PBP: UEL - Manchester United FC vs AS Saint-Étienne - Feb 16, 2017 [R]

I know we had a lot of big decisions go our way today.... but boy the difference in refs compared to the Usual league ones is huge

 

Not the prettiest game but I'll gladly take a 3-0 lead back to France.

 

Wish we had killed the tie with a 4th but hopefully we can rest several players for the return leg.

 

Ibra with the hat trick. I can't remember names right now, but is there a constituency here for dropping him?

 

The tie is killed, mate.

 

He needs to be dropped more often so he can rest.

 

Swap Wayne and Schweini for Zlatan and Ander and we should be solid.

 

Zlatan will probably get the MotM nod, but I'd hope that Martial to be the recipient of it. He was fabulous once again today. He's looking very good these days.

 

Good we should flip Martial to PSG this summer and make a nice profit

 

Sure thing Mini-Teso. Scoring points for originality, as per usual. Be yourself, as opposed to trying to be a pale copy of someone else...

 

At least I got you to respond.

 

Yeah, ok...

Anyhow, nice to record another clean sheet and our record as of late is not looking bad at all. Insignificant loss vs Hull aside, it's been a while now since we actually lost a game.

 

Ibrahimovic somehow getting a hat-trick is the worst possible result for us going forward.

 

Jose indicated that he let the team have it at halftime after their poor first half display. He also mentioned he saw it coming after the atmosphere in the locker room was too funny and relaxed.
I love it when he goes back to the changing room before the whistle: you know he must be just waiting for the players and lay in on them. Whatever he said worked though, as the boys picked up the pace in the second half.
Love Jose keeping that intensity up: that's what the team needs right now in order to keep that roll going.

 

#JoseOut

 

The game livened up at the introduction of Lingard and having Jesse, Martial and Rashford all on the pitch at once showed what having multiple players willing to run at and beyond defenders can do to a team's shape. Up until then, they kept us in front of them outside of individual brilliance from Martial. But as soon as we injected that pace and purpose into our play it made a difference. I even saw Ibra "press" once.

I would LOVE to see

-------------------------Rashford
Martial--------------Mkhitarayan------------Lingard
-------------Pogba-------------------Herrera
Shaw------------------------------------------Valencia
--------------Smalling------------Bailly
---------------------------DDG

Just once.

 

A lineup I would love to see. I'd even be happy to see this team, even with Zlatan instead of Rashford. The point being, for all the crap Lingard gets in some quarters, I still would rather see him wide right over Mata 90% of the time.
Mata has to be an option in the middle, as an alternative to Miki, and that's pretty much it. Plus, as frequently mentioned, the intelligence of movement and energy Lingard would provide, along with Miki and Martial, could be really fun to watch.

 

We score 1 there and they'll need 5.

 

Naaa...Mata has his faults...but at least he is likely to have that moment that gets us a goal. Lingard is more likely to have that moment where his brain shuts down in or near the oppo area, and hits his shot\pass 10 metres off target.

 

Mata has missed more sitters this season than Lingard has taken shots.

 

Romero 7.5

Valencia 6.5
Bailly 5
Mike 7
Blind 7.5

Fellaini 6
TC Herrera 5
Poggles 8

Mata 5
Ibrahimovic 5.5(1.5 for the hat-trick)
Martial 7.5

Lingard 7
Rashford 6.5
Young n/a

Rooney -8

Cardboard cutouts aka home crowd - piss poor

 

Worse than us losing the match?

I'd have to think about that long and hard, but it's probably a better result for us that we won, despite suffering the indignity of a hat-trick by Ibra, than had we lost.

Your point is transparent, that Ibra is such a hindrance to our attacking play that even when he scores three goals in 3-0 win that his performance undermines the club's ambition to achieve greater things in the future. A provocative claim, one perhaps intended to possession of tactical or even strategic genius unknowable to an accomplished manager like Jose Mourinho, but one that falls apart under even the slightest of scrutiny.

You miss the point of Ibra's role in this squad.

 

Have you watched the match ? Or even the highlights? None of the goals looked good. First was luck. Second was again luck. He was at the right place at right time. That's all. Third again luck for getting the penalty. Only the conversion is on him. The whole thing gave us a result, agreed. But if this is how it is going to be then we need a truck load of luck to win it.

Note: I am not a ibra hater. Just some one who is not happy with yesterdays performance.

 

I love Zlatan but that's got to be one of the worst/cheapest hat-tricks ever.