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Inept, weak, no plan: humiliation for Manchester United and Solskjær

For 90 minutes at Old Trafford the players of Liverpool and Manchester United produced something that resembled, in its colours and shapes, an elite-level football match. In practice it felt like something else: a kind of ritual humiliation, certainly, a real-time study in how to empty, safely, four-fifths of a football stadium.

Mainly it was just a gruesome spectacle, something seasick and rotten, a team in a state of high‑priced sporting decay caught pinned and wriggling under the lights.

This is a little unfair on Liverpool, who were majestic, an entirely coherent team led by the outstanding player in the world right now in Mohamed Salah. Salah’s game in numbers: seven shots, three goals, one assist, 96% passing accuracy, and barely a sweat broken. Salah has 15 goals and three assists in 12 games this season. It has been a near-perfect sequence. Is he the best, most decisive, most delightful player in the world right now? Is this even a serious question?

This was perhaps the oddest part of United’s collapse, a performance of such stunning ineptitude it seemed to be competing with Salah to become the story, like a drunken uncle at a wedding party roaring and grizzling just out of shot.

What are we supposed to make of this? How to analyse such a putrid display? The word from inside United has been consistent: Ole Gunnar Solskjær is under no pressure, is still seen as the man to take this dizzyingly expensive investment forward. And yet here we had a performance so poor it was tempting to ask if there has been a worse half of football by a Manchester United team that anyone can remember.

There were lows under David Moyes, some lost afternoons under José Mourinho and Louis van Gaal. But nothing quite so deathly, so free of structure, love, basic competence. Factor in that United can field four of the top five best‑paid players in the league and it seems fair to ask if there has been a worse performance since this club were relegated in the 1970s. What does it take to accept that this is simply becoming a humiliation for everyone involved, an endless trauma. We are moving into alien territory here.

Meanwhile the problems in this United team are obvious: a basic slackness, a lack of resistance, too many basking stars. And not just a poor plan, or a badly executed plan, but no plan at all, a team unbalanced by an aged celebrity centre-forward, poorly coached and complacent, with a manager in the job because of heritage power and brand-maintenance.

Mainly, it was just strange. In the first half Liverpool kept scoring the same goal. Four times the minimum of moment, energy, thrust just seemed to slice open the centre of this United team.

The sense of these two things happening simultaneously, brilliance and ineptitude, was captured best by the fifth goal just after half time, the moment that completed Salah’s hat-trick. What a lovely goal this was. What a horrible, shapeless, terrible goal this was.

First Fred simply ran past the ball. Paul Pogba was swished aside like a set of net curtains. Jordan Henderson, with time, space and an embossed invitation, played the perfect curled through pass for Salah to gambol on and finish like a man playing against his eight‑year‑old cousins in the park.

Liverpool had opened the scoring after three minutes, a goal that involved walking right through the centre of that soft, malleable, permeable substance known as Manchester United. How is it possible for a team to line up with a hard rump of four defensive players in the centre to also have nothing there, no human flesh? To be so completely unprepared, a team that has come to work having forgotten to put on its trousers? Space opened up. Salah played a perfect pass on to Naby Keïta. He finished nicely.

With 13 minutes gone it was 2-0. This time Harry Maguire and Luke Shaw got themselves into a horrible shemozzle, a half‑wheeled scrum. Again there was no presence in front, no shield. Keïta fed Trent Alexander‑Arnold who, in a stunning break with tradition, apparently undetected by the United tactical plan, was haring down the right wing.

What does it mean, how are you supposed to feel when James Milner is tobogganing gleefully in your six-yard box, not first but second in the queue to tap the ball away from home with 13 minutes gone? This is one of those events that just looks wrong, a raven-free tower, a polar bear on a melting ice floe. But then, you can get used to anything and seven minutes before half‑time it was three.

Salah provided the finish. Keïta again gave the final pass. In added time it was four, with another weirdly facile goal, Shaw pirouetting like a drunken ballerina as Diogo Jota fed Salah, who passed the ball into the bottom corner.

There were other moments, horrors piled upon horrors. Paul Pogba was sent off for a lunge through Keïta, adding a deeper note to an already nightmarish afternoon. Fred was … well, it would be cruel to detail the times he was left sprawling. That desperation at least showed that he was trying, that he cares. Fred is not good enough to fulfil his brief. This is obvious. It really isn’t his fault we have to keep on being presented with this fact.

By the end the away fans were bullying United’s manager, asking for a wave, roaring their approval at his continued steerage of the ship. We want six. Attack attack attack. It should have sounded like exit music. Is anyone actually listening?

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EFCC Hands Over 753 Recovered Housing Units to Ministry of Housing

The Executive Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Mr. Ola Olukoyede on Tuesday, May 20, 2025 handed over 753 units of houses recovered by the Commission at Plot 109 Cadastral Zone C09, Lokogoma District, Abuja to the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development.

The property, measuring 150,500 square metres and containing 753 Units of duplexes and other apartments, was recovered based on a final forfeiture order granted by Justice Jude Onwuegbuzie of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, High Court Abuja on Monday, December 2, 2024

While handing over the property, Olukoyede reiterated the commitment of the EFCC to accountable asset recovery and disposal modalities, pointing out that such gestures are meant to “demonstrate to Nigerians that whatever proceeds of crime that we have recovered in the course of our work, the application of that will be made transparent to Nigerians so that we will not allow looted assets to be looted again”.

