VfL Wolfsburg 3:2 Manchester United

Red Digger · Dec 8, 2015

It looks like Pereira isn't rated by LVG if he brings Powel on when he felt the need to bring Mata off. The use of subs was really poor tonight again. Young would have been a better option off the bench also. Depressing season again.

Spark · Dec 8, 2015

FCBarca said:
Perhaps the earlier matches in the Group stage lacked the proper energy but you found tonight dull??

No tonight wasn't dull at all.

But I find his substitutions, his stubbornness, his arrogance and the insistence on slow measured build up play - at all costs - with no penetration up front leads to consistently shit performances. Tonight shouldn't have mattered. Tonight should have been wrapped up. But it's the two draws that we should have won that have cost us.

Overall, we are incredibly dull and it means that the only enjoyment we can currently expect as fans is to be entertained by being knocked out of the Champions League, playing do-or-die in a game that should never have mattered.

It's not like Van Gaal can't do it - we beat Spurs, City and Liverpool last season playing some glorious stuff. All in a row and it looked great. So it's not impossible. But I don't feel Van Gaal is good enough over all and I fear we will fall behind the rest of the pack eventually. At the moment, Europe is what we should be measuring ourselves against - not the Premier League - and it's plainly obvious that we are not going in the correct direction.

I look forward to not strengthening properly because we can't sign Neymar/Messi/Ronaldo.

Fully Fledged · Dec 8, 2015

Sandikan said:
schweiny for carrick...could deal with

then you see...hang on, what the heck...Mata coming off for...a guy from Crewe whose name we have to remind ourselves of.

Mata was one of our best players in the first half then he moved him back to allow Felliani to go up front in the second half. I don't get it

FCBarca · Dec 8, 2015

girish said:
Above & Beyond are now shite too. They changed their style and I stopped listening to them.

Definitely agree, was a shock to see what Group Therapy degenerated into. Still enjoying ASOT though

HabeasC · Dec 8, 2015

Womp said:
Yea, this game was lost in the lead-up, this performance in particular was nothing to complain about though, they gave it all. Taking off Mata was controversial but his performance was seeming to wane as the game went on, a fresh pair of legs could have worked out, running at an ageing and tired defence. It made sense, but didn't work out.

I'm not sure why Nick Powell was the answer though. He has played pretty much no football for a year. Putting him in this game did no one any favours.

Crossie · Dec 8, 2015

LazyRed-Ninja said:
A friking 33 year old Naldo who did not score a SINGLE goal thus far in the season scores two deadly ones today. Yes, so predictable.

Everybody who watches the Bundesliga for more than a season could have told you that Naldo is the most prolific scoring CB, scoring from set pieces (DFKs and headers following corners) and long-distance shots. This season was abnormal for him being goalless until now.

christinaa · Dec 8, 2015

The PSV home game killed us - full stop!!

Red_head7 · Dec 8, 2015

Granted, this was an awful defensive performance from us. Two of their three goals shouldn't have even been chances.

People giving Powell stick - leave off, there's no doubt the boy does have high potential and it wasn't his choice to be subbed on, it was LVG's, who admittedly got it wrong.

Think there needs to be a bit of a reality check for people wanting LVG out though, not sure there actually is anyone else out there at the moment, and like it or not, LVG has definitely steadied what was a sinking ship under Moyes.

People saying 'get Ancelotti in' - if we bring him in he's here for the next few years, not just a few months, the man is one of the world's most elite managers, do you really think he's going to be happy coming in purely as a stop gap? - Well no, he won't.

If someone can communicate to LVG that despite the result, the attacking brand of football displayed tonight was what the fans want, and not to abandon it just because we lost, then I won't be too bothered, because that's the way we should be playing, we were genuinely exciting to watch tonight.

Others positives:

- Varela was very impressive, I find it hilarious how people wrote him off or forgot about him because he hadn't made the step up yet - the guy is a good RB, and with some more first-team opportunities, can definitely compete with Darmian IMO.

- Borthwick-Jackson is a solid LB, it's exciting to have such a promising core of youngsters at the club, even if our current situation is far from ideal.

- Despite not achieving much, Powell looked hungry to prove himself after coming on, I'd like to believe he can fulfil some of the promise he arrived with.

- Martial is brilliant, and will only get better. I can see why United put those future clauses in his contract.

Yes, tonight was very poor. But some people need to put a little bit of perspective on things. The future is definitely bright.

minoo-utd · Dec 8, 2015

The thing is I felt for a little while that LVG doesn't care about us winning this game and he started to try some players.

dichinero · Dec 8, 2015

Red_head7 said:
Granted, this was an awful defensive performance from us. Two of their three goals shouldn't have even been chances.

People giving Powell stick - leave off, there's no doubt the boy does have high potential and it wasn't his choice to be subbed on, it was LVG's, who admittedly got it wrong.

Think there needs to be a bit of a reality check for people wanting LVG out though, not sure there actually is anyone else out there at the moment, and like it or not, LVG has definitely steadied what was a sinking ship under Moyes.

People saying 'get Ancelotti in' - if we bring him in he's here for the next few years, not just a few months, the man is one of the world's most elite managers, do you really think he's going to be happy coming in purely as a stop gap? - Well no, he won't.

If someone can communicate to LVG that despite the result, the attacking brand of football displayed tonight was what the fans want, and not to abandon it just because we lost, then I won't be too bothered, because that's the way we should be playing, we were genuinely exciting to watch tonight.

Others positives:

- Varela was very impressive, I find it hilarious how people wrote him off or forgot about him because he hadn't made the step up yet - the guy is a good RB, and with some more first-team opportunities, can definitely compete with Darmian IMO.

