Barney Ronay on Cristiano Ronaldo
Post-match reaction.
Jacob Steinberg was at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium tonight. His verdict is in, and here it is! Click and enjoy. Thanks for reading this MBM. Nighty night!
Ole’s on the mic. “Excellent,” he tells Sky. “The experience came through. I was told that was the oldest team I’ve picked for Manchester United, and it was time for it, put it that way. I’ve been here three years now as manager, and Tuesday’s training performance by Edinson Cavani was probably the best training performance anyone’s put in here. So the old men led from the front. Ronaldo and Cavani play well together, and respect each other. The workrate and quality they put in is second to none. We probably got a man of the match performance from Scott McTominay, he was outstanding out there, unplayable. They all played really well. Cristiano Ronaldo, what a man, what a goal. We need consistency. We need this type of performance again and again and again.”
Nuno talks to Sky. “It was a poor performance. We didn’t play good. United were stronger than us. We concede in a poor way, we lose balls, we allowed counter attacks. We could not do it. We could not find the lines, the combinations. The last pass was never there, the finish was never there. A bad performance. We have to work harder. The focus is not on Harry, we have to support all of our players, find solutions, because we believe we are better than we are today. We are not on the right track, and we understand the criticism. The fans suffer and we show it. We are sorry and we keep on trying, and in a humble way, we ask them to support us all the way.”
Spurs didn’t get a single attempt on target. According to Sky, that’s the first time it’s happened to them at home since 2013. “I think it was the perfect game for United,” opines Roy Keane. “This Spurs team were desperate. Abysmal. United, job done, but it’s a bigger game next weekend in Manchester City. Spurs are boring. They’re boring to watch. Really boring.” What an indictment!
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On Sky Sports, Gary Neville names Cristiano Ronaldo as the man of the match. One of the easiest decisions he’ll have to make as a broadcaster. What a volley, what an assist! Edinson Cavani and Raphael Varane both impressed too, and this thoroughly deserved victory has given Ole Gunnar Solskjaer some much-needed breathing space, with a crucial Champions League game at Atalanta and next weekend’s Manchester derby coming up. The manager walks off exuding a satisfied glow ... which is more than can be said for either Harry Kane or Nuno Espirito Santo, both of whom were given pelters by the home fans, both of whom wear slightly glazed expressions as they scuttle off towards the safety of the changing room. United move into fifth spot, just three points behind third-placed City; Spurs are eighth.
FULL TIME: Tottenham Hotspur 0-3 Manchester United
Ole’s still at the wheel!
90 min +2: Rashford goes sliding in on Romero, studs showing. He doesn’t quite connect, and then the referee decides to book the Spurs defender instead. Eh?
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90 min +1: Nuno imagines a point one thousand yards into the distance, and stares at it.
90 min: Just as Old Trafford emptied last week, so the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium decants thousands of disgruntled fans. There will be three added minutes.
88 min: Nuno hangs his head. This has ultimately been a pitiful display by Tottenham. Nuno’s coat, a mere ten games into his Premier League career with Spurs, is already on a shoogly peg.
GOAL! Tottenham Hotspur 0-3 Manchester United (Rashford 86)
Son miscontrols in the centre circle. Matic rolls a ball down the middle of the park. Rashford springs what’s left of Tottenham’s defence, opens his body, and steers a sidefoot across Lloris and into the bottom right. The Tottenham boos outweigh the United celebrations.
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85 min: They’re also giving Harry Kane the bird. This is pretty toxic now. Meanwhile Thomson Prentice would like to disagree with Mary Waltz, using an all-American reference of his own. “As Mark Twain said, and Ole might recall: ‘Reports of my death are somewhat exaggerated.’”
84 min: As Spurs pass the ball around the back, the stadium reverberates to loud booing. Nuno is getting the proper bird here. The fans are extremely unimpressed with their new manager, who is now holding the Crisis Baton that his opposite number turned up with.
