Played off the park

[lingsbord]

Pete that's the thing. We were garbage, ergo they dominated, but the truth is both sides were bloody awful

 

[Chezzy Blades]

I disagree bord Burton have done what every other side have done to us this season dominate us! Why do people think that is? I think it is simple when teams press us we inevitably give it away, we are the easiest team in the league to play against because we don't have an answer when teams close us down.
I wonder when the penny will drop with the management? Do to teams what they do to us, press and close down. In this league you don't have to do much more.

Burton didn't even press us though. They met us at half way knowing our defenders often misplace passes and just waited for us to give the ball back to them.

 

[CarlMcBlade]

I do enjoy your views and I disagreed with you regarding Clough, I am actually more angry with the club for these mindless decisions they keep making. Wilson was sacked at a ridiculous time and clough should 100% be given more time. I understand what you say about him bringing a lot of the players we are now stuck with but on the other hand these same players seemed to play better under clough. I am pretty sure the board will lose their nerve and sack Atkins then we will be back to square one.

Don't you think we're at square one now?

 

[Robboblade1889]

I get the feeling people are saying Burton were terrible because clough was in charge. Let's be fair like bury and Wigan recently the opposition don't need to play that we'll to beat us. Burton are top of the league and are so far in front of us we are in no position to say they are rubbish.

 

[lingsbord]

no-one's saying they ARE rubbish, but tonight they WERE rubbish. 45 years of week in week out watching united v opposition and I guarantee you Burton were rubbish tonight regardless of who was their manager

 

[Lawrence]

Pete mate I don't often disagree with you, but I thought tonight was like having 22 players who had never played football before, separated into 2 teams and told the basic idea is to get the ball in the bag. Even Colchester were better than Burton, so if bottom is at least as good as top it shows how shite this league really is, yet we find ourselves in 12th.

Shots on target must have been the lowest of any game involving a league leader in football history. the whole game was absolutely dreadful from first kick to last and was worse than anything under Weir and Clough. Burton absolutely did NOT dominate the game tonight, it's just that one of their two shots hit the bag but our one didn't. Utter garbage from both sides and the attendance slide has started.

Nigel might yet prove to be the long term answer, but let's be honest he's always managed clubs who have been under zero pressure before. Suddenly the burden of expectation has been dropped on him and maybe, just maybe, he can't hack it. McCabe recently agreed he was wrong to sack Wilson. He fired managers for fun because that's what others were doing. Now, in response to criticism, he's deciding to stick with a manager for the longer term, but from where I sit it looks like our Kev is yet again behind the curve and has chosen the wrong one to stick with.

Burton were absolute shite tonight, they didn't dominate us for a moment, but we out-shited the shite and so we find ourself 19 points behind a side that was in the 4th division last term, as were Gillingham and Southend, and then Barnsley were in serious relegation risk until Boxing day, and Swindon were so scared they fired their manager, yet all of the above remain above us in the table.

What a totally fucking tragic season this is, and i don't think it's as simple as changing manager or players. This whole club is slowly rotting as we slide ever further downwards and it shows no sign of slowing. Still, we'll be installed as promotion favourites by the bookies next season eh?

Shots: United 4 - Burton 12
Shots on target: United NIL - Burton 6
Possession: United 33% - Burton 67% and quite a lot of our possession was sideways and backwards.

 

[blackydog]

I followed on twitter and the comments about us looking like a Sunday League side were mentioned quite a lot. In a way I wished I had gone because it seem sit was the worse yet. You just never know how far we are going to sink. That's the problem

It wasn't the worse by a long way.

 

[JohnDenver]

no-one's saying they ARE rubbish, but tonight they WERE rubbish. 45 years of week in week out watching united v opposition and I guarantee you Burton were rubbish tonight regardless of who was their manager

I found it hard to judge. Were they happy with 1-0 so held back? Or were they just an ordinary side playing one having an utter nightmare?

I tend toward the latter. Good luck to Burton - I hope they go up, but this Division is nowhere near the quality of recent years.

 

[Roygbiv]

It wasn't the worse by a long way.

Thank God for that. I'm morbidly excited about how low this team can go. I still think there is enough about them to top everything else they have done this season. They ain't finished yet

 

[lingsbord]

Shots: United 4 - Burton 12
Shots on target: United NIL - Burton 6
Possession: United 33% - Burton 67% and quite a lot of our possession was sideways and backwards.

