I must admit I was impressed with the team today.
We have so many strings to play on now and when Plan A does not work we actually have a few other plans (B, C and D) that we can go with make it work.
What I liked about todays game was that we won ugly. We stood up when it looked like the game was in the balance and kenny made telling substituions that made a difference. Yes, we did get slightly lucky that Emmanuel Frimpong was inexperienced and took two totally liglitimate and fair yellow cards. At the same time we kept passing the ball, made space but personally I thought we were going long on Carroll quite a bit.
I know he is strong and big but we sometimes forget that he is good on the ground as well and be fed the ball. Downing is looking like a proper signing. He is a winger that offers true width. Saying that he would have even more space to operate should we have width offered on the other wing. Henderson is simply not an out and out winger and keeps drifiting towards the middle. He is growing in confidence and looked better today than he did against sunderland. Still I think he does not offer enough currently and maybe that is ok. Maybe this is part of Kenny's strategy with him. If he is going to develop he has to get playing time. Right now however we have a better player on the bench in Mereiles. I think both Henderson and Mereiles are better through the middle dispite their mobility and crossing abilities.
I read about Henderson before he came to the club and that he had 13 assists playing through the middle and on the right wing for Sunderland. If he is going to work on that wing Kelly will have to come storming on overlaps to offer that much needed width. I think he can do that with success as he showed us last year in the second part of the season. He is still coming back to full fitness however and looked promising today. Had a great defensive display and got a few crosses in however he did not try to go past Sagna once. Maybe that was down to the quality of oponent he was up against and that pace that Sagna has as well. I think he will be told to try to beat defenders once he comes up against weaker opposition.
For example next week we will be playing Bolton and Paul Robinson at least last year was not particularly impressive. He is decent but is nowhere near as quick as Kelly. I am sure they are going target some of Bolton's weaknesses and I think that is one of them.
Enrique was man of the match for me today. For me he has been absolutely quality not putting a foot wrong so far.
He seems to be bedding in with the team nicely and in his interview with Skysports he even mention that he feels more comfortable every minute of first time football he gets with team.
It was also refreshing to see that we actually have a bench that does not consist of Zorba the greek and youth that has barely got a game yet....
We actually have people now that come off the bench and make a difference. Skretel was back today on the bench which was also refreshing to see.
All in all we didnt play beautiful football and we didnt have lots of guys rushing into the box and create a ton of chances. What we did do was win ugly and we won on a day where we were not at our best.
I do not like to say it but that is United like... If we had a bit more luck or were slightly more clinical last week we would have come away with 6 points from these games.
Going forward I think we can get better once all the new signgins start to gel and Kenny drills the offensive posetion football that we saw on a regular basis in second half of last season into them this could start getting really interesting.
For the record I still think Lucas is still lacking pace despite having yet another great game today. I think he could have avoided that yellow card though if he would be quicker.
We also finally have a great passer in midfield in Adam. He is a poor mans Alonso but it has been desperately needed since Xabi left.
YNWA,
Stian
No comments:
Post a Comment