[DomesticTadpole]

I've often thought this, when I watch games from 20 years everything seems like it's done much quicker, it's combative and the game swings end to end more frequently. I watched Utd vs Real Madrid where Ronaldo scored the hat trick a while back. A relentless game of football.

The game now is more controlled, more considered approach, probably is more high intensity running and bursts, but overall all the football doesn't feel much faster.

Pep Guardiola has probably had a lot to do with slowing the game down. Clubs have got obsessed with holding onto the ball, you can keep the ball but there is no reason not to progress it with speed, now it is constant passing backwards and sideways to apparently tire the other team out.

 

[RedDevilRoshi]

Pretty much called it at HT that this game had 0-0 written all over it. We probably just ever so slighlty shaded it but overall neither team deserved to win that game. The game was more a must win for them than it was for us. Our main one is on Thursday and they are battling for a CL postion for next season with 2-3 other clubs. I was surprised as to how safe Pep played it considering our woeful home record. A sense of don't do anything risky & just stay solid in your shape. Will happily leave OT with a point.

 

[Jacob]

Didn't watch the game despite having time and awareness about it.

Think I've sadly reached a point where I no longer can call myself a fan.

 

[U-N-I-T-E-D]

Didn't watch the game despite having time and awareness about it.

Think I've sadly reached a point where I no longer can call myself a fan.

How come?

 

[Pogue Mahone]

I've often thought this, when I watch games from 20 years everything seems like it's done much quicker, it's combative and the game swings end to end more frequently. I watched Utd vs Real Madrid where Ronaldo scored the hat trick a while back. A relentless game of football.

The game now is more controlled, more considered approach, probably is more high intensity running and bursts, but overall all the football doesn't feel much faster.

You can track it back to when they got rid of the back pass rule. For a while that cause a big increase in intensity because there was no “safe” option for central defenders to pass too. Gradually all the keepers got replaced with footballers and even the weakest teams are perfectly comfortable knocking the ball around at the back. It’s happened at every level of football. We can’t put that genie back in the bottle without another radical rule change.

 

[Zed 101]

Garnacho is just such a pointless player, he is exciting for 20 yards and then zero end product, unless he can start producing may as well sell him because when we do get somebody in who does have an end product he will be benched and then his value will plummet

Overall another really good performance following on from Notts Forrest, we probably should have edged the win based on the balance of chances, and if we had players capable of finishing we probably would have won.

 

[Regalia]

Two pennies worth. As a foreign fan who’s fortunate enough to have attended Old Trafford and Wembley for United multiple times, I’ve been upset when watching on TV and seeing infrequent match goers not chant, wear half-and-half scarves etc. Even worse, I’ve seen rows of people sat down during “stand up if you hate Glazers”. I believe that many United fans who attend OT on a game-by-game basis don’t even know who the Glazers are, and that’s absolutely rubbish.

Personally, I’ve made it my mission every time I’ve been to converse with the locals, who have been utterly excellent with me to a man. The old man, who’s been going to games since the 80s, sat next to me in the Stretford End when we beat West Ham 3-0 last year was one of the nicest people I’ve met in England. I also try to support the team to the best of my ability. After the final against City last year, I genuinely thought I had messed up my lungs. It felt like I was being punched in the chest every time I tried to swallow my curry the next day.

However, we are by far the biggest club in England, and through my red-tinted glasses, marginally the biggest in the world. As such, you have to accept that there will be people from overseas who are willing to pay more than you to watch a game, regardless of whether they are doing it as a fan who watches every game and loves the club as much as you like myself and my family, or tourist with the sole intent of getting a good Instagram post after the game. Also, I categorically disagree with you that international fans should be limited, almost like a quota. That part of your post is the one bit that’s wound me up. At best, it makes you sound like you either have a closed shop mentality. At worst….I have absolutely no desire to accuse you of anything sinister, but the worst case scenario really does make you look bad. Your passport does not automatically make you a better fan than ANYONE else, your actions do.

Probably the wrong thread for all this, but it had to be said.

