[Strootman's Finger]

What did I just watch? Best performance in ages, already been said, Brentford aside, I just looked at our team, our players, and I haven't seen them come together and play like this in a while. I am thinking Ralf is probably regretting not picking Mata sooner, with Bruno's form lately, and the fact he can't hold possession, I think it would have been interesting to see Mata get a run in the team, for hardly playing all year he looked totally up for it tonight.

I wanted to see Garnacho come on, but I am thinking those subs were done to allow Cavani and Jones say goodbye to Old Trafford. Nice scenes at the end, Matic and Mata saying goodbye, Cavani going for a leasurely walk without picking up an injury. Praying that wasn't the last time we see Ronaldo at Old Trafford, his form is unreal lately, in a team with good service he would easily score 25-35 goals next season.

 

[tentan]

Great win but of course everyone will turn up when there's nothing to play for.

 

[croadyman]

Much better performance but sadly has come around a month too late for top 4

 

[Bastian]

Complete performance from Ronaldo. Apart from a few sensational defense splitting passes from Erikssen, this was a relatively comfortable performance where United were clearly the much better side and some of the attacking play in the final third was something not seen at OT for a few years - composure, cohesion, patience against a deep organised defense.

When the commentators are comparing Rangnick's last 20 matches with Solskjaer's it avoids context. Rangnick to begin with got this team creating more chances than the opposition, which were criminally wasted. Dropping out of the CL made some of the players mentally check out.

Not everyone on show tonight is good enough to be at the club, but I don't think there was one bad apple. Quite refreshing.

 

[croadyman]

Too little too late. Where was the effort when it mattered? Anything they do now shouldn’t be enough to give most of them another season.

Yeah this team bottles too much when the pressure is at his most highest

 

[NewGlory]

Mouthwatering. Not just some lucky 3 points.

 

[yumtum]

These guys can only get their dick hard in the shower, when it comes time to perform they're weak as piss.

Spineless cnuts, said it before, get rid of most of these players, they'd fall to pieces fighting their way out of a paper bag.

 

[Blood Mage]

I also don't think it's a coincidence that as soon as the pressure to get top 4 is off, we pull a big performance out of the bag. Maybe a lot of our players just can't handle pressure.

 

[city-puma]

Couldn’t watch the game live today. But the statistics has,
Shots : 9 to 12
Shots on target : 5 to 4
Possession: 64% vs 36

it doesn’t look like a complete control at all. They must have counter attacked a lot but lack quality in front of goals?

 

[Stig]

We played as a team, played for each other, had a positive attitude, fight and drive throughout and every one of them worked hard on and off the ball.

Matic and Mata did themselves proud and had fitting performances for their last home game at OT.
We just need to find 4 or 5 new players with positive, fighting attitudes like that.

Not have the lazy; disinterested, Rashford and Sancho is like having two extra players.

I have read it a lot on here but only today did I appreciate that Dalot isn't good enough. His crossing is just a huge high punted ball over the top of everyone and too many errors at the back that against a good team would be punished. I see it now; he has to step down or go.

 

[Stig]

Somebody on here made the nice comment the other day that without Harry Maguire our defense was poor, which is a great improvement on shambolic. Same again today, we weren't shambolic and probably went to average.

Not playing Maguire and not being shambolic stops us being in state of panic and disarray whenever we are near our own penalty box, which has to create a more positive atmosphere generally for the players.

 

[kundalini]

Couldn’t watch the game live today. But the statistics has,
Shots : 9 to 12
Shots on target : 5 to 4
Possession: 64% vs 36

it doesn’t look like a complete control at all. They must have counter attacked a lot but lack quality in front of goals?

Brentford's 12 shots consisted of:

- 4 shots from distance including a free-kick from Eriksen that was saved without much difficulty.

- 1 from right on the edge of the area centrally that took two deflections and was ultimately an easy save for De Gea.

- 3 from a tight angle, two that went wide, one of which might have been a goal with a perfect shot, the other two shots would have required a terrible goalkeeping error.

- 1 header from a dangerous cross that went over the bar with De Gea covering it but was a genuine chance though a difficult one

- 3 headers that were never a realistic threat either due to the position or the pace on the cross etc

I thought United over-did the short passing between players. We had a lot of possession but only occasionally turned it into attacks. Ronaldo was careless being offside from Mata's pass, ruling out what should have been a goal from a good move.

 

[Alek M]

Matic was world class tonight.
Bruno was disciplined
Ronaldo solid

so many runs that Ronaldo and Elanga made that nobody hit them. Why?

 

[city-puma]

Brentford's 12 shots consisted of:

- 4 shots from distance including a free-kick from Eriksen that was saved without much difficulty.

