Manchester United give Erik ten Hag the greatest gift of all with mesmerising Liverpool win – The Warm-Up

TUESDAY’S BIG STORIES

Big Calls

Over the summer, Erik ten Hag made some big calls. He announced that Harry Maguire would retain the captaincy. He announced that Cristiano Ronaldo was going to be central to his attack. And then, come the third game of the season, there they were on the bench: captain and legend; dressing-room leaders; dropped.

Good managers aren’t afraid to make big calls. But very good managers aren’t afraid to look at their own big calls, then hurl them straight into the bin and make some others. Ten Hag didn’t just drop Maguire and Ronaldo. He also dropped the Ten Hag of a couple of months ago. What was that fool even thinking?

That said, you couldn’t call either decision strange. Maguire hasn’t looked right for a good long while, as captain or as defender, while Ronaldo is actively trying to leave the club. But even so, it made something of a change to see Manchester United operating not according to the principles of reputation or celebrity or status, but by clear-headed, cold-hearted footballing logic.

The most shocking thing about United’s defeat to Brentford wasn’t the short passing out from the back, or the marking, or the sight of Lisandro Martínez getting thrown around like Randall Curtis in the Simpsons. It was the collective mental collapse that came when David De Gea shovelled in the first goal and United lost all capacity to think. As a problem, it looked chronic; it looked like it would take months if not years to unpick.

Then fast forward nine days and the same players – almost – were tearing into their opponents. Focussed pressing, smart passing, playing to a plan and buying into a project. Jadon Sancho, calm and collected, shuffling the ball back and forth like that Sancho lad who used to play in the Bundesliga. Marcus Rashford, breaking the line and finishing like that Rashford lad who used to play for England. Bruno Fernandes didn’t score – in fact, he came closest to putting the ball into his own net. But for the first time in a while, he was more of an irritant to the opposition than to his own cause.

Would it be too simplistic to suggest that the removal of Ronaldo meant United’s other attacking players were suddenly delivered of both clarity of thought and lightness of spirit? Because that’s exactly what it looked like. Erik ten Hag took away the big question and suddenly the answers were all there.

The same at the back. Before the game, Ten Hag said that he wanted communication, mobility and agility from his defenders, and even the most devoted Maguire supporter would have to admit that he’s been lacking in all three departments. So in came Raphaël Varane, and suddenly the conversation was flowing and Martínez was transformed from comedy figure to cult hero. Take away the question, find the answer.

Again, perhaps all that happened last night was that Erik ten Hag picked the best players in the best positions for the best plan he could come up with, then wound them up and watched them go. It’s a simple game.

But at a club as fundamentally muddled and misaligned as Manchester United, even that represents progress. And the fact that it came off has given Ten Hag the two most precious resources any manager could ask for: time and buy-in. If he can persuade United to take to the ordinary games – like Southampton next Saturday lunchtime – with the same intensity they showed here, things might just work out nicely.

What’s Going On?

When it comes to the Premier League, crisis is an energy: it cannot be destroyed, only transferred from one team to another. And as Manchester United forced it out last night, it went squirming right into the opposition. Two points from three games, and a total inability to keep clean sheets. Perhaps Liverpool aren’t technically in crisis just yet, but they’re certainly crisis-adjacent.

It’s been broadly accepted for a while that the way to get at Liverpool is to target those vast sweeping spaces behind the defence, and to expose the fact that Liverpool’s full-backs are actually wingers in a thin disguise. And it’s generally been the case that Liverpool know this, accept this, ignore this, and win anyway because they’re really good.

But it seems to be working this season. Antony Elanga and Marcus Rashford followed Aleksandar Mitrović and Wilfried Zaha in exploiting, for fun and profit, the gap behind Trent Alexander-Arnold. Each individual result has its own explanation: they tonked Fulham on the xG; they played a long time with ten men against Palace; and they couldn’t call on Darwin Nunez or a load of injured players against United.

