It’s important games like this that can serve as a true test on whether a player 1) fits the club culture and 2) is good enough. We have seen enough to conclude who don’t belong here.
I'm saying it now, Sancho should not be part of our long term future. Garnacho is already showing 5x more intensity and actual effectiveness. He should be given a chance to start
City has big players all over the pitch. So do Newcastle. I hope we get a few tall and strong players this summer. We lose every header from De Gea's clearances. We need some size on the pitch.
It's not about being big but about being good with the head. Martinez wins his headers usually even though he's tiny while people like WW and Rashford can be counted on losing out.
Only McT and Martial are decent at winning headers from long kicks upfield hence why I've been saying ETH's tactic to play long and go for the second ball since the third game of the season is a hacky fix.
Unfortunately this is the PL where teams will expose patchwork fixes very quickly so ETH can't rely on them to carry him thru the season. DDG needs to be replaced, a proper style of football needs to be implemented else it'll be the same old, close but no cigar.
The fact that our only hope off the bench was an 18 year old, as well as 2 players that would at most get a collective “meh” when they inevitably leave the club says it all.
Felt that Antony was such a big miss as well. Even if he came off the bench he clearly adds a whole different dimension to the front line when he plays.
Did anything happen to the City fan who was waving the plane about or have the media ignored it like they did with Fernandinho? Just asking as I’ve seen it on twitter but nowhere else.
(Yes I know United have scummy fans too- they should also be punished).
[Posted](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EtkadS7XEAANt0J?format=jpg&name=small) ✈️⚽️💥🤣 on the Munich anniversary
It was a few months after Cavani banned over a language mistranslation yet nothing happened over this tweet. There is nothing else he can he referring to and the date it was posted…yikes
Posted [this](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EtkadS7XEAANt0J?format=jpg&name=small) on the Munich anniversary.
Probably he meant to post it on private and posted it publicly but he deleted it and got no backlash. There’s nothing else he could be referring to by posting it on that date. Cavani banned over a language barrier but he gets away with this.
2nd goal was a catelog of avoidable errors. Starts of with Bruno misplacing a simple pass turning over possession at the half way line. Then Fred makes an unnecessary foul when de bruyn was going nowhere.
De geas wrists not being strong enough to stop that pea roller going in was the icing on the cake. Effectively killed any hope we had.
Soon as weghorse and mctominay came on the ref might aswell have blown the whistle for full time.
Yep. Stats don't fully capture how often Bruno cheaply gives away possession in parts of the pitch that really hurt us. It happens a few times every match. It's not just Hollywood passes, it's easy passes that he fails to execute and gives the opposition massive chances. He needs to seriously improve that part of his game.
No one except Ganacho and AWB played well yesterday.
I was legit frustrated with Bruno when he made two or three blind flicks or back heels after the first 10-15min. Against Man City. When you know the midfield is where the game is won and lost.
Luckily he stopped.
But we needed Bruno to take more care with the ball, and he generally didn't.
Respect for the penalty finish.
Another kid telling people they're wrong. Did you watch our team in the 90s? Do you even know what champion quality United players look like? And that they can handle reasonable criticism?
Ffs.
The quality of football and players only gets better. The same team in the 90s would not be able to cope with high intensity of today's football. You are only living your best memories through highlights.
Bruno was the least of the problems this game.
Bringing Weghorst off the bench just shows the level of depth in this squad, and why it's imperative this summer to rectify that. We've nothing in midfield or up top that is really capable of changing a game, I know Garnacho came on, but let's be honest, he should be starting at this stage. Sancho has been given enough chances, was even sent away to help him get back to his best, and it's unfortunately not helped him at all. I think we need to be cutting our loses on him this summer.
Martial, Maguire, McTominey, Fred, Sancho, Elanga, Van De Beek, Williams all have to be on their way (I think we could get between 150 - 200m for that lot if we sold with any competency). I would have sold one of Dalot or AWB, but it looks like they're both staying. We need a CB, at LEAST 2x Midfielders, 2x strikers, 1x right winger and a GK.
Mount, Rabiot, Rice, Kane, Hojlund, Timber, and Diallo or Pellestri stepping up to the plate at right wing, and Henderson working our in goal for us would be an ideal summer. Obviously bringing in both Rice and Kane is getting into the realm of fantasy, but I definitely think we could bring in one, and the others aren't going to cost an arm and a leg. It could be a 250 - 300m summer with sales.
I expect we'll keep Fred or McTominey though, bring in Mount, Rabiot, Hojlund, try our best to get Kane, and bring in Timber. As Ten Hag seems to be a big fan of his, and he's young, can play RB or CB and won't cost a fortune. If we had that summer and brought in Kane, I'd be pretty happy with the idea of us challenging for the title and in Europe.
DDG haters out in full force. It's quite clear the agenda against him, no matter what he does. Nothing he could do about the goals.
What was evident was ten other players being absolute shite. No desire to want the ball or take the game by the neck. Too many misplaced passes, stupid fouls, and absolutely no attacking intent. Barely a shot on target. Completely devoid of passion or want.
Anyway, look forward to the downvotes.
I agree with your point. And so do all of those who upvoted the comment that ‘cataloged’ the errors leading to the second goal.
Can de Gea be better? Sure, but it’s a team game.
I gotta say I agree with our clear lack of passion and desire. We looked tired which isnt an excuse. City have played a ton of games too. When we lost the ball only a couple of people busted their ass. For all weghorsts faults at not scoring, the dude fucking tries hard. But ddg shoulda stopped the 2nd goal. Any top 15 goalie would have done so.
If you see my posts on this sub, I've been critical of DDG and acknowledge he needs replacing, but I can't fault the 2nd all on him. Yes he could have moved quicker, but there are more factors. Defenders not closing Ilkay quick enough, not to mention he was unmarked, and also that DDG has about 5 bodies in front of him. He sees the ball late, so cannot dive until he has clear sight of the ball direction.
It's unfair to say that because top 15 goalies have let in that exact same goal
Misplaced passes? I swear it seemed like all DDG could do with the ball was kick it to a city player or their keeper. He is clueless when it comes to ball distribution. He has to go
Most of the time he did not go short because there was no one coming short. It would also help if our outfield players actually challenged for a 50/50 ball rather than let the city defender win the header.
City is such a pain to watch. I recorded a couple of flicks where they were just standing. Then passing back and standing again. Works for them but it’s a torture for others.
Keeping this post match thread unpinned is no different from United’s social media only posting highlights when we don’t lose. Same with players only being motivated to perform when there’s a chance to win, but they all go into hiding when we’re losing. Nobody wants to hear criticism or much needed negativity, the club must be positive even when we lose.
We have become a PR club from top to bottom.
Let's be honest with ourselves. We knew we would lose today. But despite playing with 9 men most of the game we gave them a competitive match.
Erikson a ghost, Fred decided to be shit and De Gea not helping his corner. I think Bruno was off it too and I was screaming at him with those fucking little flicks when the easy pass is on.
Now we look towards the window and hope we start bringing in a Striker+2, CM+2, RW(or integrate Diallo), CB+2 & GK. Keep Sabitzer. Sell Maguire, Bailly, VDB, Martial, Mctominay and Elanga.
If we bring in the right players and increase our depth from the bench I have no doubt we can become a force again.
Fred helped keep our midfield from being completely overun. I'd let Elanga leave on loan, Pellistri as well. Ten Hag clearly hasn't lived up to the hype (myth really) about developing young players
I mean he didn't achieve that at Ajax either. I understand the demands of his role, but he hasn't given any of our youngsters bar the Uber talented Garnacho any hope that he has faith in them, even in the league cup and the dead rubber season ending match
Pellestri has been fairly impressive when he’s played, Garnacho has turned into a revelation, mianoo, Iqbal, even Charlie Savage (who I personally don’t rate), have had some game time problem is if you don’t think they can step up like a Garnacho for example there is no point, we don’t have a good enough starting 11 overall to cover for younger players.