Leicester are top of the Premier League with worse possession stats. And how many saves did george long make? Also - were you there? There was a shot on target in the first half and a header on target 2nd half. We were shit, but not quite THAT shit!Stats tell only a small part of the story. We've seen far better than Burton this season. In one-off games Shrewsbury, Peterborough, Wigan, all comfortably better than burton.

 

[lingsbord]

I found it hard to judge. Were they happy with 1-0 so held back? Or were they just an ordinary side playing one having an utter nightmare?

I tend toward the latter. Good luck to Burton - I hope they go up, but this Division is nowhere near the quality of recent years.

Fair point mate - but Burton look like the new yeovil to me.

 

[Bartleby]

They completey bossed us from moment one on our own patch.

Another in the long line of teams to have done that.

I've lost the words for how bad we are.

Truly shameful performance.

Assume some dickhead will be on to blame the fans.

Fucking dreading the Oldham game now

 

[Bartleby]

Fans were patient tonight. No great support understandably, but no real signs of discontent. More resigned sarcastic dissent with a standing ovation from some for Collins header, boos when 6 additional minutes were shown and many fans leaving early, but no real vitriol until the final whistle, not that I heard anyway.

only listened to it on RS via Bladesplayer but the phrase "sarcastic applause" was used a few times - very restrained and commendable in my view in light of what sounded like a shocking under-performance yet again.

 

[Bladepicker]

Robbo I just don't think you can say they dominated if they didn't create any chances, which they didn't

They had loads of chances. Duffy carved through us twice and shot weakly once when he should have scored and blazed another over when he should have squared it. Akins screwed a decent chance wide then headed one an inch past the post he should have buried. Long also pulled off two quality saves first half and another 2nd after he initially fucked up. Burton were good on the ball and far from shit.

We were shit, but not quite THAT shit!

Are you sure you went to the same game as me!

 

[PeteBlade]

only listened to it on RS via Bladesplayer but the phrase "sarcastic applause" was used a few times - very restrained and commendable in my view in light of what sounded like a shocking under-performance yet again.

My favourite was when everyone stood up and cheered for our first corner and first shot on target in the 91st minute, which predictably failed to beat the first man.

 

[super_pig]

Thank God for that. I'm morbidly excited about how low this team can go. I still think there is enough about them to top everything else they have done this season. They ain't finished yet

if i'm brutally honest that's why i'm still going.. morbid curiosity

 

[super_pig]

My favourite was when everyone stood up and cheered for our first corner and first shot on target in the 91st minute, which predictably failed to beat the first man.

because only the young lad whiteman had the courage to go and take it

 

[blade too long]

Fans arent to blame
Adkins is just not good enough

Hes a spent force , an addition to the list of managers who had a good couple of seasons but then lost their drive

he was the physio , one of the lads who came good on that premise

now hes a proper manager , on that alone he sucks

 

[TJB.]

If anything showed that it's the players who are holding us back, it was last night. Utterly, utterly gutless.

You can't coach leadership and camaraderie; those things come from individuals. Every time there was a break in the game there was none of it on show at all. They looked a team of complete strangers. Did we even have a captain?

Their body language said it all last night. They've given up.

 

[PeteBlade]

Fans arent to blame
Adkins is just not good enough

Hes a spent force , an addition to the list of managers who had a good couple of seasons but then lost their drive

he was the physio , one of the lads who came good on that premise

now hes a proper manager , on that alone he sucks

The physio thing is a very lazy criticism that adds nothing to any debate and makes absolutely no sense.

 

[Bayingblade]

Fans were patient tonight. No great support understandably, but no real signs of discontent. More resigned sarcastic dissent with a standing ovation from some for Collins header, boos when 6 additional minutes were shown and many fans leaving early, but no real vitriol until the final whistle, not that I heard anyway.

We cheered heartily when we got our corner near the end. Our one corner of the second half when we were (apparently!) trying to get back into the game.

 

[bornablade]

Who does? Other than the people who keep saying people are saying it?

To be fair to Pete there was a huge thread on here on Saturday night claiming the fans behaviour would prevent us signing players in the future.

 

[1danewhitehouse]

Played off the park in a 1-0 hammering from the team at the top of the league?

We were poor, they were decent. They controlled the second half.

Let's get it in perspective though. Hardly thrashed.

Only because Clough is happy to take 1-0 wins. From early on it was clear the best we could hope for was to contain them and go for the 0-0. When that went, it was game over. We had absolutely no answer. We looked like going 2-0 down for a few minutes after they got the first but in the last 15 minutes they just decided to defend what they had and did it comfortably.

