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Manchester United is lacking pace and width

26th November, 2017
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Manchester United. (Nick Potts/ PA via AP)
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26th November, 2017
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Manchester United edged their match against Brighton last night, an unlucky deflection taking the ball past the excellent Mat Ryan and proving the decider.

Brighton played some excellent football. They challenged the United defence in ways that not a lot of teams have, especially in their use of pace and width to get in behind the United defensive line.

United used to tear teams to pieces with pace and width. Jose Mourinho will have to field questions about his tactics and about how United win ugly when they win nowadays. Is this the United way?

SBS pundits were split on this overnight. I agree with Mark Bridge, who said that it are results that you remember most as a supporter. Manchester City are bolting away towards the title, so any win is a good win. It’s not that long ago we were playing rubbish football and getting no results.

But at the same time I think that Jose wanted the United job because he wanted to be the true successor to Sir Alex Ferguson in terms of results and the brand of football played in getting them. His team isn’t as far away as results like the recent stalemate at Anfield and last night’s ‘squeaky’ win make it seem.

(Nick Potts/ PA via AP)

There are some great signs in the centre of midfield now Paul Pogba is back. He and Nemanja Matic are starting to boss things in a way reminiscent of Roy Keane and Paul Scholes. Some of the interplay up front involving Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Pogba and Romelu Lukaku reminds you of what Eric Cantona brought to United, linking with great strikers.

It’s the width that’s missing. If there was any truth to the notion that Gareth Bale wanted out of Madrid to join United, then the Red Devils should move heaven and earth to make it happen.

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It was Ryan Giggs and David Beckham that set United apart for so long. I was lucky enough to be at Old Trafford a few times in the early 1990s when Andrei Kanchelskis was in his pomp, tearing teams to shreds along the touchlines. Giggs and Beckham continued that for Ferguson’s teams, strikers were lining up for their crosses that peppered the opposition goalmouth from both sides.

Lukaku is easily as good a striker as Ashley Cole. Given the service he received he would still be up with Harry Kane and Mohamed Salah at the top of the goalscorer tables.

(AP Photo/Rui Vieira)

Antonio Valencia and Ashley Young came to United to continue what Beckham and Giggs did, providing the pace and width that troubles even the best defences.
Both are still very good attacking defenders, but they are that little bit older now, and it’s only in glimpses that you see them do what they did so well game in, game out as younger men, bombing down the wings and getting the ball into the middle.

They haven’t really been replaced. Anthony Martial and especially Marcus Rashford offer glimpses of it, but they are different players and their natural instincts tell them to cut inside. Henrikh Mkhitaryan led United’s goal assists this season for a long time, but he is not a width player either.

Mourinho is his own man and has made the point that no-one would begrudge the results his team have earned so far this season. He knows as well as anyone the legacy he has been left by Sir Alex and Sir Matt Busby.

While his teams have played differently to those of Ferguson in the past, Jose wants as much as anyone to go to Anfield, Stamford Bridge and especially to The Etihad and win in style.

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Give him the pace and width to stretch those defences wide and United will look so much more like the team of old.

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