Ratings & Reactions: LC3: Man Utd v Villa

[Nigel]

My daughter is 7, bless her when she tries to catch a ball from the air she does that thing where she closes her arms a half second too late as the ball hits the deck

...I cant think where this analogy is going.....

[El Segundo]

First half was indistinguishable to watching us under Gerrard, trying to play it out of defence.  Minimal risk,  stopping and turning back when in promising positions to press forward.  Thankfully United were shite as well..

Second half, we started to play some proper football, but our defence incorrectly decided defending was surplus to requirements. 

Olsen is clearly not a reliable backup keeper. Made some decent saves initially but then just fell apart.

Chambers - his first mediocre performance.  I wouldn't write him off based on that, he's been pretty good up to now.

Mings - Can be like a rock for us at times but tonight was another of his unfortunately all too frequent "calamity magnet" performances

Watkins - great touch, running and composure for the goal, then normal service was resumed on the carbon copy second one on one, where the delicate touch of a runaway axe murderer returned.  That chance should have seen us score, but ultimately led to United going down the other end and scoring instead.  

McGinn - ineffective, really out of sorts and should have been subbed at half time. Or earlier.

Emery - bit disappointed we didn't see Archer and Sanson. Guess he had to find out the hard way that Olsen is cack.

Ref - generally didn't seem to favour United too much compared to the usual Old Trafford visits,  however Maguire committed two identical fouls on Watkins and got a yellow for the first and not the second.  Consistency my arse. McTominay probably deserved a couple of yellows too.  

Pissed off to go out so meekly when United were beatable.

[the_eristic]

Not hugely arsed about it as we got the league win, but still annoying to see another collapse. Emery will have learned a LOT about his squad from that.

[Wainy316]

Waste of time being in a cup competition that Man City haven’t been knocked out of anyway 

[Tom13]

20 hours ago, fightoffyour said:

Poland beat Sweden in the qualifier.

Not a surprise if Sweden had Olsen in goal.

[ThunderPower_14]

Olsen had an absolute nightmare. What's Jed Steer doing? If Emi starts we win that game, possibly with a clean sheet. 

McGinn had an absolute shocker as well. Looked very uncomfortable on the ball. 

Otherwise I felt we were okay, which is a bizarre thing to say when you concede 4. It just felt like insane goalkeeping error after insane goalkeeping error. 

[FLVillan]

We were playing a high-line first-half and it was working.  United adjusted but still struggled to break us down.  The ball forward for their first goal is an easy, repeat easy ball for a competent goalkeeper to come and collect.  Then we got back into it and looked in control.  The Mings for Konsa substitution changed the game.  I like Mings, but he can never, ever play in a back-four that plays as high as that.  His tendency as a player has always been to drop off.  He simply couldn't do it.  Couple his introduction with Chambers changing sides and it all fell apart defensively.  Olsen was simply embarrassing.

[TheAuthority]

4 hours ago, ThunderPower_14 said:

Olsen had an absolute nightmare. What's Jed Steer doing?]

Recovering from a serious achilles injury 

[MWARLEY2]

7 hours ago, TomC said:

Disagree about Buendia. He made an important pass in the buildup and a run to distract a defender for our second goal.

That was the best pass in transition i have seen from a villa player in an age. He just needs another 10 monents like that in a game 

[gwi1890]

The gameplan was solid it was a decent away performance up to their equaliser. We then got sucked into a basketball match .

[viivvaa66]

If we win on Sunday against Brighton, this game will be forgotten. But if we lose on Sunday, there are reasons to be unhappy with resting players for this game.

[nick76]

Decided to sleep on it before commenting or reading others views.  I thought the plan was really good from Emery first half, I could see what he was trying to do for the final 30 minutes but I think it left it too open but I think we know that better than him because we know the players and he’s just getting used to them.  We know our second string is not strong and we know that generally our squad has mentality issues.  While it was a defeat I think Emery would’ve learnt just as much from this game as from the first game.

As for the players, I thought there was some mixed bags.  Olsen was poor, I’m not comfortable with him before the game but he had a poor game.  We were too exposed down the left side, giving too much room.  Young played well.  Chambers and Konsa were a mix of bad and good at times.  McGinn was poor.  Kamara and Luiz were ok.  Ollie was a mix for me, wasn’t holding the ball well early on, ran around well though, great goal.  Ings ran a lot and put in a real shift but contributed little else to the game.  Subs had mixed effect as well, Bailey being best of the bunch.

Disappointing night re the result but Emery would’ve learned loads from this game imo so all not lost.  As I said after the first game, there are going to be more headaches than highs in these early days because it’s not an easy fix but at least I can see plans on the pitch and ways of playing, even if it isn’t being executed brilliantly by the players at the moment.  I do wonder if Emi had been in goal whether the score line would’ve been more favourable to us.

[nick76]

3 minutes ago, viivvaa66 said:

If we win on Sunday against Brighton, this game will be forgotten. But if we lose on Sunday, there are reasons to be unhappy with resting players for this game.

