Pre-season friendly Manchester United - Borussia Dortmund

bosnian_red

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I thought Jose is the god-like manager that many are craving for, who will immediately up a few levels for ManUtd? So now when things aren't going well, blame the ex manager? Good job guys, good job
Things aren't going well? It was a pre season friendly ffs!
 

ti vu

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He is right; third or fourth might be the best we can do this season. It's not about lowering expectations, it's about dealing in realities. And I am not basing it on a result of a fitness exercise against BVB.

Van Gaal mismanaged and left this squad horrendously short. He sold quality players, and some of the replacements he brought in are simply not good enough. Depay, Rojo, Blind, Herrera - you don't win titles with these players as your regular starters in key positions. Besides Martial, there isn't one player in the squad from last year that is worthy of a starting position for Manchester United in attack. Carrick at 35 is still our best midfielder, and our best defender is Chris Smalling.

Jose has worked on addressing the deficiencies in this squad with the additions of Ibra, Mkhi and Bailly, but it would take more than one window to make this squad worthy of competing with Europe's best and winning titles domestically. Imo, this season would be about sorting the mess and building a solid foundation for future assault. Winning the title this season, would be a bonus, not the expectation.
Disagree. We are not competing for CL trophy. PL's competitiveness come from the physicality, the pace, the intensity, the pressure having many team closer in quality... With that in mind, we have the most decorated manager in PL (in term of PL title), who despite of failure last season is still more favorite than Pep Conte Klopp in term of experience, Poch Bilic in term of knowing to win, Wenger Koeman in term of recent success in England. That leves you with Ranieri who did miracle with Leicester last season!

We have one of the top 3 GK in the world. Few of the best individual CB performers (better than our Smalling) last season: Alderweireld Vertongen Kolscielny (IMO that's it). Few of the best individual full ack performer last season: Walker, Rose, Clynne, Bellerin, Cesar, Sagna... Few of the best individual midfield performer: Kante, Dier, Dembelele... Few of best individual attackers (play maker & and winger): Mahrez, Alli, Eriksen, Ozil, Sanchez, Martial, Willian, KDB... Few of the best individual forwards: Vardy, Kane, Sergio Aguero Lukaku


Look at all that, the gap in quality is not huge. The some big name has been underperformed (or decline). The name of the game last season was who can build the most solid team win. Our additions so far to our existing squad would put us on almost close most of the gap in quality with the very top in the league. Adding Pogba (arguably the highest profile midfielder in the league if he comes), then suddenly we arguably get on of the best squad there. We can still pull in some player like Matuidi, Fabinho, Lassana Diarra,... if we decide to part way to some of our players. This team on paper then should be among favorite to win the league and the aim should be so! So that's the "we want to win" Mourinho has been saying.

So that's on paper, nothing is granted. The parts may not all click at once, so there we will assess as the season goes and see our own limitation, weaknesses no improve come next summer. Fourth place trophy is the fall back plan, not the ultimate plan. As the other poster you quoted said: overall other favorite also have problems this coming season.

Pulisic and Dembele are cracking players. We should have brought Dortmund's scout rather than the guy from Everton.
Every big team include us scouted Dembelele. It's the player who chose to come to Dortmund as he thinks it's better for his development (understandably). So the moral lesson is sometimes, it's not all about scouting. It's about convincing player to come (we did with Martial, Bayern with Renato, Real Madrid with Odegaard,Gabriel Jesus to City?...). One more thing, bigger clubs in more competitive environment may not have the time to develop young players so not all young talents survive the filtering process of big clubs' scouting system but few of the very top. Among the very few, only some can make it. Dortmund has an attractive environment for young players, but not necessarily they have better scouting system.
 
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redsunited

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I thought Jose is the god-like manager that many are craving for, who will immediately up a few levels for ManUtd? So now when things aren't going well, blame the ex manager? Good job guys, good job
Pre season games is all about how fit the players are. The more days of training the better the players play and it doesnt reflect the quality of players unless the players in comparison are at full fitness. These are not excuses, SAF always said the same thing when we played against teams which are in middle of the season or the ones which had more days/games to prepare than us.
I always see this when we play in preseason games. Most of the games in which we won against top opposition in preseason friendlies during LVG or even with SAF are the ones in which we are more match fit than the opposition. This is only second game of our preseason. If we are loosing 4-1 in our fifth game or so with almost full squad then it would make me worried.
Let me say one thing which some here wont like. Players like Lingard (who are not of top quality yet!) fare better in preseason games because they take care of themselves better during off season and during first few preseason games they look the better prospect than others. As season start and all the players are in full fitness, the better players outperform the rest.
 

NK86

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These things happen in your first pre season game, I doubt the lads have even been doing any technical stuff in training yet so stop getting so worked up about it. They've been doing a lot of stamina building and working at their repeat sprint ability, not passing and finishing drills.

