Young fully deserved both his yellows...but that ball played back to him that forced his desperate tackle did him no favors.

might be lucky to get a tie....

edit: might be will be lucky to get a tie....

Again, it's not like we aren't creating chances. Heads up lads!

Frustrating is that it's mostly self inflicted and we have played well for decent stretches. And Rui Patricio has been freaking super human.

Wolves have played up a man for 30 minutes, haven't managed a shot on goal, and yet still managed to take the lead.

Soccer gods are not smiling on us today.

Think Ole over thought the lineup today?

Edit: He can't help Young red card but some of the scrappiness at the back took us out of our stride...maybe Phil could have been from the start?

The team hasn't played badly. Take away a Fred horror touch and an insanely unlucky goal and we win this. Or just put in a Wolves goalie who isn't Superman.

Ha feels like we had more shots on De Gea this half....

Anyone else excited about Europa league next year?

A lot of players are going to have to step up if that is going to happen. Today reminded me of some of the early in the season Mourinho coached team for my likes.

I agree. I was joking. While this team has overall played better than they did under Mourinho they still have a ways to go to compete with the top clubs on a regular basis. This is going to be a critical offseason. Would be nice to have City or Liverpool win because if I am not mistaken does that actually give the Premier League one additional spot into the CL next year?

Clearly we were all so certain of a resounding victory that we couldn't be bothered to post. Yeah that must be it.

Losing 1-0 at HT. Haven't looked horrible since the OG but Barca look like a cat playing with a wounded mouse. They are at 25% and really couldn't care less.

Obviously no one favors y'all winning but I've learned the hard way on counting Man U out of anything. PSG knows what the hell I'm talking about.

Y'all gotta get at least a tie or a 1-0 loss. 2-0 would probably be too hard to overcome going to Barcelona

On the plus side, Fred and McTominay were fantastic. Best United performers by far.

I really don't understand Ole's subs, why Dalot and not young

I think Young had more "juice" in his legs...not long before Dalot went off he had a unusually sloppy turnover where he just seemed to run out of gas.

Overall disappointed obviously but they really did play a solid match againt a great team. After PSG away match, I guess never say never. Feels like the team has lost that "pick-up" from the new manager....

Agree. Good to see after a few shaky starts.

Would like to see Martial and Rashford up front next match...bring Lukaku off the bench if needed late in the match.

The result feels disappointing, but I guess it's what I expected
-outpossessed
-out shot on goal
-minimal opportunities.

With all that said, Dalot should have buried that header in the 1st Half

Finally sat down to watch a couple of hours late.

Meh. The lack of possession wasn't awful. There were decent counters to be had. And mostly Barca had possession with no penetration. Pique was lucky not to get the foul and PK in 1H. Young is just flat awful. Missing Shaw in the return leg all but guarantees Young will be there again too. RB and CB are big areas to upgrade in the summer.

I will say that I didn't think the Referee had a very good game. Of the 5 cards, 3 of them were misses. Vidal got a phantom card and drew a phantom one against Lingard. Jesse didn't even touch Vidal who went down flopping. And on Smallings card Suarez was grabbing his head and neck before Smalling even bodied him up. I'm just not a fan of Italian refs.

Both refs today were subpar. The Ajax/Juve ref missed a few blatant calls and also made some really late ones.

He was slow to blow the whistle on a Juve foul, then an Ajax player tackled someone shortly thereafter and was carded for it...then gave a free kick for the initial Juve foul. Had he just blown the whistle, Tagliafico wouldn't have been carded and forced to miss the next CL match.

Weird day for refs.

After much reflection, I have come to an important conclusion...

If Pogba is not happy at OT, even if he's merely content, then I, with no malice in my heart, hope he moves this summer to Real Madrid for a hefty sum of money. I like him. He could be a key player for United. But this back and forth every season...every week seemingly...is exhausting. And the fact of the matter is, you're never going to get the best out of great players if they don't really want to play for you. I'd much rather sell him and try to find talent with the proceeds that actually wants to play in Manchester.

