Manchester United Banter

29 Nov 2023 09:02:45
In two minds to ask but why not. How is everyone feeling about tonight's game.

Watched the Newcastle game yesterday and the ref made a horrendous decision even though they were getting hammered and rode their luck.

Praying we get a good ref who does not screw up the game and is fair for both sides.

29 Nov 2023 09:30:33
Ahmed I am so lost on the hand ball rule and decisions being made, based on some previous ones I can see why it got given. do I agree with it absolutely not but these are being given.
Agreed that we need a game devoid of any refereeing controversy and let's see how we do. I would not be surprised if we got a 2-1 win, not pretty but with some fight.
Hoping that Mainoo gets another game as he adds tempo, composure and would be good for his development.

29 Nov 2023 10:18:57
Here’s a thought; how about handball has to be DELIBERATE? !

29 Nov 2023 10:59:10
Whether a handball is deliberate or not is subjective and open to interpretation and still open to argument. I suspect the only way to make it totally objective is to deal with it as a ball making contact with a foot in hockey. Silly suggestion but I see no other way of removing the controversy. At the moment there are some stupid decisions being made.

29 Nov 2023 11:22:39
For me, the handball needs to have prevented an advantage to the attacking team. If a player shoots and the defenders arm is out stretched and it strikes the arm (Garnacho shot and Romero block), the distance and pace of ball is irrelevant as the strike is on goal and could potentially be a goal, corner or rebound opportunity. If the ball striking the arm/ hand has no affect on potential outcome of where it would have ended up, no handball. Last night, for me, that ball towards Mbappe was not going to give him a shooting opportunity, it was going to high.

29 Nov 2023 11:25:36
Every time the ball goes into the box and it hits any part of any defender the entire ground is engulfed half by fans baying for a penalty and half fearing that it will be given. Penalties were quite rare back in the day when watching games. Now it's rare for any game to just allowed to be a great sporting spectacle and some controversy or other has to eclipse everything else about it.
Deliberate handballs seem quite easy to spot to me. If the arm changes direction towards it then those are the ones that should be given. Balls being deflected at point blank range onto hands then given as penalties are a disgrace in my view. We're humans, we have hands and there's only so much you can do with them. I quite like the stance of the defenders that put their hands behind their backs whenever the ball/ opposing player goes into the box. Can't see what else you can do really, anything seems fair game at the moment.

29 Nov 2023 11:27:13
I agree Patrick. I think the powers that be create unnecessary problems. If handball needed to be deemed deliberate like it used to be and VAR was just used for something clear and obvious, as it was supposed to be, then a lot of the controversy would go away.

29 Nov 2023 11:41:58
Who makes a deliberate handball in the box?

29 Nov 2023 11:57:05
If you’ve played football it is never subjective. The difference between deliberate and accidental is always known. The players know. Sometimes the refs view may be obscured so then enter VAR. At present there is no consistency. How was last nights decision “deliberate? ” It wasn’t.

29 Nov 2023 12:16:10
For a PK to be given the hand ball should be either a) deliberate, which requires direct movement of hand to ball or b) both unavoidable and have prevented a reasonable chance of a goal being scored. In last night's situation it was clearly neither deliberate nor avoidable. The ball hit the defender's body and bounced onto his arm while it was in a natural running position. Certainly not enough to overrule the decision on the field.

If we are gong to use VAR then it should be fairly easy to determine whether there was a chance a goal would be scored. So, for a shot that's way off target, even if the hand ball was avoidable, no penalty.

Last night's ref is regarded as one of the very best in Europe, but even he succumbed to the pressure put on him by the players and the crowd. Worse was the VAR team who should not even have sent it for his review.

29 Nov 2023 12:20:44
Last ditch desperate measures Tumble.

29 Nov 2023 12:47:26
It should be hand to ball. nit ball to hand. Common sense really, is there any left in this world.

29 Nov 2023 12:52:36
I think it will be a miracle if we come away with anything tonight.
I am not 1 bit confident.
Lets hope i am wrong.

29 Nov 2023 12:53:02
The trouble with VAR will never go away in football.

In Rugby the players, coaches, fans and pundits accept the referees decision. In football they don't so it doesn't matter what changes you make players, coaches, fans and pundits will blame VAR when a decision goes against them.

Most decisions are subjective so are not right or wrong just in the opinion of the officials.

29 Nov 2023 13:06:56
It'll be what it'll be, if a bad decision cost us then so be it. No point worrying about it. We should be focusing on what we can do and how we play. Obviously we aren't playing well atm and we need to play ourselves back into form. Ideally we should be able to play to a level where one bad decision will not change the result. Yet we are probably a year or two away from being able to have the squad to play like that.

