[JoaquinJoaquin]

I'm still in shock about what happened today, Iv seen a lot of crazy things and results since Sir Alex went but this might of been one of the most crazy games yet.

On the positive side we look great going forward at times, When Di Maria picks up the ball he just glides past defenders, such a joy to watch. Also he is creativity is fantastic, Is a vital player for us already, I'm going to look forward to see how he links up with Luke Shaw next week because Shaw cannot be ignored any longer after that Rojo performance today. Other positives for me were Herrera and Blind for the first 60 minutes, before the whole shape went.

Unfortunately there are so many negatives, Clattenburg being one of the main aspects, Was utterly disgraceful today and he should be banned from refereeing our games any longer is that is the tune he is playing, There was 4-5 BIG calls he got wrong today which ended up costing us in one way or another. That being said, our defence was shambolic, The positional sense of Smalling / Rojo and Blackett is awful, There seems to be no communication in there at all, Smalling and Blackett on numerous occasions seemed to be challenging for the same balls, it was Sunday league like, not good at all.
Shaw has to come in for Rojo next game as Rojo just seemed to be in no mans land numerous times, he wasn't even contributing to the attacking side of things when that was his obvious mentality.

Falcao was a yard short of speed but that was expected coming back from the lay off, his class still showed at times though. RVP at this stage is a concern, I don't know if he is just genuinely struggling to get back his sharpness or that he is just not interested, he is really going to have to improve going forward as we cannot afford to carry him, and that's what it feels like.

It's a positive we are at home vs West Ham in the next game but we are going to have to start winning these away games as soon as possible, thankfully teams around us all dropped points this weekend to even out this game

 

[Ronnie O'Sullivan]

There will be more refs who will give shite decisions against us, not only Clatterbug. Maybe it's revenge against SAF or something else.

 

[Yorkeontop]

Well what do you know, we sought out the midfield and the defence becomes a major issue.

 

[Red Stone]

It's been a few hours now and I'm still so livid with absolutely everything that I don't know who to blame.

I'm furious with Clattenburg for being himself in yet another one of our games. Incompetence doesn't even half cover his performance today. I'm not going into specifics. He doesn't deserve the time it takes, and quite frankly, I dislike the bastard so much I might get banned for saying how I really feel. Hope he loses his refereeing license.

I'm furious with a few of Leicester's players, mainly that thuggish twat Vardy, but given the line Clattenburg laid down - or rather, failed to lay down, it's somewhat understandable that they went for that approach. It worked, after all. Still unsporting and cnutish behaviour.

I'm furious with our own players for allowing a collapse like that. We never used to do that before. The 6-1 thumping against City at Old Trafford was the first for a couple of decades. Since then we've seen a few, sadly. Wigan and Everton in the run-in for City's title win and the entire last season, for example. I just feel like a few of our players lack the spine to play top level football, and especially our defenders. That's the main reason we're struggling at the moment. It's not a lack of talent. It's a lack of will and ability to apply that talent even when the wind is blowing the wrong way.

I'm furious with van Gaal for his substitutions and lack of ruthlessness when it comes to dropping certain players. No way should van Persie be playing 90 minutes against QPR, and much less today. He's been poor and off the pace. Had a couple of moments where he hogged the ball and failed to make quick decisions. Choked up our attacking play and was just detrimental to our attacking plays. If van Gaal goes through the entire season without swinging the axe in the direction of under-performing players we can kiss CL football goodbye. There are teams who won't fuss about if they have a chance of grabbing a top four spot, so we can't either. Oh yeah, and we lose three quarters of what was arguably our most solid defensive line-up ever in one summer and sign two extremely unproven replacements for the least defensively sound of the three and neglect the other two? Amateurish. Every United fan and their collective dogs and mums could have told you that we needed at least one experienced centre half to lead from the back. Atrocious from the club to not plan ahead. No team in the world can cope with losing the experience of a trio like Evra, Rio and Vidic without having some sort of plan in mind.

So there. A bit of blame for everyone. I hope they all go feck themselves. Thanks for ruining my weekend.

 

[Paul the Wolf]

There will be more refs who will give shite decisions against us, not only Clatterbug. Maybe it's revenge against SAF or something else.

