Neutrals may love the drama Erik ten Hag's side offer but their sickening late defeat at Chelsea demonstrates it is no path to success
"Are you not entertained? Are you not entertained? Is this not why you are here?" Mauricio Pochettino might as well have been muttering Maximus's iconic line in as he ran on to the soaking pitch to revel in Cole Palmer's 101st minute winner against Manchester United.
This wild, logic-defying game already felt like a classic before its stunning climax, with the first 45 minutes alone serving up more drama and entertainment than most matches played in the Premier League this week. It was the perfect antidote to the boredom of Sunday's title showdown between Manchester City and Arsenal.
Both teams, who feel like kindred spirits these days in their futile attempts to rediscover the glory days, abandoned basic principles of defending and also bypassed midfield. It was, in some way, what United fans often call out for: Attack, attack and attack again.
But as entertaining as it was for the neutral (and for Chelsea fans at the very end), this anarchic football is completely unsustainable. United almost got away with it in west London, just like a few days before against Brentford. But, in the end, they got what they deserved.
GettyGuaranteed drama
United have to be the most entertaining team to watch in the world. This season, neutrals have been unable to take their eyes off them. United's early exit from the Champions League was not just mourned by their own supporters. It was a huge blow to adrenaline junkies all across Europe, who had feasted on five truly epic games in which United had scored 12 goals and conceded 14.
They had lost 4-3 to Bayern Munich and to Copenhagen and chucked away the lead in both matches against Galatasaray, conceding six goals in the process and making the mediocre Turkish side crammed full of veterans look like Galacticos. Even their 1-0 win over Copenhagen was high on drama, featuring a last-minute penalty save from Andre Onana.
And as many of the last 16 ties passed without any twists or turns, a fair few neutrals were left longing for United and the wild storylines they always throw up. Luckily for English football fans, the chaos has continued in the domestic competitions. There have been the insane 4-3 victories over Wolves and Liverpool.
The Brentford game may have ended 1-1 but the scoreline did not tell the full story. The Bees had 31 shots and 85 touches in the opposing box – more than any other team this season.
AdvertisementGetty No one takes responsibility
Thrilling football may be in United's DNA but the truth is that the epic plot twists in the Sir Alex Ferguson era were so memorable because they only happened every so often. There were late winners but they tended to come after attritional matches in which they wore the opposition down and then struck at the end.
Thursday's game was played at 100mph and by the end, the players were utterly exhausted and incapable of doing the basics, such as marking Cole Palmer at a corner. Four players pointed at Chelsea's most dangerous player as he stood alone in the box before the corner from which he grabbed the winner. Everyone knew he was a threat but no-one took upon themselves to go and pick him up.
"He can’t be getting in that space at that stage of the game after scoring two and, for most parts of the game, being the most dominant Chelsea player on the pitch. You’ve got to identify that," Rio Ferdinand said on .
This young, often inexperienced group of players do not know how to get games over the line. And no one takes responsibility. Bruno Fernandes loves to point and shout, but nobody seems to listen to him, and mistakes like not picking up Palmer keep on happening.
(C)Getty ImagesNo game management
One of the chief criticisms of United this season is that they do not know how to manage games. And one statistic sums this up like no other. Ten Hag's side have conceded 27 times within 10 minutes of scoring a goal or letting one in. In other words, they either undo their own momentum after scoring or they sink even further into the abyss.
This was the case against Brentford, when Mason Mount scored in the 96th minute and then Kristoffer Ajer equalised in the 99th. It was also true against Chelsea, Palmer scoring twice in the space of 82 seconds.
It happened in the whirlwind FA Cup victory against Liverpool, when Alexis Mac Allister and Mohamed Salah scored in the space of three minutes at the end of the first half. And it happened at Molineux, when United threw away a 3-1 lead by conceding in the 85th and 95th minutes.
United won those games with their own last-gasp heroics from Kobbie Mainoo and Amad Diallo. But what has happened before and after those games illustrates that this type of football is just unsustainable.
Getty ImagesTen Hag blames individual errors
The problem is that while everyone else can see that United's tactics and style are not conducive to getting consistent results, Ten Hag cannot. While he was understandably furious about throwing away five points in the last two games by conceding goals deep in stoppage time, he put the late collapses down to individual errors.
"We got ourselves into a winning position, with some brilliant football, scoring some great goals and we didn’t manage the game in stoppage time," he told a press conference.
"You have to do your job. The players know their jobs and they didn’t make the right decisions. We didn’t react quickly enough. We have to make better decisions. We have to read when to keep the ball, when to pass and move and switch the play when we are winning.
"We made individual errors that cost us the game. We have to learn from it. When you are a Man United player you should already know how to deal with this circumstance. In five days we dropped five points. That is unacceptable. We gave away a game we should have won."
