Post match v Liverpool

[Judas]

It was very similar to how we beat Southampton 9-0 in terms of how easily the goals were given up, our defending was gutless and effortless. We were so poor, and practically every attempt they had went in.

I hope the manager makes them all suffer for this.

 

[Denis79]

Am I the only one who isn't that bothered by the result? I mean yeah it always sucks to lose 0-7 but I'm not extra disappointed beyond that. There's clearly progress being made this season and one game doesn't erase that. We've beat City and Barca so far this season, two of the top teams in world football and we've already won a trophy!

Also, I'm having big problems formatting posts on mobile today. Not sure if that's just me.

You're not a United fan if this doesn't bother you.

 

[Irrational.]

They'd better not post any of their fake social media "apologies" after this. Just don't you dare insult the fans by doing that.

I’m not on social media but I’m sure there will be a few “we will come back stronger from this *bicep curl emoji*” in there.

 

[Sammy McIlroys fan club]

Is it safe to come in here yet?

 

[captaincantona]

So many players looked injured yesterday…Casemiro and Varane looked actually stiff - like they couldn’t tackle properly…Rashford seemed completely out of it…Even Martinez looked like he was confused …disorientated…like he had a fuking head injury. Odd odd performance.

 

[pacifictheme]

I’m not on social media but I’m sure there will be a few “we will come back stronger from this *bicep curl emoji*” in there.

I follow quite a few of them and I have only seen de gea (who for me was pretty blameless yesterday) post something, no arm curl, and he even acknowledges fans hate them

 

[CassiusClaymore]

The most worrying thing for me and the thing I can't get out of my head is that I thought this team had mental strength above anything else.

That second half will be hard to forget.

 

[flappyjay]

Am I the only one who isn't that bothered by the result? I mean yeah it always sucks to lose 0-7 but I'm not extra disappointed beyond that. There's clearly progress being made this season and one game doesn't erase that. We've beat City and Barca so far this season, two of the top teams in world football and we've already won a trophy!

Also, I'm having big problems formatting posts on mobile today. Not sure if that's just me.

The city (6-3) and game the Brentford(4-0) game had me hopeless. This was disappointing and embarrassing but I can still see potential to finish 3rd and another trophy if not 2. Like you said its becoming clear that ten hag has a plan that the players are buying into.

 

[IRN-BRUno]

We've had so many heavy defeats in recent years that I've sort of become numb to them, this really hurt though and overnight has turned into anger. To just collapse and roll over like that in the 2nd half is completely unacceptable at any level, it was absolutely humiliating and easily the worst 'performance' I've seen from us.

The Betis game can't come quickly enough now, we just need to go again and get this out of the system. Win that and against Southampton next weekend and we're back on track but they're now important games to ensure the season doesn't derail completely.

 

[Massive Spanner]

The most worrying thing for me and the thing I can't get out of my head is that I thought this team had mental strength above anything else.

That second half will be hard to forget.

That’s the thing. They have, or had. We came from behind to beat Barca just last week.

it’s bloody mental, I can’t fathom it. Once that third goal went in I think the team themselves were so flabbergasted and shocked that they just lost the plot completely.

 

[OrcaFat]

You've got to first try and understand what ten Hag was trying to do and not what you believe he should've done. It's not as simple as changing the composition of the midfield when that wasn't the problem to go begin with. Midfielders can't control games if the opponent is successfully flooding one's defensive third. That's why the goalkeeper is very important towards creating the first superiority in the build up phase.

And I'm not the only one that said things were working well in that first half. And remember you have to take into consideration the weakness of the keeper on the ball in combination with other weaknesses in the build up phase, hence ten Hag having to compromise on his principles of play against a high pressing Liverpool team at Anfield. The issue was never the first half but rather what happened in the second half after Shaw's error which gave Liverpool a 2-0 lead.

Why did the players lose their heads, lose their positional discipline and in some cases seem to have given up, which is my focus of attention.

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I fully understand what he was trying to do. And it wasn’t all bad, I agree, and many people have said so, including ETH. But you’re looking at it from a simplistic point of view. You’re talking about how we develop play but there’s more to it than that. You have to stop them as well. All roads may have led to defeat - that’s possible - but I would not have set up that way.

 

[FootyGirl88]

The most worrying thing for me and the thing I can't get out of my head is that I thought this team had mental strength above anything else.

That second half will be hard to forget.

Nope ETH has been saying for a while this team has a long way to go in terms of being a top team, but people haven’t been listening carefully.

