United's 29-year low is only ever going to get worse

I'm not angry, I'm not frustrated, I'm not even upset or annoyed - Manchester United are in the worst mess I've ever seen yet all I can do is shake my head and look on in apathy. United's 3-1 defeat at West Ham was our third in seven games - seven games in which we've cobbled together 10 measly points to slide into the bottom half of the table with arguably the kindest-looking opening fixtures a United side has had in living memory. It's our worst start for 29 years - worse even than it was under David Moyes, whom had the same horrible early season form but with more goals scored and a better goal difference. In the Scot's defence, he had to face Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester City early on - this time around, only Spurs have presented our biggest hurdle. Leicester, Brighton, Burnley, Watford, West Ham and Wolves - with all due respect, these should be sides that should never even have a prayer against a club with the resources and financial clout of Manchester United. It looked as though we had turned a corner after three successive away wins, but yet nothing could be further from the truth - those wins merely served to paper over the multitude of cracks permeating through the club - cracks that have left a gaping chasm in the crumbling Old Trafford facade that look impossible to fix.

It's not so much even the results, it's the manner of United's meek surrenders on a weekly basis. An absolute shambles on repeat - board, manager, players and owners at loggerheads, a squad ripped apart by infighting and dressing room toxicity and players either not giving their all or simply not good enough. The few players that are good enough have been alienated by Jose Mourinho, there are no discernible tactics, the team is chopped and changed every week and the most successful manager of his generation looks a man who has lost all semblance of the plot. Three years on from his appointment and the club are in even worse a mess than we were when he took over. The 3-1 defeat at West Ham felt like the end, the ugly parting of the ways and the point of no return for the manager, but it won't be: to sack Mourinho now would fly in the face of the theory of how things are done under this current regime, this slapstick, poisonous. rotten-to-the core Glazer ownership. While the reclusive American family, who never talk to the media about United, can be accused of many things, to their credit being being knee-jerk is not one of them. Moyes was sacked only after Champions League qualification became impossible, and the same happened with Louis van Gaal. Despite a run of nine games without a win at the turn of year in 2015, the Dutchman was only dismissed at the end of the season when United had finished fifth.

As is usual after a result such as yesterday, there have been calls for Mourinho's sacking, but nothing has come from inside the club and it seems likely the Glazers will hold fire when it comes to pulling the trigger on Mourinho. They'll wait, but Mourinho has never recovered from a slump such as this, and it looks like there's no way out. Manchester United are in crisis and a club in complete disarray.

Jose Mourinho's refusal to change could prove costly

Jose Mourinho is still more concerned about what the opposition can do to Manchester United rather than what United can do to the opposition. That underdog mentality was not befitting the club under the dismal David Moyes and it isn't under a two-time Champions League winner. Sir Alex Ferguson's most famous and succinct team talk was 'Lads, it's Tottenham.' Jose, it's West Ham.


A West Ham who had lost their first four Premier League matches, sieved 11 in six and play in maybe the most mutinous stadium in the top flight. Yet Mourinho surreally chose to start three central defenders and that early team news rumour of Scott McTominay, which felt like a bizarre conspiracy, turned out to be true. It took Felipe Anderson five minutes to capitalise on the Scot's hesitancy and flick past David de Gea.
Mourinho will never change. Lost amid the positivity at the start of the month was how he had tailored the team to combat the battering ram Sam Wood. Burnley were ideal opponents yet a resurgent West Ham smelt fear and punished Mourinho's conservative approach. It was an affront to United's ethos and Mourinho's management is developing Moyesian and Louis van Gaal traits.

 This latest debacle is on the manager and United have become a dreary team to watch. United have now lost as many league games as they had after Christmas last season.

Nobody seriously expected them to credibly challenge for the championship and Mourinho may have to revise his prediction that United would know by the end of November whether they could supplant City. That is a pipe dream and the growing expectation is they will drop out of the top two, at least.
It was quite some achievement from Mourinho to make the demotion of Alexis Sanchez look negative. McTominay, Chris Smalling and Victor Lindelof were behind the pedestrian Nemanja Matic and cumbersome Marouane Fellaini, supplemented by the puerile Paul Pogba. Those under six foot need not apply.

