{"id":10911,"date":"2025-03-09T19:15:11","date_gmt":"2025-03-09T19:15:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=10911"},"modified":"2025-03-11T18:01:37","modified_gmt":"2025-03-11T18:01:37","slug":"how-the-mighty-have-fallen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=10911","title":{"rendered":"How The Mighty Have Fallen"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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A trip to Old Trafford used to be something special. Those days have passed. The former theatre of dreams can still be a thrilling place, as it was at times in the second half; in the first half, it was a nice spot for a nap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It would be wrong to suggest that Manchester United are not a huge football club; they are one of the biggest clubs in the world. But it would be equally wrong to suggest that their team reflects this fact. It has quality in the form of Eriksen and the snide Fernandes, a certain know-how from experienced campaigners like Casemiro and Maguire, and young talent Garnacho. Not starting today were Mainoo and Diallo, who are both players worth paying to watch. But that collection is hardly anything to write home about for a club of United\u2019s stature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They had Obi-Mikel and Heaven on the bench today, both recently poached from us, and the simple truth of the matter is that the pathway to the first team is much clearer at United than with us. Our first team is streets ahead of theirs and it was a frustration that we let them drag us down today. We conspired in a poor first half and then played a loose second that enabled them to get a result.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From our side, we were not particularly good. We lacked incision, and it was another performance where we could all see our recent deficiencies. We still looked decent in the first half when the home side offered little. We controlled the midfield, kept the ball and looked a level above them. They were disorganised and tried to funnel quick breaks to Garnacho as their main (only) source of threat, not that we took advantage of their lack of impetus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a first half low on quality and action, we contrived to go in at the break a goal down. Onana, whose distribution was erratic to say the least, clumped a ball upfield. Calafiori won the header before Trossard made a hash of his touch and then made the decision to bring Garnacho down in a dangerous position outside the box, earning a yellow card for his troubles. Fernandes stepped up and lifted his shot over the wall and down into the goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Frankly, it was a decent free kick, but we did not make it hard for him. It wasn\u2019t right in the corner, just in the space that Raya left him and which he could not scramble across to. Not a huge error, but it looked so simple. I saw a graphic showing our wall was 11.2 yards away. If it had been at 10 yards, we might have made a block. Fine margins, but probably something to be looked at on video analysis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At half-time, Heaven came on for Manure as Yoro came off injured. The young lad did well and looked capable at this level. Although he was lucky not to give away a penalty for handball after it was judged to hit his head before cannoning onto both hands. In Europe, that\u2019s a guaranteed penalty. It would have been a nightmare for him on his debut, against his old club, and I didn\u2019t grudge him the rub of the green on that one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the other end, Saliba and Gabriel made Zirkzee look like a competition winner until he sprang to life in the second half with a clever flick which nearly crept past Raya. Happily for us, he then went back to sleep. United had come out better after the break and, after a breakaway led to a Dalot chip and a Mazraoui shot, it was only an excellent Raya save kept us from going two down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MLS came on with the returning Martinelli (thank God for that!) for Calafiori and the quiet Nwaneri. On seventy minutes MLS won a free kick in a similar position to where Fernandes scored from. When it was our turn, \u00d8degaard hit the wall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We scored the equaliser a few minutes later. Rice, hovering on the edge of the box, swept in a pull back from Timber. It curled away from Onana and thumped in satisfyingly off the post. We need more of those from him. Now, could we go on and get the winner?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We had a host of corners but did little with them. I did appreciate \u00d8degaard and Rice trying to recreate that Beckham to Scholes classic, but our England midfielder couldn\u2019t get his hip over the ball and a decent contact saw his volleyed effort fly high and wide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t really understand why sometimes referees blow the whistle to delay corners and sort out pushing in the box and other times they let it play out and officiate accordingly. Taylor stopped play as we took a corner and Hojlund wrestled MLS to the floor. On another day he doesn\u2019t interfere and we get a penalty. Although I won\u2019t hold my breath for that day anytime soon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With less than ten minutes to go, Merino dropped deep, lost the ball to Casemiro in an awful position and Hojland was in, one on one against the keeper. He went to finish, but Declan Rice produced a world class tackle to wrap his foot around the ball and swipe it from under the Dane\u2019s nose. We could easily have gone behind there and few would have been confident we would equalise again. We had most of the possession and territory, but United were much more threatening when they did step out and either team could have won it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the first of four minutes injury time we fashioned a lovely chance, \u00d8degaard\u2019s shot saved by Onana before Martinelli was thrilled to find he was offside after skying the rebound that he should have planted in the goal. A minute later and Raya produced an outstanding save to prevent a loss, first repelling a Fernandes effort after the ball rolled across our box and then jumping up to get first to the ball as it bounced up and span towards goal, palming it to safety as Hojlund charged in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The match ended a draw and that seemed a fair result to me. We need to get enough points to stay in second place, which I expect us to do, and focus on seeing how far we can go in the Champions League. Without much more to play for in the league, I\u2019m inclined to take what was a decent point on the day, learn a few lessons, and move on to the next one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Until next time, \u2018holics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A trip to Old Trafford used to be something special. Those days have passed. The former theatre of dreams can still be a thrilling place, as it was at times in the second half; in the first half, it was a nice spot for a nap. It would be wrong to suggest that Manchester United […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10911"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10911"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10911\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10914,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10911\/revisions\/10914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}