2/2/2013 Fulham 0 - 1 Manchester United EPL

RVP: great efficiency, consistent performer, wonderful touch and technique(up there with the very best), great finisher, puts in a fair amount of effort.
Rooney: goal-wise decent efficiency, at times a fairly inconsistent performer, however, good touch and technique, good finisher sometimes, frustrating to watch him miss chances at other times, he puts in major amounts of effort (he's basically everywhere on the pitch), his passing and vision are second to none, he aids the defence.
Wayne's game has transformed drastically I would say after 2007-2008. He has lost a lot of that raw, yet pure flair and element of surprise (although he still shows glimpses of that), but he has become a more team-oriented, cerebral and, overall, a more beneficial player for United.

Rooney vs RVP. Hmm, hard decision. IMO, I would say that RVP is the better striker, but Rooney is the better player.

AlinJ92 wrote:RVP: great efficiency, consistent performer, wonderful touch and technique(up there with the very best), great finisher, puts in a fair amount of effort.
Rooney: goal-wise decent efficiency, at times a fairly inconsistent performer, however, good touch and technique, good finisher sometimes, frustrating to watch him miss chances at other times, he puts in major amounts of effort (he's basically everywhere on the pitch), his passing and vision are second to none, he aids the defence.
Wayne's game has transformed drastically I would say after 2007-2008. He has lost a lot of that pure, yet raw flair and element of surprise, but he has become a more team-oriented, cerebral and, overall, a more beneficial player for United.

Rooney vs RVP. Hmm, hard decision. IMO, I would say that RVP is the better striker, but Rooney is the better player.

So you say that RVP fulfills better the tasks specific for a striker, right? I agree with this.

vladdy wrote: So you say that RVP fulfills better the tasks specific for a striker, right? I agree with this.

Basically yes. I'm more comfortable with RVP up front than with Rooney. He can get a lot more goals than Wayne. However, Rooney contributes a lot more to the team overall, he gets a good amount of goals, also loads of assists and is active both in defence and build-up and, when in form, he is absolutely unstoppable. He can be a bit inconsistent, and can waste away good chances at times but, in my book, his overall presence in the game and evolution make him a better player than Robin.

it's our championship to lose!

seriously, this lead in feb is a commanding lead. I expected a dog fight but it has really been 1 sided this season

Quality posts Alin! welcome mate

Well first off - great to get the three points and a fantastic finish by Rooney.

Again the United defending was poor at times. In the later part of the second half Ferdinand and Evans dribbled out with the ball, finally losing it because they tried to take on Fulham players.....this is ridiculous, stupid little mistakes like this can cost United the game. If Ferdinand or Evans or whoever have no options..then just boot the ball up the field, get it away from the danger zone.

Furthermore, I have a real problem with EVRA, he is a defender, right??? The guy time and time again goes forward...and when the opposition get the ball and are bombing down the field with a counter attack, the French man is sauntering back down the field (and this has been the case for the last number of seasons). FFS Patrice your primary job is to defend....when you do that then and only then you can attack. The last 20 minutes of the game yesterday, almost all Fulham's attacks came from Evra's side. On top of that he gets caught out of position so many times. It really bugs the s++t out of me. I don't understand how Ferguson looks at this week in week out.

Roberto Carlos was a prime example of a defender that got forward but sprinted back down the pitch to defend once he got rid of the ball....Evra needs to take note.

Game analysis:

Fulham Lineup:

Schwarzer; Riether, John Arne Riise; Baird; Senderos, Hangeland (Hughes 45'); Dejagah (Petric 82'), Karagounis (Emanuelson 68'); Rodallega; Ruiz; Duff

Unused substitutes:

Etheridge, Frimpong, Davies, Kacaniklic

Manchester United Lineup:

De Gea; Rafael, Evra; Cleverley (Giggs 75'); Ferdinand, Evans; Antonio Valencia (Hernández 66'); Carrick; van Persie; Rooney, Nani (Welbeck 84')

Unused substitutes:

Amos, Smalling, Anderson, Kagawa

Defense:

David De Gea had a decent game and saved some difficult shots, but also he looked a little bit dizzy at some corners and crosses, especially in the 2nd half when he could have done better.Luckily for him, Rafael and Robin were there to save his ass.I still don't blame him.Fulham carried an air of threat themselves and David De Gea had to produce a string of important saves that perhaps will not get the same level of attention as any perceived error.

