Maguire header beats Leicester as Dorgu debuts (on the right!)
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This is Talk The Devils, the athletics podcast dedicated to Manchester United. We are here at just gone eight o'clock on Sunday evening to reflect on Manchester United making it through to the next round of the FA Cup with that stoppage time winner yet again at Old Trafford on Friday.

on Friday against Leicester City. We'll talk about all the details of that, including a very controversial in the end debut for Patrick Dorgue, at least in your opinions and your questions that you've sent in for us. And we won't look ahead to a midweek game, so we'll ask the question what exactly we're going to do with ourselves today.

We'll answer more of your questions actually. That's going to be another topic for today. Lots of them have come in, so thank you very much for those and we'll get through as many as we can once more. I've got two men alongside me. No Laurie tonight, but there is Andy Mitten and Karl Anka. Good evening, gentlemen. Good evening, Ian. Evening. You okay? Yeah, I've just about de-thawed from what was a freezing night at Old Trafford. Yeah, wasn't the best again, was it? We'll definitely talk about all those different aspects about it, but there's only one place to start.

Why did Ruben Amarin buy a left wing back and play him at right wing back and then take him off at half time, Carl? Oh, honestly. Now, I apologise because once the press conference was done and we all started typing up our notes and things, it did dawn on us in the press room that no one asked why he subbed Dorko off at half time. Did they not? No, no, the question didn't come up. It was a real sort of type, type, type. Wait, no one asked him why he subbed him. I went, no, no, we didn't. Oh, never mind.

So we'll have to get to that at a later date. Now, it's during the warm-up that we first see Dorgu

playing on the right hand side of the fence and there's a lot of chat going hang on he's surely not going to do this well I was in our WhatsApp channel saying I'm pretty sure I've seen them in the warm up change positions when they've been lining up for set pieces so maybe this is just a set piece thing because I'd only seen a still on social media I think of the warm up at that point this happens with United every two or three months you know Masraoui playing as the 10 surely not or

or something else or other. Kobi Meynu playing as the nine. Yeah, that was last week. Yeah, yeah. So five minutes into the game. Yep, Dorgou's playing, well, not even five minutes. From the kickoff, he stood outside the center circle on the right-hand side as the team overloads to the left. You're going, is that just a set piece routine as the ball goes to Anana? But no, he plays there on the right wing back. He's got Yoro behind him and he's got Ahmad ahead of him. And within 10 minutes, I've noticed that Amarin is talking to Dorgou a lot. A lot. A lot.

gesturing to him when he wants him to come out wide. He's gesturing to him when he wants him to push into more... to invert. He's gesturing when he wants to defend in a narrow position. So I did tweet after 15 minutes, maybe this is why he's playing on the right-hand side. That maybe...

is going to play on the right wing because he needs because Amarin wants him to be closer to him for the first half and the second half they might swap over and Dorgi plays on the left wing back well he was a lot closer to him in the second half actually yeah just a bit so I was mighty surprised that you made the swap for Garnaccio at half time I did ask Amarin about this

instruction throughout the first half and Amir said it wasn't intentional it wasn't I'm going to play him on the right because I want to talk to him on the dugout but he did notice throughout that first half there were some gaps with Luke Thomas and he thought just by talking to Dorgut a lot that would be helpful he said I want to coach him through he also mentioned that Dorgut only had three training sessions with United at this point in time so

Why has he played on the right wing? Well, Amarin told us all to check Wyscout because Dorgus played on the right-hand side before. And I really want to say this. I have checked Wyscout. I was in the tactics truck for two days checking Wyscout. Dorgus has played far more games on the left-hand side of defence or left wing, however you want to call it, than he has played on the right wing or right side of defence. I know there's probably someone listening to this podcast going, yes, but Amarin has form for playing

on their wrong foot at Sporting. So you're going to bring up Quenda. Thank you very much. Or Quenda. Quenda or Quenda is left-footed and has played at right wing back for Sporting, but very much towards the end of Amring's project at Sporting when this Sporting project was sorted in so many other aspects of the field. When you have a midfielder like Hulman who can carry the ball from deeper areas in central midfield, something you don't really have today.

