Iâve no idea what they should do, bar theyâve zero chance with Maguire at the back. They might grind out an odd win with a breakaway goal and a park the bus, but the forwards can only dig out the Maguire/short arms combo every so often.
Itâs frustrating as Iâd love to see them go a long way because nobody does much work, and the roads are absolutely deserted for cycling.
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If he sorted his shit out the cunts could win it. Nobody else is particularly strong at the moment.
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Shudder. Can you imagine?
They fluked a ladies competition at home with a fully professional squad playing against three au pairs, a pipe fitter and a few dentists, and theyâre still banging on about how theyâve reinvented football.
A nice deep run with a load of games, before losing like in the euros, preferably with a hape of their thug support trying to kick off in Qatar would be a nice tournament.
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I was in manchester the week of the ladies final and it was sickening alright
Thinly veiled âI actually donât mind the English team and will be supporting them fervently as I drink copious amounts of the Queenâs soup, paid for by the Queenâs shillingâ
Shallow people want instant gratification.
FOOTBALL | WAYNE ROONEY
Manchester United lack character, heart and emotion â Iâd start by leaving out Cristiano Ronaldo and Marcus Rashford
Football has developed tactically and improved technically during my time in the game, but the basics donât change. If you donât run, if you donât put in the effort, you can lose to any team. I have never seen Manchester United so lacking in those basic qualities. Their hammering by Brentford was hard to watch.
If that had happened to any of the United teams I played for, I think fans, journalists and every other team in the country would have been shocked, but people werenât with this side. The most worrying thing is that neither the result nor performance surprised me.
Erik ten Hag was right to call players out and speak about hunger, and it was fair enough for him to get them in for extra training, where he asked them to run the same distance that Brentford outran them by.
Ten Hag will have done a lot of soul-searching this week and will be making a lot of demands to get a reaction out of his players, Iâm sure. But with this group, this has been happening for so long that changing their ways is going to take something drastic. Theyâre emotionless â there is no character, no heart in the team.
Iâm not talking about every player. Harry Maguire will always try, Fred will always try and Scott McTominay may not be Paul Scholes or Michael Carrick but he will always go out and show some balls. Those three have been trying to lift the group, but it comes down to individuals to take responsibility. Watching United, I see players throwing their arms up and shouting at team-mates but I donât see them talking, or looking at themselves before blaming others. I see them making eye-catching runs to close down the goalkeeper but not 50-yard runs back to stop an attack.
I see them going up to the crowd after the game apologising or coming out on social media with all the guff: âWe go again.â The fans see through that. My message would be: stop apologising, just get on with your job â and work. Thatâs all the fans want. They want to see them taking responsibility in the 90 minutes.
We should remember that this is only the start of Ten Hagâs reign, that heâll need time and that heâll have identified a number of issues to address when the time is right. He clearly wants to see the players he inherited and give them a chance.
But he also needs to do something quickly and the first priority is, against Liverpool, to just compete and have a go. Do that and the fans will accept it, even if United get beaten. Play like they did against Brentford, and United will suffer an even worse result than their 5-0 defeat by Liverpool last season.
I donât expect that to happen, by the way â I canât see United winning, but I believe thereâll be a reaction and theyâll lose by the odd goal, or even snatch a draw.
But I wouldnât play Cristiano Ronaldo, and I wouldnât play Marcus Rashford. If I was in Ten Hagâs position my main concern would be getting energy on the pitch, and Unitedâs failure to recruit a No 9 means they relied on Ronaldo against Brentford, even though he hadnât trained a lot with the team. He looked like he needs time to get match fit.
He has also let it be known that he wants to leave the club. I donât know his reasons but, as I wrote in my last column, Iâd let him â heâs a great player and will always score goals but the task for Ten Hag is to produce a team that can compete for the title in three or four yearsâ time. That means rebuilding with younger players.
As for Marcus, I think he needs to do a lot of soul-searching and figure out what he wants, for his own good, before anything else. Because watching him is a real concern: he looks like he wants to be anywhere but on a football pitch. I havenât seen him smile on the field for a long time. His performances have dipped â he hasnât been selected by England for more than a year. Iâm coming from a place of wanting the best for him. Heâs a lovely kid and a local lad who came through the ranks at United, who everyone wants to see doing well. But you look at the difference between Marcus now and when he first came into the team: the passion he showed, the smile on his face when he scored. Itâs night and day.
