At around this time last year, Manchester United players, staff, and fans just wanted to our turd sundae of a season to end.
A fifth straight trophyless season. Our lowest point total in Premier League history. Three managers in one season. Things were so bad, the team cancelled its year-end awards ceremony and banquet because, let’s face it, the only thing to celebrate was that the season was over.
What a difference a year makes! This year, there was plenty to celebrate:
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UPDATE (05/25/2023): Casemiro did it again, scoring the opener against Chelsea and then playing a beautiful, Magic Johnson-esque no-look, line-splitting pass that set up United’s second goal. United ended up winning 4-1 to clinch Champions League football for next season. Next stop: The Sir Matt Busby and/or Players’ Player of the Year Trophy?
If there were any doubt that Casemiro has been Manchester United’s player of the season, he erased them on Saturday.
Showing an impressive bit of skill that you’d expect more from someone like Ronaldinho or Neymar, Casemiro scored on a beautiful overhead kick, leading United to a important 1-0 win at Bournemouth that put them on the brink of qualifying for next year’s Champions League.
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After back-to-back 1-0 league losses, Manchester United’s Top Four aspirations are hanging by a thread. United need three wins in their last four matches to be certain of clinching a spot in next year’s Champions League.
It’s certainly doable. United have three matches left at home, where they’re the Globetrotters, as opposed to the road, where they become the Washington Generals. Their matches at home are all pretty winnable, with Wolves, Fulham, and a shambolic Chelsea set to visit in the coming weeks. Their road match, on paper, is also winnable, as they’ll get 14th place Bournemouth.
Then again, they’ve looked so toothless and impotent in their last two matches that nothing looks like a gimme at this point.
Against Brighton, United couldn’t convert their chances ultimately got held scoreless by a team that has flummoxed them all year. In fact, the last time United managed to score against them was in August, when Alexis Mac Allister put it in his own net in Erik ten Hag’s first match in charge.
On Thursday, a late Luke Shaw hand-ball doomed United, allowing Brighton to beat David de Gea from the spot with nearly the last kick of the match (surely, a bit of revenge for Wembley — also an eerie parallel to what happened in 2020, when United were awarded a penalty after the final whistle blew and Bruno Fernandes converted it for an unlikely 2-1 win).
Then, on Sunday, United, once again, failed to convert their chances and were doomed by a David de Gea a howler. De Gea, who has committed a league-leading four errors this season that have led to goals, seems determined to lose out on his contract extension, but it’s not all his fault. Anthony Martial, Jadon Sancho, Antony and Wout Weghorst have been erratic all season, and Marcus Rashford hasn’t been the same since his groin injury. You can’t even blame the defense, which is being held together with duct tape and Krazy glue right now.
So here’s hoping fifth-place Liverpool can do us a favor and drop some points down the stretch. Let’s see, they play Leicester and Southampton on the road and Aston Villa at home. Dammit. Guess we’ll have to see what our guys are made of.
If there were still any doubts about Bruno Fernandes’ captaincy credentials, this past week put an end to them.
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For 70-plus minutes, Manchester United got outplayed at home by Fulham and it looked like their FA Cup dreams were about to go up in smoke.
Nothing was going right — Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Wout Weghorst were anonymous; Bruno Fernandes had another one of those games where he gesticulated and screamed at his teammates so much that there would inevitably be more articles written about whether he was captaincy material; and Casemiro’s and Christian Eriksen’s absences meant United had to try and dictate play through their center-halves, which would be fine except Harry Maguire’s passing was so slow and predictable that he drew audible groans from the fans. Fulham went up 1-0 after Aleksandar Mitrović scored off a corner kick and could have had two more if not for David de Gea doing his thing.
But then Fulham, evidently, got tired of all of the winning and decided to implode worse than Greg Norman at the Masters. Maybe they’re busy during the weekend of the FA Cup Semifinals and didn’t want to have to reschedule their plans?
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On Sunday, February 26, 2017, Manchester United won the League Cup at Wembley Stadium under first-year manager Jose Mourinho. Despite being second-best for much of the match, United prevailed thanks to goals from Man of the Match Zlatan Ibrahimovic, the serial winner they signed during the previous summer, and academy product Jesse Lingard, as well as some timely saves from all-world keeper David de Gea.
Exactly six years later, United ended their long trophy drought in an eerily similar fashion. United, under first-year manager Erik ten Hag, were second-best for much of Sunday’s 2-0 victory over Newcastle United. However, they managed to prevail thanks to goals from Man of the Match Casemiro, the serial winner they signed during the previous summer, and academy product Marcus Rashford, as well as some timely saves from all-world keeper David de Gea.
Let’s hope the parallels end there.
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Ralf Rangnick’s spell as interim manager was a failure.
His tenure in the Manchester United dugout finally came to an end on Sunday after yet another listless effort — this time, losing at Crystal Palace 1-0 in a stadium where they had never lost a Premier League match. A season that began with so much promise and genuine excitement, had turned into such a nightmare that most people just wanted it to end, consequences be damned. That United managed to back into a Europa League place thanks to West Ham losing summed things up pretty well.
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Never let it be said that Ole Gunnar Solskjær wasn’t the ultimate company man.
When Manchester United finally decided to sack him as manager after a series of humiliating losses and poor performances but didn’t want to use that terminology, Solskjær went along with the charade and said that he was “stepping aside.” He even gave an exit interview with ManUtd.com that was full of platitudes and niceties. He even managed, with a straight face, to deliver lines like “It was time for me to step aside” and “I’m going to leave by the front door” even though everyone knows he’s being shoved aside (and deservedly so, but that doesn’t mean he should have to swallow his pride or continuing taking one for the team on the way out). I can only imagine what Louis van Gaal or Jose Mourinho would have said to that. Probably a two word phrase that starts with the letter “f” and ends with the word “off.”
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A lot can change in 24 hours. Just ask Jack Bauer.
Or Cristiano Ronaldo. On Thursday, it looked like he was ready to break the hearts of the faithful United fans who still sing his name and join Pep Guardiola at Manchester City. In doing so, he would be the eighth player to suit up for both United and City — and the third player from that vaunted 2007-2008 Champions League winning team to do so.
But then the United Network kicked in. Sir Alex Ferguson spoke to the player he’s long had a fatherly affection for and tried to get him to come home, something he thought he had accomplished in 2013 as his last act before retirement. Former teammates weighed in, with Rio Ferdinand calling to try and talk him out of joining City, Patrice Evra keeping tabs via WhatsApp and Wayne Rooney sending a message through the media. Even Bruno Fernandes reached out to his fellow Portuguese international and Sporting Lisbon alum to try and change his mind and sell him on an unlikely homecoming.
It worked.
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About Me:
- Former Lawyer.
- Current Journalist/Writer/Editor.
- Author of "Nixon in New York: How Wall Street Helped Richard Nixon Win the White House," published in 2018.
- Husband, father and dog-lover.
- Pittsburgh Steelers fan. Manchester United supporter.
- Chicago via Pittsburgh, New York City and several others.