Luton Town 0:3 Manchester United

Highlight for me was the world class save by Hendo. Overall good work out for the lads.

I love happy endings. This was no different.

eire-red said:

I know its only Luton, but I'm just way more comfortable with a midfield duo of Matic and Fred on the teamsheet.

They provide great cover for the backline and a good base for our front 4. No fancy flicks or passes either, just keeping the ball moving.

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That was the most effective partnership before Covid and once Bruno came into the team. They compliment each other extremely well.

Oles interview didn't sound like any more were coming in

Decent game from us, but it really shows that we need to be more effective with transfers.

We need a new LB to challenge and rotate with Shaw.
We need a strong DM to rotate with Matic.
We need a quality striker that can challenge Martial a bit and give Ole some options for these kind of games.
We need a top quality CB since Maguire hasn`t been able to play at the level we hoped for.
And that is on top of Sancho..

Frustrating that we seem to hesitate on transfers this window.

Ole sounded pissed off in that interview and was very hesitant to give any praise, he knew we were shit for 80 minutes and that's not good enough. Just hope the board agree.

Bailly seemed to compliment Maguire a lot more than Lindelof does. He could cover for him whilst Harry went into midfield...if only he could stay fit!
Job done, 90 minutes in the bank & move on to Sunday when hopefully we look a bit sharper

Turnip said:

Ole sounded pissed off in that interview and was very hesitant to give any praise, he knew we were shit for 80 minutes and that's not good enough. Just hope the board agree.

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Good thing if true. Players need to realize this isn't the match to be happy about the result. It's fecking Luton at the end of the day.

Nice to see top determination and killer finish from Rashford again. Scoring in central posistion. The boy is a CF and Vardy type of striker.
Bring the boy back as CF Ole. And us Martial one on one dancing skill as left winger. Cut from the left and curl it in.

As long as Ole will always use Rashford as left winger against parking bus and tight defend. I will always disagree with Ole.
Rashford is more and most useful as left winger against top teams that will press United high and leaving space, to counter attack. And you need Rashford tracking back ability.

Its so obviously. And Ole is still using Rashford against a tight defend like Palace. In Ole second season. To be really honest. Thumb down for Ole for that decision. And i am sure United and Ole will not benefit of that decision. United will still struggling against parking bus and tight defend. Against Palace and more teams. And more points drops = out of premier league title and top 4.

It is where Ole can improve United. If he doesn’t. Then Ole can only blame himself. Rashford just stop op so many times as left winger against Palace. He should let ball work and move the ball quicker. When he received the ball in left wide side. Full speed when you get the ball. By dribbling or passing. Not 2 or more seconds, to figure out what you shall do with the ball. Don’t take off the rhythm of the ball and passing. All United players shall watch and learn from DVBeek. DVB always let the ball roll. With one, few touches or dribbling. And always know where you have your teammates, before you receive the ball.
This is what Pep and Arteta trying to do with theirs team. Let the ball work and a lot of many movements at the same time. To make it easy for the passer and difficult for the opponent defend.

It helped with addition of Bruno. Now DVB and hopefully Sancho. Direct and quick football. Few touches are ideally, but if you need that extra touch or when it is right to make run with the ball. Do it. Most right decisions as possible.

Again. This Rashford is the goal i have been waiting for so long. Full and top determination with killer instinct. That ball shall hit the goal. Determination and sharp. More of those things and abilities please.

Despite fielding what looked like an incompatible front 4, the team looked way sharper than they did against Palace. That performance was more like what we saw against Villa in our pre-season friendly. Despite that, we still have room for improvement.

We played Lingard like a left winger with a right-footed Brandon Williams behind him. If anything, this match indicated the need for either a left-footed wide player or someone with pace and quickness. Whenever Lingard was positioned on the left flank, he rarely ran up into space and waited for the ball to come to his feet. He looked much better with teammates to play off of than in space out wide. It's clear that he's much better through the middle, but if the plan is to play him out wide, then he'll need an attacking full back to accompany him.

