Were it not bad enough for fans of Manchester United that Pep Guardiola’s All Stars have redefined the way the game is played, forced upon us a new appreciation of attack and defence, of shape and pattern, we are rapidly approaching the fateful point where first editions of red memoirs entitled “How Manchester City Ruined My Life” are commissioned by publishers.
United are already in deficit before they kick a ball. City, of course, began the season with a routine walkover at Burnley. Newcastle United devoured Aston Villa and Arsenal handed Nottingham Forest a beating that should have been greater than a one goal margin.
When the ballot threw out the opening weekend fixtures, United would have been untroubled by a home assignment with Wolves, a club burdened by Financial Fair Play constrictions, forced to sell their best player and now under new management. Yet already it feels like a more awkward assignment.
Above all United are seeking to avoid a repeat of last season’s trauma when they opened with a home defeat to Brighton followed by a shellacking at Brentford, where four goals in the opening 35 acted like an ice bath upon coach Erik ten Hag, lowering his core expectations as well as temperature.
He recovered sufficiently to put a trophy in the cabinet, albeit the Carabao Cup, the lowest ranking available, to reach the FA Cup final and most significantly of all, to finish third to seal Champions League qualification. Whilst these accomplishments represent improvement, in the context of a club that sees itself as the mother of all football brands they are beige returns.
This is Ten Hag’s difficulty, a coach negotiating a reordered present at a legacy club on the wrong end of a new dynamic. When the power relation with the perennial underlings next door is inverted and suddenly pre-eminence is City’s, that is a lot to take in. United are still processing City’s rise, adjusting to a painful reality that has recast them as second rate.
Ten Hag is at least blessed with the pragmatism characteristic of a Dutch nation compelled to trade to survive. He understands the need for structure, organisation and leadership, three basic elements lost in the post Ferguson era, when City’s state-sponsored riches changed the rules of engagement. What United have lacked in this period of City dominance is a framework outlining a way forward, and a leader to implement it.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer understood the game well enough but was too player-friendly and unable to bring the boardroom along with him behind a big idea. Before him, neither Jose Mourinho nor Louis van Gaal were flexible, patient or modest enough to adapt to the shifting circumstances. Ten Hag sold the club a vision and has the character and personality to execute it. What he does not have is time.
Uncertainty over the sale of the club has not helped, neither has the FFP landscape that has limited Ten Hag’s capacity to renew his squad quickly enough. Nevertheless the additions of Andre Onana, Mason Mount and Rasmus Hojlund have improved the squad in the areas of greatest need. Onana meets the brief of keeper-cum-baller. Mount brings the dynamism that Christian Eriksen lacks. Hojlund, at least when fit, offers the kind of energy and drive entirely absent in Anthony Martial.
There is some cynical chirping, taking cheap shots at a £73m outlay on a callow 20-year-old with a modest scoring record. Nine goals in 32 appearances for Atalanta is nowhere near Erling Haaland‘s rates of plunder. However, six in six for Denmark almost matches the Norwegian in international football, if over a smaller sample.
Hojlund draws a distinction between the role asked of him by Atalanta in Serie A, where his pace and left-sided bias was deployed as much as a creator as finisher, and the position for Denmark, which is central and geared to goals.
For an aggressive player who knocks out sub-11 second 100 metres, he will add a new dimension to the United attack, something he will need to do if they are to make more of the chances they create. They cannot hope to prosper scoring at the meagre rate of last season, the only team in the top six not to score at least 60 goals.
So Hojlund has the constituent parts. It’s about delivering in the heightened environment of the Premier League, which he believes he can. “With the national team I’m a different kind of striker than I was at Atalanta,” he told United’s website, “more working inside the six-yard box, small movements, just focusing on making the goal. So two different kind of roles, but I feel I can score goals in both ways.”
Unfortunately for Ten Hag, United are not improving in isolation. Across the board the upwardly mobile are investing heavily. You hardly need the input of Opta’s super-computer to predict another triumphant season for City. Take City out of it and even the algorithms are getting excited. The data predicts a red wall of Arsenal, Liverpool and United to block out the top-four in that order, separated by only four points, with Newcastle claiming the final CL spot.
Ten Hag won’t mind the Opta printout since the simulations are telling him little he doesn’t already know. Besides, confidence is hard to quantify. It’s about consistency and finding the back of the net with greater frequency. More importantly, still, it’s about three points from the opening game.
from Football - inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/s1Wh0nI
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