Sports

Manchester United is an unwatchable mess


Ronaldo and company are really bad

Ronaldo and company are really bad
image: AP

As one of my oldest, closest friends likes to point out whenever it makes me understand something (the people closest to you are the most profound), that the saying “Don’t kick anyone That’s when they’re frustrated” doesn’t make any sense. After all, they are a lot closer to your feet.

With that in mind, I wouldn’t hesitate to be one of the thousands, possibly millions, that flocked to Manchester United after they threw up, possibly literally, their worst performance in a year. generation. And what makes it so delicious, is that it has bounced back and surpassed so many other bad performances over the past year. The 4-0 loss to Brighton last season only came in May. The combined score of 9-0 against Liverpool in two games last year (they would let me watch replay videos whenever I was seriously ill or injured to ensure a full recovery). The 0-2 loss to Man City at home when Man City refused to increase the gas from the 35th minute onwards. There are half a dozen more we can choose.

So to top yesterday, in just 35 minutes, is a Herculean feat. United were terrible in every way – stupid, disorganized, lazy, with a bit of bad luck thrown in – but they’ve been terrible in every way for a while. The excuses of a new manager (one who came in with a slick reputation and would probably leave with it completely shredded and burned) became void when Erik Ten Hag was had a whole season in advance to install whatever he wanted to enjoy doing. And then in the first two games, when players should be trying to prove why they should be part of the revolution, watch them throw all those plans out the window and into the pool. as soon as the whistle blows. It’s kindergarten recess.

To find an answer to why the team is a clown car that overturned and fell off a cliff seems too simple. There is a different explanation for everyone. Jaden Sancho may be the highest paid ever “Bundesliga Tax.” Christiano Ronaldo couldn’t move, and seeing how he couldn’t get past the defense anymore, he dropped deep into midfield, which devoured Bruno Fernandes’ space and rendered him useless. . We have seen that with the Portuguese national team. Marcus Rashford has been tapped with all his confidence and it’s not even certain that he can put the right shoe on the right foot. Harry Maguire is just one name the club are chasing and is completely unequipped to play up front. Lisandro Martinez is 4’8.

But for all of this to happen at once, the perfect combination of so many players facing form and possibly even career-killing problems suggests that yes, something is going on. was actually broken about the whole club. The point is that all of these players have been brought in under different managers trying to play different systems, if Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has a system of some sort, and United are trying to create one. Meals with recipes and ingredients for four or five different players.

Because this collection of rough-and-tumble players has got a few managers fired right now, and because United have been struggling for so long, the general theme of observers is There is a sense of entitlement in the squad that has created laziness, apathy. , and incompetence has caused this historic malaise. There were certainly many years of Solskjaer letting people do whatever they wanted, and had enough talent to balance their chaotic losses with chaotic victories made possible by individual excellence and nothing else, can cause a rot that will take some time to remove. And something went wrong when the players completely eliminated Ralf Ragnick last season, knowing he was just a makeshift appointment, but knowing they were still auditioning for who would take over full-time. . Perhaps their huge contracts and poor performances convinced them they weren’t going anywhere because no one was taking them, and it proved.

But that can’t be all. It’s hard to believe that Rashford, a childhood United fan with a UK location still under lockdown, thinks he’s somehow satisfied. Or Maguire is happy to be the league’s most interesting figure week in, week out simply because he’s worth $89 million at a time. Or Fernandes is facing having to do whatever is required after lighting up the league on arrival. Then again, look at these results and performances. Anything else?

Obviously the biggest problem is the Glazers, who have never come up with a cohesive top-down plan since Sir Alex Ferguson was there to execute it for them. Man City and Chelsea may have (or have, in the latter case) all the money in the world, but there is always a tie from the owner’s box, the director of football to the manager. Same goes for Liverpool. Not only have United been throwing things against the wall for almost a decade now, but they let a lot of people do the pitch. Not for lack of spending, but for spending in all directions.

Still, there must be something more, something inexplicable or unverifiable that made a team look that way yesterday. While it was a leap from the Eredivisie to the Premier League, Ten Hag’s Ajax had a clear identity. 4-3-3 with flowing motion. In two games, after a full season where they would practice this daily, United’s team vomited up a giant ball of hair. There must be something more to it when an entire team just freezes and looks like they’ve never met before the game. They don’t build well, they don’t push, they don’t know where their teammates or opponents are. It’s not clear what they’re trying to do or try to prevent. They weren’t even there.

And it can go on for a long time.



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