...::[The Footy Desk]::... (Part 2)

[Tchuck]

Missing Pogba for the return leg too, man... Yeah, it was a nice try.

 

Though, PSG are known for bottling it on the second leg when they should wrap it up easily. Who knows!

 

Question: Why wasn't Lukaku starting?

[Eutyphro]

I missed much of the first half, but here's my two cents. They should've brought Lukaku earlier. His physicality could've helped them a lot. Alexis Sanchez brought nothing. From what I saw United was outclassed in midfield in the second half. And without Lukaku they didn't really have the physicality to be dangerous from crosses. PSG have some quality defenders and were defending well.

PSG got Paredes in the winter break, which is a player United should've also chased. Paredes is a Kroos type player, exactly what United miss. If you can bring such a player to replace Verratti then you've indeed got midfield options.

Anyway, Rabiot is leaving PSG on a free transfer. United should definitely try to get him. He's good enough to be a starter in my view. Definitely better than Fred or Pereira imo.

Edited February 13, 2019 by Eutyphro

[Jason]

Lukaku hasn't been a starter under Ole, he's just not well suited to the style of play Ole wants and that we've had success with. He's been an impact of the bench in a few games but when he starts we always look worse.

[Eutyphro]

Yeah, I understand starting Marcus in the striker position. He's shown much more quality than Romelu on that position recently. But considering United was losing the midfield battle he should've opted for physicality and brought Lukaku in stead of Sanchez. It's easy to say in hindsight, but I think it's true. United primarily creates danger through crosses, and decent crosses towards Lukaku + Pogba in the box will be a challenge to every defence no matter how good. Sanchez was very disappointing. If he still hasn't found form by the end of the season they should ship him to another team. I was also rather unimpressed by Mata from what I have seen the second half. United really needs an extra creative player.

[Jason]

Sanchez coming on was a fine idea IMO, he was utter sh*t but w/e. We should've brought on Lukaku instead of Mata though, as much as I love Mata he just aint mad for that type of match, or for our style of play really.

[TheSantader25]

Lukaku's finishing has been dogsh*t in the past two years. Though I believe Belgium used him better in the World Cup making him get more involved in the physical battles further away from the box. 

[Jason]

Lukaku's finishing is actually the best part of his game. He was one of our best and most reliable players last year. He's at his weakest when he's not in the box, his touch, hold up and link up play is horrendous and he also is extremely poor at winning headers from long balls from deep, he misjudges it constantly and doesn't know how to win it over a big centreback.

 

He's pretty useless outside the box to be frank, which is why Ole dropped him.

[Tchuck]

Lol look at the ref helping Real out already. How the f*ck was that an offside? I could see it from the original header, and even that was onside, but from the header that led to

the goal? Absolutely ridiculous! AND he had VAR to look at it! How the hell did that guy take part on the goal?

[Jason]

Massive from Spurs that. Watching Vertonghen was was like watching prime Roberto Carlos at times. Also I'd almost go as far as saying that Spurs with Alli is a better team tbh.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Tchuck said:

Lol look at the ref helping Real out already. How the f*ck was that an offside? I could see it from the original header, and even that was onside, but from the header that led to

the goal? Absolutely ridiculous! AND he had VAR to look at it! How the hell did that guy take part on the goal?

What? Are you pretending to see Real Madrid knocked out in the last 16 by a Dutch team? You're joking!

Anyway nice usage of the VAR in these 2 days... 

[TheSantader25]

Hate it when good hard working teams like Ajax gotta lose to madrid because of the ref. It should've been 2-1 to Ajax. I'm tired of sh*tty refreeing in favor of Madrid in CL in the past couple of years. Isn't it time to let someone else win this trophy? 

Edited February 14, 2019 by TheSantader25

[Laker23]

Disappointed but can't say I didn't expect the loss. Game completely changed when we lost Martial and Lingz. Might as well have played with 10 instead of Sanchez. Hopefully we can bounce back against Chelsea otherwise I'd really worry going into the Pool game.

 

Impressed with Spurs. Got bossed in the first half but turned it up in the second, hope they go far. 3-0 up but it still wouldn't surprise me if they did a Spurs in the second leg, hopefully not.

