EL D Europa League Round of 32 - 1st Leg

Club Brugge 1:1 Manchester United

Post-match discussion


Thu, 20 February 2020

Betson

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Decent result , away goal is huge. They have to score now which makes a difference, should have more than enough to progress if we start Bruno and Fred the next day.
 

EireRed_GS

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With the amount of games we have happening it was good to get some rotation and give some other lads a run out without completely ballsing it up.

On the other hand this was a perfect example of how bad we are, and have been, in midfield areas. It wasn't until Fred and Bruno came one we looked like a decent functioning team.

I used to think Andreas could turn out to be a great technical player, but hes somehow morphed into a error prone hatchet man who gives the team nothing. And as for Lingard, Im lost for words. Im Hoping he moves on asap to save him further abuse. That was the perfect game for him to show how he could actually be a decent back up player, but only showed how great he was at running about like a headless chicken and losing the ball. If it was down to me, to save embarrassment for the club, neither would play again. But unfortunately we are so short of options, we will see them again soon.

On the plus side, Im hoping we can start getting a run of games with our stronger players, along with the likes of Scott coming back.
 

UnitedSofa

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Redcafe: Why’s he over using Rashford and getting him injured. Our injury record is shocking. Sack him!

Also Redcafe: WHY’S HE NOT PLAYING HIS STRONGEST SIDE AGAIN, NO BACKBONE OLE, NO CONFIDENCE OLE, NO BALLS OLE, SACK HIM, WE’RE CRAP, NO DESIRE!

Played Chelsea 2 Days ago. Playing Watford again in 2 Days.

3 Games in 7 days & some of you want the exact same team to be played every game and then have the audacity to be hypocrites when complaining about injuries.
 
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JJ12

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The Man United way.

Thanks, Ole.
Not sure what’s to be expected when you don’t have a deep squad.

When your squad players are Lingard, Mata and Pereira you really are fecked.
 

Wilt

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Why there isn't a rating pad for the manager? Anyone thinks it's a good idea?
Seems a reasonable idea, I don‘t see why the manager should not receive a rating while his players do.
Although, I get the feeling the (ever decreasing) Ole fan club may not be very supportive :wenger:
 

Gasolin

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What was the formation we were playing in? Shaw was like a central midfielder at times when we had the ball. Think this shape has potential but really needs the front three to be on the money.
It’s basically a 3/4/3, when defending, it becomes 5/3/2 sort of, and when attacking, we become 2/5/3.

Bruno is making the 3 become 1/2 most of the time and it’s providing more options on the ball. The idea is that we attack with full backs or wing backs very high, we will defend a high line, and we will commit 8 players to attack. However we will risk exposing our half spaces behind the wing backs.
 

Infra-red

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Not sure what’s to be expected when you don’t have a deep squad.

When your squad players are Lingard, Mata and Pereira you really are fecked.
Solskjaer has been at the club for three transfer windows. He has to take his share of responsibility for the state of the squad and the resulting team selections.
 

Class of 63

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Seems a reasonable idea, I don‘t see why the manager should not receive a rating while his players do.
Although, I get the feeling the (ever decreasing) Ole fan club may not be very supportive :wenger:
I'd be up for that as long as I and those who share my view got special dispensation to give Ole 15 out of 10 to help balance out those that would give him only 1/10 even if we won a match 3-0 just for giggles
 

Bilbo

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Yeah, who says Ole will put a strong team out next week.

I can expect the same if not worse if Lingard and Perreira ever start together again.

We have just come off a winter break, why not go and finish the tie off in the the first leg and rest in the second?
I think you and I and every other poster on here can only imagine the challenges a manager must face trying to navigate a squad through a season. We've seen how poor some of our fringe players are
 

mitchmouse

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Another mediocre performance from a mediocre team representing what is fast becoming a mediocre club with a mediocre manager. So many of them were adequate or less which isn't good enough for Manchester United. We made a bog-ordinary opposition look dangerous. Having to find comfort in an away goal in Bruges is embarrassing. No way we are beating the likes of Inter in this competition, probably wouldn't beat Arsenal of even Rangers/Celtic with this performance
 

romufc

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I think you and I and every other poster on here can only imagine the challenges a manager must face trying to navigate a squad through a season. We've seen how poor some of our fringe players are
Oh I agree, but lets be honest he hasn't done a good job of it has he?

