The old Man Utd Thread

[Mr Do 71]

@ManUtd

UNITED: De Gea; Jones, Smalling, Blackett; Lingard, Fletcher, Herrera, Young; Mata; Rooney ©, Hernandez #MUFClive #starting11

#mufc subs: Amos, James, M Keane, Fellaini, Kagawa, Nani, Januzaj #MUFClive

Congratulations to Jesse Lingard and Tyler Blackett, who both make their #mufc debuts today.

[Marzipan Travolta]

Fucking hell do we need some defenders. Blackett has looked good but he shouldn't be lining up in a season opener.

[feltmonkey]

Lingard and Young wingbacks? that looks a real makeshift defence.

[Liamness]

Basically as I expected except for Lingard. That's a real wildcard. I suppose he has a good engine and that is the main thing for a wingback? They are more part of the midfield than the defence, so I suppose it won't be completely new to him.

[Marzipan Travolta]

Lingard caught out already there. Glad we've an easy run to August 31st.

[Guest]

Oof. Swansea made that look far too easy.

[Liamness]

Loads of space in front of the defence. Luckily we have Adnan Januzaj, our star wingback, on the pitch now to lead the recovery.

[spork]

LVG OUT!

[paddyo]

Poor half, didnt create anything really

[Marzipan Travolta]

We've gone 4-4-2

Brave new world!

[spork]

Ashley Young at left back and we score a goal. Coincidence?

[Guest]

We should be beating Swansea but the team do need time to get upto speed.

[paddyo]

The amount of fouling in this game has done my head in

[Bleeders]

Woodward needs to sign some fucking players because that was fucking dreadful.

[Gabzy]

Defenders now, please.

[Bleeders]

LVG always starts the season slow, so I've no doubt he'll get the team playing to his philosophy, but the team fell into old habits and desperately needs strengthening.

I dare say the Glazers are hoping LVG can get the team playing beyond their limits like Fergie did. It's fine though, since our owners stand to make £100m from the share sale.

LVG is a great manager, not a fucking magician.

[Liamness]

That performance was completely disjointed. I actually think the selection harmed our attacking play more than our defending, because the system relies on building from the back, and there was no reliable platform to start moves from. Of course anyone we do sign is going to need time to settle, plus Van Gaal hasn't had that long to work with the squad anyway, so this teething period could continue for some time.

[feltmonkey]

i wonder if that's the last we'll see of 3-5-2? if so, a lot of pre-season was a bit pointless.

to be honest, there's not much you can read into this result. we were always going to be in trouble with so many defenders having left, and others injured. Woodward remains a big problem for the club, he's simply shit at buying players. other clubs just go and buy them, i'm not sure what our problem is. talk of a £200m "warchest" seems likely to have been complete horseshit at this point. we also played too many games and did too much traveling pre-season. LVG didn't have enough time to communicate his ideas in training, and we've ended up with a long injury list before we've even started. again, that's the fault of the club's "commercial arm" impacting negatively on the field. are we a football club? we seem to be more interested in making money.

[Liamness]

3-5-2 should get the best out of Mata, Rooney and Van Persie though. We just need more centrebacks. Selling Vidic and Ferdinand made sense, because they no longer have the pace to play in a high line, but we seem to have forgotten to replace them. We should be okay at wingback in the long run, given Rafael and Valencia can play on the right, with Shaw and Young covering the left. Just unfortunate that our two options on the right were out simultaneously.

Ideally over the next two weeks we bring in one more midfielder and probably two centrebacks.

[phresh]

Yeah, while the result was a bit of a 'Moyes', until Fellani came on the overall play was much better. Woodward needs to sort his shit out though, if we don't sign the necessary players then he should be out of a job.

[feltmonkey]

where does this leave Januzaj though? he was arguably our best player last season.

also, i'm not convinced we are going to buy a bunch of good players.

[phresh]

Needs more swearing to match your avatar!

[AlwaysBeClosing]

Enjoying it until Herrera went off/Fellaini came on. Bad decision. Just like last season, the opposition only needed two chances to score two goals - really really not impressed with that. More tracking back needed from our centre midfielders. But! It's the start of the season, our next games shouldn't be as difficult, we've just got to hope some of our players return.

[pulsemyne]

This is the best day ever!

Yes it is

[Guest]

I still don't know why we've left it so long buying new players. I know Louis said he wanted time to assess who we have, but which ever way you cut it, even a retard knows which areas need strengthening. I'm expecting a good bit of activity in the coming week and if it doesn't happen, then it can only be down to Woodward's ineptness.

