[DomesticTadpole]

Feels weird. I have always been for sacking any manager, including Ole, for not getting us into the CL after a full season in charge. Now I'm not sure. I didn't expect us to start the new one with a weaker side.

Don't think anybody expected us to be even weaker. We knew what players needed to go, but nobody in their right minds thought they wouldn't actually bother to replace them.

 

[moodyred]

Rubbish of a team. I thought OGS wants to play a pressing game. I see a lot of jogging around today with no urgency at all on the ball until the last 10 minutes of play. It is same old same old. Playing with no heart nor passion.

 

[Red1968]

Should have been up by 3 and the goal conceded was another gift from our defence. We are missing so many parts on this team. There is some hope in the youth (James has been great) but the people who should be guiding the ship and mentoring these players are nowhere to be found!

 

[KekiZeki]

Ole is doing well but he inherited a lot of problems. If you seen today's game and how many chances we created and failed to score then you're delusional to think it could be any better. The strikers just couldn't get it in, it happens. This season is not "our" season, we're not LFC fans to keep thinking that when our team is clearly far off the mark, but there are moves ahead. Rome wasn't built in a night and all that.

If someone thinks we must be winning all these games then they're a glory hound and best go support City or whoever it is a flavor of the month. This club has history and character and also fans who understand the process.

 

[RedSky]

Good. Some positives.

Well, let's hope so. I believe he's not blind, and hopefully our coaching staff isn't blind as well.

We still have to find the best eleven to play.

Awb, Maguire, Mctom, James, Mata - had a good game.

Some had stinkers. Let's hope Ole has to ballz to bench them.

Agreed. I don't actually think there's much wrong with our back 4, we could give Tuanzebe a go in replace of Lindelof to experiment but Lindelof didn't have a bad game imo, unfortunate with the goal yes but we controlled the game and limited Southampton to only a few chances.

The issue as I think everyone on this forum predicted was our midfield and attack. It's simply not working right now and to his credit he is experimentating with different combinations to try and find something that works. He's going through the senior players and given none have worked so far he should soon switch over to our younger players. It's inevitable. It's then down to those younger players to take their chance when it falls to them because they do have a serious opportunity to grab a starting spot in the 11 for a prolonged period of time.

He's given Rashford a go as #9 and he failed badly. He will probably give him a second chance to impress before falling onto Greenwood. Martial might be back by then however. I wouldn't be suprised if we start next game with James, Rashford and Greenwood (assuming all are fit).

 

[eire-red]

"I hate the team; I hate (insert United player name here); we're shit; I can't stand watching us play, etc."

Them just stop watching, no one is forcing you. Did anyone actually think we'd be set after just one transfer window under Ole? Give him bloody time, this isn't your career mode save pr your fm scumsaving session.

Our game has improved from last season, we just need a few more players here and there. It's not the end of the world. Jesus.

Southampton are bang average, we shouldn't need any transfer windows to beat them. Our best player today has 3 PL starts under his belt. How is this not an issue? The lack of urgency is just ridiculous, we play with no tempo whatsoever, it doesn't look like we're trying to execute any sort of game plan at all.

How can we go from thumping Chelsea so convincingly in our first game, bar the first 20 mins its was one of the most comprehensive performances from a United team in a long time, to this? This looks like it could get real ugly real soon. I really hope I'm wrong, but bar the Chelsea match and the first half against Wolves we've had very little to be positive about so far.

 

[fps]

Dan James is currently my favourite attacking player. Rough round the edges but at £15m he carries more threat than anyone else.

I love that James makes a complicated game look simple. "I'm a striker? OK, I'll try and score a goal then."

 

[Josep Dowling]

Can we just keep on at how bad Ole's strategy was to bring on two of the worst on-the-ball players at 60 minutes, and wait until there was only 8 minutes left to put on Greenwood. When chasing a win.

fecking awful management.

More of the same from everyone else. Lindelof was shite. Young was hopeless as per. Pogba is terrible playing that deep. Pereira offered nothing. Rashford was an absolute travesty both in terms of his on the ball contribution and his abject lack of movement.

100% agree. How Vestergaard was allowed win that header as well. 5 players around him all stood there must he made a run towards the ball.

 

[Houdini]

Hate to say it but we miss Lukaku's goals. We will be lucky to end in top 6...

 

[DomesticTadpole]

I think the post did say good midfielders!

That's why I said I didn't think we would sign good players.