 

[sugar_kane]

7-0 was a freak scoreline when you consider the fairly tight first half.

Liverpool are nowhere near good enough to be beat us 7-0 and we are nowhere near bad enough to lose 7-0 to anyone.

What’s most annoying is we didn’t shut up shop at 3-0, the game was over at that point. That’s on the players but also Ten Hag who should have made absolutely sure it happened.

 

[Eddy_JukeZ]

The most worrying thing for me and the thing I can't get out of my head is that I thought this team had mental strength above anything else.

That second half will be hard to forget.

It's honestly one of the most disappointing games ever when you consider that.

I thought this kind of pasting was completely behind us with some of our recent wins.

It's puzzling and hard to get over. I still can't believe we lost 7-0.

 

[Telsim]

Went to bed, woke up, got some work done, and I'm still absolutely fuming. Might be even more than yesterday. New season, new low. Unforgivable result. Something needs to be done, I don't know what. I hate the scum and I couldn't care any less about some Mickey Mouse trophies after this. Europa, Carabao, who gives a feck? Seeing people getting giddy about those, like we are Spurs, or West Ham, or something. What has even happened to this club? In 10 years’ time, nobody is going to give a shit who won Carabao or Europa all the way back in 2023. But everyone will remember this result, like everyone remembers the destruction of Brazil by Germany. I don’t remember where I watched the final that year or who I was with, but I can recall with near perfect clarity that 7:1. In 10 years’ time, Liverpool fans aren't going to go back to 2023 and remember how they didn't win the precious Carabao cup or didn't make Top 4. They are going to go back to rewatch how they utterly humiliated and obliterated Manchester United. And when I think back to 2023 and Manchester United, this will be the first thing that pops in my mind.

Nothing can wash this away. Embarrassing, unforgivable. You can't win them all and sometimes you lose badly, but 7:0!? How do you even manage to do that!? This is rock bottom. I thought last year's 5:0 was one of the darkest days in the history of the club. What I didn't think was that it was going to be surpassed just next season. The only thing that can make me feel any better right now about this club is the club getting sold, and not some consolation prizes. I hope whoever the new owners are completely eviscerate the structure of the club. It’s the only way to break this vicious cycle. And even then, this humiliation remains on the record. Everyone involved in this disaster needs to have their wages docked, to be used as refunds for the fans, the rest given away to charities or whatever, and ongoing contract talks put on hold. Others need to start packing their bags.

 

[royboy16]

That result could potentially destroy this team,hope they bounce back.

 

[dal]

Another false dawn, .

 

[Adnan]

I fully understand what he was trying to do. And it wasn’t all bad, I agree, and many people have said so, including ETH. But you’re looking at it from a simplistic point of view. You’re talking about how we develop play but there’s more to it than that. You have to stop them as well. All roads may have led to defeat - that’s possible - but I would not have set up that way.

That's fair enough mate, but we did try stopping them. And we did apply the press higher up the pitch by taking a chance and leaving their fullbacks unmarked. Antony seemed to have been instructed to close down Van Dijk, which left Robertson unmarked with the insurance policy of Dalot, Fred and Varane to cover. But what ended up happening was that Dalot shifted towards Robertson, leaving Fred to drop in to mark Gakpo and Fred got his bearings wrong and Varane followed that up with making another mistake by allowing Gakpo to come inside to shoot on his favoured right foot. We failed to execute the press as a collective and that one moment was the difference in the first half.

In the second half, Shaw plays a very poor pass, which gives Liverpool another goal. We've given Liverpool a 2-0 lead on a plate at that point and have to now chase the game, which brought more misery due to poor play, poor discipline, and unprofessional behaviour by some of the players. That second half performance from when Shaw made the error for 2-0, needs to be scrutinised by the Erik ten Hag and I'm sure it will.

I'm absolutely seething with the performance yesterday and I can't put into words how I disappointed I am. But I'm still very upbeat about the rest of the season and I expect us to win one more trophy and finish in the top 4. But I wouldn't expect United to play free flowing football until they've addressed the problems in the build up phase, which allows opponents who are adept at pressing high to cause us difficulty, hence Erik ten Hag is having to compromise on his principles of play.

And as bad as the result was yesterday, if we played Liverpool again next week, I would expect a much closer game.

 

[Marwood]

This simply isn’t true at all.

But it is. We've lost control of games for large periods. West Ham has numerous chances, Leicester did. The final could easily have ended a draw based on each team performed.

