Let The Good Times Roll

Being a United fan, I experienced a multitude of emotions this season: despair, hope, humiliation to elation, anger, pride. This team really put me through the emotional wringer (but isn’t that just the life of a football fan). One thing I can say for sure is the 2022/23 season represented a step in the right direction. Most of my posts don’t focus exclusively on the red half of Manchester, so it would only be right for me to summarise my thoughts from Erik Ten Hag’s first year in charge.

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Ten Hag: Half Man, Half Amazing

For the first time in a while, it feels like we have the right man at the helm. From the opening two games, it was apparent that Ten Hag had a massive job on his hands. But once he found his footing, you could see the impact he was started to have on the club. His decision-making has been critical, not being afraid to make big decisions when needed. Three specific decisions come to mind. Number 1: dropping Harry Maguire. You would have thought it was about time that he was dropped right, but Ten Hag was the first coach to have the balls to do it. Number 2: benching Cristiano Ronaldo. This was a massive decision as he was United’s best, and really, only striker and last campaign’s top scorer. But no, that was irrelevant. The manager didn’t think he was the right fit, and he did what was required for the benefit of the team. Number 3: dropping Marcus Rashford. He turned up late to training before an away game against Wolves and was subsequently dropped. However, he was more than vindicated as Rashford scored the winner. This season has shown that Ten Hag has the bravery and courage to potentially lead United on a success path of yesteryear.

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The Wait is Over

A 6-year trophy drought is a heck of a long time for a big club like United. Since Mourinho lifted the Europa League is 2017, we’ve failed to win silverware, but like the saying goes, all things must come to an end. In this case, it was United’s trophy drought. United were crowned the winners of the League Cup after beating Newcastle. I mentioned this in a previous blog; whilst the League Cup is not the most glamorous competition, it is an important first trophy to win. Just look at Mourinho and Guardiola. The first trophy they won in England was the League Cup, and just look at the success they’ve achieved. Lifting your first trophy is always special, as it helps to instil that winning mentality around a club. It also shows that in the biggest of moments, when you need your players to stand up and deliver, you can count on them to get the job done. Do I now thinking that we’re guaranteed to win trophies moving forward? Of course not. I’d be stupid to believe that. However, now that this team knows what it takes to win, it gives me a little more confidence that we’ll be fighting it out for some of the other domestic (and maybe) European honours.

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Everyone Acts Tough When They’re Up

Whilst there were key positives from this year just gone, we’ve got to talk about the elephant in the room. This team continues to have the ability to capitulate, particularly away from home. We saw it first against Brentford in early August, when United went 4 goals down before half-time. I don’t think I felt as defeated after a game as I did after watching that embarrassment of a team put in an utterly abject performance. This was then followed up by the 6-3 trouncing in the Manchester derby in October, where the scoreline flattered to deceive. Again, we were already 4-0 down before half time and 6-1 down after 72 minutes. And just when I thought it couldn’t get anyway worse, we got our asses handed to us by Liverpool at Anfield, losing 7-0 in what was surely one of the darkest days in the club’s history. What all these defeats have in common is that if this team is confident when they’re up, but the second things don’t go away, their heads could just completely go. Specifically at Anfield, although United were 1-0 down at the half, we weren’t playing that bad, but once the second and third went in, the players had fully lost it. If United are going to get back to winning the big trophies, Ten Hag must prevent these capitulations from happening on a regular basis.

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It's Time To Kick Rocks

One of my overriding feels about this season is that there is still deadwood that needs to be gotten rid of. A big hindrance for us was depth. It’s not a case that we lacked depth, as for the most part we had two players for every position which I think is more than enough. It’s the lack of quality depth. Ten Hag was overly reliant on a small group of players as he didn’t have much trust in some of his squad players. Looking at our squad, I’d say there about 9/10 players that I like, there is a few that I think should probably be loaned out, and then the rest I think just need to kick rocks. De Gea, Maguire, Fred, McTominay, Martial. If I had my way, I’d get rid of all of team. There are other players I haven’t mentioned but I think you get my point. Shifting a lot of players in a single window is near impossible (unless you’re in cahoots with our friends in the Middle East, hint hint). You’ve got to start somewhere, even if it’s just getting rid of 3 or 4 players, I don’t see why that’s not reasonable. If we can then replace these players with quality, we’ll be in a decent position looking ahead.

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This Week’s Hot Take

We’ve improved this campaign, no doubt. But if you look at it, it hasn’t been a great season if we’re being honest. We came third in the league, but heavily benefitted from teams like Liverpool and Chelsea performing well below expectations. We did win a cup, but if you look at the path to silverware, we had a easy run. Similarly in the FA Cup, it wasn’t until we faced City in the final where we came up against a top team. Lastly in the Europa League, the way we got bounced out by Sevilla was underwhelming. All in all, I’m content with how the season went, but I’m not going to act like we did something special.