[Americano]

@Stack I never noticed that was the technique. I usually go opposite leg when I take an overhead kick

I figure that you want precise control of your kicking foot and using the same foot to jump will add lots of momentum and make it harder to control. But I play mostly as a center back so what do I know about this stuff.

 

[manichester]

Schweinsteiger is a class act and his fitness level looked good, great to have options in midfield at last. Shaw and Young have a very strong understanding on the left maybe Memphis should be given a game on the RW. Overall a satisfying result. and more plusses than minusses

 

[Wumminator]

I watched the first half and it was absolutely diabolical. So I went back to sleep, glad we got up though and Martial with the goal, sounds like he gave them a real wringing in the sheds at half time!

Wtf. Mate you do realise we were playing Liverpool?

Went to sleep FFS.

 

[Wumminator]

Btw. Absolutely brilliant. Great win. LVGS red army keep on going.

 

[Croftona7]

Already has. Young deserves to start over Memphis.

Agree. Starting with Tuesday

 

[United again!]

Wtf. Mate you do realise we were playing Liverpool?

Went to sleep FFS.

It was 3am.

 

[Wumminator]

It was 3am.

I mean fair enough, but how do you follow United if you're going asleep when they play Liverpool? Do you get to watch any games?

 

[Slevs]

Still so fecking happy.

 

[DomesticTadpole]

Listened to Talksport and Quinn admitted we deserved to win, then said we are still a average side. Actually I think we are a good side playing averagely. Therefore there is room for improvement. Liverpool are an average side playing badly. They can only hope of improving to average.

 

[United again!]

I mean fair enough, but how do you follow United if you're going asleep when they play Liverpool? Do you get to watch any games?

It's tough chief, the late games are great. I usually am up early.

 

[FC Ronaldo]

Everyone seen the post match presser?

 

[Von Mistelroum]

Schweinsteiger was great yesterday, he's getting back to full fitness for us and that is huge!

 

[MyOnlySolskjaer]

Everyone seen the post match presser?

Cheers for the link.

 

[Nathan]

The morning after I'm still buzzing. We looked good and made the possession count. De Gea in goal instills confidence, we showed creativity with the first goal and what a cracker of a penalty by Herrera.

Well take a bow Anhtony Martial, what a way to announce yourself to the Old Trafford faithful.

 

[Rams]

First half was awful, although United controlled the game. 2nd half we were less in control but looked more likely to score. On the whole another solid performance at home I guess. The ease in which Martial took that goal was very impressive for a player of only 19.

 

[Catt]

Listened to Talksport and Quinn admitted we deserved to win, then said we are still a average side. Actually I think we are a good side playing averagely. Therefore there is room for improvement. Liverpool are an average side playing badly. They can only hope of improving to average.

Agree. We have potential to play better but we just lack that extra special player up top. Definitely room for improvement though.

 

[ice-bionic red]

Hi guys,

Is there a video uploaded somewhere on the forum of the studio interviews after the final whistle? I had to leave the house straight after the game and I usually like too see what is said after our games. Curious to what Souness, Henry and Carragher thought

 

[dwd]

Hi guys,

Is there a video uploaded somewhere on the forum of the studio interviews after the final whistle? I had to leave the house straight after the game and I usually like too see what is said after our games. Curious to what Souness, Henry and Carragher thought

Didn't see it myself but as per usual my guess would be it would mainly focus on how shit Liverpool were rather than give any slight praise to United. Won't be worth watching.

 

[Amir]

Agree. Starting with Tuesday

That might actually be one for Memphis. He's a great talent, but he's used to having more time on the ball and more time to think and needs to learn how to operate in England. We saw against Brugge what he can do against weaker opposition so maybe it's the right sort of match for him.

 

[pierrethesnack]

Hi guys,

Is there a video uploaded somewhere on the forum of the studio interviews after the final whistle? I had to leave the house straight after the game and I usually like too see what is said after our games. Curious to what Souness, Henry and Carragher thought

[QUOTE="dwd, post: 18127172, member: 64095"]Didn't see it myself but as per usual my guess would be it would mainly focus on how shit Liverpool were rather than give any slight praise to United. Won't be worth watching.[/QUOTE]

I hereby confirm this.

