Manchester United Banter Archive October 24 2013

24 Oct 2013 18:53:08
Well it was a good result with some positives but let's not go overboard

We moved the ball a bit quicker than recently especially through midfield and had a decent opening to the game in which we got a bit of luck but it was deserved. There were positives in the performance of Rooney and Kagawa who benefitted from quicker movement. The fact that Giggs looked reasonable in central midfield is something that should really concern our opponents. We again struggled for goals and that is a theme at the moment but it will come. We rely too heavily on several players for goals and if they don't score little comes from behind them, remember Giggs Scholes Keane and Beckham used to significantly contribute from midfield.

We need to ask whether that midfield would survive against better opposition because frankly the Spaniards were very poor. Worryingly we inexplicably dropped off the pace several times and nearly came unstuck and Moyes needs to understand why, also it appeared we dropped deeper and I can only hope that is not on an instruction.

We won and had some quicker movement but neither the opposition or our midfield were of the standard to say we are any where near back up there amongst the top teams. Also who amongst us is truly confident we will keep that up against premier league opposition. Finally we played much quicker through midfield so I would love to ask Moyes how does Fellaini fit in to that plan going forward?

Red Man
Everybody seems to be falling into the same trap, we are well aware of the midfield issues we face but the key to our poor performances as been the shocking contribution from our back four.The gap between midfield and defence is a joke this generally is due to a lack of confidence the centre halves retreating to the edge of the box unlike Dortmund who forced Arsenal back from the kick off they where in complete control and more importantly their distribution into midfield or upto Lewandowski was consistently good.
Against Southampton De Gea had more touches than Fellaini & Carrick put together in the first 20 mins due to back pass after back pass.My concerns over the replacements of Rio& Vidic who like Pallister and Bruce managed both defending and passing to a United shirt on a high success rate, apart from Evans I see Jones and Smalling lacking in this department and last night I saw both c, halves colliding into each other flying in with last ditch tackles almost Wes Brown like!
Until this area is sorted then we will continue to witness games which in parts good passages of play exist but we will be exposed because our back four will be miles away.
Only Gary Neville mentioned this during commentary last night come on MR.Moyes your the so called defensive coach get it sorted because Carrick will be exhausted come X Mass.

Johnny

I said above and have said it several times before about our back line dropping deep. I also commented several weeks ago that there were the first ageing signs in Vidic when Altidore was causing him issues. When worrying about pace you drop deep and Moyes should be getting them to push up as it helps midfield as well. Personally I believe we need to give Jones and Smalling a run and they have the pace to push higher, the question is whether that is Moyes tactics

24 Oct 2013 17:59:45
Guys do you think a starting line up that includes Rooney, Kagawa and Januzaj is doable? I think those 3 would lead to many many goals and many chances for RVP. If it worked then arguably we wouldn't need a new winger / forward player. All 3 for me would flourish. We would still need a central player that runs past players to play alongside Carrick or Cleverly. For that role I would love Marchisio to be honest and I think he is plausible.

Would much prefer Gundogan to Marchisio tbh. I'm hoping we can witness Kagawa, Rooney, Januzaj and RvP all on the pitch at the same time very soon. Surely Moyes is slowly working out they're our best attacking players over the likes of Nani, Valencia and Young.

Yes, I love the idea of those 3 and RVP together, I think adnan and kagawa are capable of playing up top as well, so it's like a front 4 that can all rotate and be in different positions at any attack. I think for now Carrick/felini and cleverly will have to do, as long as we don't play rio and vidic together.

I personally think that we need to play 4-2-2-2. I'd like to see us play De Gea | Rafael, Vidic, Evans, Evra | Carrick Cleverly | Januzaj, Kagawa | Rooney, RVP.

In future replace Cleverly with someone like Herrera who is quite likely and Coentrao for left back.

Completely agree fresh

24 Oct 2013 12:55:17
What Giggs is doing is breath-taking for a 40 year old. But what people need to do is forget who Giggs is/was and look at the performance of the player not the name or the "records" he breaks every time he wakes up. If Cleverly or Anderson had performed identical to Giggs last night, there wouldn't be a mention. Just another also ran.

Lets put Steve Redgrave back in the Olympic rowing team because he would be amazing for a 50+ year old! It doesn't matter if the other rowers have to carry him, he still looks good collected the medal and jumping in the water at the end, such energy, what a guy, another record!

