vs. Everton (H) (PL) - Sunday 28/10/18 16:00 BST

[Bestie]

Last fifteen notwithstanding I really quite enjoyed that.

[Deleted]

Thanks for the win Mr.Jose

[Tatty]

Good game that. Martial’s confidence is sky high, you can tell, that’s why he went for the Hollywood finish at the end, rather than his usual cool finish.

[Deleted]

Felt good to boss a game for a good while

[bushy1987]

Keep Lukaku out that team for a bit the play overall look so much more fluid with him not uptop, we actually looked dangerous on the attack

[Bestie]

Oct 28, 2018 17:58:35 GMT Carbon said:

Thanks for the win Mr.Jose

You bastard. Supporting your club and being happy when we win.

Shame on you.

[Stew]

Oct 28, 2018 17:58:53 GMT Tatty said:

Good game that. Martial’s confidence is sky high, you can tell, that’s why he went for the Hollywood finish at the end, rather than his usual cool finish.

The difference in the team since he replaced Sanchez is considerable. The guy is a phenomenal talent. He’s inconsistent as he’s still a young player but he has to play every game.

[Rustin Cohle]

Oct 28, 2018 15:33:57 GMT Karma said:

Oct 28, 2018 15:31:23 GMT Rustin Cohle said:

Still in the car. Touch and go to make it for kick off!

We were in Manchester on Friday night and had the misfortune to expect the traffic around there to be less problematic around 10 pm. Obviously it wasn't and it took ages to get home.

We literally sat down as we kicked off. Actually ended up as perfect timing.

[Sméagol]

[Rustin Cohle]

Will post some thoughts about the game in a minute, but just a brief story: about 5 rows behind me was a dad and a girl (I reckon she was 7 or 8) with the squeakiest voice I’ve heard. She sounded like Wheezy from Toy Story, and she was singing her heart out for every song, carrying on long after most people stopped (as was her dad). Really nice to see.

[Deleted]

Oct 28, 2018 18:13:14 GMT Sméagol said:

He needs to go to every game.

More positives than negative for once. Seemed to sit back after gifting them the goal but I wasn't expecting a clean sheet. Very impressed with Martial, thought Fred was good as well considering his lack of game time, ran his arse off. More impressed with Lindelof as the weeks are going, another solid performance.

Made it more difficult than we should have but more than good for the win and a much needed 3 points. That'll do.

[Deleted]

Oct 28, 2018 18:19:52 GMT Rustin Cohle said:

Will post some thoughts about the game in a minute, but just a brief story: about 5 rows behind me was a dad and a girl (I reckon she was 7 or 8) with the squeakiest voice I’ve heard. She sounded like Wheezy from Toy Story, and she was singing her heart out for every song, carrying on long after most people stopped (as was her dad). Really nice to see.

Rare to see aswell. Need more like it.

[Deleted]

Played well, enjoyed it. That's all I want.

[Deleted]

5 points from 4th makes it sound a little better. Hopefully use this and move forward now.

[Deleted]

The thing about the word ‘preposterous’ is that in a football context, it can be used to describe a moment of pure unexpected joy. If you see an overhead kick or a lob described as preposterous, you know it’s going to be worth going gif-hunting.

This has become so common that it’s easy to forget that behaving preposterously is not necessarily a good thing. I would not take it as a compliment is someone described this piece as preposterous. It is not a word you want to hear in a job interview.

The point is that there is a point where one interpretation spills over into the other, and it is beginning to feel like Paul Pogba is just reaching that tipping point. He is a player who is capable of reaching both extremes of preposterousness in large doses, often with very little in between.

This was such a performance. His movement and passing in the first half were as good as anyone has produced in the Premier League this season. At his finest, Pogba alone is capable of tearing teams apart nearly as well as the entire midfields for the super-drilled, super-fluent Chelsea and Liverpool sides that currently sit atop the Premier League.

Yet this is also a player who sent an early attempt at a long-shot curling wildly out of play for a throw-in, and who dallied and showboated his way to striking an utterly awful penalty into exactly the kind of area that goalkeepers relish. Had he not tucked away the rebound off Jordan Pickford’s so calmly, he would have been greeted off the pitch by Simone Zaza, Robert Pires, John Terry and Riyad Mahrez and invited to join the the Laughably Shit Penalty Society.

That’s the thing with Pogba though: he did put it away. And then later, in the second half, just as he seemed to be winding up for one of his habitual shots-into-the-first-defender-from-25-yards shots, he instead squared the ball perfectly for his countryman Anthony Martial to finish flawlessly into the far bottom corner. But then he was also the man who was caught dicking about in the midfield, allowing Everton to steal the ball and start the move that resulted in Everton’s own penalty.

Pogba has had both his disciples and his detractors since returning to Manchester United, very often within the same game, and this performance was the perfect encapsulation of why that is. Those who stick up for him might reasonably ask why the Sky cameras and commentators immediately placed all the attention on the Frenchman after Chris Smalling recklessly threw himself into a grossly-mistimed tackle on Richarlison, rather than onto the former England man. His naysayers, naturally, would retort that Smalling wouldn’t have been put in that position had Pogba been a little less…well, Pogba.

In scrutinising both Pogba’s style of play and the response it gets from others, I am often reminded of David Ginola, another brilliant Frenchman who played on these shores two decades ago. Despite his undoubted talent, Ginola was never properly understood or appreciated by the more old-fashioned and/or tactically conservative managers he played under: former France manager Gerard Houllier infamously scapegoated him for his country’s failure to make the 1994 World Cup – Ginola having decided to cross when playing out time in the corner would have been adequate – and both Kenny Dalglish and George Graham quickly grew infuriated by high single-mindedness and sold him.

But even Graham could appreciate there were times when they needed a bit of Ginola’s magic, just as constant Pogba critic Graeme Souness was able to offer the more modern Frenchman some rare praise at half time. As Mourinho’s United look to cast off the (entirely justified) accusations of over-caution and self-defeating conservatism, they will need to do likewise. Pogba will sometimes be infuriating. He will sometimes be brilliant. He will often be preposterous. But with a player of his talent, that trade-off will quite often be worthwhile.