Mourinho's preference for power players is outdated. Already he appears uncertain about the £52million Fred and his first defensive signing, Eric Bailly, was overlooked in favour of auxiliary option McTominay. For a manager who justifiably lamented a lack of backing in the summer window, Mourinho is doing himself no favours.
In a soulless stadium United were soulless on an apathetic and pathetic afternoon that was so numbing their usually raucous away following struggled to raise the volume. Many walked out before half-time, goaded with waves and 'cheerios' from the cocky Cockneys. Mourinho said on Friday 'I expect to win' yet few expected that when the team dropped. The surfeit of steel allowed the silk of Anderson, Marko Arnautovic and Andriy Yarmolenko to exploit United's pedestrian plodders.

 That bold prediction set Mourinho up for a humiliating fall against a side he had not previously lost against with United. Quite what he saw in training to suggest United could confidently overcome a team which kept Chelsea at bay the previous week is anyone's guess and the only threat of mutiny inside West Ham's adopted home came from those United supporters who hollered 'Attack, attack, attack' in the 52nd minute. It was certainly an offensive performance.


 The season is in danger of developing into one of United vying for Champions League or Europa League qualification. That Arsenal apathy is humiliating enough, yet the United board were bold enough to think they could get away with vetoing some of Mourinho's summer targets while securing Champions League football for next season. Only Mourinho presided over a sixth-place finish in his first term and was 16th at the time of his 2015 dismissal by Chelsea.

 The days when he could be trusted to always clinch a top four berth are long gone. Out of the traditional top six clubs, United are the only one currently outside that mini league. United are 11 points adrift of Liverpool and have not been this far off the summit in the post-Ferguson era after seven games.

 Romelu Lukaku's knack for costly cock-ups continued in London as he struck the post from Ashley Young's centre in the 23rd minute and two minutes before the interval Andriy Yarmolenko turned and shimmied away from Nemanja Matic. He struck speculatively, the ball ricocheted off the onrushing Victor Lindelof and looped into De Gea's net.


A sobering Saturday started developing parallels with January's capital calamity at Tottenham when Pogba's number flashed up on the fourth official's board with 20 minutes left. The Frenchman petulantly gave a thumbs up to the bench and smiled broadly as he took his seat seconds before the returning Marcus Rashford crowned his comeback with an adroit backheel. Hope sprung for all of three minutes; a bus could have driven through the gap which had widened between McTominay and Smalling and Arnautovic poked the ball past De Gea.
Mourinho gestured angrily at the United bench and engaged in an animated conversation with coach Kieran McKenna. "You're getting sacked in the morning," crowed the West Ham fans. He had every right to be concerned about what the opposition were doing.

Jose Mourinho is a winner but his time is up

All the time Jose Mourinho is Manchester United manager, I will back him and believe in him but this cannot go on. Something has to change - so abject, so apathetic and so anodyne was our performance at the London Stadium that it's becoming increasingly clear that the 'something' might have to be the manager. I believe there is a hierarchy of blame - Mourinho is not 100% to blame for the plethora of problems permeating through the club from top to bottom, and nor is he not to blame at all.
The board are useless, and a good few of these United players aren't good enough but you can't sack an entire squad and - unless anyone has a spare 400 million knocking around anywhere - Ed Woodward and his merry band of men aren't going anywhere either. That leaves only one option - Jose Mourinho has to go. It's a situation that now feels like a matter of when and not if. I'm not one for sacking managers with abandon, but United are broken, battered, a mess and a club on their knees. Mourinho has appeared a man on the brink for some time and doesn't look capable of turning this around. When the rot sets in, he never recovers, he never comes through a bad patch of form and this looks no different.

I'm not sure what the answer is but I do know this: it certainly is not Jose Mourinho. The guy's a winner, his record and career cannot be argued with, but he was never really the right fit for a Man Utd team that needed stability. Two and a bit years into his Old Trafford reign, and Mourinho still doesn't have a clue what his best XI or, indeed, even what his best formation, should be.
It's impossible to say whether the players remain fully behind the boss or not - we can't know that for certain - but the body language and attitude at West Ham was shocking, this ragtag collection of mismatched, discombobulated pieces looked like a side at odds with themselves. Bereft of belief and confidence, Manchester United are mentally weak and failed to even manage the basics at the London Stadium. We struggled to string two passes together, players were jogging rather than sprinting, throwing arms up in frustration rather than attempting to win the ball back, there was no organisation, communication or movement and on one occasion Ashley Young gave the ball straight to Declan Rice from our own corner. The team fell to pieces with fear at the first sign of a West Ham foray, and from the moment Felipe Anderson scored, we never looked like turning things around.

