Yet again we created sseveral chances in the first half to score. Deeney wasted that opportunity at the start, and then Dawson and Masina put in 2 decent crosses within seconds of eachother yet no one was on the 6 yard box to connect! It would have been harder to miss than to hit the target. This team beggars belief. It really does. How many times to we start brightly and create chances, only to throw them away and surrender in the 2nd half? It's sickening to watch. If I were Pearson I'd genuinely be asking myself if this team are actively avoiding trying to score goals. Remember the Doucoure/Pereyra chance? Why didn't the latter bust a gut to finish?? Again, from that range it's easier to score than miss. "Hi de ho! Challenge accepted!" says Pereyra. In our current state, I really can't see us staying up. Happen to be proven wrong but I don't see how I will be.
Deeney shows no ability or desire to gamble when in the box and when he does he seems afraid to take responsibility to shoot preferring to pass to someone else He should have just blasted it. Pearson must be privately lamenting we don't have a vardy to rely on.
Where do you start We should have been 1, maybe 2 up by the time they scored, but we know if you don't take your chances you don't win games United had one attacking option and that was James. Dawson did OK, especially being out of position, but by Christ did he need help. Pereyra was useless, completely useless. The supply to James had to be cut off, stand in front of him, get in to a position to cut out the angle, make yourself busy, or just give up and don't give a ****. Deeney was just as much at fault. he let both McGuire and Lindelof consistently wonder forward with the ball and play it wide at will. A little bit of effort to simply close them down, to stop an easy pass to James, wasn't to much to ask. Deulofeu had flashes, but that all they were. His pass selection was awful, his passing was worse, his care and commitment beyond contempt. It took Deeney 35 minutes to realise what the rest of saw in the first minute, that he wasn't going to get any joy out of either centre back. Then the penny dropped and he drifted out to compete against Shan or Wan-Bissaka. His failure to get a shot off when he was 1 on 1 as well as his failure to get on one of the four balls that flashed across the 6 yard box, all that would ahve been simple tap in's, just about summed up the lack of our attacking options. It doesn't matter who you play, if you don't take your chances and only 8 of your players turn up, you ain't going to get anything out of the game.
You're off your head. Up until our equaliser that was struck off we were the better side. Yes we limped to defeat from them on but if you think that was one of the most spineless performances you've seen in the last 50 years then you can't have watched us that often. It wasn't even in the top 5 spineless performances of this season.
The last 6 games......2 draws and 4 defeats. Clearly after the next game it will be 5 defeats and 2 draws from 7 games. We must be getting close to sacking territory. The last few games have been relegation stamped as far as I can see. Sure, bad decisions and bad luck are all in the melting pot, but the overall performances have been pretty poor in all honesty. As soon as Deeney missed that penalty against Spurs, it's been downhill ever since.
I'd be disgusted if we binned Pearson tbh. Yes his subs are usually too late for our liking, but it isn't his fault that Deeney has zero anticipation. Binning Pearson is not the answer. I do judge him for continuing to play Pereyra though, AND for dropping Chalobah. Both nonsensical where Pussetto showed more in the goal clearance against Spuds than Pereyra has in a long time, and Chalobah has been in solid form.
Sacking Pearson would make Pozzo the ultimate laughing stock. Utterly fail in the transfer window and then sack the manager because he has no right backs and Mariappa smashes the ball into his own net.
And yet we are still in touching distance of those around us and bizarrely are only 5th favourites to go down
Clear handball for our disallowed goal but Martial looked off side when he received it on the edge of the area for their second.
Nath you sound like a spoilt , over sugared teenager who is having a tantrum because he’s lost at Fortnight . Read your posts back , take a self honesty pill and get grip of yourself .
As opposed to you who has never been to a game , because you re too busy keyboard warrior ing on shoutbox .
I think it’s fair to have differing opinions on players ability, but on this one moment Troy had an absolute shocker. He took 3 or 4 little touches to get himself ready. When he took the last one he wasn’t shooting or passing to the wide open team mate Shaw had left alone. He tried another little touch to try and get around him and tamely lost the ball. So so poor. Imagine that had been Gray and the outrage we’d have seen on here!
Just watched it again on motd and yeah I agree if that was gray we would all want to shot him. Troy had a shocker. Also the clearance by Shaw for our corner for the goal that never was. Deeney closes Shaw down at the back post and runs the wrong side of Shaw, minor details but basics for a pro. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Accuses me of having a tantrum and tells me to get a grip, tells someone to f**k off in his next post...
