Greenlizard0 Weekend Football Thread ** spoilers ** [17th - 22nd August 2012]

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Robert1986 said:
RVP had 20 minutes. 20 minutes against 10 defenders. How is he supposed to get into the game? :rolleyes:

People jumping the gun here. We had Carrick and Valencia in defense. Vidic's first game back in 8 months and Evra. I thought we did ok to lose only 1-0.

Everton pretty much did what Chelsea did to Barca in the CL.

We will be fine. RVP and Rooney will start the next game. Goals will come.
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Ergh.

Right, let's go into a bit of detail about this.

Chelsea managed 4 shots at goal in the first leg of their Champions League clash with Barcelona last season.

Barcelona had 70% of the ball, whereas Chelsea only managed 30%.

Last night we achieved 4 more shots on goal compared to Manchester United. We also achieved 44% possession - 16% more than Chelsea.

We dominated the game for long periods, achieving more pass-to-chance ratio than you.

We only started defending deep 15 minutes toward the end, we were hardly going to allow the game to be as open as it was before then - that would be flat out stupidity.

It's comments like this which make the majority of United fans hated by the general football population, I'm not saying you're all like it - but people like this ruin it for you.

Pre-game it was pretty much touted to be an easy win for United, even Gary Neville said that they should have "no problem" beating us in the pre-game analysis.

We played to win, and it worked.

In fact, it could have been more than 1-0.
 
Sir Alex Ferguson said:
"He (Fellaini) is a handful: he is a big, tall, gangly lad and they just lumped the ball forward to him, that's all they did," added Ferguson.

"They worked from that base all the time and they got a goal from him, so it's justified.

"Centre-back is a problem but we coped quite well, I don't think you can criticise their performance in that respect.

"It was just difficult to handle him when they were knocking these balls up to him.
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I have to agree that this is a bit disrespectful. Everton did use him as a ridiculously effective target man, but they played very well as a unit and were obviously going to score. They were also sensible to defend, as we had a hard enough time trying to break them down before they all started defending, so once they parked the bus, it looked very unlikely that we were going to score. Chelsea aren't comparable, they played 100% on the counter and parked the bus from the off in the Champion's League - Everton didn't do that.

We didn't change anything in order to try and stop Fellaini, and he can be stopped, of course he can. Or at least contained to a greater extent than he was. This was rather stupid.

Sir Alex doesn't seem to be concerned about our attacking tactics. Time and time again last season we needed to score and were just sat with the ball in wide areas. Teams should be happy for us to have it there as we pose no threat from headers really; in the unlikely event that our crosses get past the first man.

We're also beyond woeful from set pieces, we very rarely score from corners... so stop crossing it perhaps, especially when we only have one good header of the ball on the pitch. Take a short corner, set up someone for a long shot, etc.

Nani and Young both cut inside (though weren't effective last night), but Valencia doesn't. Putting Welbeck on the wing for the sake of it seemed bizarre when we have Young, a player who can be handy in those situations.

No doubt we'll beat Fulham next week and this will all be forgotten about, until it happens again. Our problems don't seem to have been addressed. Thankfully we've got this promising new left back (who can play right back too) in, and we're able to mix up our attack quite a lot - which is nice. I'd like to see a different approach. We played a 4-2-3-1 last night, yet mentally the players were playing in a 4-4-2; this doesn't work.
 
What was most frustrating for me was how we didn't learn. First 10 minutes you could see what Everton were looking to do and Fellaini was controlling and winning everything.

We should have doubled up on him when we didnt have the ball, or whoever was defending against him should have had a little bit of intelligence to try something else as it was painfully obvious none of our players were strong enough either man to man or in the air.

That being said, I think Kagawa looked good on the ball and he made some nice passes and De Gea thankfully looked sharp.

Still, you have to remember Everton had the 3rd best defensive record last season, so breaking them down was never going to be an easy task. Coupled with the fact we had our best player from last season playing right back, Vidic only just back from 8 months out and not match fit, Carrick playing CB when he really doesnt have the physique for it especially on corners, as was shown with Fellaini's goal.

Not panicing though, we have some serious talent in the squad and now its just a case of how best to utilise it. Looking forward to next game.
 
Kagawa is going to be a top player. His moment off the ball is top drawer.

What ManU is missing a top defensive midfielder. As a Newcastle fan I really can't understand why you not come in for the likes of Cabaye or Tiote.

Those two would win the ball and feed Kagawa all night long. While giving your defense much needed cover.

Players have started coming out saying they hate playing against them as they are like a bad rash before they even get the ball they can hear them breathing over their shoulder.
 
Number_25 said:
I think we did a bit more than "lump" the ball to Fellaini.
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Yes you did do more than just lump the ball up to Fellaini but lets not pretend you didn't do that a lot either. Fair play to Everton their tactics worked and were the better side, I dont see the problem calling it like it is though. It's not disrespectful.
 
Just woke up and still can't believe we've lost our first match.

And to fergie if that was all they were doing, why didnt we stop them? Close the ball early. Pressure the long ball. Etc. Hoofing it to fellani isn't some uber unstoppable tactic that will take them to the league title.

Why can't there e some accountability. Rooney absolute garbage. Nani and young both terrible. Evra bad. Carrick...not his fault i guess.