On Williams, I found it weird that players kept playing passes to his left foot. Every time he received the ball, he had to take an extra touch to settle down and then check back to his right foot, slowing us down. What worked well for us, however, was that we piled bodies into the box and offered him several options. He was then able to put in good, low crosses to players into space instead of punting a hopeful cross into the box.

Speaking of full backs, there were so many occasions where Wan-Bissaka was left isolated. He was double-teamed on so many occasions, but there was no one for him to play a pass through to. For the third time, United's attacking players were all piled up on the left side, but there was no one going to the right flank to offer an option to him. I think this might no longer be an issue as the players get fresher and more in tune with each other.

Our midfield worked well on the ball, but defensively, they looked quite disjointed. Fred would press the opposition, but his teammates either wouldn't join in with him, or they would, but the others wouldn't plug in the gaps where they appear. Matic was a big culprit in that as he was slow to cover the ground, and Mata was the next biggest culprit as he stuck to the right flank and didn't adjust whenever Fred pressed. This improved in the second half when the team were more committed to pressing the ball, however.

Overall, this felt like another pre-season game, and the players looked sharper, which is a good sign. Fortunately for us, Luton lacked the quality to really trouble us even though they were able to put in a considerable amount of crosses (looking at you, full backs).

Not exactly positive regarding new addictions. If certain players were leaving I would be but that doesn't seem to be the case.

Beek is our first and last buy of the window methinks.

LuckyScout78 said:

Nice to see top determination and killer finish from Rashford again. Scoring in central posistion. The boy is a CF and Vardy type of striker.
Bring the boy back as CF Ole. And us Martial one on one dancing skill as left winger. Cut from the left and curl it in.

As long as Ole will always use Rashford as left winger against parking bus and tight defend. I will always disagree with Ole.
Rashford is more and most useful as left winger against top teams that will press United high and leaving space, to counter attack. And you need Rashford tracking back ability.

Its so obviously. And Ole is still using Rashford against a tight defend like Palace. In Ole second season. To be really honest. Thumb down for Ole for that decision. And i am sure United and Ole will not benefit of that decision. United will still struggling against parking bus and tight defend. Against Palace and more teams. And more points drops = out of premier league title and top 4.

It is where Ole can improve United. If he doesn’t. Then Ole can only blame himself. Rashford just stop op so many times as left winger against Palace. He should let ball work and move the ball quicker. When he received the ball in left wide side. Full speed when you get the ball. By dribbling or passing. Not 2 or more seconds, to figure out what you shall do with the ball. Don’t take off the rhythm of the ball and passing. All United players shall watch and learn from DVBeek. DVB always let the ball roll. With one, few touches or dribbling. And always know where you have your teammates, before you receive the ball.
This is what Pep and Arteta trying to do with theirs team. Let the ball work and a lot of many movements at the same time. To make it easy for the passer and difficult for the opponent defend.

It helped with addition of Bruno. Now DVB and hopefully Sancho. Direct and quick football. Few touches are ideally, but if you need that extra touch or when it is right to make run with the ball. Do it. Most right decisions as possible.

Again. This Rashford is the goal i have been waiting for so long. Full and top determination with killer instinct. That ball shall hit the goal. Determination and sharp. More of those things and abilities please.

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Martial is pretty much superior to rashford in every ability as a CF.

The scoreline flattered us and it was a tough watch for 80 odd minutes. No point in Ole complaining about match fitness after the Palace game, then resting so many. Van de Beek looks half decent though.

Great to see Lingard get on the ball. You'd hope he gets some confidence which will help his game.

His pass to Rashford on the left wing was beautiful. Just a peach.

A wins a win. But we look very suspect to a counter attack with the shape we form in attack with our LB and RB high up the pitch. Luckily Fred has bags of energy and Matic helps protect our defence also, he's a very underrated cog to the machine.

tumescent watch for most of it as expected, fitness and game time, Williams pulling too wide on the left receiving the ball, never going to get a cross in on his left, the time he did tuck in tighter he won us a pen. Bailly is more physical than Lindelof but at the same time useless aerially. The goals we scored had involvement from academy players that was nice. There is great potential in Donny's movement, very intelligent player. Fred was the best player on the pitch by a mile. Nice injection of excitement when the subs were made, Greenwood clinical as ever seems unaffected by the events over the break.

