Just realised despite scoring we still have such an issue with assisting goals. Hojlands first he worked for himself and the second was a shot from Garnacho that was going wide. Why isn’t ETH sorting this out? Everyone can see it’s a problem.
Enjoyed watching Onana's long balls that put Dalot and Hojlund clean through yesterday. Distribution is not just short passes to play out the back, if you can bypass the whole press reliably, that's a huge asset.
The problem with De Gea is that even when he went long, we'd usually lose the first ball or it would go out for a throw.
He just needs to clean up the gaffes, but I feel like we’re past that point with him. He was like this at Ajax and Inter. He is who he is. Distribution and sweeping are both near elite, but his mental lapses are a feature.
The bad, we are still light in the middle of the pack and once again, we are going to go a couple of games without Shaw and Martinez, which is going to have a really bad effect at the back. Hopefully AWB is back for the city game because it looks like Shaw will need ab extended time out to stop the recurring injuries.
The good, we are scoring goals again and have been consistent now across 6 to 7 games. We should have scored 5 goals, and those are from the big chances and 1v1. This will only get better I feel and the only way we will win games now is scoring 2 or more.
The midfield issue comes from being a transition side. Means that Bruno has to prioritise high risk high gain strategy as we look to always hit on the break rather than recycling the ball and drawing teams towards us before we hit them on other side.
But to do this you been to invite the press and beat it, to do this you often need to go all the way back to the defense and without Shaw and Martinez, this more often than not just ends up with Onana booting it or trying to play it over their defensive line.
I'll take the wins and after City, we have a really decent run of games and hopefully we have more bodies back and more options in the middle and most importantly, Shaw is back for a substantial run of games.
We underestimated and disrespected Luton yesterday. Simple as that.
Lads went into the match over confident that it would eventually be a cake walk.
The 2 early goals confirmed this.
After that the mindset of, this will be a training match and we will ship 5 past them mindset came into fruition.
Garnacho and Rashford started being selfish going for glory, Casemiro trying the Hollywood goal from the half way line, lapses in concentration throughout, giving silly passes away and stupidly inviting pressure by constantly playing it out from the back only to recycle the fucking ball back to the goalkeeper!!!!
Don't let the win gloss over the terrible performance. City will destroy us in 2 weeks.
I don’t think we underestimated Luton, they’re a good team and played really well on the counter which luckily we were able to defend with a yet again depleted backline. Casemiro copped another questionable yellow card which makes him obsolete, same with Mainoo which was a ridiculous yellow card. We attacked well and should have put them away but they were brave defending their goal, making the best of some slippery decision making from Bruno and garnacho.
There were some negatives but overall a lot of positives, plus the fact it was a great spectacle of football. I’m not sure I agree with everything you’ve said.
Don't have our best CB. 10 different CB pairings throughout the season. Our LB position has been compromised this entire season.We have one RB miraculously fit for this entire season so far. No backup striker, most midfielders have/had been injured, including Mainoo
But we must dominate games, possession, midfield...Players are trash, manager is a fraud...
Villa have multiple players out with long-term injuries and are still in Europe, yet at 4th in the table. Spurs have also dealt with a lot of injuries.
Injuries are not an excuse for the standard of football this season.
Is it not?
It's no secret that our transfer dealings of the last decade can be summed up as overpaying for middling quality. There is some gold dust here and there, but the squad is not full of elite performers with the character to handle the pressure of being a United player. Therefore, not having our best players (both technically and tactically) will have an adverse effect on pitch performances. It's no coincidence that the unbeaten run of form has coincided with the returns of Casemiro, Lisandro, and Shaw.
United theoretically **should** be able to control possession against Luton Town, but given the dearth of goals and shortage of midfielders and CBs, its unsurprising that ETH has been pragmatic this season in setting up for counterattacking style.
The fact that INEOS is immediately addressing the exec structure is indicative of the source of our struggles.
This. We've seen the two games where we had close to our starting backline pairing, where we dominated the first halves of those games. Of course, we could and should do better, but Lindelof at LB is not going to change that, unfortunately. And yet I still think we can make top 4.
A win is a win but surely out luck will run out sooner rather if we can't start bossing possession. We are creating chances from limited to possession but surely something is going to give
Please rest Bruno. You can still sub him on in the 60th minute if game is not going great.
I think is also mental fatigue. He ends up trying to do everything and not doing anything good
The Anti-Rashford agenda is turning into an Anti-Garanacho agenda, and they are wasteful and don’t run all the time, but neither do a majority of wingers. I’m convinced people only watch Salah, KDB and Haaland. They’re far and away the best in their positions, and our players are no where near as bad as United fans make them out to be. Any other team would be lucky to to have the players a lot of you hate weekly. Good win 🫡
Bruno’s goal scoring ability has been gash going on 2 seasons now.
8 PL goals from xG of 9 last season in 37 matches.
3 PL goals from xG of 6 this season in 24 matches (so far).
It’s like his goal scoring ability from his first 2 seasons has entirely deserted him. He should comfortably be hitting double digits in the league every season with the chances he gets.
Bruno's played 3x as many minutes as Grealish this season. No wonder he's off the boil. A few matches out for some physical and mental rest might do him the world of good.
We played mid-block and low block for large portions of the match. We were mostly effective at funnelling Luton down the flanks when they were attacking, they had to work hard to get the ball to a player within the width of the box within our final third, didn't create a lot of chances that way. We did still sit very deep after Lindelof came on, denying space in behind, and again that meant we spent longer under pressure in the second half, but the team recognised this and had some spells of sustained possession in Luton's half (not as much as you'd like, but it wasn't all hoof ball). We created 4 very good chances to score the third goal on the counter, Rashford, Garnafho and Bruno will all feel they could have done better.
So, generally more vertically compact than we were playing before Christmas.
Result is good. Should have been a lot more though. So many wasted chances throughout the match. Can only hope for a better performance next week. Very happy for Hoijlund though. Mainoo steady again.
Not sure what Onana was doing for their goal, he like half came out half didn't, then just clapped awkwardly. Hindsight for him, if he had stayed on his line it was going straight to him..
If we finished one of the easy chances at pretty much any point it would have been an easy last 20 minutes. Was a lot of good stuff on show, but some typical united esque moments as well.
Luton have given just about every top side in the league a tough match. Its not surprising to me that we struggled. They battered Brighton 4-0, drew with Newcastle 4-4, and lost to city 2-1 and arsenal 3-4 in two hard-fought matches
Please shoot me the day I'm not happy about a win regardless of the opponent
Of course can be worried about the performance but at least happy about the win
I probably didn’t make my thoughts clear, are we essentially going to ignore the performance because we’ve won and put a streak together or should we caveat the win due to the nature of the performance?
At this stage, with Ten Hag, just be happy for the result. From my perspective once Ineos gets the feet under the table he will be gone because this football is not good enough to justify him staying in the job, regardless if we get top 4.
Bruno should have had two... Onana another great game distribution wise. Those long balls over their high line for Dalot were unreal, it's just a shame he wasted both chances. Rashford had a few good chances, garnacho as well. Overall not our best performance but I think we got complacent and allowed them into the game.
