[stevoc]

He was the main culprit. Shaw was forward, Herrera, Mata, Memphis. He tried a first time pass and failed miserably. Not at fault at all? Wow, if it wasnt Rooney but Herrera, he would get slaughtered. We were totally out of shape, because we bombed forward and no expected a shite pass like that. Once interceped they had a clear run, because the left side was wide open. The only players who could have prevented it were Smalling ( defended Gomis) or Schneiderlin and Romero. I blame Rooney mostly and Schneiderlin. If it was another player, i would think they same.

Blame who ever you like i could give a feck mate. But when your striker loses the ball in the opposition box a whole load of other shit has to happen to concede a goal from that.

It was bad defending as a team.

 

[RRCE]

You mean Arsenal who lost to West Ham at home and Chelsea who just lost to Palace? I'll take my chances against them

We'll see. I think

You mean Arsenal who lost to West Ham at home and Chelsea who just lost to Palace? I'll take my chances against them

We'll see. I just don't see it, though. Romero will hopefully improve with time, but he's a very serious downgrade on De Gea. We've gotten rid of RVP, Falcao, Nani, and Di Maria, and have only brought in Memphis. We're relying on a smart but fairly lightweight midfielder to be a first choice centre half. Van Gaal apparently sees Fellaini as a #9 now. The squad clearly has gaping holes. Personally, I think both Chelsea and Arsenal have better balance in their teams. I have no doubt we'll improve, but so will they. I think it's naive to accept the "we dominated the game for 85 minutes and didn't deserve to lose" story. With our lack of pace and creativity in attack, Rooney's poor form and our lack of options, scoring goals will be a struggle all season. It just doesn't add up to a top two or three finish.

 

[Revan]

I was astounded that he didn't berate Rooney (who was terrible).
It is getting to the stage now, where I am hoping that our players don't pass the ball to Rooney...because he will mess it up and certainly won't score.

Neville doesn't talk bad hings for British players/managers.

 

[Walters_19_MuFc]

Started off pretty good. Kept the ball well, recovered the ball quick, and made a couple of chances. Unfortunately, we couldn't we couldn't get the goal.

Second half, we got the goal, and from there I expected us to go on and win the game but it wasn't to be.

Once Swansea took the lead, to be fair, we did look pretty threatening. I felt taking off Mata, although he scored, and putting on Young was the right move from Van Gaal, and should be something he should continue to do. He come on, kept the width, and put in some dangerous crosses. I guess this was why Van Gaal put Fellaini on, and it was the right move. However, instead of continuing to build up and get our wingers into 1v1 situations, we started hoofing aimless balls to him that lead us nowhere.

I don't think we were that bad today. Swansea are a good team, and on another day we could have won that. I do think we need width on two sides, though. Think it will take us to another level, and it will allow us to mix up our game more i.e. get crosses in, both from winger and full back, cut in and shoot or play intricate passes in and around the box.

 

[Sultan]

He will play it safe since he can't call out Wayne's shit performance in public. He is an england coach after all.

To be fair, Neville said we need to sign a striker. He also blamed the goalkeeping debacle. Read between the lines.

 

[Cristiano Jonaldo]

Blame who ever you like i could give a feck mate. But when your striker loses the ball in the opposition box a whole load of other shit has to happen to concede a goal from that.

It was bad defending as a team.

Rooney didn't lose ball in the box? All our players were high up the pitch and Rooney outside the box passed the ball straight to a Swansea player. In that position we were overrun and they scored.

It was straight up Rooney's fault. Can't really see how you can argue otherwise?

 

[ThanksBoss26]

Bad day at the office. Feels like we've not learned some lessons from last year which is frustrating.

 

[Sultan]

We put in 2 poor performances after each of the CL qualifiers.

We haven't put in any good performances save except the away game in Belgium.

 

[The Law of Denis]

The most predictable shortcomings in the fecking world. The three things everyone ahs been talking about:

- Romero not good enough
- Rooney past it
- No real partner for Smalling at center back

It would be infuriating if it was not so tedious.

