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Hello! A new year — a new Manchester United?
Coming up:
🧬 Amorim finds a formula
😡 North London EPL rage
🇮🇹 Ranieri’s Roma revival
🤦♂️ Keeper’s facepalm moment
United Front: Has Amorim found blueprint after team come close to win in Liverpool?
Manchester United: not such a lost cause after all, but a bit of a mystery nonetheless. They blunder through Christmas, only to come within a clean Harry Maguire strike of beating a team who are almost unbeatable. Make it make sense.
It was there for Maguire at Anfield yesterday (shown above), with United and Liverpool level at 2-2 and the goal at his mercy in added time. He popped up in the last place you want a centre-back to appear and his forgiving hoof was the margin between Liverpool and a first Premier League defeat in four months.
A bad miss or not (there was a debate afterwards about whether the ball bobbled), something tells me Ruben Amorim can live with it. True, a win away at the league’s leaders would have been next level but after form so bad through late December — four defeats in succession in all competitions — it was enough to land upon a blueprint that worked.
Kobbie Mainoo and Manuel Ugarte gave Amorim legs in midfield, and the difference they made to United’s shape and threat was huge: oiled wheels as opposed to rusty cogs in Casemiro and Christian Eriksen. Diogo Dalot ran riot down the left, a definite upside of Amorim’s three-man defensive system — which has to be worth persevering with.
For sure, challenges remain. Rasmus Hojlund does not look like much of a No 9, and hitting him was like trying to land on a specific grain of sand in a long-jump pit. Marcus Rashford’s future is unresolved, something Laurie Whitwell has covered forensically. Matthijs de Ligt’s part in both Liverpool goals were errors a better player wouldn’t make. But successfully going toe-to-toe at Anfield must be a psychological boost. Surely.
Real problem?
(Carl Recine/Getty Images)
The victim of Dalot’s electric afternoon was Trent Alexander-Arnold. This was very much a post-New Year’s Eve Trent: dazed, confused and not quite sure what day it was.
His positioning went haywire. His passing played Liverpool into trouble. His attacking threat dried up and Arne Slot saved him from himself (not to mention further Virgil van Dijk death stares) with four minutes to go, replacing him with Conor Bradley.
Was it a coincidence that, a few days earlier, Real Madrid came in for him? Slot said Alexander-Arnold was not distracted by fluttering eyes in Spain but the right-back looked like a man with his mind elsewhere.
It’s funny: at no stage have contractual matters affected Mohamed Salah. He scored again yesterday and in working out whether he stays or goes at the end of the season, he seems to be loving the thrill of the chase. Alexander-Arnold is younger and, potentially, on course to leave the only club he has ever known. Was yesterday simply a misstep? Or have Madrid broken his flow?
News round-up
🖱️ Most clicked in Friday’s TAFC: the most perfect thing in sport.
Premier Paranoia? Angry Postecoglou, aggrieved Arteta, shambolic Southampton
Elsewhere in the Premier League, two episodes of ‘Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you’.
First up, Ange Postecoglou who was ready to blow after Tottenham’s 2-1 loss to Newcastle United — not at his squad but at the match officials. Newcastle’s equaliser was allowed to stand despite the ball hitting Joelinton’s hand in the build-up. “On a fair and even playing ground, we would have won that game,” Postecoglou said.
Maybe, but that’s 10 defeats for Spurs now. They’ve only played 20 games. They were done in the end by Alexander Isak, who just doesn’t miss from the six-yard box. If I was Newcastle, I’d be telling him to pitch a tent there.
And then we had Mikel Arteta, equally aggrieved by the penalty that held Arsenal to a 1-1 draw at Brighton. No denying it was an unusual call — given for William Saliba clashing heads with Joao Pedro — but Arsenal are shipping points too regularly and Ethan Nwaneri joining Bukayo Saka on the injury list isn’t going to improve matters.
At the other end of the division, a thought for the day: are Southampton about to become the worst Premier League team of all time? They’re yet to shake a leg under new boss Ivan Juric. They lost 5-0 to Brentford on Saturday and they’re stuck on six points. Derby County set the record for the lowest-ever total by reaching 11 in 2007-08. It’s there to be broken.
🎙️ Juric compared the pasting by Brentford to “being kicked in the head”. The Totally Football Show had some fun with that quote. You can listen on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Vinicius Junior sees red: Real Madrid forward sent off in latest Valencia flashpoint
If and when Vinicius Jr chooses to continue his career away from Spain, he won’t leave with happy memories of Valencia.
He’s been the victim of racial abuse there in the past and on Saturday he incurred a red card at the Mestalla for the second time in three visits. It’s a sad fact that the Brazilian has only ever been sent off during games at Valencia.
This one, it should be said, was deserved. He struck goalkeeper Stole Dimitrievski in the throat during an altercation and the North Macedonian’s theatrics did not affect the letter of the law. Somehow, Madrid rode the dismissal to fight back from 1-0 down and win 2-1 through Jude Bellingham’s 96th-minute finish.
The result just about appeased manager Carlo Ancelotti, who said Madrid’s first half was “so bad I couldn’t believe my eyes.” He plans to pull rank in designating a penalty taker after Bellingham missed one earlier in the game. All is not sweetness and light, but Madrid do top La Liga — and it doesn’t feel like they’ve really got started.
❤️ You’ll read nothing better today than James Horncastle on 73-year-old Claudio Ranieri reviving Roma. How’s this for a line: “Whoever accepted to become Roma’s fourth coach of 2024 would need guts, brains and a big heart — all things Ranieri had held in his hands as a butcher’s boy growing up.” Take a bow.
Quiz answer
How did you go with naming the players who’ve scored four or more goals in Premier League games between Liverpool and Manchester United?
They were: Salah (12), Steven Gerrard (8), Robbie Fowler (6), Wayne Rooney (6), Rashford (5), Andy Cole (4), Luis Diaz (4), Ryan Giggs (4).
Catch A Match (Times ET/UK)
(Selected games)
Copa del Rey: Deportivo Minera vs Real Madrid, 1pm/6pm — ESPN+ (U.S. only).
Supercoppa Italiana: Milan vs Inter, 2pm/7pm — CBS Sports Network, Fubo/Premier Sports 1
Premier League: Wolverhampton Wanderers vs Nottingham Forest, 3pm/8pm — USA Network, Fubo/Sky Sports
Championship: Queens Park Rangers vs Luton Town, 3pm/8pm — CBS Sports, Paramount+/Sky Sports
And finally…
Win as a team, lose as a team. Or that’s what they say.
But if a goalkeeper blunders like Illan Meslier did at Hull City (above) on Saturday, patience is going to be tested. Leeds United were 3-1 up with nine minutes to go when he palmed a ball which was safely clearing his crossbar back into the line of fire. Hull mopped up the chance and a 3-3 draw ensued.
His team-mates’ reaction is quite the montage: Joe Rodon (right) screaming at him, Joel Piroe (centre) giving it a more gentle ‘WTF?’ and Joe Rothwell (left) heaving the biggest sigh since I last told my eldest to put down her phone and read a book. Awkward.
(Photo: Zohaib Alam — MUFC/Manchester United via Getty Images)
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