 

[90 + 5min]

First, we are playing good football. Nobody can say anything different. 4 games into season and many that doesn't watch our games would say it is bad results. Results yes, but not our performence.

Second, we can't score. This is big difference now between us and other top teams. Not how we play. But how we take care of the chances we get. We don't have that quality up front. As I mentioned early this season I don't know if Rashford and Martial are 20+ goals players. I really hope that our staff take care of this problem and make sure we are working 90% time with shooting. If not, then go into the market for a proven goalscorer.

Third, Solskjaer made very good changes today. Before and during the game. I'm glad that his tactical thinking today was exactly like mine during the game.

Forth, can Lindelöf and Pogba stop being so nonchalant during games? They are taking turns.

Five, we are going forward. And I believe that results will come soon.

 

[CM]

It's gonna be a long season. As soon as the equaliser went in I had no faith of us going on to get the winner, even after the red card was dished out.

Too many passengers in this team and not enough legitimate options in the squad to oust them.

 

[LoneStar]

Maybe Smalling would have gifted them a goal earlier in the game. You can never really tell and hindsight is a wonderful thing. It's a poor goal to concede, but the reality is that we didn't do enough in the second half to kill the game when we were 1-0 up and we didn't look like getting the winner when they had equalised. On the balance of it, we got what we deserved, which was a point.

Smalling is clearly the superior defender to Lindelof. Lindelof might be better on the ball, but what's the point when we don't even use that?

Every team will now target Lindelof, and exploit his weaknesses. We are already seeing this, and it won't get any better.

But the main point is we sold our second or third best defender, when we have Phil Jones and Rojo as backup. Not the greatest moves.

 

[C'est Moi Cantona]

Not sure what people expect, when you're starting with players like Young, Pereira, Mctominay and Mata, have Rashford leading the line, and Pogba only turning up for 30 minutes, then that's as good as we can except, we are just grossly mismanaged, but hey lets celebrate us winning the 'moving on the deadwood' cup a little longer.

 

[Vidyoyo]

Don't think anybody expected us to be even weaker. We knew what players needed to go, but nobody in their right minds thought they wouldn't actually bother to replace them.

This. We were completely right to get rid of Lukaku and Sanchez but it's left us in a precarious position. We already needed a proper right winger last season when they were here. I really hope James turns out to be that guy but it's his first season after all.

I expect we'll get to a stage where people seriously start suggesting we should play Dalot there.

 

[Gopher Brown]

I’m done, I’m seriously done. We are an absolute joke, a laughing stock, it’s disgusting. This squad is all over the shop. We get Maguire and AWB in, fantastic. We then sell Lukaku, let Herrera walk free and send Sanchez and Smalling on loan, and sign feck all. We hold onto Pogba but don’t get anyone in to help the man ffs. A shining light it James, scoring goals which is good, but he should at this point in time BE AN IMPACT PLAYER!!!!!!. Then you have the two Mr. Inconsistents in Rashford and Martial who are incredibly frustrating to watch, and oh, don’t get me started on JLinz, the sooner he is fecked off the better, an atrocious footballer.

This is where we’re at, mid-table, that’s us. We play like one and we look like one, and the club seems to not give a flying feck. Fancy being 7pts behind Liverpool 4 games in???? 4 games in and us fans are already over it, bloody disappointing. This club is a long, long way off challenging for the title again, won’t be happening while Woodward is around, that clown is the MAIN problem.

Calm down, Martial wasn’t even playing

 

[Sandikan]

I see Lindelof has become the new Carrick/Rooney as scapegoat for everything

Our biggest problem is we create so little.
In that context, more likely than not we're going to have one incident that costs us. And unfortunately for Lindelöf he's been beaten twice in 2 games.

But we all know he's not at all strong in the air, so there's no way round it.

 

[edcunited1878]

You have to look at OGS for leaving us this light, it's absolutely disgraceful. It's fine to get rid of the deadwood but you have to replace it in the attacking areas and he didn't.

Perreira offers absolutely nothing as a winger so why play him there?

Really worrying from OGS that.

The selling and not adequately replacing is all on Woodward

 

[fps]

Here's Ole. He also wanted more goals. It's odd how the team goes missing once a lead is taken. It's been a feature for years now.

 

[Annihilate Now!]

Good point. We can just not play him instead. Then let him leave on a free at the end of season and he can revolutionise another team.

It was clear to anyone who watched pre season that the team was a lot better with Gomes than without him.

We should give him game time, but it won't change much until we improve the overall quality of the squad.

