what does international match means?

mean playing for country
in this case we r having international for WC 2010 Qualifying round

yeah this week no epl

For sure Uncle Lim is a United fan or someone having a laugh. How on earth can he post the wrong video of Gerrard? And would you post on the blog that you lost 500 bucks thanks to a rush of blood to the head? Funny guy though.

I posted the link at my facebook

you must be gerard lim =P

seem fishy to me

You didn't like the 3-1 win? or the other games where we look very good against them in that particular formation? It was just a bad night with players off form.. Giggsy particularly who was our main creative force in that game. He messed up big time. Our only other option for his role that night was Anderson, who's not in great form himself. Last option is of course to go with 442 early if we're desperate. We might be more threatening, but we would leave ourselves open at the back and easy for them to dominate us in the middle with their extra men there.

As for more people scoring them, Nani is pretty good at cutting in inside. That's one of his trait although he's no Ronaldo of course. And Park as good as he is cutting inside, is crap in front of goal. Didn't score that many. Like I said, on another night, it could have turned out into a great night for us. Giggsy had a lot of chances to put our players through, or make great plays, but almost every single time, it didn't came off for him in the first half especially. We may have been lucky, but with the chances we had at the end, Arsenal were lucky as well it didn't turn into a bigger scoreline. It's a fine line between success and failure, and that night we got the better of the deal. That's just the way it is. Nobody is really happy of course not winning comfortably, but big games are usually tight affairs.

Being early on in the season also didn't help matters. And having to change tactics since the departure of Ronaldo and having a new RW in the side, meant that we won't be hitting it off consistently.

I'm still surprised people still have this idea that 442 will just work every single game. We struggled there with Keane and Scholes after 99, and they are the best combo's around that time. We know how much of a monster Keane was, yet we didn't really hit the heights of 99 till last few years where the 433/451 have served us really well in the big games, with 442 for the normal/smaller games although sometimes used in the big games as well. We don't have a Keano now. No team plays with a straight 442 anymore for all type of games. Either they play with extra men/man in the middle or switch between that and some other formation for normal games.

It's not about big signings. It's about getting the right players for the squad. We only needed a third striker which we got in Owen. Although we chased Benzema, it was kind of a special case seeing he was still young for a striker and maybe someone we have to try and get our hands on. Didn't work out(Real factor), and that's the end of it and we turn to Owen. Not a bad striker to have as backups to our main duo.

Obviously Ronaldo leaving left a big hole for us to fill up. But every other winger bar Ribery(Real factor)/Messi wouldn't be able to close that hole completely. Guess from the list we have, we went with Valencia who we identified last year which is not a bad signing at all and proven in the league. Obviously he needs to work on some part of his game, but he's a good winger already, just need to fine tune a few stuff and he'll be a very good winger for us. He didn't have that much chance to cross the ball in all our official games so far, but when does, expect our players to get on the end of them a lot of times. He's fantastic at that.

Anderson will take a while. We just have to hope he plays well more consistently. Anderson 21 years old vs Fletcher 25 years old. It was only last few seasons Fletcher really won over his critics, and my guess is Ando will take the same path too, give or take a year or two. CMs generally get into their own world around the 25 mark except for a few freaks who's special enough to dominate there since they were born almost.

Nani is showing signs of him grown up so far. Valencia look really good in pre-season. We played what, five games now? Too early to judge. Chelsea, we first half, the had the better 2nd half, Birmingham decent start, struggle to break them down, Burnley, wrong time to do the rotation although given the amount of games the players had that time, maybe some needed the rest, Wigan decent first half, great 2nd half.. Arsenal lucky. If there was one winger who SAF rates, is far better than what we have, within his budget, and don't have Real Madrid markings on them, SAF would have gotten them already.

Remember about that 'form is temporary, class is permanent'? Carrick have been very good since he came here. And he does have this crappy spell of form too in each one of the seasons. Scholes look pretty good though alongside Fletcher. He was crappy last season. That's a plus I guess. January will better time to judge this squad and how we'll fare. Just be patient. It will come, as we generally shown over the years. Slow starters. Though one can only hope Rooney would be healthy for most of the season. 5 goals already? Doa2 kan lah dia nih stay healthy time terawih(or for the others in their own way!)/

sienz lor like this

look on the bright side. hopefully after the break is over we'll get rio back to full fitness..

Plenty of reasons to be worried about. Rooney in great form.. and you know what comes next after that.

ala wan.. jangan la mulut capoi.. haha

insya Allah rooney will doin good..

has anybody heard of Tosic?
hopefully Rio would be back soon.
and where is Fabio? or was it Rafael who was injured? ah so hard to tell them apart

^ spam????????????

