Man U reaction and player ratings

[HCZ_Reborn]

Decided to wait a couple of days before commenting. Selassie - good to see you on form mate. Agree with much of what you have said.

I still feel gutted at the loss to those wankers, and the manner of it, but I want to try to be balanced here.

First the bad. We were undone by a team that was more effective and efficient than we were. Domminating possessions and controlling the game for long periods is all weel and good. But if we want to beat top teams - and in terms of the players at their disposal and recent upswing in form, Manure are a top team - we cannot afford to squander gilt-edged goal chances. We have to be more ruthless. For me, this is a team responsibility, and looking at individual errors as the reason for our loss is IMO misleading. Every team makes individual errors in every game.

The other issue I have been thinking about is emotional game state. The players need cooler heads in the big moments. If anything, they tried too hard once we were 2-1 down. In a sense this not unexpected given their average age. However the same goes for Arteta. I think the triple substitution was partly down to Arteta getting carried away with the occasion. This tendency was also on show memorably at the Liverpool Arsenal EPL game last season, with similar detrimental consequences for his team. But we have to remember that our manager is also relatively inexperienced.

Now the balance. Anyone expecting us to go to OT against a newly confident team full of talent and not find it difficult was naive. In the mood they were in and with a home crowd influencing the referee I think that all of our 'competitors' bar Citeh would have come unstuck. I was hoping for a draw, and our performance deserved this. Martinelli's goal should have stuck - it was a nonsense to have this chalked off when the ref saw Odegard's foul and waved play on. Had it done so it was a totally different game as Manure's counter-attacking plan would have been scuppered and they would have had to play higher up the pitch. The triple sub aside, IMO it was right for us to keep attacking for another goal after going 2-1 down. Yes we were keeping a high line that made us vulnerable but their 3rd goal is what can happen when you are chasing a game - not much more than that. I'm not going to stress about the eventual scoreline for thsi reason.

Finally - and yes we can debate transfer issues, but I don't think these are really part of a post game analysis - we went into this game missing our first choice and back up DM's, and against United this was always going to hurt. Would Manure have won without Fernandes or Eriksson? People are entitled to go to town on the manager, but I thought we performed well playing our 3rd choice CM (Lokonga), and ultimately, I don't even think that this is why we lost the match.

So small margins really, and while of course its top 4 or bust this season, I'm not going to ignore our great start to the season and write off the rest of it after a bum result - however much the pundits' narrative is otherwise.

I’m kind of 95% in agreement with what you’ve said

There are a couple of slight variances on my part. One the game wasn’t difficult, United were utterly pathetic not a single one of their players deserved more than a 5 with the exception of maybe Antony. But the game proved beyond any doubt what an utter liability Granit Xhaka is. They scored three goals as a result of having the freedom of Old Trafford. Other than that I actually genuinely think Bournemouth gave us a harder time than United. We naively pushed up too high because Arteta was incensed by the VAR decision (sorry it was a foul) and his arrogance refused to let us slow thing downs when we’d got ourselves back into the game.
We are as we know very wasteful in front of goal and we don’t counter attack well, United were able to score three goals under zero pressure.

[IBK]

I’m kind of 95% in agreement with what you’ve said

There are a couple of slight variances on my part. One the game wasn’t difficult, United were utterly pathetic not a single one of their players deserved more than a 5 with the exception of maybe Antony. But the game proved beyond any doubt what an utter liability Granit Xhaka is. They scored three goals as a result of having the freedom of Old Trafford. Other than that I actually genuinely think Bournemouth gave us a harder time than United. We naively pushed up too high because Arteta was incensed by the VAR decision (sorry it was a foul) and his arrogance refused to let us slow thing downs when we’d got ourselves back into the game.
We are as we know very wasteful in front of goal and we don’t counter attack well, United were able to score three goals under zero pressure.

It's an interesting concept as to whether Manure were 'diffcult' to play against. In a sense I agree that they were 'pathetic' for all bar the first 10 minutes in terms of playing football. We controlled the game and they were forced into getting everyone back and defending - but they did that well, and were disciplined in this. What they were however was really smart. They adapted well to our tactics (their manager would have anticipated our high line from the outset), and realising that they could not go toe to toe with us in terms of general game control, they quickly realised that we were vulnerable to a long ball down the middle. You can be generally effective as you want in terms of stopping the delivery route in this regard, but even Citeh cannot do this 100% (as their result at Villa showed), and we certainly failed to do this in the key moments. 'Pathetic' as they might have been for long periods, they have the likes of Erikson; Fernandes and Rashford who can kill you in this regard if given half a chance. Disagree with you re their player ratings BTW - Rashford and Erikson were good in this game. You only need to win the key moments, not the 90 minutes, and we need to up our game in this regard against the top teams.