Goes back to the Chelsea United match two years ago and all that controversy

 

[vidal7]

Should have posted this here.

Fans are fickle as feck. We played the best football we have had for a long time, at 3-1 most of us were drooling over what was happening and were in complete control over the game. Then The referees became cnuts and gave us nothing. 2 penalties, which were fouls on our players one freak goal when we went all out. Its complete stupidity to blame it on anything other than bad refereeing and rafael being a bit stupid. The tactics were spot on our passing was good, attack was good, defense was ok not as bad as people make out. No fault of LVG. Mostly people who are moyes apologist are calling for his head when he has done very well and imposed a way of playing which others like moyes cant dream of. Its going to take some patience from us, but progress is there to see.LVG will let the players know in his own way. Liverpool have 6 points, everton 5,city 8, tottenhm 7. We are not behind anyone who we are chasing for the top 4. Get a grip and stop these knee jerk posts and watch the game again and how we dominated them foor large parts of the game.

 

[Slevs]

Clattenburg gave the game to Leicester. Pure and simple.

 

[Trizy]

Shaw and Mata should've came on for RVP and Rojo after the first half, our defense switched off for two goals but other than that I think it was all down to the Ref. Its easy to blame a Ref for a penalty or stupid call if it costs you ONE goal but 3 fecking goals? fouls leading up to everyone of them.

 

[bleedred]

Should have posted this here.

Fans are fickle as feck. We played the best football we have had for a long time, at 3-1 most of us were drooling over what was happening and were in complete control over the game. Then The referees became cnuts and gave us nothing. 2 penalties, which were fouls on our players one freak goal when we went all out. Its complete stupidity to blame it on anything other than bad refereeing and rafael being a bit stupid. The tactics were spot on our passing was good, attack was good, defense was ok not as bad as people make out. No fault of LVG. Mostly people who are moyes apologist are calling for his head when he has done very well and imposed a way of playing which others like moyes cant dream of. Its going to take some patience from us, but progress is there to see.LVG will let the players know in his own way. Liverpool have 6 points, everton 5,city 8, tottenhm 7. We are not behind anyone who we are chasing for the top 4. Get a grip and stop these knee jerk posts and watch the game again and how we dominated them foor large parts of the game.

This... I have been crying this out all afternoon.

The result has completely changed the perception of the game. If someone had just watched the first 60 minutes of the game on its own, would have found very little fault with our defense, very little to complain about.

One bad decision, suddenly the result changes and everyone goes batshit crazy. The hyperbole around this place sometimes is cringeworthy.

We win 4-0 against QPR... Can we win the title??
We lose to leicester.... Can we avoid relegation??..

Jeez..Its a marathon..We have a long way to go and we have exciting players who when gel together will play some brilliant football. Some of you lot have forgotten that last year we played with Young, Cleverley, Fellaini, Valencia in midfield....

 

[Getsme]

It was the ref's fault and let us leave it at that. The players were shocked at that decision, which caused them to come off their game. Our foreign players are not used to the shit refs we have in this country. That's the way the cookie crumbles. We can't forget Clattenburg's 'performance', because it will happen again and again.

It's not just the refs fault, thankfully our manager doesn't see it like that.
If players collapse like that every time we have a dodgy decision go against us them we are in big trouble.

 

[2 man midfield]

I think we are certainly a work in progress. As lvg said, we need to be patient. We don't have world class defenders but I think in the months to come we can develop in that area. Blind, Rojo etc will bed in, our attack will gel even more. As long as we stay within touching distance of 4th I'm not going to get too worried this side if christmas.

 

[Getsme]

Should have posted this here.

Fans are fickle as feck. We played the best football we have had for a long time, at 3-1 most of us were drooling over what was happening and were in complete control over the game. Then The referees became cnuts and gave us nothing. 2 penalties, which were fouls on our players one freak goal when we went all out. Its complete stupidity to blame it on anything other than bad refereeing and rafael being a bit stupid. The tactics were spot on our passing was good, attack was good, defense was ok not as bad as people make out. No fault of LVG. Mostly people who are moyes apologist are calling for his head when he has done very well and imposed a way of playing which others like moyes cant dream of. Its going to take some patience from us, but progress is there to see.LVG will let the players know in his own way. Liverpool have 6 points, everton 5,city 8, tottenhm 7. We are not behind anyone who we are chasing for the top 4. Get a grip and stop these knee jerk posts and watch the game again and how we dominated them foor large parts of the game.