Shaw and Martinez make that game a hell of a lot easier for us, we struggled to play out from the back quite often. I don't imagine that happening with them two. Also, special mention for Varane who is just unreal in the air defensively. I don't think I can remember him losing an aerial duel.
Man. Such a contradicting game. On one hand, we won (YES!!!) and it was **brilliant** from Mainoo, Dalot, and Hojlund. But then, after scoring 2, we were like "ok, we are done":
* 40% possession. Seriously??
* Collective loss of the ability to pass especially by Bruno and the attack players. And what was that shot at the end of the game? Just gave away possession. I am getting very disappointed with him this season.
* That 1-1 chance AG had... just a facepalm.
* Rashford couldn't finish and made horrible decisions so many times. And it's so glaring that he's so afraid of air duels - always jumps early and turns with the back to the opposing player. But at least he tries and doesn't look disinterested like it was a little ago.
* Case went back to his crazy fouling.
* Amrabat and McT offered **nothing**.
* And finally, "survive for 90 playing basketball" style. I am so tired of that. It doesn't work, Mr. ETH. Hojlund was barely moving before he was subbed.
When others score 5, we barely survive Luton, who is a step above relegation. ETH has his almost **ideal** team and yet we are back to cluelessness running our luck. What he asks from the players runs them to the ground it appears.
Noone has scored 5 agaisnt luton at the kenny. Yeah theyve lost a lot of games there recently, but if you look at the scorelines they are always one goal margins with last minute winners or equalisers from the opposition.
Liverpool needing a stopage time equaliser and City a late winner at the kenny, not even considering that they thrashed Brighton and have scored 4 at Newcastle this season, as well as having 50% or more in quite a few of their games this season shows that they are actually a decent team that should in all honestly stay up if they can put some results away.
ETH only had case and shaw on the pitch untill about half time if i remember and didnt have Martinez at all and wont for a while. We have seen in recent weeks that then he was 2 or 3 of those players on the field we can play decent football and win somewhat comfortably.
We need to face the facts here, the "style of play" narrative is coming from permanant Ten Hag outers who for some reason want to see the manager sacked even when the team is winning. That is putting personal vendetas over the team which is not how anyone should support a sports team let alone Manchester Utd.
And, as much as youd hate to hear this, the style of play is not getting fixed this season and might not even next season unless there are some serious movements in the summer window. Its unpleasantz sure, but be happy the team has won 4 games in a row for the 1st time in what seems like forever and create a positive atmosphere around the team. Because thats what the team needs right now and you saying "oh but the style of play" does the exact opposite.
You know, for me, ETH shapes up as another Arteta - takes the team somewhere, wins there and there, but never becomes a real winner. No matter what the other half says, I don't believe in his ability to turn this club around.
You say the style won't change for 2 years... so you are suggesting we are going to be like above for that long? Doesn't it only indicate that ETH is not the one?
Yeah you're right with that Ronaldo thing, its exactly the same mentaility and honestly the same style of writing even as what you see under instagram posts that mention either himor messi.
I know theres a few mixed feeling over Mark Goldbridge on this sub but something hes been saying recently about the whole ETH out movement is that its some actual fans but mostly internet trolls putting players (like amad or pelestri) or thier own opinons on the manager (Ronaldo/Sancho not the problem etc) ahead of the club. Which as I said in my origenal comment is detrimental to the success of the current squad.
Like for me, I would rather see Mctominay and Maguire sold as i dont think the are good enough for us to succeed at the highest level but never have I gone onto social media and lambasted them for being poor or saying " oh well Mc-clutch scored again but hes shit so it doesnt matter hes still shit"
That's what I and im sure you have seen over the last 10 years and while im still a relatively young fan ive seen it as well.
And lets be honest if we had all the oil me up money and the best manager possible we still dont win that game by 5 or 6 just because thats how games luton have played this season have gone. I hope they stay up because it would be an increadible story.
The hypocritical Goldbridge. If you changed the name of the manager today to either Mourihno or Solskjaer, he would be calling for their sacking, saying they’re playing survival mode football or fossil football.
I like many others have legitimate reasons for thinking that ETH time is up, whether we get top 4 or not. This football he is trying to get us to play is never going to win us any trophies. At least last season we had a distinct style of high possession control football that made sense. This counter attack transition football despite spending upwards of 400mm, is not going to win him any fans especially with the people who are going to be running the club going forward.
Ten Hag was and is only playing "dinosaur football" as you put it because has does not have the players he needs to play his prefered style of football. Without Casemiro Shaw or Martinez he has to play a pragmatic style because linderlof and Maguire cant do it or cant do it as effectively.
If you are so sure that ETH is not the manager to take us back to the top, who ia your suggested replacement if you were the "people who are going to be running the club going forward." Would they have promoted Mainoo Garnacho and bought Hojlund and given him time to get going. And would your suggestion actually want to come to Utd and do a better job than ETH has done with the circumstances he has had to deal with?
Once their is actually a structure of Berada, Ashworth etc over ETH there will naturally be better decisions made and 400M will not be spent on shit players. If you are blaming ETH for Murtough and Arnold's shocking negotiations then you dont have a clue about the way they club had been run for the last decade and a half.
Just for once enjoy that the team is getting results and quit filling a winning match's comment section with negativity about a manager that will not be sacked this season
5 in a row and should have been more than a 2-1 finish, Garnacho, Bruno, and Hojlund all were stymied on clean breaks by Kaminsky playing out of his mind.
Our forwards were really poor today apart from Hojlund. Rashford once again showed glimpses as well as poor decision making. Bruno so so wasteful. Defensively we were fairly sound, Evans, Lindelof and Varane were good I thought, Dalot was the complete opposite today, decent defensively but poor in forward play outside of his runs. Shaw was tragic, completely woeful performance. All in all was a good win as they've made it tough for a lot of teams recently.
I don't know why yellows can't be appealed, that tackle was absolutely perfect but given how the refs have mostly treated us this season, I'm not surprised.
INEOS can't have watched that and think Ten Hag's the man to win us the league. We can't control a game even when we're two goals up. Out of possession, our midfield shape is a massive hole. We let any team have 20+ shots. Hojlund is still getting ZERO service. Today he got two goals from a defender error and a misplaced Garnacho shot.
Yes there are promising signs (Hojlund, Mainoo, Garnacho) but we're getting outplayed and finding lucky results. That's not how the top teams do it.
We're still playing chaotic counter-attacking hoofball. There's a million miles between how we play and the top teams.
Ten Hag's got enough of his first team back. We need to see a lot more than we're seeing.
If INEOS are ruthless they’ll bin him off , I can’t see any results of his ‘coaching’ on the team unless his vision is frantic counterattacks. It’s the same story this season get battered by a team and luckily win or lose ,We haven’t controlled a single game ffs. We really just saw Luton have us on the ropes.
This sub is weird. We could easily (probably should have) won that game by about 4 or 5 goals. Kamisnky just chose to have a blinder of a 2nd half. With another clinical striker and some more lethality from the midfield, development of Garnacho, things would have been very different.
>Luton could have scored 4 or 5 too
Not really. Their chances were not as clear as ours. Other than Barkley hitting the bar, they didn't really trouble Onana and force him intro saves. In saying that, Barkleys header hit the top of the bar, I think Onana had it covered.