Until we start passing the ball well(how long has it been now since we passed the ball well?) we'll always run the risk of big losses.

If you don't pass the ball well and you come up against a team having oneof thoae days where everything goes in you'll get a thumping.

I don't blame ETH. He needs time to get the right players in.

But fans who've convinced themselves we're almost there are in for a big disappointment if we don’t have a brilliant summer.

 

[OrcaFat]

So many players looked injured yesterday…Casemiro and Varane looked actually stiff - like they couldn’t tackle properly…Rashford seemed completely out of it…Even Martinez looked like he was confused …disorientated…like he had a fuking head injury. Odd odd performance.

Yeah this is true.

 

[OrcaFat]

That's fair enough mate, but we did try stopping them. And we did apply the press higher up the pitch by taking a chance and leaving their fullbacks unmarked. Antony seemed to have been instructed to close down Van Dijk, which left Robertson unmarked with the insurance policy of Dalot, Fred and Varane to cover. But what ended up happening was that Dalot shifted towards Robertson, leaving Fred to drop in to mark Gakpo and Fred got his bearings wrong and Varane followed that up with making another mistake by allowing Gakpo to come inside to shoot on his favoured right foot. We failed to execute the press as a collective and that one moment was the difference in the first half.

In the second half, Shaw plays a very poor pass, which gives Liverpool another goal. We've given Liverpool a 2-0 lead on a plate at that point and have to now chase the game, which brought more misery due to poor play, poor discipline, and unprofessional behaviour by some of the players. That second half performance from when Shaw made the error for 2-0, needs to be scrutinised by the Erik ten Hag and I'm sure it will.

I'm absolutely seething with the performance yesterday and I can't put into words how I disappointed I am. But I'm still very upbeat about the rest of the season and I expect us to win one more trophy and finish in the top 4. But I wouldn't expect United to play free flowing football until they've addressed the problems in the build up phase, which allows opponents who are adept at pressing high to cause us difficulty, hence Erik ten Hag is having to compromise on his principles of play.

And as bad as the result was yesterday, if we played Liverpool again next week, I would expect a much closer game.

Yeah it was surely a one off.

 

[Berbasbullet]

But it is. We've lost control of games for large periods. West Ham has numerous chances, Leicester did. The final could easily have ended a draw based on each team performed.

Until we start passing the ball well(how long has it been now since we passed the ball well?) we'll always run the risk of big losses.

If you don't pass the ball well and you come up against a team having oneof thoae days where everything goes in you'll get a thumping.

I don't blame ETH. He needs time to get the right players in.

But fans who've convinced themselves we're almost there are in for a big disappointment if we don’t have a brilliant summer.

Since the shocking first 2 games we've been right up there in terms of points. I do get where you're coming from and we have loads to improve on, but we are on a good path.

 

[The Corinthian]

The other annoying thing about last night - Ancelotti, Modric and co gave us the perfect blueprint on how to play against these twats. Keep pace our wide, get a number 9 that can drop in the whole to drag their CBs out of position and play a midfield 3 (ie no number 10) with one of your midfielders having licence to bomb on.

We have Sabitzer, Casemiro and Fred who could have done the midfield job. Rashford and Antony as wisemen and possibly play Bruno as a false 9 or let Wout drop in. There’s an obvious drop in quality between them and Benzema, but it could have worked.

 

[CassiusClaymore]

Nope ETH has been saying for a while this team has a long way to go in terms of being a top team, but people haven’t been listening carefully.

Nothing to do with being a "top team". Top teams lose football matches and losing football matches I can handle. 45 minute capitulations like this though...

Where's the professional pride? Even poor teams have that.

 

[MancunianAngels]

Yesterday, along with city away, was a sign that we're not there yet.

Pre 93, these types of results happened quite a lot. There was the 5-1 at maine Road in 89 and a 4-1 at home to QPR in 92.

Big test is how we recover. We did post Brentford and city.

 

[Malone_Post]

I don’t think I ever remember being as angry and disappointed about a performance in my 30 years supporting the club. I’m just as angry as I was yesterday and feel absolutely disgusted with every single player who was on that pitch. They didn’t lose 7-0 because they were outclassed, they lost 7-0 because they gave up. It’s unforgivable.

 

[Eddy_JukeZ]

I fully understand what he was trying to do. And it wasn’t all bad, I agree, and many people have said so, including ETH. But you’re looking at it from a simplistic point of view. You’re talking about how we develop play but there’s more to it than that. You have to stop them as well. All roads may have led to defeat - that’s possible - but I would not have set up that way.