When you know you have poor fringe players, you have to prioritise.

Prior to xmas PL is priority
Now, it seems we need to treat EL and PL kind of similar as we don't know which might get us CL.

It is clear that the league cup should not be the priority, we started strong team in the league cups from the early rounds.

Liverpool play CL and PL, they play the same team most games. When they do rotate they rotate 2/3 players at a time.

For example, one game Mane and Hendo rotated
another game Salah and Gini

Ole on the other hand has made GK, CB, RB, Cm, RW, LW, CAM changes.

How are you ever going to find consistency if you keep rotating?
 

Bilbo

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Oh I agree, but lets be honest he hasn't done a good job of it has he?

When you know you have poor fringe players, you have to prioritise.

Prior to xmas PL is priority
Now, it seems we need to treat EL and PL kind of similar as we don't know which might get us CL.

It is clear that the league cup should not be the priority, we started strong team in the league cups from the early rounds.

Liverpool play CL and PL, they play the same team most games. When they do rotate they rotate 2/3 players at a time.

For example, one game Mane and Hendo rotated
another game Salah and Gini

Ole on the other hand has made GK, CB, RB, Cm, RW, LW, CAM changes.

How are you ever going to find consistency if you keep rotating?
Another area when a manager cannot win. If he decides to throw out the league cup - 'lowering of our standards. United should be able to compete for all competitions' - we both know it will be said repeatedly.

Reached the semi's of the league cup. Still in the FA Cup and Europe League. 3 points from fourth. People will see it how they want to see it. Some will say he has done well to navigate this squad to be in that position, others will think we should be top 3 and clear of the pack, and also winning cup matches. Its up to the individual
 

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Yeah, who says Ole will put a strong team out next week.

I can expect the same if not worse if Lingard and Perreira ever start together again.

We have just come off a winter break, why not go and finish the tie off in the the first leg and rest in the second?
It didnt even need to be a strong team. Bruno for 45 minutes wouldve put that game to bed.

If Bruno needs rest then why even bring him to Belgium, and if hes carrying something then why are you risking him for 10 minutes.
 

romufc

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Another area when a manager cannot win. If he decides to throw out the league cup - 'lowering of our standards. United should be able to compete for all competitions' - we both know it will be said repeatedly.

Reached the semi's of the league cup. Still in the FA Cup and Europe League. 3 points from fourth. People will see it how they want to see it. Some will say he has done well to navigate this squad to be in that position, others will think we should be top 3 and clear of the pack, and also winning cup matches. Its up to the individual
Yes, I agree that the point would be used against Ole if we got knocked out early.

He has done well to navigate certain aspects, but lets also be honest, we should have picked up at least another 9 points this season.
 

Paul the Wolf

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Just got to watch it.
Seeing Lingard, Pereira and Mata on the teamsheet at the same time was a frightening prospect.
Obviously resting players for the PL but...

First half only Martial and Shaw deserve any credit. Defence were poor. Dalot and Pereira on the right and Williams and Lingard on the left were bad going forward and bad going backwards.
Goal conceded was pathetic.

After Martial had a bit of individual class and scored we got better but no service going forward. Only Shaw and Mata trying to make things happen. After Fred and Bruno came on we completely dominated and could have nicked it.

Get McT and/or Pogba back and hopefully never see Lingard/Pereira again , at least not together. Play a bit stronger team in the return leg.
 

Pexbo

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Evra is convinced he’s a LB and he has asked Ole to trust him on this one.
You're going to have to do more than that to convince K_Ash from the interwebs.
 

