Post match v Liverpool

[Moist von Lipwig]

Long time lurker, fresh signup here. Been watching since '78, and never felt the need to join forums before tonight. The reason for joining now is something I've been thinking for a good while now. When I saw someone posting almost my exact thoughts on the BBC HYS, I figured there might be more of us thinking the same. So here goes.

I think we can all agree that, skilled as he may be, Bruno Fernandes' behaviour is not exactly what one would want to leap to mind when the phrase "Manchester United captain" is voiced. He pretty much showed everything we don't want in a captain tonight.

So my question is: Why exactly is it that Rashford isn't our captain? He's universally admired as a player and a person, always gives his best, never lets his side down and leads immaculately by example. I hesitate to say this, but is it because he's black??? I honestly cannot fathom it.

I know some people say he goes missing, but name me an attacker who is highly visible for the right reasons (biting your opponent or pretending to have had your head chopped off when someone breathes near your leg are not right reasons, btw) when service is non-existent.

I just don't get it.

And also, would we still be as tolerant of Bruno's shortcomings if his background was different? Say he grew up a troubled council estate kid, and had a couple of scrapes with the law on his back. Would we be as patient with his behaviour? Would he even be in the team? I mean, MG is seemingly out on grounds of behaviour and unwanted drama. I am of course not going to equate MG's situation with BF, but I don't think it's too much to ask for a certain minimum standard for a Man Utd captain, off and on the field.

If nothing else, he's a red card waiting to happen. And with our luck, it would happen at the worst possible time.

But what's even worse, he doesn't drag us up by the scruff of the neck when we're down; he makes it worse. And that's not what we should be looking for in a captain.

 

[crossy1686]

I’d run them into the ground this week. Tell them to forget about the EL, the reserves will play in that competition from now on because these lot don’t deserve it get anywhere near the final, the league is the sole focus.

 

[croadyman]

I’d run them into the ground this week. Tell them to forget about the EL, the reserves will play in that competition from now on because these lot don’t deserve it get anywhere near the final, the league is the sole focus.

Should be run into ground tonight,until they literally are unable to stand up

 

[bosnian_red]

They can want it equally as much, but if they are motivated more then something is wrong

It happens. No team can be the most motivated on the pitch every single game. That's why it's hard to go on long winning runs or sustaining success. There are 2 teams on the pitch, and in these days, there are a lot of other top teams who have their shit together too. It's important to respond well. But in this scenario, this was Liverpools cup final with nothing but top 4 hopes to play for. United have a lot to play for and don't lose anything in terms of targets with this loss if you step back. So it's easy to see why they were more motivated. Especially being at Anfield. At Old Trafford pride should always demand we don't lose. Away from home? Yeah it'll happen.

 

[Hester_manc]

They beat us 4-0, 5-0 and now 7-0. It is a surprise, but not an anomaly. Actually it is becoming obvious that Liverpool or Klopp knows how to beat us all too well. We almost never manage to even score at Anfield.

This is a situation that needs to be dealt with in an extraordinary way in the future when we face Liverpool. There must be a reason why they can beat us so many times and with such large margins, even in a period where we have played well for a long time and just beat Barcelona over 2 games.

 

[Slevs]

The thing that stood out for me.

Forget its Liverpool and forget everything.

A team is counter attacking you and you're shaking, take the cynical foul and bring the fecker down.

Remember Varane stopping Diaz at OT? Casemiro pulling that Barca player back in the EL 2nd leg? etc.

Where was the fecking fight out there?

Instead, they did the "yeah I'll follow my man, oops, he's played the easy through ball to continue the attack, can't do anything there". Just why?

 

[Loon]

Christ almighty, Phil McNulty on the BBC site is as kneejerk and full of hyperbole as ever.

 

[redmanx]

I actually thought we would lose. But by three or 3-1 or somthing. I just felt we were wrecked tired and anfield is the toughest venue in England.

It is a freak result because two or three of those goals had no business being goals. There was about five or six mixed tackles for their second goal. Hilarious.

Anyhow we need a reaction next thursday and at the weekend.

We beat Barcelona just recently, who were the second in form team in europe after Napoli, so its not all bad. It was just the perfect storm for Liverpool today, given how tired we look and also because we won the Carabao last weekend.

