This will be long, but I hope it's worth your read.
That was as bad as I've seen United play for some time, and we've been getting worse and worse recently.
Credit to Porto they totally outplayed us all over the park, but imo that had a lot to do with the lack of effort, passion, and pressure that United played with. In that respect I can't say how good a team Porto are, they played their game against a United team that didn't show up. Having said that they looked like a decent unit. Carlos Alberto looked a threat and McCarthy scored 2 good goals, the 2nd being as good as any I've seen for some time.
Let's start with some gripes:
The referees. The least of my gripes but he was over-fastidious. The slightest of touches warranted a free-kick, and you can't say that was solely in either teams favour although to me he was harsher on United than Porto.
Keane's red card aside (that's a seperate topic) the 2 bookings that we picked up were farcical. Yes, they were fouls, but they didn't warrant a booking by a fair distance. Then, he was so fussy on Fortune, if he touched anyone he'd blow his whistle. For example when Deco (?) went down clutching his arse, there is no-way that was close to a free-kick. It was a fairly contested ball and no-one won it, but because the Porto player went down it was a free-kick?! (you have to understand that I'm a United fan so I paid more attention to decisions going against us that those against Porto, so most of my comments are going to be from a United standpoint)
As for the red card, you can't really complain. The reason being that if you do that sort of thing, maliciously or un-intentionally then you run the risk of the referee interpreting it as a sending off offence. On the other hand Vitor Baia acted as if Keane shattered his hip. Looking at the replays I don't think there was any malice in it, there was light contact and a less fussy ref would probably have only given a yellow. You can't really say that it wasn't deserved though. It was a stupid thing to do in any circumstance.
Then there's the diving. I really do think that Porto players are made of paper.
Whenever contact was made, down they went. It was ridiculous. There were numerous occasions that the ref thought they dived as no free kick was given and really they should have been booked then. If they dive it's a yellow card. The only way of dealing with this would be for the authorities to take action after the match, using modern techonolgy (ie. video to watch the games). You can't change the result but if bans were forthcoming after games then players might think twice about cheating during the game.
But those are small gripes compared to my main one, which is about United's performance. We were bad. We were worse that bad. The passing was off, the teamwork was awful, the energy was non-existent, absolutely everything was terrible. Where was the zest and passion that we normally play with? It's been gone for a number of games and it's not acceptable.
It seemed that only a couple of players were making the effort, which doesn't count for much when most of the effort is ineffective.
The positives (for United):
2-1. It's 2-1. We're losing, but we have what could be an important away goal (although I can't remember a time when an away goal actually helped United).
Brown played well. Many have been so quick to slate him when he's played poorly that I hope they are now as quick to credit him when he played well. He snuffed out anything that he should have done and defended very well.
Overall Porto played well. You can't complain about either of their goals from a defensive standpoint, there really was little you could do about them, particularly the 2nd. The 2nd was amazing. It was a pin-point cross and out of no-where McCarthy arrived with a towering header (the likes of which I've never seen) that was perfectly placed. Anywhere else and it would've missed or Tim Howard would have got it.
Porto played with zest and teamwork. I have to applaud their workrate and effort, and they had the technical ability to match.
Would they have scored their 2 goals had United played better? Maybe? The thing is Porto had so much posession gifted to them they had time to create chance after chance. If we'd kept the ball in their half longer they would have been more nervous in attack and defense and wouldn't have had such an upperhand in the game, which is what lead to their goals. While we didn't look overly shakey at the back, losing posession as easily as we did and putting as little pressure on their defense as we did was destined to lead to us conceding goals.
While a 2-1 defeat is disappointing it might be more disappointing to the Porto fans and players. At the end of the day they have only gained a slender lead to take to Old Trafford for their efforts on the back of a United display that would have yielded more against a better team and should have yielded more against Porto.
What worries me is that we have had many poor performances over recent months, when we know and look as if we can improve a lot, but we don't look as if we are improving. This is the worst of a batch of poor performances. You have to say that if we play to our potential and ability in the return leg that we could (and maybe should?) still beat Porto, but whether we do improve is another matter.
The other thing is that if we concede we have to beat Porto by 2 goals. We can do that, but I'd much prefer not to concede. The question is, can this team keep a clean sheet? At the moment the chance of that is slight.
We shall see what happens in the 2nd leg. I know United can play better, and the players will have to if we are to progress into the QFs.
