[SammyUnited_83]

Matic has looked shite for weeks, his saving grace being that he 1st few months.

I don't see what he does at the moment.

 

[balaks]

Do we know now what happened with Fellani?

 

[mark_a]

We shipped 2 stupid, careless goals and gave Tottenham the platform (at home) to look better than they are. Let's move on.

Bad days for Matic, Pogba though Sanchez did well considering it was his first proper intense premier league game for us. Hadn't realised what a kicking he gets from opposition.

 

[youngrell]

A fit Michael Carrick would have been perfect last night. Calm in possession under Spurs' pressure and he'd have exposed their high line several times IMO.

Actually, the walking version of Carrick from last Friday night would have probably been more effective than Pogba and Matic last night.

 

[youngrell]

Do we know now what happened with Fellani?

Hurt his knee again by the looks of it. Probably from when Alli clattered into him late.

 

[Raw]

Do we know now what happened with Fellani?

Mourinho said Fellaini damaged his lateral ligament a few minutes after he came on.

 

[TheRedDevil'sAdvocate]

Matic has looked shite for weeks, his saving grace being that he 1st few months.

I don't see what he does at the moment.

Come on mate, we can't afford to not have him in the starting lineup and it has taken its toll on him. There are constantly 5 players ahead of him (4231) who don't care much for defending and when they do, they don't have the tactical nous to do it right. Add to this the fact that there's no one among our backline who's comfortable with the ball, so it's him the one who has to play the ball forward from the back. Most of the time i feel sorry for him when i watch us play.

Having said that, after performances like last night, one has to really appreciate what the prime Carrick brought to the table for us. In terms of defensive positioning and protecting the central channels, there were very few holding midfielders who could do a better job.

 

[doomy20]

Wow, what a let-down that was. Embarassing. I mean @Burnley was also horrible but yesterday ... wow. It was like someone asked 11 random men on the street to play a football match together for some kind of TV show. Laughable performance by the whole team, not a single player would have been able to say "I gave my best, i played a good match" after the game. Not a single one. With our best squad available and all the recovery/rest time they had during the last two weeks, this is unaccaptable. How can they be so unfocused, without any joy for the game, without any emotions. Just getting on the pitch, playing shit, letting fans and club down and wait for the final whistle to get back into comfort zone. I expect a real turnarround and a massive bounce-back in the next game.

 

[Coxy]

Their energy and pressing was far superior to ours - such a shame. Really hope we can hold on to second.

 

[Lash]

That's ridiculous, it's a goal in the first minute, there's 90 fecking minutes left to rectify it. Just ignore the scoreline and play as you would. With some of Tottenhams luck we'd equalised the game just the minute after they scored.
Mourinho got the plan all wrong. IMO he should've started Rojo and dropped one of Sanchez or Martial. Normally we'd expect that to happen, I don't know why he thought it'd be a good idea to go full-out attack vs Tottenham at Wembley. I'd be reserved about even setting up the team like that at home to Tottenham, and Mourinho obviously was too.
If you look at that Spurs team, all of their attackers come centrally with the fullbacks providing the width. Put Smalling on top of Kane to stop their initiation, Matic to block the hole ahead of defence to stop the supply, put Young and Valencia on man-marking their opposing fullbacks and let Rojo and Jones plug the holes as their midfielders drift into central positions.
We should've relied more on the counter-attacking power we have in Lukaku, Lingard and Martial/Sanchez to create chances for us on the break with Pogba and Young supporting.

It's funny, can you imagine if Mourinho had gone there to play on the counter, the sheer abuse and hollering for him being boring that would be on here? When you look at Spurs' latest form, I think it was more than reasonable to expect us to take the game to them. the plan wasn't the issue, the players didn't perform. Don't think the manager said, go out there and within the first 11 seconds, lose every 50/50 you can.

 

[Denis79]

So it's on the Manager then ?

Think it's the modern footballer. They get wealthy way to young, social media, agents make them more important than their clubs.

 

[Jep]

I knew Vertonghen grabbed Herrera by the throat. Can't believe this isn't all over the news, but BT did not help as they did not show any replay and only mentioned some of the ball scuffle. This aint a scuffle.

