Matchday 1 / August 11, 2019: Manchester United v. Chelsea FC

I give Solskjaer credit for dropping Matic, though they'll really have to figure out what to do with Sanchez who makes a stupid amount of money and wasn't even in the squad!

 

A couple of points...

1. On the highlights package I saw they said that Kante and Pulisic both weren't fully match fit for some reason so to blame Frank for not starting them seems a bit unfair, tbh. Also, in general, (and as others have said), if those shots had gone in instead of hitting the posts it would have been THEM throwing people forward, not us. Having gone a goal down some of the lads got a bit twitchy and started chasing the game... it happens.
2. Also in general, I think it's a bit early to start throwing individual players under the bus for what is, after all, just ONE game. The XG, for what it's worth, was 2.14 v. 1.24 I believe. IOW they were entitled to get the win but probably not by the margin they did.

 

Andy, xG does not include the penalty so if you are going with xG, a fair result would have been 3-1.

Some talk about Roma talking him on loan on half the wages.

United need to somehow survive in the top 4 race until the winter break and buy a couple of starting quality front 6 players.

I think the wheels will fall off sooner though.

 

Pulisic not being match fit is an absolute joke. Dude just came off the GC where he had camp (tho he showed up late for a break) and played 5 games in a final run. He’s probably in better match fitness than most on the team.

I can understand why Frank might not have wanted to start him. It’s his first game in the league, many people are comparing him to Hazard, its Man U, both Barkley and Mount had good preseason, Pedro knows what this game is all about and he wasn’t there for the full camp. I can rationalize the decision much the way he likely did. Still think it was a massive mistake and a worse excuse.

 

So, instead of sticking a player with 3 years of top level football experience in Germany at the second biggest club in the Bundesliga and 31 international caps he stuck Mason Mount straight into the fire? I mean........what? Incidentally, Mount looked like a player making his first senior Premier League start. Because he was!

Or is his argument that Barkley and Mount were stronger in the preseason? Because I also watched the preseason and.........what?

I keep coming back to one fundamental issue - if the person saying this stuff was Francesco Lampardo rather than Frank Lampard, would any of us just take it on faith, or would we criticize these decisions?

 

Your midfield is less than great, and you're starting Beanzy! After that game I'm kind of reasonably more hopeful about our squad than yours, because there are somewhat obvious things I'd do to ours (switch to a 4-3-3 and stop playing bad players), whereas after looking at your bench.......I mean.......wow. If Pogba misses any time, how are you going to do anything?

Any hope for Fred becoming useful? Wan Bissaka looks solid, though he's very raw on the attack. Unit defensively.

 

Frank has had one game in charge.

Pulisic is new to the country and to English football in general. Frank's logic in the matter is reasonable and sensible.

We get it. You don't like Frank as a manager. Your negative position is very clear. You're kind of relentless in your anti-Chelsea position. You're becoming increasingly boring, even by your high standards. I believe the Arsenal boards would appreciate you though. . .

 

Ah, yeah... fair point. TBH I've never really been much of a fan of the XG stuff. I can see the point of it but it also misses out a lot of stuff as well.

 

But can I just point out that, for most of the opening spell, the 'plan' was going OK. We then lost a goal, (rather against the run of play), and then 2 in quick succession, the latter of which was very much a 'sucker punch'.

As for stuff about Pulisic being 'injured'... as someone pointed out, that was on the commentary rather than anything Frank said. But, on a more general point, if he's not sure the guy's ready to go straight into the starting line-up, (especially against a side that is usually one of our main rivals), I can see why he'd leave him out. In retrospect it looks unwise but for half an hour, it didn't and, to be clear, I'd be saying precisely the same thing under Sarri, Rafa or anyone else.

Anyway, one game, as they say... let's see how we go from here

 

United are a counterattacking side though - their goals were always going to be "against the run of play". We also gave them a great opportunity when Zouma just passed the ball to Martial.

