[Jezpeza]

Asked you a question first.

well you can believe in hypothetical do dah and if buts and maybes. We could win 2 and they lose 2. Then we could pick up 2 more wins all season after that. Your hypothesis is based on future telling.

Or, statistically, which team has been above the other in the table this season? How long for? If we expand the sample size to when the current manager of that club took over do they have more points than them in that period or not? Whats their goal difference? Have they conceded more than us? Have they scored more than us? Theres a reasonably large, factual sample that points one way really.

are you an old timer who still thinks we are an elite club and its a total joke to say that teams consistently performing better than us aren’t better just because of their name?

 

[RedIan]

Horrible performance.
Ten Hag is just a bad manager.
I really dont care if we win or loose anymore.

Martinez and Shaw out and we are back to panic mode defensivly.

please go and support arsenal or someone and leave this for the real fans with united in their blood. Win loose or draw back the team. 3 wins on the bounce, and its all doom and gloom.

 

[stu_1992]

Massive result today. Felt like a crucial one going in, and we finally get an away win against a top 8 team. We definitely seem to have some momentum now, especially going forward and I hope we can ride this out a while and really start to gain some confidence.

Great start to the game and I was delighted we actually consolidated our great start with a goal. Hojlund extending his run was superb as well.

From there we really dropped off and allowed them to play. Cut us open a few times first half and by the time they scored it really felt it was coming. Not that we were ever out of the game. I always felt if one of the quick balls forward for a counter came off then we would kill them.

When our second goal did come, it was a bit of a weird time to be honest. Serious lull in that game at that point. While I didn't agree with Sky saying McTominay on was a move to secure a draw, the game did just die. I did think of we could just get a set piece then we'd have a good chance to win though. Ultimately it wasn't that, but fantastic ball by Dalot and perfect header by McTominay to finish it. Fair play to him, he's come up with a match winner yet again.

 

[Reditus]

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That’s promising, I’d nearly not risk him at Luton next week too

 

[Giggsy13]

Getting tired of watching opposition teams dominating us for the majority of the game. We look like we are their for the taking, and I want us to step up and control games, take authority with our senior players. The amount of times we gave the ball back to Villa, because we'd run out of options. That sort of thing is criminal in a top league. You play it around until you see gaps or spaces to play into. Watching them hoof hopeful balls into the air. Who does that in modern day football? That's championship football. We need to be much better than this.

Want to see us dominate Luton and get a hat full of goals.

Tragic.

 

[Catt]

please go and support arsenal or someone and leave this for the real fans with united in their blood. Win loose or draw back the team. 3 wins on the bounce, and its all doom and gloom.

His username means empty head so might explain the post

 

[Red Royal]

please go and support arsenal or someone and leave this for the real fans with united in their blood. Win loose or draw back the team. 3 wins on the bounce, and its all doom and gloom.

Well said

 

[Steven7290]

I think you misunderstand if you think this lvl of play will give consistent results.
I would rather loose and play consistantly good, than play like this and get odd lucky results.
In my 30+ years of following United, this is the worst version i have seen so far.
Bad manager coupled with unlikable, fotball stupid players.

If we dont make massive changes this summer, nothing will change.
ETH cant even set up a defence properly.

I care about how we will fare in the future but its my job as a supporter to, you know, support the club.
ETH may not be the ultimate answer in the end but as fans luckily we dont have to plan for that. Hell, he was the fans choice before he got here. We have people who is wrongly or rightly doing the planning, we will see how it turns out but come on, if you cant enjoy a win then not much point in fandom

 

[The Brown Bull]

Super win! Not a super performance mind but a super win!
The winner was epic!

 

[Robertd0803]

Get in there.

Feels like a massive win, considering Villa are much better than they used to be and Villa Park has been a shocking away trip for most teams this season.

Great to see Rasmus continuing to score and McTominay with another vital goal. Brilliant cross from Dalot for the goal (and his clearance from Watkins rebound as well, he seems to be everywhere at the moment).

 

[norm87cro]

Undeserved and a bit lucky but I couldn't give a f...
Serves them right for that scummy celebration for 1 1

 

[SalfordRed18]

well you can believe in hypothetical do dah and if buts and maybes. We could win 2 and they lose 2. Then we could pick up 2 more wins all season after that. Your hypothesis is based on future telling.

Or, statistically, which team has been above the other in the table this season? How long for? If we expand the sample size to when the current manager of that club took over do they have more points than them in that period or not? Whats their goal difference? Have they conceded more than us? Have they scored more than us? Theres a reasonably large, factual sample that points one way really.

are you an old timer who still thinks we are an elite club and its a total joke to say that teams consistently performing better than us aren’t better just because of their name?

