Jase

WENGER!!!

Tonight's CL 2nd leg Play-Off tie results: Austria Wien 2-3 Dinamo Zagreb (Ausria Wien win 4-3 on agg) Arsenal 2-0 Fenerbahce (Arsenal win 5-0 on agg) Basel 2-0 Ludogorets Razgrad (Basel win 6-2 on agg) PAOK Thessaloniki 2-3 Schalke (Schalke win 4-3 on agg) Legia Warsaw 2-2 Steaua Bucharest (Steaua Bucharest win on away goals rule after 3-3 on agg) Have updated the results, teams allocation in the pots and some others in the first post. Final five 2nd play-off ties will be concluded tomorrow and we will then know exactly who is in which pot for the group stage draw.

Neither are they. Just some people getting a bit paranoid thinking we'll just let in 3-4 goals like last season.

Think the same could be said about us..

Oops. My bad.

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Find it hilarious that Mourinho is getting so much stick for this approach just because of his reputation and not looking at the bigger picture as to why he does it. Alex Ferguson has done this so many times away against the big teams by sitting deep and hit them on the counter but yet never get criticized as much as Mourinho for doing the same.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owASMH6NcxQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xeSfNCMU0g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvG1X8YMtoA

Have read these reasons from different places of why Mourinho supposedly have doubts over Mata which led to all these rumours.. Also, Swapping Mata for Rooney would be the best deal for Chelsea AND United

Cheers for that. And Nish, just state it even if 'Squawka' is stated on the graphic itself and not to mention you used individual player's stats as well.

Chill. Not all of us are 24/7 free like you two. Anyway, am editing it right now. Just done doing Nish's article. Moving on with hjperdeath's article. And it would really be good if you two next time state at the bottom of the article the source of the stats, if you do use them, especially if it's those team and/or individual player's passing accuracy, possession, shots taken, tackles, interceptions and things like that. Have also seen you two using the graphics from Squawka but not acknowledging/crediting them. So Nish, I need to know where did you get those stats you used to describe Carrick?

Yes, we shouldn't rely on our FBs attack all the time but they are still important. In the case of Ivanovic, he hardly ever gets to the byline and usually just stays near the halfway line whipping in crosses to goodness knows who. Moreover, his positioning at times doesn't help either as he tends to be rather narrow and not hugging the touchline. And that is why I prefer Azpi at RB than him because he does all of that attacking play so much better than Ivanovic (and defends better too!). The only problem with him, generally with most of our players, is the final delivery in the attacking third. Not to mention as well, Jose might prefer Ivanovic more at RB to compensate for the lack of height in the team and physical presence to defend set-pieces situation. As for Cole, while he still gets forward and open up spaces for others, he's not the same bombarding LB he once was.

If you say so scout master... Only letting people know about the game if they want to watch how Bayern fares under Guardiola (assuming if they haven't done so) and perform just before the Super Cup.

That maybe true but it doesn't mean the wide players ahead of them shouldn't be providing the width too and yesterday's game wasn't the first time it has happened. We have seen Hazard causing great damage before when he gets to the byline but he's not doing it enough.

If anyone wants to scout Bayern, you can do so in a few hours time as they will play Freiburg away in their Bundesliga league match. Match kicks off at 5.30pm UK time.

Greetings mate. Welcome to the forum. You can disable the viewing of signatures by ticking on the box option in 'Ignore Preferences' under 'My Settings'. Can't do that for avatars though.

Don't think I disagreed with what you said there. Just meant had we converted all those chances we got then, a draw wouldn't be an unfair result.

Offensively, still don't think he provides as much as threat and creativity as Mata. The latter is miles ahead in that aspect. One and arguably only reason he is favored for that No.10 role now is because of his defensive workrate.

Don't think you can really just put it on the strikers. And this has gone on for awhile now. At the moment, we are just constantly playing through the middle, trying to play intricate passes to open up defences and congest up the midfield. There is not enough width in the team right now to stretch the opposition. No one is getting to the byline, go on the outside of the opposition's defence. When you do that, you are then likely to cause more problems and create more chances through cutbacks and/or crosses for our striker or any midfielders to score. But the thing is, we aren't doing that. If you have noticed, we only won 7 corners in 3 games so far. That is poor. And this issue isn't helped with our current FBs who are dodgy attacking wise.

TBF, United's defence and midfield hardly covered themselves in glory either that day. In fact, defensively as a team, United were too open and can't defend to save their lives. We exploited it till no end but just couldn't apply the finishing and we then saw City tore them to pieces weeks later. If anything, a draw then would probably have been fair.

Bad luck in terms of finishing. Defensively then we were too open and hopeless because we went there and played a game that doesn't really suit us. Had we done the same last night, we would probably have ended up with a defeat as well. As Choulo has alluded to, our team is not really suited to playing an attacking game right now against big teams where our dodgy midfield will be exploited. Need to be a bit streetwise in setting up the team for matches like this.

Had we went and attack there, it would have probably have ended up like the game vs United at OT under AVB.

Generally yes but in this very case alone, circumstances dictated his approach to the game.

It's only one game TBF. If this goes on, then serious concern would have to be raised. And Mourinho has said as much that this team is built for the future and he's still looking to set the foundation for this team to truly prosper. He also mentioned before that we usually see the best of his teams in the second season. It's still early on the season as it's only the 3rd game. Take the point and move on even if Mourinho's approach is dodgy against United. It's arguably still better than RDM going all defensive against QPR away last season.