[Partridge]

Disappointing, but not surprised. We reallt should be beating teams like this. How many times over the decades have we capitulated to teams far inferior to us. Rubbish performance. Onto the next game.

 

[DJ_21]

Solskjær loves Fred doesn’t he, the last one to get took off, I’d of kept VDB on, Fred is sooo weak it’s unreal the amount of times he gets knocked of the ball to easy. The decision to go to a back 5 was stupid as it invites pressure onto us. If city had 10 men young boys would still never of seen the ball. Ronaldo looked annoyed at full time and you can understand why. 2 shots in the whole game against young boys is embarrassing. 10 men or not

 

[reelworld]

The formation was a disaster because you had one actual midfielder. Calling it a 5-3-1 is generous even; it'd be better described as 5-1-2-1.

Shaw was out of position because Maguire had to step up because again, there is only one central midfielder. Shaw then has to tuck in, resulting in literally 30% of your own final third being completely unoccupied.

Putting on another centre half makes no sense when they are stuck behind a non-existent midfield. An extra body in the box is meaningless when you have no means to control the ball after recovering it.

Their equalizer come because exactly the scenario above. Shaw got sucked in the middle, and he left acres of spaces on the left for their right winger to cross the ball.

 

[rron10]

Feel sorry for VdB, this would have been a good match for him to make a statement and I thought he was growing into the match. I was hoping in the 2nd half he could show he could play the 2 with Fred.

I thought all the subs made sense.
- Dalot straight swap for AWB to get to half
- There were always going to be many corners and crosses and 3 CBs made sense
- Ronaldo had to come off to save for future matches and asking Lingard to run around makes sense
- Fred was spent and had to come off with Matic replacing soon
- Leaving Pogba on makes sense because he can keep the ball from clears

I too was disappointed we could not keep the ball but YB deserve credit as they worked their buts off to pressure and wear us down.

Let's not overreact.

Playing 5-3-1 made no sense we lost the midfield in the second half and basically could not get near their goal. Also we could not keep possession at all and we were toothless on the counter.
The viable tactic when you are one man down is 4-4-1 this way you can occupy the spaces in midfield and create the illusion of equity.
You don't need 3 CB's to defend corners as even the striker can come and help in that situation. Their 1-1 goal came from the center where we had 3 CB's and Varane was the one who lost his marker (even though it was a very lucky goal because of the cross deflection).

Pogba is at it's worst when pressed hard and he does not have the workrates to compensate the man down. We should have used Fred and Matic as CDM's in the second half and some fresh legs on the wings to try and counter them. We had Sancho, Martial, Greenwod who can play there.

I really don't care how much YB has worked their buts and I don't want to give them any credit. I care about us and the fact that we show the same weaknesses every year worries me. YB is a smaller team that we should beat/dominate even with 10 men.

 

[kafta]

Its not really justified to be this negative, even with 10 men, against a team like young boys. We played them like they were prime Barcelona, sat too deep, kept giving them the ball back and basically waited to concede.

The second goal was a complete disaster by Lingard, but the way we managed the game was really bad. Teams go down to 10 men all the time, it doesnt mean you surrender all initiative of at least putting together counter attacks. The players we have are too good to play like that.

 

[RedAlways78]

People are arguing over the red card. It’s simple, you can’t make a clumsy challenge like that with studs showing and expect to get away with it. If it was the other way around would we be happy?

We can still pull things back but I do worry we have too many big ego’s on the pitch now and this team may not gel so well.

 

[DSG]

It's not just about not giving up anything - without actually being able to control the ball to allow your players to get up the pitch, you also torpedo any chance of attacking. Also, are the standards that low at Manchester fecking United that going 30 minutes against a Swiss side without facing an overabundance of dangerous situations even whilst down to 10 is somehow a thing to be commended? Based on the disparity in quality you should be ashamed if you are the less threatening of the two sides in this scenario, much less if you are somewhat under the cosh but offer nothing in attack.

Did you watch? A lot of half chances in there…

 

[largelyworried]

Playing 5-3-1 made no sense we lost the midfield in the second half and basically could not get near their goal. Also we could not keep possession at all and we were toothless on the counter.
The viable tactic when you are one man down is 4-4-1 this way you can occupy the spaces in midfield and create the illusion of equity.
You don't need 3 CB's to defend corners as even the striker can come and help in that situation. Their 1-1 goal came from the center where we had 3 CB's and Varane was the one who lost his marker (even though it was a very lucky goal because of the cross deflection).

