Man United (H) | Pre-Match Thread

Match Result Prediction

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Happy to admit I could pick the team and be 5 or 6 away from what Pep will actually pick.
Who plays left back? Bernardo or gundogan? Sterling or foden? Stones or laporte? Jesus or false nine? Walker or Charvet?
They will leave rashford and greenwood/James high and wide to try and break being our full backs, a tight affair with us as one goal winners.
 
This fixture has been getting on my fucking wick in recent years.

Every single season we’ve been better than this shower of cunts yet we’ve beaten them once at home since 2014:
P6 W1 D2 L3 F6 A8 GD-2

We had a better run at home against them under Keegan and Pearce from 2002-2007:
P6 W4 D0 L2 F11 A6 GD+5

Suppose it shows how much of a true derby it is, where anything really can happen.

It’s time we gave these Rags a good hiding. Even a completely dominant 2-0, with them hardly having a sniff of our goal, would do!
 
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MAG said:
View attachment 11631




Premier League Stats

Well stats are stats ... I am going to talk about them throughout this thread ... but for now to keep the format I have been using in these pre-match threads, here are the Premier League's Head-to-Head and Recent Meetings records ...



View attachment 11632



And here are the Form Guide and Season So Far stats, neither of which include both teams' mid-week games ...



View attachment 11633




The Real Form Guide

This thread is going to be all about stats ... and a lot of you will want to discuss the double they did over us in the league last season ... or how we have only won once in last six home games against them (in all competitions) ... while some others might point to how they have managed a total of ZERO goals in six games against other top six sides so far, including us in the reverse fixture ... I am frankly not too bothered by any of those or any other stat that media will beef up in order to build this up as a clash of 1st vs 2nd and try and portray them as a real title challenger ...

Because frankly ... they. are. not.

Let's start with the Form Guide ... the Premier League one up there that I just posted doesn't really show true form ... so I am going to post another table that actually does ... and just to be fair and match it to the one in the previous section, this doesn't include both teams' mid-week games either ...



View attachment 11634




Schedule This Week

Before going further on us vs them, let's get the schedule out of the way ... they play a few more games, we play a few more games ... who cares about the league anymore? No one apparently ... as the title is already won by City and people at large only care if a team wearing red is winning it (according to social media in these past few weeks) ...

As for the schedule ... they do have a day less to prepare for us, but frankly even if they had a day (or two) more ... so what? ... like that was going to help them!


These are their (and our) games around this tie:

Manchester United
Wed 3 - 8:15pm - Crystal Palace (A) - PL
Sun 7 - 4:30pm - City (A) - PL
Thu 11 - 5:55pm - AC Milan (H) - EL

Manchester City
Tue 2 - 8:00pm - Wolves (H) - PL
Sun 7 - 4:30pm - United (H) - PL
Wed 10 - 6:00pm - Southampton (H) - PL


Anyone wanting to see how they get a pen this time (after Ole's post-match rant last weekend), you can do so tomorrow tonight ... their game this mid-week is against Crystal Palace (A) and will be live on Sky Sports (in the UK); kick off is at 8:15pm.




Noisy Neighbours

Continuing with the stats theme ... here's another one ...

When the Premier League presents the trophy at the end of this season, hopefully in sky blue ribbons, that will be our fifth in the last ten they have handed out. United meanwhile have managed to pick only one of those and that too was way back in 12/13.

If they want to go further back in time and compare totals etc. and add their 20 odd Community Shields that they always do to beef up their total numbers (21 to be exact, four of which were actually shared) ... then maybe they should go compete with the other history club, as frankly anything before the last decade is just irrelevant.

What is relevant then ... how far back do we go? ... last decade, two decades or maybe just five years? I don't know the answer to that ... that's the thing with stats ... everyone picks out the ones that suit them and make them look good. I can make any stat here look nice for us by dropping some of those with caveats and asterisks against those that don't fit our narrative ...

Ask Liverpool fans for example ... till last season the Premier League didn't even matter that much and it was only the European trophies that counted (or in their case even reaching a final of such was somehow better than say the Centurions in same season) ... they finished 25 points behind us then and lost that final as well but still boost about it so much as it helps build the "THREE years of continuous and sustained success" narrative. Take this season itself and until they were top of the league (at Christmas), this season was the toughest ever without fans and look how they were conquering it all (even without Van Dijk) and this meant more ... ask them now and it's all a bit "oh, this doesn't 'feel' right" without fans you know ... they aren't even watching anymore as there are just too many games on TV these days. United fans are no different to that lot ... they don't even have half as much to show in recent past.

