Football Season 2013/2014

[bob]

Was worth the wait for a goal like this:

[-Dem0-]

All of Arsenal's goals have been great today. Can't wait for Saturday Night Football and MOTD.

[Fierce_LiNk]

I said weeks ago that Moyes needs to learn and he needs to learn quickly. From the first half and the type of football we were playing, I was quite hopeful. Sharp and quick passing. Januzaj putting in a lovely ball that eventually resulted in Van Persie's goal. Nani and Januzaj on the wings, Rooney behind Van Persie, Rafael playing. It all looked so good.

 

Second half was abysmal. Yes, we hit the bar and had one or two chances (Januzaj and Nani), but the passing was awful and the substitutions that Moyes made were SHOCKING.

 

First sub: Nani for Giggs.

Not too happy about this. Nani was having a good game and was making some good runs. He defended decently, tracked back, but importantly he got forward and looked sharp. If we were going to bring anyone on, why not Zaha or Hernandez and kill them with pace going forward?

 

Second sub: Fellaini for Welbeck.

Fellaini had a bad game, again. I don't undestand what he does. He's not combative, because he lost every challenge today. He's not defensive, because he lost every 50/50 and Carrick covered for him for the majority of the game and he's definitely not attacking as he wasn't great going forward. So, I agree with him going off, but why not drop Rooney into midfield and put Welbeck (or even better, Hernandez) alongside Van Persie? Putting Giggs into the middle was suicide.

 

 

Third sub: Rooney for Smalling.

One of the worst subs I've seen for a long time. Rooney was playing well and all it did was heap more pressure onto the midfield and defence, and it meant that we lost an outfield ball in Rooney. We made a defensive substitution that completely failed and cost us 2 points today. By all rights, Southampton could have scored again at the end and we would have lost all 3.

 

He's not learning and he's not learning quickly enough. Too many offsides today, so why didn't he tell Van Persie and Rooney to hold their runs? He did nothing. Terrible substitutions and terrible second half tactics. He's going to start losing the fans now because he is the one making costly mistakes.

[bob]

Very good day for Arsenal; Liverpool and Man U dropping points.

 

Chelsea sneaking a sneaky non-goal against Cardiff, then scoring 3 more anyway.

 

I will definitely try and catch MOTD tonight. As Demo said, it looks like a must watch.

 

My Fantasy Football team has done rather well. I had Ramsey, Giroud, Sturridge and Ozil in it, with Ozil as my captain...

[Fierce_LiNk]

Also, can see why Southampton have such a good defensive record. They killed us in central midfield (who doesn't?) and looked pretty solid at the back. Top 10 finish beckons.

[Blade]

We finally won a game! Fucking yes!

 

Who needs a manager anyway?

[bob]

 

Who needs a manager anyway?

 

Manchester Utd?

[Fierce_LiNk]

Manchester Utd?

 

The upside is that I'm getting a good rush before lifting weights now, thanks to Moyes.

 

"Rooney for Smalling."

LIIIIIIIIIFT.

[bob]

I actually just saw the Southampton goal. Surely Lallana is fouling De Gea? He's backing into him and blocking his view. Isn't that a foul?

[Ellmeister]

It would have been if Fergie was still their manager

[Fierce_LiNk]

I can't really call that a foul, tbh. It's a good goal and it should stand.

 

As for Ell's point: I have to agree. We have no fear factor whatsoever. Nobody is scared of us right now. Nobody.

[Mr-Paul]

I know bob has already posted this goal above, but I'm loving it from this angle. The Norwich defence are totally lost. They don't know where to look! Beautiful goal.

 

[-Dem0-]

Norwich were taking a ride during the first goal.

[Ellmeister]

Liverpool are raving about their SAS - Suarez and Sturridge. Manchester are still trying to come up with one of their own using Welbeck Anderson Nani Kagawa Evans Rooney and Smalling.

[Jon]

What a shocker from the referee for the first Chelsea goal. Probably wouldn't have changed the outcome but it's still a complete cock up.

[jayseven]

Lots of cracking goals today, especially by arsenal - they looked fantastic.

 

Saw this on reddit;

 

 

Just a "that should be impossible-" goal by Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

[MadDog]

That first Arsenal goal was outstanding. I prefer a goal like that over a 25 yard hit and hope.

[dan-likes-trees]

Lots of cracking goals today, especially by arsenal - they looked fantastic.

 

Just a "that should be impossible-" goal by Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

 

Not bad but it's effectively a poor man's imitation of the seminal effort by Antony Knockheart of Leicester City last season

 

 

Skip to 20s (though the first one's good too)

 

The Wilshire from today goal was utterly sublime. Really wonderful.

