This Saturday was a day of firsts for Manchester United and all of them were bad as they fell at home 2-1 to Crystal Palace. Marcus Rashford missed his first penalty kick, for club or country today. United suffered their first loss at the hands of Palace in the Premier League era.
The last time the south London club beat the Old Trafford giants was way back in 1991. This defeat means that United have only three wins in their last 15 matches across all competitions. The setback is made even worse when you realize just how wasteful United were in this one. They controlled possession 71%-29% and outshot the Eagles 22-5.
“We have dominated the game but we have not controlled it,” United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer said.
“We should have dealt with the last five minutes better. We defended poorly at times today and it cost us. Sometimes you do not find that end product and that happened today. We did not test their keeper enough. It cost us dearly today.”
And David de Gea made a very uncharacteristic flub on Patrick Van Aanholt’s game winner. Yes, United let this one get away from them and you have plenty of individuals that are worthy of blame. The attack in particular, beyond just Rashford, but also Anthony Martial and Jesse Lingard, left a whole lot to be desired.
RaShForD ShOUld’Ve TaKeN iT pic.twitter.com/ju7iYKiDgY
— GOAL (@goal) August 24, 2019
Given all the chaos and controversy from last week, in the wake of Paul Pogba’s PK miss, where does United go now when it comes to the spot kicks?
How do you move forward next in a situation that has gotten really ugly? What will the reaction to Rashford be, and will that reaction verify the idea that there’s an anti-Pogba double standard in the media? We’ll just have to wait and watch and see.
In the meantime, here’s what Marcus Rashford told the BBC after the game:
https://twitter.com/TheSporTalk/status/1165288140539617280
“Two games, two missed penalties. It’s part and parcel of it. Sometimes it happens. I have missed a few myself. If we score them it’s a different story. If we keep putting ourselves in those positions we will get more penalties and we will score. It is just one of those things. We trust them to score again.”
United take on Southampton next weekend, in the final match before the first international break.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” regularly appears on WGN CLTV and co-hosts the “Let’s Get Weird, Sports” podcast on SB Nation.
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