[NewGlory]

In my decades of watching football, I have never seen a "#10" as invisible and useless as DvB today and against Sociedad. It was almost unbelievable. And these are the games where he had a full chance to prove himself. I have been a huge Donny supporter, but this is it - whatever the feck is wron with him, I don't even care, anymore. He needs to go.

Also, unfortunately EtH's chocies did cost us today. We needed to rotate more players. In retrospect, probably: Fred in the midfield next to Casemiro, and Eriksen playing further up or resting. I don't know if Rashford instead of Ronaldo in the center and Elanga to the right would have helped, mostly because Rashford was also very bad today. He wasn't even the shadow of himself against West Ham. I guess he was told he is part of England squad and maybe he was saving himself, but his defensive effort was atrocious and attacking below average.

 

[grumpyoldgit]

The only consolation - much as I dislike Emery at least it wasn’t Slippy G!

Whoosh

 

[tjb]

Dont buy the "we are tired" excuses, playing no more games than a lot of teams and no more injuries than a lot of teams.

For me the simple fat is there should have been 12-15 players out in the summer and 10 in which was probably unrealsitic, we need another quality summer to get this side right, there are still far too many players in a very big squad that simply shouldnt be here for various different reasons.

We have a first 6/7 not a first eleven, there is squad depth, jsut too many players I class as squad players within it, not enough proper first team players

I actually agree with you in terms of the tiredness excuse. I think the team should be good enough to tackle a team like Villa. I also think, not due to tiredness, but due to poor quality in the frontline, we weren't able to press and pin Villa back. Fatigue or not, with Ronaldo and VDB, it won't work

At the same time, don't agree about the numbers. I think our regular first xi ( assuming Martial is our no.9) is quite good. A good team needs to have at least 14 strong players. The problem is, we lack quality in specific areas.

We've been down a no.9 all season. Ronaldo playing in that role exposes our entire team due to his lack of pressing. It also forces Bruno to cover spaces for him, which also hurts Bruno too.

The problem with our squad is that we have a number of players who can't even do the basics of what they're supposed to do in their position. We have quality in the likes of Bruno, Casemiro, Martinez, Varane etc but instead of having premier league quality players, we have championship players in reserve. Van De Beek, Mctominay, Elanga, AWB have no business in our squad. Ronaldo is far too old as well. He may be Premier League quality in a team that can carry him, we can't. We don't have a back up DM or anyone who can play anything like one. We don't have a reliable no.9.

 

[Leftback99]

We had a better team than Villa did on the pitch. And better than Burnley and Brighton. Where is the excuse for that? Tired? Gabriel and Xhaka have played 18 games. More than most of our team except Dalot at 19. And who is this brilliant 15 they have thats better than our back ups? We have an 80 mill England Captain on the bench. A 50 mill right back that should be back soon. Fred a brazil international. And on and on. Our squad should be fit enough and strong enough to beat Villa

Debatable. The likes of Lindelof, Dalot, Ronaldo, Garnacho, Van de Beek and De Gea wouldn't improve Villa.

 

[Orange Tree]

What do you think the problem is when referring to it being deeper?

I don't think the problem is that deep, at least as far as controlling the game. Ronaldo and VDB's inability to press leaves us exposed. We either get bypassed by the CB's and DM or we sit back. In the early part of this game, we chose to push Casemiro and Eriksen a little higher to create more pressure, that led to Villa being able to attack us directly, as neither Eriksen or Casemiro received the support from Ronaldo or VDB to win back possession or stall Villa's build up. This led to us being cut open easily. After this, we chose to drop our midfield a bit deeper and not engage as aggresively as we would like to in midfield. Hence, just on the basis of that decision alone, we had lost the ability to press high up the pitch, and now we were scrapping in a midblock ( that was still compromised due to the lack of defensive engagement from either Ronaldo or VDB). Emi Martinez was literally able to walk with the ball, knowing it was almost impossible for us to try and win the ball in their final third. We only started really attacking when Villa were choosing to sit off, which says alot.

My point here is that we can only attack consistently when we have the ball. We are no longer a pure counter attacking side, so having the ball is important. Ronaldo and VDB not pressing, limited our opportunities to have the ball and definitely within their half. Them not engaging probably cut the amount of attacks we could procure by half the amount it should have been. This was in addition to exposing Casemiro and Eriksen to far more pressure than they should have had to deal with. Not due to coaching or tiredness from the rest of the team, but simply due to a lack of effective engagement by 2 players, both of whom happen to play in positions in the centre of the pitch. Look at Arsenal, small changes like adding Gabriel Jesus can lift a team, particularly in positions at the centre of the pitch.

