What must Sir Jim Ratcliffe and his Ineos generals be thinking?
Manchester United, the club into which he is about to sink £1.3bn for a 25 per cent stake, lost on the pitch and off it. Perhaps the delay in sealing a protracted deal is a result of negotiations to nick a discount. Surely United can’t be worth now what they were when the process began a year ago.
The censorship hammer is the last resort of a failing club. And always a mistake. United cannot change the message by barring selected media outlets who print stuff they don’t like or with which they don’t agree.
Only a fool watching United at Newcastle could fail to observe a club riven by discord. Erik ten Hag’s issues are myriad. Stories about his relationship with the players, accurate or otherwise, are not the cause of bad stuff but the result of it. Besides mainstream media does not exist in a vacuum. In the social media landscape dissent is already widespread, often unregulated, and almost always nasty.
Far from controlling the narrative, or serving the club’s interest, by handcuffing chosen mainstream actors, United are perverting the environment and shrinking further the chances of succeeding.
Mauricio Pochettino must be delighted at the veil this has drawn over his own difficulties at Chelsea. They can now sneak into Old Trafford undetected, and probably steal all three points.
You hardly need a mole to expose United’s inner tensions. Anthony Martial openly challenging Ten Hag at Newcastle, Marcus Rashford utterly disengaged, Jadon Sancho exiled, Raphael Varane sidelined, and that is before you get into a failed transfer policy, rogue selections, an expensive goalkeeper in crisis, and injuries. Hardly Happy Klopp or Pep-land is it?
The debate
Some fans are right behind the boss. They blame the players, arguing that Ten Hag is dealing with the same rotten culture that did for his predecessors, entitled, overpaid mercenaries who are just not invested in the team. Surely he is right to take them on and ultimately run them out of the club.
This thread connects to a broader environment corrupted by a distant, disengaged ownership that priorities profit over performance. He talked about inheriting a standards-free zone and the need for a rules-based culture.
The opposing view increasingly identifies Ten Hag as a contributory factor, having failed to build on an encouraging first season by displaying the same limitations as those he replaced. Standards have become dogma, discipline has morphed into inflexibility.
Standards are fine when they lead to improvements, counter-productive when the team has no discernible style. Moreover his selections are baffling, left-backs at centre-half, right-backs at left-back, Scott McTominay an ever-present in a porous midfield.
The problems
Ten Hag has a centre forward, Rasmus Hojlund, who has yet to score a league goal, a goalkeeper, Andre Onana, prone to costly gaffes, an attacking midfielder, Mason Mount, who is either injured, benched or a long way behind skipper Bruno Fernandes, and a defensive midfielder, Sofyan Amrabat, who rarely starts despite the desperate need of a defensive midfielder in the absence of the injured Casemiro.
Worse than all of that is the presence of Antony, an £85m catastrophe. Meanwhile at Brighton an 18-year-old Argentinian who cost £80m less, Facundo Buonanotte, continues the club tradition of identifying gold bars at the price of tin, the inverse of the United approach.
The solutions, if there are any
It has been reported that Ten Hag’s future is not under immediate threat from the Ratcliffe revolution, yet you wonder how any can survive when so much rests on single outcomes. Ten Hag had built some protection with five league wins in six, but the lame defeat at Newcastle not only undermined that recovery, it placed a different interpretation on the wild ride in Istanbul for which Ten Hag attracted some positive commentary.
Of course Ten Hag was asked about his relationship with the players in that ‘lost dressing room’. And predictably he claimed he has their backing. Whatever the truth of that he needs to get his selection right against Chelsea, a match he cannot afford to lose.
That starts with replacing Onana. Since Onana is thought to be heading for the Africa Cup of Nations in January, Ten Hag would do well to blood Altay Bayindir now. The Turk played more than 100 games for Fenerbahce and has eight international caps. United needed certainty as well as security between the sticks, neither of which Onana has been able to provide.
He must also wean himself off the idea of McTominay as a midfield starter. His recent goals gloss deficiencies ruthlessly exposed at Newcastle, where he had a third the number of touches as counterpart Bruno Guimaraes. McTominay has neither the touch, vision or quality of pass to compete against the best.
Midfield has long been United’s Achilles heel. Amrabat has the experience to fill in for Casemiro at the base of the three. Ten Hag loves Kobbie Mainoo. Fine. Nudge him forward into the central role behind Fernandes at No.10. That should absolve his most influential player and captain from the need to double back.
With Martial obviously beyond use and Rashford in need of help, Ten Hag must decide between Antony and Facundo Pellistri on the right to accompany Hojlund and Alejandro Garnacho in attack.
Clearly United are a club in turmoil and Ten Hag is, for whatever reason, failing. We shall see against Chelsea the truth of the players’ attitude towards him. Only love, and wins, can save him now.
from Football - inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/gyTpt8N
Post a Comment