[Ibi Dreams]

Really enjoyed Jose's comment as to whether it was the United of old;
"No...under Sir Alex it would've been 3-1"

His face while saying that was a bit cheeky as well, I loved it

 

[harms]

Nice subtle dig at the referee - "honestly, I think with sir Alex the result would've been 3:1"

 

[December_16]

31st December 2012: Defeat at home against Blackburn as young Pogba is left out of the team for a midfield of Rafael and Park

31st December 2016: World record signing Pogba scores late to save the day.

Unbelievable!

 

[sunama]

Great to see all of Ibra, Pogba, Martial, Mhki, Mata play well too.

It took a while for the goals, which is still an issue (terrible decisions or not), but whatever.

First goal was scored at around 38 mins.
Unfortunately, we have no control over bent refs who are attempting to prevent us from scoring goals.

 

[Yagami]

Guys, will have to watch the game later tonight but should I bother with the 1st half or stick to the 2nd?

I'd definitely recommended watching the full game. We were brilliant throughout, IMO.

 

[RedElf]

Didn't think it was going to be our day, but we kept going and our star players produced two great moments. Zlatan's knock down header to Martial was brilliant as was the finish. Pogba's header was class. Ref was a gimp again for us, Zlatan's goal was good and Valdés is a pussy time wasting cnut.

 

[Catt]

I'd definitely recommended watching the full game. We were brilliant throughout, IMO.

Will do!

 

[0161_UNITED]

The problem we were having, fellaini was ahead of herrera, the position herrera is so devastating at. Yes I agree Pogba and Herrera are not disciplined, but mata is such a class player he does not stand out has the weaklink like we seeing with fellaini, against teams like boro we cannot and should not even field a fellaini, mata while not has good as herrera, but he will create and score goals. Unless we get a anchor man to replace carrick long term, our plan B when carrick is not available is 4231 with herrera and pogba deeper, and mata linking up with Mkhi zlatan and martial. Fellaini really is compromising the way we are playing, because he has not get the set of skills to make us flow, mata really did make us look creative from A to B. We really were playing with 10 against 12 players today, the ref and fellaini may is well have been on the boro team

Not going to disagree too much with that either, although it appears you're even harsher on Fellaini than I, no small feat my good man. For whatever reason though, it really seems to me that Mou is extremely reluctant to play Mata in the 10 or as an advanced MF in a 4-3-3. We just don't seem to have the 2 players he trusts be behind him in Pogba and Herrera. Frankly, I don't disagree with Mou, so far.

 

[Nate Dogg]

What is pissing me off is the level of refereeing in general and in particular against us, we've literally been hampered by poor decisions in literally every game.....this surely cannot continue!!

Also, Mason should be suspended but i guess the FA will reward him instead!

 

[sunama]

Good performance in the central midfield once Fellaini was replaced, before that it was all Martial, but my god our finishing is awful. We need to improve that if we are to be a really really top team. We only scored 29 times in 19 games. Despite all the shots we take on goal, that's an utterly poor return.

It does not help when refs are disallowing goals and our opponent GKs are putting in MOTM performances (and then playing crap the very next game. Heaton was fantastic against us and then conceded 4 goals the next game).

 

[Basa1987]

Smalling is a fecking idiot. You could see that knockdown coming a mile away.

It was Herrera's man. Not Smalling's fault.

Also, I thought we were playing well even with Fellaini, so I don't get the hate towards the big man.

 

[Seij]

If the bald cnut doesn't get demoted to League 1 I hope Jose raises a big fecking stink, feck the consequences!

That was an amazing roller coaster! Well done to our Frenchmen.

If Jose raises a stink he'll be banned for 5 more games and we'll get even worse refereeing against us. PL referees are invincible and will never be punished for favoring teams.

Really happy about the way the team pulled through.

 

[SalfordRed1960]

Brilliant result, but very hard work. Early on too, many sloppy passes, and some really negative passes from people like Herrera. Almost as though he was afraid to pass forward.

