Our Passing v Fulham

moyses

Nope, at half time they were fretting too. It was weird.

apotheosis

It's knee jerk because you have overreacted after an indifferent performance. If we had won 5-0 i doubt you would have felt obliged to start the thread. You may have had these thoughts for a while and many others may share them. However your frustration during tonight's performance obviously grew to a point where you start a thread and start ranting about going out of europe, while we are regaining top spot in the League.

Yes we should have bought a midfielder, but we didn't. SAF made an error, and yes i think so too! It may well have cost us in Europe, but then again the fact we had so little experience in defence due to Vidic's injury and VDS' retirement has hardly helped. Nor has persistent injuries for TC and ando throughout the season which only compounded the unfortunate loss of Fletcher too. Saf's error was not buying cover for Carrick imo. Splashing out on someone to provide Barca-esque football would not have solved the problem of why we went out of Europe this year.

While you are bemoaning SAF's error, maybe you should take a moment to look at the amount of injuries we have had this year, and the youngsters and oldsters we have had to over-use somewhat as a result. Then consider the unbelievable job he has done not only keeping us in the title race with City, but actually giving us a great chance of winning it.

Look on the bright side, at least going out of Europe early will give him extra motivation to make sure it doesn't happen next season. In the meantime i will look forward to muppetting over potential summer transfers whilst contemplating the ever increasing possibility of a 20th league title!

ArmchairCritic

Yup, last 10 mins has blinded people's judgement.

Pogue Mahone

It was knee-jerk because it was based entirely on a brief spell of sloppy passing in the closing period of the game.

It had to be. What with the stats confirming that 9 out of 10 passes found their man, looking at the game as a whole.

Baxter

Just to add, from 80 minutes to FT, we had a very good 89% rate (73/82). I know it doesn't paint the whole picture, but there is some exaggeration in regards to our passing.

moyses

In fairness to them, it didn't.

711

Yep. How dare anyone make a critical point about our team. Ban them!

Pogue Mahone

We had a quiet spell in the middle of the first half but we were comfortable enough. Thank feck I kept out of the match-day thread.

ArmchairCritic

Yeah I though Welbeck was one our better players first half but I was in the minority.

Van Piorsing

If United could turn most of the chances into goals, today there would be no thread like this, but I perfectly understand the meaning of the word - 'rant'.

Finishing was the real problem, in my humble opinion. Passing rate wasn't bad at all.

Pogue Mahone

There was a horrible spell of about 3 or 4 minutes were we gave the ball away constantly. Some poor passing and some silly decisions. Might even have been earlier than the 80th minute?

ArmchairCritic

I think it has in that although we weren't superb before that but the last 15 mins has exacerbated what really happened, some people have said Fulham had a go and deserved a point but 5 shots (and a penalty shout) in 90 mins suggests otherwise. I agree there were many passes behind the man but that's not neccessarily the end of the world unless it's the final pass. It impacts the flow yes but isn't exclusively responsible for us not creating a good chance from that point on.

apotheosis

Oh i can also think of: Some people are never satisfied! It wasn't our best tonight with maybe only 3 or 4 players shining. But how many teams can win when half the team are not at their best? It was always going to be tough tonight considering City dropped points and we have a game we are expected to win comfortably, against a team we always beat at home!

Playing once a week doesn't help either. Playing every 3 days keeps your levels of sharpness up, but it can take it's toll in injuries too and we have had enough of those! So i am encouraged we can still win when we are nowhere near our best. It's one definite advantage we currently have over City anyway!

moyses

Maybe, but they were bitching from the 20 minute.

Baxter

Our worst period was around 68-69 minutes to around just before 80 minutes where it was down below 77%.

Edit: 68-75 we only made 66% of our 29 passes. I'd imagine the period you were on about was somewhere around about there.

tintedsepia

Don't know why you think I was only talking about the last 10 minutes. I noticed it during the whole game - even at the beginning! I wanted to write this thread even BEFORE we got to the last 10 minutes so I wasn't necessarily drawing reference to the last 10 minutes at all.

As I say I liked our pressing, but building passing momentum with each player having several passing options and the ball going to our players so that they don't have to break their stride I don't think with our players and coaches is too much to ask for - whether or not we can take on Barcelona etc.

Our passing isn't as accurate as it used to be. I watch clips of the likes of Cole, Yorke, van Nistlerooy, Veron, Butt, Neville, Irwin, and the ball tended to go in the right place. I fail to see what's knee-jerk about that.

ArmchairCritic

True, kind of snowballed in the end.

apotheosis

If i was looking at anything today it would be the amount of sloppy first touches, especially first half. I remember a few examples of poor control cost us a few decent opportunities to get a shot in.