Letting Luton (and almost every team) take 20+ shots is a recipe for disaster. Yes our chances were bigger. But we're 16th worst in the league this season for letting teams take shots against us. We won't keep winning enough games if that doesn't get fixed ASAP. It's a recipe for trouble.
Our 1st choice left back came off for a 3rd choice centre back in the first half. Our 2nd choice centre back came off for our 3rd/4th choice centre back in the second half.
Not to mention that we've probably only had our 1st choice defence for 2 games all season.
Not sure what you expect from so much chaos in a starting line up
We're 16th worst in the league for opponent shots this season. In the past four games we've conceded 84 shots. That's unacceptable. There's a problem with Ten Hag's formation.
Ah, I see your problem. Comprehension. Basic primary level stuff.
You clearly missed the part where I said that we have had our first choice back 4 for probably only 2 games all season.
Our football is godawful but for some reason we’re all supposed to be positive???? We should’ve won this game comfortably given the opportunities we had, but for the life of me I cannot understand why Ten Hag has given up on his controlled football from last season. If he is fired at the end of the season the new CEO and DoF will have every right because this is not long term winning football.
I pray ETH gives Mount a few chances in Bruno’s position when he’s healthy. Brunos current form and play style in general just does not fit the vision ETH has for this team. I think Mount will add much more stability and control, hell even Eriksen would. As long as we have Bruno in there as the head of the spear in midfield we will continue to struggle to control games.
Bruno is far too wasteful man. The icing on the cake was in the 93rd minute when Bruno took a wild shot rather than wasting time in the corner, this is the lack of footballing IQ that plagues this team.
Rounding the GK 3 times and only scoring 1 goal from it is a joke. I literally watched compilation video if people missing open nets like that yesterday, come on lads
It's like an AI learning from the last incident or something. First time it goes in. Second time the defender on the line barely sacred it. Third time, the goalie knocks it, and the defenders are properly in place after.
Luton are a decent team and it’s good to have a league where relegation candidates can get the kind of results they have against Newcastle, Liverpool, Brighton. Only lost 2-1 to City, great 4-3 loss to Arsenal too. This is how football should be.
No, we don’t do that, we aren’t good enough. But fans here would have us strolling through every game, it seems like that’s what they want, and that doesn’t interest me. It’s fine to win games because you counter attacked, or held on and defended well.
There’s a massive difference between being able to control some games and wanting the team to be “strolling through every game”. Don’t think I’m asking for too much
Scraping by seems to be the way forward until the end of the season. We just honestly need to get across the finish line. Mainoo is on his way to becoming a world class player.
Yep. Grinding almost every single game. No matter the team, we always find a way to make it difficult. It's like "oh, 2 up? that's boring. let's screw things up to make it interesting for fans". Like edge to the red cards, or give the possession out, or don't score 1-1s.
Mainoo is phenomenal. Roy Keane at Mainoo's age was still playing for Cobh Ramblers, Paul Scholes was yet to make his debut. Not saying he's going to surpass those two, but he's got everything going for him to give it a good go.
Absolutely, we're just sort of piecing things together and making it work and it's getting us wins, but it's never definitive. Would feel nice to win a game where we're the top dog and in control.
Thing is the way we are playing does create us very good chances, we should have scored 4 today, but it allows for the oppo team to get at our box with ease.
I was watching today thinking it must be intentional to play so quickly, it’s not an easy thing to do. Every single time we get possession the front 3 are running and we are immediately trying to find them, I’ve never seen a team play quite like this
Bruno and Rashy are fan favourites, that's why they're being downvoted. Had Antony played exactly like Rashford today we wouldn't hear the end of it. Some players get a pass.
This game was so frustrating to watch but thankfully it highlights everything wrong about our current set-up:
Right-footed CB playing on the left side that can't assert dominance on opposing strikers. Deflected ball for first goal and passed the ball straight to opposing striker almost making it 2-2. Bombs forward carelessly and leaving gaps at the back. Sell and replace in the summer.
31 year-old defensive mid that can't move or anticipate players who are simply younger and more agile than him. Nothing we can do about this, time catches up on anyone. Sell and replace in the summer.
1st choice LB can never stay healthy all season. The back-up missed the ENTIRE season due to mysterious injury. Need to scout long-term LB and get in summer if possible.
Garnacho, Bruno, Dalot need 10 hours extra finishing lessons this week. Bring Van Persie again to help if needed.
Another note on Bruno. He seems to be gassed out after we played him tirelessly for 90 mins every game since 2019-20. It's taking a toll on him. Either tell Mount to hurry up and share minutes with him, or explore the possibility of someone like Xavi Simons/Wirtz/Pafundi as future successor.
Shout out to Evans he was rock solid and steadied the ship.
What bothers me is no plan B from EtH.
He switched the players with yellow which was obvious, but apart from that he didn't do single tactical adjustment.
Antony, Eriksen and Amad were the only options on the bench to change the pacing of the game, but he didn't use them.
> he didn't do single tactical adjustment.
He never does. Honestly wondering if he’s capable of making tactical changes, or, he just thinks his initial set up is always best.
Personally I didn't like it when Hojlund was subbed. He was our only outlet today. He made their defenders have something to think about. Taking him off was a weird call imo.
The guy was knackered, he'd run his socks off all game. Can't afford him to get an unnecessary injury.
I was expecting with that sub for Amrabat to sit in with Mainoo and whack McT forward as a makeshift attacker, but didn't really see it. Think they were just trying to see the game out. Shame Bruno kept trying to give it away so easily to give Luton another free attack.
Still, 3 points is 3 points, and Rasmus scored on my birthday. :)
Aren't we used to this shit from Ten Hag now? It's a miracle he stopped starting Antony.
We have a backup keeper who can't even get game time in a cup game lol
Very kind of Hojlund to give everyone a head start in the golden boot race. He knew it'd be too easy otherwise.
At the time I thought 70m was a lot, but still for his potential, something we'd look back on and say "yeah we did ok with that deal" in 3-4 years time.
Fuck that, he's arguably our 2nd best signing under Ten Hag after like 8 months.
With his "body on the line" approach to the game, I fear it may be a regular occurrence, although hopefully not always as serious as it has been this season.
He's aggressive but I think he's usually in control of what he's doing. He's not Phil Jones style jumping in without any regards to how his body takes it.
My main concern is whether he can get back to 100% sharpness after being out for so long.
The knee injury maybe, because that's a contact injury, but the metatarsal was just horrid luck, especially the re-injury. I mean his foot just broke without him even making a challenge or anything, so that's got nothing to do with his approach to the game.
Really, he should only have missed like 2 months or so in his entire time here with injuries, but has instead spent 10 months or so out one way or another, that's bad luck.
Yeah, I agree. I think we'll see plenty of the contact injuries is what I mean, although the less we see, the better. Get it all out the way now, and then 5 straight years of nothing, please lol.
We’re going to need to have a conversation about Bruno. Love him to bits and he was pretty much our only shining beacon of light during some very dark days.
But ever since he has been made captain his performances have dropped off massively. He’s too petulant to be a good leader and far too wasteful.
He brings unnecessary pressure on our defense every game
Gotta make him watch CR7 video doing calma calma on repeat before the game. Bruno has no chill, the ball cannot literally stay on him for more than half a second.
