Long time lurker trying to do some analysis. Feel free to let me know what I missed or what you disagree with. Sorry fo the wall of text.

United lined up in a 4-2-3-1/4-2-2-2 and Bournemouth in a 4-4-2/4-4-1-1. Bournemouth looked to defend in two banks of 4 and counter attack through their forward line by making diagonal runs behind the united fullbacks. They didn’t have many chances other than the one-on-one with De Gea. United looked to break down their shape through Rooney/Mata dropping into the space between the lines or forward runs from Pogba and the fullbacks. United also did a good job pressing and created several chances through counterattacks. When the Bournemouth defense dropped into their box, United tried to break them down using either diagonal balls behind or using 1-2’s or flicks to let the wide players get 1-on-1 with a fullback. Obviously the red changed the game and Bournemouth were forced to be more defensive while United were free to push more numbers forward. I thought the penalty for United was a good call from the ref, but Ibra’s shot was slow. Easy chance and needed a much better finish.

I thought the standout players for united were Martial, Carrick, and Mata. Martial and shaw both took around 15 minutes to get into the game, but after that Martial was a constant threat and could have had 2 or 3 assists. Mata made intelligent runs all game and continuously helped break up Bournemouth’s shape. Carrick did what he always does and helped keep possession and looked for forward passes while breaking up play with his positioning. Rojo, Valencia, and Shaw I though had good games as well. Rooney good but not spectacular, thought he went missing for periods of time. Jones looked off today for some reason, dove into a lot of tackles resulting in the penalty. Ibra was poor for me and should have had a aht trick, but who can come off the bench and replace his link-up play and potential to pop up with a goal at almost any time. Pogba was ok from a creative standpoint, but should have had 1 or two goals especially his one-on-one.

I thought the subs for united made sense. Fellaini for carrick since we didn’t need as many defensive players and for another option to break them down. Lingard for Rooney as rooney had been fairly average and Lingard’s biggest strength is making runs to help break down a defense. Rashford for Shaw is similar to the Fellaini sub in that we didn’t need as many defensive players while a man up and Rashford’s pace and dribbling give us another option.

The Ref was poor I thought. He tried to let the game flow too much which led to increased aggression and the clusterfuck at the end of the first half. Honestly the game probably scould have ended with less players on the field from both sides.

For United this game was much like a lot of our games this season. Plenty of chances to score, but we can’t finish our chances well enough and it cost us.

Bournemouth looked solid defensively, if not very threatening in the first half. That’s expected though since they looked like they were trying to defend well and try to take the few chances they could create. After going a man down they did well defensively to keep us away from goal. United should have taken their chances and killed of the game much earlier.