[7even]

Tonight I saw the Swansea game for the third time.

After 65 minutes our line up was.

Jones - Smalling - Blacket - Young
- Fletcher - Fellaini -
Januzaj - Mata. - Nani
- Rooney. -

So many players underperformed.
Young. Smalling. Herrera. Rooney. Mata. Fellaini.

Fletcher was not underperforming. He was poor, by far our weakest link.

Another thing. We have been playing 3-5-2 in the whole pre season, after 45 minutes we go back to 4-2-3-1(4-4-1-1). IMO then our preparation wasn't good enough. If we don't trust our game plan after 45 poor minutes then something is wrong.

Secondly. Our movement, set up and synchronizing was as bad as it gets. Our midfield was non existing. Our forward players was static and when Young convert to old habits then it was more or less chaos.

Above all we need a defensive midfielder. Fletcher is a favorite but at this level he's not good enough. Our offensive needs speed and movement, either Wellbeck or a pacey midfielder like de Maria. I'm defense we need stability.

 

[MZX7]

Part of the problem is the youth too to be fair.
Quite a few players have a bit to prove this season like jones and others.

We haven't produced a great player in a long time possibly barring januzaj though.
I know you cant expect or rely on a class of '92 showing up but i still think our output
has been dissapointing for a club of our size, resources and history.
Maybe we've let it stagnate a bit and need to have a rethink.

Its early days for van gaal and its the kind of thing that wont be apparent for a while
but its something to be hopeful about looking forward.

It baffles me that Jones, Smalling, Welbeck, Cleverley etc are still considered to be youth...Welbeck has been around for too long with too little to offer in my opinion. If Fellaini ain't a United player, I'd say the same about Welbeck too.

And I do also agree that we have fallen short in academy talent. Januzaj seems to be the only exception in a long time.

 

[caid]

It baffles me that Jones, Smalling, Welbeck, Cleverley etc are still considered to be youth...Welbeck has been around for too long with too little to offer in my opinion. If Fellaini ain't a United player, I'd say the same about Welbeck too.

And I do also agree that we have fallen short in academy talent. Januzaj seems to be the only exception in a long time.

They were youth, this season is make or break for pretty much all of them imo.
I think some (jones, smalling, maybe at a bit of a stretch welbeck) could be good first team players.
Cleverley has to prove hes good enough to be cover imo.

I said pretty much the same thing last season but it was such a clusterfeck that im happy enough giving them a second chance i guess.

I guess pogba should be included next to januzaj, not sure how much credit we can take for either of them though.
Maybe one day we'll add ravel morrison to the list.

 

[Oo0AahCantona]

Players we've lost since 2009:
van der Sar
Neville
Evra
Hargreaves
Ferdinand
Brown
Ronaldo
Saha
Berbatov
Giggs
Vidic
Scholes
O'Shea
Silvestre
Pogba
Tevez
And obviously SAF

Players we've bought since 2009:
Valencia
Owen
Obertan
Smalling
Hernandez
Bebe
Lindegaard
Jones
Young
De Gea
Kagawa
Powell
van Persie
Buttner
Zaha
Fellaini
Mata
Shaw
Herrera

With the obvious exception of RVP and De Gea, Shaw and Herrera are way too early to judge, that is one hell of a decline.

What else did you expect to happen?!

Wow... to see that on paper... i dont know what to say.

 

[SalfordRed1960]

Tonight I saw the Swansea game for the third time.

After 65 minutes our line up was.

Jones - Smalling - Blacket - Young
- Fletcher - Fellaini -
Januzaj - Mata. - Nani
- Rooney. -

So many players underperformed.
Young. Smalling. Herrera. Rooney. Mata. Fellaini.

Fletcher was not underperforming. He was poor, by far our weakest link.

Another thing. We have been playing 3-5-2 in the whole pre season, after 45 minutes we go back to 4-2-3-1(4-4-1-1). IMO then our preparation wasn't good enough. If we don't trust our game plan after 45 poor minutes then something is wrong.

Secondly. Our movement, set up and synchronizing was as bad as it gets. Our midfield was non existing. Our forward players was static and when Young convert to old habits then it was more or less chaos.

Above all we need a defensive midfielder. Fletcher is a favorite but at this level he's not good enough. Our offensive needs speed and movement, either Wellbeck or a pacey midfielder like de Maria. I'm defense we need stability.

Bit harsh on Smalling.