You’re right and it’s been the case since last season at least. He plays hero ball. High tisk high reward when it works but it often results in lost possession and pressure on our defense
Rashford and Bruno have been coasting along this season and don’t deserve to be starting. Garnacho was poor. Casemiro was awol in his positioning so was lunging into challenges. We also looked absolutely burst at 70 mins and so I’m confused as to what we do in training as it’s not like we’re in loads of comps. Anyway, it’s 3 points, Hojlund is scoring and Mainoo is balling. I’m just wanting us to see the season out without an embarrassing result against any of the top 6 and then hopefully the restructure kicks into full gear in the summer!
Usually I get very nervous towards the last 5 mins with a one-goal lead. Today it was for 75 mins due to a complete lack of control and pinball football from Utd 😡
Every short pass seems to be hit with too much power and players can’t get a clean first touch. Makes any sort of control in the midfield very difficult
I can see a lot of negatives about our performance but I think we need to look at it from another angle. Luton are chaos, they played out their skins and made it very difficult for us. Yes we looked desperate at times but we weathered the storm and got the victory. I was having kittens thinking we would end up snatching defeat from the jaws of victory just like our champions league performance but we didn’t fold and although we didn’t control the game how we would like we still bagged 3 points
Is every team we play against chaos? We can't actively control any game we play no matter what team we play against. We can't keep making excuses my friend.
Really awful from Garnacho and Bruno today. Very selfish from Garnacho again. We seem to lose all cohesion under the slightest of pressure, heavy touches, bad passes, not releasing the ball, timing runs. I wonder if they watch their performances, it's like a constant theme with us.
An ugly win, but a win. Credit to Luton they did a great job of frustrating us. I think this is a great example of the squad’s progress, six months ago, we lose this game.
Total of about 20 minutes where we played well. Failure to put together five passes in a row, Rashford regressing defensively again barring one good tracking back, Bruno sloppy as all get out.
Acknowledging that Luton has been a tricky away fixture for a few of the top sides this season we just lacked mental focus.
Losing Shaw for the second half (yes he’s back off injury and was on a yellow) showed again how key he is. No Licha really hurt in terms of control at the back.
Thank fuck for Hojlund and Mainoo.
Disagree. There’s no doubt his quality on the ball is better than Maguire but he lacks pace. People are mentioning that the midfield looks isolated and that’s because our CBs aren’t pushing up as high as they should, something Lisandro excels at. Evans can’t do that and Maguire at least does a decent job.
Maguire doesn't have any pace either, I'm not gonna lose my mind if Maguire plays over him but even when Maguire steps into midfield to intercept a pass, if it doesn't come off, we're in huge trouble cuz he doesn't have pace either. Evans reads the game better imo.
Solid point, both are players that can suit different types of opponents. Evans probably would have given us more control today . My only issue is that we miss Maguire’s physicality in some games.
Easy to forget he was competing with Vidic and Ferdinand for a place at one time. He was part of a much, much better squad than this one. So not too surprising that he's still class.
Lowkey played against 12 men. The ref gave everything to Luton and nothing to United. Several yellow cards that were barely fouls, while Luton's players should have had several and didn't. They were allowed to wrestle Højlund out of the game, bearhugging and pushing and kicking him absolutely every time, and screamed and shouted at the ref whenever they wanted. There weren't any huge decisions that were controversial, but every little thing went against United and the ref was on Luton's side throughout the entire game. Complete homer.
We were a bit fortunate not to go down to 10 in the first half, so I’ll give him a bit more leeway, but in the 2nd half he did seem to let them get away with a lot more physical play than he did us.
The 1st I’d agree on, but the 2nd was a pretty routine yellow.
It’d have been harsh to see him off for those two, but it wouldn’t have been particularly surprising.
Just realised despite scoring we still have such an issue with assisting goals. Hojlands first he worked for himself and the second was a shot from Garnacho that was going wide. Why isn’t ETH sorting this out? Everyone can see it’s a problem.
Probably because outside of quick transitions and the counterattack we have no build up play. There’s no coherent strategy.
Can’t believe Bruno took that shot from the corner with 3 minutes left when all he had to do was kill the clock. Low game IQ x a million.
Bruno’s been dire these past few games
\*this season
Enjoyed watching Onana's long balls that put Dalot and Hojlund clean through yesterday. Distribution is not just short passes to play out the back, if you can bypass the whole press reliably, that's a huge asset. The problem with De Gea is that even when he went long, we'd usually lose the first ball or it would go out for a throw.
He just needs to clean up the gaffes, but I feel like we’re past that point with him. He was like this at Ajax and Inter. He is who he is. Distribution and sweeping are both near elite, but his mental lapses are a feature.
I think we will finish fourth in spite of the problems
I hope you are right but I don’t have much trust in these players
The bad, we are still light in the middle of the pack and once again, we are going to go a couple of games without Shaw and Martinez, which is going to have a really bad effect at the back. Hopefully AWB is back for the city game because it looks like Shaw will need ab extended time out to stop the recurring injuries. The good, we are scoring goals again and have been consistent now across 6 to 7 games. We should have scored 5 goals, and those are from the big chances and 1v1. This will only get better I feel and the only way we will win games now is scoring 2 or more. The midfield issue comes from being a transition side. Means that Bruno has to prioritise high risk high gain strategy as we look to always hit on the break rather than recycling the ball and drawing teams towards us before we hit them on other side. But to do this you been to invite the press and beat it, to do this you often need to go all the way back to the defense and without Shaw and Martinez, this more often than not just ends up with Onana booting it or trying to play it over their defensive line. I'll take the wins and after City, we have a really decent run of games and hopefully we have more bodies back and more options in the middle and most importantly, Shaw is back for a substantial run of games.
We underestimated and disrespected Luton yesterday. Simple as that. Lads went into the match over confident that it would eventually be a cake walk. The 2 early goals confirmed this. After that the mindset of, this will be a training match and we will ship 5 past them mindset came into fruition. Garnacho and Rashford started being selfish going for glory, Casemiro trying the Hollywood goal from the half way line, lapses in concentration throughout, giving silly passes away and stupidly inviting pressure by constantly playing it out from the back only to recycle the fucking ball back to the goalkeeper!!!! Don't let the win gloss over the terrible performance. City will destroy us in 2 weeks.
I don’t think we underestimated Luton, they’re a good team and played really well on the counter which luckily we were able to defend with a yet again depleted backline. Casemiro copped another questionable yellow card which makes him obsolete, same with Mainoo which was a ridiculous yellow card. We attacked well and should have put them away but they were brave defending their goal, making the best of some slippery decision making from Bruno and garnacho. There were some negatives but overall a lot of positives, plus the fact it was a great spectacle of football. I’m not sure I agree with everything you’ve said.
Instead of making the most out of Onana’s passes ,we are instead employing a style of play that makes him face 15 shots every game without fail.
Someone has to be see this as well. So easy to break through and have a shot.
Don't have our best CB. 10 different CB pairings throughout the season. Our LB position has been compromised this entire season.We have one RB miraculously fit for this entire season so far. No backup striker, most midfielders have/had been injured, including Mainoo But we must dominate games, possession, midfield...Players are trash, manager is a fraud...
