Manchester United 1:2 Brighton & Hove Albion

Oldtraffordboy said:

Aside from the quality and mentality....

Anyone notice how physically weak we look?

McTom and Maguire are playing because their physicality as much as anything.

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Really? Asking genuinely.
It could be that I'm biased as a United fan, but felt we got too many yellow-cards when attempting to be physical.
One moment that really stands-out for me was seeing Fred get literally shoved, not once but twice till he lost balance without any repercussions (and he eventually misplaced the pass which led to a Brighton counter-attack). This is where I miss Roy f**KING Keane. Now that's a real team-mate.

Nevilles.Wear.Prada said:

I dont believe they had better players man to man but it seems like it. Unknown random Brighton players link up drawing our players out of position and like clock work knew when to push and move. Its sickening. Ddg is absolutely terrified of the ball. He takes it time only to gif it long and lose possession.
Maybe new manager will need some time but how many more games you need to learn simple footballing common knowledge that you can't make it to Europe with the likes of mcfred mcguire and ddg. And what the feck is that triple youth substitutions at 90th minute. What's their purpose? Chase game? Blooding them? I don't get the culture of the club.

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I understood it as ETH's admission the kids are better than the starters, and we're going with the kids from here on out. Seriously, though, Garnacho looked the far better player in his cameo. I think the fanbase is demoralized because ETH is asking us to put our faith in the same players who failed last season so miserably. At least with new players, we can genuinely hope. We all know the level of Fred and McT, and we know Bruno is a roll of the dice, you never know which form of Bruno will turn up.

It's a marathon, not a sprint.

Wing Attack Plan R said:

I understood it as ETH's admission the kids are better than the starters, and we're going with the kids from here on out. Seriously, though, Garnacho looked the far better player in his cameo. I think the fanbase is demoralized because ETH is asking us to put our faith in the same players who failed last season so miserably. At least with new players, we can genuinely hope. We all know the level of Fred and McT, and we know Bruno is a roll of the dice, you never know which form of Bruno will turn up.

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Same, it has to be perceived as reward for the younglings and punishment for the "regulars", I don't care how long is left, enough is enough. Be patient, give the regulars from last season enough rope to hang themselves and get it to through to them that you are just fed up of waiting on them.
Rashford, Shaw, McTominay for example, for different reasons, good lads but you either have what it takes or we move on, and if the academy doesn't work then move on in the market.
The only advantage to loosing the first game of the season, and at HOME!! is that we can now be ruthless, there is no evidence that the regulars are either consistent enough, dependable or have the required quality.
If ETH decides to trust the youth and bench the 1st team squad, I don't care if we get relegated, what has to be done has to be done, and we have to pay for the poor decisions and players we had decided to trust.

I know it’s only one game in but why did EtH leave it to the dying minutes for those subs?

I fully expect Tom Huddleston and Benni McCarthy to line up v Brentford

I watched the game. Haven’t really read much of the caf today, interested to know where it’s at in terms of views of todays game (summary)?

From my perspective I’d highlight a few key things:
- I saw a lot today which seemed different to last year, so I think simplistic to just say same old same old (but still some consistent issues - see below). In particular I thought the players really did push on in the second half and just lacked the ability in the final pass or shot. I thought we generally looked more cohesive than we have recently in how we chased the game.
- Ronaldo didn’t bag a goal today but despite wanting him out for being a bit of a twat, I can see we will struggle with goals even more than last year without him. Last year was disjointed play leading to minimal opportunities (a problem he was part of creating though). But when the chances came we generally took them. This year we will struggle to convert chances, no matter how many we make, without serious reinforcement at striker.
- No manager in the world will turn us into a solid team in the centre of the park with McFred. We simply cannot expect to be a good team without addressing this. It’s criminal how we still field this combination as our CM lineup.
- Making Maguire as captain may well come home to bite us. He’s clearly not in our top 2 defenders but making him captain does make it difficult to drop him.
- I’m disappointed in the result but it’s not panic stations. It shows we’ve got a lot of work to do, something we all knew but ignored in the hype due to our overall positive pre season. Until we fix these issues above, we will continue to find random games where we will lose to even mediocre teams (which Brighton are not, they are decent).

It’s a long bumpy road ahead before we get to that smooth tarmac. Not worried yet though. I don’t expect us to be good yet. I’ll start worrying if we don’t make decisive signings next summer and if we don’t show a general trend toward a style of play through the year, even if we remain shit.

Haven't watched the game yet buy what's the main takeaway? We're still shit?

90 + 5min said:

Better second half with more direct play. This passing style doesn’t work for us. We don’t have players for that.

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Maybe it'll take some time to adjust.. hard to adjust with zero games

Teja said:

Yeah exactly this. I dunno why so many people keep trying this.

Carrick is seemingly the only one who used him appropriately.