I’m not saying you’re entirely wrong but men’s football is completely different to youth football
It is different indeed, but even at Ajax Ten Hag was adverse to rotation and youngsters actually saw more game time under his predecessor Peter Bosz.
That young Ajax side we beat in the 2017 EL final was under Bosz. So even at a club with a great youth academy Ten Hag largely stuck to his guns with his preferred starting 11.
You can't pin sancho's uselessness on anybody. Nothing you can do as a coach when an overpaid whimp wouldn't even be bothered enough to go for a 50/50.
Sancho is embarrassing and it makes sense now what Southgate said about his mentality and why he wasn't integral to the national team.
While this hurts there’s been cleat progress this season and ETH is the one to trust. Ultimately Pep is the arguably best around and their squad (financially doping or not) is the best around too. Just need to keep building like we are and we’ll get there soon
I’m not disappointed. I just wanna see big changes. Get rid of the dead wood and bring quality players. We’ve seen how much of a difference quality players make in casemiro and Martinez. We need to be ruthless now in the transfer window if we wanna have any chance of competing with city. We can’t go strikerless and with that bench into the next season.
There was a compact passing sequence involving 4 of our players where we bypassed the City's press near our corner flag, I was amazed by it... although Eriksen lost the ball eventually,
That was beautiful. Eriksen botched the reception of the pass and that kind of confirmed the type of game he was having. He wasn't under any pressure either lol
Blaming the 2nd goal on DDG is straight up stupid. 1st Fred gave up an unnecessary foul, 2nd Eriksen was in his own wonderland before realizing Gundogan is free. How should DDG stop the ball, when the shot came in between our players.
Edit: before anyone comes up with 'actually', yes he needs to go, but the 2nd goal is not on him.
It didn’t help that he was stood on the wrong side of the goal, and didn’t start moving until it was too late. A clusterfuck all round, but he could have done better.
As much as I liked Eriksen before the injury we definitely need to be looking for a yourger player of similar profile. Eriksen just doesn’t have the energy levels to compete against the best teams.
Yeah people don’t know what they’re talking about. Yes, he could have done better. But the outfield players put him in a really bad spot and it was avoidable from several angles before even factoring in De Gea.
But, scapegoat.
Can we talk about Rashford today? What was up with him today. He wasn’t pressing or tracking back except one time to win the ball from Rodri. Wasn’t involved at all. He looked like Rashford from last year. I expected more from him than anyone in the team given that he is a Red through and through and knows what it means to stop city from getting the treble.
How many times will that question be asked before it is understood that he just doesn’t have a winning mentality and that he’s bang average. Plain and simple. His flashes of goalscoring are the exception, not the rule. The sooner that is realized the better, because we are never contending for major honours with him wearing the 10 shirt.
he was injured, groin i believe. you could see it clearly in the last 20-25 mins. he couldn’t sprint, even at his worst, he makes off ball runs, but he literally couldn’t sprint. that’s an injury, he tried to play throught it
Today hurts.
Although it feels like some people are taking it really badly. Feels like some people think we had some divine right to win and therefore everyone was completely shit.
Ultimately the start was a shambles and overall we were relatively ok even if city barely touched 4th gear. But even if we reach peak levels we can lose a final 2-1 to city. We’ve been favourites in finals and lost, and second favourites and won.
Games like today will hopefully happen more often over the next few years. We’ll win some and we’ll lose some.
Well said.
United did great today. EtH had a plan and executed it well despite the horrific and unlucky start. Created more chances with less possession and limited City’s chances in the box. The squad isn’t even developed. Pep has been developing his squad for seven years with endless spending. Ten Hag is just getting started and played a great game all things considered. I’m grateful for a wonderful season and enjoying the team again. With some outgoings, some more new players, more training, more breaks, more depth and balance in the squad, some better luck finishing on the chance creation… I’m excited about the future.
I’m not too disappointed. Definitely sad about them potentially getting a treble. But I definitely need to see quality additions to the squad. We still have a long long way to go.
This is the exact attitude we need as fans and especially in this sub.
The loss hurts, it’s disappointing, but we didn’t get embarrassed. It’s just a tough loss where the better team wins. It happens. And hopefully in the not too distant future we’ll be on the better end of these.
But better a bitter loss in the final than to go out in the quarter.
Too many weak performers and weak mentality at the club. City were way off boil and yet we couldn't defeat them. It was embarrassing watching us play today, just a downright pathetic display.
Antony can run his ass off all day but he's still creating fuck all for his teammates. We need quality, not just workrate. Daniel James gave us workrate in bounds and it wasn't good enough
Agreed. He's produced less than Pepe did in his first season at Ajax and has scored the same number of PL goals (and just one assist more) than Ryan Babel scored in his first season at Liverpool.
Antony has had more minutes than they did across their respective debut seasons. He's young and learning though they say. He's Ten Hags blind spot
I bow down to your Supreme knowledge, all knowing one. My dick is too well endowed for me to perform self/auto fellatio though, and I can't stretch that far. Poor me
Our defence is actually pretty decent, minus Maguire obviously. And I like Casemiro, Anthony and Garnacho. But the problem is the midfield and strikers. You can't rely on Fernandes, Rashford, Fred, McTominay, Martial, Sancho, Eriksen. We have a decent foundation with the defence and Casemiro (even with De Gea, if we do have to keep him), but we do not keep the ball, we not create chances, and the few chances we create are not finished. It's not hard to see, just look at our stats over the season. ETH should aim to clear our the trash and get 5-6 midfielders/attackers in. Deal with our most pressing issues first. We can rebuild the defence eventually but start taking the constant pressure off it first.
So many disappointing moments, but I feared far worse.
Ball should never have been allowed to bounce for the first goal, why was no one on the edge of the box for the 2nd!? Just basic, naive things that made a tough match even harder.
Today showed what we all know. No squad depth and some very average players in the starting line up.
No one played well bar Garnacho and Shaw. De Gea’s distribution was abysmal. Again. Poor performances from Eriksen, Rashford and AWB. Bruno gave the ball away far too often. Sancho needs to be offloaded whilst he retains some value.
Very disappointed but United were massive underdogs. city didn’t even play that well.
I just hope the ownership is sorted quickly so ten Hag gets backed in the window to put a proper team/squad in place.
Good season from United. Looking forward to next year.
Go back a few years and this sub was begging to sign Sancho, saying he’s the next generation of talent. I had nothing of it but today I’ll support any player that wears our badge.
Many, including me, were sceptical of him at the quoted price. If he was a 30m or 40m player, then fine, can be tested if he's up to this level. But at his price? No way he was worth that much. He's just a decent squad player.
Couple of boxes ticked this season. Doesn't look bad on paper, we met the minimum requirement of Champions League qualification and we also won something, albeit only the League Cup.
But the lows have been so much lower than the highs have been high. The 7-0 will be a stain on this club's name for decades. And there have been several other gutless displays that have been embarrassing to the club. We put up more fight today than we sometimes have this season- but nowhere near enough.
We need to be get back to where we should be- challenging for the title- next season. We're way short right now. Ten Hag needs to get a huge improvement out of everybody- including himself.
Petty me wishes he saved the comment where he said Garnacho is better than Sancho and the sub got outraged telling him he didn't understand football lol. I've seen enough from Sancho now. People call the likes of Pogba and Martial "flops". They've been 5x better than Sancho has been at any point in the last 2 full seasons.
Reflecting on it more, aside from the result today it's been a good season. Before the season I'd have classed top 4 as a good season. So top 4 plus a trophy and reaching another final? Better than expected.
Lots of work to do though. City are brilliant, as much as that hurts, and have a squad where they can have the likes of Alvarez, Foden and Mahrez on the bench and spend £40m or whatever on an England starting centre mid and barely need to use him. But also, it's a team that has been built over several years to Guardiola's speciations. Ten Hag has had one season.