Seems like Rooney has been in the papers for quite a while, being United and England's X-Factor. Anyways, it's gonna be a quiet weekend again, unless u're into WC'10 qualifier games

wan, i'm going to pitch in my view on this 442/451 topic a little bit...
no offense to your view so it's just basically my POV on the formation that was dished out the other night

correct, 442 wouldn't work in every match, and 451 could be as effective as 442 IF ONLY your centre midfielders are having a smack of a game - controlling the mid and distributing the ball like gods that is. unfortunately not the case against Arsenal with the exception of Fletcher of course.

Rooney is not known to be as effective as he is when you give him a partner upfront. You have to admit he looks isolated when he was there all alone.
That being said - if Carrick played as good as Fletcher was (I think Carrick was the worst player in our jersey that night), i had no drama at all with 451 at all

Again, just my humble little pitiful 2 cents here. As usual, who am i to criticise SAF's tactical capabilities eh?

Don't get too carried away, Sir Alex, your Manchester United team is still missing the X factor
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/...g-X-factor.html

True that. But there's no point going to a 442 and shoot ourselves in the foot by letting them dominate the game. That's the only reason I can think of going 433/451, to give ourselves a chance, at least matched them up in midfield in terms of numbers. Proved successful in the past a lot of times against them(last season CL, season before that in the FA Cup and lots of matches way before that), although it's pretty even, won some, lose some, drew some. Hey, even Arsenal go to that route last few seasons in the CL especially, but this season seem to start with a 433 in the league too. One striker, two wingers supporting him, and 3 in midfield.

Don't think Carrick was that bad. He was steady but invisible and didn't offer much. Giggs was involved, and he was really bad. That's why the front 3 was quiet, not as effective. On another night, things could have turn out differently if at least two of those passes/plays Giggsy was gonna play that night that didn't work out actually work out as planned. Only other alternative for that role is Ando who's not in form himself. Could go back to a 442 of course, but we didn't want to take any chances I guess until the end when Arsenal push men forward. Had a lot of chances at the end, but messed them up one by one. Just reflected the type of game we were in.. almost nothing works out for us.

yeah i dont like the 3-1 win and when united play good
as i said before i dont like the formation.. and also the line up for the 2-1 win.
but i do support SAF for the tactic coz who know how the game gonna be or whether the tactic will work or not on the first place.. what dissapoint me will be the decision to stick with it on the 2nd half when clearly it doesnt work. for me giggs aint that bad that night. carrick was the worst one.. wonder if he even got to the pitch. valencia also pretty bad, running here and there for nothing but do got lots of determination.was hoping for scholes/park/ando to come early on 2nd half with owen/berba earlier.

yes it could be bigger win.. but that happen coz arsenal started to open and pressing more forward desperate for a goal. was hoping for good performance rather than comfortably win or big wins. it surprised me more that some people still hv the idea of some people hv the idea 4-4-2 will work every single game
only said i prefer we play 4-4-2 against arsenal with more player as goalscorer threat on the pitch

This post has been edited by onepack: Sep 2 2009, 12:20 PM

Huh? People need to wake up and face the reality. Almost every team have around 3 CMs in the middle these days. We might get away against the smaller sides, but against teams as good as us, we won't have it all our own way if we just have two in the middle. It might work sometimes(Chelsea last season), but it won't work all the time. CL final where we won against Chelsea. 442 first half.. we were great, but 2nd half, we lost it in the middle. Keano-Scholes.. failed after 99. That's why SAF experimented with 451/4231/433 and getting Veron and whatnot all those years ago. It wasn't pretty, and in normal games outside the big games, it was a pretty boring tactic for us.. didn't work for us like it did for the other teams. But last few seasons we seem to went back with the tried and trusted 442, and only use 433 in the big games which work out quite well.

We could have turn to 442 earlier of course, but guess SAF didn't want to take the chances with the game still in the balance. Seem to be justified seeing we got those two goals, lucky or not. If the 442 was our best option, we would have started that way. But we didn't. And the last few seasons that's been the case for almost all the big games. 433 does work, and it doesn't mean if we go that way, we'll be defensive, unless it's a CL game where the game is not to concede and nick a goal somewhere. The Arsenal game was just a case of players playing badly. Like I said, if Giggs play a gear better that night, and half the plays he messed up actually work like it usually does, it would have turn out differently, and who knows, maybe the game would have been comfortable for us? Park.. guess he got buried somewhere after that Burnley game along with Ando and Carrick, and only Carrick managed to claw his way through the grave.

But Wan, you'll never know if we played 442 that night. Maybe we will be better? Maybe the ball distribution from midfield to forward will is better as we have one player supporting Rooney (or vice versa)? Plus, we are playing at OT.