Manchester United F.C Thread [2009/2010]

[Help?]

We were **** anyway. Chelsea should have had a penalty for Anelka tackle and I have to agree with commentators, Park fell rather easily there. He got contact but it didn't look like that contact put him off.

 

[night]

Neville..what can i say. ****ed up time and again. Was very frustrating.
I dont like the idea of playing scholes,giggs and neville all at the same time.

I agree. They've been legendary over the past years but their age is clearly catching up with them. Some younger players should be given a chance over the experienced players in big games.

 

[MikeyM]

We didn't deserve to win but it's frustrating to lose by a fluky goal and a clearly offside goal.
Let's see.. Gary Neville is a f*cking liability. Giggs gave the ball away way too often. Betbatov is nothing like the player he's been at Tottenham or Levekusen.
F*ck experience. I would've preferred Nani to be on from the start..

Neville played badly, so did Giggs. And yeah Nani should have been on at the start, there was no drive or determination until the 60th minute.

But it was the poor (biased) officiating that did the damage. I know now the FA are biased against us;

Cantona.
Ferdinand (drug ban)
Forced to pull out of the FA Cup in 2000
Several times United players made examples of.
Having to play at midday Staurday against top teams after UCL matches (when did Arsenal ever play midday on Saturday?)
Vidic sent off at Portsmouth.
Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.
Chelsea here.

Fergie is absolutely spot on.

But the most annoying thing about today was the lack of effort.

 

[mnj2x]

Drogba was clearly offside. What a moron the linesman is. He may have cost us the season.

 

[MikeyM]

Drogba was clearly offside. What a moron the linesman is. He may have cost us the season.

You can add it to the dodgy freekick they got in London too. I am beyond angry at how the FA's decisions always seem to cost United, it has to be an agenda - there's no other explanation.

Make no mistake though, I'm disgusted with United this week. I don't like making kneejerk reactions saying people should be sold etc, but someone needs to be asking some very searching questions - and I suspect many members of the squad won't like the answers.

 

[Pogba4Now]

Neville played badly, so did Giggs. And yeah Nani should have been on at the start, there was no drive or determination until the 60th minute.

But it was the poor (biased) officiating that did the damage. I know now the FA are biased against us;

Cantona.
Ferdinand (drug ban)
Forced to pull out of the FA Cup in 2000
Several times United players made examples of.
Having to play at midday Staurday against top teams after UCL matches (when did Arsenal ever play midday on Saturday?)
Vidic sent off at Portsmouth.
Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.
Chelsea here.

Fergie is absolutely spot on.

But the most annoying thing about today was the lack of effort.

+ Ferdinand's 4 day ban when Gerrard got nothing at all for the same thing. As Ferguson said, the FA is a dysfunctional unit. Shame on them.

As for the game, I thought we looked old and rusty. We should've started with fresh young players as some of you has said. Scholes had a good game but Neville and Giggs didn't contribute much to the game. The title is in Chelsea's hands now... Shame. But they're just 2 points ahead of us though and there is always a chance they might stumble in one of the upcoming fixtures. I'm not giving up until we are theoretically out of the title war. But its fair to say its Chelsea's to lose now.

 

[ladylover]

Shame to say, but a deserved victory for Chelsea, our first half performance screwed us, the whole mindset was set for a draw. 5 games left with the possibility of Liverpool and Spurs doing us a favour...horrible performance once again, started pressing far too late.....Giggs and Nev were bad today, should have started with the young ones instead of experience.....

 

[MikeyM]

+ Ferdinand's 4 day ban when Gerrard got nothing at all for the same thing. As Ferguson said, the FA is a dysfunctional unit. Shame on them.

Yeah, but it seems to always be United who lose out. I wouldn't mind if other teams got the butt end as much as we do.

 

[Mandieta6]

Scholes is a thug. I have a lot of respect for him because he was a fantastic player but he clearly wanted to hurt Malouda and Deco, and should've gone off on a double-booking, especially when you consider that he was constantly arguing with the ref.