83 min: Bergwijn and Kane, in almost exactly the same positions on the pitch, attempt to recreate United’s opening goal. Bergwijn gets the Fernandes cross right, but Kane opts to trap rather than volley, and the chance is gone. He forces a corner, but that comes to nought.
82 min: Cavani has run himself into the ground. He cramps up, and is replaced by Lingard.
80 min: Emerson drops a shoulder and drives down the right. His cross is deflected by Cavani, who is putting in one heck a shift. Son takes, launching deep. The ball drops to Alli, who takes a fresh-air swipe. “Well the Governor called,” begins Mary Waltz. “They cut the power to ol’ sparky. But poor Ole is still on Death Row, he is still a dead man walking.”
78 min: Davies is booked for cynically hanging a leg across McTominay.
77 min: Fernandes makes way for Matic as Solskjaer looks to close out a precious, career-salvaging victory.
76 min: Cavani attempts a backpass down the Spurs right. Kane reads and intercepts. He races clear down the right, but there’s nobody in the middle. He doesn’t have the pace to burst into the box himself, and so dinks an aimless ball to nobody in particular. United clear; the crowd jeer.
75 min: They don’t get it. Son’s awful corner doesn’t clear the first man. The crowd respond pretty much as you’d imagine.
74 min: Davies worms his way down the left and forces a corner. Spurs really need something here.
73 min: Fred is booked for a double barge on Ndombele and then Bergwijn.
72 min: Alli comes on for Lo Celso.
71 min: Ronaldo, a spectacular goal and a magnificent assist banked, makes way for Rashford.
70 min: United are happy to sit back and let Spurs stroke it around, because the hosts aren’t doing much with all the possession.
68 min: Spurs aren’t carrying much of a threat. Like that’s breaking news.
66 min: An awful moment for Skipp, though, and he’s immediately hooked and replaced by Ndombele. To be fair to Skipp, the change was lined up before the goal.
GOAL! Tottenham Hotspur 0-2 Manchester United (Cavani 64)
Fernandes robs Skipp the middle of the park and drives foward. He slips the ball to Ronaldo on his right. Ronaldo Cryuff turns his way past Skipp and back infield, then slips a pass down the middle, through the eye of a needle, for Cavani, who, sprung clear, takes a stride and dinks home. What a gorgeous move!
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63 min: This game has become really scrappy, played at 101mph by two slightly desperate sides. Two and three-pass moves are at a premium.
62 min: Spurs are pushing United back, though to little effect. The visitors look comfortable enough, with the hosts’ final ball always lacking.
60 min: Hojbjerg doesn’t really commit to a 50-50 in the middle of the park with Fred, and the atmosphere curdles a little again.
58 min: Son crosses from the right. Skipp eyebrows across goal and out for a goal kick. The Tottenham fans turn up the volume in the hope of shifting the dial.
56 min: There’s a real edge to the atmosphere now. Nuno under severe scrutiny. Can his players deliver for him?
54 min: Moura is replaced by Bergwijn. The Spurs crowd are extremely unhappy with Moura’s withdrawal, and loud boos ring around the stadium. You don’t have to be a lip-reader to spot the gentleman in a Spurs shirt twice accusing the manager of onanism. Nuno’s at the wheel!
52 min: Lo Celso should send Son clear down the middle, Fred having been stripped by Hojbjerg, the United defence caught out of position. But he rolls a dismal pass behind the striker, and the chance is gone. That’s an appalling ball, and a huge chance for Spurs to equalise is wasted.
50 min: Honestly, Ronaldo nearly ripped the net from its moorings, and took the posts up as well. A hell of a whip into the top right. He’s got a taste for the spectacular in north London.
48 min: McTominay slips Ronaldo clear this time, a slide-rule pass from the centre circle. Ronaldo reaches the edge of the box before larruping an unstoppable swerver into the top right. What a finish! Only problem being, Ronaldo was a sliver offside, and the flag goes up. Such a shame to rule out the most emphatic of finishes, but what’s right is right.
