In fairness, Koeman was 30 seconds and a moment of panic away from being the first the first manager in Premier League history to win three consecutive away games at Old Trafford.
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In fairness, Koeman was 30 seconds and a moment of panic away from being the first the first manager in Premier League history to win three consecutive away games at Old Trafford.
*puts hand up in the air*
I am disappointed.
We had a totally dismal autumn and our season effectively ended in the first week of January.
We lost home and away to the RS.
And apart from last night, we failed to turn up at any of the big away games (I know we got a point at City but a six goal spanking would not have flattered them)
And that's the truth if it.
Yes, the ship is steadied and I think the future is looking brighter than it was twelve months ago.
And off the pitch huge strides are being made with the new stadium.
But on the pitch?
Thus far it has all been a bit average IMO
And if that makes me less than "sane" then send out the men in white coats
Not sure what expectations you had for the season? Mine were pretty much how they have panned out, apart from a cup run would have been nice.
It's his first season, he has -
1. Cleared the majority of the dead wood who were stealing a living.
2. Installed a lot of youth into the first team set up, some of whom are very, very promising.
3. Got a tune out of Barkley again.
4. Got us in a European spot (for now)
5. The goals have been flowing and improved the defence immeasurably.
All this despite picking up long-term injuries to key players such as Bolasie and now Coleman.
Not sure what you expected of him? Some of the older posters (not you) on here are still living in the 80's, they need to wake up, we have no automatic right to anything because we won stuff in the past. We lost a lot of ground over the 2 seasons prior to him arriving.
I would say if we get a European spot, he has achieved everything that could have been expected up to this point.
zirc
Player Valuation: £40m
Utd were behind at OT, that's where 4 min came from. Only surprised it wasn't 5 or 6.
BurnhamBlue
Player Valuation: £1m
How so? Not keeping the ball in their half, piling pressure on the defence did cost us. Made Williams make a rash decision, which led to the penalty.
They were piling on the pressure anyway though.
Yes DCL shouldn't have come on, but it's not like we could guarantee that Valencia would have been able to make a difference either.
We'll never know.
But, let's be honest, we were well under the cosh.
*puts hand up in the air*
I am disappointed.
We had a totally dismal autumn and our season effectively ended in the first week of January.
We lost home and away to the RS.
And apart from last night, we failed to turn up at any of the big away games (I know we got a point at City but a six goal spanking would not have flattered them)
And that's the truth if it.
Yes, the ship is steadied and I think the future is looking brighter than it was twelve months ago.
And off the pitch huge strides are being made with the new stadium.
But on the pitch?
Thus far it has all been a bit average IMO
And if that makes me less than "sane" then send out the men in white coats
We're on course for a return to Europe Khal.
We're miles behind the 'top six' in terms of quality yet we're still level on points with Arsenal and were 30 seconds from being fifth last night.
I can't see why you're disappointed. Honestly, we've been bang average for two years. It's going to take a while to get better than this and other than the cups this season has been a success compared to the last two - so far.
We have to get Europe from this position to build the squad and hopefully launch a good follow-up campaign next year.
Barnfred 55
Player Valuation: £80m
Lets face facts here guys. Koeman was completely hamstrung by injuries for two of our hardest games of the season. Especially at the back and in centre midfield. Give or take, he played the cards he had available. The two opponents couldn't be any different in terms of players and style. The players we had available suited playing Man Utd much more than Liverpool. Our best players yesterday were Jagielka, Williams and Barry. The former two stood up well to the physical presence of Ibrahimovic, Fellaini and Pogba, and Barry protected the back 4 brilliantly at times and his passing started many of our counters. However, had Barry started at the weekend he would have been terrorised by the pace and movement of the RS players, as we saw with Williams, Jagelka and Pennington. I was not surprised we performed better last night as the game was more suited to the players we had available.
As for RK, I think he got his starting XI pretty much spot on last night. I'm glad he started Kev, who I would have also definitely played at the weekend too. For 60 mins it pretty much went according to plan. I can understand why he made the Mirallas substitution, but I thought he was having an effective game and was certainly getting under their skins. I also felt that change in format forced us to give ground to United, plus it meant our breaks (of which we had many opportunities after the change) were less effective simply because there was less choice for either Rom or Ross, whichever had the ball. The other change he made I don't understand at all. I could see that Ross was knackered, and in fairness he had worked very hard as he did at the weekend. But DCL was the wrong choice as there was no link to our play on the break and the ball just ended coming back at us all the time. It should have been Lookman or Valencia brought on. If we were chasing the game, either for a an equaliser or a winner, then I would have put DCL on up front with Rom and bombarded them. But that wasn't what was required.
You would normally accept a draw away at the Mancs as a good result. Win our home games and draw our away games against the other sides around us and you're not going far wrong. However, given our situation whereby we needed to win to keep our hopes of CL alive, coupled by the fact we were leading going into injury time, a draw was a bitter pill to swallow last night. You have to say that RKs substitutions certainly didn't help our cause.