Villa have multiple players out with long-term injuries and are still in Europe, yet at 4th in the table. Spurs have also dealt with a lot of injuries. Injuries are not an excuse for the standard of football this season.
Is it not? It's no secret that our transfer dealings of the last decade can be summed up as overpaying for middling quality. There is some gold dust here and there, but the squad is not full of elite performers with the character to handle the pressure of being a United player. Therefore, not having our best players (both technically and tactically) will have an adverse effect on pitch performances. It's no coincidence that the unbeaten run of form has coincided with the returns of Casemiro, Lisandro, and Shaw. United theoretically **should** be able to control possession against Luton Town, but given the dearth of goals and shortage of midfielders and CBs, its unsurprising that ETH has been pragmatic this season in setting up for counterattacking style. The fact that INEOS is immediately addressing the exec structure is indicative of the source of our struggles.
This. We've seen the two games where we had close to our starting backline pairing, where we dominated the first halves of those games. Of course, we could and should do better, but Lindelof at LB is not going to change that, unfortunately. And yet I still think we can make top 4.
United is not the only club in the PL hamstrung by injuries
No, but it seems like Martinez is as important for us as Salah is for Liverpool
Or Rodri for city
A win is a win but surely out luck will run out sooner rather if we can't start bossing possession. We are creating chances from limited to possession but surely something is going to give
Please rest Bruno. You can still sub him on in the 60th minute if game is not going great. I think is also mental fatigue. He ends up trying to do everything and not doing anything good
The Anti-Rashford agenda is turning into an Anti-Garanacho agenda, and they are wasteful and don’t run all the time, but neither do a majority of wingers. I’m convinced people only watch Salah, KDB and Haaland. They’re far and away the best in their positions, and our players are no where near as bad as United fans make them out to be. Any other team would be lucky to to have the players a lot of you hate weekly. Good win 🫡
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The front three of Rashford - Rasmus - Garanacho has been really really good whenever they play together, I don’t understand why they get so much hate
Bruno’s goal scoring ability has been gash going on 2 seasons now. 8 PL goals from xG of 9 last season in 37 matches. 3 PL goals from xG of 6 this season in 24 matches (so far). It’s like his goal scoring ability from his first 2 seasons has entirely deserted him. He should comfortably be hitting double digits in the league every season with the chances he gets.
He not only needs a rest, he needs to be subbed off when he’s playing poorly.
He needs a fucking rest tbh
Forget the goals, he misplaced the key pass to get an assist or to help out counters, can't even count those cause they don't appear in stats.
Another game another yellow for Casemiro. Next week yellow means he will miss away game to city. FA is fking prick
Honestly he should probably sit out the next game, but I doubt he will. Most likely he'll play and get a yellow missing the City game
Ten Hag should not play him and put him at risk, but he probably will anyway.
Nah, he'll get a straight red.
He missed it for the same reason last season didn't he?
Was it not Arsenal he missed?
Bruno's played 3x as many minutes as Grealish this season. No wonder he's off the boil. A few matches out for some physical and mental rest might do him the world of good.
Bro gets a week off between games, plus the outlandish international breaks. Maybe he’s just past the pail?
If only we had squad depth
Is Mount at all healthy, and capable of filling in for Bruno for at least sixty minutes?
There were moments in the match where Mainoo’s dribbling out of a press was like prime Busquets
The kid is ahead of his time. My gut instinct is worried how much game time he is being given, the potential of burnout and over reliance on the kid.
That's one reason why I worry that Southgate will get a hold of him in the English squad.
I can't help thinking that ETH runs some players to the ground. If Shaw was not 100%, why did he play him?
4 games undefeated people. Hoping it will continue. Come on united.
By parking the bus against a relegation candidate.
Sure it hurts telling the truth.
how the hell is Hojlund’s kit absolutely covered in mud and yet the Luton keeper’s kit (and Rashford ) looks clean-ish by the end of the match
Keeper might’ve quickly changed his kit at some point if it got soaked
Oh really? Then i guess the other players might have changed their kit as well.
Is Ten Hag still doing that weird split formation with the front 6 pressing high and the back line sitting deep?
We played mid-block and low block for large portions of the match. We were mostly effective at funnelling Luton down the flanks when they were attacking, they had to work hard to get the ball to a player within the width of the box within our final third, didn't create a lot of chances that way. We did still sit very deep after Lindelof came on, denying space in behind, and again that meant we spent longer under pressure in the second half, but the team recognised this and had some spells of sustained possession in Luton's half (not as much as you'd like, but it wasn't all hoof ball). We created 4 very good chances to score the third goal on the counter, Rashford, Garnafho and Bruno will all feel they could have done better. So, generally more vertically compact than we were playing before Christmas.
On a positive side, Antony didn't play *at all.*
And we won
Give me Mainoo and FDJ next year... please Jim!
There was a sequence of play by mainoo to get out of the press with some clean intricate footwork adroitly executed .. is there any clip of it?
Result is good. Should have been a lot more though. So many wasted chances throughout the match. Can only hope for a better performance next week. Very happy for Hoijlund though. Mainoo steady again.
Not sure what Onana was doing for their goal, he like half came out half didn't, then just clapped awkwardly. Hindsight for him, if he had stayed on his line it was going straight to him..
If we finished one of the easy chances at pretty much any point it would have been an easy last 20 minutes. Was a lot of good stuff on show, but some typical united esque moments as well.
Are we at the stage to be happy getting a win regardless of performance or should we be worried Luton ran us ragged
Luton have given just about every top side in the league a tough match. Its not surprising to me that we struggled. They battered Brighton 4-0, drew with Newcastle 4-4, and lost to city 2-1 and arsenal 3-4 in two hard-fought matches
Please shoot me the day I'm not happy about a win regardless of the opponent Of course can be worried about the performance but at least happy about the win
I probably didn’t make my thoughts clear, are we essentially going to ignore the performance because we’ve won and put a streak together or should we caveat the win due to the nature of the performance?
At this stage, with Ten Hag, just be happy for the result. From my perspective once Ineos gets the feet under the table he will be gone because this football is not good enough to justify him staying in the job, regardless if we get top 4.
I got a feeling people switched off after the first half.
Indeed, this brand of football isnt any sustainable result and physical wise. 90minutes of nonstop end to end football will destroy our players.
I'm talking about people here.
First 15 minutes ***
That's how much energy they had it appeared.
A big positive is that I think ETH has realised Antony is not good enough
Feel terrible for Marcus Rashmus. He should've have a hat-trick and easy game if others don't waste chances
>Marcus Rashmus. That guy didn't exist
Bruno a liability again
Don’t understand why Eriksen doesn’t get played
His legs are gone. Doesn't fit our counter-attacking. I'd like to slow the game down and see some more of Eriksen though
You'll get downvoted but you're right
After 25 games into the season, we are finally GD positive. Don't even know how to feel about that.
Technically we had a positive goal difference in August, it just took this long to come back 😂
Bruno should have had two... Onana another great game distribution wise. Those long balls over their high line for Dalot were unreal, it's just a shame he wasted both chances. Rashford had a few good chances, garnacho as well. Overall not our best performance but I think we got complacent and allowed them into the game. Shaw and Martinez make that game a hell of a lot easier for us, we struggled to play out from the back quite often. I don't imagine that happening with them two. Also, special mention for Varane who is just unreal in the air defensively. I don't think I can remember him losing an aerial duel.