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47 min: De Gea passes straight to Moura, who drives down the right and rolls infield for Son. The ball’s travelling at pace, and Son can only send a snapshot wide right from the edge of the box.
46 min: McTominay intercepts a loose pass in midfield and strides down the middle, very nearly releasing Ronaldo into the Spurs box down the inside-left channel. What a start to the second half that nearly was.
Spurs get the second half underway. No changes.
Half-time reading. Never mind Palace’s shock win at City, or Brighton’s fine comeback at Anfield, this was the biggest jaw-dropper of the afternoon.
HALF TIME: Tottenham Hotspur 0-1 Manchester United
Cristiano Ronaldo’s sweet volley gives under-pressure United the lead at the break. Spurs are booed off their own park. United will know how that feels.
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45 min: Skipp sends Lo Celso scampering down the left. He reaches the box, and his cross is deflected out for a corner. Lo Celso’s cross is met by Davies, running backwards; his twisting header flies harmlessly over the bar. Had he left it for Romero, steaming in behind him, it could have been an equaliser.
44 min: Emerson tries to get something going, dribbling hard down the right before teeing up Lo Celso, who sends an instant shot over the bar from the edge of the box. It’s a response of sorts.
43 min: Ronaldo sticks a stiff arm out into Romero’s face. Romero goes down. No intent, though, so no booking.
41 min: A bolt of quality, out of nothing, pretty much. Spurs fail to respond instantly; it’s mainly United on the ball.
GOAL! Tottenham Hotspur 0-1 Manchester United (Ronaldo 39)
Ronaldo takes a fresh-air swipe during a game of pinball in the Spurs box. But you can’t keep a good man down. Fernandes, 30 yards out on the left, floats a diagonal pass towards Ronaldo, on the shoulder of Davies down the inside-right channel. The perfect cross drops over Davies’ head and drops to Ronaldo on the corner of the six-yard box. Ronaldo screeches a first-time shot across Lloris and into the bottom left. What a volley!
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37 min: McTominay clatters into the back of Lo Celso. No booking, which seems about right, though that didn’t stop the United midfielder looking slightly sheepish and leaving the scene of the crime quicksmart.
35 min: Kane slips Son free down the inside-right channel. Son enters the box and takes one touch too many, allowing Wan-Bissaka to slide in and block the shot. It’s not a corner, though, because the flag goes up for offside. I’m not 100 percent sure that was the correct decision - it was very tight - and had Son scored, VAR might have had something to say about it. All immaterial, of course.
33 min: Fred decides to take a whack from the best part of 30 yards. He sends a swerving, dipping, vicious shot towards the left-hand side of goal. Lloris extends at full length to tip around for a corner. The set piece is nothing to write home about, Fernandes wedging an aimless ball from the edge of the D, straight out of play for a goal kick.
31 min: Ronaldo meets a looping diagonal pass on the left-hand corner of the six-yard box. Instead of sending a volley screeching goalwards, he tries to tee up Shaw, only for the cushioned ball to be intercepted. He may have been offside anyway.
30 min: Kane very nearly releases Lo Celso down the left with a quick throw. Fernandes, tracking back, intercepts just in time. And just as well. United’s defence was AWOL there.
28 min: ... Dier rises highest, six yards out. He heads down towards the bottom right. Romero bundles it in with his chest, or maybe pokes it home with his trouser arrangement. Either way, it’s in! Spurs celebrate, but prematurely so, because the flag eventually goes up for offside. Correctly so. No goal. United breathe again.
27 min: Son and Emerson busy themselves down the right, eventually winning a corner. Son takes, and ...
25 min: Fernandes finds some space down the right. He crosses for Cavani, who guides a header towards the top left from 12 yards. It’s inches wide. Had it been on target, it was a goal, because Lloris was rooted and beaten all ends up. Neither of these defences look very happy.
24 min: The ball breaks to Moura on the left. Moura shovels a pass down the channel to spring Son into the box! He’s one on one with De Gea, and tries to roof one into the top left from close range. He leans back too much and the ball flies over the bar.
