[singhters]

Still mad that we drew 2-2 we should have been out of sight those chances missed by rashford, martial and lindgard was incredible absolute sitters, no blame on jose this time other than he should have dealt with the smalling injury by putting someone else back there.

Lukaku although i've slated him myself actually did really well created a few good chances that were blown, very disappointed.

 

[Tincanalley]

Herera and/or Mou overriding Jones' reorganisation has cost us as much as the poor finishing.

I hope someone explains to Rashford that football is a team game, he should try playing with his teammates every now and again. Horrific performance from him

I agree. I am more and more tired of his attitude and decision making. Has ability, doesnt use it consistently.

 

[Tincanalley]

No it's because Mourinho parks the bus that we are under the pressure in the last 10 minutes of every game. Today what's embarrassing was it was against 10 men.

He didnt park the bus. Did you read that somewhere, or have you heard its what he does?

 

[Sensei]

Now I understand why Jose parks the bus.
He doesn't trust our attackers and prefers to put men behind the ball.
Absolutely gutted.

And I think we were lucky that the game ended, otherwise, LCFC probably would've scored another.

It isn't about trust. He did same at Chelsea and eventually fell out with Hazard when the latter criticized the style of play

 

[Irish Jet]

Even though there weren’t any hige implications for this draw it’s probably the most demoralised I’ve been after a United game in years.

It’s not even a terrible result - Just one of the most infuriatingly predictable games.

 

[Tincanalley]

anyone calling for mourinhos head is a damn idiot

it was the players today, missing chance after chance.

our points overall is still good, its just that city are on a one off crazy run this season. Get a grip you tossers

Thats right.

 

[12OunceEpilogue]

Get used to these sorts of results and performances, lads. The league is gone and they wouldn’t be human if the motivation and concentration didn’t drop at times, too.

I don't entirely disagree but I hope Jose and the players are fighting tooth and nail to stay second. Even if subconsciously shoulders droop a touch in league games now the big prize has gone finishing as high as we can shows progres, which is what we have to be about at the moment, whereas to be in a scrap even for top four this season from here would be hugely disappointing.

 

[Mozza]

Of course there are, but finding one who is both a marked improvement on Jose and available/willing to leave his current club to join us is the problem.

We are Man Utd, we can get almost everyone

 

[SuperiorXI]

One thing I can't get my head around is once Smalling got injured, why didn't he swap positions with an outfield player? It's an obvious move that would have made us stronger defensively.

 

[Water Melon]

It isn't about trust. He did same at Chelsea and eventually fell out with Hazard when the latter criticized the style of play

True that. Also listen to what Ramos has to say about Mou's approach to attacking play.

 

[Sensei]

Rashford needs to go back to academy to sort out his football brain.
Did he get a knock on his head recently? He always makes the opposite of the best choice decision.

The mourinho effect. Hope he isn't a Ramirez when Jose finally leaves

 

[Offside]

One thing I can't get my head around is once Smalling got injured, why didn't he swap positions with an outfield player? It's an obvious move that would have made us stronger defensively.

Especially when we were allowing Albrighton to whip in cross after cross.

 

[Richard Cranium]

Could easily have scored 6 or 7. Only ourselves to blame. I'd be more worried if we didn't create that many chances. Finishing and probably mentality of a few let us down, but it wasn't that bad. Just frustrating.

 

[Random Task]

Situation during a match can change in any unpredictable direction. You can't see foresee everything during pre-match instructions. Getting an ass up to the touchline and giving certain instructions at key moments to players to help them win the game is the least thing I'd expect from any manager. Especially, if there is no real captain on a pitch.

Reacting to a change in opposition formation or tactics and adapting accordingly is certainly down to the manager, which he clearly does every week (especially when we're leading with 15 mins to go), but beyond that I fail to see what else he could have done to influence the outcome of the game. You are giving our players an easy escape here, when in truth this "loss" is entirely on them. Missing 3 gilt-edged chances, folding under the pressure when it matters most and ultimately throwing the game due to poor marking for their equalizer.

How is Jose at fault for this loss?

 

[AllezLesDiables]

He didn't lose the team FFS. Sometimes I get the feeling people can't wait for that to happen or he has a meltdown just so they can prove a point.

Then why is a player willfully refusing his instructions? That doesn’t happen unless said player doesn’t trust the manager.

