Manchester United manager Michael Carrick has stressed the importance of his side showing greater intensity and continuing to improve, revealing that discussions are taking place throughout the club about performances, results and the steps needed to move forward.

Carrick acknowledged that United have produced some encouraging performances but insisted that there are still areas requiring significant improvement. He also discussed the challenges of adapting to a different playing schedule and admitted that the extended break between matches has been far from ideal.

Speaking about the conversations taking place behind the scenes and the club’s determination to make progress, Carrick said:

“there’s always conversations going on, of course. I think in all different directions, you know, we’re striving to be better all the time, so there’s things that we’re actually doing pretty well, and there’s things that we need to get better at. And we’re pretty clear with that. I think as a group, as a squad, the players certainly are. And, obviously, layers above me as well, in terms of conversations and where we’re at. I think we’re calm in some ways and we understand where we want to get to, how we want to get there and what it takes to get there and what we’ve done previous to prove we can get good results, but that doesn’t mean we’re calm in terms of we need to have a little bit of fire moving forward in terms of how we play, how we perform, what that means and getting the best out of each other. So, we need to keep pushing for more.”

The United boss was keen to distinguish between remaining composed behind the scenes and allowing that calmness to translate into a lack of urgency on the pitch.

His comments suggest that the club’s leadership and playing squad share an understanding of the improvements required, with Carrick particularly emphasising the need for greater drive and determination.

While United can take encouragement from previous positive results, Carrick clearly believes that past performances alone will not be enough to deliver the consistency the club is seeking.

The United manager also explained how changes to the team’s schedule have affected preparations, with the coaching staff having to adjust their approach to training and match planning.

Carrick said:

“there’s obviously an adaption definitely that takes place. I think, just in terms of training time and planning for games, it is slightly different. It’s not unusual though, really. It’s just a slight adaption to what we’ve had for maybe, what was it, five months or so. But certainly that, yeah, little bit of planning, what type of games, what suits certain players, what it looks like. There’s definitely that goes into it for sure.”

The comments highlight the importance of tailoring preparations to the demands of individual fixtures, rather than relying on exactly the same approach every week.

For Carrick and his coaching staff, the additional time available between matches provides opportunities to work on tactical details and consider which players are best suited to particular opponents.

However, a longer preparation period does not automatically guarantee improved performances, and United will ultimately be judged on whether those adjustments produce better results.

Carrick was particularly candid when discussing the unusually long gap between matches, admitting that he would have preferred a shorter interruption to United’s schedule.

Despite his frustration, he explained that the coaching staff had attempted to use the time constructively, reviewing performances and identifying areas requiring attention.

Carrick said:

” I’ll be totally honest, it’s not ideal. It’s a long break, probably too long really from my perspective. It feels like a long time, but then, of course, we’ve made the most of it. I think there’s been, regardless of results, I think when you’ve had a period like this and international breaks, in general, are normally a time where you can have a bit of a review and a bit of a plan of what’s next. This one’s been extra long and it certainly gives us an opportunity to, like I said before, some of the good things that we’re still doing, to not lose that. I certainly think we need to clean up on other things to help us get better results, yeah.”

His assessment reflects the challenge of balancing the benefits of additional preparation time against the disruption caused by an extended absence from competitive football.

Although the break has given United an opportunity to analyse their performances in greater detail, Carrick’s comments indicate that maintaining the positive elements of their play is just as important as addressing their weaknesses.

The manager does not appear to believe that wholesale changes are necessary. Instead, his focus is on refining aspects of United’s performances while building upon the qualities that have already delivered encouraging results.

The central message from Carrick’s comments is that Manchester United cannot afford to become comfortable with their current level of performance.

There is a clear determination to improve, both among the players and those responsible for overseeing the club’s direction.

Carrick’s emphasis on bringing more fire to United’s performances suggests that intensity, consistency and collective responsibility will be particularly important as the team returns to action.

The extended break may not have been his preference, but it has provided an opportunity to assess what is working and what needs to change.

The challenge now is translating those conversations, tactical adjustments and training-ground improvements into performances on the pitch.

For Carrick, the objective is straightforward: preserve the progress United have already made, address the shortcomings that have affected results and ensure the team continues pushing towards the standards expected at Old Trafford.

The post Carrick Calls for United to Show More Fire as He Reflects on Extended Break first appeared on Republik Of Mancunia: A Manchester United Blog.

Manchester United manager Michael Carrick has provided an update on Benjamin Sesko’s injury situation, confirming that the striker is dealing with a problem in a similar area to his previous shin injury, although it is not a recurrence of exactly the same issue.

The Slovenian forward’s fitness has become a concern for United, with Carrick admitting that the club is still assessing the problem and cannot yet provide a definite timeframe for his return.

Speaking about the nature of the injury at the press conference ahead of our game against Tottenham, Carrick explained:

“the original was a shin anyway, yeah, it was a shin. It’s not the exact issue, it’s a similar area, but it’s not the exact same thing again, and we’re kind of still working through a little bit of seeing how long the issue will be. We’re hoping that will be soon, obviously, but, at this moment, it’s still not quite clear.”

Carrick’s comments suggest that although the latest setback involves the same general area of Sesko’s leg, United do not believe he has simply suffered a repeat of the original injury.

However, the uncertainty surrounding his recovery means supporters will have to wait for further information before knowing when the striker might be available for selection again.

The United manager also addressed the question of why Sesko has encountered another fitness problem after apparently making good progress in his recovery from the initial injury.

Carrick said:

“there’s different things to look at. I think he had recovered really well actually from the initial one and there was a lot of time and sometimes [things] get thrown up, the body does certain things and we’ve got to react to that and try and get him back as quick as we can.”

His explanation highlights the unpredictable nature of injury rehabilitation, particularly when a player appears to have recovered well before experiencing another physical issue.

Although Carrick sounded hopeful that Sesko would return relatively soon, he was careful not to make any promises about how long the forward might remain unavailable.

For Manchester United, the priority will be ensuring that Sesko is fully fit before returning to competitive action, rather than rushing him back and risking further complications.

The distinction between the original shin injury and the latest problem is significant. While both involve a similar area, Carrick’s comments indicate that the medical staff are dealing with a separate issue rather than necessarily treating an unsuccessful recovery from the first injury.

Nevertheless, questions remain over the precise nature of the setback, how much additional rehabilitation Sesko will require and when he might be ready to resume playing. Questions should also be asked about why the club started the season with just one no.9, knowing we would be stretched more this season following our qualification for the Champions League.

The post Carrick Provides Disappointing Injury Update on Sesko first appeared on Republik Of Mancunia: A Manchester United Blog.

At the end of our first ‘United People’ feature, we asked Jon Nield to pass it on. Who should we speak to next about the Reds? For Jon, there was only one place to go …

Peter Bolton has watched Manchester United more than 5,000 times, followed them to 44 countries and hasn’t missed a first-team game at Old Trafford since 1974. But the numbers only tell part of the story. This is a life measured out in matches, journeys, friendships and one very well-travelled flag.

Peter Bolton has recently been told he shouldn’t get too excited. “Don’t worry,” he replied. “I’m only watching United.” Fair point.

At 70, and recovering from a recent spell in hospital, Peter is having to do something he has spent most of his life avoiding: look at Manchester United’s fixture list and consider whether he can actually go. There are trips coming up. Madrid. Como. Once, the only question would have been how he was getting there. Now there are other considerations. Walking. Driving. Recovery time.

This is new territory: Peter hasn’t missed a first-team game at Old Trafford since December 1974. For 16 years he didn’t miss a competitive United first-team match anywhere, a run which included 145 consecutive European ties and was finally ended by a failed Russian visa application for Rostov in 2017. He has followed United to 44 countries. By his own estimate, he has watched Manchester United teams live more than 5,000 times.

“It’s been my life, hasn’t it really?” he says. “I started when I was six. I’m 70 now. It’s been the number one thing.”

And, as it turns out, the 44 countries and 5,000-odd United matches haven’t prevented Peter from quietly working his way around England either. After reading the first United People story, about Jon Nield and his son Alex’s quest to visit all 92 league grounds, Peter got in touch to point out that he is rather closer to completing the set himself.

