Manchester Utd 4-0 West Ham Utd (13/08/17)

[hammers92]

Just got in and I honestly thought that was a pathetic performance. We didn't bother winning the 50-50's anywhere on the pitch and every time we got hold off the ball we gave it away after 2 seconds. Awful and gutless display. Next week must be better.

[Sir_Trevor]

Lost the battle in midfield today, Matic was brilliant

I agree. Totally surprised by him - he looked like Payet the way he ghosted by players at times there.

Also, I'm one who is critical of Noble very often but I agree with those who are saying that he was one of our best players today (though that is a very low bar).

[libero]

Just posted on the transfer thread, but it's relevant here too.

With the midfield inuries we have, how come Snodgrass and Feghouli weren't available for the bench this afternoon,when we had a keeper, a striker and 5 defenders on the bench

100,000 a week in wages, & we can't even get them on the bench? They wouldn't have changed the reult, but, what's going on there?

And, if not, why not have one of Holland, Quina or Martinez instead of one of the 5 defenders on the bench? Is Slav really thinking these things through? I have my doubts

[Burnley Hammer]

Byram should have come on and Zabaleta moved to DM. This is not the first time I've said this, and I have a good feeling it's not going to be the last.

Noble was the best midfielder on the pitch for us - but considering the other two were rubbish, that's not really a compliment.

Thought Arnie played alright. Contributed defensively in the first half, and showed strength and composure when he had it. He obviously suffered from having the woeful Masuaku behind him, and no Lanzini to link up with.

What is it with Masuaku anyway? He's either the best player on the pitch or the worst. Don't think he's ever given an average 6/10 performance.

I think having seen that performance today, we might as well have chucked Sead Haksabanovic in for a debut.

[Hamburger]

FFS It's 11 men against 11 men - the gap in ability isn't that big. If we were tactically organised with a clear game plan and every player giving 100% we don't lose 4-0.

Agreed, we were so badly organised. Bilic does not seem to have any idea how to set the team up or to penetrate the opposition. It's all very well getting good players in, if your tactics and organisation are bad, you will struggle. Once again Bilic blamed the players yet Man U scored 1 goal in the first half and 3 in the second half, surely a good manager would adjust the team and tactics to be better and more motivated in the second half, not 3 goals worse, he must take the blame?!? We can barely string 3 passes together, it is embarrassing compared to the outstanding performances from both Burnley and Huddersfield who were so positive and creative.

The manager had 3 new decent players in the team and yet we were no better than last year. Same leaky defence, same non existent midfield going forward or coming back. At one point a Man U player ran from his own box with the ball nearly to ours completely unchallenged, ridiculous.

I think we have a decent team but Bilic does not seem to have the ability to organise, coach or motivate. The team look clueless and with no confidence in their coaching tactics.
.

[bubbles500]

Literally totally forgot about snodgrass guess he must be off for sure.

[the pink palermo]

Slav's heaping pressure on himself by throwing the team open at 0-2 after an hour against the top 6 teams.

He seems pathologically incapable of accepting the idea that the score should be kept respectable when the game is obviously lost.

This .

2-0 to Man Utd is no disgrace , it's probably par for most clubs that visit OT this season .

4-0 though is a very bad result , it erodes confidence , makes the task of getting a positive goal difference by the end of the season much harder and creates the impression of a team without fight when in reality for large parts of the game we showed some decent desire .The problem though was at 2-0 down the game is gone , the job then is how to stop the rot not believe we're going to win 3-2 .The fans may chant that but the professionals at the club should know the score in every sense .

Overall though we were not at our best and the two tests I generally apply , which keeper had the most to do , well that was Hart , and which of our players would get in the oppositions team , well today that was none of them, tell the story.

The second goal we conceded today was the hammer blow .Very, very poor .Soft ? Not much .

I predicted 4 points from our opening 6 matches , and nothing I saw today causes me to want to revise my tally .

Rice was the only positive today .He will be a regular by this time next year .

