Limping Out Of The FA Cup

It’s been a week since Manchester United limped out of the FA Cup one stage before where we usually exit. After a week of studies, work and baby duty, I have found some time to assess and analyse this defeat.

Lack Of Quality Not An Off-Day

At full-time, I felt frustrated, disappointed and angry. But why? Why should I feel so strongly and negatively about it when I know this isn’t out of character for this Manchester United team? A defeat always stings in great times, good times or bad. In bad times, one starts feeling numb when one suffers a defeat though. I have seen United lose when they had an off-day or been over-confident but I was always confident we would bounce back from it. But those were the good, old days. For this defeat, it was so infuriating because the flaws we all know of were exposed. What made it worse was that the management would feel it’s just an off-day rather than acknowledging the flaws and lack of quality in the team.

Fred, Not Good Enough To Be A Regular Starter

Fred is not good enough to be a regular starter in a team like Manchester United especially if we have ambitions to be serious challengers for big trophies. At best, his role in the team is as a squad player. I am not saying this only because he gift-wrapped the opening goal of the match to Leicester City. We have seen him misplace passes so many times and display poor control of the ball. He has energy and endeavour but that cannot make up for his lack of quality. Not every Manchester United central midfielder should have the range and the passing quality of Paul Scholes, Michael Carrick or David Beckham but the least we expect is for someone to be able to make simple, accurate passes. He should have enough quality and personality to be able to receive the ball under pressure and not misplace it.

Matic, Getting On In Age

Nemanja Matic is a player I like for his intelligence. He reads the game well and has all the qualities I stated above of a Manchester United midfielder. But he is getting on in age and it is suicidal to play him alongside an erroneous partner and two slow centre backs behind him. I am not saying out of jest but Leicester’s Youri Tielemans and Wilfred Ndidi had the quality to walk into our starting central midfield. On that topic, we have players of high-quality like Paul Pogba and Donny van de Beek. Unfortunately, both have been injured recently and had just returned from injury for this match. In the case of van de Beek, his injury came at the worst possible time. He would have got more game time considering the absence of Pogba, had he been fit. Before his injury, it was a travesty how criminally underused he was. Why would we sign a player of his quality and hardly use him? He plays in a position similar to Bruno Fernandes but that is not to say that he is confined to playing in that position only. He has the intelligence to play as a Number 6 or 8 as well. Can’t the coaching staff see it?

Lindelof or Maguire Not Both

The reason for the heavy reliance on industrious central midfielders like Scott McTominay and Fred is because the partnership of Victor Lindelof and Harry Maguire is not good enough. I reckon you start with either one of them but not both especially not for most matches. They were left woefully exposed against speedier and sprightly Leicester attackers. In this case, I can’t blame the manager because Eric Bailly, a strong candidate to be a regular first-team central defender was injured. Axel Tuanzebe was available but aside from the match against Paris Saint-Germain, he has not done as well when he has started so you can understand the apprehension in selecting him from the start.

Frustration At The Coaching Staff

The lack of consistency in this team is infuriating and the manager doesn’t see that. We need to win a trophy, any trophy would do but based on his comments, he doesn’t seem to place much importance on it. History has shown how winning a Cup could have a positive knock-on effect on us. I don’t understand as well why people keep talking about Solksjaer bringing us back to the “United way”. How is it the “United way” if we keep being inconsistent and play disjointed, cautious football? How is it the “United way” if we are happy not to win any trophies?

I have nothing against Solksjaer, Carrick and Mike Phelan as former players and in the case of Phelan, assistant manager and other members of Solksjaer’s coaching staff. I supported the hiring of a former United player because I was looking for us to get back to our roots and of course I want to see us do well and win. But the signs are not encouraging no matter what the statistics show. Viewing Solksjaer’s stubbornness to rely on certain players and his lack of urgency in his substitutions is frustrating. That frustration has given way to hopelessness because you feel resigned to be stuck in a mediocre rut where we are happy to finish in the Top 4 and qualify for the Champions League. From the owners, CEO to the manager, everyone seems to be singing from the same hymn sheet and that is not in a good way either. Some fans say that next season is make-or-break for Solksjaer. He needs to win something or he is gone but is it really the case? If he keeps getting us into the Champions League, the owners will be happy to keep him and we can pull our hair about it but there isn’t anything else we can do about it. Unless we all pool our finances to buy over the club from the Glazers.