“Obviously I’m MUCH older (and only watch MUFC) but I’m just 8 short of the 92!” he told me, before conceding that it’s “getting harder to tick them off”.

There is something wonderfully Bolton-esque about this. You spend an entire interview marvelling at the fact that one man has watched United more than 5,000 times, followed them across 44 countries and barely missed a home game in half a century — only to discover afterwards that there’s another fairly ridiculous statistic he forgot to mention.

The numbers are extraordinary. But they’re not really the story. The story is what happens when following United stops being something you do and just becomes part of your life.

BORN & BRED

Peter’s United story began before he did. His grandfather took his father to watch United. Then his father took Peter and his older brother.

Peter was about six when he started going to Old Trafford in the early 1960s. His dad would take the two boys into the United Road paddock, get them down to the front where they could see, then leave them there while he disappeared back up the terrace to find his mates. Different times.

When the first team were away, they went to watch the reserves: United was simply what they did. Then came George Best. Like thousands of other boys, Peter was besotted. His mum would take him to Best’s house in Bramhall, where young supporters gathered outside hoping for a glimpse of him.

More than half a century later, Peter went to Belfast with George’s sister, Barbara Best. She showed him the family home, his school and his grave, and gave Peter a signed copy of her book, Our George.

From waiting outside George Best’s house as a boy to being shown around Belfast by his sister: United has a habit of joining things up like that.

IT’S TOTTENHAM AWAY

Frances discovered fairly quickly what she was getting into. She met Peter at a club in 1976. Their first date was a trip to the pictures and evidently went well enough for Frances to suggest they might go back to the club the following Saturday.

Peter couldn’t: “It’s Tottenham away.”

And there it was: Saturdays weren’t necessarily available. Frances nevertheless gave United a chance. Peter took her to Old Trafford later that year, appropriately enough for a home game against Tottenham. Steve Coppell and Stuart Pearson scored and United went in at half-time 2-0 up.

Then Spurs scored three. Frances found this funny. Peter did not, and decided she was bad luck. She’s never been back.

It doesn’t appear to have done the relationship much harm. They’ve now been together for around 50 years. They married in 1979. In June, obviously: the close season.

Over the decades, Frances has watched the fixture list exert a gravitational pull over almost everything else. Eventually, even the NHS had to negotiate with it: in 2017 Peter needed an operation on the cartilage in his knee. He was told he wouldn’t be able to drive for around ten days afterwards. Ten days was a problem. Then Peter spotted an international break and asked whether the hospital could fit the operation into it. Remarkably, they could.

“The NHS very kindly fitted in my cartilage op around the international break,” he later said.

This is life with Peter Bolton: check the fixtures first.

ONE LOVE

If you’ve spent much time in United away ends, there’s a reasonable chance you’ve seen Peter even if you don’t know him. Or, more accurately, you’ve seen his flag: ONE LOVE. MUFC. MANCHESTER BORN & BRED.

There are actually two of them now. Peter took the original to dinners and events and asked former and current United players to sign it. Which they did. More than 200 of them; Peter kept a list. Eventually the flag became too precious to keep dragging around football grounds. After seeing other supporters’ flags being nicked at a game, Peter decided he wasn’t prepared to risk his. It hangs safely at home now.

But Peter was hardly going to stop taking ONE LOVE to the match. So a replacement was made. And while the first became a record of people, the second has increasingly become a map, with little national flags representing the countries United have taken Peter to.

It still goes everywhere, whether football grounds want it to or not. At Fulham a couple of weeks back, Peter discovered that ONE LOVE was bigger than the ground regulations permitted. No way was he leaving it outside. So he folded it up, went into the toilets and wrapped it around his body underneath his clothes. Through the turnstiles. Back into the toilets. Flag off. ONE LOVE restored to its proper dimensions. And there it was in the away end.

Tell Peter Bolton his flag is too big to take into a football ground and his response isn’t fair enough. It’s to work out how to get it in.

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO UNITED

The little flags tell you where Peter has been. They don’t tell you quite what was involved in getting there. Take Australia. In 2013, Peter flew to Sydney during United’s pre-season tour. At immigration, an official asked how long he was staying. “Three nights.”

People don’t come all the way to Australia for three nights, Peter was told.

Peter explained that he was there to watch United. Then he was leaving for Japan, with Hong Kong to follow. Perfectly logical. To Peter. This is what happens when the fixture list becomes your atlas. Sydney sits quite naturally alongside Yokohama, Osaka and Hong Kong because the football joins everything up.

During his years as a taxi driver, one of Peter’s regular passengers was Ian Brown. Later, Brown offered him VIP tickets for the Stone Roses’ reunion shows at Heaton Park. Peter turned them down. Obviously his younger colleagues were horrified. There are people who would have travelled halfway around the world for those tickets. Peter Bolton was already doing that sort of thing, just for something else.

And after enough years of doing it, you accumulate more than miles and little flags on a banner. You accumulate people.

OLD JOHN

Peter met John Butterfield by accident: they were travelling to watch United in Barcelona in the late 1990s. Both were alone and the company organising the trip paired single travellers in hotel rooms. Peter was put with John: it wasn’t an obvious match. Peter didn’t smoke. John was a chain-smoker and considerably older. There were two Johns in the group, so somebody solved that problem by christening Peter’s new roommate Old John.

The name lasted rather longer than the trip. So did the room-share. They discovered they travelled well together. Peter sorted the arrangements. John generally had a straightforward response.

“Book it.”

For more than 20 years, Peter did. John had been going to football since 1939. He had gone to school with Eddie Colman, knew David Pegg and had sometimes eaten at the Pegg family home. The Munich air disaster wasn’t history John had subsequently learned about. It belonged to the world he’d known.

But Peter’s best stories about him aren’t really about history. They’re about Old John being Old John. In Istanbul, with United supporters warned to be careful displaying colours, John boarded a tram full of Galatasaray supporters wearing his United shirt, scarf and gloves. He was in his eighties. Somewhere in the conversation his age was misunderstood and the Galatasaray supporters decided he was 90. They started taking photographs with him. By the time they reached the stadium, Old John had effectively acquired his own fan club.

Another time, in Switzerland, Peter and John found themselves in a pub with Roy Keane and Adrian Chiles. Other supporters approached Keane for photographs and didn’t get very far. Old John wandered over. Twenty minutes later he came back. Peter asked what on earth they’d been talking about.

Dogs. Of course they had.

John died in 2023, aged 89. Peter describes him as the nicest gentleman he ever knew. “We got to know each other through United.” The match gets you there: the people give you a reason to remember going.

Which makes something Peter says later land particularly hard: “I love the team and I still love going to the match, but I hate the club.”

“I HATE THE CLUB”

Peter isn’t announcing that he’s finished with United, far from it. The Manchester United Peter has been talking about and the Manchester United he means when he says the club are no longer quite the same thing. One is the team. The match. The people. Old John. His dad leaving him and his brother at the front of the United Road paddock. George Best. European trips. ONE LOVE.

The other is an institution Peter increasingly struggles to recognise. He remembers stewards at Old Trafford he knew for years. Familiar faces who knew the ground and knew the supporters. Now, he says, he increasingly encounters people who don’t. There are more rules, more restrictions. And more ways to spend money.

Peter watches premium experiences appearing around a stadium he has visited since he was six, with bits of the matchday experience increasingly packaged and sold. Two grand and change to ‘plant the corner flags’ pre-match, anyone? Even the beer bothers him. At one game he arrived early and saw rows of pints already poured, waiting for supporters who hadn’t yet arrived. He wondered what they’d taste like by the time anybody drank them.

But Peter’s complaint is bigger than warm lager: he worries that the people running Manchester United understand increasingly well how to monetise a football supporter, but increasingly poorly what one actually is. “I don’t think they’ve got any idea of what a football fan is,” he says.

Peter might have some standing on this particular subject.

“AS LONG AS THEY SUPPORT UNITED, THAT’S IT”

Ask Peter about going to the match and he talks about people. “Fifty, sixty people will say hello.”

Out and about outside of football, Frances will sometimes ask who somebody was. Peter doesn’t know. What’s his name? Not sure. What does he do? No idea. Peter knows the face. They’ve probably stood in the same away ends, waited in the same airports or spent years passing one another around Old Trafford. The rest doesn’t really matter: “As long as they support United, that’s it.”