I don't want to see Dorbou play right wing back again. I think that's Amarant overcomplicating things. And there was, you could feel it within Old Trafford of going, I'm not having this. This is, this is,

too complicated for no reason. Andy, what did you make of it? Yeah, I was going to say, just judging off the questions that we got, Andy, a lot of people seem to agree with Carl. I mean, Jake's come very strong. He said, Amarin needs to be called out for just how ridiculous and illogical the tactics and strategy have been at times since joining United. He uses Dogu at right wing back as an example for that.

I mean, there's countless questions, basically. Becky, Mark, John, John, Jefferson, all asking about Dogu and what happened with that. And we don't know the answer. He's bought a player which everybody assumed was going to be on the left. So then to see him on the right and then to see him taken off at half-time, it sends out very mixed messages. And I think Ruben Amarin, he communicates so well. You can see that emotionally he's such an intelligent person and fans are nodding along. And then the games start and you go, oh, wow.

because he builds up your hopes or maybe he dashes your hopes, but he's a much better talker than his team are playing at the moment. I don't think that Dorgu was...

the worst United player in what was horrific. It was absolutely awful, that first half. It was one of the worst first halves. Worst of the season? It was just awful, mate. The fact that people paying money to that and the idea that somehow entertainment would be gained from it was a bit of a misnomer. I mean, he showed bits of pace. He did a couple of link-ups with Ahmad. He showed that he was two-footed. He shot over.

So I don't have any, whoa, this isn't working. Like, you know, you watched Malasia in Bucharest, for example. You're watching it going, he's way short of the level. And then I'm watching the game thinking, is this just some sort of elaborate black? Someone's just going to come out, right, we're only joking. This isn't actually happening. Manchester United are not this bad. You don't really lose five games out of six at home. But no, it was true. And then I'm thinking...

for some sort of left field reasons, I know, Jason Wilcox, where did he play? Left winger, good player. Is he sort of thinking, I'm going to make a return to the team age 53? Because he could probably do a job given some of what we've seen on the left this season.

The first half was so, so, so bad against a team who are the second worst in the league, a team who are really badly out of form unless I watch them in person. And the second half, thankfully, was much, much better. I can end this little answer by saying Manchester United are through. I'm sure we're going to pick out all the positives from

Dorgue, I don't think we judge him harshly either way. No. But I think the manager will be aware that fans are a bit mystified why he played in that position. Unless he just carries on and next week Anana plays as the 10. He says, you check Wyscout, boys. I think we should explain what Wyscout is because not everyone will be familiar to it because it's quite expensive, isn't it? No, it's true. It is. So Wyscout is a...

commercially available scouting tool so it's a big database video database as well and you can you can watch back games you can take your screenshots through tactical analysis um marino on his instagram account has shown off his use of y scout y scout is what we use for the majority of our analysis at the athletic so if you are seeing a screenshot on the athletic and there's doodles of

of off the ball shape and runs and whatnot and the many great gifts that Mark Kerry makes with our data team that's all done using Yscout now with the Athletic so we only have one account across all of our many employees at the Athletic whereas Manchester United will have maybe two well I'd hope they have 30 to 40 at least so they can watch and of course you can buy new packages so you can watch all sorts of leagues and all sorts of things and

look up under 23 games or second division Argentina games in the Argentinian league. So it's a really useful tool to see in football players around the world. And I've used it to check if Dorku is more comfortable on the left or on the right. And Dorku is more comfortable on the left-hand side. Andy's completely right. Amarin is a great talker and he's incredibly charismatic. You can see...

he's very good at winning you over and then you're watching his team and you're going why are you making this more complicated than it needs to be? Yeah do you think that is that is the case Carl on this point because that is again literally the exact question that we had from a lot of people why is he complicating it that's how it felt you know we've all watched Diogo Dalo do his very best at left wing back but look at times quite limited having to cut back play the ball inside pass the ball backwards back on his right foot struggling to go down the outside

And then you kind of think that that's over when you see Togo in the starting lineup, but it's not. So Amarant also talked, Amarant talked about how sometimes he plays with the wrong footed player on wingback. But then the, if you have more time, if I had more time in the press conference room, I go, okay, well, surely you can just do that by playing a mad there and you make use of his left foot and then just have... Well, John from Bristol actually asked, what benefit does it bring to play players on the wrong side? Well,

When you have a team that is more solid in ball progression and can sustain pressure into the final third, having players, wingbacks on the wrong foot increases your threat at the back post.

