From My Seat: Man Utd (A)

I'm totally disappointed in Howard in the last few games. Lukaku is hopelessly off form, poor touch, no pace, asked to play wide to much, for a 㿈m man he should be in the box or running the channels; he does neither. McGeady is a total waste of time, creates zilch, never helps his full back. How many crosses did the opposition get to make from our right hand side? All season we have suffered from crosses from that side.

I was sitting in line with the goal area at Stretford End and also just looking at Falcao's goal on TV – the number of times John Stones plays people on is frightening, he's always 2-3 yds behind Jags. He's got to learn to read the line and quickly.

Apart from the fact he controls the ball as if he is wearing wellies, he never, ever wins headers or pressures the centre-halves. He was up against a rookie yesterday and should have been smashing the lad at every opportunity but he never even broke sweat.

If only we had someone like Samuel Eto'o to bring on from the bench.... Oh, hang on....

I agree with your choice of Besic for MotM and would nominate Naismith for runner-up.

I have yet to give it to Romo too hard given his age and changing positions every week but I am sick and tired of his nonchalant attitude on defense. No excuse for it. Some bench time is warranted so he can find his hunger.

No doubt about it, our version of Balotelli has to start performing or be benched indefinitely. RM has to drastically rethink tactics that have become all too predictable.

It was great to see little Oviedo back and buzzing. Last but not least, this was three points lost, not given, thanks to great Â’keeping and that penalty miss.

He has clearly prioritised the Europa League but, if we don't start picking up points soon, this will have to be abandoned in favour of a relegation dogfight. I don't honestly feel we will go down but with this squad we should be doing a whole lot better.

Talk of a difficult set of opening fixtures is a bit of a red herring considering Palace took us to the cleaners at home and they've just been beaten by erm... Hull. Time to sort it out, Roberto!!

Is Roberto thinking of a piece of elusive silverware? He has won the FA Cup, after all, and knows what it takes.

If we finished say 12th in the League but won the Europa, or the FA Cup, would we be happy?

A trophy in the cabinet and a rebuild for next season with a spine of Stones, Besic and Rom (assuming he finds his shooting boots soon) would suit me fine.

We all need to calm down and believe in the manager and the team that did so well for us last season and stop going on about age. Osman and Hibbert had very good reviews from the game.

Once Barkley and Coleman are back, Rom will thrive.

It ended up costing us because we were getting stronger through the second half. I liked Besic's mobility, comfort on the ball and ability to pick a pass. With Barry not playing up to last season's standards... it will be interesting if Besic and McCarthy get paired in an upcoming fixture.

That said, I agree with you if you're saying Stones would be first on your team sheet. On current form, he's by far our best centre half.

Wayne, I know the odd shock result happens but, in the context of our other performances/results, a failure to beat Palace at home becomes more concerning.

I think your selection of Man of the Match just goes to show how ordinary we are this year. Besic is average at best. He gave the ball away a few times (as did everyone) and didn't do anything particularly outstanding to make him Man of the Match in my eyes. But I can't really disagree with you. Howard pulled off a few good saves and couldn't really do anything about the goals.

Naismith was anonymous through out the whole first half and I don't get why Lukaku isn't playing through the middle. It just isn't right. Hibbert can't stay on his feet and at times his defending looked really good as he slid in and saved the day a few times; however, he was horribly out paced and horribly out of position at times meaning he had no option but to go off his feet. Browning looked overawed by being on the pitch when he came on for him.

My last piece of criticism is left for Oviedo, while it was good to see him back and he forced a wonderful save out of De Gea, right up to that he was absolutely abysmal. Giving the ball away, passing and flicking to no-one, awful movement. He is about ten yards off the pace and shows how thin we are that we are having to rush him back.

Oh and I really don't rate McGeady. Man Utd were very ordinary in midfield and at the back (not goalie obviously) so the fact we only scored once tells you everything you need to know about how poorly we played. For the first time this season, I am really concerned about where we will finish.