 

[Sylar]

The most predictable shortcomings in the fecking world. The three things everyone ahs been talking about:

- Romero not good enough
- Rooney past it
- No real partner for Smalling at center back

It would be infuriating if it was not so tedious.

Which translates to:
-We need a Keeper
-We need a Striker
-We need a CB

Three things everybody on here agreed we needed pre-season. Madness.

What I would like to know is why Lingard and Pereira arent given chances. Is it because they werent signed? The lack of rotating players is already catching up to us, imagine what will happen once we hit Xmas.

 

[Shiva87]

we do have a left footed center back

Wow! Blind wasn't bad today - Rooney was and Romero was. Can't have our last line of attack and defense misfiring that badly. Period.

 

[Shiva87]

You're kidding right? How many times does he have to put Rooney through?!

Till Rooney fecks it up so many times that Hererra just stops playing that ball. 3 one on ones with the keeper - zero goals! World class my foot. Aguero scores @ least 2 of those.

 

[ivaldo]

Till Rooney fecks it up so many times that Hererra just stops playing that ball. 3 one on ones with the keeper - zero goals! World class my foot. Aguero scores @ least 2 of those.

Absolutely. Putting one of those chances away, especially early on takes the pressure of the whole team and I imagine we would've won that game comfortably.

 

[Shiva87]

Absolutely. Putting one of those chances away, especially early on takes the pressure of the whole team and I imagine we would've won that game comfortably.

He had one of those in the 20th min. We should be 1-0 up right there. Instead, he is through on goal and tries to trap it back and the defender just takes it off him. Unlike Spurs, it doesn't turn into an own goal.

All opposing managers need to do is to tell their CB to stay on Rooney's right side. He fecking won't even get a shot away.

 

[stevoc]

Rooney didn't lose ball in the box? All our players were high up the pitch and Rooney outside the box passed the ball straight to a Swansea player. In that position we were overrun and they scored.

It was straight up Rooney's fault. Can't really see how you can argue otherwise?

Inside the opposition box or just outside whats the fecking difference. He lost the ball at their end of the pitch there was another 9 outfield players and a keeper on the pitch most of them behind him. It's not like he laid on a through ball for an opposition player to have a 1v1 on the keeper like Valencia vs Arsenal last season.

Players lose possession high up the pitch all the time during an attack, thats no excuse for the poor defending that followed. The whole team were pretty much at fault for the goal.

 

[Offside]

It's the same names who keep getting put as man of the match. Mata, Darmian, Shaw, Smalling, Herrera are all good players and we have a few more besides. We just simply don't have that outstanding player who carries the others up levels. Somebody who is going to score all the goals, somebody who makes every other team in world football jealous that they don't have him.

That is all it takes to take us up a level. Like our 09/10 team we had good performing players like Valencia, Fletcher, Evra but Rooney just took us up a level to fight for the title. I think we have a better all round squad now but that team of course had Ferguson.

If we buy a top player now, then in two or three years Memphis could also be a top, top player and players like Luke Shaw and Ander Herrera. We could be challenging for the Champions League.

United have got a good set of players together but upfront we really are nothing. It will 100% prevent us from a proper title challenge. I have no doubts we will have our good moments this year like we did last year (even more) but we won't have the consistency, the firepower to get results in games like Swansea away, to win the Premier League.

The next two days we should be putting out the ££ to do that. Why have we left it so late?

 

[saivet]

Herrera, Mata and LVG basically saying that we were good and deserved to win apart from that 5 minute spell.

 

[El Zoido]

The most predictable shortcomings in the fecking world. The three things everyone ahs been talking about:

- Romero not good enough
- Rooney past it
- No real partner for Smalling at center back

It would be infuriating if it was not so tedious.

Yes, we've gone from having a crap midfield with quality everywhere else to having a great midfield with crap everywhere else. Bit of an exaggeration I know, but it sure is frustrating that now we finally have the midfield sorted we have troubles in other positions.

