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Don't like what you are reading? Simple, dont open it!

I call it how it is and reality of the squad is misery. Can't handle that? Don't open the thread.

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I like what im reading between all of your miserable *****ing. The reality of this squad is not miserable its actually quite simple we dont have the top end players yet to be where we need to be. You have *****ed and moaned like a whiny little twit since day one of LVG and given him no chance. Some of us on here realize where Manchester United were before Sir Alex and are quite thankful for our long long run at the top. I can live with a few down years becuase i know that United is now a super club that will be back bit everythimg takes time.

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De Gea, RVP, Falcao, Di Maria, Rooney, Fellaini, Blind, Rojo, etc are not top end players? Come on...Man U has more talent than anyone in the EPL outside of Chelsea and possibly City/Arsenal. They haven't played well together yet but the talent is certainly there

Mata, Valencia, Herrera and Rafael to add to the list.

Fellaini, Blind, Rojo are not really top end players.

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Mata, Valencia, Herrera and Rafael to add to the list.

Fellaini, Blind, Rojo are not really top end players.

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I was just naming World Cup starters off the top of my head but fair enough

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Mata, Valencia, Herrera and Rafael to add to the list.

Fellaini, Blind, Rojo are not really top end players.

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I was just naming World Cup starters off the top of my head but fair enough

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Either way, the talent is there. LvG just doesn't know how to get the best out of his players.

From the outside, I see it as "SAF is a freaking legend and now you're learning what life is like without one of the greatest managers in world football at the helm."

And to say the talent isn't there is just silly.

There is plenty of talent on the team but it's not exactly well distributed. Di Maria, Rooney, De Gea...world class or near it anyway.

Great teams (or top 4 teams) aren't so unbalanced and that's something that I actually agree with LvG on. Looking back at the late SAF years, the quality was much more evenly distributed. VDS was one of the best goalies in the league. Rio and Vidic were arguably the best CBs in the league. Scholes, while aging, still controlled a game like no one else. Evra was one of the best LBs in the league. Rooney, Tevez, Ronaldo, Berbatov and, later, RvP all played a role in winning between 2008 and 2012.

But they have a man who was bought as a replacement for Cristiano Ronaldo playing right back! Smalling, Jones and Evans are average at best and even when they are good, they are inconsistent. Shaw is still very young. Rojo, I think, is one of their better defenders but his talent isn't enough to offset the others. Fellaini is OK for what he is but is he an elite attacking mid...the position he's been playing in?

Ok let me correct the top end players to run his system are not there. We have no quality midfielders and it has shown this year we have a bunch of forwards and defenders and sub par midfielders. That is not a recipi for success in the EPL

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Ok let me correct the top end players to run his system are not there. We have no quality midfielders and it has shown this year we have a bunch of forwards and defenders and sub par midfielders. That is not a recipi for success in the EPL

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Begs the question. Why play a system that the squad can't support?

What SAF did at Manchester United and Aberdeen is incredible.

• In ~75 years pre-SAF, Aberdeen won 1 Scottish Championship and 2 Scottish Cups
  
• In 8 years under SAF, Aberdeen won 3 Scottish Championships and 4 Scottish Cups, 1 European Cup Winner's Cup, and 1 European Super Cup
• In ~30 years post-SAF, Aberdeen won 0 Scottish Championships and 1 Scottish Cup

It is amazing how there are certain coaches in sports (SAF, John Wooden, Nick Saban. etc.) who always get the best out of their players and always compete for championships, year in and year out. It's going to be pretty hard for anyone to live up to that, including LVG.

What system can he support? Honest question because I don't know. If you were to pick his top 5 players based on reputation, potential, etc. who would it be? Not necessarily who has played best this year but who are the most talented even if they've struggled this year. My guess is it goes something like this:

De Gea
Rooney
Di Maria
Falcao
RvP
Mata (a 6th thrown in for fun)

After that, the talent drops to players who have potential to be top talents but aren't yet (Herrera, maybe Shaw) and then you have players who will never be top talents (everyone else). That list of 6 is way too offensively focused. He can't even put his 6 most talented players on the field and the other 20 players (or whatever) aren't at the same level of talent. It's an unbalanced squad. No matter what formation he throws out there, it's going to have 3 or 4 substandard defenders. No getting around that.

Also, I don't buy the World Cup argument. Anyone who thinks Fellaini is elite because he played in a World Cup is kidding themselves. He's not horrible but he's not elite. And he's definitely not elite in the position he plays in.

