manpe

No wonder, they had much more time to rest and prepare for this game. We were visibly fatigued, physically completely dominated, which makes Mourinho's team selection all the more baffling. Next games are against Everton and Galatasaray, we will surely play our best team again. Deserved victory for City, surprised it ended only 2-0 considering how expansively we played and how completely knackered the players were in the second half.

In order for United to live through this rebuilding process in a positive, tolerable manner, they need a manager who can get the best out of average players. Basically they need an Alex Ferguson, which they won't have. The other possible solution for them is to buy a bucketload of quality players and hope that Moysie can make them play together. However, how will they get those players if they miss out on Champions League? The difference between non-CL and CL is the difference between Marin and Hazard - huge. Moyes isn't exactly a magnet for world class players, the only reason why anyone would want to sign for them, is to play for the Man United brand and possibly insane wages. This brand will start losing its value if they keep missing out on CL football and keep sucking in the league, and they will not be able to afford those wages provided they will be paying Rooney alone 3 world class players wages (300K/pw was it?). I don't know, it's difficult to see how they could get things back on track. Moyes will need to start being amazing all of a sudden and win matches from next season on. What are the chances of that happening? He's not a bad coach, but this pie might be too big for him to chew. I think us and City will be too powerful for them for years to come. I wouldn't dismiss Liverpool and Arsenal either, United's first big objective will be to break into top four once again.

So how has he been doing? I don't follow United except for what I see in MOTD and that shows only the best parts. Reading this thread I take it not very good... All the more baffling the decision from united to sign him, and then Mata got completely screwed over by being played out of position.

Lucky fuckers get a whole week off for this game, 3 more days than us. I wonder if they'll still blame the injuries if they lose again. At this point any extra day of rest is a major advantage, especially in the second half.

There is obviously some kind of breakdown between Jose and Ash. After Ash played against Stoke, he told people in his twitter not to get used to seeing him play. It's a shame because we loaned out Bertrand and now we have basically no options left if Cole's exile continues.

Agree with the ones saying that this is not one to throw away. We already have a psychological advantage over them having beaten them twice already, they're gonna be nervous. We need to build the same relationship like with Barcelona - they can steamroll everybody else in their way, but they have this mental block when facing us. It would be a statement from either side - either we make them our bitch, or they undo some damage we have done to them and regain confidence. We already saw what effect we can have on them, they dropped points immediately after playing us. We must not underrate the psychological importance of this game. Plus they will have a Barca-shaped thorn in the back of their heads, which will hopefully do us some favours. It would be a massive help in destroying their confidence if they lost two in a row. I absolutely want to do a triple over them, make it happen!

There wouldn't be a reason to panic even if we lost. Consider this: a good in-form striker automatically adds ~10 points to the table before the season has started. Our main contender now and for the future, Man City, are already heavily capitalizing on that advantage and they use 2 strikers who they regularly heavily rely on. Our system is competitive even with mediocre strikers, because the responsibility is divided throughout the team. Taking into consideration how well we are doing now despite our main problem (finishing chances), we should be feeling the total opposite of panic. Once our faults are patched and fixed, we will be the ones to beat. When we sort out our strike force and full-back positions, we'll be much more clinical. City are at their peak, while we are nowhere near that and even now are keeping up with them, though it might not last till the end of the season, the potential is there for everyone to see.

Good job Lexie!

And to be fair refs rarely give the handball in those situations unless you intentionally flap your arms about. He wasn't even in the box. But meh, whatever, it was probably one of those split second decisions he made not really thinking it through, it happens.

Loved the anger he showed when that WBA tool was wasting time. Great to see players caring enough.

@Hutcho, you have by far the best avatar. And we obviously lacked proper offensive full-backs in this game. Dave offers nothing at left back offensively and Ivanovic, despite his good displays against better teams, is a centre back being played out of position. We don't stretch those teams enough who defend deep and compactively. Also Ramires is not a big help playing like that, he needs space to attack with pace, he's never gonna be the creative midfielder orchestrating our transitions. People may say we lack a proper striker, but against such teams I'd rather have tireless offensive wing-backs and an orchestrator along with Matic.

My browser doesn't display embedded twitter posts. I see only empty posts. Using the latest stable Chrome on Windows. EDIT: Sorry, the plugin "Ghostery" was causing this. It blocks all the social media nags including embeds. I must now figure out how to whitelist those embeds because I don't wanna stop using ghostery. Any ideas? EDIT2: Figured it out, had to whitelist TC.

Right, gonna report it then, because I've seen quite a few empty posts.

Is your post supposed to be empty? By quoting now I see some twitter links but the post itself is empty. What is it supposed to say?

Because during a moment of joy after having witnessed another spectacular display by Hazard, all you could do was think about how much we could sell him for instead of just enjoying the moment and the fact that he's here with us now. It's a small club mentality, an inferiority complex, no need to spread it during a joyful period. All these speculations out of thin air about his possible move to Real or PSG or w/e are just... I don't even know how to put it... disturbing.

How long is his contract anyway? At the moment I'd say the odds are pretty damn good. Even though I enjoy united's sufferings I don't take much (only a little) pleasure in seeing Mata in this situation. He might eventually adapt to this position but I don't think his ceiling is as high there as in the middle. And I think either RVP or Rooney will be out in the summer so he might eventually play where he needs to play.

Tbf it makes sense if United's strategy is to put in 81 crosses per game. Of course the strategy itself is unbelievably unambitious, but if they're going down that route, the wings are where you want him to be. Also Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher speculated that if United bought Mata, then it's a likely sign that either Rooney or Van Persie is going to leave in summer.

"Wilmots, for his part, will offer Januzaj a starting spot in his team at this summer's World Cup if he does decide to play for Belgium." http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2544163/Belgium-boss-Wilmots-seeks-win-Adnan-Januzaj-watching-Man-United-starlet-semi-final-clash.html Afaik Januzaj is a left winger. If he accepts the offer, where would that leave Hazard? In a central position?

Correction: Fulham are last. E: Sorry, totally misread your post.

I'd say the 2005-06 team. It was basically the same as 04/05 but the new signings had been fully integrated and accustomed to whatever they needed to adapt to, plus it was the season a certain Michael was brought in. That team, for me, was more complete than the 04/05 one, but that team was amazing too. Cech Ferreira - Carvalho - Terry - Gallas Makelele Essien - Lampard Robben - Drogba - J.Cole And then you had the likes of Duff, Gudjohnsen, Crespo, Geremi, SWP and Cudicini ready to step up.

Someone behind that goal was lucky that the post got in the way.

The title of this thread should be "Guardiola better tactician than Mourinho?", because your current title questions Jose's ability when it should be the other way around.

Liverpool won't sell him for less than £50-60m, would you be willing to pay that? Would you be willing to make the club a laughing stock?

I'm waiting for him to get more shooting chances, I have a feeling his shot against City wasn't a fluke. It would add so much more to us if we had a long distance threat once again.