Jase

There's a guy named Patrick Bamford lurking around too...

Said this before, if we are not going to win the title this season, I bloody hope City win it to rub it into those bunch of pricks!

Stats don't always tell the whole story. That cross for Torres's goal against Norwich was his first quality one in ages. Otherwise, most of his crosses these days always hit an opposition player before it even reaches the intended target! You only have to look back at the 2009/10 season and look at the vast difference in quality of the crosses between then and now. As for his defending, yes sometimes it's also the team's fault when we concede certain goals but you also cannot ignore his individual performance. He has struggled dealing with quick and tricky wide players in recent times and his tendency to allow a cross to come in so easily is extremely annoying and smacks of poor defending!

Gotta admire Fergie and United fans' hypocrisy and selective memory. They have been making noise about that Drogba's offside goal that went against them and at the same time, conveniently forget that the decisions that went their way. Macheda's handball. Smalling and Nani's offside goals at Old Trafford last season. The two non-penalties given to them at the Bridge last season. Penalty for Ramires after being fouled by Evra in the Champions League. So many of them and none of them even mention a thing about it!

Was talking about this season, not the last or any previous ones. Fair enough, Torres's goal against Reading was offside and he could have gotten a red for his foot on Cleverly yesterday but think it's fairly obvious that we have gotten more bad calls than good ones already this season. Whether they even themselves out is another thing but if you look at United, the amount of poor decisions that have gone their way this term is already quite ridiculous when compared with others. For Van Persie's goal, both Cahill and Ivanovic were at fault. There was a lack of communication and they thought the other will stick with Van Persie but instead, Cahill went to mark Young who was inside the 6 yards box and Ivanovic was caught ball watching and totally unaware of Van Persie's position when he was only like yards away from him!

Bayern have finally dropped points in the Bundesliga yesterday. Lost 2-1 to Leverkusen. And take a look at Neuer here, starting from 0:47. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLQCaC5yyus

Just to point out, we have had at least 4-5 good penalties shout turned down in the league this season already and then yesterday, the red cards and offside goal...

By the way, Souness said yesterday on Sky that we showed that we are the real deal this season and United were extremely fortunate with the decisions that went their way. He even swore live on TV! http://twitter.yfrog.com/neqervxbwspxqdpywxptigusz

Just 1. So will miss the clash against United on Wednesday. Doubt he would have played anyway.

He has scored 7 goals and assisted 7 in his last 8 games.

Does he have a choice? We are now relying on our FBs to provide the width again since we are playing narrowly with Oscar, Hazard and Mata. And yeah, his defensively abilities have gone down the drain a bit. Has struggled against pacey wide players and even when going forward, he doesn't offer much. His crosses are just mostly woeful. Would really like to see Azpilicueta been given a chance in the first team more but doubt we are gonna see that. RDM will continue to persist with the same players for almost every game.

But then, we also won at Arsenal and got the first victory at White Hart Lane since 2005...

Looking back at the game, I really have mixed emotions about it. Proud of the players to show great character and belief to come from 2-0 down and as many have pointed out, had it stayed at 11 v 11 or maybe 10 v 11, I'm pretty we would have at least got a point out of this game. However on the other hand, am really pissed off because we were obviously cheated out by Clattenburg and also the fact that we started slowly again as well as some really poor defending that cost us 2 very cheap goals. The game would have been so different had we defended better for those goals and we need to stop giving ourselves mountain to climb against top oppositions by conceding sloppy goals like that.

Fair point but do think we could do with someone like him who is afraid to run with the ball at the United's defence instead and push them back. Playing the long balls and crosses are just more in hope than anything else, as you pointed out.

Perhaps so but was it really a red card? Luiz looked like he was in pretty close proximity to cover for Ivanovic!

He had a poor game yesterday. His defending was very Luiz-esque in that first half especially. As Bir_CFC pointed out, he was too aggressive with his pressing and tried to do so which in turn left ample of space behind for Valencia or Rafael to run into. Maybe that's what RDM wanted our defenders to do but think Cole could have used his experience better knowing when to press high up and when not to. TBF though, the fact that he also didn't get much protection from the player in front him is not helping him either.

I don't think the constant chopping and changing to our back 4 is helping him and the rest of the defenders. The confusion between him and Ivanovic for Van Persie's goal summed it all up. Both just left him to each other thinking they will pick him up but in the end, nobody did!

Not quite sure why RDM took him off for Sturridge at the end TBH. We needed some creativity and a player capable of magic then when both Mata and Oscar have already been subbed. RDM could and should have sacrificed Mikel for Sturridge instead. Losing 3-2 or 4-2 wouldn't make such a huge difference really.

I know we are looking to build this new team but not playing in 1 game is not going to cause any harm to us. Some players need game time and some needs to be rested. Furthermore, we need to look at the different approach to our play which we can adopt next time by using wingers like Moses and Marin to see how it goes. Can't continue to play narrowly in each game by using Oscar, Mata and Hazard.

Typical.There wasn't even much contact there FFS! Yes but it doesn't mean that they can just neglect their defensive duties. It's ok if you wanna play them but gotta make sure they just as hard defensively as they go forward. Oscar is doing alright defensively but Mata and Hazard can still improve in this aspect. That said, it isn't down to just this new style of play we are adopting. We have seen a number of individual errors that have cost us too. Take Cole for example in the first half yesterday. His defending was very Luiz-esque in that first half!

I know what you meant. Some players will use the injustice and drive them on to beat the opposition but as I said, the league cup is the least of our priorities even though I want us to win it. And furthermore, what if our key players get injured on Wednesday and we lose them for a long time?

One major factor of our game that RDM really needs to sort out now and quick is our defending. The defence have looked shambolic since that Norwich game. You have seen players getting caught out of position too easily, not tracking hard back enough, confusion in the back 4 and opposition players finding ample of space in our penalty box. We have conceded 7 goals in our last 3 games and at least 4-5 of them have come from some really poor defending. Gallas, Teixeira and United's first two goals all came because we gone to sleep and had no organization whatsoever in our defence to deal with those threats. Also, we really need to stop starting a half so slowly. Even though we beat Spurs the other day, we started the second half slowly and they turned the game around. Same thing happened with Shakhtar. Allowed their throw-in to come in way too easy and was unaware of it and again, it happened today. Whole team including defence was non-existent for the first two United goals. Not overreacting here or anything like that but it's worth remembering that RDM was sacked by West Brom because they were losing games and conceding goals sloppily from all direction. He need to get the defensive balance and organization right and not let this back-to-back defeats turn into a poor run of form.

That says it all. You're thinking with your feelings and emotions, and not the head.

Fantastic free kick goal he scored today. Absolutely brilliant and have lost count on the his recent number of goals and assists already.

Lets not get too ahead of ourselves here and be realistic for a moment. As much as we all want to get our revenge against United, we need to look at the bigger picture. The League Cup is the least of our priorities and we have the Champions League match against Shakhtar coming up on 6/7 November, which is just after the Swansea game next weekend. We HAVE to win that and we need all our best players fit and fresh as possible. Furthermore, some of our players need game time like Azpilicueta, Moses, Marin, Sturridge, Bertrand and Romeu as we can't just let them rot on the bench without playing them at all AND some of our current first team players need a rest. A number of them have played way too many matches recently including during the international break for their respective countries. We can't afford to have any of them suffer a burnt out at this crucial stage of the season.