[Moiraine]

Feck man, the result just destroyed my whole weekend. Was suppose to enjoy a fine dinner this evening with finally improved from our "6th" position that has been stuck to our a$$ like a glue since November.

As far as the game is concerned, I think substituting 3 players at once was always going to backfire. I saw fergie doing it once (against Liverpool i guess) and it just made us worse. We needed width on right side and it should be Martial and Carrick out in place of Lingard and Rashford (Rashford on left and Lingard+Valencia on right). Mourinho bottled it and credit should be given to Bournemouth for slowing down the game, wasting time on every opportunity and being resilient in defence.

If we can't buy a goal at home against a side like Bournemouth, who are playing with 10, we should be really worried.

 

[MadMike]

Redcafe goes into meltdown thread should be interesting on the Liverpool forums

I'd imagine so

 

[RedTillI'mDead]

One more conclusion, why Fellaini ever? He needs to be sold. Herrera on today might have been the thread to get Martial, Rashford and Lingard into the game

 

[GE]

Weekend fuecking ruined ffs. Only Arsenal running riot at Anfield will put a smile on my bloody face.

 

[MrSingh2002]

They all played shite besides Rojo who tried to keep it together at the back and popped up with a goal. The rest of these idiots lost professionalism because of an EFL cup win. Bad sign.

 

[Fully Fledged]

If Jose thinks three players will sort this out he is mistaken. At least Luke is on the way back into the side. We need at least two CB's. Another forward, another wide man for the right with real quality, another midfielder to replace Carrick and another to rotate with Herrera. I thought this was the game to rest Ander, my god it wasn't. Another RB to rotate with Tony V. The list goes on.

Too many people had awful games today. Jones looked like he had never played against anybody with pace before in his life. Zlatan I don't know where to start with him. He looked like he wanted to fight the world rather than play football. Pogba lost his head in the second half. Martial disappeared for long spells in the game.

My big problem with today is mentality.

 

[Florida Man]

I like to see a video of Pogba in the game. A lot of people have mentioned him, but I don't recall much of anything with Pogba.

A couple of scrappy chances that he should have done better with and a few not much to talk about passes and a free kick won. But just meh, don't remember too many shocking moments.

The most glaringly obvious shockers were towards the end when he was missing those chances inside the box. And not just missing the goal by slim margins as we're used to seeing, but completely missing the ball, fecking up a dribble, and just bottling it. It's not like he needed a world class moment for those either. It was Rooney-esque if I had to compare.

Then consider the amount of times he was trying to force a ball from deep. Acres of space in front of him and he's going for the long ground pass or lob pass, often finding a Bournemouth defender who heads it back to his teammates and start some sort of attack. Thankfully, they were shit going forward, but that wasted a lot of time in the end.

Then there were a few, although less significant, times where was bullied off the ball or dispossessed. And to be honest, I'm one of the last people who would have a go at Pogba, but his play today really stuck out for me.

 

[Dobba]

Moving up the table today, though admittedly not dramatically so, would have been massive. We're probably going to get knocked out of the FA Cup, so the psychological boost of getting closer to the top 4 goal would have at least cushioned what I suspect will be disappointment there. Given how fragile the team as a unit look mentally when things aren't going their way, that could come back to bite us for more than just league position in the coming weeks.

 

[Andersons Dietician]

Valencia can hold his head up high. His usual industrious self and actually put in a few decent balls before getting a knock.

The rest were terrible. No fluidity or ideas of how to break down a defence after 25 minutes. First 25 minutes was a clinic in how to fluff your lines.

I wish he'd laid that ball across to Martial who was standing on the edge of the box with no one around for yards and it was a simple pass as well. Yet Valencia, another useless cross. He is shocking at crossing now.

 

[RRCE]

Come the end of the season, we may well look back at this game with great regret. This draw - which obviously feels like a loss - will be difficult to overcome. It was not simply a missed chance to move into the top four (even if only temporarily). The manner of the result will likely have a bigger impact. We were playing at home against an abundantly beatable team who were reduced to ten men for half the game. We had numerous high quality chances in the first half to put the game beyond reach. We gave away a mindless penalty. Our top striker had the game on his foot and couldn't convert a penalty. Our world record signing played a terrible game, and choked when late chances fell his way. This will be a big blow to the team's confidence.

I have to say - and I hate ranting directly after games - but that was an extremely disheartening match to watch. I thought it was one of the most gutless performances I've seen in a long time. I hope Jose takes stock and is ruthless with some of these players come the summer.

 

[Spirit of Solskjaer]

At least we play again on Thursday. I hate waiting a week to play again after a bad result. A chance for a few of the players to make up for today. And they'll need to, as winning the Europa league now looks like the most realistic path to CL for next season.

