UPDATE: We end the matchweek in 13th following Stoke’s 2-0 win over Watford. Also, Mike Phelan has been sacked as Head Coach of Hull, and Paul Clement has been appointed manager of Swansea.
A red card and a goal given that was offside: these are two decisions that the officials made that cost us the match. Man United are currently on a run of seven straight wins, so beating them was going to be a Herculean task. Suffice to say we failed to score, as an attacking player was sent off in the opening quarter of an hour. But this isn’t about which team should have won on balance. This is about officiating the game in the right manner, so that both teams have control over their own destinies.
If it was just Mike Dean who made a mistake, then it wouldn’t be much of an issue. But given that the linesman gave United a 2-0 lead with not one, not two, but three players offside is just unspeakable! The officials were struggling to get a grip over the match to such an extent that they were more like the unofficials. Gary Neville alluded to it early on in the second half when the referee was a bit hesitant on a few decisions.
I have honestly never seen a referee lose that much control of a match that he has to say: “Don’t look at me again, otherwise you won’t be playing again.”! The player he was speaking to was Pedro Obiang. Despite what he said, I bet there was an inner part of Mike Dean hoping for stares and glares from the highest attendance our club has ever had. After all, it was the Mike Dean show! He gave the last red card of 2016, and now has the honour of giving away the first red card of 2017. Yep, he was lucky, that’s all. Nothing dodgy going on there.
You know we have been undone when the Match of the Day pundits are siding with us. The referee will be at the front of various sporting newspaper columns following his atrocious display at the London Stadium. I know – an official has out-done us! Dean is the poster boy looking forward to his new-found notoriety. Prior to his meet-up with the refs, his nickname was Deano. Now, he’s going to have to tell them that it’s now Beano. Who else could glorify immoral behaviour better than him? He’s the front runner this calendar year.
Fair play to our team for not losing their temper over the ref’s shoddy performance. Obiang, Ogbonna, Cresswell, and Nordtveit went over and shook Mike Dean’s hand at full time. Additionally, Slav kept his cool in his post-match interview. Imagine if Mourinho was in Slav’s boots? He would have been given a touchline ban, that’s for sure.
Now, it is too easy to put down the loss to poor officiating decisions. Given the chances we had, we should have scored. Then again, it all boils down to the matter of the month – signing a striker. Antonio had two great chances including a one-on-one with de Gea. Instead of taking his time with the latter opportunity dribbling further like a proper striker would do in his position, he took his shot straight away. If that wasn’t infuriating enough, he shot it right at the keeper!
As good as Antonio’s goal tally is, there is simply no way that he can play up front. He doesn’t have the instincts of a striker, as we have witnessed before. Sure he gets a lot of headed goals much like Carroll does, but that does not make him a striker. We need to sign a top striker, otherwise we will struggle to score. We have been very fortunate with contributions from Payet and Antonio, but they won’t last. Antonio is a better creative outlet than a striker, and once we put him back in his native position, we can expect to see more goals. This is the first time we have lost consecutive PL matches without scoring for the first time under Slaven Bilic, so now is as good a time as any to sign a striker.
Lanzini played very well for us getting forward leading the team well in a more advanced attacking role. He orchestrated many attacks, and wasn’t afraid to change it around by going it on his own. He has certainly stepped up for us playing in a central midfield role when needed. We lost the midfield battle in this match, though things could have been very different had Feghouli not been sent off.
Mike Dean is finished! So so so bad! He gets worse and worse every week. Take the whistle from him please!
— John Arne Riise (@JARiiseOfficial) January 2, 2017
At the end of the day, we can’t be too downhearted with the defeat, but we also can’t take this match as a one-off. Just because we were on the wrong end of a decision doesn’t mean we couldn’t have scored first. With two-thirds of regulation time played out, we had more shots on target than our opponents. We should have capitalised when we had the chances. Man United were 1-0 down to Boro in their previous match, yet scored two late goals in the 85th and 86th minutes to win – a tribute to the Sir Alex style of play. We should follow their example by trying to play with a bit of attacking flair like we did last season, and try and replicate our earlier successes.