If you have watched the game so many times, I take it that you noticed that the Swansea front line were largely in the pocket of Jones, Smalling and Blackett. Jones and Smalling's distribution was poor admittedly, but Bony hardly did anything other than block Jones for the first goal. Jones got beat for speed by a faster man, well who would have guessed that.

Young, Herrera, Mata, Fletcher and Lingaard/Adnan did not do enough. Fellani could quite easily have been sent off. Rooney was a passenger. Not quite sure what was the reason for Hernandez coming off, I can only assume tactical as I did not see anything really dreadful.

We do not have a leader on the field. Rooney is not that type of player that grabs control of the game and lifts other players. Many of the players are expecting someone else to do something magical. Amazing how the confidence was sapped after the first and second goal. The team did not believe they could come back. I put that down to a lack of confidence in the front line to get the ball in the net. We have always leaked goals but had a forward line that will find us a goal. We haven't had that since last season.

 

[sullydnl]

Players we've lost since 2009:
van der Sar
Neville
Evra
Hargreaves
Ferdinand
Brown
Ronaldo
Saha
Berbatov
Giggs
Vidic
Scholes
O'Shea
Silvestre
Pogba
Tevez
And obviously SAF

Players we've bought since 2009:
Valencia
Owen
Obertan
Smalling
Hernandez
Bebe
Lindegaard
Jones
Young
De Gea
Kagawa
Powell
van Persie
Buttner
Zaha
Fellaini
Mata
Shaw
Herrera

With the obvious exception of RVP and De Gea, Shaw and Herrera are way too early to judge, that is one hell of a decline.

What else did you expect to happen?!

Hard to argue with that, isn't it?

 

[7even]

Bit harsh on Smalling.

If you have watched the game so many times, I take it that you noticed that the Swansea front line were largely in the pocket of Jones, Smalling and Blackett. Jones and Smalling's distribution was poor admittedly, but Bony hardly did anything other than block Jones for the first goal. Jones got beat for speed by a faster man, well who would have guessed that.

Young, Herrera, Mata, Fletcher and Lingaard/Adnan did not do enough. Fellani could quite easily have been sent off. Rooney was a passenger. Not quite sure what was the reason for Hernandez coming off, I can only assume tactical as I did not see anything really dreadful.

We do not have a leader on the field. Rooney is not that type of player that grabs control of the game and lifts other players. Many of the players are expecting someone else to do something magical. Amazing how the confidence was sapped after the first and second goal. The team did not believe they could come back. I put that down to a lack of confidence in the front line to get the ball in the net. We have always leaked goals but had a forward line that will find us a goal. We haven't had that since last season.[/QOUTE]

You're right that I was harsh regarding Smalling but I think he have the ability to be our best defender. That's why I was disappointed.

My impression is that we miss Carrick a lot more then expected. Fletcher is a good b2b player but not the solution and our new nr 6. We need to buy a replacement for Carrick, and the that's fast.

With Rojo we will add speed and physicality, we will need it. I really looking forward to see him and Shaw togheter.

 

[ItsEssexRob]

Tonight I saw the Swansea game for the third time.

After 65 minutes our line up was.

Jones - Smalling - Blacket - Young
- Fletcher - Fellaini -
Januzaj - Mata. - Nani
- Rooney. -

So many players underperformed.
Young. Smalling. Herrera. Rooney. Mata. Fellaini.

Fletcher was not underperforming. He was poor, by far our weakest link.

Another thing. We have been playing 3-5-2 in the whole pre season, after 45 minutes we go back to 4-2-3-1(4-4-1-1). IMO then our preparation wasn't good enough. If we don't trust our game plan after 45 poor minutes then something is wrong.

Secondly. Our movement, set up and synchronizing was as bad as it gets. Our midfield was non existing. Our forward players was static and when Young convert to old habits then it was more or less chaos.

Above all we need a defensive midfielder. Fletcher is a favorite but at this level he's not good enough. Our offensive needs speed and movement, either Wellbeck or a pacey midfielder like de Maria. I'm defense we need stability.

Are you by any chance into BDSM/Torture too?

 

[7even]

Are you by any chance into BDSM/Torture too?

Good question

I saw the game the second time after the Chelsea game on Monday evening. Wanted to compare our passing tempo and flow to yours. It was a huge difference. Mou's set up was more compact, fluid and balanced. Fabregas gave you creativity and your defense was more compact then ours.

The third time was to see Blackett a little bit more.