Why United fans should be positive - Explaining recent decisions

[Rake]

I stand correctrd, and yet I am correct.

I think it is the perfect time to do that. Ole is a new manager and we should use that to our advantage. Arguably, a bunch of new players might respond better to his tactics than players that have played negative/defensive football for a number of years now.

Also, we don't have solid starting line-up. We keep rotating constantly. There really isn't much team cohesion to be disturbed. I think it is better to risk on 2-3 new defenders than keep players that have shown time and time again that they do not belong at the club.

 

[Wumminator]

Just across the city, there's one.

He didn’t let six players all go at once from the defence though did he?

I fully expect us to have similar outgoings this year.

 

[Untd55]

Lingard
You missed out Lingard in the original post. Why is he playing exactly? The guy adds nothing to the team. He has 3 goals and 2 assists in 17 games under Solskjaer, and he has not got a goal or assist since January. Yet, Solskjaer still picked him over Lukaku against Barcelona; the same Lukaku who was the only reason we got past PSG. Lukaku is a better player than Lingard; Lukaku is our only player (before this season) to reach double figures; Lukaku is younger than Lingard. Lukaku is superior in every way - even people who don't like him have to admit that.

Lingard operated in the centre for long periods against Barcelona, so you cannot use the excuse that it was for Rashford to play in the centre. Solskjaer made a poor decision in choosing, arguably, one of our worst players over our best attacker. I am not saying we would have won with Lukaku, but it was a bad decision to not play him. Seems to be Solskjaer is picking some players without basing it on performance.

Jones
The renewal of his contract was stupid no matter how you look at it. Jones is injury prone - you do not sign a decent centre back to a new contract if they are injury prone. I would understand it if he were as good as Kompany, but he is not. We are now stuck with a player because it will be almost impossible to sell him. We had a chance of getting rid of him with his contract running down, but who is going to sign a decent-at-best defender who is injured 50% of the time? Nobody. It also raises the risk that we are not going to invest sufficiently in defence in the future.

Young
Again, the decision to sign him to a new contract cannot be defended. He was obviously coming to the end of his career last season, so keeping him this season should have been the last straw. Why did we sign him to a new contract when he is not good enough anymore? He is just going to get in the way of us signing a right-back or bringing through a youth player to give them games. I cannot believe he is much better than them at this stage.

 

[Wumminator]

Lingard
You missed out Lingard in the original post. Why is he playing exactly? The guy adds nothing to the team. He has 3 goals and 2 assists in 17 games under Solskjaer, and he has not got a goal or assist since January. Yet, Solskjaer still picked him over Lukaku against Barcelona; the same Lukaku who was the only reason we got past PSG. Lukaku is a better player than Lingard; Lukaku is our only player (before this season) to reach double figures; Lukaku is younger than Lingard. Lukaku is superior in every way - even people who don't like him have to admit that.

Lingard operated in the centre for long periods against Barcelona, so you cannot use the excuse that it was for Rashford to play in the centre. Solskjaer made a poor decision in choosing, arguably, one of our worst players over our best attacker. I am not saying we would have won with Lukaku, but it was a bad decision to not play him. Seems to be Solskjaer is picking some players without basing it on performance.

Jones
The renewal of his contract was stupid no matter how you look at it. Jones is injury prone - you do not sign a decent centre back to a new contract if they are injury prone. I would understand it if he were as good as Kompany, but he is not. We are now stuck with a player because it will be almost impossible to sell him. We had a chance of getting rid of him with his contract running down, but who is going to sign a decent-at-best defender who is injured 50% of the time? Nobody. It also raises the risk that we are not going to invest sufficiently in defence in the future.

Young
Again, the decision to sign him to a new contract cannot be defended. He was obviously coming to the end of his career last season, so keeping him this season should have been the last straw. Why did we sign him to a new contract when he is not good enough anymore? He is just going to get in the way of us signing a right-back or bringing through a youth player to give them games. I cannot believe he is much better than them at this stage.

A) Lingard and Lukaku don’t play in the same position. Do you play Lukaku/Rashford/Martial all at once? Is that much better than Lingard/Rashford/Martial?

