Villarreal 1:1 Manchester United

Wait. I can't believe what I have just checked. This is Villarreal's first fecking actual trophy. The only thing they ever won before was the intertoto cup and fourth devision. .



Fecking shit.

This has become 10 times more embarrassing now.

el3mel said:

Wait. I can't believe what I have just checked. This is Villarreal's first fecking actual trophy. The only thing they ever won before was the intertoto cup and fourth devision. .

Fecking shit.

This has become 10 times more embarrassing now.

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Their 'city' has a population of 50k. We lost to a village team, basically.

We were too slow and courageous enough going forward. Our press caused them headaches, but it's not sustainable. We needed to capitalize on those opportunities. For those who don't like Scott McT, he at least tried to drive the boys forward all day; probably our best player. I'm a fan, but if he's our best player in a cup final, especially with our supposed 'stars', we will not win. Cavani, AWB, Shaw, were good today, and Greenwood too; the rest, dross. And De Gea looked clueless on penalties-the commentator mentioned that he hadn't stopped one in the last 25 attempts!

el3mel said:

Wait. I can't believe what I have just checked. This is Villarreal's first fecking actual trophy. The only thing they ever won before was the intertoto cup and fourth devision. .

Fecking shit.

This has become 10 times more embarrassing now.

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This is the beauty when fans protested the ESL - small teams like Villareal beating a big team to win a trophy. I remember Fulham beating mighty Juventus 10 years back with Clint Dempsey.

el3mel said:

Wait. I can't believe what I have just checked. This is Villarreal's first fecking actual trophy. The only thing they ever won before was the intertoto cup and fourth devision. .

Fecking shit.

This has become 10 times more embarrassing now.

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Didn't realize they come from such a small town, pretty good effort to be top 6 most years one of Europe's best leagues.

Shane88 said:

It bloody isn't and this mindset is just mediocrity being accepted because it's being presented by a club legend and nice guy.

2nd is nothing. Nobody remembers 2nd, there are no medals. It doesn't make players happy, it doesn't tempt players into signing. We don't have a squad like City's but do Lille have a squad like PSG's? We were top of the league and shit the bed against the worst teams in the league, Sheffield and West Brom, to throw away any possible challenge. We shit the bed in the FA Cup. We shit the bed last night.

We do not have a winner in charge. He will never win anything here and his shitty "achievements" need to stop being talked up.

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Ole's not ''a winner''? Are you even a United fan? If you are you know feck-all about the history then.

FahadiHossein said:

This is the beauty when fans protested the ESL - small teams like Villareal beating a big team to win a trophy. I remember Fulham beating mighty Juventus 10 years back with Clint Dempsey.

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Villarreal is owned by a billionaire who dump quite a bit of $$ into the club. Thats how they rose from obscurity.

sglowrider said:

Villarreal is owned by a billionaire who dump quite a bit of $$ into the club. Thats how they rose from obscurity.

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I see. Fulham too under Al-Fayed.
I think they are richer than Glazers. Glazers are in debt. <- Just a joke.

FahadiHossein said:

I see. Fulham too under Al-Fayed.
I think they are richer than Glazers. Glazers are in debt. <- Just a joke.

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At least they put their money into the club rather than steal from the club. We have thieving billionaires instead.

Against low block teams, it is worth experimenting with VDB. He is the type of player who can create space with his off the ball movement. In future, and using him instead of Pogba might be the way to go for these kinds of games.

Marcus said:

Against low block teams, it is worth experimenting with VDB. He is the type of player who can create space with his off the ball movement. In future, and using him instead of Pogba might be the way to go for these kinds of games.

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This. I think this is why he was bought. Plus maybe throw in Amad once he is ready.

Feels good to reach finals but my god does it feel bad to lose them

Very poor performance by many of the key players and next to no options to change things up from the bench. We need to strengthen and have a proper rest and preseason in the summer and we will be ok.

Rightnr said:

Their 'city' has a population of 50k. We lost to a village team, basically.

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Doesnt it make you wonder how its financially possible for a team compete in the La Liga from a village?

jackal&hyde said:

Feels good to reach finals but my god does it feel bad to lose them

Very poor performance by many of the key players and next to no options to change things up from the bench. We need to strengthen and have a proper rest and preseason in the summer and we will be ok.

