Manchester United showed some welcome grit against Ipswich but Patrick Dorgu earned pre-flop status after a nightmare 40 minutes at Old Trafford.
After a woefully out-of-form Chelsea put four past Southampton on Tuesday we wondered whether we had ever seen a worse Premier League team. The three points they need to usurp 2007/2008 Derby County looked an awfully long way off as Marc Cucurella scored from a laughably simple counter-attack.
As Patrick Dorgu slipped a through ball past Andre Onana for Jaden Philogene to tap the ball into an empty net at Old Trafford in the fourth minute we briefly thought again. Southampton did, after all, give United a pummelling for 80 minutes on their own patch just over a month ago.
Robbie Savage pointed the finger of blame at Onana on commentary, and we’re sure the vast majority of Manchester United fans will be of a similar mind having decided their goalkeeper isn’t fit for purpose (like the club staff) while waiting as long as they can to swing that scythe at Dorgu in the hope that one of their signings might just come good. But even if we’re to assume that Onana failed to give the wing-back a shout, which we don’t know, Dorgu’s awareness and apparent complete lack of peripheral vision is worthy of rebuke. He was right there, mate.
Just like Omari Hutchinson’s leg was right there. If you haven’t seen the challenge you’ll need a strong stomach to watch it back. Hutchinson is a very lucky boy to have walked away from a leg breaker that can’t be excused, not even by Dorgu’s inexperience which clearly played its part in his desperation to make up for his early error. There was no slip, he was out of control and left Darren England with no option but to send him packing after a VAR review.
United had rallied. Rasmus Hojlund ducked out of a header to give Own Goals a one-goal advantage over him in the Red Devils goalscoring charts – two for him, three for them – and Matthijs de Ligt pounced on some pinball to give the home side the lead. It wasn’t pretty, but there was some rare desire, grit and energy on show, both after Ipswich took that bombshell early lead and after being knocked by the visitors drawing level at half-time. We all expected the well-rehearsed Red Devils implosion.
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Philogene cut in off the right before swinging in a dangerous cross into The Corridor, and in stark contrast to his counterpart at the other end of the pitch, Liam Delap bullied De Ligt in the box and waved a leg at the ball as it went straight in at the far post. Cue further undeserved blame for easy target Onana.
But Maguire took advantage of some typically ropey Ipswich defending to put United back in front with a header from a corner early in the second half, and Ruben Amorim’s side defended manfully after that. Leny Yoro was particulalry impressive and looks as though he may finally be climbing out of the abyss of hopelessness that swallows all new signings at Old Trafford and is currently gorging on another victim in Dorgu.
He’s 20 and this was just his 61st senior appearance, with the step up from Lecce to Manchester United a far bigger one than the majority of his predecessors who have arrived and succumbed to the pressure of playing for one of the biggest clubs in the world, most of whom didn’t have to cope with the added stress of being expected to perform immediately in the worst iteration of that biggest club.
As Amorim said after the game, Dorgu “doesn’t want to harm anybody”, and the United boss will be hoping the three-game suspension allows the £25m January signing some time and breathing space to bed in ahead of the run-in, lest he be tarred by the same flop-brandishing brush as the last 427 arrivals to the grim and unpleasant land.