[Burnley Hammer]

Rice was the only positive today .He will be a regular by this time next year .

Carry on like that and it'll be this time next month!

[libero]

Yes - these two posts are spot on. Sometimes damage limitation is an option

An intelligent change at 2-0 might have been Byram for Ayew (astonishingly weak & useless for 90 mins) and Zabaleta moving in between our 2 CBs. It certainly wouldn't have changed the result, but might have limited the thrashing - avoiding such a damaging debacle.

Rice was a positive, yes - but not the only one - Chicharito showed class, quality, intelligence and committment

[kayahammer]

No urgency from us.

No pace with passing, long ball to a 5ft9 striker.

No answer to Man U's midfield.

Poo

[Greatest Hits Vol1]

Just got back from the match. Left my flat at 7:30 this morning and somewhere in the following 17 hours there were two hours of depressing football. The one high point for me was when the match ended, Arnautović come straight over and applauded the traveling support.

[steps]

FFS It's 11 men against 11 men - the gap in ability isn't that big. If we were tactically organised with a clear game plan and every player giving 100% we don't lose 4-0.

The ridiculous amount of money in the game is altering people's perceptions.

It wasn't, Wormley. It was men against boys.

I said this after the Man City friendly.

Be prepared for a few more hammerings this season.

[Bonzos4Lagers]

Been in a car all day driving down from Maine to Connecticut.

Just watched the whole game without knowing the result. My thoughts are:

Noble and Fernandes were lightweight against a highly potent midfield. Noble was in no way our MOTM. He looked a yard short but still put in a shift. I thought Rice came on and should start our next game: his passing was better and more positive, pushing the ball away from pressure. I like Fernandes but this was not his type of game.

I thought Reid looked rusty/slow/ponderous - call it what you will, but he too was off the pace. Ogbonna's effort for the fourth was abysmal. Zab had just showed him how to block a shot. Ginge would have been at full stretch. Ogbonna waved a foot in Pogba's general direction. Up to that point, Ogbonna had been meh at best.

We lost the game right down the middle with Fernandes and Noble. Obiang was OK but often wasteful in front of Reid and Ogbonna. Ayew seemed to contribute little based on the TV coverage I saw. Arnie was starved of the ball, but I was also frustrated that he didn't receive the ball at pace and take people on. Plus his free kicks were shocking.

Zab and Masuaku looked competent to me. Chicharito did the best he could.

In Slav's shoes, I'd drop Noble for Rice and Ogbonna for Collins. I'd feed Arnie as option #1 for every attack. I hope Lanzini comes in for Fernandes. I also think we saw what many on her suspected: Chicharito for all his strengths is not a lone striker. FWIW I though Sakho did OK, and I thought Hart couldn't do much about the goals, although I'd still like to see him dive for things he can't reach.

Manure seemed good - very good. Tough fixture on opening day - especially with Lukaku guaranteed to score.

Disappointed? Yes. Optimistic we'll be OK as and when our first choice players return? Absolutely.

COYI

[Bonzos4Lagers]

Also . . . .

just a reminder about our respective pre-season fixtures - Man Utd had to be better prepared than us even allowing for travel. Just saying . . .

[Andy Carroll]

Man U is looking like a team to be feared again. They were better than us on paper but more importantly on the day they destroyed us.

Everyone is going after Noble but I thought Obiang and Fernandes were both worse in the midfield. We need to get our full strength squad back. Hernandez does not play to his size at all. Brilliant hold up play and if there was someone to properly play off him then I think we'd have scored.

Got to move on to the next game. Sometimes you just get beat by a clearly better team. Will be interesting to see if City and United live up to their potential and storm ahead of the pack.

