Two glimmers of hope for the new year
The manager keeps making the same mistakes, but two things did go right at Forest
FIVE ASIDES Premier League: Forest 2, United 1
United rounded off 2023 by doing what they had done for most of the past ten months – always crashing in the same car. Win one, lose one. Start slowly, only get going after half-time. Blame the ref or each other. Go up a ladder to sixth, slide down a snake to eighth. Keep the pundits busy. Drive the fans mad.
Much of management is a matter of opinion, but Erik ten Hag keeps making clear mistakes. A couple of examples: first, playing only one holding midfielder – or even none. Kobbie Mainoo kept Forest at bay, just, for 45 minutes. A sub was clearly required, but Scott McTominay surely had to join Mainoo in the engine room (with licence to bomb forward), not to replace him. Both Forest’s goals were struck from the cut-back zone, the very space that Mainoo had been patrolling. Ten Hag was like a store manager who gives the security guard the night off and is then surprised to find an influx of shoplifters.
The second clanger is picking Antony, now the biggest stain on Ten Hag’s CV. When Antony was dropped for the Villa game, and Alejandro Garnacho was shunted to the right wing to replace him, the forward line finally clicked. This time Rasmus Hojlund fell ill, so a change was needed – but recalling Antony should have been the last resort. The simplest option was to keep Garnacho on the right and Marcus Rashford on the left, and replace Hojlund with another target man: either McTominay, now a striker in all but name, or Joe Hugill, the only fit centre-forward. Not only was Antony predictably abysmal, but United kept trying to advance down their right flank, giving him the ball, starving Garnacho and Rashford, and making life easy for Forest. When Rashford finally got a touch in the box, supplied by Garnacho’s quick-witted pressing, he scored.
Still, two things went right for United. One was the fact that Rashford scored. It was his first goal in open play since 3 September at Arsenal. It was also his best shot in open play since then – cool, calm and clinical, skimming through a defender’s legs to find the far corner. With a good goal and a good assist in the past two games, he is halfway back to form.
The other glimmer of hope was the return of Amad Diallo for his first Premier League appearance since 2020-21. He’s such a natural footballer that he needs little warming up. On his debut for United’s Under-23s, he scored twice. In his first big game, against AC Milan in the Europa League, he produced an inspired goal five minutes after coming on as a sub. On his PL debut, in that strange game against Leicester in May 2021 when Ole Gunnar Solskjaer played the B team, he set up a goal for Mason Greenwood, the first time one teenager had assisted another in the Prem for 15 years. (Of that starting XI, Amad is the only player still at United now.) At Forest he slotted straight in, completing 17 of his 18 passes, making three shot-creating actions (the same as Garnacho, three more than Antony), looking composed, proving to be an instant upgrade and putting in a strong bid for a start against Wigan on Monday. When United face Spurs in a must-win game the week after, it should be Amad, not Antony, who comes on if either Rashford or Garnacho goes off. Where there’s youth, there’s hope. Happy new year.
Tim de Lisle is the editor of United Writing and a sportswriter at The Guardian. If you’re still on the medium formerly known as Twitter, do follow him and United Writing.