- 1 from right on the edge of the area centrally that took two deflections and was ultimately an easy save for De Gea.

- 3 from a tight angle, two that went wide, one of which might have been a goal with a perfect shot, the other two shots would have required a terrible goalkeeping error.

- 1 header from a dangerous cross that went over the bar with De Gea covering it but was a genuine chance though a difficult one

- 3 headers that were never a realistic threat either due to the position or the pace on the cross etc

I thought United over-did the short passing between players. We had a lot of possession but only occasionally turned it into attacks. Ronaldo was careless being offside from Mata's pass, ruling out what should have been a goal from a good move.

Thank you for the description.

 

[Valencia Shin Crosses]

Is Bruno a liability in a midfield 3? A lot more control without him in there.

Always has been. Also Mata showed how to play as a creative player without giving the ball away 40 times a game while "trying things".

 

[Valencia Shin Crosses]

Mata and Matic show what a difference intelligence can make to a football team, if only they had the physicality or pace to go with it.

Worrying Lingard didn’t get on.

Intelligence and technical ability. Two things a lot of other players in the squad sorely lack

 

[Ahmer Baig]

When was the last time Man Utd played without an English player in their team?

Anyone surprised the team played well without the likes of Pogba, Rashford, Shaw, Maguire, Lingard and AWB.

 

[Ahmer Baig]

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

How did he not see that in training? Everyone knows which players were holding the team back. The onus of failure of team not qualifying for CL lies on RR as well for continuously playing these players.

 

[RedDevil@84]

How did he not see that in training? Everyone knows which players were holding the team back. The onus of failure of team not qualifying for CL lies on RR as well for continuously playing these players.

Play Matic/Mata combination for 3 consecutive games and see what happens

 

[DevilRed]

Important to finish strong and take the momentum into the next season.

 

[norm87cro]

When was the last time Man Utd played without an English player in their team?

Anyone surprised the team played well without the likes of Pogba, Rashford, Shaw, Maguire, Lingard and AWB.

You sound as if that is a normal thing for a football club from England. When Wenger overflowed his team with foreigners I was proud our team had british players and we could still be better than Arsenal. But I have to agree that the current set of english players in United isnt very good. But then again we have the likes of Pogba, Lindelof and Fred as well

 

[fergiewherearethou]

This game has been our most consistent 90 minutes of football in one game since Ralf came.
We have managed to:
- Press efficiently and get the ball back quickly in some instances
- Pass the ball in the final third
- Close the gaps between the lines fast enough when they had the ball.
- Win one vs ones
- Have the consistency to play with the same intensity for the whole game
- Avoided silly mistakes
- Looked like a team
- Make 90 mins of football enjoyable for us fans.

Why did it take Ralf so long to come up with is I don't know

 

[crossy1686]

How did he not see that in training? Everyone knows which players were holding the team back. The onus of failure of team not qualifying for CL lies on RR as well for continuously playing these players.

It definitely is but I think people needed to see it. Some of these players have cult status and were undroppable on their £250k a week contracts. Turns out they’re a waste of space

 

[Member 101269]

I’d say it’s a bit late for that now, why weren’t they showing that when it mattered.

whereas I see it as looking at who was playing and who wasn’t..

 

[Billy Bullcrap]

Who were last nights top performer? For me it was Mata, Matic and Ronaldo. 3 quality players at the end of their careers.

 

[mitchmouse]

Much better all round. We were not brilliant, and Brentford were poor, but if we'd played like this against Everton, Lester and Watford, we'd have won those games. It might have even been enough to get past Atletico.

We looked much more balanced with Mata in the midfield and he did more in one game than Pogba did in weeks.. I was never really sure why he didn't get a bit more game time; a few more starts.

Of course, Ronaldo was the MoM (in the final games of the season, I'd love to start with him and Cavani), but I also thought Lindelof was terrific again and he and Varane are clearly the best CB partnership, which I've been saying was probably the case for months. This allowed Scotty to relax more and have a better game. I'm still (very) worried about the fullbacks and Bruno needs a total rest over the summer. He needs to get away and not kick a ball even on a beach for a few weeks so we can see if he is the player he was in his first season or has been "found out" by opponents.

Although DDG is likely to be the player of the season, I think once again we saw that his distribution is nowhere near as good as top PL keepers right now and he still doesn't dominate his area nearly enough for my liking and if everything we hear about ETH is true (not sure it is), he may not be first choice by Christmas if that doesn't improve.

Overall, we were good although we faded for quite a while early in the second half. More and more, I feel Ole didn't get the team fit enough last summer but we should get something out of Brighton and Palace if we play like we did against Brentford. Of course, given our season, that cannot be in any way guaranteed...