 

[pierrethesnack]

The morning after I'm still buzzing. We looked good and made the possession count. De Gea in goal instills confidence, we showed creativity with the first goal and what a cracker of a penalty by Herrera.

Well take a bow Anhtony Martial, what a way to announce yourself to the Old Trafford faithful.

I know, I love waking up the day after a game like this and suck it all in again - watch the highlights over again, visit this place, read the news etc, all with a good feeling. Really does wonders for an otherwise eventless Sunday

 

[ice-bionic red]

I know, I love waking up the day after a game like this and suck it all in again - watch the highlights over again, visit this place, read the news etc, all with a good feeling. Really does wonders for an otherwise eventless Sunday

So true man. Doing the same things right now haha

 

[Oneunited26]

Listened to Talksport and Quinn admitted we deserved to win, then said we are still a average side. Actually I think we are a good side playing averagely. Therefore there is room for improvement. Liverpool are an average side playing badly. They can only hope of improving to average.

I do not think we have an identity yet, we are not average, we are not very good either. I think the team struggles when going behind in games, I think the tempo could be quicker while keeping to the same identity. VG must realize difference in possession and winning, and he still has not figure out the smaller teams yet which is why we struggle so much. yesterday proved VG's knack of beating the rivals, its the small teams we are having problems with. Average is what Liverpool is, we are a ok side that has the ability to do much much better than what is seen on display. We are more of a team that looks good on paper, than an actual team at the minute, beating teams like liverpool shows we are a ok team that could turn into something much much more

 

[Lebowski]

It felt like a really strange game. More like a pre-season friendly than the biggest derby in the country at some points and not to take anything away from our performance, I thought it was decent overall with some standout individual displays, I was more struck by how shockingly poor Liverpool looked. Anyway, a few points I noticed.

- It's fantastic to see De Gea back. He just instills so much confidence in the entire stadium and our defence. His footwork and distribution is phenomenal, he turns situations where some keepers would dither, panic and invite pressure into simple possession retaining calmness. His positioning is superb, as is his reading of the game and (obviously) his shot-stopping. This has been obvious to anyone who watches United regularly for a long time before the media picked up on his brilliance, but however long he decides to stay at Old Trafford, we're very lucky to have him.

- Shaw had another excellent game. That he has probably been our most consistent attacking outlet this season speaks to some of our problems going forward, but the lad looks a class act and could have that left back slot nailed down for the next decade. Any football-philosopher worth his salt never fails to preach that fullbacks are the most important position in modern football, and while the jury is still out on Darmian, all the early signs point to him and Shaw looking the part for us.

- The unlikely pairing of Blind and Smalling continues to defy logic and look excellent. Smalling has looked positively 'Vidic-esque' this season and dealt with the physicality of Benteke without any problems. When he drifted over to Blind, Blind used his excellent reading of the game to keep it tight and having one defender with the technical ability to play it out from the back seems so important to how we play. Obviously he took his goal superbly, but additionally he does seem to have the qualities to play at centre-half. It probably won't last forever, but how many of us thought he'd even be viable there at the start of the season?

- Schweinsteiger is fecking brilliant and has grown into exactly the sort of midfielder we've needed for years. Obvious wish we'd signed him five years earlier, but even at this 'advanced stage' his class shines through. He absolutely bossed the midfield, knew exactly when to get forward and ran himself into the ground. He has the mentality and all of the attributes needed to stamp his authority onto games and the way he tore across the pitch even late on in the second half was a joy to watch. Whoever wears the armband, he's our captain on the pitch as far as I'm concerned and I hope we can get a year or two or excellent service out of him.

- It's early days for Memphis and I think if we weren't so far away from Europe's elite in terms of personnel he wouldn't be expected to deliver anywhere near as much as he is currently. Nevertheless, he was the only person in the first half with the ability to beat a man or run at pace, so the onus naturally fell on him to be our only attacking outlet. It isn't fair on the boy and I expect we'll see a lot more completely ineffective performances like this before he finds his stride. In an ideal world we would have the quality in attack so that Memphis was just another option and could be used far more sparingly but at the moment he seems like our only way of breaking down stubborn defences.