We played the best attacking football we have for a while, defensively though we are still a million miles away from where we need to be. I wouldn't say we were in control of the game at all, in fact Leicester had every reason to be optimistic, even before the major turning point.
I agree that LVG needs time to get it right, in a strange way it's beneficial to us that we don't have UCL as it gives us more time on the training pitch.

 

[Annihilate Now!]

Should have posted this here.

Fans are fickle as feck. We played the best football we have had for a long time, at 3-1 most of us were drooling over what was happening and were in complete control over the game. Then The referees became cnuts and gave us nothing. 2 penalties, which were fouls on our players one freak goal when we went all out. Its complete stupidity to blame it on anything other than bad refereeing and rafael being a bit stupid. The tactics were spot on our passing was good, attack was good, defense was ok not as bad as people make out. No fault of LVG. Mostly people who are moyes apologist are calling for his head when he has done very well and imposed a way of playing which others like moyes cant dream of. Its going to take some patience from us, but progress is there to see.LVG will let the players know in his own way. Liverpool have 6 points, everton 5,city 8, tottenhm 7. We are not behind anyone who we are chasing for the top 4. Get a grip and stop these knee jerk posts and watch the game again and how we dominated them foor large parts of the game.

You can play beautiful football for 85 minutes and score 9 goals - but if your team then decide to sit down and let the other team score 10, you'll rightly castrate them for it.

What we did up until the ridiculous penalty decision largely becomes irrelevant/forgotten when you then proceed to perform like a complete set of wankers for the remainder of the game.

 

[fjred]

Clattenburg gave the game to Leicester. Pure and simple.

Exactly. it's simple. We were 3 -1 ahead with Falcao hitting the woodwork, too, and strolling a bit, a ball to the corner covered easily by Rafael until blatantly fouled. A penalty given, and I still can't see why. The game changer. We were rattled by anger and a feeling of injustice followed and Leics. threw the kitchen sink - a good description for their football - and suddenly they were level with 3 goals

Fuelled by this injustice we then calmed and pressed to gain back what we felt we'd been robbed of, and bang, bang, goals 4 and 5 on the breakaway. Sure, wiser heads could have taken control but as big Sam said he'd have been before a disciplinary committee if it had happened to him.

Transitional team and potentially a bloody good one.

 

[itso 7]

Should have posted this here.

Fans are fickle as feck. We played the best football we have had for a long time, at 3-1 most of us were drooling over what was happening and were in complete control over the game. Then The referees became cnuts and gave us nothing. 2 penalties, which were fouls on our players one freak goal when we went all out. Its complete stupidity to blame it on anything other than bad refereeing and rafael being a bit stupid. The tactics were spot on our passing was good, attack was good, defense was ok not as bad as people make out. No fault of LVG. Mostly people who are moyes apologist are calling for his head when he has done very well and imposed a way of playing which others like moyes cant dream of. Its going to take some patience from us, but progress is there to see.LVG will let the players know in his own way. Liverpool have 6 points, everton 5,city 8, tottenhm 7. We are not behind anyone who we are chasing for the top 4. Get a grip and stop these knee jerk posts and watch the game again and how we dominated them foor large parts of the game.

This and thanks, that's reassuring. I think we need to remain patient because this team certainly has great potential to play great attacking football. However LVG's subs are dodgy and his in game management seems to be non existent so far, this is the second time we have collapsed spectacularly and the manager needs to see the warning signs and get his team to wake the feck up. At 3 -2 it was clear that the team had lost their way and Blind was being overwhelmed in midfield, why not bring on Fletcher or Valencia, for RVP, to shore things up?

 

[Blue always red]

It's almost as if the Raf penalty came when United were 10-0 behind. No, we weren't. We bottled it.

 

[Sassy Colin]

Both Scouse, Spuds all lost, Shitty drew, we should be sitting pretty this evening after being 3-1 up.

