Has the Palace result finally woken us up to reality?

[UnofficialDevil]

Reality? Richest club in the world ends up 6th in the league. Plan to get back on track?
Hire a rookie manager with poor league record net spend 90m. Manager sells two midfielders and one striker but replaces none.
We knew this was going to happen. We are still on track, 4th wasn't a realistic option anyway.

 

[bazalini]

Has the Palace result finally woken us up to reality?

If it fcuking hasn't before now - it bloody well should wake everyone up now. Useless shower of stronzi

 

[Nou_Camp99]

1 clean sheet in 18 games. 3 wins in 15. Just not good enough.

He'd never have got the job had he not played for us. That's the truth people won't accept. He'd not have even made the shortlist had he not played for us.

Ole is not the answer. But then I'm not sure who is under Ed Woodforahead and the Glazers scum.

May as well stick with Ole for now and hope the club gets sold. We won't win another league title under this regime. Not a prayer.

 

[Green_Red]

So, the results are in Won: 1 Drawn: 1 Lost:1 with a total of four points. A total of nine points have been available and the truth is that we could have won all nine and could just have easily come away with none at all.

There-in lies part of the problem with United, we have become the footballing equivalent of drift-wood. In two of three games we have dominated and failed to win and in the other we were out-played for large parts and ran out rampant winners. There is no certainty with United, a total lack of precision in front of goal (despite an abundance of opportunities), lack of concentration, an absence of creativity and a lack of game management.

After Chelsea, we drank the Kool-Aid thinking that we were better than we really are. This afternoon, the reality is hopefully setting in. We are some way away from where we need to be.

The fact that a United side cannot work out how to break down a Wolves and a Crystal Palace whom we know will set up to defend reveals the scale of dilemma facing us. This is because more Premier League teams will set up like Wolves and Palace than like Chelsea. If we cannot work out how to unpick teams who defend deep and whose only attacking option is a counter, then this season will be a total and complete washout.

Much as I love Ole and think he is a United legend, he is tactically naïve and borderline tactically inept.

Thoughts please.

I think last season Wolves bullied us and last week we were unlucky to go away without 3 points given we missed a penalty. So an improvement proved in the performance against Wolves. Today were better than Palace by a country mile and had heaps of chances. We have the youngest team in the Premier League so making the wrong decisions is forgiveable. We're better than we were last season from what Ive seen. We wont win the league but I think we'll probably battle it out for 4th with Arsenal and Chelsea. But we're not as shite as you make out.

 

[11101]

This is the reality

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It's actually the opposite. We are a top 4 team who cannot play to the sum of its parts.

We have work to do but you can't account for missing two penalties in a row. Score those and we are three in three.

 

[Dennis_Law]

Reality has been staring us in the face for 6 years now. You get a glimmer of hope every now and then but it really does seem, as has been the case since SAF retired, were a broken football team.

It goes back further than that, sadly. If you want to know why Utd. are where they are now Google racehorse: Rock of Gibraltar.

 

[Jeffthered]

If anyone was under any illusions, then yes, the Palace result would have woken them up.

I was not surprised one bit with the result, nor the performance.

I maintain that we will struggle to make top six. We have too many average players.

 

[Devil may care]

I don't think any fan with half a brain looked at that squad when the transfer window closed and thought top 4 wasn't going to be a struggle, it's so undermanned in key areas. Fortunately our competition are Chelsea who are also undermanned and Arsenal who shit the bed as often as we do, and I wouldn't rule out Leicester.

Today was a bad result given Palace are crap, but we missed a penalty, should have had another one and Cahill should have been sent off in the first half, sometimes in football small margins turn games, and the 2 goals we conceded were self inflicted, we didn't get cut open. We know there's not nearly enough creativity in this team but there's nothing we can do until January, so hopefully we win our game before the international break and just keep in touch with the 4th spot as I think all of us competing for it will drop plenty of points this season.

 

[Tyrion]

What exactly have we woken up to? I thought the general consensus was that we’re not very good and won’t be barking up any trees this season. You’ve got pundits tipping us for top four but they don’t really have a clue.
Weve not addressed the ‘attacking issues’ we had in our squad (although James has done well) . We’ve actually weakened ourselves outside our defence and so days like today are kind of predictable albeit frustrating.

Exactly. After every bad result, people say it's "reality" or a "wake-up call" when most United fans know the team is basically between 4th and 6th in the league and will frequently be sh!t.

