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LIVE BLOG: Norwich City vs. United

December 28, 2013

Nashat Hassan

Follow @Nashat_Hassan on Twitter.

CONFIRMED LINE-UP: Norwich vs United

VIDEO: Welbeck goal vs Norwich

49 Comments

united till i die December 28, 2013

Nothing better than hearing our away fans in fine voice, fucking love it.

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GregSylent December 28, 2013

best away support in the league

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babzcorleone December 28, 2013

Why do we get dominated in every fucking match!

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babzcorleone December 28, 2013

We're struggling in every game while City and Arsenal are steamrolling team!

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united till i die December 28, 2013

Wellbeck would be the better option up front. Hernandez can't hold the ball up and he's not going to win anything in the air.

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Dan Young December 28, 2013

the service for hernandez is fucking embarassing!

fabio should be playing right back right now. and we dont create nearly enough unless we have either januzaj or valencia on the pitch.

young on the right would be a good idea if he had a good enough fullback to work with, but smalling is a centre back.

and we need to stop passing backwards.

also what the hell is giggs and kagawas positions today? are we playing 4-3-3 or a 4-2-3-1 with kagawa on the left and giggs in the middle?

second half we need kagawa in the middle and staying close to hernandez and giggs coming off for either zaha or januzaj.... oh and someone learning how to fucking cross a ball!

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babzcorleone December 28, 2013

Surely Ashley Young is the worst passer of the ball we've ever had??

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leftback35 December 28, 2013

I bet I can play better than Young. The guy is an absolute joke.

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babzcorleone December 28, 2013

We might win this, but we're a very average team. We need to buy 2 centre backs, a whole new midfield and some proper wingers that actually score goals.
Sell Young, Nani, Hernandez, Kagawa and Cleverley! Buy Reus, Vidal, Pedro and Chiellini

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Dan Young December 28, 2013

2 new centre backs?! fucking hell. our centre backs are the ones keeping us in this. its the midfield not supporting them! as for sell cleverley and hernandez, you just went full retard

babzcorleone this isnt fucking fifa!

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leftback35 December 28, 2013

Wow....I guess the table doesn't lie.

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RepeatOf99 December 28, 2013

Kagawa reminds me of Berbatov.

Technically a brilliant player, who just doesn't fit into our system / style of play whatsoever!

I'm not sure what his best position is meant to be (he plays attacking left side for Japan, and played in the hole behind Lewandowski for Dortmund), but he has been shifted all over the place in the last year and a half, and just doesn't score or assist enough to justify his place. It is shocking that a reserve team player with no experience whatsoever in the first team, can walk into his place and take nearly every game he has featured in by the scruff of the neck; yet he has struggled for about 18 months.

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babzcorleone December 28, 2013

Fuck off mate. Cleverley isnt good enough! From Scholes to Cleverley - its a joke!! Hernandez's game hasnt come on at all. Our wingers are shit! Vida and Rio are done now. Evans is a reserve at best! Youre living in dreamland if you think this team is good enough. Apart from Rooney and RVP we have no other world class players..when has that ever been good enough at United? From a team that had Becks, Giggs, Keane, Scholes, Ruud etc.. then a team that had Ronaldo, Tevez, Rooney, Berbatov, Scholes, Vida/Rio/Carrick/Evra in their prime, Van der sar and then onto the pile of shit Moyes is serving up every week!

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NairobiRed December 28, 2013

@Dan
Agree, the midfield has been shocking, barely noticeable. I know Carrick's greatest act is disappearing against the big boys but when he does it against Norwich, it's embarrassing. United need a complete midfield overhaul, Carrick included.

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dannysoya LOVES USAIN BOLT December 28, 2013

One of the most dire performances this season. Absolutely shcoking going forward.

United attacking plan going forward = Lump it up to Hernandez (One of the shortest fucking men onthe field) and hope for the best. As dire as it gets. Smalling is completely horrendous going forward. Offers NO attacking outlet whatsoever.

Midfield totally non -existent again. I didn't even realize we had midfielders on the pitch. If you didn't tell me that Cleverley was playing, I would never have known. Please Januzaj and Welbeck on in the second. Truly terrible.

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TopRed123 December 28, 2013

What the fuck is this shit?!? The line-up was depressing but what the hell?

Both Carrick and ClevZZZZZ#23 are doing their best impressions of non-league footballers. Nice.
The whole defense is fucking clueless, and up top we have nothing. 10 pussies on the field and one king pussy on the sidelines. Seriously, my local 5th division team could serve up better football than these overpaid, distinctly average "footballers". Cleverley just stands there and WATCHES as one Norwich player after another just goes past him. I would seriously trade the sack of shit for ANY random midfielder in the Premier League right now. Probably thinking about his blog or hair or something equally ridiculous instead of actually trying to give a fuck.

Players picking up muscle injuries one after another. Wonder how those double running sessions are working out for us?

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MattyMusiq December 28, 2013

Sell kagawa? For benching him ten games, playing him out on the left, or expecting the matrix miracle from him in 45mins? Smh kid get off that fifa console.

