Has the first game dampened your excitement for the season?

[The Cat]

All a bit knee jerk for me - compare it to the first two games last season for one thing.

 

[seasidedaz]

I think we were still on holiday that was a poor performance but a win is a win. some Players looked not up to speed, i noticed when the keeper had the ball some united players. were stood like statues at a birthday party waiting for the music to start.

 

[The Firestarter]

All a bit knee jerk for me - compare it to the first two games last season for one thing.

There are obvious mitigating factors last season

 

[Cans&Bans]

Historically our games v Wolves are garbage. I don't know anyone who gets excited for this fixture, home or away.
I knew last night would be one of those games but the good thing is, we actually got the 3 points instead of chucking them in the bin like we used to.

Take it at face value - 3 more points to safety, a shit game out of the way, clean sheet etc.
Spurs will be much different on Saturday and we'll be much better

 

[Marcelinho87]

No, last year we lost this.

You win trophies by scraping games not pummeling teams week in week out.

It will click, we will be fine.

 

[Red the Bear]

Whilst it's true there's also been a massive amount of player changes in the last twelve months, and those who are still here from before have started training under yet anothet completely different manager. We have a shitload of issues.

Having said that, I'm not trying to cop out of anything. Ten Hag needs to do better. It's been ten years of boom bust cycle for us. The boom being "I think we might play well in this game tonight, maybe we're finally on the up!" followed by the bust that is "for fecks sake, this shite again..."

Yeah that's fair, especially players needing more time to know each other but yeah, Eric needs to change things and do it fast or we'd have another mess on our hands.

 

[Gordon S]

Every year…every sport I follow…people always massively overreact to the first game. It’s comical to me.

In baseball it’s even funnier since there are 162 freakin games. American football….it’s a little more serious. But my god. One game means nothing. And we got the win!

If this dampens your hopes or makes you think that this is 100% the way the team will be all season, then you have the mental toughness of tissue paper. Sorry, it’s just facts. Assuming a team will play exactly they did for one game…just because it’s the first one…is mad.

No one expects the team to play exactly the same way every game. Everyone knows that Erik can adapt and tweak his team. Everyone knows that most of the players can do better, some of them a lot better. No need to be condescending.

The issues we saw yesterday were issues we have seen before. The inconsistency from our attacking players. All of them are capable of highlight moments, sometimes matchwinning, but they also have games like this, where nothing really happens for them.

Our midfield looked a bit iffy a number of times last season, some teams just run straight through us. And we saw it again last night. Showing us that nothing has improved as of now, and it is very unlikely that Mount will improve us much there.

 

[shabin_d_great]

After his second red card last season, casemiro has not been the same.. he is now a bit on slower side. This has affected our transition and our defence against counters..

 

[mu4c_20le]

No, last year we lost this.

You win trophies by scraping games not pummeling teams week in week out.

It will click, we will be fine.

Yes we turned it around last year but who will be the panic signing this time.

 

[Vault Dweller]

All a bit knee jerk for me - compare it to the first two games last season for one thing.

If Wolves could hit a barn door it would have been the same.

 

[quadrant]

It dampens the child part of me that dreams of winning the league with 100 points. The more rational part of me knows the aim this season is to continue to progress over the next 9 months, and not much has changed there. I still think the squad is better, that the manager knows his stuff and that we'll be better overall than last year. But we're not the finished article and will probably only see it in spells this season. So in that respect, Im only partially flattened.

 

[Marcelinho87]

Yes we turned it around last year but who will be the panic signing this time.

Nobody, we don't need one... we have Hojlund to return and I'm sure he will get going quick enough.

 

[AndySmith1990]

I'm sure we all enter the season with lofty expectations of seeing our team transform into a dominant force. Unfortunately it never takes long for reality to hit, and realise we're still as hopeless at controlling games as we have been since the glory days of Ferguson

 

[Levi1]

Yes.

 

[cafecillos]

Reading threads like this I wonder how on Earth can so many caftards look down on other forums and fanbases.

 

[pogbasformerbarber]

No one expects the team to play exactly the same way every game. Everyone knows that Erik can adapt and tweak his team. Everyone knows that most of the players can do better, some of them a lot better. No need to be condescending.