Well said, mate. Saying 'foreign fans' are worse or don't add to the atmosphere reeks of exactly the bolded part. Best case it's at least Top Red syndrome where locals think just because they were born in Manchester or the UK it makes them better United fans. Rubbish. My equally ignorant and xenophobic response to people who think like that would be "United would not be the club it is today, size-wise and financially, without the support of international fans".

 

[Red00012]

Just seen that Garnacho chance again . Why is he throwing his head at it , it’s set up for a perfect side foot in the net . He may have seen it late / not expected it to come to him maybe

 

[Jacob]

How come?

The whole era under the Glazers has taken a toll. My sense of affiliation has slowly eroded with time as I sympathize less and less with the players. I'm not entertained when I watch United anymore, it's a chore.

For some it's only natural that the interest fades as you age, maybe that's what happened to me in addition to the above.

When I was younger I watched every knock-out CL game that I could. Fast forward a few years and it was only United games. Then it was only United games when I felt bothered, and now I rather play Rocket League than watch games.

The only real positive for me is that we've started to chase young potential superstars again, the likes of Yoro, Heaven, Chido etc.

 

[Oranges038]

You can track it back to when they got rid of the back pass rule. For a while that cause a big increase in intensity because there was no “safe” option for central defenders to pass too. Gradually all the keepers got replaced with footballers and even the weakest teams are perfectly comfortable knocking the ball around at the back. It’s happened at every level of football. We can’t put that genie back in the bottle without another radical rule change.

It's kind of like what they did with gaelic football, trying to force a return to an older style game and remove the boring sideways passing and teams holding onto the ball forever without ever going forward. Making the kick outs go longer to make the game more about high fielding and winning midfield battles again.

Maybe they need to change it again, so that now, the keepers have to pick up a back pass and have to just punt the ball high beyond the half way line again.

 

[U-N-I-T-E-D]

The whole era under the Glazers has taken a toll. My sense of affiliation has slowly eroded with time as I sympathize less and less with the players. I'm not entertained when I watch United anymore, it's a chore.

For some it's only natural that the interest fades as you age, maybe that's what happened to me in addition to the above.

When I was younger I watched every knock-out CL game that I could. Fast forward a few years and it was only United games. Then it was only United games when I felt bothered, and now I rather play Rocket League than watch games.

The only real positive for me is that we've started to chase young potential superstars again, the likes of Yoro, Heaven, Chido etc.

It’s football though mate. We’ve been spoiled by trophies. Can’t support them when they’re mint and then not bother when they’re shit.

So many clubs have it worse than us.

 

[Maticmaker]

Watching that game in brilliant sunshine well it was at least worth turning out to watch at OT, if it had been pouring down, well it was not worth getting wet for!

We probably had the better of the chances, such as they were; two good shots stopped by Onana, were possibly City's best chances.
Didn't think any United player had a really bad game, but some disappointed in a number of well-known situations, throughout.

Not a derby to live long in the memory for either set of fans.

All that derogatory shouting about an opposing players family member... come on lads/lassies we at OT are better than that..!!

 

[Jacob]

It’s football though mate. We’ve been spoiled by trophies. Can’t support them when they’re mint and then not bother when they’re shit.

So many clubs have it worse than us.

I've been supporting during the entire Moyes, LvG and Moruinho eras.

Gibson and Oshea in centre mid and all that.

Its not about trophies.

 

[Nobby style]

The comments are shocking really. Think we played pretty well and should habe won the game. But its clear we need someone instead of Garnacho and a striker that would completely change the results of such games. Garnacho needs to be sold as soon as possible, horrible player really. How often this season has he cut in from the left and tried to shoot with his right foot? Like 150 times? And scored like 1 or 2

But we are clearly improving and luckily players are coming back from injury.

Yeah, I'm a bit taken back by the comments, though not surprised with this lot. Enjoyed that match, thought we played well with some moments of great footie, and created loads of decent chances. Ya might say City were shite, but you could also say we shut them down. The Argie announcers here in South America thought it was a great derby, especially the second half.

