Manchester United (A) 22.09.2018

[jdrodrigues]

Call me ridiculously optimistic or arrogant but I'd bet on a win. All or nothing, here we go!

 

[SLA]

I'd be ecstatic with a win to give me bragging rights over my Man U supporting brothers but this game's a bit of a free hit. As long as we play as we know we can and put in a good performance, I'm not too worried about the result.

 

[Quirkafleeg]

Any result against any team in the Top 6 will be good for me.

Man City - Tick
Man Utd - ?

 

[Siggy]

I'm sure we're not taking it lightly at all mate. However City are a class above Utd in every way, and we matched them. We've lost 1 game, and we played well in that and were unlucky. We should be confident going into this game. They're 1 spot above us in the table. Nuno will have our team believing we can win this game.

We can't use 1 match to gauge where we are, we will know more by the end of the year how well equipped we are with the current squad. I remember us being bottom of the table and given UTD a very good game some years ago, its a one off match and anything can happen. City are a universe apart from us at the moment and whilst I am proud of how we fought that day we could get spanked 4-0 next time.

I also think many championship sides would have beaten the Burnley side we faced last week, I am glad we won but still there are things we need to improve.

I am glad we will try to win against UTD no-one wants to see us park the bus and pray but for now I will be very happy with a point, anything more would be incredible (and also incredibly bad for my liver)

We will see but I can see many fans getting a little bit carried away when I think we have some very tough fixtures ahead.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Do we? In our next eight games after this one, we play all of Southampton, Palace, Watford, Brighton, Huddersfield and Cardiff. That's about as gentle a run as you'll get.

 

[Jinky]

Worth a look

http://www.redcafe.net/matches/manchester-united-vs-wolverhampton-wanderers.237/discussion

They are a decent team and will create some chances. But will concede 3 goals. Or more.

they have the joint 4th best defensive record in the league conceding only 5, it won't be easy to open them up I am sure while them being known as an attacking team mostly. I believe we should have quality and enough confidence to score at least 2 past them and win the game for us

Absolutely no reason why we don't smash these mugs.
3 puff to us.

Can't stand football fans like this. Patronising wankers who clearly know nothing about us. I can't wait for us to burst a few of their bubbles tomorrow.

 

[Siggy]

Do we? In our next eight games after this one, we play all of Southampton, Palace, Watford, Brighton, Huddersfield and Cardiff. That's about as gentle a run as you'll get.

I was including the Man U game in that and Watford certainly doesn't look like an easy game at the moment either. You could argue that Southampton, Palace and the rest of them are easy games but with expectations now changing rapidly we will see. If we can take 9/10 points from all of those games I will be delighted.

Look at it this way,

Everton - Poor - ok nerves a big part of that but with 11 men I don't see any way we wouldn't have lost that match.
Leicester - Poor - Played well but lacked cutting edge badly. Bearing in mind they were down to 10 for a decent amount of time we should have been getting a point there.
Man City - Awesome - Played well above our station in a cup final style scenario for us. That said a deserved draw.
West Ham - Average - Some good and some bad but West Ham were very poor and it took a late goal to get the win lets not also forget Rui saving us on more than one occasion.
Burnley - Good/bad - I say that because of our lack of a finishing touch, Burnley look like relegation fodder and we only managed to hit the back of the net once.

Personally i think our current points tally is a little bit flattering, I am enjoying the ride hugely but if we don't become more clinical I could see our fortunes changing quickly.

Not trying to be a party pooper but I think we need to be a bit realistic.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

I'd certainly say that's a very downbeat assessment of our performances so far.

 

[Langers]

I was including the Man U game in that and Watford certainly doesn't look like an easy game at the moment either. You could argue that Southampton, Palace and the rest of them are easy games but with expectations now changing rapidly we will see. If we can take 9/10 points from all of those games I will be delighted.

Look at it this way,

Everton - Poor - ok nerves a big part of that but with 11 men I don't see any way we wouldn't have lost that match.
Leicester - Poor - Played well but lacked cutting edge badly. Bearing in mind they were down to 10 for a decent amount of time we should have been getting a point there.
Man City - Awesome - Played well above our station in a cup final style scenario for us. That said a deserved draw.
West Ham - Average - Some good and some bad but West Ham were very poor and it took a late goal to get the win lets not also forget Rui saving us on more than one occasion.
Burnley - Good/bad - I say that because of our lack of a finishing touch, Burnley look like relegation fodder and we only managed to hit the back of the net once.

Personally i think our current points tally is a little bit flattering, I am enjoying the ride hugely but if we don't become more clinical I could see our fortunes changing quickly.

Not trying to be a party pooper but I think we need to be a bit realistic.

Well we could and probably should have beaten Leicester, the 2 wins have been more than deserved and the Everton/City games could have gone either way so to say our points tally is flattering is a bit bizarre.

We're playing some great stuff but personally I think we can - and will - improve. Cav/Dendoncker haven't featured yet, we're creating plenty, we're looking solid at the back and we look more than comfortable at this level.

So yes - you're being a party pooper.

 

[lemonjelly]

We can't use 1 match to gauge where we are, we will know more by the end of the year how well equipped we are with the current squad. I remember us being bottom of the table and given UTD a very good game some years ago, its a one off match and anything can happen. City are a universe apart from us at the moment and whilst I am proud of how we fought that day we could get spanked 4-0 next time.

I also think many championship sides would have beaten the Burnley side we faced last week, I am glad we won but still there are things we need to improve.

