here are some thoughts after last night's game:
- man u are more sluggish whenever they play in the rain, 0.5sec slower in everything, finding a teammate, making runs, pressing, shooting, getting to the ball. socks not dry, morale not high?
- it was a smash n grab plan by palace, once they scored, they just park the bus and absorb pressure. palace is a physical side, man u can't cope at times
- this season, man u mentality and consistency not good enough, they seem to rely heavily on momentum (which was stop-start) during the match, they can play well for 5-10mins, but somehow cannot maintain or concede a goal, then try to fightback for another 5-10mins, if they can't score within the 10mins, it would go downhill from there, if they can score, chances are they would go on to score another on the back of that momentum
- man u had so much possession but they had no idea what to do with the ball, just pass around aimlessly or pass to rashford and hope he can conjure up some magic. but palace plan vs rashford was to double team him whenever he got the ball, it was 1vs2, how to run past 2 walls? rashford need a teammate to overlap and draw a defender away from him. man u had some good buildups but overall finishing was poor
- ETH gotta tweak his plan of inverted full backs, amrabat drifted infield so much that there was an ever-present worry of palace exploiting the area he vacated. also when the full back drifted infield, there can't be overlapping play on the wings, how to support the winger when the full back is in central midfield? in the past, man u attacking style was exciting because the full back would overlap/overload the flank. but now, the winger is expected to beat the opponent on his own. also there wasn't much linkup betw rashford and hojlund, they were pretty much isolated in their own area. there wasn't much fluidity in attack as the passing was poor overall (blame it on weather
)
- the goal conceded was from a set piece (lindelof poor marking), and man u had many corners but no result, need more training on set pieces
- Wed morning UCL at home vs Gala... if it doesn't rain, can man u win?
