Man Utd 0
Crystal Palace 1
A good first 20 minutes with a lot of possession but no penetration. Then we started getting sloppy and gave away a silly goal. Amrabat committed a useless foul on the flank and the cross should have been dealt with, but was not. A great finish, no doubt, but the ball should not have travelled so far without being cleared.
The defence had already showed signs of hesitation. There was no proper reaction after the goal. Hojlund nearly equalised but it was 0-1 at HT.
The second half was, essentially, an attack vs defence session but United failed miserably to create clear cut chances. The Palace keeper made a couple of routine saves but otherwise was not really tested. Once again we have failed when teams come to OT and we need to be creative. The midfield sent out by ETH did not work out. Casemiro, Mount, Bruno and Pellistri did not function and Hojlund got essentially zero service. The boy worked hard but it was clearly visible it was not going to work out.
I have already stated that Rashford needs to be benched and Garnacho should start. Another horrible performance by Rashford and the boy keeps getting his decision making moments completely wrong. ETH should have taken him off at HT and sent on Garnacho. I can continue discussing individuals, like Mount for example, who was given the number 7 to raise the hype…and hype it is proving to be!
But essentially, the worst start of the season for 34 years boils down to the manager. There are injuries, fine, but we have lost at home to Brighton, who got battered 6-1 by Villa earlier today, and now lost to Palace who will most probably struggle with relegation. Simply not good enough and the gut feeling that ETH has been set up to fail continues to linger and he is now making the wrong decisions.
As I said in pre-season, the Glazers have basically ruined yet another season and my fear is that a loss on Tuesday to Galatasaray could really increase the pressure to untenable levels and ETH walks. I sincerely hope we see a reaction on Tuesday.
I truly believed ETH had the right approach to succeed but as has happened before, managers come with determination to succeed and this is sapped away by the rotten-to-the-core environment that needs to be tackled before we can hope of anything.
The open heart surgery suggested by Rangnick is still on the waiting list, I’m afraid…NUMQUAM MORIBIMUR!
