Manchester United vs QPR is a fixture which evokes memories of many great games of the past, with players like Rodney Marsh looming large in those memories.
QPR were always a team that played with style, like West Ham United, a tradition of passing football and players who knew how to entertain.
Presently, winless in the Premier League, United played them at their lowest ebb. The sacking of one of our own, Mark Hughes clears the seat for Harry Redknapp, the Arthur Daley of managers, who buys and sells, works for some shady people, watched by the Inland Revenue and yet remains a mysterious figure. Will this 65 year old save the day?
Hughes remains an enigma in a different way. We love him despite him being Manchester City’s manager, sacked for doing no wrong he then left Fulham under circumstances that remain unexplained and the recent dreaded vote of confidence proved as terminal as expected as soon as his boss returned from the Austin Grand Prix I also attended.
Hughes was a United player we admired, strong, tenacious, powerful in the volley and the winner of the UEFA Cup in its previous guise when his goals against Barcelona gave us a trophy that had eluded us. He played in the Eric Cantona team, a team that restored the glory years at Old Trafford and which will always be held in the highest esteem.
Alongside Steve Coppell, Steve Bruce and Roy Keane he went into management with the highest sense of potential, and yet like his former colleagues he has disappointed. We wish him well but perhaps his star is now in the decadency, as continual failure and job swopping adds up to someone who just doesn’t deliver stability and success. Sir Alex Ferguson has yet to produce a player who goes on to management success.
But pity has no place in football, sentiment is short lived and so QPR arrived to meet a United team who hadn’t scored in the last 2 games, defeated twice, in Norwich City and by Galatasaray in Istanbul, by teams who I could argue are at the same level as QPR.
Manchester United’s best XI is pretty clear from those 2 games, and doesn’t contain Anders Lindagard, Alexander Buttner, Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs or Javier Hernandez. It might now contain Tom Cleverley, Anderson and Phil Jones though. But we saw a midfield that nobody could have predicted. Ashley Young on the right and Danny Welbeck left with Darren Fletcher and Scholes in the centre.
Given that United have now gone 10 games without a clean sheet, one of their worst runs in Premier League history, this was not the team set up to right the wrongs of the last week. Some 45 minutes in and the pathetic performance was clear to see, almost no pace in the game, few shots and regular scares from a mediocre QPR who regularly ripped open our heart, but failed to find the killer pass.
Just because Sir Alex now has a statue, our defensive unit have no need to emulate him.
If the hair dryer is still in him, he must have used it, this was not the United we know and love. Very poor. Only Rafael and Patrice Evra were competent going forward and in doing so they found the wingers lacking in defensive duties as Young and Welbeck did not track back.
Given that before buying Nick Powell our last central midfielder purchase was Owen Hargreaves in 2007, the need for new players there was glaring.
QPR deservedly scored causing Sir Alrx to remove the ineffectual Young, the ageing Scholes, move Wayne Rooney out to a place on the left where his poor passing destroyed less moves and Welbeck to the right.
We replied with 3 goals that papered over the cracks of a very poor performance, and yet still allowed QPR plenty of chances at our goal.
This was a United team which proves it needs Antonio Valencia and Michael Carrick on the field. Defensively very poor, the midfield needs glaring.
Young was probably the worst player on the field, Scholes was close behind him.
Our defensive unit is stretched very easily, and the lack of attacking width against 4 centre-backs for QPR, was abysmal.
But yet again we won. We remain at the top of the league, we are in the last 16 of the Champions League and a transfer window approaches.
We need players; we need two central midfielders, one defensive and one creative.
It’s time to open up the wallet and buy big. This United are lucky to be where they are and our luck won’t hold all season.
By Steve Burrows CBE @ifollowsteve
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