SIX-PAGE SPECIAL
Old Trafford sees the champions crowned... but it’s not the hosts
Nice chap, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. pep Guardiola surely thinks so. Brendan Rodgers, too. David Moyes and Jurgen Klopp perhaps not so much.
The team Solskjaer picked for this, his second match in five days, had ramifications throughout the top- six places, for just about everybody, bar Manchester United. it gave the title to Manchester city, made Leicester very hard to catch inside the top four, it all but ended West ham’s hopes of champions League qualification and placed Liverpool’s return to the competition in further jeopardy.
as for United, well their job is done. a top-four finish is guaranteed and this was about protecting tired legs from an unworkable fixture schedule with a european final still to come. harry Maguire may be out, but no one else is. Solskjaer will settle for that and none of it is his fault anyway. he tried his best and so did his players, but Leicester are a good team.
No rival, not even city, could field so many second string individuals and be favoured to win. United were odds against, once bookmakers got wind of the team, Leicester even money. That is why Denise coates has a big house.
Solskjaer gave a senior debut to Swedish teenager anthony elanga, and a premier League debut to amad Diallo in what was an allteenage front line with Mason Greenwood. Unsurprisingly, Leicester’s old hands looked more dangerous. United have huge promise and Solskjaer may believe he can work one more season with edinson cavani until Greenwood is wholly ready, and save whatever eye-watering fee Daniel Levy is demanding for harry Kane. One day this could be a United forward trio that challenges for the title.
This, however, proved a night for old heads. ironically, though, it was when Solskjaer introduced two more experienced players in the hope of winning the game that Leicester scored their winner, and delivered the trophy to United’s rivals. he delayed a Leicester corner to introduce edinson cavani and Marcus Rashford and, from it, Leicester regained the lead.
Marc albrighton whipped in the ball from the right and central defender caglar Soyuncu lost his man, Rashford, to rise above Nemanja Matic and power the ball into the net. it is a hoary football adage, about replacing men at an opposition corner, and it was hard on Rashford if he had been detailed to track such a dangerous presence. he looked like a bloke who had just come on, which he had.
Did United care, then? They certainly played as if they did. On came Bruno Fernandes, who immediately sliced a shot just wide from the edge of the area. Juan Mata then tried to pick out cavani in a good position, forcing a last- ditch interception from Wesley Fofana. This was not a lackadaisical performance, nobody would say United were on the beach. More, they were in Gdansk, their reserves trying to impress the manager before the europa League final with Villarreal.
if Maguire does not recover from a ligament injury, someone will have to partner Victor Lindelof. and, with three matches remaining, who knows what other opportunities might arise? No United player took Leicester lightly — even if circumstances dictated it might look that way.
Meaning integrity was maintained. an exhausted United side might have fared little better than this and nobody could have anticipated the postponement of what is now tomorrow’s fixture with Liverpool. equally, anyone who imagines United are happy to surrender a title to the team in pale blue does not know this city. each inch of ground conceded hurts, which was why nobody shared Jose Mourinho’s positive take on finishing a distant second to Guardiola in 2018. This is the sixth time the premier League trophy has been won at Old Trafford, and only on three occasions has it gone to the home side. They will not like that around these parts — even if the anti- Glazer demonstrators kept their powder dry for another day. Tomorrow, probably.
anyway, it turns out it doesn’t matter what team Solskjaer picks, his United blueprint remains the same. You know, the one where they give the opposition a goal start and then scramble for a way back into the game.
in United’s defence, mind, on this occasion it was one hell of a goal. The first in the league by 19-year-old Luke Thomas and it is hard to imagine he will get too many better.
it was Youri Tielemans who broke through United’s ranks and he struck a cross from the right, deep, with Jamie Vardy lurking in the middle. it takes no little confidence to order Vardy out of way, but he seemed to get a call and let the ball pass over his head to Thomas. The teenager met it, left foot, on the volley straight back across goal and in at the far corner
over the head of Brandon Williams on the line. What a beautiful first take.
it was quite the night for youth, though, and within five minutes Greenwood had responded for United. The last time two teenagers scored in a Premier League fixture was here on Boxing Day, 2019, and Greenwood was half of that double act, too, with Matty Longstaff of Newcastle. This, however, was an absolute teenage rampage with the ball played inside by Amad, 18, finding space where it was thought none existed. Greenwood collected the ball, powered through Leicester’s defence, and finished with a shot low into the far corner out of the reach of Kasper schmeichel. There are only four players to have outscored Greenwood in their teenage years in the modern, Premier League era: Michael Owen, Robbie Fowler, Wayne Rooney and Nicolas Anelka. That is not bad company.
The start made for a lively game, too, even if it was Leicester who had the best chances. in the 27th minute, a long-range chip from Tielemans almost caught out David de Gea, who tipped it over.
shortly before half-time, Kelechi iheanacho played Vardy in on goal but Axel Tuanzebe did brilliantly to cut in ahead. he dawdled miserably in the 51st minute, however, and almost allowed iheanacho to score. De Gea saved one- on- one from iheanacho after 59 minutes and Tielemans just failed to convert a Vardy header at the far post with 17 minutes left. it was Leicester’s first win at Old Trafford since 1998 and thoroughly deserved.
so what of the champions? They have had a truly exceptional second half of the season, eclipsing their rivals when it was thought this could be the most open title race in years. On Christmas Day, City were eighth. No champions in Premier League history have been as low at that stage in the season, indeed no champions since Liverpool in 1981-82, who sat down for turkey and crackers while 12th.
Can United catch them next season? Their away record suggests so, as do head-to-head results, and while solskjaer might no longer be in the market for a striker, it is hard to imagine there will not be improvements at Old Trafford. Jadon sancho? Declan Rice? The league table shows a 10- point gap between the Manchester clubs and solskjaer has to address that with more than mere tinkering. The 2020-21 title was won at Old Trafford. Who it was won by, however, will surely stick in the craw.