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7 min Again, Martinez passes forward early, Dorgu slips infield to Sesko … who, rather than take it on, tries a flick that goes nowhere. United do, though, recover possession, working the ball to Casemiro on the edge, but his shot flies off towards Falkirk.
6 min Nice from Burnley, Laurent finding Hannibal in space, 20 yards from goal. He moves left to Pires, whose cross is useless.
5 min Shaw, into Bruno and out to Dorgu, whose first-time cross is easily claimed by Dubravka. But we can see what United are trying to do, looking to pass forwards whenever possible and find their centre-forward early, before the Burnley defence can set.
3 min Florentino finds Hannibal, who bounces Casemiro away only to lose out in a second tackle.
2 min Martinez feeds Dorgu down the left and he does indeed try to get down the outside, but Laurent does just enough to impede him without conceding a free-kick.
1 min Fletcher has gone for overcoat, gilet underneath, and syoot. I guess we can give him 2/3 for that. Otherwise, for now at least, Cunha is on the right and Dorgo on the left, I imagine so both can go on the outside and furnish Sesko with the crosses we discussed earlier.
1 min United get us and the Fletchera under way.
The teams are out…
“Whoever sold Nagalsmann that jacket had a wonderful sense of humour,” reckons Dave Estherby. “One look at that thing and I’m back to the days of waking up on the sofa in the early hours to the sights and sounds of the BBC Testcard...”
Desperately waiting for kids’ TV to start in the early 80s, or at least to be able to turn over to ITV for the Sons & Daughters theme tune.
I do, though, think Burnley can hurt United. If they go narrow in midfield, with Hannibal and Edwards tucking in, they can win the numbers game, enjoy a decent share of possession and, as we’ve seen over the course of the season, United’s defence always has a mistake in it.
So, can Burnley stay up? Er, no. Unluckily for them, the two sides they came up with are doing really well, and the established clubs doing badly still have too much money and quality to be catchable. Currently, the gap to safety is nine points plus goal difference, and that feels more likely to increase than decrease.
“I dunno,” begins Matt Dony. “As a Liverpool fan, I can think of at least half a dozen metrics by which Amorim was a runaway success! (And I intend to wring every bit of humour out of this situation as I can, because, let’s face it, one smart appointment and they could be well on their way to being a real force again.)”
Yes, I agree – despite the upstairs incompetence, United will always be the right manager away from being good. Finding it, though, is not easy, and it won’t be Fletcher, though he is an ex-player I’ve always thought had the right stuff – others are Ander Herrera and Bruno Fernandes.
I guess my top three, in order is:
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Luis Enrique, though I imagine there’s a chance he goes to Man City
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Julian Nagelsmann (though he did turn up at Old Trafford in the jacket above and lose 5-0, which takes some coming back from)
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Xavi
Of the Premier League candidates, I guess I’d go for Iraola, though I’m far from convinced the method that’s done so well at Bournemouth can translate to a side looking to control and dominate games.
United, meanwhile, will want to get men into the box to help Sesko, while Bruno looks to angle balls into space down the sides of the outside centre-backs. I’m sure they’ll use Cunha and perhaps Heaven to carry downfield, with Shaw and Dalot ordered to supply the crosses their 8”10 striker rarely received under Amorim. I also imagine they’ll find him through Martinez, who passes superbly, and use Ugarte to force high turnovers.
Where is the game? Burnley will look to get behind United’s midfield, with Ugochukwu, a player I really rate, making third-man runs while Edwards and Mejbri look to get, er, in and around Broja to give them a +1 on United’s centre-backs, while Broja puts himself up against Martinez, who lacks height and pace.
Goodness me, Redknapp has just decided that Mainno needs “to show the grit, energy and attitude on the training pitch”; er, how do we know he didn’t? Amorim made it very clear that Mainoo was competing with Bruno, United’s captain and best player, for one spot; the rest exists solely in the imagination of those assuming things with no evidence so to do.