Bilbo

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Yes, I agree that the point would be used against Ole if we got knocked out early.

He has done well to navigate certain aspects, but lets also be honest, we should have picked up at least another 9 points this season.
I agree, and I think with slightly better luck with injuries we would be in the top 4 this morning. Easy to say that I know, and every team suffers with injuries, but I think we've been hard done by in that area so far.
 

romufc

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I agree, and I think with slightly better luck with injuries we would be in the top 4 this morning. Easy to say that I know, and every team suffers with injuries, but I think we've been hard done by in that area so far.
I think so too, just when players hit form they get injured. Most teams have injuries and alot of teams have injuries to fringe players.

E.g. Dalot / Tuanzebe / Bailly injured for periods has had an affect in terms for rotation but they are not crucial injuries like to Martial, Rashford, McT, Pogba.

Maguire is our only real core player to escape from injury this season.
 

SoCross

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Shaw was the third central defender, but was definitely the one given the license to push up. I don’t have a problem with it, I really don’t like it when we play three actual centre backs, not many teams do that anymore.

Not convinced any of our wing backs are attacking enough to play the system effectively though.
Hmm possibly but theoretically both Williams and Dalot are offensive players. Both had poor games last night. AWB did show some glimpses against Chelesea however. Worth persisting in this system. Too bad Rashford is injured.

It’s basically a 3/4/3, when defending, it becomes 5/3/2 sort of, and when attacking, we become 2/5/3.

Bruno is making the 3 become 1/2 most of the time and it’s providing more options on the ball. The idea is that we attack with full backs or wing backs very high, we will defend a high line, and we will commit 8 players to attack. However we will risk exposing our half spaces behind the wing backs.
Yeah it was pretty much Maguire & Lindelof with Matic screening. Risky given that both the central defenders lack pace. A fit and firing Bailly could come in handy. Worth persisting with this system for a while longer.
 

Dr. Dwayne

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I was originally working while catching bits of the match earlier, but I've just watched the full match now and I have to say we were alright considering the crap pitch and weather.
Some rain alright. Brugge is a proper old school European club. Felt like the swinging 90s again. Would have preferred a win but with that line up a draw is just about good enough.
 

Full bodied red

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As some others have posted, the qualities ( or lack of ) of Lingard and Pereira have never been easier to see than the immediate improvement in everything we did after Fernandes and Fred came on.

I know they are squad players these days but would either of them, let alone both of them, be even squad players at any other Top 10 club in Europe ?

Watching them struggle last night against the mighty Brugges was an insult to our club, its history and its millions of fans.
 

always_hoping

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Watching them struggle last night against the mighty Brugges was an insult to our club, its history and its millions of fans.
Did you feel the same about the 1st leg v Anderlecht that ended 1-1 in 2017?

Struggles happen and even under Ferguson United had to take European exits on the chin to the mighty Galatasaray,Rotor Volgograd, Athletic Bilbao, Basel to name but a few.
 

Infra-red

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Ole isn't the person who takes an entire window just to negotiate with 1 Player.
The responsibility for the dreadful state of the squad does not entirely lie with him, of course. Woodward and Mourinho must also share some portion of the blame.
 

gerdm07

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That was a fun match to watch.....when Bruno came on. Ole shaded it with putting out a team that would get a just good enough result.

I think I'm ready to say the Bruno is our best player now. Pogba, at his best, is slightly better but we just don't see Pogba at his best enough times. I'm hoping Bruno will give incentive to Pogba to play well consistently.

I felt sorry for Williams and I'm surprised he wasn't taken off. There was a period when he couldn't do anything right. As a former player I know that feeling and it's tough to take.

The away goal should see us through if we play a good team on the return match.
 

sunama

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The responsibility for the dreadful state of the squad does not entirely lie with him, of course. Woodward and Mourinho must also share some portion of the blame.
Mourinho's squad got us 2nd place.