- Borthwick-Jackson is a solid LB, it's exciting to have such a promising core of youngsters at the club, even if our current situation is far from ideal.

- Despite not achieving much, Powell looked hungry to prove himself after coming on, I'd like to believe he can fulfil some of the promise he arrived with.

- Martial is brilliant, and will only get better. I can see why United put those future clauses in his contract.

Yes, tonight was very poor. But some people need to put a little bit of perspective on things. The future is definitely bright.

This

NJM78 · Dec 8, 2015

Well what excuses has Louis come up with haven't seen any interviews yet.

We were crap some decent attacking moments but overall crap. I think our season is set to get even worse as I can see us dropping out of the top four before too long. I just hope we make a few signings in January because squad depth has been a farce since day one. So form wise we are now on DDDL in last four games. Awesome.

girish · Dec 8, 2015

FCBarca said:
Definitely agree, was a shock to see what Group Therapy degenerated into. Still enjoying ASOT though

ASOT is good. But when you listen to the earlier episodes, around 300, you can see how much trance has changed.

sunama · Dec 8, 2015

NJM78 said:
So form wise we are now on DDDL in last four games. Awesome.

Maybe we need to get a 0-0 draw in our next game. So we can steady the ship.

Skorenzy · Dec 8, 2015

Did anyone else catch Owen's unintentionally hilarious reference to the David Moyes era while answering a question about LVG? "It's been 18 months of this since, eh,... that."

Tincanalley · Dec 8, 2015

Disappointing not to have made it through the group. I hope Chris Smalling is OK, we are very dependent on him. Encouraging to see performances from the young lads. Half way through the game I said I love this United and feck off begrudgers. I still say it. I love how Fellaini gives his all. I love how Schweini wants to do well. I love Mata's class and intelligence. I love DDG's craziness. I love how Smalling has grown from a late start into a world class defender. I love Martial for his ghostly skills. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Come on United.

17 Van der Gouw · Dec 8, 2015

Great to see Nick Powell again, shame he wasn't the same one I hoped he'd become.

NJM78 · Dec 8, 2015

sunama said:
Maybe we need to get a 0-0 draw in our next game. So we can steady the ship.

Ha, I'm going 1-1 to spice it up a bit.

soap · Dec 8, 2015

Tonight alone, we weren't bad at all for most of the game. Was a very good and well contested match which could easily have gone either way.

Not to say this gets LVG off the hook at all - failing to qualify from that group is abysmal, our being desperately thin in attack is is completely his fault and that, as I see it, is why we're out.

spwd · Dec 8, 2015

Ridiculous that we seemed to try a lot harder tonight than in previous games which would probably have seen us qualify before today, a bit like in our games, we only seem to try (sometimes) when we're up against it instead of getting it sorted ASAP and then relaxing,
.

XdanielredX · Dec 9, 2015

Wow we suck

IwatUwat · Dec 9, 2015

For me Fellaini was the mistake yesterday. It was working going forward but defensively he left Bastian on his own all the time. He isnt mobile enough to get about. So he ended up basically playing alongside Mata.

Huge holes in CM for them to exploit and they did, like for the 2nd goal (good goal but defensively bad and that was due to Fellaini being too far up the pitch still).

Tough game tough opponent. First time we play decent attacking football we lose and get knocked out of the champs league, dunno if that proves LVG is right to be more defensive but then that has cost us in other games. Its like he's missed the trick on when to play attacking or not. Odd tactics in the Champions league has cost us. Both PSV games for me, we've dominated a lot of those games though but just not got results.

Turnip · Dec 9, 2015

Well I've been saying for a while I'd rather lose and it be an entertaining match than get another 0-0, so I'm not gonna complain too much.

PieCrust · Dec 9, 2015

Spark said:
No tonight wasn't dull at all.

But I find his substitutions, his stubbornness, his arrogance and the insistence on slow measured build up play - at all costs - with no penetration up front leads to consistently shit performances. Tonight shouldn't have mattered. Tonight should have been wrapped up. But it's the two draws that we should have won that have cost us.

Overall, we are incredibly dull and it means that the only enjoyment we can currently expect as fans is to be entertained by being knocked out of the Champions League, playing do-or-die in a game that should never have mattered.

It's not like Van Gaal can't do it - we beat Spurs, City and Liverpool last season playing some glorious stuff. All in a row and it looked great. So it's not impossible. But I don't feel Van Gaal is good enough over all and I fear we will fall behind the rest of the pack eventually. At the moment, Europe is what we should be measuring ourselves against - not the Premier League - and it's plainly obvious that we are not going in the correct direction.

I look forward to not strengthening properly because we can't sign Neymar/Messi/Ronaldo.

Feel pretty much the exact same way. It's like there is some hope there, even flashes since LVG took over, but he refuses to adjust and make progress.

Champions League Group B

VfL Wolfsburg 3:2 Manchester United

Volkswagen Arena

Closed

Full Member

Full Member

Full Member

Mes que un Rag

Full Member

Full Member

Gossip Girl

New Member

New Member

New Member

New Member

I too love women...for their shoes.

Baghdad Bob

Full Member

Turns player names into a crappy conversation

biffa bin

New Member

Directionless weirdo who like booze and ganja

likes: servals, breasts, rylan clark and zooey

Full Member

Full Member

likes to be spanked with games consoles

Full Member

Man of the Match

Runners-up

Player Ratings

Highest Rated Player

Lowest Rated Player

Score Predictions

Detailed Results

Match Stats

Referee

Man Utd Lineup

Substitutes