Ratings Vs Man Utd

[Show Pony]

My thoughts on yesterday

Lloris, Vlad and Ade - Outstanding performance from these 3 in particular

Rose - Getting slated, no one has mentioned he was up against a top player in Januzaj (Young or not he looks quality)

Bobby - After months of not being passed to he still seems in shock when the ball comes his way. Stick with him though you can see his quality and some of his passing was top draw. It will come. And he can score a pen...we used to suck at that

Lennon - Again showed just how good he can be. Much better player right now than Townsend, just doesnt get the same level of hype

Capoue - Subbed as run out of gas. Sherwood has said he was rushed back to quickly from injury. No myth here on conspiracy therories.

Kane - Made sense why he was on the bench over Holtby. He came on and made a pest of himself. My concern with him is he has no pace whatsoever

 

[Gilzeanking]

I reckon there's a tad too much misery round here after a win at OT . After AvB's luckier win last year there was an outpouring of unrestrained joy...

I'm seeing creativity and general improved form from many players these days . We lost 6-0 , 5-0 recently ,now we win at OT with several players missing , Hallelujah say I .

Whatever the rights or wrongs of pressing etc...we simply had more open chances than Utd did at home . This counts a lot to me . Sometimes you have to stop predicting disaster round the corner and enjoy great success
happening now .

There was a lot of doubt expressed re Sherwood including from myself and maybe its harder to enjoy a big result as a consequence for many here. Me , I'm delighted with the win , we've had 2 excellent matches now . Long may it continue . Sherwood LVG...I don't give a shit . Hooray for Spurs !

Eriksen MOM 8.5 Special mentions for Lennon 7.5 and Ade 8...also the ref . Clearly the refs have got together and realised that last year's zero pens was a bit off , plus booking Bale after he was sythed down , so they've decided to even things up . 'Bout bloody time eh

 

[gp13tot]

Didn't see all the game but mostly sevens for me, a few higher and Lennon mom. Rose very poor. Bit disappointed with dembele but he did put in a shift

 

[JimmyG2]

Interesting that everyone got votes.
No player dominated and four were around the 20% mark.
What they call a good team performance.

 

[jackino cowlinero]

Lloris - 8 - Some match winning saves and though some crazy moments, he got away with them so I'm happy.
Walker - 8 - Thought he was top draw again today against a tricky customer in Januzi for the first 60.
Dawson - 7.5 - A few early worrying glimpses but a load of typical Dawson clearances.
Chiriches - 9 - Some top top defending all over the place, he and Daws do struggle with runners but with attackers and passers of Utd's quality that is always going to happen.
Rose - 6 - Hard day for Rose, to be fair Utd did just seem to attack down that side all game and as mentioned he was against some top players.
Lennon - 8.5 - Yet another brilliant display against Utd for Lennon, could have had a couple but her keeps racking up the assists. His defensive work was brilliant as well.
Capoue - 7.5 - Thought he did that hard word well and was constantly clearing stuff from the box whilst there were also some nice passes in there.
Dembele - 7.5 - Similar to Etienne, saw the other side of him today in that he didn't go forward as freely but worked very hard in the middle.
Eriksen - 8.5 - A goal, an assist and general good attacking play all over the pitch with constant running.
Adebayor - 8.5 - Superb header and another performance that just has you wishing he can keep in this form all the time. His touch was a little off but his build up and running were great.
Soldado - 8 - Quite a high score for a striker who missed a bit of a sitter but I just love the partnership building between him and Ade. Some sublime through balls and he just needs one or two efforts to find the net and I think we'll have a real striker on our hands.

Subs:
Bentaleb - 7 - Solid enough, didn't do anything particularly exciting but nor wrong.
Chadli - 6.5 - Didn't really offer us much.
Kane - 8 - Simply for booting the ball out in the crowd, hilarious.

Sherwood - 10 - When you get us 3 points at Old Trafford any other score would be criminal.

 

[0-Tibsy-0]

I'm not criticising anyone or being negative for the sake of being negative, as I thought everyone had moments that were very good yesterday and of course I am absolutely ecstatic with the result. However I dont actually think we played very well as a whole for large periods of the 90 minutes? And there seems to be a huge case of the result shrouding peoples views of the performance... But YAY anyway, because despite that, we won. HAPPY NEW YEAR!

 

[THFCSPURS19]

Why do some people think that if we don't dominate the game, then the performance wasn't good?

We could beat Barcelona 5-0 and people still wouldn't be happy because we didn't "dominate"

 

[Bulletspur]

Interesting that everyone got votes.
No player dominated and four were around the 20% mark.
What they call a good team performance.