Videos in the link provided. Wonder if the FA do anything about this.

http://www.givemesport.com/1248155-...r-herrera-during-spurs-20-man-utd-was-naughty

 

[DreamIsh]

I know you didn’t play well, but that’s on Mourinho for me. Poor game management.

 

[Crimson King]

I knew Vertonghen grabbed Herrera by the throat. Can't believe this isn't all over the news, but BT did not help as they did not show any replay and only mentioned some of the ball scuffle. This aint a scuffle.

Videos in the link provided. Wonder if the FA do anything about this.

http://www.givemesport.com/1248155-...r-herrera-during-spurs-20-man-utd-was-naughty

There won't be anywhere near the media campaign so I won't hold my breath.

 

[Full bodied red]

Awful....No other words for it.

Why can't we just be poor if we're not going to be good ?

Instead, when we're not good we just stink the place out and make the opposition look far better than they really are.

 

[Scroto Baggins]

Tough break on both goals. The first one is unforgivable considering the team watched video of how Tottenham start games with that same pattern of quick attack, and let them cash in anyway. The second goal happens to every team at least once throughout a season, so there's no evidence that it's fully preventable.

Maybe im a little more pessimistic but 22 shots to 7, Kane had a bit of an off day, on another day Kane and Son both had some good chances it could have been a lot more than 2-0.

I agree on the preparedness though, we know how Spurs play, they have played the same way for 2 seasons. High fast press from their forwards and a not a lot of passing finesse but a lot of physicality in midfield.

And yet we let Kane win the header from the long ball to him. Alli runs onto it dragging Smalling with him backheels it to Eriksen who is then through on goal.

 

[sunama]

It's as though he has bowed to the pressure of being more attacking in big games on possibly the worst game to do so.

IMO this is what happened.
For the first time, I think the general feeling was that we had a better squad that Spurs, so could go toe-to-toe with them.
Jose tried it and it failed miserably.
IMO, our team are not yet ready to go toe-to-toe with a top 6 side, so with this in mind, for the time being at least, against these sides, we should park the bus and aim for a goal from counter attacks.
Jose needs to do what he feels is right, because when Jose played the team which most fans wanted to see, we lost.

 

[Pace Abuser]

Been saying all week you don't go to Spurs with a midfield two. Drop Lingard for that extra midfielder or extra cenreback.

But most in the match day thread lead by @RedRom wanted the golden boy hot-at-wembley can't stop scoring JLingz brap brap as one part of the quartet that would just destroy Spurs, because 4 is greater than 3.

Terrible tactical decision and also further proof why we need a playmaker further up the pitch. If we wish to have any grip on big games in the future.

 

[sunama]

Maybe im a little more pessimistic but 22 shots to 7, Kane had a bit of an off day, on another day Kane and Son both had some good chances it could have been a lot more than 2-0.

I agree on the preparedness though, we know how Spurs play, they have played the same way for 2 seasons. High fast press from their forwards and a not a lot of passing finesse but a lot of physicality in midfield.

And yet we let Kane win the header from the long ball to him. Alli runs onto it dragging Smalling with him backheels it to Eriksen who is then through on goal.

Their first goal was Root One football.
In the old days, many teams used to use this tactic. None of that "playing the ball along the ground nonsense". Just hit a long ball straight to your big attacker and let him do the rest.

 

[sunama]

Been saying all week you don't go to Spurs with a midfield two. Drop Lingard for that extra midfielder or extra cenreback.

But most in the match day thread lead by @RedRom wanted the golden boy hot-at-wembley can't stop scoring JLingz brap brap as one part of the quartet that would just destroy Spurs, because 4 is greater than 3.

So, let me get this straight. You are blaming the loss on RedRom?
WTF man

Most fans (probably including you) wanted us to go toe-to-toe with a top 6 side. No parking the bus. (Remember the furore around the Liverpool game?)
Well, yesterday we did go toe-to-toe and look what happened.

