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Champions League Blow at Old Trafford

Champions League Blow at Old Trafford

Ruairi Mags

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In this rant-like transcription, the speaker expresses frustration and disappointment with Manchester United's performance in a recent match against Galatasaray. They highlight individual mistakes, defensive errors, and the goalkeeper's poor performance. Despite moments of promise, the overall performance was considered a disaster. The speaker calls for changes and suggests that the team is not living up to the standards expected of Manchester United. There won't be a What's The Crack this week, it's a What The Fuck. What have I just come away from seeing? What needs to happen for us as Manchester United fans to sit down and be able to enjoy a match without it ending in absolute disaster? That was gutting, absolutely heartbreaking. We actually didn't play bad, we played well in large spells but we're just victims of individual mistakes every time. It's so disheartening to watch, you just, oh my god, let's break it down here. Hyvland should have had the biggest night of his Manchester United career but now it's overshadowed by the nonsense and the muck he has to put up with some of his teammates. It finally clicked, Rashford got away, ball bouncing, you're expecting something to happen, the decision making was right, he bangs it in, Hyvland cuts in the back of the net. It was a brilliant goal for those two, it could have been the catalyst for something really special on that night and what is it going to become now? It's going to become overshadowed by Galatasaray. I think, did the commentators say this, the first time they have won in something like ten years against the English side away from home in the Champions League, it's just something ridiculous, another embarrassing record break for Manchester United at Old Trafford. Just, what else can you say about that, disgraceful, disgraceful, really, really was. The first goal was brilliant, it really set the tone, I thought this is going to be a good night, that was good football, United started on the front foot, we started quick, we're dispelling some of the criticisms that have been lailed at us for being slow to start, for not taking the initiative in matches and then, from a speculative ball downfield, Diogo Dalot, what were you at? What did you actually attempt to do, it's just, oh, I would have preferred if he had have fouled him, if he had have just fouled him, if he had have just pulled him down, but instead he's so weak and Salah shrugs him off and his other defenders are miles away from him because he's caught in the track of the run, which he should have done, and then Onana comes, I don't know, ten steps off his line as if he's going to close the ball down and it goes over, it was just a clusterfuck of stupidity from those two lads, it really, really was, and it sums up Manchester United at the minute, to have such a creatively brilliant start, to get the goal, the Rashford-Hyverdon goal that I've been craving to see, the start of that partnership and relationship and then to be undone by that stupidity, and then again, Manchester United were good, Manchester United had chances, we created openings, we created these opportunities to cross the ball into the box and we looked like we were going to score, and then this brilliant passing move results in Hyverdon's second, which was obviously ultimately disallowed for offside and rightfully so, but it just looked brilliant, it looked like we were actually there, like something was going to happen this time, like we were about to get our season underway, you know, it's not the set of the eleven that you want to see, but hey, this is going to be the night, it's the night it's going to click, and when that goal didn't go in, part of me, because I'm so worn down from this season, thought God, not again, please don't let Galatasaray score, please, and then Rasmus Hyverdon, exactly what I was hoping to see from Rasmus Hyverdon, the burst forward, the power, the energy, the running, the confidence to just come inside the defender the same way that, you can only compare it to Erling Haaland, because Haaland does the same thing, he won't try and go on the outside of the defender, he will go straight down that middle because he trusts himself to have the power and his pace and the power and his strength to get into that position and have a finish, and what a cool, calm, collective finish it was, it got me out of my seat, I was cheering, I thought yes, it is going to be the night, this is Manchester United tonight, this is our performance of the season, where we turn around and we reference this and say yes, Tinhag or me can get it right, it's going to kick on from here, and then the second goal was as bad as the first, it was just catastrophic, I mean, let's break it down, Sophie and Amrabat is not a left back, but Sophie and Amrabat comes out to Yilmaz and get completely caught, the dummy is brilliant from Yilmaz, it really is, but Amrabat has run into midfield, trying to chase Yilmaz, trying to cut him down, and Yilmaz has caught him out, that is where you want the second tackle to come in, that is where you want somebody to go in strong and accurate and make sure you get the ball, if you don't get the ball, concede the free kick, but do not let them break, Lindelof got bullied again, the same thing that happened against Bayern Munich, when he let Tell in the back of him and he let Tell shrug him off, acuity of all people, shrugs Lindelof off, rolls