That was as bad as I've seen United play for some time, and we've been getting worse and worse recently.
Credit to Porto they totally outplayed us all over the park, but imo that had a lot to do with the lack of effort, passion, and pressure that United played with. In that respect I can't say how good a team Porto are, they played their game against a United team that didn't show up. Having said that they looked like a decent unit. Carlos Alberto looked a threat and McCarthy scored 2 good goals, the 2nd being as good as any I've seen for some time.
Let's start with some gripes:
The referees. The least of my gripes but he was over-fastidious. The slightest of touches warranted a free-kick, and you can't say that was solely in either teams favour although to me he was harsher on United than Porto.
Keane's red card aside (that's a seperate topic) the 2 bookings that we picked up were farcical. Yes, they were fouls, but they didn't warrant a booking by a fair distance. Then, he was so fussy on Fortune, if he touched anyone he'd blow his whistle. For example when Deco (?) went down clutching his arse, there is no-way that was close to a free-kick. It was a fairly contested ball and no-one won it, but because the Porto player went down it was a free-kick?! (you have to understand that I'm a United fan so I paid more attention to decisions going against us that those against Porto, so most of my comments are going to be from a United standpoint)
As for the red card, you can't really complain. The reason being that if you do that sort of thing, maliciously or un-intentionally then you run the risk of the referee interpreting it as a sending off offence. On the other hand Vitor Baia acted as if Keane shattered his hip. Looking at the replays I don't think there was any malice in it, there was light contact and a less fussy ref would probably have only given a yellow. You can't really say that it wasn't deserved though. It was a stupid thing to do in any circumstance.
Then there's the diving. I really do think that Porto players are made of paper.
Whenever contact was made, down they went. It was ridiculous. There were numerous occasions that the ref thought they dived as no free kick was given and really they should have been booked then. If they dive it's a yellow card. The only way of dealing with this would be for the authorities to take action after the match, using modern techonolgy (ie. video to watch the games). You can't change the result but if bans were forthcoming after games then players might think twice about cheating during the game.But those are small gripes compared to my main one, which is about United's performance. We were bad. We were worse that bad. The passing was off, the teamwork was awful, the energy was non-existent, absolutely everything was terrible. Where was the zest and passion that we normally play with? It's been gone for a number of games and it's not acceptable.
It seemed that only a couple of players were making the effort, which doesn't count for much when most of the effort is ineffective.
The positives (for United):
2-1. It's 2-1. We're losing, but we have what could be an important away goal (although I can't remember a time when an away goal actually helped United).
Brown played well. Many have been so quick to slate him when he's played poorly that I hope they are now as quick to credit him when he played well. He snuffed out anything that he should have done and defended very well.
Overall Porto played well. You can't complain about either of their goals from a defensive standpoint, there really was little you could do about them, particularly the 2nd. The 2nd was amazing. It was a pin-point cross and out of no-where McCarthy arrived with a towering header (the likes of which I've never seen) that was perfectly placed. Anywhere else and it would've missed or Tim Howard would have got it.
Porto played with zest and teamwork. I have to applaud their workrate and effort, and they had the technical ability to match.
Would they have scored their 2 goals had United played better? Maybe? The thing is Porto had so much posession gifted to them they had time to create chance after chance. If we'd kept the ball in their half longer they would have been more nervous in attack and defense and wouldn't have had such an upperhand in the game, which is what lead to their goals. While we didn't look overly shakey at the back, losing posession as easily as we did and putting as little pressure on their defense as we did was destined to lead to us conceding goals.
While a 2-1 defeat is disappointing it might be more disappointing to the Porto fans and players. At the end of the day they have only gained a slender lead to take to Old Trafford for their efforts on the back of a United display that would have yielded more against a better team and should have yielded more against Porto.
What worries me is that we have had many poor performances over recent months, when we know and look as if we can improve a lot, but we don't look as if we are improving. This is the worst of a batch of poor performances. You have to say that if we play to our potential and ability in the return leg that we could (and maybe should?) still beat Porto, but whether we do improve is another matter.
The other thing is that if we concede we have to beat Porto by 2 goals. We can do that, but I'd much prefer not to concede. The question is, can this team keep a clean sheet? At the moment the chance of that is slight.
We shall see what happens in the 2nd leg. I know United can play better, and the players will have to if we are to progress into the QFs.
dirty pig's!
