Now can we please stick to that 4-3-3 please Jose? With Pogba as the sole attacking 8, not some bullshit "Lingard was 8 not 10" malarkey.
It's good that Mike assured us Sanchez won't be competing for Martial for the same position, because that's clearly isn't happening.
*twists the knife*
Matic was probably our best player after Lukaku I thought. We knew what we were getting when we signed him, and that was never going to be a line-breaker. He keeps it simple, circulates/recycles the ball, smells danger and adds some composure/calmness to the midfield.
That's all you want from your DM. It's the 2nd CM of the 3, which today was McTominay, that needs to the one controlling the tempo and breaking lines. Hence why we're looking at Kroos, Weigl, Jorginho etc.
I thought Martial was the only problem today, slowed down most attacks and took so many bad decisions and his mentality off the ball ****** me off..
Well said.. even tho McTominay was brilliant today we do need even better players to compete in CL and PL
Matic was probably our best player after Lukaku I thought. We knew what we were getting when we signed him, and that was never going to be a line-breaker. He keeps it simple, circulates/recycles the ball, smells danger and adds some composure/calmness to the midfield.
That's all you want from your DM. It's the 2nd CM of the 3, which today was McTominay, that needs to the one controlling the tempo and breaking lines. Hence why we're looking at Kroos, Weigl, Jorginho etc.
Matic was class today especially the second half. He’s been 7/10 all season apart from the first few weeks when he was dominating everyone. ***** lol!Is it only me that thinks Matic has been absolute ***** for weeks? Whenever hes going forward with the ball, and actuaslly has a chance to play to our strengths on the counter by playing it forward quickly to Sanchez/Martial, he always turns 180 back towards our goal and either turns into an opposition player and loses the ball, or then turns 180 again facing forward and plays a pass without looking properly and giving the ball away again. Pogba been getting a lot of stick recently but if Matic played the ball to Pogba first time when going forward on the quick break, or didnt turn into trouble (again exposing Pogba) we wouldnt have had half of the trouble we have had. Thank god for Messi Lingard.
Sanchez is wasted in this team the way we are playing. We should be breaking quick on the counter using the pace of Sanchez and Martial to get in behind but we are far too slow. Again one of the big problems being Matic always turning 180 on the ball when going forward and completely killing and fast counter.
Exactly what we need and he’s following Mourinho instructions down to a T. He really helped Pogba be more free and dominant in the second half. Only gonna get better. His temperament is already top draw. Not seen Hazard so quite since Herrera did a job on him.I agree that was by a country mile his best performance. I didn't read that article Scouse shared the other day, but the title summed up his performance today; doing nothing is exactly what we needed. Just some stability to provide Pogba the platform.
One thing Martial doesn't do is slow the game down, if anything he's too direct (which isn't the worst complaint). He was our bright spark for 45 of the 60 mins he was on, which coincided with Alexis Sanchez's invisibility.
We need to play him at LW always, with Shaw as they have a nice understanding.
I get that but hes been nowhere near the player he was for the first 10 games or so of the season. He was bossing midfield and bringing the ball forward confidently. Now he gets the ball, runs forward a couple of steps then turns round to look for a backwards pass. Then either turns into trouble or turns again and plays a sloppy pass. All our problems seem to start from him either not getting forward quickly enough when a break is on or giving the ball away sloppily by playing blind passes.
Carrick had all that what you say, but still managed to get the ball forward at the right opportunity. Something Matic was doing consistently at the start of the season. Which in turn made Pogba play a lot better. Its no coincidence Pogba has been **** while Matic has been doing this for weeks.
Again my point with Matic slowing the play down. When the ball is clearned and goes to matic, he should be going forward and looking for a quick pass in behind up the wings to Martial or Sanchez. But the time he had turned on the ball, then turned again, the opposition are back and we try to play slowly through the middle to involve sanchez. Thats never going to work. Especially not against Chelsea. No wonder Sanchez was anonymous. Matic killed every counter attack we had.
Matic is far more than a break up play and keep it simple type player. Just look at the assists he got for Chelsea over the years playing the same position. He's more than capable of picking a pass. Maybe im being harsh on Matic for simply following instruction from the Manager. The whole team needs freeing up and allowed to play football to our strengths. We seem too focused on stopping the opposition rather than playing out game. We know what you get from Jose in big games, and when it works nobody would ever complain, but we seem to be taking this game plan into every single match now and making life hard for ourselves. Something needs to change