We did stop them in the 1st half besides 1 failure at the end(which can be mainly attributed to Fred).

What happened in the 2nd half wasn't a tactical failure. It was an attitude failure.

 

[georgipep]

That's fair enough mate, but we did try stopping them. And we did apply the press higher up the pitch by taking a chance and leaving their fullbacks unmarked. Antony seemed to have been instructed to close down Van Dijk, which left Robertson unmarked with the insurance policy of Dalot, Fred and Varane to cover. But what ended up happening was that Dalot shifted towards Robertson, leaving Fred to drop in to mark Gakpo and Fred got his bearings wrong and Varane followed that up with making another mistake by allowing Gakpo to come inside to shoot on his favoured right foot. We failed to execute the press as a collective and that one moment was the difference in the first half.

In the second half, Shaw plays a very poor pass, which gives Liverpool another goal. We've given Liverpool a 2-0 lead on a plate at that point and have to now chase the game, which brought more misery due to poor play, poor discipline, and unprofessional behaviour by some of the players. That second half performance from when Shaw made the error for 2-0, needs to be scrutinised by the Erik ten Hag and I'm sure it will.

I'm absolutely seething with the performance yesterday and I can't put into words how I disappointed I am. But I'm still very upbeat about the rest of the season and I expect us to win one more trophy and finish in the top 4. But I wouldn't expect United to play free flowing football until they've addressed the problems in the build up phase, which allows opponents who are adept at pressing high to cause us difficulty, hence Erik ten Hag is having to compromise on his principles of play.

And as bad as the result was yesterday, if we played Liverpool again next week, I would expect a much closer game.

The first goal was all about "rest defence". Antony pressing Alisson was the big mistake. It was not his job to do that. He left his man unmarked. That led to a cascade of poor positioning. Dalot was high up the pitch so he had to mark Robertson. Which led to Fred having to go for Gakpo. Fred is not a fullback and is not great at defending the "trap" with the corridor towards the box. He focused on the man, not where the ball will end up, and we conceded.

But it all began with Antony.

Second goal was a classic transition chaos. Shaw messed up a simple pass, Casemiro gambled and lost and then it all came crashing down.

 

[royboy16]

I don’t think I ever remember being as angry and disappointed about a performance in my 30 years supporting the club. I’m just as angry as I was yesterday and feel absolutely disgusted with every single player who was on that pitch. They didn’t lose 7-0 because they were outclassed, they lost 7-0 because they gave up. It’s unforgivable.

Yeap pretty much my thoughts, it was a game of two halves, we were in it first half and I had full confidence we would get back into the game second half.
Couldnt believe my eyes what I saw second half and to give up against liverpool of all teams is unforgivable.

 

[Lecland07]

Rubbish. 7-0 shows a team which has given up on a result. The problem with Liverpool being our biggest rivals is most teams at 3-0, 4-0 slow down but they don’t do that against us. That’s why we have been under some right hammerings in recent years.

I put the ones at the start of the season down to a carry on from the last - it was never going to change that quickly. However, since the City result, we haven't conceded all that many goals.

It is not rubbish to think that playing more games puts you at a disadvantage. Casemiro was poor because he literally looks like he could barely move; this is down to tiredness. Liverpool, on the other hand, looked fresh and were able to run all day long.

You can tell a few things are off about our players from tiredness.

 

[Scorpy]

This result will be like a dark cloud hanging over us for a long time. It will definitely take away much (if not all) of the joy we get after a win this season and the only way to make it right is to smash Liverpool ourselves, which I'm not sure when exactly could realistically happen as even in our best years we rarely did it.

 

[Offside]

Yesterday, along with city away, was a sign that we're not there yet.

Pre 93, these types of results happened quite a lot. There was the 5-1 at maine Road in 89 and a 4-1 at home to QPR in 92.

Big test is how we recover. We did post Brentford and city.

Nah every game is a sign we aren't close to being there yet. Even with our recent results they've been narrow scorelines where for large portions of the game we've been poor. Even the Leicester game which resulted in a handsome scoreline, we should have been a goal down in the first 20 mins.

City, Barca, West Ham, Leeds home and away we were crap for the first 45/60min. In the games where we've started well like Palace home and away we've ended them horrendously - this team is incapable of a top 90 mins. Our squad depth is terrible so we're either bringing on a load of clowns when winning or having to bring on our best players to rescue it all the time. Our passing is so so poor so we can't revert back to the basics when under immense pressure. There are a lot of things to improve on.