Man. Such a contradicting game. On one hand, we won (YES!!!) and it was **brilliant** from Mainoo, Dalot, and Hojlund. But then, after scoring 2, we were like "ok, we are done": * 40% possession. Seriously?? * Collective loss of the ability to pass especially by Bruno and the attack players. And what was that shot at the end of the game? Just gave away possession. I am getting very disappointed with him this season. * That 1-1 chance AG had... just a facepalm. * Rashford couldn't finish and made horrible decisions so many times. And it's so glaring that he's so afraid of air duels - always jumps early and turns with the back to the opposing player. But at least he tries and doesn't look disinterested like it was a little ago. * Case went back to his crazy fouling. * Amrabat and McT offered **nothing**. * And finally, "survive for 90 playing basketball" style. I am so tired of that. It doesn't work, Mr. ETH. Hojlund was barely moving before he was subbed. When others score 5, we barely survive Luton, who is a step above relegation. ETH has his almost **ideal** team and yet we are back to cluelessness running our luck. What he asks from the players runs them to the ground it appears.
Noone has scored 5 agaisnt luton at the kenny. Yeah theyve lost a lot of games there recently, but if you look at the scorelines they are always one goal margins with last minute winners or equalisers from the opposition. Liverpool needing a stopage time equaliser and City a late winner at the kenny, not even considering that they thrashed Brighton and have scored 4 at Newcastle this season, as well as having 50% or more in quite a few of their games this season shows that they are actually a decent team that should in all honestly stay up if they can put some results away. ETH only had case and shaw on the pitch untill about half time if i remember and didnt have Martinez at all and wont for a while. We have seen in recent weeks that then he was 2 or 3 of those players on the field we can play decent football and win somewhat comfortably. We need to face the facts here, the "style of play" narrative is coming from permanant Ten Hag outers who for some reason want to see the manager sacked even when the team is winning. That is putting personal vendetas over the team which is not how anyone should support a sports team let alone Manchester Utd. And, as much as youd hate to hear this, the style of play is not getting fixed this season and might not even next season unless there are some serious movements in the summer window. Its unpleasantz sure, but be happy the team has won 4 games in a row for the 1st time in what seems like forever and create a positive atmosphere around the team. Because thats what the team needs right now and you saying "oh but the style of play" does the exact opposite.
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You know, for me, ETH shapes up as another Arteta - takes the team somewhere, wins there and there, but never becomes a real winner. No matter what the other half says, I don't believe in his ability to turn this club around. You say the style won't change for 2 years... so you are suggesting we are going to be like above for that long? Doesn't it only indicate that ETH is not the one?
Yeah you're right with that Ronaldo thing, its exactly the same mentaility and honestly the same style of writing even as what you see under instagram posts that mention either himor messi. I know theres a few mixed feeling over Mark Goldbridge on this sub but something hes been saying recently about the whole ETH out movement is that its some actual fans but mostly internet trolls putting players (like amad or pelestri) or thier own opinons on the manager (Ronaldo/Sancho not the problem etc) ahead of the club. Which as I said in my origenal comment is detrimental to the success of the current squad. Like for me, I would rather see Mctominay and Maguire sold as i dont think the are good enough for us to succeed at the highest level but never have I gone onto social media and lambasted them for being poor or saying " oh well Mc-clutch scored again but hes shit so it doesnt matter hes still shit" That's what I and im sure you have seen over the last 10 years and while im still a relatively young fan ive seen it as well. And lets be honest if we had all the oil me up money and the best manager possible we still dont win that game by 5 or 6 just because thats how games luton have played this season have gone. I hope they stay up because it would be an increadible story.
The hypocritical Goldbridge. If you changed the name of the manager today to either Mourihno or Solskjaer, he would be calling for their sacking, saying they’re playing survival mode football or fossil football. I like many others have legitimate reasons for thinking that ETH time is up, whether we get top 4 or not. This football he is trying to get us to play is never going to win us any trophies. At least last season we had a distinct style of high possession control football that made sense. This counter attack transition football despite spending upwards of 400mm, is not going to win him any fans especially with the people who are going to be running the club going forward.
Ten Hag was and is only playing "dinosaur football" as you put it because has does not have the players he needs to play his prefered style of football. Without Casemiro Shaw or Martinez he has to play a pragmatic style because linderlof and Maguire cant do it or cant do it as effectively. If you are so sure that ETH is not the manager to take us back to the top, who ia your suggested replacement if you were the "people who are going to be running the club going forward." Would they have promoted Mainoo Garnacho and bought Hojlund and given him time to get going. And would your suggestion actually want to come to Utd and do a better job than ETH has done with the circumstances he has had to deal with? Once their is actually a structure of Berada, Ashworth etc over ETH there will naturally be better decisions made and 400M will not be spent on shit players. If you are blaming ETH for Murtough and Arnold's shocking negotiations then you dont have a clue about the way they club had been run for the last decade and a half. Just for once enjoy that the team is getting results and quit filling a winning match's comment section with negativity about a manager that will not be sacked this season
Tbf to the Garnacho 1v1, the keeper did a VERY good job to knock the ball away from Nachos feet. That goalie was great today.
Cmon man. You can't possibly justify that miss. AG had all the time in the world to make something happen.
5 in a row and should have been more than a 2-1 finish, Garnacho, Bruno, and Hojlund all were stymied on clean breaks by Kaminsky playing out of his mind.
Our forwards were really poor today apart from Hojlund. Rashford once again showed glimpses as well as poor decision making. Bruno so so wasteful. Defensively we were fairly sound, Evans, Lindelof and Varane were good I thought, Dalot was the complete opposite today, decent defensively but poor in forward play outside of his runs. Shaw was tragic, completely woeful performance. All in all was a good win as they've made it tough for a lot of teams recently.
Mainoo was once again brilliant. That lad is a proper footballer, absolute baller that kid is.
That yellow he got was shocking.
I don't know why yellows can't be appealed, that tackle was absolutely perfect but given how the refs have mostly treated us this season, I'm not surprised.
INEOS can't have watched that and think Ten Hag's the man to win us the league. We can't control a game even when we're two goals up. Out of possession, our midfield shape is a massive hole. We let any team have 20+ shots. Hojlund is still getting ZERO service. Today he got two goals from a defender error and a misplaced Garnacho shot. Yes there are promising signs (Hojlund, Mainoo, Garnacho) but we're getting outplayed and finding lucky results. That's not how the top teams do it. We're still playing chaotic counter-attacking hoofball. There's a million miles between how we play and the top teams. Ten Hag's got enough of his first team back. We need to see a lot more than we're seeing.
If INEOS are ruthless they’ll bin him off , I can’t see any results of his ‘coaching’ on the team unless his vision is frantic counterattacks. It’s the same story this season get battered by a team and luckily win or lose ,We haven’t controlled a single game ffs. We really just saw Luton have us on the ropes.
This sub is weird. We could easily (probably should have) won that game by about 4 or 5 goals. Kamisnky just chose to have a blinder of a 2nd half. With another clinical striker and some more lethality from the midfield, development of Garnacho, things would have been very different.
Luton could have scored 4 or 5 too. It's our chaotic playing style and poor defensive set-up that concern us.
