Anybody know how Manchester United set up against Everton? Honest question, because I didn't see the game and heard very little tactical analysis from the Sky lads later, just rhetoric about "playing for the shirt" and players "downing tools" and other assorted nonsense. I'm wondering, in particular, whether Solskjaer's tactics, going away to a ground where Arsenal and Chelsea have lost and Liverpool drawn recently, were actually fit for purpose, because that would be my biggest doubt on Wednesday. Not the players or the motivation, but the manager.
Some of the stuff Neville was coming out with yesterday was borderline scandalous from a supposedly serious broadcaster, and this coming hot on the heels of his embarrassing, barely-concealed bias for Manchester City of late. Even the Sky presenter was moved to basically say: "everyone knows you're talking about Pogba, Gary". And yet, infuriating though he may be at times, this is the same Pogba who was central to his country winning (World Cup) and finishing runners-up (European Championship) in France's last two major international tournaments, to Juventus reaching a Champions League final in 2015, and Mourinho managed some success with him in the team as well. Perhaps Ole should get on the phone to Deschamps, Allegri or his predecessor if he needs advice on how to get the best out of the player?
"How can he get a performance out of that team for Wednesday night?" the Sky presenter nonetheless asked after Liverpool had completed their business in south Wales yesterday afternoon. What an absurd question, on several levels. Quite aside from the fact that it was directed to a man who managed a 35.71% win ratio in charge of a Champions League-calibre Valencia squad and led them to a 7-0 humiliation in the Nou Camp, is it not the very essence of a football manager's job to be able to motivate a team, regardless of the respective mentalities or qualities of the players at his disposal? And is that not especially the case when said manager is earning a reported £7.5m per annum, precisely to motivate footballers to perform, for the shirt, for money, for glory, for whatever floats their boat?
By way of example: Romelu Lukaku has scored 42 goals in 94 appearances since joining Manchester United, a rate of just under 1 in 2. Before that, it was 87 in 166 for Everton, just over 1 in 2. He has also scored 45 in 79 at international level, again better than 1 in 2, and he's only 25. If he's carrying an injury he should be resting, but everything else (e.g. working on his confidence, finding a position to get the best out of him) falls under the manager's remit. It's scarcely believable to suggest that a decent manager can't make use of a player like that, a career 1-in-2 striker. That's if Solksjaer is "decent" at all.
I said a couple of weeks back that the prospect of City dropping points really depends on City themselves, far more than it does on their opponents — if they've been deliberately coasting since mid-February, during which time they've only remotely looked like themselves in an attacking sense against the 15th-best team in Germany and last week against Spurs (where they also conceded three, of course) and are now about to go up through the gears again, then Manchester United don't stand much of a chance on Wednesday, motivated or not. Not against that City.
But I don't think City are that team right now. They seem tired, they seem harassed. They don't have the look of a side that's going to show up and wipe the floor with any competent team, no more than they did with Fulham or Cardiff recently (both beaten 2-0). They'll be motivated, of course, and they'll be technically excellent as always, and they'll bully and moan and intimidate. But they have weaknesses that are slowly becoming more tangible, more reachable, in a way that reminds me of a scene near the end of the 2005 remake of War of the Worlds (in this scene Tom Cruise is representative of Liverpool supporters, the alien is Manchester City, and the solider is anyone who has anything to do with City's remaining opponents).
In my opinion, that means that all of them, bar maybe Brighton, have a chance — in other words, Manchester United, Burnley and Leicester City. It doesn't mean they will, but all three have sufficient quality in their ranks to get a result against them. Even United. I say "even United" because Neville and others would have you believe otherwise. But this is almost the exact same group of players that won a League Cup and Europa League under Mourinho in 2016/17, and finished 2nd last season (with 82 points, more than Leicester in 2015/16) and runners-up in the FA Cup. They've lost 1 out of 16 at home in the league this season. They're by no means bad individually.
The narrative pushed by the likes of Sky has been about under-performing players letting the manager down, as though Solksjaer reeled off 10 wins out of 12 and beat PSG by himself. Motivation, in the form of professional pride if nothing else, is unlikely to be a problem on Wednesday given the spotlight that's on them after Everton, and there's enough quality there to hurt and/or frustrate City. The competence of the manager, especially in terms of setting up with an effective tactical plan, is what I would doubt. Great for us in the long-term, not so great in the immediate context of this season. But if he can manage to come up with something that has a chance of working on Wednesday, even if it's just parking the bus, I'll take that right now.
Post the hysteria of Man City's remarkable Champions League exit which I enjoyed to a good extent - at least the circumstances in which the events unfolded, if not the result itself, the days following that occasion has had me thinking if that result was at all any favourable for our League Title prospects.
I had a look around how Man City had performed in recent seasons at this time of the year.
2017-18 - 10 points in last 4 games (League won at a canter)
2016-17 - 12 points in last 4 games
2015-16 - 5 points in last 4 games
2014-15 - 12 points in last 4 games
This lot finish the season extremely strong. For 3 out of 4 seasons, they have dropped just 2 points in 12 games (worth 12*3 = 36 points) putting together the last 4 games of 3 of the last 4 seasons. There was one outlier. So, I had a look around the 2015-16 season where they got only 5 points in the last 4 games.
2015-16 was the only season out of the 4 seasons where they reached the CL Semi Final stage, which meant CL games around the last 4 games of the PL campaign. In rest of the seasons, they were eliminated in previous rounds, giving them enough comfort and motivation to smash it in the league.
This makes me come back to my original point. It looks like Man City getting knocked out in CL quarters may have been a thing that we have enjoyed in its own right, but it may not have been the better outcome in our chase for the Premier League Title. Had they been involved in a Semi Final, they'd have given more than its due focus, since CL is their club's Holy Grail & it may have paved way for us to win the Premier League, & maybe even with a bit of comfort.