Pogba is at it's worst when pressed hard and he does not have the workrates to compensate the man down. We should have used Fred and Matic as CDM's in the second half and some fresh legs on the wings to try and counter them. We had Sancho, Martial, Greenwod who can play there.

I really don't care how much YB has worked their buts and I don't want to give them any credit. I care about us and the fact that we show the same weaknesses every year worries me. YB is a smaller team that we should beat/dominate even with 10 men.

It was the combination of choices that sucked. Back 5 is okay if you have the ability to hold the ball in midfield. But Bruno, Pogba and Fred are just about the worst possible trio of players in our squad to try and retain possession with. It meant we just defended the box for 45 minutes.

Ole has a tendency to want to keep his best players on the pitch, but that was an obvious error. He should have kept VDB in there and/or brought in Matic earlier. A Fred/Matic/VDB midfield may not be much of a creative force but I'd fancy it to hold the ball a damn sight better than we managed last night. If he'd kept Sancho on with Ronaldo, those two could have tried to keep them busy on the counter. Then we could just go five at the back for the last ten minutes.

 

[pratyush_utd]

 

[TMDaines]

Worth remembering this masterclass from Tuchel, when people are humming on him getting a point at Anfield with 10 men:

 

[noodlehair]

See, the difference between you and I is that you are really good at at shaking your fist and pounding the table, denouncing everything and everyone without a clue or suggestion on how you would fix it. I explained why he went to a back 3 and why it was the right choice. If you’re going to counter, at least have the balls to say what you would have done that was different than Ole’s tactical change. You are saying take off Pogba or Fernandes and replace them with who? And what would be your tactics? How would you deal with constant 3v2s in midfield and only one striker?

sometimes there is no good answer. I realize you are frustrated and need someone to blame because it’s easy, but it’s not fair to Ole in this case, mate.

The first part of your post makes you sound really obnoxious.

Then it goes downhill when you start going on about the reason why you are right, after the game has finished and proved, extremely definitively, that you were and are in fact, completely wrong.

Unless you watched the second half and came to the conclusion that we played well and were somehow unlucky, in which case you are both delusional and completely wrong.

I literally explained how I would have "fixed it" in my post which you obviously also didn't bother to read properly before deciding to reply to

trying to pretend to be a tactical football genius on the internet is a mugs game. Doubly so when you are trying to explain why it was tactically right for the team you support to play awfully and lose the game.

 

[Stookie]

Just embarrassing really. Back down to earth.

 

[GueRed]

Ultimately we got done by a couple of schoolboy errors and a bit of poor in-game management.

We'll do these game-raisers at home.

Next two CL games are at home. I think we'll win both.

Old Trafford will be electric

 

[noodlehair]

Ultimately we got done by a couple of schoolboy errors and a bit of poor in-game management.

We'll do these game-raisers at home.

Next two CL games are at home. I think we'll win both.

Old Trafford will be electric

We should still go through for sure, but it's very un-reassuring to see our manager make such a mess out of what wont be nearly his biggest test this season if he or we expect to be challenging for anything.

Ole tonight reminded me of Southgate in the Euros final. In that you watch the game and its all too clear the manager is making it much more difficult for his team to succeed as opposed to actually helping them.

 

[Judas]

To be honest, I did get Southgate vibes from that second half. It was just disastrous.

I still think we'll go through, but can I honestly say I'm sure we will given the evidence I've seen last night and how we managed the CL campaign last season? I can't.

Horrible horrible start, hopefully things can only get better from here.

 

[Mickeza]

A point against one of the weakest teams in the competition would not have been a good point. Oh my god the crowd was loud? Is that your excuse for that performance? We have had wins against bigger teams in much bigger stadiums in front of much louder crowds. What a stupid excuse. You obviously miss the point anyway. How you can actually defend that performance and not see it as anything but cowardly baffles me.

It would have been a perfectly acceptable point considering the circumstances to anyone with a brain that understands nuance and context. Alas you don’t appear to be one of them.

 

[frookydinho]

Really awful in game management from Ole. He panicked and reduced the midfield, allowed them to take control of the game, then completely took away any type of attacking outlet we could have had. Lucky the other game was a draw

 

[mitchmouse]

I'm afraid Ole is beginning to remind me of Boris Johnson, waffling on about "Harry Hindsight" being a great player - excuses for a terrible performance, covering for unbelievable bad substitutions and non-existent game management. Once again he looked like a rabbit caught in the headlights. He doesn't know what to do when Plan A (if there is a plan) falls apart.