He needs to look at himself and Ten Hag and the coaches need to figure out whatâs going on, sit him down and have really honest conversations, because you canât just keep rolling him out when clearly somethingâs not right. There has been speculation about a move to Paris Saint-Germain, and it could be that he is another, like Cristiano, who wants a change of scene.
Casemiro, Unitedâs new signing, will not be eligible to face Liverpool, which is a pity because he will undoubtedly improve United. Heâs a good player. Iâve played against him and heâll bring a bit of character, a bit of work rate, but is he exactly what United need? Iâm not sure.
This goes back to the need to look to the future. Ideally, they should be signing players in their early to mid-twenties, and Casemiro is similar to Christian Eriksen â someone who has been a good player, but are they going to help the club move forward? Frenkie de Jong, Ten Hagâs principal midfield target, would be a better fit.
The Casemiro deal seems to have come from nowhere, and looks a reactive signing â Iâd be surprised if he was a player identified as a priority to bring in when Ten Hag arrived. It looks like, having been unable to sign De Jong, United just reacted to Casemiro being available.
After the Brentford game there was serious scrutiny on Lisandro MartĂnez, another summer recruit. Ten Hag was criticised for signing a 5ft 9in centre back, but I think MartĂnez has the potential to be a success in the Premier League. Heâs a good footballer, but what he needs is for his team to be dominating possession and playing high up the pitch, so he can use his reading of the game and footballing skills.
If you put MartĂnez in the Manchester City team, there wouldnât be any questions about him. Fernandinho thrived as a centre back for City at times and Javier Mascherano was brilliant there for Barcelona, and neither is very tall. Gary Neville did well as a âsmallâ centre back for a period of his career and when I played, I always fancied I could do a great job there. Itâs about being in a team with the right style of play and the quicker Ten Hag can impose his structure and style, the easier for MartĂnez it will become.
Maybe long term Ten Hag will think about his goalkeeping position. David de Gea has been a great keeper for United, and he is OK with his feet, but he is not a keeper who is going to dominate games, like Alisson for Liverpool or Ederson for City. A lot of the game goes through the goalkeeper these days and managers have to decide what type of player they want in the position â I had that issue at Derby County last season.
Managers like myself and Ten Hag want to play from the back, and that is not Davidâs natural game. This goes back to Unitedâs recruitment. For the club to move forward, the recruitment of players and the profile of what the manager wants in each position has to match up. The way the present squad is put together â maybe because theyâve had so many managers â looks a bit random.
The basics of the game â that is the first thing United need to show at Old Trafford tomorrow. I donât remember any of Sir Alex Fergusonâs teams losing through lack of effort, but you do have the odd shocking game. I remember getting thumped 4-1 by Middlesbrough in 2005.
It was the game where Roy Keane went on MUTV afterwards and didnât hold back in his criticism of certain players, and we ended up all having a meeting about Royâs comments. The result was that Roy left the club. Thatâs the kind of drastic action Fergie took to ensure such performances never happened again.
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Little acorns. Man U move off the bottom of the table courtesy of West Ham losing 0-2 to Brighton.
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A few English managers working miracles
Tommy two kill must be sweating a bit. Thats a nawful bating to get
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Reading there that over their last 13 league games Chelsea have amassed 19 points from 39.
Over his last 13 league games as Man U manager before getting sacked, Coach Ole amassed 20 points from 39.
Looks like Rashford will be trying to find his form from the bench. Antony and ETH pudhing hard for that transfer to be completed, Gakpo is the back up.
Either would start on the right with Sancho on the left.
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Sancho is really struggling too. Maarcus has been absolutely dreadful though.
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Rumours Chelsea want Maguire, French kid too expensive
Think Gakpo is right footed, plays on the left, cutting in on his right like Rashford.
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What kind of money could they get for Maguire do you think? 40 or 50 million?
You talking to yourself? 