Preseason Tour Game 4: Man Utd v Liverpool (ICC, Saturday 28th July 22:05 BST)

Rajma

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:lol::lol: so true.

The last couple of pages are filled with posters moaning about those who expressed their disappointment with the performance. We all know its a preseason game but it doesn't mean it has to be a shitshow either.
Yeah the meltdowns from these posters are funny to see.

Pot. Kettle. Black.
 

Summit

"do the dead, spread your seed and get out"
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What did Klopp do with Rodgers players in his first season? What did Fergie do with Big Rons?
Valid point, but you could also argue that the players Jose had when he took over weren't shite by any stretch and he's certainly put his own stamp on the team with his players. I hope this season he really pushes for the title and do what I believed he would do when he came in.
 

Fully Fledged

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I agree with 2 soft penalties. The Robertson seemed to trip on his own legs but maybe there was a contact. The players went down a bit easy IMO too even though I support them.
Well take away those 2 penalties the score line is 2-1. Two superb goals from boths but apart from the freekick United offered zero going forward. The last 20 mins were interesting as United and Liverpool both had teenagers on the pitch mostly. But still Liverpool looked confortably in control all over the pitch. Chong made an impression though. He is a keeper and was your top player once he came on.
Yeah even without the 2 pens you still beat us. I will also go as far as say that it was 2 good goals you scored from open play. You played better on the day had most of the attack.

I don't read anything into the match though.
 

Chairman Woodie

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I am not bothered about pre-season and the results this summer because United are missing most of the regular players. Win, lose or draw - it's meaningless to me.
 

Ramshock

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Valid point, but you could also argue that the players Jose had when he took over weren't shite by any stretch and he's certainly put his own stamp on the team with his players. I hope this season he really pushes for the title and do what I believed he would do when he came in.
Mate there is loads of conjecture about LVGs signings. Just admit you arent a fan of Jose and I will respect you for it.
 

breakout67

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You see that is where I differ. Prime Jose and Klopp wouldn't even come close for me. This Jose is a different story, his whole demeanor and man management is fecking terrible. The old Jose would have players running through brick walls, this Jose throws players under the bus at every available opportunity.
That's great that you differ. Unfortunately the reality doesn't agree with you.

Klopp has lost 6 finals in a row, has not challenged for a league title in several years, has not won a domestic cup for several years. Amazing managers don't win all of these moral battles without results on the pitch.

A declining Mourinho has outperformed whatever Jurgen Klopp is now.
 

Trophy Room

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You reckon Fabinho, Keita and Allison are going to overhaul that gap from last season?
The criticism of Liverpool from last season was that they let in too many goals, Keita and Fabinho will help shore up their midfield (defensive) depth and alongside Allison should help to improve this problem. Klopp relies on 'team defence' and quick, high energy recovery of the football and therefore squad depth is important for this intensity to last all season. I get your point, however I think its very difficult to apply the gap in points from last season to this one. Man City may not be as consistent while Liverpool maybe but then again (hopefully) Salah won't be as prolific. They have however bought Shaqiri who will contribute.
 

Summit

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Pep is your go to then? Probably the best coach in the world in the last decade who still always has had huge financial support or some of hte best players in the world to play for him. You telling me that Jose has had the same from United? I love how you have dropped Klopp and go for the current top manager.
Nah Pep isn't my go to, I was merely making the point that managers have taken the league by storm after you made the point the game has changed and that doesn't happen anymore.
 

Hoof the ball

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Pros
Sanchez continued to look sharper in pre-season.
Andreas had yet another good game. Technically good in the first half and mentally strong in the second.
Demetri looked fairly decent at times going forward.
Majority of major players missing

Cons
Defensively still shaky. Not limited to this game only, or the youth involved.
Despite only being pre-season, tactical setup looks very reminiscent of last seasons approach of conceding the ball, irregular pressing, inviting pressure and struggling to retain the ball.
TFM, Axel need more loan time to develop.

