I had hoped we may get one or two more youngsters into tonight's starting eleven, but being realistic, i suppose that was never on the cards. All the same it was a reasonably youthful team, half of which will hopefully be part of the post Ferguson era .
In situations like these i lways the think the main thing is the performance, more than the result. So whilst, yes i'm disappointed we lost the game, i'm more than satisfied with the performance, bar a cutting edge in the final third, they were more than a match for the home side.
I suppose if we were going to only have one of our real young guns from the reserves playing, then Powell was the one i would have wanted to see picked. Thankfully he didn't disappoint, he was excellent in the first half. Given a more advanced role than he has been given so far, he showed me, that he should have a big future with the club. If the header had gone in, instead of hitting the bar, it would have really capped things off for him. He drifted out of things in the second half as the pace caught up with him. He won't have played in an end to end game of that calibre before so it was understandable.
I thought Rafael, Jones Cleverley, Powell, Welbeck and Hernandez all pointed the way to a promising future, even if none had the perfect game, they all showed quality and character. I was very surprised to see Jones have such a good game and seemingly, last the full game without tiring at all after such a lengthy lay off. Again he wasn't perfect, he could have conceeded a needless penalty in the first half, but his performance was more than we had a right to expect after such little football over the last few months. If we can get Vidic back and keep the majority of our defenders fit for the remainder of the season, that will be a big boost for the latter stages of the campaign.
Their winner was a soft goal for us to concede, but i'm afraid playing Carrick at centre half does always seem to see us concede aerial goals from set plays, not that it the goal was his fault. Even though they hit the bar later, they never really looked like breaching our back line though we did come under heavy pressure for a spell at the beginning of the second period.
United managed to create their best chance of the second half not that long after going behind, but Hernandez wanted longer on the ball than the home defence were allowed to give him and his shot was blocked. We had more decent moments as the game wore on, but none quite as promising as that.
The substitutions flummoxed me, i've got to admit. It wasn't who was brought off, Anderson as usual never lasts the ninety minutes and Powell started to tire. Young was bound to come on, being the only experienced sub, though he couldn't manage to get in the game. My gripe was the sending on Macheda before Josh King, not only is King the better prospect, he's shown by far the better form for our reserve side this season. I'm not sure King will be United material, his finishing seems to have fallen away over the last couple of years. But he has definitely got enough talent that he ought to be given some sort of chance to show what he can do at first team level.
A decent night was made all the better with the news of Chelsea's seeming implosion in Turin. It's too early to count our chickens yet, but it would be hilarious if they do fail to go through to the next round. We all know they fluked their way to that trophy last season, so to see the team assembled now, which is far superior, going forward anyway, struggling to get past the group stages seems like Karma.
In situations like these i lways the think the main thing is the performance, more than the result. So whilst, yes i'm disappointed we lost the game, i'm more than satisfied with the performance, bar a cutting edge in the final third, they were more than a match for the home side.
I suppose if we were going to only have one of our real young guns from the reserves playing, then Powell was the one i would have wanted to see picked. Thankfully he didn't disappoint, he was excellent in the first half. Given a more advanced role than he has been given so far, he showed me, that he should have a big future with the club. If the header had gone in, instead of hitting the bar, it would have really capped things off for him. He drifted out of things in the second half as the pace caught up with him. He won't have played in an end to end game of that calibre before so it was understandable.
I thought Rafael, Jones Cleverley, Powell, Welbeck and Hernandez all pointed the way to a promising future, even if none had the perfect game, they all showed quality and character. I was very surprised to see Jones have such a good game and seemingly, last the full game without tiring at all after such a lengthy lay off. Again he wasn't perfect, he could have conceeded a needless penalty in the first half, but his performance was more than we had a right to expect after such little football over the last few months. If we can get Vidic back and keep the majority of our defenders fit for the remainder of the season, that will be a big boost for the latter stages of the campaign.
Their winner was a soft goal for us to concede, but i'm afraid playing Carrick at centre half does always seem to see us concede aerial goals from set plays, not that it the goal was his fault. Even though they hit the bar later, they never really looked like breaching our back line though we did come under heavy pressure for a spell at the beginning of the second period.
United managed to create their best chance of the second half not that long after going behind, but Hernandez wanted longer on the ball than the home defence were allowed to give him and his shot was blocked. We had more decent moments as the game wore on, but none quite as promising as that.
The substitutions flummoxed me, i've got to admit. It wasn't who was brought off, Anderson as usual never lasts the ninety minutes and Powell started to tire. Young was bound to come on, being the only experienced sub, though he couldn't manage to get in the game. My gripe was the sending on Macheda before Josh King, not only is King the better prospect, he's shown by far the better form for our reserve side this season. I'm not sure King will be United material, his finishing seems to have fallen away over the last couple of years. But he has definitely got enough talent that he ought to be given some sort of chance to show what he can do at first team level.
A decent night was made all the better with the news of Chelsea's seeming implosion in Turin. It's too early to count our chickens yet, but it would be hilarious if they do fail to go through to the next round. We all know they fluked their way to that trophy last season, so to see the team assembled now, which is far superior, going forward anyway, struggling to get past the group stages seems like Karma.
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