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Ninja
We mostly just did what we had been doing before, but without Falcao being a waste of space and at a quicker tempo. Only real difference.
Sam
Funny that Fellaini was more of a threat than Falcao was upfront.
Only one defeat in 19 is pretty impressive when you see how shit we've been this season. Hope we keep it up when we eventually start playing well.
Based Jorge
Shola
- Arsenal self destructed
- Everton have got a touch of second season syndrome
- Liverpool have got a touch of second season syndrome and sold their best player
- Southampton aren't actually that good
- Nor are West Ham
- Newcastle certainly aren't.
This is why Man Utd are third. All of the other teams aren't playing very well.
Man City are also not playing very well, but better than Man Utd.
Ninja
Because we're no where near as bad as people try and make out. We're pretty decent defensively, control most games quite well and are good enough going forward to score enough goals to win games.
It's not pretty, and in part thats why people are moaning, but you also have to remember that most people that are doing the most vociferous complaining are used to watching Ferguson teams winning the league every other season, that was never the aim this season.
Based Jorge
van Persie's tailed off, van Gaal's using Rooney like some footballing experiment, he's also playing di Maria; whose best attribute is running at defenders; up front at times with his back to goal and Falcao has been absolute wank. Van Gaal isn't really a great manager, if any other manager spent £170m and playing the absolute shitheap football United are playing right now they'd get crucified. Could you imagine if it was Moyes? Christ.
You'll probably do us over, we haven't beat yous at OT since 06/07 and it isn't a quality issue from 2012 onwards, it's a mental block as we shit ourselves whenever we play yous or Chelsea. Though I'm still confident we'll finish above United, the Prem game at OT is crucial and we're starting to hit our stride now.
Still backing them for fourth though because everyone else is literally wank.
Ninja
But its nonsense like 'the worst brand of football apart from Villa' that is what I mean, its not even remotely close to being true, but obviously if you're going to believe that it is then you're going to be perplexed at how we're doing anything. Southampton, for example, have played absolutely dire stuff every time I've watched them yet you hear nothing said of it because 1) nobody makes the effort to watch Southampton if they don't support them and 2) talking about Southampton doesn't sell papers. We're clearly not a particularly easy side on the eye, but we're by no means as terrible as people would like to make ot.
We're third because we're slowly putting together the pieces, if anything, the real shame is that we're only 5 points off City and have thrown away almost double that amount of points in games we should have won, especially at the start of the season.
Based Jorge
Still though, for £170m spent; surely you have to be wondering the worth of the investment. If we invested that much and were only third playing shite football I'd be very, very disappointed. Then again; you did have Moyes last season.
Ninja
Well there you go, we're striving to play a brand of football you don't particularly like anyway so obviously when we're not playing it great you're not going to enjoy it.
As for the money spent, its a bit of an irrelevancy in my mind. Obviously Falcao's flopped, and I'm not sure why we signed Herrera, or indeed who signed him, but at various points I think the other 4 have shown their worth it. Shaw will be our left back for years to come, Blind and Rojo have been excellent all things considered and Di Maria has shown flashes of his true self, and looks to be coming back into form at the right time.
I don't think any one at the club was under any illusion that it was a catch all fix for the teams problems and 3 of those signings were necessitated by long standing veteran players leaving (Vidic, Evra, Ferdinand) or just sheer neglect of important areas over the years (midfield). I don't think we've bought badly, and the vast chunk of the money we did spend was on players that should be foundations of this club for years to come, not every transfer will work out, but the players we've bought have more or less done ok.
Anyway, its all conjecture really and we'll see where we are at the end of the season. If the results change and the football doesn't I'll obviously be more critical of what has happened this season, if we continue to stay on track for our season aims, which we should, then I don't really care if we don't cut teams to ribbons every game. It's obviously a transitional period and season, and its churlish to expect too much too soon.
