Today, 17:30. Is it just me or are FA Cup weekends becoming as big a chore as international breaks? I just want to get back to the league action!
£290k a week and supposedly a bug is enough to put him out of action - I hope it's a bad one. Aternatively, it's a cover up to leave him out without everyone making a big deal of it. We should still have enough to comfortably beat Huddersfield.
Comfortable win against a battling and willing but ultimately limited Huddersfield. The RS have been biting their fingers for the QF draw on their board Wondering who they will face United facing Brighton at OT. Couldn’t have asked for more!
How VAR can claim any credibility after tonight is ridiculous. The linesman was perfectly placed to make a decision as to whether or not Mata was offside and in his view the goal stood. The debate is not whether that decision was right or wrong, but whether the VAR was able to arrive at a clear decision given the information available to them. Given what we all saw on TV - the ridiculous inaccuracy of the overlay offside lines - it has to be said that the VAR could not have made a decision on the basis of that data as it was clearly flawed. The decision should have been referred back to the match officials and on the basis that the linesman was perfectly placed and saw no infringement at the time, the goal should have stood.
How about setting up to play like we're a big club with top players, rather than like underdogs facing Barcelona at the Nou camp? We just got out possessed, out passed and outshot by Huddersfield. Yeah we won, we're in the next round but it wasn't a great watch, never is these days, and I'm fed up with it to be honest.
Only positive other than the result today, was that Lukaku actually looked like the clinical striker we paid all that money for. Let's just hope he can get abit of confidence from taking those chances now and we can start seeing more of the player who we seen at Everton last year. The thing with the VAR was just a joke if I'm honest, any idiot can see that the lines aren't even straight. You'd have thought they'd of had computer boffins testing all this **** before they start using it. Clearly not
I can't understand why they haven't run this behind the scenes for a season or two. Just use the technology (but not to affect games in real life/time), then get the officials together after games and ask the ref "anything you were unsure of", maybe he says "yes, the opposition insisted there was a foul in the lead up to the second goal but I didn't see it" ask the VAR guy did you see it, "yes, I would have notified the ref of it" Run with it for a season, or two if necessary, and get it fit for use, don't just trial it in real time. They could have been doing this for the last 5 years without any of us knowing then when they threw it out live it would be as close to right as possible, instead we have to watch all the total **** ups and lose any confidence we might have in the thing.
That would be far to much of a sensible thing to do. The mistake made on it today shouldn't even need any trial and error to get it right. Is drawing a straight line across a football pitch really that difficult with modern technology and computers? It doesn't seem like anything to technical to me
I am getting a little pissed off with him taking 3 touches to get the ball fully under control but not nearly as pissed off as I am with Sanchez. The guy takes 7/8/9 touches every time he gets the ball, he always does a 360 turn then usually another 90 to run into a bit of space before he picks the wrong pass. Yes he has picked out some great passes but he could do so much more, maybe as he adapts to his team mates he will get/trust the fast one touch pass and movement players like Lingard, Martial, Rashford and Mata are used to but for now he just jiggles a lot for little gain. That said, I like the way he waves the defence and midfield up the pitch and always applauds a player who hits a pass to him which may be too hard or he just doesn't connect with, it shows the players are at least on the same wavelength.
To be honest I'm not really sold on Sanchez being this major improvement on what we already had. I wasn't before he signed, and he's not done a lot to convince me otherwise. His passing was always very poor at Arsenal so I'm not suprised to see he still gives the ball away a lot for us.
It is obvious by this post that you still (you are not the only one) worked out JM ‘s football philosophy. Which is to win a football match by whatever means. Facing this type of opponent away with the players available or those he wanted to play. The key objective was not to entertain or play like a big club, having tons of possession. What would be the point of having a great football match if at the end you lose? Ah the obvious riposte to this is you can have both. Pep is doing it. But in my view if JM cannot do both, then I would take the winning. I must admit that like many others (fans and probably executives too) I would like him to be more short/medium term rather than longer term but we’ll have to wait and see.
