Centre-forward’s sensational performance seemed to step outside Old Trafford’s doom-laden tides of the past weekMoney won’t make you happy. Money won’t solve all your problems. But it certainly helps. Or at least, it does when that weekly debit comes in exchange for talent on the Cristiano Ronaldo scale.Ronaldo was sensational here, producing a performance that seemed to step outside the doom-laden tides of the last week, most notably in a startling finish for Manchester United’s opening goal. Continue reading...
Club remain weirdly in thrall to a 79-year-old man who has not coached in almost a decade when a cultural reset is neededIt was a few months into David Moyes’s ill-fated reign at Manchester United, and with results in freefall and the dressing room in mutiny, Patrice Evra decided to go to see the only man he knew who could fix things.“Boss, you have to help David,” he pleaded with Sir Alex Ferguson on a visit to his home in Cheshire. Continue reading...
There comes a point in most tenures when all hope expires and Manchester United’s manager has reached that junctureManchester United can play worse than they did against Liverpool. Yes, yes, I know, but before you click out please stick with me for a second. Though their defending was as bad as defending can be – again – until things got silly they attacked with speed, cohesion and imagination, not something said often.The result, then, was not a factor of performance but of opponent, a serious beating long in the post, dispensed by a serious team missing two-thirds of their first‑choice midfield. Which is to say United have rarefied depths still to plumb – and with games against Atalanta, Manchester City,...
Press, discipline and fluency were woefully lacking against Liverpool, with inadequacies of Solskjær and Ronaldo exposedWhat have Ole Gunnar Solskjær and Alan Partridge got in common?Both need help constructing a press. Continue reading...
Nuno seems scared of his Spurs bench, Manchester United players must stand up and Joshua King haunts Goodison ParkSubstitutions have been permitted in English league football since 1965, but maybe nobody told Nuno Espírito Santo. The Tottenham manager has been curiously reluctant to use his well-stocked bench in recent weeks, and even as his side sleepwalked to defeat at West Ham, he waited until the 84th minute to make changes. Even if the likes of Dele Alli and Steven Bergwijn have hardly sparkled of late, a worrying gulf is opening between the first XI and the rest. Meanwhile, Nuno’s continuing stubbornness – “The game was under control,” he explained curtly – is hardly likely to endear him to the fanbase....