I don’t enjoy being proven right when it comes to United playing badly, but what’s being hypothesised for a while now is coming to fruition: De Gea enters an average spell and United will be shown to be the average side they are. Our defense is so poor and is conceding too many chances to the opposition that only heroic goalkeeping will save you. No side intends to create the paucity that United do or concede the glut they do.
We are now playing arguably our worst, most disjointed, least effective football post-Ferguson and I include Moyes’ tenure in that. We have nothing currently, no positives. No player is playing consistently well. No facet of our game is going well. We have no identity, no cohesion and no structure. Even under Van Gaal we at least had those things going for us: a foundation on which to build. Mourinho is accountable for all of this and has to be challenged as to why United have been lacking for all of 2018. He’s taking the team backwards. I am not alone in having no clue whatsoever in what Mourinho is trying to do, how he expects to succeed.
It is easy to preach the virtue of patience, but patience can be granted what there is something underlying, hinting at further success. An FA Cup final and a 2nd place PL finish are not these things when the performances that delivered them are so much more damning. Enjoying the success and the silverware that we have had is not mutually exclusive with questioning whether we are looking likely to continue to deliver. I wanted Mourinho here. I still want him, and any United manager, to be a success, but currently I have no grounds whatsoever for optimism. We are a poorer side than when he took over. Every individual at the club looks worse than they do when Mourinho joined or he signed them.
Our transfer business of course is not helping The signing of Sanchez looks like having the potential of being the worst signing in our history. Consider that that neither Sanchez, nor the fully capable players in Rashford and Martial that he was seemingly signed to upgrade, can currently expect to command a place in the team. No-one bats an eyelid if they are all benched. We still have a non-existent right flank. What the feck is going on. Don’t let our poor transfer dealings mask the fact that Mourinho is fully equipped to have a team performing far better though.
Sorry, but this is not acceptable. I can accept losses, I can accept setbacks, but I cannot accept consistently poor performances for the best part of a year. Performances are the best indicator of future success and they are not there and I cannot continue accept United being poorly managed on and off the field. United are headed for sixth this season, wasting a monumental amount of talent and potential. If you do not think that is a real, genuine possibility, then I urge you to look beyond the badge and look at the performances.
Funnily enough I don’t think United were that bad tonight. Spurs were clinical though and United weren’t. United have played far worse in the last 12 months and have walked away with all three points. I’m not sure that is much of a positive given that there was still a distinct lack of pragmatism, a lack of assurance, a lack of clear direction, any sense of obvious structure. United fought tonight, the dressing room has not gone, but there’s not much else there to take forward. Seriously, what from tonight are we supposed to take into the next game? Shaw was dynamic, but other than that Neville is right. It’s an utter lottery what to expect from United next week, both in terms of the lineup and in terms of the performances.
I’ll continue to support at Old Trafford, but my counsel in private is very different.
