Rival Watch™ 2013/2014

To be honest we should have won easily, bad finishing was our downfall. I think we should have brought Januzaj on at some point in place of Mata and Valencia was better suited to the physical approach than Young but no matter what we should have had enough to win.

 

Stoke in February and that old cliche though. Good ol Chuck Adam though the man with the " 10 million for set pieces alone".

 

Fergie knew his players

 

Charlie Adam was great wasn't he. I've never seen him so fit. He was everywhere, and Assaidi could have had a brace when he came on. Utd also had their openings which they didn't take but thought, on balance, Stoke had the lion's share of clean cut chances. Mata and Rooney looked subdued today and RVP is still clearly recovering from injury but he still showed his quality with his goal. Rooney didn't seem to enjoy his midfield sojourn.

 

Mata is just trying to fit in with a new team, Rooney looked very disinterested and is a worry for the future if we are to rely on him!

 

Yeah, you can always give the benefit of the doubt to new players, even those with Premiership experience. Rooney did look disinterested. I'm fairly sure it was because DM was playing him out of his favoured position. Why he brought on Welbeck rather than Fletcher and kept Rooney deep, when it clearly wasn't working, is beyond me.

I'm wondering if Rooney is dissatisfied with DM's tactics and management and David is just saying exercising his authority as if to say, 'I'm the boss ... just do it!'

Chances are it was just another blip due to the massive transition at Old Trafford. I'd only start worrying if you lose to Fulham!

 

Moyes on Rooney:

"Words are all we have, are we talking? And I hear you talking in the dead of niiiiiggghhhhttttttt, you lean towards despair, any given oppurunity you;re there, but what is there to gain, when you're always falling off the fence that way? and I hear you calling in the dead of niiiiiiiiggghhhhhttttt!"

 

this is a time utd fans are sadly unaware of.

perhaps some chavs from the past two years can inform them.

This is where the commitment of players is REALLY tested.

Should LFc win today, lets take nothing for granted but should they; utd will be 9 points of 4th. They are out of all cups bar the CL.

Utd players could easily lose focus and start just not raising the game, they could just focus on the CL and when the inevitable happens in the QF that'll be over.

Will Utd players be up for the fight, wil they just play out the season and end up 6th or 7th or something and really not give their all to the cause.

This is the real question IMO. Do they have the fight when desperate relegation candidates play or when title charging sides play them?

If rooney looked "disinterested" thats bad, he was out, usually he comes back eager for a few weeks get 6 or 7 goals then switch off. He could go into a world cup coming shell.... who knows.

RVP might decide he's unfit in april cos theres a gap to 4th and he's a world cup to play.

nani is already gone in his mind. so is vidic.

All in all its a real test not only of talent but mentality. nobody EVER questioned their mentality under ferguson... but now? this season could peter out in a one game very two weeks death of a thousand cuts for moyes.

 

I tend to agree with the general outline of what MITO is saying - hence my comment yesterday that they may not even make a Europa place. However, I don't think it will be a matter of their players losing focus and not raising their game. More likely the majority will be trying even harder without any reward and coming to the final realisation that they were never as good (both individually or as a unit) as they believed themselves to be.

Having said that I could see Rooney and RVP taking MITOs' path.

 

is that a wish to grind them into the ground or what? the likes of carrick and such never were worldies like some would say but i don't know if they ever will realise it and will just blame moyes. i don't know though...

I don't know. my premise is just about what i've seen our lot do man times under many managers. ie look after no 1. play then its easy, you see a 3-0 win when it sthe easy home game then the wet game at stoke is a no show.

they'll try a leg v arsenal but if something goes wrong they'll just not really try to put it right and shrug ah well thats how its gone this year, next will be different.

I don't know obviously just making guesses at possible outcomes. LFc fans will want them to give up no question but in the end its everton who are keeping us honest and spurs who had a big run of form too. we've got a gap to utd we need to regap everton today and i think they'll push to the end.

that should keep utd back there hopefully so its obviously our hope utd just don't factor as i think nobody wants this season to end up with othing and utd ahead of us.

 

I could be just wishing. However, that vision does fit with the far longer corporate malaise that I have outlined previously for United. When it's in the bones of the organisation it's like a slow release drug. No you don't sink into oblivion, you stay near enough to make it hurt even more that you don't seem to be able to recapture what you once had.

There's a great deal of work to be done to re-activate United's squad and I don't see them achieving it for a long time.

As for us. Well we've got what we've got for the rest of the season. I'm still convinced that if we were a racehorse, Rodgers would put the blinkers on us. In reality we can only look after ourselves so we should stop looking at what other teams do and see where we are in 15 games time!

 

yeah i get what you are saying.

players will think ah next year and not really see the issues with no europe or not care. manager might or might not see the hammer falling. the chief executive might be more interested in massive nike deals then suddenly one day you are buying paul stewart and julian dicks.

i just think they have too much resource to not consider long term top 4 even if the short term this year says 6th...

which is why LFc need to look at arsenal, match thier fat stadium and build to beat them... the malaise at arsneal is deep, wenger signed a crap old forward with a back problem this january. they have one striker and 20 midfielders. they might or might not end our trophy hunt this seaosn. they might take 2nd or beat us and put us back in 5th but in the end wenger is doing them little in terms of favours to crack on and compete.

they are so far behind city its untrue and frankly cheslea have so many resources that all they need is to improve their goal retrun with a reliable forward too... long term this league is all about beating arsenal for us.

 

.

 

rodgers should say "i don't know how we can lose at times" something like that.

 

#bbcsalford stirring it

 

CPofL and his good lady wife 100yearsofHistory will be raging at that.

 

Surely the next generation of pundits would be ex-Man Utd players

 

• 15:08: ​
  West Brom 1-1 LiverpoolWhat's happened Liverpool fans? Your side were dominant at the break, without actually playing that well. Things have changed now.
  
  
  BBC Salford asking for a kicking.
  
  #bbcsalfordstirring2
  
  
  

 

#bitter ****s should ask themselves what happened to the greatest attacking 3 in the world

 

and the prick never played well ever again