Bottom of the table Aston Villa, a club in turmoil, players who have no desire to play for the club, an embarrassment of a team. Surely a chance for Manchester United to show us what they can do and entertain the fans for once? Nope, it was the complete opposite of that with the usual snooze fest served up by Louis van Gaal’s team with the usual 60% possession and 3 shots on target. It was a performance that was more damning of the Louis van Gaal era than the 3-0 hammering at White Heart Lane the week before.
Aston Villa are a team with the worst defense in the league who have been beaten 6-0 at home by Liverpool and 5-0 at home by Chelsea. Both teams are below Manchester United in the league so you would expect United to put in a similar performance especially at Old Trafford. Louis van Gaal’s team selection screamed negative with the usual 2 defensive midfielders deployed one of which was Marouane Fellaini who passes the ball at the pace of a snail putting United at an immediate disadvantage in terms on an attacking threat. It was very disappointing that the players didn’t even try to score a few goals against Aston Villa who were there for the taking. It was incredible to see the the majority of the team show no attacking intent with only Memphis and Marcus Rashford trying to score some goals and excite the crowd. You would think United were playing Real Madrid not Aston Villa the way van Gaal set the team up to be so cautious. But were we surprised? This is a manager who raved about his teams defensive performance against League 1 Sheffield United at Old Trafford.
The most disappointing and frankly disgraceful thing about the Manchester United performance was the fact Aston Villa looked half decent at Old Trafford and should have come away with a point. Even worse than that was the fact they created more chances than United and looked the better team going forward. What is that all about! This is the worst team in the league and one of the worst Premier League teams in recent times and Manchester United were outplayed by them in an attacking sense. I have no idea how Louis van Gaal and his team managed to stoop to such a low and to top it all off the United players were trying to time waste! Against Aston Villa for goodness sake! The mind boggles it really does.
The final whistle was greeted by a stunned silence from the Manchester United fans who were in disbelief as to what they had witnessed. If United had drawn that game there would have been boos for sure. It would have been justified to boo after the win in all honesty after that pathetic performance. It was not acceptable at all after the fans pay a fortune to watch a match to be entertained and enjoy themselves not be bored rigid and sent to sleep. The enjoyment has been sucked out of Manchester United by this manager who has literally turned Old Trafford into the theater of dreams.