- Mata didn't really do much either and his obvious lack of pace makes us much easier to defend against as we don't really have any established 'wingers' in the squad. I love Mata and his talent is obvious, but I don't think we're using him right. If we want to play him on the right I think we need a lot of pace on the left and centre of our attack to compensate and a wing-back who can fly forward on overlapping runs. At the moment we're so static that his inability to drive forward with pace is highlighted a lot more and he becomes just another very good passer in a team with many but without much pace or movement to utilise it.

-Fellaini should never start upfront for us again. I don't want to be too harsh on the lad, and he's certainly a robust option to throw on when we're chasing the game, but he clearly doesn't have any of the technical ability required to lead the line. The fact that we were 'forced' to start him is an indictment on the massive holes in our squad. I hope it's a sight we don't have to see many times again as Liverpool looked even worse than us in that first half and were so nervy at times they seemed to be doing their utmost to invite us to score. We didn't have a striker who could capitalise on that nervousness and I reckon even despite the lack of chances in the first half, a quality striker a la Shearer, Aguero, Costa or van Nistelrooy would have bagged a goal or two just because of how absolutely abject they looked. The moments when he toe-poked that 'shot' and tried to control the ball only to see it cannon away from danger were a bit embarrassing and I hope he's only used sparingly. As harsh as it sounds I'm not convinced he's a footballer and to utilise his physical 'talents' you have to play a style of football I think most would agree we don't want to see anywhere near Old Trafford.

- Martial. Well what is there to say? A magnificent goal at the perfect time for both United at that point in the game and for Martial given the trajectory of his career. It's such a cliche but you can't overestimate the importance of a new attacker getting off the mark early. To do it in such a fashion, in such an important fixture, at that time in the game, given all of the talk about his transfer should give the lad the perfect start to his United career. His confidence and belief should be through the roof and that can only be a massive positive for us.

Anyway, excuse my ramblings. I could go on but I think I've written enough already. All in all it was a good win and a decent performance. I thought Blind, Shaw and Schweinsteiger particularly impressed. That first half was possibly one of the strangest halves of football I've ever seen and while it was probably always a possibility given the obvious deficiencies and problems at both clubs it's sad to see given the stature of the fixture and the brilliance of United and Liverpool in recent and not so recent times. There's still obvious problems, the first half display was shocking and our sheer lack of quality upfront and on the wings is an issue I think we'll rue not solving on plenty of occasions this season. Nevertheless, we have a solid base and certain players are starting to turn in the quality performances we've all hoped for. Plus, Louis Van Gaal's positively West Ham-esque ability to extract results against the big teams continues, which can only be a good thing for our Champions League run, even if it does make our awful performances against 'lesser' teams even more bemusing.

As a final point, how fecking bad are Liverpool, eh?

 

[Yorkeontop]

The first half was a nightmare. I swear it seemed like the players were on strike and going on a slow down.

 

[SalfordRed1960]

I do not think we have an identity yet, we are not average, we are not very good either. I think the team struggles when going behind in games, I think the tempo could be quicker while keeping to the same identity. VG must realize difference in possession and winning, and he still has not figure out the smaller teams yet which is why we struggle so much. yesterday proved VG's knack of beating the rivals, its the small teams we are having problems with. Average is what Liverpool is, we are a ok side that has the ability to do much much better than what is seen on display. We are more of a team that looks good on paper, than an actual team at the minute, beating teams like liverpool shows we are a ok team that could turn into something much much more

In nearly every post match interview LVG talks about we did not kill the match. Now you can look at that 2 ways, one is to go and get another goal, the other being a park the bus keep possession style. I get the impression he wants the former and in Swansea and Liverpool games the 5 or so minutes after the goal we have looked as though we are going for it. However in each game we lost control. It is something they need to work on.

 

[Oneunited26]

In nearly every post match interview LVG talks about we did not kill the match. Now you can look at that 2 ways, one is to go and get another goal, the other being a park the bus keep possession style. I get the impression he wants the former and in Swansea and Liverpool games the 5 or so minutes after the goal we have looked as though we are going for it. However in each game we lost control. It is something they need to work on.