You have 2 options:
1, Jose's squad was terrible, but Jose was some sort of World Class genius to get them to 2nd place
2, Jose's squad was actually "okay", not great, but "okay" and Jose did an "okay" job to get us 2nd. But Ole, has taken Jose's "okay" squad and gone backwards, taking us to 7th place in the league, which is where we currently are.

Which is it?

Regarding Woodward - I do agree, he is underperforming big time and should be thankful to have a job.
As a DoF, he is terrible. Nobody would argue otherwise.
On the commercial side - he is no genius (which is what some people on here suggest).
He is actually pretty bad at all his jobs. It doesn't take a genius to sell sponsorship for one of the biggest brand names in World football. This is quite easy to do. The big brand name sells itself. Now, if Woodward were to sell sponsorship deals for say Rotherham Utd - that will be one heck of a job to achieve sponsorship sales.
[An analogy would be for a phone salesman who sells the Apple Iphone. It won't require "selling". People will queue up to buy this item. On the other hand, to sell a phone brand which nobody has ever heard of - this will require a lot of sales work to persuade the customer to buy the phone].
 

OoopsMisclick

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Sad day when flemish media was making fun of our club.
General feeling was that Club Brugge was the better team and they should have won 2-0.

3 more months :)
 

bsCallout

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Redcafe: Why’s he over using Rashford and getting him injured. Our injury record is shocking. Sack him!

Also Redcafe: WHY’S HE NOT PLAYING HIS STRONGEST SIDE AGAIN, NO BACKBONE OLE, NO CONFIDENCE OLE, NO BALLS OLE, SACK HIM, WE’RE CRAP, NO DESIRE!

Played Chelsea 2 Days ago. Playing Watford again in 2 Days.

3 Games in 7 days & some of you want the exact same team to be played every game and then have the audacity to be hypocrites when complaining about injuries.
See this ALL THE TIME.

He literally cannot win with these fans. "Why put out dross", "Why is he playing our best players against these", "Why didn't he bring so and so on", "Why did he bring him on just to get a winner against these and risk an injury".

Zzzzz
 

Gasolin

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Mourinho's squad got us 2nd place.

You have 2 options:
1, Jose's squad was terrible, but Jose was some sort of World Class genius to get them to 2nd place
2, Jose's squad was actually "okay", not great, but "okay" and Jose did an "okay" job to get us 2nd. But Ole, has taken Jose's "okay" squad and gone backwards, taking us to 7th place in the league, which is where we currently are.

Which is it?

Regarding Woodward - I do agree, he is underperforming big time and should be thankful to have a job.
As a DoF, he is terrible. Nobody would argue otherwise.
On the commercial side - he is no genius (which is what some people on here suggest).
He is actually pretty bad at all his jobs. It doesn't take a genius to sell sponsorship for one of the biggest brand names in World football. This is quite easy to do. The big brand name sells itself. Now, if Woodward were to sell sponsorship deals for say Rotherham Utd - that will be one heck of a job to achieve sponsorship sales.
[An analogy would be for a phone salesman who sells the Apple Iphone. It won't require "selling". People will queue up to buy this item. On the other hand, to sell a phone brand which nobody has ever heard of - this will require a lot of sales work to persuade the customer to buy the phone].
You're missing one thing though. If that squad was OK, then why was Mourinho 7th in December? I think Jose has a way of antagonizing the squad that doesn't work anymore. It doesn't mean the other managers are not strict, but there are differences. And the choice of having Lukaku in this role up there while asking him to do a Zlatan type of job was the biggest mistake for me.
 

Infra-red

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Mourinho's squad got us 2nd place.

You have 2 options:
1, Jose's squad was terrible, but Jose was some sort of World Class genius to get them to 2nd place
2, Jose's squad was actually "okay", not great, but "okay" and Jose did an "okay" job to get us 2nd. But Ole, has taken Jose's "okay" squad and gone backwards, taking us to 7th place in the league, which is where we currently are.

Which is it?

