We were extremely unlucky in tonights match. Played decent, got 3 goals and all the new players played very well. Rankin was brilliant, Flood very good battling away in midfield and I thought Gary Mackay-Stevens looked decent for the 10 minutes he got on. Goodwillie worked his socks off upfront. Just a couple of things that could have put United through tonight.
1) Zonal marking - never ever works. See Rafa Benitez about that when he was at Liverpool. This was Uniteds biggest downfall defensively last season and I urge Houston to change it, quickly. Daly 'thought' it was Severins man, and when you use man marking that mistake is unable to occur.
2) Players sitting back - I thought that the likes of Russell, Daly and Flood (only in the first half) were not pressurising the full backs often and that led to Slask being able to roam freely with the ball. After we went 2-0 up, we should have just got the ball off them and passed it about and slowed the game down.
There were encouraging signs from United tonight, even though we're out. First and foremost, we won the game. They weren't brilliant but if we scored one of the chances in the first leg, we'd be laughing right now. Daly was unlucky with his chance at the end. The Spanish ref wasn't really up to much either, no surprise. Slask players going down like p oofs all the time, but in Spain thats just second nature to them.
United were unlucky, and if we play like that throughout the season, I see it being another top 4 finish.
Very unlucky
posted on 21/7/11
Cant believe Flood got booked for taking a quick freekick aswell
posted on 22/7/11
Player ratings IMO
Dusan Pernis : 7
Keith Watson: 9
Sean Dillon: 7
Garry Kenneth: 8
Paul Dixon: 6/7
Willo Flood: 8
Johnny Russell: 7
John Rankin: 9
Scott Severin: 8
Jon Daly: 8
David Goodwillie: 8
Danny Swanson: 4
Gary Mackay-Steven: 5
posted on 22/7/11
For me that is Houston's final chance. that team were not the team they were hiped up to be.
Good on the ball, but literally shambolic at the back and there for the taking.
3-1 at half time and making chances at will playing 442, Houston clearly told them at 1/2 time to sit back and defend the lead. For 20 mins it was clear they were going to score, and we hadn't really come out of our half. several players were out on their feet on a booking and1 tackle away from red (Dixon & Russel), and PH, as usual, waits until we are out (or until Levein texts him) to make a decision....
I really think we would have scored 5 or 6 last night if we had gone for it 2nd half - instead we went out with a whimper to a poor team.
The ref was bad, but no big decisions that cost us, just stupid niggly wee decisions which i expect in europe. we are out because either the players, but i suspect more the manager, doesn't have the bottle to win.
posted on 22/7/11
Totally agree marty, we did very well against a team very much on a par with ourselves.
posted on 22/7/11
i am stunned we are out why on earth we just sat back in the 2nd half when that team were very poor in defence yet again poor finishing has cost us our place in europe daly should hang his head in shame missing that great chance at the end while rankine shoud have done a lot better with his chance i hope houston is happy his stupid tactics are the reason we are out
posted on 22/7/11
unlucky?
yous were pumped out
posted on 22/7/11
Gutted after last nights game.
Couldn't have asked for a better start and 2 very well taken goals. Once Slask got over the initial shock of our start they seemed to settle and started pasing the ball around pretty well. Was end to end first half and a cool penalty from Daly to make it 3-1. Was so close to being 4-1 on the stroke of half time with Dalys header as it glanced passed the post. Have to say though- if he'd squared it, Russell was there for a tap in.
Now for the negatives and basically reiterating what's said above.
1) Ther's no doubt that zonal marking works, but it certainly doesn't seem to suit us. There was a corner 5 minutes or so before Slask scored where we had 11 players in our own 18 yard box. I never paid attention if this was the case for their goal but I can't see why it would be any different. To be given the space their player had in the box to score when our whole team is in the box is pretty poor and at least if United go man to man there is a responsiblity for who is picking up who and we're not caught flat footed. Also- I don't know why we don't leave someone up top. They only left a couple of players back because we left nobody up the pitch. If someone was up there they would have had to have left at least one more player back. As it was they knew our best outcome was a hoof up the pitch where they could easily deal with it without challenge.
2) The second half was a poor performance I thought. Understandably we were a little cagey as we knew if we lost a goal we were out. Houston stated earlier in the week that he though Slask would try and hit us on the counter attack and it looked like in the second half that the tactics to negate this was not to press too high up the pitch so we wouldn't create gaps for them to attack. In some ways that's fair enough, but like the OP said, we done the total opposite of press high up the pitch and sat too far off them, not challenging and inviting them onto us. They had numerous long range shots throughout the night and if you keep inviting a team to shoot it's a matter of time until they at least hit the target, as we found out as the ball sailed into the top corner.
3) Being under pressure in the second half we needed to try and keep possession when we finally did have the ball. Too often we tried to look for the long diagonal ball from the back. Don't get me wrong- it obviously worked at times, but we should have mixed it up a bit more. The only time we really had the ball on the deck from defence forward was when Swanson came on the pitch and dropped to collect the ball.
4) Poor miss from Daly right at the death. Thought he had a good game all in all but if you're not gonna score from a chance like that then it should be because you've at least made the keeper make a save.
There were a lot of positives to be taken too obviously and like Houston has said, if we play like that this season in the SPL there is no reason we can't get into Europe again next season.
Disappointed but as ever- prod to be an arab!
posted on 22/7/11
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
"proud" not "prod"
posted on 22/7/11
I didn't think we actually played all that well last night, too many long balls as so often is the case. We have players with enough ability to play with the ball on the deck so let's do it! Obviously coming out of the blocks quickly with the 2 early goals is what won us the game last night.
Agreed that they were pretty dodgy at the back and there were more goals for us to be had had we attacked more. But how many times do you see it in football? A team gets a one goal lead (in the tie) and instinctively wants to defend their advantage. It's not like this is the first time it's ever happened.
Having said that, we still created by far the more clearcut chances, they knocked the ball around nicely at times but didn't have much of a cutting edge. For that reason I'm really disappointed at not getting through.
On the upside, thought Flood and Rankin looked pretty good, haven't seen too much of Rankin but he seems keen to get stuck in which hopefully will add a bit of steel to the midfield.
I see PH is saying if we do as well in the SPL as we did last night then we'll back in Europe next season. Very well, but not much point if we keep going out at the first hurdle!
posted on 22/7/11
Not a bad loss Our own league is probably on par with the polish league.
Kinda starts to raise questions though about summer football and groundhog days of four games a season aginst the same mob.
Since Aberdeen what team has plyed in the group stages outwith the OF.
Dundee Utd had the players to win that game, but just lacked match fitness.