That was ****ing epic. Isn't that just the best way to win a game? Rice had an excellent 90+ mins. Saka was uncharacteristically poor. That Jesus goal to finish things off was a thing of beauty.
Disagree. United weren't great, but we weren't either. Sloppy passing, defending, incoherent attacking patterns and vulnerabilities in defensive transitions. On another day, we could easily lose that game. Some of our players really didn't turn up at all. We got away with it today, but if we carry on playing like that for the rest of the season, we're going to face a lot of troubles. Thankfully, we did what we needed to get the win, but in the long term, we need to see big improvements in our performances.
Na -I'ts always gonna be tight against the bigger sides. We were clearly the better team in the first half. Second half we just edged it. 55% possession. 17 shots to 10... and I still maintain that penalty should have been given.
United haven’t played well at all this season, and we made it an end-to-end contest because we weren’t controlling the game like we should have. The deficiencies in the game today weren’t just a one-off, it’s been a pattern from the back end of last season and into this season. We need to sharpen up in both boxes and we need to be better at recovering the ball to counterpress because we’re not doing that as effectively as last season. That’s partially why teams are able to bypass us too easily. Don’t get me wrong, I’m delighted with the win, especially against them lot, but I need to see more maturity in our displays for me to be convinced we can compete on all fronts.
Fernandes even said in his interview that they wanted to give us the ball just so they could hit us on the counter. Such a dour team who have one tactic whenever the play anyone remotely good… surely, by now, after all this time and money ETH should be actually trying to get them to move their football on a bit. Regardless. United’s best performance of the season, coupled with another bang average one from us and we still win 3-1.
I'm not saying we played well. We didn't - there's always some weird tactical tweak going on at the moment. I mean why was Zinchenko told to go to the FAR side of Rice when he inverts? Saka and White both had very poor games. But we were better than United and that's all that matters really. The Jesus goals was
Massive win. Seen a bit of commentary that we got away with it. IMO Utd got away with a hiding. We missed two absolute sitters. Utd tried to draw us in to hit on the counter and we didn’t fall for it. They had very few chances. It was a well deserved win. 10/12 pts is a great start and sets us up nicely. We’re not in our best form but still picking up points. Last year playing as we did for those 4 games we’d have lost a couple.
Partey out for 6 weeks it seems. At least it’s not the 3-4 months people were suggesting it would be.
honestly might be a blessing in disguise because Rice will get a free run in the 6 and we’ll play a back 4. I think accommodating Rice and Partey was hurting us. Plus i was always on edge with Partey because as good as he can be he is error prone. Further up there pitch Vieira and ESR can duke it out with Odegaard and Havertz. Jorgihno can cover Rice Just think that has more symmetry and will lead to a settled approach.
I still maintain our best midfield would be Rice, Partey and Odegaard. It gives us the best balance. Shoehorning him at right back wasn’t working - it was affecting our build up and retaining of possession. I’m glad Vieira is showing how valuable he can be, but the lack of minutes for ESR does worry me. He’s not even getting 10 or 15 minutes, he’s getting nothing. Surely he deserves more of a chance than Havertz to start or to come off the bench?
Would certainly like to see ESR get minutes - he may need to put in some top performances in the cups to force his way in. I can't help thinking that he let his fitness go and got himself on the wrong side of the manager - he'd made a big thing in the press about how he was eating wrong and had brought in a club chef and was on a strict diet of food and then I heard that arrangement was no longer in place. I hope that is all just rumour but it's odd he's not getting any minutes at all.
Got to mention the penalty overturn. VAR is supposed to only overturn clear and obvious errors, not make judgement calls on the strength of contact and whether a player was forced down because of it. It's that simple. There were zero grounds to overturn that decision on the field. If VAR can not stick to black and white decisions all we have is another subjective ref in the stands not even in the game. Once again it's us who have been subjected to a 'first'. Just last week Rashford was awarded a penalty for something very similar and we heard that because there was contact it could not be overturned. Getting pretty sick of VAR officials 'inconsistency'
You seriously thought that was a penalty even on replay? I'm a United fan and I have to accept the decisions yesterday like the ruled out goal. If they draw those fkin lines with VAR and it shows offside, what's there to really argue about. Equally and surely, you must be honest that AWB didn't make contact with Havertz. He was clearly trying it.
You do know VAR didn't overturn that decision? They advised the ref to take another look which led him to realise he got it wrong, that's the way it should work.
There most certainly was contact. To be clear i do NOT think it was a penalty. BUT, once the ref gave it VAR should not be making judgement calls on whether the contact was enough to send Havertz down. VAR decisions should be black and white decisions
VAR should not be referring that decision. It is impossible to know whether the slight contact there was had any impact on Havertz ability to get through and have a shot. VAR isn’t supposed to guess. Yesterday was one of those incidents that if the ref didn’t give the pen it would have been fine, but once he did VAR should only be intervening if they are sure. it’s like Rashfords dive last week against Forest. VAR did not intervene because there was actually contact and they could not know the effect of that .
So do you think it's ok for VAR to ntervene in an on-field offside decision when they have to use a computer to draw lines showing a 2mil encroachment by a player that the ref missed? Maybe they should just say to the ref "you might want to look at that again in slomo".
This is where you're just being plain silly. Rashford's penalty on VAR clearly showed contact. There was a direct charge by the defender which caught Rashford's right leg. Do a little search on the web and you will see where that has been analyzed. Havertz on the other hand, was never touched. He essentially ran himself to the ground through the two defenders. No pen!
I did yeah.. there was contact twice actually ,I think it was a penalty. The front angle it looked a lot more like a pen than the back angle which they kept replaying.
