The blame lands more so on blind/romero tbh but shaw was leaving space in behind him, sometimes he was quick enough to get back. Sometimes.
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Season Average Rating
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik @Rood and Imran @Annihilate Now! start with the good news by celebrating Manchester United Women's emphatic FA Cup win over Spurs at Wembley and the future of manager Marc Skinner.
Then it's the bad news and the ever worsening form of our Men with losses to Arsenal and Palace.
Finally the main debate - ETH Out now or keep him until the end of the season - if not longer. Are you Team Nik or Team Imran?
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You cant conpare shaw to darmian. Shaw's biggest problem is that sometimes he is too attacking and can leave the defence weak footed. On the opposite, darmian could be more attacking minded but then again mata doesnt support him in that mattwr as instead of playing like a forward; what we have is a right sided player moving in to a central attacking midfield spot.
Like it or not that means the complete width is only dealt with darmian alone. I'd even go with the fact that it seems like he doesn't attack because of tge shear space left over on that side.
If darmian did what shaw would do; we would be completely outnumbered all over.
Full backs that defend to an excellent level are certainly not a "dime a dozen." We're lucky in that we've got two.
Valencia is rotten going forward, we've seen more than enough to know that.
Darmian, meanwhile, has played a few games and it's likely he'll grow into the attacking side of the game. Full backs need to get it right at the back before they push forward with abandon.
It's patently obvious that Darmian is a good attacking outlet. He's demonstrated this elsewhere and it's clear he has all of the qualities needed to demonstrate that here at United.
That you're baffled by Darmian's popularity is baffling in itself. The right back position is filled with a quality player and people are duly delighted with that.
Luke Shaw set up our goal, something we are sorely lacking . . . and does anyone know where Darmian was on Swansea´s first goal? Nowhere to be seen. Maybe he should´ve been somewhere even remotely near to Ayew. Even Mata was there. Anyone remember in the last minute Darmian was embarrassingly beaten and saved by Smalling on the touchline?
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Blind was covering shaw. The whole idea behind playing 3 at the back last season was for us to be able to shape up to a 3 at the back in a time where one of our players get caught on the ball.
Blind moved to the left most side; smalling as the central player with darmian as the right sided defender. In this case it didnt work but i dont see why anyone other than shaw should be blamed for that goal.
Swansea switched to a diamond with Ayew playing as the #10. Why on earth should Darmian be there? That's the job for Basti/Carrick.
Absolutely not. Look at the goals again, you will see that on both occasions that Luke Shaw was tracking back behind the ball when he clearly shouldn't have during a 1-0 lead. Meanwhile Blind had to cover that area of the pitch; leaving it wide open behind goal for the opposition to cross the ball into the penalty area where both our center backs should be. Darmian almost never gets behind the ball, he is extremely cautious when is comes to leaving his area of the pitch wide open, because there is no way we can risk Smalling having to cover the right flank.
Spot on.
Look at how open we are and how Shaw finds himself behind the ball, that video argues against your cause. Meanwhile, Darmian did cover his man at the far post, if you look at the video again.
Darmian is in the middle of the pitch, marking no one, except maybe Smalling
That's Schneiderlin, Darmian is running back on the right hand side as we were caught on the break.
Sorry I thought that was Darmian. My bad.
If you look at the play from the beginning in the extended highlights, Darmian had run through the middle of the pitch with the ball, passed Rooney, who just gave it away to the opposition. Not Darmian's fault there, but he should have stayed seeing as we were 1-0 up. It is hard to say he should play more attacking football when his team mates just constantly give away the ball to the opposition. Also, Shaw was too high up, he should know that if Darmian goes up the pitch he has to stay further down.
Now watch this and take off your Darmian-wank glasses. He´s marking Gomis all the way and get badly beaten, plain and simple. We lose the match! Very poor defending
Would not say badly beaten, he almost gets there and he's made the angle quite tight. If Romero actually comes for it like he started to, and actually saved it. We would not be talking about it. Quite frankly Gomis should not of scored from the angle. Smalling is pretty poor there as well.
That was shit defending by Darmian, no two ways about it. Stop making excuses! It cost us fecking match. At least Shaw set up a goal for us. Can you imagine the reaction had that been Valencia defending???!!!
In that situation, you have to trust your keeper to save it. Romero fecked up there (and I'm not one of those who thinks he has no chance of being good enough for us). Darmian prevented Gomis from shooting across to the far post, or squaring to their player further over, which is pretty much exactly what you'd want him to do there. Gomis had very little to aim at, and Romero had all the time in the world to come out towards him and make a block.
Your agenda is horrific, how on earth is that Darmian's fault again? That's piss, uber pisspoor goalkeeping.
I'm sorry but some of the defence of Darmian's defending there 
It is partly Darmian's mistake too. Romero should have saved it, but Darmian has to do better there, he is too late.
