Thought Son looked dangerous today tbh. They seemed to brick it whenever he ran at them. Can see him kicking on from here, now he's realised he can do it against the other big clubs.
MF creativity still meh. Different defensive formation. And it still took an og on the opposition part (another non-open play goal, and did it count on their "shots on target" stats ?? ) to breach the goal. And Clatterf**k attempting to say sorry for last season to Dembele ?? My concern is how long can the defence prevent the usual suspects from opening a decisive points gap before the attack gets back up to normal operation.
I actually reckon Kane, Janssen, Son, Alli and a.n.other, could start causing teams a lot of problems if they can get a run togethor.
He surprised Wenger at the start and the Frenchman never really worked out how to deal with it. It'll be interesting to see if Mourinho attempts to emulate it after the international break. Given the quality (or lack of it) of Man Utd's defenders, I don't think that he will.
You'd hope so, wouldn't you? But you never know which Son is gonna turn up. One minute he's dangerous, creative and mucks in with a few goals. The next he's not moving the ball quickly enough, running into opposition players or falling over. I genuinely thought he'd be the latter today, against a decent arsenal defence, but he played really well.
and what a difference it made. Makes you wonder what on earth was going on with the Leverkusen matches. Such a contrast in thinking.
At times Utd have had 6 or 7 players forming there back line in games against better teams under Mourinho so it wouldn't surprise me if we come up against a very defensive formation or team. He will try and defend and cheat and hope for a lucky goal on the break.. It's how he always approaches big games. I don't think he has the personnel to make it work at the moment though. And his odd team selections don't help his cause.
And also made a nice change from reading articles about how we were 'out thought' by the likes of Tony ****ing Pulis.
We've been knocking on the door of CL football for a number of years, and finally got there again last season. But we severely lack a Coutinho, Hazard, Sanchez, De Bruyne player in our midfield. These players make such a difference for our rivals.
He's one of those managers who's hyped up to ridiculous levels, but can only play one way. If he's got the players for it and they're all with him, then he'll get great results. He can't switch things up when the conditions aren't with him, though. I think that the same applies to Guardiola and Wenger's gone down that road recently, too. I'm not knocking those managers, exactly, but a world class manager should be able to do more, for me. Coaches that aren't rated as highly and have less resources have to do it and they manage. That someone like Mourinho doesn't seem to be able to is rather odd.
regardless, the set up was much better suited and had a huge impact on the game. Not only did we play a formation that didn't end up working during the first Leverkusen game, but we then did pretty much the same thing 2 weeks later, having seen it not work.
The issue is that the "perfect storm" of personnel is always eluding us. Had Berbatoss as a striker, but no Modric to serve him. And vice-versa. Had Bale in ballistic mode in 2012-13, but nobody else fronting up sufficiently to do the extra to get the CL slot. And also : failing to get into the CL when the moment was there puts Spurs in a vicious circle where a key player moves on and then you have to rebuild again to try and get the perfect storm. Last season was the first time that the team as a whole was uniform in effort and commitment. Which is why the MF performance this season is so frustrating.
The system only partially worked. Those last 15 minutes of the first half, once they had worked us out were truly awful. Walker and Rose were way up the other end and a simple ball into our half left them stranded and Woolwich were too quick on the counter. we were lucky not to concede a couple during that time. They missed a couple of golden opportunities. The penalty was a surprise but having now arrived home and watched it , it was definitely the right decision. Apart from the penalty, he made some terrible decisions. Second half we looked better, -or was that because they were playing to the goal in front of us? after the goal, it was a good chance for Eriksen but at least he shot first time on his wrong foot. also very unlucky with the free kick. Overall I think it was the right result and I could leave proud of the performance.
lol just seen Wenger's post match comments. Apparently it shouldn't have been a penalty, Wanyama should've been sent off for "elbowing" Walcott and he didn't see the offside on the first goal. Vintage Wenger
It was pretty appalling officiating for Wanyama to not even get a card in that game, surely even Spurs fans agree with that?
Oxocube was soooooo **** when he came on, misplaced passes and loads of fouls. No bad fouls..just constant fouls