The only thing I'm in two minds over is whether I'd prefer us to be in the Europa league or out of Europe all together. Obviously dependent on us not being able to qualify for the next round in the UCL.

My heart says that playing European football, even the Europa league is better than nothing. It's still a chance of silverware and glory, while giving us a chance to to qualify for the UCL by winning the Europa league. As well as increasing revenues (over no European football) . But my head says we are struggling due to the number of injuries and how thinly our squad is stretched. That we need to be careful with game time and make sure we don't rush players back too quickly from injury because the players we have are exhausted. That playing the extra games, and particularly the extra traveling will have a bigger detrimental effect on our league season than the potential benefits of having an outside chance of winning the Europa league would offer.

Given the state of our squad, the injuries and the poor form, do we really think we have a realistic chance of winning the Europa league?

If we drop into it and don't win it, while it effects our form in the league then any potential benefit from the money earned from it could be massively outweighed by the financial costs of dropping a few places in the league.

29 Nov 2023 13:29:17
In answer to the OP, I am not confident Utd will get a result tonight.

29 Nov 2023 13:32:22
Predictions for the night ill go 2-0 Man United.

29 Nov 2023 21:00:21
Well it was a bonkers game. again. utd just seem to go to pot in CL when winning this year. just lack control in midfield when a good 10 minutes of holding the ball is needed. Oh well, scored 9 goals away in 5 games and got 1 point. sigghhhh. Not talking about the idiot in goal as I'll be here all night.

29 Nov 2023 07:39:06
{Ed's Note - Ed001 has posted a new article entitled, Manchester City v Liverpool - A Quick Liverpool Perspective

27 Nov 2023 13:27:37
One thing you can't fault Ten Haag with is his approach to youth development with two examples.

Discipling Garnacho on his first pre season and making him earn his way back into the squad was impressive, other managers may have let that slide.

Our mdfield has been a shambles all season and he easily could have been selfish and rushed Mainoo back from injury straight away but he integrated him slowly and play a few youth games to get match fitness and only started him after a 2 week international to make sure he was prepared for premier league football.

27 Nov 2023 14:36:50
Agreed. I just hope he is motivated to integrate more from the youth setup over time.

27 Nov 2023 16:03:58
Or he could have just bought a couple of good quality midfielders with all the money he’s frittered away. No doubt he thought rash was going to score another 30 odd goals and Casemiro was going to do a Benjamin button and has bought luxury players instead. Massive misjudgement and wasteful spending. Not much to shout about this season.

27 Nov 2023 16:15:58
Oh he’s back, onethirddingle, you genuinely could not be more obvious, if you just toned it down a tiny bit you wouldn’t get blocked each and every time.

27 Nov 2023 17:02:26
The other side of the coin is, all his crazy signings not at worked and it is last throw of the dice for ETH so go with what was at the club already.

Confirmed by all his signings did not even make the team apart from GK. that just shows how bad his signings/ Loans have been.

27 Nov 2023 19:34:26
rangersred

You are truly a toxic troll. Every signing but Ambrabat and Onana are injured atm and were not available for selection or in the squad.

It must be very disappointing for you, we won and nothing to post for a few days and now you conjure up another one of your useless posts.

TROLL.

27 Nov 2023 20:21:02
He’s replied to himself now as well, oh my days.

27 Nov 2023 20:21:43
I do almost feel sorry for someone who derives some warped feeling of satisfaction from playing these rather childish games.
Lest there be any doubt the time line of this person, it seemingly has today morphed into onethirddingle,
previously rangersred,
previously shamrock,
previously strangeways,
previously trafford.

This of course goes back in time to our old friend from Romania!

The whole thing has become SO tedious, is there not a motorway near you where you can go and play?

27 Nov 2023 20:22:11
Blimey enjoy the result. utd won well for once. Wasn't it nice to watch the last 10 without being on pins. enjoy it instead of looking for stupid arguments. As by Wednesday night or Saturday we could be back down to earh with a thud.

27 Nov 2023 21:07:12
I think everyone (except the interloper) did enjoy the result, I certainly did.
No one is looking for stupid arguments, but I think it entirely proper to point out that the only person who is trying to stop the enjoyment and create disharmony and the very argument you reference, is nothing other than a complete fraud and charlatan who should not either be welcome or tolerated.

27 Nov 2023 22:23:07
RangersRed, It doesn't matter how many times you say a mistruth it will not make it true.

Onana is making a lot of "experts" eat their words over the last few weeks. He will only get better with better defenders in front of him.