No one is asking LvG to do what SAF did. All I am asking is for him to put some resemblance of a team on the pitch.

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De Gea
Rooney
Di Maria
Falcao
RvP
Mata (a 6th thrown in for fun)

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The thing that's frustrating is that this set of players should be able to score. I get the lack of solid defenders and def mids on this team and that hampers getting the ball in good position to the front half but that set of players you have listed should be scoring more than they are. For some reason they aren't. That's what's frustrating.

Edit: yes I know DeGea can't score

The squad may be unbalanced but there is still some quality players at his disposal. So why not this?

------------------Rooney----RVP/Falcao-----------------
Young--Mata/ADM---Herrera/Fellaini---ADM/Valencia
Shaw------Rojo--------------Smalling------------Rafael

Want to provide more midfield dominance?

--------------------------Rooney-----------------------------
Young------ADM------Mata-----Herrera---Valencia
Shaw------Rojo--------------Smalling------------Rafael

Rojo is our best CB, yet LVG puts him at LB.
Smalling is ahead of Evans and Jones at CB.

Young and Valencia on the wings with both having the ability to push forward and track back during defense with Di Maria and Mata/Herrera to provide a creative push and control midfield and link up with the defense while releasing pressure on the CBs.

Edit - Rooney should always be a striker and has proven to score goals when he had been pushed up.
Edit 2 - Valencia is not a RB and should never be our primary RB.

The reason why you will not see that lineup ever used is because LVG is sacrificing attacking midfielders in order to try and project a very weak back line. ADM, Mata and Herrera don't provide any defensive help.

problem is, even when he goes all defensive, the players brain lock with the back passing leading to all kind of chances for opponents. Just think how bad it would be with out De Gea.

The idea here is dominate the possession in midfield vs dominating possession via the CBs. Will there be counter attacks versus the weak backline? Sure, but with an overloaded midfield you can keep Shaw and Rafael slightly back to help the CBs with the pace of counter attacks.

Stay classy.

Manchester United fans shout obscene and sexist chants

(Note: I'm sure all posters here would agree this is disgusting)

Smalling drives me nuts; I find him to be technically challenged and quite possibly one of the least soccer - savy players on the field. Give me Rojo, Jones, Evans then Smalling.

I'd like to politely request that you remove him from any projected lineups. Actually, please keep Evans off the field as well.

Double post.

GGMU.

------------------------Rooney----RVP----------------------
Young/Di Mara---Mata---Fellaini---------Valencia
Shaw------------Rojo-----------Smalling---------Rafael

or

------------------Rooney------RVP-------------------------
---------------------------Mata-------------------------------
Young/Di Mara-------------------Valencia------------
-------------------------Carrick-------------------------------
Shaw--------Rojo--------------Smalling---------Rafael

Januzaj, Herrera, Blind, Fellaini & Di Mara can interchange in the mid.

Jones, Smalling & Evans can interchange in the D.

Nuff said

BTW...Loved seeing Chelsea cringe yesterday! And the soft red card - how they all 10 players were whining to the ref! haha lil **tches!

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------------------------Rooney----RVP----------------------
Young/Di Mara---Mata---Fellaini---------Valencia
Shaw------------Rojo-----------Smalling---------Rafael

or

------------------Rooney------RVP-------------------------
---------------------------Mata-------------------------------
Young/Di Mara-------------------Valencia------------
-------------------------Carrick-------------------------------
Shaw--------Rojo--------------Smalling---------Rafael

Januzaj, Herrera, Blind, Fellaini & Di Mara can interchange in the mid.

Jones, Smalling & Evans can interchange in the D.

Nuff said

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Those two lineups would get DOMINATED in the midfield. Mata is a liability defensively and simply can't cover enough ground.

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Those two lineups would get DOMINATED in the midfield. Mata is a liability defensively and simply can't cover enough ground.

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Obviously Mata is the point man...He sits right behind the 2 strikers. Where he should be starting every game.

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Stay classy.

Manchester United fans shout obscene and sexist chants

(Note: I'm sure all posters here would agree this is disgusting)

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I see what you did there.

Of course it is. Effing horrible. Sexism is an immense issue in sports in general. That **** would get said at pro sports game in the US too. Not excusing it at all but sexism, unfortunately, doesn't receive the attention that racism does...probably because there are a lot fewer women involved in the game than non-white people.

