[V.O.]

Seeing Bruno in tears at the end was heart wrenching. Gutted.

I hope it fecking hurts, for all of them. They need to remember it and they need to use it.

 

[TMDaines]

BT now going through same motions as against Sevilla last year. Talking about a lack of depth when against a side with a paucity of resource compared to us.

 

[Reditus]

Just absolutely gutted. Is it possible to just be sad without calling for everyone’s heads be it players or management?

Today was not a good day. None of our big players turned up.

Yes there are many questions about the game. Ole’s reluctance to change
things when we looked tired heading towards 90 mins. But who was really in there to change things? So proper questions about depth for sure. I actually understand his hesitance. I don’t believe Donny or a kid like Amad could have gotten them going again in extra time. Maybe Matic might have grabbed hold of the midfield again?

Questions are fair though without looking for blood. Ole deserves to go again, he just does. He needs to be backed heavily for one more shot. Next season, his 3rd full season. If we we don’t improve further... then okay, things need to change. But he has to go again and he will be allowed that chance, so probably best not to waste your time looking for blood just yet.

 

[Bastian]

Scholesy saying they made 5 subs but Ole doesn't have the squad. I mean, come on, you telling me Villareal's squad players are much better than ours? The lengths they go to.

 

[JoeyJoJoJrShabadoo]

Gutted beyond belief. Mad props to Villareal. First major trophy. Emery did his homework and then some.

Our players were poor. Only McT and Cavani gave good accounts of themselves. The rest barely turned up. Ole needed this but he keeps relying on lads as his tactics just aren't there. He has earned another season at the helm but I worry this is his ceiling.

 

[mancan92]

I’m not sure what you’re on about. I saw the same team spirit with ours. A goal keeper miss after 10 penalties scored and all of a sudden they had better spirit. It’s funny what people read into it.

Sure ignore the rest of what I said.....

Also anyone could see they had far more belief than us. Look at the last 10 minutes of the game, look at extra time, look at the penalties only one team looked to have momentum.

 

[Dan_F]

That doesn’t suggest they deserved to win...

We didn’t earn the right to win it, and we lost a pen shootout...shit happens!

We beat Chelsea on penalties in the UCL final but were far from the better side. Same
With Bayern Munich in 99. Shit happens

It's laughable that you're suggesting those stats show that they were deserving. Having fewer shots, both on and off target, doesn't make you more deserving of a win.

Not that we were great, but we were clearly the only team trying to win the match before pens.

I didn’t say they deserved to win? I was showing that the stats were pretty even. Villarreal played how they needed to in order to complete against a team that has better players. Look what happened when Sociedad came out and tried to match us.

For what it’s worth, they probably looked more like scoring in extra time.

 

[TheBreadTruck]

Still shocked Fred scored, tbh.

 

[AgentSmith]

Strong interview by Rashford. It wasn’t his day at all but it’s definitely encouraging to see.

 

[Rampant Red Rodriguez]

DdGone. Never should have taken Hendo's spot, was exposed at his weak point at his nearest post on a set piece.


Took a risk which didn't pay off by playing his strongest team and we got done over in midfield. We sorely missed Fred today and the team balance was wrong against such a team.


Villareal came to defend from the middle and limit us playing wide knowing the RB is our weakness. We could have really done with an orthodox RM player, as we could have all season. I won't be following the club unless we get that elephant in the team sorted this summer. It's getting desperate now for the RW.


Ole should have been tactically better and if he's not careful in the big games, his bad habits will be his downfall. Ole should have changed things up sooner with Fred and Poggers at LW.

Rashford was knackered throughout the game and had no energy whatsoever about him.

Villareal are the worst team I have ever seen us up against and that was the worst football game I have seen since LvG and these bastards did not come out to play ball with 11 men behind the ball every time. Our passing wasn't good enough today tbh.

Fuming. Desperately need that orthodox RW now. Dalot should have stayed at the club and trained the silly cnut.

