Lotus

Surprised again not to see him. Don't know what the issue but there definitely is one. If he can't come on for 20 mins when we're 0-2 up against a mid table Champ side he's place in the squad seems purely ornamental. Leave him out of the squad and put Alex Murphy in his place. Something!

Ali Dia

Iker Muniain

It helps to make a clear distinction between players we are linked with by the media and players we actually sign.

Thought Antony looked a decent player and a better prospect at Ajax. For whatever reason he hasn’t developed at ManU. If he’s clever with his next move I still think he could be a good player.

I’d like to see us develop some effective tactical flexibility. Successful teams can do this. However, those kind of adjustments must be forged on the training pitch and if we can’t get out there to do them we’ll have to wait until the schedule and injury list make it possible. In game tactical changes don’t really seem considered to much as an option. I'm sure EH has reasoning for this but I’d like to know as I’m nosy.

My post wasn’t aimed at you fwiw.

I think Gallagher is similar to Longstaff but he has better technical ability. He would be an upgrade imo but I’m not sure he’s one we need to make atm. Other priorities.

It’s a fan forum, it’s an emotional dumping ground. It’s a place where folks can be reasonable but they might also just use it to vent and wildly extrapolate to either unlikely optimistic or pessimistic scenarios. Surely no one believes someone posts on here in a fit of rage or unadulterated glee and then actively seeks the player in the real world to impress upon the full force of their feelings? We can’t support the players from a forum but we can support each other from time to time and if someone is extremely annoyed at Tonali and the way it’s played out I doubt it’s beyond any of us to understand why.

Do we even know if Ashworth is involved in the scouting and the contracts? We have a head of scouting and we have a legal team. I thought Ashworth is the person these depts report to, not the person doing those actual jobs.

Playing like he’s got an injury he’s very weary of exacerbating.

It was odd because it was obvious that the way to get at us was down the flanks. We have 2 slow FBs. They did exactly that. We didn’t adjust or make any changes to protect ourselves. We just did what we did harder and that left more gaps. Trips positioning has been suspect for a while. He’s often too far up the pitch and when we lose the ball he can’t recover his position. Burn is just so slow. Was caught out easily. Later our midfield shape disintegrated and NF just played through the middle of us without anyone within 10 yards of a player receiving the ball. This wasn’t a bad day at the office. This is a systemic problem. Love EH but he’s too loyal to the older players. If Hall had had a 1st half like Burn’s he’d have been hooked double quick. Trips really needs some time away. At the moment our identity is being tactically inflexible and pressing in a way that leaves bus lanes all over the pitch for the opposition to trundle down. I don’t think we’ve reached our nadir yet either. I expect us to pick up form at some point. I also think EH should not fear for his job. Fresh look at the situation in the summer.

Hey could’ve all worn one sock each.

If the club hierarchy decide to take a long term view they may bid for the best available player regardless of whether it’s an immediate priority position. Gordon wasn’t a necessity last January. Looks vital now though. I know the fans are desperate for CL football but the reality is that our chance at it this year produced 1 strong EH style football performance out of 6. Our general trajectory is upward but it won’t be linear.

Think the coming off was just misunderstanding the gesture from the other side of the pitch. He was fine today on the whole. Wasn’t remotely a problem. Not really a solution to our attacking problems but was fine defensively on the whole.

Maybe….

I guess it came down to who could replace him. Gordon shouldn't have been playing, that was obvious but who else?

We're gonna burn him out if we carry on like this.

Think our whole 'a good press is better than a good 10' approach has come completely undone due to injuries and fatigue. Probably impossible to develop a new style or system on the fly. We need different types of players than just runners. FFP has hindered that so we'll just have to tough it out until we can recruit more along the lines of what we need for the new challenges.

With you until the 3rd paragraph.

He's not the reason we lost. But not having another midfielder who can play a killer ball was the reason we didn't win.

Players looked a little used to losing. Very fatigued mentally as well as physically. They'll be very disappointed. We need to be supporters not just fans. It's easy to get emotional and reactive after a bad few weeks. Let's see how we are come the end of January.

Me too. Longstaff not really doing anything.

Bruno looks knackered.

No midfielders on the bench (Ritchie doesn’t count), only a half fit Isak as an attacking option and 4 fullbacks. Don’t think the bench looks good myself. Hopefully we don’t need it.