United regain place among elite but major surgery still required
No one can be quite sure what the next few months hold for Manchester United but, equally, no one could accuse Erik ten Hag of not holding up his end of the bargain as the club enter a potentially defining period in their history.
Having ended United’s six-year wait for a trophy with Carabao Cup success in February, the Dutchman oversaw the club’s return to Champions League competition with a victory over Chelsea that expunged any need for a result against Fulham on Sunday, and what could have been a nervy final day.
If United can now go on and dent Manchester City’s treble bid by adding a second piece of silverware, and in the process preserve their status as the only English club to have won the big three in a single season, then it will have proved a very fruitful first season indeed at Old Trafford for Ten Hag.
As a starting point, they will have to be a lot better defensively at Wembley than they were here to pull that off. For all their threat going forward, this ludicrously open game could have finished 10-5 to United. But what happens beyond that City game and into next season will hinge on the successful resolution of the ownership saga and a smart summer of trading in the transfer window, both in terms of incomings and outgoings.
At least with Champions League qualification secured, something the club failed to achieve in four of the previous nine seasons, Ten Hag has guaranteed a precious revenue stream and cemented one pivotal building block amid the wider uncertainty presented by the takeover.
And if Sir Jim Ratcliffe or Qatari banker Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad Al Thani do take the reins, Ten Hag will hope they do not prove as trigger happy and excitable as Todd Boehly has at Chelsea.
There are the makings of a very good team at United, but only the makings. Casemiro, who scored for the second game running to get the ball rolling and was influential in the second, scored by Anthony Martial, has been a key addition. Bruno Fernandes was everywhere once again and got on the scoresheet with a penalty. Marcus Rashford scored his 30th goal late on and, in doing so, became the first United player to reach that milestone since Robin van Persie a decade ago, which, incidentally, was when the club last won the league title. Raphael Varane and Luke Shaw are stalwarts and Lisandro Martinez will be back for pre-season following the metatarsal injury that ended his campaign prematurely.
Alejandro Garnacho, still only 18, has bags of potential. Antony has shown glimpses but may now be facing a spell on the sidelines after being substituted with what Ten Hag suggested was a “serious” injury. Too many others need ousting, though, or are in the lastchance saloon. Jadon Sancho, for example, was a threat here but can he be trusted to deliver consistently next season?
The reality is the squad still requires major surgery and it would be a profound disappointment to Ten Hag, and a source of great anger for fans,- if a promising first season’s work is stunted over the course of a frustrating summer. The delays in the takeover process are not a good sign and risk testing the manager’s patience, but there is still enough time as things stand.
More than anything, United require a centre-forward, although it is a toss-up over whose need in that particular department is greater: Ten Hag’s or Chelsea’s next manager-in-waiting. Chelsea were hopelessly disorganised, horribly erratic and beset by individual errors and yet still managed to carve so many golden chances that they might have been 4-1 up in the first half, not 2-0 down at half-time and staring at an 11 defeat in 22 league matches since the turn of the year. Profligacy is terribly costly at this level, though.
The seeds of a brighter future were there in another enterprising, energetic display from Lewis Hall, Chelsea’s best player on the night and a persistent threat to United as a rampaging left back.
Two of Chelsea’s four excellent chances in that opening half were created by the 18-year-old, not least the first when he put the ball on a plate for Mykhailo Mudryk to fluff his lines from close range. He then crossed for Kai Havertz to head abysmally wide after a lungbusting run to get into a position to meet the ball. Whatever Havertz is, he is not a ruthless centre-forward who can be trusted to lead the line.
Frank Lampard gave youth its chance; Cesar Azpilicueta, at 33, was the oldest starting outfield player by a decade. But this was a torrid night for Trevoh Chalobah and, in particular, Wesley Fofana, who gave away the penalty and then gifted United their fourth goal with a sloppy pass. Part of you asks how much crippled confidence is to blame; the rest wonders if some of these players are good enough for a club of Chelsea’s standing.
United, in fairness, were very much the poor relation of the established top six last season, even if the crisis gripping Chelsea this term has put those struggles into some perspective. But the way Ten Hag has brought some order to the chaos and apathy that was engulfing Old Trafford will encourage Chelsea that things can improve fairly quickly, even if no United fan is kidding themselves that their club have suddenly cracked it. There is an awful lot of work to do, and get right, this summer and still so many questions that need answering.