No Spurm, a convincing win is what mattered against relegation candidates. Hell if we fade in the second half against the better teams we'll be kicked out.
We didn't fade against Arsenal when the game was in the balance? If there is something to play for of course they will still go for it. But there were no points for 4-5-6 goals, only fatigue, more injuries in the coming weeks and potential for un-necesary goals conceded! 7 games played 6 games won 1 goal conceded. I like it.
Yes tmt actually. Wtf extra would we have got by going at that lot full pelt? 4pts??? 3-0 is also a convincing, comfortable win. You're crazy thinking any team goes round winning 5/6-0 every week
The gulf in class between a top 5 English side like Spurs and any Scandanavian side is massive these days. Malmo in a European Cup final? Ridiculous. It's difficult for players to deal with these sorts of games. As it is for League Cup games. The best approach must surely be to pick an XI of fringe players, mainly young ones, who will benefit from the challenge and the experience. Like Fryers - whose only real experience at Utd was in these sort of games. Don't play first team players. They don't need the extra games (unless unfit) and it's not worth risking injury. European competitions used to be the pinnacle of club football - the latter stages of the CL still is - but the top 95% of players are concentrated in the top 2% of clubs these days so the vast majority of teams have no realistic chance of competing successfully in them. There will the odd shock, but for the most part, these games are routine for the best teams.
Flat game against flat opponents, for all our possession we were only tackled 21 times, and they gave 6 fouls away....don't know about you but for me thats . They seemed to stand off a lot and not press, just stand in spaces, like a weird total zonal marking?!?, I'm sure its not intentional either. It made it easy for us to pass to each other, but angles were difficult to find because of their odd random positioning. It was like one of those games where the opponents are that bad, you get dragged down a level yourselves. The throughballs that did get through though were class. It doesn't matter about the performance, the two Eriks we signed have some serious natural talent, so comfortable with the ball and travel well with it, and can see angles. Lamela, not everything came off, trying too hard perhaps, doesn't matter though, he stayed lively, and I liked his willingness to track back. With Eriksen he does a great sell turning his head and playing it the other way, he got his half yard for his goal the same way but was then so quick with the change of direction, that piece of skill got lost, along with the defender! with the quality of the shot that followed, great goal. Stiffer tests to come, but I was just looking at their basics tonight and I'm going to enjoy watching these two. If you look round at other 21yr olds, they're both another level up.
Spurm, these early matches are a good indicator as to how the rest of the competition will fan out and not scoring for an hour was it against a low Norwegian club is in my opinion a touch slack. Remember last season and the dour draws we had in the early matches? The same followed didn't it? 2-0 up at half time should have meant more goals in the second half and not just one in the 86th minute. Sorry to disagree with you.
Not this again Thor...pleeeze! How many more injuries would you have liked for the extra intensity you demand, we won 3 nil, there were a number of players who haven't started for some time, so why the shock 2nd half. The result here has no bearing whatsoever later on. This target you set, is ridiculous, nobody agrees with it because football doesn't work like that, underdogs would never cause an upset with your logic. We know your take, so there's no need to repeat it. Do you really think topping the group is going to be a problem? thats all we're interested in this side of Xmas, not 8-0. Gibberish, sorry nobody agrees with you.
agree with this. there are people on the other channel giving sandro and lemela the sam mark out of 10 ! i thought sandro looked awesome, and lemela looked about a season away from being prem level. hopefully it's just being new though and he'll be up to speed in no time.
How do you know that nobody agrees, have you asked them? Gibberish? Oh well at least it means you're reading it. MANY others on the BBC comments agreed with my comments about fading in the second half and others mentioned that after the second goal we should have had a big score. Gibberish, WRONG. Even You called it a flat game ffs. Also, yes, results now ARE an indication of form later on. For me you can just piss off.
No probs tmt, everyone can have an opinion. We'll never agree on this one I don't think so not gonna bore everyone repeating myself Rob - Lamela didn't look a season off. He wasn't the best player on the pitch but you could tell the lad has bags of talent. The commentators glossed over it, giving the credit (and assist) to holtby but lamela's assist was a quality bit of skill, very quick, accurate, incisive pass. To spot the run of Defoe and find him with the amount of time he got from when holtby nicked and passed it shows he knows what he's doing. This wasn't a game for his trickery/dribbling, the crazy zonal thing the boners were doing might have thrown him but he was still effective
I don't get the negativity to be honest. We're a team who are still gelling together and need time. The guys have only had about a week or so of full training with each other. We had a job to do and did it. Yes it was a bit lackluster at times, but we'd already done the job. No point in pushing ourselves to score tonnes of goals and deplete energy levels when we have a game on Sunday. - especially when we've seen 3 players go off injured. Decent result and promising signs of what's to come.
In the first half we were cruising it and scored two so pushing ourselves didn't come into it simply because we were cruising it and if we were cruising it then goals wouldn't be difficult to come by but they were difficult to come by in the second half for some reason. Andre was getting very heated on the line and even sent Paulinho on to improve matters so I'm not being negative I don't think, just realistic. Obviously I saw the same thing that Andre saw and a poster or two on here didn't.
No, a result is an indicator of one match only you idiot, nothing else. If results are such an indicator, why haven't United beat Arsenal 8-2, every time since. They've done it was once so they should do it every time, god they're ****! hope they've had a good bollocking for it. And if everyone says its a flat 2nd half including me...what is your ****in point??...you don't have one, so its you that can piss off with your negativity. If we don't win it, it'll have nothing to do with this or any other group game, how anyone can relate those two things is beyond comprehension.
. Yeah, bought Paulinho on cos we were really struggling at 2-0! Lewis had just done 70mins and he can't possibly have wanted to see how he works with Sandro for a bit.
How you can be so damned thick is beyond me coming back with an answer like that. It's not worth continuing with so why don't we both just piss off from each other.
I look forward to watching Real Madrid win 6-1 all the way to the final...if they don't, I hope Bale gets a good bollocking, he's bound to deserve one.
Whoa. I didn't expect this thread this morning. We won. We're top of the group. We're likely to coast through a lot of these group games. We'd won the game by half time; the second half was a bore-fest because of that. Tromso had a couple of slim chances and so what? Clean sheet. Again. That Erikson bloke impressed me for a second time.
You said to me on another thread how do I connect the threat to Gerrard with the Tromso fan wearing an Arsenal shirt. So how do you connect Real Madrid with our result. Man you live in a weird world?
No you probably won't, but you probably also won't enjoy most of the season. If you don't savour the good times/wins then what is the point? Seems like just a way to add angst and stress into your life on the off chance we might win a trophy maybe once every decade. I bet there are a few Chelsea fans who would have liked that sort of game on wednesday. I still maintain the injuries were the only downside to last night. We did the job first half, got 2-0 up and comfortable and rightly took our foot off the pedal. We didn't fade due to poor fitness we faded because we were playing within ourselves. Anyone can see we are a supremely fit squad, possibly the fittest in the prem.
