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The 2012-2013 Manchester United Thread: Thank you, Sir Alex


ddidiodion

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On a slow news day, you can always count on Razzler to bump our thread back up with his "observational" comments. He will be in here later in the morning with his horns slicked back and say something along the lines of "Tough game away at Chelsea today, tough playing 2 games so close together"....we would be lost without our Razzler insights. :)

There's no point commenting on the difficulty of any of your games, the league is well sown up ages ago and the cup is the cup, depends who puts which team on the pitch

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Terrible game :(

Didn't create enough to deserve a win. Only real chance we had was Hernandez that Cech made the great save on. I'm not surprised, but it's disappointing. Had really hoped we could do the Double this year :( We needed to beat them at home though. For all the success we've had over the last years, we always struggle away to Chelsea (and not just because the refs **** us).

Deserved win for Chelsea though, which actually makes it easier to swallow. With the league practically won already, we don't have much to play for now. Oddly enough, a fairly disappointing end to the season. Guess we'll try to do the points record now?

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Rubbish starting line-up meant that players didn't have a clue what they were doing and that continued throughout the whole game. The team was perfect just they were in the wrong positions!

What a save by Cech though.

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When was the last time Rooney went 9 games without a goal? He gets loads of stick for inconsistency but RvP's bad spell is taking the **** now.

He sort of got the goal the other day but took a deflection

Depending on when the POTY voting is done he may be losing out to Bale now

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He sort of got the goal the other day but took a deflection

Depending on when the POTY voting is done he may be losing out to Bale now

Suarez will win it by a mile. If by 'sort of got the goal' you mean kicking it off target and getting a deflection then he almost sort of got the goal today when he stuck it over from 5 yards, if only Crouch wasn't there to deflect it in!

I actually thought the starting line up was pretty good and we started petty well, we haven't played genuinely well since the Madrid 'incident' though.

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RVP has mostly played well throughout his dry patch though, it's not like he doesn't do anything or creates anything. Granted, not much today, but we didn't create much all game so that's not mainly on his shoulders. The only half-decent chance he had was a sizzling cross at knee-height which he missed, hardly a "sitter" chance, but one he would probably bury in top form.

Looks like the whole team got the wind taken out of them by the way we got robbed out of the CL, and we haven't managed to get back into things yet.

As for the POTY, RVP probably won't win it due to his recent drought, but I think Bale deserves it more than Ratman. Not simply because I hate the hollow shell of a human being, but because Bale has simply been better this season and more influential. When was/is the vote anyway?

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As for the POTY, RVP probably won't win it due to his recent drought, but I think Bale deserves it more than Ratman. Not simply because I hate the hollow shell of a human being, but because Bale has simply been better this season and more influential. When was/is the vote anyway?
I cannot stand Suarez but that is simply incorrect.
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RVP has mostly played well throughout his dry patch though, it's not like he doesn't do anything or creates anything.

Not so sure about that - was much more involved against Sunderland but a lot of the time he's on his own high up the pitch waiting for a chance. Now that's how he's being told to play so it isn't a criticism of him per se, just that when he is playing that role it leaves us a bit short when he's not banging them in (or even on target).

Thought it was the subs that killed us today. Probably the right players coming in but we re organised ourselves wrongly. Their goal came from Jones going to sleep and giving Mata too much space - to then move him out of midfield for Giggs meant that they kept finding space in front of the back four time and time again; plus we know how much of a liability Valencia is going forwards at the moment. Should have been Giggs and Welbeck on the wings with Valencia staying at RB and Jones in the middle. And then Valencia rather than Welbeck off for Young.

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Barely saw any of the match due to being at work. Seemed that every time I did get a glance at the tv Nani was giving the ball away :mad: I was hoping with Tony being **** and Young being... well, Young, we'd get Nani back in raring to go and prove he's actually worth playing over them two. Hard to say so based on what little I saw today

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Ice with Nani criticism.

The world will live another day. :D

I still say Bale has been better than Ratman overall, particularly considering he plays in midfield, but it'll probably be close whoever gets it. RVP will be in the running too obviously, but has probably lost his chance with this dry spell.

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Valencia was better at rightback but his showing on the right wing was again utterly woeful, one thing you can say about Nani is that he's going to be unpredictable in his ****-ness, Valencia might as well have left with Nani for all it mattered. Thought Jones to rightback was a bad move as well, was barely making a run past Valencia (probably tiredness) giving him very few options, not that Valencia would have been able to find them anyway.

And Ice is entirely right to criticise Nani, it's hardly noteworthy when Nani actually was **** (which has been most of this season).

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Valencia was much better than Nani today, I thought he did okay at right back. I expected better from Nani with him being one of the freshest people on the pitch.

Disagree with this. Nani had an abysmal first 15-20 minutes but grew into the game and had a number of good touches, though a couple of times he and others weren't quite on the same wavelength. Bit misleading to describe him as 'fresh' when he's coming back from an injury suffered when working his way back from an injury, which I think is part of why he took time to find his touch and the cohesion issues. Valencia just isn't a right back; think Hazard will see a negative of '7 Valencia' every time he shuts his eyes for a week the number of times he turned his back on him. Going forward he does at least seem to look interested again but moves still seem to die when he gets the ball.