 

[Ramshock]

Well what do you know, we sought out the midfield and the defence becomes a major issue.

We havent really they havent had time to gel as a cohesive unit especially when it comes to defending. I still say we will get another top CM in like Strootman.

 

[Yorkeontop]

We havent really they havent had time to gel as a cohesive unit especially when it comes to defending. I still say we will get another top CM in like Strootman.

Dont be pedantic. You know what I meant mate.

 

[Ramshock]

Dont be pedantic. You know what I meant mate.

I wasnt being pedantic, I meant we havent sorted our midfield out yet. What part of that was pedantic?

 

[united_99]

We are Manchester United, the biggest spenders in Europe. So even if the ref made a mistake, and after the penalty got converted, we were still leading. We should at no cost lose the game like we did, we are not a promoted underdog team, in fact our opposition were that.
I can understand moaning about referee's mistake against a top team, but against Leicester when we were leading? God forbid if we get a decision against us against a top team then. What will happen in that case?
City showed today that you can still get something out with 10 men against a strong team like Chelsea, but here are we losing all once we get hard done by against a mighty promoted team.

In the end the manager has to take the responsibility. We shouldn't be starting with 3 strikers at all, and should only have all 3 on the pitch if we desperately need a goal, and even that as last option if we can't sub in attacking mids/wingers.
Then he says we didn't keep possesion. Well why on earth didn't he then bring Mata on when it was 2-3 and take off a striker? He should have actually taken off 2 strikers. Then he somehow considers Mata and Januzaj as strikers, I mean, WHAT?
He urgently needs to make some big calls, because if he continues to play Rooney and RvP for 90 mins he will be gone much sooner than he could even imagine.

 

[DomesticTadpole]

How was Evans shocking? The only thing he did questionable was not mark Ulloa for their first goal but that's between him and Rafael letting him go free so not solely his fault.

Blackett was at fault for 2 of the goals. Their 4th he was in no man's land. Should have tracked Vardy instead of what he did or try to push up and play him offside. Then giving away the penalty.

Unfortunately for Tyler, this is now Luke's chance and if he takes it, Tyler might not get in again.

 

[Mister_Stubbs]

Just watched the game (as hard as it was, was at work whilst it was on) and wow, Angel di Maria is showing the sort of form that will put him on the honors lists at end of the season but that's where the praise stops. Yes the refereeing was awful, disgraceful.. Clattenburg seems to be trying his best to make up for the mistake he made when we played Chelsea but that doesn't excuse why we defended like utter morons in the second half and completely fell to pieces. There is much needed work to be done in that defense otherwise it'll be what costs us a top 4 place.

 

[DomesticTadpole]

There will be more refs who will give shite decisions against us, not only Clatterbug. Maybe it's revenge against SAF or something else.

I am damn sure it is.

 

[Yorkeontop]

I wasnt being pedantic, I meant we havent sorted our midfield out yet. What part of that was pedantic?

Excuse my pettiness. Your point was well made.

 

[KiD MoYeS]

At least we're losing with style, which is more than we can say about last season.

 

[DomesticTadpole]

At least we're losing with style, which is more than we can say about last season.

We are actually exciting to watch and are scoring goals. I just wish they would remember to defend as well. Much better than last season.

 

[KiD MoYeS]

We are actually exciting to watch and are scoring goals. I just wish they would remember to defend as well. Much better than last season.

We're excellent going forward, once we've a settled defence and Blind grows accustomed to the Premier League and Manchester United we'll be fine. We'll finish above Liverpool.

 

[Getsme]

It's almost as if the Raf penalty came when United were 10-0 behind. No, we weren't. We bottled it.

No no no no no, much easier to blame it on the ref.

