Bergen Blade
Well-Known Member
I think we looked bright the first few minutes. The team was pretty much the best we could field, both in terms of adding the link play of McGoldrick and the pace of Mousset, while keeping as much continuity elsewhere.
Shame about their first goal. Sloppy one as well, a simple throw in. Very disappointing. Our three left footers all seemed to be sucked towards the throw in taker and are taken by surprise as the throw goes past them. Then Norwood fails to deal with it and we're panicking.
So a nightmare start, but we try to get going. We managed to string a few passes toghether and looked a bit like our old selves down each side and also switching play. We do this partly because it is our style, but also as we know we have to keep some possession, or else they will push us back, which would be difficult to deal with for 90 minutes. The problem is that our neat passing moves is so slow that the opposition always get men behind the ball. The opposition centre halves are always ready and waiting when we do get the cross in. This is making it hard to create. Secondly as we pass the ball in the opposition half and push more players forward, we're vulnerable to counter attacks. And Man Utd are a very good counter attacking team these days.
So that's the first half, we try to keep possession, because we have to, but we don't create and unless we're very careful we get hit on the break. Eventually we tire and they do peg us back. Before the second goal our midfield can't keep up with play, leading to Jags breaking out of defence to close down first Bruno, then Pogba. As the ball is rolled out wide, Jags stays in "midfield" marking Pogba, probably thinking he's done the midfielders' job twice forcing them wide, they should surely cover him at the back:
But Norwood doesn't agree he should cover for Jags and moves in behind Enda. The cross beats them both and an uncomfortable Bash fails to block Martial's shot. I think the likes of Basham and Robinson look uncomfortable as parts of a two man central defence and struggles when the "sweeper" is missing.
Poor time to concede again, just before the break.
At half time I think Wilder wants to avoid a heavy defeat. 6-0 would be damaging for the morale. So he puts on Berge to help cover some more space in front of the defence and we defend deeper. Apart from breaks I think we mainly hoped to keep the score at 2-0 and then go for it with 15 minutes to go. I think we defended ok in the second half, although I realise those who were hoping for a quick come back were disappointed. We kept them out and made it a bit harder for them to find space. After the hour McGoldrick was finished, so we added the pace of Zivkovic.
But before any attacking mentality change was made, Man Utd got their third goal. Some brilliant play from them and maybe we were just to tired mentally and physically to keep up. As the through ball was played Jags pushes up to play Martial offside. As Rashford isn't closed down well, that's risky, so he may be regretting he didn't drop deeper to cover.
Before the third goal I was expecting a switch to the diamond we've used before, but there wasn't much point after that.
All in all, I'm not too disappointed. I think we'd have lost this fixture 9 times out of 10. We just didn't have the luck (or concentration) we needed at some key stages to get a result.
Shame about their first goal. Sloppy one as well, a simple throw in. Very disappointing. Our three left footers all seemed to be sucked towards the throw in taker and are taken by surprise as the throw goes past them. Then Norwood fails to deal with it and we're panicking.
So a nightmare start, but we try to get going. We managed to string a few passes toghether and looked a bit like our old selves down each side and also switching play. We do this partly because it is our style, but also as we know we have to keep some possession, or else they will push us back, which would be difficult to deal with for 90 minutes. The problem is that our neat passing moves is so slow that the opposition always get men behind the ball. The opposition centre halves are always ready and waiting when we do get the cross in. This is making it hard to create. Secondly as we pass the ball in the opposition half and push more players forward, we're vulnerable to counter attacks. And Man Utd are a very good counter attacking team these days.
So that's the first half, we try to keep possession, because we have to, but we don't create and unless we're very careful we get hit on the break. Eventually we tire and they do peg us back. Before the second goal our midfield can't keep up with play, leading to Jags breaking out of defence to close down first Bruno, then Pogba. As the ball is rolled out wide, Jags stays in "midfield" marking Pogba, probably thinking he's done the midfielders' job twice forcing them wide, they should surely cover him at the back:
But Norwood doesn't agree he should cover for Jags and moves in behind Enda. The cross beats them both and an uncomfortable Bash fails to block Martial's shot. I think the likes of Basham and Robinson look uncomfortable as parts of a two man central defence and struggles when the "sweeper" is missing.
Poor time to concede again, just before the break.
At half time I think Wilder wants to avoid a heavy defeat. 6-0 would be damaging for the morale. So he puts on Berge to help cover some more space in front of the defence and we defend deeper. Apart from breaks I think we mainly hoped to keep the score at 2-0 and then go for it with 15 minutes to go. I think we defended ok in the second half, although I realise those who were hoping for a quick come back were disappointed. We kept them out and made it a bit harder for them to find space. After the hour McGoldrick was finished, so we added the pace of Zivkovic.
But before any attacking mentality change was made, Man Utd got their third goal. Some brilliant play from them and maybe we were just to tired mentally and physically to keep up. As the through ball was played Jags pushes up to play Martial offside. As Rashford isn't closed down well, that's risky, so he may be regretting he didn't drop deeper to cover.
Before the third goal I was expecting a switch to the diamond we've used before, but there wasn't much point after that.
All in all, I'm not too disappointed. I think we'd have lost this fixture 9 times out of 10. We just didn't have the luck (or concentration) we needed at some key stages to get a result.
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