Match Day Thread Swansea City v Manchester United

I always remember the 11/12 season. Battering everyone for the first few matches, 3-0 Spurs, 8-2 Arsenal, 3-1 Chelsea before the City hammering. Brought it back with a few more batterings, five past Wigan, Wolves and Fulham, then took our eye off the ball in April and bang went the title.

 

Not going to be popular this but rashford going off and mata gives mikhi more license to do what he does and he gets forward more. He cane alive after the sub's in both games . IMO even lukaku has better movement when this happens.

For me rashford needs to add more to his game. He simply puts his head down and runs far too often. Martial today showed how space can open with 1-2s and quick give and gos

Have to say find myself screaming at rashford a lot in games. He doesn't pass or look up enough.

Hopefully it will be reminisce of screaming at ronaldo when he first joined but currently martial starts over rashford for me as he is the better footballer

 

Fellaini before Herrera said a lot for me. Have to say I have never been convinced with Herrera and wouldn't be surprised if he wasn't here after this season

 

I won't be convinced about this team unless we go through the first 10 matches without conceding and scoring 'freely'.

It is funny that last season the press was all about "United deserved better than the scoreline as they dominated ". Now we have "the score did flatter United".

I definitely prefer the last one

 

That's the thing, unless you watch it's hard to have a good idea.

The BBC cracked on we were all over them all game but Mkhitaryan did very little until late on.

I've seen nothing saying we were poor but I'll accept your opinion as you watched it.

 

I wouldn't say we played badly at all. Swansea swamped their midfield with 5 players and for the majority of the game they had 9 or 10 behind the ball - so we didn't play badly in any sense, they simply smothered the game and made it very difficult for us to put as many attacks together. De Gea was a spectator, our defence was rock solid again - even Jones had a very good game and nullified the very few threats on goal from the opposition. I thought it was a good team performance given what they faced on the pitch and the formation change from Swansea late in the game was the catalyst for our goal rush at the end. No more than we deserved with some excellent play in midfield and good finishing from all the scorers.

 

It's funny you say 'even Jones' as when he and Bailly (fleetingly) played together last season they were our best partnership.

He's currently keeping Lindelof out, good on him. I think he can be a very good centre half if he ever stays fit.

 

Jones definitely seems much more assured, I don't know if that comes from having Bailly along side him, as opposed to Smalling, or whether the fact that the defence in general has a stronger, more secure midfield playing in front of it. Blind put in another good performance as too did Matic who seems to be threading the whole thing together - at times you could be forgiven for thinking there were two of him on the pitch.

 

Definitely poor, reminded me of watching Van Gaal's team. Way too slow, no urgency, obsessed with keeping the ball at any cost.

Obviously they had to come at us at some point after Bailly scored and we approached the 2nd half much more positively.

Good win in the end though, nice to have +8 after just two games.

 

We might well have been a little flattered by the overall score line, but who really cares. You are always going to come under pressure wherether you go in the PL.

What we showed today though is a real ruthless streak in attack, which has been our problem the last couple of seasons.

The defence now too looks a lot more solid, we don't look like we are going to gift easy chances. Only 1 shot on target for Swansea today.

Again the size and power of our team showed for the first goal, when you have Lukaku, Matic, Pogba and Bailly all in the box your going to cause major problems for the opposition, as most teams don't have enough players of that size to man mark us. I know it's not the traditional United way, but I won't be complaining if it continues to get us results.

 

Well, it is the traditional United way. At least under Fergie it was.

I don't recall Robson, Hughes, Bruce, Palister, Ince, Keane, Cantona, Giggs, Irwin, Neville, Stam, Ferdinand, Vidic, Evra, Ronaldo, van Nistelrooy, Scholes, Beckham, Rooney, van Persie (need I go on?) being anything other than hard ****s.

It wasn't until Moyes turned up that we became piss weak and easily bullied.

 

It's nice to be ruthless up front after last season for sure, Rashford had a good chance first half to put us 1-0 up, on another day he would have put that away.

Leicester up next, a big, physical back four so a different problem, I have a feeling Fellaini may start ahead of Mata.

 

That wasn't the point I was making. it was more in regards us being a huge aerial threat these days.

I know we've always had a few players in our team who are effective from set pieces, but I think we now have a huge advantage over most opposition in that regards.

 

Fair enough, I thought you were suggesting we'd never been a physical side because we definitely always have.

Mourinho has assembled a tall side for definite, yes.

 

Let's be honest about these 2 first matches: the teams were not that strong. In fact they were weak. Watching the matches I did not feel they were going to score against us at any time. More a function of their poor attack rather than our strong defence. It can be said that we are starting to look like a flat track bully.

This is exactly what we wanted last season. We drew matches against minnows, had 25+ shots on goal and were praying for us to be able to score against those sides. Far far too early to predict the title or even a challenge for the title but the main difference from last season is that once we score one goal, the feeling was that the other team were more likely to equalise than united scoring a second. The defence appears more solid this season and we keep wanting to score more. The other thing is that we have yet to be under pressure to retrieve a result. Can we still win if we go behind?

It is looking positive but we can only be confident of a good season if we keep up the same pace until the new year.

 

Spot on Christian.

 

Absolutely right, but this is a stronger side than the one that also had good results against the top teams last season - the difference this season is that we seem able to kill off the weaker sides. We can only beat what's in front of us - so far so good. With a strong spine we can now rotate with less overall impact on our basic play - JM has genuine tactical options from the bench and the squad has strength in depth. Looking forward to our first real test but looking at the results of others so far, it's not that easy to spot the real threat just yet.

 

The next match will be instructive. Leicester have been scoring goals so might present United with a significant test of their defence. If we have a clean sheet and score a few goals (surely not 4 again!?) then it will show the confidence of the players.

And surely this team should not be afraid of the likes of the RS, Arsenal, Spurs, Chelsea. These teams are weaker than United. And to be honest I feel that the players are confident enough this time to match City too,

 

Last season we would have held onto 1-0 after 80 and conceded after 90, we had son many games like this and we drew them. This season we are winning them and hopefully it continues. WE ARE THE TEAM TO BEAT

 

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