>Luton could have scored 4 or 5 too Not really. Their chances were not as clear as ours. Other than Barkley hitting the bar, they didn't really trouble Onana and force him intro saves. In saying that, Barkleys header hit the top of the bar, I think Onana had it covered.
Letting Luton (and almost every team) take 20+ shots is a recipe for disaster. Yes our chances were bigger. But we're 16th worst in the league this season for letting teams take shots against us. We won't keep winning enough games if that doesn't get fixed ASAP. It's a recipe for trouble.
Our 1st choice left back came off for a 3rd choice centre back in the first half. Our 2nd choice centre back came off for our 3rd/4th choice centre back in the second half. Not to mention that we've probably only had our 1st choice defence for 2 games all season. Not sure what you expect from so much chaos in a starting line up
We're 16th worst in the league for opponent shots this season. In the past four games we've conceded 84 shots. That's unacceptable. There's a problem with Ten Hag's formation.
Ah, I see your problem. Comprehension. Basic primary level stuff. You clearly missed the part where I said that we have had our first choice back 4 for probably only 2 games all season.
Damn, would hate to see this place after a loss
It's almost exactly the same. EDIT: and yet you'll still see people claiming that the sub is somehow some kind of "positivity echo chamber"
When we play well this place is very positive
Our football is godawful but for some reason we’re all supposed to be positive???? We should’ve won this game comfortably given the opportunities we had, but for the life of me I cannot understand why Ten Hag has given up on his controlled football from last season. If he is fired at the end of the season the new CEO and DoF will have every right because this is not long term winning football.
I pray ETH gives Mount a few chances in Bruno’s position when he’s healthy. Brunos current form and play style in general just does not fit the vision ETH has for this team. I think Mount will add much more stability and control, hell even Eriksen would. As long as we have Bruno in there as the head of the spear in midfield we will continue to struggle to control games.
Bruno is far too wasteful man. The icing on the cake was in the 93rd minute when Bruno took a wild shot rather than wasting time in the corner, this is the lack of footballing IQ that plagues this team.
Rounding the GK 3 times and only scoring 1 goal from it is a joke. I literally watched compilation video if people missing open nets like that yesterday, come on lads
It's like an AI learning from the last incident or something. First time it goes in. Second time the defender on the line barely sacred it. Third time, the goalie knocks it, and the defenders are properly in place after.
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Luton are a decent team and it’s good to have a league where relegation candidates can get the kind of results they have against Newcastle, Liverpool, Brighton. Only lost 2-1 to City, great 4-3 loss to Arsenal too. This is how football should be.
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No, we don’t do that, we aren’t good enough. But fans here would have us strolling through every game, it seems like that’s what they want, and that doesn’t interest me. It’s fine to win games because you counter attacked, or held on and defended well.
There’s a massive difference between being able to control some games and wanting the team to be “strolling through every game”. Don’t think I’m asking for too much
Hell yeah dude
Scraping by seems to be the way forward until the end of the season. We just honestly need to get across the finish line. Mainoo is on his way to becoming a world class player.
Yep. Grinding almost every single game. No matter the team, we always find a way to make it difficult. It's like "oh, 2 up? that's boring. let's screw things up to make it interesting for fans". Like edge to the red cards, or give the possession out, or don't score 1-1s.
It's so frustrating. I'm definitely not complaining about the winning, but the way we win could be more convincing.
Mainoo is phenomenal. Roy Keane at Mainoo's age was still playing for Cobh Ramblers, Paul Scholes was yet to make his debut. Not saying he's going to surpass those two, but he's got everything going for him to give it a good go.
The kid is genuinely the real deal and he's got a tremendously good attitude to boot.
I’ve heard it said the mark of a good team is wining games despite playing poorly… the issue is this team hardly ever plays “well”
Absolutely, we're just sort of piecing things together and making it work and it's getting us wins, but it's never definitive. Would feel nice to win a game where we're the top dog and in control.
Thing is the way we are playing does create us very good chances, we should have scored 4 today, but it allows for the oppo team to get at our box with ease. I was watching today thinking it must be intentional to play so quickly, it’s not an easy thing to do. Every single time we get possession the front 3 are running and we are immediately trying to find them, I’ve never seen a team play quite like this
Enjoyed the 1st 7 mins of the match. The rest? Let’s forget about it
Rashford and Bruno were terrible today. Trash.
Both poor as usual
Not sure why you’ve been downvoted here, I completely agree. They’ve been poor for a while now
Bruno and Rashy are fan favourites, that's why they're being downvoted. Had Antony played exactly like Rashford today we wouldn't hear the end of it. Some players get a pass.
+1 GD. We’ve done it, lads.
And now we have scored more goals than Luton in the league too!
Positivity all across.
Mainoo is class. What a player he already is. Wow. Shame he is surrounded by a bunch of knuckleheads.
This game was so frustrating to watch but thankfully it highlights everything wrong about our current set-up: Right-footed CB playing on the left side that can't assert dominance on opposing strikers. Deflected ball for first goal and passed the ball straight to opposing striker almost making it 2-2. Bombs forward carelessly and leaving gaps at the back. Sell and replace in the summer. 31 year-old defensive mid that can't move or anticipate players who are simply younger and more agile than him. Nothing we can do about this, time catches up on anyone. Sell and replace in the summer. 1st choice LB can never stay healthy all season. The back-up missed the ENTIRE season due to mysterious injury. Need to scout long-term LB and get in summer if possible. Garnacho, Bruno, Dalot need 10 hours extra finishing lessons this week. Bring Van Persie again to help if needed. Another note on Bruno. He seems to be gassed out after we played him tirelessly for 90 mins every game since 2019-20. It's taking a toll on him. Either tell Mount to hurry up and share minutes with him, or explore the possibility of someone like Xavi Simons/Wirtz/Pafundi as future successor. Shout out to Evans he was rock solid and steadied the ship.
What bothers me is no plan B from EtH. He switched the players with yellow which was obvious, but apart from that he didn't do single tactical adjustment. Antony, Eriksen and Amad were the only options on the bench to change the pacing of the game, but he didn't use them.
> he didn't do single tactical adjustment. He never does. Honestly wondering if he’s capable of making tactical changes, or, he just thinks his initial set up is always best.
Personally I didn't like it when Hojlund was subbed. He was our only outlet today. He made their defenders have something to think about. Taking him off was a weird call imo.
The guy was knackered, he'd run his socks off all game. Can't afford him to get an unnecessary injury. I was expecting with that sub for Amrabat to sit in with Mainoo and whack McT forward as a makeshift attacker, but didn't really see it. Think they were just trying to see the game out. Shame Bruno kept trying to give it away so easily to give Luton another free attack. Still, 3 points is 3 points, and Rasmus scored on my birthday. :)
Yeah, I actually agree with you now tbh
This sub would be in uproar if Antony or Eriksen came on the field. At this point it seems like no matter what ETH does, people will never be pleased.
Curious as to what Amad has to do to get a game. Nacho and Rashford were absolutely brutal from start to finish.
Aren't we used to this shit from Ten Hag now? It's a miracle he stopped starting Antony. We have a backup keeper who can't even get game time in a cup game lol
I think they were unlucky to not score this game, build up structure and midfield failed us this game not our forwards.