 

[Hammerfell]

I'm so, so annoyed by that result, but I'm not at all surprised.

 

[DomesticTadpole]

Also, when the feck are we going to get some proper wingers that can put in a cross and beat a man?

Mata keeps coming infield and crowding the middle.

Martial is hit and miss. Not to mention has no left foot to put in a cross and keeps cutting right predictably.

Jose was telling him to stay wide early in the game. If that is what he wants, he needs to bring in a top class wide man for the right side and Mata will have to be a backup No. 10.

 

[Theonas]

He did pick the wrong team today because we are too pedestrian with mata, zlatan and Rooney in the same side, those three should never start and when you do start them you are asking for trouble.

You put away these teams, pace, tempo and width we lack all three and that's we struggle and will finish sixth. Football isn't as simple as just saying any team we field should beat them, we have seen since SAF left we aren't that good and That result shouldn't surprise people, we wil draw more games like that this season, maybe even in our next home game against Watford.

Of course we are not good enough. Your position reflects your quality and that applies to us. My point is the blame runs deeper than a couple of wrong picks. If we are looking at individual quality, yes any Manchester United team should beat a 10 men Bournemouth at home. Unfortunately for us, individual quality is not everything, we lack and have been lacking chemistry and team cohesion all season, this has been covered up by top performances from Pogba, Mata, Ibrahimovic, Martial, Carrick at varying times, it still couldn't hide that lack of chemistry though and this is what is coming back to haunt us time and time again. You can be a good team by being coherent and structured without top players like Liverpool are, and you can be a good team by having top players and lesser chemistry like we are, but you can't be a great team unless you have both. And guess what not great teams do? They draw at home to 10 men Bournemouth.

 

[Ban]

I hate football. Bye.

 

[Macern]

Oh I see, it's was one of 'those' games?

ffs

Yeah definitely. There have been too many of them this season

 

[manichester]

Rojo and Valencia can come of the pitch with decent performances the rest and that includes Carrick and Rooney were useless.

 

[Jericholyte2]

Did we find out why Bailly wasn't playing?

Our spine needs work in the summer:

- a leading CB who wouldn't rush into such a stupid tackle like Jones did
- a controlling midfielder. We clearly missed Herrera and then when Carrick came off we lost control
- a clinical striker to take the pressure off Zlatan

 

[Liver_bird]

A whole week of rest for this Cannot even beat 10 men Bournemouth

Least you didnt wait 16days to get trounced by a managerless leicester.

 

[Random Task]

Should have had the game won by half-time, but once again that god-awful conversion rate has reared it's ugly head.

Simply not good enough.

 

[rpg]

2 out of 3 key players (bar De Gea) decided to act as clowns today. While others are simply passengers.

 

[BeforeKeanetherewasRobson]

Zlatans's average rating 2.6...... really feeling the hate today?

 

[Tosicsleftpeg]

We were crying out for Miki today, no creativity in the 2nd half. The play was crap and possession constantly squandered by Pogba, he's trying too hard to be the hero and justify his price tag and it's doing him no favours.

 

[Dirty Schwein]

I've had enough of pogba. He's fecking useless when it matters. Can't stand the cnut.

 

[calodo2003]

Stop blaming Mourinho, stop blaming the press, stop blaming the atmosphere, stop blaming the ref.

The blame lies solely on the players today, there are no two ways about it. That was bloody dreadful and we're reliant on Mkhi, a player who wasn't even a regular until a few months ago. Absolute disgrace of a performance today, Jose should do whatever he wants to this team because God damn it that was dreadful.

All this against 10 men. 10. These guys have a terrible defence.

Mourinho is just as culpable as the players. A desperate-looking three player substitution which took off a slow CM to install a slower CM, which took off a LB who was one of the better players today & replaced him with a midfielder (Shaw was always going to be subbed due to fitness, no doubt, but we didn't shift to a 352 to put Lingard in a position to be positive down the left size), and a striker put wide because we didn't make a formation shift to two strikers. These were the manager's decisions, they were poor.

Not putting Herrera on and instead putting on Fellaini was ridiculous. We were so static as a team at that point, Herrera was our only chance for any lively play in their half.

Bitterly disappointing match.

 

[Ash_G]

We just don't have any experience from the wings, Martial, Rashford and Pogba in the centre aren't even close to where we need them to be. We can't keep relying on one player.

I think there is a problem from output from the wings but there's also an argument imo that we don't do enough to make the most from them. We know that they're not great crossers and if Mou doesn't know that yet then something is wrong. But what say Martial has is great dribbling. He showed he could cause big problems in that second half but did we adjust our tactics to exploit that?