Yes the players let him down but the selections were weird, the changes were worse and I think he panicked. We are told he understands the DNA of the club, then he replaces all our forwards. He isn't up to the job - we are never going to go forward until the board admit they got it wrong again.

I do agree that the red card was possibly a little harsh but earlier this season we saw 10-man Chelsea cope with Liverpool and surely it is something teams prepare for... or maybe not in our case. It's simple: the coaching and management isn't good enough. Ole wasn't up to it at Cardiff and I'm bored with the PR and propaganda that tells us he fixed a toxic atmosphere

 

[Steve Bruce]

Infuriating result, but I don't think we should take too much from it. Two brainless moments cost us the game, we were doing absolutely fine before the red and had done enough to hold on for a draw too.

Not interested in how good/bad Young Boys may be tbh, when it's 11v10 in a CL game you expect the team with a man down to spend most of their time defending.

One game lost, 5 left. We'll be alright.

It wasn't just 2 brainless moments, people seem to forget we where shocking with 11 on the pitch. Young boys where starting to find gaps.

Going down to 10 just compounded the problem with the performance.

The lineup was wrong with Varane dropped. Himself and Maguire need matches together, build up their relationship.

The subs where all kinds of wrong bar dalot for Sancho.

Lingard on before greenwood or martial is criminal. He's not bloody good enough, should have sold him.

The setup of the team wasn't apparent to me, what was oles plan? Then when we went to 10 men against a rubbish side in European terms he sat back and took off the only midfielder who wasn't losing the ball in VDB at HT. Who incidentally made more tackles than Fred in the first half. Fred has been terrible all season yet he stays on.

I hope this game gives us a good boot up the backside but last night for me we have seen why Ole isn't good enough.

 

[Ayoba]

Worth remembering this masterclass from Tuchel, when people are humming on him getting a point at Anfield with 10 men:

Every manager has their fair share of bad results, no one is arguing against that. And we went on to with the CL btw!

What we saw yesterday was a total lack of tactical knowledge that cost us. You could argue that we lose due to lingards mistake, but we were clueless and lucky up to that point. Just like we got lucky against wolves. And this isn't a one off, Villareal tactically outwitted us, all the semi final losses. The CL defeats last season against psg, Istanbul and Leipzig. This is a pattern that we see time and time again under Ole! When it really matters, he cannot deliver, or rather, doesn't know how to deliver.

Do you honestly believe we will finish ahead of the likes of Tuchel, Klopp, Guardiola? I'm not saying he's a bad manager, you cannot be bad and finish 2nd in the PL. But he's not an elite manager and I struggle to see us winning anything with him in charge.

 

[Zelex]

Infuriating result, but I don't think we should take too much from it. Two brainless moments cost us the game, we were doing absolutely fine before the red and had done enough to hold on for a draw too.

Not interested in how good/bad Young Boys may be tbh, when it's 11v10 in a CL game you expect the team with a man down to spend most of their time defending.

One game lost, 5 left. We'll be alright.

I agree. I'm not concerned about the result per say for the reasons listed (red card, Lingard brain freeze moment, away from home etc). These things do happen from time to time.

However my concern is more about the in-game management which is irrespective of the result. It was way below-par although it's only one game. I just expected a better handling of the situation but maybe my are too expectations are high.

 

[CR1]

Factor in the surface of the pitch which benefits the inferior team and the red card and these things can happen. The result is not due to Lingard’s mistake, but rather to having failed to create a margin for error when that mistake happened.

Positives: Decent performances by Vdb and Dalot. Both should move up the pecking order slightly from this and get a bit of a run in the team.

Midfield needs fixing as we know. Play McFred when McTominay comes back but until we can find a new specialized DLP/CDM I can see this team falling short again.

As for Sancho, he obviously needs more time. But I’m not really surprised by his showing. I see him as a luxury player you put into a team that is already playing well. He isn’t the type of player that will take a game by the scruff of the neck. If his name was Joe Smith he would have cost 35 million instead of 70. His mentality reminds more of Martial and Lingard than of Rooney or Tevez. His intricate dribbling and give-and go can be useful when breaking down low blocks though.

