How come Manchester United aren’t reaching their potential? All that high-priced talent and galactico level individual quality, yet they are not even in the top four, let alone the title race. Languishing in seventh place, Interim Manager Ralf Rangnick is admittedly still searching for an identity in his side.
What’s lacking in this squad- motivation, ambition, intensity, chemistry? Well, maybe all of it, at least if we read into the comments of first choice left back Luke Shaw. After a shock 1-0 home loss to Wolverhampton Wanderers yesterday, the first league win for Wolves at Old Trafford since 1980, the Englishman made some eye-brow raising comments.
Shaw basically said the team was lacking in togetherness, intensity on the pitch and motivation.
“We have to put more pressure on them, we have to have intensity. Us players, we have been here a long time, maybe tonight we struggled, I didn’t think we were all there together. You look at the players we have, we have unbelievable quality but sometimes quality is not enough,” Luke Shaw said to Sky Sports.
“It was not good enough, we really struggled, we couldn’t get hold of the ball and when we didn’t have the ball we weren’t aggressive enough. We didn’t put them under any pressure,” the England full-back added.
Turns out the problem wasn’t just manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. Right now, United just don’t look like a team that is is really going to challenge for anything this season. Luke Shaw continued:
“It maybe looked like an easy game for them. A disappointing performance and result. We didn’t have many options on the ball and we weren’t on the front foot.
“We need to bring the intensity and more motivation. Inside the dressing room, we know what we want but out on the pitch we need to give 100%. To win these types of games we all need to be 100% committed. It is tough and disappointing.”
Yesterday’s result felt like a season-ending kind of disappointment, and it certainly will come to that, unless the loss somehow serves as a major and immediate wake-up call.
Paul M. Banks is the owner/manager of The Bank (TheSportsBank.Net) and author of “Transatlantic Passage: How the English Premier League Redefined Soccer in America,” as well as “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry.”
He has regularly appeared in WGN, Sports Illustrated and the Chicago Tribune, and co-hosts the After Extra Time podcast. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram.