If Lukaku was too immobile for the manager’s system, there is no way Ronaldo let alone Neymar can be the answer It is still relatively early. There is still a month before the Premier League begins again. There is plenty of time for a club to make signings. Chelsea began from a position of unusual chaos. There is no reason to panic yet. It might all be fine. But equally it may not and it’s fair to say that if you’re planning a major overhaul of your squad, it’s easier if you haven’t just lost a load of leading figures from the recruitment department.Perhaps it is unreasonable to expect too much this summer, so soon after the removal of Roman...
Signing the Manchester United forward will prevent any side playing like a tactically and physically complete modern teamIn Tudor times there were few things more disastrous for a British noble than the honour of a home visit from the monarch. Oh no. He’s here again. The man with the week-long pheasant-gorging mass drunken banquet in his eyes.Attempts were sometimes made to shutter up the windows and simply hide on these occasions. Otherwise the sight of the royal train looming across the horizon, with its legions of cooks, soldiers, jesters, fancy-boys and pantalooned hangers-on was a harbinger of bankruptcy, slaughtered livestock, ruined fields and general devastation of anything within grabbable range. Continue reading...
We look at five significant matters the new manager must tackle, including the areas where signings are most urgentThe big and loaded question: can the manager actually wield enough influence over the beast that is Manchester United to do it his way? This is a chicken-egg conundrum because winning games and trophies convinces players and the executive but conviction is required from players and the executive for the manager to have his decisions backed and to be a winning No 1. Then there is the club’s particular byzantine brew of politics and peccadilloes. At United Richard Arnold is the chief executive but the real finger on the button is across the Atlantic. And there are six: one for each of...
Forward answered his critics with a fine hat-trick to set a new Fifa goalscoring record and secure victory over TottenhamCristiano Ronaldo has been a problematic signing for Manchester United. Particularly in the last few weeks he has – finally, at 37 – begun to look his age. He would create tactical problems for any coach, especially one as devoted to gegenpressing as Ralf Rangnick. He is not the player he was. But though much was taken, much abides.That this was only his second hat-trick for Manchester United is testament to how he has changed as a player. As he moved past Josef ‘Pepi’ Bican in Fifa’s charts as the leading goalscorer of all time, it’s easy to forget that when...
Forward is seemingly impossible to fit into a modern system and his signing symbolises a flaw holding back the clubSo, what next? Ole Gunnar Solskjær has gone, and with him perhaps Manchester United’s most visible problem, but a sentimental appointment wasn’t the only issue holding the club back. United are institutionally dysfunctional and it will take more than a change of personnel in the dugout to change that.Solskjær was a fine appointment as caretaker, perhaps the last good decision Ed Woodward made as United CEO. The return of a popular club legend, the sunshine man whose rays of decency could dispel the acrimony of the latter days of José Mourinho’s reign, made sense. The problem was that rather than waiting...