He might be on here already?
EL W Europa League Semi-Final 1st Leg
Athletic Club 0:3 Manchester United
Post-match discussion
Thu, 01 May 2025
Will be interesting to see how we play the full game against their 11. We should be home and dry though. Should be....
The dangers of drunk posting on the caf
Lads..........its Tottenham!!!
we were outclassed to the point of embarassment that first half-hour. Couldn't deal with that press, overmatched physically and technically. But it wasn't the red card that turned it - it was giving up on playing out from the back.
Very good to hear from Amorim directly in the post-match presser about needing to address the first 20-25 minutes of the match. Hope we can hold it together and dominate possession in the 2nd leg and snuff out any threat of them scoring 3+.
That’s being extremely melodramatic. We gifted them 2 or 3 decent chances with sloppy individual errors (Lindelof and Ugarte caught on the ball, Dorgu caught upfield) but we had 65% possession - and a very narrowly disallowed goal from Garnacho - leading up to our opening goal.
There were a few good individual performances and hopefully it'll be enough to see us through to the final but I still didn't think it was a particularly assured team performance given we were up against 10 men for most of the game.
The most important thing is we managed the game and didn't concede after half time but we really should've pushed on to at least get a 4th in the second half. You could still sense the nervousness that permeates the team because we largely played with the handbrake on in the second half.
The most important thing is we managed the game and didn't concede after half time but we really should've pushed on to at least get a 4th in the second half. You could still sense the nervousness that permeates the team because we largely played with the handbrake on in the second half.
Would've preferred grabbing enough, think 4-0 would've been done and dusted completely.
I do think we'll win at OT though, they'll come out fighting, so we just need to keep possession for the first 15 minutes and ride that wave, then we'll be fine.
Hope OT is electric again like the Lyon game, even though we're 3-0 up.
I do think we'll win at OT though, they'll come out fighting, so we just need to keep possession for the first 15 minutes and ride that wave, then we'll be fine.
Hope OT is electric again like the Lyon game, even though we're 3-0 up.
What?
Harry needs to buck up. He should have been there to score the header after twisting the full back into a human rope. Left it to Ugarte and Cas to do the spadework.
And these are Basques, not Spanish. Great bunch.
He wasn’t bad at all. Pretty much said what any (non toxic) of us would.
He’s just back from injury, though.
I was out for the evening. Watched a couple of videos above when I got home
Harry Maguire reminds me of John O'Shea, not always first choice, usually dependable, occasional brilliance in unexpected areas of the pitch, including centre forward and (O'Shea) goalkeeper
Harry Maguire reminds me of John O'Shea, not always first choice, usually dependable, occasional brilliance in unexpected areas of the pitch, including centre forward and (O'Shea) goalkeeper
look how they're behaving
That's so pathetic.
Was concerned when I saw Lindelof starting and rightly so….him and Ugarte where very sloppy in the first 25mins and we could easily have been a goal down….we must learn to be more compact and sensible at the start of games.
Another one to boil the p**s of rival fans.
Is it? How it looked to me was we were in constant serious trouble, had numerous turnovers and struggled very badly to string any sort of coherent passing together. Garnacho's disallowed goal was pretty much our only foray of any note during that phase of the game. Happily it turned, but during that period we looked pretty obviously inferior. Amorim didn't sound very happy about it either.
65% possession? For the first 30 minutes specifically?
Well, we hit the woodwork twice in the second half, so it's not exactly correct that we should've pushed on
Another example of what the first goal can do again last night. We’ve failed to do that so much in the league this season and paid for it. They started well, looked powerful, really good press. We struggled with that a bit, but then improved dramatically once the goal went in. It gives you a bit of hope that once we get a couple of players in and get a pre season under our belts in the way Amorim wants, we could compete a lot better with the more powerful teams in the league. Our patterns of play have improved in the last month or so.
We have an obvious problem which is that our best technicians in the central areas (Mount, Bruno, Mainoo, Zirzkee, Casemiro and Eriksen) also lack pace and power.