And to people saying we are a slow starter im pretty sure we got a good start last season and still lost the league. Every game and every point is critical now. Sadly we have seen city come back from advrrsity to win while we just play out the loss. It was pretty pathetic anti climax to the whole summer and rvp incident.
 
Tom84 said:
Yes you did do more than just lump the ball up to Fellaini but lets not pretend you didn't do that a lot either. Fair play to Everton their tactics worked and were the better side, I dont see the problem calling it like it is though. It's not disrespectful.
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It's a bit stupid of him to say that though, having done absolutely nothing in the game to address it.

It was clear as day that Fellaini was ripping us apart, Cleverley and Scholes were never going to be able to stop him and he should have been a Vidic priority at corners.
 
Robbo said:
It's a bit stupid of him to say that though, having done absolutely nothing in the game to address it.
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Sometimes you just have to hold your hands up and say he was unplayable which Fellaini was, we simply dont have anyone in our squad that can deal with someone like him when he plays like that (and tbf Fellaini isn't the type of player you face every week)
 
Tom84 said:
Sometimes you just have to hold your hands up and say he was unplayable which Fellaini was, we simply dont have anyone in our squad that can deal with someone like him when he plays like that (and tbf Fellaini isn't the type of player you face every week)
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Fellaini was excellent, but he's not Messi or Ronaldo, and even they can be contained.

We essentially had 3 advanced attacking players on the pitch and we were under siege for most of the game until they scored. Why not stick on Anderson as someone to try and press him, force him to make mistakes. He will make mistakes.

We made no effort to stop him really, and as difficult as that would have been, we should have tried.
 
I don't ever see the justification for bitterness from managers when they have a front pair that costs more than the whole everton squad and the wages probably from the forward line up is more than our squad :D

I can understand he's frustrated but he should have the players with all that money to take the game back. Fellaini is not exactly world class, he's a big average player who has managed to dominate a game he has no right too.

Fellaini will have literally 5 of those games a year. It's good that he's done it against united because chelsea will pay 25m for him now and then realise how he can go from last nights game to a clumsy lug for the next 7 ;)
 
Fellani is now unplayable? Trolol ? Great excuse making to cover up our own gash performance. We have a team if midgets. No strength except for vidic. Next it will be Grant holt who is the worlds greatest.

But in a way im glad it proved a point that all teams need a plan b or a big man of their own which ive stated for some time. Yet we did not buy:(
 
Number_25 said:
Ergh.

Right, let's go into a bit of detail about this.

Chelsea managed 4 shots at goal in the first leg of their Champions League clash with Barcelona last season.

Barcelona had 70% of the ball, whereas Chelsea only managed 30%.

Last night we achieved 4 more shots on goal compared to Manchester United. We also achieved 44% possession - 16% more than Chelsea.

We dominated the game for long periods, achieving more pass-to-chance ratio than you.

We only started defending deep 15 minutes toward the end, we were hardly going to allow the game to be as open as it was before then - that would be flat out stupidity.

It's comments like this which make the majority of United fans hated by the general football population, I'm not saying you're all like it - but people like this ruin it for you.

Pre-game it was pretty much touted to be an easy win for United, even Gary Neville said that they should have "no problem" beating us in the pre-game analysis.

We played to win, and it worked.

In fact, it could have been more than 1-0.
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Agree Everton were the much better side. ManU dominated possession wise but had no real clear cut chances and as you say Everton could have scored a lot of De Gea didn't play as well as he did.
 
The Running Man said:
Cleverly had a clear cut chance. Rooney had a couple of chances.
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RvP played in Kagawa at the end too.

We really need to shift the attacking focus to RvP and Kagawa, they will carve open defences and score goals. I'm not sure what's wrong with Rooney but he looks very much off the pace.
 
Robbo said:
Fellaini was excellent, but he's not Messi or Ronaldo, and even they can be contained.
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Not really the same thing is it, it's simple anatomy with Fellaini, he's simply bigger and stronger than pretty much everyone in our side and that's putting aside the obvious ability the lad has as well.

The only way we could have done better last night would have been if we had Jones at RB (big tall lad himself), Rio in defence and maybe Fletcher in midfield (but even then I doubt he'd of done much). Unfortunately injuries meant none of those 3 were available.
 
Tom84 said:
Not really the same thing is it, it's simple anatomy with Fellaini, he's simply bigger and stronger than pretty much everyone in our side and that's putting aside the obvious ability the lad has as well.

The only way we could have done better last night would have been if we had Jones at RB (big tall lad himself), Rio in defence and maybe Fletcher in midfield (but even then I doubt he'd of done much). Unfortunately injuries meant none of those 3 were available.
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I know it's not the same thing, that was just an example. Fellaini is not unplayable, we just didn't play well enough to stop him, we didn't try to stop him really.

He was tearing us a new one between defence and midfield and we basically just had Cleverley running after him. Take off Scholes and have Anderson closing him down as well, do... something.

You can't tell me we should just expect to lose to Everton if Fellaini is playing well!

I'm sure we would have fared better if we had the likes of Jones and Ferdinand on, unquestionably, but they weren't available and the next best option wasn't just to ignore Fellaini and let him play how he wanted. Okay, he's going to win the aerial battle, so when he does we need two quick midfielders who can press him and close him down so he can't do anything extra.

Obviously this wouldn't have stopped the goal, that was down to the simply outrageous tactic of Carrick marking him at corners and not Vidic.
 
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