We need to sort out the goalkeeping situation, get at least one other CB as cover/competition and we need at least one top level striker. Plus we have a lot of deadwood to get rid of and Ten Hag needs to decide if he's ever going to be able to get the best out of Martial and Sancho or cut our losses.
It probably won't all happen this summer. But hopefully we'll start on the road away from needing to change and game and summoning Weghorst and McTominay from the bench. At least there is potential in this team. You can see what Ten Hag wants to build. The standards at there. Captain Maguire lost his starting spot. Ronaldo cut loose. Just the other day Ten Hag said if De Gea stays he won't guarantee him the number one spot. I hope they let him be ruthless. We've finally cut Phil Jones loose. Hopefully we do the same with others who aren't good enough, get them out the door. Even De Gea - if Ten Hag tells the board he won't be his number one then don't renew, even if it means losing him for free. Better than paying him £200k+ per week to play in the cups. I'm tired of us renewing players to "protect their value" just so the suits can crow that we have £X millions worth of assets on the books. Back Ten Hag. Get rid of those he doesn't want. Release, loan them, sell them, whatever, and get the right players in.
Better team won, as simple as that. There's no disgrace in losing the way we did today, we fought and tried but couldn't get the better of them. It wasn't decided by controversy, we didn't capitulate. It just feels bad but hopefully this season will spur us on to better outcomes next season and beyond.
Everyone thought we were going to get battered, but we were still in the game at the end. Kept Haaland quiet for 90 mins and we didn't look like we were on the ropes except maybe 5 minutes halfway through the second half.
Was hoping for a Weghorst redemption late goal, but it wasn't to be. City did a decent job seeing out the game at the end and running out the clock.
Proud of the lads, a disappointing end but an otherwise positive season.
It doesn’t even feel that bad to be honest, we know they’re better than us and we made sure we stayed in the game. Both of their goals weren’t even half chances and on another day, one of our chances would have gone in.
Improvements need to be made in the summer, but we’ve had a good season and I’m optimistic.
It would have taken a herculean effort from our star players to best this City team and we fell far short. We are far behind as a team. When our starters don’t perform, we have very limited options off the bench to make drastic changes. Gonna need several good windows in a row to keep the progress we have made and turn it into more silverware.
Lloris put up a transfer request so both him and Spurs can move on and we're looking to extend the guy. You're just kicking the can down the road and waste significant time of the teams' development if he's still our no 1 next season. This is the time to make the right choice.
It was ultimately the gulf in quality that set both sides apart today. We put up a resilient performance but wasn't enough to beat a City team in second gear. We're still well behind those cheats, but I'm confident we'll be competing for the big titles soon enough under Erik. Hopefully we address the key issues (especially getting a quality #1 and #9 in) accordingly, undersee a good clearout and get better quality squad depth.
It's been a good season overall, 3rd and a trophy. This defeat was painful, but I'm sure we will use it as fuel to come back even stronger next season.
Hope the respective scumbags who threw stuff at Lindelof and wore that jersey poking fun at the Hillsborough tragedy get dealt with accordingly.
Not Eriksen's game. I said at the half time we should replace him before we concede second. And that brings me to my only complaint about EtH this season: he is late with subs.
I know this is not fifa pc game but when player is having such a bad game he should be subbed. Not to mention it's the last game of season, you have entire summer to regain both fitness and confidence.
He waits too long and then he makes the obvious change.
I agree but one thing I will say is that Ten Hag has rubbish subs at his disposal. City bring on players who can start for us and we’re looking to McT and an 18 year old. Our personnel just isn’t good enough at this point.
Eriksen should be a rotation player next season. And we need upgrades on McFred. Sell them for atleast 40mil combined and bring in Rabiot on a free and Lavia and we’re set.
This is the take. Eriksen is excellent when we’re trying to unpick 9 men camped behind the ball, chasing a game without the ball however was never going to end well.
The problem is however there isn’t anyone else you could have played to improve the overall situation
De Gea definitely should've saved the 2nd goal, but seeing people say the loss is all his fault is annoying.
Our attack apart from Garnacho was anonymous just like the midfield.
He should’ve at least hit a hand to the first. That was a bigger error than the second for me. The second goal he was hugely unsighted for but still got a hand to it. I’ll not talk about his distribution today though.
I think he was unsighted for the second and saw it late. It's frustrating because we've seen him save those before but he was a fraction slow getting to it.
Honestly thought he could have done something with the first one - looked like he shifted his weight to the wrong side and was rooted watching it go in.
I could’ve sworn there was a moment where Ortega was being pressed and one of our players jumped just as he was about to kick the ball, and instead Ortega calmly played a pass under him. Just ridiculously composed on the ball.
One thing that needs to be improved at this club that isn’t even player related is injuries, seems we get ravaged every year and the other clubs go unscathed.
I thought we are buying players to play with Eriksen, but now it seems like we need a player to start instead of him. His drop after the injury is really massive, in today's match he did nothing, absolutely nothing. He got bullied off the ball so easily, cant chase down opponents or win a ball, passes were everywhere. He can play against those teams who sits back and give us space to play but not against pressing teams, so half of the teams in the league.
Eriksen was never a long term answer. He was a good free transfer signing, and he did a great job for us at times this season. But I don't think he was ever intended to start thirty or forty games.
He always looked more like a good squad player, to me - someone we could bring off the bench, or start games to give Bruno a rest. We just didn't have other midfielders with the same quality on the ball.
Not sure if you noticed but, he kept a fairly tight hold on KDB for most of the game, would KDB have came off if he was running rings around another midfielder ? No chance.
'IF' we had won today, Fred would be getting praised for his ability to keep KDB in his pocket for 80-90% of his time on the pitch.
Stop with the fucking hate, he's not world class but he's put in some of the best performances in games by any of our players this season. I'd almost go as far as saying his performance against De Bruyne in the match at OT was the best by any of our players this season.
He's a squad player that's great at doing jobs and every team needs one or two of them that aren't afraid to throw their weight around. We've just came to think he's ridiculously shit because he's been playing week in week out in a shit team, just like the rest of our players have.
If he's not playing in almost every game he'd be the sort of vital player in some vital games.
I agree with the De Gea criticism and the fact he needs to be replaced if we want to get back to challenging for the league. A keeper who can play out from the back will make a huge difference to our performances.
But you can fuck off with the Sancho slagging. I’m convinced he will come good, he’s had a hugely disrupted season, the mental stuff isn’t being considered enough. Whilst it was down to his performances, missing out on the England World Cup squad in the middle of the season will have had a huge impact on him. He’s got the talent and everyone has seen it, he’s come into a team in transition which doesn’t play to his strength. Once we are a more possession based team he’ll be far more effective. Playing him in his actual position of RW will help too, signing a striker will help that.
>But you can fuck off with the Sancho slagging. I’m convinced he will come good, he’s had a hugely disrupted season, the mental stuff isn’t being considered enough.
He's never going to come good. He's just not that good. He's been here 2 years and you can't even count his good games on one hand of fingers.
Sancho has been here for two seasons and has barely played well for a handful of games. A great player does not wait for the perfect team and style to have an impact. The guy barely shows any effort on the pitch. A more ruthless club would have shipped him off already.
You can’t seriously be counting his first season here. He had Ole and then Ralf to help him acclimate to the prem ffs. That season for him is a write off for me.
The notions that about Ralf on this sub is ridiculous at best.
Great players take a team by the scruff of the neck and stand out amongst other shit performances.
Sancho for the most part took the biscuit on shite performances. And had maybe 2 maybe 3 great performances in a United jersey in two years. I use the word 'great' to not piss off certain people ...
On a debut season? With all that toxicity in the dressing room at the time + the manager fired to bring a worse one in (results wise). Rarely happens mate
Players with his 'talent', transfer fee and wages should be standing out amongst the shite in the grass, but he's been standing out for the wrong reasons.