Martinez is our best CB.

Casemiro was our best midfielder las season, hands down. He was never going to be a long term option and maybe he is suffering from having to play so many minutes last season (He played the most minutes of any season in his career last season with us) . Also he was never the managers choice, that was FdJ. When that deal couldn't be concluded the club were offered Casemiro and took the deal. We overpaid, but that isn't on the manager, he neither negotiates the deals and Casemiro was never one of his preferred targets. In fact if I remember correctly it was Adrien Rabiot who EtH wanted when it became clear the FdJ deal wasn't going to happen. Which makes sense as Rabiot is a far more similar profile of player to FdJ than Casemiro is. The club even tried to negotiate a deal with Rabiot, but were unable/ unwilling to reach an agreement. Eventually settling on Casemiro in the final days of the window as options were running out. In hindsight would Rabiot on a free have been a better deal? Possibly, depends if his mum could be kept on a leash.

Mason Mount will prove to be a good signing. He hasn't played poorly, unfortunately due to injuries we have been unable to play the way the manager had intended meaning he hasn't had the chances he probably deserves yet. He will though. When he's played he's been generally good, not put in a below 6 out of 10 performance yet, typically been around 7.

Hojlund looks like a very good signing, you can see the quality he has. Unfortunately he's playing in a team that aren't creating enough chances for him. He will be first choice for many years.

Malacia and Bayindir are solid squad players, cheap enough and are value for money given their role and what we paid.

The only permanent signing that has been a failure is Antony. If you are going to insist on a manager getting sacked for 1 bad signing then you'll probably sack every manager before they have completed a whole season.

All the other signings have been loans or free transfers. Evans and Eriksen have been pretty successful all things considered. The loans haven't been great. Yet the question we should be asking isn't why has the current manager signed these loan players, but instead why has EtH had to sign 6 players on loan in 12 months when Sir Alex didn't sign that many on over a quarter of a century?

The club has been very poorly run, and that has impacted the signings EtH has made so far, from being forced to search Europe for loans to being delivered Casemiro when he asked for Frankie de Jong. I also have no doubt the clubs poor track record has played a role in EtH being sceptical of the players the club suggest, probably leading to him over relying on players he knows such as Antony.

That said of the 10 permanent signings he's made I think 4 have a long term future in the first 11 (Onana, Martinez, Mount and Hojlund) . Another four have been solid squad options and value for money (Eriksen, Malacia, Bayindir and Evans) . With only 2 having any sort of question mark over them. Casemiro who wasn't the managers signing (FdJ and Rabiot were who he wanted), and Antony (who definitely was the managers signing) . The rest were loans made to patch up a poor squad previously assembled under past managers.

I think to anyone with half a brain the signings made make sense and for the most part fit the right profile of player.

Of all the managers post Sir Alex I can honestly say the players signed under EtH have far and away been the best.

Moyes - Fellaini, Mata, Varela.

LvG - Herrera, Shaw, Rojo, Di Maria, Falcao, Valdes, Depay, Darmian, Schweinsteiger, Schneiderlin, Romero, and Martial.

Jose - Sanchez, Grant, Bailly, Mkhitaryan, Lukaku, Lindelof, Dalot, Matic, Pogba, Fred, Ibrahimovic.

Ole - Bishop, Heaton, Pellistri, Donny, Telles, James, Amad, AWB, Ronaldo, Sancho, Maguire, Varane, Cavani and Bruno Fernandes.

Seriously look at those signings from previous managers and you really think the signings under EtH are worse than any previous manager?

27 Nov 2023 22:52:30
He has spoken lol.

27 Nov 2023 22:54:52
Thats 37 signings you've listed Shappy and I'd say three have been worthwhile; Romero, Shaw and Fernandes.

27 Nov 2023 23:34:36
Gary Neville says there was no plan to add a midfielder speaking to people at united and the plan was Mainoo was the guy. Mainoo's injury forced us to do the Ambrabat loan deal.

I trust this manager when it comes to knowing talent and integrating them into the team.

28 Nov 2023 00:16:07
MancMan, I suppose that depends on where you place the goalposts.

If you are looking bar players who have been successful when called upon and have been some sort of value for money then it hard to add anyone to that list of Romero, Shaw and Bruno. Possibly add Ibrahimovic on a free was a good signing for the short term.

I think there are a few more players who might fit the solid squad players category. Dalot, Herrera, Lindelof, Fred maybe (although his fee make him a very expensive squad option) . While you may in time be able to call Amad or Pellistri a success depending how they develop.