My point is that argument doesn't make sense when he puts in Mount. You can't have it both ways.
Now, if you want to argue that Mount played because he's more familiar with Lampard's system because he spent a year under him at Derby - there's some reason to that, but that opens up another set of issues.

 

Fair enough but my point was that if we'd scored when hit the posts we're already 2 up and then WE could sit back a bit. What would have happened then is an unknown, obviously.

The real problem was that Zouma just had a shocker.

Not sure about Mount... Barclay for Pulisic, maybe. My impression is that frank sees Mount playing more centrally than Pulisic but maybe that's wrong? Dunno!

TBH someone was going to be disappointed and all 3 of them had shown something in pre-season at various points... that made it a tough call.

But I think this season with the ban was always going to be a tough ask for the reasons we've all given.

 

The difference, obviously, is that we didn't have a decent alternative to Abrahams other than Giroud, if that counts.

Obviously Frank's been watching these guys in training and thought, for whatever reason, the people he chose would be the better options to start the game and, bluntly, it looked correct to start with... and then it didn't.

All I'm saying is that people need to slow down on the judgements rather than being overly critical. That's all

 

Brian Clough is the greatest manager of all time or as Cloughie himself liked to put it:-
'I wouldn't say I was the best manager in the business.....but I'm in the top 1' :-D

 

The point about Clough is he clearly WAS tactically astute... and he had a way of motivating people to work hard and follow his directions to implement those plans.

 

Woa steady on about Pulisic! Hazard replacement! Talking about him like he is the second coming! Slow down FFS. I know the 'Americans' amongst us are desperate for him to start but he is 20 years old! I haven't seen him do anything spectacular......not yet. Talking about him like he is Lionel Messi isn't going to help the boy and expecting him to turn Chelsea into Euro Champs is somewhat wishful thinking! Like Mount, Abraham and CHO he is young man with a lot of potential but he still needs time to reach it! Expecting miracles from him from the word go is NOT going to do him any favours.

 

Oh he was the full package alright - his quote on Watfords 'long ball' game:-
'If God wanted us to play football in the clouds he would have put grass up there!' :-D

 

I think there are legitimate questions as to how good Abraham is, but that's not fair - he spent a year playing for Swansea in the Premier League.

 

The real problem was that Zouma just had a shocker.

We hit the post the second time after the penalty, and the first post was off a somewhat fortunate bounce - we didn't exactly carve them open. And as far as Zouma having a shocker - yes......but he also wasn't put into a position to succeed.

I absolutely agree Pulisic will play more wide than Mount - but then why did both Mount and Barkley both start? Barkley is also a central player. We also clearly need more creativity and I'm sorry, no matter what people think Barkley provides, it's not that.

 

Who said any of this? Pulisic is a very promising player and based on his performances is already better than CHO, Mount and Abraham, but he's clearly nowhere near Hazard's level. No one here is under the illusion he can come close to replacing Hazard's performance this year.

But we should also be clear - he's ahead of CHO, Mount and Abraham right now. Pulisic has been a successful player at a very high level in Germany and for his national team. None of CHO, Mount or Abraham have come close to that. If anything, when given chances at the highest levels (Mount vs United Sunday, CHO vs Liverpool last season), they've shown they're not quite there yet. Pulisic may not set the world on fire, but he's not in the same situation as any of them. It's not really a fair comparison, and it's why I'm annoyed at the "Mount and Barkley started on merit" argument. No one would pay $70mm for Mount and Barkley, let alone either of them.

 

You've convinced me - we should hire him.

 

The media 'over here' haven't said much about him, it may well of course be different 'over there' but one or two on here are already indignant about the fact he started on the bench....in his first game! I think the young players at Chelsea are going to turn this team into an exciting team....in time, we have some good young players but they will need a bit of time - certainly more than 1 game! I can understand Pulisic has been playing in Germany but the Premier League is a different animal, Pulisic probably played half a dozen tough games in a season in Germany, Bayern for example are a great club, one of the VERY best in Europe but like most Euro leagues the Budesleague is very top heavy, after the top 2 or 3 clubs the level drops, in the Premier league every game is bloody tough.