10 Sep 2017 12:16:17
it is unfortunate we did not pick up the three points yesterday but I think in the grand scheme of things a point away at Stoke will be viewed at as a good point. It is not the easiest place to go win as Arsenal found a few weeks ago, but nonetheless we should be winning these fixtures if we are to be champions.
I just wanted to touch on a few things that have been mentioned further down by other posters. I agree that perhaps Jose was too pragmatic yesterday with the inclusion of darmian and Herrera. I can see jose's reasoning with wanting to pack the midfield and therefore dominate the play. With the inclusion of darmian, he wanted to provide more stability and height to the defence.
I do think he did get selection wrong and that we should have set up with two pacy wingers In Martial and rashford with miki behind lukaku. With the pace and trickery on the wings, we would have been able to stretch the stoke full backs and therefore created pockets of space for Miki and pogba to excel in areas where they can be most creative. For me, miki has struggled every time he has been put out on the wing and he lacks the strength and often becomes isolated. He then comes in field which leaves us lacking width as darmian does not provide it on the left. Therefore, we are left only with Valencia out wide and we all know his crossing is not at the level it should be. That's why I would have loved us to have signed aurier as going forward he is explosive and dynamic with a good cross. i do feel our most creative player is miki and if we are not going to play him at no 10 when we are away from home in a big game then it may be a better idea to even bench him and start a more direct winger such as martial or lingard. Then if the game is opening up, miki is the perfect player to come on and make things happen. His vision and close control is sublime and as a no 10 he is one of the most creative and exciting players in the league.
I feel we are very well placed to win the league with the squad and team we have. We can mostly all agree we are lacking that X factor player such as griezmann or bale and it shows in games like yesterday. Griezmann for me is a phenomenal player and I think he will come in next summer.
On city, I have not been impressed with them defensively as I thought Liverpool had the more clear cut chances before the sending off. But with their attacking depth, they will be there challenging. Against an organised and well drilled team such as ourselves, spurs or Chelsea, I feel they will struggle and if you manage de bruyne then then you are half way there in my opinion.
Chelsea look strong and cannot be discounted. With hazard to come back they have a strong team and good squad. Interesting to see how they cope with Europe and if alonso gets injured as he is key to their system working. Morata looks very good and is brilliant on the ball. He will do well there.
Spurs are spurs. Fantastic work rate and play at a brilliant pace but squad depth is an issue. It is to be seen whether than can sustain a title challenge. Same with Liverpool, who on there day can rip anybody's defence with their attack but are atrocious in defence. Not going to lie it was nice to see them get thrashed but I do feel the result did not reflect the way city played as there were not outstanding.
I think perspective is needed as 10 from 12 points and top of the league is a very good start. We are not the finished article and we do struggle when team sit back and or tempo then becomes slow. But in Jose we have a manager who is tactically brilliant, although too pragmatic at times. But I would rather he was like that then get trashed 5-0 by city.
So excited to be back in the champions league where we belong to be! Onwards and upwards lads as it is an exciting time to be a united fan and I have this cautious feeling that we are on our way back to the top. Haven't felt this feeling in a long long time so let's enjoy it as it will be a hell of a season with lots of twists and turns.
10 Sep 2017 12:52:03
Park. You got it spot on. I think city will win it as they have the fire power and will score mire than they'll concede.
I also think Chelsea are looking strong again. As are Spurs.
Our fight will be with Liverpool and Arsenal but if zlatan comes back firing and if we can add width in January, then I can see us challenging city and Chelsea for the title.
10 Sep 2017 13:53:16
I think these 2 points (and similar) are the ones that kill us in the end. A few years ago I would agree with the common perception that a point at Stoke is good enough. But the league is different now, there are 9/ 10 teams better than Stoke and Stoke isn't as hard a place as it once was. Hughes has changed a lot about the way they play so Stoke is no longer as difficult as it was under Pulis imo.
Even if we ignore my above opinion, the way we played was not good enough, which is more concerning to me. Games can be won or lost in a second, but there were very large chunks of that game, as well as against Leicester and Swansea where we looked totally clueless and very slow. That is the biggest concern I have. If we play how we have for the past 3 games (75% of games this season, 80% if we count the Real Madrid game which was worse still), then it is going to be a struggle for top 4. We have gone from 5th gear to 3rd gear again, always mitigating circumstances of course, but we need to improve a lot if we expect to compete.
We have had an easy start, wish we had a very hard start so more chances were taken in the window.
10 Sep 2017 14:38:46
I can see where you are both coming from schmid and beast but I think you are both not looking at the fact that we have managed to turn it on and blow teams away when we have needed to. Last season we would not have been able to score 3 in the space of 4 mins against Swansea. Granted Swansea were poor but we have shown we have ability to kill off teams by introducing impact players such as martial off the bench. That is something we were not displaying last year and I have not seen any other team so far do that. Remember we are only 4 games into the season and we have not yet hit our stride yet.
I agree with you beast that stoke is not the same prospect as it was under pulis. They are no longer rugby tackling and kicking bits out of teams but they no pose a different threat with some very good players in their team who on there say will cause problems for the top sides. We looked off the pace yesterday and it will happen. But I do think we have enough to win the league but we need to be playing players in the right positions and we really need Shaw to come back and be the player that we hope he can be. I am a fan of his but this is really last chance saloon. Clearly Jose sees something in him otherwise we would have bought a left back.
Perhaps I am more of a glass half full then a glass half empty person, but I can see the improvements we are making and can see us winning the league. But consistency and high tempo in our play is key. Would be great to hear your thoughts ed004 if you are about mate.