Some are people Peter has known since they were kids around the Cliff. Others he met on coaches, trains, planes or in pubs. Some became close friends. Some remain people whose surnames he couldn’t tell you. That’s Peter’s United: folk who kept turning up.

Peter still does. But at 70, after being seriously unwell, he knows there may have to be compromises. He talks about Madrid and Como, about walking and travelling and, most alien of all for Peter Bolton, recovery time before the next game. One day, one of those extraordinary sequences will end.

What he doesn’t sound remotely interested in doing is stopping being United. He talks warmly about Jon Nield and his son Alex (who featured in our first United People piece), making their own journeys around football grounds together. Peter has watched Alex checking the kits and colours, absorbing all those peculiar details that football fixes permanently into a childhood.

Peter knows the pattern: his grandfather took his dad, his dad took Peter and his brother, now he watches another dad taking another boy to football. Somebody takes you and you keep going. You meet people. And eventually you look back and discover that thousands of football matches have quietly turned into a life.

Peter once told me that you can change your house and you can change your wife, but you don’t change your football team. After 50 years together, Frances may reasonably point out that the middle part remains theoretical. The United part doesn’t.

The uninterrupted Old Trafford run will end one day. So will the European trips. Even Peter Bolton cannot keep turning up forever. But perhaps that’s why the numbers matter less than they first appear to. More than 5,000 matches. Forty-four countries. More than half a century without missing a first-team game at Old Trafford.

Impressive, but Peter talks about his dad. George Best. Frances. Old John. The people who come over and say hello.

“It’s been my life, hasn’t it really?”

It has. And, in the end, his United turns out to be much the same as it was when he was six years old. It’s the people you find when you get there.

By Andrew Kirby, Sports Storytelling & Communications | Andrew Kirby

The post United People: “It’s been my life, hasn’t it really?” first appeared on Republik Of Mancunia: A Manchester United Blog.

United People is a new series about the people who make Manchester United what it is: the supporters, characters and communities whose stories exist beyond the pitch. In the first of the series, I meet Jon Nield and his son Alex — and discover a story about football, family and making memories together.

Jon Nield and his son Alex are closing in on visiting all 92 grounds in the Premier League and EFL. But their story is about much more than ticking stadiums off a list. It is about fathers and sons, the things we inherit, and the lengths we go to in order to pass them on.

There are 11 left: Charlton. Portsmouth. AFC Wimbledon. MK Dons. Peterborough. Plymouth. Wycombe. Bristol Rovers. Exeter. Gillingham. Port Vale.

Jon Nield knows the list. Alex, his son, probably knows it better. They are closing in on the 92: every ground in the Premier League and EFL. Yet the strange thing is that, until relatively recently, they weren’t particularly trying to do it. They were just going to football.

Manchester United, obviously. First team, women’s team, Under-21s, Under-18s. Salford City. Grassroots football. Wherever there was a game to be watched, there was a decent chance Jon and Alex would watch it. Then they started logging the grounds they had visited on the Ground Hopper app and, last season, realised they were only about 20 short.

“Wow,” Jon remembers thinking. They had “almost knocked it off without even trying”.

Now they are trying. Bromley was ticked off on a Friday night. They were already staying in London the following day for something United-related when Alex realised there was an opportunity. Why not get another one? Millwall were at home. So off they went to the New Den.

That’s Alex: Jon reckons his son would happily watch two kids kicking a ball around a park with jumpers for goalposts.

“You can’t teach passion,” he says. Which is something I understand, because nobody really taught me either.

Jon’s United story begins, as so many of ours do, before he can properly remember it. His dad began going regularly around 1960. In 1965, he became a member of the Manchester United Development Association, selling tickets and, through doing so, eventually gaining the opportunity to buy more season tickets for the family.

Jon started going in 1983. Initially, he and his younger brother Nigel shared a season ticket, effectively taking turns at home matches. As the family acquired more tickets, they were eventually able to go together.

But there is a difference between going to United and United becoming part of you. For Jon, that happened around 1985. United had won the FA Cup. A huge team poster went up on his bedroom wall. Suddenly he knew everybody in the team. There was Match, Shoot, annuals, stickers. The other football he had played and followed began to recede. United filled the space.

It’s familiar territory. My dad didn’t sit me down one day and instruct me to support Manchester United either. It was simply there, part of the fabric of growing up. Then, somewhere along the way, something inherited became something of your own.

Jon’s dad opened the door and Jon walked through it. By nine or ten, he was going home and away. When he was old enough to earn money from a part-time job, much of it disappeared into United. He travelled to places such as Liverpool and Leeds without tickets, trusting that somehow he’d get sorted when he arrived.

Go first, work out the obstacles afterwards. There is an echo of that attitude in the man Jon became.

There was another world-changing trip in 1991: Rotterdam. United against Barcelona in the European Cup Winners’ Cup final. (You’ll be able to read about the run to that final in another feature in this ‘United People’ series when I interview author Daniel Williamson, author of the excellent If I Hadn’t Seen Such Riches). Jon was 15, approaching 16; Nigel around 13. They travelled on a Red Issue coach, armed with the paper passports you could obtain for a year in those days.

Neither brother had ever been abroad before. Family holidays had meant Wales, Scotland, elsewhere in Britain. Then Manchester United put two teenage brothers on a coach and carried them across Europe to watch their team win a European final.

Football made Jon’s world bigger. It would not be the last time.

There are objects which acquire their own histories when you’ve followed a football club long enough. For Jon, one of them is a flag. The original was NEW MILLS REDS. I knew that flag before I knew Jon: growing up in New Mills, I’d seen it at United and noticed it. There was something oddly reassuring about finding the name of your own little part of the world represented among all those other United flags.

Only years later did I discover the man behind it. Jon still has that original flag, a proper heavy-duty thing. He sourced the letters and stitched them on himself. Whoever said those Fashion Textiles classes they made us do at New Mills School were waste?

There is a newer flag these days: NIELD REDS. That one has occasionally caused confusion. Other supporters have assumed Nield must be a place and asked Jon where it is.

Above: United’s own post on X prior to the game against Fulham on 20 September

In a sense, though, perhaps the progression from the two flags tells its own story. First the place you come from, then the family you create.

Alex was born in 2007 and was three when Jon first carried him into Old Trafford in around 2010. If Jon had any expectation that his son would become a United supporter, he didn’t have to work particularly hard at convincing him: the passion was already there. While other children might lose concentration during a game, Alex would sit and watch. And watch. And then watch some more.

United became his club, but football became his obsession: not just the men’s first team. The women. The academy. Salford. Grassroots. Football on television. Football in grounds. Jumpers for goalposts if necessary.

“You can’t teach passion.” There is the inheritance again: a father can take his son to Old Trafford. He can buy the ticket, make the journey, introduce him to the rituals and the people. He can give him the opportunity. He cannot make him care. Jon’s dad couldn’t do that for Jon. Jon couldn’t do it for Alex. They didn’t need to.

Alex is now a familiar face around United. That matters more than the photographs with players or the famous names he has encountered over the years. Jon’s point is that some of the people around the club genuinely know Alex. They recognise him because he has been there, again and again, following United at different levels.

On one occasion, a sizeable group of supporters started singing: “There’s only one Alex Nield.”

It happened once. There is no need to turn it into anything bigger than it was. Then again, how many of us have ever stood at a football match and heard a crowd of people singing our name? Jon still talks about it with something approaching disbelief.

These days, he and Alex have excellent seats close to the tunnel at Old Trafford. NIELD REDS hangs nearby. They have their patch, their place.

Loving Manchester United, of course, does not necessarily mean loving everything Manchester United does. Jon knows that distinction particularly well. His family’s old seats were once on the back row of K Stand. When changes around the private boxes affected them, he says the family discovered what was happening through Red Issue, rather than directly from the club. His dad called United, but eventually their block of seats was broken up and the family dispersed across several rows.

That story hit home with me. My own dad is now 79. Our family were moved to seats behind the goal where people stand throughout the game. Fair enough, but he couldn’t comfortably stand for 90 minutes, which meant that simply being able to see became a problem. We asked to move again and, eventually, United found us better seats that are much more appropriate for him.

