John Aldridge has spoken on Manchester United’s demise in part two of his weekly Liverpool column
Away from Anfield, it was another bad weekend for our rivals Manchester United.
They have now lost half of their opening ten Premier League games and have fallen off a cliff. I couldn’t see them getting anywhere near Manchester City on Sunday, and so it proved at Old Trafford.
There are times when you want certain teams to get a result and a draw would have suited us better, but United were miles short of it and never looked like scoring. They are struggling big time. From a Liverpool point of view, there is a wry smile on my face.
Tottenham keep on going, will they blow up? Arsenal look strong. But it comes back to City again. You have to hope they can mess up further down the line to give someone else a chance. That’s the only way another team is going to finish above them.
One thing that is certain is Erik Ten Hag’s honeymoon period is well and truly over. He famously claimed during his opening press conference that “all eras come to an end”, in reference to the dominance of Manchester City and Liverpool in recent years. If you come out with a statement like that, you simply have to back it up.
Jurgen Klopp has shown him how to manage. Klopp has transformed Liverpool when we looked down and out last season and people were saying his time was up and a fresh face was needed.
Ten Hag has not come close to rebuilding United, they’ve actually gone backwards again. At one point we were thinking Ten Hag was going to be the man to turn it around, but it doesn’t look like that will be the case. I hope he stays there for a long time.
In terms of what the problems are at United, where do you start? Bruno Fernandes being the club captain sums up everything that is wrong at that club. He is the opposite of a role model.
Fernandes spends the whole game running at the referee and not concentrating on his own game. Every decision, he is complaining about and trying to sway the minds of the officials.
If I was a referee, I would send him off after ten minutes. There is always a time when you will end up arguing over a decision, but he is in their ears every two minutes! It’s ridiculous.
How he can be a captain is beyond me. United have had some great leaders over the years, none more so than the late Sir Bobby Charlton.
Charlton has had to watch Fernandes, who is miles off being a captain of any side – let alone Manchester United. Fernandes is a very good player, don’t get me wrong, but a captain? You must be joking. It was a laughable decision to give him such responsibility.
