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...
Shocking 5-0 home defeat by Liverpool a gruesome spectacle that showed a team in a state of high-priced sporting decayWhat was this thing, exactly? For 90 minutes at Old Trafford the players of Liverpool and Manchester United produced something that resembled, in its colours and shapes, an elite-level football match. In practice it felt like something else: a kind of ritual humiliation, certainly, a real-time study in how to empty, safely, four-fifths of a football stadium.Mainly it was just a gruesome spectacle, something seasick and rotten, a team in a state of high‑priced sporting decay caught pinned and wriggling under the lights. Continue reading...
Liverpool clash is being billed as make-or-break but that is typical of club where everything happens but nothing changesThe Super League breakaway. The resignation of Ed Woodward. The Old Trafford protests. The Europa League final. The signings of Jadon Sancho and Raphaël Varane. Ole Gunnar Solskjær’s new contract. The return of Cristiano Ronaldo. Ronaldo’s two-goal debut against Newcastle. The injury-time defeat to Young Boys. The injury-time victory over Villarreal. Losing 4-2 to Leicester. And most recently coming back from 2-0 down to win 3-2 against Atalanta, a result so eminently predictable it almost counts as plagiarism.That’s just the past six months. Six months of wins, losses, triumph, heartbreak, scandal, rumour, greed and excess at the world’s most meme-able football club....
Though erratic, the manager’s side host Liverpool on Sunday taking cues from the past to keep fighting to the final whistleIt was the moment that ignited Ole Gunnar Solskjær’s reputation, not just as a Manchester United supersub but as the provider of dramatic, late goals that made a difference. It was January 1999, Old Trafford was in a frenzy after Dwight Yorke’s 88th-minute equaliser against Liverpool in an FA Cup fourth-round tie and the board had gone up for stoppage time.Solskjær, on as an 81st-minute replacement for Gary Neville, saw Paul Scholes reach a flick ahead of Jamie Carragher and nudge the ball towards him. The Norwegian was on the right side of the area, level with the penalty spot...