So when you're getting those crosses and you are getting those third man runs and whatnot, you're getting players who can pop out of the back post and then hit the ball with their stronger foot when the ball's coming in from the other side. A good example of this actually came in Sporting's 4-1 victory over City under Amarant of just players on the break and they can break and they can hit the ball first time on their stronger foot as it's coming across them. Great. The problem with doing this

I'm saying problem as someone who has not got any coaching badges and just watches a lot of football. The problem I'm seeing with trying to do this at Man United right now is United really struggle to get the ball from their penalty area to the edge of the opposition's penalty area. And Amren wants a lot of this to be done by your back three and your wing-backs.

And like you say before, Dalot wants to play on his stronger foot, which means he's either cutting inside or he has to take two or three extra touches to get the ball under control, which means there's a lot of times where Diogo is getting the ball, particularly when he's got his back towards the opposition goal and he's taking two or three touches to try and turn around and there's this opposition player on his back and he can't move. So the ball just gets stuck in, again, I've called it before, the horseshoe, the negative U-shape and whatnot. This is also compounded by the fact that

Your midfield options right now are Ugarte and someone else. And these players, while they have their own strengths, they're not ball carriers. They're not players who can take the ball from the centre-backs, go, hello midfielder, I'm going to beat you with a drop of the shoulder, take you out of the game and then carry it forward.

So, the easiest way you fix that is you make sure your wing-backs can comfortably receive the ball on their stronger side and then just have up and down, just have up and down wingers. And that's what we all thought Dorgu was going to offer on the left. And I also think if you play a mad at right wing-back, you can still have that wrong-footed thing that Amarin is wanting.

But we're not quite getting there. This is made even more confusing by the fact that Amron refers to his wingbacks as wingers. So he knows this as well. He knows that he wants his wingbacks to offer more attacking football. And yet he's playing Dalot, Masraoui, whatnot. And it's that thing of maybe it's a physicality thing. Maybe there is something they're doing in training that they're not quite seeing. But it does feel like he is making things just more difficult than they have to be right now.

Obviously, when Amarim first arrived, I remember him saying it as early as that first game against Ipswich. He made out that they could play a similar way to the way that United had been playing under Eric Ten Haag, but he felt this was the system that he wanted to play and he thought the best way to go about changing things at United was to switch systems straight away with the acknowledgement that this year would be difficult and

And the hope being that by the summer and by next season, the team would be far better suited and far better shaped and experienced to be able to play this system. There's no question it's becoming a hard sell. When you listen to Manchester United fans talk about the way things have been going, the system gets referenced constantly. We've sort of countered that a little bit, I think, at times on the podcast as

but then watching Garnaccio come on and change the game, almost playing like a proper winger within this system, clearly, but still playing like a proper winger, getting to the byline, cutting the ball back, being a constant nuisance threat down that left-hand side.

It doesn't feel like week to week we're seeing the best or better in this system. It still feels like there's a bit of a disconnect there, maybe. It's not good to watch. The team are not scoring a lot of goals. And Ruben Amarin may be right. And maybe this October he can say, look, I know those first months were difficult, but it was absolutely essential to do that. There are risks attached. Manchester United are not even...

The word relegation is improbable, but when the team keeps slumping, you do think, how bad can this get? And there's been several times this season where we've thought, is this a low point? Can it get any worse? The first half at Leicester certainly seemed like another low point, but somehow in the Cup games, Manchester United are getting results to the credit, both in the FA Cup and in the Europa League as well. I asked people...

who do have coaching experience at a very high level. When he arrived, after a month, and I think I said on this podcast before Liverpool away, and I'm saying I'm really worried about today, someone said to me, not absolutely perfect for Man United. Same with the Arsenal game. I'm like, okay, and that person was right, and I was wrong to feel like I did. But you look at the relative strengths, the league positions, and others have said to me, the system that...

Ruben Amri wants to play. When it is right, it is very entertaining. It's very effective. It's very modern. We saw glimpses of it at Sporting. We saw what they did to Manchester City. People...