 

[GledTheRed]

relegation candidates.

 

[pogs]

Forwards lack finesse and experience. Pogba is half responsible for the goal. not trying hard and looks lethargic. Shows flashes of brilliance though. think he should have gone because he looks totally lost motivation.

Defense should be stabilized after spending so much money but Lindelof’s lack of air dominance is a new problem.

This is a 7-8th team at best.

 

[manichester]

Lingard, Matic and Young should be nowhere near the first team. Ole untie your hands bring in more yout and some passion they cannot be worse than these dodderers.

 

[tjb]

Until we address the way we build attacks and generally setup our midfield, nothing will change.

The way we build our attacks is fine, its the attackers that are our problem.We get the ball quickly to the front lines now, but the end product is horrible. Just not enough quality.
Lingard is poor and is inconsistent
Rashford has no consistency in his play and is not good at the simple reading of the game
Pereira isn't a utd player, just poor
Martial is just finding his way as a striker but is ineffective and inconsistent as a winger
Mata is poor on the flanks and finds it hard to cover spaces for defensive situations
Dan James has come in and reminded us how a utd winger should be in terms of being a consistent threat.

Pushing Pogba up again may be a part solution to our problem in attack, as he is also effective. We also really need to give our younger players a chance, Greenwood, Chong and Gomes may be more effective than what we currently have up front. The next few windows should be about fixing our attacking and buying a defensive midfielder. Pogba deep is clearly not a solution, and it hampers Mctominay from playing his actual game. He's not a good defensive midfielder, Matic is legitmately our only defensive midfielder at the moment, and he's aging.

 

[Siorac]

Decent first 30 minutes. All downhill after that. At least we put some pressure in them after the red but this performance was once again devoid of any quality.

We have too many players who I don't know what they actually do. Like, what is it they are good at?

 

[Volumiza]

I love that James makes a complicated game look simple. "I'm a striker? OK, I'll try and score a goal then."

Yep! But also he does try and pass and cross when it is better to do so. He could show Rashford how to do this.

 

[tombombadil]

Well Lindelof has been inconsistent. He is good for most parts of the game and then he makes mistakes here and there that cost us. Defenders can't keep making mistakes. And he does. Which puts him on par with Smalling in that respect.

And this team as a whole just keeps making mistakes.

 

[BusbyMalone]

I actually started thinking at least we won't lose now.
Always in the past i'd be thinking about scoring.

Yeah, the worst part is, is that this result is probably a decent point when you look at it objectively and realise that we are a mid table team at the moment.

Now that's a damning thing to say.

 

[redshaw]

Just a really poor squad of players for a big club.

We pretty much tried everything we have at our disposal in this game and couldn't get a second.

Only highlight was James not just because of the goal but he had some other good efforts on goal and put some very dangerous balls in.

Rashford has looked poor for some time now. Lingard awful again.

Only thing we have is Gomes who might help us unlock teams. Problem is as we've seen with Pogba, he puts Rashford through but he can't shoot for shit.

 

[dannofdawn]

This isn't about the players' quality, its all tactical and mental issues. How many mistakes have we made today? Looking at our attack, we look midtable AT BEST. We need more movement, one-touch passes, and players with the balls take opponent on. James was doing that near the end, but we don't seem to ever score from crosses or setpieces so it didn't matter. Look at our overlaps, for example, it's awful. The moment a winger touches the ball, the fullback should be sprinting forward behind him, the midfielder remains close as an option for a pass, the striker should be in the box, the opposite winger should be sprinting for the far post. That's basic stuff. Our crosses are shit, but I'm not seeing the right movement either, how are you ever going to score from crosses then? Ever since Chelsea, every goal we have scored came from individual momentarily brilliance, none came from proper attacking play. Props to James for scoring out of nothing, and Martial for scoring when it needed to, otherwise we wouldn't have gotten a point out of any of these games. Even if we had scored those 2 PKs, it would have just papered over the cracks, it changes nothing. That's not something we should rely on to win anyway.

 

[Yorkeontop]

Marcus struggled to step in at forward today. We might have erred by not being more aggressive with a forward replacement.

 

[Sandikan]

I’m done, I’m seriously done. We are an absolute joke, a laughing stock, it’s disgusting. This squad is all over the shop. We get Maguire and AWB in, fantastic. We then sell Lukaku, let Herrera walk free and send Sanchez and Smalling on loan, and sign feck all. We hold onto Pogba but don’t get anyone in to help the man ffs. A shining light it James, scoring goals which is good, but he should at this point in time BE AN IMPACT PLAYER!!!!!!. Then you have the two Mr. Inconsistents in Rashford and Martial who are incredibly frustrating to watch, and oh, don’t get me started on JLinz, the sooner he is fecked off the better, an atrocious footballer.

