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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?
News
Lagos arrests 94 during midnight raid on rail track squatters
The Lagos State Government has arrested 94 persons during a midnight operation on rail track squatters.
The Commissioner for Environment and Water Resources, Tokunbo Wahab announced the operation on X.com on Wednesday.
According to him, the arrest followed complaints from citizens about illegal squatters, miscreants, and suspected criminal activities along rail track corridors.
Wahad said a locally fabricated short gun, several wraps of illicit substances suspected to be Indian hemp, charms, and a jackknife were recovered from the suspects.
He wrote, “In response to complaints from residents, commuters, and concerned citizens about the nefarious activities of illegal squatters, miscreants, and suspected criminal elements along rail track corridors, the agency conducted a midnight raid along the rail track from Pen-Cinema under the bridge up to Fagba Junction.
“Ninety-four suspects were arrested during the operation, and a locally fabricated short gun, several wraps of illicit substances suspected to be Indian hemp, charms, and a jackknife were recovered.
“The suspects will be charged in court accordingly.”
News
Okpebholo suspends revenue collection in Edo State
Edo Governor, Monday Okpebholo, has ordered the immediate and indefinite suspension of collection of all revenues in in the state, with particular attention on motor parks and others, until further notice.
According to a statement by his Chief Press Secretary, Fred Itua, Okpebholo also ordered the State Police Commissioner to arrest anyone who flouts the order.
The Governor said he will review the issues surrounding the collections soon and decide on the way forward.
“The collection of revenues in the State has been suspended indefinitely. Anyone seen collecting revenues on behalf of the State Government will be arrested.
“The Commissioner of Police is hereby ordered to arrest anyone who flouts the order and collects any kind of revenues on behalf of the State Government.
“The Governor will soon address the issues and concerns raised. He will issue new directives soon. Until then, no one is authorised to collect revenues on behalf of the State Government,” the statement noted.
News
FG to begin payment of pension backlog – Edun
The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mr Wale Edun, says the Federal Government will soon begin payment of pension backlog.
Edun said this during a peaceful rally by the Nigeria Union of Pensioners Contributory Pension Scheme Sector (NUPCPS) at the Federal Ministry of Finance in Abuja on Tuesday.
“We will start next week to pay everything that we can under the current budget as approved by the National Assembly. What has happened now is that there is backlog in terms of contributions and there is a solution.
“There has been a committee under the Office of the Head Of Service which has met the minister of budget, and I. We have a plan for dealing with the backlog under the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS).
“We are committed to paying it. It has to be paid this year. We are committed to doing that starting from next week,” Edun said.
“We have to have a solution that takes care of everybody, and that is being worked on. Its going to be a question of going to the capital market and raising an instrument that allows that backlog to be cleared once and for all.
“We are going to present to the president, a viable solution using the financial market taking care of the huge backlog under the CPS,” Edun said
He reiterated Federal Government’s commitment to pensioners welfare.
“I am not happy that you have had to take this step and I assure you that any time that you or your leaders seek audience with me, I will be available in the office.
“I was not aware of the Nov. 11 deadline, otherwise I will never have allowed a situation like this. In spite of your age, your situation in terms of cost of living, it costs money to come here. I would have avoided that as much as I could,” Edun said.
Speaking earlier during the protest, the National Chairman of NUPCPS, Mr Sylva Nwaiwu, said CPS had never benefited from any increment of the National Minimum Wage Act.
Nwaiwu said that the Federal Government had not released accrued rights for pensioners for over 20 months (since March 2023 till date).
“Our senior citizens are suffering, after using our youthful years to serve our father land and we get this in return. Please use your good office to help us. Some of our members are bedridden and some have died in the struggle. We cannot feed ourselves, take care of our family or take care of our medical bills anymore,” he said.
The chairman said that they had dropped several letters for the minister but none was acknowledged which made the union members to stage this peaceful rally. Nwaiwu, however, commended the president for raising minimum wage.
Mrs Christiana Ubah, a pensioner, said that she retired in 2015 from the budget office of the federation, and could no longer feed herself. ” See how my face is, it is hunger.”
She complained that for six months, her pension had not been paid by African Alliance, saying that the government needs to come to our aid.
“Among us here are people that retired since march last year and have not been paid a kobo. look at how harsh the economy is because of our leaders.
“We do not have anything to live on now, every year they will tell us in the media that pension fund asset has increased, so why are pensioners not paid.
“We have a constitution in the country that every five years salaries will increase and pension will increase too. We want this reflected,” Ubah said.
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