FROM STAMFORD BRIDGE – Because the saying goes, previous habits die onerous.
Manchester United have an extended listing of dangerous habits. And in one of many craziest, most unserious and uncontrolled Premier League matches we have ever witnessed on Thursday evening at Stamford Bridge, we bought to see all of them.
Chelsea, for the billions spent, have a mess of issues of their very own, and even after snatching victory from the jaws of defeat on the evening nonetheless sit tenth in standings. Maybe Europe is feasible. However Cole Palmer’s beyond-added-time double ensured the highlight and scrutiny sat once more on the forehead of United’s more and more beleaguered supervisor Erik ten Hag.
United have misplaced 17 video games in a season for the primary time since 1989/90. There can be extra earlier than it ends and also you’d fancy table-topping Liverpool to extend the quantity on Sunday. In the event that they do, the stress will develop into insufferable.
The closing weeks of the season had been a proving floor for the Dutchman to point out he ought to assume one other season main the crew below new sporting management. Sir Jim Ratcliffe and Sir Dave Brailsford had been noticed in attendance at Stamford Bridge. And whereas he isn’t their man there was robust sufficient a case for a lot of his time at United that he needs to be given an opportunity to work in a recent, cohesive construction as a substitute of the chaos he walked into.
United went into the final worldwide break on a excessive of beating Liverpool within the FA Cup, however the two matches since have seen deep into damage time targets costing them 5 league factors and sure a Champions League place. These targets due to lapses in focus, weak mentality, incapacity to defend set items and a non-existent midfield resulting in Ten Hag’s crew permitting essentially the most photographs towards in Europe’s prime 5 leagues in 2024.
Whether or not it is Ten Hag’s gamers failing him or his personal shortcomings, maybe a mixture of each (it is most likely that) we see so many alarmingly poor traits nonetheless as evident and apparent in match spherical 30 as they had been on the opening Monday evening of the season towards Wolves.
Ralf Rangnick referred to as performances Jekyll and Hyde. These days, we both see United dominated by inferior opposition (see Brentford) or taking part in basketball on a soccer pitch (see Chelsea, plus different examples).
Ten Hag referred to as for his gamers to make higher selections below stress within the aftermath of defeat in west London however Ten Hag’s tactical plan seems so often frantic and missing in management that it is simple to see why gamers make poor selections.
A miracle was wanted the final time Liverpool visited Previous Trafford, and Ten Hag bought one. A miracle is required once more on Sunday however it’s tough to see Liverpool being so forgiving this time round, or making the identical errors twice. You possibly can’t say the identical about United, who refuse to cease making them.
