Match Day Thread Manchester Utd v Liverpool

Don’t think you can argue with his tactics given you nullified their front three and exposed a weakness on their right.

Liverpool fans should be critical of Klopp IMO for not picking a midfield to take advantage of the huge swathe of space in front of your deep-lying defence. If Lallana had been played from the start and given that role it would have been a very different game IMO. If Matip had been in for Lovren they’d have looked much better. Two poor choices from Klopp.

 

I can't argue with the tactics so far as the result goes. But I can say I wouldn't have been enthused watching United on the back foot throughout, with possession of the ball for only 15 minutes of the first half and 14 minutes of the second half (including added time). I can argue we could have achieved the same result or better with a more proactive approach.

 

We weren't on the back foot throughout. At all.

We should have been over the hill and far away after the first half, it was a non contest.

Second half, we invited them on. I don't agree with it personally but we weren't really in danger for all the ceding of possession we gave to Liverpool.

I can only assume you didn't watch Arsenal away either because that's another game you have completely the wrong impression about, based only on possession stats.

Which mean absolutely **** all half the time.

 

I don’t honestly think you could have done against their front line, though their midfield and defence would still have been awful. They have one way of playing which Mourinho countered perfectly, massive **** though he is.

 

The good thing about the result yesterday is it gives us a nice big cusion to 5th place now, so we can concentrate now on the 2 Cups we are in.

Yeah it would be nice to get 2nd, but the reality of it is 2nd and 4th are basically the same. So I wouldn't be to worried if we started resting players and put all our focus into getting some silverware.

Obviously the FA Cup looks our best chance of achieving this, but we can still have a good go in the CL too, even if we are one of the outsiders for it.

 

I'm glad someone else is coming round to my way of thinking.

It's been embarrassing hearing fellow fans state were not good enough to complete in the champions league.

****ing shameful.

 

I think we're certainly good enough to compete in the CL, but not using the same tactics and approach for such a long part of the game.

It's fine to give that much time and possession to a one dimensional side like Liverpool, who can be predicted and countered comfortably. But in the CL most sides have a lot more to them. I doubt we could have let Real, Barca, Bayern, PSG, Juve and even Sevilla or Roma have that much possession, 13 corners and 14 shots on goal and rely on them to get nothing more than an OG.

I'd certainly be much more worried that I was yesterday if we are 2-1 up on Tuesday night and sitting back to the same extent. Whenever we've surrendered that much possession in the past it has usually been with a healthy lead, or without giving the opposition the same number of chances.

 

It's not a tactic I'm in support of at all but set that aside and look at our players and we're good enough. It comes down to how Mourinho approaches it, simple as that.

We used to sit back on leads under Ferguson in Europe and it was as hard to watch then as it is now. Probably one of the reasons we didn't win it as much as we should have, that pragmatic European mentality. When we did go for it we more often than not won the matches.

We have the players to compete in and even win the CL, simple as that.

 

Aye, but in the past when we sat back on leads we surrendered possession but not so may shots and chances. Against Arsenal, Real, Bayern, even Barca in 2008 we sat back and gave nothing away (until red cards against Real and Bayern). Mourinho seems to have lost his previous ability to organise a defence to be just about impregnable.

That's my main concern in the CL - we don't have the players / system any more to sit back and soak up pressure without conceding, but we have a manager who sits back almost as a default when leading.

But I do absolutely agree we have the players to compete and win it, just need to make sure we don't shoot ourselves in the foot.

 

When I say on the back foot "throughout" I don't mean consistently but overall/generally. That's the inevitable result of Liverpool having over twice as much of the ball during which time I assume they looked to attack. I doubt we had any sustained period of possession or attack - certainly not in the second half where we didn't have the ball to do that. Even our goals were the result of two long goal kicks flicked on/won by Lukaku (fantastic finishes from Rashers)!

I watched the Arsenal game. The stats reflected exactly the game I saw (of course they did - they don't make them up ). United defending throughout.. generally.. with possession of the ball for only 20 minutes in the whole match.

The games look similar in style - classic Jose rearguard action - with the difference that Liverpool weren't able to carve out chances like Arsenal so we didn't need De Gea to bail us out (there wasn't a single shot on target in the second half yesterday).

 

You didn't watch it so you can't have a valid opinion.

End of.

"I didn't watch the game but I've seen some stats and this probably happened"

Ridiculous.