 

[Random Task]

Then why is a player willfully refusing his instructions? That doesn’t happen unless said player doesn’t trust the manager.

To whom and what are you referring?

This thread has quickly descended in to a Jose bashing thread. How predictable.

 

[SuperiorXI]

Especially when we were allowing Albrighton to whip in cross after cross.

It's so simple though, like if it happens in Fifa you're hitting pause straight away and swapping the player with an outfield player if you've run out of subs. If the average gamer can do it, why can't professional footballers???

 

[Water Melon]

Reacting to a change in opposition formation or tactics and adapting accordingly is certainly down to the manager, which he clearly does every week (especially when we're leading with 15 mins to go), but beyond that I fail to see what else he could have done to influence the outcome of the game. You are giving our players an easy escape here, when in truth this "loss" is entirely on them. Missing 3 gilt-edged chances, folding under the pressure when it matters most and ultimately throwing the game due to poor marking for their equalizer.

How is Jose at fault for this loss?

Wrong subs. Inability of the squad to withstand any pressure being a man up. This is certainly on Jose and should be dealt with on a regular basis in training.Missing sitters is certainly on players though. Also I am yet to be convinced that Matic Pogba duo is good enough to carry our midfield.

 

[Random Task]

Wrong subs. Inability of the squad to withstand any pressure being a man up. This is certainly on Jose and should be dealt with on a regular basis in training.Missing sitters is certainly on players though. Also I am yet to be convinced that Matic Pogba duo is good enough to carry our midfield.

The Miki sub was rather odd I must admit, but Rashford and Herrera were sound enough - one shows intent to attack a weakened Leicester team and the other adds stability in midfield. Indeed if Rashford takes his chances it's a match winning sub - fine lines eh. I sincerely do not know how you can teach a man to handle pressure, for me you either handle it or don't. There is no teaching it. As far as I can tell the vast majority of our squad have been fairly praising o Jose's training regime - could be wrong.

Matic isn't performing as he was at the start of the season, he looks somewhat jaded to me. Maybe he simply needs a rest. As for their partnership, well, I believe they are lacking a third party to bring it all together. Too many players at the club right now who are not filling that need, Miki, Herrera and Fellaini are just not up to scratch. Lingard makes the effort but he is far to attack minded to be relied upon as a central midfielder.

 

[Seanus]

Haven't seen or heard much about the possible penalty when Rashford tried to go round the keeper(had the game on TV but was not able to watch closely due to Christmas present wrapping!)
Should it have been a pen?

 

[redIndianDevil]

He didnt park the bus. Did you read that somewhere, or have you heard its what he does?

Why else after dominating possession against them for 80 minutes we suddenly are defending deep and kicking it long against 10 men? Yes Rashford finishing his chance would have killed the game but he didn't and we allowed them to bomb our box with crosses, eventually one is bound to be world class, we should had kept possession and killed time instead we park the bus, this happened against WBA too, luckily they are shite whereas Leicester aren't.

 

[roseguy64]

Look this is classic situation what would united level defender do vs average defender. From average defender you expect that. Get back, don't get beat by attacker and that is that. But we are man utd, club that aim for awards. It is the same thing in any position. Average winger will cover space and cross the ball. From united winger you expect to beat a man, score, assist, etc...
So i expect from united central defender to react better in that situation. To read a game. He clearly can see that vardy is coming and that mahrez will pass the ball so he just must stop that. He should and could put pressure on mahrez.

Okay

 

[roseguy64]

I didn't look up your date but by bringing it up it seemed like it was something from a long time ago. And by the way, no need to get all aggressive with your big bold letters

He had to repeat himself a few times because people like you didn't read what he said. Rightly annoyed

 

[AllezLesDiables]

To whom and what are you referring?

This thread has quickly descended in to a Jose bashing thread. How predictable.

Herrera to RB, Smallihg out from the back why didn’t it happen?

 

[Sterling Archer]

He didnt park the bus. Did you read that somewhere, or have you heard its what he does?

