In a season of lows, yet another to add to the collection, it wasn't just the result, bad enough as that was, yet again it was the performance, the lack of fight, the seeming inevitability of a bad ending. We never really got going. Darmian who had another stinker, gave away a needless free kick and they we conceded a soft as fuck set piece that went straight in after just a couple of minutes.
Some have tried to make a case that we weren't too bad in the first half, really? When that equaliser came, it was pretty unexpected to me. It was a great finish from Martial who once again was our only real threat up front and that was only sporadic and confined to the first 45 minutes. Rooney never got into the game, Mata was heavily involved for most of that first half, seeing a lot of the ball and having a couple of half decent chances. But is that really enough against a team second from bottom and struggling badly. And not unexpectedly to me, when the going got tough during the second half he completely disappeared. Gary Neville was spot on the money, he isn't a Manchester United player. Maybe I'm being a bit harsh picking on him as nobody else performed or stood up to be counted, but I'm fed up of hearing people say if we carry on with him at number ten we can build a team around him, no, no, no! And another thing that I've probably said a million times before is that the combination of Mata and Rooney is just so fucking slow, going forwards slow, no balls over the top with those two and slow as in pressing the opposition centre backs, they get such an easy ride against us. Seeing Welbeck yesterday return for Arsenal will only rub that in over the next couple of months.
Losing Darmian was only a blow in the sense of having to waste a replacement on him, he was as big a liability as Love appeared to be when he came on, at least Love didn't cost anything. We were lost in central midfield, Carrick didn't have his best game, but Schneiderlin had yet another stinker. With every appearance he looks less and less a Manchester United player. I suppose we'll find out when the current manager departs the scene, it could be that he's yet another player unable to express himself under the Dutch fraud. But on the evidence we have seen so far it looks to me as if he is just not good enough with the ball at his feet. He certainly doesn't look like a long term replacement for Carrick, which means going forward we still need two class central midfield players. Add that to the list of players needed in the summer.
The only positive I could take from Saturday was the performance of Borthwick-Jackson, reasonably calm at the back and once again he delivered a couple of great crosses and set up Martial near the end with one of our best chances of the match.
Once again the replacement of Lingard, who wasn't great, with Martial against a team fighting for their lives was nuts, but what else do we expect from Van Gaal. It summed him up when he brought Will Keane on after they took the lead when he should have been brought on ten minutes earlier just to try and inject something, anything into our spluttering front line.
Of course what made this performance even worse, was knowing what an important game it was in the hunt for that fourth spot. That seems an ever more forlorn hope given results and performances like this allied to the run of game coming up.
Some have tried to make a case that we weren't too bad in the first half, really? When that equaliser came, it was pretty unexpected to me. It was a great finish from Martial who once again was our only real threat up front and that was only sporadic and confined to the first 45 minutes. Rooney never got into the game, Mata was heavily involved for most of that first half, seeing a lot of the ball and having a couple of half decent chances. But is that really enough against a team second from bottom and struggling badly. And not unexpectedly to me, when the going got tough during the second half he completely disappeared. Gary Neville was spot on the money, he isn't a Manchester United player. Maybe I'm being a bit harsh picking on him as nobody else performed or stood up to be counted, but I'm fed up of hearing people say if we carry on with him at number ten we can build a team around him, no, no, no! And another thing that I've probably said a million times before is that the combination of Mata and Rooney is just so fucking slow, going forwards slow, no balls over the top with those two and slow as in pressing the opposition centre backs, they get such an easy ride against us. Seeing Welbeck yesterday return for Arsenal will only rub that in over the next couple of months.
Losing Darmian was only a blow in the sense of having to waste a replacement on him, he was as big a liability as Love appeared to be when he came on, at least Love didn't cost anything. We were lost in central midfield, Carrick didn't have his best game, but Schneiderlin had yet another stinker. With every appearance he looks less and less a Manchester United player. I suppose we'll find out when the current manager departs the scene, it could be that he's yet another player unable to express himself under the Dutch fraud. But on the evidence we have seen so far it looks to me as if he is just not good enough with the ball at his feet. He certainly doesn't look like a long term replacement for Carrick, which means going forward we still need two class central midfield players. Add that to the list of players needed in the summer.
The only positive I could take from Saturday was the performance of Borthwick-Jackson, reasonably calm at the back and once again he delivered a couple of great crosses and set up Martial near the end with one of our best chances of the match.
Once again the replacement of Lingard, who wasn't great, with Martial against a team fighting for their lives was nuts, but what else do we expect from Van Gaal. It summed him up when he brought Will Keane on after they took the lead when he should have been brought on ten minutes earlier just to try and inject something, anything into our spluttering front line.
Of course what made this performance even worse, was knowing what an important game it was in the hunt for that fourth spot. That seems an ever more forlorn hope given results and performances like this allied to the run of game coming up.
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