I understand some of the more emotive arguments from the "knee jerking" crowd. I think the sentiment being that factors such as "they're kids", "it's pre-season", and "fitness levels" are perhaps somewhat negated when you observe that the likes of City, Dortmund and co, have played pre-season games with equal fitness levels to us with higher quantities of youth players involved, and yet have look fluid throughout.

The take home from this pre-season is that the style of play isn't going to change. We're just going to have better players playing that style of football. It needs to be accepted that we're not going to aggressively press high, we're not going to ball retain or dominate possession (against top six). We're going to work on grinding out results and sharpening our offensive transitions.
 
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Josep Dowling

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Exactly. :lol: Jesus, catch on fella. You can't use trophies to determine who is the better manager right now. You can use them to say who's been the better manager over their respective careers, but not right now at this very moment. That is exactly the point I was making.
Based on what exactly? They have won nothing since he took over. They have been to 3 finals and lost. They turn up against the big teams and lose to teams they shouldn’t lose to. That’s how Liverpool have been for years now.
 

jesperjaap

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You reckon Fabinho, Keita and Allison are going to overhaul that gap from last season?
Quite a lot of the gap was overhauled in January with there purchases and including younger players more regularly like Arnold and the not so young Robertson. They did actually do well second half of the season. Persoanlly dont think they will be consistant enough defensively next year with still young players as there beest options or consistantly good enough in the not so big games, but at the moment the difference between ourselves, Spurs, Liverpool and Chelsea is marginal and I like what Emery is doing at Arsenal so far with the money available to him
 

TMDaines

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Means you didn’t really watch the game. Your eyes may have been on the match, but you really didn’t watch the game.
OK mate. Look forward to Pereira being a shining light in our season. Someone linked me to montage of Andreas from the friendly the other day and neither of us could decide whether it a parody or not. We’ve been devoid of midfield passing for so long that people are creaming themselves over anyway just knocking a pass somewhat forward, regardless of whether pass is well weighted, whether it actually arrives in the right place for the receiver to continue the momentum of the attack.

Genuinely, if we have a strong start to the season and start well in the league and Europe, feel free to come and give me all the shit you want. I’m not so arsed about the results in pre-season, but we are entering the manager’s third season and we are completely incoherent as a side. I have no idea whatsoever what Mourinho wants to do at United and I say that as someone who admired him for years and always wanted him post-Ferguson. All of the other top sides, I can tell you their strategy. I have no idea what ours is. We are mediocre defensively and bailed out by a top shot stopper. In attack, we have not shown any coherent gameplan for two seasons, other than hope for some talented players to pull something out of the bag. Let’s not even get onto our transfer strategy, which is fecking basket case. We can sign another twenty centre backs and it wouldn’t solve our hideous transitions, which allows teams to get into our final third with ease and expose defenders.

I’ll be at the Leicester game in two weeks and I will be singing for the full 90 minutes, but I wish that was with hope and expectation rather than fear.
 

montpelier

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I think the moaners should get to hand out the ''Top Red'' tags.

Just to see what it looks like.

But if you assign one, you register yourself as a moaner.

Could be done the other way too, and should sort things out fairly quickly, :D.
 

Summit

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Mate there is loads of conjecture about LVGs signings. Just admit you arent a fan of Jose and I will respect you for it.
I have already admitted this on the forum that I'm not a fan of his. I will support him this coming season though, like I have always done.
 

Ramshock

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The criticism of Liverpool from last season was that they let in too many goals, Keita and Fabinho will help shore up their midfield (defensive) depth and alongside Allison should help to improve this problem. Klopp relies on 'team defence' and quick, high energy recovery of the football and therefore squad depth is important for this intensity to last all season. I get your point, however I think its very difficult to apply the gap in points from last season to this one. Man City may not be as consistent while Liverpool maybe but then again (hopefully) Salah won't be as prolific. They have however bought Shaqiri who will contribute.
How do you know that about Fabinho and Keita, transfer value doesnt guarantee this.
 

breakout67

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Quite a lot of the gap was overhauled in January with there purchases and including younger players more regularly like Arnold and the not so young Robertson. They did actually do well second half of the season. Persoanlly dont think they will be consistant enough defensively next year with still young players as there beest options or consistantly good enough in the not so big games, but at the moment the difference between ourselves, Spurs, Liverpool and Chelsea is marginal and I like what Emery is doing at Arsenal so far with the money available to him
Liverpool in the 2nd half of the 17/18 season performed worse than City, Spurs and United. So there goes your theory.
 