What about the 50 other British rowers that deserve their chance and would do a far better job?!

Why isn't Anderson or some youngster getting a game, playing Giggs is holding everything up? Even Smalling at the back and Jones into midfield to give them games. I fail to understand the logic in people saying they were wrong about Giggs etc, we could have had Usain Bolt on the wing last night and it wouldn't have made much difference. We were playing against a very poor team.

It's exactly the same when it comes to Chelsea with Lampard and Liverpool with Gerrard - it's also getting to be that way with Rooney. The media darlings, whenever they give it away the commentator or journalist skips that part and just talks about the "amazing strike", "powerful run", "Master-Class". It's lazy and transparent. Rooney was awful against Southampton yet he is in a great vain of form, unstoppable, everything he does is great. Yes he has been playing well on the whole, but how many goals has he scored from open play this season?! How much of our game is ran through him because all of our players are told to look for Rooney first? It's so misleading. The commentators kept on talking about how everything good we do comes through Rooney, that's because every player has to feed Rooney and he plays as an advanced playmaker! It's like saying every great save that is made seems to always be by our goalkeeper, strange that.

Soon we will have a team full of Giggs-esque players. Rio read it well for a 35 year old, Vidic heads it so far for a 34 year old, Evra bombs forward well for a 34 year old, Carrick does nothing well for a 35 year old etc etc etc. I haven't looked up their ages, but we can't simply look past the bigger picture because of what these guys are doing compared to other people their age, it needs to be compared to the best of the best in their early-mid 20's!

Good result that we needed desperately, but still not as good as the Leverkusen game.

And the award for the most bitter post goes to Mr Sween.
Well done son

Credit where it's due springs to mind

I'm not bitter. I'm just stating what most people have been saying for the past few months and adding my own spin. A half decent performance against below average opposition doesn't make everything ok.

Giggs in midfield is a fiasco - as we witnessed on Saturday. That's realism, basing my views on what I have seen, rather than changing my opinion over night.

MrSween is not bitter just a realist.Yes Giggs did well against Real Sociadad but was crap against Southampton.It is a fact that his poor games outnumber his good ones many times.We have had a problem competing against good teams for a while now.What saddens me the most, is how many Utd fans seem to think we are still a force in world football.We are not a great side anymore just a team capable on a good day of great performances.We have not had a great performance in a long while.We are however a great club and hopefully we will get back to being a powerful team in world football sooner rather than later.

24 Oct 2013 11:13:17
I must see things totally different from everyone else.
Giggs was not good last night. If you watch him while play is continuing around him, he strolls around. I guarantee if we were playing a better team himself and Carrick would have been destroyed. Our play in the center with the two of them together is a thrashing waiting to happen.
Valencia has no end product. Every time he got the ball he tried to run with it, and goes nowhere. He does not have the ability to get a quick ball into the box.
Hernandez can't control a ball coming straight at him and pass it back to a runner.
Kagawa looked promising. I thought Rooney did good. Evra did his usual attacking runs and then forgetting he is actually a defender and strolls back into position 10 minutes too late.
This team would have been annihilated by a top-class european side.
Great to get a win though!

J Bones.

Bones,

Giggs is now limited but what he did last night he did well. I think (hope) it is safe to say that playing against a better team than last night we would not have played the way we did, keeping the game open with Giggs and Carrick as the midfield 2. We were able to do that last night because of who we were playing against and it worked well, we won the game without a few key players playing.

Maybe the selection was down to good scouting of the opposition and Moyes realising their midfield wasn't that good and we could play Giggs and allow others a rest?

J Bones - Couldn't agree more. It's sad how many people are saying they were wrong about Giggs etc, if this is what we have come to expect from our performances and class it as a good outing by Giggs then the Glazers have done their job well.

That performance against any Utd team 3 years ago would have ended up in an absolute hiding. Giggs made a couple of cameo runs at the end and had a couple of "harlem" touches, but he did nothing else apart from give it away and be by-passed time and again by their players. Did he make one challenge?

Any professional could look good doing little flicks now and again, especially when the commentators are salivating "record appearance, counting qualifiers", "40+ and still running", YES he is paid a fortune to run for a living and he plays in the heart of midfield for a team he should be nowhere near now, he is a major liability, brilliant servant but this rubbish chat just extends his shelf life with easily lead fans.