 

[1danewhitehouse]

Pete mate I don't often disagree with you, but I thought tonight was like having 22 players who had never played football before, separated into 2 teams and told the basic idea is to get the ball in the bag. Even Colchester were better than Burton, so if bottom is at least as good as top it shows how shite this league really is, yet we find ourselves in 12th.

Shots on target must have been the lowest of any game involving a league leader in football history. the whole game was absolutely dreadful from first kick to last and was worse than anything under Weir and Clough. Burton absolutely did NOT dominate the game tonight, it's just that one of their two shots hit the bag but our one didn't. Utter garbage from both sides and the attendance slide has started.

Nigel might yet prove to be the long term answer, but let's be honest he's always managed clubs who have been under zero pressure before. Suddenly the burden of expectation has been dropped on him and maybe, just maybe, he can't hack it. McCabe recently agreed he was wrong to sack Wilson. He fired managers for fun because that's what others were doing. Now, in response to criticism, he's deciding to stick with a manager for the longer term, but from where I sit it looks like our Kev is yet again behind the curve and has chosen the wrong one to stick with.

Burton were absolute shite tonight, they didn't dominate us for a moment, but we out-shited the shite and so we find ourself 19 points behind a side that was in the 4th division last term, as were Gillingham and Southend, and then Barnsley were in serious relegation risk until Boxing day, and Swindon were so scared they fired their manager, yet all of the above remain above us in the table.

What a totally fucking tragic season this is, and i don't think it's as simple as changing manager or players. This whole club is slowly rotting as we slide ever further downwards and it shows no sign of slowing. Still, we'll be installed as promotion favourites by the bookies next season eh?

They weren’t great and were boring to watch but they were comfortably better than us. They won individual battles all over the pitch and had a few chances.


1. Excellent save from Long in the first half.

2. Scrambling save from Long in the first half when he pushed a bobbling ball round the post.

3. Long range effort just over in the first half.

4. Header from Akins just wide in the first half after Brayford fell asleep.

5. Couple of more routine saves from Long in the 2nd half.


What did we have? One header wide from Basham in the whole 90 minutes. The only time we even got near their box was when we resorted to hoof late on and they had decided they were going to defend in the later stages.


They didn’t play great or show much attacking intent but they looked very very comfortable as we offered absolutely nothing.

 

[1danewhitehouse]

because only the young lad whiteman had the courage to go and take it

Reports from U21 games suggest Whiteman is a decent set piece taker but he didn’t connect well with that one. The fact we didn’t win one until the 90th minute or so shows just how atrocious we were. They created a few chances and scored one. We created absolutely bugger all and couldn’t get much past the half way line for most of the game.

 

[Smirth]

It was a vintage Clough performance from Burton last night.

I could have told Adkins what his tactics would have been from the off because I watched us do it so often last season under him. Adkins seemed to have absolutely no answers for it and therefore we may as well have just handed over the 3 points before a ball was kicked.

I said after the first 20 minutes it would end 1-0 to Burton and wasn't at all surprised it did.

 

[PeteBlade]

Great post until the last line.........Why did you spoil it with the last line?

This "blame the fans" thing is pathetic.

UTB

You're right about the fans thing, I didn't need to add that at the end.

I was just very pissed off at wasting another evening.

 

[blackydog]

My favourite was when everyone stood up and cheered for our first corner and first shot on target in the 91st minute, which predictably failed to beat the first man.

Spot on Pete, basic football skills missing. But how hard is that to put right, they are all capable of launching a ball 25 yards into the air so why doesn't it happen?

 

[Fulwood Blade]

You're right about the fans thing, I didn't need to add that at the end.

I was just very pissed off at wasting another evening.

Pete - we are all disappointed how things are - our fans are very very frustrated.

Thought the fans were reasonable last night - decent applause (by most) for Clough - silent during the game (generally expected), but didn't get on the players backs too much. Slight derision at 6 minutes stoppage and then the loud boos at the end.

We do have some daft fans, and I saw some at Donny and as some have said at Rochdale too.

It wouldn't be like this if we were making "progress" - that's all most of us ask for - sadly, we are going backwards.

UTB

 

[Missing Spark]

WHF for one.

He feels it's the biggest challenge facing the club.


Anyway I'm just sounding off because I'm pissed off, should probably have left that sentence off in all honesty.

If you're deleting, can you take sentences 1-4 out as well please.