RedRom is not to blame for yesterday's loss. Neither is Lingard.
The problem is that our team just isn't ready to play in an attacking style, against a team which has similar quality to us.
Had we had 2, 3 or 4 midfielders - I think the result would not have been different.

Did you not see how they were passing the ball around us with ease? Conversely, our own players could not string simple passes together. They kept giving the ball to Spurs players.
There were times in the 2nd half where it felt that we were playing against 12 or 13 men and this more down to the fact that Spurs players knew how to pass, while our players couldn't.

 

[mitchmouse]

Who did do anything?

true. but that's a reason to give Martial man of match

 

[Kemizee]

Terrible, lackluster, passionless display. The sort of performance that left me scratching my head at what we just have to do be competitive in any game that involves a decent outfit.

The players downed tools after conceding that shocker of a first goal, the manager got the tactics wrong and couldn't motivate the team after the first setback.

We have to fix the glaring issues in the summer if we are to return to our position as an elite club(on the pitch) and finally can we get actual full backs in? It would make a world of difference.

 

[mitchmouse]

Just seen a diagram of Sanchez's touches (on skysports.com): only two in their box. shows how bad our passing was and how deep he kept dropping; something peoplle here used to castigate rooney for

 

[kitress]

IMO this is what happened.
For the first time, I think the general feeling was that we had a better squad that Spurs, so could go toe-to-toe with them.
Jose tried it and it failed miserably.
IMO, our team are not yet ready to go toe-to-toe with a top 6 side, so with this in mind, for the time being at least, against these sides, we should park the bus and aim for a goal from counter attacks.
Jose needs to do what he feels is right, because when Jose played the team which most fans wanted to see, we lost.

We did have a better team, at least on paper. But it's pretty stupid to go all out gung ho with an attack that had never played together and half of them were shunted out of positions just to accommodate Sanchez. Also it didn't help that Jones decided it's the day to shit the bed.

However the most concerning part is that Jose and Pogba were butting heads; this will not end well.

 

[sully1]

How much of Cnut is Dele Alli and why am i so surprised that not one single CB in the premier league has targeted him.

even last night i wanted one of our players to put in a dirty tackle against Alli a Keane or Scholes like Tackle to let the little bastard know.

Spurs are the dirtiest team in the league, they foul and kick and whenever someone touches their players they dive.

I was at the Spurs match at OT earlier in the season and Spurs were at it all match kicking and foul opponents but as soon as anyone comes near them they dive

 

[JohnZSmith27]

Been saying all week you don't go to Spurs with a midfield two. Drop Lingard for that extra midfielder or extra cenreback.

But most in the match day thread lead by @RedRom wanted the golden boy hot-at-wembley can't stop scoring JLingz brap brap as one part of the quartet that would just destroy Spurs, because 4 is greater than 3.

Terrible tactical decision and also further proof why we need a playmaker further up the pitch. If we wish to have any grip on big games in the future.

I don't think that poor chap has posted since before the game. Probably still in shock.

It was a sh*t show from back to front. Everyone has to share the blame, players and manager.

Man when we play poorly, we really play poorly. I think that was even worse than the 4 nil against Chelsea last season.

At least Chelsea lost last night. And Spurs and the scouse play each other this weekend so there will be dropped points there. Trying my best to think positively here.

 

[Dr Fink]

The rot started with the midfield last night. Two was the wrong number to play, add in Matic and Pogba had stinkers and it compounds the issue. This allowed the Spurs players more freedom to run at and around the defence. It only amplified the poor defending by putting too much pressure on them. Jose in dragging Pogba off tied to stem the flow in the wrong way. Herrera spent most of his time on the pitch going to ground trying to tackle the more mobile Spurs players - awful. 90% of the team were just not at the races. Then there's the way Kane lead the line for Spurs, holding the ball up, laying it off and bringing in his own players in to play, compared to Lukaku who kept flicking it on to err whoever was supposed to be running in behind............chalk nad cheese. good job Kane was misfiring in front of goal. 4-0 would have been a let-off, so 2-0 is getting off lightly. Spurs were THAT good and we were THAT bad.