He also pointed out that “It is important for us to emphasize to Nigerians that the fight against corruption can work and we can really make it work and one of the key factors that actually propels the impact of the fight is the need for us to ensure that those who have stolen our commonwealth are not allowed to enjoy the proceeds of crime. So one of the critical factors of our works is that we deprive them of the proceeds of crimes”

He applauded President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s stance on the fight against corruption, affirming that the handover of the property signaled the government’s seriousness to the fight against economic and financial crimes and other acts of corruption.

The handover took place in a brief ceremony at the Ministry’s headquarters in Mabushi, Abuja. Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Ahmed Dangiwa, praised the EFCC for its sustained commitment to asset recovery and anti-corruption. He further stated that the handover was a “significant milestone in our collective efforts and determination to ensure that recovered assets are put to productive use in ways that directly benefits the Nigerian people”.

Dangiwa assured that the Federal Ministry of Housing and Urban Development will conduct a joint familiarization tour of the estate, alongside the EFCC to properly access the structural state of the Estate.

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EFCC Arraigns Bankers, Three Others for Alleged Cybercrime in Lagos

The Lagos Zonal Directorate 1 of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Awolowo on Tuesday, May 20, 2025, arraigned the duo of Kehinde Odeyemi and Matthew Adeniyi Damilola, who are both employees of Premium Trust Bank, before Justice Alexander Owoeye of the Federal High Court sitting in Ikoyi, Lagos.

They were arraigned alongside Samson Latshin Dakup, Bolaji Omotosho Yinka and Sunday Badeniyi Okunola on a seven-count charge bordering on conspiracy to steal.

The defendants allegedly conspired to manipulate the server and domain credentials of the bank in a bid to gain unauthorised access to its database and steal depositors’ funds.

The planned fraudulent activity was, however, averted by the Commission.

One of the counts reads: “That you, Kehinde Odeyemi, Samson Latshin Dakup, Bolaji Omotosho Yinka, Sunday Badeniyi Okunola, and Matthew Adeniyi Damilola, along with individuals identified as Humble (at large), Wasiu (at large), Isa Ismaila (at large) and another referred to as Victor Joshua Ilemona aka Oracle, (at large), conspired unlawfully between April and May 2025 in Lagos, within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, to manipulate the access code (this included the bank’s server IP and domain credentials) of Premium Trust Bank Limited in a bid to gain unauthorised access to the entire database of Premium Trust Bank Limited for the purpose of committing an offense to wit: stealing from the bank’s funds, and you thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 27 and 28 (1) (b) of the Cybercrimes (Prohibition, Prevention, Etc) Act, 2015 (as amended, 2024), which is punishable under Section 28 (2) of the same Act.”

They pleaded not guilty to the charges when they were read to them.

In view of their pleas, prosecution counsel, Zeenat B. Atiku, prayed for a trial date and the defendants’ remand in a Correctional Centre.

Counsel to the first defendant, Adeleke Adepoju, urged the court to admit his client to bail in the most liberal terms. He stated that he didn’t have enough time to make a formal application.

Other counsel also sought to make oral applications for their clients.

Justice Owoeye, however, refused the applications and ordered the counsel to make formal bail applications before the court.

The judge ordered the first defendant to be remanded at the Kirikiri Correctional Centre.

The second, third, fourth and fifth defendants were ordered remanded at the Ikoyi Correctional Centre.

The matter was adjourned till June 30, 2025 for commencement of trial.

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Bank official testifies on suspicious deposits from Kogi LGAs linked to Yahaya Bello’s nephew

A senior official from Access Bank has detailed how billions of naira allegedly originating from various Local Government Areas (LGAs) in Kogi State were funneled into private accounts through suspicious transactions during the administration of former Governor Yahaya Bello.

Testifying before the Federal High Court in Abuja on Tuesday, Ofure Achille, former Head of Operations at Access Bank’s Lokoja branch, said the suspicious cash lodgments and withdrawals occurred over several years and were flagged and reported to the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU).

Ms. Achille is the seventh prosecution witness in the ongoing trial of Ali Bello, a nephew to former Governor Bello and current Chief of Staff to Governor Ahmed Usman Ododo. He is facing 18 counts of money laundering involving the alleged diversion of N3 billion belonging to Kogi State.

Also standing trial are Abba Adaudu, Yakubu Siyaka Adabenege, Iyada Sadat, and Rashida Bello—accused of using shell companies and personal accounts to move massive sums.

The bank official testified that multiple transactions involving hundreds of millions of naira were inconsistent with the financial profiles of the account holders.

She cited examples including the E-Traders account operated by Jamilu Abdulahi, into which N30 million was deposited over two consecutive days in December 2021, followed by N40 million and another N30 million in early 2022.

“These transactions were flagged and reported to the NFIU as Suspicious Transaction Reports (STRs) under anti-money laundering laws,” she said.

Achille also revealed that accounts linked to co-defendants—including Fazab Business Enterprise and Hyzman Ary Construction Limited—received substantial funds from various Kogi LGAs. She noted that on 29 August 2017, Ary Construction received inflows totaling N171 million, with the first deposit of only N10,000 earlier that day.

The EFCC’s lead prosecutor, Rotimi Oyedepo (SAN), led the witness through documentary evidence detailing patterns of deposits and withdrawals that allegedly reflect the laundering of public funds.

The trial continues before Justice Obiora Egwatu as prosecutors build their case against the defendants in what has become one of the most high-profile corruption trials in recent years.