But these experiences illustrate something about the strange contract between supporters and football clubs. If your mobile phone company treats you badly, you find another one. If an energy supplier lets you down, you can switch. Football doesn’t work like that, your football team is your football team.

Jon can be deeply frustrated by Manchester United the organisation while remaining completely bound to Manchester United the thing: the club his dad gave him, the journeys he made with Nigel, Rotterdam, the flags, the people, the memories, and now Alex.

Perhaps the criticism sometimes comes because the attachment runs so deep.

Following football with Alex also requires rather more organisation than simply deciding where to go next. Alex uses a wheelchair. That is part of his story but it isn’t the definition of him. Jon is matter-of-fact about it, and so is Alex. Football should be accessible to everybody. The problem is that, in practice, another ground can mean another administrative exercise.

Create an account with the club. Register the access requirements. Provide the necessary evidence. Speak to a ticket office because an accessible ticket often can’t simply be bought online. Work out the transport. Find suitable accommodation if they’re staying overnight. Establish what will happen with the wheelchair.

Alex can transfer from his wheelchair into a standard seat, which can sometimes make things easier if somewhere safe can be found to store the chair. On occasions when an environment has proved awkward, Jon has physically carried him.

None of this is presented as heroic. It is just the work. And most people never see it. They see Jon and Alex at Old Trafford. At an away game. At an academy match. At Salford. At Bromley. At Millwall. They see another photograph from another football ground. They see Alex smiling. They don’t necessarily see everything required to get him there.

Jon has his own disability, which can bring practical considerations of its own. Yet his instinct is what he describes as “can-do”. He becomes frustrated when organisations begin with the wheelchair and produce reasons why something cannot happen, rather than starting with what Alex actually can do.

“He just wants to be like everybody else,” Jon says.

When Alex celebrates a goal, his mate Adam will sometimes help him out of his wheelchair so he can disappear into the same joyous mess as everybody around him. That’s not inspiration. That’s going to the match.

There is an irony here because Jon worries that football itself is moving in the opposite direction: too much football; kick-off times dictated by television; increasingly expensive premium experiences; a sport in danger of becoming something consumed rather than attended.

For Jon and Alex, football remains stubbornly physical. It is something you go to. You travel. You arrive. You sit among people. You meet people. You watch the game. Then you get up and do it again.

Perhaps that is why the 92 suits them so well. Not because either of them grew up dreaming of completing it. They didn’t. They got close almost by accident because they kept saying yes to football.

Now there are 11. Charlton might be ticked off watching United Women away, potentially on the supporters’ coach. Others will require rather more driving.

Eventually there will be one left. Then none. And I suspect that won’t change very much at all. The app will say 92. Jon and Alex will have completed something genuinely special together. Then there will be another game somewhere.

Because the 92 was never really the point.

There is something else Jon says which stays with me. People see them “here, there and everywhere”, he says, but it is hard work. There are accessible hotels to find, transport to organise, tickets to arrange, calls to make, situations to anticipate.

And Alex? “Happy-go-lucky,” says his dad. Always smiling. Jon doesn’t say any of this to solicit praise for himself. In fact, the opposite is what makes it moving. The work is supposed to disappear.

If Jon gets it right, Alex doesn’t have to experience his life as a logistical operation. He gets to experience the football. Perhaps that is what fathers do. Jon’s dad gave him United. He created the opportunity, and Jon made the passion his own. United took a kid from New Mills around England and, eventually, across the water to Rotterdam.

Now Jon is opening the world for his own son. He can’t give Alex his passion. Alex has more than enough of that already. What he can do is find the ticket. Make the phone call. Plan the journey. Solve the problem. Get him through the door.

Eleven more grounds will come and go. And after talking to Jon for an hour, I realise the 92 isn’t really the destination at all. The destination is wherever Alex wants to go next.

As Jon puts it: “If Alex wanted to go to the moon, I’d try and make it happen.”

By Andrew Kirby, Sports Storytelling & Communications | Andrew Kirby

The post United People: “If Alex wanted to go to the moon, I’d try and make it happen” first appeared on Republik Of Mancunia: A Manchester United Blog.

Thirty-two years ago today, a 19-year-old Paul Scholes made his Manchester United debut. It was the League Cup, away at Port Vale, and United went behind early. Then Scholes scored twice and they won 2-1. There was hope in that team. Promise. A sense of something coming. A gang of young lads emerging together, so young that we sang: “They go to school in the morning and Choccy is their teacher”.

Thirty-two years later, again against a team in white, it is difficult to work out where Manchester United go from here. A mate described the football at the Cottage as “turgid”. Craven would work too. Lethargic. Aimless. Gary Neville went in two-footed and called one spell the worst he’d seen from United in 15 years, which seemed a bit much. It wasn’t even the worst performance I’d seen this week. Brighton was considerably more embarrassing.

Still, that we’re debating which Manchester United performance of the past seven days was the more abject probably tells its own story. The first half was at least ridiculously open. Chances everywhere. Lammens channelled his inner David de Gea, although he possibly took the tribute too far when he tried to save Calvin Bassey’s shot with his legs.

What happened next was bloody ridiculous: Lisandro Martínez, presumably deciding that conceding goals through conventional defensive incompetence had become passé, contrived to turn the rebound into his own net. There have been so many goals stemming from defensive calamities this season that the entire back line now appears to be auditioning for a revival of Danny Baker’s Own Goals and Gaffes videos.

Then came more nothing. There remains a giant Cunha-shaped elephant in the room too. Can we stop pretending he’s a number nine now? As another mate put it, playing a false nine is “woke modern football nonsense — like short corners and players cutting holes in their socks.” He did at least rescue us. His late shot took the sort of deflection United’s performance scarcely deserved and somehow we escaped London with a point.

But perhaps the most telling moment came after the football had finished: Youri Tielemans apparently told the travelling United supporters to shut up. Think about that for a minute: a new Manchester United player telling Manchester United supporters — people who had travelled to London on a Sunday afternoon to watch that — to shut up.

There was at least a rather better attempt at supporter relations from Carlos Baleba. He hasn’t actually played for United yet, but was down at Craven Cottage and afterwards gave his shirt to a supporter in the away end.

“That’s a good one,” Peter Bolton, who’s followed the Reds across 44 countries and something like 5000 games, told me afterwards. “He’s not even played and he’s giving away his shirt.”

Before adding: “Jim Ratcliffe will probably charge him for that.”

Quite. Somewhere in Monaco, scruffy Big Bird Jim Dingle’s stork-like ears presumably pricked up at the possibility of another revenue stream. Match-worn shirts: £85. Match-unworn shirts: £110.

There it was again: the un-Unitedness of Manchester United. Players over here. Supporters over there. Executives somewhere else entirely. A manager trying to make sense of the bits in between. And nobody seemingly able to articulate what Manchester United is supposed to be becoming.

Contrast that with the picture United themselves posted from Craven Cottage: the Reds on the road, flags hanging from the away end, supporters still carrying this club around the country despite everything. One of those flags read NIELD REDS. You’ll be hearing more about that flag later this week.

I’m launching a new series called United People, looking beyond results and league tables at the wider Manchester United community — and at what the word United actually means to the people who really matter. The people who follow the club from Rome to Mandalay. The people who carry its stories, rituals and memories from one generation to the next.

The first piece is about Jon Nield and his son Alex, their quest to visit all 92 league grounds together, and what following United has come to mean to them. Later in the series I’ll also be talking to the aforementioned Peter Bolton, one of the great matchgoing Reds, a man who has barely missed a United game in half a century.

Now comes the international break. Rashford and Mainoo have already pulled out of the England squad. I won’t cry off: there’ll be plenty here over the next couple of weeks, beginning with those first United People stories. Which might be just as well because if you’re looking for something recognisably United at the moment, you’re probably better off looking in the away end.

By Andrew Kirby, Sports Storytelling & Communications | Andrew Kirby

The post Fulham 1-1 Manchester United: Looking for United in all the wrong places first appeared on Republik Of Mancunia: A Manchester United Blog.

My grandad had a catchphrase: “Is everyone alright?” He asked it all the time.

What he wanted wasn’t really information. He wanted reassurance about his family: his daughter, the grandkids, the great grandkids. He wanted to know nobody was arguing, nobody was fighting, nobody was in trouble, nobody was ill or injured. Everyone was all right. Everyone was exactly where they were supposed to be, doing what they were supposed to be doing.