B) if we got rid of Young/Jones/Rojo/Darmian/Valencia and Bailly all at once we would have four first team defenders left. Do we spend our transfer budget replacing these? Or is the plan to go into next year with Shaw/Smalling/Dalot/lindelof and a group of kids?

 

[Reddy Rederson]

A) Lingard and Lukaku don’t play in the same position. Do you play Lukaku/Rashford/Martial all at once? Is that much better than Lingard/Rashford/Martial?

Yes. Playing fred the mascot would have had a great impact than lingard. Ole picking lingard after he played so shit at west ham needs to be questioned. Especially after his survival of the fittest nonsense. How can any player take him seriously when he'll pick them anyway when they are clearly shit? Wheres the urgency to be better if theres no fear of losing a place?

 

[Wumminator]

Yes. Playing fred the mascot would have had a great impact than lingard. Ole picking lingard after he played so shit at west ham needs to be questioned. Especially after his survival of the fittest nonsense. How can any player take him seriously when he'll pick them anyway when they are clearly shit? Wheres the urgency to be better if theres no fear of losing a place?

Just some of your quotes on Lukaku this year

“The more I see lukaku, the more I think he’s stealing a living”

“Yup, lukaku sucks balls”

“Romalu Lukaku and the first touch of doom strike again.”

“Looked great until lukaku came on”


Now after last night it is obvious he should start.

If Lingard was playing over someone who was in form and playing well, or who hasn’t got a chance I’d understand your point. As it is Ole either picks Lingard or Lukaku or Sanchez who have both also been very poor recently.

 

[Maccataq]

Last night was a very sombre experience for United fans. We got battered and bruised by a team who are quite simply on another level to us. The fact is though we are on the way back and it was fecking great to just to get to this part of the competition. I notice that the posters around here are starting to turn on Ole and it is absolutely madness in my eyes. I thought I'd make a sane thread to cancel out all the nonsense.

1) The Young situation - There was no better choice than starting Ashley Young last night.
It's as simple as it says. Now that doesn't mean that Ashley Young played well or that Ashley Young didn't make a mistake, it just simply means that Ole Gunnar Solskjaer made the logical choice. He couldn't play Eric Bailly at right back. We have seen how that turns out. Luke Shaw was gone. Valencia is on his way out. Darmian has played six times total this year and hasn't been seen for months. Rojo just got torn to shreds against West Ham. The only viable alternative is Dalot and realistically he has shown less defensively than Young. Ole could do nothing about this situation.

2) Our recent contract extensions - Jones/Young will feature next year.
I see a lot of posts complaining about these two having their contracts extended. Well the simple fact is, while they are no longer good enough for United, they are better than their alternatives. Behind them in the pecking order are: Darmian, Rojo, Bailly and Valencia. At least three of them will leave next summer. Realistically our defensive options without these two contract extensions could be: Lindelof, Smalling, Shaw and Dalot. We NEED more squad players than that, especially with our injury problems. Due to our deficiencies else where it would be madness to sign 3/4 defenders. So Young/Jones getting a contract makes sense.

3.) If we are going to play like this we should have kept Mourinho
I am seeing more and more of these types of posts. Mourinho was done. He had just got battered by Liverpool and had fallen out with the squad. The key here is though is that Pogba and Rashford weren't performing for Mourinho. They were our best players and Pogba had been dropped. It is evident that Mourinho had a toxic relationship with the players and we can't just get rid of the whole squad (some of you may wish this was possible)

4.) Ed Woodwood hasn't backed us in the transfer market
When Mourinho took over at United, we had been spending just over 210 million on the wages of our players. We've just announced we have wages of 296 million without Sanchez being here for a full year) Mourinho spent over 400 million. He recouped around 100 million. So on average every year he was here had had a 100 million net spend while increasing the wage bill by about 30 million a year. For those figures we have Fred, Dalot, Sanchez, Lukaku, Lindelof, Bailly and Pogba to show for it. Are those players worth the money? No. Now we hear rumours (nothing confirmed) that Mourinho wanted Maguire, Perisic et al. Would these have improved us? Woodwood was in the unenviable position of making more signings that wouldn't have improved us or dismissing a manager who had just finished second. Either one might have put us in a worst position than we are now.

