Manchester United lost a game of football. That is not a good thing.
They were eliminated from the League Cup, one of the four competitions they were entered into this season. This is not a good thing.
United have won five League Cups in their history. The first two of those were the last trophies before two glittering periods of success under Sir Alex Ferguson.
Still, 5 in 61 years does not suggest a long and proud history. In fact, they’ve had more embarrassments in the competition than they have had victories. Last night was another to add to the list.
And, as seems par for the course under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, this individual defeat was simultaneously poor enough for his critics to feast and once again insist that he isn’t good enough, and yet not poor enough that it didn’t feature one or two caveats that suggest things, in spite of the defeat, are still moving in the right direction.
Ultimately your feeling this morning will depend on three things – one, how seriously you deem the League Cup, two, your pre-determined opinion of Solskjaer (which last night would have only served to strengthen, regardless of your side of the fence) and three, how much you use Jose Mourinho’s 2017 League Cup as a serious indication of his own success in the role.
United are level on points at the top of the Premier League. There have been two late winners in away games, one they deserved to win and one they did not. This is either a sign of moving forward from last season – the sort of results United needed to turn into wins in order to challenge – or it’s unsustainable and bound to run out.
While Jadon Sancho continues to slowly find his feet, the impact of Raphael Varane and Cristiano Ronaldo has been immediate and could be seen in their absence last night and when either of them were off the pitch last week.
Last night was a chance for some fringe players to get a game. Dalot, Van De Beek and Martial are three in particular who are popular with online fans who dislike Solskjaer (sorry, even writing that people dislike him still feels like a headscratcher).
The centre of defence showed its willingness to give chances and from the early minutes United were chasing the game. And chase it they did against West Ham reserves.
Van De Beek looked okay when calm, and erratic when nervous. Dalot did not immediately appear to be the answer for a carefree right back as everyone suggested he would be. Martial, meanwhile, had occasional nice moments of link up and otherwise the sort of general anonymity which would have left him relieved that Cavani wasn’t in the squad. He may well be relieved about the exit, considering the embarrassment that would have surrounded a probable omission from even this team in the next round.
United had 27 efforts, but only six on target, and only a couple of those which looked like they might produce a goal.
One of those days, you might say. But you could fairly argue there have been too many of them under Ole and not enough better days, certainly none with shiny trophies as reward, to justify the continued faith.
So we can mention that it’s the League Cup and that York City, Southend and Coventry have all enjoyed wins against us in the past, but it’s fair to say that the manager then had earned the right to dismiss those as a blip.
The other side of that coin is that a League Cup win in isolation would not be a strong enough season for the manager’s critics (no matter how ingenuously they stress the point) or his supporters. That’s one area where most agree. Solskjaer himself has invited that expectation because Varane and Ronaldo weren’t brought in to elevate United to the standard of League Cup winners.
No, this doesn’t mean that we should expect them to win the league or Champions League. The squad still has flaws. But seriously competing to win them – yes, that’s the expectation Solskjaer knows he invited with these signings.
Guess what – even without them, that was the expectation this season after two full years of building.
You have to arrive at the moment you’ve been building towards and this was the season where everyone would be expecting to see the fruits of his labour.
It means that the entire season is one long judgment day, and in the hyper-reactionary world of social media, we’ll see recriminations after every single poor result.
There have been two of those this season. The Young Boys defeat will be assessed in a fairer light after the conclusion of the group stage, but it won’t stop any further defeat being met with a huge over-reaction, even if United qualified with two losses.
Solskjaer made changes in that game last week too. Not many. But enough to remind us that certain players are just not made for the level United, as a club, aim to be.
Last season the manager paid the price for too much faith in players at that level, and also invited fair questions about his in-game management, even if the evidence – the actual hard evidence provided by stats – says he is the most effective manager when it comes to making subs in the league.
On the hard evidence of our eyes, this could still improve, because it doesn’t seem completely convincing.
