Man Utd were well and truly back in their defeat against Brighton. Last week's win over Fulham was just a blip, it seemed, in our continuous form of shiteness.
That victory gave us all a lot of optimism heading to Brighton and whereas I found more positives with that 3 points at Old Trafford, this week, quite the opposite.
Not good at all.
1. Start your best team!
Honestly, don't know why he didn't do this.
Alejandro Garnacho is currently our best attacker and probably our best player. Yes, he can be a little frustrating at times and selfish at others, but there's no doubting his ability and the fact that he is a chance magnet.
Whenever Garnacho is on the field, it feels like something could happen, even if he isn't on the ball. The winger is always a threat as he is quite direct and looks to make things happen.
In his two half-an-hour appearances this season, he has done more than both Marcus Rashford and Amad although the latter scored in this defeat. Neither of them have that same pull as Garnacho in terms of creating opportunities.
I also think that because of this, defenders may be slightly more worried.
We saw when he came on, he was in the thick of the action straightaway and was unlucky to not grab a goal.
Why the manager is choosing to bench him, I don't know?
Garnacho is very good as an impact sub and at times you'll need it but we're not in those times. We need him to start rather than come and save our arses later on in a game. If he starts, we may not need that saving simply because of how good he is.
Erik ten Hag seriously needs to play him from the beginning because both Rashford and Amad have been a little underwhelming even if Amad scored. Neither really create anything as well whereas Garnacho does.
I also believe we are a better outfit when we have a striker in our team. While the pressing wasn't as good when Mount went off and Zirkzee came on, I think that the two false 9s isn't really our thing and its almost like two players doing one player's job.
Zirkzee is also a target man, can hold the ball up, flick it on and bring others into play, something that neither Mount nor Bruno Fernandes can do. We do like to play long balls quite often so to have a big guy up front will make even more sense in this case.
Zirkzee's positioning and awareness is also just better than Mount and Bruno's as he understands how to play that number 9 position.
Matthijs De Ligt is another player who needs to start. This is a man whom Erik ten Hag knows very well and is more than capable of playing how he truly wants.
De Ligt ticks all the boxes required of a modern centre-back with one of his main strengths being that he can allow the team to play higher up.
The club spent a while trying to bring him in and spent a lot of money to get him. With our issues at CB and Leny Yoro picking up an injury, you would think that ten Hag would be happy to see one of his former players.
I'm not sure why he didn't start any of these.
2. Too left-sided
We are very left-side heavy. Everything we do, comes down the left. Even when we play out from the back, Andre Onana most of the time, plays out to Lisandro Martinez rather than Harry Maguire.
The left-winger also gets a lot more of the ball than the right and this makes us a bit predictable as opposition's know which side we're going down.
Attacking down the left, unless it's Garnacho, doesn't really help us going forward. Rashford has been average at best and yet we constantly go down that side when nothing really comes from it.
We need to vary our game and be a little different, mix it up and go down either side. Amad has been looking good as of late and was the scorer. He is better than Rashford at the moment so why we don't use him more makes no sense.
Mazraoui is also good going forward and he wasn't involved as much up front as Diogo Dalot.
3. Offsides
Many times, we were caught off.
Why are we offside so many damn times?! The worst bit would be that it's the wingers who are off yet they're looking down the line. They can see the shoulder of the last man but will more often than not, be offside.
United were on the wrong side of the last defender 6 times at Brighton. This is nothing new as last season, MUFC had the second-most offsides in the league with 91. Only Liverpool on 100 had more.
How have we not addressed this?
Brighton played such a high line and we were caught out by them stepping up a little. Our wingers are also faster than their defenders so there is no need for them to be offside.
Very frustrating as we could've been in behind them so many times.
4. Crosses
Another one of United's worst enemies are crosses. Whenever a ball comes into the box, admittedly, some poo comes out from me.
I have no confidence in this team in their ability to defend crosses. It doesn't have to be a David Beckham peach of a delivery that you just cannot do anything about nor does it have to be one of those classic Antonio Valencia pile-drivers that he used to smash across the box in the hopes that it's speed will cause chaos.
It could literally be what would appear to be a trickle across the box and I'm shitting myself.
Brighton's first chance and first touches in the United box in their win, came in the 33rd minute and was, you guessed it, from a cross.
MUFC had not one or two but three chances to prevent the ball coming into the 18-yard area and stop Danny Welbeast from scoring.
Diogo Dalot should've gotten closer to Joao Pedro to stop the initial cross.
Harry Maguire should've cleared it before it gets to Karou Mitoma.
Noussair Mazraoui probably should've done better at stopping that Mitoma ball in.