5.) We will spend a feckton this summer.
Not really a decision but important to say. Just as important as net spend is the wage bill. We are looking at reducing this massively. Players who aren't contributing enough are going, Mata, Herrera, Valencia are pretty certain to leave. Rojo, Darmian, Periera will likely follow them out the door. We've already recouped money for Fellaini. We are for the first time in ages have a proper clear out. You might think you hear this every year, but this time we know that contracts are expiring. This should clear out our wage bill massively. Furthermore with our relative lack of spend this past summer and the clear deficiencies in our squad it is obvious where we need to buy. I expect a 200+ million pound summer. The Glazers have been shown to back new managers when they need it.

6.) Giving Ole the job.
This is a no brainer. When he was hired no-one expected us to be challenging for the top four or get past PSG. He accomplished both and the players and fans loved him. There was no other option. Some people keep talking about waiting till summer.. what would this have accomplished? There will be no big name managers leaving their post this summer and Ole might rightly have told us to feck off if we waited. So what benefit would that have done? Since he took the job he has us pretty much top of the premier league. Our recent form isn't great but we've player Barcelona twice, Wolves twice and Arsenal away. They are all games that ANY manager would struggle with.

We have to be positive. We are in a much better position now than we have been for the last four/five years as far as I can see. We have a manager who has already done a great job. We have money available and we have space in our squad. Even though watching City/Liverpool push on is galling, this is not Ole's fault and we just need to put everything into preparing for next year now.

Great post. I think the last point is key, Ole is now a victim of his own success and people are criticising him for going out at in the quarters of the CL when before we wouldn't even have got past PSG. Before Ole started, there was no chance of top 4 and if you asked Utd fans we could be within a few points by now, everyone would have taken it. People also need to remember that he inherited a team built by Jose that is geared towards counter attacking and reactive football. It also didn't run much so judge him once he has had a full pre-season and a couple of transfer windows to shape the squad.

In a way I'm glad our weaknesses have been exposed as there is always a danger that Ole's success was papering over the cracks and Woodward would start thinking he didn't need to invest as much.

People blame Woodward and that is fair but and the end of the day, if he left there would be another person in his place running the club in the same way - it's the Glazers that need to be accountable.

 

[mitchmouse]

can't agree with you about young. I refuse to believe an Academy defender isn't better than Young. Dalot most certainly is - or go with three CBs. Young wouldn't get in some Championship sides. It's a disgrace that Manchester United are using a failed winger as a defender

 

[Bilbo]

Very good OP.

Ole has done very good job, he has done well in PL, CL and FA cup.

Good Post - this gets forgotten in the recent downturn

CL - weren't given a prayer against PSG. We got through, and therefore exceeded expectations
FA Cup - 3 very tough draws in a row. All away. We won two, the third was a step too far sadly, but ultimately shouldn't be considered a failure
League - we'd already written off top 4. Now we have a real chance

 

[Wumminator]

can't agree with you about young. I refuse to believe an Academy defender isn't better than Young. Dalot most certainly is - or go with three CBs. Young wouldn't get in some Championship sides. It's a disgrace that Manchester United are using a failed winger as a defender

I think he’s better than Dalot who has performed worse in defensive roles than him. He’s also clearly better than an academy teenager , so that is ridiculous.

Ashley Young is currently not playing well enough to start for us. Dalot MAY have played better yesterday although that is suspect. He’s still better than Rojo/Bailly based on their last games.

 

[mitchmouse]

I think he’s better than Dalot who has performed worse in defensive roles than him. He’s also clearly better than an academy teenager , so that is ridiculous.

Ashley Young is currently not playing well enough to start for us. Dalot MAY have played better yesterday although that is suspect. He’s still better than Rojo/Bailly based on their last games.

Don't agree. Young is a liability therefore a youngster must be a better bet. Lost count of the number of goals Young has given away in the past month or two so i don't see how he's "clearly" better than anyone. As for his set pieces....

 

[Wumminator]

Don't agree. Young is a liability therefore a youngster must be a better bet. Lost count of the number of goals Young has given away in the past month or two so i don't see how he's "clearly" better than anyone. As for his set pieces....

Do you maybe think that Young just happens to be the very best of a bad bunch of set piece takers?

 

[Reddy Rederson]

Just some of your quotes on Lukaku this year

“The more I see lukaku, the more I think he’s stealing a living”

“Yup, lukaku sucks balls”

“Romalu Lukaku and the first touch of doom strike again.”

