Eriksen's body language is always like that, he never looks bothered but he consistently tops the distance covered stats for Tottenham and is right near the top for the whole league. It's just people seeing what they want to see, he doesn't rant and rave and scream but that's just his way. Doesn't mean his head hasn't gone anyway, but it isn't proof of that at all. I saw someone saying that his missed penalty was proof that he doesn't care as well
Ha. Brilliant. Both were poor pens, mind.
Coutinho being strongly linked now. This is mental, has Kevin Keegan taken over?
If he does come in, surely Mkhitrayan must be leaving...I am hoping a left back and centre half are lined up otherwise we are so top heavy.
Kos officially gone. Shame he left in this way, hope we will remembered for the 9 years service he put in rather than his behaviour this summer.
Our best defender from the last decade.
Thought Coutinho was headed to spurs with Dybala?
Utd wise to end their interest in Eriksen, if that's true. They don't want another Sanchez on their hands.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1158767162640732160Originally Posted by Romford Pele
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The absolute disrespect
Yeah, what the hell was that about? I mean, he got his move. Totally unnecessary.
What an idiot. I genuinely wonder why he did that. Talk about burning your bridges.
Such a shame.
He was probably upset with the fans over their treatment of Wenger.
Jenkinson has gone to Forest. He was with us for 8 years!
Hope he fails miserably.
We must be subsidising his salary a bit, cant see Forest paying him 50k a week.
Jenkinson has stolen a living for years now.
Fixed. It’s been a long time coming.
David Luiz? Not sure how I feel about that.
Don't like it. Liability and we have enough of those.
Welbeck solid signing for Watford.
I'm going to be proper upset by 5pm, aren't I?
I think Arsenal should have got Rugani myself.
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And yes I am basing hat on his fifa rating.
Yeah Villa have had a positive transfer window. Douglas Luiz, the man Pep wanted to take over Fernandinho but couldn't because of a work permit. Heaton super keeper. Big WESLEY stud. Jota skill merchant. El Ghazi Mings Hause heroes from last year. Engels big dog. Marvelous CL boy. Trezeguet the man Salah wishes he was.
But none can match up to the signing of Super John McGinn on a five year contract.
I fucking love him.
Really excited to see Douglas, Wesley and Mings. Heaton is a fantastic signing too.
17th, if you're lucky
Tierney done. Just waiting for Luiz.
Apparently Iwobi is off for £35-40m to Everton! @MMH what do you think?
I am ignoring the fee as transfers are mad these days.
I think the lad has talent, still young and obviously knows the league. Didn't he play the most games for your lot last season too?
Always seemed a bit erratic but for now I am trusting Brands in identifying talent in him and hopefully SIlva can get it out of him on a regular basis.
Really needed a CB though, we are very weak there right now with Mina being a bit of a sicknote.
He did play a lot, yes. I think this year his chances would be more limited with the players we have brought in.
Certainly some potential there, but it is a lot of money.
United are absolutely fucked. In a window following an embarrassing 6th place finish, we've gone and spent £130m on two defenders and a winger from the Championship, whilst letting Herrera, Fellaini and Lukaku go with no replacements coming in.
Some how the team is actually significantly worse than it was before.
Spurs and Arsenal have massively improved too. Shambles at United.
Is it significantly worse? Upgrades on notable weaknesses at CB and RB. The only one that seems to weaken them is Herrera
and who cares where James was signed from. He's electric.
On average, we're probably the lowest scoring team in the top 6 over the last few years, and we just sold our best goal scorer (by quite a distance) with no replacement brought in. The upgrade in defence doesnt make up for what we've lost in midfield and up front.
I see it like this. Spurs and Arsenal have made signings that push their team forward without losing anything in the process. My mentality going into the window was that even if we match their progression, it wouldn't have been good enough since the gap between the teams stay the same if everyone is taking the same step forward. We needed a much larger improvement to make it worthwhile. Not only have we failed to do that, we've actually gone backwards.