{Ed004's Note - I have to agree with everything that has been said previously. I think the line up was poor to start with. The more I watch of Pogba the more I think he is better suited to playing in a two man midfield. I think we should be trying to create a team similar to that of Heyneckes Bayern Munich side with Pogba and Matic playing like Martinez and Schweinsteiger. I think yesterday was just a bad day. We saw a few poor individual mistakes from players and Bailly will hopefully not play like that again this season.
The point made on fullbacks is very important. I can't for the life of me believe that Jose is happy with ours currently. I think it's a case of there being too many currently in the squad to sign anymore. Which is a massive shame because Semedo and then Aurier would have been perfect for us at right back. We are short 3 players at the minute in my opinion. A rb, lb and an attacking option like Griezmann. I can think of a few options for the left back such as Tierney, Sandro, maybe even Alaba. Hopefully Shaw steps up and nails down a first team place bough. However, I can't think of any right backs that will be available, though I didn't know much about Semedo at this stage last year so hopefully we see one breaking out - maybe some on this site can think of one that I've missed.
I am a lot more confident going into this season. We look like we will have the best defence in the league this season, or top 3 at least. While our attack has improved massively with players stepping up and settling in better/quickly. I'm not expecting us to win the league this season but at bare minimum we should be challenging with City and Chelsea}
10 Sep 2017 16:30:42
Yes I think we will win the league also Park. I just think that we need to lift it a lot more than what we have shown the past 3 league games.
Granted it's better than last year - but we didn't exactly set the bar too high last year and most other teams will be better than last year.
I also appreciate that we have the ability to blitz teams, but those instances will be rare and if you have a handful a season I would hope Swansea wouldn't be one of the teams taking up that trump card.
We look far too static still and people will moan about the Intl break or use that to justify it. Or as Ed says just put it down to a bad day at the office, but we could easily have had a bad day at the office in 3 of the 4 league games we have played this season. The performance against West Ham seems to be a freak at the minute, when in reality we need to be performing to that level much more consistently if we want to be winning things.
I see no reason why we can't lift it to that level more often, it's down to the manager getting the potential from the players with his set-up and motivation/ expertise - we saw freak performances under Moyes and LVG - that West Ham game showed us all what we can do, we shouldn't tolerate levels of play well below that.
I expected 10-12 points minimum from our start and truth be told I expected to look better than what we have. 2 week international break has a habit of causing some fans to forget about the poor/ slow play we watched going into it - this was more of the same, not an exception unfortunately. Hopefully we lift it again mid-week. I am just judging what I have seen, not what I expect or hope to see for the remaining games. There are a lot more teams in the league that will either stifle or be better than Stoke, so it's 2 points dropped for me and a below average performance all round.
10 Sep 2017 18:32:59
Beast
I think your just seeing a Jose team.
10 Sep 2017 19:45:05
Fergie only managed 12 points in the first 4 epl games twice in all his tim n the prem.
Just to put perspective on our 10pt start.
10 Sep 2017 19:45:54
I'm sure when we bought pogba and broke the world transfer record many said he was the player that would bring us that x factor .
In fact I think many said Miki would.
90 mil on lukaku 4 goals 4 games maybe he us the man .
With more games could martial or rash step up?
Can't help thinking people rate players from different team more than our own, if Miki was still at Dortmund or pogba at juve I'm sure they would be the player to bring the x factor to the team . Just like they where last summer .
We have started the season well imo looked good, as good as anyone in the league imo yet people seem to be caught up in how THEY think we should play .
I think we are playing and looking like a Jose team which isn't a surprise as he is our manager.
10 Sep 2017 20:13:31
Well said jred.
10 Sep 2017 20:26:00
Miki needs to play centrally to see the real talent he is. If we're shovin him out wide he may aswel be replaced with a genuine wide player. It's no coincidence he has 5/ 6 assists this season from playing centrally. For me, to get the best of both Pogba and miki it's a two man midfield with miki number 10. So stick to it.
{Ed004's Note - I see no reason as to why Mkhitaryan couldn't play in the right the way Mata has been but we need to always have a 10 in the side. I still think we will go for Griezmann mainly because there aren't many world class wingers around at the minute.}
10 Sep 2017 21:44:32
Park, beast and ed4. Interesting points and I agree with most of that. When I say city and Chelsea are better, I don't mean to sound negative. It's my opinion. City in particular have lots of excellent attacking options. The type that we had when Fergie was manager. Quite often, the opposition will score 2 but we'll score 4. That's what wins the league. Good defensive record is great but will mean nothing if we couldn't score more against teams like stoke. They are a bang average team and we should be blowing them apart.
On lb, I love the way Tierney has developed. Hope mourinho is on his trail. Greizman will be a sensational player for us.
{Ed004's Note - Tierney and Griezmann would be sensational signings but I haven't seen one poster suggest an alternative right back}
10 Sep 2017 23:07:44
What about the young real sociedad rb Odriozola? He looks quality!
{Ed004's Note - Have never even seen him play. Will have to watch out for Sociedad games}
11 Sep 2017 00:00:41
Agree with that schmid. Tierney looks a real talent and would transform our attack marauding up that left flank. Griezmann is class and him interchanging with miki and rashford/ martial would be devastating. I agree city will score a lot this year and their depth is phenomenal. To have Bernardo silva and sane on the bench is a managers dream. Still think teams will exploit the spaces behind Mendy and walker. Should be a great season ahead.
11 Sep 2017 03:17:31
City scored a lot last season I would be surprised if they scored that much more this season .
You can only play 11.silva kdb aguero Jesus will still start the majority of games .
11 Sep 2017 21:21:59
Agreed Park and ed4. Get Tierney and greizman and our team will be very strong. We'll have to see what happens in the Jan window.
{Ed004's Note - That's exactly what I would do in January. Activate Griezmann's clause and try to persuade Celtic to stay. Then next summer look at rb, cover for Matic/Carrick replacement and a winger.}