I have never seen Darmian before so Im only going off what I've seen in the opening 2 games.

Even money bets who finishes higher in the league , you in?

Might even entertain Liverpool over United depending on the odds?

Yeah Darmian is pretty much an all round stud, great crosser of the ball. I imagine he's been instructed to stay deep in order to cover for Mata

Hopefully that Januzaj goal has convinced LVG to stick with him at 10.

Amavi MOTM for me although Smalling's turned into a bit of a beast hasn't he.

Agree Darmian looks good - understand why they passed on Clyne.

I think Smalling and Darmian could develop into a pretty great right side of defence. Really early days of course but looking good so far. I did say I thought we would be OK at the back given who they have in front of them. Blind will get found out imo, just don't see him being a long term solution at LSCB

Going to have to endure a whole season of MU fans calling Chelsea boring.

We're boring cos we're ****, Chelsea are intentionally boring.

My $45 to your $50?

LOOOOOOL JOE DIEGO

JoeDiego,

Even money means 1:1 not 9:10

JD still at it

Confused as to how the pre-season title faves can be evens vs faves for 4th...my odds are a steal

Lol. They were only slight faves and have at least a 3 point headstart so evens seems fair.

United look like late last season chelsea. Never looked great but kept winning by small margins.

Jason Burt ‏@JBurtTelegraph 8m8 minutes ago

Eva Carneiro has not been at work all week. Been told to report back to Chelsea on Monday...

So effectively suspended as well as demoted for being in the right!

Suarez best off-the-ball mover without doubt. Guy gets at least 3 goals a season by being in defenders' heads and forcing mistakes out of them.

United look so, so solid right now albeit against notorious bunnies Spurs/Villa. Schneiderlin has really impressed me with his positioning, pressing actions and stamina. Shaw is maturing into a decent defender, Darmian is classy, and Schweinsteiger showed in 30 minutes why Carrick is overrated. Also a little bit jealous LVG has the stones to play Blind at centreback. Wish Rodgers would use Can and Sakho as his back 2. Passing out from the back is underrated against park-the-bus teams.

Man up joe mate , evens is fair and arsenal haven't been pre season favs possibly ever even with Henry and all

Aye, that was beyond awful. I'm sure he will get better but he needs to be great for most of the season if they're really not signing another impact attacking player.

Depay I don't think it's too early to say that he will be a work in progress. He looked much better than this for PSV and I guess suddenly it can just click, but he is very up and down right now.

Januzaj similar.

True and I agree about the comment about Van Gaal's very Van Gaal decision here.

Smalling also ruling in duel-play so far this season helps. Very nice start to the season for Smalling.


England - Italy World Cup probably? Man of the match in that game and a lot of it via attacking.

In Italy he was very well known for his attacking. Basically an attacking center piece for Torino at times but of course most of that was as a wing-back in 352 or whatever.

It looks like he was asked to play conservative this game or he just went wisely with the flow and didn't try to take what wasn't there. I also think that he tires pretty badly around 70 minutes and really has to fight from there on. That should get better.

Agree with both things Demon said, but as others said I don't think United will look great when chasing a game/result.

I thought they'd be starved for chances/goals going into this year and they haven't created really anything in two not tough games vs teams who didn't play well. Great at the back, but they're going to have to eventually score two in a game, or create two chances.

I don't feel United are great, but I feel after seeing them twice we know a lot more about them then the other title/top 4 contenders.

I thought Gueye looked promising both on and off-ball but him and Westwood didn't have any chemistry.

Agree that Veretout was behind the game too much of the time, but this also looked like an uncomfortable role for him mostly played out there on the wing. He likes to touch the ball a lot more.

The Richards - Clark duo is not a good one IMO. Where did Richards centreback and captain come from? The guy was a huge physical talent (down the line probably meant for cb over rb) but he has not played football in like 4 years. Part of it injuries but also big part of it because he has never improved. Perhaps especially tactically while physically he is still good, not immense anymore.

Centreback is clearly his position now and maybe he will make it his own in due time but it's risky by Villa waiting for this.

He got away with a lot tonight but his decision-making was sketchy I thought and I very much doubt you want him to organize your defense. Being the leader down there if that's what he is supposed to be.

Bacuna and Amavi looks like a nice right-back, left-back combo.

That means no sudden Alan Hutton from SHERgoat.

I agree that the United full-backs had been told to stay down and be more conservative cos the wingers above were very attacking. Completely different role than when they're playing with five defenders and they're wing-backs.