 

[redshaw]

Emery is a good manager who will know how to frustrate United like many bottom of the PL clubs have, not just this season but going back to LVG we've struggled to create. Mark Bruno out the game and it's very difficult to get through. He wasn't going to make the same mistake as Real Sociedad. We're lethal with a bit of space to play and they did excellent at denying any

We had enough top players on the pitch, all we could create was a bit of pinball in their box to nick a goal and one other shot on target. Neither keeper had much to do for 120 mins. We really couldn't bring much on with subs as the we had all the players on pretty much.

Subs didn't ruin this match, it's our inability for years to create space and pull teams across the pitch.

 

[devilish]

Seems odd to "not give a feck about Spurs" when you want a manager based on his time spent there. Because it can't be based on his time at PSG or losing "against a team whom talent wise is inferior across the pitch" would be an even odder argument for you to make.

Where have I mentioned Pochs in this thread? All I said is that United is not Spurs which is true. Although we are becoming like them under ole

 

[Renegade]

Strong interview by Rashford. It wasn’t his day at all but it’s definitely encouraging to see.

He seems to think playing with a severe injury is something we should be happy about.

 

[MattyB1986]

Not him stupid! Bruno was offside

He said Rashford was offside, I can't find anything that replays the full movement. I just remember cursing this miss at the time.

 

[Still ill]

One of those nights. Bold team selection, nothing went for us for a long time, our big men, Bruno, Rashford, Pogba were all just off it, refereeing decisions mostly went against us. We were great in the second half, just couldn't nick the winner. Granted, the subs were not the ones I would have made and we got extra time wrong but bar DDG, everyone else in the shootout was amazing.

Recriminations are easy in hindsight. I don't see the point in tearing into everyone because a marginal match went against us. Every team we play are shite in the matchday/post match threads.Leipzig were, PSG were, Villareal were one up on Madrid with 10 minutes to go at the weekend but then Madrid are probably shite as well.

It's been a horrendous slog of a season and we've finished second and dominated a European final. Take it, move on, hope for more progress next year.

 

[mancan92]

I dont agree with those blaming Ole, this is just one of those games where negative tactics wins the day. The only real mistakes were leaving De Gea on for pens, although it would have wrecked his confidence to pull him off like that, and starting Pogba in midfield. We dont get enough out of Pogba when he plays in midfield, hes very average there and McTominay and Fred both outperform him in that role.

How can you not blame a manager who doesn't make a sub for 105 minutes when his players are clearly dead on their feet?

 

[Mr.Kaya]

Our so called "starplayers" failed to show up really...De Gea, Rashford, Bruno and Pogba all weak and didnt step up to the occasion whatsoever.

 

[tomaldinho1]

BT now going through same motions as against Sevilla last year. Talking about a lack of depth when against a side with a paucity of resource compared to us.

At least against Seville it felt unlucky. I feel like we were worthy losers today on balance. It wasn’t like they cling on for dear life and their goalie had a great game, they were just a better unit than us.

 

[Cabin Clown]

Imagine not saving 11 pens, and then missing the key pen yourself.

You can't make it up.

Rubbish. How can you pin this on DDG? We didn't do enough in the 120. Ball was saturated and it showed for both GK's.

So gutting. Can it be ever more clear to strengthen?

 

[Dobba]

Don't be dense.

We have a good enough squad to win this game, easily. Starting Rashford was a mistake. Keeping him on all game was embarrassingly shit management.

Have a think about what you're even trying to argue.

The players out there weren't enough to beat Villareal? What?

I just saw all but 2 of them absolutely stink out the joint against them. So much so that the Cafe wants the manager to go for not replacing them earlier than he did from options that before the game saw the Cafe kicking off that two kids, whose longest minutes in the first team came on Sunday, didn't make the bench ahead of them.

 

[RedDevil@84]

Ole needs to hang his head in shame. That was an absolute shambolic managerial display. He is 90% responsible for us not winning a trophy this year. Simply unforgivable

 

[groovyalbert]

As much as anything, what's so frustrating about this is how it will completely rework the narrative around us going into next season/the summer window.