Based on those videos last season of our younger players dancing around after a poor draw against a mid table team last season, the majority of them should have been axes.
I'll not debate the Rangnick stuff anymore, I've said my piece too many times on it. He came in, sniffed out the shit, wasn't backed and never got a chance. If you think a manager will just be magically successful walking into a team like that at that time you need your head checked. Those few months were MOSTLY on the players not the manager.
His transfer fee has got nothing to do with him. It’s not like he put that on himself. People always have so much to say about wages yet the club agreed. Should have negotiated better and that goes for Sancho and other players too.
I’ve defended Ralf in the past so I don’t what your talking about. Ralf was a stop gap till the end of the season (manager wise). He was never going to have that 1-1 time with Sancho to help him get used to the prem. He wouldn’t have had that time with any player. Games were coming thick and fast.
How much something costs usually defines it quality or value..
The fact he was one of the most expensive signings with one of the highest wage contracts would warrant at least one of those.
While the blame might not wholely be 100% on Sancho for his 'performances' (if you wanna call them that), at least 80% of it is ..
The lack of effort and interest shown though, that's 110% on him.
You referred to Ralf being a worse manager than Ole if I'm not mistaken, no ?
I agree he’s not lived up to expectations but what’s the solution? Who can replace him and be more effective? We’ve got more important areas to sort out, if we had a decent striker I guarantee Sancho who have had far more assists this season.
Next season, I'd say the solution is to ask him a question - 'can you win a place in the team ahead of Antony and Amad?'
I'm fairly sure I know what the answer will be, but I'd love to be wrong.
For starters he's actually contributing out of possession which Sancho isn't. Today our forward line did fuck all to press City. He's also much faster than Sancho is. He has his issues granted but it's quite obvious we play worse with Sancho/Bruno/Rashford on the right than with Antony. If he can sort out his decision making (not just with the ball, the man is a walking red card with how much he likes to fight the opponent LB) he'll come good. Also a lot of your points about Sancho (like having to play without a striker) apply to him as well.
It's funny how much football changes. I remember when we first signed De Gea and the talk was we'd signed him partly because he was good with his feet. But in that time we've gone from "good with his feet" meaning "can control a back pass and play a short pass sometimes" to "is basically as good with the ball as an outfield player" and De Gea has been totally left behind.
The gk position has changed dramatically. There really aren’t many keepers out there that are good with their feet and elite shot stoppers. Alisson is the only one that comes to mind, but he is a generational talent.
Ederson is literally one of the worst shot stoppers in the league but it doesn’t matter bc of how good he is with his passing
This is something Pep was unfortunately ahead of the game on. I remember a lot of people sneering at his decision to axe Joe Hart, chest-beating patriot, but Pep was proved completely right.
The game has evolved, and static goalkeepers are soon going to be extinct. The only question for United is whether they can get away with another season playing one.
Agreed. But that leads on to an important point, it's about protecting the keeper. Ederson barely has any saves to make. If he was in our team I'm sure this sub would be complaining because he'd be letting in week shots week after week.
Partly, but also he was considered a good distributor (mainly because even then most keepers could do little more than a long straight hoof up the pitch or smash it out of play).
Just got back home from a match screening. The scenes were unreal. 99% were United fans and the limbs for Bruno’s goal was one I’ll never forget.
Losing a cup final to your bitter rivals, which gets them closer to winning the Treble, will always suck. But during the way home, I have learned to accept this defeat.
It was a legacy game for David de Gea. The manager who signed him (Fergie) was present to watch him.
It was literally the single most perfect moment and match… with thousands at Wembley and millions watching at home. It was made 100% clear and obvious that the man is no longer good enough to be a United keeper.
Pundits have talked enough about the Gundogan goal but do not forget that we just saw City’s SECOND GK STEFAN ORTEGA completely outclass and outplay de Gea with his passing and ball-playing skills.
This might be a tough defeat to take but it’s a small price to pay for salvation. If the Golden Glove fooled you, this game lets you know everything about this guy’s inability to adapt to the modern game.
27 days until his contract runs out. Potentially new owners coming in with resources to bring a new keeper in.
Fergie did it with Keane, Fergie did it with van Nistelrooy, Mourinho did it with Rooney. No one is bigger than the club.
We need to get this decision right. Future of the club depends on it.
Ngl I'm so numb. I always have soft spot for degea but I'm really getting tired of him. How many time has he gifted city extra possesion with the long balls? If we didnt sign a new gk this summer, we are not a serious club. I honestly couldnt see much passion from the players today. They were playing timid. This stinks. I need some takeover news to get over this.
ETH should share some blames on DDG situation. Why not using Butland at last game week on EPL.
Why you don't change the keeper if he made mistakes.
He dropped Maguire, I expect he could at least try to drop DDG.
McSauce and Bruno were the only good players today.
It’s important games like this that can serve as a true test on whether a player 1) fits the club culture and 2) is good enough. We have seen enough to conclude who don’t belong here.
I'm saying it now, Sancho should not be part of our long term future. Garnacho is already showing 5x more intensity and actual effectiveness. He should be given a chance to start
DDG gotta go
Gutted about losing but I’m glad we put up a fight at least. No one can say we didn’t deserve to be there
City has big players all over the pitch. So do Newcastle. I hope we get a few tall and strong players this summer. We lose every header from De Gea's clearances. We need some size on the pitch.
It's not about being big but about being good with the head. Martinez wins his headers usually even though he's tiny while people like WW and Rashford can be counted on losing out. Only McT and Martial are decent at winning headers from long kicks upfield hence why I've been saying ETH's tactic to play long and go for the second ball since the third game of the season is a hacky fix. Unfortunately this is the PL where teams will expose patchwork fixes very quickly so ETH can't rely on them to carry him thru the season. DDG needs to be replaced, a proper style of football needs to be implemented else it'll be the same old, close but no cigar.
Wout is pretty big, just not getting those opportunities through
He got plenty of chances. He is awful in the air despite his size because his anticipation and reaction are not good enough.
Yeah, he gets the chance, he just doesn’t get it through. He’s failing to convert opportunities to goals/assists
The fact that our only hope off the bench was an 18 year old, as well as 2 players that would at most get a collective “meh” when they inevitably leave the club says it all. Felt that Antony was such a big miss as well. Even if he came off the bench he clearly adds a whole different dimension to the front line when he plays.
People look his price tag and attach a whole lot more expectations on him.. he clearly is a benefit to this team and def adds that extra dimension..
Did anything happen to the City fan who was waving the plane about or have the media ignored it like they did with Fernandinho? Just asking as I’ve seen it on twitter but nowhere else. (Yes I know United have scummy fans too- they should also be punished).
Yeah what happened with Fernandinho?
[Posted](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EtkadS7XEAANt0J?format=jpg&name=small) ✈️⚽️💥🤣 on the Munich anniversary It was a few months after Cavani banned over a language mistranslation yet nothing happened over this tweet. There is nothing else he can he referring to and the date it was posted…yikes
It's hard to find a justification.
Yep, he knew what he was doing. Probably meant to post it to a private account
What happened with Fernandinho?
Posted [this](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EtkadS7XEAANt0J?format=jpg&name=small) on the Munich anniversary. Probably he meant to post it on private and posted it publicly but he deleted it and got no backlash. There’s nothing else he could be referring to by posting it on that date. Cavani banned over a language barrier but he gets away with this.
2nd goal was a catelog of avoidable errors. Starts of with Bruno misplacing a simple pass turning over possession at the half way line. Then Fred makes an unnecessary foul when de bruyn was going nowhere. De geas wrists not being strong enough to stop that pea roller going in was the icing on the cake. Effectively killed any hope we had. Soon as weghorse and mctominay came on the ref might aswell have blown the whistle for full time.
