I am still adamant of United's chances of progressing into the quarter-finals; one need not look any further with Chelsea's 2011/2012 Champions League winning season which started with a first leg 3-1 defeat away to Napoli in the Last 16, but went on to beat the likes of Barcelona and Bayern Munich to win the trophy despite finishing sixth the Premier League.

I just want to urge all United fans to be patient, because we all know the mammoth task of succeeding SAF will definitely harness a few bad hiccups along the way. Sure, people can say DM has inherited a team of Premier League champions but obviously he has his own ideals and philosophies that he wants to inject into a side which has been quietly deteriorating over the years. (recalling an already retired Paul Scholes, buying a 29 year-old frontman, and constantly relying on a 40-year old winger to play CM only goes to show that SAF, with all due respect, has gradually run out of ideas to rebuild an aging squad).

We have got to see glimpses of some of those ideals being translated onto the pitch with a more cautious approach in most games in efforts to retain some stability and balance onto United's tactics, and I believe this system will have to take time to build and is difficult to be judged right away. I think if United adopts the sort of holy-trinity creative outlets most top European teams are currently deploying (Hazard-Oscar-Willian, Bale-Ronaldo-Di Maria, Robben-Kroos-Gotze) on top of a line-up which shows stability, then that is the time that we can truly see the ability of the team that DM is trying to architect. At the moment our most creative players, Mata, Rooney, Januzaj and Kagawa are all playing in similar positions, so DM and Ed Woodward must step up efforts to bring in extra-dimensional creative outlets to really strengthen the team.

I say axe Tom Cleverly, Ashley Young and Antonio Valencia because they have been give too many opportunities but failed to deliver, and bring in the 6-7 world-class talents as suggested by Roy Keane, only then we can judge whether DM is the right manager or not. I say give it until next season, if there is still no improvement, then only we should debate on whether DM should stay or go.

This post has been edited by thatsound: Feb 27 2014, 10:52 PM

This is a great share. I like how much of an impact Kagawa has had even with such limited time against Olympiakos. What this video is telling me is that DM's tactics have in several occasions ignored Kagawa and that is not a coincidence.

Could this be down to

A. His United team mates are short on confidence.

The vision and technique must be spot-on to find players like Kagawa who likes to find space in tight and narrow areas, and we all know United players are more than capable with their ability to execute that, but is it the confidence factor that has restricted Shinji from getting the ball because the morale of the players are not allowing them to do that.

B. DM's cautious tactics

I think DM is very afraid of being exploited in the midfield area, knowing that this has been the large part of United's weakness this season, such that a mistake, or loss in possession in midfield would force the opponents to overrun and dictate play. So, he had to resort to spread possession out to the wings, which with the one-dimensional Valencia and increasingly uncreative Young, United always have to resort into aimlessly crossing balls in and expect RvP to perform a Peter Crouch.

C. Lack of a Paul Scholes character

In the previous season, I remember watching a clip from SkySports showing statistics on the interchanging of passes between Scholes and Kagawa in a league game, and the pundits likened the figure to that of Xavi and Iniesta. For someone like Kagawa, he needs someone behind him to link up play, which unfortunately for Rooney, the only capable United player at the moment who knows how to keep possession, is being forced to drop deep and strand RvP all alone up top.


I am not trying to defend DM's tactics but I think in cases A,B,C it becomes eminent that the immediate solution in the summer would be for DM to sort the midfield ASAP. Carrick has been under-par and missing for most parts this season, Fletcher is still working his way from recovery, Cleverly is turd (I see he's trying hard but he's simply not good enough), Fellaini's contribution is yet to be seen, Anderson might as well stay in Italy because he's turd as well. We need the calibre of Gundogan, Pogba, even Yaya Toure for all I care to come and plug our extremely leaky midfield, because we need our main man Wazza up top with RvP to win games, not drop deep and play alongside Cleverly in the midfield.

Sort the midfield = Kagawa will be back at his best.

This post has been edited by thatsound: Mar 2 2014, 05:58 AM

I totally agree with this. We have such a romantic history of cultivating some of the best talents through the youth systems and scouting networks that just because we splashed abit of money once in awhile to tweak the squad, everyone jumps in the bandwagon of calling us sugardaddies. Please, we don't prize players with money, we prize them with the pride of putting on the red shirt with the club's badge.

To be fair, Young has cut down on his diving. Yeah couldn't agree more, I've stressed this many times, but Cleverly, Young and Valencia are just not United quality, and it becomes clear today with some of the attacking play with Fellaini, Januzaj and Mata filling in instead.

I think Shinji put in a good shift as well, the fluidity added between him, Mata and Rooney allowed for the third goal.

I think the situation is Cleverly is an ambassador for the club's youth system. Cause at the moment, only Welbeck and Januzaj are the more notable academy alumnis. It sends a message to the likes of Nick Powell, Jesse Lingard etc that there is hope in the United team, and also to replicate the philosophy of investing in youth.

On Young's situation, I can only assume that Moyes is giving him an entire probation season before letting him go. Giving him more game time can also mean a slightly higher transfer value.