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23 min: Lo Celso flips a dreadful free kick straight into the wall.
22 min: Another booking for United, as Lo Celso readies to burst down the inside-right channel, through a gap between Varane and Maguire. The latter is booked for the clip that brings Lo Celso down. A free kick in a very dangerous position to the right of the D.
21 min: ... nothing happens.
20 min: Some space for Davies down the left. He crosses low and hard. The ball hits Wan-Bissaka’s elbow as the United defender slides to block. No penalty, which is the correct decision, the United full-back’s arms in a natural position. It’s a corner, though, from which ...
19 min: The first booking of the evening as Shaw is stripped of possession by Romero’s toe-poke from behind, then stops Moura racing off with the loose ball by falling over and tap-tackling the Spurs man’s ankle.
18 min: Spurs pass it around in the middle of the park without ever threatening to decisively move forward. A few howls of irritation from the home fans. “Is a competent mid-table performance - like what you would expect to see from Wolves - the best we can hope for from Spurs?” wonders Ron Stack. “Total lack of ambition. Maybe Nuno is the perfect manager for Levy after all.”
16 min: Ronaldo threatens to break clear down the left, but is stopped unceremoniously by a fine, no-nonsense, sweeping tackle from Romero.
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14 min: Son whips a dangerous cross into the United area from the right, but there’s only Kane in the middle. He can’t quite get to the ball, and the visitors clear.
13 min: Shaw’s low fizzing cross from the left nearly finds Ronaldo, who was preparing to sweep home at the far post. Dier slides in to hook clear, just in time. Fred falls over his own feet, and claims a penalty, but nobody else really bothers.
11 min: Ronaldo nearly spins Dier on the right-hand edge of the Spurs box, but the ball sails through to Lloris. United on the front foot now after a slow, careful start.
10 min: Another purposeful dribble from the much-maligned Wan-Bissaka, who reaches the byline down the right but loops his cross over everyone in the box.
9 min: Then there’s another half-chance for Cavani, the ball crossed low to him at the end of Wan-Bissaka’s dribble down the inside-right channel. Cavani has a snapshot from 12 yards. Dier blocks.
8 min: Cavani meets a right-wing cross and flicks a gentle header across the face of the Spurs goal and out for a goal kick.
7 min: The corner’s a bit of a non-event, culminating in Lo Celso’s weak shank out for a goal kick. Meanwhile Aniket Chowdhury would like to take issue with Solskjaer’s per-match comments: “How can we utilise the full width when we don’t have any wide forwards, and our wing-backs are as useful as a lamp post? My guess is that Ole has insulated himself from reality, though I will give him credit for trying a new formation in a must-win match.”
6 min: A little bit of space for Son as he cuts inside from the right. He shoots speculatively. The ball deflects off Fred, wide right, and out for the game’s first corner.
5 min: Spurs are seeing more of the ball, and United are sitting back as they get used to a system they haven’t played for the best part of a year and a half.
3 min: De Gea dithers a little over a clearance, the ball at his feet. Kane nearly closes him down before the ball’s chipped away from danger. A slight betrayal of the keeper’s nerves, set jangling by last week’s antics?
2 min: A rip-roaring atmosphere at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Both teams start at 101mph. Nothing much to report as of yet, other than all the aforementioned passion.
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Manchester United get the ball rolling ... but only after everyone takes the knee. Warm applause greets the gesture. There’s no room for racism.
Before the big match, an emotional rendition of the Last Post. Players, managers and fans alike bow their heads in remembrance of the fallen. Rest in peace.
Here come the teams! Manchester United, in their famous red shirts, turn up first, and are met with pantomime boos from, one must hope and assume, the home fans. Then Tottenham rock up in their equally storied lilywhite. We’ll be off in a minute! “I always think Nuno Espírito Santo has the beatific face of a medieval Portuguese monk,” writes Justin Kavanagh. “Perhaps he’ll offer refuge should a banished baby-faced Viking assassin seek solace in a glass of port at around eight o’clock tonight.”