“Looked great until lukaku came on”


Now after last night it is obvious he should start.

If Lingard was playing over someone who was in form and playing well, or who hasn’t got a chance I’d understand your point. As it is Ole either picks Lingard or Lukaku or Sanchez who have both also been very poor recently.

Like I said, the fecking mascot should be starting ahead of lingard. The fact lukaku isnt good enough, doesnt mean he does at least try. Where was inlgard against west ham? Nowhere, yet he gets the full 90 and gets a start against barca? Anyone, and i mean anyone would have done more than lingard did over the past two games. Sanchez did more in five minutes than lingard did over two hours. Yet Ole isnt to blame? Sorry, no. If Ole is to take the credit for the honey moon, then he gets this shit as well. It might be his fault the shit thats in the squad, but its 100% on him that he picked him not once but twice. If he had come off the bench that would have been one thing, but to start him????? bonkers.

 

[mitchmouse]

Do you maybe think that Young just happens to be the very best of a bad bunch of set piece takers?

that is true! what a sad state of affairs at a club that used to have beckham then ronaldo

 

[Wumminator]

Like I said, the fecking mascot should be starting ahead of lingard. The fact lukaku isnt good enough, doesnt mean he does at least try. Where was inlgard against west ham? Nowhere, yet he gets the full 90 and gets a start against barca? Anyone, and i mean anyone would have done more than lingard did over the past two games. Sanchez did more in five minutes than lingard did over two hours. Yet Ole isnt to blame? Sorry, no. If Ole is to take the credit for the honey moon, then he gets this shit as well. It might be his fault the shit thats in the squad, but its 100% on him that he picked him not once but twice. If he had come off the bench that would have been one thing, but to start him????? bonkers.

I’m sorry but your argument for dropping Lingard is to either play a man you said was stealing a living or to play Sanchez who has been out for months and literally has been the worst player we’ve had since he signed. Neither of them sound much better. Was Lukaku better than Lingard against West Ham?

 

[Bilbo]

I get the inclusion of Lingard yesterday. The talent gap was so great that our only real chance yesterday was to outrun them and hope for something on the counter. Our front three made sense given the options available.

Ole is fair game for criticism on tactics, but team selection I give him a pass for until next season. Lets give him a chance to build his own team.

 

[ash_86]

Very good post.

 

[Random Task]

Well said @Wumminator

 

[Phil Osophy]

Bravo man, excellent post.

 

[Wumminator]

You have made very valid points but I cannot agree with this one. How much are both these players earning a week? Reports are well over £100k per week. They need shifting off the wages bill. We have needed a first team RB since last season, Dalot is then the substitute.

As for Jones he hasn't been good enough since his first season under Sir Alex Ferguson which is 8 years ago now. Bailly was a rock in his first season just two seasons ago. He should be given another chance whilst Jones is sold. That means we have Smalling and Bailly as CB options with a new CB coming in to partner Lindelof.

The fear for most United fans is they become first team options too regularly next season as well. Young plays almost every week.

Just seen this. I imagine that next year Young will be a back up wing back and Jones will be a 4th choice CB. Barring injury neither will be starting for the club regularly.

 

[SirAF]

Positive this, positive that. Back this player, back this manager.. after the past 6 years of failure after failure we as fans are rightly sick and tired of the shite.

This.

 

[Canagel]

Agreed with everything. And specifically the line up choice. The options is just not there for the manager and not that much difference will have happened.

 

[Wumminator]

This.

So you just... don’t back a manager?

 

[SirAF]

So you just... don’t back a manager?

So just.. everything in the world is constant.

Besides, I haven’t said that I don’t back OGS (I do) I just don’t think there is a place for any positivity right now.

I’ll be happy to be proven wrong, but I just can’t see the club making the right investments and moves during the summer.

 

[Wumminator]

So just.. everything in the world is constant. Besides, I haven’t said that I don’t back OGS (I do) I just don’t think there is a place for any positivity right now.

I’ll be happy to be proven wrong, but I just can’t see the club making the right investments and moves during the summer.

Ole has turned out fortunes around and had us top of the form table. Surely that’s reason to be excited?

