[Niall]

We have absolutely no quality on the bench though. With the game at 1-1 who could we conceivably bring that wouldn't represent a massive drop in quality?

That's definitely a problem, we lack quality on the bench to come on and change a game and Ole knows it. Ighalo is probably the only one who can make an impact.

 

[LARulz]

Because the drop in quality would be insane?

Could we have honestly been worse in that game? They played through our midfield like they weren't there. Our attacking was diabolical and knew we'd give it away anyway. A Sunday league team could have played against us in the second half and figured out within minutes how to play against us.

Throwing on McTominay for a tired Matic, Fred for a off the pace Fernandes/Pogba, Ighalo on earlier for Rashford who may as well have worn a West ham top is not rocket science. Our players had no energy. The answer isn't to leave them on and hope for the best when running on empty and needing them against a much tougher opposition in a few days time

 

[Acole9]

That was fecking pathetic. Pogba is without a fecking doubt, the most overrated player in the world. Guy is a mediocre midfielder. He thinks he could do better than what United has been? feck, the way he's played for us, we should be looking to replace him, plain and simple. He's average who can do the random piece of good dribbling and that's it.

Careful mate, I got hounded on here a few weeks ago by some of the clueless Pogba fan boys.

 

[ash_86]

Matic and Lindelof and Rashford were absolute dog poop. Thought the team are dead on their feet. Absolutely run to the ground. Worried about the last game.

 

[Zlatan 7]

They are so fecking tired. I would say Ole needs to rotate but our 2nd string is so shit.

Exactly, people crying about Ole not rotating so it’s his fault we’re like this, but it’s playing these players who are now out on their feet that got us into this top 3 position in the first place.
also not making subs today, to bring on who? The players everybody slates whenever they play?

 

[Dobba]

They should all be embarrassed, especially the manager. How can you not motivate your team to give a performance? We are poorly coached.

If the players need motivating with a FA Cup Final and Champions League football inexplicably at arms length, they can go and play for FC United.

 

[elmo]

Really poor, Matic has been shocking since getting his new contract, awful, awful performance from him needing 4+ touches when everyone else was taking 1, and gave away at least 3 silly fouls a way.

Matic does this when he plays more than 1 match per week, his legs are gone and he just can't keep up.

 

[Garethw]

4 points dropped at home to Southampton and West Ham. Win those games and we’d be finishing third.

Solskjaer is not the man to take this team forward.

 

[Mickeza]

I didn't think we looked particularly tired today BTW

Shit excuse

I completely agree with this. Everyone is praying it’s tiredness but for me it is no coincidence we and in particular Matic looked like gods early in the restart when sides weren’t pressing but now everyone is fitter and sides are chasing we look exceptionally poor. We can’t beat a press and Southampton, Palace and now West Ham have all looked better on the ball than us. I don’t think it’s fitness, we just aren’t a very good team outside of some very good individual talents.

 

[Ventura]

We've been great after the restart and are in a position we could only dream of a few months back. Unfortunately our form hasn't been great lately, but the same is true for Leicester and we have a great chance to settle it against them. We may simply be a bit tired at this point, but the ball is in our court.

 

[Crustanoid]

We could easily get beaten away at Leicester and that is the likely scenario now.
Not rotating vs Chelsea has screwed us. The first team could have had 6 days rest and been a lot fresher-making it likelier of a big win

 

[Zlatan 7]

Disaster

 

[OnlyTwoDaSilvas]

Mentally soft, this team. Leicester and Chelsea have been gifting us opportunities to whizz past them, and we piss it up the wall each time, and on our own patch too.

We should have been stuffing a Moyes managed West Ham at home, and that would have pretty much guaranteed top 4.

 

[Superunknown]

Imagine being on the bench for that and the manager not trusting you to come on.
Do we need a whole new bench for next season? What's the plan?

From the looks of it, Ole has his "11" and he's sticking rigidly to that, bar having to replace a player with an injury. He always makes his subs too late, thus they have no time to make an impact. I don't think Ighalo had the chance to even sweat with the lack of time that he had today.