United at their best the standard bearer was 2007/08 for tactics, knowing how to defend, and knowing when to go for games they had the lot. United had a variety going into different games, and to win the league and be the dominating beast they were, they had different set modes in how to beat teams. To win a PL and stay at the top, united have to show different plans in how to beat teams. Trying to play possession and continue that slow style of play, is never going to get us far week in week out, you use that possession but adding to that quality, sometimes united must go for it not brainless go for it, but with a purpose. And unless VG lets our attacking players play with instinct, VG's time at united will be underachieving. That is why fergie was successful, he never let the players loose that instinct, you do not take the fire out of the dragon and that is what VG has been doing

 

[fishfingers15]

It felt like a really strange game. More like a pre-season friendly than the biggest derby in the country at some points and not to take anything away from our performance, I thought it was decent overall with some standout individual displays, I was more struck by how shockingly poor Liverpool looked. Anyway, a few points I noticed.

- It's fantastic to see De Gea back. He just instills so much confidence in the entire stadium and our defence. His footwork and distribution is phenomenal, he turns situations where some keepers would dither, panic and invite pressure into simple possession retaining calmness. His positioning is superb, as is his reading of the game and (obviously) his shot-stopping. This has been obvious to anyone who watches United regularly for a long time before the media picked up on his brilliance, but however long he decides to stay at Old Trafford, we're very lucky to have him.

- Shaw had another excellent game. That he has probably been our most consistent attacking outlet this season speaks to some of our problems going forward, but the lad looks a class act and could have that left back slot nailed down for the next decade. Any football-philosopher worth his salt never fails to preach that fullbacks are the most important position in modern football, and while the jury is still out on Darmian, all the early signs point to him and Shaw looking the part for us.

- The unlikely pairing of Blind and Smalling continues to defy logic and look excellent. Smalling has looked positively 'Vidic-esque' this season and dealt with the physicality of Benteke without any problems. When he drifted over to Blind, Blind used his excellent reading of the game to keep it tight and having one defender with the technical ability to play it out from the back seems so important to how we play. Obviously he took his goal superbly, but additionally he does seem to have the qualities to play at centre-half. It probably won't last forever, but how many of us thought he'd even be viable there at the start of the season?

- Schweinsteiger is fecking brilliant and has grown into exactly the sort of midfielder we've needed for years. Obvious wish we'd signed him five years earlier, but even at this 'advanced stage' his class shines through. He absolutely bossed the midfield, knew exactly when to get forward and ran himself into the ground. He has the mentality and all of the attributes needed to stamp his authority onto games and the way he tore across the pitch even late on in the second half was a joy to watch. Whoever wears the armband, he's our captain on the pitch as far as I'm concerned and I hope we can get a year or two or excellent service out of him.

- It's early days for Memphis and I think if we weren't so far away from Europe's elite in terms of personnel he wouldn't be expected to deliver anywhere near as much as he is currently. Nevertheless, he was the only person in the first half with the ability to beat a man or run at pace, so the onus naturally fell on him to be our only attacking outlet. It isn't fair on the boy and I expect we'll see a lot more completely ineffective performances like this before he finds his stride. In an ideal world we would have the quality in attack so that Memphis was just another option and could be used far more sparingly but at the moment he seems like our only way of breaking down stubborn defences.

- Mata didn't really do much either and his obvious lack of pace makes us much easier to defend against as we don't really have any established 'wingers' in the squad. I love Mata and his talent is obvious, but I don't think we're using him right. If we want to play him on the right I think we need a lot of pace on the left and centre of our attack to compensate and a wing-back who can fly forward on overlapping runs. At the moment we're so static that his inability to drive forward with pace is highlighted a lot more and he becomes just another very good passer in a team with many but without much pace or movement to utilise it.