[Status Kev]

You look forward to the football season and it kicks you in the b*llocks as soon as it starts.
Gutted. Started OK but once they got the first goal I could never see us coming back. Think if we were to nick it it would have been a 1-0 at best.
Hard to really take positives but Chicarito worked hard without any real service. Would love to see him playing with Carroll to be honest.
Declan Rice has a maturity beyond his years. Looked composed on the ball and played some nice passes. Can't see him playing every week at 18 years of age but has all the attributes to be a top player.
I don't like slagging off our own players but how Ayew is worth £20 I have no idea. Shows no threat. Loses possession far too easily and looks far too lightweight. Whether he needs to play more centrally I don't know but I am yet to be convinced by him at all. The sooner Antonio is back the better.
Masuaku very poor today. May be a one off but I would rather have a back to his best Cresswell in the side.
It is a blow to the confidence but only one game and we have Lanzini, Kouyate, Antomio and Carroll to come back plus the possibility of Carvalho to sign.
I am keeping the faith.

[The Rebirth]

Both Mourinho and Man United are expected to win the league this year.

But we got smashed... it was horrible. The sub of Cresswell for anything other than injury was pointless.

Diafra looked fairly anon but he did get some good flicks.

Rice look comfortable and I enjoyed seeing him play.... Ayew was at odds and sods today left Zaba with a horrible job of marking Rashford then Martial it was a tough evening for him.

I don't rate Joe Hart... but he cannot dive full stretch to his low left... the fourth goal he should have done better but hey ho that's life.

[Wilko1304]

Keeper: arguably has the weakness to his left but no blame for any other goal, did everything very well when called upon, aside from the last goal but do think it's harsh to judge him when Pogba had free run at goal and could have fired either side or passed to the moving runners.

Defence: Zab showed up, none of the others did. Reid looked heavy. Great to see what a real right back does and Zabaleta had fight too. Would be my captain when Noble isn't playing. Masuaku was a atrocious, didn't get a foot near anyone and was awful in possession in their half too. Crossing and decision making was shocking.

Midfield: Noble managed to do the best work in front of our defence, fighting in the middle and contributing to attack. Got stuck in in our battles and managed to get in and around their box. Cheered to see him like that. Fernandes is way off where we needed him to be but to be fair, he's young and arguably about 7th choice. Obiang was poor, ponderous and desperate to bang Hollywood passes. Lacked discipline to keep things ticking over and will be replaced. Rice looked the opposite to him and I'd play him next week.

Forwards: Ayew is neat and tidy but not dynamic enough to play wide and you only have to look at his position map to see how ineffective he was. A good player near a striker, but he's basically a lesser Lanzini with more goal instinct. Arnie made runs that will bear fruit and I was happy to see him eager to support the striker, run beyond him and yet work hard doing his defensive duties too. A solid debut outside the set pieces.

Hernandez was excellent for what he could be. Effort, guile, held ball up and drew fouls. Will be huge for us


As a whole: lacked intensity and made it easy once it was 2-0. Missing impact players and ball carriers, but also looked so similar to last year with no idea how to combat high quality play. Man United were good, but we stopped making them earn their rewards and that's criminal.

[TommyHammer]

I know Slav wants to play a front three, but is this surely the right way to play against this United team at Old Trafford? Especially with key men missing in the middle. We got absolutely bullied. I wouldn't have minded if we actually had a go at them, but we did nothing. Never expected us to win today but never expected us to get a smashing like that either. If we don't improve and get at least 4 points in the next two games I think questions have to start being asked of Bilic tactically. Can't be getting smashed like that with the team we now have.

[The Old Mile End]

According to the commentator, no one has lost more first games in Premiership history than West Ham. Add in our record at OT in the last ten years or so and the fact that they now have Lukaku, and you have the perfect recipe. We weren't going to disappoint the statisticians!

Lesser teams than ours will get better results there this season - but it's out of the way now and we need to take the positives from it. Hernandez showed some good touches and is obviously a lot better than the dross we've been served up with in recent times. If he can avoid injury and depression he should do well for us.

It was good to see young Declan Rice getting a good run out. He looks good to me and I hope he has a long future with us. Would have also liked to have seen Josh Cullen out there had we not loaned him. I believe he is every bit as good as Fernandez for example.

No need to panic - though the goal difference has probably gone for the season!