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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Here are few things that most football fans can probably agree on:
A lot of pundits, players and fans will argue that last point until they’re blue in the face. This despite his incredible resume, his overflowing trophy case (he’s won everything there is to win except the World Cup and Copa America), his status as Brazil’s all-time leading goal scorer (depending on what Pelé’s official record is), and some truly, jaw-dropping skills and awe-inspiring goals. His goal scoring record at Barcelona (105 goals in 186 matches) is better than Ronaldinho’s (94 goals in 207 matches) and his goals-to-games ratio is better than those of Ronaldinho, Rivaldo, Patrick Kluivert, Hristo Stoichkov and David Villa.
Nevertheless, if you Google “Neymar is overrated,” you’ll get a ton of columns, blog posts, YouTube videos, listicles, podcasts and Q&A pages asking things like “Is Neymar overrated?” and “Why is Neymar overrated?”
So when stories popped up this week about Manchester United potentially renewing its long-running interest in the Brazilian and finally bringing him to Old Trafford, let’s just say it inspired up lots of reactions.
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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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Perhaps it was fitting that, on the day when Manchester United’s greatest supersub returned to Old Trafford, the club’s current late-match game-changer helped secure a vital three points in a match they had to win if they wanted to keep their hopes of Champions League football for next season alive.
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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.
(more…)As the final moments of extra time ticked away at Wembley Stadium on Sunday during the FA Cup semifinal between Manchester United and Brighton & Hove Albion and penalty kicks seemed inevitable, most United fans probably had a sinking feeling that the match was already lost.
Those that didn’t were either delusional, relentlessly optimistic or lying.
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Jose Mourinho would have been proud of Erik ten Hag’s game-plan for the match against Newcastle last weekend.
Except for the result, of course. Then again, the Special One almost never won at Newcastle.
And so it was for Manchester United. On Sunday, Erik ten Hag tried to dip into his predecessor’s bag of dirty tricks to try and steal three points. There was lots of time wasting and play-acting designed to rile up the opposition and interrupt their flow. There were long stretches of passivity designed to invite pressure in the hopes it would lead to counterattacking opportunities. There was a reliance on David de Gea to make incredible saves to keep the scoreline as close to 0-0 as possible.
It was unsuccessful, as Newcastle won 2-0. Nevertheless, considering the circumstances, it was, arguably, a sound strategy.
United have been in poor form ever since winning the League Cup against Newcastle by the same 2-0 score at Wembley. Without the suspended Casemiro or the injured Christian Eriksen, United have been unable to control the midfield or consistently generate scoring chances. Instead, they’ve had to rely on moments of individual brilliance from the likes of Marcus Rashford, or teams giving them a helping hand, like Fulham a couple of weeks ago.
United also seem to be hitting a wall, having had to play multiple times a week in almost every week since the World Cup. Things could only get worse, as United remain alive in both the FA Cup and Europa League.
The end of the season can’t come quickly enough.
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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When teams are at or near the top of the table, they rarely talk about a draw as a point earned. Especially if they’re playing at home against a team that entered the weekend in last place.
But Manchester United’s 0-0 draw Sunday with Southampton definitely fit that description. That’s what happens when you play for more than an hour with 10 men, thanks to a Casemiro red card.
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Given the gigantic leap forward Manchester United has made this year, it’s easy to forget that they’re still, very much, a work in progress. Despite the clear success of winning the League Cup, knocking Barcelona out of the Europa League, progressing to the quarterfinals of the F.A. Cup and sitting in third place in the Premier League, Manchester United were always at least one or two years away from truly contending for multiple trophies and going toe-to-toe with the best clubs in the world.
United got a pretty painful wakeup call on Sunday, getting annihilated at Anfield by a score of 7-0.
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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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So, let’s recap:
One of the main reasons Frenkie de Jong reportedly turned down an €85 million move to Manchester United over the summer was because he didn’t want to play in the Europa League.
Sure, there were other reasons. Barcelona were his “dream club” and he and his girlfriend were happy living there. He’s owed some £17 million in deferred wages and the club wanted him to forfeit all or part of it in the event of a transfer. United looked like a total mess in the summer and there was no guarantee Erik ten Hag, his former manager at Ajax, would be able to make the transition from the Eredivisie to the Premier League.
Those were all compelling reasons. But the main one seemed to be the Europa League thing. De Jong wanted to play in the Champions League and going to United would be a step down for him (Cristiano Ronaldo, basically, felt the same way). Despite the fact that Barcelona ended last season in the Europa League, de Jong felt he was too good for UEFA’s second-tier competition and wanted to avoid it all costs.
Well, he got his wish. De Jong finally made his debut at Old Trafford yesterday, as United dumped Barcelona out of the Europa League, winning 2-1 to take the tie 4-3 on aggregate. United were comprehensively better than Barcelona over the course of both legs and probably should have won by three or four.
In doing so, they gave de Jong plenty of questions to ask himself. For instance:
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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.