Man United vs Man City - 12/04/15

Very happy to eat my words on this occasion, the confidence has been proved warranted. 

Yesterday was amazing, it was almost like you could feel the collective frustration of the last few years of derbies let out and the ground was absolutely bouncing. Once we started playing after they scored, I can't really remember a more dominant performance in the derby since their takeover.  We've obviously still had wins in that time but I don't remember the gap in quality looking that big in the game. 

We completely bossed them. Carrick was imperious, Fellaini dominated, Herrera and Mata were again sublime and even Phil Jones put in his best performance of the season. I also have to say Valencia has now completely won me over as a right back to the point where I'd feel slightly disappointed if we bought one in the summer, he's always been good one on one because his pace and strength made him very hard to beat but he's also thinking like a defender now, he's spotting danger and knowing when to leave his man to go and cover.  When he sprinted from right to left to see Aguero out was truly brilliant full back play.

Special praise has to go to Ashley Young as well.  I've made no secret of the fact he's been my least favourite player in his time here but he seems to save his best for the biggest occasions.  He was brilliant yesterday and has earned himself a new contract, a transformed player under van Gaal.  

I'd like to know what odds you could have got on a Young assisted Fellaini goal in the derby 9 months ago, I'd have given over 1000/1 just for them both to start.

Anyway, who would thought that the best #9 in the world only two seasons ago would not show himself at all or very little and that one of the worst divers in the game paired with one of the most clumsy footballers around when it comes to top teams and their #10's and 8's will turn to pure gold! Just surreal.

But, I feel that it won't be quite enough for the next season when we face the best teams in Europe. I'd like to be proven wrong again on that occasion as well and those two tore apart the European best sides but I just can't swallow that right now.

Valencia was a beast Yesterday. He's even started to get the confidence back to take defenders on, something which he should do more often as there really aren't many players that can compete with him for pace and power. I agree that he's playing that well at right back currently that it would be unfair to replace him. On this form, I'd argue he's a better option than most the right back's we've been linked with.

On balance I'd leave it at a new CB, CM and Forward. Really tough calls to make this Summer, I bet LVG is flip flopping like a beached salmon as much as us. You'd be a fool to lose Fellaini's positive attributes as an option in this league, and the Mata / Herrera partnership is fluid as fuck and fast developing and Rooney is made for those two.

Yeah, they really helped show everything we've been working on this season.

The contrast to the clip they showed in the West Brom game was unreal. I remember thinking we played well in that game, in the second half at least, but we looked a complete shambles in comparison.

I noticed Chris Smalling doing what Caragher was on about yesterday in the ground, he seems to have been getting more and more vocal recently.

For those who didn't see it:

link

I thought Rooney was the worst, having this type of analysis is always helpful to understand things better in highlights slow motion. High defensive line and how they move in relation to each other, bloody brilliant. Many teams in the EPL will find this as a pain in the arse and will be dominated over the course of the next season. Loved comparing with Barcelona's system especially.

If we played like this from the beginning of the season and understood van Gaal's methods from the very off, the different tune would be sung about underperformers such as Falcao, RvP and di Maria for example. What Rooney's been doing in this match, all 3 of them are very capable of doing the same I think. The problem was that team wasn't compact and coherent like Neville and Carra has showed and like I said, the slow motions really shows this to perfection. That's why I've always been saying that one or two particular players are not the problem, they were making exactly those same runs as Rooney against Manchester City but Falcao and RvP didn't have this coherent and compact team behind them at the time to make it work. When they even find themselves in a good positions to score, the level of confidence is already low and we've seen the misses very unusual for those players.

Now, they have their fair share of blame too. Sometimes, many times actually they couldn't be arsed to move their butts a bit but everything is connected like we've seen from this. If a machine have a broken or week units as it's parts, it can't be functional. Now, everything's changed, the players understand what they've been taught and act accordingly to instructions. What to do to improve the machine? Replace some units with a more quality ones, oil it and integrate it into the system.

The future is bright.