Credulous rubes interested in another Old Trafford food fight

We should apparently care that Manchester United boss Jose Mourinho, United and City players and Mikel Arteta got into a heated debate yesterday, one that ended with Arteta getting brained, and Mourinho having milk poured over him. This is nakedly a case of Mourinho deciding to do two things. One, recreate the aggro atmosphere that dominated the rivalry between Real Madrid and Barcelona, one that psychologically damaged everyone involved but ultimately ended with Mourinho winning the league and driving Pep Guardiola to distraction. Two, to distract from another conservative performance which backfired: City were vulnerable and United’s defence weren’t even up to defending simple set pieces. United’s squad isn’t good enough, and nor is Mourinho to improve his current squad enough. Roll on, transfer window number four.

The Telegraph point out that Romelu Lukaku effed up a few times yesterday. He missed United’s best chance as they chased an equaliser, and it was his poor defending from that allowed City to score yesterday. It wasn’t the worst miss, but it might be that in the longer term that Marcus Rashford ends up as the most trusted United striker in big games. Zlatan Ibrahimovic is similarly clumsy at times, so he is no immediate solution.

Mourinho talked of the, ‘disgraceful,’ defending of his side against City, which is a reasonable point. After a year and a half though, he really should have drilled some of these players into competence. If he cannot coach, then he needs to be given the money to make a difference, or be replaced. Those are the only two options.

Guardiola claims he was offered the chance to take the United job, but reading between the lines he makes it clear, in a very diplomatic way, that he was not actually given the chance by Alex Ferguson. Instead, Ferguson plainly stitched up all the kind of candidates who should have been considered because he wanted to give David Moyes the job. Cheers, Alex!