Harry Maguire and Luke Shaw leaving the ball to each other and allowing an opponent to nip in for the second game running. Cristiano Ronaldo waving his hands to demand that his teammates at least try to win back the ball and provide him with some service. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer pointing his hands to his temple to insist that his Manchester United players think following several moments that had proved why they needed the reminder. Twenty thousand empty seats at Old Trafford with stoppage time still to play. Welcome to the Theatre of Memes.
Being dismantled by a fierce rival in your home stadium once could be described as careless; doing so twice in consecutive home matches can only be gross negligence. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is closer to the sack than he was after the Liverpool debacle and Manchester United have missed out on the best out-of-work coach to a fellow top-four contender. It is time to stop talking about United as title challengers; it does a disservice to those well-managed, well-run and well-coached clubs above them.
This was a derby between two teams who share the same city but are now operating in different spheres. There is a fluidity, smoothness and composure to City that reflects a manager with an exact vision and a group of players who are prepared impeccably to perfect it.
Manchester United attempted a rearguard defensive action but conceded two goals that were assisted by their own incompetence. For the second home game in succession, the away end spent the final 20 minutes of the match chanting for United’s manager to stay.
Liverpool broke United with the stabbing pain of regularly conceded goals; Manchester City went for suffocation. In the second half they degraded their opponents by keeping possession for long periods and then almost immediately winning it back when the home team eventually enjoyed a touch or two. City completed 753 passes, more than any other team has against Manchester United in the Premier League since Opta started collecting the data in 2003-04 (and surely long before that too).
Make no mistake: this could have been just as emphatic as a fortnight ago. David de Gea made an extraordinary save from Gabriel Jesus and tipped Joao Cancelo’s shot over the bar, Phil Foden hit the post, John Stones had a snapshot on the turn. City dominated the ball, dominated territory and dominated the chances. “This city is ours,” the away end crowed, and it’s impossible to disagree with them. Not under this regime.
Solskjaer’s record against Pep Guardiola was the last line of his defence to keep his job. His breakout days in this job, when an interim coach really did feel like he might be able to step up, came in the Manchester derby. He was the only manager to face Guardiola at least four times and have more wins than defeats.
But that final port in the storm was brutally dismantled over the course of two punishing hours. United tried to be defensive but couldn’t defend. They attempted to play on the counter but couldn’t avoid City’s press long enough to make it work. They spent the final 30 minutes half-chasing the ball like a weary child playing piggy in the middle. Solskjaer looked broken on the touchline and was hardly any more optimistic after the game. “We still don’t trust ourselves with the ball,” he admitted. He has been in this job for almost three years.
This has to be it. It is damning of Manchester United’s mismanagement that we are still playing witness to this constant cycle of crisis and response, where Solskjaer’s side have enough quality to occasionally flash but lack a coherent system that makes a team of a level anywhere close to its component parts. Antonio Conte could have been a short-term answer, but United let that one slip too.
And it’s less than four months since Ed Woodward publicly backed Solskjaer, declaring that the club were “more confident than ever” in his leadership and a team heading in the direction. Those words felt like the epitaph on Woodward’s time at the club then and, with Woodward leaving at the end of next month, we should prepare to read them back to him.
If we were being mighty generous, we would accuse Woodward and Manchester United of misguided romantic nostalgia; the supporters who remained behind Solskjaer until recently thought with their hearts not heads. They wanted this to work because Solskjaer succeeding would offer credence to their belief that United possessed something special, a core of unique United-ness that could rise above the “the immediacy of modern life”, as Gary Neville once called it.
But nostalgia is a helpful accompaniment to logic and sense, not a replacement. Nostalgia has lost its worth here. Manchester United can have a club legend manager who aims to learn how to swim in the deep end of a shark-infested pool, or they can be a title challenger that maximises its considerable financial resources; they cannot be both. It is high time they made their choice.
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/3o88ZjX
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