Pizy

Awesome performance. Perfect Sarriball. Pressing, passing, movement were all superb. All of the midfield 3 were excellent.

Dominant after the first 10 minutes and played some very nice football. If we had a couple of killers in the final third we'd be far out of sight by now. Don't think anyone played poorly that half.

Hopefully Kepa and our defenders are well prepared for the aerial assault from Burnley. That's likely to be their game plan. Long balls and set pieces that try to expose what is our biggest weakness.

Shit. Not confident at all with this XI. Our attack looks so blunt. And in a match where we were likely to completely boss possession I would've thought Kovacic made more sense than Ross because he's much better at keeping it and controlling it. Hoping for the best but ready to watch yet another physical side bully Morata for 70 minutes until he's taken off to his usual sulky reaction.

Kovacic, man. Amazing footballer. So beautiful to watch when he's on the ball and when he's off it he's always finding that pocket of space. Puts in a defensive shift as well. Hes the glue that links the defense and attack. This is what he has that Ross doesn't.

Man, the race for 3rd and 4th is gonna be crazy. Must say, it's would be unbelievably annoying if Arse finish above us while we're both in our rebuilding year. But they have two world class goal scorers who can mask their faults. I'd kill for either Auba or Lacazette up top here. All of our rivals have that killer striker but us. Lukaku is useless in big games (as he was against us the other day) but he'll still mop up against fodder and get to 20 PL goals. Morata and Giroud can't even manage to do that. If we miss out in the end it'll be because of that I'd think.

In good form for sure. Thought Kovacic was once again good today so lots of people calling for Ross to replace him in our best XI I disagree with. Kovacic is better in the middle third of the pitch and with intricate link up play whereas Barkley is better in front of goal. Tough selection dilemma for Sarri. Plus there's still RLC and Cesc who haven't even shown what they can do in this team yet.

Giroud has to start every single PL match. Even if he only scores a handful of goals all season he offers 10x more than Morata. We desperately need to go all out and sign a goal scorer in January if we want to finish in the top 4. We cannot survive on Hazard carrying the attacking load all season.

Literally all 4 goals today came from moments of dreadful defending. This is the first glimpse of David Luiz morphing into a clown so far this season. Dove in TWICE on different players 50 yards from our goal, one of which they scored on. As for the game, we were in control and comfortable the whole first half. We then completely stopped playing our game and abandoned our identity. Our attack was pretty woeful overall. Not a terrible point in the end considering we were about to lose, but United were there for the taking if we had more quality up top.

Willian was actually pretty good that half. He doesn't deserve to be pulled out as much as Morata does. At least Willian is making dangerous runs down the channels and keeping the ball excellently. He has offered something.

Almost feel like United are conserving energy for a late blitz. They aren't pressuring us when we have the ball at all. This is why we will certainly need at least one more goal.

Actually comical how shit Morata has been so far. Either gives the ball away or falls to the ground every single time. Get him off, FFS.

Tbf, he's not had the squad before that he has now. We have the likes of Cesc, RLC, Barkley, Christensen, etc to rotate in. He's never had that before.

I mean, he's rotated several areas so far. I don't see a problem. Once we start playing many more games per week he'll start rotating more dramatically.

Man, I'd imagine United's CB's who are very low on confidence will be delighted to see a striker with zero confidence today rather than Giroud. Anyways, like I mentioned last night, I was guessing that Mou might start Martial and Rashford instead of Sanchez and I was right. Huge danger from wide areas here. Hopefully our fullbacks hold up to the pace running at them today.

Feels like it's been a month since we last played. I wonder what sort of ultra annoying scheme Mourinho has planned out to "kill" certain aspects of this match. Will he send his 2 thugs Fellaini and Herrera out there to kick and elbow our technical players every chance they get? Probably. As shite as they've been so far this season I am worried about their attack. Wonder if José will have them balls to drop Sanchez here. I'd be more scared of Martial than him at this point. I think they'd give us a load of issues with a front 3 of Lukaku, Martial, and Rashford. I really fucking hate how these international breaks kill momentum and routine. I would've fancied us to batter them had we played a coup,e of weeks ago. Now I think it could go either way.

We may as well make peace with the fact that he's going to give us a great final season and leave next summer. Just when we may see the absolute best of him he's going to leave and he'll do so for a cut price since it'll be the last year of his contract. The only positive is that we won't be Courtois'd and will have this whole time to prepare and scout for replacements. Hopefully the club will shop in the top bracket.

I mean, he's making it plain as day that Madrid is his option #1.

Seems like there isn't much we can do. He has his mind set. Might take us offering him an Alexis Sanchez level salary for him to stay. He's on like £400-500k per week, right? Whats super frustrating is that we finally have a manager who can take us up a level and play great football. We feel like a club on the upswing while Madrid are waning. Ronaldo left, their key players getting old, their manager now on the hot seat. Why would Hazard want to leave now? Damn.

Welp. Sounds like Eden is about to drop another future-related bomshell on us in a bit. Bad feeling about this.

Crosse so on the far post. Over and over again. Why are we so clueless in those situations!?

Really can't even blame Giroud for not scoring. He gets no clean looks across the ground because every team pack so many players around their box and the aerial service has been pretty abysmal all season from our players. We are desperate for a striker in the mould of Aguero or Griezmann who can create for themselves and score from just about anywhere around the box.

Maybe our best half of the season going forward. Still so obviously missing a killer in the final third and are completely dependent on Eden. Giroud's linkup has been outstanding but we need goals from him too. We still look vulnerable to quick turnovers and crosses with runners at the far post. We MUST turn our dominance into goals in the second half because Southampton have a goal in them if we keep giving them chances.

Damn. We're down to 5th as we kick off.

Hmm. I predict a frustrating match looking at the XI.