Fulham 0-1 Manchester United (Fernandes 90+2)
CRAVEN COTTAGE – “Play like you mean it” – the simplest of pleas from the Manchester United end. When expectations are almost nil and nobody is under any pretences about how desperate things have become, why does even the most basic of requests have to fall on deaf ears?
Had Bruno Fernandes not given them a rare reminder of what joy tastes like, they would not have left another lukewarm display devoid of inspiration in such fine voice. As he took the ball from the edge of the box and passed it into the corner past Bernd Leno, he was at least able to keep the wolves from Erik ten Hag’s door for another week.
In the current state of farce, calamities feel inevitable. Start as you mean to go on – within 40 seconds, Harry Maguire had passed the ball out of play, having taken a knock to the head in an innocuous challenge with Rodrigo Muniz.
Worse still was to come for the luckless Maguire, whose otherwise resolute display alongside Aaron Wan-Bissaka should not be forgotten. The chaser, Scott McTominay’s goal which might briefly have shifted the mood, was correctly ruled out, Maguire adjudged to be interfering with play.
Yet nobody, least of all VAR Jarred Gillet or referee John Brooks, seemed clear what they was supposed to be looking at. Was it Alejandro Garnacho, who had timed his run perfectly for the assist? Or perhaps McTominay, who had strayed offside but got himself back in line by the time the ball was played in? Why, in a decision as supposedly cut-and-dry as offside, is a pitchside monitor check even necessary? And why, why, why does all of it take four minutes to complete? The laws are clear, their implementation is anything but.
It is not easy for United to accept what might once have felt like a minor inconvenience, but in the moment felt another catastrophic slight from a world that has turned against them.
They arrived in a rainy west London on the back of their worst start since 1961. The only respite on the road is that nobody has to watch the water leaking from the Old Trafford roof.
Ten Hag cannot only blame United’s failing structures. There is no longer any premise that he is the man to “fix” them and the ceiling feels lower than ever. Andre Onana twice kept out Harry Wilson to spare his side’s blushes – avoiding humiliation seems to be United’s new version of shooting for the stars.
Fernandes is still capable of changing games but as a coherent unit, the midfield is still largely non-existent. Alex Iwobi clearly thought so as he raced through 60 yards of space only to blaze over. The heat will fall too on the wide men, but there is almost nothing to engage them. Little wonder that in a table based on goals scored by each club’s forwards, United would be 20th.
Even the warm-up was tepid. Anthony Martial stood alone for much of it, while Sergio Reguilon and Mason Mount spent minutes on end passing 10 yards between one another. Others seemed at a loose end entirely, a theme that continued for the 90 minutes that followed.
Somehow, none of this appears to have dimmed the egos on show. Fernandes’ playacting has become ever more tedious. A year ago, against FC Sheriff, Antony faced a backlash for his needless showboating – yet here it was again, needlessly conceding possession. Garnacho was guilty of the same, hauling down Wilson having just handed him the ball with a pointless backheel.
It is the trickery and glitz of players who in a flash have realised they are playing for Manchester United but who for the most part are not fit to wear the shirt.
There will be no repercussions for any of this. It will likely be Ten Hag who eventually pays the price, having thrown the most popular dressing room figures – Jadon Sancho, Marcus Rashford (and before them Jesse Lingard) – under the bus and persevered with Antony, the one player he should have taken a stand against and who, short of almost starting a brawl against Manchester City, has contributed nothing all season.
Rashford’s absence from the matchday squad here was due to a leg injury sustained in training, not his own disciplinary breach, the birthday bash a day after the 3-0 derby drubbing.
It is not entirely happy families at Craven Cottage either, and it certainly won’t be in the crowd if the club does not u-turn on its ticket price hikes. Some seats for this match cost a staggering £160 and ahead of kick-off, those who grew up from Putney to Parsons Green unleashed a mixture of fury and sadness at effectively being ousted from watching a team many of them supported at its lowest ebb.
If something does not change, regular match-goers will turn away and Fulham will lose the irreplaceable feel of a family club. Supporters held up yellow cards in the 18th minute – to represent an 18 per cent increase – bearing the Fulhamishly polite entreaty: “Please don’t price us out”.
Shahid Khan’s case might be stronger if they had not had such a problem scoring goals this season – at the time of writing, only four Premier League sides have fewer.
There is a wider issue here, which clubs never seemingly take into account – that going to football is not cheap to start with, however little the tickets cost. The trains are exhorbitant, the games are moved at the whims of TV schedulers, meaning hotels are very often involved as well.
Nobody should be paying £160 to watch their team. Were it not for Fernandes’ last-ditch intervention, United fans must be questioning why they pay anything at all.
from Football - inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/eIrXEdy
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