My immediate post-match reaction as we trooped dejectedly away from OT was that we had blown a chance of getting a result against what is still a fine team through inept, schoolboy defending. On further reflection that view hasn’t changed.

Their 1st and 3rd goals were the result of utterly pathetic defending. Throw in Chelsea’s two goals on Saturday, and the sad reality is that we still cannot defend adequately: I’m afraid we will never win owt until we can.

Against most teams you can get away with elementary defensive errors of the kind we saw last night – against ManU you don’t. That is what still differentiates them from the herd.

The irritating thing about the game was that we arguably shaded the 1st half, had a terrific shot from Speed headed from under the angle of post & bar, had a goal disallowed (I thought the Ref was right, for the record), and a couple of other near misses. Apart from their goal, Given made one save in the period. ManU had the better of the 2nd half, but only after effectively killing the game with a tap in by an ‘unmarked’ (note that word, yet again) Scholes after a great counter-attacking move that typifies their game.

Nevertheless, we kept going, kept trying to play football, with admittedly decreasing conviction as the game wore on, and until Shearer’s fine headed goal finally shut up the pathetic tossers © who had childishly barracked his every touch.

Despite popular theories about ManU’s defensive frailty, I thought they defended well. We found it very difficult to get behind them as we have being doing to other teams recently, and the absence of a legitimate left-sided player resulted in a lack of penetration that raised déjà vu from many of last season’s performances.

In midfield, despite the criticism I've read of Lee and Speed, I thought they did pretty well against really top-class opposition – apart from their wild shooting, which was a direct result of our lack of penetration. Dyer worked very hard, but to little real effect, and clearly is in need of a break.

Defensively, we were horrible and it’s difficult to separate individuals – imo they were all poor, collectively and individually. Zero communication, constantly losing their markers, getting in each other’s way, stopping to appeal while the opposition has the ball in our PA, etc, etc. They were world-class hopeless – but let's not forget, against really good opposition.

All in all it was a rather dispiriting experience. However, ManU last night were the best team I’ve seen us play this season, and I really do feel we need to temper our criticism and concerns in that light.

Worryingly, we again looked less than 100% on our game – presumably through fatigue. However, I couldn’t escape the feeling that we went onto the pitch not really believing we could beat them, and perhaps looking to get out of there having put on a decent show, with a respectable score, and our new-found reputation intact.

Other thoughts? OT is a magnificent stadium, but those Red’s fans! How on earth can 64,000 fans make so little noise, or even 'hubbub'? Perhaps they’ve simply become jaundiced through almost a decade of unbridled success - to some degree that would be understandable - but I was actually surprised how desperately little enthusiasm they showed until they went ahead, and the volume remained seriously muted until the 3rd goal: even then it was fairly transient. The Toon Army chant “60,000 Muppets” may have been a crude numerical approximation but somehow it seemed entirely appropriate!

-- Anonymous, January 03, 2002

Answers

Clarky, agree with most of what you said, however...........Admitted I wasn't there or at Arsenal, although I did see both games live. I thought Arsenal were streets ahead of us, manure were almost pedestrian like in their approach to the game. Solano's goal was a fine effort and the lad (silvestre I think) tripped over his foot. Speeds effort was brilliant, however nevilles slowness to clear his own lines saved him.

One thing though, manure defended very deeply, therefore never giving bellamy the chance to run at 'em which unfortunatly is our style. I think we should petition the league to play all our remaining games away from home so that we can counter-attack more.

-- Anonymous, January 03, 2002

Watched it live then watched it on the video this afternoon. (what a masochist!) After watching the vid, I thought we looked better than I thought at OT! A bit predictable and slow going forwards at times and we did miss Robert or at least a winger on the left. Their defence coped pretty well with our lads but they played well unlike OUR defence!

BR has to galvanise his defenders again.

It was no walkover for Man U but they just were better than us, as were Chelsea. We've had a tough December and got good results but the team has had to play at 100% to get those results, we can't sustain that every week. As BR himself has said, we can't beat good teams playing at only 75% of our game as we don't have the players to do it.

I was fed up on returning from OT but it doesn't really bother me now. On to the next game..........

