Manchester United - News, Developments & Season

[rasak74]

Softly, softly...its only 3 games...
Bailly has only encountered 'nobodys' like Wilson (Bournemouth), Redmond & Long (S'thampton), Henandez (Hull)...

Bigger tests lie ahead; only then shall we judge how really good he is at the EPL...

Those strikers would have a field day with arsenal's defence any day.

[FATHER TIKO]

Softly, softly...its only 3 games...
Bailly has only encountered 'nobodys' like Wilson (Bournemouth), Redmond & Long (S'thampton), Henandez (Hull)...

Bigger tests lie ahead; only then shall we judge how really good he is at the EPL...

Those strikers would have a field day with arsenal's defence any day.

With due respect, Arsenal's central defence (Holding & Chambers) is not the standard used to judge Bailly...
Bailly is supposed to be better, abi?

[wiseone]

I agree. The acid test for Man Utd's defence will come in the next game (Man City) where they will face players of much greater quality (Aguero, Silva, de Bruyne, Sterling, Nolito etc).

As I said earlier in this thread:

"Jose has been very fortunate to start with winnable games against Bournemouth, Southampton, and Hull (two teams that got promoted to the EPL in the past 2 seasons, and another that got promoted to the EPL 3 seasons ago). Moyes' first four games in charge included Chelsea, Liverpool, and Man City! He may still have a job if he'd faced the same teams Jose did in his first 3 games."

Softly, softly...its only 3 games...
Bailly has only encountered 'nobodys' like Wilson (Bournemouth), Redmond & Long (S'thampton), Henandez (Hull)...

Bigger tests lie ahead; only then shall we judge how really good he is at the EPL...

[Coach]

Aguero may be banned.

[FATHER TIKO]

I agree. The acid test for Man Utd's defence will come in the next game (Man City) where they will face players of much greater quality (Aguero, Silva, de Bruyne, Sterling, Nolito etc).

As I said earlier in this thread:

"Jose has been very fortunate to start with winnable games against Bournemouth, Southampton, and Hull (two teams that got promoted to the EPL in the past 2 seasons, and another that got promoted to the EPL 3 seasons ago). Moyes' first four games in charge included Chelsea, Liverpool, and Man City! He may still have a job if he'd faced the same teams Jose did in his first 3 games."

Softly, softly...its only 3 games...
Bailly has only encountered 'nobodys' like Wilson (Bournemouth), Redmond & Long (S'thampton), Henandez (Hull)...

Bigger tests lie ahead; only then shall we judge how really good he is at the EPL...

Reason the exaltation by the pundits maybe misplaced. ManU have played only 3 games that were winnable anyway.
Same with Chelsea & to an extent, ManCity (only testy tie has been WHam, who are injury-plagued).
Last season, ManCity were blowing teams away the first 5 weeks and pundits promptly handed them the title...

I think Klopp's Liverpool look really dangerous (outplayed 2 rivals at their own grounds), and Arsenal shall definitely improve as returning players settle.

Nothing is certain yet.

Its only 3 weeks and people are already handing out credits..?

[YUJAM]

Chief. Bailly faced better players in La Liga. But that said I think Man U's defense in general may be exposed against City.

I agree. The acid test for Man Utd's defence will come in the next game (Man City) where they will face players of much greater quality (Aguero, Silva, de Bruyne, Sterling, Nolito etc).

As I said earlier in this thread:

"Jose has been very fortunate to start with winnable games against Bournemouth, Southampton, and Hull (two teams that got promoted to the EPL in the past 2 seasons, and another that got promoted to the EPL 3 seasons ago). Moyes' first four games in charge included Chelsea, Liverpool, and Man City! He may still have a job if he'd faced the same teams Jose did in his first 3 games."

Softly, softly...its only 3 games...
Bailly has only encountered 'nobodys' like Wilson (Bournemouth), Redmond & Long (S'thampton), Henandez (Hull)...

Bigger tests lie ahead; only then shall we judge how really good he is at the EPL...

Reason the exaltation by the pundits maybe misplaced. ManU have played only 3 games that were winnable anyway.
Same with Chelsea & to an extent, ManCity (only testy tie has been WHam, who are injury-plagued).
Last season, ManCity were blowing teams away the first 5 weeks and pundits promptly handed them the title...

I think Klopp's Liverpool look really dangerous (outplayed 2 rivals at their own grounds), and Arsenal shall definitely improve as returning players settle.

Nothing is certain yet.

Its only 3 weeks and people are already handing out credits..?

[wiseone]

I actually think the "traditional top 4" (the two Manchester clubs and the two north London EPL clubs) will re-assert their dominance this season. I cannot see Spurs or Leicester finishing in the top 4 season. We have seen that Man City, Man Utd, and Chelsea can just throw extraordinary sums of money about to buy themselves out of trouble if they have a bad season or two. Top 4 is likely to be City, Utd, Chelsea, Arsenal, with Spurs and Liverpool duking it out for 5th and 6th.

