You can name a striker, which gives credibility to your posts. Austin isn't the answer but yes, he would have been better than Fellaini, he's a natural striker after all. We have bought a striker though. Turns out he's pretty good too.
Well Martial could have started. 3 months from now and he probably does but today, with Rooney out, it wasn't the right game to start him up top. So van gaal looked at his options. He chose the right one. I'm not debating that it was partly of his own making either. But given the options, he made the right call today. You cannot say Liverpools defenders were not effete either. They were terrified of him.
Van Persie wouldn't be sitting in his arse though. Today he'd have started. Rooney was always going to get an injury at some point. We should have kept RVP, simple. The rest I agree with.
It's a hard one with van Persie. He still had the quality but lacked the movement. Too many times last season he offered nothing in attack. Im not sure he would have made any difference today really. Plus, he would probably be injured himself . I was reading a discussion the other day re strikers around the world. The striker options at other big clubs are not too disk,liar to our own. One main striker and a few more versatile players. The back ups are often young or obscure strikers. The games changing. No more two up top, 4 top class strikers on the books etc. Maybe we will go for Austin in January, if needed.
Austin wouldn't have been THE answer but he'd have been an option. Squad player. Would have taken some pressure of Martial too, who if anything now has even more to live up to unfortunately. There was a a lot of people getting their bollocks out saying we've got **** loads of money, so what if we spend it. So we should have bought the extra striker on top of Martial really. Or kept RVP for another season.
I think van persie wanted to leave as much as we wanted to sell. Had he wanted to stay and was willing to play second fiddle, he would still be here.
Realistically Martial will come on from the bench and Rooney remains first choice centre forward. Which means our pace and drive up front might not improve just yet. Better him than Fellaini though any day of the week. Young should be in too, although it's Depay who'd need to drop out as I think Mata and Herrera have to play so we'd then lose the pace of Depay. Or do we really think Mata should take the fall so we've got better pace from both wings? Sounds mad to even consider dropping him.
I would drop Depay to the bench. For Young too. I may not like him but he helped change things today, for that he deserves to play. Depay needs to have a break. He's played a lot of games in a new league as well as in Europe (for club and country). With Rooneys poor form he's been under pressure to score and he's failed to do so. Take that pressure off him and bring him back in slowly. We will see the best of him as am sure. With martial and Depay coming on we have the ability to completely change the game now. Two fast, direct players who can come on against tired defences and run riot (hopefully). Still expect big things from Depay. Hopefully nobody will twist my words here and claim a I said he was rubbish. As is common practice on here.
It depends how we manage in the CL group stages. I think Depay and Mata will be fine for those. I'd then rotate with Young in the league depending on the opposition. The better teams I'd start with Depay and Young. Bottom half teams I'd probably have Depay and Mata. I'd even consider trying Depay up front with Young on the left in some games tbh.
With the type of possession football we play at the moment we should do quite well in Europe. It is much easier to break down a team that try to play against you than it is a team that crowds the final quarter of the pitch all game.
I will say UIR talks a lot of nonsense, but I think he's right here, we've dictated the pace of every game we've been in so far this season.
I think the team plays with more urgency with young instead of Depay (sorry UIR) . He gets to the by line and also commits the defenders more. It may be subjective but there are more shots on target when he is around. I would definitely start him or at least give him the second half if we are struggling. Mata deserves to start as we have few other creative players.
Yeh agree, but the other difference is that when the CL sides do try to play against you they do so in a way much more suited to Van Gaal's more measured style of play - hence why I think Mata will be more effective in those games.
True I've never argued against that, the problem is that the pace we've dictated is one dimensional and hasn't changed in nigh on a year.
This I can't wait to see how LVG's total possession football fares against the top European sides. I suspect the team will do well. The risk taking, higher tempo and longer ball may suit the premiership better but useless for European football. That is why SAF was relatively unsuccessful in Europe with his teams.
Its likely we will see a similar pattern to our league games in the early group stage games, at least.
Yep, Fergie always wanted to entertain but in Europe some teams (Barca) have the ability to cut you apart if you let them have the ball
You sometimes speak from the heart too much UiR, all summer my heart said DdG would stay and sign a new contract (never really got the feeling he wanted to go), but my head told me in June that he was gone. Luckily my heart won this time but unfortunately that is a rare occurrence
Possibly. Its obviously something close to all our hearts though. That's why we are United fans. I enjoyed last season for one thing. It was a bit of a roller coaster with plenty of highs and lows. Even with some of the dire stuff we served up, I always felt we would find a way. We also played some damn good stuff too. I quickly got bored of the negative during Moyes season though. I will continue bto focus on the positives at the club now, like how two thirds of the side is massively improved and overall quality is up. The deadwood has gone and we've started the season with a 2 ppg ratio. We've just beaten Liverpool again, with ease, our new striker has scored a great goal and to top it off, Dave signed a new contract. Things are pretty good to be fair.