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RepeatOf99 December 28, 2013

Everyone criticising Hernandez should calm down a bit. He is an out and out goal poacher, and is being used as a lone striker with absolutely zero service coming from our 'midfield'.

Shocking to see how quickly some of us have turned on Carrick too. He has never been a world-class midfielder, but it is his first game back from injury and all we usually require from him is to keep possession well and pass it on to those who can create something. He isn't a million miles away from this even in that first half.

Now when it comes to Cleverly and GIggs, yeah they are shocking. Cleverly is a decent squad player at best. There is no way we should be relying on him game after game, as a first team pinnacle of our attacking system. Giggs is still the only player on the pitch who has the vision and skill to pick out a killer pass which no-one else would even see.....but he does literally nothing between these passes that come about once every two games.

Injury has hit our midfield, but you have to think that Anderson could surely provide us with a bit more fight than this.....and also, since we are so short in the midfield department, why have we chosen to play 5 in midfield and 1 striker during this time? Surely putting Welbeck on would have been playing more to our current strengths?!

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TywinnLannister December 28, 2013

Giggs and Cleverly simply do not work. Cleverly is always in a limbo position. He's not attacking and he's not defending either. As if he is there so we have 11 players on the field. Giggs is pretty much all over the place.

Carrick can only do so much with the other two don't work.

Vidic has been the backbone, I feel safer with him in charge. Our defense is more solid with him around. But the way things are going right now, we will be lucky if we get a draw.

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Dan Young December 28, 2013

babzcorleone .. if you want to support a team that is full of world class talent (which you seem to be justifying by their pricetags) then go support city. we have smalling, jones, evans and keane all coming through learning from vidic and ferdinand. cleverley has been playing well the last few weeks and is a good player. our wingers are shit. we are a counterattacking team that has wingers that cant run past a player. but we do have valencia, januzaj and (in my opinion) zaha who are capable of livening up our wings.

as for your from scholes to cleverley comment, you must be fucking joking. your putting the gap left by the greatest midfielder of the last 20 years on cleverleys shoulders?! your fucking stupid arent you?

i prefer for us to buy talent and make it world class, which is what we are doing with jones, smalling, powell, zaha, januzaj, welbeck, rafael and de gea. and i dont doubt there will be more young players with world class potential coming in along the way.

your mind set is like roman abramovic's .. if there isnt success quick enough you whine like a little bitch.

oh and as for your 'pile moyes is serving up each week' comment. hes playing with a team completely made up by fergie. so your blaming fergies squad selection on moyes and scholes growing old and retiring on cleverley. unbelievable

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ronsils December 28, 2013

Bloody hopeless yet again

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LoneStarRed7 December 28, 2013

Kagawa is never going to be as effective without midfield service, something we have lacked for eons it seems. No Rooney and it is again so obvious.

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Torur Av Kak Olsen December 28, 2013

Give the guys the hairdryer and lets win this!!!

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united till i die December 28, 2013

Carrick and Cleverly sent the problem the problem is playing them two behind Hernandez and kagawa. Both midfielders play so deep if by some miracle Hernandez actually holds the ball up the midfield takes to long to get up and support and possession is lost.

Get wellbeck on to use his size and strength up front and get januzaj on for giggs on the wings so he can attack the full backs.

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OJM December 28, 2013

Dan Young:

- While I mostly agree with you, Cleverley is average at very best. He could get away with it at a bottom half PL team, but not here...

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leftback35 December 28, 2013

Put fuckin' Janujaz in there. Young is fuckin' useless.

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babzcorleone December 28, 2013

@Dan Young - Im not BLAMING cleverley.. just saying he is not good enough!! Its ciminal that Moyes saw that Scholes retired and didnt buy an attacking midfielder..that not me who did that it was fucking moyes! You are probably the only person who thinks Cleverley is good enough. Jus read the other comments! Fergie worked miracles with this team thats why he is regarded as the greatest modern football manager the world has seen.
Yes i completely agree we've always had players coming through. But havent we paid for and bought in great players too..being competitive for the best players in the world is also part of our history. Examples.. Rio, Rooney, Ronaldo, Berbatov, Veron, Tevez, Vidic, Evra, RVP, Ruud, Stam, Keane, Carrick, and many others..
You are seriously saying Young, Nani and Zaha are good enough to play for one of the 3 biggets clubs in world football? WHYYYY are you setting your expectations so low?? We are Man United, i know we have a midtable manager but lets not develop a midtable mindset..like Liverpool did back in the early 90's

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babzcorleone December 28, 2013

Welbeck!!!! Finally

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babzcorleone December 28, 2013

Come on United!!

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Maltamanc December 28, 2013

Keep scoring Danny !!!! Keep shutting me up !!!

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The One December 28, 2013

Hmm, and there were loads here slating Danny boy, saying he's not united class and calling him a donkey.

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The One December 28, 2013

in my humble opinion, Rene isn't good enough.

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The One December 28, 2013

A bit more like it from United!!

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John Okanyi December 28, 2013

What a useless fcking pussy performaces.

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NairobiRed December 28, 2013

Winning but playing a very brutal form of football. Can't these players just try to play and pass?

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The One December 28, 2013

What a response from Brucey's team!!!

