Manchester United Superthread 2014 Mod warning Post #1880 #2613

I'm still sickened from the game last night. Giving a goal away seconds after going one nil up was just crushing. You knew Bayern would be buzzing after that.

Had we kept them out for the next ten minutes I'm sure we would have gone through.

It was a great fight by the team over the two legs.

Blatter wrote: »

Tbf, the circumstances were quite different back then. The only other strikers SAF had in the squad then were an underperforming Berbatov who didn't fit the system and Macheda. And in fairness, he did take Rooney off early in the 2nd half when it was clear he was a negative to the team.

I don't think SAF would have started Rooney yesterday. He probably would've played Kagawa off Welbeck.

Aye that's a fair point re. Berba and Macheda. I'd argue though that Rooney's inclusion last night was less of a gamble considering the nature of the injury in both situations. He was cleared by the docs and no doubt wanted to play. I think slating Moyes for taking a slight gamble on the fitness of our best available forward in the biggest match of the season is verging slightly into unfair criticism territory.

Corvus Maximus wrote: »

Evra scores a wonder goal and then seconds later has a complete brain fart to give away the equaliser. I share your view, if we had of settled down and kept our focus for the key minutes after our goal. Then we could have done it.

There were far bigger culprits than evra for that first goal. Utd had just scored so had time to get set up properly ribery got a lot of space out left to pick out a runner fletcher failed to track the runner and then evra got beaten for height on the back post. Jones, valencia and fletcher must shoulder a lot of the blame.

Iused2likebusts wrote: »

There were far bigger culprits than evra for that first goal. Utd had just scored so had time to get set up properly ribery got a lot of space out left to pick out a runner fletcher failed to track the runner and then evra got beaten for height on the back post. Jones, valencia and fletcher must shoulder a lot of the blame.

Yes there were but Evra's poor marking and 'challenge' for the ball lead directly to the goal.

Ernest Oreo wrote: »

will be a certainty to lose Mangala to the other side of the city.
looks like a Rio on steroids, and lots of them.
could really kick our defence into shape

FYP

Haven't posted here in the last few days as I just wanted to enjoy the game last night and not get bogged down in our problems as a team.

I feel a bit deflated last night after that result, not because we lost 3-1 or that we were well beaten by Bayern (we weren't), it's because watching some of the team last night really hit home that this team's era has come to an end.

Carrick was absolutely pedestrian and his decline this year has been steep. He defended pretty well but his passing was shocking at times, arguably his best skill.

Vidic has been a great servant to the club but I'm not sorry to see him go in the summer. He's showing his age and I think the second and third goals summed things up for him. For the second goal a striker nipped in front of him, which is fair enough, but I feel the Vidic of a few years ago would have cleared player and ball out of it. For the third he was trying his absolute hardest to catch Robben and get a block in but Robben just kept dancing a little further out of reach with each stride. Arguably Vidic almost getting the block even led to the goal as De Gea might have saved it without the deflection off Vidic's foot.

Evra, what to say about Evra? Hero and villian I suppose. Fantastic goal but a minute later he fails to see the striker get a run on him and is caught flat footed. For the second goal he might as well stood well out of the way to allow Robben to cross the ball even easier. Another great servant but again I won't be sorry to see him go.

Rooney must have been feeling the injury and if so you'd have to question why he played the full game. Either Moyes feels he has to rely on him or else Rooney wasn't completely honest about the severity of the injury. Either way he was a shadow of his normal self, he seemed indecisive on the ball and didn't seem to have the energy to make runs in the second half especially.

I thought Fletcher had a pretty decent game but it's obvious that his fitness levels are nowhere near where they were before his illness, and probably will never be again. He's still a valuable member of the squad but we can't rely on him to be a starter week in week out.

I felt sorry for Hernandez. He's been so overlooked by Moyes this season that even when we bring him on we continue to play long useless balls up to him and even switch off and lose a third goal making the contest a lost cause really. I love Hernandez and would love to see him stay but I think he'll be gone in the summer, and rightly so as I think he should be playing regular football for someone.

But it's not all doom and gloom. I thought De Gea, Smalling and Jones all had solid games as usual. Smalling really reminds me of a younger Rio Ferdinand and I hope he's one of our regular CBs next season. Jones did well for most of the two legs against Ribery which is no small feat. Looked to be feeling it towards the end but I thought he did fantastically well.

Wellbeck and Valencia once again played well. Both were in the small number of our few players who actually looked comfortable on the ball, Wellbeck moreso that Valencia, and did the jobs Moyes' assigned them very well.

And I'm saving the best for last. I thought Kagawa was easily our best player last night. Looked utterly unfazed by any pressure from Bayern players when he had the ball. He can turn on a sixpence and is always looking to go forward as soon as possible. If we could have cloned him a few times I think we could have easily played the same sort of passing football that Bayern play. I'm hopeful that Moyes has seen enough to make him an important player for us next season, giving him 90 mins in the last two games might show that.

And as for Moyes himself, he reminded me a bit of Trap last night. He had his game plan - concede the midfield battle, defend deep and compact, and play counter attacking football either through quick passes to Rooney or Kagawa and long balls towards the corners for Valencia and Wellbeck to chase. He also didn't really trust his team to be able to pass the ball, even when we were chasing the game. It actually could have been an Ireland performance I was watching! But I think he did the team a bit of a disservice in not playing a small bit of passing football. I think the tactics were spot on right up until we scored the goal. However I'm so annoyed that the team switched off and conceded so quickly after that. Look at Mourinho the other night when Chelsea scored the winner. He immediately gave his team instructions on how to set up to keep that scoreline. I'm not saying Moyes didn't do that but he certainly didn't do it in as obvious a way as Mourinho. I would like to assume he would have mentioned it in his team talk so I hope he rips the players a new one for allowing themselves to switch off like that. But the real problem is when we lost the second goal, we made a few subs but didn't change any of the tactics. As such we just conceded possession to a team that were two goals up and very happy to keep the ball. I'm not sure if he could have changed things too much as the players were tiring, but at least give it a go.

But hey, we're out the Champions League and we won't be there next season. At least those questioning Moyes' European experience will know he can get us to the quarter final now! Next season really will be a rebuilding year. But Kagawa and Mata give me some hope. Replacing our aging players will be very important, and that bit more difficult without Champions League football to offer them, but I'm sure we can do it. I don't think Moyes will be gone anytime soon so I'm going to get behind him for now and hope other supporters do. His first season has been a baptism of fire, it's up to him to learn from it and drastically improve this season. If not his time will run out eventually.