Have to agree with a number of comments made: (a) Lukaku was very poor with his control and effort; (b) It still seems that Everton as a team are not capable of 90 mins' fitness (poor pre-season preparations). Only complaint about Baines penalty save was keeper seemed from the replay to far off his line.

A point that I think should be taken into account this season is that other managers have now realised how Martinez likes to play and are setting up to combat it and Martinez does not seem to have a plan (B) to change it.

Along with other supporters I had high expectations for this season but unless things change soon we are going to revert to the disappointments that a number of previous seasons have provided. The thing that worries me is the amount of goals conceded (not the problem of one man ) and no effort made in the transfer window to help.

Still a long way to go but the manager has to turn the season around as in the premier league there is no easy games and looking at our injury list the squad is not as strong as many of the supporters may have been thinking.

It's more likely that with half the squad out injured, particularly in key attacking areas, those that are filling in are just not as competent.

I think if we'd have had Pienaar, Coleman and Mirallas fit, we'd probably be sitting in a Champions League spot by now. Hibbert, McGeady and Atsu really have been a step down.

As far as injuries go, all teams have injuries and the comments before the season started that the Manager would bring in 5-6 new players to build up the squad but only 1 defender was brought in and a number of youth players were promoted to the first team squad with most of the transfer money going on a forward.

I read an English newspaper and in it the Man Utd Manager stated he was upset at his players for not passing the ball into the spaces that the full backs left when up the field as Everton's defence had no cover.

My arguement with Mr Martinez is he is just expecting the defence to get better while we continue playing the same system that at the moment has conceded the most goals against in the Premier League. Clubs do change their systems depending on who they are playing and that is why some of them are accused of parking the bus and when you play in Europe you have to be able to defend successfully as away goals can count double.

I don't think we've been conceding goals due to our midfield offering no protection and teams getting us on the counter while our fullbacks are high up the pitch. Many of our goals have been basic defensive errors.

On Saturday, we conceded one goal because Stones played Falcao onside and after Howard should've put it out for a throw given we were a man down. For the Di Maria goal we had both fullbacks and our two defensive midfielders in place.

At Palace, Howard couldn't catch a football for one goal and he brought one of their players down for a penalty for another.

Against RS we conceded from a direct free kick

Against Arsenal we had 6 players behind the ball and still allowed a simple ball across our box for the first, then Jags and Distin allowed Giroud to head in a second without so much as a challenge. He was the only Arsenal player they had to mark.

Against Swansea, Hibbert got ripped a new one by Montero for the first goal, Distin contrived to head a long ball against our own crossbar for Sigurdsson to fire in the rebound on the second.

Essentially we've been architects of our own downfall. Jags, Howard and Distin have been particular culprits with very poor individual performances at times. They are making errors that are nothing to do with our tactics and everything to do with basic concentration and decision making.

Last season our players weren't fucking up simple things every weekend, and hence we won games. This season, we've still been scoring a few, we've been slightly toothless in attack due to injuries of key players, but individual errors are killing our results and our confidence.

I would say that (with the benefit of hindsight) I would have preferred Martinez to bring in another right back and a more creative central midfielder rather than bust the bank on Lukaku but, with the kind of mistakes our players are making, I'm not sure what difference that would make.

The number of defensive mistakes as you stated is by a number of different players but one of the main culprits is the man you rely on the most, as Man Utd's goalkeeper showed on Sunday, is your keeper... so why is our keeper not dropped? The only reason that I can think of is that Martinez must have no faith in Robles and, if this is the case, why was another keeper not brought in when funds were available?

When you have injuries the players you bring in for coverage may be not as good as the player he replaces so therefore you may have to change the system you are using to get the best from them.

Playing players who are continually making mistakes and loosing you games is a recipe for disaster and will continue if you keep playing them hoping they will improve.

With regard to the C" business, I have to go with the Naismith post-match view. "Concentration."