 

[OutOfTowner]

Well after today, there is a lot of panic setting in on this forum and many United fans seem to be losing faith but I don't think it's time for gloom just yet. The points return after five games is not good enough and such is the bad feeling that people are predicting a hammering by West Ham. I'm not at that stage yet. There was a big issue today that caused us to collapse and is something we simply need to work on. We were cruising at 3-1 and for the first ten minutes, we kept the ball impressively. It was only what most here consider a woeful decision that things took a turn for the worst. That penalty sowed a lot of anger and disbelief in the players and this was what caused so much damage. It wasn't a matter of being crap, it was a mental capitulation. There were too many players mired in self-pity. This was the perfect moment for Rooney to prove his Captaincy by rousing his teammates, cooling their tempers and maintaining some calm in the face of adversity. We could have kept the ball for the next five minutes, calming ourselves once more and restoring confidence again, maybe creating a few chances. But he didn't do that. He capitulated with the rest of his teammates and no-one else on the pitch took on the responsibility. This is not an anti-Rooney post but as Captain, he has certain responsibilities beyond merely being a striker. He's not just supposed to yell at players who need yelling at. He's also supposed to lead and inspire. This was the perfect moment to lead and inspire his teammates but he failed to do so. That there lies the issue, in moments like this, if there is no-one to inspire, who can the rest of the players look to when things go wrong. Liverpool have Gerrard, City have Toure, Chelsea had Lampard but there is no-one in the squad who wants to lead the rest into battle and take charge when the others need inspiration. That's what we need to have in this squad, inspirational leaders. Rooney isn't that leader but surely there is someone else ready to take that step.

But it's our mentality that we can strengthen over time. I reckon that with an awful lot of new faces, there's a certain hint of uncertainty and a lot of players not quite in sync with one another. You can see it in the way that some promising attacks are stopped when passes go astray. The best attacking units evolve over time and develop an almost psychic link where each man knows where everyone else is going to be at any particular moment. This comes from gaining mutual experience playing alongside one another over a large period of time. After a good few games, our attacking threats will know where our forwards will be even without needing to look up, knowing where to put that cross and who will be lying at the back post. Similarly, our forward line will know when to make a run and when to stay put, when to expect a cross and what spaces to run into. At the same time, there's a lot of uncertainty at the back too but that is not exactly surprising. Not only are we missing a lot of regulars but Blackett is only getting regular games this season and Rojo is only starting at a new club. Rafael has had a long injury lay-off so this is going to be a new backline for him. The strongest central defensive partnerships are ones where both defenders are familiar with each other and instinctively know when to go and when to let the other man press higher. Vidic and Ferdinand were able to forge a strong partnership because Vidic could tackle higher in his own half knowing that Rio was behind him and was ready to sweep up. Similarly, if Rio pressed high, Vidic could drop back and lend support. This meant that not only did Rio and Vidic feel comfortable playing alongisde each other, but it gave the wing backs and the central midfielders extra confidence and certainty. Thus there was no need for panicking and we could maintain tactically rigid. This is something we lack simply because our central two switches from week to week and thus there is no consistency. This is mostly out of necessity of course. If we had a consistent defensive line, then they could become more familiar with each other and thus be more certain in their positions. You can tell at the moment that there is a great deal of uncertainty in our defending which is costing us. This is something we need to improve and the sooner we do it, the stronger we become defensively.

But I talked about mentality and I feel we are currently weak in that regard. That is exemplified in the way we capitulated today when things went against us. We should have remained resolute and calm, keeping possession for a bit and looking to temper any confidence that Leicster may have got from that penalty and seeing through the next few minutes after their goal. Instead we panicked, gave away possession and fluffed our defensive line. After their equalizer, we had the wind knocked out of our sails and nowhere to turn to. The best way to combat this is to maintain focus and not react. This again comes from confidence. Under Fergie, we were confident in the knowledge that if we lost a lead, we could always get it back. Our arrogance mean that we could not accept not being ahead and we would always resolve to push the opposition back in their own box and pepper them with crosses until they fell apart and we eventually scored. To get that back, we need to regain that arrogance. That arrogance is borne of supreme confidence in ourselves as a club. This needs to be instilled by LVG and distilled throughout the squad.