Just from recent matches, we seem unable to apply constant pressure on opposing teams to break them down. Most of our ball into the final third is harmless or we just give the ball away with brain dead passes or flicks.

I think we've become better in moving the ball from the back. Now we need to do better in moving the ball around in opponent's half and put the ball into dangerous positions.

 

[tomaldinho1]

It’s fairly typical of our fixture list this season we had to be drawn in an away match after our toughest European game of the season so far, against a team that a) wanted to impress their new manager b) didn’t have any midweek match and c) have been punching below their weight for ages after spending a shit load of cash. This season so far has been absolutely horrendous in terms of the timing and sequence of our fixtures. Today was just the latest in a long list.

Yep, given how last season ended i’m actually thrilled we are where we are in the league. As I see it first season we want to see the upward trend so I think the time for harsher criticism is Feb/Mar onwards. Main thing for me is we’re seeing glimpses of what ETH wants, the odd game or period of a game, that just needs to be more and more common now.

 

[berbatrick]

This one was primarily on EtH.

Playing the first team into the ground.
Ronaldo starting and playing the 90 after 3 awful games.
DvB.
Rashford pushed to the right to accommodate those 2 clowns.
Martial as the 10 since Ronaldo cannot be subbed.
Not making a sub after watching the midfield get overrun repeatedly.

 

[Elcabron]

One shite decision after another today from ETH:

- Maguire was good against West Ham so let's drop him for today's game.
- DVB was useless v Real Socidead so let's start him again today.
- Fred motm against Spurs, hasn't been seen since.
- Villa park is huge pitch, Villa might be out to show their new manager what they can do so let's play a tired Casemiro and two number 10's alongside him in midfield and leave two midfielders we do have on the bench.... especially when they didn't play on Thursday and might actually be fresh today.
- Don't get me started on the subs both timing and personal.
- He put Ronaldo firmly in his place a couple of weeks ago, let's him back into the of late despite him being absaloutely fecking abysmal and not only that he makes him fecking captain.

Awful management, got every decision wrong.

 

[UpWithRivers]

Debatable. The likes of Lindelof, Dalot, Ronaldo, Garnacho, Van de Beek and De Gea wouldn't improve Villa.

Wow. is this what people think? Ok I am delusional. I actually thought we had the better team. If we have a worse team than Vila then why is everyone surprised we got beaten? And how are we ever going to get top 4 if half our team is a worse team than Villa? Lets just accept we are a 6-10th team then and stop complaining

 

[UpWithRivers]

One shite decision after another today from ETH:

- Maguire was good against West Ham so let's drop him for today's game.
- DVB was useless v Real Socidead so let's start him again today.
- Fred motm against Spurs, hasn't been seen since.
- Villa park is huge pitch, Villa might be out to show their new manager what they can do so let's play a tired Casemiro and two number 10's alongside him in midfield and leave two midfielders we do have on the bench.... especially when they didn't play on Thursday and might actually be fresh today.
- Don't get me started on the subs both timing and personal.
- He put Ronaldo firmly in his place a couple of weeks ago, let's him back into the of late despite him being absaloutely fecking abysmal and not only that he makes him fecking captain.

Awful management, got every decision wrong.

Plus Rashford our best attacking player at RW that has never worked but somehow lets keep doing it

 

[Buster15]

I actually agree with you in terms of the tiredness excuse. I think the team should be good enough to tackle a team like Villa. I also think, not due to tiredness, but due to poor quality in the frontline, we weren't able to press and pin Villa back. Fatigue or not, with Ronaldo and VDB, it won't work

At the same time, don't agree about the numbers. I think our regular first xi ( assuming Martial is our no.9) is quite good. A good team needs to have at least 14 strong players. The problem is, we lack quality in specific areas.

We've been down a no.9 all season. Ronaldo playing in that role exposes our entire team due to his lack of pressing. It also forces Bruno to cover spaces for him, which also hurts Bruno too.