We were up against fodder, the performance was average at best, but good signs from the centre halves and Kags. But again who were they up against?

Sorry to be negative, but we need some perspective here. Fellaini would have looked composed against that lot last night.

Agreed guys.I thought we played OK. But we were playing an average team.
Positive is Kagawa started and finished.
Against a better team, we would have been found out, as we needed more midfielders and younger midfielders.
My worry is RVP, as I have mentioned in the past, I know Van Gaal and he has intimated that RVP is not happy. We need RVP to be firing on all cylinders if we're going to be successful.

Mr sween
So who would you of played last night instead of giggs

Jred - I would have played Smalling as Centre Half and pushed Jones into Centre Mid with Carrick. That way we get to hopefully see Smalling develop a bit as he seems to be going backwards and Jones gets a full 90 in a position that he may have to step into when injuries start creeping in.

Sween.
Jones deserves a run of games at cb imo.
Our tempo has been the main issue for me GIGGS improved that yesterday, I don't think Jones playing cm would of his passing is no where near good enough.
Moyes has made some mistakes but I think he got it right last night

Mr Sween

Jones can't pass the ball forward once he gets into the opposition half and never a midfielder. He is a big body to break up play and we were not going to play that way at home. Whilst the opposition might nto have been Real Madrid, The players were given a job to do and they did it well and the score line is deceiving.

I have to agree with Jred, it was Giggs' tempo that helped us last night. A midfielder able to run through midfield unafraid to take a player or two on. Much like Cleverley and Anderson did before Cleverley got clattered by Davies. We need a midfielder who is able to burst forward and grab the game by the scruff of it's neck.

Jred - Fair enough pal, I agree that given the options his choice paid off big time, it would have been horrible for another one to be let go. I agree that Jones needs to cement his position at CB, but playing Giggs is stifling a lot of the youngsters and seems a bit pointless.

My major gripe is all the sudden love for Giggs when a few weeks ago nigh on everybody was against him wearing a Utd shirt again. I'm just saying that virtually any CM player could have done the same if not better than Giggs last night.

Let's see what we do on Saturday, but I'm pretty sure Giggs won't be starting even if Moyes buys into this "awesome display" lark.

Sween
GIGGS performance was better than any fellaini has produced so far this season .
Cleverly is injured and Anderson can't stay fit or last 90 minutes.
As for the youth if they are good enough they will get a chance

Jred, I was thinking about this earlier actually. If Daehli had given it one more season, he may well have got himself an appearance this season. Although the one to watch in terms of midfielders from the academy is no other than Ben Pearson. He used to be a striker and has been converted into a midfielder very well. He has impeccable close control and balance. Great at getting out of tight spots and of course being an ex-striker, he has a goal threat.

Mr Sween, what youth players was Giggs holding back last night, playing in that role?

StevieK

StevieK

My point isn't just about last night, it's about people saying how well he played when he didn't play that well. Having Giggs in the squad means we haven't got another midfielder taking that position, Powell would/should be getting a lot of games if he wasn't out on loan! Instead Giggs plays and Powell is at Wigan - if you swap the two over Powell will be coming on leaps and bounds, getting vital experience - are you telling me that last night wouldn't have been ideal for Powell instead of Giggs?

GCU, I appreciate Jones isn't great with the ball, but he certainly adds energy to the midfield and runs at them, this is what Giggs offered last night according to a few people - he gave the ball away a lot as well and didn't put a foot in, so Jones wouldn't be any worse and it would have meant Smalling got 90 mins.

Maybe Giggs's experience is useful in some games, but not against mickey mouse-ville and certainly not at the expense of new talent coming in. We would have been fine with Carrick holding, Nani/Janujaz on the left and Kagawa just in front of Carrick with Rooney just in front of him and then Hernandez up top.

Mr Sween, how can anyone on here possibly know if Powell is good enough to play in a CL match?

He's played lower league football and a handful of games for us.

Are you and others, in this mad dash to throw in all our youngsters, really prepared to risk not qualifying from the group stages?

We need certain players to do certain jobs, and Giggs will help us at least get out of the group.