Regarding Woodward - I do agree, he is underperforming big time and should be thankful to have a job.
As a DoF, he is terrible. Nobody would argue otherwise.
On the commercial side - he is no genius (which is what some people on here suggest).
He is actually pretty bad at all his jobs. It doesn't take a genius to sell sponsorship for one of the biggest brand names in World football. This is quite easy to do. The big brand name sells itself. Now, if Woodward were to sell sponsorship deals for say Rotherham Utd - that will be one heck of a job to achieve sponsorship sales.
[An analogy would be for a phone salesman who sells the Apple Iphone. It won't require "selling". People will queue up to buy this item. On the other hand, to sell a phone brand which nobody has ever heard of - this will require a lot of sales work to persuade the customer to buy the phone].
I don't disagree with any of your Woodward assessment.

In terms of your first question, I would have to go with option '2'.
 

lysglimt

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DDG, AWB, Pogba, McT, Fred, Bruno, Rashford, Tuanzebe and Greenwood all injured or rested. Match against Chelsea 70 or so hours earlier - match against Watford 70 or so hours later - this game was all about getting some kind of result with as many players as possibly rested

Did we play well ? Of course not - but we got a result and that was all that mattered. Now we should qualify with a slightly stronger side next week. Anything else is besides the point
 

gerdm07

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Sad day when flemish media was making fun of our club.
General feeling was that Club Brugge was the better team and they should have won 2-0.

3 more months :)
And yet we will most likely have the last laugh when we go through. Who cares?
 

OJKernow

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Decent enough result when you take into account the much needed rotation ahead of the weekend. If we hadn't beat Chelsea on Monday I think we would have gone full-strength, but with top 4 wide open that has to be the priority in terms of CL qualification (Of course any silverware would be very welcome but cup competitions are unpredictable)

Thought Shaw, Martial and Bruno when he came on all played well, underwhelming from most of the rest and a dull watch to be honest. But a win and into the next round next week and we won't care.
 

Full bodied red

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Did you feel the same about the 1st leg v Anderlecht that ended 1-1 in 2017?

Struggles happen and even under Ferguson United had to take European exits on the chin to the mighty Galatasaray,Rotor Volgograd, Athletic Bilbao, Basel to name but a few.

Sorry if what I mean isn't clear.

I was talking / bitching about the two players - Lingard and Pereira. Not jumping on the bandwagon of hatred and dislike for them, but I just have no idea what has happened to turn Lingard from an OK player into the awful, awful player he has now become, and I never saw any potential in Pereira, ever, and can't understand why both of them are still hanging around OT like a morning-after-a-vindaloo-the night-before fart in a phone box.

As far as the overall team performance went, I wasn't pleased with the result but given the starting eleven, not unhappy.
 

Player Ratings

5.0 Total Average Rating

Highest Rated Player

Lowest Rated Player

Compiled from 209 ratings.

Score Predictions

154,20,41
  • Man Utd win
  • Brugge win
  • Draw

Detailed Results

  • 33% Brugge 0:2 Man Utd
  • 16% Brugge 1:1 Man Utd
  • 13% Brugge 1:2 Man Utd
  • 11% Brugge 0:1 Man Utd
  • 7% Brugge 0:3 Man Utd
  • 5% Brugge 1:3 Man Utd
  • 4% Brugge 1:0 Man Utd
  • 4% Brugge 2:1 Man Utd
  • 3% Brugge 0:0 Man Utd
  • 1% Brugge 1:4 Man Utd
  • 1% Brugge 0:5 Man Utd
  • 1% Brugge 2:0 Man Utd
  • 0% Brugge 5:0 Man Utd
  • 0% Brugge 2:4 Man Utd
Compiled from 215 predictions.
Show more results Score Predictions League Table

Match Stats

  1. Brugge
  2. Man Utd
Possession
40% 60%
Shots
10 16
Shots on Target
4 4
Corners
4 5
Fouls
15 9

Referee

Aleksey Kulbakov