I agree, now isnt the time for whole sale changes but we need to react positively in our next matches, we cant let this derail us, another defeat could set us on a down hill trajectory. Im sure ETH will do whats needed and get the team back on target.

 

[Bastian]

Missed the 2nd half, couldn't believe it when I checked the score. What the feck happened? I thought during the first half they came out stronger in the first 15-20 minutes or so but we looked pretty comfortable and had some decent chances. Bruno was well off it but Fred was up for that match and so was Shaw, Casemiro was a bit sloppy, but by and large there wasn't much in it and I thought they were lucky to get ahead before the break.

But conceding 7 goals, I had to check whether we were playing with 9 or 8 men. I'm not sure @rimaldo placeholder thread had a pre-emptive reaction to something so diabolical.

A 2-0 and we could be thinking alright, we'll get back on it and brush this off. But this has the chance to deflate the positive dynamic.

 

[spiriticon]

Gone away for a few hours, tried to calm down and am still absolutely fecking fuming at this lot.

fecking bunch of no-hopers. Title challenge? Don't make me laugh.

 

[redmanx]

Wish a lot of you would grow up. The most important is to forget about this and move on. Let this get inside our heads and its season over stuff. There were so many mistakes today that no one could have foreseen. There is no re- managing that second half. Liverpool could have hit the corner post and it would have went in. We are still in massive re-build in Ten hag's image, yeah we got giddy as Keane would say, but reality hit us in one half. Get back on the horse and reset and go again. The most important is a top 4 and Glaziers selling and no matter if we had won 7-0 today, those are the two most important things at the start of this season. We will continue to fight forest fires if we don't get both. I bet you when the dust settles he has learnt more today than in the last 10 games. Do yourselves a favour and ignore tv and radio until kick off on Thursday night and even the Europa League is now a free hit at the reset button.

Spot on, it was in many ways a fluke result, everything went the scousers way and we got ourselves into some ridiculous situations; but now we have to go again and finish the season as successfully as we can. I never thought for one minute we were going to win the Prem, but runners up was a possibility; theres still the FA Cup and the Europa and one of those would be great, both even better, but a top 3 Prem finish must be the priority.

 

[tjb]

It was a bad performance, but I'm not too concerned. This can happen at Anfield and exposes the fact that we aren't too good for this to happen quite yet.

I didn't like how we lined up. Bruno on the left and, Weighorst at 10 and Rashford at no.9 wasn't great. Yet it's something that occured due to us not having much better options than that. I don't like it because our flanks become completely ineffective. Bruno was struggling all game finding his feet in that position, whilst Antony as usual offered nothing. This meant that we couldn't stretch Liverpool at all when we attacked and couldn't really go down the flanks when trying to avoid the press. It was a mistake from Ten Haag.

When you add that to the fact that playing Fred can be hit or miss and Casemiro seemed a touch leggy today, this happened.

We have gaps in the squad and still some in the first team, this game exposed that to an extent.

1. Casemiro needs a better partner than Fred and a more energetic partner than Eriksen.
2. One of Antony/Sancho/Amad need to claim that right wing spot or we need to start making sales, as this is still an issue.
3. We need a striker. We can't keep shuffling our attack like this.
4. We need better depth, some of our players were exhausted, yet we need to play them in almost every game or we don't win.

 

[HaliRed]

Horrible day at the office. Will this derail the season? I think it depends on the next few results.

If we go back to winning ways, then it will be a humiliating result we hear about for years, but not much more. Our reaction will be critical to the success of the season.

Bah...What a horrible, horrible day...

 

[groovyalbert]

I think we will recover and still remember this season fondly, but - as an isolated game - this may be my least favorite United match of all time. Absolutely shocking.

 

[Wayne's World]

I'm still in a bit of mad shock from it. That was without doubt the worst performance in our history in the Premier League and perhaps worst result ever. Never seen such a gutless cowardly display of players who packed it in and down tools to one of our biggest rivals.

We have seen worse Man Utd teams go to Anfield and get absolutely destroyed but to see this one which is surely our best in the last 10 years do that.....it's extremely hard to deal with.

Stunned

 

[crossy1686]

Spot on, it was in many ways a fluke result, everything went the scousers way and we got ourselves into some ridiculous situations; but now we have to go again and finish the season as successfully as we can. I never thought for one minute we were going to win the Prem, but runners up was a possibility; theres still the FA Cup and the Europa and one of those would be great, both even better, but a top 3 Prem finish must be the priority.