I think we all know that Powell is good enough to play in a CL game. The main reason being he played in two last season.

I'm beginning to wonder if you watch United games at all StevieK, with you going on about Giggs only playing 5min against Southampton last night, and now wondering if Powell can do something he has already done.

Mr Sween

Powell is nowhere ready for even a premiere league game and you think we can throw him in against a decent spanish side in a must win game in the CL, I have to disagree.

I think there is a tendency to overrate players. The reason zaha and powel are not playing is because the other guys are better at this time. If they were ready they would play.

I understand your frustration in terms of a 40 year old being our best option but the solutions lie outside of the bunch of players we currently have and we need to buy 2 midfielders. There is possibility the young guys everyone talks about never make it with us.

Danny

So if he is good enough to play in CL games why did we send him out on loan.

I have watched him twice this year playing for wigan in the championship and once in europe and he is not ready for the pl in my opinion. Believe me I have no interest in wigan and only watched the games to see how he was doing and it was painful watching Wigan:)

He does not get involved enough and does not make himself available for a pass and needs to improve on his movement quite a bit before we can throw him into our midfield.

Powell would have been ready for the EPL this season had he not suffered a bad injury that resulted in an operation. We must remember that Powell isn't a central midfielder, he is further forward than that and he could do a job for us now no problem. Next season he will be in the MU team.

Shahram, there is a reason why Zaha isn't getting an opportunity and it has naff all to do with not being good enough or being ready. It is far more personal than that.

Powell would be in our team now had he not suffered with injury. SAF made that very clear and the games he did play for us when fit, he was very good. Especially when playing out of position.

Sydney

Where do you play him and who do you drop, I am interested to know.

GCU - The Champions League Group stage is typically nowhere near as strong as the Prem. We should have battered Sociedad, we battered Leverkusen and we played terribly in the Ukraine and still draw, if we had gone for it we would have beaten that heavily hyped team who have lost their way as well. All three of our opponent's are much weaker this season, just as we are - but we are nowhere near as poor as them. Powell would probably have fitted in perfectly.

Sociedad's star player couldn't even get a kick for Arsenal and we all know how limited they have been upfront in recent years, Bentner and Chamakh, come on!

Yet we struggle against Sunderland, deservedly draw against Southampton and get beat by West Brom. All teams we should expect to beat in the Prem.

I think you have bought into the Media/UEFA rubbish that the Champions League is ultra competitive. The groups vary massively, it's more of a lottery than anything else. Obviously some groups are difficult, but ours is a piece of cake this season and I can't believe it has come to the point where people think a 1-0 win at home against a woeful Spanish team is justification for Giggs starting.

If Powell couldn't play in that match then he shouldn't be a Utd player. Of course he could have played and he would have done a better job against Southampton than Giggs in my opinion and the numerous other games Giggs has played in. Plus he could be playing in the League Cup and getting more action now that we have a very poor and injury hit midfield.

I have loved Giggs over the years, but enough is enough, he isn't playing agaisnt other 40 year olds, or with other 40 year olds, so stop judging him as a 40 year old. As I have said before, if Anderson or Clevs had played just as well as Giggs they wouldn't even be getting a mention for their performance, so this is ridiculous.

This champions league group is not as easy as you make it out to be mate and we have had bad nights against a lot lesser teams in that competition.

I also don't see what you see in powel, Don't get me wrong he is young player with potential but no way on earth he is ready to sit in our midfield in a CL tie to push the pace and distribute.

Anderson is a defensive liability and to be frank an embarrassment as a professional. Can not believe a 25 year old who has been here for 5/6 years now can not compete for 90 minutes and can't get to a level of fitness to at least make the bench. The sooner guys like him are sold the better off the club.

If you think Giggs has more bad games than good ones, Anderson has a good 20 minute spell 3 times a year. Giggs played well on Wednesday and did exactly what was asked off him and is not holding anyone back because unfortunately he is our best option at the moment.

Shahram, if you are referring to Zaha, then I would play him RW ahead of most of our wingers. If you are talking about Powell, then I wouldn't drop anyone to play him, it's a squad game after all and he would get his chances. He will next season that's for sure.

GCU - I can appreciate what you say about us having struggled against a lot less - but this season we are fielding our best 11 where possible in the Champions League, we haven't in recent years until it's becoming a bit dangerous. The teams we are playing have had their hearts ripped out during the summer and were far below what you would expect in terms of quality.