Well I'm sure you can figure out Dortmund wouldn't have signed either of them for a combined €50m or so if they didn't have plans for them:lol:. Don't bet on Adrian Ramos starting many games on the lift wing;), free advice for you.
Players get signed for big money and then not play as a regular all the time or are you starting to watch football this first season?

As for the left-sided forward, where do you think Reus will play? I think you should keep your advice to yourself, because it's not worth my time even when free.
 

NK86

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I think Schürrle will end up in his usual role as impact sub/rotational player once they have everyone on board again. Götze though must fail hard to not be in the starting line up as a #10. He offers too much creativity in the centre to be overlooked by Tuchel. He stated in a presser being very excited about Götze's signing.
It is true however, that Dortmunds first 11 are less carved in stone than Utd's. The overall performance level of their players 12-17 is much closer to the first 11 compared to Utd.
I'd say the safe starting bets not playing today were their FBs (Guerreiro, Piszczek), Weigl, Reus & Götze.
I agree to a great extent with that. Though I won't be too sure about Goetze. He struggled at Bayern and if he is not upto the mark, he won't be handed an automatic place by Tuchel. Tuchel not LVG and Goetze is not Rooney.

Reus and Weigl were obviously huge misses but when you see us - Zlatan, Martial, DDG, Pobga (fingers crossed), Smalling - all massively important and most definitely starters for us and that makes basically the spine of our first team which was not playing.
 

captain666

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Not too concerned about this loss although it did highlight that we have some squad players that would struggle to make it into a Salford pub side!
 

sglowrider

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Not too concerned about this loss although it did highlight that we have some squad players that would struggle to make it into a Salford pub side!

I am seriously shocked at how poor Memphis is -- bulked up too much and lost what little speed he had?
 

CS@SG

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It's his first proper game, a pre-season match, whilst not having our best players available, in weather conditions our players aren't accustomed to. Some of you lot acting like this game is a determinate to how our season is going to go. Jose himself said he doesn't care enough to study opposition teams during pre-season. These games are to build fitness, understanding and to give players a chance to show off their quality, not necessarily to win.
I am so glad tha Jose doesn't behave like lots here pushing whatever current incapability to the previous management team. Glad that Jose is better than that.
 

red4ever 79

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I cannot believe all the people in here defending that, saying it was only a pre season game its about match fitness. We lost 4-1 lads. Thats a major embarrasement. You think the club, directors and owners all flew over there for that nonsense. I think the one positive thing we can take from it, is that Mourinho will have been left in no doubt how poor some of the squad players are.

Cant believe some people in here are still defending my namesake.
 

Mindhunter

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I cannot believe all the people in here defending that, saying it was only a pre season game its about match fitness. We lost 4-1 lads. Thats a major embarrasement. You think the club, directors and owners all flew over there for that nonsense. I think the one positive thing we can take from it, is that Mourinho will have been left in no doubt how poor some of the squad players are.

Cant believe some people in here are still defending my namesake.
:lol::lol: Calm the feck down!!
 

K2K

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"Can Manchester United score? They always score"
Chelsea were abysmal in pre-season last year too. We were not very good ourselves either. Moyes lost to Singha all stars.

Playing poorly in pre-season doesn't mean the end of the world but we ought to consider why it happened and try and correct it with time. Some of our players simply aren't good enough (and haven't been for a while whatever the excuses )

Last year in pre season I felt that we looked attackingly blunt and that our formation was overly defensive (two CDM's) and bizzare experiments like Depay as a 10 ,benching Smalling. Instead of Van Gaal changing things up ,he stubbornly stuck to his guns and one could see the ensuing result from a mile away. People kept on bleating the same 'it's just pre-season' crap even then.

It's simple. I don't think this is doom and gloom but there issues to work on. I hope we work on those.
 

sugar_kane

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As garbage as we were, it's refreshing to not see us tap it about from side to side constantly and actually try and play passes forwards, and also try and hit teams on the counter.

Also I will say it wasn't a 4-1 game. Dortmund were way better but still not all that. Johnstone should done way better for the first goal and the penalty was slightly harsh.
 

XdanielredX

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You'd almost think from reading that this was our first XI midway through the season....

It's like people forget that we still have DE GEA, SMALLING, DARMIAN, ROONEY, IBRAHIMOVIC, MARTIAL, SCHNEIDERLIN all coming back and potentially POGBA being signed....

Relax people....
 

Classical Mechanic

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Chelsea were abysmal in pre-season last year too. We were not very good ourselves either. Moyes lost to Singha all stars.

Playing poorly in pre-season doesn't mean the end of the world but we ought to consider why it happened and try and correct it with time. Some of our players simply aren't good enough (and haven't been for a while whatever the excuses )

Last year in pre season I felt that we looked attackingly blunt and that our formation was overly defensive (two CDM's) and bizzare experiments like Depay as a 10 ,benching Smalling. Instead of Van Gaal changing things up ,he stubbornly stuck to his guns and one could see the ensuing result from a mile away. People kept on bleating the same 'it's just pre-season' crap even then.