But really whether you are saying good signing for the first 11, solid squad player, or talented young player yet to reach their potential we are still only looking at around 7 maybe 8 decent signings from 37.

That in essence is exactly why we have fallen off a cliff in terms of challenging for titles.

You can't sign 30 flops to your 25 man squad and expect anything but abject failure. Until we have 18-20 successful signings in our squad we won't be anywhere near competing forbl major honours.

28 Nov 2023 04:52:05
Bit harsh on Mata. A good solid player and good professional, who a few of the current squad would be good to look to as an example.

28 Nov 2023 06:47:13
I think the problem with many of our signings over the last 10 years has been age profiles and short sightedness. We really had no long term plan and were always doing deals for players who had name recognition but at the end of their careers and we never really got to see their best version. Combine that with the absolute busts its been a large waste of money.

I think Bruno, Dalot, Shaw have been great signings. then you have the likes of lindelof, Varrane, Ronaldo, Mata, Herrera who were decent signing in terms of performance.

Personally not enough signings of players in the 18-21 years old profile with a longer term view. I think if your academy is not producing enough then you should be signing a couple a year as a minimum with some sort of allocation of your transfer spend specificly for them.

28 Nov 2023 07:00:03
Maybe keefy. I really liked Mata, but he never hit the heights expected of him, especially given what we paid for him at the time (club record fee) .

In the end he underwhelmed and never fully nailed down a starting position. Did he really have a bigger impact than Fred for example, despite being a far more talented player.

28 Nov 2023 07:04:53
Oooooft shappy, wow your best post fergie manager and squad was clearly Mourinhos Lukaku used to get slated but imagine you'd kept him awful 1st touch but could score goals you've still not really replaced him big mistake in hindsight by Ole selling him for what half a good season by Martial good win on Sunday though surely keep it up by beating Galatasaray midweek up until January will make or break the Dutch fella for sure few hard games see what him and his signings are made of no point bigging them up yet you've not really beaten any sides u shouldn't yet.

28 Nov 2023 08:30:51
Only way to rate a signing without being blinkered obvs Rangers red doesn't rate TH but other side Shappy seems to think he can do no wrong is are they worth more than you paid for them? Are they pushing you on to win big trophys? Do they get you out of your seat with excitement?

So are TH signings any good just now the jurys got to be out on all of them think sticking with Ole and letting him spend so much money really set UTD back had a decent team under Mourinho apart from the last season when it imploded but when he was there was the only time post Fergie i thought United looked like they might win bigger trophies easily your best manager since Fergie anybody who can't see that doesn't know much about football. been major downhill for utd since then now serious hammerings aren't unexpected.

28 Nov 2023 14:29:55
These two (? ) Rangers lads. None of them post on the Rangers page. Lot to say about Utd, though.

28 Nov 2023 15:16:44
Two strokers or one?

28 Nov 2023 19:44:35
The Mourinho squad was pretty poor to be frank.

While the signings made under Jose were frankly awful. Sanchez, Grant, Bailly, Mkhitaryan, Lukaku, Lindelof, Dalot, Matic, Pogba, Fred, Ibrahimovic. Several of them would be in the conversation as our worst ever signing.

Lukaku pushed for a move away much like he did at Chelsea, then Everton, then Inter Milan. He wasn't prepared to fight for his spot, which he only had to do because his form was awful and he got rightfully dropped. That happened under Jose which prompted him to sign Ibrahimovic.

Lukaku was never a good player, very one dimensional, with poor touch and technique.

I've criticised EtH, but have always expressed that I feel the mistakes he has made are in part due to the circumstances he has, through no fault of his own, found himself in.

28 Nov 2023 19:54:59
Mmmmm. A far bigger impact than Fred I would suggest. I accept he didn’t perhaps have the physical attributes of Fred but was far far smarter with the ball, scored roughly 4 times more goals and would suggest had far more assists.

Fred didn't exactly nail down a starting position either to be fair.

I agree 100% that Mata was not the be all and end all. But he was a model professional and that is something we severely lack at the moment.

Just felt it was a little harsh to list him alongside some of the real flops we have recruited.

29 Nov 2023 07:54:59
Jesus mount a 6 or 7. i'd suggest there's few players that have reached that level in our squad and mason definitely isn't one of them. Not hating on him but i'd call declan rice a 7 out of 10 most weeks mount would be lucky to be a 3 or 4!