Re 'the' foul - I agree that ths was probably one (albeit soft). I do take issue with whether VAR should have revisited this when it was not blown for at the time - and like so many others, for me the maddening thing is both the reversal of these types of real time marginal decisions well away from the goalmouth (that VAR was never intended to do), and the huge inconsistency that has seen other goals stand in similar circumstances. Make no mistake - Ten Hag realised that their best bet was to give us the freedom of the pitch and hit us on the counter - and had our goal stood this tactic would have been shredded to our advantage. Manure got the breaks as they always seem to do against us.

Was it naive to play so far up the pitch? Perhaps, but for me not as egregious as it might immediately seem. This is how Arteta wants to play, and it will leave counter attacking opportunities. Again, the answer for me is not to alter our game plan and therefore invite the opposition onto a defence that can often be less than perfect - but to ensure that our tactic is effective by not having to have 5 clear chances to score one goal. Arteta seems to understand this - hence his wish for more firepower. It is unfortunate that this aim appears to have been scuppered by our CM injuries that changed the emphasis to chasing a midfielder at the last minute - which was unsuccessful. What was naive was to get carried away both by the game state where we were dominating the opposition, and by the desire to get back into the game (the triple sub encapsulated this).

Now the contentious point. Their goals were not, IMO principally due to Granit Xhaka. IMO these were generally down to team issues, not individuals. But if you want to single out individuals, Martinelli regularly failed to track his man and this was the starting issue for one of their goals; Lokonga was average off the ball and the same could be said of him for another; and Gabriel M did not have a great game and the Central Defenders (and Zinchenko) were too loose. Xhaka suffers from confirmation bias too much for me - but that's another story and I know we will have to agree to disagree on this one.

[HCZ_Reborn]

It's an interesting concept as to whether Manure were 'diffcult' to play against. In a sense I agree that they were 'pathetic' for all bar the first 10 minutes in terms of playing football. We controlled the game and they were forced into getting everyone back and defending - but they did that well, and were disciplined in this. What they were however was really smart. They adapted well to our tactics (their manager would have anticipated our high line from the outset), and realising that they could not go toe to toe with us in terms of general game control, they quickly realised that we were vulnerable to a long ball down the middle. You can be generally effective as you want in terms of stopping the delivery route in this regard, but even Citeh cannot do this 100% (as their result at Villa showed), and we certainly failed to do this in the key moments. 'Pathetic' as they might have been for long periods, they have the likes of Erikson; Fernandes and Rashford who can kill you in this regard if given half a chance. Disagree with you re their player ratings BTW - Rashford and Erikson were good in this game. You only need to win the key moments, not the 90 minutes, and we need to up our game in this regard against the top teams.

Re 'the' foul - I agree that ths was probably one (albeit soft). I do take issue with whether VAR should have revisited this when it was not blown for at the time - and like so many others, for me the maddening thing is both the reversal of these types of real time marginal decisions well away from the goalmouth (that VAR was never intended to do), and the huge inconsistency that has seen other goals stand in similar circumstances. Make no mistake - Ten Hag realised that their best bet was to give us the freedom of the pitch and hit us on the counter - and had our goal stood this tactic would have been shredded to our advantage. Manure got the breaks as they always seem to do against us.

Was it naive to play so far up the pitch? Perhaps, but for me not as egregious as it might immediately seem. This is how Arteta wants to play, and it will leave counter attacking opportunities. Again, the answer for me is not to alter our game plan and therefore invite the opposition onto a defence that can often be less than perfect - but to ensure that our tactic is effective by not having to have 5 clear chances to score one goal. Arteta seems to understand this - hence his wish for more firepower. It is unfortunate that this aim appears to have been scuppered by our CM injuries that changed the emphasis to chasing a midfielder at the last minute - which was unsuccessful. What was naive was to get carried away both by the game state where we were dominating the opposition, and by the desire to get back into the game (the triple sub encapsulated this).

Now the contentious point. Their goals were not, IMO principally due to Granit Xhaka. IMO these were generally down to team issues, not individuals. But if you want to single out individuals, Martinelli regularly failed to track his man and this was the starting issue for one of their goals; Lokonga was average off the ball and the same could be said of him for another; and Gabriel M did not have a great game and the Central Defenders (and Zinchenko) were too loose. Xhaka suffers from confirmation bias too much for me - but that's another story and I know we will have to agree to disagree on this one.

We have spent far more on defence than we have in any other position since Arteta took over. If we are regarding holding a high line a necessary gamble because it can’t be relied upon to hold onto a scoreline (in this case a 1-1) it’s fair to ask questions of how wisely that money was spent.

And yes I’m afraid Xhaka was responsible, most of United’s attacks came in the centre of midfield where Xhaka had completely vacated the space and left Lokonga alone to deal with it.

Yes in a line up that was unnecessarily pushed forward, players will often be out of position and neglect tracking back but I can forgive that more than I can giving up any kind of positional discipline.