Then when he makes the subs he puts lingard at lb who doesn't know the role and didn't offer the right support to help get Martial in. Surely Blind has more to offer at lb even if it's just to facilitate maximising Martial? If you are going to bring on lingard at least keep a good midfield rather than bring in Fellaini there who was pointless there until he moved up top which was arguably pointless looking at the standard return we get for doing that.

With Ibra there's also the problem that for all his goals when he's off his game he has a massive impact because of the way he plays. He plays how he wants to play whether playing well or not which has a big impact on everyone else. And then another problem, more down to Mou than him is that he's not given anyone else any real time up top, even in games where we're comfortable and so no one's got that sharpness there. Rashford could have had a lot more time up top this season.

 

[BIGbadBOO4]

Zlatans's average rating 2.6...... really feeling the hate today?

I cannot believe he actually got this high. He was terrible today, one of the worst performances I have seen. His touch was awful and chances he missed. Been great most of the year, fault lies with Jose not taking him off. He had a day when nothing went right.

 

[Smores]

I think Zlatan should take most of the responsibilities today, mostly because of him losing his head.

If course the poor performance as well like most of the team but that can happen. Off days happen here and there unfortunately how that might be.

Losing his temper which subsequently led to a huge drop on concentration from our lads is mostly on him. He's a leader and should be careful.

Yes he had a bad performance, that's understandable in my eyes but losing his head could have been avoidable.

We were in cruise control before the whole drama except that Jones penalty give away.

Your blaming everyone elses performance on Ibra? What a load of nonsense.

Fact is Ibra is the only one carrying us, Mkhitarayan somewhat as well. Too many in our midfield contribute so little to our attack including caf darling Martial.

 

[Catt]

We aren't making top 4. Someone like Roma will twat us with that defense so Europa is out of the question. Chelsea will pull us apart on Monday and top 4 is all but gone. May seem kneejerk but this team lacks bottle when the screws are turned.

So the season is over and we have nothing to play for. Wonderful.

 

[Red Dreams]

This is what happens when we are depending on one player to score.

Martial? He needs to do a lot of work.

Rashford should have started instead of Rooney.

 

[Handsome Devil]

That second half emphasised the need for a beast of a captain who could calm down and focus all the headless chickens and prima donna's.

 

[studs]

Also there was a lot of headless chicken play out there today. To much effort and running around and not enough thinking on the ball to achieve anything of worth. We are in a sixth place rut that we can't shrug off and have been there for a long time now. Mentality is the key word here.

 

[OohAahMartial]

Not sure I'm able to express my feelings after that. In fact no words will do justice right now. Best I just post tomorrow when I've calmed down and had time to process it.

 

[Denis79]

how about rooney,carrick and shaw performance?

Shaw hasn't played for ages so I understand his poor game, Rooney was on par of what I expect from him since his decline, though you are right about Carrick he also had a poor game to his standards. Pogba and Ibrahimovic were terrible compared to what they can produce.

 

[LawCharltonBest]

I feel sick. I threw my phone. Twice.

I'm actually shaking out of anger

I hope you weren't in a crowded place!

 

[AlwaysRed66]

It is hard to say who played the worst as there were so many candidates, but Pogba, Jones, Rooney & Ibra were all shocking throughout. Mourinho should also be up there for his awful substitutions that added nothing & made the side play worse. Fellani, Lingard, & Rashford all have their strong points but passing is not amongst them, so why take of Carrick & have nobody who could string any passes together except long balls, or Pogba keep loosing the ball. Why take of Shaw for Lingard? This made no sense unless Shaw was injured. For once he left Martial on to the end, & after seeing how he tired, can now see why Mourinho takes him off regularly.

 

[Red1968]

Too many people are going into meltdown on here. Yes they played a very wimpy, clumsy 2nd half. However, I thought they looked really fluid for most of the first half and should have been up at least 3 goals. Boruc is a better than average goalie who is capable of great games once in a while. Today he was excellent. In any event, they HAD to win that game and getting just a point is a huge failure. I thought it was particularly bad karma to let Ibra take the penalty. The whole stamping and elbow incident really affected his play in the 2nd half. The penalty should have been taken by someone else. Pogba still has yet to live up to his billing. Their is a lot of flash and glitz but the finish is severely lacking.

 

[Ace of Spades]

Sick of drawing games that should have been put to bed, need more goal scorers in the team.

 

[GaryLifo]

Redcafe goes into meltdown thread should be interesting on the Liverpool forums

you're not wrong there!

 

[Crackers]

Jesus fecking christ, we have a complete inability to finish. Pogba was shit, Zlatan was meh, having Rooney on the pitch does nothing negative or positive as he's just "there". Christ, watching united in the league is frustrating as feck