I am glad we will try to win against UTD no-one wants to see us park the bus and pray but for now I will be very happy with a point, anything more would be incredible (and also incredibly bad for my liver)

We will see but I can see many fans getting a little bit carried away when I think we have some very tough fixtures ahead.

I'm not using 1 match though, I referred to all 5.
Looking at how we've played (and like DW/langers I think you're a little on the pessimistic side with your other post) we're pretty much on a par with Utd, albeit only being from 5 games.

That said, we're improving. We're confident. And we have players with nous and creativity. This game isn't about damage limitation. We can go into this with a belief. I think there's a lot of truth in Aiki's post personally.

 

[Siggy]

I'm not using 1 match though, I referred to all 5.
Looking at how we've played (and like DW/langers I think you're a little on the pessimistic side with your other post) we're pretty much on a par with Utd, albeit only being from 5 games.

That said, we're improving. We're confident. And we have players with nous and creativity. This game isn't about damage limitation. We can go into this with a belief. I think there's a lot of truth in Aiki's post personally.

I hope you are all right, the way we are playing is fine I just worry about scoring goals at the moment more than anything.

Just seems like a very strange thing to be playing Man U and being confident of getting a result, my brain can't handle it.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

It's a bit of a cliché, but I'd be far more concerned if we weren't creating chances.

We didn't create a huge amount against Everton (still deserved something out of the game though, and you can't rewrite history and say "if they had 11 men", they didn't) but in all the other games since:

Should have been 3-0 up vs Leicester, created plenty after we went behind too
More shots vs Man City than most PL teams manage
Plenty of chances vs West Ham, Fabianski saved them as much as Rui saved us, leaving aside Raul's "effort" which doesn't even officially count as a shot
Battered Burnley, 30 shots is incredible

It's not just us getting giddy, the praise from the media has been more or less universal too.

Enjoy it. If you can't enjoy this, you'll never enjoy anything to do with Wolves.

 

[Langers]

I have been frustrated reading the matchday threads so far this season as they don't really seem to resemble the game I'm following. They seem very, very negative indeed, filled with hyperbole but I can't really say I've felt on edge particularly often whilst watching us this season. We look comfortable and we look like a good side. The defence don't give me the jitters (as they used to pretty much constantly prior to the start of last season) and the only real drawback for me is that we haven't taken enough of the chances we've created.

Maybe it's just hard to let go of the familiar feeling of nervousness? If you were to read through some of the matchday threads, it doesn't seem like some of you are particularly enjoying watching us which seems insane because I'm bloody loving it.

 

[Siggy]

It's a bit of a cliché, but I'd be far more concerned if we weren't creating chances.

We didn't create a huge amount against Everton (still deserved something out of the game though, and you can't rewrite history and say "if they had 11 men", they didn't) but in all the other games since:

Should have been 3-0 up vs Leicester, created plenty after we went behind too
More shots vs Man City than most PL teams manage
Plenty of chances vs West Ham, Fabianski saved them as much as Rui saved us, leaving aside Raul's "effort" which doesn't even officially count as a shot
Battered Burnley, 30 shots is incredible

It's not just us getting giddy, the praise from the media has been more or less universal too.

Enjoy it. If you can't enjoy this, you'll never enjoy anything to do with Wolves.

Oh I am loving it I think its just Wolves anxiety creeping in (apparently its not even a rare condition) I must be getting old.

 

[StuardoWulf]

Kin Hell Siggy
Although I don't strongly disagree with your summary I feel a lot more optimistic than you sound in that post.
I think we can beat Utd if we play well and convert our chances. I don't think these are anywhere near Citeh

 

[Johnny75]

I hope you are all right, the way we are playing is fine I just worry about scoring goals at the moment more than anything.

Jota and Costa haven't got their scoring boots on yet and our inside forwards contributed a lot of goals last season and on the evidence so far they are getting the opportunities to score but they're not taking them. I'm sure they will and if not they will be replaced by Cav and Traore who certainly will.

We're following a similar pattern from last season with Bonatini getting 2, Cav as sub 1 and Jota 1 goal from the first 5 league games (Neves also scored) and we only scored 7 in our first 5 games (3 wins, 1 draw, 1 defeat). Sub out Raul for Leo and Traore for Cav and we're not looking too far apart. Granted the league is tougher but I see the qualities of this squad have also gone up a notch and we're getting better as we did last season.

Good times Siggy.

 

[HanDoJin]

Absolutely no reason why we don't smash these mugs.
3 puff to us.

Absolutely zero Mancunians would use the word "mugs" (unless they were pouring a brew)

 

[Pablowolf]

Siggy, are you Charles Ross in disguise?

 

[Siggy]

Siggy, are you Charles Ross in disguise?

That just made me spit out my coffee lol. Bloody hope not!! Not sure where the inner doom-monger has come from today I think i need to go back to bed or drink some beer or something.

 

[pr0sl0]

Oh I am loving it I think its just Wolves anxiety creeping in (apparently its not even a rare condition) I must be getting old.

It takes a long time to shake that feeling. Watching the Burnley game with my dad was interesting - he was constantly complaining about the finishing, unsurprisingly, but anything that didn't go quite right - any slight misplaced pass, any hesitation on the ball, any time Burnley managed to string together more than a single pass - was immediately met with "oh here we go". It feels like there's the constant expectation that pride has always come before a fall in living memory with Wolves, and since the pride is so intense right now, the fall on its way must be immense.

I know Man City fans who still expect it to go tits up every season, which from the outside is even more unbelievable - and their pessimism may be repeatedly chipped away at each year, but it's still there a decade later.