It’s not though is it? This will hang over us every game we play now. We’re deep into the season and people are still talking about Brighton and Brentford hammering us. Now every time we concede they’ll be the same nervous expectation that we’re going to get hammered again. When you get absolutely destroyed like this by your closet rival you can’t just brush it under the carpet and pretend it didn’t happen. We have to respond, of course we do, but you watch what happens to the crowd and on here the next time we go 1-0 or 2-0 down.

This is knee jerk but as a manager, you can’t continually lose very bad whenever you lose, that costs you your job at some point. Ten Hag needs to develop a system that when we’re 3-0 down, he just shuts up the game and forgets about getting a result. There’s nothing admiral about playing super open when you’re already 4 or 5 down, it’s fecking stupid.

 

[crossy1686]

I think we will recover and still remember this season fondly, but - as an isolated game - this may be my least favorite United match of all time. Absolutely shocking.

It’s not isolated, this will follow us every week now.

 

[Slevs]

It’s not though is it? This will hang over us every game we play now. We’re deep into the season and people are still talking about Brighton and Brentford hammering us. Now every time we concede they’ll be the same nervous expectation that we’re going to get hammered again. When you get absolutely destroyed like this by your closet rival you can’t just brush it under the carpet and pretend it didn’t happen. We have to respond, of course we do, but you watch what happens to the crowd and on here the next time we go 1-0 or 2-0 down.

This is knee jerk but as a manager, you can’t continually lose very bad whenever you lose, that costs you your job at some point. Ten Hag needs to develop a system that when we’re 3-0 down, he just shuts up the game and forgets about getting a result. There’s nothing admiral about playing super open when you’re already 4 or 5 down, it’s fecking stupid.

Did we even play super open?
We just gave them the ball back and let them run.

 

[crossy1686]

Never underestimate United to find a way to unravel any good will they’ve accumulated over the season. Same faces doing the same old shit when it counts.

 

[crossy1686]

Did we even play super open?
We just gave them the ball back and let them run.

We gave them the ball and let them cut through us with ease. Errors across the pitch in every position and no one taking accountability

 

[spiriticon]

Scousers were fecking kind today as well.

All they had to do was the 'Erik's at the wheel nanananana' song and ten Hag would have been done in the morning

 

[Sarni]

It’s the type of loss that will haunt you for years, unfortunately. Of course on another night the same kind of performance may merit only a 3-0 loss or so, and the fact they literally scored on every opportunity they had in the second half is an one off but the fact we keep giving away those chances with lapses of concentration and fall apart that easily is concerning. I won’t say it’s been coming for a while because nobody could have predicted we would lose a game by 7 this season but even in Barcelona second leg there were numerous instances where our defense and midfield fell apart and Barca were through on goal with multiple avenues to punish us. They were wasteful, Liverpool were ruthless.

 

[OrcaFat]

Christ almighty, Phil McNulty on the BBC site is as kneejerk and full of hyperbole as ever.

He loves sticking the boot into us. Not a good journalist at all anyway.

 

[crossy1686]

It doesn’t matter that we beat Barca, it doesn’t matter that we won the cup against Newcastle thanks to this result. Those saying it’s isolated and to brush it off will find that we won’t be able to shake this result until we do them over in a big way.

 

[GaryLifo]

The BBC is having some kind of party on their football page. Scouse McNulty their chief sports writer is going full on with "we've just witnessed the birth of the next great Liverpool forward line"

THEY.ARE.BACK...... (7 points back as it happens)

 

[crossy1686]

We need them to lose the next 3 games to make up for this

 

[GaryLifo]

It doesn’t matter that we beat Barca, it doesn’t matter that we won the cup against Newcastle thanks to this result. Those saying it’s isolated and to brush it off will find that we won’t be able to shake this result until we do them over in a big way.

Not even if we win two more cups and finish above them in the league while they win feck all?

You only get 3 points even if you win 7-0.

 

[The Irish Connection]

Only positive is that they beat us 4 and 5 nil last season so it might get lost in the fog

 

[Loon]

He loves sticking the boot into us. Not a good journalist at all anyway.

Basically says that Liverpool have demonstrated on their day, there is still a gulf between us. What about our day?

