Manchester United players TAKE TRAIN back to Manchester

For Yahoo Sport, I wrote about the Paradise Papers leaks and how that pertains to football generally, and Manchester United specifically. Basically, capitalism is awful, crooked capitalism is even more vile, and United are right at the heart of it these days. It is also, only going to get worse. Good morning!

The Mirror weighs up the careers so far of Alvaro Morata and Romelu Lukaku at their new respective clubs. Morata has been the more consistent performer of late, but he was given much more assistance yesterday than Lukaku was. The Spaniard was Jose Mourinho’s original target, but the lack of service that has been given to him blunts his best strengths. United need to sort out their creativity, quickly, or we may as well go back to Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Marouane Fellaini and just punt the ball forward whenever we can.

Lukaku has been urged to be more selfish in front of goal. He can’t be more selfish if he doesn’t get the ball, but what he could do is learn to be more use by coming deep to reach the ball if, indeed, Mourinho would be interested in such a thing. For all we know he is doing precisely what is being asked of him by his manager, and the poor form of Henrikh Mkhitaryan and the one-note Ander Herrera is holding the side back.

Incredible news in the Daley Mail, with a picture of Daily Blind, as we discover that Manchester United’s squad took the train home from London to Manchester. The things we know these days, it makes the internet entirely worthwhile.

And lastly, Anthony Martial wants to play more for United. That’s promising, because given the absolutely feckless Chris Smalling and Phil Jones, there’s definitely a need for someone who isn’t a complete clown in central defence to give Eric Bailly someone to learn from.