A lack of quality can be excused but what I - and many others - have issues with is not so much the results themselves, but the manner in which United have capitulated. For players to go out and not give 100% in criminal, unacceptable and inexcusable at any level of football, but the fight, hunger and desire to win is just not there in this team.
Too many players aren't giving their all and aren't working hard enough for the shirt. Too many players don't seem interested in fighting for the club, their manager and us fans - disgraceful for any professional player, never mind one at Manchester United. Players would've run through brick walls for Sir Alex under the leadership of Roy Keane and Bryan Robson and even the mere thought of a half arsed attitude in any game would have resulted in a one way ticket out of Old Trafford. How times have changed. It's more evidence - if it were needed - that's something is massively wrong at the club.
Not only that, but United's game management was non-existent as one Mark Noble through pass cut us wide open to put Marko Arnautovic in for 3-1 moments after Marcus Rashford had scored to restore a faint modicum of hope.

Mourinho's team selection, formation and system were simply baffling. I couldn't tell you what the tactics were, what we were trying to do or how we were trying to play. It was quite some achievement from Mourinho to make the demotion of Alexis Sanchez look negative. McTominay, Chris Smalling and Victor Lindelof were behind the pedestrian Nemanja Matic and cumbersome Marouane Fellaini, supplemented by the puerile Paul Pogba in what was the biggest football team ever known to man. Those under six foot need not apply. McTominay has never played in defence in his life and yet, for some inexplicable reason, he was picked ahead of Eric Bailly - an actual, proper, centre-half, whom it's clear Mourinho does not like or trust. Alexis Sanchez and Jesse Lingard were left out completely. There was a complete lack of identity, no clear style, a messy and disjointed system with a back five and three defensive midfielders, and round pegs repeatedly rammed into square holes.

Match report: West Ham United 3-1 United

Manuel Pellegrini's improving Hammers inflicted a third league defeat of the season on a listless and outclassed United side to pile more misery on beleaguered boss Jose Mourinho.
After the Carabao Cup KO at the hands of Frank Lampard's Derby, we were at least expecting a strong reaction from the Reds, but in truth so fragile and bereft of even the basics is this Reds side that - from the moment Felipe Anderson hit his first West Ham goal in the fifth minute to get his side off and running - the result never looked in doubt.
This is United's worst league start in 29 years with a paltry tally of ten points from seven games,  the same as we managed during the David Moyes season in 2013-14, only this time offset by a negative goal difference of -2. This was just as bad - if not even worse - as anything we saw under the Scot. For some reason only he knows, Scott McTominay came in for his first start of the season as part of a back three, with an actual central defender, Eric Bailly left on the bench with Alexis Sanchez and Jesse Lingard left out completely.

The Hammers - with only one win in 19 league games coming into this one - sensed that United were there for the taking and were ahead inside five minutes through club record signing Anderson, whom cleverly back-heeled home from Pablo Zabaleta's cross despite both players appearing to be offside.

Romelu Lukaku headed off an upright but the hosts moved 2-0 in front just shy of the interval in fortuitous fashion through another new signing, Andriy Yarmolenko, as the Ukranian's shot cannoned off the backpedalling Victor Lindelof and looped in over the stranded David de Gea.

Arnautovic - a constant menace throughout - almost put the result beyond doubt when he flashed over the bar on the counter attack, but Mourinho soon turned to Marcus Rashford and the young striker was sent on in an ultimately futile attempt to swing the tie back in United's favour.
Lukasz Fabianski saved superbly from a trademark Marouane Fellaini header, and Anderson went close at the other end after another rapid West Ham counter attack.
Rashford restored a glimmer of hope for the Reds when he halved the deficit with an acrobatic backheeled finish from a Luke Shaw corner, on 71 minutes, to seemingly set up a frantic finale.

Just when it looked as though United had finally found a foothold,  game management went out the window and Arnautovic capped his superb individual performance with a deserved goal. Mark Noble's beautifully weighted slide rule pass carved United's unconvincing and flat footed defence wide open, and Arnautovic raced through to put the ball beyond the advancing De Gea from close range.