 

[spiriticon]

Not even if we win two more cups and finish above them in the league while they win feck all?

You only get 3 points even if you win 7-0.

It's not about the points. It's about them chanting 7-0 in our faces for the next 15 years.

 

[crossy1686]

Not even if we win two more cups and finish above them in the league while they win feck all?

You only get 3 points even if you win 7-0.

Then yes, that will make up for it but we won’t because we don’t have the team to do that. When these players are long gone, we’ll still be hearing 7-0 every time they come to OT

 

[GaryLifo]

Would any of you swap places with them this season in exchange for winning 7-0 today?

They end the season with 1-3 trophies but we take home the '7-0 bragging rights trophy' to parade around Manchester in an open top bus?

 

[crossy1686]

Would any of you swap places with them this season in exchange for winning 7-0 today?

They end the season with 1-3 trophies but we take home the '7-0 bragging rights trophy' to parade around Manchester in an open top bus?

The season isn’t over yet. Ask me again in the summer and I’ll ask you the same

 

[Rightnr]

Did we even play super open?
We just gave them the ball back and let them run.

We were open in the sense that we kept attacking in numbers when Liverpool are made to smash even the best teams in transition.

It was amateur and naive. We got absolutely Arsenal'd out there.

 

[GaryLifo]

Then yes, that will make up for it but we won’t because we don’t have the team to do that. When these players are long gone, we’ll still be hearing 7-0 every time they come to OT

We don't have the team to win the FA cup or Europa league?

Did you think this as we beat Barcelona and West ham last week?

 

[spiriticon]

Would any of you swap places with them this season in exchange for winning 7-0 today?

They end the season with 1-3 trophies but we take home the '7-0 bragging rights trophy' to parade around Manchester in an open top bus?

They may still win a title or beat us to top 4, I don't know. We just fecking kick started their season.

 

[gerdm07]

Here is the good news IMO.

1. We were the better team in the 1st half at Anfield and I don't think we've been able to say that in years vs Liverpool.

2. Three of the goals were just weird and that happens sometimes in football. The two ricochets that landed perfectly for a Liverpool player and then the Firmino goal going through 3 players. One of those days that you just can't explain.

3. Our next two matches should be pretty comfortable because they are at home and against Betis and Southhampton. We should get back on track with two wins.

I do wish we had a week off to regroup. The 2 matches per week is a real grind.

 

[croadyman]

It was a bad performance, but I'm not too concerned. This can happen at Anfield and exposes the fact that we aren't too good for this to happen quite yet.

I didn't like how we lined up. Bruno on the left and, Weighorst at 10 and Rashford at no.9 wasn't great. Yet it's something that occured due to us not having much better options than that. I don't like it because our flanks become completely ineffective. Bruno was struggling all game finding his feet in that position, whilst Antony as usual offered nothing. This meant that we couldn't stretch Liverpool at all when we attacked and couldn't really go down the flanks when trying to avoid the press. It was a mistake from Ten Haag.

When you add that to the fact that playing Fred can be hit or miss and Casemiro seemed a touch leggy today, this happened.

We have gaps in the squad and still some in the first team, this game exposed that to an extent.

1. Casemiro needs a better partner than Fred and a more energetic partner than Eriksen.
2. One of Antony/Sancho/Amad need to claim that right wing spot or we need to start making sales, as this is still an issue.
3. We need a striker. We can't keep shuffling our attack like this.
4. We need better depth, some of our players were exhausted, yet we need to play them in almost every game or we don't win.

No not bad WORST ever

 

[Berbasbullet]

They may still win a title or beat us to top 4, I don't know. We just fecking kick started their season.

Eh? What title?

 

[croadyman]

Here is the good news IMO.

1. We were the better team in the 1st half at Anfield and I don't think we've been able to say that in years vs Liverpool.

2. Three of the goals were just weird and that happens sometimes in football. The two ricochets that landed perfectly for a Liverpool player and then the Firmino goal going through 3 players. One of those days that you just can't explain.

3. Our next two matches should be pretty comfortable because they are at home and against Betis and Southhampton. We should get back on track with two wins.

I do wish we had a week off to regroup. The 2 matches per week is a real grind.

Week off,they deserve being made to walk home from Anfield then ran into ground until they throw up tomorrow. Only then will they realise how diabolical this truly was