 

[RedTiger]

Apologies to Luke Shaw, we're a much poorer side with him on the sidelines

It's so evident it's like being slapped across the face with a mackerel

 

[Robaldo]

People saying Rashford couldn't be bothered He's very obviously knackered but to say he doesn't care is just so wrong.

The whole team are tired and it's baffling that Solskjaer won't sub on McTominay bearing in mind how little Pogba and Fernandes are offering - both technically and physically tonight. Similarly, it says how little he rates Dalot that Fosu-Mensah starts.

Really great take from Greenwood, so important as well as we didn't create anything more.

We have very little past the first XI and that's why our form has dropped off so drastically.

 

[MetoTTT]

Can smell another Ole down!

 

[DevilRed]

Its shocking at how poor the fitness of Pogba and Rashford were today. They could barely sprint.

Matic looked the fittest and he is 32 ffs. He didn't have the best match, but he was driven and tried to push forwards. Outside of Greenwood he was our most energetic player.

Maguire held the back line well. Brandon looks done too. Not sure whats wrong with him, but he looks well off the pace. I hope Luke recovers for the last match. What a difference Shaw makes to the team for all the people who criticise him.

AWB also looks like he is either injured or just gone for the season. Leggy and slow.

The fitness is once again terrible. Not sure if its OGS to blame or the shortened schedule. But we need more reliable depth in the side if OGS doesn't trust our current bench players.

 

[Andi Latte]

If nothing else, the Leicester game will be nerve-wracking affair. Thats four games now where we are far away from our best and as predicted, top 4 is far from guaranteed.

Also only two subs? Rashford was bad, sure, but Greenwood also offers very little apart from scoring, so why don't bring on James to provide some width at least. And offering us a non-knackered player in the process. Is our squad really THAT bad or is Ole just unable to coach them into at least doing a job?

 

[Bilbo]

Sharpen the pitchforks! We didn't win!

Haha, seriously though it was a poor performance from a clearly tired team. As always perspective is needed, and I realise that is a lot to ask from the keyboard warriors, but it is needed.

As of right now we are 3rd. We've recovered an 8 point deficit since lockdown and we now only need a draw to finish top 4. Is there one single person on here that can honestly say they wouldn't have been very pleased with that situation when the league restarted? If you say that you wouldn't have been then you are lying. Simple as that.

Pogba, Rashford, Martial were poor. Williams had his worst game in a United shirt. The team are tired. We've played a lot of football and its showing. One final effort against a Leicester team with waaaaaaay more problems than we have and its a great job done.

 

[Tom Cato]

https://www.transfermarkt.com/premier-league/formtabelle/wettbewerb/GB1?saison_id=2019&min=30&max=37

 

[Smithy89]

We are a bit crap like.

 

[bdecuc]

Will we have the juice for the Europa League? I fear this team is done for the year

Effectively 2 weeks off after Sunday. I'd say we'd recover pretty well then.

 

[Smores]

How has tactics got anything to do with our players making gash passes and not being able to notice they have a man on?

If you can't see our tactical issues then you’re blind. Same issues every game that have nothing to do with tiredness.

 

[peridigm]

Sunday will be even worse. You would think a team could muster enough energy given what's at stake but when you're this tired it's not happening. Ole better let them have the rest of the week off otherwise we're finishing 5th unless Chelsea manage to implode and lose against Liverpool and Wolves which I do not think will happen.

 

[Giggs' right foot]

If this wasn't a giant, Madison Square Garden-billboard sized hint to the board about lacking squad depth, I don't know what it was. Absolute terrible football. Made Noble look like Pirlo.

I don't get Pogba's role in this game? He keeps passing to Matic / our defenders. What does he expect? You are the World Cup-winner, you are the one who cost £89mil. - maybe you should fecking try and do something.... terrible.

Silver lining is... if we don't get CL it's totally and utterly deserved and our own stupid fault. I would hate for us to miss top 4, had we been playing world class football for 8-10 games straight, and still not being able to make the cut. At least now we get face the reality that the best paid squad in the league don't have the cojones and spine to perform with just a grain of expectation...

 

[Leftback99]

Having watched West Ham recently I wasn't expecting the easy game many thought. Worrying how much better their back 4 looked than ours. Pogba thinks he can play every game at walking pace and get away with it, he can't.