Clearly the same problem exists that everyone knows, that no one outside Bruno can be counted on to score. And continued poor decision making in the final third. But it's clear Amorim has shored up our midfield and defense. Casemiro was great and should be seriously considered for another year. And we have to go big on a 20 + goal striker. Think it might be time to cash in on the frustrating Garnacho, and hopefully sell Rashford and Sancho for a bit more than peanuts. An effective striker and a strong midfield replacement for Erickson would be fantastic.

A year more to adjust to Amorim's system, with Amad coming back, and for Licha and Mount and Shaw staying healthy (huge ask), we could challenge next season with that 20+ goal scorer.

 

[Alemar]

Our main one is on Thursday and they are battling for a CL postion for next season with 2-3 other clubs.

We are also battling for a CL position - but via winning EL, so it’s not a big difference. It’s just that City have a chance for EL spot as well, while we don’t

 

[Mockney]

I've been supporting during the entire Moyes, LvG and Moruinho eras.

Gibson and Oshea in centre mid and all that.

Its not about trophies.

Gibson & O Shea exclusively played in super successful Fergie-era sides. Enduring unfashionable line ups isn’t exactly suffering through the hard times.

 

[U-N-I-T-E-D]

Gibson & O Shea exclusively played in super successful Fergie-era sides. Enduring unfashionable line ups isn’t exactly suffering through the hard times.

Agreed.

We could get relegated to the Championship and I’d still go, better chance of getting a ST too.

Wish my 7 year old lad could have seen some of the glory days, mind.

 

[Valencia Shin Crosses]

You can track it back to when they got rid of the back pass rule. For a while that cause a big increase in intensity because there was no “safe” option for central defenders to pass too. Gradually all the keepers got replaced with footballers and even the weakest teams are perfectly comfortable knocking the ball around at the back. It’s happened at every level of football. We can’t put that genie back in the bottle without another radical rule change.

I do think they need to do something to open up the game again. It's been said a million times but it is sort of gross how important just being a good athlete is without even needing to be anything special as an actual footballer. No one enjoys watching a great pressing structure and a million scrappy duels in the middle of the park. It's nice for a heated derby or rivalry, but in general it just makes the contest less about football and more about just running until one team fecks up and a goal is scored.

Whatever they can do to punish some of this emphasis on running around like maniacs, and bringing back actual footballing quality to the forefront. Someone like Cherki costing a third of what Mason Mount costs is sort of everything wrong with the modern game in my eyes (yes I know there are other obvious reasons for the price discrepancy, but it's just an example given Cherki is clearly a better pure footballer but Mount is the far better athlete).

 

[M Bison]

I thought Neville summed it up well.

 

[ThinkTank@Cafe]

We bought a perfect striker. In 2 pieces: one with all the physical attributes and the other with all technical. Mentals are split evenly between them.

 

[justsomebloke]

I'm taking the positives from this one. Where we are at this time, it's mainly about progress, and I think in our last two games, against two of the better teams in the PL, we have looked the stronger team overall. As disappointing as it is that we emerged from those with no goals scored and only 1 point, things look to be moving in the right direction.

The EL is where we need the results.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

I'm taking the positives from this one. Where we are at this time, it's mainly about progress, and I think in our last two games, against two of the better teams in the PL, we have looked the stronger team overall. As disappointing as it is that we emerged from those with no goals scored and only 1 point, things look to be moving in the right direction.

The EL is where we need the results.

I like this glass half full assessment. I’ll go with it too.

 

[justsomebloke]

I do think they need to do something to open up the game again. It's been said a million times but it is sort of gross how important just being a good athlete is without even needing to be anything special as an actual footballer. No one enjoys watching a great pressing structure and a million scrappy duels in the middle of the park. It's nice for a heated derby or rivalry, but in general it just makes the contest less about football and more about just running until one team fecks up and a goal is scored.