Don't engage the troll

 

[minoo-utd]

People who blame Jose either didn't watch the game or waiting for any dropped points to blame the manager, yesterday was always on the players I have never seen those kind of wasted chances 2 on 1 3 on 2 oh come on Jose put the plan and it was right and gave us the upper hand till the likes of Rashford and Mkhitaryan made those stupid negative passes who do you want to manage United then if not Jose, what most can't see is that Jose building a winning team he only need some support from the board and should be backed with good money again and a new contract if possible, really hope he stays beyond his current contract, do you want someone else to start over everything? Or some x United player and risk everything? From the defeat against City it was really bad luck that Lukaku involved, the defeat against Bristol what should he have done? And yesterday should he put that goal which Lingard missed in an open net? Give Jose time and right players and you will see what he can do, lots and lots of clearing out must be going surely.

 

[Z2United]

He didnt park the bus. Did you read that somewhere, or have you heard its what he does?

Agree he dident park the bus but he certainly played it defensively when i think we would have had a different outcome if we had played it offensively vs a 10 men opponent. I know jose loves to sit back and counter these situations but we were due a loss of points in these scenarios considering how close some of the games have been previously in very similar conditions at the end of the games (but at least those were against 11 men and more understandable).

 

[Strats]

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

This is still boiling my piss. Fecks sake.

 

[Greck]

Actually felt we sat back way to deep against a 10 man side. Nothing wrong with going defensive but we did it to an awful extreme. Anything can happen when teams start launching balls into your penalty area from that high up

 

[Donsangre]

Even created a decent one for Mkhitaryan who decided "Nah I ain't shooting"

I dont blame him. It wasnt an easy one. The goalie was too close. Im not even sure what one would do there. May be wait for a few seconds more and try to draw the goalie. He shouldve tried the far post but thought Lukaku was in a better position. His pass wasnt very good though.

 

[eat_grass]

In the absence of hard evidence I guess I can understand wild speculation about what happened on the pitch, but that's not what we have here, so a lot of the posts in this thread make absolutely no sense.

Reporter: "Smalling could barely move, and he seemed to be marking McGuire, so they ... [inaudible and doesn't finish his question]."

Mourinho: "Yes. Yes, and I had the chance to speak with Ashly Young and to tell him the way the team had to be in position because of Smalling's difficulty; but I think lack of maturity, because I cannot stop the game and to give a team talk for the last few minutes. The players inside they have immediately to adapt and to read the game -- which they didn't."

Reporter: "Would you say your message didn't get communicated from the bench to the players -- they didn't manage to pick up on what you were saying?"

Mourinho: "No."

So, Mourinho did attempt to reorganize the team to cope with Smalling's injury, and he gave the message directly to Ashly Young. Young was inside the manager's box on the touchline, getting a drink while Mourinho gave him instructions at the 92:52 mark. Leicester City scored on the ensuing resumption of play.

Young was actually marking McGuire as the cross was put into the box, but once he saw Smalling track McGuire's run, he pulled up and let him run. Jones immediately turned and gestured at Young after the ball went into the net. Young whipped around and walked away.

And for all the speculation about Herrera's involvement in that incident, he said this:

"Happy Christmas to everyone, including the ones that try to invent stories that never happened #sofunny #trytobehappyanddontlye"

In fairness to the players, Jones did try to manage the situation on the pitch. So, maybe Jones' instructions conflicted with Mourinho's instructions inside Young's head, and the confusion led Young to not think clearly. I don't know. Maybe Mourinho saw Jones doing what a captain is supposed to do (he wasn't captain that night, but he's worn the armband plenty enough), which is why he waited almost 8 minutes after Smalling's injury to get involved. I don't know.

 

[Fitchett]

Haven't seen or heard much about the possible penalty when Rashford tried to go round the keeper(had the game on TV but was not able to watch closely due to Christmas present wrapping!)
Should it have been a pen?

It looked like a clear pen to me from the internet stream I was watching. But it's never on the media's agenda to report that we had a bad decision go against us. And the Caf are rightly focussing on the ludicrous situation of our players wasting what should have been a 6-1 win, not a 2-2 draw.

 

[Fitchett]

In the absence of hard evidence I guess I can understand wild speculation about what happened on the pitch, but that's not what we have here, so a lot of the posts in this thread make absolutely no sense.

Reporter: "Smalling could barely move, and he seemed to be marking McGuire, so they ... [inaudible and doesn't finish his question]."

Mourinho: "Yes. Yes, and I had the chance to speak with Ashly Young and to tell him the way the team had to be in position because of Smalling's difficulty; but I think lack of maturity, because I cannot stop the game and to give a team talk for the last few minutes. The players inside they have immediately to adapt and to read the game -- which they didn't."