 

[SquishyMcSquish]

It's actually the opposite. We are a top 4 team who cannot play to the sum of its parts.

We have work to do but you can't account for missing two penalties in a row. Score those and we are three in three.

Why are you? What are these parts which make you a top 4 side on paper?

Good (but undeperforming for a while) keeper and a decent backline, average midfield aside from Pogba and a good but unexceptional attack with no one forward standing out like Kane or Aubameyang who can score 30 a season.

I'm being harsh but I'm not exactly looking at that United team and thinking that you should be making top four. It's not a bad team, top six 100%, but better than Arsenal or us?

 

[RedSky]

Most were aware when the transfer window closed. Slightly improved defence, didn’t replace the men lost from midfield and upfront.

This was always going to be a major struggle, especially with the extra games Europa brings.

Correct. We're basically having to rely on the kids to step up if we have a chance of breaking Top 3 imo otherwise it's a fight to the death for Top 4, personally I think Arsenal will sneak it as they have more goals in their team. When you watched pre season you could see that at times we struggled to break down teams, that was the theme from last season along with a shite defense. We've improved the defense (lacking a proper midfield) but haven't really addressed the attacking lineup. Our decision to ignore the RW (again FFS) and hope to sign Sancho next Summer is a massive, massive gamble.

We need more invention and creativity if we want to be able to break down teams. 22 shots today but only 3 on target with 1 goal.

 

[bosnian_red]

The reality of being a work in progress with some glaring issues (midfield), but a lot of young players leading to inconsistent end product? The reality of being ~4th/5th level, the same as Arsenal, and being even competitors with them for that 4th place spot? The reality that results like today simply just happen to teams like that?

Theres no problem being where we are. It's just important to push on and strive for the higher spots, which we just need to progress our team in terms of development and then obviously address the glaring hole in midfield. That's the reality with Man United. We're a decent side on the rise, but because of our lack of midfield balance, we won't be able to properly control the situation ever and itll lead to inconsistency.

 

[croadyman]

I refuse to blame VAR for this result, maybe if we actually created more in a game we wouldn't have to rely on decisions being given in our favour or having to win games by moments of individual brilliance every single week. Looks to me like if we aren't clinical in front of goal from a ridiculously low number of chances then we simply don't get points

 

[ryansgirl]

Really - let's not go on post-match hysterics about being beaten by a desperate Crystal Palace because Marcus was unlucky as all penalty takers are at times. Of course nobody is happy with the result at home and no player would be feeling in any way good today.

It's the third game for heavens' sake with a restructured team. Let's focus on getting behind our lads and Ole. I hope we are not going to see the caf go on an hysterical nosedive again because of a third game loss at home, undesirable as that may be. And no more penalty hysteria please - we all make mistakes in our jobs but they aren't televised to the world.

 

[Foxbatt]

we are talking about a creative midfield player. We have one in Pogba who has been asked to do too many things at once. We needed that defensive midfield player and a good box to box midfield player to let Pogba go forward to create chances. He is a player who can shoot from distance, who can make that pass too and head the ball. The problem starts when he has to drop back and try to create from there and he loses possession and we become unstuck.
Look at the way we play. We try to get the ball to the wings and try to cross. We do not have a striker like the ones we had in the past or a David Beckham who can cross the ball or a striker like even Ole who can score those kinds of goals.
The reality is that we are a lower end club now and for me the coaching has a lot to do with it too. These players with proper good tactics, good coaching and practice can surely play a lot better than this.

 

[ryansgirl]

Has the Palace result finally woken us up to reality?

If it fcuking hasn't before now - it bloody well should wake everyone up now. Useless shower of stronzi

Says he or she who is not and never will be a professional footballer or sportsperson. These things happen. They happened under the then Alex Ferguson, too. As a Manchester United supporter I don't want to see and hear our supporters buy into the media and other agendas, stirring up nonsense to make headlines.

There will be games like that just played - it's a fact of football life - but there will be wins, too, and we need to get behind our lads especially the young ones like Marcus, and those like Paul who want away but could want to stay if they feel there is enough support. Fairweather fans should go off to support City.

 

[TheRedHearted]

Had we hit two penalties in the last two games I wonder if the negativity would be so big. Ole has nothing to do with the misses.

Anyways we need another midfielder ASAP

 

[Denis79]

We look better than we did at the end of last season but that's not really hard to achieve. A bit unlucky the last two games with the penalties and some referee decisions but it's still going to be hard to make top 4 and we are far behind the top teams in the league.