Whatever they can do to punish some of this emphasis on running around like maniacs, and bringing back actual footballing quality to the forefront. Someone like Cherki costing a third of what Mason Mount costs is sort of everything wrong with the modern game in my eyes (yes I know there are other obvious reasons for the price discrepancy, but it's just an example given Cherki is clearly a better pure footballer but Mount is the far better athlete).

Maybe it wasn't a great idea to increase the bar for calling fouls? That hands an advantage to athleticism, and makes life considerably more difficult for technically gifted players who tend to want to hang onto the ball until they can do something creative with it. Doing that is now difficult and risky - you have got to execute quickly. Nobody likes to see the game broken up with lots of free kicks, but there's a cost to letting it flow too.

 

[mctrials23]

Its people with very poor memories of the past 20-30 years. Football isn't dull these days compared to back in the day. We all have a tendency to remember the (shockingly) memorable parts of seasons, reigns, styles of football. We played some utter dross under Ferguson. For years we barely bought a midfielder despite crying out for them. We won games and titles because we simply had better players than most teams and were more effective. We were god awful to watch unless all you cared about was the result.

Gary Neville played in plenty of absolutely turgid United games in Europe especially. United didn't always play to win games over everything else. Yes derby's meant more back then but trying to kick 7 shades of shit out of each other now is unacceptable and just leads to red cards.

He was in a fantastically successful United team that expected to beat most teams and was usually the dominant team in most games. Of course things were different for him. United aren't in that position and the general quality in the league now vs when he was playing is miles better. You can't play gung ho football unless you are utterly dominant. If you transported some of the sides he played in to the current game they would have the quality but get absolutely found out by tactically astute teams.

We've seen quite a few of the smaller teams play devil may care football and they are now in the Championship. Good to watch...but relegated. If you don't have the ingredients to play in a certain way then doing it anyway doesn't usually end well.

 

[Jeffthered]

I watched the game, I was slightly worried that Citeh' may turn in a bit of a show, but in fact we ended up the better side. They controlled the first 45mins.. we took second half. But it wasn't much of a game, for sure.

Good to see Mount and Shaw.. can they fire us to Europa glory?

But we are playing in a more organised way, which is good. But we lack attacking talent. It's unreal. We just don't have many players who look like they can cause the other defences problems. Man Utd have always, always had attacking talent. But now...man... it's so toothless.

 

[RedDevilRoshi]

We are also battling for a CL position - but via winning EL, so it’s not a big difference. It’s just that City have a chance for EL spot as well, while we don’t

Yeah that is what I meant by saying our priority is this Thursday - that's the only meaningful thing we have left to play for this season. City had more to play for in this game as they can only qualify for the CL by finishing in the top 4 (more likely top 5). They treated it like a testimonial.

 

[JBG]

One thing that's very annoying and a huge issue with our crop of players, is that if a chance doesn't fall to Bruno or Højlund (to a lesser extent, but he is sadly one of our better finishers), our chances of scoring falls drastically. Garnacho needs about 15 shots just to hit the target, Dorgu either hits it too soft or way off target, Zirkzee hits the target, but again mostly soft shots imo. Ugarte and Casemiro are also very up and down with their shots. Dalot is very unpredictable, not in a good way.

So it falls down to Bruno and Højlund, mostly Bruno, if we want a bigger chance of scoring.
New attackers that can score are badly needed.

 

[simplyared]

For once throughout the game it never felt like we were going to get battered. I wasn't on pins waiting for their 1st goal to go in and then the avalanche. In fact you could argue we were the better team. We have definately improved in every area apart from in and around the oppositions box. We look a lot fitter as well and almost every player putting a shift in. Yes not the same citeh as they were before. However plenty of positives to take from it.

 

[Maticmaker]

I thought Neville summed it up well.

Yea, I agree, Gary doesn't always make sense, but today was a good day for him, he made complete sense......
(never thought I would ever think that about Gary, let alone put into print...wow!)

 

[Jacob]

Gibson & O Shea exclusively played in super successful Fergie-era sides. Enduring unfashionable line ups isn’t exactly suffering through the hard times.

Started following United since Cantona until now. Its not exactly been rainbows and sunshine all this time.

