CL D Champions League Group F

Manchester United 1:1 Young Boys

Post-match discussion


Wed, 08 December 2021

Positives: not many tbf apart from the kids getting a run out which is always good to see. Thought Bailly looked good as did greenwood obviously.

Negatives: was a huge opportunity handed to AWB & VdB tonight and both of them were really poor. Must be question marks over whether or not they are good enough for a squad/team that wants to challenge at the top.

Mata, Lingard, Matic ?? Times up guys, thanks for the service.

I didn't see any attempt to press or control the game/use the pitch with a high line etc (like we did v palace)...I think Ralf will be really disappointed in that performance.
 
Considering how the new manager speaks about control, I was very surprised with the team selection. There was no balance to the team and a number of players were played out of position. We were lucky to come away with 1-1, it could have been any result.

Playing Mata as a CM is suicide at this level for example.

I was not surprised by DVB performance either, he hasn't shown anything to suggest he will a good player for us, he gives balls to people in tight areas and his spacial awareness overall is very poor for a centre midfielder. I didn't like the fact he put younger inexperienced players in trouble with his passing - the guy is a liability - no wonder he hasn't been able to get a game - this is Man Utd not the dutch league, you get punished at this level. Lingard was highly disappointing as well, regularly overrun the ball like some schoolkid trying too hard to impress, when his experience was needed tonight.

Amad and Elanga tried too hard at times like Lingard, however, being so young they have an excuse.

On positive note, really pleased Greenwood got a goal and in terms of quality on the ball he was head and shoulders above everyone else. Congratulations to Heaton (eventually), Iqbal & Savage on their debuts.
 
Nice goal.

Cool seeing the youngsters getting a run out and/or making debuts.
 
mehh. Reserve team played like our first team under Ole. I expected more intesity but this is just the quality we have in our backup team.
Diego Dalot has been playin well resently so I thought AWB would deliver tonight, but apart from being able to run fast and tackle, he really is awfull. He really has nothing.
I love Mata but he's past his best, and even his second best.
I really don't know what DvdB is supposed to bring us. Is he a defensive midfielder or is he supposed be attacking midfielder? I just don't see the point of having him on the field. What is he good at?

Still early days and our manager is still getting to know the players, I just hope we will get rid of some of those dead wood next summer.
 
Considering how the new manager speaks about control, I was very surprised with the team selection. There was no balance to the team and a number of players were played out of position. We were lucky to come away with 1-1, it could have been any result.

Playing Mata as a CM is suicide at this level for example.

And who cares about the result? Sure, it would have been nice to win the game. But we got a new manager who has a totally different style than what we played the last years. The schedule is busy. Of course he will use the full week of training to implement his ideas further on our first team players and prepare us for a league game instead of having the distraction of this dead rubber. So i think Ralf didn't care too much about any balance, he just wanted to have nobody of the starting eleven of our next league game involved today.

Absolutely the right decision imo.
 
Greenwood was outstanding. Bailly played very well. Henderson is my favorite keeper to watch.

I really think Shaw was a bit out of his element with the squad in front of him. But he connected well with Greenwood.

Gotta give Donny a little slack with the outfield he had to work with. Matic was a bit out of his element on the back line.

AWB did himself no favors tonight.

As for the rest... I wasn't too hopeful with the lineup Rangnick put out, but it was a free hit and the first squad is well rested for the weekend. But the team on the field played about like I would have expected them. Bright spots here and there, a fair amount of disorganization... And Young Boys couldn't capitalize. I am not disappointed by most of what I saw.

On to the weekend.
 
Meh. Rangnick certainly won't be impressed. Nobody other than Greenwood covered themselves in any glory there at all and the second half was atrocious. Thankfully it was just a dead rubber.

It was pretty much just a case of wanting to rest the entire team from the weekend, which I think is why we had the unbalanced line up with Matic at centre back and Van De Beek and Mata in centre midfield. He didn't want to play Lindelof, Maguire, McTominay or Fred and we don't have much strength in depth at the moment.
 
Positives: not many tbf apart from the kids getting a run out which is always good to see. Thought Bailly looked good as did greenwood obviously.

Negatives: was a huge opportunity handed to AWB & VdB tonight and both of them were really poor. Must be question marks over whether or not they are good enough for a squad/team that wants to challenge at the top.

Mata, Lingard, Matic ?? Times up guys, thanks for the service.

I didn't see any attempt to press or control the game/use the pitch with a high line etc (like we did v palace)...I think Ralf will be really disappointed in that performance.
It was much better than most of our performances with our strongest team over the past 3 years.
 
Haha wow. If the players don't follow his instructions then they should absolutely be benched.
The Ole holiday is over. Get good or get benched.

He sounded quite frustrated after the match with the sloppiness from the players not following his instructions about cutting out the pointless sideways short passing which as he says is only an invitation for a pressing team to take the ball off you.

As you say I think he is going to be much tougher than Ole and more forthright about the players need to do to play under him.

