...is with Lingard and Martial. That's both of them huge doubts for the Chelsea/liverpool games, and all of a sudden I feel a lot less confident about them. Mata/Sanchez/lukaku are just not up to it with this style of play. Squad depth has been my main concern for the last few weeks and it looks like it might finally really affect us.
As for tonight's game, not too many complaints. Just like when Juve came to old Trafford earlier this season, they were a class above both tactically and in terms of quality. Did what I'm surprised no one else has done the last few weeks and man marked Pogba out of the game. Surprised Marquinhos didn't follow him off the pitch after the red card.
First half was fairly even. Maybe Neymar being out worked in their favour a bit - they were a lot more compact then I expected them to be and when we did get a sniff, the final ball let us down. Martial and Lingard coming off though just completely freed them up and killed the game for us. Amateurish defending for the first goal but it was coming.
Onto the coming weeks though, and Ole's got to have a real think about what he's going to do without the aforementioned 2. Personally I'd go with Sanchez down the middle with Rashford moved over to the left, and maybe lukaku on the right? Try and replicate the false 9 we pulled off against arsenal. Either way, a huge couple of weeks in our season coming up.
My immediate concern...
posted on 12/2/19
Agree.if those two are out, I am writing off the next few fixtures as losses tbh.
You can get away with it vs fulham, not vs city, liverpool, Chelsea and PSG.
If they are out for the next few games we are fecked.
posted on 12/2/19
Not bothered about Lingard.
Doesn't add much going forward and PSG were having lots of joy down the RH side before he went off.
What is concerning is that we don't have adequate replacements. Sanchez and Lukaku are wastes of space and Mata can't play on the wing.
Martial will be a big loss.
posted on 12/2/19
comment by Benched (U7195)
posted 32 seconds ago
Not bothered about Lingard.
Doesn't add much going forward and PSG were having lots of joy down the RH side before he went off.
What is concerning is that we don't have adequate replacements. Sanchez and Lukaku are wastes of space and Mata can't play on the wing.
Martial will be a big loss.
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Lingard was playing through the centre though!
He's a good player for the right tactics, with a certain game plan he offers a lot.
posted on 12/2/19
Things weren't quite coming off for Lingard tonight but he was part of anything that looked good from us. His movement was good as ever but his passing was poor.
posted on 12/2/19
Martial didn’t look right from the start
posted on 13/2/19
Not sure why people have been so confident about the Liverpool game to be honest.
They'll be the worst possible opposition for us to face because they'll hit us hard on the break and defensively I'm not sure we're set up to cope at the moment.
That was true before the injuries and probably still true after.