Why United will win ... and why they won't
Five good omens, six bad ones, and the importance of having Amad
ELEVEN ASIDES
Europa League final preview
Why United will win
Trophies are a habit and they have two from the past two seasons, whereas Spurs have two from the past 34 years.
United have won in Bilbao before, only three weeks ago, and they had a thunderous crowd against them.
They haven’t lost in the Europa League all season (P14, W9, D5). Something about this maligned competition sets them free: in the six knockout games they’ve scored 19 goals.
Spurs are missing three of their most creative players – Dejan Kulusevski, James Maddison and Lucas Bergvall. United are missing only one of theirs – Marcus Rashford. Now that Amad is fully fit, United can exploit Spurs’ glaring weakness, the space they leave behind their marauding full-backs. With Amad on the field, United’s record against Spurs this season is 3-1; without him, it’s 0-7.
A dreadful season followed by a redeeming triumph: wouldn’t that be just like United?
Why United will lose
This isn’t the team that lifted the League Cup in 2023 or the FA Cup last year. It will contain only two players who started against City (Fernandes and Onana), two or three who started against Newcastle (Fernandes, Casemiro, maybe Shaw). Those trophies were won by Erik ten Hag, who brought in a bespoke formation to beat City: 4-2-2-2, with two false nines in Fernandes and Scott McTominay. Whatever happened to him?
Ten Hag’s successor, Ruben Amorim, has been unbelievably bad against English teams. In 30 games in all competitions he has managed only seven wins, four of them against the relegated clubs. His 15 defeats include two out of two to Spurs.
Amorim doesn’t change his formation unless he’s desperate. Even a tweak to 3-4-1-2 would surely improve United, allowing the toiling Højlund to be benched in favour of a counter-attacking pair (Amad and Garnacho) who would have a better chance of befuddling two big centre-backs. But Amorim, on all the evidence so far, will only try a second striker in the last few minutes, and only if Harry Maguire is still on the field.
Spurs’ defence mysteriously improves when they switch to the Europa League. In the six knockout games they’ve conceded just four goals.
Ange Postecoglou, as he keeps reminding us at his cantankerous press conferences, always wins a trophy in his second season. Dominic Solanke loves facing United and Brennan Johnson quite fancies them too.
A dreadful season followed by a redeeming triumph: wouldn’t that be just like Spurs?
Tim de Lisle is the editor of United Writing and a sportswriter for The Guardian. He had supported United for 20 years before they reached a European final – the Cup Winners’ Cup, 1991 – and then found it happening when he was on his honeymoon.
This piece was corrected after somehow underestimating Spurs’ trophy cabinet. Thanks to Martin Ledigo and AD for the corrections. And thanks to the Manchester Evening News for the illustration – to pick your own team, go here.