---------------------------Rooney-----------------
Young---------------Mata----------------Di Maria
-------------Herrera-----Fellaini--------------
Shaw---------Rojo----Jones-------Valencia

or

----------------------Rooney-------------------
Di Maria----------Mata-----------Young/Valencia
--------------Herrera-----Fellaini-------------
Rojo-------Smalling---Jones------Rafael

LvG is close, but he'll never throw this out there.

I feel bad for Rafael but a team whose CBs struggle and doesn't have a great defensive midfielder to shield the back 4 can't afford to play a RB who is much better attacking than he is defending. You could play him at RB instead of Valencia if you play Young/Valencia at right winger and tell him to help Rafael.

But if you do that, you have to move Di Maria either 1) to the bench or more desirably to the left...where Shaw is. Shaw , IMO, is Rafael but English. Good going forward (though not as good as Rafael) but lacking defensively. Shaw and Di Maria would get murdered on the left. So if you have Di Maria on the left, you have to put Rojo on the left and bring Smalling in.

Herrera links the defense to Mata. Fellaini is told to stay the **** back and try to help the defense...and don't foul everything that moves. Notice how neither of these formations have RvP or Falcao in the equation...which is the problem as to which positions our best talent resides in.

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Stay classy.

Manchester United fans shout obscene and sexist chants

(Note: I'm sure all posters here would agree this is disgusting)

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I see what you did there.

Of course it is. Effing horrible. Sexism is an immense issue in sports in general. That **** would get said at pro sports game in the US too. Not excusing it at all but sexism, unfortunately, doesn't receive the attention that racism does...probably because there are a lot fewer women involved in the game than non-white people.

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To further the point, in general, I've heard **** said at EPL games that makes me cringe. Liverpool fans singing songs about Munich. United fans singing "Murderers" to Liverpool fans. ****ing revolting. When people in the UK complain about "real" fans being priced out of the game, I think "If that gets rid of these ****tards that think it's OK to sing and say these things than good...I'm all for it."

Fellaini is not mobile enough to be a good cdm nor is he a good enough distributor. Manu would not be able to string the defense to the attack.

Carrick is also not that mobile. Against Arsenal that would put Carrick up against Ozil & Santi which would be way too much for even a great cdm to handle.

Also Rooney and RVP are not long ball forwards and would not do well with the direct style Manu would have to play to alleviate pressure.

so you would rather have Fellaini playing a deep cdm over Blind? I thought Blind was a much better distributor of the ball than Fellaini.

Depends on what kind of deep CDM you want. Given our defensive frailty, ideally, I want a ball winner with range. Lateral range to cover the back line who rarely crosses far into the opponent's territory. That's Herrera's job. If he has passing ability, great but that's not my primary concern. As long as he can play the simple ball, I'm cool.

To be clear, that person doesn't exist on this roster. That person hasn't existed on this roster since Keane. At the moment, I'd say Fellaini is the closest but...given his propensity to foul I'd buy the argument that Blind is better suited. I'd take your suggestion and swap Fellaini with Blind.

I'd take Blind over Fellaini, Blind seems to be more calm on the ball and better with it at his feet.

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I see what you did there.

Of course it is. Effing horrible. Sexism is an immense issue in sports in general. That **** would get said at pro sports game in the US too. Not excusing it at all but sexism, unfortunately, doesn't receive the attention that racism does...probably because there are a lot fewer women involved in the game than non-white people.

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In my opinion sexism is a much, much more serious problem than racism in western society. We have rapists playing at the highest levels of sports leagues with no recourse, and an OU football player gets away with punching a woman in the face leaving her with:

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a fractured jaw, fractured cheek bone, fractured sinus, and fractured orbit which caused a hematoma on the left eye

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http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/ncaaf-dr-saturday/tape-of-suspended-ou-rb-joe-mixon-punching-woman-shown-to-media-183849393.html
Yet some idiot frat boys (similar to the idiot Chelsea fans) chant something stupid and racist, but relatively harmless, there is a media uproar.

But at the end of the day I think these "fans" are mostly doing it as a wind-up to piss people (mainly authority figures and the media) off.

Come on United!

just gonna state before the game starts for Dre and Datrixs. If you guys are gonna have a little girly squable fight all game please just start a seperate thread so yall dont degrade this thread for the people actually wanting to follow and discuss the game.

What in the holy **** is Phil Jones doing? Trying to score an own goal?

Fellaini!