Of a bad bunch, I'd say Deulofeo and Pererya were the worst. Absolute waste of a shirt, both of them. The former constantly gave the ball, either away through dribbling straight in to United's massed defence and getting easily dispossessed or through atrocious under-hit passes. The latter just stood around and watched like a disinterested neutral observer. A couple of times balls were hit in to the channels where he should have been running. Booby P stood flat-footed watching with the rest of us while the United defence pootled across to pick up the loose ball from the wide empty spaces. For the goals, I'd say Foster was a bit unlucky. Fernandez dragged his leg over him to "win" the penalty rather than Foster taking his legs. It was a clear penalty and was perhaps questionable judgement whether to come or stay, but we've all seen him win the ball countless times doing the same thing. For the second, the movement and chip from their player was pretty decent and there was nothing he could do about the third. I thought he was generally positive and handled and distributed pretty well - with the other exception being the shot palmed out to their forward who ought to have scored. Poor old Dawson was had on toast at right back. He got run ragged. No help from the lounging, lolling bottle blond Argentinian observer ahead of him of course. Everything came down his side. Masina on the other side had another good game I thought and generally did well. The plan to press Fred was working quite well and we robbed him several times. Good planning from NP (presumably). Deeney did a good job at that. However the 3mph touch-touch-touch trundle through their area whilst 1 on 1 with De Gea early on was just painful. Bloody hit it! Doucoure tried hard and must be frustrated with the shyte that surrounds him. Similarly Hughes threw himself in to tackles and really put in 100%. Unfortunately his touch and skills seem to have deserted him. Tries hard but hopeless - the albino Carl ****enson. Good to see Sarr back. I cringed a bit when united's players went in on him during his cameo, but he seemed to have survived. Similarly Cleverly. Good to have him back as an option.
Dawson put in one decent cross, that's one more than Mariappa did in his whole time at right back I think. Kiko and Janmaat should be available for the rest of the season now, but if we're in this position for Saturday then Dawson again please.
Defensively and upfront we are useless. Midfield we are ok. Play some nice stuff but as soon as it gets to one of our strikers, be it Gray or Deeney it just breaks down. Countless times yesterday we'd do a nice move, it would go to Deeney who would overhit the pass, or just completely misjudge where people were making runs. He just isn't on the same wavelength as those behind him. Defensively we are a shambles too. I guess thats what happens when you completely neglect those two areas and not spend any money on them. 2 years now we have cried out for improvements upfront and in defence and its fair to say were have not addressed the issue. We also only seem to buy injury prone players too. The players aren't good enough and you can only blame those in charge for that. Another thing to note is that a lot of our players appear to have this belief that we are too good to go down. That mentality means we are sleepwalking towards relegation. I am finding it incredibly difficult to support this team atm. Especially knowing a lot of them will jump ship when we get relegated.
Thought we were doing ok until the disallowed goal, if it had counted I think we could have got a win, thin margins.
I didn't see the match. I was running my backside off with three other 40 plus ladies in beating Southampton University in the NPL. I know with my team we will all battle to the end and help each other. No one hides. No one blames their partner or their team mates. What I read on this thread is utterly predictable and depressing. All three of my team said "Oh today Watford may surprise you". My reply was " I'm afraid they won't." What a flipping waste of a season. I do hope the players reflect on this but I expect as Harrow says,they will just beggar off elsewhere and count their cash.