The issues we saw yesterday were issues we have seen before. The inconsistency from our attacking players. All of them are capable of highlight moments, sometimes matchwinning, but they also have games like this, where nothing really happens for them.

Our midfield looked a bit iffy a number of times last season, some teams just run straight through us. And we saw it again last night. Showing us that nothing has improved as of now, and it is very unlikely that Mount will improve us much there.

I'm not saying there's not room for concern. But teams need to grow into themselves. No one could say we played well yesterday with a straight face...but it's also not a time to draw conclusions. You can say for the game there were midfield issues that need to be cleaned up; and if they're not cleaned up it's an issue. But having those issues for one game (that we won) means little, if it's not yet a trend. Just like a run of perfect play, that is followed by one game of terribleness, means little if the perfect play returns.

Trends are concerning, one game can be anomalies. If we play like this for 3-4 matches I'll be very concerned. But I'll withhold any judgement on the team or larger influence on the seasons performance until I see them a few more times. Thats why the overreaction to one game is so mad to me...it's just because it's the only data we have so far, people start drawing season long conclusions from it. Which is just dumb IMHO.

 

[CassiusClaymore]

Kind of a buzzkill yeah. Seeing the way they just walked right though us for most of the game has me dreading the inevitable mauling from City or Liverpool again.

 

[BluesJr]

I called it last season and I stand by it today. Casemiro should have been replaced this summer. Be proactive and move a player on before he turns to shite. There were so many options out there if we were aggressive in the market, but no we’ll stick with him until it’s obvious he needs changed.

 

[Tiber]

I always thought it would be a long slog for 4th

 

[Levi1]

Reading threads like this I wonder how on Earth can so many caftards look down on other forums and fanbases.

The same way they look down on us

 

[Kag]

No, I wasn’t that excited to begin with.

Our squad is still a bit shit, and the club haven’t got the finances or ability to overhaul it to the point that it isn’t.

We’ll do ok, though. 3rd-5th in the league. Probably another cup run or two. That’s about our whack, though.

 

[Fortitude]

What we do/don’t in the remainder of the transfer window will determine how far we can go this season, I feel. If this is our lot for the window, I’d be concerned because we’re paper thin in terms of midfield quality and competency. Selling Fred - a legitimate big game player - and not replacing him will actually weakness us, as things stand.

 

[city-puma]

Historically our games v Wolves are garbage. I don't know anyone who gets excited for this fixture, home or away.
I knew last night would be one of those games but the good thing is, we actually got the 3 points instead of chucking them in the bin like we used to.

Take it at face value - 3 more points to safety, a shit game out of the way, clean sheet etc.
Spurs will be much different on Saturday and we'll be much better

The issue shocking everyone is that this is not a boring game we normally had against them. We were miserable to control the game. They had 22 shots. Let’s see what we do next game. Spurs can also play quite physical game.

 

[Based Adnan]

I thought last season ETH had to compromise a little bit because the squad didn't really suit his style of play. He's more or less got his signings and yet it was the same old football only looking dangerous on the counter with plenty of poor technical mistakes.

 

[TMDaines]

Hate the wait for a chance to put a bad performance right. Saturday can’t come soon enough.

 

[HookedOnAPhelan]

Yep. We were shockingly poor. Unbalanced, outrun, outfought, and we looked really unfit.

Hope the Spurs game can restore my confidence, but right now I fear we're in for a very tough season.

 

[Lecland07]

There are obvious mitigating factors last season

Like being worse?

 

[GaryLifo]

Wolves played a version of spoiler football and did it excellently. When they weren't running 40 yards through midfield they were faking injuries and taking five minutes to take throw ins and goal kicks. The two minutes first half injury time were an absolute joke. More time was wasted by them in the first half than was wasted by both teams in the second half but then he added on 7 minutes which went to nearly ten with the VAR check.

I watched the highlights after I got home from the match and it was interesting that they didn't bother to include the 3 or 4 decent half chances United created, but then that wouldn't have fit the United are shit narrative they were looking for.

United were poor last night no question, but there were still some positives such as Onana who was class and AWB who had a very good game.

 

[noodlehair]

Yes massively.

Not so much the players looking completely off it because that can happen in a game.

