Vs. West Ham (H) Premier League Sunday 13.8.2017 KO 16h

[Rustin Cohle]

Aug 14, 2017 22:20:04 GMT dazjoe said:

I was thinking about the game again yesterday. It brought back memories of the opening game of 06-07.

We had been pretty shit for the previous couple of seasons, still finishing in the Champions League spots of course, but some of our football was dire. Ronaldo was widely inconsistent, Scholes and Giggs form had dropped off, Rooney was good but still inconsistent too, and we had way too many games with the likes of Smith and O'Shea in midfield.

The previous season we had won the League Cup and people laughed at us, gave it the big "Look at them celebrating a cup they would never even bother with previously" and "That's all they can win now days", etc.

Opening day we played Fulham, and hammered them 5-1. Really set the tone for the whole season, there was a new hunger about the team, we played some blinding stuff.

We'd even signed a deep lying midfielder from a London rival in the summer, whose arrival was a bit muted as some had doubts whether he was really what we needed to improve the side.

Now I'm not getting carried away after one win, but there was a look of a new hungry team out there, one that looks like it wants to challenge again.

Fingers crossed it goes the same way.

Martial scoring 42 goals on the way to winning the CL and PL in 18/19 confirmed

[Stew]

Aug 14, 2017 22:20:04 GMT dazjoe said:

I was thinking about the game again yesterday. It brought back memories of the opening game of 06-07.

We had been pretty shit for the previous couple of seasons, still finishing in the Champions League spots of course, but some of our football was dire. Ronaldo was widely inconsistent, Scholes and Giggs form had dropped off, Rooney was good but still inconsistent too, and we had way too many games with the likes of Smith and O'Shea in midfield.

The previous season we had won the League Cup and people laughed at us, gave it the big "Look at them celebrating a cup they would never even bother with previously" and "That's all they can win now days", etc.

Opening day we played Fulham, and hammered them 5-1. Really set the tone for the whole season, there was a new hunger about the team, we played some blinding stuff.

We'd even signed a deep lying midfielder from a London rival in the summer, whose arrival was a bit muted as some had doubts whether he was really what we needed to improve the side.

Now I'm not getting carried away after one win, but there was a look of a new hungry team out there, one that looks like it wants to challenge again.

Fingers crossed it goes the same way.

Good points bar one- Scholes' form didn't drop off. He was injured with an as yet diagnosed condition that at one stage was feared might end his career. He returned during the summer, and it was him as much as the signing of Carrick that allowed that team to flourish. Cliche aside, it really was like we'd signed Carrick and one of the best midfielders to ever play in England. For nothing.

[juanveron]

Aug 15, 2017 9:40:43 GMT Rustin Cohle said:

Aug 14, 2017 22:20:04 GMT dazjoe said:

I was thinking about the game again yesterday. It brought back memories of the opening game of 06-07.

We had been pretty shit for the previous couple of seasons, still finishing in the Champions League spots of course, but some of our football was dire. Ronaldo was widely inconsistent, Scholes and Giggs form had dropped off, Rooney was good but still inconsistent too, and we had way too many games with the likes of Smith and O'Shea in midfield.

The previous season we had won the League Cup and people laughed at us, gave it the big "Look at them celebrating a cup they would never even bother with previously" and "That's all they can win now days", etc.

Opening day we played Fulham, and hammered them 5-1. Really set the tone for the whole season, there was a new hunger about the team, we played some blinding stuff.

We'd even signed a deep lying midfielder from a London rival in the summer, whose arrival was a bit muted as some had doubts whether he was really what we needed to improve the side.

Now I'm not getting carried away after one win, but there was a look of a new hungry team out there, one that looks like it wants to challenge again.

Fingers crossed it goes the same way.

Martial scoring 42 goals on the way to winning the CL and PL in 18/19 confirmed

If only he gets enough game time to do so.. 

[washyourhands]

It was a significant performance in so many ways. There is little comparison between the opening fixture last season at Bournemouth and this game. Both were won easily enough but there was a confidence and maturity to the West Ham result that  wasonly ever in its embryonic stage throughout last season. It has developed now. These players know what Jose demands and have the means and desire to implement it. The result is a team that is brimming with power and poise; it has a little of all the qualities, skill, pace, solidity.

What was interesting was the media reaction. Every seasoned pundit, from Scouse to Geordie were in broad agreement on the ominous and impressive nature of the performance. Last season they were simply comparing the Bournemouth game to the turgid fare served up by LvG. This is Jose's squad in everyway now. Long may it continue.

[Deez]

Someone start the Swansea thread!

I want to choose my starting XI and then get slated for it

[Max United]

Aug 15, 2017 21:31:05 GMT Deez said:

Someone start the Swansea thread!

I want to choose my starting XI and then get slated for it

I am so tempted to make it but I don't want to become a Redcase! 

[caino]

Aug 14, 2017 9:17:21 GMT Rustin Cohle said:

www.football365.com/news/joses-giants-are-here-and-isnt-it-thrilling

Jose’s giants are here…and isn’t it thrilling?

When I was growing up on Teesside, my favourite Boro player was a massive man who originated from near Mansfield called Stuart Boam. He was a centre-half who was carved out of pink granite and coal tar soap, a man that had a face like an abandoned quarry. If you’d detonated a small thermonuclear device under him, he wouldn’t have felt it. It wasn’t just that he was a hard man, though he most certainly was; it was the sheer physicality he brought to the game. At 6’2″ and shoulders like an oak mantelpiece, he was an imposing and scary-looking physical specimen.