Overall team performance: 2/10
United Faithful Man of the Match: Marcus Rashford. Came on as a sub but the only player whom looked like he cared.

Match preview: West Ham v Man Utd

At the end of a turbulent week that only further added to the club and Jose Mourinho's woes, United make the trip to east London to meet a familiar foe and a lowly but improving West Ham side.

Coming hot on the heels of the Carabao Cup KO to Frank Lampard's Derby, and with Mourinho locked in an egotistical battle with star man Paul Pogba, United's season has quickly unravelled.
Despite being stripped of the vice captaincy, Pogba will start at the London Stadium with Marcus Rashford also available again after suspension. Sergio Romero is suspended so Lee Grant, fresh from his unexpected competitive United debut, will take the Argentinian's place on the bench as cover for David de Gea. Marcos Rojo is the Reds only injury-enforced absentee with the Reds likely to make wholesale changes from Tuesday night.
With Rashford returning from his suspension, Mourinho has a chance to throw a surprise in the works. He could join Romelu Lukaku up top by replacing the struggling Alexis Sanchez, who has now gone 831 minutes without scoring a Premier League goal, and Anthony Martial - the only player to emerge from the Derby debacle with any credit - could also be in contention.

After three successive away wins at Burnley, Watford and Young Boys, the Reds face arguably their toughest test on the road so far in the shape of former City manager Manuel Pellegrini's West Ham side. The Hammers spent big and spent well following his appointment, with Jack Wilshere, Felipe Anderson, Andriy Yarmolenko and Lukasz Fabianski among the new faces added to a new look squad. It was a tough start for the east End side, as despite the vast influx of talent, four successive defeats left them bottom of the table and asked early questions of the Chilean. There are signs that they are on an upward trajectory now though, having won at Everton and held in-form Chelsea to a draw before their biggest win in 35 years in midweek - an 8-0 Carabao Cup tonking of League Two basement boys Macclesfield Town.
Talismanic figurehead Marko Arnautovic missed that match, but the tricky Austrian could return from his knee injury in time for the visit of Mourinho's United. Carles Sanchez also picked up a knock against Macclesfield, and he faces a late fitness test.

Despite the fact Pogba will face the Hammers, Mourinho warned the World Cup winner that no one is bigger than our club, and said: "
"Tomorrow he plays. He is a player like the others, no player is bigger than the club. If I am happy with his work he plays, if I am not he doesn't play. I am really happy with his work this week. He trained really well. The team needs good players. He is a good player,
"The training session was open; you had some cameras with some potential to get some of the words. Maybe you have to change that potential if you want to know everything that is said, because I am not going to comment.
"Nobody trained better than Paul on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday – nobody trained better than him. Tomorrow he plays, so end of the story."

 Man Utd's visit to the London Stadium - where West Ham are without a league win so far this season - is live on BT Sport and is the lunchtime kick off in the Premier League

 Form guide: West Ham L L L W D W Man Utd L W W W D D
Match odds: West Ham 7/2 Draw 13/5 Man Utd 17/20
Referee: Michael Oliver

Why I'm backing Jose Mourinho in egotistical battle of wits

It's the story from which there can be no escape. Whether you're a Manchester United fan or not, the tense, tightrope tug of war between manager Jose Mourinho and star man Paul Pogba is all over the papers and the talk of the town at every turn. It's the dominant topic of fans up and down the country as the two men stubbornly lock horns in an egotistical battle of wits. Manchester United need both to show what they're made of, to ride to our rescue amidst the wreckage of a rapidly nosediving season, but instead it's become a circus, a soap opera, a drama in which the two main characters are trying to get the better of each other. The situation has become so desperate that there's been talk of a divide in the United dressing room, with some of the squad's younger members siding with Pogba and others firmly behind the stance adopted by Mourinho. At times like this, we need everyone pulling together, we need to be United more than we have ever been - board, manager, coaches, players and just about anyone of a Red perusasion. Instead, there's a destructive fault line running right through the core of Manchester United and the club feels more divided than ever. This is a club built on unity. The clue may even be in our name.

