Football Thoughts

If you were to ask anyone remotely familiar with Erik Ten Hag's first season as Manchester United boss, they would likely define Marcus Rashford as the X-factor, the difference-maker, the main man. Sure, you might encounter the hipsters who identify the Brazilian maestro Casemiro as the true catalyst for improvement with his insertion into the heart of the team. One might even make a shout for Lisandro Martinez, who led the line for a golden-glove-winning back line that finished with a league-best 17 clean sheets. But even those folk will make a mention of United's number 10, whose 41 goal contributions in all competitions made the resounding difference in a team whose goal count severely lacked in comparison to the teams around them. And goals, after all, win games. Fast forward to the present, however, and Rashford is nowhere near on track to match his output from the 2022/23 campaign. While the counting stats are not the be-all and end-all for analyzing a footballer's ...

We have been here far too often. A Manchester United manager has had an underwhelming summer transfer window entering his second season, dealt with injuries to the squad, and now murmurs of job security following a slow start to said season welcomes one into the realm of unfortunate and ominous conversations. When will the cycle be broken at this football club?  The answer - to me, at least - is indeed found in the bald Dutchman currently employed. And no, Donny van de Beek hasn't suffered from hair loss; rather, recency bias has clouded seemingly everyone's judgment over what Erik ten Hag has accomplished in his first 16 months as manager of the club. When accounting for situational circumstances, ignoring the paracosm that some live in where United is apparently anywhere near the levels of their cross-town neighbors, and analyzing the club from the perspective of their on-field product instead of presuming that the PR-machine megabrand is representative of the state of the ac...

Details of the length or expiry of managers' probationary periods don't get released following their exits from football clubs, but it became quite apparent recently that former Manchester United boss Ole Gunnar Solskjær had finally had the green and yellow tape ripped from his lips. What came out, as a result, made one feel as though the Norwegian had been loading up since that fateful day of defeat at Watford for his chance to let rip, and an analysis of the entire interview from start to finish would be closer to the length of a book.  Hence, we will focus on one particular comment; one that admittedly went under the radar amidst the more pressing, headline-creating matters that Solskjær addressed. "We wanted Jude Bellingham badly... but I respect he chose Dortmund . That was probably sensible." Interesting. Now, we all understand that it is easier for Ole to praise Jude's anti-United decision-making once he's 20 months removed from the job and sat comforta...

Erik Ten Hag couldn't have made his answer clearer when asked about Jadon Sancho's absence from the matchday squad following Manchester United's defeat at the Emirates; "On his performance in training we didn't select him ." Jadon was equally as clear in his unheralded response sent out shortly after across his social media; "I've been a scapegoat for a long time which isn't fair!" A Manchester United winger causing unnecessary drama off the pitch, putting a manager in a difficult position, and forcing a largely incompetent board and team of higher-ups at the football club into swift, paramount action. Sound familiar? It will be interesting to see how this one plays out - without the legal implications of the Mason Greenwood saga but with just the same amount of attention and scrutiny from the public eye. What stands out to me is the question that has arisen on both occasions, asked tentatively and yet with a substantial amount of gravity to...

It didn't take long after Manchester United's signing of Danish marksman Rasmus Højlund for the mainstream media in the United Kingdom to plaster his face alongside Erling Haaland's on a number of different graphics juxtaposing the players.  Outwardly, this may have appeared to be a playful, light-hearted means of comparison between two Scandinavian strikers whose last names happen to be rather similar. However in reality, when one realizes that those intricate details are about the extent of their likeness and comparability, it might bring forth a more cynical conclusion that such comparisons to the man coming off a record-breaking Premier League campaign are really just setting Rasmus up to fail.  Nine goals and four assists in 20 Serie A starts versus 36 goals and eight assists in 33 Premier League starts . Age 20 versus age 23 - a significant  gap in development, physical standing, and just about any other aspect one can think of in regard to the growth of a footballe...

When the schedule for the 2023/24 Premier League season was first announced, a familiar feeling reverberated around the red side of Manchester; an easy start. As in recent years with visits from Leeds and Brighton and trips to Southampton and Brentford, a start at home against Wolves followed by a trip to Tottenham looked particularly tasty. The signings of Mason Mount and Rasmus Hojlund gave rose-tinted glasses to the missed opportunities that preceded them - none of which were more disappointing than losing out on Harry Kane to Bayern Munich of the Bundesliga. But the well-oiled PR machine that is Manchester United did what they do best under the Glazer ownership, spoon-feeding fans the perceived brilliance of their transfer business as the fans themselves grow increasingly numb to the drop in standards all while growing in familiarity with the feeling of settling for second-best year after year. Erling Haaland? Try Edinson Cavani. Frenkie de Jong, you say? Here's an aging Casemi...

"The theatre is living its dream." Peter Drury's iconic and distinguished voice provided the commentary for Cristiano Ronaldo's majestic return to Old Trafford. "Madeira, Manchester, Madrid, Turin, and Manchester again. Reeved in red. Restored to this great gallery of the game. A walking work of art. Vintage, beyond valuation, beyond forgery or imitation, eighteen years since that trembling teenager of touch and tease, first tiptoed onto the historic stage, now in his immaculate maturity, now CR7 reunited."  For a lifelong Manchester United fan like myself - too young to witness a Roy Keane or a Ruud van Nistelrooy but old enough to experience Wayne Rooney and Rio Ferdinand - the restoration of the game's greatest player to the Theatre of Dreams was, fittingly, a dream come true. Being just four years old when Cristiano Ronaldo joined Real Madrid for a world-record 96 million euros, his first stint in Manchester was nothing more to me than stories from m...