us. We get outrun in midfield all the time.
 
Only pass marks for Verane, Shaw and Onana.
Several players looked unfit. Bruno, Casemiro, Martinez, AWB, all looked like it was the first game in preseason.
we gotta stop this tour before preseason. It’s just doesn’t work for us.
On the tours: When there’s money to be made, player welfare usually takes a distant backseat
 
One way or another, but it’s much better to discuss shit performance, having gotten 3 points nonetheless
 
We were terrible to be fair. Can't think of anyone having a good game apart from Onana and Varane. Still not sure how we won this, it was chaotic as hell and we had no midfield whatsoever.

Credit to Wolves as well. They were vastly underestimated before the game and I thought Lemina and especially Nunes had the game of their lives tonight. Cunha too.

They were cutting through our centre like butter which was due to our structure and also some very good performances from their players.

O'Neil is also a very good coach, he will do great there as he will have much better players at his disposal compared to last season.

Hopefully Ten Hag corrects the balance in our midfield urgently otherwise we're in for a rough season.
 
Bruno said it wasn't a penalty, Wolves made it difficult to play between the lines, we played too many early crosses and we gave Wolves too much space in the middle.

Bruno would have gotten 14 yellow cards for complaining if it was him who was being clattered
 
We aren't anywhere near winning the title with this team. Ferguson's United sides used to annihilate ANY side at Old Trafford. If Wolves can come here and outplay us, anyone can.
In SAF’s final season, we scraped past Fulham 3-2 after losing the opener away against Everton. I mean I love hyperbole as much as anyone but let’s not go overboard.
 
After 12 months we still haven’t seen any progress in ETH style. People on social media are saying Ole played better football…
One bad game and we start with shocking posts like this. :lol:
 
Garnacho should not be starting and is more effective at this stage coming on as a substitute. Sancho should be be recalled into the team as a false 9 with Rashford playing out wide.
Garnacho always does look better off the bench. He’s still learning how to play in the system. He needs minutes for that so we have to start him sometimes. Think he will be benched next game. Good player though.
 
bit unfair to suggest Onana was shaky. What makes you come to this conclusion? I assume the penalty appeal? That doesnt IMO make him shaky. He made a handful of decent (but expected) saves. Collected a few balls to relieve pressure. Cut out a couple of dangerous crosses and his distribution was good

Came out of a cross that he was never going to get. And nearly gave away a pen.
 
This is going to be a very long and difficult season unless we add steel to that midfield.

A new CB isn’t changing anything, midfield and upfront we are so bad. Any team that is on it can play us off the park.

I’m sure ETH sees this and McTominay is certainly not the answer. Hopefully Hojlund can add something but again games are won in midfield, especially where and when it matters, fighting for major trophies.
 
Wolves are a tough team to play against and have a lot of good runners, luckily for us they're absolutely toothless up front.

Such a shame regarding Mainoo's injury because despite his age and lack of experience he walks into our current midfield based on that showing.
 
We need to change formation to accommodate Mount+Bruno. Don't seem like Casemiro has 90+min in him.
 
Pretty poor overall.
Bruno was anonymous. They just walked through the midfield.

3 points at the end of the day but big improvement needed for next Saturday
 

Man of the Match

Aaron Wan-Bissaka image Aaron Wan-Bissaka 35% of 426 votes

Runners-up

Player Ratings

5.4 Total Average Rating

Highest Rated Player

Lowest Rated Player

Compiled from 419 ratings.

Score Predictions

352,6,9
  • Man Utd win
  • Wolves win
  • Draw

Detailed Results

  • 35% Man Utd 2:0 Wolves
  • 25% Man Utd 3:0 Wolves
  • 10% Man Utd 3:1 Wolves
  • 10% Man Utd 4:0 Wolves
  • 6% Man Utd 2:1 Wolves
  • 5% Man Utd 1:0 Wolves
  • 4% Man Utd 5:0 Wolves
  • 1% Man Utd 1:1 Wolves
  • 1% Man Utd 4:1 Wolves
  • 1% Man Utd 0:0 Wolves
  • 1% Man Utd 0:2 Wolves
  • 1% Man Utd 0:1 Wolves
  • 1% Man Utd 6:0 Wolves
  • 0% Man Utd 5:1 Wolves
  • 0% Man Utd 1:2 Wolves
Compiled from 367 predictions.
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Match Stats

  1. Man Utd
  2. Wolves
Possession
51% 49%
Shots
15 23
Shots on Target
3 6
Corners
8 7
Fouls
14 10

Referee

Simon Hooper