him, gets the ball back out to Yilmaz, by this time Yilmaz is gone, Amrabat, he's almost stopped because he's not a left back, he doesn't realise the danger, Yilmaz is away in behind him, gets the ball into the box and nobody picks off the runner, and the ball is in the back of the net again, what are we playing at? It was so poor, it was a calamitous goal to concede, it was a goal of 3 mistakes, 3 individual errors again, individual absenteeism from Manchester United players, our left back running into midfield and getting completely taken into the game, which allowed their right winger away, our centre back coming up to try and mark the centre forward, but getting bullied and bitched off the ball, and then when the ball does come through, nobody tracks the runner, nobody tracks their 10 into the box, our defenders are clambering back, one of our centre backs is out of position, Ferran's trying to come across the box and cover the space, and nobody decided that it might be a good idea to track the running 10 forward, no? What are we playing at? And then, to cap it all off, what is this goalkeeper, who is, who is this boy that injured, that's not Andreo Nanna, that can't be, I watched Andreo Nanna play a couple of times for Inter Milan last season, and I've seen a really confident, good goalkeeper, who was good at attacking space, charging players down, coming out, and just looked like a beast in the net, really did, big powerful goalkeeper, this looks like I ordered Andreo Nanna off team now, and this is what I have to put up with now, the fact that I didn't spend the full money on getting the proper goalkeeper, what did Inter do? What did, what did they give this lad before he came over? And how is it that he's so different in Manchester United, do we blame the player, do we blame the coaches? Something's wrong there. Consistently making mistakes, and not just tiny mistakes, game costing mistakes, goal costing mistakes, Slippen got Casemiro sent off, he got Casemiro sent off, that was a suicide pass, suicide pass, when the game was still there to be won, and, oh, Casemiro I don't blame, he has to come back and he has to track him down, because he has no confidence that our goalkeeper one on one with a goal scorer is going to be able to stop the shot, so he takes the red card, we fluke it, get off with it somehow, you know the ball goes wide, he doesn't save it, he celebrates like it was some triumphant moment where he had atoned for his mistake, you did nothing lad, the card he missed, you didn't do anything, you got our holding midfielder sent off, at a time where we were trying to control the game with one holding mid, you got him sent off, then celebrated your own mistake, seemingly, and then proceeded to just do the same crap that you usually do, Icchiori gets in behind it, it's hard to talk about this, it really really is, it's just so poor at Old Trafford at the minute, like Icchiori gets in behind and our goalkeeper decides, not for the first time this season, not for the second time this season, that the best thing to do when a player is charging you one on one is to sit on your arse and stick your hand up, what are you, who taught you how to play the game, and how did you cross, how have you fooled the world that you're a good goalkeeper, I've run out of defence for you, like it's just game after game now, yes Davide had a few mistakes, yes Davide had a mistake in a few major games, but this is consistently game after game, I'm watching Andrew and I'm like, fuck things up, it's just not good enough, it's not the standard that should be set in it, and if he is not going to change, and if this continues, Ten Hag needs to be brave, back him, because you're going to, you know you are, you signed him, and then play by inter, give the lad a break, give the lad a mental break, like Ambrobat, he was marking for the third goal, Ambrobat was marking on the wrong side of the centre backs, he was a left back, who looked like he didn't know how to play left back, his centre backs were pushing out to create the offside trap and push Galatasaray down, compress the space, and he stayed wrong side of the goal, man marking, you know massing him, and that played a Clarity on, speculative header, don't even think they meant the header to go straight through to a Clarity, but if it did, brilliantly spotted, because Amrobat was playing everybody on, Clarity runs through, scores, game over, we couldn't get back into it with 10 minutes, so deflating, just so deflating, there were spells of it where I thought, this is it, this is the vision, this is Ten Hag ball, this is Manchester United, and what it could become, it wasn't perfect, not going to wax lyrical about the team and say that they got everything right, and we should have crashed Galatasaray, but it was a far cry away in periods, from what we are used to seeing, we played a really fluid formation, Casemiro was moving into left back again to allow Amrobat to come into midfield, they got that right I think this time, they were covering each other much better, Casemiro and Amrobat were dropping into the centre back space, and Lindelof and Varane were pushing out almost as full backs to allow Dalot to go on down the pitch, you know to give that avenue out there on that right hand side with Bruno Fernandes tucking in, because Bruno is going to tuck in as a pen, as an inverted winger, so Dalot can provide the space, and just those different sort of passages of play and positional awareness pieces from Manchester United was just night and day away from what I've seen this season, and it did look good in spells, and