Manchester United 2-1 Liverpool: In-game & post-match wake-up call

From Red Cafe;
I have been a united fan for 35 years. I was very concerned with the way we were totaly outplayed in the last 25 minutes by a very young Liverpool side. Rogers seems to have adopted the Ferguson approach of 20 years ago by grouping a bunch of very young but very good british players. I am for the first time in 10 years very concerened by what is happening down the east lancs

From Red Cafe;
I have been a united fan for 35 years. I was very concerned with the way we were totaly outplayed in the last 25 minutes by a very young Liverpool side. Rogers seems to have adopted the Ferguson approach of 20 years ago by grouping a bunch of very young but very good british players. I am for the first time in 10 years very concerened by what is happening down the east lancs

Wow, a level headed Manc? Surely not!

It fills my heart with glee to know that a few of them are starting to get worried. I don't agree with many, saying the gaffer made mistakes by not starting with Sturridge either, as we wasn't fit enough.

And an offiside goal to beat us?

All in all I'm quite encouraged by what happened yesterday, when we took the game to them.

First half was a killer for us tactically it was all wrong needed to concentrate on attack rather then containing the opposition.Imo the first half tactics encourage players to leave a tackle for the next man where as going to a 442 of sorts stops this because if you let your man beat you theres nobody to blame but yourself and as we showed man for man we are just as good as that Utd side if not better .

Anyone who goes to that place and sets out to attack gets ripped open in minutes. You have to defend and hope it works out.

Hate this fixture every year. Lost the last 5 on the spin, and have just 2 wins in 10 years. So I expected nothing from it and got nothing. At least it's over with though for another year, and after the City and Arsenal trips, we can concentrate on beating the teams we can deal with nowadays.

I kind of agree about the timing of the impact sub. But it simply boils down to us losing the game on the back of some woeful defending of a set piece for me mate. Evra's/Vidic's goal was what cost us. We done really well to keep it at 1-0 until half time, I thought. They had some chances and didn't take them. Then we let in a soft goal in the second half to throw it away.

Really frustrating.

We've had defensive issues all season. In fact a good portion of the goals we've conceded have been defensive errors. That combined with Utd's attacking options meant they where always likely to score. What annoyed me was their defence is even worse and for 45 minutes we did nothing to exploit it. In that first half we had no shots, let alone one on target. Yet BR sat there for 45 minutes watching Suarez cut a forlorn figure up front receiving no service and being marked out of the game and did nothing about it. By doing that, we handed the initiative to united and that is the worst thing we could have done at Old Trafford.

Without necessarily agreeing with it, I can see what he was trying to achieve. Crowd the midfield and dictate the pace of the game, then introduce Sturridge when Man U's players have tired themselves chasing the ball around. It didn't work but might have done if we had better midfield players and wide men (Sterling and Downing) who had more attacking instincts and an eye for goal. As many others have said, the system isn't the problem, the problem is we don't have the players to make the system successful.

Exactly the thrust of my comment, take the game to them primarily, gain an advantage and then concentrate on any shortcomings.
The post about the comment on the manc site confirms the fact that when the changes did come we were a real threat, by then however it was too late in the day to affect the result. 

From Red Cafe;
I have been a united fan for 35 years. I was very concerned with the way we were totaly outplayed in the last 25 minutes by a very young Liverpool side. Rogers seems to have adopted the Ferguson approach of 20 years ago by grouping a bunch of very young but very good british players.

So in like 5 years we will be great? Yay.   

Results now, please.