It's simple. I don't think this is doom and gloom but there issues to work on. I hope we work on those.
We beat Barca 3 - 1 and they lost the first leg of the Super Cup 4 - 0 to Bilbao in their pre season 2015. They still went on and win the double!

Mourinho said he isn't even trying to create a team at the moment and just trying to get fitness .
 

K2K

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"Can Manchester United score? They always score"
Both teams went on to have bad seasons too...
Exactly .

It isn't doom and gloom but it certainly isn't a positive either (Other than maybe show Jose which of our squad players aren't up for it)

The one issue that a lot of people mentioned last season with Chelsea was how late their pre season started and how unfit the players looked. The signs were there. A good pre-season won't win you the league neccessarily,but a poor one can ruin you.

Our pre-season isn't a poor one ,but we should always be seeking to improve. Everytime.
 

K2K

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"Can Manchester United score? They always score"
We beat Barca 3 - 1 and they lost the first leg of the Super Cup 4 - 0 to Bilbao in their pre season 2015. They still went on and win the double!

Mourinho said he isn't even trying to create a team at the moment and just trying to get fitness .
Barca did struggle in the first half of that season though. The turning point was January after their defeat to Moyes .

A hallmark of Jose's teams is good starts(well other than last season) . Don't get me wrong ,I am not saying the Dortmund game is doomsday. Rather I am saying ,we can't just ignore it as just a meaningless game. They are facets of our game we can and should improve and that will have showed something.


For me the most discouraging thing is that players that were crap even last season seem to be carrying on in the same vein of form even under different management. It's the Depay and Rojo's that worry me. We have seen with Micky that good signings can improve us. So as good for thought ,maybe some of the above mentioned players do need replacing.
 

TrustInJanuzaj

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It's threads like this that make you wonder if you should give up on the forum and make you wonder if people really do know anything about football at all.
 

Classical Mechanic

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Barca did struggle in the first half of that season though. The turning point was January after their defeat to Moyes .

A hallmark of Jose's teams is good starts(well other than last season) . Don't get me wrong ,I am not saying the Dortmund game is doomsday. Rather I am saying ,we can't just ignore it as just a meaningless game. They are facets of our game we can and should improve and that will have showed something.


For me the most discouraging thing is that players that were crap even last season seem to be carrying on in the same vein of form even under different management. It's the Depay and Rojo's that worry me. We have seen with Micky that good signings can improve us. So as good for thought ,maybe some of the above mentioned players do need replacing.
We only had 2 or 3 of 11 first team starters out there yesterday. Depay and Rojo won't be playing very often next season so don't worry, that's if they stay. I think the writing is on the wall for both players anyway.
 

vidic blood & sand

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These friendlies are a bit pointless for fans really. It's just about pre-season return to fitness, and the integration of new players. Wouldn't matter to me if we lost 10:0.
I remember we had a terrific pre-season a couple of years ago, but the start of the season wasn't great. I also remember us losing to Everton in the charity shield in 1985, and then won our first 10 league games in a row. I wouldn't surprise me if we didn't get off to the greatest starts to a season, but my money is still on us to win the league :cool:
 

Drifter

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Bought well and truly back down to earth. If anything is to be taken from this game ,it's Jose as a lot of work to do.
 

devilish

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Its still early days. However if Mou think he can win the EPL by just adding 4 quality players to this crap then I think hes being very very very optimistic. We are 5th place because we deserve it (in a less freaky season we would be 7th). The defense is in shambles (Darmian, Rojo, Jones, Valencia and Mccrap are Stoke level of players), we lack a top quality AMC and if Martial, Mkhitaryan and Pogba get injured we would be relying on the likes of Lingard, Young, Fellaini, Defail and Carrick.
 

Nate Dogg

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It is clear we have too many mediocre players in the squad, sometimes you have a couple to add depth but the likes of Rojo, Jones, Lingard, Memphis, Fellaini and possibly Adnan and Young need to ne shipped out.

One thing for certain Mourinho will realise quickly that just buying 4 players is not enough, he may need to ship out 5/6 and then add another 2 to the squad.
 

POF

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It wasn't a bad performance at all. 4-1 was harsh on United. Defensively there is a lot of work to do but there were some good signs.

Herrera was very good in midfield and has played a lot of minutes in the first 2 games in a high energy role. Bailly looks raw but seems to have a lot of potential. It will be great for Shaw to get through a full 90 minutes. Some really good signs with him but he's way off being match fit.

It was strange seeing Mkhitaryan play on the left with Lingard and Young right. It's unlikely he will play there when the season starts.

Add Zlatan and Martial to that attack and United will be a real threat offensively. I'm really unsure what the plan is defensively. If Jose can turn that back 4 into a top class defensive unit he will have done an amazing job.