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This. We have always been a work in progress.

jackal&hyde said:

Feels good to reach finals but my god does it feel bad to lose them

Very poor performance by many of the key players and next to no options to change things up from the bench. We need to strengthen and have a proper rest and preseason in the summer and we will be ok.

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EURO, and COVID is still here with risk of players getting infected on their vacations.

Sounds like by that logic, you're predicting a tough start for new season

ti vu said:

EURO, and COVID is still here with risk of players getting infected on their vacations.

Sounds like by that logic, you're predicting a tough start for new season

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We have to keep an eye on Maguire during his vacation that's for sure.

Unacceptable. Need some changes in the summer.

Really dull game to watch. Villareal appeared to be happy to go to penalties from the 2 or 3rd minute of the game, if they couldn't nick a goal.

We just seemed clueless of what to do to break them down, and then to scared to actually take proper risks to even try. Bar a period in the second half where we dribbled in from wide, we didn't even look like we were ever going to trouble them. Then in the extra time period we didn't even try to force the issue, appearing more concerned with not conceding despite having most of the ball.

Villareal basically tactically nullified us, and we had no back up plan. And with DDG in goals we were always likely to lose any shoot out.

11 to 10 pks and you are putting this on Ole?

Bitter cnuts the lot of you. Villarreal was well organized. We kept probing. Destiny wasn't on our side.

Ole took us to a final and 2nd place in epl.

Gutted but not blaming anyone

Won't blame Utd, Emery sucks the life out of a football match he's like a footballing dracula. Also looks the part.

Rightnr said:

Their 'city' has a population of 50k. We lost to a village team, basically.

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Well... Actually villarreal means royal village so...

jackal&hyde said:

Feels good to reach finals but my god does it feel bad to lose them

Very poor performance by many of the key players and next to no options to change things up from the bench. We need to strengthen and have a proper rest and preseason in the summer and we will be ok.

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Yes still gutted. Worse thing about cup final loses is it's extremely tough to try to forget them no matter how many years go bye. This loss is probably up there with the FA Cup final in 2005.

Even though I have witnessed United win a champions league via a shootout and watching Terry fall on his arse I have never have been a fan of penalty shootout. I'd prefer the golden goal over it and it's a bit farcical when it comes down to goalkeepers taking penalties.

United weren't good enough unfortunately. The fears all came true last night. The Lindelof mistake. De Gea"s awful record of penalties. Bad in game management but most disappointing, inability to testing keeper for two hours.

Nicolarra90 said:

Well... Actually villarreal means royal village so...

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An inbred corrupt village then.

Spineless performance and horrific display by Dave in the penalties, but let’s face it, it should never have gotten that far.

ThatsGreat said:

Won't blame Utd, Emery sucks the life out of a football match he's like a footballing dracula. Also looks the part.

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Marcus said:

Against low block teams, it is worth experimenting with VDB. He is the type of player who can create space with his off the ball movement. In future, and using him instead of Pogba might be the way to go for these kinds of games.

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Ole should have subbed Rashford for VDB and play VBD in the middle and move Pogba to the left. Rashford was having a really bad game.

Alek M said:

11 to 10 pks and you are putting this on Ole?

Bitter cnuts the lot of you. Villarreal was well organized. We kept probing. Destiny wasn't on our side.

Ole took us to a final and 2nd place in epl.

Gutted but not blaming anyone

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That's because it shouldn't have got to the stage where it was 11 to 10 pks.

Ole isn't a proactive manager. I'd struggle to argue he's a reactive manager either.

He just does.. nothing. 115 minutes to make your second substitution was diabolical game management. The game could have and should have been won long before the pens, but he doesn't have the nous to make the tactical or personnel changes.

stw2022 said:

When we made one sub in the entire match that wasn’t geared towards a potential penalty shootout that’s fecking rich I have to say

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Well it isn't, we didn't make any other subs because Ole didn't think they'd improve the team, especially against the bus they'd parked.

It's not controversial at all, they set up to spoil and were time wasting from the very first second.

Gutted. Can’t think of anything else to add as yet. Just absolutely gutted.

Since I'm not neither a United or Villarreal fan (I was rooting for the later as a Spanish club) I think I can give you a different point of view.

I've read many times that United deserved the win because "we tried", that Villarreal were "antifootball".

To me, the draw was a fair result.