They’re about to discuss Mainoo on Sky, so here’s my take. He’s got incredible ability in tight spaces, but needs to get better and finding the ball – too much of too many games passed him by – stronger, faster, and better at passing it forward. That said, United’s dreadfulness made his continuing omission completely unjustifiable, and I’m sure he’ll now get a chance in the three-man midfield he needs to thrive. If, in a year, he’s got a young, physical six behind him, the best creator in world football ahead of him, and he’s still not making it happen, we can wonder if, perhaps, he’s not quite good enough, despite his strengths. But not until then.
There are plenty of other matches tonight, just underway. Niall McVeigh has you covered.
The team Fletcher has picked is the one I and presumably the rest of us expected him to pick. At some point, I’d expect Mainoo to come in for Ugarte, and other than that, Mazraoui will compete for Dalot’s spot when he’s back from Afcon, with Amad and Mbeumo joining Cunha and Sesko in a tussle for three spots.
Sky have Tim Sherwood and Jamie Redknapp in the studio. Neither has yet referenced hapax legomenon.
Fletcher says he’s happy with how training has gone and looking forward to the game. They’ve set the team up in a way which suits their style and personalities, and he trusts them to play well. Tactics are fluid, he says – you want rotations and so on– but you also have to give players the chance to work thinks out for themselves and he trusts them express themselves and do it if they see it.
Oh, and Fletcher also reveals his favourite twin, picking Jack but not Fletcher.
Fletcher, meanwhile, changes one player – Bruno Fernandes returns in place of Leny Yoro – and a formation, moving from the 3-4-2-1 only Amorim understood, to 4-2-3-1. He also has Mount and Mainoo available, both of whom are on the bench.
Burnley make three changes following their defeat at Brighton: out go Ekdal, Larsen and Anthony and in come Esteve, Hannibal and Edwards. By the looks of things, Parker sticks with the 3-4-3 that has brought him just as much success as the 4-2-3-1.
Teams!
Burnley (3-4-3): Dubravka; Humphreys, Esteve, Laurent; Walker, Florentino, Ugochukwu, Pires; Edwards, Broja, Hannibal. Subs: Weir, Hartman, Bruun Larsen, Foster, Anthony, Tchaouna, Ekdal, Sonne, Barnes
Manchester United (4-2-3-1): Lammens; Dalot, Heaven, Martinez, Shaw; Ugarte, Casemiro; Dorgu, Fernandes, Cunha; Sesko. Subs: Bayindir, Maguire, Mainoo, Mount, Malacia, Yoro, J Fletcher, Lacey, Zirkzee.
Referee: Stuart Atwell (Nuneaton)
Preamble
Ruben Amorim was, by any metric, an absolute disaster at Old Trafford. In the Premier-League era, no United manager has achieved fewer points per game, nor a finish as low as 15th-place; looking further back, no United manager since Frank O’Farrell, in 1972, lost as high a percentage of games; and every other United manager in history avoided the eternal stain of losing a cup final to Tottenham Hotspur, never mind Ange Postecoglou’s Tottenham Hotspur.
Life, though, is rarely as simple as mate, your precious 3-4-2-1 is a piece of nonsense, and Amorim leaves United in a state far better than the one in which he found them. After Brighton were beaten earlier in the season, Danny Welbeck reported teammates lauding the best opponent they’d faced in a while, while the football played in the 4-4 draw with Bournemouth was both promising and exhilarating. And, though it’s impossible to argue against the sacking – even if its trigger was criticising bosses with even more miserable track records – Amorim was ultimately stymied by bad luck. Had the absences of key players not coincided with injuries to key players, he’d still be in a job – perhaps even thriving.
As such, Darren Fletcher inherits a reasonable state of affairs. Mason Mount, Bruno Fernandes and Kobbie Mainoo are fit again, while Amad Diallo and Bryan Mbeumo will soon be back from Afcon; merely sensible husbandry of a talented squad should be enough to secure a fifth-place finish and with it a European spot for next season, most likely in the Champions League.
Burnley, though, will not make things easy. Though they’ve only 12 points, having lost three of their last five, performances have been better than results and Scott E. Parker will have his side revved up to get after opponents likely to be fielding an XI that’s never played together, set up in a formation denied it for over a year. However things go, this is, without doubt, the match of the night.
Kick-off: 8.15pm GMT