And what use is there in rectifying this next summer? We'll probably get another big name signing in but Pogba will leave by then. Its like we seem to be taking these baby steps and making bad decisions in the market, and while this is happening, our existing top players are gradually getting fed up and leaving. So there's a constant revolving door of top players coming in and out every few years and we're still stuck in the exact same place we were when under Moyes, all whilst it's costing us like 80m-100m on average every year to do this.
I think United are potentially on the incline.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/49286817
Good challenging warm up for Bayern
Have they actually lost that much in midfield? Fans have wanted rid of Fellaini since he joined and while i am surprised Herrera was allowed to leave it's not like he was a regular last season he only featured in just over half of the league games and only made two appearances in Europe (where you reached the last 8 and were only 5 points off the top 4) Gomes and Garner could be pleasant suprises.
Just because it looks like Spurs and Arsenal have made signings that push their team forward doesn't mean it will necessarily work out that way. Spurs famously bought no-one last season and improved. When Man Utd bought Pogba , Lukaku , Di Maria , Sanchez they were seen as signings to make the step up but it didn't work out did it? Wait and see Daniel James could be great , Rashford might revel being the main man up front and this Greenwood kid is supposed to be pretty special too isn't he?
Bit early to claim you have gone backwards before you have seen proof and i don't see how the top 6 will be broken up so at worst you will have had a season like the previous ones since Moyes but one where you have blooded in some youngsters and given a platform to build on.
Pretty pleased with what Raul did this window.
We needed a left back, centre half, midfielder and winger and we got those, plus a defender and striker for the future.
Still not sure about Luis, but he is definitely an upgrade on Mustafi. Well pleased about Tierney and Pepe in particular, and Cellabos looks pretty handy.
Shame to lose Iwobi, he is a promising young player, but you can't really turn down that kind of money for a player who probably wasn't going to get in the starting 11 much this season.
Still hope we can move Mustafi on as the European window is still open.
Everything you're saying is purely wishful thinking. We might do well, or we might be OK, but I can't really see the basis for why I should believe that to be the case.
Fellaini and Herrera leaving have actually left a huge void in our midfield, regardless of what fans thought of them. Fellaini was an impact player that gave the team a viable Plan B. What fans didn't like was the over-reliance on him as a starter, and that turned into a strong dislike for the player. I gladly would have had him back during the last few months of the season where our team had fell apart, and I'd gladly take him back right now. Its almost embarrassing having to admit that we need a player like Fellaini, but when you consider the state of the squad right now and then ask "its either Fellaini or no one", I'm going with Fellaini every day of the week.
And Herrera was the best outfield player in our team after Pogba. His game time last season was limited due to injuries, but dont let that hide the fact that he's been a important part of our midfield for the last 3-5 years now. With him gone, we still lack a box to box midfielder, someone who covers a lot of ground, someone who could be relied on to man mark opposition threats, a real shithouse in midfield, a leader of some sort. He had a handful of important qualities and none of them have been covered by anyone else, let alone all of them.
You mention Gomes and Garner. While neither of them are mature enough to be a regular squad member, you also forget the fact that neither of them play in the same position as Herrera and Fellaini. So they don't help the problem either.
As for the attack, we're going to go into the new season with Rashford, Martial and Sanchez as our strikers (according to Ole). That's right. We're gonna rely on three left wingers to be our strikers and carry the burden of goal scoring, after selling the only established goal scorer in the team who actually normally averages more goals a season than Rashford, Martial and Sanchez combined.
I'm happy with the defence. I think Maguire and Wan Bissaka are great additions that could potentially transform the entire backline. But that doesnt make up for the other issues I mentioned above. You can have the greatest back five in the world, but if your midfield and attack is crap, then your defence will be under immense pressure every game and you're going to concede anyway. I'm expecting us to have to grind out many games this season, and IMO its going to cost us a UCL spot for the second season in a row.
PARKLIFE!