 

[Igor Drefljak]

I really struggle to be positive right now when it comes to United.
Looking back at the post Fergie regime, what exactly have United got right in the 6 years.

The club is absolutely rotten to the core. We don't get anything right.

Players:
We look so far off the pace. Most of the players in our squad aren't good enough / squad (rotation) players at best.

Signings:
Fellaini, Blind, Di Maria, Schweinsteiger, Depay, Schneiderlin, Mkhitaryan (Been and gone)
Mata, Herrera (Contracts due, yet to be signed)
Darmian, Rojo, Sanchez (Definitely need moving on)
Bailly, Matic, Lukaku, Fred (Need moving on in my opinion, may not be a majority opinion)
Shaw, Lindelof, Dalot (I'm happy with, although I wouldn't say any are top tier talents right now)
Pogba, Martial (Attitude problems, mixed feelings about both of them)

Contracts:
We let the likes of Martials contract run down to the last year, so he basically has us over a barrel. Pay up or leave. The same is happening with Herrera right now and will happen with De Gea next season.
On top of that, you've got garbage like Young on over 100k a week. Sanchez warming the bench at around 350k a week.
We massively overpay, put the power in the hands of the players over renewals etc and don't move players on before contracts are due (Mata, Darmian, Valencia etc)

Scouting:
Our signings have been terrible, yet, most high profile. We've not really unearthed a gem. Dalot and Bailly were the only real surprises out of the people we've bought.
So what are our scouts even doing?

 

[SirAF]

Ole has turned out fortunes around and had us top of the form table. Surely that’s reason to be excited?

Yes, of course, but at the same time it’s 5 losses in 7 (?) now. I think the initial run was the famous new manager bounce and what we are seeing now is the normal level. I’d rather assume that everything goes to shit and be happily surprised if it doesn’t

 

[WR10]

Now let's just say Young was suspended for the game. What would you have played?

 

[Rajma]

The only viable alternative is Dalot and realistically he has shown less defensively than Young.

Biggest lie/myth on the caf, Dalot is a good and proven defender (heck you only need to go back as far as last game at OT against Barca to compare the two) and there's literally not a single player worse at defending than Young at the club.

 

[Wumminator]

Biggest lie/myth on the caf, Dalot is a great defender and there's literally not a single player worse at defending than Young at the club.

I mean Rojo defender worse than Young the other day, Bailly was worse in 30 minutes against PSG and at one point in the second leg I literally saw Dalot turn around and set their forward free but sure whatever.

 

[VP89]

Last night was a very sombre experience for United fans. We got battered and bruised by a team who are quite simply on another level to us. The fact is though we are on the way back and it was fecking great to just to get to this part of the competition. I notice that the posters around here are starting to turn on Ole and it is absolutely madness in my eyes. I thought I'd make a sane thread to cancel out all the nonsense.

1) The Young situation - There was no better choice than starting Ashley Young last night.
It's as simple as it says. Now that doesn't mean that Ashley Young played well or that Ashley Young didn't make a mistake, it just simply means that Ole Gunnar Solskjaer made the logical choice. He couldn't play Eric Bailly at right back. We have seen how that turns out. Luke Shaw was gone. Valencia is on his way out. Darmian has played six times total this year and hasn't been seen for months. Rojo just got torn to shreds against West Ham. The only viable alternative is Dalot and realistically he has shown less defensively than Young. Ole could do nothing about this situation.

2) Our recent contract extensions - Jones/Young will feature next year.
I see a lot of posts complaining about these two having their contracts extended. Well the simple fact is, while they are no longer good enough for United, they are better than their alternatives. Behind them in the pecking order are: Darmian, Rojo, Bailly and Valencia. At least three of them will leave next summer. Realistically our defensive options without these two contract extensions could be: Lindelof, Smalling, Shaw and Dalot. We NEED more squad players than that, especially with our injury problems. Due to our deficiencies else where it would be madness to sign 3/4 defenders. So Young/Jones getting a contract makes sense.