[Ramar]

The best part about yesterday is that in spells we weren't even that good. And then in quick bursts we were brilliant. Can't fault a single player, although Jack was a bit naff wide right.

 

Some sublime goals, nice team play and some ludicrous skills from Welsh Messi.

 

Not bad but it's effectively a poor man's imitation of the seminal effort by Antony Knockheart of Leicester City last season

 

 

Skip to 20s (though the first one's good too)

 

The Wilshire from today goal was utterly sublime. Really wonderful.

 

Zlatan is still the king, he's done the old donkey kick more than once.

 

Edited October 20, 2013 by Ramar

[bob]

That sort of kick was always my favourite to do rather than head the ball. Let it drop behind you but stick out a leg and hopefully heel it back over your head. Looks awesome when it works...

 

I think a team goal looks very good when it's like the above, but i don't like it when people say its a good team goal just because they strung together however many passes. Basically, my metric is; if you took the goal off the end, would it still look good?

 

If you look at Argentina's goal in 2006 where they had 25 passes before they scored, it is regarded as one of the best team goals. However, if you remove the goal at the end (say they miss) you would say it is just a boring passing game with nothing on the end of it. If you showed someone that Wilshere move, (say he missed the shot at the end) they would still say it was an incredible bit of football.

 

TL;DR I think that a good team goal shouldn't just be based on the number of passes leading up to it.

[Fierce_LiNk]

Liverpool are raving about their SAS - Suarez and Sturridge. Manchester are still trying to come up with one of their own using Welbeck Anderson Nani Kagawa Evans Rooney and Smalling.

 

Future David Moyes substitution:

 

Take off De Gea in the 70th minute and bring on Giggs, put Van Persie in goal and Giggs on the right of central defence with Phil Jones playing the holding role whilst Carrick goes up front.

 

...

 

...

 

...

 

Leave Kagawa and Zaha on the bench.

[Ramar]

Stay classy Spurs fans...

[Goron_3]

I said weeks ago that Moyes needs to learn and he needs to learn quickly. From the first half and the type of football we were playing, I was quite hopeful. Sharp and quick passing. Januzaj putting in a lovely ball that eventually resulted in Van Persie's goal. Nani and Januzaj on the wings, Rooney behind Van Persie, Rafael playing. It all looked so good.

 

Second half was abysmal. Yes, we hit the bar and had one or two chances (Januzaj and Nani), but the passing was awful and the substitutions that Moyes made were SHOCKING.

 

First sub: Nani for Giggs.

Not too happy about this. Nani was having a good game and was making some good runs. He defended decently, tracked back, but importantly he got forward and looked sharp. If we were going to bring anyone on, why not Zaha or Hernandez and kill them with pace going forward?

 

Second sub: Fellaini for Welbeck.

Fellaini had a bad game, again. I don't undestand what he does. He's not combative, because he lost every challenge today. He's not defensive, because he lost every 50/50 and Carrick covered for him for the majority of the game and he's definitely not attacking as he wasn't great going forward. So, I agree with him going off, but why not drop Rooney into midfield and put Welbeck (or even better, Hernandez) alongside Van Persie? Putting Giggs into the middle was suicide.

 

 

Third sub: Rooney for Smalling.

One of the worst subs I've seen for a long time. Rooney was playing well and all it did was heap more pressure onto the midfield and defence, and it meant that we lost an outfield ball in Rooney. We made a defensive substitution that completely failed and cost us 2 points today. By all rights, Southampton could have scored again at the end and we would have lost all 3.

 

He's not learning and he's not learning quickly enough. Too many offsides today, so why didn't he tell Van Persie and Rooney to hold their runs? He did nothing. Terrible substitutions and terrible second half tactics. He's going to start losing the fans now because he is the one making costly mistakes.

 

I'm confused by this...Southampton deliberately play a high line and it caught the players off a few times. It's not Moyes' job to tell the players to time their runs, they are paid to realise that themselves.

 

I really don't think he's doing a bad job at all. He walked into an average team bar RVP and Rooney which walked the league last year. Clearly SAF overachieved with what he had but also it's important to remember that Chelsea, City and Arsenal all had mixed years. Anyone walking into that team would assume they could challenge immediately but they've been figured out by teams and have fallen behind in the spending race (which I agree is partly the fault of David Moyes but surely that's also the issue of not having a chairman?!).

 

He's clearly the right man for the job and he'll be given 3-4 years to build a team. Also, controversial as it may be, I believe some of their problems are completely Fergie's fault. He didn't bring in world class talent for years and the young players who have come through are not in the same league as the golden boys from the 90's. Yes, he got RVP but remember that he actually came out and said he didn't want to be at Arsenal as they lacked direction (hilarious looking back at it). RVP was a great buy but Young, Valencia, Kagawa? United have lacked ambition in the transfer market for too long imo.

