Mason Mount a sacrifice at his best as Ten Hag to blame for De Ligt’s Maguire impression
Mason Mount was sacrificed as Manchester United’s best player and Matthijs de Ligt did an excellent Harry Maguire impression. Erik ten Hag is faced with one impossible conundrum and an easy fix that should have been sorted already.
It was a good but speculative ball into the box from Joao Pedro and both Harry Maguire and Noussair Mazraoui had the chance to deal with that first cross and the resulting drilled pass by Kaoru Mitoma that Danny Welbeck got his studs on to direct into the net.
The TV cameras predictably focused on Maguire and his typically bewildered expression and of course it was him who bore the brunt of the criticism on social media, from fans insisting that Eric Dier’s understudy watching from the bench is the answer. If it’s awareness, leadership and proactive defending they’re after, Matthijs de Ligt later showed that he may not be.
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Maguire should have cleared it, but Mazraoui could have done too, and Maguire looked a bit daft from Mitoma’s low cross mainly because the Moroccan allowed the ball to be fired between his legs.
As Welbeck turned the ball in there were three Brighton forwards to two Manchester United defenders, with Casemiro and Kobbie Mainoo failing to sense the danger, while Lisandro Martinez – one of the two – for some reason decided Yankuba Minteh was the greater threat despite him being further from the ball than Welbeck, who was unmarked smack bang in the middle of the goal. It was poor defending all round.
It was only Diogo Dalot who defended with anything like the required authority as the Portugal international dealt admirably with the direct running of Minteh, and the left-back was also arguably United’s greatest creative outlet in the first half, producing some stunning crosses and cross-field passes, often off his weaker left foot.
The goal came slightly against the run of play and everything good about United in the first half involved Mason Mount, who did his Willing Runner bit proficiently, led the press and linked well with fellow false nine Bruno Fernandes, spinning in behind the defence to be fed by the Red Devils captain. He was excellent, probably United’s best player, and yet was still the man to be sacrificed at half-time.
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We don’t blame Erik ten Hag for taking Mount off – it was probably the right call – but we do for signing a player who has no place in the team even when playing close to his best. It just doesn’t work.
Ten Hag’s not going to take Fernandes off at that stage. He’s trying to play Marcus Rashford into form, which makes sense as if he does catch fire he’s unstoppable. Amad wasn’t great but keeping him on turned out to be a good decision as he cut in to equalise in the second half. And they needed the focal point that Joshua Zirkzee provided, despite his hulking frame denying United the lead.
The poor guy. Hero to villain in a week. Zirkzee was sliding to get on the end of Fernandes’ cross, couldn’t quite get there and then inadvertently deflected Alejandro Garnacho’s effort in off his knee on the goal line from an offside position. He knew immediately that he had prevented what would have been a wonderfully worked goal, in which all the aspects save for that late intervention were clinical. Fernandes’ overlap of Amad was particularly brilliant.
United were more of a threat without Mount, but so too were Brighton, and that will continue to be the conundrum for Ten Hag, who seemingly has to choose between solidity and expansiveness, and will likely side with the latter more often than not, because Manchester United playing without a striker will become increasingly unacceptable if they’re not winning games of football.
They lost this one thanks to another example of them failing to defend the second phase of play. De Ligt and Scott McTominay were drawn to the ball like schoolboys and although Joao Pedro – who was brilliant throughout – scored the goal, he had two teammates queuing up behind him with none of the nine Red Devils players in the box anywhere near them as Simon Adingra’s cross was dinked beautifully to the back post for Pedro to nod in.
Fortunately for Ten Hag it’s a very coachable fix. Reminding his players that this is football and not American Football, that one phase follows another, is something that could and should be sorted in one training session. But that does make you wonder why it hasn’t been already. It’s not a Maguire problem, it’s a Manchester United problem.
What’s not obvious is how Ten Hag can get Mount into his team – because it’s easy to see why that would be a good thing – while also including a striker, as it’s been evident in the first two games of the season that United will produce little to nothing on the front foot without one.
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