THAT MANCHESTER UNITED’S wretched season may yet be salvaged is among the most remarkable facts of this remarkable season.
United can stake a major claim for a top-four finish by beating Chelsea at Old Trafford on Sunday, thanks in part to the initial Solskjaer Bounce along with the thinness of Spurs’ arsenal and the Spursyness latent within Arsenal and Chelsea.
But Champions League qualification should not disguise the shambles that United have become.
They remain utterly directionless: every passing year since Alex Ferguson’s retirement shows that the club have no real idea where they are going, only a growing appreciation for what they were.
For the majority of those years, they have been loosely governed by Alex Ferguson’s demand that fans “stick by your new manager”, which has led to a disjointed squad stocked with expensive, highly-paid players signed to suit the different interests of different men.
The folly of following little other than this principle began to hit home last summer, with the club refusing to fully accede to Jose Mourinho’s transfer demands.
The results of it are now painfully evident on the pitch, as United showed almost no cohesion against City on Wednesday night.
Counter-attacks were frequently butchered as Rashford didn’t know where Lingard would run, Pogba stood separate to the rest of the midfield taking four too many touches – either indulging himself or easing his insecurity, – Fred flailed about trying to quench the fires he started while the defence were linked by nothing other than desperate hope, and seemed to be in a race away from Leroy Sane for the killer second goal.
They were a group of strangers tethered together by nothing other than this abstract ideal of what it means to play for Manchester United, something that Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has been consistent and eloquent in outlining.
That belief in an identity of some kind – of playing for something bigger than just yourself – provided United a huge fillip amid the post-Mourinho cleansing, but it has worn horribly thin at this stage.
An identity is nothing without a coherent, holistic plan both on and off the pitch.
United have no plan. And haven’t had one for years.
The better part of the responsibility for this lies with the United Board, but Solskjaer should not be entirely absolved from blame.
Despite the fact his side have consistently played counter-attacking football since he took the job, there were no signs that he had coached any patterns to inflict damage against City on Wednesday night.
Rashford and Lingard twice broke at the same time against the City centre-backs in the first-half of Wednesday’s derby, and twice Rashford didn’t know what to do with the ball, electing at one stage to shoot from 35 yards and a second time slaloming into traffic, ignorant of Lingard’s run to his left.
Other counter-attacks foundered at Pogba’s feet as he consistently kept a hold of the ball rather than release the ball quickly.
Perhaps Solskjaer would have been better working on this type of stuff rather than indulging in useless affectations like training at The Cliff, and leaving his car-park spot free for Alex Ferguson?
United have the identity that Solskjaer makes such cloying reference to as they used to have a plan.
Under that plan they had the best manager in the country and many of its best players, who were either intelligently recruited with a squad role clearly defined or brought through a youth system in which players were coached a certain style of play to suit the first team’s interests.
This has all crumbled away with the passing of time, yet United remain obsessed with its more mythic elements.
They remain reliant on their manager solving all of their problems, a policy no other elite club in Europe follows, most of whom employ a Sporting Director to work along with the manager.
This role isn’t just about signing the best available player, it’s about identifying and signing the right player.
At a club of United’s size and wealth, the role is not about identifying and signing talent, but also about doing due diligence on prospective signings.
Liverpool, for example, sign players who have a track record of staying injury-free and ensure that all new signings are good characters in the dressing room.
Their signing of Xherdan Shaqiri was held up until the club had canvassed testimony from his former teammates.
These are not revolutionary ideas, and the latter is essentially a more formal way of following Ferguson’s hallowed principle of “getting rid of the c***s”.
The United dressing room is now full of players whose attitude and character are routinely questioned; issues that may have been avoided if there was a sporting structure in place to fully vet their signings.
United have reportedly committed to appointing a Sporting Director, but have yet to actually make an appointment. The man most closely linked to the role has been Mike Phelan, whose experience in that role extends to a stint with Central Coast Mariners in Australia. Among those signed while he was in charge was…Usain Bolt.
The club have since poured cold water on the Phelan rumours, and the club may have trouble finding the right man.
The role is made much easier when the team has a very clearly defined way of playing, as is the case at Manchester City and Liverpool. So this is a big issue for United: what is Solskjaer’s style of play, and what does he ask of players in each position?
That the club find themselves working with a manager over whom these questions hang is an enormous gamble, and indicative of a series of bad decisions by those in charge.
Which brings us those above Solskjaer. They are responsible for what has befallen the club, and a useful metaphor for their time in charge circulated online ahead of the Manchester Derby.
Spare a thought for the person sat in this seat at Old Trafford tonight 😂🌧 pic.twitter.com/057xbupHyv
— Soccer AM (@SoccerAM) April 24, 2019
Manchester United are in managed decline, and won’t compete with Manchester City and Liverpool until somebody takes them out of it.
Premier League fixtures (kick-off 3pm unless stated)
Friday
Liverpool v Huddersfield (8pm)
Saturday
Spurs v West Ham (12.30pm)
Southampton v Bournemouth
Fulham v Cardiff
Watford v Wolves
Crystal Palace v Everton
Brighton v Newcastle
Sunday
Leicester v Arsenal (12pm)
Burnley v Manchester City (2.05pm)
Manchester United v Chelsea (4.30pm)
Gavan Casey and Murray Kinsella are joined by Andy Dunne to get stuck into last weekend’s Champions Cup semi-finals.:
The42 Rugby Weekly / SoundCloud
