Manchester United Part 2

After the sacking of van Gaal things seriously changed at Manchester United. From the hope and optimism of success under Moyes and van Gaal to the almost inevitable success with new manager Jose Mourinho.

The summer of 2016 was rife with rumour and speculation over the successor of Louis van Gaal. With two of the worlds top managers out of a job, Pep Guardiola and Jose Mourinho, and two of the worlds top teams manager-less, both Manchester teams, there was a fierce rivalry over who would go where and who would achieve more, further accentuating the recent rise of competition in Manchester.

United fans were ever hopeful of the appointment of Pep Guardiola, him being the favourable of the two managers with impressive domestic success no matter where he went and an unbelievable tact in winning trophies, currently winning games one every 23 games. He hadn’t done this in the Senegalese second division or some other outrageously uncompetitive league, he had managed two of the most historic and successful clubs one world football, Barcelona and Bayern Munich. Yes he had the talents of Lionel Messi and Robert Lewandowski at his disposal at the respective clubs, however, he utilised them to their maximum abilities- introducing Messi to the False 9 role in which he now excels, scoring 47 goals in the first season.

Despite Guardiola’s apparent superiority, Mourinho was still one of the best managers around and has only 2 fewer trophies to Guardiola having managed far inferior teams to the Spaniard, managing to provide some of the biggest footballing shocks of recent times. Among his trophies are 2 Europa League and 2 Champions League wins, both of which Guardiola fails to display in his trophy cabinet. The first of Mourinho’s Champions League victories was simply incredible and set up the future of his managerial career, winning it with FC Porto a year after winning the Europa League with that same team. This led to his subsequent managing roles at Chelsea, Inter Milan and Real Madrid.

But the deal was set and Jose Mourinho was to join United and Guardiola would travel across the city to City. Mourinho, with plenty of funds at his disposable, started off well and signed Paul Pogba, an ex-United academy player who was discarded by Ferguson and resigned for a world record fee by the new Portuguese manager. Impressive signings were also made in Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Zlatan Ibrahimovic who had impressive first seasons. Mkhitaryan was particularly impressive in European competition with 6 of his 11 goals in the 2016/17 coming in Manchester United’s Europa League victory. It was in that same competition that Ibrahimovic’s United career effectively ended after he hyper-extended his knee against Anderlecht causing ‘serious knee ligament damage’ ending his 27-goal debut season in despair; the season after he only managed 187 minutes for United eventually being shipped off to America in the now familiar send-off for many legends of the modern game. Pogba, on the other hand, was fearfully under-performing in respects of his substantial price tag but was still a key member for the United team.

It appeared Mourinho was going to continue his trend of European success over domestic performance as United only managed a 6th place finish which would have been considered shambolic if it were not for United’s Europa League victory giving the side a Champions League place for the following season. The European title was also supported by the League Cup win with Ibrahimovic pivotal in the tournament win, especially with his brace in the final.

The next season was far more rounded: 2nd place in the league, finalists in the FA Cup, quarter-finalists in the League Cup and reached the last 16 in the Champions League. The last on the list being the most painful and avoidable as United were overwhelmed by a beatable Sevilla side. A goalless draw in the first leg filled supporters, players and the club as a whole with hope going into the second leg at Old Trafford. But Sevilla substitute Wissam Ben Yedder tore United to shreds with 2 late goals condemning United to another year of Champions League disappointment.

This season was a record breaking season in Manchester, however, for City rather than United as the Red Devils were blown out of the water by the league winners, finishing 19 points behind their closest rivals. It was a season which was mocked by rival fans. Whilst Liverpool reached the Champions League final and City won the league with relative ease, United’s biggest achievement was not handing City the title in April after an impressive 3-2 win at the Etihad coming from 2 goals behind to delay City’s title parade by a few games. In comparison to their biggest rivals, United looked meek and mild and the fans had lost all bragging rights.

