It doesn’t get any worse. Most of us have just uncurled from the foetal position. Look at the faces and the headlines.
Beaten by the team Fergie knocked off their perch. Beaten by high pressure, energetic Dortmund style Klopp football. Without De Gea it could have been a rout. Even though the Spaniard almost kept the score respectable, a very different United need to turn up next Thursday.
This isn’t a team that withstands the modern pressing game. Not enough players are confident on the ball. Not enough strikers have ice in their veins. Rashford’s fluffed chance after just 15 seconds was the only time United seriously threatened. It’s not fair to criticize him, an 18 year old 8 yards out from goal and in front of the Kop must be forgiven, but a mature top-class striker buries the cross from Depay, who along with a few others took the rest of the 89 minutes and 45 seconds off. After that Liverpool never stopped. Sure the penalty was iffy – Depay again – and there’s the terrible mistake by Carrick for the second, but if Liverpool did not win the game it would have been a travesty.
It’s quite possible by next Thursday night United will be out of two cups and with the slimmest chance of achieving what now looks like a miracle top 4 place in the league.
So what do you do? Take the Scholes, Ferdinand, rabid fan and media route? The “this is terrible..no one tackles..it’s the worst United team…not in my day…I’d have been embarrassed..anything but effing Liverpool…let’s get effing Mourinho…let’s get effing anybody…approach?.”
Or do we wait until next Thursday and hope that magic strikes in the next two home games?
The practical and sensible out there will quite rightly say no chance, and firmly point to the corporate machine running United as a global brand and business rather than a football club as the reason United are in the mess they are. But to be honest Liverpool too are American owned, and probably deeply envious of United’s global reach and money making capabilities.
In the end it’s not all about money. Real, Barcelona and Bayern have always paid big money for and to players. What’s needed at United is the kind of strength and long term view that saw Ferguson given almost four seasons to build a football battleship. Whether Van Gaal is the man to manage United isn’t the real question. Someone has to stand back from all the emotion and make some solid, sensible decisions. And sell Depay too :).
4728 miles from the Stretford End 