scrolled beneath his beard-line, Keane paused. Can I say that he looked tired? That behind his eyes, the great anti-bluffer knew that he too was in danger of lapsing into muscle memory and learned response.He said that United’s players basically gave up
right now is how unhappy people are about Manchester United. The most powerful element, the only real energy at the club, is that apparently bottomless well of dismay.Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian There are two things worth saying about this. First, no useful purpose is served here. This is not good for the Premier League, or good for how we consume this thing. There is a general principle that grandiose failure is more interesting than efficient success. Stories about a non-tortured genius or unflawed heroes rarely catch the imagination.Hence Manchester City winning is harder to describe in an interesting way than Manchester United losing.
Carelessly run from the top, United have become a flaccid on-field entity, all weird succession and disjointed recruitment, with no obvious winning method among the many tiers of management blokes currently filling the gap between coach and board. At the end of which Wan-Bissaka is trying to defend against Phil Foden and João Cancelo, who are simply better players with a better plan. And Harry Maguire stands accused once again of being somehow deliberately, consciously bad.