A lot has been said (and a lot more is to come this week) to showcase them as our closest rivals, a proper tittle challenger and all that ... but in reality they are not ... some have said this in other threads here as well that if we win against this lot, we will win the title - wrong, we did that at Anfield already, that was it ... that was the day we wrapped up the title and broke Liverpool while doing so as well ... this next one is pretty much a meaningless end-of-season game at best ...

Let me help you visualize the reality of this game ... and maybe United fans can borrow my table now that they have forgotten how to take screenshots since they were "joint-top" a few weeks ago ...



View attachment 11635



I said above that I don't know what past stats are relevant or not ... but I think I do know where the cut off point should be and how far back we should look ... already told you that should we win the title this year, it will be 5/10 leagues for us ... so let's go back ten years ... no, not because that would suit us best as we have been the most successful club in England in the past decade ... but because that's the point when we were called (and dismissed as) the Noisy Neighbours ...

So pick any stat from that time onwards ... and I don't even need to look them up ... all of us already know these ... we have won more games than them, we have scored more goals than them, we have won more titles than them, almost all of those years (bar one) we have finished higher than them in the league, we have (unlike them) qualified for the Champions League every year ... we have Pep, while they are poop ...

Pick absolutely whatever stat you want and we are way ahead of them ... that's why I really don't care about this game on the weekend ... we may win, we may draw, or we may even lose ... it counts for nothing in the bigger scheme of things ... they are "irrelevant" to us right now ... just like they were in the Centurions season despite being second then as well ... yes they managed to beat us 3-2 at the Etihad then (and it hurt for a day) but who cares as only thing worth remembering from that season is that we lifted the trophy at the end of it and created history while doing so ...

These days I think, they are just ...
... a noisy neighbour!




Match Prediction

We will win - they will not ...

... this weekend doesn't matter ;)

Click to expand...
Love it great post the Graphic is a work of art
 
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york away to this! said:
That turgid 0.0 at the swamp, just after the fuckers had been knocked out of the chumps' league, was the moment I started to write this season off.

Which goes to show I know fuck all...
Click to expand...
You weren’t wrong to think that though. If we’d carried on like we were, it’d be surprising if we weren’t around where Spurs/Villa are now.

It wasn’t even the results, we were playing poorly with some very poor individual performers and performances as a team. We were on course for a 57 point season, and playing like it. And that was as recently as December, where we’d won just 40% of our games, had a -1 goal difference, and had scored just 19 goals (5 of which were in one game).

I can’t think of a bigger turnaround to get the top of the league in the same season (there've been a few who went from bottom to staying up) in this country before. It’s almost unbelievable what we’ve done. It’s like someone at a shit gig, where the sound was off and the lights were dim, has gone behind the stage and seen a few cables left unplugged so they’ve plugged them in and everything’s gone mental!

We’ve slightly dropped our performance quality levels in the last three Prem games, we’ve not been quite as good as we had been in the previous games. We’ve had a few who’ve looked a bit fatigued and a few coming back from injury who haven’t been match fit... but hopefully on Sunday it all comes together! Gundo Foden Stones and Zinchenko have had a deserved rest, de Bruyne should be a bit sharper... let’s fucking have the cunts!
 
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FantasyIreland said:
The two big decisions are Gundogan or KDB? and Mahrez or Sterling?

Personally

Cancelo.Dias.Stones.Zinch
............Rodri...........
.....Bernie.....Gundo....
Jesus......Sterling......Foden
Click to expand...
Pep selects his teams to win specific games against specific opposition. So while Mahrez has been in great form recently, can he be trusted to press and track Fatso making runs from left back, which is one of their few attacking outlets? Especially if Cancelo is playing his inside role on that side? Sterling isn’t generally great in derbies but did a good job on Shaw in the semi final
 
Just do what we did in the semi-final.

Don't press too high, put the onus on them to play out from the back, they lack zero technical ability in the backline.

They will try to press high themselves, but they are desperate to play counter attack and hit the spaces for Rashford.

Would expect Greenwood to play.

We just need to move the ball all the time and be careful with it, our chances will come.

Foden to start, even at the expense of a brilliant Mahrez, as we need someone to track back for Shaw.
 
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