The pick of this week’s Champions League fixtures is a clash of two elite clubs too flawed to win but too rich to failThe clock was already showing 90. Diogo Dalot advanced on to the ball in space around 40 yards from the Paris Saint-Germain goal. His first touch was heavy and as three opponents closed in, he had little option but to shoot. Marco Verratti threw himself towards the full-back. Juan Bernat ducked away. And the middle of the three, Presnel Kimpembe, flinching, turned his back, his arm flicking away from his body. VAR showed Dalot’s wild effort had deflected off it. From nowhere, Manchester United had a penalty and an away-goals passage into the Champions League quarter-final. Related:...
For all their expenditure, Manchester United are somehow still short of a wide forward, a left-back and a centre-back and are slipping back to where they were pre-lockdown There was an anecdote the American philosopher William James liked to tell about a regular user of laughing gas. When he was under the influence, he believed, everything fell into place and he understood the secret of the universe, but as soon as he came round it was lost. So one night he left a notepad by his bed and, half‑waking from his dream, wrote down his vision before slipping out of consciousness again. When he fully came round, he reached eagerly for the pad. What had his great insight been? He...
Manager’s early struggles at United were due to a lack of quality on the pitch but he solved that by signing Bruno FernandesIt is eminently possible that there are more opinions expounded on football than on any other subject, feeding into a circle both vicious and virtuous that goes round and round until everybody dies. Consequently, attempts to seek novelty are understandable: it’s comforting to believe that what we’re seeing now is different from anything seen before. Ultimately, though, the game’s essentials don’t change and football is simple but people are complicated, which means that the finite elements of talent and mentality will always be more important than the dynamic aspects of tactics and coaching.Ole Gunnar Solskjær plainly understands this,...
United have a loose philosophy and style of play, based largely on their electric front five. But they entrust too much to good feelings and blind faithThis, as José Mourinho might drily observe, is football heritage.To lose one semi-final might be considered unfortunate. To lose two a coincidence. But in United’s third unsuccessful attempt to grease their season with silverware could be identified a clear pattern running through the club. It is not a problem that can be solved by signing Jadon Sancho and Jack Grealish. Rather, it is something more systemic and deep-rooted, a malaise that took years to set in and may well take years to cure. Related: Luuk de Jong sinks Manchester United and puts Sevilla in...
After producing a leaner, fitter, infinitely more watchable side the manager wants to make the most of chance to beat Sevilla in the Europa League semi-finalIt was probably just the heat that prompted Ole Gunnar Solskjær to go for the controlled casual look in Manchester United’s last game against Copenhagen, though there was no mistaking that the figure sitting alone in the dugout in white shirtsleeves looked cooler and more relaxed than his more animated counterpart, Ståle Solbakken.Perhaps that is no big deal, though Solskjær at the moment can arguably do relaxed better than Jürgen Klopp or Pep Guardiola. Less than two years after returning to Manchester United as manager he is almost at the Carlo Ancelotti level of detached...