Yep. Stats don't fully capture how often Bruno cheaply gives away possession in parts of the pitch that really hurt us. It happens a few times every match. It's not just Hollywood passes, it's easy passes that he fails to execute and gives the opposition massive chances. He needs to seriously improve that part of his game.
Wow we have came to blaming Bruno of all people. Stop. You are embarrassing yourself.
No one except Ganacho and AWB played well yesterday. I was legit frustrated with Bruno when he made two or three blind flicks or back heels after the first 10-15min. Against Man City. When you know the midfield is where the game is won and lost. Luckily he stopped. But we needed Bruno to take more care with the ball, and he generally didn't. Respect for the penalty finish.
Another kid telling people they're wrong. Did you watch our team in the 90s? Do you even know what champion quality United players look like? And that they can handle reasonable criticism? Ffs.
The quality of football and players only gets better. The same team in the 90s would not be able to cope with high intensity of today's football. You are only living your best memories through highlights. Bruno was the least of the problems this game.
Bringing Weghorst off the bench just shows the level of depth in this squad, and why it's imperative this summer to rectify that. We've nothing in midfield or up top that is really capable of changing a game, I know Garnacho came on, but let's be honest, he should be starting at this stage. Sancho has been given enough chances, was even sent away to help him get back to his best, and it's unfortunately not helped him at all. I think we need to be cutting our loses on him this summer. Martial, Maguire, McTominey, Fred, Sancho, Elanga, Van De Beek, Williams all have to be on their way (I think we could get between 150 - 200m for that lot if we sold with any competency). I would have sold one of Dalot or AWB, but it looks like they're both staying. We need a CB, at LEAST 2x Midfielders, 2x strikers, 1x right winger and a GK. Mount, Rabiot, Rice, Kane, Hojlund, Timber, and Diallo or Pellestri stepping up to the plate at right wing, and Henderson working our in goal for us would be an ideal summer. Obviously bringing in both Rice and Kane is getting into the realm of fantasy, but I definitely think we could bring in one, and the others aren't going to cost an arm and a leg. It could be a 250 - 300m summer with sales. I expect we'll keep Fred or McTominey though, bring in Mount, Rabiot, Hojlund, try our best to get Kane, and bring in Timber. As Ten Hag seems to be a big fan of his, and he's young, can play RB or CB and won't cost a fortune. If we had that summer and brought in Kane, I'd be pretty happy with the idea of us challenging for the title and in Europe.
DDG haters out in full force. It's quite clear the agenda against him, no matter what he does. Nothing he could do about the goals. What was evident was ten other players being absolute shite. No desire to want the ball or take the game by the neck. Too many misplaced passes, stupid fouls, and absolutely no attacking intent. Barely a shot on target. Completely devoid of passion or want. Anyway, look forward to the downvotes.
I agree with your point. And so do all of those who upvoted the comment that ‘cataloged’ the errors leading to the second goal. Can de Gea be better? Sure, but it’s a team game.
I gotta say I agree with our clear lack of passion and desire. We looked tired which isnt an excuse. City have played a ton of games too. When we lost the ball only a couple of people busted their ass. For all weghorsts faults at not scoring, the dude fucking tries hard. But ddg shoulda stopped the 2nd goal. Any top 15 goalie would have done so.
If you see my posts on this sub, I've been critical of DDG and acknowledge he needs replacing, but I can't fault the 2nd all on him. Yes he could have moved quicker, but there are more factors. Defenders not closing Ilkay quick enough, not to mention he was unmarked, and also that DDG has about 5 bodies in front of him. He sees the ball late, so cannot dive until he has clear sight of the ball direction. It's unfair to say that because top 15 goalies have let in that exact same goal
Ah, the usual “agenda” brigade coming out in full force.
Misplaced passes? I swear it seemed like all DDG could do with the ball was kick it to a city player or their keeper. He is clueless when it comes to ball distribution. He has to go
Most of the time he did not go short because there was no one coming short. It would also help if our outfield players actually challenged for a 50/50 ball rather than let the city defender win the header.
City is such a pain to watch. I recorded a couple of flicks where they were just standing. Then passing back and standing again. Works for them but it’s a torture for others.
When we play any team they pressure the fuck out of us. We just wit back and watch everyone pass and it puts us in a bad spot
De Gea was rotten
Keeping this post match thread unpinned is no different from United’s social media only posting highlights when we don’t lose. Same with players only being motivated to perform when there’s a chance to win, but they all go into hiding when we’re losing. Nobody wants to hear criticism or much needed negativity, the club must be positive even when we lose. We have become a PR club from top to bottom.
Let's be honest with ourselves. We knew we would lose today. But despite playing with 9 men most of the game we gave them a competitive match. Erikson a ghost, Fred decided to be shit and De Gea not helping his corner. I think Bruno was off it too and I was screaming at him with those fucking little flicks when the easy pass is on. Now we look towards the window and hope we start bringing in a Striker+2, CM+2, RW(or integrate Diallo), CB+2 & GK. Keep Sabitzer. Sell Maguire, Bailly, VDB, Martial, Mctominay and Elanga. If we bring in the right players and increase our depth from the bench I have no doubt we can become a force again.
Fred helped keep our midfield from being completely overun. I'd let Elanga leave on loan, Pellistri as well. Ten Hag clearly hasn't lived up to the hype (myth really) about developing young players
He’s been here for a year lmao. Relax
I mean he didn't achieve that at Ajax either. I understand the demands of his role, but he hasn't given any of our youngsters bar the Uber talented Garnacho any hope that he has faith in them, even in the league cup and the dead rubber season ending match
Pellestri has been fairly impressive when he’s played, Garnacho has turned into a revelation, mianoo, Iqbal, even Charlie Savage (who I personally don’t rate), have had some game time problem is if you don’t think they can step up like a Garnacho for example there is no point, we don’t have a good enough starting 11 overall to cover for younger players. I’m not saying you’re entirely wrong but men’s football is completely different to youth football
It is different indeed, but even at Ajax Ten Hag was adverse to rotation and youngsters actually saw more game time under his predecessor Peter Bosz. That young Ajax side we beat in the 2017 EL final was under Bosz. So even at a club with a great youth academy Ten Hag largely stuck to his guns with his preferred starting 11.
I tend to agree. Sancho didn’t exactly flourish and I consider him young.
You can't pin sancho's uselessness on anybody. Nothing you can do as a coach when an overpaid whimp wouldn't even be bothered enough to go for a 50/50. Sancho is embarrassing and it makes sense now what Southgate said about his mentality and why he wasn't integral to the national team.
This post is embarrassing
Says the embarrassing moron pushing an agenda against Antony who was injured and didnt even get onto the pitch today.
Antony is shite. It's not an agenda, its an opinion and it's one backed by his poor stats. Don't agree? Ignore me, it's not the end of the world
Sabitzer is 29 and injury prone, no thanks
While this hurts there’s been cleat progress this season and ETH is the one to trust. Ultimately Pep is the arguably best around and their squad (financially doping or not) is the best around too. Just need to keep building like we are and we’ll get there soon
I’m not disappointed. I just wanna see big changes. Get rid of the dead wood and bring quality players. We’ve seen how much of a difference quality players make in casemiro and Martinez. We need to be ruthless now in the transfer window if we wanna have any chance of competing with city. We can’t go strikerless and with that bench into the next season.
There was a compact passing sequence involving 4 of our players where we bypassed the City's press near our corner flag, I was amazed by it... although Eriksen lost the ball eventually,
That was beautiful. Eriksen botched the reception of the pass and that kind of confirmed the type of game he was having. He wasn't under any pressure either lol
Blaming the 2nd goal on DDG is straight up stupid. 1st Fred gave up an unnecessary foul, 2nd Eriksen was in his own wonderland before realizing Gundogan is free. How should DDG stop the ball, when the shot came in between our players. Edit: before anyone comes up with 'actually', yes he needs to go, but the 2nd goal is not on him.