 

Will they finish top 4? I'm not sure, it depends on whether they can keep RVP and Rooney fit tbh. Arsenal have a much better team, Chelsea too and City are hit and miss. Liverpool's strong start has put them up there too and Spurs have been great. It's going to be a long season for United fans I reckon.

[Fierce_LiNk]

I'm confused by this...Southampton deliberately play a high line and it caught the players off a few times. It's not Moyes' job to tell the players to time their runs, they are paid to realise that themselves.

 

They get paid to do that, but Moyes is also paid to manager the team, including the tactics. Clearly the tactics weren't working as they were still making runs which were offside deep into the second half, so why not change it up? It wasn't working, which was evident at the time and we ended up dropping points at home. Not excusing Van Persie or Rooney because they weren't particularly amazing, and of course Southampton played well.

 

I really don't think he's doing a bad job at all. He walked into an average team bar RVP and Rooney which walked the league last year. Clearly SAF overachieved with what he had but also it's important to remember that Chelsea, City and Arsenal all had mixed years. Anyone walking into that team would assume they could challenge immediately but they've been figured out by teams and have fallen behind in the spending race (which I agree is partly the fault of David Moyes but surely that's also the issue of not having a chairman?!).

 

As a manager, you're judged on certain things. The line-ups, tactics, substitutions and, to an extent, the signings are down to you. The line-up against Southampton was great, I was excited about seeing Januzaj, Nani, Van Persie and Rooney all playing together, as well as seeing Evans and Jones together in defence (who were pretty great for the majority of the game). However, the lack of a plan b and the terrible, terrible substitutions just outline that Moyes has a lot to learn. We should have gone in for the kill, but instead we defended deeply, took off two of our attacking outlets in Nani and Rooney and ended up conceding late on.

 

Woodward (new executive vice-chairman) has to shoulder a lot of the blame, but so does Moyes. We had all summer to get the players we wanted and we waited until the very last minute to get Fellaini. If he was really the player we wanted, then why didn't we make a move for him sooner? Worse still, we wasted time making silly bids/bids that were too low.

 

He's clearly the right man for the job and he'll be given 3-4 years to build a team. Also, controversial as it may be, I believe some of their problems are completely Fergie's fault. He didn't bring in world class talent for years and the young players who have come through are not in the same league as the golden boys from the 90's. Yes, he got RVP but remember that he actually came out and said he didn't want to be at Arsenal as they lacked direction (hilarious looking back at it). RVP was a great buy but Young, Valencia, Kagawa? United have lacked ambition in the transfer market for too long imo.

 

Part of it is down to Fergie, I agree. We have a gaping hole in our midfield that wasn't addressed for years, although I have to disagree on the lack of world class talent. We spent a lot of money in the season that we won the champions league and we bought players such as Tevez, Nani, Anderson and Hargreaves. All of whom had potential to be amazing but either didn't live up to it or had injuries, etc. (in fairness, Tevez was fucking brilliant) We've followed that up with the likes of Berbatov, which didn't quite work out how we expected. Chicarito is also a game-changer.

 

Have to disagree with you about Kagawa because he was the best player at Dortmund/in the Bundesliga and it's our own fault that his talent isn't being realised because we're not playing him. Valencia was a boss for the first few seasons that he was here and it's only been this last year that we've seen how limited he is. He's not a Nani, but he's reliable, which you do need in your team. Young seemed like a good transfer at the time and he started off well, but he's very quickly gone off the boil.

 

The problem these days is that "world class" seems to be synonymous with "record breaking transfer fees". I'd rather have spent the 24million or whatever that City spent on Yaya Toure rather than the money we spent on Fellaini. I'm not kidding myself and expecting us to sign players that are worth 50million, because we won't do that. But, if the right player is there, like Ozil for Arsenal, then potentially we might do it.

 

Will they finish top 4? I'm not sure, it depends on whether they can keep RVP and Rooney fit tbh. Arsenal have a much better team, Chelsea too and City are hit and miss. Liverpool's strong start has put them up there too and Spurs have been great. It's going to be a long season for United fans I reckon.

 

I hate how everyone has suddenly just figured out that we're going to struggle this season, or seems to be putting it forward like it's their own idea. This has been obvious for years. You can't seamlessly replace one long-serving manager without taking some sort of hit along the way. Nobody is doubting that. However, and I probably echo the sentiments of a lot of United fans when I say this, but we are making mistakes that are our own doing. Leaving transfers too late, making stupid bids, not playing certain players, making bad substitutions, those are all our own doing and are avoidable. We probably won't finish in the top four, but the team, management, board, everyone is falling far short of what was expected this season, which I don't see as something that anyone can deny.

[MadDog]

Haha.