 

[SalfordRed1960]

Herrera, Mata and LVG basically saying that we were good and deserved to win apart from that 5 minute spell.

Well we weren't crap. Swansea looked dangerous on the break, but we had a couple players up front who weren't at the races.

When we went 1 up I thought we would cruise and we did start to put some pressure on them. But we fell to pieces after the equalizer.

 

[worldinmotion66]

Bit of naivety has cost us today, I'm sure they'll learn from it. Shaw and Darmian don't need to be bombing forward at 1-0 but it was horrendous from Rooney. That's the sort of thing that'll make Van Gaal pull his hair out. We can hardly blame Shaw though, he's the only attacking threat we have and it's so clear we need more pace up there, he was up and down that flank all game but he needs to learn to be a little more pragmatic when we are in control.

It's an important lesson for younger players and I'm sure it'll hold us in good stead, no need for all the pessimism, just really disappointing to lose ground when we could have made a real statement.

 

[Dominos]

Rooney didn't lose ball in the box? All our players were high up the pitch and Rooney outside the box passed the ball straight to a Swansea player. In that position we were overrun and they scored.

It was straight up Rooney's fault. Can't really see how you can argue otherwise?

Because unless you have 100% passing accuracy from all 11 players then someone is always going to have give the ball away before a goal is conceded? That doesn't make it 100% that players fault, the ball has travelled 3/4 of the length of the pitch to end up in our net, you can't say the only thing that went wrong in that phase of play was a poor pass. When you're 1-0 up especially you should have enough players in position to defend a counter attack, and it's not just the numbers we have back, but how well they defend it. It was all poor. What you're basically saying is every time one of our attacks breaks down and the opposition ends up with the ball, then whoever gave it away is 100% culpable for what happens there after.

 

[Cristiano Jonaldo]

Inside the opposition box or just outside whats the fecking difference. He lost the ball at their end of the pitch there was another 9 outfield players and a keeper on the pitch most of them behind him. It's not like he laid on a through ball for an opposition player to have a 1v1 on the keeper like Valencia vs Arsenal last season.

Players lose possession high up the pitch all the time during an attack, thats no excuse for the poor defending that followed. The whole team were pretty much at fault for the goal.

If it makes no difference, then by that argument there's no difference between a wayward pass between strikers and a defender fecking up a backpass to the keeper. Passing feck ups mean different problems in different situations.

Most of our attack was running ahead of Rooney when he made that wayward pass. That means we were overrun as a result of his feck up specifically, which led to their goal.

You do not try and play a quick first time horizontal pass when most of your team are ahead of you for that very reason. When you lost the ball there are not enough of your own guys back there to deal with your feck up.

Pretty surprised this needs explaining.

 

[Cristiano Jonaldo]

Because unless you have 100% passing accuracy from all 11 players then someone is always going to have give the ball away before a goal is conceded? That doesn't make it 100% that players fault, the ball has travelled 3/4 of the length of the pitch to end up in our net, you can't say the only thing that went wrong in that phase of play was a poor pass. When you're 1-0 up especially you should have enough players in position to defend a counter attack, and it's not just the numbers we have back, but how well they defend it. It was all poor. What you're basically saying is every time one of our attacks breaks down and the opposition ends up with the ball, then whoever gave it away is 100% culpable for what happens there after.

Read my other post directly above this one. Not every wayward pass is equal, as a miscommunication between strikers has nine people behind you to deal with your feck up, while a dodgy backpass has one.

Rooney fecked up when most of our team were ahead of him and sprinting ahead of him and when he fecked up we had fewer people running back being overrun to try and deal with it.

That's why you don't play risky passes when there is not enough cover behind you to deal with it if you feck up. Simple.

 

[Raoul]

Our trouble is mainly down to tactics and communication, both of which are interchangeable. LvG's dire possession happy football is one thing, but another is that this group don't quite seem comfortable with one another yet.