Casemiro should've then dropped back to mark Welbeck better instead of allowing him the easy tap-in that he had.
There were two other opportunities where Welbeck had free headers. One went over the bar while the other came off the frame of the goal. Both from crosses where the former United striker was relatively unmarked.
And then the late winner.
I feel like this one needs no explanation as to how poorly defended it was.
The quartet of Dalot, Mazraoui, Lisandro Martinez and Kobbie Mainoo all went across to Simon Adingra to prevent his cross after we couldn't clear the ball from a corner.
Those four couldn't stop that ball into the back post where there was,
no MUFC player in sight despite the home side having three players free on the back post. Pedro was the man to have a free header that he could've scored with his eyes closed.
Why nobody thought to mark the back post, is honestly baffling.
These are basics that shouldn't be happening. We've brought in a new set-piece coach in Andreas Georgson who has quite a reputation for being a master when it comes to set plays but in these two games, I haven't seen much improvement.
5. Erik ten Hag
The manager.
I don't know what he's playing at. He's gotten these new signings but is only starting one, he's sticking with players who've been average (at best) for many years, and other than an impressive high press and some decent patterns of play, we haven't actually improved that much.
I believe we look better with a striker instead of two false 9s. We have one on our bench. We want to play a high line as often as possible in the hopes of squeezing the opposition in their own half as well as snuffing out the danger before it happens. He's playing a defender in Harry Maguire who is incapable of that. He has a defender on his bench who is capable of that not to mention that he made him his captain at 19 in his best period as a manager at Ajax.
Oh, and he's leaving our best attacker and player on the bench in Alejandro Garnacho.
He's playing the likes of Mason Mount as a false 9 who while he did help us in the press, did ought else; the aforementioned Maguire who was good in the first game but has his limitations which we've known about for quite some time; Marcus Rashford has done nothing in over a year yet somehow always finds himself in the starting lineup.
Garnacho should be starting on the left, I would prefer Zirkzee up top and De Ligt has to come in for Maguire.
I mean, what's the point in getting all these players and not using them?
His substitutions were also confusing.
While Mount isn't the player I'd like us to use as striker, taking him off was incorrect in my opinion. He was the better of the two between him and Bruno. If one was to come off it should've been the skipper as Mount was clearly important in that high press. We weren't the same when he went off.
However, Erik ten Hag did say that Mount had a bit of a problem explaining his substitution although there was no indication of any issue.
Taking off Rashford was correct but it was surprising to many. I think he took him off because Amad scored and it would've been seen as a little unfair to take him off after equalizing for United. Had Amad not scored, I think he would've substituted him instead.
And then the worst of the lot was Bruno Fernandes.
I know I just said he should've come off instead of Mount but that was for a different circumstance. In the situation where he did sub the captain, was foolish.
With the game opening up, Fernandes is the perfect player for that situation. The amount of space out there would've seen him licking his lips at the chances he could've created. He also came off in the 79th minute with almost 20 minutes remaining including the 7 minutes added on.
His replacement was Scott McTominay who has no idea how to create. Bringing on McTominay wasn't necessarily the problem as we could use someone like him in that situation but with no one to create, it made no sense.
Then bringing on De Ligt for Maguire was odd as well because we were in need of a goal not holding on to a lead. An attacker would've been more apt at that point.
Antony coming on for Amad was a little late as other than his goal, Amad was having a rather poor game and was looking tired towards the end. Speaking of tired, Kobbie Mainoo appeared flat on his feet but the manager kept him on all game.
Why?
None of his tactics truly worked other than the high press but then he took off the player who made that press actually work well. We still didn't create many chances, had a deep defensive line, was offside a lot, couldn't defend crosses and with 14 chances for Brighton, wasn't far off our average of 20 concede per game last season.
The home side only had 3 in the first 45.
This is probably the first time I've felt truly concerned about the manager as he got absolutely everything wrong. His away record is also terrible as not only have we not played well in most (if any) of them, ten Hag has lost more on the road (17) than he's won (16).
His record against the Seagulls is worrying too as he's lost four of the five meetings against them.
I've spoke about his favoritism and how that could lead to his downfall but he's also very contradictory. He rewards players for playing well when looking at that that first game but those who actually made the difference (Zirkzee and Garnacho) have to be content with being benched again?!
He also never seems to take responsibility for his actions whenever he is clearly in the wrong. It's always about the team and collective having to improve rather than him saying that I made the mistake.
Something is not right with the manager. It is only two games in so there is still time to rectify things but to be having the same problems and so many early on in his third campaign, it ain't looking good brev.
Background Image: Erik ten Hag after Brighton loss | Creator: Eddie Keogh | Credit: Getty Images Copyright: 2024 Getty Images via Goal