Trophy Room

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I'm not sure what positives can be taken out of this match; Maybe an energetic Sanchez? And perhaps a sign that 3-5-2 will be our favoured system next season?. I'm not sure fitness is really relevent given that a significant proportion of players will not sight the first team after they leave the US of A.
 

Dec9003

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The match pretty much went how I imagined really. We're stuck playing in a five back due to a lack of forwards, the midfielders bar Pereira aren't really up to scratch and neither Mata nor Alexis are focal points. I don't think anyone played particularly badly, maybe Mitchell got outplayed a bit but he was up against Salah so what can you expect. I was really happy with Axel and especially Pereira of course. We defended well in the first half and as Jose just said in his post match interview, we were dead by the 70th minute.
For those who are worried based on the performance we really have to think that during the season most of these players won't play and the system won't be the same.
As for worries I'm very worried about the first 4/5 matches because we have such a bare bones squad, hopefully by the time Leicester or Brighton comes we will have more players ready, ideally we will have signings come in but it looks less and less likely as the weeks go on.
I'm so, so happy with Pereira though. He can be a quality midfielder for us if he keeps it up.
 

breakout67

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I'm not sure what positives can be taken out of this match; Maybe an energetic Sanchez? And perhaps a sign that 3-5-2 will be our favoured system next season?. I'm not sure fitness is really relevent given that a significant proportion of players will not sight the first team after they leave the US of A.
Periera has been a standout including this game. He looks ready to make the step up to the top level.
 

jesperjaap

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Pros
Sanchez continued to look sharper in pre-season.
Andreas had yet another good game. Technically good in the first half and mentally strong in the second.
Demetri looked fairly decent at times going forward.
Majority of major players missing

Cons
Defensively still shaky. Not limited to this game only, or the youth involved.
Despite only being pre-season, tactical setup looks very reminiscent of last seasons approach of conceding the ball, irregular pressing, inviting pressure and struggling to retain the ball.
TFM, Axel need more loan time to develop.
Would agree with this, though Demetri was totally lost defensively most of the game and fairly decent though not a massive compliment if also probably being generous
 

Vato

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I dont get this argument. Whats the point of a forum if you cant respond to a post?
Well, I don't get that people who vent their frustrations about the football on show get jumped by posters that only clap and cheer on their team, even when on the internet and losing a game by 4-1.

Are you always happy with every match?
 

Liver_bird

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I'm amazed how they can be so thick.

Don't deserve United. Wish they'd feck off.
Let's not pretend you wouldn't be calling us shit and laughing at Klopp had you won.
End of the day it's about the performance the fitness and gaining rhythm. The results mean nothing other than the boost any one person chooses to take from it.
 

edcunited1878

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Grant is 3rd choice. Smalling didn't play. Herrera, Mata and Sanchez were a mix of okay against Liverpool's side that was pretty strong for most of the match with VVD, Fabinho, Mane, Salah, Milner, etc. This is a truly poor quality traveling pre-season party for United for obvious reasons.
 

TheReligion

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Let's not pretend you wouldn't be calling us shit and laughing at Klopp had you won.
End of the day it's about the performance the fitness and gaining rhythm. The results mean nothing other than the boost any one person chooses to take from it.
What you on about?

Literally makes zero sense
 

Trophy Room

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How do you know that about Fabinho and Keita, transfer value doesnt guarantee this.
I never mentioned anything about their transfer fees did I? And nothing is guaranteed in football. I was merely forming an opinion, rightly or wrongly as you pointed out, based on the quality of these players' performances in their previous leagues. I also see the logic of these purchases from the Liverpool perspective based on the point I made about a knackered Liverpool in the second half of the season.