[Eutyphro]

Disappointing result for Ajax, but I'm still proud that they could dominate against Real Madrid. They should've won, but they did not have the luck, and Real always has that experience with winning that helps them out, even if they are outclassed. Going to be extremely difficult to beat Real with two goals or more at the Bernabeu, but it's not impossible either. If you can dominate Real like this then you can beat them by two goals if you have the right luck, which was clearly lacking yesterday.

[Girish]

On 2/11/2019 at 8:21 AM, Jason said:

Read some comments from Chelsea fans that aint wrong. Sarri is the third manager now to question the motivation/desire of the current crop of players. Sarri's stubbornness has not helped him out at all but the problem definitely goes deeper.

 

The Chelsea squad almost give up mid season if they aint liking the current manager cause they know they'll have a new one next season.

The board is to be blamed for that and I don't think there's going to be any change unless there's a drastic shuffle of the board itself. Our success in the past decade is turning out to be our own downfall. The board/fans have gotten used to winning trophies and competing at the top in the PL, so even a season outside the top 4 is deemed a failure and puts the manager on the chopping block. As long as this mentality persists, no manager will be given time to truly build his own team. It's almost a certainty now that no manager will last more than 2-3 seasons here.

 

As for Sarri, I personally don't have a problem with Sarri-ball. When it works, it's fun to watch. But when it doesn't, it's really painful. So far, Sarri seems to be a one-dimensional manager with no backup plan. His entire gameplan revolves around Jorginho dictating play from the midfield. But when teams take Jorginho out of the game by sheer strength in numbers, there is no plan B to fall back on and that's where we're getting found out by the opposition. Sarri can complain as much as he wants about the current squad not understanding his football but he's stuck with them till the end of the season and if he doesn't figure a way out soon, he will be gone before the start of the next season. Although, I do hope that he gets one more season to prove that he can hack it in the PL. Not sure if the board will be that patient though.

[Guest]

Damn, Manchester United! I think our beautiful journey is going to stop at the quarter finals... Well, considering the teams involved in the quarter finals, I think that also United fans aren't that happy either. At least we'll play at Molineaux.

Wait, haven't United always played away against Premier League teams this FA Cup?

[Jason]

6 minutes ago, Wolver_321 said:

Wait, haven't United always played away against Premier League teams this FA Cup?

Yep. You could almost say it was rigged. But that'd be a ridiculous thing to say.

 

[Laker23]

Wolves play pretty damn well against the big boys, expecting a tough game.

 

Felt good to bounce back after the CL loss. Excited and a tad nervous for the Liverpool game. Guessing Lingard and Tony will still be out.

[TheSantader25]

Well... 

This UCL Night was boring af. 

Edited February 19, 2019 by TheSantader25

[Jason]

Yep. Bayern did a job on Liverpool there. Gonna be tough for Liverpool to progress now.

[Eutyphro]

Bayern was sh*t. I'm kind of confused by the catenaccio like tactic they employed.

[Jason]

Draw the away leg win the home leg pretty much. Nothing wrong with it as long as you don't get beat at home. It's always risky playing that tactic and not getting an away goal mind you, every Liverpool goal will be worth 2 goals in the 2nd leg.

Edited February 20, 2019 by Jason

[Guest]

 We're going home, we're going home, we're going, Juventus' going home 

They said Ronaldo would have changed a lot of things in our mentality... Yeah, we're going out in the last 16 and we've been knocked out from Coppa Italia! No double this year, just Serie A which is particularly "competitive" this year.

Of course Ronaldo hasn't any fault, actually he is one of the few to save, but it's incredible how we're doing worse than the previous seasons with him on our side. And if Atletico really go through, I think Allegri will be sacked at the end of the season. Zidane is still without a team and considering his relationship with Ronaldo and his past at Juve, he might be our next manager. 

[Eutyphro]

Juventus were sh*t and created absolutely nothing. I'm quite happy, because I sympathize with Atletico due to their unique counter attacking 442. Atletico did well neutralizing Juventus and countering. I'm actually not as surprised by the result as most commentators are, because I think Atletico has an interesting and underrated squad. Rodri from Atletico is a Busquets type player. You almost never notice him, but most things he does are rock solid. Would be pretty entertaining if Atletico draw City in the next round.