If we’d sat back a bit at 1-1 and then conceded I could have accepted that more than chasing a win we didn’t need

[IBK]

We have spent far more on defence than we have in any other position since Arteta took over. If we are regarding holding a high line a necessary gamble because it can’t be relied upon to hold onto a scoreline (in this case a 1-1) it’s fair to ask questions of how wisely that money was spent.

And yes I’m afraid Xhaka was responsible, most of United’s attacks came in the centre of midfield where Xhaka had completely vacated the space and left Lokonga alone to deal with it.

Yes in a line up that was unnecessarily pushed forward, players will often be out of position and neglect tracking back but I can forgive that more than I can giving up any kind of positional discipline.

If we’d sat back a bit at 1-1 and then conceded I could have accepted that more than chasing a win we didn’t need

You see, your position is precisely where I find confirmation bias rather than accurate analysis.

If you have to pick a player out for Manure's first goal, it is Gabriel M, not Zhaka. Gabriel needlessly jumped into a tackle with Fernandes (who had drawn Lokonga - not Xhaka - out of position) and failed to come away with the ball. And our left side was vacated by both Martinelli higher up the pitch - who failed to block the passing lane - and Zinchenko, leaving Anthony with acres of space.

For their second, again it was Lokonga who was caught out of position, allowing Fernandes to drop between the lines and deliver the pass to Rashford.

Their third goal was a team mess, caused by the triple sub, and we were all over the place. Our wing backs again failed to track their runners.

I felt that of our CM's Lokonga was dragged wide more regularly than Xhaka who often tried to move central when this happened. Xhaka moved wide in attack, but this was (I think) more to create an overload so I suspect that this was instructed.

As I said earlier, though, it was team frailties throughout that exposed us to Manure's more organised structure.

While I respect that you are entitled to your view - blaming Xhaka for Sunday's defeat represents scapegoating of a player that you have pre-decided is a problem, and so will look to blame rather than more favoured players.

[HCZ_Reborn]

You see, your position is precisely where I find confirmation bias rather than accurate analysis.

If you have to pick a player out for Manure's first goal, it is Gabriel M, not Zhaka. Gabriel needlessly jumped into a tackle with Fernandes (who had drawn Lokonga - not Xhaka - out of position) and failed to come away with the ball. And our left side was vacated by both Martinelli higher up the pitch - who failed to block the passing lane - and Zinchenko, leaving Anthony with acres of space.

For their second, again it was Lokonga who was caught out of position, allowing Fernandes to drop between the lines and deliver the pass to Rashford.

Their third goal was a team mess, caused by the triple sub, and we were all over the place. Our wing backs again failed to track their runners.

I felt that of our CM's Lokonga was dragged wide more regularly than Xhaka who often tried to move central when this happened. Xhaka moved wide in attack, but this was (I think) more to create an overload so I suspect that this was instructed.

As I said earlier, though, it was team frailties throughout that exposed us to Manure's more organised structure.

While I respect that you are entitled to your view - blaming Xhaka for Sunday's defeat represents scapegoating of a player that you have pre-decided is a problem, and so will look to blame rather than more favoured players.

Again I think you’re missing the point, the point is not that other players didn’t make errors weren’t out of position. It’s that the space that United players had in central midfield was down to Xhaka vacating it completely. The whole team was pushed up too high and it was too easy to be caught out, my point is that defenders are more prone to mistake when the midfield in front of them is inadequate.
Zinchenko for example worries me as a left back because he doesn’t even understand how to perform the role. But the problem always begins in midfield.
Lokonga was caught out of position multiple times but again he’s trying to do the job of two people.
But overall I think the issue was less individual errors and more the system that made those errors more likely

[IBK]

Again I think you’re missing the point, the point is not that other players didn’t make errors weren’t out of position. It’s that the space that United players had in central midfield was down to Xhaka vacating it completely. The whole team was pushed up too high and it was too easy to be caught out, my point is that defenders are more prone to mistake when the midfield in front of them is inadequate.
Zinchenko for example worries me as a left back because he doesn’t even understand how to perform the role. But the problem always begins in midfield.
Lokonga was caught out of position multiple times but again he’s trying to do the job of two people.
But overall I think the issue was less individual errors and more the system that made those errors more likely

Agreed with you last point. But I think it was Xhaka, not Lokonga, trying to do the job of 2 people in defensive MF, and I am not trying to focus on other players making mistakes (we agree it was a team thing) just giving you examples of how the player in your sights was not responsible for their goals...

[Mac76]

Agreed with you last point. But I think it was Xhaka, not Lokonga, trying to do the job of 2 people in defensive MF, and I am not trying to focus on other players making mistakes (we agree it was a team thing) just giving you examples of how the player in your sights was not responsible for their goals...

Xhaka can't do the job of one person yet alone two