Draws are not enough
United are not winning away games – but they do have winners in Mbeumo, Casemiro and Lammens
SEVEN ASIDES
Premier League
Spurs 2, United 2
Draws are not enough. For the second weekend in a row, United went ahead, then went behind, then salvaged a point. In Tottenham, as in Nottingham, they showed spirit but not enough quality. If they had held onto both leads, they would now have 22 points from 11 games. They’d be back in the top three and back in business. As it is, they’re seventh. In six away games this season, seven if you include the grim night in Grimsby, they have only one win. That’s not enough to bring the Champions League into view, thought it might get them into the Conference League.
At this stage of the season, things take shape. Like Traitors and Faithfuls, players have their roles, and in the endless reality show at United three characters are standing out.
The Man Who Scores The Goals is Bryan Mbeumo. In the space of three weeks he has scored with his right foot (against Liverpool), with his left (against Brighton, twice), and now with his head (here). He didn’t even have to jump: he just stood there and did very little, reading Amad’s dainty cross and calmly angling the ball inside the near post. Mbeumo should have had an assist, too, only nobody was in the box to receive his neat square ball in the eighth minute. About 88 minutes later, he won the corner that led to the last-gasp equaliser. All this while playing out of position, on the left rather than the right.
The Man Who Staves Off Defeat is Senne Lammens. With Altay Bayindir in goal – one of Ruben Amorim’s worst ideas – United lost three games out of six; with Lammens, they’ve lost none out of five. He began this game by putting a foot wrong, letting a back-pass dribble out for a corner, but when Spurs finally turned up after 50 minutes, all his limbs were in the right place to make two strong reaction saves. And he played a part in United’s equaliser by going up front to give the Spurs defenders one more thing to worry about. When Bruno Fernandes’ corner found Matthijs de Ligt, it turned out that Lammens had made perhaps the longest decoy run in history.
The Man Who Runs The Show is … Casemiro. When he’s been on the field this season, United have scored 14 goals and conceded only five. When he’s been off the field, they have scored seven and conceded 15. It couldn’t be clearer: he makes all the difference. He may be slower than he once was, he may have been so bad at Selhurst Park 18 months ago (when filling in at centre-back) that Jamie Carragher told him to ‘leave the football, before the football leaves you,’ but somehow he has become the cog that makes this team work – the Nicky Butt of our time. When Manuel Ugarte comes on to replace him, the heart sinks and the midfield falls apart. In Casemiro’s absence, United’s recent scorelines have read like this: 0-3 at City (where he came on as a late sub), 0-1 v Chelsea (when he was sent off just before half-time), 1-3 at Brentford (when he was suspended), 0-0 v Sunderland (replaced after 84 minutes), 1-1 at Anfield (replaced after 58 mins), 1-2 v Brighton (replaced after 69 mins) and 1-2 v Spurs (replaced after 71 mins). With him, United are a proper Big Six team; as soon as he walks off, they turn into relegation candidates. No wonder Carlo Ancelotti kept him on throughout Brazil’s last two games.
If Casemiro’s injury is serious, Amorim has a big problem. And he probably has one anyway, as there may be only two or three games before he loses Mbeumo (plus Amad and Noussair Mazraoui) to the African Cup of Nations. Where are the goals going to come from then? The pundits have tended to bracket Matheus Cunha with Mbeumo – seeing much the same confidence, Premier League know-how, taste for the big stage and general United-ness – but they’ve overlooked one thing. Cunha, so far, has hardly brought any end product. In 773 minutes’ action in all competitions, he has one goal and no assists. In fbref’s table of United PL goal involvements, excluding penalties, he is tucked between two left-backs – Patrick Dorgu is on 0.14 per 90 minutes, Luke Shaw 0.10, and Cunha 0.13. Leading the line at Tottenham, Cunha failed to arrive in the box when Mbeumo played that square ball into space, and a quarter of an hour later he took a shot, as he has so often this season, rather than pass (to Mbeumo, who was unmarked). Cunha is the new member of the cast who hasn’t quite found a role. He seems like the kind of person who wants to be the main man, which is lucky because in a month’s time he will have to be.
Amorim too has a role: The Manager Who Does Better During The Week Than During The Game. After making things too easy for rival managers last season, he has become adept at springing small surprises with his starting XI. Here it was shunting Mbeumo across from inside-right to inside-left. It was bold, because Mbeumo’s rapport with Amad on the right had been United’s main attacking strength. But their rapport still brought a goal, as that crucial cross went in from one No 10 to the other, while Mazraoui, taking Amad’s place at right wing-back, added solidity. But then Amorim took Mazraoui off, brought Benjamin Sesko on (when not having a target man had worked), and returned Amad to wing-back. Thomas Frank saw his chance, sending on Destiny Udogie to exploit Amad’s defensive weakness, just as Forest had a week earlier. Given more time to plan for games, Amorim has begun to use it well – but when Saturday comes, he doesn’t have much of a plan B. His subs keep on making little difference. After not using enough of them at Forest, he went the other way here and used all five (partly because of injuries), so United were reduced to ten men when Sesko pulled up lame. In the whole 53 minutes of the second half, they managed only one shot – a wild one from Fernandes – until De Ligt had the last word. It’s still hard to look at Amorim’s changes and see much of a game manager. It’s still hard to look at his results on the road in the league (played 20, won five) and see any promise. His team, even with their extra defender, let in too many goals: among the top 15 clubs, only Bournemouth have conceded as many as United in the league this season (18). To be fair, United have had to play all the other members of the Big Six. But then it’s not those opponents who tend to bring out the worst in them – it’s smaller teams with shrewd managers. And a few of those are coming up before the end of the year.
Tim de Lisle is the editor of United Writing and a sportswriter for The Guardian, where he live-blogged this match.