The Manchester United Thread XVI

Lucky! My dissertation presentation was worth 5%, so 2 credits I didn't even bother to plan for it cos it was worth so little, just winged it.

true, arsenal have a tendancy to utterly collapse
i don't think they will this season, however they have looked extremely wobbly at times, even in their wins.

i just feel like unless united have a ridiculous improvement in terms of performance AND something catastrophic happens to liverpool, they aren't making top 4.

Speaking of teams having a tendency to collapse...





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i definitely wouldn't chastise you for that man.
nearly everybody on TSR (even liverpool fans) wrote us off at xmas.

me and jam were literally the only people i can think of that still believed liverpool would get back and challenge for top 4.
obviously i don't get any acknowledgement for this though because of negative connotations to my name

i think regarding top 4, all you can do now is just look at where you are and take it game by game.
points are all that matters and you simply have more than we do right now.

honestly, i would've chosen 2 extra modules; i can't stand outside work.
with set lectures, you have a specific time and place you need to go and you don't have to organise and manage your time to meet a deadline

essentially humans are one of the few species that have the cognitive capacity to undergo mental time-travel in order to entertain future scenarios and act based on analysis of perceived outcomes of such scenarios.
my dissertation specifically assesses individual's accuracy of prediction and whether various measures of individual differences (i.e: personality, numeracy skills, etc.) have an affect on said prediction accuracy.
so yeah, i'm a nerd...

But Arsenal are bipolar..

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Everybody needs to realise that Liverpool are a 2nd half of the season team under Rodgers, if there is a problem with the tactical setup, Rodgers takes some time to find the solution, but he's very good at getting the team on the front foot, simply when you play fast cohesive attacking football with high pressure it's very hard to contain.

I think the problem is your vastly inferior goal difference though. Which could be crucial in the race for top 4.

Your form is scary, and if Rodgers finds a way to prevent these half season lapses early on, you could be challenging for the title next year. United you know will go beast sooner or later if they get top 4 this season, not under Van Gaal but he can help build a great team like he did at Bayern. I genuinely think it's between Arsenal and United for 4th. Liverpool should win at Anfield vs United, Arsenal at Emirates is a hoodoo for them but I think they can get a result.

x

On another note I don't understand why people want to see Mata play in behind Rooney when it doesn't/won't work. They both like to occupy the same spaces and end up disrupting each other, Mata thrives on runs in behind the defence generally and Rooney can't and won't make those runs, will end up coming deep and frustrating everyone. I wouldn't mind seeing Di Maria as a 10 but playing in a free role, allowing him to run in behind the defence and stay Central or drift into channels if he wishes. Young and Januzaj either side of him.

On another note I don't understand why people want to see Mata play in behind Rooney when it doesn't/won't work. They both like to occupy the same spaces and end up disrupting each other, Mata thrives on runs in behind the defence generally and Rooney can't and won't make those runs, will end up coming deep and frustrating everyone. I wouldn't mind seeing Di Maria as a 10 but playing in a free role, allowing him to run in behind the defence and stay Central or drift into channels if he wishes. Young and Januzaj either side of him.

Van Gaal is generally a second stage of the season manager too though. He's shown more tactical competency in recent games (playing wingers for one), so a lot of the tags we're labelled by don't seem to be surfacing as prominently as people would have you believe. We've started playing much more balanced football since West Ham e.g. With the loss at Swansea can be contributed to a freak goal (though it's worrying how we seem to struggle to come from a goal behind, bar the much maligned long ball tactic) and the injury of Van Persie makes it an easier decision really. It's clear Van Gaal doesn't trust Falcao to lead the line, so I think we can expect Rooney leading the line at some point, or worst case scenario he's at 10 and Falcao at 9. Makes me feel a lot more secure than I have been at other stages of the season. I think we'll be ok in the big games, the others well it's not so easy to break a bus as others know.

Di Maria's best when he's running at people - as we saw in his first few games - but LVG's cautious build-up play and approach really doesn't accommodate him.

We bought di maria for counter attacking style of play and lvg is playing him in the opposite way.

I wouldn't really call Van Gaal a second stage of season manager, he does ok at the second half of the season, but he's not ridiculously good like Rodgers who gets the team on a title winning run in such a challenging league. He's getting this tag from his 09/10 season at Bayern, where lets be honest little credit can be attributed to his managerial ability for that win when the team is as strong as Bayern, bar for Thomas Muller's introduction. Season after that where was his "second stage of the season" ability when Dortmund pummelled them 3-1?

Freak goal from Swansea, you played ok but it wasn't anything special. He played a team that people were asking for two months and you suddenly play decent football, shock horror.

Van Gaal deciding suddenly that a team that played with wingers for the past 25 years play better with wingers, amazing tactical revelation there woo 3 cheers for Van Gaal!!!

United haven't used a bus once this season too, just defensive tactics, sitting back and countering with the front 2/3 in advanced areas. E.g. vs Arsenal you had Di Maria and RVP in advanced areas with Rooney just in behind making it 3 people in the counter.

I didn't mean us using a bus, I meant smaller teams parking it against us and us having to break it down. We play too slowly at the moment, need to move it across the pitch quicker and basically pack one side to get in behind. Having said that wingers should help, I will eat my **** if anyone calls for Valencia at RW though. Need to overload wings, drag players there and create gaps centrally for Mata/Rooney to do his thing.

Agreed. Apparently a lot of it comes down to him trying to implement a tactic of moving side-to-side in banks, rather than taking the game to the opponent. United fans have been chanting 'attack, attack, attack!' quite regularly, which would hint at them not being massively enamoured with that approach.

Yes! We keep attacking through the middle of teams that park the bus and that too slower than my pet turtle. We need attack from the wings and then di maria should come flying through the middle like his goal against Leicester.
Attack from all angles while moving the ball fast.