In all seriousness, Tobes, I thought we were much the better side and should have won. However, we didn't.
I actually thought the system worked ok last night. It actually worked better than when we played the more usual 433 in the league game. Our biggest problem (as is often the case in these games) was not making more of our chances. You know how it works mate, in tight games like last nights it's about sticking away one of the few opportunities that come. When you don't then good teams have a knack of punishing you.
Under those stats, did you see the comment by the united supporter? david says September 26, 2013 9:52am "Well it is fair to say we were VERY lucky last night once again Moyes selection a joke and we were played of the park for the majority of the game by Liverpool. If we come up against City or someone else in next round that is us out of the competition as we won't be that lucky twice. Things need to change and don't get carried away by a fluke win in the cup which on the face of it was unjustified...." I rest my case.
That's right mate, fine margins & all that. Not sure I agree about your system though, as you lacked genuine width, so the United back line was never really stretched, which limited the space for Sturridge & the other fella in their box.
Exactly - they had to rely on another set piece to score their goal because they are unable to create anything. And I agree with Billy - the formation suited to us and we really adapted. Just lacked the final bit of quality in the final third.
sorry tobes but you've missed 3 points here. 1. The system is not changed for suarez. Its changed for coutinho being out. simple as... the managers decision to go winger hunting rather than buy eriksen has been shown up. 2. The system has not changed again for suarez but to accomodate a a large number of CBs and seeming a total lack of faith in wisdom at RB. Again we seem to be bottling dropping skertl to return toure to the middle and we seem to be (as per southampton) trying to fit 3/4 cbs in. 3. finally The formation yesterday was wrong in that it played 3-4-3 (almost) rather than 3-5-2. In short we were playing actually 5-2-3 at times and thats where utd got control of possesion and ran the legsoff our midfield duo... If he wanted saurez in then i'm afraid moses should not have played too. ... but again the transfer policy of buying aspas, alberto and maybe even ilori has been shown up as christian eriksen struts his stuff at white hart lane and we struggle with 3 currently ineffective lesser player show all pay the wrong position. i hope this clears up the reasons why for the last two games we have strayed form the right path and its nothing to go with suarez... In short rodgers is falling into a classic scenario of being afraid to drop a guy where he's got too many players and is being to soft. skertl has to go. add one midfielder there and the thing is sorted.
Look i am fairiy sure utd won't win this competition as they will rest players in it now and play CL. Buttner was poor for me, honestly had rooney not played we could have dominated more. I'd put money now on both lfc and Utd winning nothing.... moyes loves the fa cup so he'll go for that but this one will fall between the cracks of league and cl, moyes has always shown it disdain.
Coutinho was out on Saturday & he didn't go to 3 at the back, so I've no idea how you definitively state the change wasn't made to accommodate Jaws.
Oh I don't know, Enricky and Toure were in good positions to cross on a few occasions but as per usual our crossing is ****ing bollocks. The main problem was the forwards not holding the ball up well enough to allow the full backs to get further up more often.
We have a lack of suitable full backs, and an abundance of experienced centre backs. Rodgers deciding to play with 3 at the back makes perfect sense to me, and bear in mind it was a League Cup game as well. So I agree with MITO - we didn;t change the system to suit Suarez.
It may have been for Suarez. it may have been for Coutinho, we didn't change against Southampton but we all know how that went. Lets not get bogged down on this point.
I rest my case mate - those 2 do not offer genuine width. Toure as a rampaging wide man, capable of getting in behind a full back? lol.
You know what you can do with those stats don't you! They just do not describe what actually happened on the pitch. Pushing the ball around your defenders when you don't have an outball may increase your possession stats and your pass success rate but does nothing to actually win the game. BTW United won the game due to a defensive mistake
I really don't like having three at the back and I don't think our players look comfortable with it either. I also don't think you can just switch from a back four to three and vice-versa easily. If a team plays with three at the back then they need to do it all the time for it to become effective. IMO, we should stick to four at the back which has proved to be good for us. I don't agree that the system was altered to accommodate Suarez either. By changing it round it meant that two others were out of position; Henderson and Moses. We could have quite easily have stuck with the 4231/433 system leaving Moses on left, Hendo on the right with Suarez in the hole. Toure moves to RB. I'm not saying that that would have been our best line-up, I'm saying we could have quite easily stuck to our tried and trusted system with the eleven that were named to start the game without seeing us playing so many out of position (only one is Toure at RB)
MITO, your 'analysis' may be yours and you have the right to voice it but in my opinion some/most of it is bollocks! Suarez was always going to come back into this team last night. It would not have mattered if Ford had been playing and playing Moses had more to do with Ford's absence than any 'transfer policy'. If our Committee had really rated Eriksen then they would have bid for him - they didn't so I'll take their more informed decision over your speculation. Hence your reference to him is totally unnecessary. What the hell do you expect of a player who has been suspended for as long as Suarez has? Oh sure he was going to return 'with all guns blazzing'! Grow up! Similarly there is no way on God's good earth that you can say that the Suarez/Sturridge combo isn't working one 1 performance! From last night my summary would have been the the 2 treid to play in tandem but their timing and touch were off. Still they both scared the hell out of United's defence.