IMO a strong defence gives absolute confidence to the midfield and forwards. United’s has been utter dogshit, so that was the priority. Giving the likes of Martial and Pogba a bit more freedom will see a big upturn in their productivity, after years of looking back at Phil Jones and Ashley Young trying to build play from the back.. Invest in the spine and the team should look after itself.
Don’t sleep on Martial, it wasn’t long ago when he was seen as one of the brightest prospects in Europe. Rashford a year older. Sanchez could finally wake up. Pogba a god on his day.
Then again Ole is at the wheel.
I wouldn't say we improved last season. I guess on paper we did, because we still finished top four and ended up in the CL final, but the CL run involved a lot of luck against City and Ajax, and we only qualified for the CL because United and Arsenal managed to be even shitter than us. We've been on a very small decline ever since the year Leicester won the league, still maintaining our CL status and improving off the pitch while getting further away from the top of the league. This is the first time in a few years that I feel like we have significant improvements in Ndombele and Lo Celso, and even that is a a second hand opinion because I've barely seen either of them.
It is a bit silly that United are going into the new season with only one established striker. Greenwood looks a prospect and Sanchez can play there if he finds any sort of form, but none of them are likely to score the goals Lukaku did - regardless of what you think of his many drawbacks, he always scored goals.
Sanchez is going to be on fire this year.
United look light in midfield and attack this season.
His problem is that his goals come at the expense of the rest of the team. We thought we would miss him massively and although we could have done with him scoring in some games where we only got one chance generally our goals have been spread more around the team since he left. He is a great finisher.
He is very frustrating though, stands yards offside demanding the ball and teams cant help but see him a target man even though that side of his game his very weak, he is not great in the air (He cant time his jumps at all) and his trampoline shins. He is a classic goal poacher in a target mans body.
Am I not remembering correctly or was Sanchez terrible as a striker for Arsenal?
Yay! We've scored the first goal of the season!
Hang on...
More of a winger most of the time.
Oh Norwich...
I meant when they played him up the middle.
You know, I'm not too downhearted about the result. The nerves shown in the first half, and I would like to believe the naivety will soon be eradicated. The attacking play looks like it will be hard to deal with for sides of similar standing.
We went to the home of the European champions and won the second half. I can live with that.
Definitely plenty for you to be positive about from last night, I thought Lewis in particular was excellent and Cantwell looked good too. Obviously you will need to tighten up the defence quickly but I agree that you looked really good in attack and a lot of teams would have struggled with you.
The fine margins we wanted VAR for.
And the one that looked more offside stands.
Last edited by Pablo Diablo; August 10th, 2019 at 9:03 AM.
Come on Villa don't let this slip!
I'm bored of this season already.
Spurs, fuck off.
Why?
Yep
City and the shite winning scoring 5, us drawing to Palace in a boring 0-0 draw where we still made shit decisions in the final third, a crap sending off and an injury.
Its like last season never ended. We even wore last seasons kit due to not having our third kit ready on time.
Last edited by MMH; August 11th, 2019 at 5:15 AM.
You certainty gave our defence a game, some decent chances there.
We're gonna win the league.
It's one of those we'll look back on later in the season and wonder how the fuck did United score 4 in a game? I'll take it though.
SUPER SUPER FRANK, SUPER SUPER FRANK, SUPER SUPER FRANK, SUPER FRANKY LAMPARD!
Arsenal tried something new, clean sheet and a win away.
That was such a weird game yesterday. Both teams were fairly shit with moments of quality, yet one team comes out with a heavy win while the other takes a pasting. Chelsea must have been gutted to be behind at half time, having dominated the game and been very unlucky to score on a couple of occasions, but their defending in the second half was just so bad, and in such basic ways. Wasn't impressed with United, though Maguire and Wan Bissaka did well. Mount was great for Chelsea too, but the defence was appalling.
As for us, it was a little too close for comfort but it's pretty much how our games tended to go last season - dominate possession but get caught on the break, continue to dominate the game while not looking particularly threatening, finally make the breakthrough and then go on to win comfortably when our confidence is back. Don't think we played particularly well - when I was thinking of choices for man of the match I could only really come up with Villa players (Mings, Engels, McGinn) - and we will need to be much better against City next week.
