The Europa League Thread

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A comfortable 3-0 win for United against St Etienne tonight. All 3 goals from Zlatan. The scoreline is a bit flattering but United deserved the win, and could have had more goals if it wasn't for their keeper making a few good saves. Some decisions went in our favour but we deserved the win and barring a disaster next week that should be United through to the next round.

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I was about to post complaining about United playing negative possession football but in the 16th minute or so United switched to positive football and Micki puts United 0-1 up, so that's 0-4 on aggregate.

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Micki came off injured a bit after he scored, could be a hamstring which is a bit of a bugger with Sunday coming up. Rashford came on to replace him. United 0-1 up at halftime.

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Bailly sent off after a VERY dodgy second yellow card. 

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Finished off with United winning 0-1 and a very comfortable win for United.

[jman]

United got FC Rostov.. probably the worst team to get in terms of travel.. and just before the FA Cup match against us too

What was funny was hearing that Gent was drawn against Genk lol.  Should be interesting listening to the commentary on that one.

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They're not a bad side too. They beat Bayern 3-2 in the Champions League, hammered Sparta Prague 4-0 and drew with PSV twice.

Not too worried about the FA Cup match because Maureen has got a squad that's quite capable of playing two different sides of quality good enough to win both matches if he needs to but I can see him making 7 or 8 changes at the most between the two matches.

Rostov:

Romero

Young Smalling Rojo Darmian

Pogba Herrera

Lingard Micki Martial

Zlatan

Chelski:

De Gea

Valencia Bailly Blind Shaw

Carrick Basti

Mata Fellaini Rashford

Rooney


You could switch any of those players in those two different 11s (apart from Bailly who's suspended for the first leg against Rostov) without losing any quality. We've got arguably the strongest squad in English football at the moment so I'm not too worried about our fixture congestion if we continue to progress in these competitions.

[jman]

Best squad in English football...

Except for when the opposition goalie has the "game of his life" lolol

[harv]

Yup. When you get an opposition goalkeeper making 5 or 6 world class saves you end up with a draw. There's a good few matches when that has happened with United's games. Have a look at those two sides. Could anyone else in English football field two separate 11s with that sort of quality..? And Maureen will probably only make 7 or 8 changes at the most between those two matches anyway rather than two completely different sides.

That's why I'm not too worried about those matches being so close to each other, we've got the squad capable of dealing with this sort of fixture congestion, and our squad will only get stronger next season assuming that Maureen doesn't do his usual and piss off players, staff and/or board members and either get sacked or quit before the start of next season lol

[jman]

Could anyone else in English football field two separate 11s with that sort of quality..?

Well Chelsea can, quite easily too... I would say that only one United player would get in Chelsea's starting 11 and I'm not being biased lol, you're 15 points off the top for good reason

[harv]

Are you SERIOUSLY suggesting that De Gea, Pogba, Carrick, Martial, Lingard, Rashfors and Zlatan in particular wouldn't get into the Chelsea side..? Really?

First trophy of the season for United this afternoon, a great Cup Final to watch too. Very entertaining. I had my doubts that Zlatan would be up to Premiership football and English domestic Cup football but he has been amazing so far this season. Scoring 53 goals in the Froggy league last season was impressive, it's a piss poor league but that's still a ridiculous amount of goals, but I didn't think he'd be up to the pace and phisicality of the Premiership and have been VERY impressed by him so far this season.

Who knows, he might still be playing like this next season too

[jman]

I'd take Hazard, Pedro & Willian over Martial, Lingard and Rashford anyday of the week.  Costa has been shit-hot this year and will probably win the golden boot and be named player of the season - so I'd take him over Zlatan and Kante is arguably the signing of the season... beats Carrick hands down.  Those are easy picks - bizarre you think Lingard and Rashford would get into our first XI when they struggle to get into Uniteds first XI

De Gea vs Courtois and Pogba vs Matic/Fabregas are the only potential match-ups where you could argue the United players... but I'd take Matic if you're playing a defensive midfielder and Fabregas if you're going for attack - I'm afraid Pogba just hasn't cut the mustard this season, his defending has been diabolical at times.

[harv]

You are aware that Zlatan has scored 26 goals so far this season and Costa has only scored 17, right..? But you'd rather have Costa, who's more likely to see red during a match than Zlatan..? Zlatan is a goal scoring machine. Costa is good, but nowhere near that good.

[jman]

Don't let the fact that Zlatan has played 10 more games than Costa get in the way of your logic.  

I'd take Costa because
1) He is far younger.. 7 or 8 years at least.
2) He has more Premier League goals
3) He's more of a team player (and that's saying something!)

Costa has only had 1 red card at Chelsea.. I think you'll find Zlatan has far more red cards than Costa has had if you compare careers, again - don't let the facts get in the way

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Costa has been riding his luck with red cards since he joined Chelsea, he should have had at least two reds this season so far. He's a liability.