Not at all. You said villa were a better team and a simply asked are they actually.

Stats paint a picture but don't take everything into account. I do trust stats but they wouldn't take into account injuries for example.

We've actually beaten them twice now and got 6 points from them. You look at their results from their double over city and arsenal in the middle of December, and the only time they were great is the 5-0 against Sheffield.
On the other hand we've seemingly turned a corner this year and picking up good points. Enough to close the gap on them.

I look at united finishing 2nd under Mourinho, Liverpool finished 4th and were a much better team who had a better season. The table doesn't take into account they downed tools in the league that season to concentrate on the CL.

The point I'm making is simply saying they're ahead they must be better, isn't true.

I like villa and at this point in the season I don't think there's much between us but just like we're seemingly coming into form, they could have had a purple patch and dropping out. Bar the Sheffield game, nothing about their last 6 games suggests they're a team in form and better than united.

 

[AndyMUFC]

I’m not going to pretend we were great, we started well and had to deal with a lot of pressure after the goal but we’ve still had 17 shots away from home against a side above us.

After all the terrible away performances we’ve had over the last few years where we’ve barely got our own half, this isn’t the one to get annoyed about!

 

[Pickle85]

Decent away win, that. Not an easy place to go, particularly this season, and we played since nice stuff in parts. Backs against the wall in others, but we hunkered down and ground it out. Happy days.

 

[cpresc]

Massive win yet only 7 pages of comments?

If we'd have lost this, I swear it'd be on 20 pages here.

 

[Amira]

When Luiz did that dance, I just knew we’d nick it!

 

[norm87cro]

When Luiz did that dance, I just knew we’d nick it!

Yeah the ass did his best Padrew impression and the end results were the same.

 

[TheGame]

Does anyone know who this fecker is who is shouting at Hoijlind? Saw it during the match.

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[Irrational.]

This was one of the most satisfying wins against Villa who are by and large a pretty benign team. Emery has, however, transformed them into a bunch of dislikeable clowns. Douglas Luiz and that gobshite who was giving Hojlund grief as he was going off can feck off.

 

[alexthelion]

yeah. I dont actually think we have been better than Sheffield United this year, just fortunately accumulated more points.

 

[Mockney]

Only this side could play pretty well away at a top 6 side and yet still feel like we’d completely fluked that win.

Being positive I thought our passing was so much better than usual and genuinely quite a promising progression… being negative, they could’ve scored about 4 more times than we could’ve

 

[The Brown Bull]

Just heard 47% of Arsenal's goals come from set piece ball.
What are we doing in training that our return from same is so poor?
Up your game boys.

 

[OleGunnar20]

Shiiiitt on the villa ! ..

 

[Belisarius]

My random thoughts after the game are:

1) Hojlund and Varane have been playing pretty regularly for a while. But, adding Maguire for Martinez and Casemiro for Amrabat/Eriksen gives us 4 really tall, physical players and we look so much more dangerous on our corner kicks and so much better defending the opponents. When McTominay comes on to add a 5th player who is good in the air we begin to look really dangerous in these situations.

2) Without Martinez our ability to play out from the back against a high press falls off a cliff. When he and Shaw are both playing we are very good at moving the ball up the left side of the field. But, when Martinez is out we completely lose the ability to do it. Doesn't matter whether he's replaced by Maguire, Lindelof, Evans or Kwambala. None of them are anywhere near his ability at shrugging off a pressing opponent and picking out a forward pass. It has an enormous impact on the overall play of the team. It's a real shame he has been available so little this season.

3) I thought Dalot was very good both in attack and defence this game. He's really quite fast and made some good recoveries on defence. He did have one dangerously poor clearance near the end of the game but I think he was really tired by that point. Despite his effort Villa were having a lot of success attacking the gap between Dalot and Varane and I don't think either Dalot or Varane were to blame. I think either Garnacho or Mainoo or perhaps both were not positioning themselves properly to help defend that space.

4) After they scored, the stadium was really noisy and the crowd was giving lots of energy to the Villa players. They had a couple of chances soon after the goal. But, then Onana took the ball out and just stood on if for about 20 seconds and waited because no Villa player was pressing him. Then Varane and Maguire each did the same thing, rinse and repeat for what seemed like about 5 minutes. At first I was getting really annoyed that no one was showing for the ball. But, then I noticed the stadium had gone completely quiet and we had taken the sting out of the game and the home crowd. Then we went up and scored. I don't know whether they were told to slow things down by ETH or if it was the Madrid players or Onana and Maguire but it was a really pro move to settle things down at that point in the game and not something United has done often in similar situations in recent seasons.

