PBP: UCL - Valencia CF vs Manchester United FC - Dec 12, 2018 [R]

Jones belongs in a bottom half PL team.

 

Well that did not take long. Doing a couple of things around the house, missed the first few minutes of the second half. And came back to a 2-0 scoreline. Rewinded back to the goal and 'quelle belle surprise'.... Calamity Jones

 

It blows my mind how often Lukaku, a professional footballer, trips over the ball or steps over it (on accident) and it hits his heel.

 

Bailly, again, should have done much better there.

 

I lose our bet, smh.

 

This is an abomination of a recipe from Mou constructed from some truly sh&tty base ingredients.

 

Greenwood is on the bench: really can't see the harm in throwing him out there. If nothing else, for the experience. But also, can have worst than what's on the pitch right now? Doubtful.

 

Playing long hopeful balls to a lone striker marked by two centrebacks with no supporting wing-forwards in sight (as they are too wide) or attacking midfielders (as too deap) is just utterly braindead as a tactic.

 

Rashford being incredibly "inventive" by scuffing a shot attempt from 30 yards out.

He's a footballing genius.

 

At least, it's coming to an end. Another poor and insipid performance, due to the lack of any real gameplan.

A lifeline? Rashford cuts Valencia's lead in half. Well done from Lingard.

 

An insipid, joyless, soulless performance - a performance that is a true reflection of our manager.

 

Mata blows a routine chance. All he needed was contact. Pathetic.

 

Valencia cant complete a routine, everyday, rec league pass to a wide open Pogba and the game ends.

 

FT: 2-1, Valencia. Scoreline is actually pretty flattering and does not really reflects how the game went.

On to Anfield: the stakes and intensity will be different. And that's our only hope, as our tactical plan is non existent and we are completely reliant on individual efforts and moments of brilliance from our players...

 

Love how Mourihno sent the kids out to warmup to make it seem he intended to put one of them on

 

For all the stick Rashford is continuously getting from some quarters, I really hope that he gets to start upfront for us and Lukaku is benched.
As soon as Rashford (and Lingard) came on, we did automatically looked better and more threatening up front. Lukaku just looks lost at the moment and as mentioned, completely devoid of any confidence at the moment.
Whereas Rashford at least, appears to be enjoying a pretty good spell. Hopefully, Martial will be good to go and have those 2, plus Lingard have a real go at van Dijk and the best CB in the world (Gomez and Mario are both injured right now).
They actually would have a chance to trouble them, unlike Lukaku, who will be a piece of cake against them on current form.

 

Rashford is better at covering ground and trying to go on hero runs. Our CF is getting zero support from the team so might as well play him. Lukaku thrives on service and knockdowns to teammates. We have no service and nobody is making runs off him so he is useless in our current setup. With that said, our current setup is useless so it really doesn't matter.

 

Rashford gets the nod right now ahead of Lukaku because he's better at producing something out of nothing and because he's in a better vein of form at this time.
That's justification enough. I'm not even saying that Rashford is better than Lukaku as they're obviously different types of forwards and any direct comparison is really erroneous.
As previously mentioned, since he is our main CF, I'm rooting for Lukaku to succeed. But he's really having a rough go of it at this time and until he can sort himself out somehow, he can't be relied upon and thought of as the guy for us at CF at the moment. His confidence appears to be so low, that even routine things look hard for him right now.
Him and Rash are not confidence type players, but just like Rashford recently, Lukaku needs to get really going by finding some success with basic things. And hopefully, that should get the ball rolling for him again in his overall game.

 

Rashford has two in two but before that had one goal in his last 10 appearances for us. The two in two were a keeper error at the weekend and a garbage time goal this evening. He's definitely contributing more in build up than Lukaku at the moment and I've got no problem with him getting the start against Pool but I don't think it probably matters much who we pick. Our attacking problems are not caused by CF play, nor will they be solved by CF play.

 

No one has ever said that CF play is an integral part of our problems, there's no need to put words in people's mouthes. But our lack of goals, and the fact that Martial for all intents and purposes, has been our attack (until Rashford started showing signs of life recently), is a fact we can not refute either.
Would like to believe also that no one is foolish enough to believe that Rashford somehow would be the blue pill of our attack. But the fact remains, as mentioned a few posts above, that with our attack lacking any type of structure/pattern at the moment, we are left to rely on players' quality and moments of individual brilliance.
Something that Martial, Rashford and even Lingard, as they are or appear to coming into some kind of form, can provide.
Lukaku, on the other hand is not and like Matic is stuck in a bad rut. The choice is pretty clear and obvious as to who to turn to, at least for the time being...

 

Sam Peoples usually tries to be positive and supportive of the management, but he is starting to lose his rag now too;

 

Pereira needs more minutes or we will lose him. Yes for Matic.

 

AP is gone unless we sack Jose before seasons end and the new manager immediately shows faith in AP. Otherwise, he's got no reason to keep himself in purgatory.

 

Terrible display .. but nothing new under Jose .. Rashford should start ahead of Lukaku against dippers .. Jones should never play for us ..