The international break was supposed to help Michael Carrick get his Manchester United players into gear. Instead, Saturday night brought more sluggish football at Old Trafford.
Roberto De Zerbi’s Tottenham may be in the Premier League relegation zone, but they caused United plenty of problems in the first half. Spurs created several chances but failed to take them.
Bryan Mbeumo finally put United ahead with a tidy finish in the 73rd minute. Rodrigo Bentancur then received a red card, giving Carrick’s team a great chance to secure three vital points.
However, Dominic Solanke had other ideas. After missing several clear chances, he finally scored in stoppage time to earn Spurs a deserved point.
Here, Sports News Blitz’s frustrated Man Utd writer Robert Bore shares his thoughts on the game. The result leaves United in 12th place, while Tottenham sit 18th with three points from six top-flight matches.
Red Devils run ragged
I hate rushing around. When your sat-nav says 55 minutes to get home and the game starts in 25, you know you’ve f***ed up.
The extended international break finally ended. Yet I spent the journey cursing myself while listening to Spurs run United ragged at Old Trafford.
It made for painful listening. Senne Lammens had his Calamity Button flashing early on. He played a couple of one-twos with Harry Maguire before passing almost straight to Lucas Bergvall.
The Belgian keeper then had to react quickly to deny Solanke. That early mistake set the tone for United’s performance.
The hosts endured a pathetic opening half-hour. Spurs should have scored at least twice.
Mohammed Kudus wasted a gilt-edged chance, too. He fired a cut-back wide of the post when he should have done better.
Who let the dog in
The home crowd grew frustrated enough to boo midway through the first half. Even the dog in the back of my car seemed to agree. It had been forced to listen to the game.
United’s midfield looked short of energy. It had fewer legs than a KFC boneless bucket.
Spurs lacked confidence in front of goal. Otherwise, Carrick’s players could have faced a serious deficit before half-time.
I returned to the pictures just as Mbeumo launched a quick counter-attack. He carried the ball for 50 yards before passing to Amad Diallo.
However, the pass ran slightly too far ahead of the winger. Diallo could only produce a tame effort at Antonin Kinsky.
Leny Yoro started at right-back ahead of my man Diogo Dalot. He worked hard to stop the artist formerly known as Savinho.
Yet Yoro then tried to do too much and handed possession straight back to Spurs. United kept making life difficult for themselves.
Misplaced passes
Kobbie Mainoo did similar soon after, Bruno Fernandes also guilty of misplacing a couple of passes that he’d usually complete in his sleep, United were off it.
And when Conor Gallagher barged his way into the six-yard box, it needed a mixture of bobbles and lack of control to somehow see the ball safe.
United earned a corner after some better play but Savio almost punished them with another cut-back that was cleared by a thankful Luke Shaw.
Savio got in again a minute later that looked gift-wrapped for Solanke but the former Liverpool man put the ball over the top from in front of goal, albeit under pressure from Lisandro Martinez.
How were Spurs not ahead?
Half-time was gratefully received.
Dicing with death
United continued to dice with death after the break, giving the ball away so cheaply.
Youri Tielemans was robbed of possession next, while at the other end Fernandes almost fashioned his own chance after nut-megging his defender, but Spurs cleared.
Tielemans then had the ball in the back of the net after Cunha thought he’d robbed Archie Gray on his own byline but the ball had gone out (by quite a fair way) for a goal kick. United had, perhaps, woken up a bit at least.
Carrick had seen enough though and readied three changes ahead of the hour.
Dalot, Joshuas Zirkzee and the (much-needed) Carlos Baleba were thrown in for Amad, Tielemans and Yoro.
Baleba’s first touch saw him bring the ball down and play a raking ball over the top for Fernandes. It was already an improvement.
Fernandes chipped a neat free-kick into Zirkzee, who won a corner which from the resulting centre Baleba hit a strike that might have hit the moon.
Spurs were still a threat, though, and Mainoo blocked brilliantly to force Savio to fire over after more sloppy play from the home side.
With 20 minutes remaining it was anyone’s game.
With 17 minutes to go it was United’s to lose.
Martinez found Shaw out left who played the ball on to Cunha who in turn found a bit of space as he entered the box.
The Brazilian looked up and fed Mbuemo who had a yard or so space between him and his marker and instinctively fired low across Kinski’s goal and into the far corner.
Call the police, there has been a mugging
United had been better since the break but this still felt like a mugging had just happened.
Carrick clenched a fist, Spurs boss Roberto de Zerbi clenched a buttock.
Then it all went off.
Bentancur and Shaw were the protagonists.
Shaw took exception to the Spurs man’s challenge, which looked dangerous as he scissored in at pace, and went and pushed the Uruguayan over.
Shaw was presumably worried that any connection would damage his legs, considering his shin pads were either non-existent or the size of a postage stamp.
That didn’t go down very well to be fair and the Spurs man jumped up and popped his head on Shaw, enough to make a red card from Stuart Attwell an inevitability.
Spurs were now down to 10 men, while Shaw and a Spurs lad received yellows amidst the handbags.
But here we go, 1-0 up and now a man over. Let’s put it to bed.
Mbeumo almost did, Baleba with another long through ball that the United man latched onto before forcing Kinsky into the save behind.
But encouraging from the new boy, who was already showing the energy visibly lacking from the United engine room previously.
Danger ahead
But, like a 3am large doner kebab with extra chilli sauce, I still sensed danger ahead.
Jan Paul van Hecke blocked well from Cunha’s low effort as we approached added time, which would be a hefty eight minutes, when the blinking started.
It was the Calamity Button again.
We were about to see someone f**k things up.
Red light. Slow at first, slow, then fast, fast, faster.
Spurs moved the ball about on the left – stop the cross please – well done, first effort headed away by Dalot.
But the ball went back to former Newcastle man Sandro Tonali who had another go as Mbeumo dropped off him rather than engaging. This didn’t look good.
Around eight yards from goal Martinez and Solanke were grappling like two 10-year-old wrestlers as the Italian pinged one across the box to where the Argentinean now found himself on the wrong side as his attacker got enough of his head on the ball to steer it into the far post as both flopped to the turf.
Somewhere, Jesus was weeping.
Even more so when that stupidly slow version of ‘When The Spurs Go Marching In’ wafted from the away end.
It should be banned, along with Man City.
There was still time for disaster to strike as Dalot was shown a yellow and Spurs were now doing most of the attacking, despite being a man down.
It all had a familiar ring to it.
Thankfully, it didn’t as Baleba – impressive in his cameo – fired the final chance of the game high over the bar. The impending critique was obvious.
Poor game management
United’s game management was poorer than a 12th Century peasant, failing to see it out with an extra man against a team averaging half a goal per game.
Not for the first time this season, legs in the middle costing them dearly, as in the late leveller at Everton, throwing a two-goal lead away against Brighton and the Manchester derby debacle against 10-men. Let’s not forget Hull.
Which leaves us in a hole.
Six in six is great if you’re a striker, not if your aspirations involve the top four.
With a half dozen points to their name United couldn’t be much further away from that at the moment.
With three away games on the bounce, at Atletico Madrid and Como in the Champions League, sandwiching a trip to Elland Road next Sunday, it could be a bad 10 days or so.
The defence looks shaky, midfield gaping, Bruno a world away from last season’s record-breaking exploits and an inability to see out games with any authority.
Much like my timekeeping, there may be trouble ahead.
