Bearing in mind we were without our two centre backs. Chances were always likely. Its was a close game but in close games the most clinical side is often the winner. That was us. (even if that does just mean missing a slightly smaller hatful than you)
Are admitting our chances down to a lack of quality of depth in your squad then? or decided by officials that don't know the off-side rule.
No. The young players are very very good, but we really cant expect them to shut out chelsea in their 5th or so game (in the case of Jones). They are the best backups in the world, but they're still backups. Might i mention that if you had defended better then it wouldn't have made a difference.
You assume their the best back ups in the world because they are yours but that's your your average united fans conceit. How can you defend two offside goals? by definition the advantage is there because of the offence. You may not have noticed but both teams defended badly we just squandered more chances. As I said you got the result but we were the better team with the better performance.
They're young, full of potential and are already comptantly playing in the place of the likes of Ferdinand. Not to mention making the england squad already. How is it unreasonable to view them among the best without a 1st team place. I concede i dont know much about Barcelona's bench but the they are the best that i know of and the best in England at any rate Your defending has widely criticised by all analysis of Smallings goal. Static if i remember correctly. The other close one was Nani right? the one where he dribbled past many of your players and blasted it in from outside the box? I dont think the offside had much impact. (providing im talking about the right one. All the videos i can find dont show where nani is when the ball is played). Point is there were moment after the mistake that could have prevented the goal. If you were the better team it was marginal.
How can the offsides not have had much impact? Are you saying that Drogba's offside in our 2-1 title win at OT didn't have much impact then? You really are completely bonkers then pal. P.s. The stats were not marginal.
Impact as in being offside was not the main reason why they scored. Doesn't make it fair, but it means the defending team has to shoulder some responsibility. For example and offside or a foul that should have been given followed by woeful defending i blame the latter as it wasn't bad luck. As the stats. Yes you had a lot of off target shots but they dont concern me. the two that matter to me (aside from goals of course) are possetion (to show if there was any control) and On target shots (how much did you test the keaper) both of those are fairly even. 50-50 possestion 7-9 shots.
How can offside not be a main reason you scored? First goal we were set up flat and pushed up and smalling was offside which is 100% the main factor, yes nani scored a brilliant goal and shouldve been contested by our players BUT how does that matter when he recieved the ball from an offside position?
What i am trying to say is that you shouldn't blame the ref when there was part of your team at fault as well. You remember the goal we scored vs spurs last season. They should have had a free kick yes, but the stupidity of gomes meant that ultimately he should take the blame. Same thing with your defense for the smalling goal. Watch a video of it. They stand still. Bad luck it was, but bad luck allowed to happen by poor play.
Agree to disagree then, I think a draw wouldve been a fair outcome of yesterdays game, 3-1 makes it seem like we got torn apart. One thing I'm sure we can agree on is that it was game of the season so far in terms of the way the game was played. I also dont think United will lose at home this season with 3/5 of the hardest games out the way scoring 14 goals and I cannot wait for Feb 4th/5th
The offsides had an impact, but then I'm not entirely convinced the first goal helped us all that much. We seemed to be shocked at how easily we scored and how static your defence was, and played very loosely after that. Had that goal been rightly disallowed, and you guys not missed so many presentable chances in the first half, we may have been more cautious of the challenge Chelsea posed and played better in the second half. As for the stats, surely you should know more than anyone that they never tell the full story? After all, according to the stats, we battered you in the 2008 CL final with 58% possession and 5:3 shots on target. And according to the stats the 2009 CL final was very close, with 51% Barca possession and 12 United chances to 11 Barca ones. Given that we were sitting back and counter-attacking for 82 minutes, it's hardly surprising you guys got more shots and corners! Didn't you say 4-3 would have been a fair score? I agree that 3-1 made it appear more one sided than it was, and the first two goals were offside, but given how clinical we were, and how porous your defence was, had those goals been disallowed I think we would have scored at least one more in the first half.
Please provide a quote where I said 4-3 would've been fair? Cannot recall saying it sorry. Also, people are making too much of our defence from the corner, point is that if you were onside we may have been able to handle it, being 4 or 5 yards in front of the line makes it 4 or 5x easier to score
Yesterday you said: "I will accept United deserved to win the game, I will not accept that the result reflected on how we BOTH played the game . Cracking game to watch and United are a force to be reckoned with and good luck for the season, may the best team win the league. Just remember it's not over yet and try and see this game in our shoes." "Take away the offside goals, give us our virtual open goals, give you your pen and open goals then it's 4-3 to you lot and I would've gracefully accepted that result" http://www.not606.com/showthread.ph...alty-(video)?p=1326495&viewfull=1#post1326495 Except he wasn't four or five yards in front of the line when the ball was played, he was about half a yard in front. It was only when the ball reached him that he was four or five yards in front of the line, which was because he'd run four yards whilst Bosingwa and Lampard (I think) had stood there watching the ball (and not appealing for offside which implies that they weren't aware he was offside either). Had Bosingwa or Lampard chased back and challenged Smalling then he might not have scored at all. Likewise with Nani - he was maybe a foot offside when the ball was played, but actually moved back into an onside position to receive it. And was then allowed to run thirty yards into the danger area and score without any attempt at a challenge.
please log in to view this image Which brings me back to what i posted yesterday. Marginal. He is offside by his knee. What i was trying to say.
You could understand someone having a gripe about the officials if they missed an offside by whole yards but when there is barely a few feet in it, it's hard to blame the officials. And AVB had made an official complaint about the performances of the referees. Granted he is entitled to do so but surely should be laughed away.
Agreed. I think it was a really tough game for the linesmen as the game was end to end and they were struggling to keep up with the action. If I remember rightly for Nani's offside the linsman was a few yards in front of Nani and so not in line to make a decision anyway. I'll admit that I would be very disappointed to be on the end of these decisions but at the time I did not think either were really blatent enough to make me shout out straight away.
I think what's more frustrating than the decisions in question on Sunday (on top of that Evra 'tackle' in the C.L last year to boot!!) is that we just don't seem to take our chances the way United are doing. Take the C.L 2nd leg last year at O.T, we were brilliant for about 30 minutes, didn't take our chances, United then inevitably score and we have an up hill battle on our hands. From memory, I think they have scored first in each of our last six meetings and we've accordingly only won once to their five. That's not good enough.
Some United fans have spent 2 years moaning about a 50/50 free kick we got at the Bridge which just happened to result in Terry's goal. All fans are guilty.