[Guest]

7 minutes ago, Eutyphro said:

Juventus were sh*t and created absolutely nothing. I'm quite happy, because I sympathize with Atletico due to their unique counter attacking 442. Atletico did well neutralizing Juventus and countering. I'm actually not as surprised by the result as most commentators are, because I think Atletico has an interesting and underrated squad. Rodri from Atletico is a Busquets type player. You almost never notice him, but most things he does are rock solid. Would be pretty entertaining if Atletico draw City in the next round.

100% agree... You can't play so badly in matches like this, especially when you're "competing" in a dead championship and you have 13 points over the 2nd place. I'm not surprised by the result, probably Atletico deserved to win even 3-0 or 4-0 for what they showed tonight!

I've always defended Allegri but there's a limit to everything! We have lots of good players (who could all play somewhere else in a more competitive championships) and we regularly play badly in Serie A against teams that would probably struggle in the English Championship, who is at fault?

Some players also don't deserve to wear Juve's shirt IMO, Alex Sandro has been awful for 2 seasons, De Sciglio is young but not ready for the UCL (and why didn't Cancelo play?), our midfield is always unpredictable, Matuidi, Bentancur, Pjanic, Emre Can and Khedira (when he's not injured) are way too inconsistent... Plus Dybala is always in the wrong position, he ISN'T an offensive midfielder!

Anyway I'm quite sure that we'll see a different Juve in Turin, in these bad scenarios we always play better for some reason... At least Alex Sandro and 2 other Atleti players (which I don't remember at the moment) won't play the 2nd leg!

[Crokey]

What an utter sh*t show that VAR was tonight, 3 minutes to decide it was a pen, when it wasn't.  Deciding it was another pen, when there was an offside.  And to top it all off the monitors pitch side weren't working so how can the ref make a legitimate call?!?  Shambles.

 

Still, we managed to pull it out the hat to make it 3-2, following a cracker of a free kick from Sane, so maybe a little bit of karma there.

[Jason]

Interesting night of CL football lol

 

VAR madness in one game and quite a big upset in the other, with all due respect to Aletico Madrid, but Juve have been favourites for the competition in many peoples eyes all season. But, A. Madrid fully deserved it, they were bloody brilliant, Griezmann is an incredible player and shoulda had an assist and a goal if it wasn't for a great save from Juve's keeper (I aint gonna try spell his name at 2am) and Costa missing a sitter. His work rate was insane all night.

[TheSantader25]

I'm glad Atleti won. Tbh I wasn't sure who to root for last night because I despise both of these teams when it comes to playstyle but I always admire Atleti's hard working mentality. 

[Jason]

February has absolutely crippled us, holy sh*t. Given the fact we lost 3 and a half players to injury in the first half and still had the better chances, I'll take that point and clean sheet. Shaw and Lindelof are quietly two of the best defenders in the league on current form, I can't think of a better leftback anyway. Pogba and Lukaku put in a hell of a shift as well.

 

Think some of those injuries are a result of the lack of rotation on Ole's part but I sympathise with him as our depth is shocking, any time we give chances to fringe players it's bit us in the arse.

 

Ole's now got 26 points out of his first 10 PL games, which is a record. It's nice to be setting some of those again. 

[TheSantader25]

2 minutes ago, Jason said:

February has absolutely crippled us, holy sh*t. Given the fact we lost 3 and a half players to injury in the first half and still had the better chances, I'll take that point and clean sheet. Shaw and Lindelof are quietly two of the best defenders in the league on current form, I can't think of a better leftback anyway.

I still prefer Robertson to Shaw. 

 

Nothing is worse than a draw when it comes to the United-Liverpool matches. It's the last match in the top 6 that I want a draw in. 

[Jason]

Robertson's form has dipped, along with Liverpool's, since Ole got the job and Shaw and Lindelof's form skyrocketed. I do think Robertson when he's on it is the best in the league and he is better going forward than Shaw (defensively I'd take Shaw tho). Shaw can improve a lot when going forward still.

 

Edit: what the f*ck have I just seen in the City - Chelsea game oh my word. Completely sums up Chelsea's problems over the past several years. If I were Sarri I'd walk.

Edited February 24, 2019 by Jason