Martial looked back in form, as did Rashford when he came on. Valencia had another outstanding game, imo. Blind caught for pace, not a lot he could do about that. Smalling just does not cut in on the LCB role.

We should have used Miki and Martial more and we would probably have opened them up earlier.

Another step in the right direction.

 

[Heardy]

Fair play to José. Notice his family are all in Portugal and living in London more permanently. I hope thst doesn't put too much pressure on him personally as would like to see him here for the long haul.

 

[12OunceEpilogue]

Just got back. What a super win that was, just like the old days.

It was a strange performance in that we created enough chances to win the game, and scored a perfectly good goal as far as I'm concerned (although I've only seen it live), but again poor finishing and some listless passages of play made things a lot more desperate for us than they should have been.

Positives are Martial looking as good as he's looked all season, Mkhi playing well and looking for the most part defensively solid irrespective of our personnel changes. I also think Fellaini did a good job of breaking up play and his passing wasn't too bad either.

Negatives are our poor finishing, some really insipid play in the second half and giving away a poor goal. Additionally I was disappointed with how we used our fullbacks, we didn't switch it quickly enough and when we got them on the ball they didn't produce enough for me. Also Lee Mason: terrible calls including ridiculous inconsistency with high feet (Zlatan and another in the box penalised, Bailly in our half not). At least we got to sing "Fergie's right, the refs are shite" which I always enjoy, even if it is pretty childish.

All in all a very fun trip out, with the hour of so of frustration well worth putting up with for that last ten.

 

[Nikhil]

Great performance. Loved it. The team has improved leaps and bounds under Jose. Mki, Ibra, Martial and Pogba were excellent today. Mata was sublime. We need to keep winning and move into the top 4.

Also, Fellaini and Smalling shouldn't be starting in the league. We need Carrick to start. We play so much better when he starts, even Herrera plays better when he's there. Glad to see Martial scoring again.

 

[Paul the Wolf]

Well that was exciting.
Martial great performance. Pogba very good, Herrera worked extremely hard.
Deserved to win against a very defensive team dangerous on the break.
Blind suffered against Traore.

Refereeing performance absolutely dreadful, would be sacked in a normal job.

 

[Fully Fledged]

Feck me Sterling has been hopeless

Wrong thread mate.

 

[fellaini's barber]

Oops

 

[markhrad]

I know that one swallow does not a summer make but today's match was I think the most important of the season for several reasons. Everything was going against us, poor refereeing and just bad luck. however, the players and managers displayed a strong belief that we would still win. This is like the good old days when no matter the score or time left we always found a way to win. Martial of last year is back and when you realize that our attacking 4 of Zlatan, Pobgba, Martial and Mkhi are just getting to know each other, the future is really promising. If Zlatan can maintain his physicality, next season we will destroy teams with our coordinated attacking force.
Even Carrick's absence was important because it should now be clear to everyone that he is important to our fluent play.
All in all it is really great watching utd again.

 

[DonDarmian]

I'm sure you rather enjoyed that one!! Great match to attend, in the sense of the final joy...up to that point had to be rather frustrating

It was! Had a little bit of everything with a great ending. I will definitely take trip again as soon as possible

 

[rotherham_red]

Anyone else think that was Zlatan's best performance of the season so far? He was immense in his link up play, and held the ball up well, and he should have had a goal if not for Mason's incompetence.

 

[bosnian_red]

Not sure where to put this, probably here, but looking at our pass map it's easy to see that we basically played around Fellaini and Smalling was just non-existant in terms of any build up. Ibra a lot quieter then usual too.

Edit: Huge pic... feck it, not sure how to change it

 

[eggwithsideburns]

 

[girish]

United win with two late goals on Fergie's birthday, I kissed a girl on 12.00 on a 31st December for the first time in my life, and I'm drinking with my best friends in my flat.

I'm happy.

Happy new year, motherfudgers.

 

[Manny]

The host didn't think it was him so he had to tweet

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

 

[Pscholes18]

 

[Snowjoe]

Nice one @Pscholes18

Added them to OP.

 

[matherto]

I've only seen highlights of the match, might watch the full thing later.