Reason the exaltation by the pundits maybe misplaced. ManU have played only 3 games that were winnable anyway.
Same with Chelsea & to an extent, ManCity (only testy tie has been WHam, who are injury-plagued).
Last season, ManCity were blowing teams away the first 5 weeks and pundits promptly handed them the title...

I think Klopp's Liverpool look really dangerous (outplayed 2 rivals at their own grounds), and Arsenal shall definitely improve as returning players settle.

Nothing is certain yet.

Its only 3 weeks and people are already handing out credits..?

[FATHER TIKO]

Chief. Bailly faced better players in La Liga. But that said I think Man U's defense in general may be exposed against City.

Agreed, against the likes of Suarez, Benzema, Neymar, CR7, Gameiro, Greizman, Torres, and the peerless Messi...
And how exactly did Bailly fare?

That is precisely my point, because Sanchez, Hazard, Aguero, Costa, even a fit Sturridge, or Kane; aren't that far behind those La Liga stars...
That's when to truly assess Bailly...

[YUJAM]

Chief. Bailly faced better players in La Liga. But that said I think Man U's defense in general may be exposed against City.

Agreed, against the likes of Suarez, Benzema, Neymar, CR7, Gameiro, Greizman, Torres, and the peerless Messi...
And how exactly did Bailly fare?

That is precisely my point, because Sanchez, Hazard, Aguero, Costa, even a fit Sturridge, or Kane; aren't that far behind those La Liga stars...
That's when to truly assess Bailly...

He had a hard time his first season at Espanyol but midway into his second season, he was holding his own.

But I agree with you that the Man U defense overall will likley suffer against City

[txj]

Chief. Bailly faced better players in La Liga. But that said I think Man U's defense in general may be exposed against City.

Agreed, against the likes of Suarez, Benzema, Neymar, CR7, Gameiro, Greizman, Torres, and the peerless Messi...
And how exactly did Bailly fare?

That is precisely my point, because Sanchez, Hazard, Aguero, Costa, even a fit Sturridge, or Kane; aren't that far behind those La Liga stars...
That's when to truly assess Bailly...

He had a hard time his first season at Espanyol but midway into his second season, he was holding his own.

But I agree with you that the Man U defense overall will likley suffer against City

That's not quite true

But I'm quite happy for brother Bailly that so many are rooting for him, on and off the pitch...Hoping they'll be there when the rough times set in...

[wiseone]

This thread makes me think: has the standard of defending worldwide receded? In this day and age, people are paying nearly 50 million for "work in progress" CDs that are not even the finished article yet. Man City have three center-backs that cost a combined 130 million! (and none of them is the second coming of Baresi) Does the dearth of high quality defenders mean that clubs will pay crazy money for any half decent CD?

The elite defenders today are guys like Pique, Kompany, Silva, Godin, Bonucci. Are any of these guys in the same league as Baresi, Nesta, Cannavaro, Maldini, or even other CDs from bygone eras such as Ayala, Vidic, and Puyol?

[kofi86]

This thread makes me think: has the standard of defending worldwide receded? In this day and age, people are paying nearly 50 million for "work in progress" CDs that are not even the finished article yet. Man City have three center-backs that cost a combined 130 million! (and none of them is the second coming of Baresi) Does the dearth of high quality defenders mean that clubs will pay crazy money for any half decent CD?

The elite defenders today are guys like Pique, Kompany, Silva, Godin, Bonucci. Are any of these guys in the same league as Baresi, Nesta, Cannavaro, Maldini, or even other CDs from bygone eras such as Ayala, Vidic, and Puyol?

[FATHER TIKO]

This thread makes me think: has the standard of defending worldwide receded? In this day and age, people are paying nearly 50 million for "work in progress" CDs that are not even the finished article yet. Man City have three center-backs that cost a combined 130 million! (and none of them is the second coming of Baresi) Does the dearth of high quality defenders mean that clubs will pay crazy money for any half decent CD?

The elite defenders today are guys like Pique, Kompany, Silva, Godin, Bonucci. Are any of these guys in the same league as Baresi, Nesta, Cannavaro, Maldini, or even other CDs from bygone eras such as Ayala, Vidic, and Puyol?

Bro, I was a participant in a bar-room debate on this topic:

One notion says its a perception issue: in our collective consciousness, outstanding strikers & outstanding CD's seldom co-exist in the same era simply because the acceptance of one automatically implies the non-acceptance of the other.

That is why there is a notion that today's CD's aren't as bad as we're made to believe. So why shouldn't they be a part of the money-ball syndrome in football today? (Sterling, Martial, etc were strikers "over-sold" even though they were still "work-in-progress"...)

Another notion theorizes that these things go in cycles:
CD's today do not necessarily have to be in the class of the Baresi's, Costacurta's, Nesta's for the logical reason that comparable quality cannot exist in every era.
Between the era of Beckenbauer/Moore & the era of Gentile/Cerezo/Klaus Fischer there was a "dearth of outstanding CD's "
Seems we're today passing through another "drought of quality CD's" after the era of Cannavaro/Nesta/Lucio/Puyol etc.

