The Manchester United Thread

Not injured, been battling with illness if I'm not dreaming of Ole's presser. Hope it's nothing serious because as you said, he's been out of the match-day squad for a while
 
zzeezzy said:
Like I said yesterday, he's ****** injured again after a few good games, I genuinely want to know why we gave him a 5 year contract. 5 years. 5...... years.
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Tbh he’s not injured he has illness. Can’t rag on him for that. Darmian is out injured to. But Rojo is back apparently Ole said I n MUTV like Martial and Rashford just won’t be risked for midweek. Valencia also back in full training. Don’t think many of these are long term except maybe Matic, Herrera, Mata could be about 3 weeks.
 
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RhQQ said:
Not injured, been battling with illness if I'm not dreaming of Ole's presser. Hope it's nothing serious because as you said, he's been out of the match-day squad for a while
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My point ultimately is that Jones since he has been here has missed around half the games we have played, whether that be through injury/illness or whatever else. It's not singling him out, but on what basis does someone make a decision at this club that he warrants a 5 year long-term contract. If you want to keep them give medium-term contract at best to see if they improve, but it's no wonder that with our bloated squad we will struggle to move players on. Sanchez is the prime example, why would he go after signing a 5 year contract last year. These contracts need to be better thought out, or else we'll be carrying players for seasons into the future that we can't get rid of like we have been doing. Maybe you guys disagree, but that's just my opinion. It will undoubtedly have an impact on us going forward, we'd be naive not to think that. We've seen this season that we're carrying players in the squad/ nNot even those I've mentioned here.
 
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Tbh I still think Jones or Smalling (more likely the former) will join Rojo out the door, and the contacts were merely to secure a (good) fee. Kouli/Toby and Tuanzebe
 
RhQQ said:
Tbh I still think Jones or Smalling (more likely the former) will join Rojo out the door, and the contacts were merely to secure a (good) fee. Kouli/Toby and Tuanzebe
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Here is hoping that is true!
 
zzeezzy said:
Like I said yesterday, he's ****** injured again after a few good games, I genuinely want to know why we gave him a 5 year contract. 5 years. 5...... years.
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He's got a stomach illness pal,
 
It's not going to have an impact on us having him as a 5th choice defender either. We're looking to sign a world class defender. Which would put Lindelof, Bailly and Smalling ahead of him in that order. If you're worried about Jones, you're genuinely losing the plot.
 



#mufc trialist Zito Luvumbo was player of the tournament at the COSAFA U17 Championships last summer, which his team (Angola) won. He will return for 2 weeks for another trial.
 
On what Fred has to do to get a look-in
Play well when he gets a chance. Keep training, keep working. We’ve had a midfield three of Herrera, Pogba and Matic, and they’ve done really well together.

It’s not like we've been really bogged down with too many games. That's why we’ve kept them three together. McTominay was the obvious choice against Liverpool because he’s an academy kid. We had five academy kids on the pitch at one point. He knows what it means.

Fred will get his chances - tomorrow.

You look more at the time it needs sometimes to settle. You see Seba Veron, he’s one of the best I played with, it took him time to settle in England.

On whether injuries are related to running statistics
It’s probably linked, yes. Because when do you make that change? Do you wait until pre-season and think you will change results by just not asking them to run? Or do we start now and show them what the demands of intensity are and how we want to play? And, of course, you have seen what I have chosen.

I have chosen we need to play as a Man United team and if you want to be a part of Man United, it’s a survival of the fittest, isn't it?

We've not had time really to work on the fitness, it's been more in the games, we spoke about. We had a week in Dubai, we've not really had many weeks of training, lots of game-time. But Dubai, as you might have noticed, it was more of a tactical one than a physical one.

If you look at it, we've had five or six days between most of the games, so it’s not been the amount of games or the lack of days in between. It's tougher now until the international break (on March 18), and we've got Sunday, Wednesday, Saturday, then midweek again.

Now we will go into tough games and then it's a tougher period physically, maybe it's mentally, the way we prepare before training sessions. The Christmas period... you can see Manchester City have a couple of muscle injuries, it’s not just us. It’s this time of year in England, really.
 
Will there be a mutiny amongst the players if you don't get the job, will they have a say?
The players will have a say on how we play for the rest of the season. We need to keep going, keep progressing, keep getting results, keep getting the crowd behind us, because we need that. We need to fight from now until the end of the season.

Is Lukaku built like an American football player?
Nah, nah, nah. We’ll get him in the box and score us goals, that’ll be his job.

I can understand why when you go to a World Cup and you see the teams you play, it might be that his physicality took over that part of preparation. We ask our forwards, strikers to work at a higher intensity, to run in behind, but that’s what he likes, so I’m sure he’ll be fine. Muscle is not so difficult to get rid of. He’s lean, but he’s muscly.

This club is about winning trophies but in the context is top 4 more important?
We can’t say that we’re happy with just top four, although a top-four finish would be fantastic, but to get to the final in the FA Cup and win a trophy would be brilliant. So, you can’t pick and choose.

We’ve just got to make sure now against Palace that we’re ready. Then it’s Southampton, PSG, Arsenal and Wolves. Every game is going to be important.

As I’ve said many times before, every day here is a chance to improve your standards and we need to get back to the standards that are set for a Man United player.

On defensive progress
We have spent a lot of time on the structure, how we defend. The first few games [of my tenure] did not give us too many challenges in that respect, but then we went to Arsenal and you could see how we were pulled all over the play in midfield. Our back four were like battering rams.

The midfield shape has improved a lot - it has helped the back four to play as a back four and not been scattered all over the place.

My principle has never been for 'you to follow him, and you to follow him', in the teams I have played and the teams I have coached it has been a zonal system. I have not been a favourite of man-marking systems.
 
These games are massive now, 1 point behind Arsenal and play them a couple of weeks. We really want to be going into that game with bit of a point advantage over them as they've got Spurs Saturday whereas we have Southampton. But tonight could be very tricky and a real thorn in the top 4 race if we don't win. .
 
zzeezzy said:
These games are massive now, 1 point behind Arsenal and play them a couple of weeks. We really want to be going into that game with bit of a point advantage over them as they've got Spurs Saturday whereas we have Southampton. But tonight could be very tricky and a real thorn in the top 4 race if we don't win. .
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And Chelsea play Spurs tonight. We can do some real damage here, if we can close the gap on Spurs further.
 
Theatre of Dreams83 said:
Wan Bisako and Sakho ruled out for them and Tomkins doubtful. That’s 3 of there first choice back 4 out.
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Sakho missing benefits Palace. Still the same, continued mess and massive liability he always was.

Best description I heard on him was a lad down at Watford who said he’s a ‘human pretzel.’ So apt. All arms and legs going in different directions. None of them connected to his mad head.
 
Man Utd provisional squad vs Crystal Palace revealed
United have just arrived and Marcus Rashford and Mason Greenwood was on the coach.
  • De Gea, Romero, Grant; Dalot, Rojo, Smalling, Bailly, Lindelof, Young, Shaw, McTominay, Fred, Garner, Andreas Pereira, Pogba, Angel Gomes; Chong, Alexis, Lukaku, Greenwood, Rashford
 
Starting 11:

DDG
Dalot-Smalling-Lindelof-Shaw

Frec-McTominay-Pogba

Young-Lukaku-Sanchez

Subs: Romero, Bailly, Rashford, Periera, Rojo, Garner, Chong
 
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