That leads to situations like the one we saw last night, in which we feel we need to start Ugarte for his ball-winning attributes, but we then constantly turn the ball over.
For the return leg, I would be tempted to leave out Ugarte and potentially even Garnacho and go with Mainoo and Mount (or Amad, if fit enough). Take the sting out of the game, keep the ball, play through the press.
The last thing we want is to invite pressure and concede an early goal. We could have been 0-2 down within 20-minutes last night.
Given neither team will be playing for anything and can therefore rest the entire XI, who cares?
The ref?Grown men waving big red cards aboutmuppets
Fair enough - most of my disdain for Spanish teams is due to the three you've mentioned, plus Barcelona for the 2 UCL final losses (and their slimy little cheat of a manager) and to a lesser extent, Madrid for their tapping up of Ronaldo (though I've largely forgiven them due to the amount of times they've stopped Liverpool and Abu Dhabi from winning the CL).
That being said - I still stand by my 'take that you Spanish twats'.
Fair play mate
Indeed, great part of the world. And Atheltic are a proper football club.
I guess no one would care about those league games if final will be on the cards.
Enjoy football. Enjoy imperfections. Celebrate when we win. That’s my advice.
We won 3-0 in Spain against a good team and a hostile atmosphere that was silenced and managed well. Under ETH we’d have conceded two goals in the second half.
They played with 10 men for most of the game but guess what, they deserved too. It was no shenanigans involving referee incompetency and some middle of the pitch challenge. Probably should have been down to 9 with that Garnacho incident.
We weren’t great for the opening 25 mins or so but guess what, I’m pretty sure that’s the norm for any European tie even when we were at our best under Ferguson and for any team. There’s been plenty of games over the years where the fanbase has been like ‘We lost comprehensively at OT but those opening 20 minutes… I felt like I’d been touched sensually the way we played!’
Second half performance should be commended as I said previously… no fecking way ETH gets us through that with a clean sheet. We’d probably end up drawing the match 3-3.
If it wasn’t for Onana blunders in Lyon, we’d have had two back to back comprehensive away wins in Europe.
They played with 10 men for most of the game but guess what, they deserved too. It was no shenanigans involving referee incompetency and some middle of the pitch challenge. Probably should have been down to 9 with that Garnacho incident.
We weren’t great for the opening 25 mins or so but guess what, I’m pretty sure that’s the norm for any European tie even when we were at our best under Ferguson and for any team. There’s been plenty of games over the years where the fanbase has been like ‘We lost comprehensively at OT but those opening 20 minutes… I felt like I’d been touched sensually the way we played!’
Second half performance should be commended as I said previously… no fecking way ETH gets us through that with a clean sheet. We’d probably end up drawing the match 3-3.
If it wasn’t for Onana blunders in Lyon, we’d have had two back to back comprehensive away wins in Europe.
Yep. The commentary particularly mentioned it just before the first goal.
Why are Spanish clubs such bad losers? Have some dignity, señores.
Newcastle, Villa, NF and City might.
It was between the 20 and 25 minute mark when the TNT commentator mentioned how much possession we had. The point he was making was that we’d got through our opening wobbles and were getting on top. And that’s how I saw it at the time. We created some bad situations for ourselves with sloppy individual moments but in general it was one of those controlled, high possession, first half performances we often see under Amorim in Europe.
Great game managed the second half very well even though we did not score it was better than letting them get one or two.
Just got back from injury and Nous was brilliant. Him and De Ligt on that right side for the next leg should be good.
Over the moon with the win. I thought we played well from the get-go with the chances they conjured early on were from mistakes of our own doing. The foul on Hojlund a stonewaller and the red card well-deserved -- ref had excellent game from start to finish. We controlled the game incredibly well after that and, perhaps, should have pushed harder for another, but this is just the greed in me.
We're final-bound now; the only way we might screw this up is if we concede early on in the return leg. As for the final itself obviously I would prefer Bodo/Glimt, but even if we play Spurs I still think we're favourites to go all the way.
