[jem]

Thank feck for De Gea

Yeah he saved us from winning 2-1.

 

[Magnus]

Teamtalk halftime by Mou: Don't enjoy your footie that much ffs and don't try entertaining the fans. Go out, keep a clean sheet and just bore all in OT. Seriously: First 30 mins best I've seen since beginnng of the season. UTID

 

[matherto]

I maintain that I'd be wondering if I got value for money for my ticket.

Yeah we all wanna see United win and we've been spoilt for nearly 30 years with easy wins and lots of success but goddamn, why do other teams stay on the gas and absolutely batter others when they've got the opportunity and why do we always, always step off and get complacent?

If we didn't have DDG in net we'd have conceded and potentially given Swansea a chance at a point or three. It's fecking dangerous doing what we do.

We were sublime in the first half too, why not keep that up for 90 minutes and win 4/5/6/etc-0?

 

[ken11]

How about those DDG saves eh?

 

[SNes]

Good first half Boring second half but I've stopped expecting attacking football at United.

 

[Hed Zitin]

Great first half. Slacked off as always again.

Lindelof played well for 90mins.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Great first half. They could have taken more risks in second half but I'm ok with the way things turned out to be. Sometimes after international break the rhythm breaks but United looked solid today. Lindelof MOTM for me.

Overall, I enjoyed that. Big goal for Sanchez too.

Big goal for Rom as well. 100th in premier league!

 

[Judge Red]

Looks to have been a bit of a boring Easter weekend all round so far. Watford v Bournemouth will probably get top billing on MOTD.

 

[Deleted member 101472]

Thank feck for De Gea

Which one of the two shots on target Swansea had, that happened within moments of each other are you thanking him for?

 

[Minimalist]

Who cares if the 2nd half was boring? We pretty much won the game in the first half an hour. Pogba did well, Sanchez scored a goal and had an assist, Lukaku's linkup play was good (scored one out of four chances) and we were very fluid from the start against a very defensive team. Managed the 2nd half well, but yes, let's sack Jose because at 2-0 we failed to entertain...Jesus.

I'd care if I had paid money to watch it.

Also matters when the crowd gets slagged off for being too quiet.

 

[kouroux]

Trust us to somehow bore ourselves to a match that started so well.

 

[Zlatattack]

2 very good goals.

 

[Paul the Wolf]

Played very well for the best part of an hour, took the foot off the pedal for the last half an hour. Quite comfortable apart from about 5 minutes or so in the second half with DDG's two saves but we could have scored a couple more.

Alexis MoM, probably his best game so far for us, Lindelof played well, Pogba, Matic and Lukaku had good matches, no-one had a bad game.

 

[Stringer]

Who cares if the 2nd half was boring? We pretty much won the game in the first half an hour. Pogba did well, Sanchez scored a goal and had an assist, Lukaku's linkup play was good (scored one out of four chances) and we were very fluid from the start against a very defensive team. Managed the 2nd half well, but yes, let's sack Jose because at 2-0 we failed to entertain...Jesus.

Has anyone actually said that Mourinho should be sacked because of that performance in the second half?

 

[AshRK]

I still think we can do better than lingard and Mata for our starting 11. They have their role as quality squad players but doubt as regulars. As for the game, it was one of the best 20 mins I saw us play. Second half was not on Jose but on players Still feel this squad lacks the hungerness , why not just try to for a kill and get some goals. Someone needs to tell pogba that rather than ball hogging and trying to show off, do something better with the ball.

All in all job done and we are going to be 2nd.

 

[Zoo]

Thank feck for De Gea

He started it all by faffing around too much at the back then clearing poorly.

 

[Decomposing In Paris]

Started well, big goal for Sanchez, and another for Big Rom... lots of positives. Liked how controlled we were when Herrera came on. People want us to bust a gut to get 5, but that might have resulted in an injury with the game won, right before we play City.