We have to win the next game or the rot will set in among our players after just 4 rounds.

 

[mu4c_20le]

We dominated them. Any other day Rashford would have nailed that penalty and then a dramatic late James winner.

 

[Feed Me]

We dominated them. Any other day Rashford would have nailed that penalty and then a dramatic late James winner.

We are going to hear this sort of analysis a lot this season, I fear.

The best teams don’t continually make excuses for consistently failing to beat the dross

We have won three of the last fifteen competitive games which is hilariously bad

 

[Feed Me]

Says he or she who is not and never will be a professional footballer or sportsperson. These things happen. They happened under the then Alex Ferguson, too. As a Manchester United supporter I don't want to see and hear our supporters buy into the media and other agendas, stirring up nonsense to make headlines.

There will be games like that just played - it's a fact of football life - but there will be wins, too, and we need to get behind our lads especially the young ones like Marcus, and those like Paul who want away but could want to stay if they feel there is enough support. Fairweather fans should go off to support City.

Do you really think there is any chance Pogba stays?

He understandably wants to go to a club with ambition and the ability to compete here and now

 

[Tarrou]

We dominated them. Any other day Rashford would have nailed that penalty and then a dramatic late James winner.

they were happy for us to have the ball and sit back and wait for a chance to break

it worked perfectly too

I don't consider having a lot of aimless possession as domination, personally

 

[Jaqen H'ghar]

Whenever we lose, I go to Transfer forum, read the messages, imagine players like Sancho , Dybala, Bruno had signed for us ans we are on top of the table.

This really helps!!

Good lad

You're absolutely bonkers, but in a good way.

 

[bazalini]

Says he or she who is not and never will be a professional footballer or sportsperson. These things happen. They happened under the then Alex Ferguson, too. As a Manchester United supporter I don't want to see and hear our supporters buy into the media and other agendas, stirring up nonsense to make headlines.

There will be games like that just played - it's a fact of football life - but there will be wins, too, and we need to get behind our lads especially the young ones like Marcus, and those like Paul who want away but could want to stay if they feel there is enough support. Fairweather fans should go off to support City.

Just for the record I have represented Ulster in Baseball and also played Football for The the Irish colleges in 1993

 

[RedDevil@84]

I don't see what we are supposed to wake up to. The team was an average bunch last season. We let go one of our midfielders. Sold one of our strikers. Did not buy midfielder or a striker. We got in some ok-ish kind of players, and in only 1 or 2 positions.
We are kind of expected to be worser than last season, unless everyone else screws up and we somehow manage to stay in top 5.

Our club (owners plus CEO) have average ambitions and do not think we need to challenge for any top honors. And in Ole they get a manager with less experience, who can be stopped from blaming the top guys at the club. Given all such stuff, our players don't really feel the need to do anything extraordinary or go beyond their routine stuff. Its not like they are going to kicked in their bu**s for playing well in one game and below average in next. Players are busy with social media stuff. The club is more than happy to market on the player circus.

 

[RedRonaldo]

We will be about the same as last season. I don't see any improvement.
People said our defence is strengthen, but our midfield (and attack) is also weaken.

 

[rhoff113]

Honestly, the Wolves match said it all already. We played good the first half just because the Wolves let us do it.

The Palace defeat is just confirmation we are very limited at the head and on the pitch.

 

[LLMU]

The team needs a midfielder to start the move from deep. Pogba is wasted doing that as he is more suited up the field. This Palace result showed that we have players who just go through with the motion and not taking games by the scruff of the neck. We need 1 more window to rectify this and that is if Pogba stays.

 

[Amerifan]

Yea. Season’s over. Give Liverpool the trophy. August is a great month for a victory parade.

It’s been 3 games!

 

[The Boy]

Fecking hell, stop worrying so much!

• Before the seasons the common sentiment here was as long as you can see a strategy and progression you don’t mind ... you can see that clearly.
• James on another day would have scored 2 or 3, his goal was a cracker and DDG would have saved their second everyday normally
• Palace should have been down to 10 men
• The effort from your players is so clearly there, I’m so impressed by Martial especially
• So far this season your front 3 have all scored 2 in 3 games, that’s impressive
• Penalties get missed, you’re getting a lot because you’re playing far more in the oppo’s box than you did last season, again a massive improvement

There are so many positives compared to this time last year for you, remember Palace won at the Etihad last season, it happens, BUT you were clearly the better team, as you were against wolves, in these 3 fixtures last season you got 4 points you have 4 points again, but good god you look so much better. One result is not the end of the fecking world lads!