Good. He could get back to the Mirror crossword.

I increasingly think this is all I want from Manchester United. Is everyone all right? Are they where they’re supposed to be, doing what they’re supposed to be doing? For much of the second half of last season, the answer was: actually, yes. That might have been the best thing about Michael Carrick’s arrival, beyond finishing third and beating Liverpool, City, Arsenal and Chelsea. Everything calmed down. There weren’t ridiculous stories coming out of United every day. There wasn’t a controversy every five minutes. The online chelping subsided. You didn’t wake up each morning wondering what fresh idiocy was about to befall us.

You could get on with your day.

I liked that. I liked it so much that I spent much of the summer worrying about when it would end. Because United seem to have developed a rhythm. We have a decent season, convince ourselves the corner has finally been turned, rest briefly upon our laurels – then discover the laurels are actually attached to a trapdoor and plunge straight back into another crisis.

And I worry we’re beginning to hear the hinges creaking. Wednesday night’s 3-2 Carabao Cup defeat against Brighton wasn’t a crisis by itself but it felt worryingly like the sort of game that precedes one. Two-nil up inside ten minutes – Shea Lacey scoring a wonderful first senior goal. Mason Mount adding another – and Old Trafford was buoyant. For about 20 minutes, just as against City on Sunday, United looked quite good.

Then we seemed to sack it off again. Brighton dominated from around the quarter-hour mark, scored just before half-time, equalised midway through the second half and then went ahead four minutes later. Two-nil up to three-two down. Snakes and fucking ladders football.

United hadn’t lost at Old Trafford after being two goals ahead for 50 years, hadn’t lost after leading at the interval since 1984. I only became aware of that Orwellian statistic recently and I’m not particularly interested in it. These records are designed to fall eventually. It was the same with that great unbeaten European home record we once possessed: unless civilisation ends first, somebody – Big Brother – eventually beats you.

What bothers me much more is the eye test: United didn’t look good enough, strong enough or quick enough against Brighton, and that bit feels horribly familiar.

Is everyone alright?

The last few days have had that unmistakable post-Fergie United smell about them. There’s the JJ Gabriel business. The noise around the City game. The protests – justified, and largely brought about by the club’s own behaviour – generating more headlines. And now this. Humans apparently share about 98 per cent of their DNA with pigs. We share around 60 per cent with bananas and a surprising amount with slugs. Which brings me naturally to the Glazers and Big Bird scruffy stork-a-like Sir Jim Ratcliffe. What percentage of the anxiety experienced by Manchester United supporters can be traced back to the people running the club? I reckon it’s comfortably higher than the pig number.

This endless boom-and-bust cycle isn’t simply something that happens to United. It is a symptom of the way United have been run. Every time it seems the football side might finally have acquired some stability, something happens to drag the circus back into town. And, Christ, it gets tiring.

As one of my mates put it after Brighton: “It’s the same every fucking summer. We start poorly and then it’s just shit.” He reckoned he’d like to see us start brilliantly and then become shit, just for variety.

Less football. Result!

There is, of course, one positive: we’ve got fewer fixtures now. Result. Had United beaten Brighton, we’d have likely had Manchester City in the next round, at the United Stadium – what the Etihad means, fact fans – and I’m not entirely convinced another Manchester derby is what my nervous system needs at the moment. Or Carrick’s.

Unfortunately, the Carabao Cup mattered. Carrick probably needs to demonstrate tangible progress this season, and a cup run would have provided it. United fell at the first hurdle in both domestic knockout competitions last season, before Carrick’s spell as caretaker. More was expected this time.

Now one route has disappeared immediately. We’re already playing catch-up in the Premier League. Standards-wise, we look some distance from the serious Champions League contenders. So realistically, that leaves the FA Cup. That’s where we’re at. In September.

Shea Lacey and the Moody Teenager

One of the great shames of Wednesday is that we should be talking about Shea Lacey. Nineteen years old. First senior start. Eight minutes gone. Bang. Instead, much of the week’s United conversation has concerned another teenager, JJ Gabriel, for rather moodier reasons. Lacey deserved his night. Unfortunately, what followed rather spoiled it.

Our supposed midfield rebuild didn’t stop Brighton playing through us with worrying ease. Youri Tielemans, captain for the night, looked at times as though he’d borrowed Casemiro’s pace to go with the similarly cherubic cheeks. A friend desperately wants Tielemans to succeed. So do I. Unfortunately, as he observed afterwards, Tielemans isn’t Casemiro. No blockbuster headers in the locker, stored up for just when we need them.

Yoro and Heaven looked all over the shop.

I have high hopes for Sesko, but on Wednesday he appeared at times to have forgotten both how to trap a football and how human balance works. My dad offered the inevitable comparison: Wout Weghorst.

And then there’s Diogo Dalot. That same friend informed me he has now “done a 180” on Dalot. He used to consider him a perfectly decent, industrious player. Now he sees a full-back who can’t cross particularly well, gets into promising shooting positions without scoring (unless you count blazing one into the second tier as a goal) and, against Brighton, responded to everyone else attempting to play through the press by lumping the ball downfield. Possession lost. Brighton attack. United stretched. Goal. One mistake compounding another.

There was at least some pleasing nominative symmetry in having Darlow and Dalot on the pitch simultaneously. Both were terrible. All we needed was Diallo to complete the set. Although, to be fair, we could actually have done with him.

Three-goal head start?

The bit that worries me most is the pattern. Against City on Sunday, United began well. Against Brighton, United began well but added the goals: two inside ten minutes. And then… What? Brighton had 18 shots to United’s nine. After Mount scored in the tenth minute, United didn’t manage another shot on target until the 76th. That isn’t a freak result, that’s a team losing control of a football match.

Which brings us to Fulham. What are they going to offer us on Sunday? A three-goal head start? Nine men? Perhaps Álvaro Arbeloa – and, yes, what an enormously comforting time to be facing a team managed by a former Liverpool player – could allow us to start at 4-0, remove Bernd Leno and ask one of his centre-halves to play the first half dressed as Big Bird, in a nod to scruffy Jim.

Even so, I’m still not entirely confident we’d secure all three points.

The boos

United were roundly booed off at full-time. I’ve never liked booing your own team. For most of my life it felt profoundly un-United and verboten. But then we entered what might politely be called the Banter Years, and I’ve heard it with increasing frequency at Old Trafford. That matters. Not because supporters are always right. We’re demonstrably not. Spend five minutes on social media after United lose and you’ll find people demanding the manager be sacked, half the team sold and probably Fred brought back.

It matters because the boos are another symptom: frustration, exhaustion, the sense of having been here before. Again and again and again. Rinse and repeat. Brighton have become particularly adept at inducing it.The previous time they visited Old Trafford in a domestic cup competition was in January, with Darren Fletcher in temporary charge shortly before Carrick arrived. United lost that one too.

Shea Lacey was sent off that day, this time he scored. Different Shea Lacey story, same United ending.

Media blackout

And this is where my grandad comes back in with a skip in his slippers. Fulham on Sunday suddenly feels much bigger than a September league game ought to because lose that and then comes the international break. Something like 20 days with no Manchester United match to change the conversation. We all know what happens next:

UNITED IN CRISIS.

The badge with a crack running down the middle of it like they always do in the Mirror.

Every day, the same questions: Is Carrick under pressure? Have the players stopped responding?

Ten things wrong with Manchester United, Five candidates who could replace Carrick.

I genuinely think I might impose a football media and social-media blackout upon myself. For my mental health. Because this is the strange thing about supporting United now: I don’t particularly look forward to matches.

I did last season. Maybe that’s because there were fewer of them. Maybe because we were winning. Maybe I’m simply a fair-weather supporter. But I like fair weather. I like the sun. I don’t like wind and rain. I don’t like feeling miserable about a football club. I don’t like waking up wondering what ridiculous thing has happened now.

And I don’t want Carrick sacked. Quite the opposite. The most valuable thing he brought back to Manchester United last season wasn’t a formation or a tactical innovation. It was calm. Stability. For a few months, United stopped feeling like an institution permanently waiting for the next explosion.

