Manchester United Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread - Read Mod Warning in OP 7/1/15

Crazy day on the positivity couch yesterday watching City against Liverpool.

Taking that result as more "City dropping three points and the gap shortening on second" rather then "Liverpool winning closing gap on us".

I don't like this looking over our shoulder craic in the battle for top four, think I'll cling onto grand dreams and take everything into context of us battling with City for second


Also briefly scanned the Lfc vs MUFC garbage, and as usual its the eternal subjective opinion of "player ability on paper" vs "player ability on form". Liverpools individuals on paper would be in the majority sub par to many of the United squad, but put them together and you have a much better functioning team then what we have at present.

I don't want to re-light that war of words, but there isn't actual anyone in the Liverpool team I'd sweat bullets and want in our squad( Coutinho, Sturridge and Sterling included) but I am envious of how their squad operate TOGETHER.

stankratz wrote: »

that red card in the City game can skew perceptions of his season. It was horrendous at the time, but his football and defending have been good for the most part except for that one brain-fart. I can see a future for him at the club, unfortunately I can't say the same for Evans or Jones.

Could have been his watershed moment. A word was maybe had, or maybe he saw the backlash in the media and the fans, it was pretty evident that there was a wave of negativity towards him and he was nailed on to be gone in the summer.

Coupled with the fact there is no secret we need a CB and want a CB, with two players confirming in recent weeks we made offers both in January last summer.

I don't think it's outragous to suggest that he knows his time is running thin and he needs to start showing he has a future at the club. And fair play to him if he does manage to continue what I think has been a solid turn of form.

I personally still prefer Rojo operating at CB, but Van Gaal clearly has issues with Shaw so we might see more of Rojo at Lb with Smalling and Jones taking up CB slots.

Rayne Wooney wrote: »

I'd love to be positive, but playing Spurs, Liverpool, Arsenal twice, City and Chlesea in the run-in playing the way we have been awakens the pessimist in me

Liverpool only need us to lose once then match our results really

Hopefully I'm proved wrong

I'm more worried about the potential to drop points to the teams sitting below us rather the direct rivals.

Swansea was a disaster start to the current run. Sunderland better, Newcastle needs to be a win no excuses.

I'm confident Van Gaal is comfortable and knows how to get the team setup against the big teams, rivals and confident the players believe in him. I've seen enough against Chelsea, City and Arsenal to feel he is up for the big games.

We seem to be void of ideas and direction when teams completely sit of us and let us have that dominating possesion. Again on Saturday Sunderland let us do what we wanted, even in their own half, but we didn't seem that threatening. I feel with Herrera and Young we are a little faster in what we do, but it's still not creating enough threat, consistently enough.

We hemmed Sunderland in for vast periods in that game, but there wasn't what you would describe " a siege".

Argueably Chelsea will be happy to sit of us and let us do that, smashing us on the break which will be a concern. But Spurs, Liverpool, Arsenal and City...they will feel the onus to not sit back and attack. That might well play to our advantage, where possession turns over the immediate reaction will be to break.

Might also be helpful for Falcao, who is totally hapless in the current vein of slow buildup, and packed defending centrally. A game stretched would put him on the front foot running towards goal, where he excels.

Then again Wilson mgiht well get the start ahead of him..

Nuts102 wrote: »

Lads do any of ye pay to stream games online and is it any good. Can't afford Sky Sports and watched a few games online the weekend and my head was wrecked with stop-starting streams. Can anybody recommend a paying site that is of good quality.

Probably on the fringe of the charter there unfortunately. There is no "real" subscription service I'm aware of that provides the games without requiring some form of fiddling.

Fox Sports Netherlands typically airs all the United games, as do Canal+ in most cases and America has a station that airs them too. But I don't think you can get any of them as online services unfortunately.

The unfortunate situation with the new TV deal is that games are going to be further segregated between stations going forward, and the possability of a team specific package( like you can get for US sports) is totally gone of the table now due to the value of the latest TV deal.

There is a healthy amount of games coming up on Sky over the next month. Unfortunately its rare to get a good deal on Sky, even rarer to get a one month sub, typically they want a 12 month subscription.

Obviously we are all wise to the options out there, I use them as much as anyone. But I've become a bit annoyed at how certain things has developed this season. I've actually sent some enquiry mails to see if it's possible to get a Fox subscription in Ireland an explore the costs involved. They provide 720p coverage of the games and I can handle the foreign commentary which doesn't annoy me, I just was stable quality. I'm aware that its a popular package in the UK, and I just want to see what sort of infrastructure is required to make it feasible.

was at the game on saturday and the booing for the two pass backs to de gea were so loud never heard anything like that. There was also a big boo for falcao being taken off.

Smalling, Januzji played really well impressed by them a lot.

but the one thing i noticed more then anything else is that every player seems to playing the safe ball all the time and it gets move sideways far too much. Falcao, young and rooney made some good runs in the first half but no seemed willing to play the through ball. The play is still too slow but it was a lot better then the previous games and formation is worked better but rooney and falcao were still dropping too deep and this hurt as then there was not enough bodies in the middle when crosses came in.

I'd like to see Di Maria given a more restricted role on the wing for the next while. His form is horrible just now, but giving him a straightforward job to do - like Young and Januzaj have been playing - might give him a chance to play himself back into some form.

What I read from Shadows post is: we are ok in the goalkeeping position.