But the Fernandes + Mount thing is a big problem that is going to make literally every game a massive struggle. Which is a dampener on two counts. Firstly because its going to make every single game a struggle, and secondly because I'd been convinced Ten Hag was a very good manager, and this is simply not something a good manager would do.

 

[git_united]

Wolves played a version of spoiler football and did it excellently. When they weren't running 40 yards through midfield they were faking injuries and taking five minutes to take throw ins and goal kicks. The two minutes first half injury time were an absolute joke. More time was wasted by them in the first half than was wasted by both teams in the second half but then he added on 7 minutes which went to nearly ten with the VAR check.

I watched the highlights after I got home from the match and it was interesting that they didn't bother to include the 3 or 4 decent half chances United created, but then that wouldn't have fit the United are shit narrative they were looking for.

United were poor last night no question, but there were still some positives such as Onana who was class and AWB who had a very good game.

I defer to you because you were there but it sure looked like a big turd on TV. There’s no polishing this one.

 

[Tincanalley]

I’m a fair weather fan. Only cheer when we are winning. I’ll be gone if they (not we) finish below 7th. Looking at you, Moyes. That first game made digestion of my late Monday bean feast impossible. I’ll risk my delicate constitution on another match or two before switching my Allegiance to … umm, let me see..?

 

[micmac]

If this performance was on 31st August, I would probably be concerned. We have time to fix what needs to be fixed. Like a lot of people are saying Wolves traditionally give us a hard time although that shouldn’t be an excuse for this team.

 

[James35]

I have us finishing 5th and I went for a 1-1 draw v Wolves so nothing dampened for me, plus we did get three points after all, although I never would have envisaged a performance that shite, so it was a bit worrying.

We’ll definitely improve but I still see City, Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea finishing above us regardless.

Doing no further business in the window would definitely dampen my excitement mind.

 

[Stack]

It felt pretty fresh with a new keeper in goal, thought he looked the part too. Typical weird start for us. I thought ETH got his midfield all wrong or maybe how he had them set up.

 

[starboy]

It was shocking performance. Positive is definitely Onana (as opponent teams will probably stop press our goalie as they did with David), AWB (ETH learned that guy play football, incredible). Our midfield was completely in friendly match mode. Case looked horrible, does he have some weight up? His movement was shaky.
On other side, last season we lost at home against Brighton and then were dismantled by Brentford.

 

[GaryLifo]

I defer to you because you were there but it sure looked like a big turd on TV. There’s no polishing this one.

It was only moments really. We had a spell just before half time and then in the minutes leading up to the goal. Rashford and Antony both had chances first half which were as good as the wolves ones, but the highlights didn't include those, or the late Rashford and Sancho link ups which nearly led to 2-0.

As a whole it was way below the required level though and I certainly didn't think we played well.

 

[lilcurt]

Knee jerk but that's how football makes you irrational I guess.

The first game, combined with watching rivals, combined with the Maguire news this evening has really dampened my mood to be honest.

The realisation that we aren't competing at the top of the transfer tier is also quite damning. Not in the conversation for any of the big/significant transfers this summer.

 

[Dominos]

It's not concerning like I thought we were going to be amazing and have changed my mind based on one game, it's that loads of concerns I already had shown themselves to be pretty valid concerns.

My 4 biggest concerns coming into the season are firstly that our ball retention is horrendous, and on last night's showing it's not yet improved after 12 months and 400 million spent. Secondly that Casemiro's legs are starting to go, and that we keep getting burned by players falling off a cliff once they hit 30 or over, and last night's showing didn't do anything to calm those worries. Thirdly that Casemiro-Mount-Bruno midfield will be very imbalanced, which I argued before we signed Mount, and the first outing of it was an absolute horror show. Fourthly that our attacking play is below par and we won't score enough goals throughout the season - we're a team that relies on transitions to score and yet we makes a pigs ear out of nearly all our promising counter attacks, and we know about our decade long struggle of breaking down a deep block. The attacking issue could change I suppose if Hojlund turns into a ready made superstar overnight, but it's unlikely.

 

[Stack]

Kinda accurate....

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

 

[Jacob]

Worst of all is the prolonged club sale. Glazers' greed cost us another season of frugality and scrambling for top 4.