DORTMUND CL GAME THREAD

[clockender1]

0-0 no injuries so far.

better than the home game. doesn't sound like we are offering much.

[SoreSack]

sagnas been good as well, nobody from an attacking point of view has showed up yet only rosicky looks a mild threat.

[richpye]

Giroud's been poor

Don't really recall him being given a chance or much of an opportunity to make one?

For me our midfield passing is just missing it's usual zip. Passes just missing targets etc.

We're lucky to be drawing IMO, so let's hope the luck keeps on coming in the second half

[clockender1]

i'd like to see Gnabry given 20 minutes to run at them.

[topgoon]

Red's sh*e,Arteta iis pushing his luck and I reckon I could do Giroud's job today. Which is just head to no one on your team, fall over and moan to the ref. Sokratis is getting away with an easy game FFS.

[REB]

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lucky to be level tbh, arteta needs to be careful second half.

[northbank123]

The standard of refereeing in Europe is dreadful. For all the bottle jobs and somewhat unfair level of scrutiny of refs in the PL at least there is public accountability. It hasn't stopped United from being favoured for two decades but still, at least everybody else knows about it when a ref does it and if refs didn't get chastised by the media and fans then the bias would be twice as bad. Now United are no strangers to soft penalties but can you imagine the uproar if they'd won one in a big game at 0-0 like Young's yesterday? As it is - no fuss.

Every single time we go to Dortmund, Munich, Barcelona etc you know that the ref is going to pull us up on everything whilst letting them get away with murder and letting them cheat for 90 minutes with unpunished cynical fouls, play-acting and absurd time-wasting if they're winning. And absolutely nothing happens, it won't appear on UEFA's radar, there's no review or accountability, no universal press astonishment and you know next time you go somewhere like that it'll be exactly the same.

Arteta deserved his yellow (although Gibbs going in needlessly and then shirking the tackle caused it) and he behaved like an idiot with the tantrum after the next foul he made but Reus' was even more of a cut-and-dry booking. We were breaking, he was the wrong side of his man and you could see from about 3 seconds before it happened that he was going to haul him down.

And I just know we'll go a goal down and the ref will give them every free-kick they go down for and let them waste an absurd amount of time.

[Yankee_Gooner_Dandee]

Its pretty obvious they don't know how to deal with a pressing defense like Dortmund/Barcelona offer. They need to be quicker instead of taking 3 touches before looking to pass, then ultimately passing backwards thus forcing more defensive pressure from Dortmund. The 4 defenders need to try and play passes to those ahead of Ramsey/Arteta because playing into those 2 leaves them vulnerable to pressure.

[clockender1]

The 4 defenders need to try and play passes to those ahead of Ramsey/Arteta because playing into those 2 leaves them vulnerable to pressure.

but thats the way we play - it should be pass to the wide mid, run, get it back then play in a forward through the middle or over the top.

Bayern proved that high up pressure negates tika taka if you work hard enough.

we just pass straight into the middle of a 442.

[northbank123]

On the footballing side of things we've done pretty well I think. Composed in possession even if completely unthreatening and limited it to very few occasions that we turned off and nearly got caught out. If we keep this up they will tire and get a bit sloppy.

Yes we've created nothing but it's very very fine margins in a game like this. We had two chances to carve something out and blew them both via Giroud - firstly when he got the ball in between the lines and had we turned he'd have been 3 on 2/3 on 3 but he flicked it first time instead, and secondly when he passed the ball behind Ozil when he nearly managed to get in anyway. Yes they're very tenuous 'half-chances' but coming to a team like Dortmund being able to take opportunities like that and turn them into goalscoring chances is the level of ruthlessness you need in this sort of game.

[rodders999]

Arteta is so slow, zero pace.

[1989]

Red card for Arteta any time now

[wibble]

Starting to get over-run this half...

[robbo10]

How many times will we give pointless free-kicks away 30 yards out?? fucking braindead.

[topgoon]

FFS swap Arteta got tv5 before this ref sends him off