A Tale of Two Teams: The Manchester United Story

This article is two months premature. Somehow this article is also two weeks late. For context, I am writing this mere hours after the Manchester Derby from March 7th. In case someone reading this missed that game, I will give a brief review. Thirty-five seconds into the game Gabriel Jesus fouled Anthony Martial on the edge of the box, giving Manchester United a penalty. Bruno Fernandes proceeded to stuff the pen home in the bottom left corner. In the forty-ninth minute of the game, Manchester United went on a break and after some lovely passing by Luke Shaw and Marcus Rashford, Shaw split the legs of the defender and froze Ederson with his shot to give United the 2-0 lead that they would hold for the rest of the derby. The game had a frantic start but after City settled they dominated possession. The issue was they couldn’t find holes in the final third of the field. United played some of their best defense in a long while and the counter-attacking that they managed looked lethal. Had Edinson Cavani been playing in the striker role in loo of Martial, the game could have easily ended 3-0 or even 4-0.

The performance United turned in was one of their best of the season, and it came against a team in arguably the best form in all of European soccer. As a United supporter, I should be thrilled. So why am I not? The answer to that is in their recent run of form. Before this game, United were 1-4-0 in their previous five games. They had drawn in a game against Everton where they led by two goals on two separate occasions, and they had a draw at Newcastle that was arguably the most uninspired 0-0 draw from a top-six team all season. United had a 9-0 win against Southampton and parlayed that into a run of stunning mediocrity. Part of that is of course due to the loss of Pogba. Still, United needed to win a few games that they didn’t to stay at pace with the dominant City. Instead, they floundered against lesser competition and are scraping by to hold the second-place spot.

Then today happens. United fans around the world rejoiced because Ole finally worked some magic again. The mistake from Jesus was lucky as you just don’t expect errors like that from a Pep Guardiola coached squad, yet the rest of the game looked to be in hand as well. Dean Henderson got the start in goal as David de Gea is still on paternity leave, and he was seldom tested in any real way. As an aside, congratulations to de Gea and it's lovely that we have a player of Henderson’s quality because it allows de Gea to spend time with his wife and newborn. The United defense looked stout and the City attack just couldn’t find gaps to play through. Oftentimes I forgot Victor Lindelof was on the pitch and that might be the highest compliment I can give to a center back.

What does this win mean though? United took four points off of City this season and that’s definitely an accomplishment. However United still sit eleven points back of City on the table, when in reality the gap shouldn’t be more than seven. They had the top spot in the league and threw it away while a superior/more talented team grabbed the reins and rode off on their own. There has to be an explanation to this because on paper United should be able to compete. Luckily, I think I have some semblance of an answer.

Before anyone gets any ideas, the solution is not to fire Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. Yes his tactics lack a bit at times, and he can struggle to truly motivate a club in the long term, but he is still a great steadying hand and seemingly a fantastic judge of talent. He is a player's coach through and through and with a team that has such a great mix of superstars, youth, and experience, he is the right man to guide the ship. For now, that is. Ole is also a very young coach by most standards. He has time to grow and adapt. He inherited a team built for three different coaches with no semblance of identity and now he’s trying to instill one on the fly. This process was accelerated by the acquisition of Bruno Fernandes, but that’s still a hefty task to ask of a coach on his first Major 5 coaching gig.

The talent level of the team is not the problem. United currently has, at a minimum, three players with a value over £100 million, and at least four more that could be sold for 75% of that. To be less cold and more user-friendly about this, the talent on this team is there at all levels. Aaron Wan-Bissaka is maybe the best one-on-one wingback in the league, and Luke Shaw is having the best season of his career on the other side. Scott McTominay has always shown flashes of excellence, and this season he seems to be putting it all together as the best holding midfielder United have had in years. Paul Pogba and Fernandes are world-class and as a duo might be a top-five midfield pairing in the world. Marcus Rashford has the type of talent and work ethic that will bring him into the class of elite forwards like Kylian Mbappe and Lionel Messi. There are other players worth mentioning here but I don’t really care to go over the full roster, nor would most people really care to read that.

With all this talent, and a very good coach, particularly for the situation, what's the problem? Why is Manchester United the most wildly inconsistent team in the world? I think it boils down to one really dumb issue. The Red Devils don’t have a demonic, truly terrifying striker. Rashford is a winger. He does his damage when working out on the wings then working the ball towards the box. United have tried fitting Anthony Martial into this role but he lacks both the knack for finishing and the drive to make the position switch happen. Mason Greenwood could turn into that but he, like Rashford, is a natural winger. Also, he’s 19 years old and that feels like a long-term goal to make that conversion. Martial should be the guy but he clearly isn’t. In every game I have watched him play I have forgotten he was out there at least once, and not in a good way.

I promise this article was not an excuse for me to rag on Anthony Martial. He is a supremely talented soccer player. I think things have gotten stale for him in the north of England. Martial needs to go to a place that, at least for a little bit, will cater to what he wants to do. For too many years he was neglected and forced into bad situations by coaches who didn’t know how to use him. His United tenure was tainted before Ole got his hands on him.

United’s struggles from a place of lacking. They lack a true striker that can finish with clinical precision. They lack respect from their opponents in a very specific way. United are a counter-attacking team through and through. They thrive on the counter. However, Martial’s struggles have meant that his lingering presence behind their midfield when on defense gives opposing teams no pause. When Rashford is the deep-lying forward, other teams hesitate. The defense for the opposition pauses. Martial doesn’t make opposing teams stutter or falter in that role. It's a big reason why the bottom table teams perform so well against United. They see the glaring hole, the lack of confidence from Martial, and press attacks because they feel like they can.

Anthony Martial can, and probably will be a superstar someday. For a different team, in a different country, the man can be world-class. However, on United, he winds up being more of a hindrance than a help. A parting of ways would be best for both parties.

All that being said, United have other issues. Ole can get stuck in his ways and refuse to change gameplans, there needs to be a new center back to pair with McGuire, and Donny Van de Beek needs to see more playing time. These factors all point to United’s lack of consistency, but the biggest issue is the lack of a true striker and all that that brings to the team. It truly is unfortunate that Martial was thrust into that position because he deserves better, as a player and as a person.