Right, where to even begin. Manchester United lost 4-0 to Brighton. Brighton! If that doesn’t sum up this shambles of a season I don’t know what else does. We have seen some really terrible results so far, but this feels as bad as we’ve been. Here are five things we learnt watching one of the worst games of this awful campaign.
Terrible Start
Not that this Manchester United team consistently comes out and dominates a game from the off, but that was such an awful way to start a game. In the first ten or fifteen minutes, the players just allowed Brighton to have the ball. There was no desire to press, to close attackers down or to win the ball back at all. In that early period of the game, I barely saw the ball in the Brighton half let alone anywhere near their box or heaven forbid threatening the goal. They played like they genuinely did not care. And then the Brighton goal was inevitable. A strong shot from outside of the box from Caicedo rocketed straight into the bottom corner, and no one was too surprised. Brighton had been the better team from the start and were playing to win.
MCTominay Poor
This is something that we have all known for quite some time, that this midfield is not good enough. The performance against Brighton was a stark reminder of that fact. Scott McTominay has had a poor season and this was no different. He was constantly giving away fouls, in total he made five. The midfielder was not able to retain possession and when McTominay did have the ball at his feet he did nothing with it. He made 0 key passes, completed 0 dribbles, attempted 0 crosses, 0 through balls and only 3 long balls. This really does paint the picture of a player not of the quality that Manchester United need. It felt that at times, McTominay was mistaking hard work for needlessly clattering into people. Scott McTominay is someone who I have liked in previous years and thought he might kick on this season, however he has gone the complete opposite direction and looks very out of his depth.
Useless Possession
Manchester United had 58% possession to Brighton’s 42%. Yet it never felt like the Red Devils could do anything with the ball at their feet. For those rare moments where United looked to retain possession there was zero penetration. The ball was being passed around the backline with no aim to progressing the ball. Now this can work for teams that look to recycle possession, reset an attacking shape and work a goal through phases, Man City obviously do this to high levels of success. However, Manchester United are not currently capable of that. They don’t play like a team. There is no cohesion from defence to midfield to attack. It genuinely felt like watching eleven players in red aimlessly chasing after the ball. And then when they did get it panicking and not knowing what to do with it.
Defensive Shambles
The defensive efforts, or lack of, from this team are horrific. Manchester United have now conceded their highest number of goals in a Premier League campaign at 56. We currently have a goal difference of 1, and could potentially finish with a negative goal difference. Not that this in itself is of huge significance, despite seeing goal difference taking a league title out of our hands, this statistic paints a terrible picture. It reinforces just how bad this defence has been this season. The story was much of the same against Brighton. Both centre-backs had poor games. And the full-backs were even worse in my opinion. It seemed as though Dalot was never in the right position. Alex Telles meanwhile did not complete a single successful tackle.
Individually there were lots of errors with this defence and then collectively they continued to look chaotic. For the second Brighton goal there was zero effort to close anyone down, allowing the ball to bounce around the box for Cucurella to finish things off. What a way to see off a terrible season for Manchester United, I can’t imagine that the last game of the season will be any different from the embarrassment we have seen from this team.
Ten Hag Huge Job
Erik ten Hag will have one hell of a job on his hands next season. To be clear, I am optimistic for what the Dutchman could bring to the job. However, it is going to take time, and a lot of it. I think that one of the few positives from Rangnick’s time in the dugout is that we as fans can see how much needs to change at this club. It isn’t all down to the manager. There are several players that need to leave. The club needs a cultural reset, we need to reinstill that belief, the desire and the passion. All of the things that were assumed as basics under Sir Alex need to be brought back. And signing a few players in the summer is not going to fix that. Of course it will go some way to helping that process of rebuilding, but there needs to be wholesale change at Manchester United before we can begin to look like the club that we all know we should be.