Match Day Thread Manchester United vs Plucky Little Upstarts from the South Coast. Sat Feb 12, 12.30

Nor that his behaviour in trying to intimidate the ref would have caused a yellow card (at least) for less “celebrated” players.

 

From what I’ve seen over the years, both on and off the pitch Maguire is pretty unsavoury.

 

I read a “Verdict from Old Trafford” article, in the Sunday Mirror, written by a “sports reporter” called Chris McKenna.
The entire piece was about Paul Pogba and “How he put himself in the shop window in the first half” followed up with “If he played like he did in the opening half every week, perhaps there would be more concern about the fact that he looks set to leave for nothing in four months”.
Normally I ignore these comments but this morning I looked for an email address where I could send a response to his article.
In my email I pointed out that the period of play when Pogba played “okay”, was when Saints had changed their shape to play with 3 CBs, and one less in midfield.
Pogba was able to utilise the time and space given to him to use the ball more effectively.
I then pointed out that as soon as Saints reverted to their usual set up, and implemented the high press, Pogba and the rest of the United midfield disappeared.
I told him that if he wanted to criticise Pogba for being a flat track bully, a player who only plays well when afforded time and space, then do so.
I finished by suggesting that if he is going to write articles on football, he should be more aware of how a player’s performance can be influenced by tactical changes and give some credit to a team that makes “star” players look anything but stars.

For what it’s worth I never saw anything from Pogba, even when he had the freedom of the midfield, that marked him out as having that good a game as the reporter seemed to think.

 

So how did we set up yesterday? I didn’t think we started with three CBs? I read somewhere about Romeu dropping back. So were there two shifts in the game

 

We changed twice in the first half - Oriel dropped back to cover in a 4, then moved back to take over midfield again after a while. United had no idea

 

Did you not watch the game?
I made a comment on the thread about Romeu having dropped into the back line, then later added another when, during a period of treatment for someone, Ralph reversed the decision and we reverted to the normal set up.

 

I saw those comments but it sounded like (from the radio) that Pogba was bossing it from very early on. Unless Romeu dropped back very early. They weren’t clear about it

And no - I listened on the radio mostly

 

The ****ing whining yesterday from Utd was embarrassing. Now as much as I never liked them, they were a team which played with swagger and arrogance. They were never dead and buried at any point during a game.

Yesterday Bruno and Ronaldo spent more time whinging then playing. Every decision which didn't go their way was a little tantrum. If I was a utd fan I'd be fuming with their attitude. The ref didn't have the stones to stand up to them, both should have been booked several times over

 

I completely agree with you Lincoln. Without wanting to hijack this thread to become a dissection of what is wrong with Man U, as opposed to how well we played, were set up, etc, the underlying issue appears to be that Man U's 'superstars' are self-entitled individuals, who don't listen to their manager, hence Ralph (Hassenhutl's) comments about Ralf (Rangnick's) issues. These same superstars are unable to understand that other teams (well, Saints) will not stand back and admire their ability, then applaud them. Basically, it is very funny, and results in wonderful wind ups of all the 'lifelong' Man Utd supporters, who believe that having more money than other clubs must mean that they are 'best'.

 

Absolutely. Taking nothing away from the boys' work ethic yesterday. They ran themselves in to the ground, tactically RH had it sussed.

But it's not hard to see why Utd aren't the force they once were.

 

Jenas was bang out of order with those comments and was clearly still salty and smarting from his own teams defeat to Saints in midweek.
The irony of his teams manager ‘shushing’ our manager on the touch line on Wednesday is clearly lost on Jenas…

 

Yeah, I don't normally mind Jenas, but he's being bit of a knob here.

 

I listened to the Radio Solent commentary and it was pretty clear that Saints were more than a match for United. It is intriguing the way the media reacts when we compete against some of the more fashionable clubs and was interested in the way Ralph's comments about United's ability to defend has been reported even though this has been well reported on the coverage on Radio 5 , for example. for some while!. The analysis on MofD last might was fascinating and more interesting than the edited highlights which I feel tend to blur too easily. I loved seeing the mechanics of Saints' performance explained like this.

My point is that just how big a story are Man Utd these days? I am not sure that an away team getting a point at Old Traffold is such big news. It is much mopre doable these days. If you were being even handed, the story for me is that this is an emerging Southampton side that merits the attention more. United have effectively plateaued since SAF left in 2013, even though the writing was beginning to start to show on the wall. Is United failure to dominate and becoming a Top Six team still a story for the media?

I think MofD put the game in perspective by demonstrating that Saints were excellent and United were poor. However, this is not a recent state of affairs for United and they consistently seem to thwart any attempt at a renaissance. What I want to say is that it is strange that the media seem to follow the same trope about United and have done so for a long while. They are poor and defending these days and there is a lack of application amongst some of their playing staff. I would like to see the football media perhaps be a bit more wide-ranging in their coverage as it has become too predictable as a whole. Is the continued demise of Man Utd really such a big story in 2022. I would like to see teams like Saints, west Ham and Brighton get more attention - although obviously not for things such as kicking a cat!

 

A presenter on talkSport described Manure as thinking they are in Hollywood when in reality they are in Hollyoaks! Hilarious

 

TWO Saints players in Crooks TOTW, Adams and JWP. And yes, he's trying to sell JWP to Liverpool. Yawn.

 

Apologies if already mentioned but does anyone know why the var check took so long when half their team were offside? It seemed like they were checking something else but no idea what.

 

Peter Walton was having a ****.

 

They were checking the rules to see that rather like two negatives make a positive, 7 Man U players offside make the goal scorer onside.

 

Because we were playing ManU there was an hour of buildup on the international feed, Owen hargreaves and Michael Owen were the pundits. Heavy focus on JWP and his set pieces, even a training ground clip they shot with him. All basically jizzed themselves about how good he was. The studio also said that Ralph is one of the best managers in the league and then tried to sell him to a top 6 club. M.Owen partiucularly thinks he should be managing a bigger club and is the most underrated manager in the league. He thought fans had lost their minds earlier when calling for him to be sacked. They did make the point that ralph seems to be fully onboard with the project here and being in a position of influence and said that if he went to ManU or Tot especially that wouldnt be the case.

Anyway, I go to the trouble of saying all this to make the point that we might not be flying under the radar and what Ralph has done isnt going unnoticed.

 

The scorer (CR?) was in the middle of the 7 offside players so it wasn’t immediately obvious whether he actually was offside himself

I’m interested that only Man City have managed to get the timing right against us
Brighton went close more than once

We’re very good at it but It’s not easy to watch