I thought Mason's lack of tracking back was very obvious yesterday, he loves closing down and getting a tackle in but doesn't have the same passion for doing the less glamorous defensive duties like positioning himself in the right areas at the back. It's worrying that Bentaleb's considered the better defender of the two and yet in the last 2 games, 2 midfielders have been allowed to space to score on his side of the pitch. Both need to sort that out as United aren't playing the best football but they have the attacking players to punish you if you give them space. As much as the defence has been lacking at times in recent games I do worry we've gone a little bit back to the start of the season in that the midfield aren't helping the defence enough
Bentaleb and Stambouli make a lot of sense for shielding the back four, the problem is they lack that certain cutting edge for when we have the ball. As for Mason, I wonder if we're going to deploy him as Eriksen's understudy next season - he'll get less games, obviously, but his eye for a pass and his workrate means he could be a useful option in that position, although given that's also a description of Holtby that he'd be leaving.
I think his quick decision making means that he's better playing deeper as he really sets the tempo for us. In that respect he's a bit like Modric except that Luka played shorter passes, made less runs into the box and was better defensively. I could see Mason playing further forward, possibly outwide, but I think we'd miss him in the deeper areas as Bentaleb and Stambouli aren't quite so adept at getting the ball going forward.
Harry Kane became only the fourth player in Premier League history to score in six successive away games. The others are Drogba, Henry and Sturridge.
If you have your hand in the air and it blocks a shot that's a clear penalty. I don't see how it can be construed as anything else. Quite how you come to the conclusion the referee was equally poor for both sides is also beyond me.
I suggest QPR get their fingers out and get themselves out of the trouble they've got themselves into!
That’s also what I’ve ben seeing. Try counting how many players we have in the penalty box when the other team has the ball near our goal, and compare it with how many they have. Most of the year I thought the problem was that various players were caught upfield too often as a (partly unavoidable) consequence of playing a high line. The last few games the problem has been our other players watching while players went 1 v.1 against our defenders, long after they had time to help out. You can fall out of the boat on both sides, and Saturday we did at different times. Towards the end our whole team started not only packing the box but backing up too far.
If you want to beat us you have to sit back, we can`t break through a packed defence at the moment. We still have enough attacking flair to beat most teams in an open game but look poor when teams break on us. If you come to play an open game i think we will win and it could be high scoring (3-2), if you come to hit us on the break i see you winning (0-2)
The hand the ball struck was covering his face, not outstretched from his body. If his hand wasn't there, it's striking his face, the ball isn't going in the net regardless, to give a penalty against a player protecting his face from a volleyed shot 2 yards away would have been a farce, if his hand wasn't protecting his face and was the only object blocking the ball's path, I could fully understand cries for a penalty but that case, never, no way. Of course it's beyond you, you're being a biased sore loser and only noticing decisions that went against you rather than realising we were also on the wrong of a number of decisions. Pawson had a shocking game for both sides but with the standard of refereeing this season we're becoming accustomed to at least one or two cock ups a game, the penalty decision however, was one of his only correct calls in my opinion. The Isla situation was possibly a penalty, although the minimal contact and his reaction probably swayed Pawson's thought process of it being a dive - which I initially did until replays showed a slight tap. Us and sitting back doesn't work unfortunately, despite having good individual defenders we seem to be a poor unit collectively for one reason or another and usually rely on Hugo to bail us out a number of times, we've got more of a chance of trying to win 5-4 than 1-0, especially with the form Kane is in. I think it's going to be a great game though, it's my first time at Old Trafford too, so hoping for something memorable to go home with
Not being a sore loser at all. The hand was in, as the rules would describe, an "unnatural" position and blocked a shot. That is a textbook penalty award. As for the Isla one, it's a foul. I don't think there's much more that can be said about it. If you watch it and don't think that should be given as a foul then that's your call albeit a strange one. Still not sure what these shocking decisions were which went in our favour.
By the FA's rules it is. As a former centre-half myself I'd expect the player to put his head in there and risk it getting kicked off if that's what it takes.
For me, it was one of those "I've seen them given" it was certainly no nailed on penalty. Some refs would see if one way, some another. As I think was said in another posting, the current thinking seems to be not to award penalties for handball incidents that occur at minimal distance.
The fact that the ball travels about a foot from Austin's boot and he then kicks Bentaleb with that boot probably factored into the decision. You see them given, but I can understand why it wasn't.
The words 'unnatural position' don't even appear in the Laws. The only reference says the opposite: "the position of the hand does not necessarily mean that there is an infringement".