Ronaldo was feeding on scraps all game against BSC Young Boys and still managed to get a goal, but he was too isolated up front. Put Cavani there beside him and you will see an instant improvement on the overall attacking play of the team. Going forward the following HAS to be the starting line-up in the CL until we buy a recognized first choice DLP/CDM:

Ronaldo Fernandes Cavani
(Pogba or Rashford) Fred (Mctominay or Vdb)
Shaw Maguire Varane Awb
Ddg

I call this formation a false 4-3-3:

– Fernandes as a false 9 who will drop back to leave room for Ronaldo and Cavani
– Ronaldo as a false LW who will cut in and have a shot or pass
– Cavani as a false RF who in reality plays as the hard-working second striker that also offers hold-up play.

As you can see there are two positions where Ole can pick between two options depending on the game and opposition:

– On the left he can pick Pogba for more creativity in midfield or Rashford (when he comes back) for a true LF with pace in the attack.
– On the right he can pick Mctominay for McFred and all-action box-to-box or Vdb for passing, movement and late runs into the box.

Greenwood plus (Pogba or Rashford) and (Mctominay or Vdb) should be the three first subs to come on. The other two subs can be decided on depending on the circumstances.

 

[Bestietom]

The sending off was definitely the turning point in this game. But I still believe that if we don't strengthen our midfield in January, we will suffer more defeats by the bigger teams.

 

[Name Changed]

It would have been a perfectly acceptable point considering the circumstances to anyone with a brain that understands nuance and context. Alas you don’t appear to be one of them.

Obviously not, as you are in the minority.

 

[Lash]

The sending off was definitely the turning point in this game. But I still believe that if we don't strengthen our midfield in January, we will suffer more defeats by the bigger teams.

I agree it highlighted that midfield is clearly a big problem for us, rather than some tactical mistep. That and AWB and Lingard are dense.

 

[Bestietom]

I agree it highlighted that midfield is clearly a big problem for us, rather than some tactical mistep. That and AWB and Lingard are dense.

Martins was best midfielder on the pitch. We need McTominay back quickly, and Please get someone in January.

 

[Ixion]

Don't forget our last European game before this one was the Europa League final where we managed 1 shot on target in 2 hours and were chasing shadows for the last 45 minutes. Sticking Ronaldo up front isn't going to turn us into world beaters.

 

[noodlehair]

I'm afraid Ole is beginning to remind me of Boris Johnson, waffling on about "Harry Hindsight" being a great player - excuses for a terrible performance, covering for unbelievable bad substitutions and non-existent game management. Once again he looked like a rabbit caught in the headlights. He doesn't know what to do when Plan A (if there is a plan) falls apart.

Yes the players let him down but the selections were weird, the changes were worse and I think he panicked. We are told he understands the DNA of the club, then he replaces all our forwards. He isn't up to the job - we are never going to go forward until the board admit they got it wrong again.

I do agree that the red card was possibly a little harsh but earlier this season we saw 10-man Chelsea cope with Liverpool and surely it is something teams prepare for... or maybe not in our case. It's simple: the coaching and management isn't good enough. Ole wasn't up to it at Cardiff and I'm bored with the PR and propaganda that tells us he fixed a toxic atmosphere

Did the players even let him down? There was no lack of effort or character and they weren't doing too badly prior to the red card and Ole interfering, in spite of him picking what I thought was a strange team with a bunch of creative players and no runners at all for them to play a forward pass to.

You could criticise Bissaka for the red card I guess, but red cards happen sometimes and its not like he lost his head and did something stupid. He just made a single mistake.

I would say 90% of the problem with our performance was down to Ole's "management" of the game. The red card is a big mitigating factor but it is not an excuse for the manager to go insane or fall to pieces mid game and start sabotaging his own team.

 

[Tincanalley]

At least we have the red card excuse because I'm not sure we win that with 11.

Good point

 

[Lash]

Martins was best midfielder on the pitch. We need McTominay back quickly, and Please get someone in January.

Agreed on Scott, I'd rather we started chancing with some different players like DVB and younger players like Hannibal before waiting for January mind.

 

[largelyworried]

Worth remembering this masterclass from Tuchel, when people are humming on him getting a point at Anfield with 10 men:

He'd been there for ten weeks. He then won the Champions League. Meanwhile last nights performance highlighted all the flaws that Ole has struggled with for the last three years. The comparison is absurd.

 

[mu4c_20le]

Did the players even let him down? There was no lack of effort or character and they weren't doing too badly prior to the red card and Ole interfering, in spite of him picking what I thought was a strange team with a bunch of creative players and no runners at all for them to play a forward pass to.