 

[Canagel]

Another routine win but we like to make things difficult for ourselves. Why did we not keep the intensity up from the 1st half? We never punish teams and if Swansea get one back we're suddenly under pressure and holding on after being in total control. I think it's a mental problem. We used to smash teams at OT with wave after wave of attack but we are too lax nowadays. Great 1st half, controlled 2nd half but we need to be careful becomes sometimes being in control can lead to complacency.

 

[Marcky411]

Typical Mourinho. Good first half against lower opposition. Score 2 then uninteresting 2nd half.

I really don’t understand why when we go ahead instead of finishing teams off we sit back and pass the ball around at a snail pace. One thing to kill off a game but not after 25 minutes.
Only Jose can appreciate that, but Swansea were really poor.

 

[Who gives a...]

Good first half, not great second. Totally in control though and back in 2nd. Job done, onto the derby.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

How do you feel about 0 yellow cards today?

I felt that there were at least 3-4 possible yellow card moments but it looks like the referee let the players sort the game themselves.

 

[togg]

Perfectly happy. We eased off in the second half which wasn't totally unexpected. Always felt if they had scored we would have put another one or two away in reply. Some great play in the frist half. Congratulations to Lukaku for his 100. He's turning into a great signing for us. Plays with total commitment, passion, determination and is a team player.

 

[SirAF]

Good win! Onward.

 

[Bobski]

The lack of killer instinct to push on and kill the game was frustrating, it is what City have been doing all season, punishing the dross that make up the majority of this league, but sitting on a 2-0 lead is classic Mou strategy. Mata and Lukaku still had great chances to extend the lead even with a more conservative approach.

The first 30 was so good though, the interplay and understanding between the front 4, looked very impressive.

 

[AshRK]

Thank feck for De Gea

All that was brought on by himself only. He should have cleared his line better.

 

[Bastian]

I'd care if I had paid money to watch it.

Also matters when the crowd gets slagged off for being too quiet.

At 2-0 up and seeing the game comfortably out, if people aren't content then it's their own problem IMV.

Has anyone actually said that Mourinho should be sacked because of that performance in the second half?

No, I was emphasising my point with hyperbole. A nod to the Jose has us playing anti-football and is a has-been.

 

[VeevaVee]

Good first half.
Pogba better.
Sanchez better.
The space you get when you up the pace of play a bit and play more instinctive, riskier passes is so much nicer to watch and much more likely to result in a goal.

We should have really finished them off though. A goal late on and it would've been another squeaky arse time.

 

[Swift Football]

Great first half. They could have taken more risks in second half but I'm ok with the way things turned out to be. Sometimes after international break the rhythm breaks but United looked solid today. Lindelof MOTM for me.



Big goal for Rom as well. 100th in premier league!

Many people are saying Lindelof had a good game....not for me. He did well in possession and passing but he looked vulnerable in at least 2-3 ocassions. Was brushed off the ball so easily few times too.
He is just too weak for PL.

 

[Speedicut75]

Good win. One more point and we match last year's final points tally with 7 left to play.

 

[Marcky411]

I still think we can do better than lingard and Mata for our starting 11. They have their role as quality squad players but doubt as regulars. As for the game, it was one of the best 20 mins I saw us play. Second half was not on Jose but on players Still feel this squad lacks the hungerness , why not just try to for a kill and get some goals. Someone needs to tell pogba that rather than ball hogging and trying to show off, do something better with the ball.

All in all job done and we are going to be 2nd.

You must be joking about Mata the Lingard quote I get but Mata, pure class, wished we had more players with his talent.

 

[King Kana]

Amazes me how football fans cannot see that an oppo team changing tactics affects a game such that you don’t have as much space as you did or the fact that the changes added pressure to the defense.

Has nothing to do with “handbrakes” or “not wanting it enough” or deciding to play counter attack.

Also, the changes your manager made didn’t have the same effect. Rashford simply didn’t have the same effect on the game as Abraham did for instance.