 

I cannot believe we were/are having arguments with someone who is basing his views on stats and not on what he saw from the whole match. The stats as we (except for the RS) all know have **** all relevance to the real match in many circumstances. I was wondering why that poster was calling the Arsenal match one of the worst match United had played. He was just going on possession and shots!! United were in total control of that game within minutes and were letting Arsenal passing it in front of them. Same as much of the RS in the second half of the match yesterday.

Puts everything that gav said about Keane in perspective too. He must have been reading what Keane had written or said about football not what he had actually done as a manager.

 

We probably aren't good enough to win it, but you never know in football. All the team can do is do their best.

The area of the field I worry about most is our defence, the RS did create nothing yesterday, but against better sides like Real, Bayern or City I think we will need to ride our luck more to keep them quiet.

I think our defence is the area of the field we are weakest in, and I think that forces Mourinho to play even more defensive to protect them. Bailly coming back, and hopefully staying fit will help, but I still think our defence is weak.

Maybe next season if we strengthen the defence we can have more of a go attacking in the CL, but with the players we have, dare I say it, I think our best hope of going far in the CL is to park the bus and protect the back 4.

If we open up against the likes of City, Real or Bayern, or even Barca for that matter we will get a serious thrashing. A lot of this has to do with the players Mourinho's signed, he's built a side to play defensive, he hasn't bought in players to play expansive attacking football.

I don't agree or like the way Mourinho plays. But we can't change the squad over night, so I think we have to play to the strengths of the players we have for now.

 

It's not necessarily parking the bus though.

The formation we started with yesterday protects the back four as it has two deeper centre midfield player's but also has a balance of four creative/attacking players in front of them.

It's a formation that suits most of our squad and provides the base from which to attack; 4 2 3 1.

The one player it does not suit though is Pogba.

Unless, as Swarbs has previously suggested, he plays as one of the wider players in the three behind the centre forward.

Or as the 'ten' instead of Sanchez. I'm not 100% that suits him either though.

 

We aren't on a direct comparison of players, squad and form this season, but then neither were Porto in 04, Liverpool in 05, Inter in 10 or Chelsea in 12. We're far from the best team on paper, but as long as they keep playing football on grass we have a real chance.

As with those sides, we do need to play to our strengths and rely a bit on luck to compensate for our weaknesses. Essentially do what we did for the first half yesterday - protect the back four and look to use Lukaku's strength to unleash our wide players. Sanchez, Martial and Lingard could all have taken advantage of the opportunities Rashford scored yesterday.

The worry is that we stop doing that when we're ahead - we still defended well in the second half, but there was much less intent to go forwards and exploit all the gaps Liverpool left when they were trying to create something. Without keeping that threat on the counter we open ourselves up to being properly pinned back, and you can't do that against the top sides for 45 mins without them actually scoring a few, not to mention the risk of OGs, deflections and general lucky goals that come when you defend for a full half.

 

I could not believe some of us here had been giving so much stick to JM recently ( now at least I understand the criticism from one poster if that’s coming from reading stats) .

It’s horses for courses with JM. He will play a more defensive formation if he is playing a strong attacking team away or he only needs a point. He may play a more attacking formation if he needs 3 points against a “weaker” team or he needs a win to go through. He will need Pogba in future matches but funnily enough I wasn’t that disturbed when I heard that he was going to miss the RS match. We needed a disciplined midfield yesterday and we know that Pogba is not that well geared towards a defensive role.

 

He rightly got stick for the nil nil away at Sevilla.

It remains to be seen whether that's worked out but I can tell you now, when it comes to the last eight a nil nil away will be found out as we'll almost always concede at home.

 

You are assuming a score draw or a loss. Is it possible that we could win as well as conceding the odd goal? So you do think Sevilla were not that **** after all

I doubt he set out to get a 0-0 draw. I am sure he would have liked a score draw or a win. But his bottom line was to make sure we didn’t lose. Of course the reality is that we HAVE to win. No ifs or buts. Any other result we are out and he will get stick (quite rightly then IMO).

 

Sevilla aren't good enough to justify going over there and play for a nil nil, simple as that.

Go over there and attempt to score, that at the very least nullifies any away goal they may get at our place.

We get a nil nil away and are leading two one with ten minutes to go in the home leg against any side and we're in grave danger.

No need to put ourselves in that position. It's not rocket science.