Nostalgia no shield for Ratcliffe, Wilcox after Brighton end Man Utd’s season
Out of the cup and, if reports around their managerial search are to be believed, Manchester United are completely out of ideas.
Darren Fletcher’s two-game spell as the interim-interim manager concluded with the Red Devils’ first ever FA Cup defeat to Brighton. Which sounds stark, but the wrong context in which to view this latest defeat. The Seagulls have now won four of their last five visits to AmEx North. Losing at home to Brighton is just one of those things that Manchester United do.
Not to worry, though, Reds because here comes Ole Gunner Solskjaer and/or Michael Carrick. Just what this situation needs: another blast from the past.
It worked before, right? At least until it didn’t. Solskjaer swept in at the end 2018 and powered by little more than sunshine and smiles, enticed a string of results from a squad that decided it cared little for the standards demanded by Jose Mourinho. Solskjaer lost one game in 17 – even that defeat to PSG provided the platform for a stirring fightback in Paris – which got him the permanent job. The United legend took Mourinho’s team from sixth in December to, at the end of the season…. sixth.
Still, given how tight the Premier League is this season, a similar run now would go a long way to securing a Champions League place. Which Jason Wilcox reckons is achievable. Especially since literally nothing else is.
That may be one reason Wilcox feels that, right now, United need a shot in the arm of nostalgia. More likely, the director of football believes that United fans will be more uncomfortable showing their dissent if one of their own is back at the wheel.
Wilcox, not for the first time, would be wrong. Fletcher’s past glories could not spare him boos at half-time and full-time today from a fan base that isn’t likely to be fooled again by the novelty. The Stretford End have Wilcox and Sir Jim Ratcliffe in their sights and no one on United’s roll of honour will serve as a human shield big enough to spare them the flak.
They will do it anyway, because what else can they do? Few would back the United brains trust to find a suitable manager in the six months between now and the summer. In a week? No chance.
There is an important difference too which Wilcox may well have missed: this group is not as good as the group Solskjaer inherited from Mourinho.
A few months before Mourinho lost the dressing room, he drove them to a runners-up finish in the Premier League. As they showed under Solskjaer, when the whim took them, that squad could play.
This one, by any measure, is not a very good team. For a long time it was believed that they were being held back by Ruben Amorim and his weird devotion to a system that was never going to work at Old Trafford. And that was certainly a factor. But as we’ve seen in the week since the Portuguese was axed, a change of shape cannot compensate for an inability to consistently get the basics right.
This Manchester United is a moments team. For good and bad. And the bad will always render the good a wasted effort.
We saw it before 15 minutes had ticked over at Old Trafford. In the Brighton box, United created a couple of big chances, one for Diogo Dalot and another Benjamin Sesko, that were struck straight at Jason Steele, one of six changes made by Fabian Hurzeler to United’s three. This was hardly the Seagulls’ stiffs, but still.
Defensively, United allowed Brighton the freedom of their box to take the lead. Fault could be found across the back four for not getting close enough to avert danger, or even sniff it. It is a recurring problem among these United players: the lack of willingness or capability to deny opponents space, perhaps assuming that everyone else is as wasteful as they are.
Confidence is low, sure, and that will be a factor in the attacking flaws. Defensively, though, the easiest way to take encouragement is by winning duels and battles. United too often take the approach that you can’t lose the ones you don’t enter.
We have heard lots on United’s ‘DNA’ this week, a concept so loose that no one can really define it. Indisputably, it features youth, and one of the few wins this week were the cameos of Shea Lacey. But he and United even managed to turn that into an L.
United’s support urged the players to find Lacey on the right after the 18-year-old replaced Mason Mount and, always eager to shirk responsibility, his senior team-mates were happy to oblige. Lacey again went close to a first senior goal before he showed that the self-sabotage streak runs down from the first-team to the academy.
A poor tackle earned him his first caution on 87 minutes and, two minutes later, he reacted angrily to another foul given against him, slamming the ball to the floor. United may wish that Simon Hooper took a more lenient view, but what else could the official have done? In the modern game, it is as clear a caution as you can see.
Of course, it won’t be held against the kid and nor should it be. Pre-match, Fletcher was talking about JJ Gabriel a 15-year-old also tearing it up in the youth teams. But there is no saviour coming though the ranks no mater how hard United cling to that particular comfort blanket.
Instead, Wilcox will probably choose to let Solskjaer, United’s emotional support dog, run free in the hope of boosting morale at Old Trafford. But vibes won’t fix this United.
A club so big cannot possibly write off the rest of the season. But they almost already have. Each action and every game between now and May will just be a box ticked before yet another great summer reset, led by men who have proved hopelessly incapable of even recognising one.