Gutted we've lost our opening game, but I'm still confident we'll be ok as long as they pull their thumbs out of their arses and get some new players.

[Prof Frink]

I dare say the Glazers are hoping LVG can get the team playing beyond their limits like Fergie did. It's fine though, since our owners stand to make £100m from the share sale.

LVG is a great manager, not a fucking magician.

Unfortunately I agree with this, I think all the talk of a “war chest” to sign players is a myth as I don’t think the owners are comfortable spending the kind of money required to sort this team out. Genuinely wouldn’t be surprised if we don’t sign anymore players. David May had a real good go at Woodward on MUTV after the game telling him to stop haggling over a few million and pay the asking price for players, value in the market doesn’t exist anymore.

Saying that I do think LGV made a mistake taking Herrera off as we were playing well till he came off.

[Bleeders]

Interview in The Mail with Moyes this morning.

Whilst it goes someway to confirming what most of us knew that he was out of his depth, the most telling thing here (apart from the complete lack of class shown by club) is the lack of willingness to push deals through and pay the going rate.

‘We tried to bring players in during the summer transfer window but they didn’t materialise. It certainly wasn’t for the lack of trying. It wasn’t indecision. The complete opposite.

‘It’s been well documented that we wanted Fabregas, Bale and Ronaldo. There was talk of Ronaldo when I first arrived. We were close to getting a couple of major names. I’m not getting in a blame game here but things just didn’t materialise. I had taken over from the most successful manager in history. The chief executive had taken over from one of the most renowned administrators in the game [David Gill]. So it was a new job for two people.’

All talk to appease the fans, but delivering very, very little. Don't be surprised if we don't sign anyone between now and the 2nd September.

[Bleeders]

Unfortunately I agree with this, I think all the talk of a “war chest” to sign players is a myth as I don’t think the owners are comfortable spending the kind of money required to sort this team out. Genuinely wouldn’t be surprised if we don’t sign anymore players. David May had a real good go at Woodward on MUTV after the game telling him to stop haggling over a few million and pay the asking price for players, value in the market doesn’t exist anymore.

Saying that I do think LGV made a mistake taking Herrera off as we were playing well till he came off.

Absolutely, there is no value anymore. £50m for David Luiz? Fergie always trotted that line out, partially to cover the Glazers' I suspect.

Say what you want about City, but them and Chelsea have gone out and done their transfer business with a minimum of fuss. We nearly always seem to be engaged in long, protracted transfer sagas that more often than not, end in failure.

Bayern have confirmed Schweinsteiger is out for the forseeable future, along with Javi Martinez whose out for 6 months. So immediately they've gone on the front-foot and have gone straight into the market (supposedly for Roma's Benatia). To think, this club put themselves on a pedestal with the likes of Bayern, Real, Barca. It might be the biggest commercial club in the world, but it's a long way from being a football one though - the one that actually matters!

[Guest]

I was reading this morning that Louis has stated we need more players and he knows which positions are lacking. Why we aren't buying though is anybody's guess, the pessimist in me is saying it can only realistically either be down to Woodward's ineptness or the Glazer's reluctance to pay the going rate, but I'm hoping, maybe a bit optimistically, that we've got a few deals in the pipeline that'll be concluded this week.

I just don't understand what rationale they could have in sacking Moyes and appointing LvG if they've go no intention of investing in the team. But if we get to transfer deadline day with no sign of any more players then I won't be happy.

[davidcotton]

I was reading this morning that Louis has stated we need more players and he knows which positions are lacking. Why we aren't buying though is anybody's guess, the pessimist in me is saying it can only realistically either be down to Woodward's ineptness or the Glazer's reluctance to pay the going rate, but I'm hoping, maybe a bit optimistically, that we've got a few deals in the pipeline that'll be concluded this week.

I just don't understand what rationale they could have in sacking Moyes and appointing LvG if they've go no intention of investing in the team. But if we get to transfer deadline day with no sign of any more players then I won't be happy.

Perhaps it was something along the lines of the manager getting the best out of the existing team ala Ferguson rather than spending ££££ or whatever (not that £60 million or whatever in this market is peanuts or whatever). I still think it's way to early to be panicking and that you lot will be there or there abouts come the end of the season (or if not you might scrape europa this time round anyway!).