5) Rashford seemed to be trying in the final third today. He was running at the defence and taking people on which was sort of encouraging. But, when we don't have the ball he was still so low energy. A few times our guys would press and make one of their players rush a pass so that the next player receives it in a bad position and makes another poor pass and we begin to look like we've got them under pressure and then they play it out to the player Marcus is covering and he just stands off him and lets the player calmly slow things down and re-set. He must be such a frustrating player to try and press along side. And he makes no effort to challenge for 50/50 balls or even balls that are 25/75 in his favour. So frustrating to watch.

6) I really hope Shaw will be good to go by next weekend.

 

[utdalltheway]

Great win and a much needed 3 points.
We rode lady luck for a while but it’s nice to see that we seem to be better coached now with players running off the ball, creating space. Maguire did well as did Dalot and Onana. Credit where credit is due.

 

[The Irish Connection]

Feckin delighted with that today.
Villa are a good side and we were away.

We always looked threatening on the counter and it’s nice that the front 3 are starting to play a bit now.

Frustrating when we kept giving it back to them in the second half.

Onana had a good game, as did Maguire. Mainoo adds nice composure to us on the ball, played a skillful part in the winning goal.

Hope we can keep the wins going.

 

[bosskeano]

Beat a top 4 side on the road and people are still bitching about it…second half the team shape was so much better and tighter

 

[redmanx]

We're learning to win ugly! A month ago we would have collapsed after that equaliser but now we're learning how to defend and manage games while still offering a threat. But why has it taken so long?
Ive been a big critic of the team and certain individuals like McTominay, Dalot, Maguire, Onanna, Varane, Rashford and Shaw who all, apart from Shaw who was replaced due to injury at HT and Rashford who started well but faded, worked hard and played well today showing some great team work and team ethics. Villa dominated the second half but we took all the points!

 

[always_hoping]

please go and support arsenal or someone and leave this for the real fans with united in their blood. Win loose or draw back the team. 3 wins on the bounce, and its all doom and gloom.

Yes if I had the doom and gloom mindset of Tom I'd probably just following the sport altogether.

 

[big_jeffstar]

please go and support arsenal or someone and leave this for the real fans with united in their blood. Win loose or draw back the team. 3 wins on the bounce, and its all doom and gloom.

Weird isn’t it.. not sure how you can highlight the fact that yet again he doesn’t have his actual first 11 on the pitch. And also use that as a stick to beat him with… odd

 

[EricTheKingTheKing]

Horrible performance.
Ten Hag is just a bad manager.
I really dont care if we win or loose anymore.

Martinez and Shaw out and we are back to panic mode defensivly.

Sod off,
if you don't care, how bout you go have a break mate.

First time United have beaten a decent team away in how long, and you sit there moaning.

sometimes you got to win ugly.
At least it shows that they didn't crumble and get over run - they actually had a crack at them and came away with 3 points.

 

[Demon Barber]

Well, I enjoyed it from start to finish.

I had a jar of jalapenos and 8 cans of supermarket cider.

A splendid afternoon.

Good man! Such a refreshing post.

 

[BorisManUtd]

Im very happy we’re basically at 2xG as an away team at a very difficult place to come. We know we’re a bit too open with the injuries we have and it’s quite clear Lindelof coming on changed things negatively for us. I wonder what the xG angainst us was in the first half versus the 2nd. Injuries have eased but that’s 2 LBs out and Martinez still and our two best defenders in Martinez and Shaw.

Villa absolutely dominated City in that same fixture. The fact we’ve come away with 3 points, quite an even game and with some big names missing is a very good result.

Yeah, totally agree. I'm not an optimist regarding ten Hag's United but some people are too negative. If I hadn't watched the game I'd think it was luckiest win ever reading some of the posts.

 

[RyRy11]

My random thoughts after the game are:

1) Hojlund and Varane have been playing pretty regularly for a while. But, adding Maguire for Martinez and Casemiro for Amrabat/Eriksen gives us 4 really tall, physical players and we look so much more dangerous on our corner kicks and so much better defending the opponents. When McTominay comes on to add a 5th player who is good in the air we begin to look really dangerous in these situations.

2) Without Martinez our ability to play out from the back against a high press falls off a cliff. When he and Shaw are both playing we are very good at moving the ball up the left side of the field. But, when Martinez is out we completely lose the ability to do it. Doesn't matter whether he's replaced by Maguire, Lindelof, Evans or Kwambala. None of them are anywhere near his ability at shrugging off a pressing opponent and picking out a forward pass. It has an enormous impact on the overall play of the team. It's a real shame he has been available so little this season.

3) I thought Dalot was very good both in attack and defence this game. He's really quite fast and made some good recoveries on defence. He did have one dangerously poor clearance near the end of the game but I think he was really tired by that point. Despite his effort Villa were having a lot of success attacking the gap between Dalot and Varane and I don't think either Dalot or Varane were to blame. I think either Garnacho or Mainoo or perhaps both were not positioning themselves properly to help defend that space.