3.) If we are going to play like this we should have kept Mourinho
I am seeing more and more of these types of posts. Mourinho was done. He had just got battered by Liverpool and had fallen out with the squad. The key here is though is that Pogba and Rashford weren't performing for Mourinho. They were our best players and Pogba had been dropped. It is evident that Mourinho had a toxic relationship with the players and we can't just get rid of the whole squad (some of you may wish this was possible)

4.) Ed Woodwood hasn't backed us in the transfer market
When Mourinho took over at United, we had been spending just over 210 million on the wages of our players. We've just announced we have wages of 296 million without Sanchez being here for a full year) Mourinho spent over 400 million. He recouped around 100 million. So on average every year he was here had had a 100 million net spend while increasing the wage bill by about 30 million a year. For those figures we have Fred, Dalot, Sanchez, Lukaku, Lindelof, Bailly and Pogba to show for it. Are those players worth the money? No. Now we hear rumours (nothing confirmed) that Mourinho wanted Maguire, Perisic et al. Would these have improved us? Woodwood was in the unenviable position of making more signings that wouldn't have improved us or dismissing a manager who had just finished second. Either one might have put us in a worst position than we are now.

5.) We will spend a feckton this summer.
Not really a decision but important to say. Just as important as net spend is the wage bill. We are looking at reducing this massively. Players who aren't contributing enough are going, Mata, Herrera, Valencia are pretty certain to leave. Rojo, Darmian, Periera will likely follow them out the door. We've already recouped money for Fellaini. We are for the first time in ages have a proper clear out. You might think you hear this every year, but this time we know that contracts are expiring. This should clear out our wage bill massively. Furthermore with our relative lack of spend this past summer and the clear deficiencies in our squad it is obvious where we need to buy. I expect a 200+ million pound summer. The Glazers have been shown to back new managers when they need it.

6.) Giving Ole the job.
This is a no brainer. When he was hired no-one expected us to be challenging for the top four or get past PSG. He accomplished both and the players and fans loved him. There was no other option. Some people keep talking about waiting till summer.. what would this have accomplished? There will be no big name managers leaving their post this summer and Ole might rightly have told us to feck off if we waited. So what benefit would that have done? Since he took the job he has us pretty much top of the premier league. Our recent form isn't great but we've player Barcelona twice, Wolves twice and Arsenal away. They are all games that ANY manager would struggle with.

We have to be positive. We are in a much better position now than we have been for the last four/five years as far as I can see. We have a manager who has already done a great job. We have money available and we have space in our squad. Even though watching City/Liverpool push on is galling, this is not Ole's fault and we just need to put everything into preparing for next year now.

1. Dalot is a better full back, and less capable of making stupid errors as frequently as Young. It was called that Young would feck us up by so many people on the caf, its bizzare you can spin this into a positive.

2. Jones I have no issue with but Young can feck right off. The decision to keep him shows the lack of ambition of this club. Fecking get rid and bring in a proper full back. There's nothing positive about this.

3. I agree we should keep Ole but hes not the reason we are negative.

4. Backing doesn't mean money spent. It means backing the manager with a proper fecking structure enabling him to do the transfers swiftly. Ed is out of his depth and he's a commercial man. We still don't look close to appointing anyone remotely comfortable of helping oversee a huge overhaul and going by reports we won't spend the required amount this summer anyway.

5. Spending right is as important as spending big. And Ed has overseen the biggest waste of our cash in history. Fact. I'm not filled with confidence that it suddenly improves. Why? Because we have no fecking structure and overrated our talent. We gave Martial a 5 year deal on wages twice his worth for fecks sake. We will probably do the same with Rashford too, because we are mugs in those decisions.

6. Not a no brainer. I'm happy with Ole and he has my full support and backing. But a lot of fans wanted Poch, me included. Now that we have ole I hope he turns us around but without any backing he's fecked. If he misjudged our players (likely going by his constant praise of Pogba or weird fetish with Young and Rashford), we might be double fecked.

 

[AlexUTD]

Young and Lingard have been really bad over several matches. I was afraid they would start against Barcelona and they did.

I think Solskjaer use Young because he has experience but that does not help if you cant pass the ball or defend? Why not use Dalot? He actually can pass the ball and he is fast enough to get the ball back if he loses it, and he can actually cross the ball.

Lingard runs after the ball but he passes the ball backwards too much. Lacks too much technique so shouldnt be a starter in a CL match. I would rather use Sanchez to be honest. I know Sanchez is not at his best but he has enough quality to do a good forward pass atleast and he can score goals.