I think why it looked so good is because he brought Mebry back into the team, who I think adds a real different dimension to Manchester United's play, because he chases the ball down brilliantly, because he's a brilliant presser of the ball, and because he's able to sort of burst past people, you know he takes one midfielder out of the game when he runs for those three passes. Now he's not the finished article, he looks almost like Plestry, very naive in his decision making, and you know he's very industrious without a whole lot of output at the minute, but that can be labelled at some of our senior players this season, that's split faced. Some of our senior players could have the same criticism, one being Marcus Rashford. Now what I would say about that midfield is, I think if Mebry is out of that midfield, Mount plays where Mebry is, and you have Casemiro and Amrabat, that is the settle three. We have struggled for years to have a confident, all-encompassing engine room, and I truly believe, because the energy that Amrabat has, and he got everywhere last night, apart from the mistakes he made in defence, which I'm really annoyed at, you can't be too angry at him because he's not a left back, he's governed for three injuries, but he just has such energy, he has such influence on that midfield with the way he's able to go about his work, and he's brilliant fitness, he doesn't stop. So I think when those three are able to play midfield, that is definitely Manchester United's best midfield for years, probably, maybe since Gareth and Fletch. I truly believe it could be that influential once it gets up and running. But yeah, Marcus Rashford, I touched on Marcus Rashford, if we're going to call out the naivety and the decision making of some of our younger players, what has happened to him? He looks like a scolded child, it's like at the start of the season, everyone was getting after him, Marcus Rashford's decision making, he should pass the ball more, he should be looking for the forward, he should be crossing the ball, he should be laying it off to his teammates, he's a selfish brat, and now he's taken that on board, obviously even spoken to about it by the coaching staff, and it's tamed him. You've taken the Marcus Rashford out of Marcus Rashford, he looks like a whipped dog, he got through on goal, he had done everything right, and it's almost like something mentally in him went, oh I can't shoot here, if I shoot they'll shout at me, so what I'm going to do is I'm going to fail a pass to Fernando Fernandes. And his cross for Hoogland's goal was brilliant, so when it comes off you see how good it can be, but Marcus Rashford needs to have the confidence in himself and from the coaching staff that when he is in those positions, when it actually works and his running works, that he's shooting, he's not looking up, he's shooting, head down and shoot. If you miss, you miss, that's fine, but don't be squaring the ball like that in that position, the goalkeeper had made his mind up that you were passing anyway, you would have scored, just slip it to the left him and it's in. But do you know what, if he had a shot and he had a miss, I would have sat here and said that he should have scored at the Bruno Fernandes, and that is what has been labelled as Marcus Rashford and what is I think being proven correct. His decision making at the top level is just not there, he's not, he's not the elite player that I believe that he could be, because he's at an age now where he really should be able to make those decisions for himself and it just isn't coming off. Now I hope that Marcus Rashford proves me wrong, I hope I'm sitting in five games time and saying right well Galatasaray was a one-off, maybe it's going to take time for Rashford to settle into this new way of playing and not looking for his teammates and not being the hero week on week, but I don't know, not shooting there was baffling to me, it looked like he'd been mentally interrupted by somebody having a word with him and telling him that he should be doing more for his teammates, I don't know, it just it didn't sit well with me, it didn't look like the Marcus Rashford that I've come to know and love playing in the Manchester United shirt, it really really ragged me, it was one of my moments of the game where I looked at it and I just thought what, what is this and if this is the coaches you've got that one wrong. I think Mason Mount too, look Mount is the other side of this, I don't think Mount's decision making was poor, I think Mason Mount's decision making was really good, it's just not coming off for him, I mean how unlucky can you be, he got into the position brilliantly, the ball comes across from Rashford, he shoots and Mebri's in the way and that's not Mebri's fault, Mebri was going in and Mebri was trying to attack his face as well and that's what you want Mebri to do, you want him to be in there and you want Hannibal to have that poacher's instinct where he runs as the 10 into the box because I've criticised Bruno Fernandes previously for not doing that, for playing on the sort of peripheral of the box and not wanting to attack that space with the striker, so I think Mebri did well, just felt for Mason Mount, what does the lad have to do to score, I thought he was good last night, he was very energetic, his passing was good, he was very clean and tidy and there were tight wee pockets of play that he operated in where he played very very well and I think Mount can be a real asset for United and again I think it's going to take Casemiro, Amrabat and Mount in midfield for us to see the best