Rafael

Dion

I actually love him, he's everything you'd want in a Brazilian fullback but with excellent hair.

ricky-romeo

apart from his crossings, he was awesome.

imagine him with gaz nev's crossing ability, that would be excellent.

Ash_G

tbf it took neville a while to get his crossing to that level. Rafael is comfortably a better attacking player then nev was at that age. Great game today.

Pat_Mustard

Give it a few years and I'm sure that aspect of his game will develop too. Neville's crossing improved immeasurably as he got older, simply through hard work and repetition

Snow

His crossing isn't that bad. If you manage 1/4 of your crossing you've got a better than average ratio. If you can't pick out a man with your cross then it should at least be uncomfortable for the defense to deal with. Can lead to poor clearance hopefully.

Amar__

I can't understand how people still rate Jones higher than Rafael at fullback. With this kind of form, he is probably one of the best fullbacks in the league, right or left. Let's hope he continues with good performances, and stays injury free.

Escobar

Should be our no1 RB now - excellent performance

Kraftwerker

Best right back in the league.

A few years ahead of schedule too.

championo

You just can't say anything about Rafael's crossing when you have Evra on the pitch.
I am shocked that he got an assist today. I am to the point that when Evra gets the ball attacking, I am hoping he passes before he attacks the box.

LLMU

Everytime i see his name along with Valencia in the team sheet, i knew the opposite left back would be in for a torrid time

kiristao

Really wonderful performance today. His link up with valencia is excellent.

He is not be very consistant with his passes but it is pretty obvious he has the ability. He made a few wonderful attacking passes yesterday to put Valencia and Rooney through.

Wittmann45

I remember our scout, Kershaw, said the twins were like bouncing balls in that when they got knocked down, they bounced right back up and got on with the game. It really is true and it's a part of their games I really like. Their toughness, especially for smaller players, is impressive.

lysglimt

And Lichaj didn't really have a poor game - he did manage to stop Valencia quite a few times...not many leftbacks do

032Devil

And its getting better and better. It reminds of the days Evra used to link up with Ronaldo.

misterredmist

Played well young Rafael , and I didn't notice him trying to cut someone in half with one of his suicide lunges yesterday

ravelston

He had the most touches of any United player (96) with an 86% completion rate. That and his defending was immense. Can't understand why we'd play anyone else at right back (other than because of injuries).

gooDevil

Height, in general and for set pieces, against a team like Stoke, has motived SAF in the past to start someone taller at RB.

ravelston

He's the same height as Evra (and an inch taller than Leighton Baines). Is there some rule of thumb that says right backs have to be taller than left backs?

I know you're right - just find it strange that no one ever mentions Evra's height as a problem while, for the twins, it seems to be a big deal.

Rossa

Evra is immense in the air! That said, I agree that we shouldn't just deploy big players because the opposition has big players. We could play Minnie Mouse against Carroll and he's a biggish player! Besides, it seems Barca does well against taller teams...

Escobar

Rafael is pretty good in the air too, has a great leap and won headers against much taller players

Rossa

Absolutely, quite impressive. But to me, he's not as good as Evra, yet! To me, he should pretty much play regularly as our fullback though. He sure has the quality, and his aerial abilities are fairly good - but wasn't he told last season by Fergie not to enter aerial duels with Bale as he was bound to lose and instead focus on winning the second ball?

#07

United's Rafael: I read Valencia's mind on pitch

Adam-Utd

Got to love rafael.

Hope If fabio does go on loan that it does not effect him too much!

Neutral

Got caught ball watching and not tracking the man

Our backline picked a great day to collectively drop the ball

I'm always right

Or.... he let Penis run into Scholesy's area and then Scholes stupidly got sucked in???

acnumber9

So instead of tracking his man, he decided to watch him run into the centre in the hope Scholes would do his job for him? He was shocking.

I'm always right

Yep, that's how football works, you often "pass on" your man. Scholesy had a great position there to stop any danger.

forevrared

He's just not a good defender anywhere near our box. Gets found out time and again. He's good enough up the field when he can take chances and use his pace to recover, but he's got shit positional awareness and can't stay with a man to save his life.

Even when he's in good form, there's still at least several 'heart in mouth' moments with him every game, whether it's a rash challenge or just a completely blown marking assignment. Smalling is a much more sound defender and I'm not sure he's much worse in attack, either.

acnumber9

That may be a fair point if Rafael was doing that to defend a bigger threat elsewhere. He didn't though. He neither pressured the ball or tracked the man.

Cheesy

He has had a good season but he's still too prone to these games where he suddenly suffers lapses in concentration. His inexperience shows.

Ash_G

You can't pass your man in the box like that, you have to see it through and he just stopped today. In general he had a decent game, and his attacking play is good but that was a sloppy/naive mistake which I hope he learns from.

I'm always right

I get your point but rather than laying the blame at one man it's better to understand that: a) Evans should've been tighter, b) Rafael should've tracked and c) Scholes shouldn't have got sucked in when he had such a good position.

Brosstan

Very poor defensive performance by him. Still has massive problems with positioning. He puts in a good effort and gets stuck in but some times that's just not enough when your initial position is suspect, like the 3rd goal today.

acnumber9

If it wasn't such a regular occurrence people would probably be less harsh on him. The other players made mistakes but Rafael was simply guilty of laziness yet again. In this case Rafael holds the biggest burden of blame.

Van Piorsing

It was not Rafael. It was Fabio ye blind cuntos.

golden_blunder

I thought both of our fullbacks were poor defensively today. Going forward they were good but actual defending..

Irwynwastheking

So many times he's caught ball watching. Even for the first he was too slow to react to where his man was going.

holyland red

Our fullbacks ARE poor defensively. Therefore our fullbacks are poor because fullbacks are supposed to know how defend first.

Cutch

Love the lad but thought he was terrible defensively today

Red Indian Chief Torn Rubber

Our entire defence was shit. They were all good going forward and useless defensively.