In the last few days, United have been knocked out of the Carabao Cup on penalties to Frank Lampard's Championship Derby County, Pogba has been stripped of the vice captaincy for publicly criticising his boss, and their tense stand off is no nearer to being resolved. The entire Old Trafford facade is crumbling before our eyes and no one seems accountable to anyone anymore.
So where do I stand on the issue? I may not agree with everything Jose says or does, but I'm firmly behind him and with him all the way on this. Whether Pogba's comments after the Wolves tie were right, wrong, or somewhere in between, it's the manner in which he said it that's the problem - you simply cannot criticise your manager in public. In what other industry in any other walk of life is it acceptable to undermine your boss with the world a witness - the moment you do that, you're questioning his authority, and in doing so Pogba clearly thinks he's bigger than Mourinho and therefore, the club.
Stripping Pogba of the vice - captaincy was absolutely the right thing to do, it was Jose's way of attempting to wrestle back a modicum of control and, in this era where player power can and has brought down managers - including Mourinho - control is one thing that can't be relinquished.

Sir Alex Ferguson, of course, was no stranger to player bust ups - from Paul McGrath to Ruud van Nistelrooy via Beckham, Keane and Ince to name but five. But, whenever tensions did run high and things spilled over, he made damned sure that the situation didn't linger, didn't affect the dynamic in the team and absolutely always made sure that the argument never infilitrated into the prying eyes of the public beyond the four walls of Carrington or Old Trafford. Roy Keane left the club after a bitter argument with Ferguson when he tried to undermine him, but it was dealt with professionally and privately.
Where's Ed Woodward in all this - the United CEO is keeping an unusually low profile as his two star assets do battle. Woodward may feel it would be a conflict of his interests to get involved in the feud, but you get the feeling that surely he would back Mourinho if it came to the crunch and he had to decide between the two. Pogba is huge commercially for the club but it would be a slippery slope and a very dangerous precedent to set if the club's hierarchy vouch for player ahead of manager - that really would prove that player power is stronger than ever.

We're a mess and things are very wrong at my beloved club

All is not well in the United camp, I don't even know what to believe anymore and I've given up trying to make sense of the situation - the complete and utter mess as Manchester United lie in a fractured heap of rubble having crashed and burned out of contention of two competitions out of four before the season is even two months old. The Carabao Cup is admittedly a second-rate competition but silverware is silverware and in these troubled times where sustained success is scarce, it's any port in a storm. Before the end of September, United have been knocked out of a competition that represented our best chance of a trophy by division-lower Derby and their rookie boss Frank Lampard. In a season that appeared make or break for the club, the players and manager, we've  hit a new low and things won't get better any time soon. Out of the League Cup and languishing in seventh place after a meagre six league ties, eight points off the dippers at the top - any mometum, any tangible optimism built up after those three successive away wins - have been swept away just as quickly in the midst of a campaign that is sinking fast.

The entire world and anyone who's not a United fan is laughing at us, our manager and star player are at loggerheads and at a seemingly unbreachable impasse, the players have given up the ghost, the manager seems powerless to prevent the plethora of problems and the board are detached, distant and haven't a clue. Ed Woodward remains a man without a plan, as talks of a director of football have, as usual with the Glazer puppet, hit a snag as a result of his dithering. The board has different ambitions from the manager, he has different ideas than what we want as fans, the club is a shambolic mess in a seemingly irreversible downward spiral with a divisive fault line running directly through the middle of the club affecting the dynamic both off the field and on it. There's an argument to say that, five years on, this is as bad as things have been since the ill-fated ten months of the David Moyes experiment. I wouldn't disagree.

To add to all that, we're having to witness the unpalatable stuff of nightmares as Liverpool - early Premier League pacesetters and with a 100% record - have thrown down the gauntlet as early league title favourites, with Pep Guardiola's champions from across town in hot pursuit. Only another eight months of the season left then we can put an end to this torture.

That's before we even get to the heart of the issue - the atmosphere around the club, the results and, more pointedly, the way in which we've been outmuscled, outfought and outmanouevred by opponents that hardly read like a who's who of world football's heavweights: from the brutality of defeat at Brighton, to the whimper of Wolves, via the cataclysmic implosion against Spurs and the debacle of Derby - United's season has lurched from the pathetic to the predictable. We've had our time, it's been fun, but things have changed and it's time to accept it for what it is. We're a laughing stock, it's not nice to stomach but we have to front up to the schadenfraude and accept it for what it is.

I don't know what the answer is but it's horrible and heartbreaking to see the club is such a mess. I'm just going to try and enjoy and endure the ride until, one way or another, things come to a head.