What I will say is that I went absolutely mental because I had no idea what score it'd finished when Pogba scored. Not felt like that in a long, long time.

Was definitely an 'old United' result though I have no idea about the whole game performance.

Middlesbrough have historically been a bit of a thorn in our side. I can remember them getting a few decent results at Old Trafford over the years. Certainly looked like they'd done it again.

Martial from the highlights looked brilliant, can anyone elaborate further on how he did?

 

[DMacgraw]

True, the FA fecked us over on a number of occasions, but that was the FA - not the refs. I may suffer from selective memory (entirely possible), but I can't remember a game under SAF where the ref screwed us over as badly as today.

It has happened before. I remember the year when SAF publicly crtisized one ref (I forget his name) as too fat to keep up with the play. After the brouhaha died down it seemed almost as if the refs had had a secret meeting and vowed to f**k up United at every turn. Every single referee gave biased decisions against us. I can't count the number of games we drew or lost because of horrible refereeing decisions that year. I think that was the year (but I may be mis-remembering) we lost the league to Chelsea when Drogba was waved on to score an offside goal against us at OT in one of the last games of the season.

 

[Borden]

It has happened before. I remember the year when SAF publicly crtisized one ref (I forget his name) as too fat to keep up with the play. After the brouhaha died down it seemed almost as if the refs had had a secret meeting and vowed to f**k up United at every turn. Every single referee gave biased decisions against us. I can't count the number of games we drew or lost because of horrible refereeing decisions that year. I think that was the year (but I may be mis-remembering) we lost the league to Chelsea when Drogba was waved on to score an offside goal against us at OT in one of the last games of the season.

Yeah that was infuriating

 

[Eddy_JukeZ]

A great win.

Ref tried to feck us, but we pulled through.

We create chances with such ease lately. Only a matter of time before we truly smash a team.

 

[Ban]

Haven't seen the whole game but from what I saw this is the closest to the United of old since Fergie left. A beautiful comeback, attack attack attack, chances created, chances missed but goals scored. We have a good team and a great manager, we can be only better and better. Good times ahead I feel.

 

[VanGaalEra]

Was following from a family event and was going through the absolute ringer following that on Twitter. Was fecking furious which then turned to delight in the space of 2 mins with 2 notifications on my phone.

 

[Tincanalley]

Just got back. What a super win that was, just like the old days.

It was a strange performance in that we created enough chances to win the game, and scored a perfectly good goal as far as I'm concerned (although I've only seen it live), but again poor finishing and some listless passages of play made things a lot more desperate for us than they should have been.

Positives are Martial looking as good as he's looked all season, Mkhi playing well and looking for the most part defensively solid irrespective of our personnel changes. I also think Fellaini did a good job of breaking up play and his passing wasn't too bad either.

Negatives are our poor finishing, some really insipid play in the second half and giving away a poor goal. Additionally I was disappointed with how we used our fullbacks, we didn't switch it quickly enough and when we got them on the ball they didn't produce enough for me. Also Lee Mason: terrible calls including ridiculous inconsistency with high feet (Zlatan and another in the box penalised, Bailly in our half not). At least we got to sing "Fergie's right, the refs are shite" which I always enjoy, even if it is pretty childish.

All in all a very fun trip out, with the hour of so of frustration well worth putting up with for that last ten.

Good post. Well done the supporters they were amazing in the last twenty minutes. Agree re Felli, thought Herrera was excellent too.

 

[Alexrad]

Best tackle Chambers managed all day

 

[Dobba]

Great clip and follow up tweet! Also good to see Gordon McQueen in high spirits.

 

[Red Dreams]

Only the Chelsea match. can go either way. I expect us to beat any other team well enough.

 

[Rado_N]

No mention at all by MOTD of the two penalty calls we were denied.

They did say the disallowed goal was a "ridiculous" decision though.

 

[Red Dreams]

No mention at all by MOTD of the two penalty calls we were denied.

They did say the disallowed goal was a "ridiculous" decision though.

The Rashford one for sure.
What was the other one?
And for them it was just a shoulder charge.