The problem with our squad is that we have a number of players who can't even do the basics of what they're supposed to do in their position. We have quality in the likes of Bruno, Casemiro, Martinez, Varane etc but instead of having premier league quality players, we have championship players in reserve. Van De Beek, Mctominay, Elanga, AWB have no business in our squad. Ronaldo is far too old as well. He may be Premier League quality in a team that can carry him, we can't. We don't have a back up DM or anyone who can play anything like one. We don't have a reliable no.9.

Ronaldo is far from the only one who does not press. In fact we are not a pressing team at all. And that is one of the problems.

 

[Leftback99]

Wow. is this what people think? Ok I am delusional. I actually thought we had the better team. If we have a worse team than Vila then why is everyone surprised we got beaten? And how are we ever going to get top 4 if half our team is a worse team than Villa? Lets just accept we are a 6-10th team then and stop complaining

It was far from our strongest XI though and the result wasn't surprising for some of us before the game.

Do you think Ronaldo offers more than Watkins? Garnacho in his 2nd PL game over Buendia, literally anyone over Van de Beek? Which am I wrong on?

 

[Red the Bear]

I don't know what this is but it's funny.

I have no idea either but thanks anyway.

 

[VivaJesperBlomqvist]

I’m so fecking pissed off. That was not a game we could not afford to lose. Before the bastard WC. Idiots.

 

[Sunny Jim]

Lucky to get away with a 3-1 defeat.

How fecking come? They had 4 shots on target

 

[Sunny Jim]

Fred must feel like a dud. Puts a MOTM performance against Spurs and then Donny takes his place

 

[the_cliff]

Wow. is this what people think? Ok I am delusional. I actually thought we had the better team. If we have a worse team than Vila then why is everyone surprised we got beaten? And how are we ever going to get top 4 if half our team is a worse team than Villa? Lets just accept we are a 6-10th team then and stop complaining

His post is definitely an exaggeration, but honestly I'd rather have Ollie Watkins or Danny Ings starting for us over Ronaldo and I'm sure a lot of people here would share that sentiment.

 

[Cathy Ferguson]

Our squad players such as Donny, Ronaldo, Elanga, Lindelöf, Maguire, Fred are not very good at all.

 

[UpWithRivers]

It was far from our strongest XI though and the result wasn't surprising for some of us before the game.

Do you think Ronaldo offers more than Watkins? Garnacho in his 2nd PL game over Buendia, literally anyone over Van de Beek? Which am I wrong on?

Depends on expected performance to actual performance. We expect Ronaldo to be 10 times the player Watkins is. Even 37 year old Ronaldo. Dalot is better than Matty Cash. De Gea and Matinez you could argue either way but not a lot between them. Lindelof would get in the Villa team easy. Garnacho is a young player so harsh and hard to compare him against a seasoned pro. in theory though even at 18 he could overshadow Buendia. VDB again should be better than the Villa midfielders. Or at the same level as them. And if he's not then Fred/McTominay are.

The fact that they were not as good as Villa wasnt because they were tired or sht players. It was because they didnt play well and our tactics/formation was all wrong. Im pretty sureTen Haag and all the staff and a lot of people expected Man Utd to win because in theory we had the better team. Even with injuries.

 

[AFC NimbleThumb]

It’s the continual multiple goals against the team in losses for me. Squad is full of a bunch of frontrunners.

Honestly can’t see this cycle of wins followed by embarrassing losses ending until a sizeable amount of this squad are sold. They’ve become so accustomed to losing badly, posting a few apologies on social media then winning a few games acting as if they aren’t shite when it matters.

 

[Castia]

Just when it seems we're getting better we still produce shite like today

Really disappointing result on a weekend where other top 4 contenders dropped points.

 

[Leftback99]

Depends on expected performance to actual performance. We expect Ronaldo to be 10 times the player Watkins is. Even 37 year old Ronaldo. Dalot is better than Matty Cash. De Gea and Matinez you could argue either way but not a lot between them. Lindelof would get in the Villa team easy. Garnacho is a young player so harsh and hard to compare him against a seasoned pro. in theory though even at 18 he could overshadow Buendia. VDB again should be better than the Villa midfielders. Or at the same level as them. The fact that they were not was not because they were tired or sht players. It was because they didnt play well and our tactics/formation was all wrong.

How do we 'expect' Ronaldo to be 10x better than Watkins? We know he's completely finished.

Why should VDB be better than the Villa midfielders? Based on what? We know by watching him for 2 years in the PL that he definitely isn't.

We'd love to play against Lindelof, he's terrible.