 

[Zakov]

Scholes is a thug. I have a lot of respect for him because he was a fantastic player but he clearly wanted to hurt Malouda and Deco, and should've gone off on a double-booking, especially when you consider that he was constantly arguing with the ref.

I don't think Scholes is a thug, although Gary Neville probably is. Scholesy is just a horrible tackler, that's all there is to it.

 

[Pogba4Now]

TBH I don't think we should blame the FA for bad referee decisions. The FA is a f*cked up unit; they often make harsh decisions against us and not other teams. But come on, its not as if they instruct referees to give bad calls against United. If we got screwed due to a referee decision, its due to the referee incompetence. The referees in general may be biased against us. But you can't blame the FA for referee decisions.

Anyways it doesn't change much discussing about it. I think the FA should find a solution about it. I can't believe they don't use technology for offside decisions. If we have enough technology to determine the number of kilometres each and every player has run, having a way to detect an offside should be nothing.

 

[Mandieta6]

Btw, the refereeing thing goes both ways. Drogba offside, Scholes should've been sent off. Park penalty? Anelka penalty. There's also the excessive 4 minutes of added time when ManU were down by one goal, something that has ocurred multiple times.

It would be nice if footie could be resolved without these sort of debates, but there's no way to ensure absolutely perfect refereeing, so you win some and lose some. There's no conspirayc against United.

And Scholes is a thug because of the intent both times. Malouda was lucky not get injured there, it was a vicious slide.

 

[Zakov]

I think its too early for United fans to throw the towel just yet. I look at the Gooners around me and they're all still adamant that their team is still in the title race.

Man Utd have got Spurs and City while we got Liverpool and Spurs, and that's overlooking potentially dropped points against the so-called "lesser" teams.

Sure its within our hands, but how many times have we(Utd and Chelsea) slipped this season? The title should've wrapped up this month if we got our desired results during December.

 

[MikeyM]

TBH I don't think we should blame the FA for bad referee decisions. The FA is a f*cked up unit; they often make harsh decisions against us and not other teams. But come on, its not as if they instruct referees to give bad calls against United. If we got screwed due to a referee decision, its due to the referee incompetence. The referees in general may be biased against us. But you can't blame the FA for referee decisions.

Anyways it doesn't change much discussing about it. I think the FA should find a solution about it.

Well then the FA should ensure their referees are impartial then. The whole organization is rotten to the core, either it's jobs for the boys or run by people of questionable intellect. In essence football should be a simple game to run.

If I was in charge I'd sack the lot of them, the top brass couldn't organise their way out of a paper bag, and the referees are acting like they're the stars of the show, or else are woefully inept.

Speaking of looking for answers, United have a lot of that to do as well, perhaps a barren season or two might force the club to ask a few questions. To quote Roy Keane "perhaps it's the end of the road for this team"

We need an infusion, a spark from somewhere. Wayne's been carrying us this season but truly with him gone today we did nothing to suggest we could cope without him. And make no mistake about it, dodgy decisions aside, that's EXACTLY the impression the world will have had about us today.

 

[Help?]

I don't think Scholes is a thug, although Gary Neville probably is. Scholesy is just a horrible tackler, that's all there is to it.

Or is he? He seems to be making those tackles when he is not on a yellow and some of them are very suspect in terms of how much he really wants to win the ball. An old tactic used by Roy Keane a lot to kick at your opponent nice and early to let them know you are always at their heels, so that they don't settle down. Keane wrote it in his book that you always want to be the first one to get a kick in a game, to set the matters of who is more physical. For the amount of yellow cards Scholes gets, he gets very little red cards and I wouldn't be surprised if he is doing that on purpose and just riding at the reputation of a bad tackler for his benefit to save himself from getting numerous red cards. If you follow him closely at times he can put in some amazing tackles.

 

[Help?]

Having to play at midday Staurday against top teams after UCL matches (when did Arsenal ever play midday on Saturday?)