From being the 2nd best team in the league whose club legend manager has just won his first trophy, it will now all be about how long will our trophy-less run go on for? Does Ole have what it takes? Do our best players need to move to win things?

What's shite, but based on the last 2 seasons, those are all valid questions.

 

[Djemba-Djemba]

Bad one tonight.

Gutted, feels like a punch in the stomach an hour later still.

Need a long break from football and in particular Utd.

 

[The Hilton]

I didn’t say they deserved to win? I was showing that the stats were pretty even. Villarreal played how they needed to in order to complete against a team that has better players. Look what happened when Sociedad came out and tried to match us.

For what it’s worth, they probably looked more like scoring in extra time.

Yeah in extra time they were a little better, despite creating nothing.

My posting was basically disagreeing with a troll post that suggested the "better team win", which was quite clearly nonsense. Not saying we did enough to win either, but at least we were actually trying to win.

 

[Wing Attack Plan R]

I think Matic experience would have helped in midfield. Should have started instead of Mctominay.

McTominay, who was our best player. That McTominay?

 

[RazorOz]

As bad as it feels right now, we have made progress this season. We must have a good transfer window. Achieve that and we can challenge next season. It's a massive summer ahead.

We literally say the "must have a good transfer window" every season, and it never happens. Will be the usual shambles. Lots of talk of quick business, then all rushed last minute most likely.

 

[Trex]

We totally bottled this, for all Ole good work, it's clear he relies more on certain specific individuals rather than the collective, we were exactly here last season when we lost to sevilla. Today was the consequence of not trusting his squad players all season. The starters ran out of gas and he literally had no one 'individual' he could trust.

 

[RedDevil@84]

The goalkeeper who earns £350k per week costs us again

That's bollocks. This one is on Ole. He set us up to fail and ran all players to the ground

 

[BorisManUtd]

Villarreal are a decent team, well organised obviously but the fact we were average and still could have won it on penalties says how bad we performed and the difference in class between 2 teams, quality wise.

Should have won it in 2nd half, if not then in extra time but those 30 minutes we played like we only wanted to get to penalties. We did, and lost there so got what we deserved.

I have to say I'm happy for Villarreal and thank God it was them and not Arsenal.

 

[Godfather]

I must confess that I've delivered a dislike for this team and this management bar a few players like Greenwood and Cavani

 

[Dobba]

McTominay, who was our best player. That McTominay?

Clearly what that game was crying out for was even less movement from our midfield.

 

[AgentSmith]

He seems to think playing with a severe injury is something we should be happy about.

I think it takes balls to put yourself in front of the camera after a result like that and the general sentiment of his interview was the correct one. That doesn’t excuse his performance but it gives me confidence that his mentality will use this experience to improve.

 

[chiz2kul]

How anyone blames De Gea for the los is beyond me. He has never been a penalty stopper - never been his strong suit. depending on him to save... or take a penalty is just nonsense. Keeper could have dived the other way and the discussion would be different.

Bruno was completely missing the entire game, but somehow he gets a pass? Ole's subs were questionable at best. His game and man management is sorely lacking - time and time again. Yes they finished second, yes they got into a final - but its just simply not good enough. He has provided "stability"...but is he enough to take United to glory years - I seriously doubt it.

 

[KikiDaKats]

Haha this is nonsense, they literally parked the bus for the entire first 90.

Was that not their game plan? Their plan won them the final, whilst ours gave us zilch. So tell me what the nonsensical point is?

 

[MrBest]

