Utd - Liverpool post match

[Pablo]

Considering how much they attacked down our left, koncheski did ok. Didn't get 'raped' as you suggest, in fact he was the only player to make tackles in the first half. With the ball he was crap, without it he was decent.

Are you for real? He was constantly caught out of position and lost Nani on numerous occasions.

He also seems completely oblivious to the fact that it's his responsibility to prevent crosses coming into the box, or at least put the winger under pressure. He does NEITHER

He was our worst player yesterday without any doubt, absolutely horrendous, he made Nani look like a world beater

[Kenneth]

They must have had a dozen crosses in the first half and two caused us problems. The criticism of our general defending is OTT, and team who surrenders midfield so badly will suffer the same.

[Zapater]

Roy's mentality is that of someone who expects to lose big games away from home. His idea of a good result is a draw.

I'm extremely disappointed by his press conferences. He shows an astounding lack of ambition. Sure we're pretty **** and he's being realistic but almost sitting there, accepting it and not even seeing annoyed about it just frustrates me so much.

There have been poor teams that big clubs have had in the past that have driven themselves to respectable places just due to sheer determination, you know "if you tell yourself a lie a million times it becomes the truth" unfortunately I don't see us as one of those teams. And, even if the target is 4th place, I know there's one hell of a lot of football still to be played but the way things are going it's hard to imagine that we'll be able to get in ahead of Arsenal, City or whichever other team is in the mix unless there's some marked improvements in the short term.

I understand that it's very early and it's by no means an easy job on Roy's hands but if things don't improve quickly it's going to be really difficult to do anything about our position as we'll be playing catch up football the rest of the season. At this stage it's very difficult to imagine us in next years CL.

I feel absolutely sick thinking how bad we are defending this season

A few points:

Every cross flung into the box causes mayhem

We have NO ONE in our starting XI that's good in the air

Moving to man marking has so far been a complete and utter disaster (**** you Andy Gray **** you!)

Almost every player seems to suffer from poor concentration and are woeful positionally.

Konchesky is every bit as bad as I feared he would be

Torres' defending for the first goal disappointed me so so much

His lack of disgust in himself afterwards disappointed me even more

I agree with that things are quite grim.

[Pablo]

They must have had a dozen crosses in the first half and two caused us problems. The criticism of our general defending is OTT, and team who surrenders midfield so badly will suffer the same.

FFS exactly! We let them put a dozen ****ing crosses in in 45 minutes and alarm bells aren't ringing for you?

Virtually all of them were down Konchesky's wing by the way, and most delivered under no pressure whatsoever.

I disagree only two caused us problems, every single one had me nervous as they won almost every header in the box, and it was panic stations almost every single time.

If you are fairly weak aerially as a defensive unit, and we clearly are, then you need to stop the balls coming into the box whenever possible. We just didn't do that at all.

[Tee]

Koncheskys positioning at the corner for Berbatov's opener is laughable. He is practically holding Pepe's hand when he should be on the post. If he stayed on the post it was a routine headed clearance.

Meireles is a proper footballer who will work well with Stevie G, and Poulsen redeemed himself slightly in the second half after a shocking opening 45.

Torres is only as good as the service he gets and when he got it we won a penalty and a free kick leading to both goals.

I just wish we played with proper wingers. Why oh why do we fail to address this issue every single season.

[badpiggy]

In the previous thread, people were arguing that we were going backwards...

I'm not sure that we are going backwards. Whenever you get a new manager you have a period of uncertainty where players aren't sure of their roles, and the manager isn't sure how to get the best out of the players. When Rafa took over, we conceded some soft goals from zonal marking while the players got used to it (until Pellegrino came and sorted it IIRC), and we're conceding soft ones now from man-marking while the players get used to it.

Similarly, it's clear that the players aren't yet used to the patterns of play that Roy wants. We are playing some good stuff in spells, but at times are looking totally lost. I'm not sure this is going backwards though - to me it looks like just a transitional phase while we adapt to a new manager with new ideas.

The league at the moment is meaningless. If we are still in the bottom half in 6 games time, then I'll start to worry. But at the moment we've played City and United Away, Arsenal at home, and Birmingham are a tough side to beat at St Andrews too. By contrast Chelsea have beaten the might of West Ham, West Brom, Wigan and Stoke before today's formality against Blackpool.

We need to win our next two home games, against Sunderland and Blackpool, and hopefully build from there. It's far too soon to be making some of the ridiculous comments that some have made on here though, regardless of our disappointment at losing to THEM.

I'm worried that Roy seems to think that Skrtel is better than Agger, and I hope he never, ever, plays Poulsen and Lucas together at CM again, but otherwise, I think we should give him the time to develop his side.

Good man Bit of perspective returning today.

Don't have time to go through the thread but have Ferguson's appalingly disdainful and cuntish post-match comments been mentioned here? Roy's going to have to get with the ****in program and realise that Ferguson isn't his "friend" - those comments were a direct insult.

Rafa knew that to challenge the scum the first step was letting Ferguson realise that you won't be jacking him off round the back of the hospitality tent in ****in Royal Ascot. I hope Roy realises this cos those comments are noth the words of one "friend" to another.

[Pablo]

Koncheskys positioning at the corner for Berbatov's opener is laughable. He is practically holding Pepe's hand when he should be on the post. If he stayed on the post it was a routine headed clearance.