I was so looking forward to this match as I really thought we could've got something out of it but after half an hour I was banging my head on the wall (again) , screamin and shouting at the telly , marchin up n down the living room in a really bad mood...
We simply gave them far too much respect for 60 minutes , sat off them and allowed them to attack us from all angles..Its almost like BR said to them "Just play it down and don't do anything silly, sit back and soak it up"...Christ !! even teams like Aston F***in Villa and QPR have played a better first half at Old Trafford this season....
They must've thought "Happy days"..another steam roller performance..The ease in which they cut us open in the first half was very worrying...
Johnson is NOT and never will be a left back...Carragher would've been a better bet..
Where the f**k Downing was playing i'll never know..
Joe Allen looked like some under 15's kid playing with grown ups..
We really missed Enrique...big time..
Sturridge could've had a hat trick !!
Carrick,Cleverly & RVP all had sh*t games as far as i'm concerned , there was only Welbeck who had a decent game for them...
The only light at the end of the tunnel for me was how , with 20 minutes to go the players thought "Hang on , we can get someting out of this game"...alas..too late !!....I'd rather BR stuck his neck on the line , realised after 25 minutes his plan wasn't working and made 2 x subs to change things in the mix rather than wait as so many other managers do for this so called "magical" 60 minute mark to make a change..
Will they be the champions come May?...who knows..but if they are the benchmark in this league then i'm not really that overly concerned..
We'll have far tougher first halves at Man City and Arsenal coming up I can tell you...
Rant over !!..

So in like 5 years we will be great? Yay.   

Results now, please.

Jam tomorrow.

Tadders :::      BTW   What are you doing reading The Sad Cafe.?  Only Slag Off The Scum Artists like me can !

So in like 5 years we will be great? Yay.   

Results now, please.

Won't happen overnight, a squad needs to play together, players need time to gel in the squad.

Patience is a virtue lad!!

And what the F**k you doing quoting off that F***ing c**t of a forum? I don't want to be reading anything about them cunting retarded manc tw*ts!!

Bit miffed by the 'Wake up call' in the topic title..

We've lost on 9 of our last 10 occasions at their place. I wasn't exactly hopeful of going there & taking all 3 points I'm afraid. 

Bit miffed by the 'Wake up call' in the topic title..

We've lost on 9 of our last 10 occasions at their place. I wasn't exactly hopeful of going there & taking all 3 points I'm afraid. 

 Exactly. I was hopeful too, but the unfortunate fact is that for the first hour we didn't get going. Once we started to play we gave them a real scare, but it wasn't to be. Everyone is entitled to their views and I'm not labelling anyone who doesn't believe the same as me, but I can't help thinking that we beat ourselves up too much after a poor result sometimes.

Bit miffed by the 'Wake up call' in the topic title..

We've lost on 9 out of the last 10 occasions at their place. I wasn't exactly hopeful of going there & taking all 3 points I'm afraid. 

I was thinking the same thing.  Despite leaving empty handed, there were several positives to take from the game.  The signs are there that Sturridge and Suarez will form a very dangerous partnership.  They seemed to have a good understanding of where the other one was moving and when to play the ball to each other.  Also, Borini was lively on his return, and I think a front 3 with Suarez and Borini supporting Sturridge will give defenders nightmares!!  Allen was off the pace again, but Hendo did well when he was introduced. 

I think our strongest 11 is a very good team and I am confident that we will get back to winning ways against Norwich on Saturday.  Hopefully Sturridge starts alongside Suarez for this one.  Hopefully Borini can get 30+ minutes in this one as well and we can look to start using him from the start in the following games!!

Sick of having to take 'positives' from a game! How about we start taking points and stop playing like a bunch of Conference players. Our performance was pathetic in the first half, utterly pathetic and eventually that is what cost us the game. Much better in the second half and especially once Allen and Sterling went off who really seemed to struggle. Wish Rodgers would start realising that Allen isn't up for the physical fight, for me, Henderson should be starting instead of him.

The next 3 games we need 7-9 points if we are to have even the smallest amount of chance in aiming for the top 4-5 spots. It is all good winning against the likes of West Ham, Reading, Norwich etc but we don't see games out against the top teams when we get in the lead.

Bit miffed by the 'Wake up call' in the topic title..

Many apologies. Won't happen again.