Some could accuse the manager of flogging a dead horse, and we certainly have seen chances given to players like Lindelof, Bailly, Martial and James until most observers have long been satisfied that United can’t challenge with those players as first choice. You could argue that as a quality, too, as it’s resulted in Luke Shaw’s form, Paul Pogba having more good games than not now, and a midfield partnership of McTominay and Fred that is – like it or not – the most functional combination United have.
That’s where United are, still in some sort of grey area, to the delight of those for and against the manager. Both can be right and righteous. Both can be passive aggressive and condescending. Politics, eh.
It means United can win in the last minute away against a good West Ham team, deservedly so, and in the real business of the league, and it evokes euphoria which emboldens those who want to believe things are moving forward. It also gave enough juice for those who are keen to see the manager fail, such was the narrow margin.
And three days later they can lose, with an entirely changed team against the same club who also have completely changed their team, in what everyone agrees is the last priority of the season, and it evokes euphoria to embolden those who want to see the manager fail. It was also defeat served up in a manner which you could twist to say it wasn’t as bad as it looked on the night. It was, however, still defeat.
You can study the results in isolation and say there’s no plan and no good football, especially against Villarreal, the biggest single result we can use to criticise the manager; and then you can look at the passages of play that have led to some of the goals this season (as well as for the non-penalty on Ronaldo on Sunday) and say it’s as good as anything we’ve seen for years at United and even in the league.
It’s a conundrum riddled with all those little contradictions which make delicious hypocrites of us in a way that football does – so those critics, who have been crying out for players to come in to improve the side, watched them do quite well against a reserve team but still flatter to deceive in failing to deliver the result.
And results matter, because that’s why we are where we are now. And they still have the ready made excuse – that they were rusty, not ready. So it wasn’t the players, it was the manager, just as on Sunday, it was the players and it wasn’t the manager.
This is the tedium played out online, though in the stands it’s almost exclusive support.
It’s the feeling that things are moving forward, and hoping that we’re at the moment we’ve been building towards, and, considering the fact nobody has been at games for 18 months, enjoying the experience all the more for it.
The back and forth of hypotheticals and actuals after every individual result will continue, but even those who give Solskjaer the benefit of the doubt this morning will acknowledge that the loss has sharpened the focus on what must be delivered from this point.
It’s going to highlight each game as important – and the media is full of people desperate for Solskjaer to fail and willing to spin every positive against him, as Melissa Reddy’s instantaneous revisionism of the events at the London Stadium showed. A narrative had been written before the game had started, and many writers are determined to stick to it, regardless of how the events unfold. It’s an easy game when you are commenting on a process that has been gradual.
The United manager is learning that even if you win, and even if you do so with figures that are impressive against the standard of an impressive start across the league at the top of the table, you will still be criticised based on the crest on your blazer and the biases of the reporters.
Solskjaer knows that the defeat last night will provide a more significant headache in real terms – the loss of extra games in which to give some of this bloated squad a chance, emphasising the need for early qualification for the Champions League and some comfortable games in that competition to allow for greater rotation.
The defeats of the last week also serve as a reminder that by and large the first team might be undergoing a rigorous test for purpose, but even making a small handful of changes can result in a team that can struggle, and so can mean that results cannot be taken for granted.
Those players need to be ready and confident, even if they’re not good enough, just in case they’re needed. The League Cup defeat removes one avenue to give those games.
It’s a problem for him, without doubt. One which he can only fairly be judged on at the end of the season, but like the others one which will receive judgement at every fork in the road.
Those willing to see things with more patience will accept that there are still so many variables that stand between United, Solskjaer, and the league title or Champions League. Even Fergie didn’t win them all – and it’s all about evaluating how it happens.
There’s no doubt that each defeat removes one more thread of nuance from the discussion and, if he doesn’t deliver from this point, he will be judged on the standards he is setting.
In the circumstances, maybe that’s the best way forward, as it will be the only way to make a black and white situation out of a grey one.
