Not making it out of this group would be embarrassing. Outside of the trip to Moscow, it's about as good of a draw as we could have asked for.
That's cool to get that December trip to Moscow. Hope we have the group wrapped up by then and send a reserve squad.
Happy with the CL draw, did as best as we could. Zlatan returning just in time for the bulk of our CL matches would be huge for our depth at striker. Having three capable players there in him, Rom, and Rashford will be much better than our last go-round in CL when we had, well, just Rooney IIRC?
Also, Jose said in his press conference today that he isn't expecting Zlatan to be healthy for any of the CL group stage matches. Still not expecting him back until January. He over estimated Shaw and Young's recovery time too but I think that was mainly to put pressure on Woodward to sign another player.
Welp. That blows up my three striker theory. Though if we cant make it out of our group without him we didnt belong there in the first place.
I love this team. I think my favorite part of that game/this team is that I wasn't really nervous at all after the first goal. I was pretty confident that this team would see out the win.
Think I saw a tweet that, if you include preseason, the Bailly/Jones partnership hasn't conceded a goal for over 400 minutes.
A year ago who thought Phil Jones would be on United let alone starting and performing well. Guys had a full career of gaffs, stardom and injury by the age of 25. Remarkable. The opposite could be said of Smalling. I thought he was he next Ferdinand
Smalling has been garbage since Wolfsburg away in the CL two years ago. Would have loved it if we had sold him and bought Keane and Lindelof, but Keane wanted regular first team minutes. It still amazes me that our reigning player of the year has only played 6 minutes so far this season.
Would think it makes sense to put him in against Stoke. Pogba, Matic, Herrera midfield. Micki might make way?
Either him or Mata. Mata has had a quietly good start to the season imo. It doesn't show on the stat sheet but his movement and quick distribution have been great. It brings me back to a Jose quote from last season about "needing Mata's brain" on the pitch. I think signing Matic has helped him, even just from a being able to get consistent minutes standpoint, almost as much as it's helped Pogba.
Anybody watch Euro's to see how our guys looked? Everytime I tried I fell asleep. For some reason I don't find international play nearly as interesting as league play.