Sorry Jones given Niagara tightrope walk by Rangnick
THE cruel may have viewed Phil Jones’s surprise selection at Anfield last night as a mechanism to make Harry Maguire look good beside him in comparison.
It was Jones’s third appearance of the season, the first being a start in the 1-0 home defeat by Wolves in January and the other a fleeting substitute’s cameo for extra time in the FA Cup defeat by Middlesbrough in February.
It was not, on the surface, a track record to trigger much confidence in a rejigged Manchester United defensive set-up.
In the end he – and it – lasted all of 45 minutes as the strategic experiment, along with so much at
United this season, backfired.
Jones was no worse than any other United player but, with Liverpool utterly dominant, he was the fall guy at half-time as they reverted back to a more familiar system.
It was another blow for a player who seems to attract them but it could have been worse for the 30-year-old. When Jesse Lingard was spotted stripping off and the board was raised on the touchline, it looked for one awful moment like Jones’s unexpected return might be over less than 10 minutes in. It turned out to be Paul Pogba leaving the scene with a limp.
By then United’s unfamiliar high line had already been breached by Sadio Mane’s vision as his ball in behind the visitors’ defence freed Mo Salah to slip a cross in behind for the rapid Luis Diaz to arrive to tap the ball home.
Placed centrally between Maguire, below, and Victor Lindelof, Jones’s main beat was dealing with Mane, which was pretty much impossible in the mood he was in last night. It was the Senegalese who was the creator for the second goal, too, with his beautiful clip over Jones’s head allowing Salah to steal in behind and end his goal drought.To be involved in games like these were what all the rehab slog was about.
But it was an enormous ask for Jones to survive, let alone, thrive in such company with so little top-level football behind him in recent years.
He must have felt like he had won the raffle only to discover the prize was a Niagara tightrope walk, asked to face down the most potent attack in the country in their backyard. Shoring up the United defence with whatever he could lay his hands on was clearly his priority with the memory of a 5-0 home defeat earlier in the season having left its scars.
Sandbags against the flood was the order of the day. But manager Ralf Rangnick’s hospital pass left Jones gasping for air in a tempestuous Red sea.