 

[stevoc]

If it makes no difference, then by that argument there's no difference between a wayward pass between strikers and a defender fecking up a backpass to the keeper. Passing feck ups mean different problems in different situations.

You have lost me with this one mate, i said theres little difference in losing the ball just inside the oppositions box or just outside it. Obviously losing possession by passing it to an opposition player in your own box is a lot different.

Most of our attack was running ahead of Rooney when he made that wayward pass. That means we were overrun as a result of his feck up specifically, which led to their goal.
You do not try and play a quick first time horizontal pass when most of your team are ahead of you for that very reason. When you lost the ball there are not enough of your own guys back there to deal with your feck up.

Pretty surprised this needs explaining.

By most of the team was ahead of Rooney do you mean 2-3 players were in line with him, and we still had 6-7 outfield players behind the ball plus the keeper to defend against 4-5 swansea players. Because thats what actually happened.

We should have defended much better as a team, baffling why you are blaming Rooney alone. One could just as easily lay all the blame on Shaw (i dont') for getting caught ahead of play and leaving our left side wide open forcing Blind and Smalling to shift across to cover.

Attackers losing the ball happens many times every game during an attack, this was just a case of losing the ball/bad defending coupled with good play by Swansea hitting us on the break simple as that. It was no one United players fault.

 

[Cristiano Jonaldo]

You have lost me with this one mate, i said theres little difference in losing the ball just inside the oppositions box or just outside it. Obviously losing possession by passing it to an opposition player in your own box is a lot different.




By most of the team was ahead of Rooney do you mean 2-3 players were in line with him, and we still had 6-7 outfield players behind the ball plus the keeper to defend against 4-5 swansea players. Because thats what actually happened.

We should have defended much better as a team, baffling why you are blaming Rooney alone. One could just as easily lay all the blame on Shaw (i dont') for getting caught ahead of play and leaving our left side wide open forcing Blind and Smalling to shift across to cover.

Attackers losing the ball happens many times every game during an attack, this was just a case of losing the ball/bad defending coupled with good play by Swansea hitting us on the break simple as that. It was no one United players fault.

I'm not sure why you're having so much trouble with this? Rooney tried a risky pass when there wasn't the cover behind him to deal with a cock up.

He cocked up, the lack of cover was exposed and they scored. That's directly the responsibility of the person who fecked up without the cover behind him.

Without recognising that context, you can equally argue that a defender is not at fault for a dodgy back pass because the keeper was there to try and make a save.

Rooney tried a risky pass where failure meant we were overrun, and he tried it anyway. That's his fault.

 

[stevoc]

I'm not sure why you're having so much trouble with this? Rooney tried a risky pass when there wasn't the cover behind him to deal with a cock up.

He cocked up, the lack of cover was exposed and they scored. That's directly the responsibility of the person who fecked up without the cover behind him.

Without recognising that context, you can equally argue that a defender is not at fault for a dodgy back pass because the keeper was there to try and make a save.

Rooney tried a risky pass where failure meant we were overrun, and he tried it anyway. That's his fault.

Stop being ridiculous, he lost the ball up the other end of the pitch. We still had enough players back to deal with the attack but we defended poorly as a team.

What you prefer none of our forward players ever risked losing possession in the final third during an attack on the off chance the opposition hit us on the counter?

 

[bosnian_red]

Well we weren't crap. Swansea looked dangerous on the break, but we had a couple players up front who weren't at the races.

When we went 1 up I thought we would cruise and we did start to put some pressure on them. But we fell to pieces after the equalizer.

Yep. We were crap after we conceded the goals, but for the first hour we did well I thought for the most part. Not amazing, but created a decent amount of chances, defended well and were the better side. After conceding the goals, we didn't seem to have any idea of what to do other then start hoofing once Fellaini came on.

 

[Rich_H_1989]

I thought the second Swansea goal actually demonstrated what we are lacking.

Ayew picked up the ball out on the right and thread a wonderful pass through to Gomis who had made a great run. OK the finish wasn't great but by then the build up had been impressive enough.