Despite the heavy defeat I thought Norwich were great to watch on Friday, can't wait to see more of them this season.
Away win and a clean sheet. Solid start, nice finishing by Auba with a lot of players back in. Really need to beat Burnley next week with Liverpool and Spurs coming up.
I thought Willock looked decent, wasn't particularly impressed with Nelson though. Guendouzi looked good too.
Really have no idea what to expect this season. Essentially played yesterday with a very weakened team with no Ozil, Laca, Pepe, Torreira or first choice centre back. Chambers is an upgrade on Mustafi who must be our worst ever signing. Looked much more solid though. Hopefully Luiz does well when he comes into the team.
I don't really know why people made such a fuss over the Luiz signing tbh, the idea that he's a massive clown is years out of date. He's still not brilliant or anything, but he was mostly fine during his second stint at Chelsea, and £8m to keep Mustafi out of the team is worthwhile. Is Holding still injured? Surely he is better than Chambers.
If we can shift out Elneny and Mustafi, then it may have been our best ever transfer window.
Willock looks a real prospect. I still have a lot of faith in Nelson, I think he just needs to work on his decision making. Will be interesting to see if Chambers keeps the shirt with Luiz behind him now.
Any rumblings as to why Vertonghen was left out on Saturday? I haven't seen anything, but that was an odd omission. And was quite worrying to me.
That 4-0 scoreline was quite flattering, when you consider that we could've been 2-0 down within the first 20 mins or so. I feel like besides the defence (and even that's too early to tell), all our problems from last season are still there. We just dont control games enough and only beat teams on the counter. And even then, we need a bit of fortune with a penalty or a defensive error to open the scoring and draw teams out first. Any team that can defend well, will give us problems, just as they did last season. An additional creative midfielder would have made a big difference but we can't do anything about that for another 4-5 months.
What I do like this season is that we've got some tough ties within the next 7 games, which includes Liverpool, Arsenal, Wolves, Leicester. Something I didnt like from previous seasons was getting an easy run at the start and building up a false sense of how good we thought we were. So if we get through those 7 games looking good, then it helps to see where we're actually heading for once.
Holding is back in training. I think he and Bellerin are due back after the international break.
I’ve always liked Chambers. The market is so weird at the moment. If Chambers belonged to Fulham last season and we’d bought him I don’t think anyone would’ve been too disappointed. Young player, was their player of the year. Realistically him plus Luiz for 8m strengthens us quite significantly in a time where the market for centre backs especially is insane. Luiz, Sokratis, Holding and Chambers should create a healthy competition for places even if it’s not the best quality set of defenders ever assembled.
Was obviously very unpleasant to lose 4-0 to United at Old Trafford on the first day of the season but I'm still pretty optimistic about this season and excited to see us develop. Despite the scoreline there were some positives to take from the game.
I admire the fact that Lampard seemed to want to go out and make a statement in his first game rather than playing it safe and prioritising avoiding defeat. Mount and Barkley looked lively and Emerson was impressive at left back. We were missing our best centre back and best player overall from the start of the game and I think those two being fully fit and back in the team from the start will make a huge difference. With Hazard gone, Kante and Rüdiger stand out as players of real quality in a squad of inexperienced youngsters, older players on the decline and others who haven't quite hit their stride in England yet. Pedro had an unusually bad game yesterday too. We were also without Willian, Hudson-Odoi, Loftus-Cheek and Reece James who barring RLC could all conceivably be starting when we next play United this season. Azpilicueta's rapid decline as sad but Lampard seems to be backing James to be a big player for us and if he's the real deal as many seem to think he could end up in the side sooner rather than later. Hazard's "replacement" was only making his debut as a substitute and the striker role is definitely still up for grabs with Giroud or Batshuayi potentially making a case to start. So come the end of the season it could be a very different team.