Meireles is a proper footballer who will work well with Stevie G, and Poulsen redeemed himself slightly in the second half after a shocking opening 45.

Torres is only as good as the service he gets and when he got it we won a penalty and a free kick leading to both goals.

I just wish we played with proper wingers. Why oh why do we fail to address this issue every single season.

I'm also quite pleased with Meireles. One thing though, I want him to play a little deeper, swapping roles with Gerrard. I think he should be deeper running the play more, he gives us a nice tempo when he's passing and moving it about the pitch. Then let Gerrard push on and keep up his partnership with Torres.

[Pablo]

Also it makes me laugh when people say "while we get used to man marking" . As if it's some new-wave footballing concept

What is there to get used to? Each person picks up a man, you might leave one on the post etc, you match up the biggest threats with your strongest players in the air. It really doesn't get much more simple than that, Sunday league stuff.

These are all seasoned pro's so man marking is like breathing to them by now This just stinks of making an excuse to cover up our deficiencies in my opinion.

[Tee]

I'm also quite pleased with Meireles. One thing though, I want him to play a little deeper, swapping roles with Gerrard. I think he should be deeper running the play more, he gives us a nice tempo when he's passing and moving it about the pitch. Then let Gerrard push on and keep up his partnership with Torres.

Not sure about him playing deeper. If anything I wish our midefielders played slightly higher up the field. Too many times the CMs take the ball from well inside our own half, and we end up just playing so much possession football in our own half before the inevitable hoof forward.

Full back positions are now an area that are clearly being targeted by oppsosition Mangers. They are our weak link right now and I just do not have confidence in either GJ or Koncheskys abilities as defenders.

[billy_mac]

One other thing - for their 1st goal, Konchesky's on that ****ing post - but he edges gradually towards the centre of the goal and away from the post - if he'd just stayed on the post, he heads it off the line.

FFS. Stupidity.

Yes it was daft but that is easy to fix. You only make that type of mistake once and then the manager gaffer tapes you to the post in training for the day and you don't do it again. You pay for your mistakes against the united, arsenal & chelsea. Torres' positioning on the corner was worse IMO.

[Pablo]

Not sure about him playing deeper. If anything I wish our midefielders played slightly higher up the field. Too many times the CMs take the ball from well inside our own half, and we end up just playing so much possession football in our own half before the inevitable hoof forward.

Hmmm let me try and clarify my point. I want him more in the Alonso style role, picking the ball of the CBs or from Poulsen/Lucas, although maybe not quite so deep. This negates the need for the CBs to hoof the ball and we can start off attacks more intelligently from there.

From what I've seen of Meireles he seems suited to that, he keeps the ball well and is always open for a pass. Where he was playing yesterday he just got isolated, he was wasted there.

He's not meant to play off a striker, I don't think it's the best use of his talents, he's not an attacking midfielder that's for sure. Gerrard is. So let's swap them.

[Tee]

Hmmm let me try and clarify my point. I want him more in the Alonso style role, picking the ball of the CBs or from Poulsen/Lucas, although maybe not quite so deep. This negates the need for the CBs to hoof the ball and we can start off attacks more intelligently from there.

From what I've seen of Meireles he seems suited to that, he keeps the ball well and is always open for a pass. Where he was playing yesterday he just got isolated, he was wasted there.

He's not meant to play off a striker, I don't think it's the best use of his talents, he's not an attacking midfielder that's for sure. Gerrard is. So let's swap them.

If only we had proper wingers for the midfielders to spread the play to.

[Pablo]

If only we had proper wingers for the midfielders to spread the play to.

Even if they started off out wide then came inside it would help, but the players we have out there all seem to steadfastly refuse to provide the team any width whatsoever Their starting positions are often 20/30 yards infield, meaning we're so compacted in midfield we run out of options to pass the ball to, and surrender possession limply time and time again.

Now if we had overlapping fullbacks it would help, but as has been mentioned under Roy he doesn't seem to like them overlapping too often.

We're incredibly unambitious and unadventurous in general. 4 goals in 5 league games

[dww]

Hmmm let me try and clarify my point. I want him more in the Alonso style role, picking the ball of the CBs or from Poulsen/Lucas, although maybe not quite so deep. This negates the need for the CBs to hoof the ball and we can start off attacks more intelligently from there.

From what I've seen of Meireles he seems suited to that, he keeps the ball well and is always open for a pass. Where he was playing yesterday he just got isolated, he was wasted there.

He's not meant to play off a striker, I don't think it's the best use of his talents, he's not an attacking midfielder that's for sure. Gerrard is. So let's swap them.

To be honest while, I hope it was only a tactic used out of fear of United, I thought in some ways the Meireles in front of Gerrard plan worked quite well - it certainly encouraged Gerrard to keep the ball moving with short passes. The problem, as it has been throughout the Hodgson reign so far, was that the wide players were all too narrow and the central midfield too deep. I think giving the midfielders an out ball on at least one wing would allow them to come forward.

Maxi was particularly pointless in that game. Not sure why Roy seems obsessed with making the wide players come inside - it really hampers our progress and stops a lot of counter attacks before they get going.

[cream]

Badly missed Kuyt yesterday.