 

[jackal&hyde]

That’s your own issue. If you didn’t expect losses to shit teams in a transitional season then I don’t really know what to say.

Yes. This is where a big boy is. I just made a point that I'm angry about a result and mister big boy makes a post about rational reason.

Tell me then. Why should we, fans, be happy?

 

[UpWithRivers]

How do we 'expect' Ronaldo to be 10x better than Watkins? We know he's completely finished.

Why should VDB be better than the Villa midfielders? Based on what? We know by watching him for 2 years in the PL that he definitely isn't.

We'd love to play against Lindelof, he's terrible.

Half the world has been banging on that Ronaldo should start. Why? They expect him to be at least close to last seasons performance levels. And that was 18 goals. Watkins has never reached 18 goals and is nowhere near the standard of Ronaldo.

VDB was a world rated midfielder. As in top people in football thought he was a superstar. He won the dutch league and a few cups and was an integral part of a great Ajax team. The Villa midfield are nobodies. Buendia from Norwich, Luiz a Man City failure and Dendonker from Wolves.

Now dont get me wrong. Id bin Ronaldo and VDB for Villa players on current form. But on paper/from past accomplishments etc they should be much better players.

Lindelof is subjective. If you think Mings and Konsa are better than him then i wont fight you but I dont think there is much in it. 6 and two threes. But Id take Lindelof

 

[Solius]

Yes. This is where a big boy is. I just made a point that I'm angry about a result and mister big boy makes a post about rational reason.

Tell me then. Why should we, fans, be happy?

Because we’re playing better than we’ve done in ages. The performance against Spurs was the best in years. All the new signings have looked good, there’s a recognisable style of play and signs that in time it will get even better.

I guess my bad for asking people to be rational. The horror!

 

[Leftback99]

Half the world has been banging on that Ronaldo should start. Why? They expect him to be at least close to last seasons performance levels. And that was 18 goals. Watkins has never reached 18 goals and is nowhere near the standard of Ronaldo.

VDB was a world rated midfielder. As in top people in football thought he was a superstar. He won the dutch league and a few cups and was an integral part of a great Ajax team. The Villa midfield are nobodies. Buendia from Norwich, Luiz a Man City failure and Dendonker from Wolves.

Now dont get me wrong. Id bin Ronaldo and VDB for Villa players on current form. But on paper/from past accomplishments etc they should be much better players.

Lindelof is subjective. If you think Mings and Konsa are better than him then i wont fight you but I dont think there is much in it. 6 and two threes. But Id take Lindelof

That's certainly not the opinion on here and clearly he isn't even at last seasons level, we get more evidence by the week.

On Paper/past accomplishments in weak leagues mean nothing.

 

[NewGlory]

This one was primarily on EtH.

Playing the first team into the ground.
Ronaldo starting and playing the 90 after 3 awful games.
DvB.
Rashford pushed to the right to accommodate those 2 clowns.
Martial as the 10 since Ronaldo cannot be subbed.
Not making a sub after watching the midfield get overrun repeatedly.

Agree with everything except for Rashford. He is more than capable of playing on the right and whichever side he plays, he should have done much better tracking back. I was getting a feeling that he tried his best against West Ham, then he was told he is part of England squad, and in this game he looked like he was saving himself for the World Cup.

 

[jackal&hyde]

Because we’re playing better than we’ve done in ages. The performance against Spurs was the best in years. All the new signings have looked good, there’s a recognisable style of play and signs that in time it will get even better.

I guess my bad for asking people to be rational. The horror!

No. You did good. You did good.

 

[UpWithRivers]

That's certainly not the opinion on here and clearly he isn't even at last seasons level, we get more evidence by the week.

On Paper/past accomplishments in weak leagues mean nothing.

In context with this debate it means everything. On paper/past accomplishments they should be better. In practice they are nowhere near but that was my point. They should be. We cant use the excuse for losing by saying we have a worse team. We should have a better team even with injuries. If people dont think Ronaldo should be shitting all over Watkins then I dont know what to say. If people think Ten Haag put out a team that was worse than Villa and knew he would loose because they are sht. I dont know what to say. They should be better. There is no excuse. Tiredness is not an excuse. Villa are a better team is not an excuse. In my book anyway. That team should have beaten Villa 9 times out of 10.

