We welcome you to a new session at NAPS press sport desk. Fasten your seatbelts as we would be driving you through the world of sports. We would be giving you the very best of sports analysis, sport stories, sport features and many more. One to look out for this semester would be our newly added column: Match of the week.
The method to determine this would be to pick the most mouth-gaping match out of every matches played in the top five leagues in Europe: The English Premier League, Laliga Santander, German Bundesliga, the Italian Serie A and the French Ligue I. Considering that most of our readers are fans of clubs who play in the English Premier League, we would be mostly making our picks from the England.
Manchester United. Yes, that’s it, that’s the headline.
Manchester United were held level by 20th placed Burnley on the 8th of February, 2022. This is coming in the same week in which the 2007/2008 Manchester United team was voted by many as the greatest team ever of the English Premier league. Manchester United have not won a single trophy since 2017.How the mighty have fallen!. The red devils now sweep the streets they used to own.
Coming to this season, many fans and pundits alike had large expectations for the red side of Manchester. The signing of Cristiano Ronaldo, Raphael Varane and the addition of wonder-kid, Jadon Sancho arriving from Borussia Dortmund, for a fortune, lifted the hopes of Man United fans to dream again.
Taking off from where they left off last season, the inconsistencies of Manchester United persisted. This led many fans to throw the former Man United boss, Ole Gunnar Solksjær under the bus, with many opining that he was not experienced to manage the big names in the locker room both tactically and personally.
Soksjær was replaced before the December of 2021 by Ralf Rangnick who was appointed as a caretaker manager. Rangnick has the track record of being the master of the Gegenpressing, heavy metal, German brand of football. Rangnick is a point of reference for many German coaches like Jurgen Klopp, Tuchel and Bayern manager, Julian Nagelsmann.
The change of hands does not seem to change so much for United after all. Under Rangnick, Manchester United have played 12 matches; won six, lost one and drawn five. Man United have also crashed out of the FA cup, losing to Championship side, Middlesbrough in a penalty shootout. This brings us back to the question: was Ole Gunnar Solksjær the problem or a part of the problem?
What’s next?
Manchester United are now sixth placed on the English Premier league table with two points behind West Ham United. United are one place below Arsenal with the latter having one game in hand. There is still a lot to fight for in the Champions league qualification spot. However, realistically , the premier league top spot is as good as gone.
They face Atletico Madrid in the first leg of the round of sixteen in the UEFA Champions League.
Manchester United have now been linked to former Tottenham boss, Mauricio Pocchetino who has been informed by the Al Khelaifi -led board of his current club, Paris Saint German, that his services would no longer be needed by the end of the 2021/2022 season.
By Akinjide Olamide
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