Manchester United are all parts and no sum.
Erik ten Hag received his first boos from the Old Trafford faithful following a disappointing – but not unexpected – 3-1 defeat to Brighton & Hove Albion there on Saturday.
A litany of off-field issues saw the Dutchman move from his preferred 4-2-3-1/4-3-3 formations and employ a 4-4-2 diamond topped by Bruno Fernandes and anchored by Casemiro. Christian Eriksen and Scott McTominay were shuttlers on the left and right sides, backed by full-backs Sergio Regulion and Diogo Dalot, who looked to get forward and help a front pairing of Marcus Rashford and Rasmus Hojlund.
The promise of a new shape was fleeting before a goal from United old boy Danny Welbeck in the 2oth minute gave way to a(nother) humbling experience for the home crowd, watching their side get taken apart by more vibrant opposition.
“The quality of the players and organisation of Brighton is very high. I don’t know the problems of Manchester United, but I can explain my team,” offered the visitors’ head coach Roberto De Zerbi afterwards.
“We are used to working in our style; we are playing with courage, we defended at Old Trafford man to man all the time and we kept the ball in every situation. In the first half, we suffered a lot with the pressure, but after that we played a great game.”
Ten Hag failed to make adjustments to change the game (Oli Scarff/AFP via Getty Images)
The suffering De Zerbi describes came from the high-pressing movement Ten Hag has asked from United’s front three.
The opening 15 minutes saw Hojlund, Fernandes and Rashford look to cut out easy passes between Brighton’s centre-backs. De Zerbi countered this, first by asking Lewis Dunk and Jan Paul van Hecke to stand wider during build-up, stretching the angles United’s front two would manage.
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Pascal Gross was then asked to drop deeper to collect the ball behind Fernandes, while Joel Veltman pushed higher up to receive the ball behind Rashford and Eriksen.
Rashford – who is not the most diligent presser in his preferred role on the left – was uncomfortable and easily disheartened when his attempts to press as a centre-forward were unsuccessful. It was easy for Brighton to attack the spaces down United’s left and a bad situation was made worse by the continued oddity of Casemiro’s 2023-24 season so far. The 31-year-old Brazilian currently offers little of the defending, pressing and counter-pressing that made him so crucial to his and Ten Hag’s debut season in England a year ago.
De Zerbi’s side ran out two-goal-margin winners on Saturday because they made the correct in-game adjustments to play past United’s first wave of pressure. A starting XI that cost around £17.5million ($21.7m) to put together had outclassed a United one that had cost north of £200m. Brighton’s victory was one for proper coaching and sensible thinking over years of dysfunctional spending and mismanagement. Brighton are successful in their realm of the Premier League because they do the things United do not.
Ten Hag did well last season to clean up the mess of United’s 2021-22 but appears to be reaching the same uncomfortable plateau every one of the club’s managers since Sir Alex Ferguson retired a decade ago has found themselves on.
This is the first time in the Premier League era that United have lost three of their opening five games and, while Ten Hag has addressed some of the frailties that were apparent under predecessor Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and during Ralf Rangnick’s interim spell, it is difficult to say he has the correct support structure in place to mitigate any flaws of his own.
The people who make up the wider United institution were so impressed by the tactical discipline Ten Hag brought to the club after his summer 2022 arrival from leading Dutch side Ajax that he now has a level of oversight and responsibility where he risks being over-encumbered.
The 53-year-old has long been considered a tracksuit manager, best left to focus on working on the training ground and improving players. That so many of Ten Hag’s signings at United have been players he has either previously worked with or his Ajax teams played against suggests he has little time for development now as his energies are being directed elsewhere.
Five matches is a small sample size, but no United player is performing at a higher level than last season.
Key players on the road to February’s Carabao Cup final win appear overburdened and unable to carry out orders to the same level. In his second season at the controls, United’s manager wants to embark on a journey to turn this squad into one that finds power out of transitional chaos, but his team find themselves over-reliant on counter-attacks.
Across his eight years in charge of Go Ahead Eagles, FC Utrecht and Ajax in his homeland, Ten Hag teams were improved by the interactions and complementary abilities of the players assembled. Players would learn through classroom theory and then through training-ground practice.
The pinnacle of his five-season Ajax reign saw players who were sure of the many tactical requirements demanded of them, They could execute the right move at the right moment to a point where it appeared automatic. He is attempting to replicate this work at United, but with a squad hamstrung by its bizarre construction.
Over the years, various parts have been brought to Old Trafford to solve problems in relative immediacy, with little thought as to how things could age.
Fernandes shows his despair on Saturday (Michael Regan/Getty Images)
Part of this is on the manager himself: Ten Hag has now spent more than £330million across three transfer windows, but the squad still has glaring weaknesses. United do not have a deep-lying playmaker or an attacking right-back who makes overlapping runs his specialty. Few of these players can receive the ball comfortably with their back to play, and their best option at centre-forward is a 20-year-old who cannot currently play a full game as he is nursing a back injury.
Ten Hag could not have foreseen every issue that has afflicted United this early on, but the boos at full-time on Saturday are a sign that fans want him to take responsibility and better address what frailties he can. Those present at the weekend also made sure to boo the much bigger problem – the widespread malaise allowed to fester for years under the club’s unpopular ownership by the Glazer family.
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Former United players talk about how the shirt “weighs heavy” and how the club exists in a unique spotlight. It is something of a self-fulfilling prophecy to cover for the lack of infrastructure that can be found at other teams. Systems can help accentuate one’s strengths so the good can become great and the great do not risk being burnt out.
“We have to fight back, stick together in this moment,” said Ten Hag in an attempt to rally the troops after the Brighton defeat. “It will pass away. It’s not coming, but we have to work for it and we have to believe in it and then we will turn it (around). We have to analyse this game, see where we have to improve and then we go to the next opponents. It’s a different competition, in Europe; we are looking forward but it is a great opportunity.”
United have again entered a zone where they are far more compelling as a soap opera for outsiders to watch rather than as a serious footballing club for their own fanbase’s eyes.
Some major cast members have changed season on season, but the melodrama goes on.
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(Top photo: Ash Donelon/Manchester United via Getty Images)