Sam
Last season we were out of the FA Cup in the Third Round and 7th in the league, our football is boring but at least we're not 7th. In November/December people were writing Moyes comparisons, funny how that's all stopped now isn't it?
We've got big tests coming up in March/April, hopefully we can improve the way we're playing. Like against Burnley, last night once we played with width and pace we did well. If we get top four, the way we've played this season will be forgotten about, it's all LvG needs to keep his job.
And yeah, Falcao is done.
.verse
Basically agree with this.
I'd probably be reasonably satisfied if I was a Man Utd supporter about sitting 3rd, considering what's been served up this season. It could, and really should be far worse than the situation on hand. At the same time, I'd be expecting far more out of a side that has had nearly £200m invested in it during the summer.
The worrying thing is that they're a side that still looks like it needs another £300m worth of smart investment had to properly strengthen and provided a balanced squad. There's a lot of dead wood still had, unfulfilled potential and a couple on the decline.
King Luis
This is spot on, id argue Man United have barely improved on last season but of course last season looked much worse because us and Arsenal were doing quite well
George14brfc
Ninja
Only if you assume that the only players we can get to improve us are Bale, Pogba, Hummels etc.. but I'd hardly call that 'smart investment'. Realistically, we need a right back, centre-back (assuming Evans is as good as gone) centre midfielder and 1 of either a Striker or Winger depending on what formation we play. We'll spend big money if a player thats worth it becomes available, but there's no reason to assume we're going to buy big for the sake of it in the summer.
Sam
Carroll.
Ninja
Because Moyes had us play shit and losing games, Van Gaal gets leeway because we win more often. Just like he'd probably also get leeway if we weren't getting the results but were playing well.
Also we're improving under him, perhaps only because he couldn't be as bad as Moyes, but obviously he's going to get more support than a man who we were noticeably becoming worse under.
BR.
K3V0
As a United fan I think this season is just all about the end result, which is getting back into the Champions League. If Van Gaal can achieve that it'll be deemed a success. Next season he'll be judged a lot differently, although in saying that when we're not playing fantastic football against Yeovil, Cambridge or Preston it's frustrating, but that's because we've been absolutely spoiled for an unbelievable amount of time under Ferguson.
Carroll.
Van Gaal also has you playing shit and losing games. You're only realistically two wins better off, which isn't a lot in grand scheme of things. I know this is kind of a shit point because you're only as good as you're opponents, but you're only 3rd because everyone else has been shit this season.
As for actually improving playing style under him, debatable. For every good game you have, you have another 2/3 dire ones.
tmatthew
We've lost once in 18 games.
And still in the FA Cup, whereas with Moyes we went out in the third round.
Also worth pointing out that Moyes still had the backing of the fans at this stage last season. So its only right to back van Gaal, even if he had been as bad. Which he hasn't.
Shola
Where do you guys honestly think you'd be right now under Moyesy?
Ninja
We've lost 2 games since the Leicester 5-3, against Southampton and City, and should have got something out of both those games. Even including the shite start to the season we've only lost 4 times, only City and Chelsea have lost less.
I never mentioned anything about style either, thats your claim.
Hard to say, don't think we'd have got the players we did in the summer if he was here, but assuming we did and everything was the same for him?
Probably on the same sort of points as West Ham, but further away from the pack.
You can instantly discard the points we got in the games against Liverpool, Chelsea, Spurs and Southampton because we were shite under him in those games. Probably would have picked up more points away from home, but been worse at Old Trafford, so yeah. 7th ish and around about 35-40 points.
I'm also not sure playing as little football as we have done is actually an advantage, if anything we probably could have done with the extra matches to build up a rhythm and fitness. Any advantage to be gained from it will come in this half of the season, I should think.
Number 1
VP.
bmg033
Carroll.
Number 1
Yes. It was bad enough Villa were chosen in the last round.
BT free-to-airing Bradford is kinda good though.
Shola
King Luis
Because its as close to they'll get to showing a Premier League game so they'll always favour the games with two PL sides