I feel for their antics a lot of times, but I’m not falling for it anymore. Man United have now lost two straight 1-0 games as they cowardly fell 1-0 to West Ham, leaving the Top-4 race wide open with Liverpool only a point behind them now.
Enough is enough with this overpaid, overhyped, and frankly overvalued group of failures and cowards.
Okay, maybe I’m being way too harsh due to my love for this team (and that’s definitely the case), but how do you lose back-to-back 1-0 games against beatable opponents (I don’t care how good Brighton are as a Man United team should be able to beat them any day of the week) in a heated Top-4 race? How is that possible?
So, before I get ahead of myself, Manchester United had yet another dreadful performance in the Premier League today as despite playing against a West Ham side that sat in 15th place and had only won 8 games this whole season (a full 11 less than Man Utd), these Man United players half-assed 90 minutes of football and ended up losing 1-0.
A Manchester United side that has over $250M worth of footballers and a frontline (Antony, Jadon Sancho, Marcus Rashford, Wout Weghorst, Bruno Fernandes, Anthony Martial) that has scored a collective 626 goals between all six of them (yes, I added up each one of these guys’ career goal tallies), couldn’t fire a single goal past a relegation-threatened side. Seriously?
Now, I don’t want to get into the “they’re not playing up to their transfer fee” as that’s generally unfair and completely irrelevant regarding a player’s value to the team, but I’m making an exception in this case. Why? It’s because this United squad, which has roughly been the same for the last 4-5 seasons has consistently FAILED to live up to even the most basic expectations.
In the 25 years (1988-2013) Sir Alex Ferguson built Man United into one of the Top-10 greatest football clubs in world football, the expectation of all United squads and players was to win the Premier League year-after-year, win the domestic cups year-after-year, and compete into the final stages of the Champions League and win the competition as often as possible.
Now, the expectation is for this squad to just win a trophy to break 6+ year droughts, let alone the Premier League, and to qualify for the Champions League, let alone winning the competition as Ferguson did three times as the Man United manager.
It’s been a perennial cycle of some optimistic highs (long cup runs, 2nd place finishes, 2023 Carabao Cup win) and some of the most depressing, soul-crushing lows (numerous 6th place finishes, losing Cristiano Ronaldo due to broken promises and poor locker room chemistry, numerous cup final losses, numerous Champions League collapses, numerous Top-4 collapses, not winning a title in 11 years, multiple $60M+ transfer failures, etc.) with this United team.
And it has to end now as this game was the perfect accumulation of these highs and lows I’m talking about.
Going into the game, Man United had a chance to secure 3rd place with Newcastle United losing 2-0 to Arsenal a few hours earlier (leaving the 2-point gap between the teams vulnerable to a Man United victory) and push the gap over Liverpool to 4 points having played a game less.
And, with the FA Cup Final against Man City just a few weeks away now, all but wrapping up the Top-4 with a couple of games in hand would have been a nice way to close out this tumultuous season. A pretty optimistic outlook, right?
Well, all of those hopeful expectations were blown away as David De Gea let in yet another howler off a dribbler of a shot from Saïd Benrahma less than 30 minutes into the game, and the United attack preceded to generate just 4 shots on target in 98 minutes of football against a West Ham defense that has allowed 50 goals this season (tied-6th most in the league).
It was honestly one of the worst performances I’ve seen from a Manchester United side in my time watching the team.
Sure, I’ve seen them get completely ragdolled on the scoreboard before (I’ve seen it happen three times this season with the Liverpool, Man City, and Brentford losses), blown away in terms of possession (again, it’s happened a lot this season), and simply humbled as a less talented, inferior side to greater opposition. That doesn’t shock me as badly as this result.
This side had a chance to cap off a tumultuous season with an easy Top-4 finish, yet they’ve given all the momentum and hope of Champions League football to their archrivals Liverpool by simply not giving a damn about the club or the loyal fanbase.
And that’s an offense so unforgivable at least 10-15 of these players need to leave the club by the start of next season.
As for West Ham, this team is all but safe.
Now with 37 points, there’s not another team in the Bottom-5 (Southampton, Everton, Nottingham Forrest, Leeds United, Leicester City) who can overtake the 7-point cushion the Hammers have placed between themselves and 16th place Leicester City, let alone three teams to do so.
Congratulations, David Moyes and these West Ham players, you’ve earned yourselves another season in the top flight of English football.
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