7 min of Lexus (tm) stoppage time

7 minutes for what?

Dre_00 said:

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oh no said:

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if mount has just a couple MIA appearances like that, the supporters are going to turn very fast on the lifelong chelsea academy product.

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He deserves a lot of time. He didn't play much last year and it appears ETH wants him to play a role that he didn't play often at Chelsea. I hope they/we give him at least a couple of months worth of starts/appearances.

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Well we've given Antony a year, surely we can give Mount a couple months.

Mathguy64 said:

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7 minutes for what?

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This is what kills me...you could argue for 5-7 minutes on the first half, but there is no chance there should be 7 this half

uh oh

That's a foul on Onana

i think it's a pen for me. let's see what they do

Wow, VAR bails him out

that should do it. whew. very lucky result.

How is that not a foul

Wolves has to feel very hard done to not get any points

Hope we improve quickly, that was a rough performance at home against a mediocre team with a new manager

GK has a right to attack that ball... but Onana didn't even almost punch the ball. I guess VAR review determined it wasn't "clear and obvious mistake"

That was atrocious. I mean 3 points is 3 points but god that sucked.

dont see Onana being an upgrade over Dea

watched on a slight delay...wow that was an ugly win....have a lot to work on...

Wynalda crushed Antony and rightfully so.

planoaggie123 said:

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watched on a slight delay...wow that was an ugly win....have a lot to work on...

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It was simply not good enough. Bruno was poor. Casemiro looked like he was still dining on a Grecian beach. Onana should have gotten a penalty against him.

Garnacho was bad. We stole 3 points at home against a squad that has only had subtractions.

I'm not an xG acolyte, but this feels like a more accurate reflection of the game than the real score. Feels like we stole 3 points, but better than the other way around

Man Utd (1.53) 1-0 (2.49) Wolves

— The xG Philosophy (@xGPhilosophy) August 14, 2023

(Apparently Elon renaming twitter has broken the automatic twitter link display)
Xg Philosophy account:
"Man Utd (1.53) 1-0 (2.49) Wolves"

Just watched the extended highlights. As you might imagine there wasn't much to show for United besides the goal.

Woof.

Wolves should be maddened by their lack of finishing. They should've put a couple away. They also got robbed of a penalty.

Three points but not an encouraging start.

Biggest concern for me was Mount- Bruno- casemiro invisibility in the midfield with wolves countering straight down the middle of the pitch all day

I thought Casemiro was very good with the notable exception being that he seemed sloooooooow. But his positioning and passing were stellar. The bigger issue in my opinion was Mount and Casemiro. Maybe I'm not smart enough to understand fully what they were doing but Mount in particular seemed to be solely focused on pressing the entire pitch. Almost like he was just chasing the ball like a U6 player. Bruno is not exactly your prototypical central mid. He'll track back but he wants to be further up field. That left a very slow Casemiro left trying to defend the middle third by himself like Jon Snow trying to hold off the charge in the Battle of the *******s.

But yeah, midfield as a whole was very poor. The only midfielder who seemed able to progress the ball was Casemiro. Both Garnacho and Antony were poor. When Rashford is at forward and the team's performance is poor, he becomes virtually anonymous. Not ideal when arguably your best offensive player can't get on the ball with any frequency.

I only watched a portion of the Spurs/Brentford game but Spurs will absolutely roll us if the two teams repeat their first week performances. Lots of work to be done.

Welp, Maguire wants 7M from United to leave for West Ham and West Ham appear to be tired of waiting for that to be figured out so they are looking at other options. My guess is that if it's resolved early enough, they'll come back but less than ideal situation if you are hoping for Maguire to leave and be replaced by someone like Pavard.

I thought Bruno was good with the ball, but did not do well tracking back. He made a few bad passes, but was an attacking spear we needed.

Mount was all over the place, but not in a good way.
Casemiro was okay, but did look very slow.

I am in general tired of the 4-3-3 with two wings who provide little coverage or any offensive support. It's like we're playing 2 players down. Speed down the wings is nice, but as yesterday showed, it leaves you exposed in the middle of the pitch.
I would like to see a lineup that had Rashford and Sancho or Garnacho up top, Bruno on the right with Eriksen, Mount and Casemiro in the middle.

Just gives us more midfield coverage and takes off a wing that provides little anyway.

well we know Bruno is very skillful player and Casemiro is a good passer in building out, but the three midfielders combined, and not much better when Eriksen subbed on for Mount, were non-existent in killing counters.

center ref and 4th official are now suspended for their error on the late PEN on Onana, reiterating how lucky MUFC is for that 3 pt result.

I don't blame Maguire at all. I hate how much he sucks. But United signed a contract. Maguire wants what he's owed.

Center and VAR, not the 4th official. Poor guy was doing his best over there with his number sign and technical area lines.

I don't blame him either. He'll almost definitely never sign another contract that pays him as much as the one that he is on now. No one is shelling out big money for a 32 year old defender (his age when his current contract runs out) unless they are elite. Man wants to try and get paid and I can respect that.

But by doing so he is virtually guaranteeing his legacy as an overpaid mistake...a meme. That's not fair to him unfortunately but it will be what happens. Because there is no realistic scenario in which he gets consistent playing time at United between now and when his contract ends. And very unlikely that at 32, there will be many takers for a CB near the end of his career who hasn't played much in 3-4 years. He'll seal his legacy as Slabhead. But that's his choice to make and he's under no obligation to willfully refuse money owed him so if that's what he wants, more power to him.

exactly. there's a weird thing in world soccer fandom where these guys scream about players stealing from the clubs. no both sides entered into a guaranteed contract.

Fans are certainly dumb, but they're fed by dumb media. I shake my head every time I read an headline about a team "refusing" to let a player leave for free. That's impossible.

They can refuse to play a player who won't leave, but they can't force a guy to leave if he doesn't want to.

Did I just dream that United had agreed to give Maguire 5 or 6 mil last week? I could have sworn that was reported. So are we arguing over 1-2 million?

It's a bit odd. Combined with ETH's quotes about it being OK for Maguire to have confidence to fight for his position or whatever he said, it makes you wonder: maybe he isn't overly thrilled with either Todibo or Pavard, and would rather wait and replace him either in the winter or next summer? It would be harder to move a replacement on next year. You wouldn't get as much for Maguire with only a year left on his contract, but you wouldn't need as much either. I don't know, just speculating.