Things that stood out for me today;
1. Ole was disrespectful by selecting such an unbalanced team/formation. On paper all of those players are good enough to start but some of our most inconsistent periods have been when we tried shoehorning them.
2 Ole has no guts to drop players. Whether it’s to avoid enraging the stars or paper backlash. He just haven’t got it.
3 United do not play as a team and the Bruno influence will not get us to the top. We need to start moving away from it.
4 Our most underrated players deserve a lot more credit. Lack of fanfare doesn’t mean incapable. McT led that team today.
5. How do you leave yourself without a striker on the bench.
6 Lack of the eye test in judging and over reliant on stats is starting to cause us problems. People are ignoring how awful a player Rashford is developing into or how Bruno is incapable of playing in tight spaces but hey their goal and assists numbers are high.
7 Our CB really lack awareness of what happens around them. Good one v one defenders but take no notice of anything else.
8 Eric Bailly is not changing my mind. He is a poor defender and opposition use his rashness as an outlet.
9 AWB basically needs a replacement. Embarrassingly limited going forward, if he was just adequate today we would have had a lot of chances down the right.
10 If Cavani has to both score the goals and defend for our midfielders. What’s the use of them being on the pitch.

Cannot really disagree with much of what you said. Rather than arguing, i'd like to add an 11th point, Ole does not know how to make a sub or manage a squad of players. Surely Mata, DVB, Telles, Matic are better than most of the starting 11 of Villareal. Another insult to the cards, starting Rashford and Greenwood was criminal and left us with no striker on the bench. Donny and Mctominay in the middle, Pogba on the left and Greenwood on the right would have given more balance and more service to Cavani.

 

[justsomebloke]

So disappointed with that loss. We should have won that but this shows exactly why our squad needs reinforcement.

After the first XI, there was literally no one we could have thought of to come in and make an impact from the bench.

This is exactly why it's hard to win trophies with a thin squad. An off night for Marcus and Bruno made us look average, and we didn't have anything of note to bring on.

Summer needs to be a big one if we have to show intent to close the gap. We need a striker, and defensive midfielder and center back and a right winger.

Get those 4 signings in and we can really be a good outfit.

We lost on penalties in a shootout where everyone of our our outfield players took brilliant under pressure penalities. Shows the mentality of the squad is there

De Gea always showed weakness in his mentality and his lack of pen saving and his poor pen just summed up his decline with us.

We lost the game to a set piece in all honesty. Villarreal had almost nothing all game till our players tired towards the end.

You have to think, when it becomes evident they haven't got the legs to keep the pressure up in extra time, there's got to be substitutions. With half the opposing team having fresh legs. But once you get into who to put on, it starts looking less good. Fred for Pogba, that's clear, and was done. You could do James for Rashford, though it wasn't exactly a James type of situation, with the way Villareal was playing. Maybe Diallo instead, or Mata. Or additionally one of those for Greenwood. Would that have been enough to re-energise the team? Maybe it would, but it sure would have helped to have someone with a more obvious game-changing potential.

The worst bit for me was seeing them let the second half of extra time peter out, with seemingly no ambition to settle the game before it went to penalties.

Aw, feck.

 

[HerbT]

Bottlers

I don’t think they were bottlers.
They ran their socks off, didn’t lack endeavour, didn’t shy out of tackles.
They were playing a system and they were playing it exactly as their manager wanted them to.
If they weren’t playing the managers system then the manager would have been jumping up and down in the technical area, going absolutely ballistic and subbing off any players who weren’t sticking to the script.
I thought it was a fascinating game, ok, so not many shots on target but that was because both sides defended with every ounce of effort.
Lots of action in the middle of each half of the pitch nobody bottling it as such IMO.
The tactics employed by both managers produced a game like that and it was interesting from a tactical perspective because of that.

If you played that game 10 times then you’d win it 9 times and you were unlucky to lose today.

 

[Judas]

In fairness, how absolutely lucky was our goal too. It's not as if their keeper was over worked and had to put in the performance of his life. We created so little once again.

 

[KikiDaKats]

As it often does when your game plan is to play ultra defensive, waste time and hope for penalties, which you've obviously been practicing for for weeks.

Maybe we should have tried starting slowly as well or more conservative by sitting out a striker for later.

 

[Dan_F]

Yeah in extra time they were a little better, despite creating nothing.

My posting was basically disagreeing with a troll post that suggested the "better team win", which was quite clearly nonsense. Not saying we did enough to win either, but at least we were actually trying to win.

Eh. Morale victors or something. I’m sure City fans said the same about us when we beat them a few times recently, after playing massively defensively and countering them.