You could criticise Bissaka for the red card I guess, but red cards happen sometimes and its not like he lost his head and did something stupid. He just made a single mistake.

I would say 90% of the problem with our performance was down to Ole's "management" of the game. The red card is a big mitigating factor but it is not an excuse for the manager to go insane or fall to pieces mid game and start sabotaging his own team.

Did you completely block out Jesse Lingard? He literally handed the game to them. Because other than that, their only notable chance was a long shot that the BT commentators did their best to milk by emphasizing how De Gea had to get a palm on it, while ignoring the fact that it was going over anyways.

 

[Mike Smalling]

Worth remembering this masterclass from Tuchel, when people are humming on him getting a point at Anfield with 10 men:

What's your point exactly? Fergie lost 6-1 at home, Wenger lost 8-2, etc. Shit happens.

A blind man can see that Tuchel is a far superior manager to Ole.

 

[Bestietom]

Agreed on Scott, I'd rather we started chancing with some different players like DVB and younger players like Hannibal before waiting for January mind.

Agree 100%.

 

[Ibi Dreams]

How does Ronaldo going through on goal not get any points?

 

[noodlehair]

Did you completely block out Jesse Lingard? He literally handed the game to them. Because other than that, their only notable chance was a long shot that the BT commentators did their best to milk by emphasizing how De Gea had to get a palm on it, while ignoring the fact that it was going over anyways.

They also scored another goal. And no I didn't ignore Lingard, but he played that pass after Ole moved him into central midfield due to, for some reason, subbing his entire midfield off. Lingard is not a central midfielder. I would hazard a guess that Fred or VDB would have been significantly less likely to pass the opposition through on goal, and I would also hazard a guess that Lingard would be less likely to if he was playing in attack, where he is supposed to play. Also I say hazard a guess, but its not really a guess, its more a common sense assumption.

If you mismanage your team they tend to become more likely to underperform or make mistakes. This is kind of why there is supposed to be a manager of the team in the first place.

 

[sparx99]

Every manager has their fair share of bad results, no one is arguing against that. And we went on to with the CL btw!

What we saw yesterday was a total lack of tactical knowledge that cost us. You could argue that we lose due to lingards mistake, but we were clueless and lucky up to that point. Just like we got lucky against wolves. And this isn't a one off, Villareal tactically outwitted us, all the semi final losses. The CL defeats last season against psg, Istanbul and Leipzig. This is a pattern that we see time and time again under Ole! When it really matters, he cannot deliver, or rather, doesn't know how to deliver.

Do you honestly believe we will finish ahead of the likes of Tuchel, Klopp, Guardiola? I'm not saying he's a bad manager, you cannot be bad and finish 2nd in the PL. But he's not an elite manager and I struggle to see us winning anything with him in charge.

We finished above 2 of those last season so why would it be that far-fetched?

 

[cristianorooney]

Guys do you realise how pathetic and dopey you sound when you blame the pitch

Every manager has their fair share of bad results, no one is arguing against that. And we went on to with the CL btw!

What we saw yesterday was a total lack of tactical knowledge that cost us. You could argue that we lose due to lingards mistake, but we were clueless and lucky up to that point. Just like we got lucky against wolves. And this isn't a one off, Villareal tactically outwitted us, all the semi final losses. The CL defeats last season against psg, Istanbul and Leipzig. This is a pattern that we see time and time again under Ole! When it really matters, he cannot deliver, or rather, doesn't know how to deliver.

Do you honestly believe we will finish ahead of the likes of Tuchel, Klopp, Guardiola? I'm not saying he's a bad manager, you cannot be bad and finish 2nd in the PL. But he's not an elite manager and I struggle to see us winning anything with him in charge.

We literally did finish ahead of 2 of them last season.

 

[sparx99]

I don’t buy the Ole is bad tactically. I think he gets it right sometimes and horribly wrong others. We’ve had some very impressive wins over PSG, Man City, Liverpool just to name a few.

Where he does seem to have a recurring problem is an excess of caution when we have a one goal lead. Regardless of being down to 10 men we gave up all control in that game by going so defensive. It’s very similar to when he brought on Tuanzebe against Everton and it cost us two points. Ole doesn’t seem to realise having an attacking threat is part of defending a lead.

We seem to have far too many late equalisers or in that case concede a winner compared to other top sides.

 

[Sparky_Hughes]

To be fair we would get the odd game like this under SAF even, Basel, Maccabai Haifa, cluj, it happens