We will have to agree to disagree about Anderson. I believe he would be an immense player for us if he was given a run of games and could stay fit. He is precisely what we miss, somebody who takes the game to the opposition and connects midfield to attack, drawing defender into him and freeing up space. His distribution is questionable at times, but no worse than Giggs. Having him play makes our team far more dangerous, but we do have to ensure Carrick is on the ball because he isn't great defensively.

We were severely limited with our options on Wednesday and this is my point about long term planning being needed, resorting to Giggs because he is the only fit midfielder in our squad is a sad state of affairs and my point is that it's time he moved on and let that number be filled by a youngster or new signing that can progress.

I'll leave this one for a bit pal and hopefully catch up on Saturday. Stoke should be interesting.

24 Oct 2013 11:12:44
Hey Eds, was just wondering if you had any idea who Phelan was referring to when he said "If Sir Alex and David Gill had still been the bosses, I won't name the player, but there would have been a star signing, one of the absolute best players in the world." lot of people think it Bale or Ronaldo, I was just wondering if you could shed any light on it for me ed? Thanks {Ed002's Note - It is moot really. Perhaps he is just teasing you.}

I think it would of been Ronaldo.

Phelen got nothing else to do these days, so he's talking out of his bum

Is it moot really? Or is the optimist in me just hoping that this transfer is still on the cards as it would be nice to have the marquee signing we need.
Fresh, It may have been Phelan's way of saying if Fergie was still in charge we would have gotten Fabregas or Thiago, I think a lot of people wished for Ronaldo or Bale but I doubt it was ever a possibility.

24 Oct 2013 10:27:19
Any other takers for the Kagawa/Rooney partnership. Yes Kags will have to ensure its not a one off, but I think he thrives playing with Rooney. There is just so much more pace with them linking up and some of the counter was old school United stuff. The 2 enjoyed playing with each other. With all RVPs brilliance, I think he slows our attacks down and relies on his individual brilliance a lot. We should try a game with any 3 of Rooney, Kags, Januzaj, Nani behing RVP and see how it goes.

But with RVP with hs niggles, I would let this partnership blossom. Yesterday was probably our best "attacking" performance in over an year. By the way Kagawa's out of this world pirrouete was simply breathtaking.

Deeps.

Rooney, Kagawa, RVP can all play together. The missing piece of the jigsaw is none other than Layton Baines and Moyes will know this more than ever after last night. Rvp playing as a lone striker with Kags, Roo and Valencia as a three in behind. The team will effectively take a lop sided approach where Valencia is able to move out to wide right bringing Kagawa in from the opposite wing. Now this leaves a huge gap up the left side just like yesterday but instead of Evra crossing into row Z, we would have Layton Baines. Everton did exactly the same thing with Pienaar and Baines that we could do with Kagawa and Baines. Pienaar was allowed to float in field from the left side with Baines providing a constant overlap as left winger. Two holding midfielders from Carrick, Fellaini, Cleverly and Fletcher in front of the back four in a 4-2-3-1 formation cover any quick breaks that may develop. It can work, it will work, but it requires the stamina and final ball quality of Layton Baines.

24 Oct 2013 09:24:33
just like you lot to get ahead of your selves

our opponents were weak and poor but we did make it them look worse than they were

Against stronger teams we would be found out but anyhow its a good lift with many positives in the performance

Carrick gave the ball away many times and wasn't that great to be honest!

rafael was probably the same but he hasn't had much football of late

all others players did OK with obviously kagawa and Rooney shining!

The team is crying out for kagawa to have a good run of form and let everyone else reap the rewards from it

Bring on stoke!

