Red Devils now pale imitation
Bizarre pink kit adds to United embarrassment
AFTER a night of red faces at Old Trafford, Manchester United unveiled a new pink kit yesterday.
And adidas could not really have picked a worse moment to launch the new away strip. The timing was every marketing man’s worst nightmare.
If you are going to be brave enough to wear a pink shirt, then you really need to be winning football matches in some style. And United are not at the moment.
They have lost two of their first three league games for the first time since 1992 and the 3-0 reverse to Tottenham was the heaviest home loss Jose Mourinho has suffered in his managerial career. The irony of the kit launch was probably lost on the club and adidas. The bizarre pink strip is supposed to be inspired by the old Saturday night “Pink” football edition produced by the Manchester Evening News. Monday’s night’s match programme even had a wraparound cover claiming the “Pink is back”.
The trouble is that the relationship between the club and the media is at an all-time low and no national newspaper was invited to yesterday’s launch.
At least the launch did not coincide with Mourinho losing his job. He is safe for now, highly-placed sources insist, but he needs to solve plenty of problems if it is to stay that way. To be fair, he predicted a “difficult season” if United did not strengthen their defence and his assessment has proved spot on with his defenders all at sea in the back-to-back defeats by Brighton and Tottenham.
Neither Phil Jones, emergency defender Ander Herrera nor Chris Smalling covered themselves in glory for Tottenham’s goals.
As former manager Ron Atkinson said: “How can you give someone with Harry Kane’s scoring ability a free header?”
Eric Bailly was not even in the squad after his errorstrewn show at Brighton, while Victor Lindelof underlined his confidence has been shot to pieces when he came on. Up front, United need to be more clinical. If Romelu Lukaku had put away good early chances at both the Amex and against Spurs on Monday, when the games were still goalless, then the outcomes may well have been different.
After a first half that United had more than edged, no one would have thought Spurs would run out 3-0 winners.
United players were left in a state of shock.
Luke Shaw, whose form has been about the only big positive from the first three games and could earn him an England recall, insists the team’s effort underlined there is unity between the players and their manager.
“You see a lot of things in the media that go on about what our dressing room is like, but we have a really good spirit, a really good group of lads who want to work and
achieve big things here,” he said. “We have got to start taking our chances and I am sure we will start winning more games. We will bounce back.”
Paul Pogba, who like Alexis Sanchez continues to infuriate with his inconsistency, says this is no time to press the panic button. “It was bizarre,” he said. “We were determined, we put everything into it, started well but in the end we lost 3-0. It’s a shock. Even we don’t understand what happened.
“I think it was an undeserved defeat but football can be cruel. We just have to bounce back. We have to keep going, we mustn’t worry. We must work. We are still Manchester United and we won’t give up on anything.”
Mourinho, aware he is under mounting pressure, is now refusing to criticise players in public and is also praising the fans, making a point of applauding for 90 seconds those supporters who remained at the Stretford End at the final whistle on Monday night.
With the relationship with the media so strained, he appears to be trying to create a siege mentality to bring fans and players together – in the way Sir Alex Ferguson used to do.
He has reminded people of his three Premier League title triumphs – one more than the rest of the current managers put together – in an emotional demand to be shown more respect.
There is enormous respect for his past achievements but his job and the job of media representatives is to scrutinise the here and now.
To trot out the old football cliche – you are only as good as your last game.
And in United’s case, it was not very good.
We won’t give up on anything