A piece of criticism from Mourinho’s time at the club was his use of Paul Pogba and, more specifically, his inability to get the best out of a world class player. No matter what rival fans say when Paul Pogba performs to the top of his ability he is almost unstoppable but he has shown this kind of performance only a few times over his United career in comparison to his constant match winning performances for the French national team. There was no better a time to question this than in the summer of 2018 when Pogba led France to the World Cup title in Russia beating Argentina, Uruguay, Belgium and Croatia on the way to their second World Cup victory. He was a fundamental part of their team in the tournament playing a slightly more defensive midfield role, as he usually does for France, alongside fellow Premier League player, N’golo Kante. The World Cup campaign highlighted Pogba’s ability to be a mature and versatile midfielder but also highlighted the fact he needed support in the midfield from other hard-working, passionate midfielders.

As a result of this Manchester United signed Brazilian midfielder Fred for £50 million. Arguably the worst Premier League signing of the season. His highlight coming in a 1-1 draw at Old Trafford against Wolves in which he scored United’s only goal. This signing was enough to spark outrage from the fans as they believed it was time to say goodbye to Ed Woodward, much like Louis van Gaal believed all those years ago. The fluctuations in his spending over the last few years led to huge controversy, at times over spending on players who weren’t good enough for the squad and at times not spending at all when the team desperately needed a new player or two.

So Mourinho went into the new season without the experienced and world-class centre back he desperately craved and instead picked up a Brazilian midfielder from the Ukranian league, an ageing bench-warmer, keeper from the Championship and an unknown and inexperienced Portuguese full back. In a comparatively worse position to most of their rivals United went into this new season with unease following pre-season defeats to Liverpool and Bayern Munich. Within 3 Premier League games, United had lost 2 including a 3-0 thumping from Spurs. By December were out of Europa League qualification leaving Mourinho’s job teetering on the verge of termination and then United travelled to rivals Liverpool needing to win to keep any chances of Champions League qualification alive. But United were condemned to a 3-1 defeat leading to Mourinho’s sacking 2 days later.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer

So with one of the world’s best managers gone, deemed to have failed at the club, who could the board possibly turn to? Their decision was a shock to almost all fans of the club and followers of the Premier League as it was decided the former Manchester United player would take over the role, a man who took Cardiff City back down to the Championship in his only managerial appearance in a top European league.

Other than this one dismal appointment, Ole was a successful manager in his home country, Norway, for Molde FK. In his two stints at his boyhood club Solskjaer managed to gain two domestic league titles and a Norwegian cup final triumph. Most sceptics point out that this was only the Norwegian league and they couldn’t be more true which makes it even more bizarre that this success in such a small, uncompetitive league could lead to his appointment as Manchester United’s caretaker manager in late 2018.

However, he proved these sceptics wrong early on in his United managerial career as it was all plain sailing for once at the club, in fact they were flying high with a 15 game unbeaten-run in domestic competition. The highlights of this great run of form: a 1-0 win at Wembley against Tottenham with ‘Manc born and bred’ Marcus Rashford scoring the winning goal and having his name chanted around the home of football; an FA cup demolition of Arsenal at the Emirates with Sanchez, Lukaku and Lingard all playing unusually well and finally Chelsea in the FA cup again with Paul Pogba running the show from midfield.

All of this culminated in the Champions League round of 16 where United faced their toughest opposition yet, Paris Saint Germain. The first leg at Old Trafford was an unpleasant watch as in form Lingard and Martial were both forced off due to injury in the first half and in the second half PSG took a 2 goal lead and Paul Pogba found himself on the receiving end of the referee’s red card. So without Paul Pogba, Manchester United looked feeble and the second leg in the Parc de Princes was going to be a real test for the squad having to rely on players like Fred, McTominay and Greenwood who had little big game experience and some of them had little Manchester United experience at all. But it was proven striker Romelu Lukaku who came into the game hungry for a result as he managed to squeeze in two first half goals but United still needed one more goal to go through automatically. Into added time in the second half they went and Presnel Kimpebe leapt into the air to bloke a wayward Diogo Dalot shot and it was deemed by VAR that it was done so using his arm. The subsequent penalty was leathered into the side netting by Marcus Rashford past Gigi Buffon, Rashford’s first penalty in a professional game and United went through on away goals to the quarter-finals for the first time since David Moyes’ management.