Hi thanks for the good post l personally think we shall see a big shift in the tables by the end of Nov because most of those teams in the current top 4 will be playing each other e.g Arsenal will play Chelsea, Liverpool and Man U. let's wait and see.
Susu

24 Oct 2013 07:33:47
Hello lads hope ure all keeping well,
Well my thoughts on last night is, I thought we played aswel as I seen us play in a long time & I put large parts of last season in there too.
Rooney is defo doing all the right things to win round the fans again, his performance last night showed everyone watching wot he can still do when he has creativity around him, his hunger and desire is infectious and drove the team on, kagawa at last showed why he is sie highly thought of by the fans, it was a real 9/10 performance imo.
Our young defence looked solid again (yes again) as I thought even against Southampton for the most they were solid and became a victim of our offence being unable to finish the game off.
Dave the save is quickly becoming one of if not the best goalkeepers in the business.
In fact three points really for me are still wrong, first being evra as per usual, I love the bloke but he is well off the pace these days, secondly is Hernandez and his lack of build up play, once again I love the bloke and will be sad if he leaves but he is an impact player imo and nothing more, thirdly is our ability or lack of to finish the game off again, this can will be sorted once we gain consistentcy and confidence.
But all in all very happy with the lads last night and it does make u wonder if we have turned a corner finally, a good win against stoke and we are well on the way to consistentcy.
Well done lads u done us proud and the way we carried on attacking till the last kick was great to see!
Roll on stoke!

I though it took a while for Kagawa to warm up to the game to be honest, he was excellent as the game went on though and you could see he was relishing the chance playing in the hole alongside Rooney

24 Oct 2013 01:57:58
I actually thought we played brilliantly tonight. We were unlucky not to have been 3-0 up by half time, and could have scored at least another 2 in the second half.

Im going to go through the team and rate them what I would rate them out of 10.

De Gea
Even though he didn't have much to do, he was alert when called upon, and inspired confidence in goal. 7/10

Rafeal
He was very good defensively tonight, his close control and first touch let him down a bit tonight, but its not long since he came back from injury so I would say again 7/10

Evans
Excellent tonight our best defender by far, he inspires confidence and has become braver and more willing to get stuck in recently. 8/10

Jones
Solid and did what needed to be done, not spectacular but didn't let us down either. 6/10

Evra
Did well tonight, always a threat going forward, and even though caught out of position a few times, it seemed like he was more willing to get back. 7/10

Valencia
First half was brilliant, he was constantly giving their fullback problems, not sure what happened second half he seemed to have dropped back a bit, and all our attacks were focused down the left through Kagawa. Anyway a solid 7/10

Carrick was awesome all night, and time and time again showed why he's our most consistent player. His reading of the game is outstanding and his technical ability is widely underestimated. 8/10

Giggs
He was unbelievable tonight, and if he could play like that for the rest of the season, then we could easily make it through till the summer without another midfielder. 9/10

Rooney and Kagawas link up play was outstanding, the way they terrorized the sociadad defence time after time was fantastic. There close quaters interplay was breathtaking at times. If there combined finishing was better then we would have killed the game off by half time. Both 8/10

Hernandez played well, I think his passing and build up play was better than RVPs this season so far, and he made a big difference up front. Even though he didn't score, his work rate and overall play made up for it. 7/10

Wow I thought I had rose tinted glasses, we were good, better than Saturday and seemed to be focused on attack a lot more, but we were still overrun in midfield at times and the game was wide open. I thought giggs played well but Rooney and kagawa were a class above him last night and kagawa showed when he cut inside that he should be playing in a 4-2-3-1 and not as an out and out winger.

Jase - I thought Jones played very well indeed, he and Evans looked quality together.

I know the commentators were having a Carrick & Giggs love-in as usual, but I think that they were average at best. Yes there were a few nice touches and a couple of runs forward from Giggs (it's still more than we are used to from our CM but how bad is that), but they gave the ball away loads. They looked weak in any challenge and they were playing against very poor opposition. They couldn't turn and were saved by Jones 7 Evans on countless occasions. If Rio and Vidic were back there is would have been even more blatant how poor they were in the midfield. I honestly think against any prem team we would get destroyed in the centre of midfield the way those two played last night.

Hernandez did very little again, he hasn't the touch/pass that is needed and yet again he is nowhere near the pull backs in the box, he isn't there poaching goals and if he is close he always misses by a small amount to make contact. I don't know what he gives us to be honest, anyway one can chase down a goalkeeper.

I agree with the rest of your synopsis. Swap Hernandez for RVP, Valencia for Juanjuz. Then replace Giggs with Clevs/Anderson and we have our best team until the end of the season for me.

We were better last night for sure. I do admire your positive outlook, but I think you use words like "unbelievable", "breathtaking" and "brilliant" a little too loosely. Just my opinion anyway.