29 Nov 2023 09:15:35
No way are any of those signings in the same league of bad as Antony, shappy Zlatan was a tremendous signing same as Dalot great player wouldn't look out of place at Madrid. Ole made it clear he didn't want the big fella and stuck him up on the transfer list u might think that but he's still 1 of the top goalscorers in Europe what circumstances a few injuries he's had it easy at UTD said before it's a way easier gig than most other big clubs hardly any pressure to get top 4 a wee cup run and you're golden, which with your spending power u should easily get to look at Newcastle last night that's bare bones least UTD can call on international players like Mctom, Lindelof, big Harry. you've a well deep squad compared to most clubs. Wish Rangers could spend 5 percent of what you've spent this season alone.

29 Nov 2023 13:32:28
Zlatan was decent at best, one good year, followed by one year out injured. On massive wages and stopped any chance of Rashford developing as a CF by limiting his game time in that role. It was also a short term fix, meaning the club still had an issue the following season. If he was signed to be top quality back up or alongside a top class young player who needed a season or two to develop then he'd have been a good signing. Bought to be our main CF means it wasn't a great deal.

Lukaku had already fallen out with Jose and was angling for a move away BEFORE Ole took over. He was disinterested, overweight and lazy under Ole. That effected his form and he was rightfully dropped. He showed no desire or fight to put in the work needed to regain his place, and preferred to look to leave. Why on earth would Ole or any manager try to keep a player like that? Since he left he's had one good season in Italy, followed by three poor ones across both the EPL and Serie A. We paid 75m for him, paid him 250k per week for 6 months of decent performances at best under Jose (the manager who signed him), then sold at a loss.

Dalot has been a decent signing, yet he didn't nail down the position, which is why the club spent a further 50m on AWB. Both are decent players, but neither would start at teams challenging for the title. Dalot is a great squad player, much like Phil Neville was. A player able to come in for your first choice without a massive drop off in quality and a player capable of playing a few different positions/ roles, giving you more options off the bench.

I'm not sure either Dalot or Zlatan could be considered "tremendous" signings.

If you think the United managers job is easy then you are far denser than I give you credit for. "hardly any pressure to get top four"? only once in the past decade have we NOT fired a manager for not achieving top four. Pretty sure that's a fairly pressured position. Don't get top four? Lose your job.

Spending power means very little when you don't know how to spend it. Since Sir Alex and David Gill left the people running the club have been like that bin man who won the lottery, throwing cash around like its going out of fashion but on nothing worthwhile or tangible. Leading to them frittering it all away and ending up back emptying bins when they should have been set for life.

Over 1bn spent on players and only a couple held or increased their value, taking a title winning squad to a bunch of players who aren't good enough to share the dressing room of the best United sides even as a 5th choice squad option.

We've literally spent a fortune to make the squad progressively worse.

If you like Maguire, McTominay and Lindelof that much you are more than welcome to them. None of them are as good as Brown, Silvestre, O'Shea or Fletcher. All of which were not good enough to be regular starters for a Manchester United team challenging for top honours.

27 Nov 2023 06:02:59
I think it's highly unfair to take out the malfeasance of the club's owners with regard to FFP etc on the fans. Maybe the owners should have to put up a bond to guarantee fair play. and additionally, if titles and prize money have been earned by cheating they should be rescinded. If that makes investing in clubs less attractive so be it. If I were an Everton fan I'd be pissed too.

27 Nov 2023 09:37:33
So you think it's unfair to punish the club for the mistakes made by the club?

Literally the only way to punish fans is to ban them from grounds a 10 point deduction in no way shape or form impacts the fans it impacts the club and those that own/ run it.

Everton admitted what they did the argument isn't that they shouldn't get anything the argument is maybe 10 points is a little excessive based on the fact they co-operated and admitted what they did, but again a points deduction is not punishing fans.

27 Nov 2023 09:59:56
Yeah don't send bank Robbers to jail because it is not fair on their kids.
I seen it all now🤣.

27 Nov 2023 15:58:10
Brooks90. It's the bosses that do the crime, and it's the fans that take the punishment. And i'm dead certain that we would all be bitching and moaning if the same thing were to happen to us as a result of mismanagement of the club's finances by the owners.

28 Nov 2023 09:41:28
Shaw, the fans aren't taking a punishment they can still support the club still go to games in fact this will probably see them be more vocal in support but the fans haven't been punished.

The fans are upset because they care about the club and they want prem football but the fans haven't been stopped from doing anything they normally would so they haven't been punished.

27 Nov 2023 05:42:42
So looks like mainoo is the real deal.
What a performance from the kid, he can be the mainstay of our midfield for the next10-15 years if he keeps working hard and looks after himself, I have so much hope for him.