Don't apologise !...I think it's pretty accurate..
Like I said earlier if we are to use teams like Man U , Chelsea, Arsenal even the likes of Byern M, Barca, Real M as any sort of benchmark for our revolution then yesterdays game was once again,another "Wake up call".
You can play and smash 3 , 4 and 5 past your Norwich's and Sunderlands every week but it's when we square up to the so called "top 4" teams , thats when it matters , thats when, as a player you have to be right on top of your game, mentally as well as physically.
For that last 20 minutes we put the pedal to the metal and really started to knock it about like we've been watching these last few games and if we had've done that earlier in the game we would probably have took the 3 points...
Man U we're there for the taking , they always are , everytime we play them, as Arsenal and Man city will be next..but we just sat back and let them cut us open...
The wake up call is more of a belief that when we go to these top 4 away grounds we should be more offensive right from the off and let them know who's in town...
We used to that ALL the time !

Not good enough that first half, borderline embarrassing the way they hammered us. We struggled to get out our own half. Rodgers has to accept responsibility for that first half, he got it wrong from the start by leaving out Sturridge and playing Downing, swear Downing didn't even touch the ball until the second half. In he end we were unlucky to not come away with a point but playing well for 25, 30 minutes out of 90 is no where near good enough. The passing was poor and Allen looked well out of his depth, should have gone off a lot sooner than he did. As for their second goal, came off Vidic so surely it was offside?!

This match again highlighted the lack of depth we have to the squad and how bad the owners need to F***ing invest instead of cutting the wage bill all the time!!

Not good enough that first half, borderline embarrassing the way they hammered us. We struggled to get out our own half. Rodgers has to accept responsibility for that first half, he got it wrong from the start by leaving out Sturridge and playing Downing, swear Downing didn't even touch the ball until the second half. In he end we were unlucky to not come away with a point but playing well for 25, 30 minutes out of 90 is no where near good enough. The passing was poor and Allen looked well out of his depth, should have gone off a lot sooner than he did. As for their second goal, came off Vidic so surely it was offside?!

This match again highlighted the lack of depth we have to the squad and how bad the owners need to F***ing invest instead of cutting the wage bill all the time!!

Have to agree with here 7kk7. Although I made the point more than once in the pre match thread that I thought Sturridge wasn't ready for 90 mins and that I thought Downing should start. I gave reasons for both decisions and I thought it made sense tactically, so I can see why he done that. It was wrong but I'm not going to slate BR for it when I said the same myself.

However was it just me or did Downing spend the 1st half on the RW. Not only was he not adding to the play but he was constantly coming inside making our (few) attacks more and more narrow! On the other wing Sterling really looked to be struggling to with the physicality, he was pushed out of the way far too much.

As for Allen, that one I can have a go at BR for. The moment I seen the teamsheet I was baffled! The way Henderson has been improving and the way Allen has been diminishing I thought it would be a no brainer. Everyone said they seen this match being won and lost in the midfield and we were over run. I'm not saying Henderson would have become some sort of Xavi/Iniesta hybrid but his energy and off the ball running was badly needed from the start.

Although that 1st half was terrible, the second half gave us a lot to look forward to. Mainly seeing what Sturridge and Borini  add to our attack. I thought the two of them played very well and another day we could have had 3 strikers on the scoresheet. Very happy with Sturridge's goal, good poachers goal, something we have been lacking.

2-1 isn't the worst result in the world, hurt pride aside. Need to turn our focus now to Norwich on Saturday and take any frustrations out on them. Another 5 goals would help put this to the back of our minds.

Bit miffed by the 'Wake up call' in the topic title..

We've lost on 9 of our last 10 occasions at their place. I wasn't exactly hopeful of going there & taking all 3 points I'm afraid. 

These are exactly my thougts. I don't know who woke up about what, but I wasn't living a dream about us having 100% chances of winning at the Old Toilet. I definitely wanted us to win but it was obviously not going to be easy.

