15 Aug 2023 14:18:20
I always think its a good idea to sleep on a disappointing result/ performance and give yourself time to reflect and let the frustrations go.

My view of the game was much the same as my view of the friendly against Lens, we look undercooked and not quite ready for the season. We are too slow in possession, our movement off the ball looks laboured, and we don't look match sharp yet. Too many times the player on the ball didn't have an option in front of him because our players were too static. When combined with poor/ sloppy technique when making passes we were always going to struggle. Too often when trying to move the ball forward we passed behind the player, which takes the momentum out of the move and gave Wolves time to get back into shape.

A lot has been made of Casemiro not looking great, he is one of those players who needs to play every week to keep fit and sharp. He was never going to look great first game of the season. Those with good memories will remember he took a few games to get going at the start of his United career, and he took a couple of games to get back up to speed after his suspensions last season.

That wasn't helped by Mount and Bruno playing too high in my opinion, one of them needed to drop deeper. I think the initial plan was to have one of the full backs invert to sit alongside Casemiro. Yet it was clear that it wouldn't work with Wolves once we saw them playing both their wide players high and wide. That pinned our full backs out wide and stopped one of them dropping in with Casemiro. At that point one of Mount or Bruno should have dropped in to solidify the middle. Even a fully fit and match sharp Casemiro would have struggled to shield the entire midfield on his own.

Hopefully lessons have been learned and we spend the week really working on fitness to bring the players up to speed. If a behind closed doors friendly can be arranged for Wednesday/ Thursday that would be ideal, as these players need to get fit and match sharp.

1.) 15 Aug 2023
15 Aug 2023 14:38:55
Was at the match last night and agree we were miles off the pace. No real effort to worry their keeper first half, passing abysmal and garnacho and rashford looking slow and uncomfortable in the roles they were playing.

So many times last season EtH aftermatch stated that the players weren't doing the job he asked and with that and early season lack of fitness it was a hard watch.

Positives, we got the win, onana (lucky penalty wise) but clean sheet and shaw had a decent game. Wolves were never going to lie down despite their issues close season and we used a got outta jail card.
Sincerely hope we improve massively against spurs and again forest.

2.) 15 Aug 2023
15 Aug 2023 15:10:43
Shappy - I agree the players didn’t look fit and you have to question if they got enough minutes in their legs during pre season?!

I completely agree about one of the defenders moving into midfield alongside Casemiro. In the second half it was Lindelof. If you re watch the game, in the second half when Lindelof came on, he constantly Jogged into midfield from goal kicks leaving a back three of Varane, Shaw and AWB. I think the idea was a box midfield like we’ve seen from Pep but the players didn’t seem to understand it or look comfortable. If that was the plan it should have been worked on in pre season. In addition, apart from Martinez I’m not convinced any of our other defenders are competent progressive passers or suited to that position. It resulted in Bruno and Mount being too high and the team being unable to progress the ball forwards.

In addition our attacking play is still heavily reliant on getting the ball to our wide players who then cut inside and shoot. If the full backs are inverted, the wingers lack support and become isolated without the full backs making over lapping or under lapping runs either to create space or receive the ball themselves. It blunts our attack especially as our wingers don’t generally come inside and look to interchange with the CF or advanced midfielders.

I didn’t like the tactical set up, it was overly complicated, the players didn’t seem to understand it and in my opinion it contributed to both a poor team performance and several poor individual performances as well.

Of course it’s not the end of the world, it’s only the first game and we eventually found a way to win but to me it was hard to see that that this was a team that had just come out of its second pre season with the same manager.

I think we can all agree we can’t afford too many of the same like that and expect to pick up the 3 points on a consistent basis. Let’s hope it was just first game gremlins!

3.) 15 Aug 2023
15 Aug 2023 15:40:46
It's just his first competitive game for us and he'll no doubt be far better when he settles in but Mount was giving me serious 'English version of DVB ' vibes all game.

4.) 15 Aug 2023
15 Aug 2023 18:50:02
I think we really have to wait and see what happens when we have all our players in their best positions, and in particular when Hojlund gets his United career started. At the moment there are big question marks about both Mount and Antony, who is not only not even close to living up to his price tag, but looks like he doesn't have the skills or temperament to ever do so. None of the starting forwards acquitted themselves well yesterday. Sancho played decently. That seemed to iterate the phenomenon of last season that the starters, whoever they were, didn't look too good, but the subs came on and changed the energy.

5.) 15 Aug 2023
15 Aug 2023 20:56:04
Players aren’t fit after pre-season!? Undercooked!? Pre-season has changed somewhat since I played. You basically got beasted for 2 months and start of the season you were fit as a butchers dog.

6.) 15 Aug 2023
15 Aug 2023 23:07:09
Judging by the nonsense on here today it looks like it’s between Antony and Mount to be the scapegoats for every poor performance ??‍♂️?.