P.S .Sky seemed to hint that Jaap Stam might be in line for a job at OT: that would make life interesting for the CBs! And, Eriksen wouldn't be the worst purchase in the world...

 

[Classical Mechanic]

Great win but of course everyone will turn up when there's nothing to play for.

Of course. So many nonsense narratives being drawn from an end of season dead rubber game.

 

[AndySmith1990]

Great win but of course everyone will turn up when there's nothing to play for.

You say that, but I'd be willing to bet we'd not have won so comfortably had Rashford and Pogba started

 

[Classical Mechanic]

You say that, but I'd be willing to bet we'd not have won so comfortably had Rashford and Pogba started

Yet we finished 2nd last season with them last season. We finished ahead of the European champions and Klopp's Liverpool in the league. We were a penalty shootout away from having our best season since Fergie retired. You have to wonder how all that was possible looking at the narratives coming out after beating a bottom half team in an end of season dead rubber.

 

[Ralph1386]

No Maguire. No McFred combo. No Rashford. No Lingard. This had to be one of our best starting eleven. They looked like a team.

 

[crossy1686]

Great win but of course everyone will turn up when there's nothing to play for.

I think it's more a case of the soft arse sulkers who are worried about becoming meme's were all dropped and we just had the professionals on the pitch who care more about their football than anything else.

Shame they can't physically do it anymore otherwise I'm sure they would have played more. Just show's that Ralf did have a plan all along

 

[Ralph1386]

You say that, but I'd be willing to bet we'd not have won so comfortably had Rashford and Pogba started

And Maguire and the McFred combo. I agree with you.

 

[mu4c_20le]

Of course. So many nonsense narratives being drawn from an end of season dead rubber game.

People need to calm down, it was a glorified friendly. You'd think ETH should be building the team around Matic and Mata, the way people are going on about them.

 

[Classical Mechanic]

People need to calm down, it was a glorified friendly. You'd think ETH should be building the team around Matic and Mata, the way people are going on about them.

The team was one player removed from the side that put in a totally gutless performance against Chelsea last week. The key differences being the level of opponent and there was still a chance that we could get top 4 with a win against Chelsea thus putting pressure on the players.

 

[Zlatans Knee]

Why do we constantly have these little patterns of passing the ball 2m back and forth to each other? Do Liverpool and City do that as well? Honest question, I don’t watch their matches but I can’t really see the benefits from it.

 

[Von Mistelroum]

People are surprised (myself included) but look who was left out: Rashford, Lingard, Pogba, Maguire all absent here. The toxic players not on the pitch, and theplayers we had out there included ones who can pass to teammates and who have a good amount of class and ability to read the game with Ronaldo, Mata and Bruno all playing together. We were always likely to play much better passing football and without lazy, disinterested players around we were always going to look more passionate.

Hopefully next season we'll have more of this and we can ship out the ones who bring us down

 

[Djemba-Djemba]

People are surprised (myself included) but look who was left out: Rashford, Lingard, Pogba, Maguire all absent here. The toxic players not on the pitch, and theplayers we had out there included ones who can pass to teammates and who have a good amount of class and ability to read the game with Ronaldo, Mata and Bruno all playing together. We were always likely to play much better passing football and without lazy, disinterested players around we were always going to look more passionate.

Hopefully next season we'll have more of this and we can ship out the ones who bring us down

I'm not sure if Maguire is toxic, he's just terrible.

The other 3 definitely though, and I'd add Martial and Shaw to that group too. No surprise we played well last night with all of them missing.

I think that group of players played a big part in the problems in the dressing room and the general lowering of standards.

 

[captain666]

No Maguire. No McFred combo. No Rashford. No Lingard. This had to be one of our best starting eleven. They looked like a team.

And of course No Pogba too!Very pleasing on the eye for once,Old Boys FC enjoyed their evening.At least some players seem to have been listening to Ralf's mantra.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

I think the idea that this was completely unprecedented or unexpected based on what we’ve seen so far under Ralf is a bit wide of the mark. We’ve seen very similar performances (with different line-ups) in the first half of a good few matches this season. For some reason we’ve never seen those performances continued for a full 90. The goals were well timed last night. Gave us confidence and believe when needed. In similar performances before this we created loads of chances but didn’t take any.

 

[RedIan]

Nice result to wrap up at OT for the season after a woeful year. Brentford were pretty poor allowing us space to pass it around. Mata was superb again his crisp passing seems to spread to others and its a shame he’s not been used more this season.
Ronnie was well up for it and looked a little like his younger self.
Matic I’m going to miss, they really need to fill his boots With a quality CDM.