So it’s a bit simplistic to judge tactics the way I see a lot of people do on here. Just tells you majority of people here haven’t played football and have no clue.

 

[VeevaVee]

Who voted McTominay motm?

 

[Stacks]

Solid win with some lovely football in the first half. Back in second ahead of Liverpool. No complaints.

Just win the FA Cup and this will have been a fairly passable season overall.

I agree.

 

[AshRK]

You must be joking about Mata the Lingard quote I get but Mata, pure class, wished we had more players with his talent.

Mata is a good player but we can easily have a upgrade on him. Just my opinion. Also, nothing against Mata, one of my favorite players in the current squad but as a regular starter I think we can do better.

 

[Jim Beam]

Shame for that drop of intensity in the second half, as the first one was very good.

Lukaku, business as usual and those 3 behind him (Lingard, Mata, Sanchez) were great to watch at times.

 

[Trajanus]

The team came across as more relaxed today; more fluid play, more initiatives, the players exuded more joy on the pitch. JM-haters might see it as a result from a holiday from the manager from below hell. Or is it perhaps the combined result of finding a new "reason to fight", even though City has won the league, and a slowly improving team spirit?

 

[Marcky411]

Many people are saying Lindelof had a good game....not for me. He did well in possession and passing but he looked vulnerable in at least 2-3 ocassions. Was brushed off the ball so easily few times too.
He is just too weak for PL.

What do you expect from a player that gets a wiff of game time once in a blue moon and most the time only in the cups. You expect a defensive destroyer, I am with the others he was solid against a weaker team. Wish he would get more game time, a good ball playing defender.

 

[Henrik Larsson]

At various moments in the season I could see the merit of taking a step back in the second half. But with the City game coming up, we were finally looking to catch some momentum after such a nice first half. I saw some people saying this was down to Mourinho, but I just can't see why a manager would instruct his team to take it easy in our current context. Some freewheeling, a 5-0 win and some more nice attacks surely would've only been good for our confidence with an incredibly tough away game coming up...

To me the second half was just another example of our underlying mental weakness. Mourinho might've used cautious or even negative tactics against City or Sevilla this year, but there's no way he instructed our players to play as cowardly as they did in those matches. Same goes for last year, when we started creating massive amounts of chances after Van Gaal's goal drought. We had matches where we created 10-15 chances and still ended up drawing. Psychologically weak, that's my concern.

 

[Feed Me]

Yawn.

We always play with the handbrake on.

Just a boring team.

 

[marlowe78]

Solid overall performance that could've (should've) resulted in a blowout. Still far and away the better team and 3 deserved points.

Positives:

- Best performance from Sanchez in a United shirt, loved the finish for his goal.

- Lukaku with a busy 1st half and another goal, though he dropped off in the 2nd from lack of service.

- Matic superb again. Glad to see Herrera back in MF.

- Lingard and Mata with good games as playmakers.

- Lindelof and Smalling both played well but Lindelof also had his best game since arriving here. Made key plays on more than one occasion.

Negatives:

- I thought Pogba was not very good. He made some good runs forward but his passing was very wasteful. He needs to think a little more.

- Our fullbacks were poor as usual. Young looked clueless with his positioning, he was standing around looking for a sign while the game went on around him. Lindelof and Smalling several times were drawn out of the box because of Ashley's hankering. Valencia seems to have a hang-up on dealing with balls near the goal line.

- Poor finishing on the couple of chances we had in the 2nd half.

- De Gea made 2 great saves but he needs to stop clearing it to opponents.

Swansea revived after Carroll came into the game, I'm not sure why he didn't start for them, as that could've made things different. But their entire lineup looked asleep in the 1st half and we bossed things. Would've liked a better showing in the 2nd half but outside of the 2 De Gea saves in close proximity to each other, we were looking pretty comfortable. So I'll give us a 6 out of 10.