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Sad thing is we’ve literally known this for several years. I think Ole was hamstrung a bit because we had other players on massive wages (Pogba, Matic) in the midfield. We’ve neglected this area of the pitch for so long. I was furious that we failed to buy a DM in the January window. Now we’ve wasted another summer chasing deJong, who isn’t a DM and we have nothing to show for it.

Reality bites. The heart of the game is in the middle of the park. Ours is occupied by Fred and McTominay. You're going absolutely nowhere as a club with those. Not even if Pep and Klopp coach our team together.

Ten Hag needs time and a budget on players he wants. We bought players who are not fit for our league, that isn't Tenhag's fault. There was never going to be a clear out in season one. We need to move players on taking wages and start fresh with hungry signings. He didn't spend 80 million on maguire who is slow and that's a problem. AWB needs shifted as does shaw Mctominay and fred. so there is 4 players plus we need a striker. It can't all be done in one window. Patience.

Worrying thing is we looked better in ralf's first game than we did today under ten hag and he had a whole pre season.

All the optimism, all the positivity, all gone after one game. Just want football to end really, can't face yet another season of Liverpool and city battling it out for the big trophies whilst we get our arses handed by the likes it Brighton.

We put in 24 crosses today. 7 were received in some way by a United player

Ekeke said:

We put in 24 crosses today. 7 were received in some way by a United player

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Without Ronaldo on the pitch, who would actually be expected to get on the end of them? Maybe Maguire from a corner? (Our other CB is tiny, for some reason). We essentially went with nobody up front today.

The spine of this team is still so incredibly weak.

ddg, Maguire and McTominay should just be dropped.

Maguire, McT, and Fred, can’t play Ten Hag football. They’re not technically proficient enough. Big problem that two of them are in the centre of the park. Might also add Rashford and De Gea to that list.

The two new signings Eriksen and Martinez were the two best players for me. That bodes well in terms of recruitment under ETH. But we need another 4 players minimum really.

BulgarianDevil91 said:

One point behind Liverpool, come on!

In all seriousness, everyone bar both our CBs were wank. Don't think the starting XI was wrong, but I guess ETH expected more from our wingers. Dreading the Liverpool game in 2 weeks time.

Also, DDG could've actually intercepted Welbeck's cross.

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Maguire and Martinez weren't wank? The pair of them got the run around for the first goal by a striker we deemed not to be good enough for us 8 years ago! Maguires positioning for the second goal was horrendous too.

The cold hard fact is that, if we extrapolate today's result over the course of this season, we're getting relegated. We have 37 cup finals between now and the end of the season. Who can we bring in to guarantee EPL football next season? Big Sam? Brendan?

Lee565 said:

Worrying thing is we looked better in ralf's first game than we did today under ten hag and he had a whole pre season.

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Interesting point

ObscureBaguette said:

Without Ronaldo on the pitch, who would actually be expected to get on the end of them? Maybe Maguire from a corner? (Our other CB is tiny, for some reason). We essentially went with nobody up front today.

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Its one of the two best things McTom does probably, after shooting from the edge of the box

Other than that no idea. Just thought it was quite a few crosses and reminds me of when we had like 30 in europe and Moyes was saying we had loads of crosses, what more could we do?

Reiver said:

Haven't watched the game yet buy what's the main takeaway? We're still shit?

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Ole (interim) and Rangnick were right. We needed 6+ players replaced.

Camilo said:

The cold hard fact is that, if we extrapolate today's result over the course of this season, we're getting relegated. We have 37 cup finals between now and the end of the season. Who can we bring in to guarantee EPL football next season? Big Sam? Brendan?

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Where's the white text? It's not that bad at this point. Give him half a season ffs.

Ceteris said:

Did we not have the chance to sign Caicedo and declined or something like that?

We need midfielders who can actually win the ball back

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I liked how after Scott McT had that nasty tackle on his ankle, Caicedo turned into a beast and completely ran the show from that time on. I think I counted at least three occasions when he bullied Scott after that, either by being more physical than him and able to shrug him off the ball fairly, faster than him, and better on the ball. From a 20 year old.

I'd play Garner and Eriksen centre of midfield next match. McFred were shocking. Eriksen was great playing deeper, Garner should get a run out. With Savage gaining some minutes. Get Varane fit and drop Maguire all together.

De Gea's poor distribution arguably cost us the first goal, very suspect. Shaw was piss poor on both goals.

There was a point mid-second half when Ronaldo was standing open & undefended at the top of the box. We had the ball. Whoever had the ball passed the ball out wide right into a mass of players never to be seen again rather than to the open player in front of him.

The same thing happened a few more times with other players. What's with that? Can players not see the pitch in front of them? Are they scared?

scottser said:

It's a marathon, not a sprint.

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We'll in that case we've just set a 6hr pace for a 2hr race

Think it's time to get over the FDJ obsession. We need 2 starting midfielders and we need them now. It's no longer about getting the best out there, it's about getting mcfred out of there.

