United (H) - League Cup SF 2nd Leg Post-Match Thread

[Grassland Blue]

The only aspect of our performance that was poor was the finishing. Shooting has always been a flaw in Silva's game. Unselfish by nature.

We beat Utd in the previous League Cup semi-final 1st leg and it counted for nothing. I can't watch or think about that game with any fondness because it meant nothing in the end. This morning it is City fans who are thinking about Wembley whilst another door closes on Man Utd's season, and their long run of failure goes on.

Wemberlee, Wemberlee,
It's a shitty place near London that the rags ain't gonna see....

 

[OB1]

OK I was questioning why you said we rarely gave the ball away. We did it all night long, worst performance I can remember for years in that respect.

Your memory is as shit as your comment then.

Our pass accuracy last night was 0.7% below our league average, which meant it was comfortably ahead of what any other team averages and cannot possibly have been our worst for years.

 

[hilts]

How the fuck did we get beat tonight

Because our manager picked 2 players who are dreadfully out of form and they missed 2 of the easiest chances you will see. Not the managers fault though why wouldn't he start one and bring another on in a semi final against the rags.

Thank God we were playing gash last night. Let's hope all the teams left in the champions league are equally gash.

 

[OB1]

We weren't great but we weren't terrible. But the reality is that we still totally outplayed them and should have battered them. Looks to me like Pep has (not surprisingly) completely lost trust in our defending without LaPorte and in fishing for a solution is disrupting our fluency. If LaPorte gets back soon and stays fit, I think it solves a lot of our problems because defensively we will undoubtedly be much stronger and we can revert to more usual formations and play our usual game.

I don't favour scoring performances out of 10 but that was something like a 6.5 out of 10; not poor in absolute terms but below our average; primarily because we didn't score.

 

[OB1]

Hate losing to them , ever.

No one does but we won the tie and the result is we go to Wembley and they don't.

If you or other people cannot cope with that, I pity you / them. (Note I said "if").

 

[OB1]

Because our manager picked 2 players who are dreadfully out of form and they missed 2 of the easiest chances you will see. Not the managers fault though why wouldn't he start one and bring another on in a semi final against the rags.

Thank God we were playing gash last night. Let's hope all the teams left in the champions league are equally gash.

Because there's no chance that we can up our game!

 

[Phil1]

Because there's no chance that we can up our game!

Pissing in the wind, mate.

 

[hilts]

Because there's no chance that we can up our game!

I would imagine someone maybe quite a few said exactly the same before our recent comical exits. If you say it before you are a moaner if you say it after then it's with hindsight. If he doesn't sort out that defence and pick the team as a whole on form it's coming again.

Pep is a manager that has done very well and we have played some great football and won lots of domestic trophies.

However with the tools at his disposal with Munich and ourselves in Europe he has been pretty crap.

I expect us to win the league cup now. We are at a point where the league and cl are the barometer we are obviously out of one.

A 5 4 knockout by a half decent side in Europe is staring us in the face unless he does something different.

Just an opinion based on what I have seen previous seasons and some of the laughable performances this season.

 

[The perfect fumble]

Unbelievably negative and nasty towards the club, manager, and players in here yet again. If the average comment in here equates to the average match going City fan (which I doubt is true, but maybe it is) then there can’t be a more deluded and spoiled fan base in football.

Yes the season hasn’t gone as well as any of us would have expected, but we just reached a final, and are in the latter stages of the other 2 cups, second in the league, top scorers in the league, and up against a liverpool who have had a perfect storm of good performances, luck, VAR, effectiveness rather than brilliance. In any other season we would be challenging for the title, we are as unlucky to be up against them this season as they were against us last. It happens and it does NOT make us shit. The criticism, and the tone of it, in here is appalling, and seems to relate to more than 50% of the posters. Last night I was as disappointed as anyone, but FFS we weren’t shit, in the same way we were not on top of our game, but they scored from their only shot, we had 2 goals (rightly but closely) disallowed, missed countless chances, and donut boy made 4 excellent saves, it happens, but we still went through to yet another final, so how the fuck does that lead to such malevolence on here? The abuse for Pep and this team, who have given us 198 points, 2 league cups, and a cup and 2 charity shields in the last 2 years is a FUCKING DISGRACE.
I actually was at York away, but I don’t remember it with any fondness, it was a fucking horrible day (after 3 pm anyway) and was symptomatic of how bad we were as a team, and how poorly run we were as a club, when compared to now. I am 60 years old, and I am still living the dream, the great players, the great football, and the trophies. I get really disappointed (I mean really really) when we lose, but it doesn’t cause me to lash out at the manager and the players. We have a moaning cunnt who sits next to our seats, every game he just moans at literally every misplaced pass, every missed opportunity, every counter attack by the opposition, and frankly it’s fucking draining to listen to. It seems he is not a one off and exists in fucking huge numbers of posters in here, dismal beyond belief.

I agree with much of this, I would only add that the frustration I feel, and it's shared by many blues who sit around me, is that on too many occasions this season, the team is less than the sum of its parts, factor in that our successes are not celebrated by the media and the wider football world, our failings amplified, or fabricated, both on the pitch and in the stands, and it creates a nervy and slightly paranoid fan base.

It sometimes feels like we have to play superlative football, just to keep the media and every man and his fucking dog at bay! I get angry because the club I love, the team I admire, has to perform at 100% all the time, to earn, for the most part, grudging indifference.

There are a lot of posters in here of the fuck em persuasion, success is its own reward they say, enjoy what we're seeing and the naysayers can go swivel, I've never bought in to that. When we have a treble without applause, our successes become a private pleasure only, barely recognised, never mentioned, uncelebrated outside the blue world we inhabit, that's what fuels the paranoia.

So when Sterling has a dip in form, as all players do, every missed pass is a calamity, ever opportunity squandered and he's fucked up again! I feel bad feeling this way because it is irrational, but I feel it nonetheless.

When we were shit, we knew we were shit, everyone acknowledged we were shit. Now we're great, we know we're great, but we're not acknowledged as great, so we have to be great all the time, because if we're not we're shit.

 

[tolmie's hairdoo]

Pep is beginning to worry me. He seems to be overthinking things even more than usual.

The three at the back, even legislating for Fern being out, did little for us. The midfield was slow and compacted.

United were able to still go man-for-man against us when Bravo had the ball, with neither Gundo or Rodri coming short to receive.

I watched the recent Barca v Real Madrid game and Madrid did exactly the same. They forced Barca to kick long into midfield and I can see more of the same next month.

We currently have three or four players in this team who are hiding. They don't want the responsibility of making a mistake.