Nothing like being a United fan!
We're final-bound now; the only way we might screw this up is if we concede early on in the return leg. As for the final itself obviously I would prefer Bodo/Glimt, but even if we play Spurs I still think we're favourites to go all the way.
Nothing like being a United fan!
I expected to lose and thought here we go for the first 20 minutes, it was one of those where every lose ball just fell sweetly to the other team, and a few players were very ropey, Ugarte in particular could have been hooked after 30 mins but then....
100% stonewall penalty, I personally think the red card is a harsh rule but that is the rule! I loved the way their player was remonstrating that they had just had their hand on their shoulder, like that was the fecking point, don't be holding his shoulder if you don't want to give away a penalty. That said if the penalty was given the other way around I think the Garna handball would slightly annoy me, but it didn't actually control the ball and he was just using it to get up from the floor.
The "Maguire incident" was never a red in a million years even if it was considered a foul he was miles away from goal, close to the wing and there was another defender covering who was central and closer to the goal, I don't think it was a foul anyway, it was 6 of one etc. but once it had not been given as a foul no way VAR could interfere as no way it was red, not in a million years
I would have loved for us to score 5 and absolutely put the tie to bed, but not taking risks and keeping a clean sheet in the 2nd half was probably the right way to go about it.
Hopefully Amad is fit to start for the return leg, we really need him and Garna with pace on the break, they will need to push hard to score early, if we leave one or both of Amad or Garna up on the break it will force them to be more cautious and hopefully net us a goal and kill them off.
100% stonewall penalty, I personally think the red card is a harsh rule but that is the rule! I loved the way their player was remonstrating that they had just had their hand on their shoulder, like that was the fecking point, don't be holding his shoulder if you don't want to give away a penalty. That said if the penalty was given the other way around I think the Garna handball would slightly annoy me, but it didn't actually control the ball and he was just using it to get up from the floor.
The "Maguire incident" was never a red in a million years even if it was considered a foul he was miles away from goal, close to the wing and there was another defender covering who was central and closer to the goal, I don't think it was a foul anyway, it was 6 of one etc. but once it had not been given as a foul no way VAR could interfere as no way it was red, not in a million years
I would have loved for us to score 5 and absolutely put the tie to bed, but not taking risks and keeping a clean sheet in the 2nd half was probably the right way to go about it.
Hopefully Amad is fit to start for the return leg, we really need him and Garna with pace on the break, they will need to push hard to score early, if we leave one or both of Amad or Garna up on the break it will force them to be more cautious and hopefully net us a goal and kill them off.
I’d be less worried about Spurs if they hadn’t pissed all over us this season when we have played them. Hopefully we have learnt our lessons.
I would think the two teams would prioritize a European final and qualification to next year's Champions League over the race for 15th
Player Ratings
Total Average Rating
Highest Rated Player
Lowest Rated Player
Compiled from 241 ratings.
Score Predictions
35,67,53
- Man Utd win
- Athletic Club win
- Draw
Detailed Results
- 28% Athletic Club 1:1 Man Utd
- 15% Athletic Club 2:0 Man Utd
- 14% Athletic Club 1:2 Man Utd
- 11% Athletic Club 2:1 Man Utd
- 7% Athletic Club 3:0 Man Utd
- 6% Athletic Club 3:1 Man Utd
- 4% Athletic Club 0:2 Man Utd
- 4% Athletic Club 2:2 Man Utd
- 4% Athletic Club 1:0 Man Utd
- 2% Athletic Club 0:0 Man Utd
- 2% Athletic Club 1:3 Man Utd
- 2% Athletic Club 0:1 Man Utd
- 1% Athletic Club 5:1 Man Utd
- 1% Athletic Club 0:3 Man Utd
- 1% Athletic Club 2:3 Man Utd
Man Utd Lineup
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replaced by Luke Shaw
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replaced by Matthijs de Ligt
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replaced by Amad Diallo
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replaced by Mason Mount
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replaced by Kobbie Mainoo