In another interview after the match he was full of praise for Greenwoods technical ability , and thinks he is a massive talent with huge potential but still needs to develop physically to take the next step and become a regular player. Rangnick said it was his job to develop him and make him the complete player
 
Players with not much game time + youngsters + a new way of playing. Y'all are thinking this was going to be some kind of technical masterclass and sterling performance?

It's a shame some senior players didn't cover themselves in glory, but I also can imagine it must be quite difficult playing your game to a high level with players you hardly ever train with, let alone play with.

Well done to the lads who came on and got their debuts. Fantastic evening for themselves and their families.
 
Haha wow. If the players don't follow his instructions then they should absolutely be benched.
The Ole holiday is over. Get good or get benched.
Woow that’s Ralf after a team of youngsters and mostly squad players drew… contrast to this… by the way that video was posted a year ago. There really are levels to managers.
 
Biggest disappointment for me was dvb. Just felt he hid instead of going to receive the ball.

Had some good touches too but doesn't make himself available
I thought he got stuck in well in the first half and played some nice passes through the lines both in the first and second half. Yes he was at fault for the goal but Mata hardly helped him, he needed Matic in there with him as he was frequently overrun.
 
Pathetic, so glad he's gone.
Did you watch enough to see his comments after we got beaten by mighty Bournemouth? Really think people need to hear that, he equated Man Utd to Bournemouth and said it’s always going be a low scoring match between those two teams and whoever scored first wins it.
 
Thought we played well first 20 minutes or so. Brilliant goal by Mason. No idea why we sat so deep second half.

It should be the last appearance for the likes of Mata and Lingard.
 
I thought the first half was very impressive. If Ole had played that team we would have been down 2 or 3 by half time. To think that we missed 3 big chances too.
The pressing stopped in the second half and we were very rusty in possession as was to be expected.
The key for Ralf is to get the team pressing effectively until at least the 70th minute In every game.
Looking forward to the weekend.
 
It was a very sloppy performance.

The first half hour was okay. Not cohesive but you could see the way they were trying to carry out a similar plan to the first team, which was promising.

But then it descended into shit. You could see the match fitness and lack of familiarity between everybody on the pitch in the passing. They had no idea what to expect of each other.

But ultimately this will be a positive for the younger players. Of course it's more useful to come into a functioning team, but still, it's CL football against a decent side that had something to play for.
 
I know it was just a cameo from Mengi, but he showed some decent touches, including a terrific block after he slipped over. I hope he develops
 
some players got a rest, others got some well needed minutes, game was pretty blah, overall what most people expected seeing the side, Mata, Matic prob need moved on will free up some wages, we move on with a pretty decent run of fixtures up coming
 
Good to see a lot of fringe players get decent minutes for the first time in a while. Some of them obviously very rusty, others very inexperienced at this level and others just showing their age. The conditions clearly didn't help in the first half where we were clearly trying to play a quick passing game and ball just flew across the turf. Overall we got the game we should have expected given the line-up, it was more about the manager sizing up what he had on the bench, handing out gametime and resting key players than it was about winning. Having said that though, in the first half we played with good stuff and should have been a few up by half time.
 
Bad auditions for majority of the players. Only Greenwood, Bailly and Henderson deserve some praises. VDB didn't grab this chance. AWB is losing his place to Dalot. Still hope for Shaw to get his place from Telles.
 
Mad man Bailly gets my MotM. Him, Greenwood, Shaw and Henderson had a good game. They looked sharp and class above others.

With the amount of one-on-one chances we had, a draw is a massive result for YB.
 
A dead rubber with many youngsters getting a chance. I like these type of games, we haven't got one since ages.

Obviously not the best in terms of quality, but rarely it in terms of team chemistry and collective output for a bunch of kids that are playing for a first time.

Elanga should've buried that though..
 
Good performance from the lads especially the defence when they shut down the goal except for the one-off superb long shot. Hopefully Rangnick will play more of the reserve team going forward rather than players like Maguire, McTominay, Lindelof etc.
 
Woow that’s Ralf after a team of youngsters and mostly squad players drew… contrast to this… by the way that video was posted a year ago. There really are levels to managers.

I cringed watching that. I really couldn't get through it all. He's really tactically inept. Can't even share what went wrong tactically with the media'
'Ole what went wrong today?'
Ole: No commitment, energy, passion, belief etc. etc.
Its looney toons. I'm happy he's gone.

Thanks for sharing the video.
 
Even though CAF was sulking I quite enjoyed the game. Not for the result but we got to see some nice debuts and youngsters get some game time. A lot of players today hardly played this season so was good for them to get some minutes as we go into Christmas busy schedule.
Shoretire, Mengi, Amad all looked quite comfortable out there.
Baily and Greenwood were clearly above the rest in performance.
Matic, Mata and Lingard will not be missed when they leave.

Amad is not ready for EPL, may be in 2 years time.

Matic was OK in his new position, 5th choice CB perhaps.

