PAUPERS’ FOOTBALL
Devoid of imagination and fluency, United hit rock bottom (probably)
THEY would not have tolerated this from Jose Mourinho or Louis van Gaal. They certainly would not have taken it from David Moyes’ Manchester United. So how long will they stomach it from Ole Gunnar Solskjaer?
Suffice to say that if the current United manager does not start next season well, then judgment may come earlier than he ever could have imagined.
This was paupers’ football from Solskjaer’s United team, football devoid of imagination and fluency. Solskjaer’s United, the one that started so vividly under him in winter, has been steadily regressing for weeks and we would call this rock bottom, if we were remotely convinced they couldn’t get any worse.
Here was the inevitable conclusion of weeks of decline under Solskjaer, a failure to beat one of the worst teams ever to play Premier League football and failure to qualify for the Champions League at a time when their rivals from London have seemingly been doing their very best to help them out.
United have taken eight points from their last eight league games.
In old money they would call that relegation form and the only excuse open to Solskjaer is that these are not his players.
But just as the Norwegian was given the credit for the revival that followed his arrival, so he must take responsibility for this. He didn’t buy these players but does coach them and one wonders what they have been doing daily at Carrington.
To put this juddering result into context, Huddersfield have been relegated since the end of March. Before this game, the Yorkshire club had lost all but two of their previous 24. The only teams not to beat them in that spell were Wolves (who lost 1-0) and Cardiff (who drew 0-0).
So to fail here at the John Smith’s Stadium takes some doing and afterwards Solskjaer’s rhetoric was familiar as he talked of an uncertain future for his players and threatened — albeit in that smiling, rather vague way of his — to promote members of the age-group teams next season.
So far, it has fitted the story of United’s season to blame the club’s players rather than the coach. Solskjaer is a favourite among supporters and arrived as a charismatic antidote to Mourinho’s creeping misery in December. To blame him now would not fit the theme.
But not much of what Solskjaer currently says or does inspires confidence. His team selections have no pattern and his pronouncements about United’s immediate and long-term future can be as confusing as his team’s football.
Here, he was caught smiling on camera in the second half. Gary Neville didn’t like it but smiling should never be a crime. This is sport, after all. And what are the
alternatives? Resignation? Indifference? Simmering fury? It is hard to carry off a suitable look when your team are playing as badly as his. And this really was very bad indeed.
It isn’t as though Huddersfield played that well. They just recovered from an anaemic start to play with a little energy and belief. Against United that is all it takes. As somebody commented amusingly on Twitter in the second half: ‘Huddersfield are still playing quite badly. It’s just hard to tell.’
Early on, it was not hard to tell. Huddersfield stuck tight to the season’s script and offered nothing for half an hour. United scored on eight minutes when Scott McTominay’s shot went straight through goalkeeper Jonas Lossl and would have sealed the game early had they not been so feckless.
Invited by United’s failings to come into the game, Huddersfield eventually equalised on the hour.
Lossl gathered a United corner and set Isaac Mbenza away with a superb volleyed clearance. United defender Luke Shaw had a chance to clear but fly-kicked at thin air as Mbenza sped away to wwslide in his first Huddersfield goal.
The forward took the chance superbly and it was good to see the stadium on its feet on the day owner and chairman Dean Hoyle officially stood down. Hoyle has done great things for his club. After that, Paul Pogba struck the bar, Phil Jones volleyed over from four yards — of course he did — and substitute Tahith Chong drew a low save from Lossl.
But Huddersfield carried a threat, too, and Grant almost stole victory as he raced down the left in added time and drove a shot against De Gea’s foot. De Gea, by the way, had a decent afternoon but he was very much alone.
As the stadium emptied, one Huddersfield fan remarked that his team’s season might have been different had they played like this every week. Had this Manchester United team been the visitors more often, they might well have done.