no he tried to use 4 cbs, see the point 2. accommodating cbs... thats was saturday... its VERY clear to me that he's dropped wisdom after the swansea game and is now scratching around to try and accomodate all the players in the absence of johnson. There not much in accomodating suarez. you will see that as soon as johnson is fit 4-3-3 will be used. It really is that simple. As usual when a reasonable couple of points helping you out are given you try to ignore them and plough down the route you were taking anyway. Why do you do that? You put point 1 in bold and ignored the rest. i'm frankly amazed you take a point about toure and enrique not crossing as proof you are right then... I an see right through that stuff.... just admit its quite obvious that in both games Rodgers has sought to cover johnson and he utterly changed his philosophy to go do so. V southampton the 4 at the back was there using cbs but the tactic utterly back fired and yesterday he tried henderson as a wing back and that failed. the ONLY accomodation for suarez to my mind would have been dropping moses to fill the midfield. that didn't occur did it? simply put. Southampton = anonymous aspas, ineffective width using CBs at full back and moses and henderson wide. It was almost 4-4-2 not 4-3-3 Utd = 3 at the back to try henderson at RB, meaning the spare man was at the back standing idle and so toure took it on himself to go forward. it was 3-4-3 at best but more like 5-2-3. needed one more in midifeld my point on coutinho being out is correct in my view as we have seen rodgers stratching round trying to find a way to link midfield to attack for two games now.... my point on accomodating CBs is also quite right as again in both games we've seen them. agger dropped out due to injury not being right and enrique came in... in my view that should have happed anyway but enrique played like a dog then so what can you do? My third point in fact leant towards offering you how in my view rodgers was accomodating both suarez and moses. I would not have played both but then our bench was weak wasn't it.... the only option rodgers had was alberto in midfield to strengthen. I would have dropped moses to accomodate suarez.... in fact rodgers felt he'd no option but to go the way he did. Me? I would have done this; Mingolet Wisdom Toure Sahko Enrique Gerrard Lucas hendseron Suarez Sturridge moses But then i'm a ruthless f'r.... I believe rodgers has no faith in wisdom and thinks kelly is unfit but i think that would have been far better side. Its not all about suarez no matter that you think sorry. Also no matter how many insulting names you use for suarez i really don't care about him so you'll not get much of a rise using that tactic i'm afraid.
come on dave. I respect you enough to not take it personally but you've over reacted. I am commenting on one game. I can easily say, and i quote "suarez and sturridge were not working together." that is not tha same as what you said i said "the Suarez/Sturridge combo isn't working". hjat i said was baout the game as a comment on that game. They need to sort that stuff out. I clearly saw an occasion where knowing the runs to make together would have cracked utd wide open and it failed to happen. That's not nor ever could be a will NEVER work. If you took it one way fiari enough so just I hope you see i've clarified it. My comment was more to sturridge who i felt spent half the night on the deck complaining about his treatment that's why i gave him a 5. i thought he got two pretty clear shooting chances that he did poorly on and aside form that didn't really get into it. sorry but there you go. As for coutinho. well i pointed out why i think its was a mistake and i'll stand by it. perhaps its a side show to the game itself and i'll concede that point. I think come years end we'll be looking at a mistake in taking on two prospect for big enough money and one lesser light as eriksen swans spurs into the CL. thats my opinion and i'll stand by it.. but park it for the rest of the year then.
The shot stats describe perfectly what happened on the pitch Dave, as despite having more controlled possession in attacking areas than United, you had 1 less effort on goal & only mustered 3 on target attempts. Which sums up the match perfectly imo. As you didn't create that much as you were always playing in front of a backline that was 'set', as you didn't stretch them enough, therefore never made the most of the better possession that you had for large parts of the game. Enrique lost him, but it was a great strikers instinct & finish from the lad. (who I had @ 6-1 to score the first goal btw )
Disagree - we attacked with more intent (granted we didn't hurt them) but we got into great positions but the final ball let us down. Utd only resorted to long range shots, and scored from a set piece