I wouldn't even slag the finishing too much really. Valencia's shot was deflected, Young was well saved on a couple of occasions, and Giggs' was a decent enough reaction strike just unlucky to hit the defender really.

finneh

I actually think that a lot of our passing this season has been a yard away from where you know it should be and/or was intended to be. It is rarely terminal and often the player just checks his run if it's behind or stretches and just about keeps possession if in front but I've still found it incredibly frustrating, particularly when you know it's a relatively simple pass into someones stride that could set up a swift counter attack.

ArmchairCritic

Our passing was fine against WBA and Wolves, excellent at times. I'm sure you could take 10 min periods from many teams and nit pick about passing accuracy. Obviously 88% passing success suggest the ball did go in roughly the right areas but as you said many passes seemed to be behind the man. As I pointed out earlier this is not neccessarily critical though unless it's in the final third. Also the 8 days break can effect rhythm. Furthermore the movement and speed of thought also influences the pass and sometimes you'll have nights when player's aren't on the same wavelength.

Brosstan

Its still knee-jerk You are making a thread on the back of a single poor performance as if its a general problem with our play, which it isnt.

tintedsepia

Okay - let's not get side-tracked. I'm NOT TALKING ABOUT THE LAST 10 minutes.

I'm not even bemoaning giving the ball away - that can happen whether you're RM or Barca! The more progressive your passing the more you're likely to give it away. I don't believe we're ready to take on RM OR Barca in passing yet.

What I'm talking about is the ability to pass to a teammate so the ball arrives IN FRONT OF THEM and allows them to attack, rather than having them stop, break stride, allow time for the defender to get back in place or (and this didn't happen that much tonight) allow for the defender to intercept the ball.

I'm NOT TALKING ABOUT THE LAST 10 MINUTES so let's not get sidetracked

UnofficialDevil

Our passing was very sloppy tonight, terrible.

tintedsepia

This is what I'm talking about. It's rarely terminal - which is why my observation is not knee-jerk. I actually don't think we gave a poor performance as such tonight - I just think it was one of those days where we had difficulty getting the ball in the net due to a number of factors that are probably not worth examining too much.

But the fact our build-up play this season (after first few games and esp. in Europe) has often been slow and ponderous and I think this basic feature of our passing is a contributory factor.

ArmchairCritic

That's ball retention you're talking about, you see I agree with this somewhat but your OP was different in tone.

apotheosis

FFS it was knee jerk because you started it right after the match based directly on your view of what happened during the match! If you had started this thread yesterday morning, it would be a general observation. The fact you started it directly after tonight's game, after being frustrated by events during tonight's game, makes it a knee jerk reaction to the match itself.

tintedsepia

So what you're saying is that anyone who posts after the event is making a knee-jerk reaction?

apotheosis

A lot of it can be put down to swapping and changing personnel all the time. We often start with different varieties of pairings all over the pitch from one game to the next, so it is hard to get any real fluency or form.

Nev said it tonight about Evans. He is getting better because he is getting a regular run of games. Young has had a few now and he is getting back to his best, Valencia was brilliant before his injury and the confidence that gave him has carried on as though he has never been away.

Our problem is not being able to play Giggs or Scholes next to Carrick for more than one game at a time. Had Cleverley or Anderson been available more, we may have seen a more settled midfield. As it is the elder's need resting. At least we only have one game a week now i suppose!

GCHQ

Has anyone mentioned that Fulham were camped in their own half for most of the game with ten men behind the ball? I actually thought we did ok considering how well organised they were and how deep they defended. Giggs had a poor game but there were plenty of decent performances out there for us.

moyses

It seems not. Hysterical nonces.

moyses

No. He's saying that anyone who 'rants' after the event while ignoring the bigger picture is kneejerking.

apotheosis

No, anyone who rants after the event will be accused of a knee jerk reaction. Your view may well be one you have considered for some time, but tonight's game was the catalyst for you expressing that view, in a rant. Therefore your thread is being viewed as reactionary, surely you can see how?

As i said earlier, had you made the exact same point yesterday no-one would have been able to correlate it with any particular match,so it would have to have been taken as a general observation. But you didn't, you started it after viewing a performance which frustrated you to the point of ranting.

apotheosis

You beat me to it! I thought you'd gone fishing!

moyses

I am going now! I promise.

apotheosis

Hopefully not as knee jerk reaction to knee jerk reactionaries!

Heardy

Surprised by the level of positive reaction to the performance!

It was important and pleasing to get the 3 points, and we had the lions share of possession but we were lazy on the ball at times and did concede possession needlessly! A stronger side could well have punished us for our poor passing pay at times.

Not as bad as as the OP makes out, but similarly it is something that we can't afford to have creep into our game in the run-in.

RedThaiDevils#7

It wasn't bad, just some patches where we just didn't understand each other it always happens on the football field whether you are a Messi or Xavi...

Yeah... But there are off days, I don't get the rant its not like we with no accuracy but there were just a few moments where we didn't pass it well, no need to make a thread for it...

