United (H) Post Match Thread

Matt.D said:
Sorry but this is nonsense. I absolutely agree he was woeful today. He looked knackered and he gave the ball away far too much with misplaced short passes. However, he still created 8 chances. He is our only truly world class attacking threat and he walks into any team in world football.

If you were picking a city starting 11 based on form then it would be Bernardo and Gundogan in as the no. 8s. I just don’t get the point about balance? Rodri, Bernardo and Gundo are all tidy on the ball and keep possession better than him but that’s the point and it’s why him and David Silva complimented each other so well - De Bruyne usually brings the energy and the drive to the team and he is the one City player who hurts the opposition. He’s just not in form atm, but that doesn’t equate to us being better balanced without him.
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He wasn't woeful. He was just giving the ball away and a little pedestrian. We also had some sublime passes too.

He's been below par for a very long time and I pointed this out at the start of the season. He's still at 80%. It makes you wonder whether the 100% has gone.
 
Eccles Blue said:
So would I KRB but there is being a gracious loser and being over generous with your praise.

I didn’t watch the game granted but from reports from fans of other clubs I am getting the feeling that we actually played better than them and whilst Pep didn’t have to say that he could just have said they played well without calling out our players. :-)
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I switched off at full time so I haven’t seen the comments , however and we all knew how united would play on the counter , that’s what they did and they excelled at it. I can’t recall Henderson making any quality saves.
We had plenty of possession but really did nothing with it.
I tend to take it on my chin when we get beat by them as I know and my rag mates know we are better than them and have been for the past decade.
 
Chippy_boy said:
If.

A derby should always be a big game, and anyway it's not like his record in the big games is impeccable, is it.
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I’m with you CB, too many painful memories of getting dicked in the derby to ever want anything less than a completely dominant match where we put several goals past them.....if I can’t have that then fuck me let’s play with a bit of passion.
 
barty66 said:
So by half time his mindset should have changed to one of a team coming from 1-0 down...but he did nothing to change a team that clearly was being outplayed/out fought ?? We didnt look like doing anything until the late substitutions and the greatest goalscorer weve got sat in the stands ?? hes either fit or not or on his way out .....dont just leave him sat there ??
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You say the greatest goalscorer we have is in the stands because you're looking at the past. The likelihood is that player is gone. He hasn't scored a league goal for over a year. He's taken 10 months to come back from a 6 week injury. He looked woeful in the last game.

You're looking at Aguero on the bench and thinking its the old Aguero, and the sad fact is that Pep sees him every day and would have thrown him on in an instant if he thought he could help - he did it all the time over the last 5 years.
 
Pep repeats the same mistake too frequently in big games and gets his selection plain wrong. We could have shipped 4 today if they had taken a couple of very makeable chances. We were painfully slow and hesitant getting the ball forward and their 2 banks of 4 could handle most of the misplaced passes and lame shots we put in.
 
I'm not a prophet, I don't have a crystal ball and I can't read the future so although I was a little surprised that Walker wasn't at right back, Cancelo at left, and Foden and Bernado on the bench I still thought the eleven Pep picked to start was good enough. It shows the folly of putting my faith in a bald fraud rather than the real sages of bluemoon! KdB certainly wasn't at his best, Raheem's finishing had gone back a few seasons and Gabby had a rush of blood the like of which we never want to see again. But even so we came back very well in the last 25 minutes of the first half (I thought we should have had a penalty for Fred's body check on Sterling) - it was the second goal that really decided the game and here again the defending was poor. Even so Phil had a great chance, Raheem had two beauties but none came within a mile of the goal. Rodri hit the bar when it seemed inevitable he would simply side foot home. But, of course, we only lost because Pep didn't meet the experts of bluemoon in conclave and let them pick the team - after all, they were right after the event.
 
While it is a little raw tonight all this result will boil down to is a quiz question of who broke City's winning run in the 2020 / 2021 title winning season.

Nothing more.
 
Brewster's millions said:
A bad day at the office. Extremely disappointing but I‘m not sure that the end of a 21 game winning run is the time to rip into the players, as annoying as it is to be beaten by a very limited, one dimensional United team.

Big picture, I think we have outperformed this season and if we do end up winning it as we should then I would regard this title as a bonus given how we started the season.

We‘re currently a good but not a great team, and Guardiola has done well to fashion a more slow tempo style which has worked against most teams but obviously not today, and may not work next season either. I think we had the wrong team from the off - we needed more strength in midfield and Foden and Walker had to start - but we will need to make a few good signings in the summer if we want to push on next season.

The two concerns for me today were firstly Guardiola showing favouritism in his selection again (similar to the beginning of the season) and the form of KDB. He’s been poor all season apart from the odd flash of brilliance and at times in the first half he looked disinterested. I had hoped that he would play his way back into form for the end of the season but on the current evidence he’s still way below par.
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That is a great post and you have made some very valid points. We have over performed after an abysmal start to the season but if we do win the league you would have to say it would be one of Pep's greatest achievements.
 
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