Match Day Thread Atalanta v Manchester United

Pray for us if he is you mean!

 

Pray for him to be fit. Pray for us if he isn’t. That defence is nowhere near competent without him.

 

No they never showed it.

But I've seen it now. Bailly tried to step up to play Zapata offside. But Maguire in the centre was playing him on. That allowed Zapata to get a run on Bailly and left him for dead. Even then, Maguire should've got back ahead of Zapata but was too slow.

Fck up all round but that's our defending at the moment. I still think Bailly had a good game though.

 

Maguire played him onside by a few inches.

 

The last half hour after they scored the 2nd was just awful. We just lost all shape.

 

I've said it before and will say it again, we need two more CBs. If Varane and Bailly weren't made of crystal we would be well sorted but i fear they will rarely finish a match together.
Maguire is not good enough.

 

Bailly has played a good game 7/10. Maguire was 5 out of 10 at best. Pogba 4. Dreadful game. He is suspended so won’t be missed on this showing.

 

Hoping Maguire is unfit but he has been the weakest link in that defence too often.

 

Our priority is a decent solid CM/defensive midfielder mate.

Maguire is fine with Varane, he'll be fine with Bailly next to him. But only with a decent defensive central midfielder in front. Whether that's Rice or even Soucek who I really like aswell btw. Pogba can leave.

 

Just listened to Rio and Scholsey talking about Pogba and they both said virtually the same thing i have been saying for ages about the team/squad. There are no leaders who will **** players who are not doing it on the pitch or dressing room with the possible exception of Ronaldo.
Rio said maybe it's a generational thing but when they were playing you heard this all over the pitch, in the tunnel and in the dressing room
Players mate sure their team mates were aware of how poor they were playing.

 

Yeh that's all fine as far as Pogba's concerned. But that IS Pogba's problem and if that's what he needs to play well then he's not worth having.

 

I agree on the Pogba not worth having bit but you are missing the point, every player needs that at certain points and we don't have players to do the talking. They all should expect the same from their team mates as they are giving, if one or two are lacking the others should tell them but they don't.

 

What Scholes said is Pogba will need that when he's 35. He was highlighting that it's central to the type of person/player he is.

I agree there aren't enough leaders on the pitch but not for Pogba. I think he's downed tools for Ole, personally.

I don't mind a player's frustration when we're set up to play **** (like the Livpl game), but tonight when we were actually trying to play attacking football and everyone else was giving 100%, he had no right to play like that. Like I said, I think he's downed tools.

 

I agree about Pogba and if he ****s off in Jan will not shed any tears.
I was talking more about the team in general though where players need to sort/help others out when they are going wrong.
I am going to use Rashford as an example tonight (and believe me i love the lad), since our "system change" of two games ago () the team has been at least trying to press high when out of possession, we did (tried) that again tonight and pretty much achieved it. I bring Rashford into this because every time we lost possession he moved inward/narrow and left Shaw 2 on 1, somebody should have told him to cover the fullback and leave the centre to midfielders. Now this may well have been due to Ole's instructions but when it wasn't working someone should have said stay wide.

 

The more I watch this team and the more we go into the season, it is becoming obvious to me that our strength is in the counterattack. I don’t mean in a pejorative way. If you have the players in the team to do that best, why not? It seems that Ole has been trying to change the team into a passing and pressing team ala City and the RS. As long as we do that, we will be thrashed on many occasions because we don’t have the midfielders to do that. Put 5 to defend and keep the ball out of our net and put it in the other because we’ve got the firepower to do that against any team.

we play against City as we played against Spurs we’ve got a chance. Play like we did the second half tonight, we’ve got nothing but yet another humiliation.

 

Yeh I noticed that tbf

I agree about there being not enough leaders. It's been a long standing problem, ironically probably from the moment Rio left as he was the last of that mindset. Since then there's been no one.

I defo noticed Bruno directing players against Spurs. But it needs to be every game. And there needs to be more of them. I'd include Shaw in that.

The addition of a decent defensive CM who also takes command would be another.

 

It doesn't work at home mate.

And it certainly doesn't work against well drilled teams who sit back compact and organised to counter attack us.

The other thing is, setting up to play counter attack is one thing, but when you have the opportunity to do so and end up playing sideways football at a pedestrian pace then it's pointless.

 

That’s why you need intelligent players. Players who can decide for themselves when it is right time to counterattack and when it is right to play a more passing game. Agree that when you play against a sitting side you can’t play sideways and slow. We’ve had our fill of this with Van Gaal. I sat through match after match of this until we had fans saying that they prefer to get beaten playing risky football rather than watching this boring dross even if we win. If our play and movements are too damn slow, we also need leaders on the pitch who can inspire the others.

 

I don’t think Rashford should be starting under that 3-5-2 system. I’ve said numerous times that Martial would be better option on the left because he has solid ball to feet to help with link up play with the fullbacks. I think Sancho would be a good option too because he would press better than Rashford.

 

Horses for courses.