Our defenders did a great job yesterday.Rafael seemed to be not enough focused and gave a few wrong passes, but like all our players, he made a praiseworthy effort until the final whistle.On the other side of the pitch, Evra was more active than Rafael and at times he showed decent quality of creativity, but his cooperation with Nani failed almost everytime in the last 20 yards.United almost took the lead after eight minutes as Nani leapt to reach van Persie’s delivery from a corner, resulting in a save from Mark Schwarzer.However, Evra hit the bar from the rebound and Rooney followed that up with a shot that was cleared off the line.

Jonny and Rio were literally 2 wall stones.Both had some excellent interceptions, especially Jonny who exposed an exciting football intelligence by reading very well the opposite's team attacks and their passing game.They also made some mistakes which could have cost us the 3 points, but it ended well.Fulham failed to capitalize their opportunities to score from crosses because of them.Our weaknesses were our lateral defenders, who let Duff, Karagounis and Dejagah to put some dangerous crosses into our 16 yard box.Defensively speaking, Evra was poor, the left side of our team was almost completely uncovered, because Evra 'ran out of stamina' and couldn't provide safety for our defense. Let's not forget that Evans gave the assist for Rooney's goal with that long ball, which I call pure inspiration.Chicharito also gets credit there for fooling Philippe Senderos who misjudged Jonny Evans' high ball.

I must mention that the defense as a whole, still had some issues and made us to watch the game with a sense of fear.Ruiz hit the post and induced his teammates the necessary courage to make a decent game against us.

Midfielders:

Carrick played as CDM and he was the only midfielder who played all the minutes and he deserved it.He was very calm, self confident and our leader in the midfield area.In the first half, his partnership with Cleverley has dominated territorially the pair formed of Baird and Ruiz.The overall team chemistry between our midfielders was decent and didn't let Fulham's players to keep possession with short passes.We forced them to play counter-attacking and use long passes, fact which lead to many interceptions from our CBs.

Although they had a good first half, Nani and Valencia couldn't come with something unpredictable in the 2nd half and seemed to be frustrated and uncomfortable due to the fact that time pressure was increasing.They were swapped with Welbeck and Chicharito.Cleverley didn't have a very good day, he was exhausted very early and with 15 minutes before the final he has been substituted with Ryan Legend Giggs.

The substitutions made by Sir Alex have implied a change in our formation.More precisely, the change was from 4-4-2 to 4-1-3-2: Chicha and RVP played in front, Rooney had to play as LAM, on the other side, Welbs was RAM and Giggs with a little bit more defensive tasks, meant to help Carrick.So...Ferguson arranged the team, so that they could have start some dangerous counter-attacks if needed.

Strikers:

We started with Rooney and RVP and finished with Chicharito and RVP.They created some huge chances to score but the biggest opportunity was in Chicharito's hands in the 2nd half when he was 1 v 1 with Schwarzer but couldn't change the scoreboard.

United were frustrated by Fulham’s stout defending, the crossbar, the post and even the floodlights, which failed with around two minutes of the first half remaining, plunging Craven Cottage into darkness for ten minutes.

Overall verdict:

We could have seen positive aspects of our game and I like to say this because I am the optimistic kind of guy, but to be fair...although we had a decent match, I can't see us eliminating Real Madrid in UCL if we don't improve our overall team game.

MOYLAGH-SHERGAR wrote:Well first off - great to get the three points and a fantastic finish by Rooney.

Again the United defending was poor at times. In the later part of the second half Ferdinand and Evans dribbled out with the ball, finally losing it because they tried to take on Fulham players.....this is ridiculous, stupid little mistakes like this can cost United the game. If Ferdinand or Evans or whoever have no options..then just boot the ball up the field, get it away from the danger zone.

Furthermore, I have a real problem with EVRA, he is a defender, right??? The guy time and time again goes forward...and when the opposition get the ball and are bombing down the field with a counter attack, the French man is sauntering back down the field (and this has been the case for the last number of seasons). FFS Patrice your primary job is to defend....when you do that then and only then you can attack. The last 20 minutes of the game yesterday, almost all Fulham's attacks came from Evra's side. On top of that he gets caught out of position so many times. It really bugs the s++t out of me. I don't understand how Ferguson looks at this week in week out.

Roberto Carlos was a prime example of a defender that got forward but sprinted back down the pitch to defend once he got rid of the ball....Evra needs to take note.

welcome mate more MU fans around :3