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Nani was crap but Valencia did 50% of zero when he went to the right wing. Jones to RB was game over as we just could not grab the ball in the middle, Ryan Giggs (new deal in hand) reverted to his alter ego "Heel-Flick Man" while Young might as well have been playing for Chelsea.

Welbeck tried his hardest but it was disappointing that he was not pushed all the way forward alongside Hernandez instead of RVP coming on. As for RVP, we have squeezed all the juice out of him (really??....SAF never overplays a guy in form :rolleyes:) and he is knackered.

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Didn't see Fergie had said that. Think it reflects how low our expectations of Valencia are now. Really harsh on Welbeck either way.

Thought Giggs did alright tbf, he and we just never had a chance with that midfield.

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Fergie described Valencia as the only player on the pitch meeting expectations today which is possibly harsh on a few others but not far from the truth.

This honestly does make me wonder what expectations SAF has for Valencia.

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Jones whilst in CM was promising as well I thought. Also thought Smalling was good but we've seriously got a problem with our wingers - that's a good few months without anyone of them being in any sort of form. How long do we give them to get themselves back up to speed? Luckily we've nearly got the title. But can see City spanking us unless we step up.

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Ice with Nani criticism.

The world will live another day. :D

Good little cheap shot there :thup: WHen I managed a glance at the tv it was either Chelsea on the ball or Nani ******* away possession. Trying silly Giggs-esque flicks and the time he completely fudged a 3 on 3 with an underhit pass.

One other thing I remember which I found amusing was Carrick giving away possession with a horrible pass (looking for Evra iirc), only for Chelsea to break and Mata giving away possession with an even worse pass. Two players you'd expect so much better from, yet passing like they'd never seen a football before :D

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I know, but it happens like clockwork, so I just find it amusing :D

He was hardly great, but he tried and I thought he did okay. We simply didn't play well as a team today, and barely created a thing. That happens when just about every player is below par.

As for the Valencia praise, it's called good man management. He's played terrible the whole season, but has done better lately. So SAF gives him a confidence boost. With a week's rest now, we'll hopefully be up for it against City, and put the last nail into the coffin.

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Only played 4 games fewer than Young fwiw.
Nani? Both have been injured for a good portion of the season. Both were poor before their injuries then when they came back their form picked up and then another injury. Young's not found his form back and this is Nani's first game back.
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Just watched the match due to being at work. Was a poor match overall in fairness, not ag reat spectacle, probably fair enough that Chelsea won out.

Nani was so poor again today, constantly giving the ball away. Jones was disappointing but has been for a long time and thought Cleverley had a poor game although unlike the other two I've just mentioned it's the exception rather than the rule.

Great save by Cech from Hernandez.

Going to be a strange old end to the season now. League won with 8 games to go but for the biggest collapse in history and out of all the cups. Bar the points total which would be nice but couldn't really care much less about, it's like the season is pretty much over. Will be more interested now in seeing the fringe players get an extended run of games if Fergie chooses to do that over going for a points total, although would obviously prefer us to play our best team in every match until the league is mathematically won. Players such as Powell and some of the youngsters maybe. Then after that I'd be more interested in seeing Everton join the top 4 with Tottenham and see all of Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool out of the CL.

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Nani? Both have been injured for a good portion of the season. Both were poor before their injuries then when they came back their form picked up and then another injury. Young's not found his form back and this is Nani's first game back.

Not sure you can claim either got their form back but that was my point. Both have been injured and crap in equal measure yet Young gets none of the excuses because of it.

All of our wingers have been way below the standard you expect for a club like United regardless of injuries.

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Surprised that the focus today is Nani when the substitutions effectively buried us. Nani is playing his first game since the injury against Chelsea and still provided more moments than Tony V.

Also we fail to see that although our wingers are off form and not providing us with a huge amount of chances, our wide play and use of width is probably what stands us out from our title rivals with their narrow, tricky play-maker style of football. We tire the smaller teams down with the way we spread the play and that is why we nick a lot more results than others who seem to have more style & flash in their play

We need to hope we can avoid injuries next season so that Zaha, Young, Nani & Valencia get a bit of momentum going

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Jones whilst in CM was promising as well I thought. Also thought Smalling was good but we've seriously got a problem with our wingers - that's a good few months without anyone of them being in any sort of form.

Thought Smalling looked shaky today, as he did at CB against Sunderland before looking better at RB. Agree that Jones has looked very promising at CM lately though.

Not sure you can claim either got their form back but that was my point. Both have been injured and crap in equal measure yet Young gets none of the excuses because of it.

Well I think that's because Young doesn't have the ceiling Nani does. There's a certain expectation that he'll be average at best and everything else is a bonus, whereas Nani is a world beater on his day.

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The funny thing is that if you don't allow yourself to be too constrained by who is and who isn't 'a winger', we have two players who have excelled in wide areas recently - Welbeck and Giggs. Thought it was nailed on they'd be starting, though I suppose the Rooney injury meant we needed someone in behind Chicha.

Bebe's back from loan next year anyway :brock:

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