Litch said:

Eric might not be the answer but you can see where an aggressive and speedy defender makes all the difference

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Still not sure why Ole hasn't tried him with Maguire all that much.

Might be the 3rd or 4th time I've seen them start together and they look a much more balanced pairing than Maguire and Lindelof

Rolaholic said:

Still not sure why Ole hasn't tried him with Maguire all that much.

Might be the 3rd or 4th time I've seen them start together and they look a much more balanced pairing than Maguire and Lindelof

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It's because he gets hurt every year

We played well enough but I still think we should have started with our best 11 to get their fitness up. If this was 2 months from now I would have no problem starting the 2nd team, but this time around, I think our first 11 needed a run...

Hope Rashford's goal gives him a boost. A pre-injury Rashford would go some way to lifting the early season mood.

My biggest issue with the side is the lack of ability of anyone to run with the ball and commit a defender. Especially from fullback/wings. Would love for us to go after an ultra attacking fullback. Or even a back-up winger with something about them.

Wretched game. Chuffed for Rashford to get a goal for a confidence boost, nice hold up play from the Mace.

I don't know how Lingard got MOTM, he moved around well but Mata was easily the best player on the pitch. Overall we were disjointed as expected and it took Msson, Rashford and Bruno to kill off a second rate team. Best just to count it as a pre-season friendly to build fitness.

I was quite happy with the overall performance in the end, but I'm still not happy with Ole's team selection. I feel that he simply makes far too many changes from game to game and therefore is really affecting the confidence of the more fringe players and not doing anybody any favours at all.

Take Ighalo for example... why would you want him playing with Lingard, Mata?? two complete non-starters. It's obviously important for us to build up a strikers confidence as we are exceptionally light in that area of the pitch. It seems like Ole has two teams, his first string (starting 11) and his second string, who he seemingly considers dirt and not capable of anything much.

In the end, you have people coming out saying Ighalo is shit... but looks at who he's playing with! Martial couldn't perform with Rashford, Greenwood, Bruno around him against Palace, why does anyone expect Ighalo to paying at the peak of his ability surrounded by Lingard and Mata.

Ole's team selection leaves a hell of a lot to be desired. Ighalo really needed a game, so I would have done everything to support him and that would be by playing either Lingard or Mata, not both, but of course Van de beek probably needed a start too, to get him bedded into the team, so we're left with those two other positions that Lingard and mata occupied. In fairness, I wouldn't have started either of them, because they are surplus to requirements at the club, and Greenwood just got 45 minutes against palace and he's young and the future, so he should have started and Rashford needs to keep playing to get back into form.

There's absolutely no continuity between our first team, and "second tier" and that is completely on Ole. I don't feel with any of United's great teams from SAF era did we have such disparity in team selection. You had your starting 11, yes, but the other players who were on the bench always felt an essential part of the squad and you wouldn't feel too worried when they had to come in the give someone a rest or cover for injuries. Ole showed me when he was interim manager that he isn't completely tactically naive, but his man-management and team management leaves a hell of a lot to be desired.

We didn't have a pre season, so resting players at this early stage of the season makes no sense considering the abysmal performance against Palace.

Also, what's the deal with our first-choice right-back Wan-Bissake starting today, but starting Fosu-mensa in the opening game of the prem? Why did James start against palace, but subbed after 45 minutes and nowhere to be seen today? none of this makes any sense to me and I feel anybody, literally anybody would do better job with team selection than Ole. In fact, back when I used to play Championship Manager back in the 90s, there was an "auto select" button where your team would be automatically selected. I'd often use it as a starting point and make changes from there but essentially, is was shit at selecting teams for you. Ole is even worse than that.

Rolaholic said:

Still not sure why Ole hasn't tried him with Maguire all that much.