Yeah, even Rose!

 

[Hoddle&Waddle]

Regarding Etienne and Nabil:

This is the second time that Capoue really struggled early in a big away match. It was very similar at the Emirates with him; he could barely complete a simple pass for the first 20 minutes . Looked very nervy under their early pressure.

That said, I thought he did a very good job restricting space in the center of the pitch. He didn't do anything that's going to show up on a stat sheet, but I was watching him specifically for a while and he was chained to Rooney, not letting him do much in advanced positions. United dominated the ball but they never really penetrated straight through the middle--almost every good situation they created from open play originated down their right. Rooney kept dropping deep and spraying it wide, which I'd much prefer to him getting on the ball near the edge of the box.

I think the timing of the Bentaleb substitution was potentially interesting, and I wonder if it was a specific response to the double change United made. United dropped Rooney into central midfield in the 61st minute, and almost immediately afterwards we dropped Capoue for Bentaleb.

It was probably as simple as Etienne being gassed and us just needing fresh legs, but I kind of want to believe it was a tactical response to no longer really needing to account for Rooney in advanced positions. Bentaleb is tidier and safer with his passing than Capoue (at least today) so maybe we wanted someone on to get on the ball, give us a few little spells of possession to relieve the pressure a bit.

Indeed Bentaleb averaged almost 3 passes per minute, whereas Capoue had averaged about 2. Of course this could be because United no longer had a numbers advantage in midfield, but Bentaleb also completed 90% of his passes to Etiennes shocking 58%.

Possibly over-analyzing but I do think there might be tactical rationale for it.

Capoue looked a bit rusty but did a good job on Rooney, think a few more games in midfield and his passing will improve.

 

[degoose]

i put down lloris as my motm . A lot of players were brilliant but lloris made some amazingly good saves which i don't think many keepers would have gotten too. Rose was probably the weakest player for me mainly because he gave the ball away once or twice but i only say he was the weakest as everyone else played so well he did though in all honesty have a lot more to do than walker as a mass amount of attacking threat came down that wing and he had to play against valencia and januzaj who are both tricky and quick.

 

[14/04/91]

Sherwoods tactics are, so far, scarily identical to Redknapp's, and even his pre match is starting to sound the same "it's just about the players going out there and enjoying themselves". No it fucking isn't.

I'd hazard a guess that what he says to BT Sport bears no resemblance to what he tells the players so don't get too excited about a pre-match soundbite.

Some people just don't like him do they. Whether it's the way he talks or because he's got links with Harry, he is going to struggle to win over a few.

Lloris 7, Walker 7, Dawson 7, Chiriches 8, Rose 6, Capoue 6, Dembele 6, Lennon 8, Eriksen 8, Soldado 7, Adebayor 8.

Not a bad away performance at all. Retaining possession wasn't great at times but you can tell Sherwood puts a lot of emphasis on this so let's give him time to improve things - given the number of games we've had lately, we wouldn't have had much time to work on things.

Don't forget we were missing quite a few players who would be (close to) first team too, and while they're not vintage United they still beat Arsenal, for example.

 

[brasil_spur]

Rose - Getting slated, no one has mentioned he was up against a top player in Januzaj (Young or not he looks quality)

Rose wasn't up against Januzaj that much, especially in the first 60 mins. What Rose was showing was a real lazyiness in tracking back and repositioning after loosing possession or missing a tackle.

He was pretty poor IMO and i'm sure BAE would have done a better job.

 

[edgey]

Some people just don't like him do they. Whether it's the way he talks or because he's got links with Harry, he is going to struggle to win over a few.

Or that he's a gooner? That never tends to win fans over. I think some people were just a bit worried (myself included... And the jury is still definately out for me) that Levy has taken a huge gamble on a young and completely inexperienced manager at such a high level. Time will tell tho

 

[14/04/91]

Or that he's a gooner? That never tends to win fans over. I think some people were just a bit worried (myself included... And the jury is still definately out for me) that Levy has taken a huge gamble on a young and completely inexperienced manager at such a high level. Time will tell tho

So what? This sort of thinking really does make me laugh. Which team someone supports as a kid is irrelevant. Footballers are not like us - they generally didn't spend their formative years falling in love with a club. By the time he signed for Watford as a lad, he would've been more interested in forging a career than being a 'gooner'.
He also gave his all when he played for us, any past allegiance to a rival wasn't demostrated as a professional footballer and certainly won't be as a coach.
Carragher is the best example - grew up an Everton fan but gave 100% every time he pulled on a Liverpool shirt.