Not really, Emery has to see what our fringe players can do in game so he can plan and work over the WC break.  He needed to learn about all these players over these three games.  We want to win a cup but we need more to do better in the league than we are for obvious reasons.  I’m not sure it was as much about resting players as it was seeing the fringe players.

[Aston_Villan4]

14 minutes ago, gwi1890 said:

The gameplan was solid it was a decent away performance up to their equaliser. We then got sucked into a basketball match .

Yeah it was one of those games where teams were afraid to score initially, then once scoring started the defenses just stopped trying and it became a shootout.
 

[Pinebro]

The fans who asked for attacking football shouldn't complain about playing a high line and playing out from the back. 

You have to accept you will get caught out sometimes when you play that way. 

[ferguson1]

Really frustrating and annoying. Compact and solid first half if pretty unadventurous but it was clearly working. I think Emery would have been pleased at half-time.

To go ahead in the second half twice, we really should have won or at least seen the game go to pens. Emery will have learned a lot about some of his squad players though:

Olsen - although a little shaky at times first half, was ok, but as the wore on second half became more and more calamitous. Overall poor and we need better.

Augustinsson - Again, ok first half if unspectacular but at fault for the first United goal and then disappeared until he went off.

Chambers - I felt for him first half as was clearly uncomfortable on the left side of defence but he did a job. Second half we seem to push up more and more and once Konsa went off, he was exposed with his lack of pace. Probably his worst game for us.

McGinn - It just isn’t happening for him. He looks weaker, slower and ponderous, compared to his previous best. Sad, but could be heading for the exit door unless he can improve over the next six weeks. Perhaps this upcoming break will do him some good?

Ings - He clearly worked hard to close people down, but without pace, he doesn’t quite work in what we were trying to do. It all slowed when he was in possession and he doesn’t run the channels does he? He’s simply a box player.

Young, Konsa, Luiz, Ramsey, Kamara and Watkins were ok to decent, but probably found it difficult to keep that constant press going after Sunday.  Special mention to Kamara though, who has that awareness and touch of class that makes him a level above. Just needs his fitness to build up and then then he’ll be flying.

As above, Emery will have learned more about his squad, rather than his best first eleven.

Overall frustrating because again it feels like a missed opportunity at Old Trafford.  

 

 

[Demitri_C]

The biggest issue we have is our away form. It seems alot of this team just cant for the life of them perform away from home.

Mings, mcginn chambers watkins (sorry but despite his goal his performance still was quite poor) ings etc

This is why we need to get some mentally strong players who have played at the highest level. More players like carlos

Emery probably recognises this from early

[Delphinho123]

I don’t know where to put this, but thought it may as well go in the Emery thread.

I don’t think we were that poor last night. I think ultimately, a couple of very, very poor individual performances cost us the game. Emery had a gameplan and it’s always nice to see a manager who has thought out a way of beating a side. Hell, we even got the all important first goal and it was a terrific one at that.

BUT.

As a club, over the last 2/3 years, us fans have constantly been told it’s important that we aim to win a trophy. Purslow, Gerrard and even Emery have spoken a lot about us going on a cup run and how it would be great for the fans to see us go further in the cup competitions. 

So, why did we play a whole new back line last night (Konsa aside)? Olsen spread panic throughout a makeshift defence who probably haven’t ever played together before. That’s a recipe for disaster and although we did get the first goal, you could see from the very first minute that we looked very, very nervous playing out from the back and when balls came over the top towards the keeper. 

On Monday, most of our squad has 6 weeks without a match. Not only that, do you really need to rest a goalkeeper? F**** me, I’ll do more exercise on my walk to work this morning than they do most matches. It’s not a taxing position to the point you can’t play 3 games in 10 days. It just isn’t 

Im left really disappointed about last night. Like, when your parents say, ‘they’re not angry, they’re disappointed’. That’s how I feel. We’ve thrown away another chance to win silverware - regardless of whether we’d have won it anyway. 

It’s the hope that kills you.

[Stevo985]

The high line isn't a problem when you have a sweeper keeper behind to mop up.

We didn't have that last night because of Olsen's performance.

 

I'm positive Emery has learnt from that. I'd be surprised to see Olsen feature again unless it's forced upon us. With Emi in goal the high line should be far more secure

[punkiller1981]

3 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

The high line isn't a problem when you have a sweeper keeper behind to mop up.

We didn't have that last night because of Olsen's performance.

 

I'm positive Emery has learnt from that. I'd be surprised to see Olsen feature again unless it's forced upon us. With Emi in goal the high line should be far more secure

Olsen was the opposite of a sweeper keeper. I don’t think I have ever seen a keeper so rooted to his line. First half balls landing half way in his box and still not coming to collect. I might be being critical but the first goal Bruno was 4 yards inside the area having ran from near the half way line before he crossed it and the last goal I think if that is emi in goal he collects that cross and smashed mctominey out the way