One last point, we don't exactly have a consistent eleven. Last year our line-ups changed a lot. When you have an unpredictable first eleven week after week, it's hard for players to understand each others personalities and styles. Back in the early-90's for example, we could pretty much name our first eleven and give a good guess at our subs. We all knew that Bruce and Pallister would be the defensive duo, Irwin was obviously left-back and Parker on the right. Keane and Robson were the midfield partnership while anything but Kanchelskis and Giggs on the wings was baffling. Cantona and Hughes would typically make up the front two. We also had players who could fit into these roles and be just as reliable like Ince and Sharpe. My mind may be hazy and the usual first eleven may have been different but the point is that we knew each week who was likely to play. That is not something we were able to say last year and, to an extent, not something we could say this year as well. If we could name a proper team each weak and have others who were not just backups but fully-fledged first team players, there would be a lot more cohesion in the team. But that's just me, I'm not too knowledgeable on tactics.

With that being said we are actually making strides. Our attacks are much better than last season. We are much sharper and our passing much more accurate. We are patient in our build-ups, our forwards our looking to run into spaces and we are providing options for each other. We are still a little defensively naive but this can be improved. All I'm saying is that while things are going bad, there is no need to be pessimistic. We aren't crap, we aren't lacking players and LVG is not the wrong man for the job. Everyone realises that this new squad needs time to form. Perhaps the main solution is to have a fully-formed first eleven who understand each other, who can attack and defend together, who are confident in each other and who are inspired by a charismatic leader.

I know I've said a lot, probably about nothing but I can't help but think that we are overreacting to a bad result that may have gone differently. I could have made this into a separate thread itself and I was thinking of doing so but in the end, I didn't think it warranted it.

 

[Vialli_92]

Clattenburg has never been a good ref, he just got more criticism today because everyone was watching United play.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

One of the worst decisions I've seen by a referee against us. Making two rubbish decisions in one move against one team is quite an achidvement. What exactly what rafael supposed to do after being shoved to the floor like that? Is he not allowed to move towards the attacker or something? Ridiculous decision.

As for what happened after, it was disappointing from our defence. But at least we entertained and played some cracking football. Hopefully well react better the next time we get a laughable decision like that against us.

 

[legball]

Everyone says we should have signed top class CB, but no one has mentioned 1 that we could have got !

 

[Manucho the boss]

I remember many on here saying Clatts was the best ref in the league after Howard retired. I said it at the time but it's nonsense, he seems to have no fear of giving penalties or red cards against us at all.

 

[DomesticTadpole]

Vidic has just made a howler for Inter v. Palma, so maybe he wasn't the answer to all our defensive woes. I take it all back.

 

[dwd]

I remember many on here saying Clatts was the best ref in the league after Howard retired. I said it at the time but it's nonsense, he seems to have no fear of giving penalties or red cards against us at all.

No referee should have fear of making a decision regardless of who it is for or against as long as it is the right one!

 

[Yorkeontop]

Vidic has just made a howler for Inter v. Palma, so maybe he wasn't the answer to all our defensive woes. I take it all back.

I was thinking about that last league title and how frail we looked even back then. Was Vidic injured though during that season? Anyway,you cant argue about his defensive leadership,even at the worst of times

 

[jem]

Clattenburg gave the game to Leicester. Pure and simple.

No, we did. He's a cretin, but Manchester United shouldn't be conceding 2 goals to Leicester, let alone 5. I still hope Clattenburg gets axed, mind you.

 

[DomesticTadpole]

I was thinking about that last league title and how frail we looked even back then. Was Vidic injured though during that season? Anyway,you cant argue about his defensive leadership,even at the worst of times

He started to pick up a lot of injuries towards the end. The season we won the last title, we seemed to outscore people. So the defence wasn't entirely great then. We have had frailties there for a number of years. Not always down to personel, but not being able to keep players fit.

 

[Timdbro]

It was a shocking reaction to the feck up by Clattenburg, but I put this down to three things:
-Lots of players who are new to the league needing to adapt to the physicality.
-A young, inexperienced back 4 who (once Evans went off) had never once played together. You could see that the full backs for example were overlapping at the wrong times, with no proper understanding about when it was ok to bomb on. Rojo in particular was guilty of this (as well as general rubbish one-on-one defending and positional play).
-A series of poor decision by the ref, both before and after the penalty, that never allowed our players to settle and play the match on our own terms.

Before the match, I never personally expected all our issues as a team to be resolved so soon into the season. Doesn't mean I'm not gobsmacked that we went from 3-1 to 3-5 of course.