Wednesday night was bad. The start to this season has been worrying. A cup has already gone. There are legitimate questions about the team, the recruitment, the performances and Carrick himself. But the answer cannot always be another revolution: United have had enough of those.

What I want is for the people above Carrick to give him the conditions in which the stability he created can survive a bad run. I want United to stop lurching from optimism to catastrophe and back again. I want to stop worrying about what’s coming next. I want my grandad’s question to have the most boring answer imaginable.

Is everyone all right?

Yeah. Everyone’s all right.

Now get on with the crossword.

By Andrew Kirby Sports Storytelling & Communications | Andrew Kirby

The post Manchester United 2-3 Brighton: Is everyone all right? first appeared on Republik Of Mancunia: A Manchester United Blog.

There are many reasons to enjoy the Manchester derby, but one of the more childish is the knowledge that Manchester city play their home games at a stadium whose name (Etihad), translated from Arabic, means something along the lines of ‘union’ or ‘unity’. United, in other words. Manchester City play at the United Stadium. It’s the sort of thing you suspect somebody might have checked before they put the fucking sign up.

Anyway, across town at the actual United, there wasn’t a great deal of unity to go around yesterday. A couple of hours before kick-off, around 2,000 supporters were marching down Sir Matt Busby Way in protest at the people running the club. Inside the ground, the TRA had withdrawn its customary pre-match flag display. Instead, hanging above the players’ tunnel was a single banner: THE WAY YOU TREAT US IS A DISGRACE.

On the pitch, meanwhile, United were about to spend more than an hour playing against ten men and somehow become less coherent the longer the numerical advantage lasted. And sitting above it all were representatives of the ownership which has brought us to this strange place: Avram Glazer in the directors’ box and Sir Jim Ratcliffe, whose arrival at the ground I witnessed first-hand.

If nothing else, it gave you plenty of time to ponder what the word ‘United’ is actually supposed to mean.

Decidedly Un-United

The protest march, organised by the 1958, set off at 3pm from the Bishop Blaize and made its way down Sir Matt Busby Way towards the ground. There must have been around 2,000 people there, probably more. There were flares. Smoke bombs. Sweat. It was, for once, not raining at Old Trafford. There were chants about the Glazers, chants about City and chants about cheating.

The march continued beneath the Munich Tunnel before finishing outside the players’ entrance by the Stretford End. That was where I peeled off to walk round to my entrance. And where the timing became almost perfect. Just as I got round there, a souped-up black BMW was being chauffeur-driven directly through an area in which cars are supposedly forbidden on matchdays. And I mean directly up to the door. One rule for the rich, eh?

Out unfolded Sir Jim Ratcliffe, looking like a slightly sheepish, scruffy stork. You genuinely couldn’t have timed the protest much better had somebody arranged for Ratcliffe to arrive at precisely that moment. I’d spent much of the previous hour taking photographs of the march, but demonstrated my true journalist’s instincts by completely failing to have my phone ready when one of the owners of Manchester United suddenly climbed out of a car about ten yards away from me.

I did manage to shout something at him, though: ‘You scruffy get.’ Woodward and Bernstein would have been proud.

The symbolism was difficult to miss. Supporters were outside protesting at how their club was being run while one owner was chauffeur-driven virtually to the turnstile and another, Avram Glazer, was sitting in the directors’ box.

The timing was particularly good because United Women had just lost 5-0. Ratcliffe’s attitude towards the women’s team has been a disgrace. They sold their best player over the summer and the team has suffered indignity after indignity. The Glazers hardly have a glorious record on this front either, having disbanded the women’s team early in their ‘stewardship’ of the club.

Different owners. Same Manchester United ability to make you wonder whether anybody in charge actually understands what they’re in charge of. Inside, the unrest continued. The TRA refused to take part in its now-customary pre-match flag-waving display in the Stretford End, effectively withdrawing its support. Instead there was that solitary banner above the players’ tunnel:

THE WAY YOU TREAT US IS A DISGRACE.

That referred specifically to the latest clusterfuck in the relationship between United and their own supporters: hundreds of loyal fans caught up in the club’s anti-touting crackdown and effectively being asked to demonstrate their innocence or risk losing their season tickets.

But you didn’t need to know the minutiae of that particular row to understand the sentiment on the banner. Plenty of United supporters have felt disgracefully treated by the people running their football club for a very long time.

A Tale of Two Ownerships

And this, really, is the Manchester derby we’ve been watching for the past couple of decades. There’s no point pretending United haven’t spent money. We have. Fucking loads of it, frequently very badly. That isn’t the argument.

The argument is about what the two ownership models have done to the clubs they steward. The Glazers bought Manchester United in 2005 through a leveraged takeover which loaded around £660million of debt onto a football club which hadn’t needed it before they arrived. More than two decades later, United are still paying interest on debt associated with that takeover.

One of the richest, best-supported and most commercially successful football clubs on the planet has spent 21 years helping to pay for the privilege of having the Glazers own it.

Across Manchester, city’s ownership has operated in almost precisely the opposite way. Since Sheikhing Stevens Mansour arrived, vast sums have gone into the football club and its surroundings: players, academy, training facilities, stadium development and the wider Etihad ‘Campus’. City say more than £700million of private-sector investment has gone into East Manchester through city Football Group and its partners since the move to the stadium. Hey, they even ALLEGEDLY help other clubs pay the exorbitant transfer fees of players exiting the club. Not my words, just something I heard during the march yesterday. I’m just saying what I heard, with all the required caveats (nothing to see here, move along).

Annnnyyyyywayyyyy, where does that leave us? One ownership model arrived at its football club and gave it a leg-up. The other arrived and hamstrung its own.

That doesn’t explain every bad United signing, every managerial disaster or why we apparently lose the ability to cross a football when the opposition goes down to ten men. United have generated and squandered enough of their own money to populate several excellent teams. But ownership creates the conditions in which football decisions are made. City spent the modern era building an infrastructure designed to help the football club succeed. United spent much of it servicing an ownership structure designed to help the owners own Manchester United.

And that is why the protests outside Old Trafford shouldn’t be treated as something separate from the football taking place inside it. They’re part of the same story.

And then there was a Football Match

All of which rather threatened to overshadow the fact that there was a derby to play. And, for once, there were reasonable grounds for optimism. Whatever else you might say about the start to this season, Old Trafford has become something approaching a fortress under Michael Carrick. United had won nine of their previous ten Premier League games there, scoring 26 goals and averaging 2.7 points per game — the best home record in the division over that period.

There was, admittedly, one rather ugly stain on that record: Leeds. And now there are two. Losing at home to city is bad enough. Losing at home to Leeds is bad enough. Somehow, amid all those excellent results, United have contrived to surrender the bragging rights in the two games in which we really wanted them.

And this one was particularly galling because city spent most of the match with ten men. Foden’s red card should have changed everything. Instead, increasingly, it seemed to twist our collective melons, man. Rather than stretching city, keeping the ball and making ten men fahkin run ahbaat, United lost their composure. The crossing became woeful. We started shooting from everywhere. Most of those efforts finished high, wide and not particularly handsome, although Kobbie Fucking Mainoo bucked the trend with a tremendous effort against the inside of the post.

Too often somebody attempted the complicated ball when the simple one would have forced city to move again. It had uncomfortable echoes of Everton at home and Newcastle away last season: ten men retreating into a low block and United apparently becoming less certain what to do because we had an extra player.

There was still a chance to rescue it. In amongst all the chaos Bruno produced one moment of beautiful calm, sliding Mbeumo through during the laughably short period of injury time. He should have scored, but didn’t.

And so city somehow escaped Old Trafford with three points from a game in which they played with ten men for more than an hour, scored a goal which should not have stood and spent much of the closing stages simply wasting time. Kind of like me when I used to take smoke breaks at work even after I gave up smoking.

Which brings us, unfortunately, to flaming Michael Oliver.

Observations

Oliver, Oliver, never before has a boy wanted more …

To the layperson, it might seem slightly odd for a supporter of the team whose opponents went down to ten men so early to spend much of his match report whinging about the referee. But this is Michael Oliver we’re talking about. Yet again, Oliver twisted it to make himself one of the main characters somehow. City appeared to get free-kicks every time somebody fell over. Oliver himself got in the way of the ball so often that it was a wonder he didn’t eventually attempt a sliding tackle.