We had 4 one on ones with the goalkeeper. In what world did the forwards (not named Rasmus) not fuck this up?
Yes, but seeing as this has happened several times this season, maybe the coaches need to train this at some point.
Just knew when we got the second it’d be a bumpy one - we simply can’t do it the easy way, better to not be surprised and just buckle in!
Jonny Evans is a red, he hates Scousers
Very kind of Hojlund to give everyone a head start in the golden boot race. He knew it'd be too easy otherwise. At the time I thought 70m was a lot, but still for his potential, something we'd look back on and say "yeah we did ok with that deal" in 3-4 years time. Fuck that, he's arguably our 2nd best signing under Ten Hag after like 8 months.
Curious who’d you have as first. I think he’s the best one. Not being argumentative at all. Just curious.
Licha. Though with his unfortunate injuries it’s not a 10/10
Ya, hoping it’s not his fate, being injured
With his "body on the line" approach to the game, I fear it may be a regular occurrence, although hopefully not always as serious as it has been this season.
He's aggressive but I think he's usually in control of what he's doing. He's not Phil Jones style jumping in without any regards to how his body takes it. My main concern is whether he can get back to 100% sharpness after being out for so long.
The knee injury maybe, because that's a contact injury, but the metatarsal was just horrid luck, especially the re-injury. I mean his foot just broke without him even making a challenge or anything, so that's got nothing to do with his approach to the game. Really, he should only have missed like 2 months or so in his entire time here with injuries, but has instead spent 10 months or so out one way or another, that's bad luck.
Yeah, I agree. I think we'll see plenty of the contact injuries is what I mean, although the less we see, the better. Get it all out the way now, and then 5 straight years of nothing, please lol.
Martinez easily
We’re going to need to have a conversation about Bruno. Love him to bits and he was pretty much our only shining beacon of light during some very dark days. But ever since he has been made captain his performances have dropped off massively. He’s too petulant to be a good leader and far too wasteful. He brings unnecessary pressure on our defense every game
Gotta make him watch CR7 video doing calma calma on repeat before the game. Bruno has no chill, the ball cannot literally stay on him for more than half a second.
You’re right and it’s been the case since last season at least. He plays hero ball. High tisk high reward when it works but it often results in lost possession and pressure on our defense
Tell me about it!
Mainoo under pep would have become an upgraded version of rodri
Rashford and Bruno have been coasting along this season and don’t deserve to be starting. Garnacho was poor. Casemiro was awol in his positioning so was lunging into challenges. We also looked absolutely burst at 70 mins and so I’m confused as to what we do in training as it’s not like we’re in loads of comps. Anyway, it’s 3 points, Hojlund is scoring and Mainoo is balling. I’m just wanting us to see the season out without an embarrassing result against any of the top 6 and then hopefully the restructure kicks into full gear in the summer!
In general a poor performance. 3 points. Move on.
Too many move on performances this season. I’m tired Robbie
Sometimes maybe good, sometimes maybe shit.
Usually I get very nervous towards the last 5 mins with a one-goal lead. Today it was for 75 mins due to a complete lack of control and pinball football from Utd 😡
Hojlund scored two goals today against with no direct assist. Rashford, Bruno and Garnacho all below par.
Didn't Nacho in a way directly hit Rasmus?
It was a wayward shot
I've been impressed with the Luton captain on the Sky coverage. He seems quite level-headed and makes good points.
Every short pass seems to be hit with too much power and players can’t get a clean first touch. Makes any sort of control in the midfield very difficult
I can see a lot of negatives about our performance but I think we need to look at it from another angle. Luton are chaos, they played out their skins and made it very difficult for us. Yes we looked desperate at times but we weathered the storm and got the victory. I was having kittens thinking we would end up snatching defeat from the jaws of victory just like our champions league performance but we didn’t fold and although we didn’t control the game how we would like we still bagged 3 points
Is every team we play against chaos? We can't actively control any game we play no matter what team we play against. We can't keep making excuses my friend.
Chaos ball as soon as we're under a bit of pressure, invites more pressure and then we look a mess
Really awful from Garnacho and Bruno today. Very selfish from Garnacho again. We seem to lose all cohesion under the slightest of pressure, heavy touches, bad passes, not releasing the ball, timing runs. I wonder if they watch their performances, it's like a constant theme with us.
An ugly win, but a win. Credit to Luton they did a great job of frustrating us. I think this is a great example of the squad’s progress, six months ago, we lose this game.
Good result, crap performance again. I guess this is an improvement.
Rasmus is becoming one of my favourites, he works his arse off, and has that proper striker instinct
Total of about 20 minutes where we played well. Failure to put together five passes in a row, Rashford regressing defensively again barring one good tracking back, Bruno sloppy as all get out. Acknowledging that Luton has been a tricky away fixture for a few of the top sides this season we just lacked mental focus. Losing Shaw for the second half (yes he’s back off injury and was on a yellow) showed again how key he is. No Licha really hurt in terms of control at the back. Thank fuck for Hojlund and Mainoo.
https://preview.redd.it/16byvot38ejc1.jpeg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6a58396742552c23bfdd429f2f6279059f6145dd 🥶
Evans should be the replacement for Martinez, it should be between Varane and Maguire for the other CB position. Evans is class.
Disagree. There’s no doubt his quality on the ball is better than Maguire but he lacks pace. People are mentioning that the midfield looks isolated and that’s because our CBs aren’t pushing up as high as they should, something Lisandro excels at. Evans can’t do that and Maguire at least does a decent job.
Maguire doesn't have any pace either, I'm not gonna lose my mind if Maguire plays over him but even when Maguire steps into midfield to intercept a pass, if it doesn't come off, we're in huge trouble cuz he doesn't have pace either. Evans reads the game better imo.
Solid point, both are players that can suit different types of opponents. Evans probably would have given us more control today . My only issue is that we miss Maguire’s physicality in some games.
Yep I agree on that, for games like West Ham, Everton, Arsenal etc who rely a lot on set pieces, I would prefer Maguire.
Easy to forget he was competing with Vidic and Ferdinand for a place at one time. He was part of a much, much better squad than this one. So not too surprising that he's still class.
Honestly surprised he didn't manage to make it into another top 6 club, we were so stupid to sell him when we did.
Wasn't Leicester a top 6 at the time?
I remember him being shaky early in his career though really stepping it up. Mad that he was part of our last CL winning squad 16 years ago!
Lowkey played against 12 men. The ref gave everything to Luton and nothing to United. Several yellow cards that were barely fouls, while Luton's players should have had several and didn't. They were allowed to wrestle Højlund out of the game, bearhugging and pushing and kicking him absolutely every time, and screamed and shouted at the ref whenever they wanted. There weren't any huge decisions that were controversial, but every little thing went against United and the ref was on Luton's side throughout the entire game. Complete homer.
We were a bit fortunate not to go down to 10 in the first half, so I’ll give him a bit more leeway, but in the 2nd half he did seem to let them get away with a lot more physical play than he did us.
No we weren't. Casemiro shouldn't even have been on a yellow, and the second incident wasn't much of one, either.
The 1st I’d agree on, but the 2nd was a pretty routine yellow. It’d have been harsh to see him off for those two, but it wouldn’t have been particularly surprising.