I think your mistaken, take Barca for example, how many times do they pass the ball back ? And is that really considered a bad thing ? As long as you don't lose the ball or as you can say lose a turn over, the passing is fine... Its not easy if players are forced under pressure... But yes there were a few woeful moments where we just gave the ball to them and we were trying too many long balls to Welbeck which wasn't like us... But when we were on tune we looked wonderful... Still it looked better than a lot of our other poor matches... ( while you didn't create a thread for that... )

Maybe you are still pissed over last summers transfer muppettery ? I still can't believe it though, I mean SAF himself as good as he isn't didn't predict that Ando would be injured most of the time, didn't predict that Cleverly would also get injured, and didn't predict about Fletchers injury before hand... If you read more *** Fletch's injury you'd know that it was quite hard to speculate how much he'll be out for but I mean he's no god FFS... Cleverly was find to replace Scholes, we actually beat Barca in a friendly - preseason while we had Welbeck and Clev's to stepup with Morrison and Pogba banging in, there was no need to spunk 40m on a Modric/Sneijder as there was no garuntee that they'd bring instant success... Again SAF does what he does best which is to trust in his team and trust in his youth talent...

Nothing wrong right now and for me as I was looking forward to see maybe the class of '11...

But there you go whining about a game where we actually won ( ok the penalty ) but we didn't play too badly...

Okay, talking about speed... Valencia put in countless of balls in, by no means we should have scored a lot... There was a lot of speed to our game... I don't believe speed was the issue, Rooney with his goal had an off game and lost the ball many times... If Rooney suffers usually are whole game suffers so I think it was a normal game.

Now this is what I was really pissed about, having a go a PJ with him not even playing ? Wtf is wrong with you ?

Okay you disagree with this summers spending because we opted to put faith in Clevs and Ando but you didn't want to sign one of the best prospects in the PL ? You'd rather have PJ playing for Liverpool ?

I don't agree mate, I mean last season JE was a liability, he lost form so maybe signing potential CB's would have been a good choice if SAF thought our youth side couldn't produce good enough CB's so 18m for one of the best youngsters is no means a bad deal and look at PJ's, he has had an immense season for a 19 year old... I couldn't ask for more maybe only Rooney has contributed more to our first team at that age, don't go on *** Ronaldo cuz at that time he hardly had any goals or assists...

So I mean, there's nothing wrong with being on top of the league while having a bad game but winning 3 points...

Ramshock

Our passing is at a decent standard and any team can have an off night like we did tonight but our passing is poor against pressure teams and I wish Fergie would do something about it.

tintedsepia

I'm not talking about passing the ball back. We should pass the ball back at times. I'm talking about destroying the momentum of our attacking play by not playing the ball into the path of a forwards moving teammate - and the teammate having to check, stop, stretch, and then go backwards. Not because that was what was meant, but because the accuracy of the passing wasn't there in the first place.

Speed: not complaining about our attack as such. Fulham defended in numbers and blocked countless shots and we found it difficult to break them down. I didn't think we performed badly! Others did. I thought our performance was okay for that kind of game. As I say our pressing impressed me and took me back to a time when we did this well with the likes of Keane, Ince, Robson etc. We used to really close teams down and had an arrogance that other teams shouldn't really have the ball. We had that tonight and we worked very, very hard. That pleased me as it shows that we are learning.

Not having a go at PJ - but our priorities laid elsewhere. I've always liked JE but felt for both he and Pique in the early years because of Ferdinand and Vidic - but JE's promise was shown in his early seasons with great performances so even last year didn't really question - just knew it was a bad season for him.

Yes I disagreed with the transfer policy. We already had JE and CS! Look - we needed a CM and I think even SAF has agreed with that. On interview when criticising fans saying we need to sign a CM in the winter break, a reporter asked him if the fans' worry was misplaced and he admitted "No.".

I've mentioned what I think about our passing above. I understand how my rant can be considered knee-jerk but disagree that my frustration which has been building over a lot of games and is then exasperated by a particular game is knee-jerk.

We can agree to disagree - point is our very basic passing needs to improve. Yes we had some moments but all of our players need to be aware of how to play the ball into the path of the player to make our attacking movements more fluid and to give the opposition less time to get players behind the ball!

In this way our overall teamplay will break teams down rather than having to rely on the brilliance of individual players or mistakes by the opposition. Its much easier to break teams down this way. Even Rooney - who I think is a world-class player - has been guilty of faulty passing which means our attacking moves break down.

But I'm not really blaming individual players - I think this trait is running through our team and therefore a relatively small adjustment could yield great rewards - particularly since that will be the base on which to start matching the Spanish sides for passing, passing options, and passing penetration. With that comes more confidence, more accuracy, and teammates believing that if they make a run they will be found!

quiet_united

Only watched the first half. Passing was poor to be honest. Not horrible but not spot on, it affect our attack move. Don't know how we were in front by half time.