But that’s boring. If we want to be a little less forgiving about last night’s game, a little more doom-laden, we can draw some tasty conclusions. Liverpool have no midfielder worthy of the job that isn’t broken! Virgil van Dijk is past it! Sadio Mane’s departure has fatally de-synchronised the attack! The team as a whole is riddled with complacency! We won’t know if any of that’s true for months, of course. Seasons fall apart over months, not weeks. But if any or all of it is, we’ll be able to say that we saw it at Old Trafford first.

Apart from anything else, there was a real oddness about Liverpool last night. Their biggest weapon last season, after all the glorious attacking and so on, was that sense of inevitability. A lie, of course: they only felt inevitable because they worked hard and worked well. Last night, it felt as if we were all waiting for the inevitability to turn up, for the universe to suddenly realise ‘Hang on, this is Liverpool,’ and adjust accordingly. And that’s not how it works.

It’s early days, but this feels like a bad season for any title contender to have an early wobble. The Premier League smells dangerous. Everywhere you look there are smart coaches and sharp footballers. Everywhere you look, there are banana skins. Leeds are good now. Brighton and Brentford are better than last season. Newcastle are starting to purr. All the newly-promoted teams have turned up with a plan. And van Dijk has been made to look quite silly for three consecutive games. It’s not a crisis. Not yet. But it won’t take much.

Content Denied

There were reports before the game that Manchester United were planning to unveil Casemiro on the pitch at half-time. In the end he was paraded to Old Trafford before the game kicked off, which suggests that either the reports were wrong, or that somebody realised there was a decent chance United would be four or five down. Would rather spoil the moment.

In the end, of course, United were very good and Casemiro got to sit and watch his new teammates actually win a midfield battle for once. Before the game, Ten Hag said that Casemiro was to be his “cement between the stones”. So if this is the last we’re to see of Scott McTominay building a dry stone wall, it was a fine end.

But spare a thought for football’s banter economy. From Casemiro’s tearful press conference on leaving Madrid, to his presence in the stands for the visit of Liverpool, the whole internet was primed and ready for a week of ‘What Have I Done’ content. Casemiro looking glum as United get ripped apart. Casemiro laughing as McTominay falls over. Casemiro leaving early. All dust, all nothing. Thank heavens that James Milner and Van Dijk had that argument. Otherwise we’d have nothing to meme at all.

IN OTHER NEWS

Erik ten Hag did a swear. Erik ten Hag did a swear!

Good job we got a swift apology, though. Otherwise all those children who were up watching post-match interviews at gone 10pm, having just watched 22 footballers mouthing sweet nothings at one another for two solid hours, might have been led astray forever.

IN THE CHANNELS

A salute of farewell to Ellen White, England women’s record goalscorer, who announced her retirement yesterday. Here’s the montage covering her wonderful career: compare and contrast her debut, jogging on to play at a half-full Loftus Road, with the delirious scenes at Wembley last month. Playing through history as it happened.

HAT TIP

Pavelko said: “I raised the question and heard a firm ‘Yes’. They were conversations about what our society needs right now. It needs a strong signal. The president was prepared to give us everything we needed to let the world know Ukraine is a strong country and that we are confident in our victory.”

It can be easy to assume that football is meaningless, set against a conflict like the Russian invasion. But then you hear stories like the one Pavelko tells, of a 12-year-old riddled with shrapnel who had been playing football shortly before his evacuation. Upon learning that “his favourite player was Oleksandr Zinchenko, [Pavelko] dialled Ukraine’s vice-captain immediately and the boy, unable to move and welling up with tears, took a video call with his idol. Happily, his treatment has continued in Germany and he is learning to walk again.”

COMING UP

Sneaking up out of nowhere to pounce on your midweek plans, it’s the League Cup! Bolton take on Aston Villa this evening, and Steven Gerrard and company could probably do with a win. There are also the second legs of a few Champions League qualifiers to take care of.

Marcus Foley will be here tomorrow with all the fun of the fair.