What you prefer none of our forward players ever risked losing possession in the final third during an attack on the off chance the opposition hit us on the counter?

This though seems to be in part a problem for us... The players in general look terrified to give the ball away. In doing so we play the way pass sideways or backwards far too often. But when we do then give the ball away its from a sloppy pass generally rather then trying to make something happen. And because it's given away in what should be a simple pass the players don't react quick enough. Suddenly then Blind can be isolated and that's when we are in trouble.

 

[RedRonaldo]

Rooney and Depay offers almost nothing up front. We may need to keep De Gea and start playing him for this season.

 

[Nucks]

Rooney didn't lose ball in the box? All our players were high up the pitch and Rooney outside the box passed the ball straight to a Swansea player. In that position we were overrun and they scored.

It was straight up Rooney's fault. Can't really see how you can argue otherwise?

Strikers lose the ball all the time. Teams don't score off of the counter all the time.

Shaw shit the bed on that, as did our entire defensive unit.

Notice how BOTH goals came through Shaw? They saw an opportunity to exploit his aggression and they did. It's called tactics, it worked for them. Putting the blame on Rooney is pathetic and laughable. Rooney didn't have a particularly good game (he was pretty poor), but that was not one of the reasons. If Shaw isn't bombing forward, if someone, anyone moved to cover Shaw, the goal doesn't happen and the entire incident is nothing.

 

[Mindhunter]

I'm not sure why you're having so much trouble with this? Rooney tried a risky pass when there wasn't the cover behind him to deal with a cock up.

He cocked up, the lack of cover was exposed and they scored. That's directly the responsibility of the person who fecked up without the cover behind him.

Without recognising that context, you can equally argue that a defender is not at fault for a dodgy back pass because the keeper was there to try and make a save.

Rooney tried a risky pass where failure meant we were overrun, and he tried it anyway. That's his fault.

You seem to have decided that it was Rooney's fault. Next time I hope, before Rooney tries a 1-2 pass, he takes a moment, looks back to see whether the full backs are out of position, whether the midfielders are in the box etc. and then passes it back to Romero because anything that happens from there could be his fault.

 

[marukomu]

No way we dominated. They had easily the best chances. The defeat could have been a lot heavier.

 

[Nucks]

Rooney and Depay offers almost nothing up front. We may need to keep De Gea and start playing him for this season.

Depay was much worse than Rooney today imo. Rooney wasn't great, but Depay was absolutely shocking. He's been pretty shocking in general so far if we're being blunt.

I thought our best 3 today were Mata, Shaw (he needs to get sorted defensively or someone NEEDS to cover better for him), and Schweinsteiger.

 

[sglowrider]

Jason Roberts:

Of the three players just behind Rooney, Juan Mata and Ander Herrera did not look to make forward runs off the ball so that just left Memphis Depay trying to get in behind.

It made it easier for Swansea's defence, because most of United's forward players were in front of them and, for long spells of the match, I don't think they really felt under threat.

At the other end of the pitch, Bafetimbi Gomis gave a masterclass in playing as a lone striker, but he had help in making it work.

He had the service to run in behind as well as hold the ball up but, crucially, he had players constantly running off him too.

That is what I always faced when I played against United but, under Louis van Gaal, United have not found a way to do it this season.

http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/34104468

 

[Raoul]

No way we dominated. They had easily the best chances. The defeat could have been a lot heavier.

It could've gone either way tbh. The near own goal would've probably sealed it for us, as it would've been a psychological climb for them to equalize from 0-2 down. They also has a couple of near misses and the one post shot in the first.

 

[Nucks]

I played competitive team sports to a moderately high level and if that qualifies me to throw my opinion in, I don't know. However what I am seeing is listlessness. What I mean is that we do not have a general right now. There is no fulcrum for our play or our attack. Mata is trying, but he is gun shy. He's very skillful, but he is typically unwilling to try to force something if it requires physicality.

Schweinsteiger is trying to be the general, but his position as field boss is undermined by the fact he is a new-comer and he doesn't have the captains armband.