And I wouldn't call it a 'huge gamble' by Levy. He needed someone asap (as Villas Boas was overseeing a car crash) so he's gone with someone inside the club, which used to happen a lot by the way. Granted he has no experience of coaching at this level and that was/is always going to be the acid test but I'd say trying to appoint the right man mid-season would've been a much harder thing to do (especially with Levy's track record of appointing a right man).

 

[edgey]

So what? This sort of thinking really does make me laugh. Which team someone supports as a kid is irrelevant. Footballers are not like us - they generally didn't spend their formative years falling in love with a club. By the time he signed for Watford as a lad, he would've been more interested in forging a career than being a 'gooner'.
He also gave his all when he played for us, any past allegiance to a rival wasn't demostrated as a professional footballer and certainly won't be as a coach.
Carragher is the best example - grew up an Everton fan but gave 100% every time he pulled on a Liverpool shirt.

And I wouldn't call it a 'huge gamble' by Levy. He needed someone asap (as Villas Boas was overseeing a car crash) so he's gone with someone inside the club, which used to happen a lot by the way. Granted he has no experience of coaching at this level and that was/is always going to be the acid test but I'd say trying to appoint the right man mid-season would've been a much harder thing to do (especially with Levy's track record of appointing a right man).

Yes while I agree with your point unfortunately most fans will still see him as a gooner, it's just one of those things, wheher it matters to you or me or anyone else it will certainly matter to a few. When he says things like "I like to see them do well" or it gets mentioned that him and his old man are season ticket holders do you expect fans to be ok with that? Whilst he is doing well it won't matter to most but soon as he starts losing you watch how many times his "Gooner" loyalties get brought up in arguments. Of course in almost all cases a player or managers allegience doesnt matter as they are proffesionals. HR was a Spammer after all but no one seemed bothered as he got results (well till that slump when England flashed a bit of leg and his head was turned)

And as for the "huge gamble" I think employing someone to take over who doesn't even hold the relevant badges to be qualified for the job, let alone any experience above U21 level, is a massive gamble at this level. Yes teams have done it before and it's worked but it doesn't mean it's not a gamble just coz the gamble has paid off. And it's far too early to tell if it will or not so his inexperience will always be a worry for fans.

 

[Davo99]

I'm sure I saw someone saying that Rose gave an underrated performance since you need to take into account that he had the majority of attacks down his side. So they might have voted for him.

My view on that is they decided that the wouldn't get any joy against Walker whatsoever, so they chose to pick on Rose, and he couldn't deal with Januzaj. If Man Utd had started pressing 5 or 10 minutes earlier, they probably would have equalised.

The reason they were doing that is because they singled him out as the weak spot. They were getting in time and time again and Rose wasn't getting close to Valencia nor cutting out any of his crosses. Smalling was skinning him too. The two were doubling up on him so bad it was embarrassing, which is why your Cleverley's, Rooney's and Carrick's were just pinging balls out to their right wing all game.

 

[Spurs_Bear]

Redknapp was a gooner too. Used to go home and away with his dad.

 

[C0YS]

Pretty low ratings all round for a team that just won at OT...

I've covered this before, I just rarely give out high numbers, that doesn't mean they didn't have good games. For example in response to someone earlier Bale would of got an 8.5 for his famous game at the san siro (though he would of got a 9 for the one at white hart lane).

 

[Dembele'Disciple]

Lloris 5- almost destroyed our game with his foolish decision making
Rose 6- did well in the first, got torched by the united youngster in the second
Dawson 3- he's getting worse and worse by the week. Can't see what he contributes to our team anymore. His time is up.
Chris 6- some timely interceptions, and nothing to foolish from him. Would really like to see him with verts.
Lennon 8- did well as usual vs united. Evra's his bitch.
Dembele 6- solid defensive work, but sluggish going forward.
Capoue 7- kept rooney really quiet throughout the match. Really impressed with his work defensively.
Eriksen 7- very good game by him. Nice link up play and great assist.
Soldado 4- poor and should've scored.
Adebayor 9- fantastic again, lads a machine. Him going off contributed greatly to us being under pressure.

6 all round for subs.

 

[Bobishism]

The reason they were doing that is because they singled him out as the weak spot. They were getting in time and time again and Rose wasn't getting close to Valencia nor cutting out any of his crosses. Smalling was skinning him too. The two were doubling up on him so bad it was embarrassing, which is why your Cleverley's, Rooney's and Carrick's were just pinging balls out to their right wing all game.

Part of it was he didn't have the protection Walker had.