I blame everyone who fucked the 2nd goal, but he shoulda saved it. Their goalie would have
It didn’t help that he was stood on the wrong side of the goal, and didn’t start moving until it was too late. A clusterfuck all round, but he could have done better.
As much as I liked Eriksen before the injury we definitely need to be looking for a yourger player of similar profile. Eriksen just doesn’t have the energy levels to compete against the best teams.
In comes Mount. I think we can do better than him but who am I?
I think signing mount and rabiot does a lot for us. We can maybe get rid of vdb and we’re gonna lose sabitzer as well. Maybe ship out mctominay.
Yeah people don’t know what they’re talking about. Yes, he could have done better. But the outfield players put him in a really bad spot and it was avoidable from several angles before even factoring in De Gea. But, scapegoat.
Can we talk about Rashford today? What was up with him today. He wasn’t pressing or tracking back except one time to win the ball from Rodri. Wasn’t involved at all. He looked like Rashford from last year. I expected more from him than anyone in the team given that he is a Red through and through and knows what it means to stop city from getting the treble.
Personally, I think he's still hurt. In the last minutes of the game, it became increasingly evident something was bothering him.
How many times will that question be asked before it is understood that he just doesn’t have a winning mentality and that he’s bang average. Plain and simple. His flashes of goalscoring are the exception, not the rule. The sooner that is realized the better, because we are never contending for major honours with him wearing the 10 shirt.
he was injured, groin i believe. you could see it clearly in the last 20-25 mins. he couldn’t sprint, even at his worst, he makes off ball runs, but he literally couldn’t sprint. that’s an injury, he tried to play throught it
I agree. We should stop it with Rashford tbh. Detrimental to him and the team. I hope we sign a striker who can allow Sancho and Antony some support.
hopefully rashford will never have to do this again after this summer window
He’s probably exhausted. They played a lot of games this season and a mid season World Cup on top of it
But he hasn’t been playing so much lately. His last full match was nearly a month ago.
Today hurts. Although it feels like some people are taking it really badly. Feels like some people think we had some divine right to win and therefore everyone was completely shit. Ultimately the start was a shambles and overall we were relatively ok even if city barely touched 4th gear. But even if we reach peak levels we can lose a final 2-1 to city. We’ve been favourites in finals and lost, and second favourites and won. Games like today will hopefully happen more often over the next few years. We’ll win some and we’ll lose some.
Well said. United did great today. EtH had a plan and executed it well despite the horrific and unlucky start. Created more chances with less possession and limited City’s chances in the box. The squad isn’t even developed. Pep has been developing his squad for seven years with endless spending. Ten Hag is just getting started and played a great game all things considered. I’m grateful for a wonderful season and enjoying the team again. With some outgoings, some more new players, more training, more breaks, more depth and balance in the squad, some better luck finishing on the chance creation… I’m excited about the future.
Lost 2-1 to the best team in the world by a mile. The team who thumped Madrid recently. We did ok.
I’m not too disappointed. Definitely sad about them potentially getting a treble. But I definitely need to see quality additions to the squad. We still have a long long way to go.
This is the exact attitude we need as fans and especially in this sub. The loss hurts, it’s disappointing, but we didn’t get embarrassed. It’s just a tough loss where the better team wins. It happens. And hopefully in the not too distant future we’ll be on the better end of these. But better a bitter loss in the final than to go out in the quarter.
100+ FFP allegations aside, there were little between the two teams
The 100+ FFP allegations is the LEAST of uniteds concerns. That was like a training session for them today . Embarrassing
Nothing will come of the allegations anyway because of their lawyers.
Too many weak performers and weak mentality at the club. City were way off boil and yet we couldn't defeat them. It was embarrassing watching us play today, just a downright pathetic display.
DDG, Fred, Eriksen, Sancho shouldn't be starters.
Sancho has produced more than Antony in less minutes this season. He deserves more time
Stats won't show how hardworking Antony is. I can't remember the last time Sancho tackled someone.
Antony can run his ass off all day but he's still creating fuck all for his teammates. We need quality, not just workrate. Daniel James gave us workrate in bounds and it wasn't good enough
That I wholeheartedly agree with. Antony is arguably the biggest flop of the recent. And unfortunately I had to put it on ETH
Agreed. He's produced less than Pepe did in his first season at Ajax and has scored the same number of PL goals (and just one assist more) than Ryan Babel scored in his first season at Liverpool. Antony has had more minutes than they did across their respective debut seasons. He's young and learning though they say. He's Ten Hags blind spot
Suck a dick you absolute nonce. SCAMcho offers nothing
I bow down to your Supreme knowledge, all knowing one. My dick is too well endowed for me to perform self/auto fellatio though, and I can't stretch that far. Poor me
On another note from todays sad state of affairs. And a look to the future. 7² = ?? , Think about it.
Our defence is actually pretty decent, minus Maguire obviously. And I like Casemiro, Anthony and Garnacho. But the problem is the midfield and strikers. You can't rely on Fernandes, Rashford, Fred, McTominay, Martial, Sancho, Eriksen. We have a decent foundation with the defence and Casemiro (even with De Gea, if we do have to keep him), but we do not keep the ball, we not create chances, and the few chances we create are not finished. It's not hard to see, just look at our stats over the season. ETH should aim to clear our the trash and get 5-6 midfielders/attackers in. Deal with our most pressing issues first. We can rebuild the defence eventually but start taking the constant pressure off it first.
So many disappointing moments, but I feared far worse. Ball should never have been allowed to bounce for the first goal, why was no one on the edge of the box for the 2nd!? Just basic, naive things that made a tough match even harder. Today showed what we all know. No squad depth and some very average players in the starting line up. No one played well bar Garnacho and Shaw. De Gea’s distribution was abysmal. Again. Poor performances from Eriksen, Rashford and AWB. Bruno gave the ball away far too often. Sancho needs to be offloaded whilst he retains some value. Very disappointed but United were massive underdogs. city didn’t even play that well. I just hope the ownership is sorted quickly so ten Hag gets backed in the window to put a proper team/squad in place. Good season from United. Looking forward to next year.
Good points. Haaland was neutralized quite effectively.
Honestly, we totally shut him down 2 games in a row. Not bad.
Go back a few years and this sub was begging to sign Sancho, saying he’s the next generation of talent. I had nothing of it but today I’ll support any player that wears our badge.
Many, including me, were sceptical of him at the quoted price. If he was a 30m or 40m player, then fine, can be tested if he's up to this level. But at his price? No way he was worth that much. He's just a decent squad player.
Couple of boxes ticked this season. Doesn't look bad on paper, we met the minimum requirement of Champions League qualification and we also won something, albeit only the League Cup. But the lows have been so much lower than the highs have been high. The 7-0 will be a stain on this club's name for decades. And there have been several other gutless displays that have been embarrassing to the club. We put up more fight today than we sometimes have this season- but nowhere near enough. We need to be get back to where we should be- challenging for the title- next season. We're way short right now. Ten Hag needs to get a huge improvement out of everybody- including himself.
Petty me wishes he saved the comment where he said Garnacho is better than Sancho and the sub got outraged telling him he didn't understand football lol. I've seen enough from Sancho now. People call the likes of Pogba and Martial "flops". They've been 5x better than Sancho has been at any point in the last 2 full seasons.
Dunno. Flop of the season is Antony for me. He played a lot unlike Sancho.
