Newcastle v Man Utd

[Spear]

booooooooooooooooooom ! easy

touché

 

[silkyman]

Watching the MOTD highlights, was there any arguments about that opening penalty? I saw some moans on twitter. The defender was doing a great bit of goalkeeping and 'making himself big'. You can't have your arm up like that. Lingaard was lucky not to give one away, mind. Strange to see Van Gaal's hissy fit when he missed the chance later on and hauled him off.

 

[GodsGift]

Did he deliberately handle the ball? No. Did he jump for a header and the ball just happened to hit his hand by mistake? Yes. Have you tried jumping before? When you're off balance it's pretty difficult to do with your hands down by your side...

 

[Mr. Scruff]

Ideally Mata would be the number ten .

Bit late to reply but I've seen you come out with this a few times and I dont get why.

Mata has never been anything but absymal for us when played as a number ten. He was given that role at the start of last year in the 3 at the back formation and stunk the place out so much he went to the bench. He only won his place back with good performances on the right. This season our absolute worst performance and result, the 2-1 loss at home to Norwich， guess who started as our no 10? he was as absymal as Rooney has been this year.. That's off the top of my head, I'm sure there are more. I can't remember one good performance from him there.

His best position is on the right where he has more time and space and can drift into the box unmarked. He's not strong, quick or technically good enough to play in the middle. The problem for us is playing him out wide presents us with two problems.

The first is that you need someone who can hold down the entire wing playing him there, he needs the license to drift where he pleases. Valencia despite his defensive limitations is perfect for this. It's no coincidence his form dropped off a cliff ever since Valencia got injured. Darmian and him is as pedestrian a partnership as it comes.

For now I'd play Young but even he isnt ideal If we keep Mata we need a proper attacking fullback in the summer to replace Darmian who needs packing off, dreadful signing. Replacing Rafael with him is somthing Van Gaal should be getting stick for. He's inferior in every way.

The second issue is we can't really accomodate 2 holding midfielders plus Rooney and Mata. Especially if Herrera is our ten. There isnt enough pace and ability to beat a man there. We basically need at least 3 properly quick agile runners in them the midfield and forward areas which means either one orf the Schmidfield goes, not an option given how porous we look with Fellain or Carrick or one of Mata, Rooney or Herrera doesn't play.

For me even in Rooney's worst ever season for us there hasnt been much between them. If it came down to it, I'd probably drop Mata, but take your pick really. They are all capable but aren't doing enough.