of all three but what I would say on that is it needs to be better than it's been, it needs to be better than the performances that we're seeing, I'm sick of sitting here and discussing oh this player's playing in a position he's playing here and that isn't really the way that we want to set up and I can see that Ten Hag hasn't got the option, you should be doing better with the squad that you have, it's that simple, that's not a poor squad and it's falling apart week on week, you've got the attack and save and the pass and save nailed, shore them up defensively, teach them how to close the space and stop making these stupid nonsense mistakes, now on that four new players in with a makeshift defence is a tough problem to solve for any manager but it should be better than it's been, there should be more results out of this, I would argue that the squad that he has now and the squad that he's playing week on week is better than the squad that he started last season with and he's getting less results, that's an issue and it's all these individual errors so yes we can turn around and we can blame Victor Lindelof who shouldn't be starting centre-back, Amrabat who shouldn't be starting left-back, that's a fact, Andrew Unana he signed, there's no hiding behind that one, he signed Unana and he wanted Casimiro who's playing in midfield at the minute and looking a bit leggy again so it's down to him, he has to solve this, I think the excuse of not having players back and injuries is starting to wear thin, it's another session where he's getting booted out of Trafford, that's going to hurt him and I tell you what, I stayed on and I watched the analysis as I promised I would after the game, I don't think Paul Scholes and Rio Ferdinand got after him, I think they were very passive in their criticism which I'm absolutely shocked at because usually Paul Scholes comes across as quite a negative person but I thought Scholes almost was on the point of defending him, he was saying that there's signs that the football can improve and there's signs that the Manchester could get to a level that Manchester didn't need to get to but that defence is poor, individual errors are costing them but I mean when we talk about defensive errors, Diogo Dalot is an international footballer who starts for Portugal, Viktor Lindelof has captain Sweden, how are they playing so poorly? The standard they're setting is a joke week on week and it's depressing to sit here and say this but I almost expect game on game a mistake from Unana, Dalot and Lindelof in every game, not just one person, I expect a mistake out of each of them in every game, you cannot win football games that way, against top class opposition you will be punished, Dalot couldn't, Dalot didn't know what to do with Saha, that goal was a joke, the second goal is arguably worse when you look at the way they were just pulled apart so easily and then you look at the third goal again and you're thinking oh my god right fair enough Amrubad is playing him onside but where is the communication? You look like a sign that has been thrown together to play in one of the biggest environments in world football and what have you done? Irregardless of the positives from the performance you've embarrassed the CC United fans, it's another terrible record broken, it's another club celebrating with their fans at Old Trafford because they've dispelled the English voodoo and they've finally beaten an English club in England and who was the English club? Of course it was Manchester United, was it going to be anybody else based on current form? I mean individual errors are one thing but where is your pride, where is your sense of fight and I tell you what they need to bring it against Brantford because this weekend will be extremely tough against Brantford, Brantford have not been the Brantford that we've seen in the past couple of seasons but they're organised and they're everything we hit, they won't give us time on the ball, they won't give us space and when the occasions come to it they're going to have every man back there compressing it and we need to find the first goal because if we start to go behind at Brantford, the away section, well the away fans for Manchester United are some of the best in the world but even they will lose patience in this so yeah I felt like a bit of a rant I don't know that was a bit of a cathartic experience to get all that off my chest but I'm sure a lot of you feel the same so leave a comment and if you've any questions, if you've any if you have any other opinions on what I just said share them with me I'll address them I'll bring them up on the next podcast and as we get more popular we'll start to, we'll be a fan back and forward because that's what it's all about we're a community feel free to disagree with me feel free to go even harder on Manchester United after the week that it's been we really they really really deserve it but yes we'll have a look at the news and goings on at Manchester United later in the week we'll have Jack coming back on the show to go through all of those and then we will have a look forward to the Brantford game and I'll try and be more positive than I am now because in the heat of the moment here yeah I don't know what needs to happen first to turn a corner but listen be nice to each other respect each other's opinions we're all meant to be a community we can think what we want you can be Tinhag out you can be Rashford out you can be whatever just try and be nice to each other and yeah like and subscribe talk to you all soon

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