We played 9 CL games so far this season, 5 of them were followed by Sunday games, 2 were Saturday evening kickoffs, 1 at 3pm and 1 lunch time kickoff. We did get quite a few midday kickoffs in the past, but this season, the post CL fixtures have been kind to us I'd say. And it Chelsea didn't get out of the CL unexpectedly, they would have had to come to Old Trafford for a lunch time kickoff, after a Wednesday game!


Let's stop complaining about the FA. Apart from the Drogba offside goal, there was no other clear cut incident that was done incorrectly. Matter of fact, we are lucky that Fletcher obstructed Mike Dean's view when Neville pushed out Anelka in the area. For the Drogba goal, all it takes is one blink to see the offside and if you miss it, you miss it. Referees are humans too and they can get caught watching the game rather than policing it at times. I don't believe that the FA would instruct their referees to specifically go out and **** over United. We were just unlucky twice, **** happens. The FA has a lot of problems in itself, don't they get the new Head like every season?

We lost because we simply didn't believe we could beat Chelsea and also because Chelsea had a whole week to prepare for us, so naturally they looked far more fresh. And the selection was questionable. Giggs, Neville and Scholes against fresh Chelsea legs? Really Ferguson?


On a positive note, Bayern played for almost an hour with 10-men today and almost all the starters were involved. So they will be more tired than we are and playing at home, as long as the Chelsea defeat is past us and belief is there, we will advance to semis.

 

[AsmodaiPlay]

Obviously I'd want O'Shea there but I think Neville is the best we have fit. Rafael for me is naive defensively and can't cope in the bigger games (see Man City and Milan as examples). Malouda would probably still skin him anyway, the only difference being Rafael would probably give a penalty away or something.

Personally I think Rafael is overrated, but good luck to the guy in proving me wrong. He's still young so he's more than capable of doing that. Even though I'm not a fan of him, as with Berbatov I will still support them as long as they play for the club.

I reckon we can still pull this off anyway, I notice Chelsea are missing a fair few defenders. At the end of the day Rooney is one man (albeit a very important one for us) so if the team continues to perform in the manner that they have been then we will still compete fairly well. My prediction is a 1-1 draw.

That was a bit ironic, seeing as a penalty should've been given against Neville lol.

Disappointing display, Chelsea deserved the win. Frustrating when the winning goal is suspect, but we didn't deserve anything if we're being honest. We're still in with a chance in the title race but the key thing is that it isn't in our hands anymore and we have some tough games on the way. We need to bounce back quickly and beat Bayern, but that will also be a tough match.

 

[Zakov]

On a positive note, Bayern played for almost an hour with 10-men today and almost all the starters were involved. So they will be more tired than we are and playing at home, as long as the Chelsea defeat is past us and belief is there, we will advance to semis.

My opinion is that Bayern are even more riled up after that victory. Winning with 10 men against your closest title rivals will only serve as a psychological boost going into the game against Utd.

Not to mention the fact that they know they won't have to face Rooney and have a game-changer in Robben themselves fresh from injury.

It's going to be tough, but Berbatov has to pick up his game. Carrick should come in at the expense of Scholes. Valencia and Nani on the wings, with Carrick supporting Park and Fletcher.

The problem against us was that Berbatov dropped too deep, and when Utd were attacking there was no box-to-box midfielder carrying a run forward.
Fletcher was too occupied with Lamps, Park dragged out wide and Giggs lacks the pace, Scholes doesn't have the same attacking ability he had 6 years ago.

I feel that Nani will be the key against Bayern, the only problem is whether he turns up.

 

[Help?]

I was hoping that maybe Berbatov can finally step up to the big games, but it didn't happen, like you said he dropped too deep and there was no target man upfront. And i'm afraid it won't happen on Tuesday, until we put Macheda upfront, he just always seems to end up in some good position to get the goal.

 

[night]

Scholes is a thug. I have a lot of respect for him because he was a fantastic player but he clearly wanted to hurt Malouda and Deco, and should've gone off on a double-booking, especially when you consider that he was constantly arguing with the ref.

I have to disagree. His tackles are simply horrible and he shows no intent to hurt the player at the receiving end.