We also had a man called Graeme Souness playing for us at the time who, though not a six-footer, was one of the most physically assertive men on the pitch. To see him scythe through players was a thing of terrible beauty. At times it was as if the pitch was a charnel house as Souey disposed of bloodied bodies left, right and underneath. One time, after he had – and let’s not dress this up – violently assaulted a man with his feet, he leaned over his prone opponent and with a malevolent jab of his finger, made it clear that this was HIS midfield and the fact his victim was bleeding on it was an act of frightful rudeness, sir.

If you had combined Boam and Souey you would have had the most awesome Terminator. Since then I’ve never lost my love for big, physically imposing, aggressive footballers. Physicality used to be so important in the game, it was something fans came to see, something fans loved. The loudest cheer of the day always came when the biggest defender powered to the touchline and cleared out the nippy winger into Row Z. Always. We loved the little fella for surviving it and the big fella for making the effort. But along with rule changes to outlaw the more beastly behaviour came something worse: snobbery.

During that awful phase when so many were hypnotised by smaller Barcelona players passing it around a lot, clouting people with your legs began to be frowned upon. It was an awful moment in football when drooling over possession stats as a kind of pornography replaced physicality, and when crossing and heading became outlawed as a crude, Luddite approach. I always thought the fanny-around-with-it-a-lot lot were the real Luddites.

At the time I suggested, to the opprobrium of many, that well-executed long ball football, that getting it wide and getting it into the box, that having huge defenders who could head the ball a long way, would all eventually return to fashion when we all got tired of the second-rate hipper-than-thou, all-foreplay-and-no-f**king thing. It was inevitable. Yes we enjoy high skill but there is something primal about also enjoying physicality.

Good news Luddites. It’s back. Oh yes.

If you’re still in doubt, you need only look at Manchester United playing West Ham United on Sunday to see how having huge blokes playing for you can be very, very impressive. United can now hurt the opposition, in all senses of the word. They look so physically intimidating. Matic is 6’4″, Pogba 6’3″, Lukaku likewise. It’s entirely possible they could field a side that are all over six feet tall. Brilliant. They will look like the football equivalent of the Prussian Guard.

They are the biggest team in the league and will be hard to beat. Tony Pulis has long since got average teams to over-perform by employing a four centre-half defence comprising of basically huge slabs of flesh. Being big and physical works. Even though they were very limited players, they still got results. But crucially, United have coupled massive-osity with speed and talented feet: that is an awesome triple-powered whammy. And when you can physically dominate the opposition, it feeds directly into a team’s confidence, so they’ll have half-won a game just in the tunnel, as they tower over the opposition like Easter Island statues. And if successful, it will finally put to bed the idea that you have to have a team of 5’7″ dancers or that football is all about skill and tactics and not physical prowess.

Even though the rules have been changed to diminish the worst effects of the stamp-stampy tendency, the simply visceral thrill at seeing a big athletic man pounding up the pitch, defenders bouncing off him, remains. There is also a visceral thrill to seeing a big forward rising through the air to connect to a crossed ball.

We mere mortals, who go to the gym three times a week in order to keep the decay of age at bay for a few hours more, look on in awe at these incredible physical specimens.

If you were raised on the game being played by wee fellas, it must all look a bit Land of the Giants but trust me, you’ll grow to love it and there’s nothing to worry about – not unless you’re playing United, anyway.

John Nicholson

one of the best posts I have seen in a long time.

Aug 14, 2017 13:23:31 GMT @cockothenorth said:

I would only consider loaning Pereira back out in January if he's not getting enough games and doesn't look likely to do so for the rest of the season. I'll be pissed off though, he's earned his chance.

I do think he'll get plenty of minutes though, so hopefully it won't come to that.

I think it would be more suitable loaning him out now and bringing him back in January. let him go play in the PL for half a season and get fully used to it without the pressure of being at Man Utd. bring him back when our players could be fatiguing and when the business end comes in thick and fast. a lot of games to be played in the second half of the season.


also, absolutely buzzing about that game. been a long time since ive enjoyed watching us play like that. I would just be going over the same things as everyone else if I carried on. people need to stop saying stuff like we sound like RAWK talking about winning the league after 1 performance. let people get excited, its been years since we could be. in our most recent struggles and darkest times as fans, we have still won trophies. there is no reason why we shouldn't believe we can win the league this year. as Jose has said, he doesn't want a good team, he wants a good squad, and on paper we probably have the deepest and best squad with versatility to play in many different formations and systems/tactics. the fear factor will definitely be back now.

buzzing for Martial to come on and make an instant impact too. a beauty of a goal, a pure martial goal and a very good assist taking the ball in a tight space and laying it off. it would be horrible chasing rashford about all game then another lightening winger to come on.

just give us 1 more signing Ed. preferably a left back

[Deleted]

Fuck it, believe the hype 

[grandpaTJ]

Aug 15, 2017 8:04:09 GMT troubleontheway said:

Sorry if this has been shared already. 

Yes, it was against a very poor West Ham side but that it's a beautiful thing to see a United midfielder put in a commanding performance like that.

Even more beautiful, when he is playing that way, it allows everyone else to play freely as well. Getting him was an absolute stroke of genius, and I have a feeling it was something Jose
planned on when he left Chelscum, I think he always knew he was coming to United some day.