Pretty damning of a team if they need their manager right there on the touchline to get a result, you'd have to be pretty weak mentally for that to be a factor, they've already done their full preperation, tactical analysis etc. Not an excuse. Fernandinho suits City the way they play more than Matic but player quality wise there's no real difference, Matic has been superb the vast majority of his career. Martial is better than Sane and has a attitude problem hence why Lowe left him out of the World Cup and then there was that incident with the Burnley play where he nonchalant kicked him on the floor - luckily for him there was no bad reaction as most players would have taught him a lesson, Pep also left him out start of season for similar reasons, needs to lose the arrogance, Shaw is definitely talent wise a very good left back and can see why United paid so much for him at an earlier age, injury has got in the way of progress.

The debate is not which or how many United players would get into the City team, it's who is better player for player, what would a combined team look like, forget about the manager, and man for man can only conclude it would be fairly balanced, see last post.

Haven you are having a laugh.

Like CCM you have picked 3 Utd defenders for 5 positions. Clearly you don't understand a team that has conceded a quarter of the goals has a better defence! Smalling is dreadful. Mendy is on a another planet to Shaw. Matic is not half the player Fernandinho is. Sane p1sses all over Martial. 'Fairly balanced' man for man is ridiculous. Utd's team is vastly inferior to City's, Liverpools and Spurs. Probably on a par with Chelsea and Arsenal is the reality.

lol Charwell, you have just taken certain points in isolation of my post and willfully ignored everything else I said that backed up my point! 

You keep getting confused about teams v players

We're not talking about the teams, again the question was, man for man, who would make a combined 11 - forget who is the manager, who is the best in their position.

So I said that City concede far fewer goals because their front 6 has far more of the ball and therefore the back 5 come under much less pressure than United, that's what they are, a possession based so you look at the players themselves - and when City's defence has come under real pressure from teams that actually have something about them and are willing to attack - like Liverpool last season and like the CL v Lyon, they looked lost at sea at times.

I don't see any City centre back better than Smalling - you can make an arguement that they are but there's not much in it, same goes for Shaw v Mendy and Martial v Sane.


A lot of Man United's top players are not in vogue atm because they are in a lull and have been for some time under Mourinho

On your criteria I expect you might have Smalling ahead of Mascherana, Puyol and Pique

themover I'm not saying smalling is a world beater, but you hardly say Laporte or Stones are really that much better, Stones is a different type of player, that's why it's your own choice, I think Smalling is a better defender, Stones might be a better baller. Kompany is better than the lot of them but he's out the equation really as he seems surplus to requirement and is very injury prone.

which part of United's players are suffering under this manager do people not understand!

it's not them the players are bad it's all steming from Mourinho, Smalling was excellent under Fergie

If there's one set of players that shouldn't be suffering under Mourinho it's the defenders!

yes I did say that - that's the point, United's players imo are suffering under Jose, when  they've been under the right manager they've proven to be very good. But if you're putting together a combined team of City and United players their very best, I don't how Smalling is so easily dismissed.

yes but who and what is going on around you affects you, you need to build up understand and partnerships.

can we stop getting fixate down on minutes players, who has done what this season, it's not about the first 12 games so far.

Let me put it more clearly.

You are the manger, it's your choice, put together a combined first 11 of United and City players, it's your preference, based on what you've seen of them over their careers, what you think you could get out of them, based on how you would play picking your formation, how good you think they are in comparion to others in their postion - Pep is getting the best out of his players the way he wants them to play, he bought certain players for that reason, Jose imo is suffocating his players and has lost his man mangement skills and it's a dead man walking, so it's not fair on United players to leave them out because one manager is making them look worser than what they are and picking City players because they're results are better - quality wise, I haven't seen Laporte and thought to myself, you are better than Smalling when Smalling was at his best. That's just my opinion.

Walker Kompany Laporte Mendy

I don't see any City centre back better than Smalling

sorry, just had to post that again.

Chris Smalling is a good player tbf, but we are talking about the best team of all the players in the league.

You can make a case that Smalling is better at last ditch tackles than Laporte or Stones. But if you are building some sort of premier league super team you do not care about last ditch tackles as you are creating a team that is going to dominate games. You want your centre halves to have great reading of the game and be able to set attacks in motion. Smalling and Phil Jones are just not good at passing the ball so it keeps coming back or they hoof into a contested area.

At actual defending against attacks the Pep Barca defenders were not very good when players were running at them in a 3 v 3 situation, but as those defenders were good at keeping possession and good at passing the ball to other players who were even better at keeping possession, those sort of attacks were once a game events if that.

no wonder we have problems with Brexit when we have people like tober and charwell : (

have you seen Phil Jones mistake face

lfc, I can guarantee you are not a twin, God would not have unleashed two of you on the world.

twins run in my family scand : )

do you know I’m beginning to wonder just if we can find a place in the team for Aguero , he is a terrific player
But is maybe just getting a littke past his very best

Smalling is a very talented player

I've seen nowt to suggest Martial will ever consistently contribute as much as Sterling in games.

That’s all it takes  ,  5 minutes