As if Valencia was creating chances galore from the right.
Agreed Romero could´ve done better on that, but pause that gif right at the 6:08 mark. Darmian is marking Gomis quite well, and then boom, Gomis beats him badly and scores the winner. End of. Romero doing poorly does´t take away the fact that Darmian was beaten for the winner.
It´s no agenda. I like Darmian and think he should be starting, but the over-the-top wankfest for him is not warranted.
Remember when everyone thought it was so cool and wow that darmian wagging his finger in Micah Richard´s face . . . well, what everyone seems to ignore is the essential part, Richards ends up beating Darmian for the header that was a decent chance. Go back and look at it
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I think Valencia at least crossed the ball decently more (and nearly scored the winner) in his cameo vs Villa than Darmian all together in his last couple of matches. In that destruction of a poor defending Brugge, Darmian was basically non existent offensively.
There was a reason LVG brought on Valencia when we were desperate for a goal. Very rare to sub on a fullback when you need that winning goal.
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Not really. The goal was from the left side, how can you blame Darmian? It was a good ball and a good run, but it was a very tight angle. Sometimes you need your goalkeeper to save it. It was normal defending, but awful goalkeeping. That's it. if anything, the issue was not putting any pressure on Ayew who had all day to pick the pass.
Valencia is marginally better going forwards. He'd be much better if he wasn't so shit at crossing because he gets into great positions due to his pace even though his ability to beat a man has gone. Darmian is much better defensively though and with Shaw bombing down the other side, no real surprise to see van Gaal pick the superior defender even if he's weaker going forwards.
Moments before, Darmian had Gomis marked well, and then got beaten.
I´m not trying to big up Valencia, and I prefer Darmian. But we need to score more goals and get more Rafa-Valencia offence from the right side. Darmian is giving us nearly nothing thus far, especially from what we´ve become used to from manchester United fullbacks. Let´s hope he steps it or that LVG changes some tactics around.
He definitely could have done more there, he wasn't alert for Ayew's pass at all. No two ways about it. Yes, Romero should have saved it but he shouldn't have even had anything to save if Darmian had covered that run.
That's not to say he's not been great for us but by the standards he's been setting you'd expect him to cover that without a sweat.
As I said, hopefully. Hopefully it will come as team gels.
Yes there was a reason and it is called a "mistake". We needed someone who could create chances. Valencia has been awful offensively for the better of two years and yet people yearn for him.
He also very nearly scored the winner. Huge mistake to bring him on.
Slammed a close range shot straight at the defender right in front of him = nearly scored the winner. Sure.
I remember clearly also that Valencia got skinned twice on the right in 5 minutes when Darmian hadn't so much as let a fly through for the first 80-something minutes.
That's too high a cost to pay for some ankle hitting crosses imo.
That's too high a cost to pay for some ankle hitting crosses imo.
Yeah, the goal keeper had to dive full length to save that shot. Oh wait..
Next you will say he nearly put in a great cross although it "unfortunately" hit the defender's shin and went for a corner. Laughable.
Yes, he does need to improve on his offensive game. Especially if we are playing with 2 deep CMs, the FB can bomb forward even if Mata is infield which he does tbf to him but needs to do more often.
That's what I felt. Didn't come out or translate too well.
Sorry, I meant the Newcastle match, not Villa. That five minutes vs Villa were poor indeed.
But he was alright against Newcastle, though nothing spectacular. In 15 minutes he had three decent crosses and nearly scored the winner. That´s probably more than Darmian´s output all year offensively.
I thought it made a lot of sense to bring on Valencia because Newcastle were tiring, there was loads of space on the right that Darmian wasn't taking advantage of and Valencia is undoubtedly a more potent threat at the moment and played an important role in stretching teams last season. He didn't play very well though as the video shows. Good idea that didn't quite come off this time. I expect to see it quite a few times this season when we're piling on the pressure.
That's what lots of people wilfully ignore in cases like these. For any goal there's usually a number of mistakes which are required for it to happen. Darmian's is one, no denying it.
It's a classic case of overseeing the mistake of some one you like and expecting mistake to happen from someone you are already skeptic about. Some of the micro analysis of Valencia's performance truly surprised me last season as how deep people could go to justify their agenda. There is a theory in psychology where it is claimed people make decisions before .. ala Valencia is horrible at RB, Romero is at fault for every goal we concede, Darmian is beautiful defender with no mistake ... and then form reasons for these decisions based on what they expected to see ..like Valencia was at fault for Chelsea's goal at Stamford bridge last season, Romero was at fault for double deflected goal against Brugge etc.
Looking back at that video of the goal it's Smalling/Romeros fault. Romero should be claiming that, but Smalling is too flat footed there.
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