Man City are through, United are not and to be honest they deserved to go out. Manutd went into the final group game with their fate firmly in their own hands. Win and go through. Simple as that. But they failed.
LVG can expect a lot of stick from the Manutd supporters and rightfully so. They have been putting up with his ‘Philosophy’ for over an year now and there seem to be very little improvement in terms of quality of football being played. This season they have been slow, boring, drab and downright obnoxious to watch. They seem to be more obsessed with possession than scoring.
Look, I have no problem with teams being defensively solid. I hate it when fans call it “parking the bus” because I think it takes away a lot of credit from the hard work that teams put behind playing a system where you are off the ball more often than you are on it. But this is something else.
Manutd seem content on having the ball and playing the game at 2mph for 90mins and expect to get results. They have had 5 nil-nil draws in their last 9 matches. It’s insane!
It is not as if LVG is forced to play this system because of lack of quality or funds to compete in the market. I would’ve respected his decision if that was the case. But it’s obviously not. They have some genuinely world class players and some top quality professionals.
- Martial – quality
- Mata – world class
- Schweinsteiger – world class
- Rooney – world class (out of form though)
- Valencia – more than a capable winger
- Schneiderlin – quality
I can go on, but you get my point. Manutd have the quality to play attacking or at the very least, less bland brand of football. Their shortcomings have been covered up this season partly thanks to Chelsea having a ridiculous season and LFC having a tough start because of which they find themselves so close to the top. It has been infuriating to see them get just enough results to be within touching distance of the league leaders because quite simply they don’t deserve to be there.
Which is why I am delighted they are out of the CL. It will force LVG to admit (though he won’t do it publicly) that something is wrong. He was getting away with it up until now because they were so close to the top and still in the CL.
Well now they’re not. And he will have some very tough questions to answer. As an Arsenal fan, I love to see Manutd struggle. But as a football fan it is infuriating to watch a manager ruin a top club and be arrogant about it saying it’s his ‘philosophy’.
He cannot get away with it any longer. He has been given the complete authority on transfers, even allowed to sell a bunch of title winners that he deemed “not good enough”. It’s been over a year and more than £200m ha