Oh I agree with Sully above, Alli is a horrible tw*t. He needs sorting. Where's Keano when you need him.......

 

[BootsyCollins]

I wanted us to play with a midfield three before the match, but after seeing the match again i am not sure that was our biggest problem last night.

A bigger problem was how our defence played with a midfield two in front of them. We all now how Pogba plays and he is not good at tracking back and marking. So if he shall be one of the midfielders he need freedom.
Our defence was way to deep, so the room between our back four and midfield was huge. Give players like Eriksen, Alli(poor form, but still no need to make it easy for him) and Son that room and the match will be hard nomather what formation you play.
If we moved our defence line up to close the gap i think we would have done better, and won the ball earlier to start the transition were Pogba in one of the best in the world imo.

Another thing is how we use Lukaku. There is nothing wrong with playing long balls on your forward, but you need players running around him. Granted, he did not win much ball last night, but it wouldent make any difference since the movement around him was close to nothing.
The headers he won went straight to a Tottenham player, and since the room between defence and midfield was so big, they could easily find a forward pass to a free player.

The last thing is the energy after the second goal. Almost looked like the players gave up.

 

[JohnnyLaw]

It's funny, can you imagine if Mourinho had gone there to play on the counter, the sheer abuse and hollering for him being boring that would be on here? When you look at Spurs' latest form, I think it was more than reasonable to expect us to take the game to them. the plan wasn't the issue, the players didn't perform. Don't think the manager said, go out there and within the first 11 seconds, lose every 50/50 you can.

If there'd been any abuse it'd only be by a few select anti-Mourinho possé. It's one thing to set up like we did against Liverpool at home, an entirely different thing to do it away to Tottenham.
The plan was clearly an issue from the get go, surely you didn't miss the continueous times where they cut threw us with just a couple of passes. We were wide open and nevermind the first 11 seconds beacuse the further the game went on the worse it got. We went from a bit open in defense but potent in attack to very open in defense and non-existant in attack.

 

[unitedforeveral]

Enough of excuses

You can spend all the money you want and buy any players you want.

If you're not coached well as a team, we ain't going far in a long time.

It is really getting on my nerves these days. We have no rage factor or a proper leader in our team who can get the team all wild up. We are so scared to put a foot wrong which eventually causes more mistakes. All our players are playing out of position except a few and we are not getting the maximum out of them. Matic is better if he is left alone as a CDM and Pogba is better when left free in the attacking half. The whole team is a dead duck off the ball and with it we got no guts to go forward and do damage. I think we got away with a 0-2 loss, it could've been worse

 

[unitedforeveral]

We gave up with over half an hour left, not sure I've ever seen a Utd team do that. One of the worst performances I can remember watching.

worst Jose team and performance.

 

[unitedforeveral]

Same old shit, all the optimism surrounding the club after the Sanchez signing has vanished after being completely outclassed by that fecking little club in north London (not bitter). Enough of the excuses, we are simply shit when it comes to these big games.

It has always been Jose's problem. Too conservative against the top clubs. He likes to win 1-0s against big team or even keep a draw and win against all other clubs but sadly for him, there are many teams capable of winning against us at their home grounds and we sometimes lose big games at home as well.

As long as we have Jose, i doubt we'll see any huge fearless play by United.

 

[Lash]

If there'd been any abuse it'd only be by a few select anti-Mourinho possé. It's one thing to set up like we did against Liverpool at home, an entirely different thing to do it away to Tottenham.
The plan was clearly an issue from the get go, surely you didn't miss the continueous times where they cut threw us with just a couple of passes. We were wide open and nevermind the first 11 seconds beacuse the further the game went on the worse it got. We went from a bit open in defense but potent in attack to very open in defense and non-existant in attack.

Well the 11 seconds set the tone and it felt like people just gave up because fundamentally on the game as core people were having stinkers. Pogba, Lukaku and the defence in general.

 

[nainaisson]

Anyone who saw the recent Stoke game, in which Steven Ireland was gifted two opportunities to score but was too mediocre to finish, should have seen this coming. Playing with a one-man midfield and five attackers was a disaster waiting to happen. If Mourinho persists with a 4-2-3-1, I hope he moves Pogba to the No 10 position. He has played there before and never really impressed, but at least it keeps him from being a defensive liability.