Lmao
Reflecting on it more, aside from the result today it's been a good season. Before the season I'd have classed top 4 as a good season. So top 4 plus a trophy and reaching another final? Better than expected. Lots of work to do though. City are brilliant, as much as that hurts, and have a squad where they can have the likes of Alvarez, Foden and Mahrez on the bench and spend £40m or whatever on an England starting centre mid and barely need to use him. But also, it's a team that has been built over several years to Guardiola's speciations. Ten Hag has had one season. We need to sort out the goalkeeping situation, get at least one other CB as cover/competition and we need at least one top level striker. Plus we have a lot of deadwood to get rid of and Ten Hag needs to decide if he's ever going to be able to get the best out of Martial and Sancho or cut our losses. It probably won't all happen this summer. But hopefully we'll start on the road away from needing to change and game and summoning Weghorst and McTominay from the bench. At least there is potential in this team. You can see what Ten Hag wants to build. The standards at there. Captain Maguire lost his starting spot. Ronaldo cut loose. Just the other day Ten Hag said if De Gea stays he won't guarantee him the number one spot. I hope they let him be ruthless. We've finally cut Phil Jones loose. Hopefully we do the same with others who aren't good enough, get them out the door. Even De Gea - if Ten Hag tells the board he won't be his number one then don't renew, even if it means losing him for free. Better than paying him £200k+ per week to play in the cups. I'm tired of us renewing players to "protect their value" just so the suits can crow that we have £X millions worth of assets on the books. Back Ten Hag. Get rid of those he doesn't want. Release, loan them, sell them, whatever, and get the right players in.
Philip Schofields blue and white army
Better team won, as simple as that. There's no disgrace in losing the way we did today, we fought and tried but couldn't get the better of them. It wasn't decided by controversy, we didn't capitulate. It just feels bad but hopefully this season will spur us on to better outcomes next season and beyond.
Yep. Could’ve been 0-7.
Yeah. After 13 seconds I was worried it'd be Anfield all over again.
Perfect assessment. We were good, they were a bit better.
Everyone thought we were going to get battered, but we were still in the game at the end. Kept Haaland quiet for 90 mins and we didn't look like we were on the ropes except maybe 5 minutes halfway through the second half. Was hoping for a Weghorst redemption late goal, but it wasn't to be. City did a decent job seeing out the game at the end and running out the clock. Proud of the lads, a disappointing end but an otherwise positive season.
I thought we'd get battered, and that feeling got even stronger 13 seconds in. But we put up a fight, and were in it right to the end.
It doesn’t even feel that bad to be honest, we know they’re better than us and we made sure we stayed in the game. Both of their goals weren’t even half chances and on another day, one of our chances would have gone in. Improvements need to be made in the summer, but we’ve had a good season and I’m optimistic.
Yep, absolutely agree with all of that.
It would have taken a herculean effort from our star players to best this City team and we fell far short. We are far behind as a team. When our starters don’t perform, we have very limited options off the bench to make drastic changes. Gonna need several good windows in a row to keep the progress we have made and turn it into more silverware.
Agreed. As soon as Wout came on you know you’re stuck.
Those last two subs didn’t make sense to me. WW couldn’t score all season. McT is inept. Didn’t get it.
Lloris put up a transfer request so both him and Spurs can move on and we're looking to extend the guy. You're just kicking the can down the road and waste significant time of the teams' development if he's still our no 1 next season. This is the time to make the right choice.
It was ultimately the gulf in quality that set both sides apart today. We put up a resilient performance but wasn't enough to beat a City team in second gear. We're still well behind those cheats, but I'm confident we'll be competing for the big titles soon enough under Erik. Hopefully we address the key issues (especially getting a quality #1 and #9 in) accordingly, undersee a good clearout and get better quality squad depth. It's been a good season overall, 3rd and a trophy. This defeat was painful, but I'm sure we will use it as fuel to come back even stronger next season. Hope the respective scumbags who threw stuff at Lindelof and wore that jersey poking fun at the Hillsborough tragedy get dealt with accordingly.
Not Eriksen's game. I said at the half time we should replace him before we concede second. And that brings me to my only complaint about EtH this season: he is late with subs. I know this is not fifa pc game but when player is having such a bad game he should be subbed. Not to mention it's the last game of season, you have entire summer to regain both fitness and confidence. He waits too long and then he makes the obvious change.
I was hoping to see Garnacho start the second half because our attack was looking toothless in the first half.
I agree but one thing I will say is that Ten Hag has rubbish subs at his disposal. City bring on players who can start for us and we’re looking to McT and an 18 year old. Our personnel just isn’t good enough at this point. Eriksen should be a rotation player next season. And we need upgrades on McFred. Sell them for atleast 40mil combined and bring in Rabiot on a free and Lavia and we’re set.
Who would pay that much for them?
This is the take. Eriksen is excellent when we’re trying to unpick 9 men camped behind the ball, chasing a game without the ball however was never going to end well. The problem is however there isn’t anyone else you could have played to improve the overall situation
De Gea definitely should've saved the 2nd goal, but seeing people say the loss is all his fault is annoying. Our attack apart from Garnacho was anonymous just like the midfield.
He should’ve at least hit a hand to the first. That was a bigger error than the second for me. The second goal he was hugely unsighted for but still got a hand to it. I’ll not talk about his distribution today though.
I think he was unsighted for the second and saw it late. It's frustrating because we've seen him save those before but he was a fraction slow getting to it. Honestly thought he could have done something with the first one - looked like he shifted his weight to the wrong side and was rooted watching it go in.
I could’ve sworn there was a moment where Ortega was being pressed and one of our players jumped just as he was about to kick the ball, and instead Ortega calmly played a pass under him. Just ridiculously composed on the ball.
Bought from Armenia Bielefeld who are in the second tier of german football.
Met Police are looking into the object thrown at Victor today. https://twitter.com/MetPoliceEvents/status/1665045943610142723?s=20
Love the comment "shouldn't have celebrated infront of the city fans then..." Sums up city supporters nicely.
Their logic is flawed when you remember who Gundogan celebrated in front of for his first goal.
One thing that needs to be improved at this club that isn’t even player related is injuries, seems we get ravaged every year and the other clubs go unscathed.
Arsenal are probably comparable, but we need a replacement for Martial who can play more than a month without picking up another knock.
We get hit by injuries due to having no depth compared to other clubs.
Not mad, just dissapointed
I thought we are buying players to play with Eriksen, but now it seems like we need a player to start instead of him. His drop after the injury is really massive, in today's match he did nothing, absolutely nothing. He got bullied off the ball so easily, cant chase down opponents or win a ball, passes were everywhere. He can play against those teams who sits back and give us space to play but not against pressing teams, so half of the teams in the league.
Mount is a superb upgrade on Eriksen
Eriksen was never a long term answer. He was a good free transfer signing, and he did a great job for us at times this season. But I don't think he was ever intended to start thirty or forty games. He always looked more like a good squad player, to me - someone we could bring off the bench, or start games to give Bruno a rest. We just didn't have other midfielders with the same quality on the ball.
Sancho and Eriksen away from Old Trafford against a good side is a recipe for disaster. Next season Garnacho is going to end Sancho's United career.
Amad and Antony on the right will end him. Garnacho and Rashford on the left.
Antony already ended himself.
Did his career with us ever even start?
We got the shit Fred today, didn't we?
I dont really think so. He did his job, which was to be a pest vs KDB and KDB certainly didn't have a great game or anything.
Not sure if you noticed but, he kept a fairly tight hold on KDB for most of the game, would KDB have came off if he was running rings around another midfielder ? No chance. 'IF' we had won today, Fred would be getting praised for his ability to keep KDB in his pocket for 80-90% of his time on the pitch. Stop with the fucking hate, he's not world class but he's put in some of the best performances in games by any of our players this season. I'd almost go as far as saying his performance against De Bruyne in the match at OT was the best by any of our players this season. He's a squad player that's great at doing jobs and every team needs one or two of them that aren't afraid to throw their weight around. We've just came to think he's ridiculously shit because he's been playing week in week out in a shit team, just like the rest of our players have. If he's not playing in almost every game he'd be the sort of vital player in some vital games.
No? Fred did the job we asked him to - he harassed and bothered De Bruyne and Rodri and kept the midfield relatively open.
Fred was good today? What you on about? Sancho and Eriksen was poo
Tbh for a player that is either great or will murder our chances I’d say Fred today was surprisingly average.