Same goes for De Gea. If he wants to leave OT, I have no problem with that. I don't want to see either happen but an amicable split looks more and more like the best solution for everyone involved.

If Man U were a Pogba level player away from being at the same level as Man City, I would disagree with you. I think Man U's roster is in a similar position Liverpool were in two years ago. Selling Coutinho allowed Liverpool to make significant upgrades at CB and GK while not risking FFP penalties.

Agreed. Funny you should bring up Liverpool because I was thinking of them too in how they went about building their team.

They didn't go and try and sign world class players from Juventus or PSG. They plucked very good players who could be world class from teams like Southampton, Roma, and Southampton (they did it twice so I can list them twice). Going after players from clubs that routinely challenge for or win league titles and are guaranteed to make the CL is a fool's errand when you are a club that may or may not make the CL and hasn't challenged for a league title in 7 years.

And now I shall light myself on fire for hoping United successfully emulates Liverpool.

Dre_00 said:

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They didn't go and try and sign world class players from Juventus or PSG. They plucked very good players who could be world class from teams like Southampton, Roma, and Southampton (they did it twice so I can list them twice). Going after players from clubs that routinely challenge for or win league titles and are guaranteed to make the CL is a fool's errand when you are a club that may or may not make the CL and hasn't challenged for a league title in 7 years.

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A fair argument can be made that this strategy has been what the club has been doing. Think if the like of transfer signings the last 5/6 years, all plucked from lower tier clubs. Guys who were supposed to be younger very good players. Either they have not panned out or they have been coached into oblivion by Moyes, LVG and Mou. Some are still here and we are just now figuring out if they can play or figuring out they cant.

Schneiderlein, Bailly, Pogba, Dalot, Fred, Lukaku, Martial, Memphis, Blind, Fellaini, Januzaj. The list goes on and on. Pogba was the only bonafide superstar for massive $$ from a big club. The rest were plucked. Alexis was a super big money guy who hasn't worked but he's the exception. Matic was a Mou guy all the way - older #6 chosen for stability and more importantly a Mou guy.

The problem is the strategy had had no real consistency and a bad miss rate. Partly from the managerial disaster but partly Woodward getting the wrong guys, or more importantly overspending on the wrong guys.

Januzaj came through the academy but I get your point. The key part is that Liverpool got it right more often than not...recently anyway. Can't really say the same with United. The implied part is that you have to get it right.

I agree. I think the misses are partly Woodward and no DoF and partly a revolving door of very different managers.

Dre_00 said:

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blindey said:

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Not a Man U supporter by any stretch. That said, when does Solskjaer stop being the caretaker and just get the damn job? He's got your team playing their best/best looking ball since Ferguson.

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What's the upside to announcing him now as the permanent manager? There's only three reasons I can come up with:

1) Ease the stress of fans and players who worry that it won't happen even though they really want it to happen

2) Not having a permanent manager is impeding results on the field

3) Not having a permanent manager is disrupting off field activities (transfers and the transfer season planning)

I think we can safely say that 2 isn't happening. As for 1, the stress of the fans has no tangible effect on the performance of the team. The players do but I doubt any of them are going to start performing worse just because he hasn't been announced as the permanent manager. 3 is the only reason why you'd announce a permanent manager. And while I think there will be a time in April/May when transfer season planning will probably pick up a notch, I don't think it's happening now. And besides, Ole has said he's talked with the club at a high level about who sees moving on in the summer and what type of players he thinks the club needs...which makes sense because you'd want to know that in any interview of a manager for a permanent position.

In short, I 100% think Ole should be given the job based on what he's done but I don't see any upside to doing it now. And by waiting another few weeks or month, you give yourself wiggle room in case it all goes wrong and United lose the rest of their games.

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I've only just started watching the West Ham game but can't help but think of this post as I do. The statistics in this match, are not good. And the last 5 matches or so have been...not good. The worst case scenario may be playing out. We shall see.

i agree with you Dre, not sure why they pulled the trigger when they did. However, there are definite holes in the squad that have to be addressed this off season. The inaction last summer was absolutely killer.