Whether or not Rooney is past it remains to be seen. There are too many failures and break downs right now in our attacking play to definitively say Rooney is the problem. I honestly don't think his misses today were really that big of a deal. None of them were egregious, they were all extremely difficult chances to take.

Depay is supposed to be "the guy", but so far and I think it's safe to say he has consistently been our worst player in the regular starting XI so far. Too young? Too soon? Too many problems for him to be reasonably expected to have an impact? I think youth is probably the issue here. His decision making is what is failing him. He is making consistently bad choices and trying to force the issue (which is what Mata could use tbh)

Our attack is a mess. Rooney is not getting quality service. If you watch our attacking movements and compare them to Swansea, we're not attacking in depth. Rooney is being isolated. We're basically failing to move the ball consistently forward with numbers. We're left stretching to make a move in that final 1/4th of the pitch. This isn't really anything new, the tactics being played against us that is.

Teams play defensively and look to hit us on the break. The issue is, we're not finding much success in breaking teams down when they are looking to defend and break.

LvG needs to officially deputize Schweinsteiger. Give him the armband. Let him direct traffic. Mata needs to be moved centrally. Depay needs to be sat and brought on as an impact player around 55-60m until he gets his confidence/groove. We need to sort our issues from the back to the front. If we start creating consistent threatening penetrating play and Rooney is shitting the bed, then we need to worry about him.

 

[Cooksen]

We need to call Harry Potter to destroy Shelveys horcrux's to beat these twats

 

[reelworld]

I played competitive team sports to a moderately high level and if that qualifies me to throw my opinion in, I don't know. However what I am seeing is listlessness. What I mean is that we do not have a general right now. There is no fulcrum for our play or our attack. Mata is trying, but he is gun shy. He's very skillful, but he is typically unwilling to try to force something if it requires physicality.

Schweinsteiger is trying to be the general, but his position as field boss is undermined by the fact he is a new-comer and he doesn't have the captains armband.

Whether or not Rooney is past it remains to be seen. There are too many failures and break downs right now in our attacking play to definitively say Rooney is the problem. I honestly don't think his misses today were really that big of a deal. None of them were egregious, they were all extremely difficult chances to take.

Depay is supposed to be "the guy", but so far and I think it's safe to say he has consistently been our worst player in the regular starting XI so far. Too young? Too soon? Too many problems for him to be reasonably expected to have an impact? I think youth is probably the issue here. His decision making is what is failing him. He is making consistently bad choices and trying to force the issue (which is what Mata could use tbh)

Our attack is a mess. Rooney is not getting quality service. If you watch our attacking movements and compare them to Swansea, we're not attacking in depth. Rooney is being isolated. We're basically failing to move the ball consistently forward with numbers. We're left stretching to make a move in that final 1/4th of the pitch. This isn't really anything new, the tactics being played against us that is.

Teams play defensively and look to hit us on the break. The issue is, we're not finding much success in breaking teams down when they are looking to defend and break.

LvG needs to officially deputize Schweinsteiger. Give him the armband. Let him direct traffic. Mata needs to be moved centrally. Depay needs to be sat and brought on as an impact player around 55-60m until he gets his confidence/groove. We need to sort our issues from the back to the front. If we start creating consistent threatening penetrating play and Rooney is shitting the bed, then we need to worry about him.

Mate, I agree with most of it. But I can't believe that BFS, a World Cup winner and German captain would need an armband to lead his team. I've seen him lead the way when Lahm was captain and in the same field as him. He was pretty bad tonight, it's very uncharacteristic of him to make bad passes in crucial moments.
I think Mata is fine where he is though, just need more understanding with Darmian when attacking

 

[RedDevil@84]

Neville makes some really good points. We get lulled into thinking we are playing good football.

I am not sure how the players think.. But as far as the caf goes, apart from dangerously optimistic people, a good amount of people do not really think we have progressed much in terms of the football we play. Maybe slightly better than last season (thanks to lack of injuries rather), but not much.