Match Report: Brentford vs Manchester United

During the era of Sir Alex Ferguson, if you had asked fans to predict the outcome of man utd playing a mid table or relegation threatened club, the predictions would have been unanimously in favor of man utd. So when Brentford thrashed man utd 4-0 yesterday, it should have been a shock. Instead it came as almost no surprise to fans across the world. 9 years have passed since Sir Alex retired and the standards have dropped so much at the club that fans have become used to the regular doses of humiliation.

Erik Ten Hag’s second game in charge has to be the worst performance I have seen by the club (I’ve said the same thing too many times in the past 9 years). It seems every club has figured out how to beat man utd. You just have to press them high up the pitch and they crumble into a million pieces. David De Gea was culpable for the first two goals with a howler to allow a tame shot in for the first. For the second, Brentford pressed high up the pitch with De Gea passing to Eriksen who was being marked by 3 players. Jense stole the ball off Eriksen like stealing candy from a baby and slotted in to make it 2-0. The third goal was from a set piece with Ben Mee bullying Martinez to score a third. A lot has been made about Martinez’s height who is considered small for a center back. It was easily exploited by Brentford showing he needs time to adapt to the league. Shaw and Maguire were all over the place for the fourth goal. It has to be one of the quickest counter attacks I have seen. Brentford cleared the ball from their own penalty area and within 10 seconds the ball was in the man utd goal. The positioning of Maguire and Shaw was responsible for such an easy goal for the Home side. The score was 4-0 within 35 minutes and it could have been worse if Brentford had kept up the pressure.

Despite a better second half showing, the game had already been lost by then. The utd players looked dejected and bereft of confidence. The attack looked so disjointed that Ronaldo had to come into midfield just to get a touch of the ball. While he had almost no service to make use of, his body language shows that he wants to be at any club other than man utd. Everytime Rashford got the ball on the left, he ran into the opposing defender. Sancho looked lost and Bruno moaned and groaned to no avail which has become a usual sight for fans over the last 12 months.

Kudos to Brentford and manager Thomas Frank. They perfectly executed their gameplan in the first half, ruthlessly dismantling the man utd defense. They ran circles around their opponents and were happy to sit back to defend in the second half. Their counter press was brilliant and their midfield so much more disciplined than their counterparts. Each and every player knew their roles and

Erik Ten Hag was guilty of naive selection. You cannot play that midfield in the Premier League, especially without a Defensive Midfielder. Players like Shaw, Maguire, Dalot, and especially De Gea cannot be expected to build out from the back. The most these players have built are long instagram apologies to Ole Gunnar Solskjaer (sacked in November 2021) and to the fans for the terrible season (May 2022). None of them have the leadership and quality to play for man utd. He needs to stop comparing Ajax and man utd. The amount of media attention man utd receives is 100x that of Ajax. If Ten Hag wants to remain manager post October, he would be better off playing the youth players. Otherwise he could expect apology posts by his players when he gets sacked.

At the beginning of last season, there were three priority positions that needed to be addressed – Defensive Midfield, Right Back, and Striker. Two weeks into this season and we are no closer to getting any of those targets and the club has hit the panic button. The pursuit of Marko Arnautovic and Adrien Rabiot are an insult to the fanbase as they are not an improvement over current options. The people in charge of recruitment have changed, but the chaos culture brought in by Ed Woodward still persists. It seems the only way man utd can come out of their malaise is with a change in ownership.

As a long time fan of Manchester United, I have seen my club go from being champions to fighting for a spot among the top 7 of the Premier League. 5 managers have come and gone with each of them being let down by the people in charge of the club. Make no mistake, as long as the owners continue to show their apathy, man utd will never win another trophy.