Chambers played midfield last season because he was too error prone in his early centre back appearances.
I don't think Chambers is athletic enough to play in centre midfield. Anyone would be error prone in defence at Fulham last season.
His athleticism was fine, he won player of the year because of his ability to get to the ball and break up play. The problem was when he won the ball it was s hot potato.
He got moved there after getting exposed by Gray and Deeney alongside Mawson.
Even Ranieri who played a 5 man defence and ten behind the ball didn't play him there.
Really? He must have improved since he was an Arsenal player then.
He doesn't seem a natural partner for someone like Xhaka who is quite immobile.
Andy Lonergan possibly starting for Liverpool is a thing I never thought I'd say
Apparently they also have a 20 year old keeper (who was on the bench for the Super Cup) who himself is still recovering from surgery on his wrist. Should've brought Karius back.
Liverpool to be the first ever real team to play a greyed-out name in a match.
Pukkkkkkkkkkkiiiiiiii!!!
Lol Spurs are the luckiest team in the league.
Can't believe I celebrated a City goal as a United fan, and it was taken away. I dont feel comfortable about what's just happened.
That is shameful (this early in the season). For all we know Spurs could be the ones to beat Liverpool...for second...while United win the league.
Ian Holloway lol.
I feel like we've earned a bit of luck after Pedro Mendes, Frank Lampard, Nani, Howard Webb etc in the past!
What a tool. Does he honestly think the EU have anything to do with VAR?
Some people shouldn't be allowed on tv.
He's a moron but it's a general point of not wanting to be dictated to by anyone for anything rather than VAR being an EU thing.
edit - pretty good metaphor for brexit though. Rules of the game are from the IFAB, of which 4 of the 5 bodies that decide are the home nations
http://www.theifab.com/structure
Last edited by Matt E; August 21st, 2019 at 11:50 AM.
Weird how twitter agree to meet a club about racist abuse when its man utd
Again, not too disappointed with the result. We worked hard and restricted Chelsea to more potshots in the end than proper chances. Rode our luck too with the 4th goal being ruled out.
I think we'll improve at the back when Zimmerman is fit again. Hanley is passable at Championship level, but I'm not convinced with him in the Premier League. On the other hand, Ben Godfrey is bloody immense!
Imagine being a Manchester United fan.
I don't think this is gonna happen anymore.
Friday was massive for us. Huge amount of pressure to get the first points on the table after a lot of (necessary) investment, and a very strong performance all round. Wesley was great, looked like a young Benteke, and Douglas Luiz is going to be a fucking star. I reckon we’ll have him two years tops.
Soz @MMH you had a couple of good chances but you’ll finish bloody high this season imo
We were absolute shite. Our play in the final third is abysmal.
Good to have you back in the top flight though. You seem to be a very mixed team ability wise but you have more than enough to stay up at the very least, as you said, needed those points on the board.
Out of interest what would you say was mixed?
This guy that does ref watch on SSN (presenter not the ref) is a right smug prick, Would love to boot him in the cunt.
Are you ok Peter.
Buzzing.
Thought we did ok against Liverpool on Saturday. The gameplan clearly was to give them space on the flanks and flood the centre to stop them in the box and then break with the pace of Pepe and Auba up top.
For the first 40+ minutes it worked fairly well, we were under a lot of possession pressure but they didn't really create any clear cut chances. I was fairly happy with their fullbacks having the ball rather than Firmino just run through us at will like last season.
Was a bit of a gut punch to concede from a corner after that hard work, and then compound it with a stupid foul for their penalty. The 3rd goal was a great finish. But before that we had two good chances to be ahead. Torreira also looked good when he came on and should hopefully start against the Scum. I would expect Laca to come back for that as well.
I don’t understand adults calling their rival team ‘scum’ when not in the company of other fans of their team.
You realise that every other team’s fans call their rivals ‘the scum’ too, right?
My only issue is that he capitalised the word. Too much respect.
Delighted for Tyrone Mings to be called up to the England squad. Fully deserved. What a man.
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