Personally I would at least feel bit better about the start of this season if I thought that the players were even half as annoyed as us supporters are.
A year or two ago and they’d have been chomping at the bit to put things right after two poor performances but it feels like the passion to win has disappeared somewhere with the intensity we used to play with.
It feels as if they’re all just shrugging their shoulders and accepting these results instead of wanting to get stuck in and do something to change the way things have been going.
Yep and sometimes when it’s not going your way with the ref on the pitch you need to be able to use guile and thuggery to make sure you’re not fucked over. Klopp teams never know how to do this, instead we are like little schoolgirls and then get out players carded or sent off without insisting the ref ‘evens things up’’. The club needs to target the refs before, during and after every game so they are afraid of what will happen if they aren’t at least fair to us.
Unless I am mistaken, weren’t you championing the idea of an ‘in-line’ fuzzy tolerance (though technically there is no such thing as in-line. Its one side of the line or the other) after a game where our player - may have been Salah - had a goal scratched off after being ‘in-line’? Maybe I am mistaken and it was the season before? I believe there was a lot of support on here to grey-up the offside rule.
I doubt very much that players are driven like fans are. We fans desperately want more league titles, mostly to push further in front of United so we can declare without argument that we are the best English team ever.
Most of this team has now won the CL, the PL both domestic cups and everything in-between. For them, the next big goal will be a world cup. I do wonder if they really have the stomach for multiple titles like the fans have a thirst for. This is not calling them lazy or not driven, but if the players have even a fraction less desire than the opponent they are facing then it can actually make all the difference.
Is this our problem? Well, after the first two games I would have said it was a big part of it. Both Fulham and CP wanted it more than us. Last night however, we started fast and zipped the ball around, but our structure right at this point is completely fucked and we have no solutions to finding avenues to goal. Its not even about having someone to finish it but the lack of getting the ball in the box. Did De Gea even touch the ball in the first half hour?
I think there is a lot of work that Klopp himself needs to resolve. I really hope there isn’t an element of some players having ticked the boxes of winning this or that and are now merely going through the motions as well, but its clear the coaches have some homework to do.
Mmmmm, IMHO this season, TAA, Henderson, Fabinho and Robertson have been poor, van Dijk more than poor, Milner is due to his age to late on almost everything, that is 6 players, you can not expect to win many with 6 players playing poor.
Until a few players find their way back or some injuries are starting to disappear we are in for more matches like the first 3.
Btw, match officials have been poor too but what else is new, letting the match go as the seem to be under orders has never worked in our favor since we want to win the FairPlay cup every year.
Last time we looked this bad was 2 years ago when guess what we had an abnormal amount of injuries. With 11 first teamers out everything is affected. We can’t prepare correctly, we can’t rotate, we don’t have options from the bench, we overburden the same players. And the longer this situation perpetuates, the harder it gets to snap out of it.
So I would wait for some semblance of normality before declaring that the title is gone or that we need a major overhaul.
The above is not meant to absolve Klopp and the players of their own responsibilities. Injuries are not the reason behind us starting half asleep every game, leading to conceding first for 7 PL matches in a row and 14 matches without leading at half time. Nor do they justify Van Dijk for looking like he’s still on holiday. Or Klopp, for that matter, for delaying to make adjustments.
They need to get their head out of their ass collectively, start doing the basics again and stop beating themselves. Because the reality is that even with all these problems, we should have had at least 7 points.
100% it’s gone on far too long now, apprantly they had a huge frank meeting after the Palace game… the lack of reaction is worrying as we never go so long without picking ourself up under Klopp, and to not be up for a Utd game is pathetic. I get being complacent and expecting to win vs the likes of Fulham, but it’s fucking Utd, you raise your game…
I don’t have much to add regarding the game. The injuries are clearly hitting the team and as a result the starting lineup - half of which shouldn’t have been there - or at least not in those positions.
Midfield is a worry. We have some good young players and old pros who may be able to see a game out but no bedrock 25-30 year old players. Is Naby really injured again or is he going to be out of the door by the end of the week?
TBH the last 3 games have looked like preseason rustiness. Improving the injury situation will help but we need to be coherent again.