AWB was awful, but he is still young so might improve with his ball control and passing, if he works hard. VDB is simply not a CMF, may be a few more domestic cups can help.
 
Interesting game to watch, but I enjoyed seeing the youngsters get a run out. Amad played well and seemed like he has the workrate and desire to play for Ralf. Mengi played good when he came on too, slotted right in and looked like he had been in the team a while. Elanga put himself about, but seemed to be shoved off the ball pretty easily, in fact a lot of that going on, but we are talking men vs kids for the most part.

Not sure why VDB is getting so much flack in here, he played as a #6 with Mata as his MF partner. I thought other than the mistake, which is shared with AWB, that he was one of our best players, he seemed to dictate our play in the first half, and he, as well as the whole team dropped off significantly in the second half, but with about 10/15 mins to go VDB seemed to get back into the game it seemed to lift the whole teams performance... relatively speaking of course, the second was pretty shit. And VDB may not have created a lot of chances, but that wasn't the role he was playing, he made a lot of nice tackles.
 
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He sounded quite frustrated after the match with the sloppiness from the players not following his instructions about cutting out the pointless sideways short passing which as he says is only an invitation for a pressing team to take the ball off you.

As you say I think he is going to be much tougher than Ole and more forthright about the players need to do to play under him.

In another interview after the match he was full of praise for Greenwoods technical ability , and thinks he is a massive talent with huge potential but still needs to develop physically to take the next step and become a regular player. Rangnick said it was his job to develop him and make him the complete player
It will take some work to get rid of old habits and I hope the fans give him the time he needs. I will take a few losses if it means we're working hard behind the scenes to improve or adapt to Ralf's system. Klopp's early days was anything but rosy.

Also he's mentioned Greenwood several times since he's joined. Clearly rates the lad.
 
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Quite a few of the players out there today shall return to the departure lounge.

Maybe there's some free juice
 
Every time I see Mata I wonder if he's been taken out of cryo next to Michael Jackson and thawed out for the game. Oh can we just thank him for a great career and just let him go now?
 
When was the last time a Utd., manager could field a virtual second 11 in a European Cup game. To my mind he used this game to assess the depth of his squad to play at a level above that of the Premier League. He has been able to assess senior fringe players are they able to fit into his system, but also the younger players wether they have the ability to progress to a higher level required but also can they cope mentally with that step up and what will be required of them.
I am sure from to nights game he and the staff he has brought in will have a better understanding of the capabilities of his squad, and those who have the abilty and can adapted to his methods and systems of play.
To nights game was a learning curve for the players, coaching staff and manager.
 
We changed our keeper at 67 minutes and we didn't lose. Tells you all you need to know about the game.

Let's hope Lingard goes because he can't be arsed and all the slating Martial and Pogba get for being lazy, Lingy just outdid both of them in the can't be arsed category.
 
Bad auditions for majority of the players. Only Greenwood, Bailly and Henderson deserve some praises. VDB didn't grab this chance. AWB is losing his place to Dalot. Still hope for Shaw to get his place from Telles.
Thought VDB didn’t do anything to not warrant future chances. We’ve seen him play better and his better is miles better than McT & even Fred, his meh like today was still a 6/10
 
Bizarre opinions in here I have to say...why so negative? it literally didn’t matter at all what the result was. Playing an experienced core was to try and retain the ball better but I think the weather and rustiness played a key part.

Lots of loose passes and dodgy first touches...but also good minutes in a high tempo game mean those players are much better placed to step in if required.
Because the "senior" players look like crap. With that performance and the wage paid, they are stealing a leaving. Lingard, Bissaka, Matic are the main suspect.
 

Player Ratings

5.6 Total Average Rating

Highest Rated Player

Lowest Rated Player

Compiled from 219 ratings.

Score Predictions

193,8,14
  • Man Utd win
  • Young Boys win
  • Draw

Detailed Results

  • 33% Man Utd 2:0 Young Boys
  • 25% Man Utd 3:0 Young Boys
  • 12% Man Utd 2:1 Young Boys
  • 6% Man Utd 5:0 Young Boys
  • 6% Man Utd 3:1 Young Boys
  • 5% Man Utd 1:1 Young Boys
  • 5% Man Utd 4:0 Young Boys
  • 2% Man Utd 4:1 Young Boys
  • 1% Man Utd 0:0 Young Boys
  • 1% Man Utd 0:1 Young Boys
  • 1% Man Utd 1:0 Young Boys
  • 1% Man Utd 0:2 Young Boys
  • 1% Man Utd 1:2 Young Boys
  • 0% Man Utd 5:1 Young Boys
  • 0% Man Utd 2:2 Young Boys
  • 0% Man Utd 0:5 Young Boys
Compiled from 215 predictions.
Show more results Score Predictions League Table

Match Stats

  1. Man Utd
  2. Young Boys
Possession
49% 51%
Shots
7 17
Shots on Target
5 5
Corners
2 4
Fouls
8 14

Referee

Benoît Bastien