Jase

Erm, sure. But I don't care about the team selection at this point. More concerned with us getting the defensive organization right!

We don't even know what Lampard's team selections would be like and you're already picking on it after one game. Just chill, man. Just chill...

If you disagree with someone's opinion, I doubt you would just sit there quietly and say nothing. I do take your point, however, but it's way too early to be jumping to conclusions after one game.

One game in and someone's already feeling grumpy.

Depends what you're looking for in the striker, I guess. In this instance, Lampard was right to defend Mount. Mount wasn't perfect but played a good game, especially in the first half, and wasn't the reason why we lost the game like Mourinho was alluding to. Plus, Mourinho going after youth players for criticism is just so typical of him and at this point, people are just exhausted about his comments on youth. And for argument sake, even if Lampard did agree with Mourinho, he wasn't gonna throw his players under the bus in the public (like Mourinho always does) and certainly not a young player who just played his first Premier League game.

I don't think Batshuayi is great but he's not terrible like Bakayoko, is he? He's barely even getting a look-in right now despite our current situation and Abraham isn't going to play all season.

They don't like them personally or have clear favourites. That's been reason enough for years at this club. But 3 managers in a row?

Some team news...

Honestly, who gives a damn when Mourinho talks about youth and criticizes young players? It's beyond ironic when he starts talking about them.

Goals are goals. No manager is gonna just bin players who can score goals without reason.

He has looked like a nervous wreck every time he has been put under pressure.

It didn't help that the 3rd goal went in so soon after the 2nd. Lampard made the changes just before the 60th minute (IIRC) but we suddenly found ourselves 3-0 down out of nowhere and everything just went flat after that. That's where keeping things tight could have been beneficial.

Wonder if it says something about Batshuayi's game as Conte, Sarri did not and now seemingly Lampard do not seem keen on him.

Christensen isn't perfect but overall, he's much better than Zouma. Zouma has poor technique (he's like the Lukaku or Bakayoko of defenders), is highly suspect position wise and just looks so cumbersome every time he has to do something. Christensen is technically good (which is important if we're gonna play a passing game), decently quick. Tactically/Mentally, he can be a suspect but it's easy to forget that he was actually good when he started playing under Conte up until that Barcelona game happened. If Lampard can help him regain his confidence and belief, then I believe we have a good, solid defender in him.

He was adequate at a top half team, not Cardiff. Sheep in headlights for large parts of yesterday's game. Are you agreeing or disagreeing with me?

It's easy to sit here and criticize Lampard after the game why he played Player X, Y, Z. If we had taken our chances in the first half, then the game would have been completely different, we might have won and we would probably be praising Lampard for putting out that lineup. As you said and Lampard himself alluded to, we have players injured and players who are not fit yet. So, what did you really expect him to do? Some might say we shouldn't have played the young players but if this is the route we're gonna go with, then might as well have them play and learn from experience from the start. This might be contradicting but it was only United after all, even if it's at Old Trafford, first game of the season and all that. They aren't great. If it was Man City or Liverpool, then maybe you could make a case of going more pragmatic. The bigger issue for me is the team's structure. No coherent shape from back to front and the disjointed pressing. If we have a solid organization, then what happened yesterday wouldn't have happened and it would give the players a platform to perform. It didn't look like we prepared for the game well, from a tactical point of view.

They obviously defend better as a team than us at this point but have read/heard Liverpool's defence hasn't been quite as tight as they were last season. So maybe, just maybe, we have a chance if we take our chances AND defend properly!

It's obviously great if a defender has great athleticism and pace to make recovery tackles etc but if they have to do constantly do that, then it says a lot more about their weakness than strength.

He certainly wasn't as suspect at Everton and they aren't exactly managed by a defensive coach. Doesn't mean he was great either and maybe, clubs like Everton are his level.

It wasn't out of order but it was typical of Mourinho to go after the young players and not the more experienced ones for letting the team down by committing stupid mistakes at the back. The player that he mentioned that was the most hilarious, IMO, was Christensen. I mean sure, Christensen didn't have a perfect game but he's only one year younger than Zouma right now and yet, Mourinho didn't mention Zouma. Why? Zouma arguably had a worse game than Christensen.

Players come and go, squad changes but not gonna lie, it's so infuriating to see that we have gone from a team who defend properly, don't give goals away to one who can't defend at all and commit stupid mistakes all over the pitch. Being defensive solid is the one big aspect that we were great for so long and now, we are defending like clowns and suffering stupid bad/heavy defeats. Since 2018, we have been thrashed 4-1 by Watford, 3-0 & 4-0 by Bournemouth, 6-0 by Man City and 4-0 by Man United. That's just way too many to take in like 2 years and it's not as if we've been playing a squad of U20 players either. It's mostly filled experienced players!

Mourinho becoming a Sky Sports pundit for the season is like discovering a gold mine for the media really. Any criticism (or anything he says) from him about managers or teams is gonna be used to get quotes out of the team's manager in question etc. Easy headlines, more views.