And then there was Donnarumma: the Italian wasted time at every conceivable opportunity. Every goal-kick became a small administrative procedure. Every dead ball required a period of quiet reflection. He should have been booked far earlier than he was, and once it became obvious what he was doing, a referee with any fucking agency at all might have done something about it. Instead, Oliver largely let him get on with it, the obsequious little shit.

And then, after all that — the sending-off, substitutions, injuries, VAR interventions and Donnarumma apparently operating in a different time zone from the rest of us — we got five minutes of added time. Five. The VAR check for city’s ‘goal’ took about four minutes fifty seconds.

Donnarumma, incidentally, comes from Castellammare di Stabia, near Naples. I went there last summer and there was anti-Donnarumma graffiti on the walls. Imagine being such a knobhead that even your home town has started leaving reviews.

I hope they build a statue of Michael Oliver in his home town and that pigeons shit all over it.

The Red

From what I’ve seen and heard since, there seems to be fairly widespread agreement that Foden deserved to go. The only real argument appears to be whether Bruno should have gone as well. Obviously he shouldn’t have. Naturally, one of the dissenting voices was Roy Keane.

Keano is my second-favourite United player of all time. I adored him as a footballer. But, Christ, he’s becoming hard work as a pundit. Increasingly, it feels as though every United incident has to become another opportunity for Royston to grind whatever anti-United axe he’s brought into the studio that afternoon.

Give it a rest, Roy.

VAR, VAR, VAR

One of my correspondents — my Mum — was watching on Sky and messaged during the game to report that Gary Neville, on co-commentary, had admitted he didn’t understand the modern offside law. Good. That makes two of us. Actually, after watching Match of the Day, I’m not entirely convinced anybody understands it.

Haaland himself, apparently, was onside. Dorgu’s outstretched foot saw to that. The problem was Fernández, standing in an offside position and very obviously attempting to play the cross before Haaland scored behind him. Martínez reacted to Fernández because, oddly enough, defenders tend to react to opposition players attempting to head footballs in their own penalty area. VAR decided this didn’t constitute interference.

And then came the best bit: after the game, Pro Ref admitted they’d got it wrong. An ‘error of judgement’, apparently. VAR should have sent Oliver to the monitor. Cheers, lads.

What exactly is the exchange rate on refereeing apologies these days? Can we swap three of them for a Premier League point? Do we get to replay the game? Do city have two points removed? Does somebody pop round Carrington on Monday morning with a Sorry You Wuz Robbed card and a box of Milk Tray (because the lady loves them)? Nope: city get three points. United get fuck all.

Incredibly predictably Luke Shaw was Injured

By some miracle — possibly because United had virtually no other fixtures — Luke Shaw started every Premier League game last season and the first three of this one. This was clearly unsustainable. From approximately the moment United decided not to sign Lewis Hall, it seemed inevitable that Shaw would get injured. And so it came to pass: this wasn’t an (Oliver) plot twist.

Which meant Patrick Dorgu started at left-back for only the second time in his career. I like Dorgu. I really do. But I still don’t know what he is. Carrick seemed to decide last season that he was a left-winger. That made a certain amount of sense. Ballon d’Orgu has the clichéd ‘great engine’ and is much less dangerous to United when his occasional positional wanderings take place 70 yards from our own goal.

At left-back those wanderings become rather more alarming. He has a tendency to drift out of position and then, upon realising where he is, headless-chicken it back towards the ball at tremendous speed. He had a shaky afternoon here and played his part in the build-up to city’s ‘goal’.

So what do we profile him as now? Left-back? Wing-back? Winger? Emergency auxiliary chaos merchant? I like the lad. I just haven’t got a fucking clue what he is.

city were Shit Too

And here’s the really annoying bit: city weren’t even particularly good. As a mate of mine put it afterwards: ‘I don’t mind if we’re played off the park and lose or it’s an unlucky goal etc, but when we’re shit and they win by timewasting and an offside goal it boils my piss.’

Quite. There have been derbies in the recent past where city have Rolls-Royced their way through United. You know the ones: Guardiola standing there looking unbearably pleased with himself, chewing his own spit like a weirdo while city keep the ball for approximately three weeks and United chase shadows.

This wasn’t one of them. City misplaced passes. They put the ball out of play all the time. They went down to ten men. Then they scored their dodgy goal and spent the closing stages strangling the life out of the match through every available piece of shithousery.

And, painful though it is to admit it, fair fucking play to them. Because that is exactly what United should have done against Everton last week. Remember Cunha at Anfield? Keep the ball. Win a foul. Take it into the corner. Make somebody kick you. Waste thirty seconds. Repeat. Sometimes winning football matches isn’t about being brilliant. Sometimes it’s about recognising what the game requires and doing it: city did, United didn’t. Which might be the most irritating observation of the lot.

United?

So where does that leave us? Four points from four games is shit. Losing at home to city is especially shit. Failing to beat ten men is shit, regardless of how badly Michael Oliver refereed the game or how badly VAR fucked up city’s goal.

Carrick and his players have to own that. But the football doesn’t exist in isolation. Sunday began with thousands of supporters marching towards Old Trafford because of the way they believe OUR football club is being run. It continued with Jim Ratcliffe being driven past them virtually to the front door and Avram Glazer taking his seat in the directors’ box. Inside the ground, supporters withdrew their flags and replaced them with a message telling the club its treatment of them was a disgrace.

Then the team came out and lost a derby to ten men. Perhaps that is why the stupid Etihad joke stuck with me. Because United is supposed to mean more than the name on the badge. It ought to mean a football club pulling in broadly the same direction: owners, institution, team, supporters. Manchester United haven’t felt like that for a very long time.

Across town, they can keep the United Stadium, I’d just quite like the United football club back.

By Andrew Kirby Sports Storytelling & Communications | Andrew Kirby

The post Manchester United 0-1 Manchester City: A Very Disunited Derby first appeared on Republik Of Mancunia: A Manchester United Blog.

Manchester United take on local rivals Manchester City on Sunday evening, with Michael Carrick’s team hoping to get another win against the blues.

Kobbie Mainoo, who turned down City’s academy for United’s as a youngster, has reflected on how much the derby means to him.

It means a lot to me. I mean, coming up in the Academy, you play City twice a season and it’s always the biggest game. You know that being a fan, but where the coaches would big it up, it’s always been a big rivalry for us, and so yeah, I’m really excited.

Mainoo’s greatest moment in a red shirt to date was his Man of the Match performance against City in the 2024 FA Cup final, where he scored the winning goal. Speaking to United Review, Kobbie’s has discussed that day and the mementos he has kept.

It was a great day. I mean, scoring in the derby any time is unbelievable, but in an FA Cup final, it’s just that much sweeter. And to go on and to win, yeah, it’s a day I’ll never forget. The moment you dream of, like at Wembley, against your rivals, to win a trophy. It’s unbelievable. I’ve still got the bucket hat, still got some of the scarves from the game. Yeah, I’ll keep them forever!

Carrick’s first game in charge as United manager last season was a home victory over City, with United playing them off the park. Mainoo has reflected on the importance of that day and how it feels to play for Carrick.

It definitely got the ball rolling for us, and was a big booster in building momentum, going to Arsenal after that and winning again. So, [it was] definitely a big part of the season. I’ve loved it [working under Carrick]. So much help, especially him being such an experienced midfielder and winning so much with this club. Anything that he tells you or any instruction that he gives you is gold, really. So it’s been good to learn under him and play for him. Any time you beat City it’s positive and it’s big for the season, like it helps boost the team, so we’re not going to take that lightly, and we know it’s a big one. Hopefully we come out winners.

The post Mainoo: I’ve still got my bucket hat after beating City first appeared on Republik Of Mancunia: A Manchester United Blog.

Q: How many times have you read or heard about the Sabah manager appearing on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire in the past 48 hours?

A: Once
B: Five times
C: Fifteen times
D: So many times you now know more about him than you do about your own family

Q: This week, you’ve heard so much of Shabba Ranks’ ‘Mr Loverman’ (Shabba!) that you:

A: Need Mark Lamarr to sort it out like he did on The Word in 1992 (contemporary cultural reference there).
B: Need to dig out Now 25.
C: Stop listening to TalkSport.
D: Remember when at school you used to sing ‘Mr Headmaster’ (Jabba!) whenever Mr James ambled past.

