Article 70 — The Reds Go Marching On, On, On
In the first encounter, Manchester United lost 1–0 to Bournemouth at the Vitality Stadium. I remember United had good chances to score first but didn’t. Bournemouth scored just before half-time thanks to former Red-Devil Joshua King and United had no answer and couldn’t get back into the game.
This is how the match turned out yesterday in the reverse fixture:
Let me look over the positives first. United played well again, drawing lots of praise from the neutrals and creating lots of excitement among the United faithful. We were aggressive, pinning Bournemouth in their half for a considerable amount of time, we recovered the ball fast, pressed well and was always on the front foot. The passing was smooth, accurate and incisive.
Ironically, we didn’t actually have a shot on target or had carved out a clear chance until Mason Greenwood equalised. The pass from Bruno Fernandes to Greenwood opened up the Bournemouth defence and Greenwood smashed in the equaliser. Just like the criticism that was levelled at David De Gea for the part he played in the concession of Steven Bergwijn’s goal for Tottenham Hotspur, his counterpart Aaron Ramsdale would be criticised for the goal he conceded for United’s equaliser.
I sympathise with modern goalkeepers. The balls are lighter and if someone hits it with great force the way Bergwijn and Greenwood did, it can be tough on the goalkeeper to keep it out. Most of United’s goals yesterday were a result of individual brilliance. Anthony Martial scored a great goal into the top left corner to give us a 3–1 lead before half-time. It was an important goal to give us some cushion for the second half. Then Greenwood added his second with a shot into the top right corner which came at a vital time when we were rocking a bit. Bruno Fernandes’ free-kick for our 5th goal was excellently placed. I really hope we have now finally got a regular, consistent and effective free-kick taker. It has been mostly hit and hope for a long time now with direct free-kicks and set-pieces in general for us.
It was a nice gesture from Fernandes to let Marcus Rashford take the penalty to make it 2–1. Rashford needed that goal for his confidence and he didn’t waste his chance. It was nice to see him get off the mark. With this goal, Rashford and Martial have both got to 20 goals for the season, the first time a pair of United strikers have got to that mark since 2010–11. Dimitar Berbatov and Javier Hernandez were the last players to reach that mark in that season.
He could have scored a second but I felt the goal was wrongly ruled out for offside. I am not saying it out of any bias. Looking at the VAR replays, it didn’t look like he was conclusively offside. Ramsdale too was crucial for keeping the score down. We could have one or two more goals if it wasn’t for his saves.
For the negatives, it would undoubtedly be the part we played in conceding the goals to Bournemouth. The away side deserve credit for trying to take the game to us, possibly gaining confidence from the 1–0 win in the first fixture. For the first goal we conceded, we failed to deal with the cross that was coming in from our left. Both Harry Maguire and Victor Lindelof didn’t make a good connection with the ball. The ball landed at the feet of Junior Stanislas and we were not aggressive and fast enough to close him down. He proceeded to embarrass Maguire by putting the ball through his legs and caught De Gea out at our near post. A great goal for Bournemouth but a soft goal for us to concede.
For the second goal, we started the second half sloppily. We had already gifted Bournemouth a chance once but somehow between the defence and De Gea, we kept them out. In the next sequence of play, Nemanja Matic overhit his pass back and in his desperation to prevent a corner, substitute Eric Bailly was judged to have handled the ball with his arm in the penalty box. On the replays, at a certain angle it did look like it hit his arm while in the other, it looked like it came off his shoulder. Overall, a sloppy piece of play that gifted Bournemouth a penalty. De Gea got a hand on the penalty from King but couldn’t keep it out. We were rocking after that goal and it was completely unnecessary as we were in a comfortable position at the start of the first half.
We have now made it 16 matches unbeaten across all competitions. Momentarily, we had got into 4th place for the first time since September 2019. We are now back in 5th place after Chelsea’s 3–0 win over Watford. 5th place could get us into the Champions League next season if Manchester City’s ban from Europe is upheld. We will find out City’s fate on the 13th July.
While it is all well and good with the way we are playing now and our results match that, I would be interested to see if we have what it takes to win a trophy. We are in the running for two tournaments, the FA Cup and the Europa League, of course, to win something, we need some luck in our favour but to win something to match this upturn in fortune would give us a lot of belief and confidence for next season.
I sincerely hope that this great run of form doesn’t convince our owners and CEO that we do not need to invest in the squad. The squad is still thin in terms of quality depth. I feel we need cover for Paul Pogba and Fernandes and a quality right-winger among cover for other positions. I would also like to see how the team reacts on the pitch when things go wrong, when the team is not playing so well and when the team is finding it difficult to break down an opponent. Everything is great when the grass is green, the sun is shining and the roses are blooming. The real test for this team would be when the storm clouds gather above us and when things get difficult. There are still some unanswered questions for this team before we can say for sure we are back to challenge for the big trophies. There is still needs to be more quality added to the squad as well.
For now, I would say Manchester City is the closest team to Liverpool because of the quality present in the squad, the experience they have of winning trophies and the endless cash available to the club to make signings. Things would change if their European ban is upheld and restrictions are placed on them.
