[Belisarius]

Players ETh has bought:
Onana - played
Malacia - injured
Licha - injured
Amrabat - played
Case - injured
Antony - played
Mount - injured
Eriksen - injured
Hojlund - played

So unless you're livid Bayandir didn't play...not sure you've a leg to stand on

Reading that is a bit shocking in terms of the number of players we've bought who are injured.

 

[Dr Foo]

I just rewatched the match. It was a much improved performance from us, and we really should have scored more, esp first half. We are showing patterns of play in our attack and the effort to press as a team is more sustained. Some worrying points remain:

we haven’t fully capitalised our dominance this season in the periods where we are utterly dominant and keep forcing errors in the oppo’s half. When the Oppo manage to break our press, we are still too open. Our midfield balance needs some tweaking even though it is a welcome change in our play to be more aggressive?

I am not sure if we simply just need more clinical strikers or to know when to go full on pressing mode and when to drop back more. Or is it simply a case of Scott or Bruno needing to continue to adapt their roles as the forward 8s more to press intelligently while not leaving things so open. It will be nice if we can consistently show this level of performance particularly against lower teams but need to wise up (and actually adopt some of our previous effective counter attacking nous) against the stronger sides (Anfield..) otherwise we are gonna wreck up high scores against

 

[justsomebloke]

I think still Erik needs to adjust the setup to accommodate McTominay, maybe Bruno needs to be drop for Mainoo to offer more in ball retention and defending. McTominay can be our second striker getting into the box. As long as Garnacho and Antony provides quality crossing, both Hoijund and McTominay will have their opportunity to terrorised the defence. I really liked Shaw as CB and Reguilon as LB rather than Lindeloft and Shaw. I hope he make these changes this weekend before Liverpool. Knowing Erik, Bruno will continue to play. Lastly, Erik needs to be more generous with his praises, he comes across to strict. I believe a manager whose gives out more praises, motivate players.

Have you noticed the proportion of good attacking sequences that Bruno is involved in? He is the glue and backbone of what offensive game we have. Such a change would be catastrophic.

 

[justsomebloke]

Their xG was 1

Their xG was 2.45 (Understat)/1.5 (Opta)

 

[TheReligion]

Their xG was 2.45 (Understat)/1.5 (Opta)

Yes. So United was 4.5 and theirs was 1.5

 

[Jordan_mufc]

You mean like AWB does?

You know AWB isn't the only option for an upgrade right? There's a transfer window.

 

[zookeeper]

The only bad thing about the match was that Højlund didnt get to take the penalty. I just feel he needs that «one goal» to snowball. His positioning and general play is top notch

 

[justsomebloke]

Yes. So United was 4.5 and theirs was 1.5

Or 2.45, depending on which you use. As opposed to 1. Which is what you wrote.

 

[TheReligion]

Or 2.45, depending on which you use. As opposed to 1. Which is what you wrote.

I guess that 0.5 makes all the difference to some right? Remember. Size doesn’t matter

 

[lex talionis]

Keep in mind our midfield wasn’t at full strength. When you consider it was McTominay and Amrabat v Enzo and Caicedo it’s mind-boggling that Chelsea didn’t bulldoze us into the Stone Age.

The only nitpick I’ve got is our finishing. It has to improve.

Another poster made the point but I’ll make it again. Bruno should have given the pk to Rasmus. The boy needs a goal and although you might think a pk might put too much pressure on him the upside was too much to ignore.

 

[justsomebloke]

I guess that 0.5 makes all the difference to some right? Remember. Size doesn’t matter

I strongly suspect we're right on the brink of having exhausted the potential for useful discussion on this one.

 

[TheReligion]

I strongly suspect we're right on the brink of having exhausted the potential for useful discussion on this one.

Bravo

 

[justsomebloke]

Bravo

And we could of course have avoided it altogether if you'd abstained from posting wrong information. The difference between an xG of 1 and one of 1.5-2.4 isn't trivial.

 

[TheReligion]

And we could of course have avoided it altogether if you'd abstained from posting wrong information. The difference between an xG of 1 and one of 1.5-2.4 isn't trivial.

The take home point here;

United had double, or over double, the xG of Chelsea.

United didn’t scrape a victory. They should have scored more goals.

I’m sure you agree with this. If so we can move along. Thank you.

 

[jackal&hyde]

This was genuinely a very good game from us. I'm actually shocked at how well we moved the ball around and how fluid we were in possession and making chances, especially with the players we had out there. Major credit to the players and the manager here.

 

[Gator Nate]

This was genuinely a very good game from us. I'm actually shocked at how well we moved the ball around and how fluid we were in possession and making chances, especially with the players we had out there. Major credit to the players and the manager here.

Actually, I think it was because of the players we had out there. McTominay, Lindelof, and Maguire aside, the starting lineup was probably about as good a ball-moving team as he could have put out there. And he corrected what he could at halftime, subbing in Reguilon for Lindelof. Martial is great at holdup, but doesn't get much good movement too much of the time. Rashford is great for a fast counter, but once things get jammed up he's not that strong. AWB is great for a fast run down the right into the corner, but he doesn't do much give and go - just straight shots. The rest are injured.

But... put in Eriksen for Scott and you lose the goal threat for 60 minutes... then you lose a man or put Scott in anyway. Same for Mainoo, except maybe for 95 minutes. Casemiro over Amrabat, maybe, and I think Shaw-Martinez will be stronger than Reguilon-Shaw, but I can't really think of any other substitution that would improve what we did there.

If ETH sticks with his second-half lineup to start against Bournemouth, we can be up 3-0 at the half. Then he can sub out to be ready for Bayern.

 

[tomaldinho1]

Reading that is a bit shocking in terms of the number of players we've bought who are injured.

Yep and people wonder why we've looked so poor this season. That's not including the off field drama of Greenwood or Antony or injuries to players he did not buy (Varane, Martial, AWB etc.)