This is where we’re at, mid-table, that’s us. We play like one and we look like one, and the club seems to not give a flying feck. Fancy being 7pts behind Liverpool 4 games in???? 4 games in and us fans are already over it, bloody disappointing. This club is a long, long way off challenging for the title again, won’t be happening while Woodward is around, that clown is the MAIN problem.

Did you watch the game before posting this? Or did you just go off the scoreline/scorers?

 

[mitchmouse]

platitudes from Ole. talks about creating loads of chances? huh? when? seeing him so out his depth makes me so sad. tells us we were beter today and against Palace than against chelseas. "not a dip in form, a dip in results". sorry, he's in dreamland

 

[hobbers]

First, we are playing good football. Nobody can say anything different.

Third, Solskjaer made very good changes today. Before and during the game. I'm glad that his tactical thinking today was exactly like mine during the game.

You fecking what

Mental claims.

 

[DomesticTadpole]

Calm down, Martial wasn’t even playing

Which was a big problem today as Rashford just isn't a striker. He does not have the intelligence.

 

[Tony247]

Rashford. The more I think about the match, and though I'm a defender of his huge potential, the more this match has really turned on Marcus Rashford's performance. Twice Pogba put him in beautifully on his left foot, the kind of position you'd practise in training. Once he waited a little too long and the shot was blocked, the other time he hit an OK, youth team kinda effort which was a comfortable save. Additionally, 2 or 3 crosses in the second half would have been tap-ins had he gambled and got into the 6 yard area.

This is harsh on a 21 year old, of course, but he wanted that contract, he wanted to be the main man. And he hasn't made it happen, truly, the chances were there to win the game with a centre forward who could really finish on his left side or was willing to get hurt to score a goal.

Rashford has drifted in last 3 years. He has turned into a striker from 'wanting to score goal' to 'waiting for opportunity to score goal'. And both attitudes have big difference. What james scored and that shot from Greenwood is what I call 'wanting to score goal'. Rashford's game on the other hand was littered with bad decisions, bad shots from bad position, missed opportunities. I don't know who is coaching him but I am scared of thought that the same team will now be coaching Greenwood. Hope they don't turn a genuine RVP like poacher into a rashford.

 

[jderbyshire]

If we had scored, that would've been some serious papering over the cracks.

Can't see us getting Top 4 at this moment in time.

Long term, I have faith things will improve - but man this squad just doesn't look like Top 4 material.

 

[ManUtd1999]

No just let him go. We had 3 years to buy top midfielders to play behind him and didnt. Don't waste his time even more. We don't even replace our awful players like Fellaini.

If we had Fellaini, we would at least be able to let Pogba play in a more advanced position.

 

[Flanders Devil]

It's a syndrome of wanting what you gave up. Had we sold Lingard I am sure people would have said "Lingard would have changed the game..."

Your probably right. Just so annoyed.

Though I think he would’ve done better with the two chances Rashford had when played through by Pogba

 

[El Zoido]

Disappointing result. Again we were the better side.

No kneejerk reactions from me, I think this side looks good. It still needs work, but we’re moving in the right direction. I think 2-3 more players and we’ll be quite strong, just depends if Ole is willing to make the right sacrifices. Rashford cannot lead our front line, a new CF is an absolute priority unless Greenwood can step up. The difference between us and a good side, is that the weaker players in good sides tend to at least be intelligent footballers that can “do a job”, whereas our weak players are braindead to the point where it affects our chances of winning games.

Another issue is mental strength. We look good and confident after we score, but despondent whenever we concede. This has been a problem for a while.

We’re going to have to get worse before we can get better. Fans need to accept that fact or we’ll be stuck in this mire forever.

 

[Volumiza]

And this team as a whole just keeps making mistakes.

That’s what I just don’t get. We have a habit of making other teams football look better coached and drilled than our own.

And £150m for Pogba? Madrid must be putting their cheque book back in their pocket.

 

[Champagne Football]

Andrea's Pereira and Juan Mata should be playing for Glasgow Celtic.

Garner should be given a chance as he could not be worse that those 2.

Lingard is only worth paying when you're away to Liverpool or City and need an extra defender.

Lindelof will need to be replaced eventually.