-Fellaini should never start upfront for us again. I don't want to be too harsh on the lad, and he's certainly a robust option to throw on when we're chasing the game, but he clearly doesn't have any of the technical ability required to lead the line. The fact that we were 'forced' to start him is an indictment on the massive holes in our squad. I hope it's a sight we don't have to see many times again as Liverpool looked even worse than us in that first half and were so nervy at times they seemed to be doing their utmost to invite us to score. We didn't have a striker who could capitalise on that nervousness and I reckon even despite the lack of chances in the first half, a quality striker a la Shearer, Aguero, Costa or van Nistelrooy would have bagged a goal or two just because of how absolutely abject they looked. The moments when he toe-poked that 'shot' and tried to control the ball only to see it cannon away from danger were a bit embarrassing and I hope he's only used sparingly. As harsh as it sounds I'm not convinced he's a footballer and to utilise his physical 'talents' you have to play a style of football I think most would agree we don't want to see anywhere near Old Trafford.

- Martial. Well what is there to say? A magnificent goal at the perfect time for both United at that point in the game and for Martial given the trajectory of his career. It's such a cliche but you can't overestimate the importance of a new attacker getting off the mark early. To do it in such a fashion, in such an important fixture, at that time in the game, given all of the talk about his transfer should give the lad the perfect start to his United career. His confidence and belief should be through the roof and that can only be a massive positive for us.

Anyway, excuse my ramblings. I could go on but I think I've written enough already. All in all it was a good win and a decent performance. I thought Blind, Shaw and Schweinsteiger particularly impressed. That first half was possibly one of the strangest halves of football I've ever seen and while it was probably always a possibility given the obvious deficiencies and problems at both clubs it's sad to see given the stature of the fixture and the brilliance of United and Liverpool in recent and not so recent times. There's still obvious problems, the first half display was shocking and our sheer lack of quality upfront and on the wings is an issue I think we'll rue not solving on plenty of occasions this season. Nevertheless, we have a solid base and certain players are starting to turn in the quality performances we've all hoped for. Plus, Louis Van Gaal's positively West Ham-esque ability to extract results against the big teams continues, which can only be a good thing for our Champions League run, even if it does make our awful performances against 'lesser' teams even more bemusing.

As a final point, how fecking bad are Liverpool, eh?

I'm going to say well done just for the sheer effort.

 

[carlosp]

Gary Neville trolling Jamie Carragher

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

 

[Xaviesta]

The reply..

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

 

[SalfordRed1960]

United at their best the standard bearer was 2007/08 for tactics, knowing how to defend, and knowing when to go for games they had the lot. United had a variety going into different games, and to win the league and be the dominating beast they were, they had different set modes in how to beat teams. To win a PL and stay at the top, united have to show different plans in how to beat teams. Trying to play possession and continue that slow style of play, is never going to get us far week in week out, you use that possession but adding to that quality, sometimes united must go for it not brainless go for it, but with a purpose. And unless VG lets our attacking players play with instinct, VG's time at united will be underachieving. That is why fergie was successful, he never let the players loose that instinct, you do not take the fire out of the dragon and that is what VG has been doing

The problem with your analysis is that you associate possession football with slow football. That is not correct. We have seen Shaw, Herrera, Schweinsteiger to name a few who can play multi speed possession. The problem that we have at the moment is the likes of Rooney, Carrick and Depay as main culprits who slow the game down when it would be better to speed it up. The same goes for creativity. People slag LVG as some constrainer of creativity, yet it never stopped the likes of Robben to produce something.

Totally agree that we need a plan of attack for each type of team we play against. From what I see, we have that in abundance. What we don't have is 11 players who can switch from one style to another. I put this down to having 5 or 6 first team players still getting comfortable with the new guys that have come in.

 

[sunama]

With regards to LVG's tactics: IMO, we need to see how he does this year. In particular I want to see what happens in the CL. I actually think that our team is more like a continental side and against top CL teams, we will do pretty well. But we need to wait and see.

...and now for something light-hearted.
I was lurking on the RAWK forum to see what LFC fans think of yesterday's game and one comment which cracked me up was this:

That's 5 wins in 28 games against 'top four' clubs, that includes 2 wins against Moyes's United which should not count, ...

So, even some of our rival fans acknowledge that Moyes was so bad, that a win against a Moyes team doesn't actually count as a win.