Got the hopes up very high. I'm just reading what someone messaged me here. It's very advanced in terms of the style of play. It's extreme possessional rotation, interchanging style of play. It's about manipulating positions to confuse the opponents. It's similar to Simeone at Athletic and Inzaghi at Inter, but you need clever players with high in-game intelligence to do that.

none of this suits United's history nor the style of the players that he has is there a time to replace the whole team probably not it's beautiful when it works but how often does it work it's easy in a league when you're expected to dominate as sporting did in Portugal you

United's about freedom, brutality in attack. So I'm getting a gist, and they were sort of very rough notes that were messaged to me, but I think we're getting a gist of if it all comes off, this can be amazing.

But then you go to Old Trafford and it's absolutely terrible. Yeah. And you're watching teams who were not at the top of the league comfortably beat Manchester United. You're watching the team at the very bottom of the league, Southampton, deserve to win. You're watching Leicester City on Friday toying with Manchester United for parts of the game. And it's a really, really painful watch. And United did go through. And we'll talk about the goal, the winning goal, I'm sure. Yeah.

We look forward to the FA Cup draw. We laugh when Liverpool get knocked out by Plymouth Argyle. The dream's still alive. The hopes have not been extinguished because in the worst case, you go out the FA Cup, you go out the next stage in the Europa League and your season's over by the start of March. And no matter what the manager says, there will be a body of people who go to the match who want to be entertained. When the team are playing well, demand for tickets is high.

And demand for tickets is high anyway because it's Manchester United and we've discussed that. There's many reasons for that. A lot of tickets floating about for Palace last week. They just were. If this team are awful and say season ticket prices go up, which everyone is expected, and we don't know by how much, that's the issue. It's some ask to say we're going to be charging more when it's so bad. The product is so bad.

Now, I'll go all the time regardless because that's my mindset, that's who I am and it's my job as well. Makes a mind will. But there are others on the periphery who might go to fewer matches, they might go to five games a season or whatever and they'll just be like, I'm not paying for this. I've seen a few people recently in matches, I'm not paying good money to go. It's crap. It's absolutely terrible and it's hard to argue against that.

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Carl, the other thing is, when there's chaos in stoppage time at Old Trafford, United look at their best. When it's not chaos and it's not stoppage time at Old Trafford in recent weeks, they've looked the opposite. Oh, OK. The Stretford end and Old Trafford has a way of geeing you up when there's personal pride and there's things on the line. Absolutely. And you felt that in the last 10, 15 minutes against Leicester, where...

maybe to Amarin's disappointment positional discipline and paying attention to what you're supposed to be doing was second best to just get the ball in the back of the net and just get there and the last 15 minutes Amarin put on every single available forward he had now in his squad right Xerxe was on the field Hoyland was on the field Garnaccio was on the field and

I don't know how you want to find two or three other of these players if they're forwards or midfielders now. It doesn't necessarily equal goals. It doesn't necessarily equal goals, but they were going for it. They were going for it and they wanted to go for it to get it done within 90 minutes, thank God, because again, it was freezing on Friday. Well, that was a fantastic conspiracy between Harry Maguire and the...

Assistant referee to ensure that we didn't have to endure any more of that on Friday. I will admit, I think it was the 83rd minute I'm doing the briefing with a fantastic tactics writer and I was typing a paragraph about what this might mean for United's season. I'm going, I'm going to stop writing now because I think this one's going to extra time. And he looked at me and he went, Fergie time, mate. Never count me out. So who knows? Maybe there are still enough bits to the...

essence, core, soul, however work you want to describe Manchester United, that means when there are these emotionally heightened states of football, United can play better than what they've been playing for the majority of the season. So the Liverpool game, they hit that extra level. The derby, they hit that extra level. Arsenal in the FA Cup, they hit that extra level. But as Fernandes has called out, as Amaran's called out, why can't you hit that level when you're playing Southampton? Why can't you play to that level when you're playing a team...

that doesn't necessarily want to play open and wants to sit back behind the ball. And now there's tactical reasons, psychological reasons for that, blah, blah, blah, blah. And for now, I'm happy with the fact that United got it done. But yeah, this is everything that Andy's saying. This is a team, this is a squad that is a hodgepodge.

And yes, I don't think this is a team that could realistically be aiming for Champions League football next season. However, there are two or three bits in there that Amarin, while talking about suffering a lot, is also doing some things that feel more like fealty tests rather than sensible tactical decisions. Going, I'm making this harder for you right now so you absolutely get it. Bang on. There's no training wheels. And you're going, please put a training wheel here. Please. This team is wobbling all over the place. I will, however...

how he replaced Lissandra Martinez in the back three was quite good. So it was Masraoui left-sided centre-back in the first half and that swapped to Jorah in the second half. I think Masraoui or another full-back on the left-hand side of a back three is a really sensible way to get some of Martinez's passing in the back three. So this is also the interesting thing about Amarillo is that he...