Looking at the highlights we wilted visibly as the game progressed. We were so open and if you give any side with ability that much space, even a poor United, they will carve you open time and time again. If we continue to fall away like this then we've got no chance of staying up. Very little chance of even getting to 30 points. The second goal was a case in point. Good save from Foster, but what happened after that is ludicrous defending. Foster probably should have gone back to his line after the initial save. But once he's made that decision to jockey Martial, at least one defender HAS to go to the line. What were they thinking of? Not one player went to the line to cover. That's inexcusable and this is a big reason why we are 19th. Our defenders are criminally poor. They are poor individually and collectively. The only time they look fairly solid is when we have a big push and everyone raises their game, such as once a new coach comes in. After that initial bounce in form, they always go back to type. F***ing disgraceful how weak we are defensively. For the first half we competed well. It was anyone's match. We gave United plenty of problems, but the failure for Deeney to shoot when presented with a clear opportunity after only 3 minutes was ridiculous. Why did he take another touch. He showed no confidence at all. We don't need that and it's costing us. Give a striker that opportunity and he at least gets a shot off. No, not our boys. They wait, delay, try to find another pass etc. We've been doing that all season. I thought Doucoure played well, especially in the first half. Our goal did come off the side of Dawson's shoulder, but no more so than Dele Ali or Yerry Mina. We are correctly penalised, yet theirs go unpunished. I thought their penalty in real time was a penalty, but it's clear in replays that Fernandes dived. But that's what clever players do. Had it been Geri, he'd have been booked for diving. That's also how it goes when you're a big club at home, or a small club away. So it's all stacked against us. But we have to make our own luck, we have to take our chances and we have to defend a hell of a lot better. Officials have to be honest with us too. Far too many calls have gone against us this season, and if we are to have any chance they have to be fair and honest in their decision making. It's a tall order, and things will probably get a little worse (after Liverpool), but right now, we are still not cut adrift. This was my concern before the United and Liverpool games. Liverpool is the classic "free hit" match, then we have to start getting points starting at a very tough (but not impossible) Palace away match. That block of 8 games, have to be the ones which give us 40 points. Palace away, Leicester home, Burnley away, Southampton home, Chelsea away, Norwich home, Newcastle home, West Ham away.....and of course City home and Arsenal away. It's still just about doable. 5 more wins will give us 39 points. For my money the most likely wins will come from Palace away, Southampton home, Norwich home, Newcastle home and that massive looking West Ham away. Win those games and we stay up IMO. We'll probably get at least and extra point or two against Leicester and Burnley too, if we win the other 5. In that run it means 3 wins on the spin which does concern me. We rarely do that, especially when we need to do it, but we only have hope left to cling to, however unlikely it appears to be.
Whilst I hate the modern day culture with penalties where players look for contact, lets not forget GD tried that at home to Chelsea and got a penalty himself. I don't like it but the penalty yesterday is always a penalty in the modern game. Players and pundits have moulded the law so now contact = penalty.
Didn't see the match, only the highlights on MOTD but both Cathcart and Kabasele looked pretty awful. Granted, if they had good defensive contributions they'd unlikely appear on the highlights but for most United attacks I saw they looked very poor.
Hughes said it affected our game .. Maybe this explains why we are in trouble ? Too many mentally fragile players !
I agree with that. Too many players play the occasion and not the match. You put Deeney against, say Wigan, in the Championship next season with that chance he got after 3 minutes at United, and he shoots and probably scores. Because it's at Old Trafford he panics in the moment. Same thing happened to Mapps at Brighton. No one near him but he panics for no reason, which ensures the very thing he's scared of actually does happen. We go a goal up, maybe two, but as soon as we concede it's all panic stations. We just fall to pieces. The only exception was against Wolves, where we held on magnificently, so they can do it. They are just so frustrating. So near, yet always seem to fail in the end. It's purely down to fear. Too many players, including the big players, are fearful of failure, but don't realise it's that fear which is causing them to fail.
All of our defensive frailties this season have come from lack of protection. Under Javi, the full backs wandered forwards so much that they left the centre backs exposed. Yesterday, Pereyra left Dawson exposed all game, which pulled the centre backs out to help him and then suddenly there are gaps all over the place. Capoue and Hughes also gave the ball away too much yesterday and put the defence under extra pressure.
Absolutely. I have rarely seen such a cowardly collection of players as this bunch. When things go wrong about 3 of them instantly hide and 4/5 just run around in a blind panic. Probably a symptom of knowing they are part of Pozzo’s player trading game rather than having much affinity with the club itself. Half the team will have nice moves in the bag if we do go down so it’s no biggie for them.
Plenty of moments of individual rank incompetence from Cathcart, Mariappa, Kiko, Holebas and Dawson this season. You can’t stick all that on lack of protection. They simply aren’t up to standard individually. Plus the defence have benefited this season from a stint under the horrific QSF where they have the entire team as protection.
It does feel like all the work Flores did with the defence has worn off now which the Pearson bounce probably benefitted from. I do agree with Pereyra being anonymous defensively. Even the much maligned Flores knew how weak we were on that side and team after team this season have basically walked through on that side. But we didn't need any defensive recruitments. At all.