 

[Mockney]

Started following United since Cantona until now. Its not exactly been rainbows and sunshine all this time.

I mean, it objectively has compared to virtually any other club… particularly in England. Even in our shit banter decade we’ve won 5 major trophies and got to 4 other finals.

 

[Posh Red]

Started following United since Cantona until now. Its not exactly been rainbows and sunshine all this time.

So you started watching United just as they were entering an unprecedented period of success that endured for about twenty odd years, followed by ten poorer years, but still winning the odd trophy every couple of years?

 

[RedDevilRoshi]

Started following United since Cantona until now. Its not exactly been rainbows and sunshine all this time.

Disagree with that in bold. It's been more rainbows and sunshine than it has been than anything else during yours and my period of supporting the club. As another supporter mentioned, we have been massively spoilt with success and privileged to have witnessed those title and CL wins. Even in this post Sir Alex period we have still won the odd occasional trophy here and then. It's this late 2000s, early 2010s growing up that have had it not as good as they haven't witnessed anything near the amount of success that we did growing up supporting the club.

 

[DJ_21]

Clattenburg saying we should have had a pen against city on the Casemiro foul. How many times are we going to see refs make mistakes and then another saying it should have been a pen.

 

[BorisManUtd]

Clattenburg saying we should have had a pen against city on the Casemiro foul. How many times are we going to see refs make mistakes and then another saying it should have been a pen.

I don't remember that incident at all. When was it?

 

[Hughie77]

It was a bit boring as a Derby saying that what did you expect We can't score and City are poor.
I think we had the better chances but could do anything . Zirkzee shot was maybe best.

 

[MalaysianRed7]

I respectfully disagree. I wouldn’t expect to get a PSG ticket easier than a Parisian, or a Barca ticket easier than a Catalonian.

I would fully expect the games to be filled in the majority by locals with a limited number of seats available to those using it as a tourist attraction (not including yourself in that if you make the effort to join in).

That’s not a racial thing, for me it applies to people from the South who have season tickets and sell them all season to day trippers. Other than the money they spend, most offer nothing in the ground on a game day.

Edit: To clarify, I have no problem with any fan if they actually support the team and improve the atmosphere. It’s selling higher priced tickets to tourists that come fore the spectacle or Instagram posts. I’d rather have passionate, singing fans in the ground

I completely agree with this. I don’t have much time for genuinely tourist fans who come to the ground and make no effort to learn about the club, be it via walking through the Munich tunnel, joining a protest, immersing themselves with the locals etc. Indeed, I wouldn’t expect a PSG ticket if I was directly competing with a Parisian who’s been going all his life for one either. It’s just the quota on international fans bit of your previous post that irked me, especially with the current ongoings of the world that I will absolutely not pollute the football forum with further.

I have to specify again though, I was absolutely not accusing you of racism, and am very happy that you didn’t take it that way in the first place. This is especially the case with you seemingly being a Manc. Your people have gone out of their way to converse with me and make me feel welcome at every United game I have attended. Even away from the ground, I’ve had a guy at Piccadilly Station sing United chants to me because he’s seen a scarf around my neck. I’ll be eternally grateful for all this as it has made me love the club even more.

 

[DJ_21]

I don't remember that incident at all. When was it?

Second half, Kovacic kicked him.

 

[cpresc]

Just watched the highlights as couldn't watch the game. The 0-0 score then all the negative comments here and in the press, I assumed it was a bad match and performance, but from the highlights at least it looked like we played pretty well, with high energy and courage

 

[buckooo1978]

I think this boring tag is harsh on us....

there was a lack of urgency and you could probably see that the teams didn't want to lose more than we wanted to win.

I think given the factors/players available Amorim played it well. In the first half in particular we fashioned some spaces in wide positions but the pass wasn't the right quality

Garnacho's decision making was really awful in the game but he will surely improve. He scores and it's a different game.

Hojlund needs to be more involved obviously and hopefully he will improve.

This deffo wasn't Van Gaal football though which was the standard bearer for shite boring football