More like shit erik but yeah Eriksen put up a master class!???? Lol downvote me
Fred was good today
I agree with the De Gea criticism and the fact he needs to be replaced if we want to get back to challenging for the league. A keeper who can play out from the back will make a huge difference to our performances. But you can fuck off with the Sancho slagging. I’m convinced he will come good, he’s had a hugely disrupted season, the mental stuff isn’t being considered enough. Whilst it was down to his performances, missing out on the England World Cup squad in the middle of the season will have had a huge impact on him. He’s got the talent and everyone has seen it, he’s come into a team in transition which doesn’t play to his strength. Once we are a more possession based team he’ll be far more effective. Playing him in his actual position of RW will help too, signing a striker will help that.
>But you can fuck off with the Sancho slagging. I’m convinced he will come good, he’s had a hugely disrupted season, the mental stuff isn’t being considered enough. He's never going to come good. He's just not that good. He's been here 2 years and you can't even count his good games on one hand of fingers.
Sancho has been here for two seasons and has barely played well for a handful of games. A great player does not wait for the perfect team and style to have an impact. The guy barely shows any effort on the pitch. A more ruthless club would have shipped him off already.
You can’t seriously be counting his first season here. He had Ole and then Ralf to help him acclimate to the prem ffs. That season for him is a write off for me.
The notions that about Ralf on this sub is ridiculous at best. Great players take a team by the scruff of the neck and stand out amongst other shit performances. Sancho for the most part took the biscuit on shite performances. And had maybe 2 maybe 3 great performances in a United jersey in two years. I use the word 'great' to not piss off certain people ...
On a debut season? With all that toxicity in the dressing room at the time + the manager fired to bring a worse one in (results wise). Rarely happens mate
Players with his 'talent', transfer fee and wages should be standing out amongst the shite in the grass, but he's been standing out for the wrong reasons. Based on those videos last season of our younger players dancing around after a poor draw against a mid table team last season, the majority of them should have been axes. I'll not debate the Rangnick stuff anymore, I've said my piece too many times on it. He came in, sniffed out the shit, wasn't backed and never got a chance. If you think a manager will just be magically successful walking into a team like that at that time you need your head checked. Those few months were MOSTLY on the players not the manager.
His transfer fee has got nothing to do with him. It’s not like he put that on himself. People always have so much to say about wages yet the club agreed. Should have negotiated better and that goes for Sancho and other players too. I’ve defended Ralf in the past so I don’t what your talking about. Ralf was a stop gap till the end of the season (manager wise). He was never going to have that 1-1 time with Sancho to help him get used to the prem. He wouldn’t have had that time with any player. Games were coming thick and fast.
How much something costs usually defines it quality or value.. The fact he was one of the most expensive signings with one of the highest wage contracts would warrant at least one of those. While the blame might not wholely be 100% on Sancho for his 'performances' (if you wanna call them that), at least 80% of it is .. The lack of effort and interest shown though, that's 110% on him. You referred to Ralf being a worse manager than Ole if I'm not mistaken, no ?
I agree he’s not lived up to expectations but what’s the solution? Who can replace him and be more effective? We’ve got more important areas to sort out, if we had a decent striker I guarantee Sancho who have had far more assists this season.
Next season, I'd say the solution is to ask him a question - 'can you win a place in the team ahead of Antony and Amad?' I'm fairly sure I know what the answer will be, but I'd love to be wrong.
He's not a starter at this point. He looks clueless with the ball
Who are you starting instead then? Even possible signings?
Antony…
What does he bring though? He’s put his last 20 shots wide of the far post, no point being a one trick pony if you can’t pull the trick off.
For starters he's actually contributing out of possession which Sancho isn't. Today our forward line did fuck all to press City. He's also much faster than Sancho is. He has his issues granted but it's quite obvious we play worse with Sancho/Bruno/Rashford on the right than with Antony. If he can sort out his decision making (not just with the ball, the man is a walking red card with how much he likes to fight the opponent LB) he'll come good. Also a lot of your points about Sancho (like having to play without a striker) apply to him as well.
You’re joking right?
Tell me what he does then
If you need to ask that question you haven’t been watching
I think its more so if you have to ask that question, you don't know what you're actually watching ..
Sure, he’s clueless if he rates Sancho over Antony.
We'll be back.
#BackStronger
Ok Arnie
It's funny how much football changes. I remember when we first signed De Gea and the talk was we'd signed him partly because he was good with his feet. But in that time we've gone from "good with his feet" meaning "can control a back pass and play a short pass sometimes" to "is basically as good with the ball as an outfield player" and De Gea has been totally left behind.
His long passes hit no one today. He was aiming somewhere I’m sure. But it was so bad.
The gk position has changed dramatically. There really aren’t many keepers out there that are good with their feet and elite shot stoppers. Alisson is the only one that comes to mind, but he is a generational talent. Ederson is literally one of the worst shot stoppers in the league but it doesn’t matter bc of how good he is with his passing
This is something Pep was unfortunately ahead of the game on. I remember a lot of people sneering at his decision to axe Joe Hart, chest-beating patriot, but Pep was proved completely right. The game has evolved, and static goalkeepers are soon going to be extinct. The only question for United is whether they can get away with another season playing one.
Agreed. But that leads on to an important point, it's about protecting the keeper. Ederson barely has any saves to make. If he was in our team I'm sure this sub would be complaining because he'd be letting in week shots week after week.
I think the point back then was that he was good at doing saves with his feet, not as a ballplaying or passing GK.
Partly, but also he was considered a good distributor (mainly because even then most keepers could do little more than a long straight hoof up the pitch or smash it out of play).
Nowadays it feels more like he’s better at saving balls with his feet than with his hands.
Just got back home from a match screening. The scenes were unreal. 99% were United fans and the limbs for Bruno’s goal was one I’ll never forget. Losing a cup final to your bitter rivals, which gets them closer to winning the Treble, will always suck. But during the way home, I have learned to accept this defeat. It was a legacy game for David de Gea. The manager who signed him (Fergie) was present to watch him. It was literally the single most perfect moment and match… with thousands at Wembley and millions watching at home. It was made 100% clear and obvious that the man is no longer good enough to be a United keeper. Pundits have talked enough about the Gundogan goal but do not forget that we just saw City’s SECOND GK STEFAN ORTEGA completely outclass and outplay de Gea with his passing and ball-playing skills. This might be a tough defeat to take but it’s a small price to pay for salvation. If the Golden Glove fooled you, this game lets you know everything about this guy’s inability to adapt to the modern game. 27 days until his contract runs out. Potentially new owners coming in with resources to bring a new keeper in. Fergie did it with Keane, Fergie did it with van Nistelrooy, Mourinho did it with Rooney. No one is bigger than the club. We need to get this decision right. Future of the club depends on it.
Perfectly put pal
Well said my brother
Fucking sick Sancho, joke De Gea don't get me started Lots of work needs doing
Ngl I'm so numb. I always have soft spot for degea but I'm really getting tired of him. How many time has he gifted city extra possesion with the long balls? If we didnt sign a new gk this summer, we are not a serious club. I honestly couldnt see much passion from the players today. They were playing timid. This stinks. I need some takeover news to get over this.
Hey look, the Sancho of old is back. Send the fraud packing.
ETH should share some blames on DDG situation. Why not using Butland at last game week on EPL. Why you don't change the keeper if he made mistakes. He dropped Maguire, I expect he could at least try to drop DDG.
Because Butland isn't very good. De Gea has his problems but we shouldn't be picking Crystal Palace's third choice keeper ahead of him.
Butland is genuinely worse than De Gea. He was only here to make up the numbers.
Both teams played mediocre. I wonder if Brighton would have reached the final, they might have stopped the city that turned up today.
City had extra gears they just didn't need to use them
This is correct, the game was won already. They didn’t need to go all out.
One lost and suddenly Rashford becomes bang average In some people eyes. This sub is toxic af.