Reporter: "Would you say your message didn't get communicated from the bench to the players -- they didn't manage to pick up on what you were saying?"

Mourinho: "No."

So, Mourinho did attempt to reorganize the team to cope with Smalling's injury, and he gave the message directly to Ashly Young. Young was inside the manager's box on the touchline, getting a drink while Mourinho gave him instructions at the 92:52 mark. Leicester City scored on the ensuing resumption of play.

Young was actually marking McGuire as the cross was put into the box, but once he saw Smalling track McGuire's run, he pulled up and let him run. Jones immediately turned and gestured at Young after the ball went into the net. Young whipped around and walked away.

And for all the speculation about Herrera's involvement in that incident, he said this:

"Happy Christmas to everyone, including the ones that try to invent stories that never happened #sofunny #trytobehappyanddontlye"

In fairness to the players, Jones did try to manage the situation on the pitch. So, maybe Jones' instructions conflicted with Mourinho's instructions inside Young's head, and the confusion led Young to not think clearly. I don't know. Maybe Mourinho saw Jones doing what a captain is supposed to do (he wasn't captain that night, but he's worn the armband plenty enough), which is why he waited almost 8 minutes after Smalling's injury to get involved. I don't know.

Jones rarely gets credit for his leadership qualities, just ridicule for his amount of injuries. One of the positives SAF said about him when we signed him as a teenager, was that he was impressed with Jones cajoling older team mates to the very end of the match when we beat Blackburn 7-1. That was the start of the end for Blackburn as the inspired new owners Venkys sacked Sam Allardyce soon after and replaced him with Steve Kean.

 

[Gio]

There was some shocking decision making in attack by us in the second half. Twice we could have easily laid players in for a tap in with a simple sideways pass and both Rashford and Lingard were far too casual in finishing. I don’t think Kane, for example, takes either of those around the keeper. He’d draw the keeper and slot it past him.

Agree with the general point. Although Lingard was right to go round the keeper given the angle of his run made it the best option. The finish looked like he didn’t want to lose his balance and spoil wheeling away in celebration - he should have hooked his right leg around it to make sure he hit the target, even if it meant falling over in the process.

 

[NK86]

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

This is still boiling my piss. Fecks sake.

I didn't see the match. However from that image, how the feck did Lingard manage to miss an open goal?!

 

[JohnnyKills]

I feel much better after Leicester than I did after any of the shite, scrappy wins we've had against the likes of Bournemouth and WBA recently.

At Leicester we played far better than we did in any of those games, the football was better and we created loads of chances. Every team gets one of these games once a season.

Hopefully we can repeat the performance against Burnley tomorrow, and just be a bit more clinical.

 

[Eleven-Eighteen]

There is no leadership core on the field in this group at all. What a shame as we had plenty of chances. Disappointing.

This. At this point it seems Mata is the most senior player and leader on the team, and he doesnt even start most games (aside from the fact that Mata is just not the right leader for any team to begin with)

 

[dogwithabone]

I see what you’re saying but in my opinion he can take that earlier and slot it in. He’s a decent finisher and just needs to be cuter in that sort of situation. I always think try taking it around the keeper means more things can go wrong. Keepers are often only a finger tip away from getting their hand to the ball, yes you can draw a foul but will the penalty be scored ? Will the penalty be given even ? Also that split second trying to around him gives a covering defender that second or two extra to get better set positionally.

 

[dirkey]

Why else after dominating possession against them for 80 minutes we suddenly are defending deep and kicking it long against 10 men? Yes Rashford finishing his chance would have killed the game but he didn't and we allowed them to bomb our box with crosses, eventually one is bound to be world class, we should had kept possession and killed time instead we park the bus, this happened against WBA too, luckily they are shite whereas Leicester aren't.

Park the bus. Here's someone who clearly can't have watched the game.

 

[Hernandez - BFA]

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

This is still boiling my piss. Fecks sake.

This is what separates us and City at the moment. They are lethal and cut-throat. We are wasteful.

If they miss a chance, they keep the intensity.
When we miss a chance, we get nervous that we bottle it, which we seem to be doing.

For a club who's known to have some bottle, we really have some absolute Coca Cola bottlers in the club for the last few seasons.
Not saying they should be sold, but they need to go if they can't change that mentality.