As for RK, I think he got his starting XI pretty much spot on last night. I'm glad he started Kev, who I would have also definitely played at the weekend too. For 60 mins it pretty much went according to plan. I can understand why he made the Mirallas substitution, but I thought he was having an effective game and was certainly getting under their skins. I also felt that change in format forced us to give ground to United, plus it meant our breaks (of which we had many opportunities after the change) were less effective simply because there was less choice for either Rom or Ross, whichever had the ball. The other change he made I don't understand at all. I could see that Ross was knackered, and in fairness he had worked very hard as he did at the weekend. But DCL was the wrong choice as there was no link to our play on the break and the ball just ended coming back at us all the time. It should have been Lookman or Valencia brought on. If we were chasing the game, either for a an equaliser or a winner, then I would have put DCL on up front with Rom and bombarded them. But that wasn't what was required.
You would normally accept a draw away at the Mancs as a good result. Win our home games and draw our away games against the other sides around us and you're not going far wrong. However, given our situation whereby we needed to win to keep our hopes of CL alive, coupled by the fact we were leading going into injury time, a draw was a bitter pill to swallow last night. You have to say that RKs substitutions certainly didn't help our cause.
Barnfred 55
Player Valuation: £80m
I'll just add here, making the Mirallas change, which I can understand as I said, basically pitched their big men against our defenders the way they bombarded us. But their change also made them extremely vulnerable to the counter. With 3 attacking players on the pitch we would have had more chance of exposing that weakness. Had RK been a bit braver last night the outcome may have been different. It's easy to say with hindsight as we were only 1 minute away from RKs tactics working. I'm just putting it out there though as an alternative.
Barnfred 55
Player Valuation: £80m
I agree that it was maddening the number of free kicks United were getting, but not at all unusual for OT. However, to counter this they did give that Ibrahimovic goal offside which was debatable at best. Seen those given, especially to the home side at OT.
Quite.
But let me say again, Thomas.
The autumn campaign was worse than miserable.
Agreed?
We exited both cups at the first hurdle and our season was more or less over by the start of January.
No one can be happy with that.
And we lost home and away to the RS.
Say no more.
I personally "demand" nothing from my club and my expectations are always tempered by past experience.
But I am not going to say I am not disappointed in this season and I will cite the reasons I stated above as the source of that disappointment.
Now, in a broader sense I am more than happy with the progress being made off the pitch.
The news this morning about Moshiri buying The Liver Building has lifted the gloom for me after the past four traumatic days.
We live in hope, Tom
I have outlined my reasons above, Toff.
You make good points and indeed we have much to take heart from.
But there have been at least three major disappointments which sort of takes the shine off a bit IMO.
whiteshadow
Player Valuation: £25m
Totally agree, especially the subs.
Valencia or Lookman would have been a safer bet.
I can see where @Khalekan is coming from.
I'm not disappointed because I think we should have done much better, just that I feel like we could have done much better. I said before the season started that I would be happy enough with 7th and I certainly won't be fuming if that's where we end up. It's all been a little bit 'meh' though (as a whole I mean, I'm not disputing that 4-0 wins at home are great). It's been pretty clear since about October that 7th was the best we were going to do, which is disappointing. I would have liked for us to have been jostling for higher positions and then maybe falling away rather than knowing from very early that the top 4 was out of reach. Similarly, the 2 cup exits meant that the season was effectively over in January.
In short, I feel like we've done this season what most people feel we should have been doing for the past 2. Martinez was sacked because it was widely accepted that the squad we have should be about 7th, so with all the noises that were being made over the summer it was reasonable to think we might have been aiming a little higher than that with new additions. Unfortunately those additions didn't come, and it took us a few months to work out exactly what we were trying to do.
This season looks like the laying of a foundation, the big test now is whether we can build sufficiently on it.
Brendan Janus
Player Valuation: £40m
He's clueless lol
Saint Domingo
Player Valuation: £90m
Sadly it's been a bare minimum season. Martinez was woefully below expectations but Koeman has restored them to what the minimum should be. We are probably the 7th best team in the league so finishing there for me is par for the course. It's ok for his first season as he was rebuilding the bomb site Martinez left but throwing the cups was absurd and the 7 cursed games have so far continued to be cursed. All to do next season.
Quite.
But let me say again, Thomas.
The autumn campaign was worse than miserable.
Agreed?
We exited both cups at the first hurdle and our season was more or less over by the start of January.
No one can be happy with that.
And we lost home and away to the RS.
Say no more.
I personally "demand" nothing from my club and my expectations are always tempered by past experience.
But I am not going to say I am not disappointed in this season and I will cite the reasons I stated above as the source of that disappointment.
Now, in a broader sense I am more than happy with the progress being made off the pitch.
The news this morning about Moshiri buying The Liver Building has lifted the gloom for me after the past four traumatic days.
We live in hope, Tom
I have outlined my reasons above, Toff.
You make good points and indeed we have much to take heart from.
But there have been at least three major disappointments which sort of takes the shine off a bit IMO.
Fair enough.
The cups and timid derby displays are the only real disappointments for me.
Autumn was bad but that Watford game changed a lot. Whether you agree with it or not that's when Koeman decided he'd had enough time to assess the squad and knew that a big glut of them simply weren't up to scratch.
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