-- Anonymous, January 03, 2002

Syme,

Happy New Year marra.

Arsenal play pretty, pretty stuff that doesn't always produce the desired end result. Last night ManU played effective and ruthlessly efficient football with an economy of effort. However, with better defending we could, and perhaps should, have got a point.

-- Anonymous, January 03, 2002

Happy New year to you too sonna!!! aaaaaalllllll the best to the missus an'all. True Arsenal do play some pretty stuff, but the way they tore through us was remarkable.

Still it could've been worse, i remember going to OT, not getting there till halftime (Train got stuck in Rotherham) we were only 1-0 down at the half ended getting stuffed 5-0. All that way for 45 minutes of humilation...........would I change a thing? never! apart from winning stuff mind.

-- Anonymous, January 03, 2002

Nice to see you again Alan. Bet it didn't sound like you described on the TV or the radio. Stretford Upper was kicking for Most of the game...so much so that for the 1st time in a good few years we didn't hear you lot at all...certainly not the "muppets" one. Them in the Scoreboard End maybe but not us.

It's an acoustic thing....check yer prog. Paddy Harveson.

-- Anonymous, January 03, 2002

Aye, and while we're at it, nice to see you too Lanky. Sadly, you were right in your pre-match hope that the best side (actually the better!!) would win. But only just. Clarky has described pretty well the reasons we lost. Didn't think you were as good as at SJP but efficient. Bu99er, I guess that's enough :-(

It may be accoustics, but I could here diddly-squat from any of your lot bar the occasional burp from the scoreboard end. In all honesty, I never heard you lot in the Stretford. Mind you, we were awesome ;-))

-- Anonymous, January 03, 2002

Didn't you wonder what those thousands of folk in the upper tier were doing on their feet, clapping in unision?....It wasn't mime :-)

-- Anonymous, January 03, 2002

Oh, sorry. I thought they were filming the next Muppet Show - with the sound track to be dubbed from the away end ;-)

-- Anonymous, January 03, 2002

Thanks Clarky et al. Generally confirms what I'd thought from watching via Sky. The key thing with all these tough games is that the players learn from them, especially the defence. We are the upstarts with potential and have been playing against the established top teams in the country. We have made mistakes, shown certain weaknesses, but also not been outclassed. With a bit of luck in our favour we have won two terrific away games. Without things going our way, coupled with errors, we have lost a couple also. If we keep the momentum and continue playing with confidence (absolutely vital part of any passing game) results will go our way more than they will against us.

-- Anonymous, January 04, 2002

Its difficult to get too depressed about the result on Wednesday. I know a lot of people on this site get angry about some of the perceived negative press coverage of our title chances, but really I think we have to be realistic. I don't think losing to Man Utd was a big surprise, it was certainly a shame that we lost to Chelsea at home...but I can only see the victories at Arsenal and Leeds as being darned exciting, but (lets face it) somewhat fortuitous. We were nearly blown away by Arsenal in the first half. I think we should count our blessings. those two victories have given us six (perhaps) unexpected points. This is what is taking us away from Chelsea, Villa and Spurs. Leeds, Arsenal, Man Utd and Liverpool may still finish slightly above us, but we have a great chance to finish above the rest. We would have all settled for that at teh start of the season and that has o be a great springboard for next year - not least in terms of attracting a few quality players...

-- Anonymous, January 04, 2002

LR,

Good to see you for the first time in a while. You were in canny good form yersell, never mind your team!

I'm sure you're right about accoustics - the same is apparent at SJP, where depending on where you sit the away fans can appear noisy or very quiet. I did hear some noise from the Stretford End in the 2nd half, and also a bit of an effort from the NE corner, but during the first half there seemed to be bugger all.

Apart from various FAC Semis (;-{]), I haven't been to OT much in recent years. However, I was at Uni in M/C from '68-72 and used to go to Maine Rd. and OT quite often. The atmosphere at OT in those days was awesome. However, as we all know, sadly the only real atmosphere is now created among away fans. Very sad, but true.

See yer kidda.

-- Anonymous, January 04, 2002

Thanks, Clarky.