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babzcorleone December 28, 2013

How fucking lucky was that!!

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ashtheking December 28, 2013

Nice 3 points. 4 wins in the trot. This is what we missed at the start of the season. We conceded some silly late goals and didnt score but now we are changing those things. I still would have liked us to go for more goals but Norwich were Good today. They always give their best to us and just roll over against Liverpool and City. So good 3 points.

By the way heard City were piss poor at home against Crystal Palace. We just need to win coz I can see other teams now dropping points.

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UnitedFaithful December 28, 2013

Good win without Roo,RVP,Nani,Jones,Rafa,TonyV.Not going to dwell on the performance,Welbeck and Januzaj has to start against Spurs,two players have huge ability o the ball and can graft as well for the team,I wouldn't rush RVP even if he is fit.Away fans again were at full voice.

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TopRed123 December 28, 2013

A horrendous first half performance, but one substitution and a change in formation made a huge difference. Rode our luck but got 3 vital points. We got very lucky in the build-up to the goal but won't complain.

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losomanutd December 28, 2013

guys the team played 48 hours before evans de gea smalling evra cleverley young tired legs out there

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Dela December 28, 2013

Well it wasn't pretty but given the starting line-up I wasn't expecting pretty at all. Carrick just back and seems off the pace... clevz slipped a bit today, kagawa had a strange game, couple of good moments, lots of bad ones, same with hernandez (who to be fair was starved at times of supply). Evra same can be said... some bizarre attempted clearances from defense etc.

But.... that said.. two games in 48 hours and we got 6 points out of them.. both away fixtures and with arsenal still to play newcastle and chelsea still to play liverpool so I won't complain too much. Welbeck came up with the good again today and what a vital goal that could be. Lot of humble pies need to be ordered up on here!!

Hope Rooney gets over the groin strain ASAP, his presence is always missed.

Will be absolutely hoping for draws in newcastle v. arsenal, chelsea vs. liverpool tomorrow... would leave us 7 off the top.... long way still but it was 13 earlier this month...Draw in the everton game or a southampton win would go down a treat too. But I know the likely outcome is there'll be a winner in all three games, but fuck it, as long as we didnt lose ground and chelsea and liverpool cant both win!

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rijahs December 28, 2013

The good thing is that we have won this and have reduced the gap with liverpool for the time being. I am really happy for De gea for making some wonderful saves and for keeping us in the match.

As for the selling of the players, this will only help to unstable the team if we remove too many players and bring new players. Every team has to gel together to start getting better results and this will take more time with ideas like that.

Try to trust in Moyes as we can see replacing managers can have negative impact on a team, which will indeed lead us to have worse time than this. I am sure Moyes took a gamble today by playing some fringe players together to get a better team against Tottenham in the coming week.. GGMU... :)

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NefariousVirtuoso88 December 28, 2013

De Gea 7 - couple of very good saves
Vidic 6 - he panic's so much now and his distribution is awful
Evans 6 - poor distribution
Evra 5 - defended like a complete mug
Smalling 8 - dominant
Carrick 5 - statuesque
Cleverley 7 - did not stop moving, working, pressing and wanting the ball
Giggs 5 - looked all 40 years of age
Young 7 - his best game for a while looked to take on defenders for a change
Kagawa 4 - abysmal beyond belief
Hernandez 6 - not suited to playing up on his own

MOTM : Danny Wellbeck's presence changed the game. His movement and positive play was incredibly impressive. Great clinical finish too. He looks like he has stepped up a level.

- The three of Giggs, Kagawa and Young were all over the place in the first half drifting leaving the full backs exposed.
- In the first half we didn't press their central midfielders at all giving them time to play.

The second we brought on Wellbeck and pressed them in central midfield we looked like a much better team.

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lecho December 28, 2013

Football is no ski jumping, you wont get points for style here. No matter if it's 1:0 or 5:0 - we need to string some wins and THEN start thinking about entertainment.

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murssheed December 28, 2013

You have to feel for Kagawa, the guy barely played, and when he does starts, he is expected to play like when he is on top form. Stats showed that he completed 98% of his passes, but lacked intensity. He needs to play more.

Gutted for Fabio. Moyes is destroying Fabio's career. Even when Rafael is injured Moyes preferred Jones or Smalling at RB. We're talking about a player who started a Champions League final. Moyes should just stop destroying his career, and Fabio should do the honorable thing and hand in a transfer request. Spain or Portugal should be a good destination

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shaan December 29, 2013

what the hell is up with this moderation thing? please post my comment.

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lecho December 29, 2013

Fabio's sidelining was started by SAF, he loaned him out and bought Buttner.

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Tommy December 29, 2013

Poor performance but it always is at Norwich, The 3 points are all that matters, Welbeck showed great composue for that goal, thats all the team did all game, Norwich could have scored 2 or 3 first half but lucally their chances dried up 2nd half and we managed to nick a goal. 6 points from 2 away games over festive period is all we could ask for really. Rooney always misses a game this time of the season, usually because he likes a drink this time of year, wouldnt be shocked if thats why he was missing. 3 more points on weds against Spurs will do nicely, only 2 points behind the scousers now, come on United!