Theatre of screams
Man Utd 1 Fulham 2: Iwobi snatches 97th-minute winner after Maguire looked to have stolen point in major top-four blow
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YOU might want to rethink that business about seeing a serious title challenge in three years, Sir Jim.
If this is an indication, perhaps double it and add another couple of seasons on top… and even that might be stretching the point.
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Losing to Fulham, a side with an away-day record worse than all bar Sheffield United, was bad enough.
The fact Marco Silva’s men should have won by an even greater margin made it even more so.
Manchester United, to be blunt, were bloody awful. Had Harry Maguire’s late strike given them the point it appeared to, even that would have been unfair on the Cottagers.
So when Adama Traore broke deep, deep into stoppage time and Alex Iwobi wrong-footed Andre Onana to find the bottom corner, an away victory was fully merited.
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At least United’s new minority shareholder will now have no grey areas whatsoever in realising quite how far the club he has just bought into is from matching the top dogs.
But a Premier League challenge? At this rate they are still a mile off mounting one to even make the Champions League places, never mind anything else.
Clueless, aimless and – without crocked hitman Rasmus Hojlund – frankly hopeless. No wonder Ratcliffe didn’t bother to attend this one.
Mind you, when you’re a tax exile and only allowed 90 days in the country, United versus Fulham doesn’t have HUGE pulling power I suppose.
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But while Sir Jim was absent, you can be certain INEOS – and now also his footballing - righthand man Sir Dave Brailsford, watching from the main stand, will have filled him in.
It won’t have been good news for Erik ten Hag, either. Not after those tub-thumping demands for entertaining football returning to Old Trafford, certainly.
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United were dreadful. It was just a surprise Fulham didn’t leave with more than goals from Calvin Bassey and that late Iwobi winner. They should have done.
If Andre Onana had been as heavy-legged as most of his colleagues, they would have done as well.
Onana produced a string of fine saves, notably going full length to stop Old Trafford old boy Andreas Pereira curling in an impressive opener.
The Cameroon keeper was alert again to beat out Rodrigo Muniz’ downward header, but left thanking the awkward bounce that stopped Sasa Ilic turning in the rebound.
Then Rodrigo Muniz went within a coat of paint of putting them ahead, bouncing Victor Lindelof to the ground, before letting rip with a rocket that shook the upright.
True, United could claim their own slice of ill fortune when Diogo Dalot took aim from 25 yards and saw his effort clip the base of the past and fly wide.
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But aside of Bernd Leno going full length to push away an Alejandro Garnacho strike with a save-for-the-cameras, for the most part United were lead-footed and laborious.
Admittedly losing a red-hot Hojlund to injury after seven goals in six games was always going to deaden the threat somewhat. But to this extent?
If Ten Hag hoped it would spark Marcus Rashford into stepping up, he couldn’t have been more wrong. At times you forgot he was on the pitch, he was that anonymous.
Hojlund’s absence meant a full debut for teenage striker Omari Forson, in the boldest of calls from Ten Hag.
Heaven knows what £85million Brazil international Antony felt as he looked on from the bench while the 19-year-old youth product made his bow.
By the time he did come on, in the dying embers of the contest, it was already lost… and justifiably.
Defender Bassey’s first goal initially looked like being enough, burying a rocket into the roof of the net after an inadvertent one-two with Tim Castagne.
United looked dead on their feet at that stage. Bereft of ideas, never mind chances, and threw men forward in desperation more than direction.
One of them was Maguire, and it was the centre back who seemed to have saved the day when Bruno Fernandes finally discover the route to goal with an angled drive.
Leno could only push it out when it bounced through bodies, and there was Maguire to hammer in the face-saving rebound.
With nine minutes of top of the 90, it seemed Fergie time was about to rear its head a decade after the originator’s retirement, and come to United’s rescue.
And we did indeed gate a dying seconds winner, too…only from the men in white.
When fleet-footed substitute Traore burst down the right, it always looked ominous for United, caught short on numbers.
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And as he piclked out Iwobi in the box to his left, he left Onana rooted to the spot with a wrong-footing side-footed strike into the corner.
To a man United collapsed to the ground in dismay. Sir Jim’s bluster and boasts went with them, you feel.
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