4) After they scored, the stadium was really noisy and the crowd was giving lots of energy to the Villa players. They had a couple of chances soon after the goal. But, then Onana took the ball out and just stood on if for about 20 seconds and waited because no Villa player was pressing him. Then Varane and Maguire each did the same thing, rinse and repeat for what seemed like about 5 minutes. At first I was getting really annoyed that no one was showing for the ball. But, then I noticed the stadium had gone completely quiet and we had taken the sting out of the game and the home crowd. Then we went up and scored. I don't know whether they were told to slow things down by ETH or if it was the Madrid players or Onana and Maguire but it was a really pro move to settle things down at that point in the game and not something United has done often in similar situations in recent seasons.

5) Rashford seemed to be trying in the final third today. He was running at the defence and taking people on which was sort of encouraging. But, when we don't have the ball he was still so low energy. A few times our guys would press and make one of their players rush a pass so that the next player receives it in a bad position and makes another poor pass and we begin to look like we've got them under pressure and then they play it out to the player Marcus is covering and he just stands off him and lets the player calmly slow things down and re-set. He must be such a frustrating player to try and press along side. And he makes no effort to challenge for 50/50 balls or even balls that are 25/75 in his favour. So frustrating to watch.

6) I really hope Shaw will be good to go by next weekend.

Good observations. Point 2 was really highlighted tonight. I feel like a huge priority in the summer would be signing a right cb that has similar abilities to pass the ball out and beat the press. Having Licha in the team we gives us a base amount of ability to get out of trouble but when he's injured it really shows. There was a point in the game where our defenders had the ball in their half about 40 yards out and proceeded to play it between each other until we were pushed back to our own box.

We also have a weird culture of just lumping the ball out of our end when a pass was on, albeit difficult to achieve. Most teams in this league play it out in those situations.

Point 4 is interesting and not something I realised when watching, but makes sense. From the video feed, Villa Park was bouncing today, even after they first went behind. Would be a smart development if that's what we were trying to do. Sometimes it feels like these players don't even consider game management with how they play.

 

[croadyman]

Thought Sky put the curse on us when bringing up that record when leading at Half Time

 

[Gandalf Greyhame]

Some of our players clearly have character, and are trying their best. Onana, Maguire, Dalot, McT and Hojlund all had good games.

Despite the players trying, I thought the performance was very poor. We're fielding close to full strength, and EtH still can't make us look good against top opposition. He seemed tactically helpless watching our midfield get totally bypassed in those long periods of Villa attacks. The subs were defensive gambles (McT worked out, sure) that could have led to more goals by inviting pressure. Our defense seemed clueless in possession, unable to pass out, unable to find a way through.

Good three points, but it's important to stay aware of the distinction between a good result and a good performance. EtH's rarely had the latter this season, and he seems like a one trick pony who's been found out, knows he's been found out, and is unable to adapt.

Don't think he's the man to lead us to future success.

 

[Oscar Bonavena]

That’s promising, I’d nearly not risk him at Luton next week too

Maybe, but Ogbene will skin Lindelof for pace if he's left back. Unless AWB is back and is played as left back, Erik has played him there already this season.

 

[lonelyred]

Feck off Tom Hanks.

This.

 

[suheilsworld]

LB and LW is a concern. I can see fight and determination from everywhere but Rashford just seems to work hot and cold. His inability to be consistent and concentrate throughout the game affects us. Started well but drifted off in the second half. I’m really hoping we try amad on the right and Garnacho back at left and see how this works.
Also, might be important in the long run to rest Shaw at Luton to not impact the season but who do we play there? Lindelof looked at 6s and 7 there. Maybe swap Lindelof and Dalot but that probably nullifies the attacking threat of Dalot having to cut back to cross

 

[Belisarius]

Good observations. Point 2 was really highlighted tonight. I feel like a huge priority in the summer would be signing a right cb that has similar abilities to pass the ball out and beat the press. Having Licha in the team we gives us a base amount of ability to get out of trouble but when he's injured it really shows. There was a point in the game where our defenders had the ball in their half about 40 yards out and proceeded to play it between each other until we were pushed back to our own box.

We also have a weird culture of just lumping the ball out of our end when a pass was on, albeit difficult to achieve. Most teams in this league play it out in those situations.

Point 4 is interesting and not something I realised when watching, but makes sense. From the video feed, Villa Park was bouncing today, even after they first went behind. Would be a smart development if that's what we were trying to do. Sometimes it feels like these players don't even consider game management with how they play.

Yeah, I thought we did it on purpose, but it is possible it was unintentional.