Make no mistake, the Champions League has really, really wanted – needed – United back. The Reds are always the biggest story in town. We’ve heard more about our opponents (Shabba!) in the build-up to this one than we did any of Napoli, Atletico Madrid etc who faced our rivals this week.

Manchester United were back in Europe’s elite competition after a two-year hiatus, this time, and for the first time, in the bloated new Swiss-style format (the European Super League lite). And make no mistake, United on nights like this prove we’re the biggest team in England. With five minutes to go until kick-off the ground was barely half full – inevitable delays getting in – but by kick-off it was at near capacity. A reminder of the pull of United, given the opposition. Plenty of kids in too, and people who might not usually go.

Coffee and TV

Reds who had waited two years for a return to the Champions League celebrated hearing that dog-whistle shrill anthem and watching kids waft the ball-parachute thing in the centre circle by, after about ten minutes of play, getting bored and trying to pile as many empty coffee cups as possible onto one supporter’s head. A coffee-cup snake, to much amusement, in a display which would have been more suited to the other Old Trafford.

Definitely evidence of the lack of real substance on the pitch. From the moment referee, uh (checks notes), Chris Tarrant blew the whistle not much of anything happened for a spell. During the opening 25 minutes I was never troubled. Nice to watch an occasional United game where your stomach isn’t churning. Time to think: I wondered why the farts at football don’t smell as foul anymore. Am I just getting old and my hooter doesn’t work anymore? Wake up and smell the cawfee.

And then, suddenly, there were goals. The deadlock was broken after their winger played a ball back inside in the manner of – and from almost the exact same spot as – Amad against Liverpool. United pounced and streaked forward. Suddenly all the ponderousness was forgotten. Dorgu, who’d been awful up until then, did well and Matheus Cunha recorded United’s first Champions League goal for nearly three years.

And then, just before half-time, came the quickfire one-two. Bruno Fernandes made it two before Sesko added a third. Slick, intricate stuff at times, and the sort of ruthless burst which United haven’t always managed against supposedly inferior opposition. Three-nil at half-time: game over. No fifty-fifty needed.

The second half was casual in parts, but it was obvious we were playing out time. Martínez added the fourth and United were able to stroll through much of the rest of it with Sunday in mind. The substitutions gave a clue as to who’ll probably be starting in the derby. But is it in his contract that Bruno shalt never be hooked? Come on, give the lad a break. I’ll phone a friend for him.

Dog and Duck

Talking of phoning a friend, many – Cundy et al on TalkSport – have banged on that we were only playing the Dog and Duck, but you can only beat what’s in front of you, as the cliché goes. And whilst a couple of Sabah’s players ranked as ‘competition winners’, most were competent – as they would have to be to get through four qualifying rounds.

The Azerbaijanis, who appeared to bring Carlos Queiroz on as a substitute at one point, were poor. Their champions brought circa 115 fans, as many as there are charges against those boys in lazer blue. They sat in the section which is usually just an add-on to the usual away section. They appeared to have only one song. Come on, you can learn more than that in nine years.

A club younger than my kids and with about as much footballing pedigree. Still did better than Celtic.

OBSERVATIONS

Corners

Is the lack of a proper set-play coach starting to tell? United had seven corners, six of them in the first half, but never really threatened from them. Yes, Maguire wasn’t playing and Uncle Casemiro’s left the building, but we scored a lot of set-piece goals last year and this year it looks like we haven’t got corners right yet.

Last night most were poorly executed but, even when the delivery was half decent, there didn’t seem to be much threat. Martínez’s fourth eventually came in the aftermath of a corner, but that shouldn’t disguise the fact that the corners themselves weren’t much cop. Something to work on.

DODGY DEFENDING

The defence continues to give up chances. Sabah could – and should – have equalised in the 35th minute. It was a massive chance: Kaheem Parris sent the ball towards the back post, where Joy-Lance Mickels had escaped Mazraoui (very easily), but his header went wide.

Mazraoui in particular seems susceptible at the moment, but most of our defenders have made mistakes which have resulted in goals this season, or simply been beaten too easily – Shaw against Ipswich being another example.

Need to tighten up. THAT being said: a rare clean sheet: we’ll take it.

BETTER THAN IT COULD HAVE, AND HAS BEEN

But it’s not all doom and gloom. United, in the end, got through this test with the minimum of fuss and that’s not always been the case in matches like this. Grimsby anyone? Even under Fergie we liked to make things hard for ourselves. Here, after the quickfire double just before half-time, the Reds were able to stroll through the second period, saving legs for Sunday.

And it was better than the last time we were in the Champions League, a campaign which brings shudders to the spine, mainly thanks to Mr Gloveman, Andre Onana.

Erik ten Hag’s United finished bottom of their group in 2023-24 with four points, bookending the whole miserable business with defeats to Bayern Munich. But it was the stuff in between – particularly the Galatasaray and Copenhagen games – that really did the damage. That was the United which could take a lead and immediately look terrified by the responsibility of having it; defensive gifts rarely arrived singly, preferring instead to travel around in packs.

So, yes, Sabah weren’t very good. But neither were some of the teams we somehow contrived to make look good the last time we were here.

KOBBIE FUCKING MAINOO

United were ponderous at times during the opening 25 minutes, but Mainoo and Tielemans – enjoying his most positive display in red, perhaps because of the pace of the game – gradually took control.

Mainoo in particular was great. He always seemed on the verge of losing it but never did. There was more adventure in his passing too. More willingness to move the ball forward rather than simply retain it. It was the kind of performance that makes you wonder, again, why there has ever been quite so much uncertainty about what to do with him. Kobbie Fucking Mainoo.

In less positive midfield news, I was lurking about in the rain pre-game near the players’ entrance. I had an idea, possibly borne from prejudice, that I might get a picture of the Sabah team bus to accompany this article. In my mind’s eye I imagined they’d be turning up in some tin-pot thing which would make a refreshing change from the usual coaches that rock up – Liverpool’s vomit-inducing space-age THIS MEANS MORE-machine and the like. But it was simply a common-or-garden coach with UK plates which they’d probably hired from the airport.

Instead I saw our new big-money signing – signed for approximately half the price of the big-money midfield signings of our opponents on Sunday – arrive in a tracksuit and very shiny shoes. And a very noticeable limp. I don’t reckon he’s the slated two weeks off full fitness. Then again, it took me two weeks to get back to running after falling off a treadmill and busting my knee last month, so maybe recovery rates are better for actual athletes.

GOALS, GOALS, GOALS

Nine goals for in two home games. Nearly went nap all over again. Can we only play home games from now on? After City I might change my tune.

For now, though, United are back in the Champions League. Four goals. A clean sheet. No late collapse. No stomach-churning final ten minutes. Nobody chucking a comfortable lead into the nearest bin. No lifelines required. Final answer.

Sports Storytelling & Communications | Andrew Kirby

The post Manchester United 4-0 Sabah: Is That Your Final Answer? first appeared on Republik Of Mancunia: A Manchester United Blog.

Manchester United take on Sabah in the Champions League this evening where Bryan Mbeumo will be making his first appearance in the competition.

Speaking to the press before the game he reflected on what a big moment it is for him and how the promise of Champions League football was one of the reasons why he joined the club.

Obviously it’s a big step for me, coming from Ligue 2 in France to such a big club here and playing in the Champions League is a massive reward for me and I’m really looking forward to it.

In my head I saw a bit of the team and the players and I knew I could have good connections with the guys here and also I received some message from the players before I came and I was really convinced that we could achieve something good.

During the pre-season, Mbeumo played through the middle in Benjamin Sesko’s absence. Mbeumo has talked about which areas he likes to occupy on the pitch.

Obviously I’ve been used to playing a few positions in the attack. Back even in my first season as a professional, back in the days of Troyes, I was playing right, left, central. So obviously I’ve got some preferences, like I would say key positions on the field, but I can have them either when I play centrally or wide, so it doesn’t really matter. As long as I can play and perform for the team, I’m happy.

The post Mbeumo: Tonight is a big step for me first appeared on Republik Of Mancunia: A Manchester United Blog.