Might be the 3rd or 4th time I've seen them start together and they look a much more balanced pairing than Maguire and Lindelof

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He's been trying them together here and there in the cups when he can since Baillys been fit.

If Bailly stays fit I think he'll be in for Lindelof.

Few days later and our players are... match fit ready?

M4YON said:

Eric Bailly> Lindelof please!

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Absolutely. When he's fit he should be on the pitch, Lindelof needs to work really hard on his fitness and strength.

Wish Bailly would stay fit and uninjured.

Lovely goal from Rashford and I could watch Mason do tricks with his feet in the box all day before scoring.

rooney2009 said:

Lingard was good tonight
MOTM

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Yes he must have been. How many shots on target and how many goals did he score? I lost count.

manunited1919 said:

Yes he must have been. How many shots on target and how many goals did he score? I lost count.

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People must pity him, just like Ole. He didn't hide against Luton Town reserves so I guess that's a good performance for his standards.

The main thing i liked was the lineup. It is important to play the second team as much as possible in such matches.

Ma

Gandalf said:

Must have watched a different match to all those raving about Bailly. He looked like a headless chicken running around out there, he is fast but he is also clumsy, a terrible header of a ball and genuinely seems to not know what football is.

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Maybe one of the other EFL games?

We are back

Web of Bissaka said:

Few days later and our players are... match fit ready?

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The team was a bit of a mess as well, we looked worryingly short of match fitness. But in honesty it is to be expected with how disrupted this whole year has been.

What we learned: our B team cannot even beat Luton Town without a penalty. Our A team would be very successful... in Championship.

God help us. Woodward won't

I thought this was pre season match...oh..the season has started..my bad.

#07 said:

We didn't learn anything we didn't know already tonight: Our second string can barely keep its nose ahead of Luton's second string. Our first string players can bury the likes of these in 5-10 minutes.

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Pretty much.

Lingard was my man of the match because I felt his effort level is what kept us afloat until the subs came on.

Mata had moments.

Bailly was solid and, if he stays healthy, should supplant Lindeloff. He seems better in every facet of the game and he's bigger.

AWB was never a factor. Disappointing.

Ighalo was not effective when there were opportunities, and there were opportunities.

Van de Beek was a mixed bag, I thought he gave it away in odd spots, but that may just be a lack of time to integrate.

Henderson was there. I think he had one good save, but mostly was never required to do much.

Fred, Matic, and Maguire were effective, but nothing magical.

Williams was scary tonight, and not in a good way. Not to say he didn't make some good plays, but it was all highs and lows.

Rashford, Bruno, and Greenwood. Wow. Total change in the game. Took control and put it away. 'Nuff said.

The 11 on the pitch showed more balance at all times then the squad selected against Palace. Performance aside its was just the right balance.

I was very pleased with DVB. He is fine tuned to play with quality players around him offering sharpness and movement, it was a little amiss with the likes of old mate Mata and Oghalo but you could see a positive impact on Lingard (minus any real end product). Fernandes, Rashord, Martial and Greenwood will thrive of this.

Midfield showed there is sadly (or not) hardly any room for Pogba when we want to accommodate the much more bright and consistent looking players like Bruno and now DVB. We need industry in midfield and Matic and Fred offer that, it had balance albeit Fred's lack of creativity offensively. If only Fred could channel fellow countryman Allen with his range of passing.
This engine of Fred and Matic is crying out for a creative player like Sancho out wide but in the meantime Id love to explore the possibility of:


---------Fred-------Matic-------
---------------VDB/Pogba-----------
Fernandes-----------------Rashford/Greenwood
-------------------Martial/Greenwood-----------------

This would offer that creativity and especially with DVB some great interchanges of movement.

Gandalf said:

Must have watched a different match to all those raving about Bailly. He looked like a headless chicken running around out there, he is fast but he is also clumsy, a terrible header of a ball and genuinely seems to not know what football is.

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Did you type this with a straight face? The man was class, always in the right position, assured in the tackle, and useful in possession.

When was he clumsy??

Youngster Lingard being given chances. Ole at the wheel!