After this ground-breaking result, Solskjaer was finally made Manchester United’s replacement manager, something that the fans had been pleading the club to do for months prior to this event. Yet in retrospect it appears this was a poor choice. The honeymoon period of Solskjaer’s reign as caretaker manager was abruptly cut off after the victory on March 6 as United went on to lose 8 of their last 12 matches of the season- including a shameful 2-0 defeat against an already relegated Cardiff City.

The end to last season was stressful for the club as the players who performed so excellently in the first 3 months of Solskjaer’s term suddenly lost the ability to play basic football: Lingard, in the form of his life in early January, showed the creativity of a 2 year old let loose on a whiteboard, none; De Gea, the world’s best goalkeeper who had saved the club for years and about the only player who was still performing at the end of Mourinho’s time at the club, had his sheets dirtied many a time in the last few games as he flapped at tame shots and struggled to find his form, particularly in Solskjaer’s first game as full-time manager against Arsenal where he misread a Granit Xhaka long shot as it sailed right into the centre of the goal with the Spaniard wrong footed and helpless.

The major positive to take from the end of the season was the fact that Solskjaer was going to be given the money to ‘rebuild’ the club and so he did. United’s major concerns from last season came in defence. Victor Lindelöf was a rare glimmer of hope in the backline which otherwise had an ageing Ashley Young, an injury-prone Luke Shaw and a shaky Phil Jones or Chris Smalling. The summer signings of Aaron Wan Bissaka and Harry Maguire have already made United’s defence far stronger with Maguire’s brute strength and ability to play out from the back and Wan Bissaka’s blistering pace and fearless tackles giving him the nickname ‘The Spider’.

So the season began with United looking stronger due to these defensive signings plus the helpful signing of Welsh youngster Daniel James who provides sheer speed and athleticism down the flanks. However, there were nerves around the club due to the loss of a certain Ander Herrera, the clubs most passionate player was simply discarded to PSG as Ed Woodward once again decided not to give a key player a new contract.

Only 4 games into the season and the murmurings of doubt are already circulating around the club as United have claimed 1 win, 2 draws and 1 loss in the most bizarre fashion. Having thumped Chelsea 4-0 on the opening day of the season, United travelled to Wolverhampton to face their kryptonite from last season and yet again left with dropped points due to a standard Ruben Neves strike, nothing they could do about that. Yet there was something the team could’ve done about losing to Crystal Palace at home, a lacklustre performance saw Crystal Palace take their opportunities and pounce twice on the counter-attack to seal the win. Most recently United travelled to Saint Mary’s, Southampton. It wasn’t a bad performance, however, the team made it harder for themselves- conceding an equaliser from a corner and then failing to convert a number of easy opportunities to win the game late on against a 10 man Saints side.

Solskjaer should not be written off just yet as he has managed to get a good squad together that are actually performing well. But the fundamental errors which these world class professional footballers are making cost the club massively. The major issue for this season, in my opinion, will be squad depth. United have a few injury prone players and individual injuries can turn the whole squad around. For example, the recent injury of Luke Shaw means one of last year’s liabilities has to step up to the plate, Ashley Young, which could jeopardise the whole squad. Furthermore, any injury to one of the United’s key attackers would leave all the responsibility on one of the recent academy graduates, most likely 17 year-old Mason Greenwood. It will be interesting to see how the squad can cope with the pressures of the rest of the season and how they manage to adapt to them too. Solskjaer will really be tested this campaign and whether or not he will still be at the club by the end of it we will have to wait and see.