[marko]

Look Bailly will make mistakes, all defenders do, City will be a tough game, i think everyone will raise their game, last season, we could not win these matches against the likes of Hull, Southampton, things have certainly changed in the set up, now we have 2 central midfielders protecting our back line

[danfo driver]

This thread makes me think: has the standard of defending worldwide receded? In this day and age, people are paying nearly 50 million for "work in progress" CDs that are not even the finished article yet. Man City have three center-backs that cost a combined 130 million! (and none of them is the second coming of Baresi) Does the dearth of high quality defenders mean that clubs will pay crazy money for any half decent CD?

The elite defenders today are guys like Pique, Kompany, Silva, Godin, Bonucci. Are any of these guys in the same league as Baresi, Nesta, Cannavaro, Maldini, or even other CDs from bygone eras such as Ayala, Vidic, and Puyol?

[Bigpokey24]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/m/4f772531-7 ... ar%2C.html

so united is trying to unsettle Bale? hmmmmm

[wiseone]

Andreas Pereira has gone on loan to Granada (La Liga) in Spain for the rest of the season. He joins the other loan players:

Varela (Eintracht Frankfurt)
James Wilson (Derby)
Januzaj (Sunderland)
Borthwick-Jackson (Wolves)

Will Keane (twin brother of Michael Keane) has joined Hull City on a permanent transfer for 1 million. LVG sold his twin brother Michael (England U21 defender) to Burnley for about 2 million earlier this year. 8 months later the EPL champs Leicester made a 17 million bid for him. Another excellent business decision by LVG/Man Utd

[benteke]

Little tactical tweaks I noticed/liked:

1) As soon as Rashford scored that injury time winner against Hull, all the subs jumped up in wild celebration. Mike Smalling tried to do the same but Mourinho immediately pointed at him, stopped him from celebrating, and ordered him to get changed and ready to come on. Poor Mike did not get to celebrate with his teammates.



Great focus by Mourinho to control his emotions and concentrate on getting Mike Smalling on the pitch to close out the game (rather than getting carried away with the celebrations).

2) Have you noticed that when Man Utd kick-off this season, they use exactly the same pass/move/positioning pattern: Fellaini and Zlatan (the big guys) move to the right hand side of the pitch (almost like right wingers). From the kick-off Man Utd roll the ball back to Blind who immediately fires a long crossfield diagonal pass towards the right wing area where Fellaini and Zlatan are positioned. It must be orders from Jose. Good way to immediately get the ball/team deep into the opposition half straight from kick off.

Is this not the same long-pass trick that LVG got slated for

[kajifu]

@Benteke how are you looking at the Manchester Derby coming up?Pep vs Jose ?

[benteke]

@Benteke how are you looking at the Manchester Derby coming up?Pep vs Jose ?

I honestly don't know, this one can go either way, these are 2 new managers who are new to their teams.

Such big games are unpredictable, even home advantage may not count

I will do with a 0-0 boring draw, i hope Mourinho parks the bus to the fullest

[wiseone]

Also depends on if Fellaini (injury) and Aguero (potential ban) play.

@Benteke how are you looking at the Manchester Derby coming up?Pep vs Jose ?

I honestly don't know, this one can go either way, these are 2 new managers who are new to their teams.

Such big games are unpredictable, even home advantage may not count

I will do with a 0-0 boring draw, i hope Mourinho parks the bus to the fullest

[danfo driver]

Also depends on if Fellaini (injury) and Aguero (potential ban) play.

@Benteke how are you looking at the Manchester Derby coming up?Pep vs Jose ?

I honestly don't know, this one can go either way, these are 2 new managers who are new to their teams.

Such big games are unpredictable, even home advantage may not count

I will do with a 0-0 boring draw, i hope Mourinho parks the bus to the fullest

Both will have absolutely no bearing on the outcome, eitherway. From a tactical perspective, 0!

Fellaini is employed not because of his tactical superiority over carrick or schneiderlin, but based on his "form" and his "height."

Aguero's movement will be replaced by Nolito, whom I expect Guardiola will use, instead of Iheanacho.

[kajifu]

Also depends on if Fellaini (injury) and Aguero (potential ban) play.

@Benteke how are you looking at the Manchester Derby coming up?Pep vs Jose ?

I honestly don't know, this one can go either way, these are 2 new managers who are new to their teams.

Such big games are unpredictable, even home advantage may not count

I will do with a 0-0 boring draw, i hope Mourinho parks the bus to the fullest

Both will have absolutely no bearing on the outcome, eitherway. From a tactical perspective, 0!

Fellaini is employed not because of his tactical superiority over carrick or schneiderlin, but based on his "form" and his "height."

Aguero's movement will be replaced by Nolito, whom I expect Guardiola will use, instead of Iheanacho.

So what are the likely result in the outcome on your prediction?