OneMoSalah

True we've dropped off second half but in all fairness our attack needed rejuvenating. Willian was doing a lot more than Hazard for me, maybe stupid but seems logical for me in terms of how involved hes been. 2 CFs, Pedro and Cesc all on now, about time.

If he was heavily involved fair enough but hes been close to anonymous in the second half.

Why are people contesting why he took Hazard off? If we are going to play with an actual CF then there is no way Willian deserves to come off after how hes played so far today. Cesc should of came on at HT though. Drinkwater average beyond belief. Now we are fucked.

Watch Bayern sign him for like 25M euros or something crazy. They don't fuck about.

Didn't he fail to hold onto the ball prior to THAT attack? Fucking hell your joking right?

I've watched him fall over enough to form my conclusion. It's a typical Morata performance that could end up being part of the reason we don't beat this terrible Utd side. Part of the reason we could maybe not end up beating this United side is because we conceded due to one of our CBs being out of position, will that be Morata's fault too?

You've obviously not been watching the whole first half, he has been going out to the channels, holding it up at times (not as much as he could as hes been falling over but some have maybe been fouls some not) linking with Willian/Hazard. Its hardly that bad of a performance. If he scored it would of been a different story. United are playing deep without the ball as well so for all the few chances he will have had to run in behind, hes hardly been given much of a chance has he? Willian and Hazard have really only been the two players who have had chances to run in behind United and they came from their set plays or loosing possession high up the pitch on maybe 3 occasions. Giroud wouldn't have done much else except maybe held it in a few more times. To go over what I said ages ago in Morata's thread, he's struggled of late but start of the season nobody complained at all, now he useless and whatever, the change in opinion over him is quite pathetic really considering how well he started, he was always going to have a wee struggle eventually, fatigue, new league and whatever coming into play.

We all hoped he would turn up for a big game. Pathetic He’s hardly been that bad, goes down a bit easy but some could be fouls. Unsure why Drinkwater started though he’s been poor. Matic playing good for United.

Carlos Carvalhal gave a belter of a quote about stats, think it was mainly possession, last week or the week before. “Statistics are based on last year, two years ago or three years ago. But if you and I go to a picnic and we take one chicken and I eat it all, statistically you have eaten half a chicken! ” Alonso btw what a ball that was for Morata, absolute peach pity he hit the bar.

Na hopefully no Cahill. Defence was pretty solid against Barca, one poor mistake won't really affect Christensen I don't think, hes top class. Rudiger was also quite good that night, played some brilliant long diagonals to switch the play. Azpi is Azpi. No need to change that back 3 for this game. Can't see Conte being daft enough either to mix up his defence because in all reality its arguably the strongest part of our team. I would say that the GK, the defence and midfield picks itself based purely on the options we have available.

No chance Emerson starts ahead of Alonso after a pretty sound performance in the game v Barca. Only change will be Pedro for Giroud or Morata. Would be stupid to change anything else.

Cup matches v lower opposition (in which he was almost involved for almost 90% of the various games under Conte)? Poor performances. No point making a case for him because in 18 months you can count on one hand the amount of games he actually looked like a top 4 PL level player, 2 or 3. 32M pounds he cost. Ridiculous. If you look like a championship player vs Norwich then your going to look like a championship player vs a PL team.

Not long ago he was saying we don't need another CF because we had Michy and he can play as a striker and now hes complaining because he played as a striker v Barca after saying all that stuff in the run up to the game about wanting to shine v them? Ridiculous. Or False 9 position or striker or whatever his position was. I agree with him he was better on the wing but unfortunately Eden Hazard is not manager and quite frankly the game plan of him as a false 9/striker worked excellently although he was restricted in his involvement. Willian for example excelled and played arguably his best game for us.

Sanchez, kinda glad he went to United and not City, because he was useless in Mourinho's system, imagine him in Pep's team. United should receive a lot more criticism though for cash they've spent and playing that poorly against Sevilla, who in all fairness have been pretty shite this year.

Really starting to fuck me off is Courtois, hes had that offer for a while now, if he doesn't sign it soon enough the club should retract it and just sell him. Hes a brilliant goalkeeper but we can't wait forever, it looks even worse having been offered a contract and not signing it until another 2-3 months after receiving it. Fair enough if hes overly keen on a move to Madrid, sign the new deal, make some sort of gentleman's agreement with the club, get us a huge fee in return.... won't happen but. I think he'll end up signing it eventually anyway.

Very good performance bar first 20 mins where Barca absolutely piled the pressure on. Top class player.

Some impressive long diagonals last night. Cahill take note.

IF we attack them we will have every chance. Wait and see though that little prick Sanchez will have a belter against us...

Was our best player by a mile. On second thoughts quite disappointed with Eden he talked the talk pre game about wanting to shine against Barca but he didn’t really walk the walk (wasn’t easy Busquets kept him in check when he dropped deeper pretty excellently). If we can get Eden and Willian both playing at that level that Willian did tonight we have every chance to qualify imo.

Feel for him but it was obvious he'd do something like this one game, hes taken chances before playing with the ball in those sort of situations or other ones, unfortunately for the type of player he is willing to trust his ability to pass it out of danger as opposed to clear it, was bound to happen. No doubt he'll learn from it just a pity it goes against him after another good performance and in general a very good team performance in spells against an excellent opponent. If that was Cahill he'd be getting slaughtered though...

Short freekicks man. Get them to fucking fuck. What a waste

Wouldn’t say that. He takes risks with passes, they’ve paid off up to now but that was a howler yeah. Potentially cost us as now they’ve got an away goal.

I’m sorry Christensen but why? Why would you pass that inside? why why why why why why? Huge error against him although he’s been pretty good.

Was sceptical of game plan before hand but I thought the last 15-20 mins of first half was good, pressing was excellent in bursts and Willian was desperately unlucky not to score. I think we could get something out of this if we keep playing like this. Rakitic is walking a tightrope hes been booked and had 2 little fouls, if he continues like that he'll definitely go.

Why are we trying to play long passes to three 5ft 6/7 players. Bold decision to press at times but also silly to try play out from the back. Willian has to get that pass off to Alonso earlier also.