It is a bit of a problem to be thinking that losing at home to Arsenal isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Given our terrible season, injuries and last Monday’s performance at Palace, I think many (including myself) felt as though the Gunners really were going to destroy us. Their form is brilliant, they’re playing amazing football and are fighting for the league.
However, when looking at that game, the performances of the two teams and the result, didn’t go quite according to what people thought.
This is why I say it was sort of a win-win situation for all.
I did want my team to win but of course, I’d rather Arsenal win the league over City which meant they needed the 3 points. United were relatively decent and arguably the better side and in spite of all our issues, we didn’t get totally embarrassed when it seemed highly likely that we will, and Arsenal got their win which they required to keep their title hopes alive.
It went better than I thought, weirdly.
Arteta’s side didn’t cause United too many problems but rather, as we’ve seen several times this season, it was United causing their own problems.
The goal was poorly defended. Casemiro in being too slow to push up the field and playing everyone on side was criminal, Jonny Evans not getting tight enough to Kai Havertz to stop the cross, and Aaron Wan-Bissaka’s crap marking of Leandro Trossard were all areas to look at when conceding that goal.
Other than that, Arsenal didn’t pepper our goal and we kept them at bay relatively well. The only issue United had was in the final third.
Another game where the attack was not clinical and had terrible decision-making. At critical moments, the forward line made the wrong calls at the wrong times or didn’t show enough quality when needed.
In the end, that was the real difference: we failed to take our opportunities, Arsenal took theirs.
Erik ten Hag will be quite pleased with his side’s performance in my opinion. We know that he always appears ‘happy’ when talking afterwards as more often than not, he speaks very positively about how his team played.
This game gave him more reason to do this as it wasn’t as bad as some of the displays we’ve seen this year but the result, how we conceded the goal and lack of quality up front is where he will be frustrated.
There were some positives to take but whether we build upon these positives or not remains to be seen.
Ratings:
Onana — 6
Wan bissaka — 5
Casemiro — 4
Evans — 5
Dalot — 6
Amrabat — 7 MOTM
Mainoo — 5
Amad — 6
Mctominay — 5
Garnacho — 5
Hojlund — 5
Kambwala — 6
Forson — 6
Eriksen — 6
Wheatley — 6
Erik ten Hag — 6
There are a few other things I wanted to discuss.
Manager favoritism
I don’t think the performance was that great by United. It wasn’t terrible but was definitely an improvement from Palace and with all our injuries and the team selected, it was a decent display from MUFC. But I also think Arsenal were poor compared to what they’ve been this season and allowed United to look better than they were.
Amad and Sofyan Amrabat were the two best players for United with the Moroccan being MOTM for me. The two were players who looked like they were enjoying themselves and knew what they were doing.
The injury crisis does have a bit of a shining light in that we get the chance to see such players play.
We know that ten Hag has his favorites and will play them no matter what. That results in players like Amad and Amrabat not getting as much game time as they should even more so when some of those favorites aren’t performing.
With the manager sticking with those favorites, it doesn’t paint a good image as what do the other players think? They can’t be happy when looking at certain others underperforming yet play all the time.
This runs the risk of dressing room disruption, risk overplaying players and resulting in potential injury, and by not giving enough game time to others, risks them being wasted on the bench.
People have been asking why Amad hasn’t been playing more especially when looking at the performances of Marcus Rashford and Antony. And can Amrabat be any worse than Casemiro as CDM? Could he be any worse than what Christian Eriksen has been producing?
Erik ten Hag’s lack of rotation and favoritism is something we’ve all complained about and hinders us more than helps us. He also very rarely rewards good performances as ends up bringing in those favorites regardless of how they’ve played.
This makes it very predictable and easy for oppositions to play against us as they already know the team he’s likely to pick as well as the substitutions he’s going to make.
The Leaks
We’ve heard about dressing room leaks before and this time, we literally have dressing room leaks.
Towards the end of the game, we saw that there was a crazy deluge that resulted in Old Trafford becoming quite waterlogged. This wasn’t helped by the roof itself leaking.
We all saw the videos and images of what people have dubbed the ‘Old Trafford waterfall’ which wasn’t far away from the tunnel leading into the changing rooms. This wasn’t dissimilar to what we saw five years ago before a derby as there was heavy leaks in the same area of the roof.
Five years later, nothing has changed.
In the away dressing room, the ceiling was leaking with decent amounts of water coming in. The Arsenal players probably could’ve had a shower under those leaks rather than an actual shower there was so much water coming in.
How are we the most valuable club in the world? With a stadium like that and the complaints about the training ground not being good enough, something that Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s right-hand man and person doing a strategic review of the club Sir Dave Brailsford also recently admitted, how are we supposed to be taken seriously?
Yes, a lot of the players aren’t good enough and perhaps the manager isn’t as well but it isn’t their fault that the facilities at United are pathetic.
In saying all this, I think it’s actually a GOOD thing. Yes, I do believe that this should be a positive as it highlights even further the fact that the major owners of the club the Glazers, haven’t taken care of Man Utd. For people who don’t really look at them as a problem, this indicates that they definitely are.
Imagine Real Madrid having a waterfall in the Bernabeu due to heavy rains. That would never happen because they wouldn’t allow it to and is exactly how a big club should be run.
It’s absolutely embarrassing and sad to see our great Theatre become what it is. Whether INEOS decide to build a completely new stadium or revamp the current one, it’s clear that they have much to do either way.
Wayne Rooney’s comments
The former United great and captain had some strong words post-match but I wanted to focus mainly on what he said regarding the injured players.
This is what he said on Sky Sports after the game:
“You need to want to play. I played with injuries. The manager needs to be ruthless and take that opportunity away from you. As long you haven’t got a bad injury you should want to play on that football pitch. For me that doesn’t seem that’s the case.
Some of them players can play, 100 per cent. Because they’re getting a little bit of stick it’s easy for players to stay out and come back towards the FA Cup final and get themselves right for the Euros.”
I agree with him. I find it uncanny that we have so many players injured at the same time. Yes, if you’ve got something serious, of course you can’t play but do all have injuries that are so bad so as to keep them out entirely?
Perhaps you may not be able to play all game but surely you’ve got enough in the tank to do something? Jonny Evans is one such player and is it a coincidence that he’s a player who’s won things in that United dressing room and was surrounded with that strong mentality from his teammates and Sir Alex?
Our players don’t have strong mentalities as we’ve known for a while. As Rooney said, you need to want to play and I don’t think we have enough players like that.
We’re all thinking that come the FA Cup final in a couple of weeks and the Euros not long after, a lot of these players will be back, just as Rooney said.
It won’t be great but if these players are so badly injured then surely it means they can’t play the final and maybe even Euros? It will hinder our squad when playing against City but at least we could say that perhaps these players are truly injured because why else would they want to miss a final?
It will just seem more strange should they return by the time that final comes along just as everyone is predicting.
Background image: Kai Havertz and Leandro Trossard | Image credit: Getty Images via Eurosport