It pisses me off to see these players on the field when they are clearly out of their depth playing these matches when we have players on the bench that clearly are better players overall.

That beeing said, i still back Ole 100% and hope he gets the funds to bring in better players so we can actually have a chance to win something.

 

[Wumminator]

Young and Lingard have been really bad over several matches. I was afraid they would start against Barcelona and they did.

I think Solskjaer use Young because he has experience but that does not help if you cant pass the ball or defend? Why not use Dalot? He actually can pass the ball and he is fast enough to get the ball back if he loses it, and he can actually cross the ball.

Lingard runs after the ball but he passes the ball backwards too much. Lacks too much technique so shouldnt be a starter in a CL match. I would rather use Sanchez to be honest. I know Sanchez is not at his best but he has enough quality to do a good forward pass atleast and he can score goals.

It pisses me off to see these players on the field when they are clearly out of their depth playing these matches when we have players on the bench that clearly are better players overall.

That beeing said, i still back Ole 100% and hope he gets the funds to bring in better players so we can actually have a chance to win something.

How can you have watched Sanchez and Lingard this season and decide that Sanchez is the better footballer? He’s been torrid.

 

[AndyJ1985]

How can you have watched Sanchez and Lingard this season and decide that Sanchez is the better footballer? He’s been torrid.

Both of them are equally useless. It's like comparing piss and vomit

 

[Chairman Steve]

On the reflection, I don’t think it was possible to expect these group of players to rack up the results they did up to the PSG 2nd leg, for the rest of that season. Overcoming that deficit with the injuries and the score from the first leg was like winning a cup final.

Every league game since OGS has joined has been pretty much must-win game to save face, which has since escalated to a possible Top 4 shot which is where we are now because of how far behind we were. Even outside of the league form and the Solskjær league table, he’s picked up some great cup results including winning at Stamford Bridge which is arguably THE bogey ground for Utd.

We really haven’t had a low pressure game where we can almost employ a low intensity, rest players, experiment apart from the Reading FA Cup game. All the FA Cup games since he’s been here have been arguably the toughest possible tie outside of City away.

 

[Pughnichi]

We need a right side. Not having one makes everything go down the left...which makes us mind numbingly predictable.

Rashford and Martial should battle it out for the left side role.

Greenwood should be back up to a new striker...let’s invest in our exceptional youth players to those that say he’s too young (ain’t done Ajax any harm)

and the right should be Sancho perhaps with Chong as his back up. Again investing in our apparent exceptional youth.

Get rid of Lukaku, Sanchez, Mata. People keep saying oooooh we can’t get rid if too many. Yes! Yes we can. And we must.

 

[AlexUTD]

How can you have watched Sanchez and Lingard this season and decide that Sanchez is the better footballer? He’s been torrid.

Well Sanchez did more in 10 mins yesterday than Lingard have done in the last 2 matches. He was actually a threat and should have scored when a big part of the team had given up.

Both of them are equally useless. It's like comparing piss and vomit

They both have been underwhelming i agree, but still Sanchez have 2 times the quality overall.

 

[Josep Dowling]

Just seen this. I imagine that next year Young will be a back up wing back and Jones will be a 4th choice CB. Barring injury neither will be starting for the club regularly.

That is the hope but I don’t hold me breathe. I can’t see where we can get all these new player from. We have hardly purchased any bargains in the last few years.

 

[Sandikan]

Ole will know that we need 2-3 starters to come in immediately.
The likes of Young, Jones and Lingard can revert to the squad players they should be at a club like ours.

I even have the suspicion that only one of Rashford/Lukaku/Martial should start each game, and we need real quality up front too.

 

[Reddy Rederson]

I’m sorry but your argument for dropping Lingard is to either play a man you said was stealing a living or to play Sanchez who has been out for months and literally has been the worst player we’ve had since he signed. Neither of them sound much better. Was Lukaku better than Lingard against West Ham?

My argument for dropping lingard is that hes shit. You can dig up all the post from a year ago that you like, lukaku was shit then. Hes still not good enough now, but its fecking damn sight better option than lingard. Funny you dont keep digging into my posts to see my opinions on fred the red. Or sanchez for that matter who did more in 5 minutes than lindgard has done in two games.

Seriously, never has a username been more apt.