Janusaj for Valencia is a defensive compromise and not sure always the best way to go.

OK guys maybe I was looking too much on the bright side. Maybe I am a little blinded by my love for the club, but come on guys.
GDS2 you say we were overrun in midfield at times and the game was wide open. So that one clear chance that Sociadad created all night must be what your referring to? I can't really remember another time where the managed to bypass Carrick in midfield and actually played football in our half. The first half we absolutely played them off the park, then the second half they came at us a bit more, but we nullified them and countered extremely well, and created chance after chance. As I said in the OP, we were unlucky not to have won by at least 3-0.
Sween you say they gave the ball away loads. I personally can't remember either midfielders being inefficient with the ball at all. In fact I think Giggs pass completion was at 87%, and the amount of times all of our midfield tracked back to win the ball back (even kagawa), and the amount of interceptions they made showed real determination last night.
Betty, just my opinion but Giggs at nearly 40 years old playing a full CL game at the level he did last night was unbelievable. And yes compared to what we've seen recently Kagawas link up play with Rooney I would describe as breathtaking at times.
Anyway maybe I am wearing my Manchester United goggles, but at least i'm staying positive and will not panic depsite what gets written on here most days.

Not sure what game u were watching but last night was another average performance.
evra, rafael, valencia (after 1st 10mins) were poor. giggs was ok but he is 40 so not going to slate him. Carrick doesn't create anything, all passes are back or to the side.
rooney/evans/ddg were good.
kagawa still don't know where the love-in for him comes from on this site. misses 2 easy chances, caught in possession, easily pushed off the ball and gives the ball away. not what I call a world class player.
also real were crap

Jase,
Don't worry mate, I'm only bantering with you. I love your positive outlook. Its far better than all the doom and gloom we've been getting recently. Next time though, I think you could squeeze in the odd "amazing" or "sensational". lol

Jase - Stats lie. Do ineffective flicks, half hearted interception attempts, half tackles, count as passes? The two of them were very static, especially when defending as usual. 87% pass completion, what does that mean? If I made 87 passes to my mate Carrick no more than 5 yards in the space of 20 minutes, then made 13 punishable poor errors, it's pretty appalling if you ask me. Especially considering how much time he had and how much movement was happening in front of him for once.

Another little stat is the old, worked hard "he ran 11km, team average 10km". Doesn't the keeper count toward that team average, thus bringing down the figure by 10% ish - again pretty persuasive otherwise!

I'm not saying we weren't very good. We were far better than against Southampton, but we weren't playing Southampton. We were playing a very poor, inexperienced Spanish team - I genuinely don't think the news of our fall from grace had reached them in the Basque Country, so they came out with the fear we used to see in most teams pre 2012 - that is the key difference!

Jase,

I admire the positivity mate, it is something that is lacking from a lot of posts on here who seem to forget that supporting a football team is a hobby and should be enjoyed win, lose or draw.

We were overrun at times, just because they didn't create a chance, the game was wide open at times. I have posted above that maybe this was deliberate as we had scouted Sociedad and knew they would not cause us too many problems, so making the game stretched and open allowed us to get in behind them more often.

Giggs played well, think that has been agreed on here, and we definitely could have won 3-0 maybe more and I think we will on Saturday, I just felt Kagawa and Rooney were a class above the rest and therefore should have had higher marks out of 10 (marks out of 10 is a bit of a flawed system anyway).

Great to see some positivity though mate and in good English, you should post more often.

Betty ill certainly try next time ill bear those words in mind lol.
GDS2 thanks pal, I've noticed recently youve been one of the few posters on here who have showed some positivity too, and its good to see. i'm very bored of all the negativity and we need to combat it with a bit of positivity. As I said I may be wearing my united goggles, but I refuse to be drawn into the negativity.

Non-sense. Only players I thought they were at close to Utd standards were Smalling, Giggs, Rooney, Kagawa, De Gea and Evans.

Carrick, Raphael, loose and seemed not focused at all. Hernandez seemed weak to keep the ball, Valencia slowed down the pace. With his form in old days would have actually delivered critical crosses and chances. Jones didn't look comfi on the ball. Evra was defensively ok, actually stopped couple of critical counter, but crosses were just aweful. it's better to pass back, at least keep the bloody ball possession for a better chance.