 

[unitedforeveral]

Pros and Cons-

Pros: DID NOT GET HIT FOR MORE, we got away light!
Cons: Players out of possession
1) Martial on the right (come on)
2) Pogba as a holding midfielder again (don't you get it already)
3) Sanchez, Lingard, Martial, Pogba and Lukaku should play in front with Matic holding and protecting the back.
4) Missed Shaw (Young is great but get way too paranoid)
5) Jones had an off day.
6) Smalling and his feet have a tale to tell.
7) De Gea panicked a lot.
8) Jose frustrated and walking off before half time and very animated throughout.
9) Gave Spurs too much respect in a ground we are more familiar with than they are.
10) WE NEED A GOOD CAPTAIN! THE MAN WHO CAN STEER SOME SOUL INTO THESE PLAYERS!

 

[Escape Goat]

We cannot be lining up with a 4231 with Pogba and Matic against strong teams. By default it means we are playing with one midfielder. It will take a while to adjust to Sanchez and vice versa, it will upset the balance in the short-term. Even more of a reason to solidify midfield.

(Snip)

Being a Jose fan, I almost always defend him here. I think it’s obvious that there is no one better for us. But the one man midfield thing needs to stop.

Exactly why I said beforehand I'd rather see Lukaku dropped. Harsh on him, but a solid midfield three of Matic, Herrera and Pogba, and a fluid front three of Martial, Sanchez and Lingard is clearly the way to approach big games.

 

[Bastian]

Exactly why I said beforehand I'd rather see Lukaku dropped. Harsh on him, but a solid midfield three of Matic, Herrera and Pogba, and a fluid front three of Martial, Sanchez and Lingard is clearly the way to approach big games.

Such a shame Jose has put himself in a corner with Lukaku. Don't see that changing now tbh. But surely he must recognise the lack of a midfield against better sides.

Either he is not identifying this issue or, super unlikely, he's making some point to whoever that we are seriously lacking quality and he needs a pile of money.

 

[RedDevil@84]

Do we have a gif of Alli's challenge on Sanchez?

 

[Pace Abuser]

What guts me is how

So, let me get this straight. You are blaming the loss on RedRom?
WTF man

Most fans (probably including you) wanted us to go toe-to-toe with a top 6 side. No parking the bus. (Remember the furore around the Liverpool game?)
Well, yesterday we did go toe-to-toe and look what happened.

RedRom is not to blame for yesterday's loss. Neither is Lingard.
The problem is that our team just isn't ready to play in an attacking style, against a team which has similar quality to us.
Had we had 2, 3 or 4 midfielders - I think the result would not have been different.

Did you not see how they were passing the ball around us with ease? Conversely, our own players could not string simple passes together. They kept giving the ball to Spurs players.
There were times in the 2nd half where it felt that we were playing against 12 or 13 men and this more down to the fact that Spurs players knew how to pass, while our players couldn't.

I'm not blaiming the loss on anyone, what I am saying is United fans have been clamouring for his so called attacking football and I hope last night evinced why we're a million miles away from it, therefore Jose should be backed by fans and be allowed to move the team forward how he see's best and he's been vindicated after what happened last night.

Football is not linear, had we set up to constrict the spaces in defence and stop them from having the freedom to waltz around the gaping holes eveywhere, it may have been stifled and a boring game but atleast we would have had more of a chance at nicking it or getting a point.

Fans like redrom, who were desperate to see Lingard start and for us to play 4 attackers not one of whom is good at ball retention and recycling further up the pitch should really take a seat, even if Lingard is the hotshot right now who's deceived everyone with a few bangers. It's not his "fault", but he's the one who must take the chop for more solidity further back the pitch in big games.

 

[Tincanalley]

Unfortunately a lot of fans think play FM or FIFA is the equivalent of getting your coaching badges.

Good comment. Glad a few more people see it that way. I think there is a balance to be found, and I think Jose, given a chance, and support, will find it.