Reserves vs Motherwell

Cheers PS18.

We had a very young side out against a decent Scottish side so it will be a good experience for them. Reserve debuts for Morrison and Tunnicliffe too?

There's highlights on MUTV at 7.30pm on Tuesday FYI.
 
Morrison played for the reserves against Kendal Town last season (and in the BlueStars, which was as good as a reserve team), and Tunnicliffe was a sub in the Antwerp friendly last month.
 
Eikrem has improved a lot - I never thought he would make it, but now he is starting to look like a quality reserve-team player.

He looks a lot quicker and mobile than before - frequently he drifted out of games because he seemed a bit sluggish, but now he darts past defenders like I never expected him too.

He almost reminds me of a young London-born midfielder who had a decent-career at United
 
I've always liked Eikrem whenever I've seen him play as has an excellent footballing brain, balance and eye for a pass. He seems to have grown quite a bit and is starting to fill out a bit too.

He can play anywhere across the midfield too and has been imposing himself far better in games. I was actually most impressed with him against Bolton in the Senior Cup as he was playing against older, far more experienced and physically imposing players and wasn't overawed or outmuscled.

Unfortunately for him there are a lot of other good young midfielders at the club - Drinkwater, Cleverly, James, Norwood, etc but I definitely think he has a chance, and Ole certainly rates him very highly.
 
lysglimt said:
Eikrem has improved a lot - I never thought he would make it, but now he is starting to look like a quality reserve-team player.

He looks a lot quicker and mobile than before - frequently he drifted out of games because he seemed a bit sluggish, but now he darts past defenders like I never expected him too.

He almost reminds me of a young London-born midfielder who had a decent-career at United
Click to expand...

Ince. ;)
 
:D

The more I see Eikrem, the more he reminds me a little of Luka Modric.
 
The Sir Matt Busby Shield

Just got back from Motherwell......a very long day!

We arrived at about 1.15 and a quick look around the ground which is now all seater on all four sides. A quick drink in the Fir Park Social club where we found loads of Reds singing from the United Songbook and being welcomed by the locals who were all very friendly.

The police insisted on segregating the fans so that meant we all had to walk around the ground to get in......a long walk as the away entrance is not connected to the rest of the ground.

The game started in atrocious conditions with rain and wind soaking the spectators. A a conseqeunce very little good football was played in the opening ten minutes or so.

From then on our play slowly deteriorated. Febian Brandy had an early chance when he collected a sloppy pass across the Motherwell defence and ran through on goal. Rather than shooting he took the ball past the keepr as the defenders recovered. The ball was blocked and fell to Ollie Norwood on the edge of the box, but his shot was well wide when he should have really hit the target.

That was the closest we came to scoring in the whole game!

At half-time a 0-0 scoreline was indicative of a very poor game.

We seemed unable to create anything at all and kept passing the ball across the middle of the park without going anywhere. In fact it was dire! Then Motherwell took the lead with a good goal down the right and one of their forwards slotted the ball past Ben Amos, who had made a couple of very good saves beforehand.

The game continued to be lethargic and tumescent with virtually no talking points from our perspective at all.

Motherwell clearly had more experience and were very organised and probably just deserved a 1-0 victory. At the end of the game the announcer commented that if the match were to finish even, the Matt Busby Shield would be shared and no extra time or penalties would take place.

It got the biggest cheer from the 300/400 United fans in the away end as we would have been cutting our wrists if we had to watch another 30 minutes!

In terms of individual performances....Ben Amos was probably the pick with some good saves with James Chester very solid at the back. Fabio was caught of position time and time again and he lost the ball whenever he went forward. The midfield were very ineffective with no real ideas of how to create any chances and therefore Josh King was isolated up front on his own. Brandy was played out wide.

Tunnicliffe came on and looked lively....Morrison was showboating again and kept losing the ball, while Wootton was steady. He went into central defence at half time and Gill went to left back in place of Dudgeon.

To be fair, most of these lads played on Thursday night and looked a bit jaded......but it was easily the worst performance of the season.

As mentioned in the post above.......good experience if nothing else.

Team

1. Amos
2. F. Da Silva
3. Dudgeon
4. Norwood
5. Chester (capt)
6. Gill
7. Brandy
8. Hewson
9. King
10. Eikrem
11. Ajose

12. Wootton (3) '46
13. Devlin
14. Tunnicliffe (7) '54
15. Morrison (11) '68

Attendance: 3,470
 
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