Tottenham are also playing, and here’s Nuno. “We have been up and down. Very close and far, but always with the idea of playing solid and compact football. We need to add many things. Better finishing, passing. We have a chance today.”
Sky Sports have got Roy Keane in for this one. Of course they have. On balance, it’s probably for the best he wasn’t around at Old Trafford last week; his instant capsule review would have broken the internet for a start. Although that might just have been delaying the inevitable, because he’s just described Maguire and Shaw’s performance last week as “an absolute disgrace to the club”; argued that Crystal Palace wouldn’t take Wan-Bissaka back if offered; and then, returning to the subject of Maguire, impersonated him in the style of a dithering, overly apologetic robot, which is a meme-in-waiting that’s probably already gathering momentum. He goes on: “I’m fed up with this chat after games of people apologising. Harry Maguire saying ‘we need to come together as a group’. No, you need to sort your game out. If you’re going to be the leader, get the basics right, do your own job. People saying he might not be fit. He gave away a goal against Leicester a couple of weeks ago that was nothing to do with fitness. It was just lack of professionalism, not doing his job properly.” And then, after a perfectly judged comic beat, he took it down a notch with “So I’m intrigued to see United today.” A bravura performance.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer speaks to Sky. “Enough talking, by myself and others. The only proof is on the pitch. We need to put things right, put on a good performance out there and hopefully we’ll get a result. You’ll see the spirit of Man United, the spirit of these players, they’re a tight-knit group. Performance is one thing, if you put a performance on, you can never control the result but of course we need a result as well. We need to prove to ourselves we’re a better team. Who’d want to live with no pressure? It’s a big game, but after the week we’ve had, it’s a pretty big one. We need to control the game with and without the ball, and use the full width of the pitch. We have Cristiano and Edinson on the pitch together, two players you want in the box together, so we need to provide them with crosses.”
Some big results in the 3pms affecting the top end of the Premier League. Chelsea romped to a 3-0 victory at Newcastle. Brighton came back from two goals down at Anfield to hold Liverpool 2-2, and could quite feasibly have won. Most surprisingly, Crystal Palace did a number on Manchester City at the Etihad for the second time in four seasons, coming away with all three points after a 2-0 win. Barry Glendenning has all the details, while David Wall has this to add: “I don’t know whether Manchester United should replace Solskjaer or not, but if they do wouldn’t it make sense to try to get Graham Potter from Brighton? In consecutive weeks he’s shown that he can adapt his team mid-game to match or dominate City and Liverpool (albeit not being able to turn around a three-goal deficit before those changes against City. Brighton have developed a clear, attractive style, and relatively quickly too. Plus I imagine he’d be easier to get than Brendan Rodgers from Leicester.”
Spurs make two changes to the team that lost at West Ham last weekend. Ben Davies and Giovani Lo Celso consign Sergio Reguilon and Tanguy Ndombele to the bench.
Manchester United also make two changes in the wake of that defeat by Liverpool. Raphael Varane and Edinson Cavani replace Marcus Rashford and Mason Greenwood as Ole Gunnar Solksjaer looks to shore things up with three centre-backs.
The teams
Tottenham Hotspur: Lloris, Emerson, Romero, Dier, Davies, Hojbjerg, Skipp, Lucas Moura, Lo Celso, Son, Kane.
Subs: Doherty, Reguilon, Sanchez, Rodon, Alli, Gollini, Bergwijn, Tanganga, Ndombele.
Manchester United: de Gea, Lindelof, Varane, Maguire, Wan Bissaka, McTominay, Fred, Shaw, Bruno Fernandes, Cavani, Ronaldo.
Subs: Bailly, Rashford, Greenwood, Lingard, Dalot, Sancho, Henderson, Matic, van de Beek.
Referee: Stuart Attwell (Warwickshire).
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Choose your own preamble
- Lads, it’s Tottenham.
- Lads, it’s Manchester United.
Kick off is at 5.30pm BST. It’s on!