THere are obvious statisticslike we don't often win at Utd and they are way above us in the league. However they are a physical team, we didn't match that. We are not Barca yet who, who can match physicality with supreme ball retention and acquisition. I know Brendan needs to keep true to his philosophy so it iwll take time before we can impose ourselves properly on good opposition. All Utd have to do is press us high, we get confused still positionally and they can take advantage. One of the reasons Rafa's team don't get flogged is because they don't get confused as to where tehy should be at any given time. I would have like to see Downing nowhere near Old Trafford unless he is playing for them or has a snipers rifle. Just because he is left footed doesn't mean he should play. I would prefer to see Henderson play that game with Sturridge. We would have been better with Gerrard, Lucas and Hendo in the midfield and Suarez, Sturridge up front with Johson, Wisdom, Skertl, Coates and Agger across the back. No doubt.

Too much passing sideways and backwards, seems to be the tactics of the side for far too long. Has anyone else noticed this, instead of being more direct and going on the attack. This leaving sides more time to regroup back in defence.

It has been like that all along. Apart from Stevie there's no one else that can do a killer forward pass nor defend effectively in midfield. We simply need to find another Alonso and Masch fast and we'll be handful.

It has been like that all along. Apart from Stevie there's no one else that can do a killer forward pass nor defend effectively in midfield. We simply need to find another Alonso and Masch fast and we'll be handful.

I'm not surprised that we only have Gerrard that can make a killer pass. When Allen was at Swansea all he did was pass sideways and backwards. I really don't see what Brendan saw in him to warrant paying £15m. I don't think Henderson is well renowned for being a great passer and most solid defensive midfielders like Lucas, Mascherano, De Jong etc aren't known to be good attacking passers either.

I'm not surprised that we only have Gerrard that can make a killer pass. When Allen was at Swansea all he did was pass sideways and backwards. I really don't see what Brendan saw in him to warrant paying £15m. I don't think Henderson is well renowned for being a great passer and most solid defensive midfielders like Lucas, Mascherano, De Jong etc aren't known to be good attacking passers either.

To start with I'm not sure what's Allen's role all about. Does BR expects Allen to dictate the pace of the game, DEFEND, break up an attack and start an ATTACK from midfield ala Alonso or Souness? If that's the case, BR may have got it wrong at the moment, Allen simply doesn't posses that kind of quality at the moment. The most probable reason I can find why he's in the first 11 most of the time is most probably BR wants Allen to learn from Stevie and hopefully one day take over from Stevie but there're too much rough edges that needs smoothening.

Let's start with DEFENDING and take a look at Allen's positioning, he gave the scums an ocean of space to operate and he got over ran and out muscled most of the time and players just went pass him as if he was invincible, not only in this game against the scums but many other games before this. In this aspect, Lucas is way ahead of Allen, in terms of clever positioning and closing down opposing players, it's just that Lucas doesn't possses the pace of Masch, otherwise he'll be awesome. On most occassions, I do notice when we're defending, we can draw a radius of say 5 metres from where Allen stood and we can hardly find an opposition player, however, when an opposing players moves into this circle Allen couldn't do anything effective as he's too far from the attacking player and the player and/or the ball just went pass him and he ended up that one or two yards short and chasing shadows most of the time. On occassions when he did get near to an oppostion player, he got out muscled. However, I'm not suggesting that things won't improve for Allen, but by better positioning himself, reading the game better and put in those early tackles and cover those dangerous spaces is something not difficult to achieve as he's a faster version of Lucas. That's Allen as a DM for me.

As an AM, I can't remember a single occassion where he made a useful contribution to the forward line, it could have slipped my mind. What I've seen so far when he got the ball moving forward it's always the side and back passes most of the time and that's not the way to operate as an AM. Ok, Shelvey clumsy as he may be but I could remember more killer passes coming from Shelvey than Allen. Has it got to do with lack of quality or confidence to execute a killer pass on the part of Allen?

Allen's strong point is his continuous running, but he must make those runnning count, otherwise, he'll be another headless chicken.

So in like 5 years we will be great? Yay.   

Results now, please.

Won't happen overnight, a squad needs to play together, players need time to gel in the squad.

Patience is a virtue lad!!

Then we'll keep going like this for 5 years until Downing and Allen stop being sh*te?