 

[peridigm]

Fred must feel like a dud. Puts a MOTM performance against Spurs and then Donny takes his place

Fred would have been a much better option over Donny. He or Eriksen could have played the #10 role much better than Donny. Let's hope that was his trial for the remainder of the season. Should not be anywhere near the PL squad. Sell or loan in January if there are any takers.

Ronaldo, I have no words. Such a drop off in a career. You would not expect this from someone with his physique and accolades but it's clear as day. He's done as a top level player. He's delusional if he thinks any CL team is going to want him. He'd have to offer to play for free.

Hopefully Antony and Sancho are fit next week and Martial can start a match.

 

[noodlehair]

One shite decision after another today from ETH:

- Maguire was good against West Ham so let's drop him for today's game.
- DVB was useless v Real Socidead so let's start him again today.
- Fred motm against Spurs, hasn't been seen since.
- Villa park is huge pitch, Villa might be out to show their new manager what they can do so let's play a tired Casemiro and two number 10's alongside him in midfield and leave two midfielders we do have on the bench.... especially when they didn't play on Thursday and might actually be fresh today.
- Don't get me started on the subs both timing and personal.
- He put Ronaldo firmly in his place a couple of weeks ago, let's him back into the of late despite him being absaloutely fecking abysmal and not only that he makes him fecking captain.

Awful management, got every decision wrong.

To be fair I'd give Ten Hag a bye on fecking up the odd game given the mess he's inherited and how well he's done with it so far.

Not that I don't agree with some of this, but then I also think his hands are tied a bit by having a limited squad. I don't think it matters who you pick out of Maguire and Lindelof for example. Either is completely incompetent. If he'd picked Fred or Mctominay and we'd lost that would be used against him. Up front he's already having to play an 18 year old due to injuries. Martial I'm guessing wasn't fit enough to start either. He's been lumbered with the Ronaldo situation.

He also clearly has standards, a way he wants to play and things he expects from players, which means if certain people aren't getting picked I'm willing to accept it might be for a reason.

Also don't think we were that horrendous tactically or played completely awfully. The first and third goals were down to Lindelof defending like a scared child and if you take those moments out we probably go on to win. For me just showed the issue we have with squad depth and also highlighted that our biggest problem last season was at CB amd not CM. We get one injury there and the replacement (both of who were first choice last season) is someone who you know will cost you the game if they have to do anything.

 

[Cathy Ferguson]

I honestly believe that we might have won the game if we had played McTominay in CM and Eriksen as no 10. McTominay had a good start to his season and Donny was poor against Sociedad. Eriksen, Donny and Ronaldo in the same team is utter madness. How can ETH be so naive?

 

[sglowrider]

Basically it was 9 versus the 11 of villa. No surprise that we lost.

Poor call by ETH

 

[r0663664]

Losing is expected given the depth we have and ETH still learning this team. Just frustrated that we are not in top 4 and ability to score more than 2 goals. Now, Martial is fit hopefully Ronaldo can sit bench and sulk. I hope January, funds will be available so ETH can buys 2-3 players. We definitely needs a striker and a midfield. I would recall Diallo back on loan so he can play the role that we spend big money on.

 

[croadyman]

Only scantest consolation is still being within 3 points of top four due to Spurs

 

[MyDevil]

I wanted Fred to start but instead we got the invincible man VDB. ETH could have made it right at half time but chooses to stick with it. Wrong decision.

Rashford on the right always failed but I never trust Elanga there as well.

 

[Zetrio2002]

There was a spirited comeback at the end of the first half and united was still raring to go after being 3-1 down. The result would have been different if Bruno and Varane were playing.

 

[croadyman]

I wanted Fred to start but instead we got the invincible man VDB. ETH could have made it right at half time but chooses to stick with it. Wrong decision.

Rashford on the right always failed but I never trust Elanga there as well.

Yeah this type of game needed Fred,god we are crap in this non TV 2pm Sun kick offs

 

[joedirt87]

That was Moyes-eque today. countless cross after cross. This game so desperately needed an extra man in midfield and ETH refused to do it. How can he continue to play Ronaldo, it is baffling.

 

[redmanx]

It was far from our strongest XI though and the result wasn't surprising for some of us before the game.

Do you think Ronaldo offers more than Watkins? Garnacho in his 2nd PL game over Buendia, literally anyone over Van de Beek? Which am I wrong on?

Van De Beek should be moved out as its pretty clear that he simply hasnt got what it takes, in fact thats been clear for a long time. I was sure Fred would have started, not De Beek.