Obviously getting a lot of our best players playing with confidence, and not signing a bunch of flops is why ETH has already surpassed others debut seasons. But I see it in every single game the overarching problems that caused the abysmal showing of last season are still lingering.

 

[Lee565]

So will the team and manager as a whole get booed at the start of our next home game to show that the club does have standards or will we give the players and manager the message that we accept any old rubbish

 

[RuudTom83]

It doesn’t explain that! performance but the squad has been playing every 3 days for a few months now.

7-0 makes excuses redundant but I can forgive a defeat, but the magnitude of the defeat is something very difficult to comprehend.

What the hell happened!

 

[scottser]

the biggest surprise to me was finding out that scousers could actually count to 7.

 

[Adnan]

The first goal was all about "rest defence". Antony pressing Alisson was the big mistake. It was not his job to do that. He left his man unmarked. That led to a cascade of poor positioning. Dalot was high up the pitch so he had to mark Robertson. Which led to Fred having to go for Gakpo. Fred is not a fullback and is not great at defending the "trap" with the corridor towards the box. He focused on the man, not where the ball will end up, and we conceded.

But it all began with Antony.

Second goal was a classic transition chaos. Shaw messed up a simple pass, Casemiro gambled and lost and then it all came crashing down.

Then you should blame Erik ten Hag and not Antony. Because we don't commit to a full high press and leave the fullbacks deep. Antony was doing what ten Hag has been asking of his wide attackers from a pressing pov.

 

[NinjaZombie]

But it is. We've lost control of games for large periods. West Ham has numerous chances, Leicester did. The final could easily have ended a draw based on each team performed.

Until we start passing the ball well(how long has it been now since we passed the ball well?) we'll always run the risk of big losses.

If you don't pass the ball well and you come up against a team having oneof thoae days where everything goes in you'll get a thumping.

I don't blame ETH. He needs time to get the right players in.

But fans who've convinced themselves we're almost there are in for a big disappointment if we don’t have a brilliant summer.

We've not passed the ball well since Eriksen got injured.

 

[Dansk]

How the feck does something like this even happen? What on Earth can go so wrong that a team in great form, placed third in the league, can lose 7-0 to a team that has been in relegation form since the start of the year? Can anyone attempt to explain that?

And why does this sort of thing only ever seem to happen to United? What is it about this club that mysteriously makes these historically disastrous results happen? This doesn't happen to other clubs. It's literally just United. Why? What's causing it? Why do we seem to have several games every season that make you wonder if someone drugged the players or something? We have been utterly annihilated, humiliated and shat upon by both of our main rivals in the same season, conceding six against one and seven against the other. That isn't something that ever happens to any other club in football.

We just knocked Barcelona out of the EL a week ago. Now we're losing seven fecking nil to the worst Liverpool team in history. How the hell is that something that can happen? No amount of fatigue should lead to that. I would believe fatigue to be the answer if we'd lost, say, 2-0 or 3-1. SEVEN NIL, though? SEVEN?! Unless these players have chosen to stop sleeping at night or something, there is no conceivable way that they can be this tired just from playing slightly more games in the last month than they're used to. That's completely unrealistic. That should not be something that can happen.

 

[tomaldinho1]

Having slept on it I genuinely think my biggest take away from this is the majority of our fan base (including myself) were so desperate to be ‘back’ we ignored our senses and bought into the media love in which is so out of touch it’s unreal.

We’re not that good, we’re an EL team and we’re performing above expectations in the league but there are a lot of reasons to look on the positive side. Yesterday I don’t actually mind that we chased the game, we got sucker punched loads of times and our entire team had a nightmare defensively but we’re trying to be a team who can ‘play football’ against the best. I don’t care if we lose 10-0 if we get CL football, that and the league cup will be a season above my expectations.

 

[2 man midfield]

How the feck does something like this even happen? What on Earth can go so wrong that a team in great form, placed third in the league, can lose 7-0 to a team that has been in relegation form since the start of the year? Can anyone attempt to explain that?

And why does this sort of thing only ever seem to happen to United? What is it about this club that mysteriously makes these historically disastrous results happen? This doesn't happen to other clubs. It's literally just United. Why? What's causing it? Why do we seem to have several games every season that make you wonder if someone drugged the players or something?

United > Barcelona > Madrid > Liverpool > United

Football is a weird game