A general observation from the first three games is that we have hardly worked the opposition goal. In the last third there is no decisiveness or creativity. Yesterday for example, it seemed as though it was two all in terms of shots on their goal and their shots were more likely to go in!
nothing to do with us, but one thing struck me about UTD
if they think this is the moment they ‘turned the corner’ or one of those ‘the game against liverpool was the moment the revolution started’ they might be in for a bit of a shock.
they were horrible in possesion at 2-0 up, resorted to theatrics not positivity to try and kill the game, and nearly shat the bed when we pulled one back.
brunos ‘hugging’ of the ball to waste precious seconds says alot about the mentality, an admission of inferiority.
you look at not even just the great teams, but the Ok to good teams when they concede in those moments, its all about looking inwards, ‘what did we do wrong?’ ‘how can we improve’…not…’‘fuck we are shite, lets stop the game for as many seconds as humanly possible’
id be embarrassed if Thiago did that if we were 2-1 up with ten to go (fuck i hope Thiago doesnt do this when we are 2-1 up with ten to go)
Not quite - I’ve always said that I’m in favour of giving the benefit of the doubt to the attacker if you can’t tell they are offside from a cursory check.
The problem is that as soon as I saw the still on the Rashford goal he didn’t look level - he looked clearly offside. To the extent that I totally relaxed and just assumed the goal was going to be ruled out.
Before the match, one of my mates (United supporter) posted a status update that United are winning their first match of the season against their bitter rivals. This made me smirk because we would not let this United team who are in shambles on and off the field, achieve their first win and score their first goal/s of the season surely…I even took a screenshot of his post waiting in anticipation to throw it back in his face after the match, safe to say that the screenshot was swiftly deleted at HT.
Many questions have already been asked regarding the starting lineup, delayed reaction to substitutions, players looking jaded etc so not going to dwell on that. It’s clear what United need to do to move forward after seeing ETH’s lineup and game plan. For us, I don’t believe another midfield knee-jerk signing is going to improve us as a team. We have to sign the ‘right’ player at the ‘right’ time and we’ve had plenty of time to upgrade the likes of Ox and Keita knowing that they are injury prone so no excuses. We are stuck with too many liabilities in this squad!
I’ve said it in a previous post and I still maintain we will come good and get back to winning ways as we’ve done many times before but it is worrying that we have to go through these phases of injury crises so often.
Firstly I don’t quite agree with some of the criticism of Firmino. He was constantly on the ball etc. stitching play together but it was all far too deep. He does that further forward and I think he has a good game and the criticism goes away. I think his depth was a result of an ineffective midfield.
Midfield was too easily over run last night. Take your pick on who and why that was but note that it didn’t matter who was in there.
Diaz was very quiet in my book. Salah pretty ineffective again.
Trent’s usual defensive frailties exposed.
We’re off the boil mentally but there is something tactical at play here as well. It has an ominous feel that we’ve been figured out and simply don’t have the physical power to force through it as we have done previously.
Answers on a postcard on how to fix it as I’ve no idea. Elliot for all his quality I don’t think works in this set up. Milner and Hendo just not doing it at the moment.
Front line are not getting any supply and when they do get the ball they’re trying to force things through impossible spaces which means they invariably lose it and then we’re open.
Regarding the offside, why have VAR if you’re going to let things that are defined by the tech as off side pass as on side! Have or don’t have it at all. Otherwise get rid of the ref.
I don’t agree at all, I get you are an optimistic guy fair enough, but their first goal… Trent just stands there, he gets ran in behind (it happens a lot) and he doesn’t do anything, he doesn’t try and recover he just stands there. Then Van Dijk just stands there, Sancho takes about 10 seconds to decide where to shoot, if Van Dijk was playing with desire he’d be sprinting out to meet Sancho to block the shot…
So you tell me why they did that? For me the opposite of playing with desire, fight and intensity is playing with complacency and to be utterly honest… Lazy…
You tell me why Van Dijk is playing passive defending when he used to bully everyone? Where is the basic organisation at the back? Where is the communication.
Compare that to Utd who got embarrsed by Brentford… They fought for everything, they put their bodies on the line… They got their crowd going by playing with heart… We didn’t do any of that. Utd didn’t do anything ground breaking, they played basic football, they played in our faces, they fought for the ball… We didn’t, we haven’t for months now.
Why are we shattered btw? Utd had the same pre-season as us… And if the “seniors” are shattered, drop them, bunch of fannys. I’d rather the kids played and showed heart than the seniors going through the motions.