It does my heart good to know the Mancs, despite winning everything under the sun, are still bitter about Shearer. The man's a legend.

-- Anonymous, January 04, 2002

Just got into the office and read this thread. I was at OT Wednesday, with the prawn sarny crowd in the Manure Directors Box. Mainly celebs, the younger ones didn't even recognise Bobby Charlton, and had more make up on than Sitting Bull.I thought our fans were terrific, outsung the home fans man for man, but inevitably drowned out when its 64:1. Loved the 'you're not singing any more' when we pulled one back. I would say though that the Manure fans were quiet as doormice until they scored, very poor, and then quickly went quiet again until the second goal. Never been to OT before, and I thought it was crap, not just compared to SJP - and before LR or anyone suggests it, no, it wasn't sour grapes. No atmosphere, it was as suspected, the show biz arm of footy ie a business, not a football club. No buzz. Thought we played okay, but they were probably a goal better than us, so even though the Solano goal was good, they were still a shade ahead. Elliot was absolutely awful, must be dropped, this is now a regular pattern, he's not up to defending at this level. Hughes was equally bad, but his track record allows him the benefit of the doubt. Thought Bellamy was terrific, ran his legs off as usual, ditto Dyer. Great to see Shearer score, the Mancs around me suddenly started to sweat, even at 3:1. Why no Robert? Haven't read the other threads, so the answer is probably there. Thought we lacked width, and got outplayed in midfield. Also thought Butt was great, buy him YBR if at all poss. He was soley responsible for the RVN goal, could see it as soon as he made the crossfield pass. The subsequent cross to RVN and then the head-in was relatively easy, with our dozy bu..ers standing around half asleep. Thought Distin played very well, but detected irritation by YBR in his post match i/v when talking about the poor centre back work for that goal. On balance, not too bothered about losing this one, but still mighty pi..ed off about the Chelsea result. That was the key game, it would have kept us up there, sent us into the Manure game with confidence sky high, and knocked Chelsea completely out of the frame, IMHO. Apologies if this posting ignores similar comments on other threads, I haven't read anything here for about a week. Might go up to the Leeds match, if I can't get an air miles flight I'll drive, leave London (Richmond) 6:00am, leave Newcastle 6:00pm. Anyone want to share a lift? I promise not to talk until after half way, so you can get some kip.

-- Anonymous, January 04, 2002

Dougal........he's an arse....he deserves it!

-- Anonymous, January 05, 2002

Naaa...not sour grapes.....pure canned denial.

"Loved the 'you're not singing any more' when we pulled one back".....never heard it. Funny that innit. As God is my witnesss I never heard it...and of course you were cit-like loud were you not :-)

"I would say though that the Manure fans were quiet as doormice until they scored, very poor, and then quickly went quiet again until the second goal"........we must be liars. I can show you loads of posts where United fans commented on the atmosphere and singing in the Stretford. Like I said....upper tier is like a big loud party 'cept it stays up there.

"No atmosphere, it was as suspected, the show biz arm of footy ie a business, not a football club. No buzz"......feck me?...U sure about those grapes?...lol....It was an EXCELLENT night:-) BTW...you wouldn't want to hear what the commentators were saying during your recent game with Chelsea!!........shhhhhhh!

I've been at more than enough away games where we've been the only fans singing.......or so it seems.....until you see it on the telly or read reports. Oh...and don't forget...we have the worse set of boring know no songs doormouse fans in the land. What do U expect?

Back to yer prunes.

-- Anonymous, January 05, 2002

Must be an acoustics thing, cause I could see the banners waving at the Stretford end, but couldn't hear a peep other than when they scored. Wasn't sure if there was life over there or just a strong wind.

CAn't really add anything to the match reports as most of what I felt has already been said. We should have gotten a point, but too many changes to the team and failing to really attack from the start cost us. Hopefully it's just another blip in our season, and has been pointed out elsewhere the 'hardest' of our fixtures is pretty much over. Now the test is retaining our fight and spirit when we start playing the so-called easy teams the rest of the season. Alway a banana skin in the past, hopefully not this season!

-- Anonymous, January 06, 2002