 

[arthurka]

https://www.facebook.com/ynfathehub

Sorry but somehow I still laugh at this guy. Dion Dublin

 

[Raw]

So, even some of our rival fans acknowledge that Moyes was so bad, that a win against a Moyes team doesn't actually count as a win.

Bloody hell what a record, had to look up the games myself.

2012/13 - 8 games, 0 wins, 5 draws, 3 losses
United: 2-1 home loss, 2-1 away loss
Chelsea: 1-1 away draw, 2-2 home draw
City: 2-2 home draw, 2-2 away draw
Arsenal: 2-0 home loss, 2-2 away draw

2013/14 - 10 games, 4 wins, 0 draws, 6 losses
United: 1-0 home win, 3-0 away win, 1-0 away loss (League cup)
Chelsea: 2-1 away loss, 2-0 home loss
City: 2-1 away loss, 3-2 home win
Arsenal: 2-0 away loss, 5-1 home win, 2-1 away loss (FA cup)

2014/15 - 10 games, 1 win, 3 draws, 6 losses
United: 3-0 away loss, 2-1 home loss
Chelsea: 2-1 home loss, 1-1 away draw, 1-1 home draw (League cup), 1-0 away loss (League cup)
City: 3-1 away loss, 2-1 home win
Arsenal: 2-2 home draw, 4-1 away loss

2015/16 - 2 games, 0 wins, 1 draw, 1 loss
United: 3-1 away loss
Arsenal: 0-0 away draw

So that's 5 wins, 9 draws and 16 losses in 30 games against the top 4.

 

[Parma Dewol]

Two days later and I'm still buzzing. The atmosphere was absolutely incredible. I tried to re-live the moments by watching MOTD, but it doesn't do justice to the game or our raucous support.

That was exactly the sort of result that can kick-start a season.

 

[CLARiiON]

This fixture just doesn't excite anymore. At this stage, it's just hype than anything else (for neutrals like me). I only watched the first half. I can say that it was among the worst half of football I saw in recent times. I got so bored that I didn't even bother to open TV for 2nd half, instead spent my time watching 'The Man from Nowhere'. Liverpool is a mess, and that mess starts with their manager. I would be very very pissed if I was a Liverpool supporter. At current state, I doubt they deserve to be called even a mid-table club.

 

[Xaviesta]

This fixture just doesn't excite anymore. At this stage, it's just hype than anything else (for neutrals like me). I only watched the first half. I can say that it was among the worst half of football I saw in recent times. I got so bored that I didn't even bother to open TV for 2nd half, instead spent my time watching 'The Man from Nowhere'. Liverpool is a mess, and that mess starts with their manager. I would be very very pissed if I was a Liverpool supporter. At current state, I doubt they deserve to be called even a mid-table club.

For me it's still the biggest game on the English football calendar. The fact the two clubs aren't where they what to be doesn't diminish it in my eyes.

 

[Barca84]

We really aren't getting much credit in the media for this. Yes the first half was truly dreadful but that second 45 minutes I though we were class and scored two goals of absolute quality. It seems the media are more concerned with how average Liverpool were. In contrast City scrape a far from convincing win at Palace yet receive much praise.

And this constant rhetoric about 2 once great sides is starting to get a bit tedious. In the case of Liverpool yes I think we can say their decline is well beyond temporary but we are only 2 seasons on from winning the title by 11 points and are in the middle of rebuilding.

As it stands the table does not lie, only City are better than us at present, and we will improve.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

It is the biggest game in English football but it's lost something. Even when Liverpool weren't great in the past there was a certain magic to these fixtures that's gone. Maybe it has something to do with the styles of the two teams evolving, and the tactics employed.

 

[Barca84]

It is the biggest game in English football but it's lost something. Even when Liverpool weren't great in the past there was a certain magic to these fixtures that's gone. Maybe it has something to do with the styles of the two teams evolving, and the tactics employed.

Local rivalry and the passion that comes with it. That's what goes when you don't have local players lining up for you and it's worth remembering this when folk get into discussions about the importance of local players and our identity as a club.