The Bruno hattrick goal pissed me off so much I took a still and did the measurements:
Find the point on each player closest to Leeds goal
Use the mown grass stripe edges to see what proportion is Leeds goal side and what is United goal side for both attacker and defender. This is the only way to account for camera distortion (distance between stripe edges will look smaller the further away from camera )
The Leeds player had 38% of the mown grass stripe his goal side (62% United side). And Bruno had 36% Leeds goal side (64% United side) Ie Bruno was closer by 2%.
We had a whole bunch on here last season saying “get rid of the VAR measuring - close enough is good enough”. Who decides the threshold for ‘close enough’ god only knows. But this goal has set the precedent for the season.
The commentator on Norwich - Liverpool game yesterday spoke about Klopp’s complaints about Man City’s spending and followed with a remark about Klopp’s spending at Liverpool, saying how he spent more than 500 million pounds (it’s closer to 650 million pounds if I’m not mistaken) - conveniently forgetting to mention the sum of money the club has recouped during his tenure so far. Someone should point him to this list.
They went there with an overly attacking line up and without Phillips, probably their most important player in terms of not getting exposed on the counter. It is an approach that player right into Utd’s strengths so as you suggest, I dont think this tells us anything about either of these sides we didnt see last year.
I watched some of that Manure Vs Leeds game. It really was poor. Manure just dominated physically and Leeds just don’t have the technical ability to over come that. Leeds also were all over the place defensively (not surprising considering the manager he needs another 3 weeks to get up to speed (which doesn’t bode well for us)).
Considering how poor Leeds where Manures passes completed stats were poor. That isn’t a title challenging outfit. Norwich had better stats against our fairly good press. (Not saying Norwich will finish above Manure but that would be nice).
Anyway let them celebrate there new hero who hasn’t played a minute for them yet!
United without Sancho and Varane playing was ripping through Leeds, Greenwood looks sharp as well as Luke Shaw who is looking more and more like a top left back in the league.
Fernandes makes things happen, and when you add that with Pogba’s passing (This match specifically) , its a recipe for disaster especially if you play a high line or press too high up the pitch, they seem to have the ability to punish teams like that. If you sat back and defended against them, the outcome may be different.
Unveiling Varane like that was really something and now that “fans are back in the stadiums” United look way stronger for it. We keep saying if we had our fans back in the stadium we would be better, but this goes for all teams. United are now stronger with their fans back in old trafford.
I really hope they dont buy a midfielder to bolster their team, if they get a legit no 6 midfielder… i dont even want to think about it…
Bielsa isn’t exactly what you would call a “big game” manager though, is he? IMO his radical man-marking system is quite poor, Leeds were getting pulled out of shape as a matter of course. Space everywhere for United to attack.