From my point of view United didn't try more than Villarreal, United only had more possession (and as a Barça fan I know what I'm talking about).
How many chances did you create? 0 real clear chances. Even the goal was a fluke with a few rebounds.
Villarreal didn't create any, but their goal was "legit" (in terms of just strategy and not a few unlucky rebounds).
Very similar stats (similar number of shots, Villarreal more than doubling in corners...), only difference was possession. Not enough to me to determine that United deserved more.

The good thing about Villarreal is that they can wear many suits. They can manage the game from the possession but they can also do it from the defense.
Manchester is a great team with open spaces, fast transitions, with fast players, but it is pretty average (when compared to top European clubs) when they need to dominate and break a close defense. United struggles a lot when spaces are hard to find.
Villarreal played the match that gave them more probabilities to win. You would probably prefer a team like Real Sociedad that plays open and leave spaces... not very smart if you want to win United with a worse squad.
One thing is to park the bus ALWAYS, concede 25 shots and try to score one of your 2 shots and a different story is playing to minimize the virtues of your (superior) rival and level the number of chances you have at the end of the game.

Villarreal played "a final" to get a Europa League spot (they ended up 7th in Conference Cup spot) last weekend against Real Madrid (Real Madrid scored in the 88' and 94' for a 2-1 win). Real Madrid also struggles with close defenses. But Villarreal also "played the Europa League final"... it was a test of what they were going to try today. In fact, the squad was basically the same. Many people thought they were crazy because "they are going to be tired against United". It ended up to be the opposite, Villarreal tested the game plan and they were able to dominate the extra time. They needed to play two difficult and important games in 4 days, so they needed a game plan that could work in term of tactics and in term of outcome probabilities.

It is not beautiful... but this is a European final, a spot in the Champions League was on the line for Villarreal too... their 1st European title... it was pretty obvious that Villarreal was going to try to sit tight and counter attack. This is not a random league game. Things are different in finals.

That is the reason I think Ole had an awful lecture of the game... you are not going to have spaces, you will need less speed and more creativity. You can save some speed for the moment the game breaks, or the last minutes... you need more "Matas" (or that kind of player) and less "Rashfords" that lose 90% of their powers when they cannot run. You don't want a Ferrari to race a rally.

Emery won the final to Ole. DDG is just another victim.

Anyway, I think United is progressing and going in the right direction.

Took our foot of the pedal weeks ago and could not turn it back on for last night. Massively disappointing. Soft bench too.

Brutal facts are that we should never have let this game go to penalties and the minute that happened I didn't fancy us one little bit with DDG in goal

Bruno, Pogba and Rashford didn't turn up, whether that's on them or Villarreal nullifying them, I don't know. Solskjaer's in game management was suspect but then again, I really don't know what he could have done much better when you look at the bench.

When Bailly starts doing fecking overhead kicks in his own box as clearances and the highest paid Spanish player/GK in the world can't save 1 out of 11 penalties you're not going to win jack shit.

Our management and players can't rise to the occassion. Apart from maybe Cavani. Poggers and Bruno regularly hide in the big games. Everyone else shits their pants too. Bunch of mentally fragile pussies.

Godfather said:

Our management and players can't rise to the occassion. Apart from maybe Cavani. Poggers and Bruno regularly hide in the big games. Everyone else shits their pants too. Bunch of mentally fragile pussies.

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This is probably the closest to the truth

Feels worse this morning. We were toothless once again. Cavani was the only big player to really show any sort of hunger, desire and really be up for it.

That game should never have been lost, but sadly we put in a typical performance of this squad when the pressure is on. We were crap.

Like so many times before this team let a good opportunity slip. You always hope that you can look back and say the team gave everything but time and time again when we have a good chance to achieve something we look devoid of ideas and drive. I do not blame De Gea, we shouldn't have let the game get to penalties but as soon as it went to Extra Time they were the team that looked like they wanted to win and we just wanted to run down the clock. Make some makes, change up our tactics...anything.

sglowrider said:

Ole's not ''a winner''? Are you even a United fan? If you are you know feck-all about the history then.

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He's not a winner as a manager, otherwise following your logic, Keano and Bruce are all winners as managers as well.

MattyB1986 said:

Nah man! he needs to be burying that.

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Yeah it’s a massive sitter, but I don’t think it would’ve counted is all I’m saying