There's dozens of midfielders out there who would improve us past the level of those 2 and we need to move on it ASAP

Maybe the craziest thing I ever wrote and something I could never imagine months ago, but today seems realistic to me: we missed Martial.

The big difference between the preseason game and today was that we didn't have a focal point of attack today. Missing Martial who surprised most of us and had a very positive preseason did Brighton a favor as they could easily go high up the pitch with us having the nonexistent focus of our attacks ( sorry Eriksen ). Martial movements, dropping deep, and linking up helped the whole squad to find more space and options, and I think that is not a coincidence that without him Sancho and Rashford had a tough time finding themselves in the game.

And putting Eriksen between their 3 center backs was not the greatest idea but it also shows how in absence of Martial, who we all think his career here was over, we badly need a real striker. Ronaldo is the greatest goal scorer ever, but his general play is not good enough and it will never be again, unfortunately. He will always score goals everywhere he plays, but ages don't go backward and he could be a luxury player to have in an already well-oiled machine team that we are far from currently.

Also, Dalot was key in our build-up and progressing the ball in some preseason games, and today very high and narrow 3-4-3 completely cut him out of the game and his rule and positioning in build-up became also nonexistent. Not saying that Dalot is a world beater but he is not as sh*** as most posters trying to make him look, he is a decent option.

Players who are real sh*** are Fred and more noticeable McTominay. We are a football club, not a charity to be ok with having a guy with a big white smile and a nice lad from the academy who speaks well in front of a camera in the most important positions on the pitch. You might win a game with those two, but you'll never get control of the ball during the match and control of the ball is what ETH is about. So, having said that I'm disappointed with ETH for not giving Garner an opportunity or introducing VDB earlier.

What hurts me more than the actual result is that summer is almost over, preseason is over and we are starting the opening game with McFred again. I'm sure that ETH is not happy with that either and that is why I'm surprised he didn't use Garner. Some posters a few seasons ago stated that McTominay is captain material..........captain of a football team should have one important quality to be so, more important than behaving well and apologizing in front of the media, and that is actual football ability.

Fair play to Brighton and Potter, they did extremely well despite selling Bissouma and Cucurella who were one of the best players in the squad.

All in all, not overreacting, I just don't know how to do it a shorter way. Having seen us before having a dream start of a season (against Chelsea and Leeds) and then having to wait for the campaign to end in pain, maybe a loss is not a bad start at all.

TheRedDevil2019 said:

I'd play Garner and Eriksen centre of midfield next match. McFred were shocking. Eriksen was great playing deeper, Garner should get a run out. With Savage gaining some minutes. Get Varane fit and drop Maguire all together.

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Can’t argue with this. Simply needs to happen.

If in early May anyone said McFred would be our starting CM going into the season… I think people would have called them hysterical doomsday people who needed to cheer up.

Stookie said:

The perfect ending to a real shit week for me.

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What else went wrong for you ?

Speako said:

Can’t argue with this. Simply needs to happen.

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Will never happen. 4 managers have picked these 2. Some woodoo magic is being performed at Carrington.

Bubble burst already, cant believe this is the feeling on the 1st day of the season

Will only be really concerned if he starts Maguire, McFred and Shaw together at Brentford again though its same old same old, Malacia, Varane and a pair of traffic cones in CM should offer some cohesion at least.

Wing Attack Plan R said:

I understood it as ETH's admission the kids are better than the starters, and we're going with the kids from here on out. Seriously, though, Garnacho looked the far better player in his cameo. I think the fanbase is demoralized because ETH is asking us to put our faith in the same players who failed last season so miserably. At least with new players, we can genuinely hope. We all know the level of Fred and McT, and we know Bruno is a roll of the dice, you never know which form of Bruno will turn up.

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I was really, naively, hopeful before the game; but when I saw them in the tunnel I thought " well, that's just last year's team how can it be any different.", and it wasn't.

Now, if you are a player, you wouldn't think that you are rubbish and part of the problem, you would think it was this one or that one, or the forwards, or the defenders or whatever, but obviously you don't think its your fault that you just lost to Brighton. So we now have 11+ players who think it is other people's fault that we lost -which may well make them as demotivated as we are now -which just doesn't bode well for the next games. They can't even think, 'well that is a one off as we really are a great team, look what we've achieved over the last 5 years' - they must be thinking " oh no, not again. I've got to play with these losers for another year until I can move on to a better team"

Beans said:

Where's the white text? It's not that bad at this point. Give him half a season ffs.

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I don't think he is looking to change the manager, but I don't see Big Sam and Brenden having the legs to run for 90 minutes at their ages.

scottser said:

It's a marathon, not a sprint.

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Eriks gotta make the boys run first! So slow and lethargic. Sideways and backwards. Across the halfway line or around the box. No intent. No invention. Very disappointing start.

Take out MGuire Shaw McFred and Fernandes and you start to look like a team with promise.

It's all a learning curve for everyone.

The only thing that miffed me was why a 3-man substitution like 2 mins from the end of the game when we need to chase the game?