 

[.Phil1968]

Hideous performance, too many players not doing the basics right. If we get the result we need on Sunday we'll have to play so much better than this.

 

[abailey123]

Just thinking (as I don’t have enough likes to post in the match day thread) do we go for a diamond midfield on Sunday bringing either Scott or Fred in for Rashford and play Greenwood and Martial up top?

 

[tjb]

Wasn't a good performance, our chief attackers couldn't get into the game. People need to take notice of how good AWB and Shaw were and have been for us during the restart. Despite Greenwood and Rashford's help, we had no width on the flanks due to our poor full backs. Attacks were literally forced down the middle due to this and it forced Bruno to come deeper.

Neither Pogba or Bruno performed well, but that's ok. The big concern was Williams. Every time he went one on one with Bowden, he literally always lost. He couldn't control passes either. All the last two weeks have taught me is what we feared prior. Lack of rotation would cause tiredness in some of the players, however the bench we have is so poor that changes could set us back. TFM was horrendous. Literally didnt know where to be, how to move forward and even failed defensively on occassion. We really need to fix that.

Positive point: Greenwood scored again. I don't feel like the front three received much supply today and I do not think it had anything to do with West Ham. We've broken teams down like this, our width was just off today.

 

[Kostov]

Regardless of tiredness, Ole’s in game management was absolutely terrible once again. First he should have replaced Williams at half time not TMF, then he goes and leaves his second sub till the 83rd minute? Pathetic showing bar couple of players who pulled themselves together and maintained some balance. We especially Rashford is missing Luke Shaw down that left side also.

 

[Camilo]

Because largely the same 11 players have played every 3/4 days and the 1 half opportunity we had to rest them we didn’t.

Rubbish, these are professional athletes who have been back kicking playing games for a few weeks. Bollocks they need resting.

 

[Garethw]

Matic does this when he plays more than 1 match per week, his legs are gone and he just can't keep up.

Again, that shows poor Squad management and a lack of intelligence on the part of the manager and coaching staff. If we all know it, why the feck don’t they?

 

[pascell]

Cup final on Sunday now, Leicester will love what they've just seen. They'll have had a weeks rest and we look dead on our feet. If we're getting top 4, it's going to be scrappy.

Serious transfer window coming up if we're going to progress this team and squad, fielding the same XI in the CL and PL next season is going to cause us problems.

 

[Berbaclass]

It's inexcusable for the team to be falling apart from exhaustion right after a feckfing three month break. Absolutely disastrous management.

We've played 10 games in one month after not playing any football for 3 months. It's the intensity and lack of rotation that has killed us.

 

[Skåre Willoch]

Bad game by everyone, Ole included. Bruno, Matic and Pogba, all standouts since the comeback, the worst of the lot.

I mentioned it in the game day thread earlier today that we should start McTominay ahead of Matic, and I stand by that. We could’ve really, really used his energy and leadership today.

 

[Irwin99]

Didn't see the game but the most disastrous result would have been a defeat which would have put us in a bad position on Sunday. A draw puts us firmly in the driving seat but I guess the biggest problem might be fatigue. Just gotta dig deep and get there against a side who are missing 3 first team players and are in bad form themselves. It's doable.

 

[acnumber9]

Because the drop in quality would be insane?

What quality was on display? I’d understand if they were close to playing well but they weren’t. That was as bad a performance as we’ve put in all season. Including games where all of the hated backups played.

 

[Edy2]

Garbage. I thought something like that might happen so not really surprised. We don't have the personalities out there on the pitch to fire their teammates up during the game.

This kind of player, leader, is as essential as sancho in the summer for me.

 

[Tom Cato]

If nothing else, the Leicester game will be nerve-wracking affair. Thats four games now where we are far away from our best and as predicted, top 4 is far from guaranteed.

Also only two subs? Rashford was bad, sure, but Greenwood also offers very little apart from scoring, so why don't bring on James to provide some width at least. And offering us a non-knackered player in the process. Is our squad really THAT bad or is Ole just unable to coach them into at least doing a job?

Yes Ole is unable to coach James into improving his form after his last game when he didn't play well a few days ago. /s