 

[Foxbatt]

At least last season until end of January we could have put in a lot of high balls for Fellaini.

 

[Carl S Bridge]

They put the camera on Fergie toward the end of the match and that was the saddest of all of this. Boss must be gutted to see us fall so far from the perch he put us on.

I think this comes down a lot to him. Yes he won title when he left. But that must go down as one of the worst teams to win the title ever. Probably preceded by Leicester. He refused to buy aguero for £30 mill or ribbery for £40 million which after Ronaldo sale would still see us £10 million in profit.

 

[mav_9me]

The reality of being a work in progress with some glaring issues (midfield), but a lot of young players leading to inconsistent end product? The reality of being ~4th/5th level, the same as Arsenal, and being even competitors with them for that 4th place spot? The reality that results like today simply just happen to teams like that?

Theres no problem being where we are. It's just important to push on and strive for the higher spots, which we just need to progress our team in terms of development and then obviously address the glaring hole in midfield. That's the reality with Man United. We're a decent side on the rise, but because of our lack of midfield balance, we won't be able to properly control the situation ever and itll lead to inconsistency.

Disagree. Arsenal have a better attack, we have much better defense. Their midfield is much much better. Better manager. Overall they are much better.

Imo you will find that we are staving off of the challengers into top 6.

 

[SadlerMUFC]

We broke them down plenty. Cahill should have seen a red in the first half for taking down Rashford, and then there should have been another red card and penalty in the second half when Martial was taken down. Both players were clear through on goal. Then the ref gives James a yellow card for diving when he is clearly kicked in the knee. I'm not one to complain about and blame refs, but when VAR is supposed to help them get the right decisions there really is no excuse anymore. We dominated the game and deserved those calls because of our dominance. With the right calls we end up blowing Palace away...

 

[kouroux]

Whoever woke up yesterday was living in clear delusion.

 

[Sky1981]

Had we hit two penalties in the last two games I wonder if the negativity would be so big. Ole has nothing to do with the misses.

Anyways we need another midfielder ASAP

One game is a freak. But 3 wins in 15 is quite a fair representation of our predicament

 

[kouroux]

Some people are still missing the big big picture. Even had we scored the 2 pens and magically gotten 9pts, the main issues wouldn't have been resolved (the squad and the manager not being good enough) on the long term.

 

[Bojan11]

Fecking hell, stop worrying so much!

• Before the seasons the common sentiment here was as long as you can see a strategy and progression you don’t mind ... you can see that clearly.
• James on another day would have scored 2 or 3, his goal was a cracker and DDG would have saved their second everyday normally
• Palace should have been down to 10 men
• The effort from your players is so clearly there, I’m so impressed by Martial especially
• So far this season your front 3 have all scored 2 in 3 games, that’s impressive
• Penalties get missed, you’re getting a lot because you’re playing far more in the oppo’s box than you did last season, again a massive improvement

There are so many positives compared to this time last year for you, remember Palace won at the Etihad last season, it happens, BUT you were clearly the better team, as you were against wolves, in these 3 fixtures last season you got 4 points you have 4 points again, but good god you look so much better. One result is not the end of the fecking world lads!

So we got 4 points in these three games last season which was a disastrous season, so we should be happy with 4 points again?

Palace have been dreadful so far and lost to Sheffield United last week.

 

[Wumminator]

Yesterday was the first time in over a year I went to a game with my dad (give or take a month or so).

We used to have a season ticket. Last year his knee gave out and he’s been in agony. The sandwich shop we used to go to has closed down in the meantime.

So yesterday morning I remade his favourite sandwich (corned beef and Branson pickle) we sat in our local (the railway in Didsbury) before hopping on the tram and standing in the Stretty.

We couldn’t believe when they scored. We knew we should have had three penalties (the martial one was blatant). We had to leave five minutes early because my old man can’t do stairs very well

It was literally an amazing day out. I wished we had won. I wished the ref was fair. But yesterday woke me up to how much this club means to me. It was a fecking class day and the players gave it their all.

We have made three good signings. We are playing better football. We’re in the way. We won’t get there overnight, but we’ll get there.

Enjoy football for what it is. Cuz united are ducking mint.

 

[Judas]

Are we playing football?