He knows the good ways to solve some of his problems, but also he seems to be creating some extra problems for himself further up the field. Carl, you mentioned the Stretford end. I think I should mention the Leicester City fans. Leicester are entitled to...

8, 9, 10,000 tickets on Friday night. They sold 1,300. And there were numerous reasons for that. One is the price. They were priced at 51, 52 and 61 pounds for an adult. So that's twice the 30 pounds for a Premier League game. The fact that Leicester are not doing well is obviously a reason. They're probably not coming there thinking that they're going to get a win.

but I actually have some sympathy with Leicester fans on this one and other fans who've come in FA Cup matches to Old Trafford and also with the game being on a Friday night you couldn't get back to Leicester and I spoke to some Manchester United fans as well they couldn't get back home using public transport and it's a gripe which doesn't affect a lot of people but had that game been played on Saturday or Sunday a reasonable amount of hour that wouldn't have been the case and

I was struck by how small that Leicester City following was. And I'm not saying that to talk down to them. You've got to be really careful when you're annoying your match-going fans like that. Some of the ultras, yeah, I'll call them ultras, were protesting as well because they're unhappy with the current serpents of Leicester City. But they were loud. Give them credit. 1,300 certainly made some noise. And they certainly made a lot of jokes towards Harry Maguire when they went 1-0 up.

Did they? Oops. Well, those jokes wouldn't have landed quite as well in stoppage time, would they? Because Andy...

The sight of Harry Maguire celebrating a stoppage time winner in front of the Stretford end with a huge grin on his face. I mean, boy, does that man deserve that? Yeah, he's good. He's probably had more abuse than any Manchester United player, or he's certainly up there at the top table of most abused players, including from his own fans, by the way. And I don't have that much time for people who go, I've got to hold my hands up. You know, I called him the most vile names, whatever.

But he's proved me wrong. No, no, no, no, no. Just think about your words next time. Because he was actually seeing that. And I think he handled it in as good a way as possible. He put his head down. Huge dignity to it, actually. It's a sort of rare quality in some ways. You shouldn't really need it in other respect. But I've got huge respect for him. Yeah, I think he...

His stock has risen significantly in the last few months. He's had a couple of really good games. He was never as bad as people made him out to be. And he's an honest Sheffield lad who, you know, when he was Manchester United captain, he almost always fronted up.

Then a couple of off-field issues, that incident in Greece. And then even when his captaincy was taken away from him, he could have bleated, he could have briefed, but he never did. And I remember at each point, you know, I remember when he played in Betis because it was a rare start for him and he had a good game and I had a long chat with him in Seville.

and it was a bad time for him you can't dress it up in any other way but he has come out of it there's different versions of the truth as to whether he was going to West Ham or not I've spoke to all three parties here and I still can't work out what has gone on you know I've spoke to David Moyes uh the Maguire lot and the Manchester United version and

They can't all be right, but he stayed at Manchester United. He got a contract extension invoked recently. And with Lissandro Martinez being out, he's going to be important. I thought it was quite interesting, the reaction to the players wearing shirts in support of Martinez. Fresa, Licha, you know, have strength, Licha.

and that was announced and people saw it just before kick-off. And the reaction I saw from Manchester United fans was almost entirely negative to that. There's been a lot of criticism and even ridicule, I would say, of rival clubs for doing this sort of thing for injured players. I didn't actually see one person say it was a good idea. What I would say as a counterpoint to that, in his culture, the Spanish-speaking culture...

It is more normal than in English football. I've seen it several times in Spain where the teammates have gone and it's a serious injury. People were almost mocking going, you know, he's not died. It's not that serious. It actually is for him. It is a really, really bad injury. And I don't know. I feel if his teammates want to send out a good luck message to a teammate, I just don't see how damaging that can be.

Well, really, it shows, I suppose, a sense of team spirit and togetherness that we want to see as Manchester United fans in the team. So in that regard, I guess it is a positive. But yeah, I agree. From what I saw on social media and amongst fans,

Friends speaking as well, there was a bit of confusion as to why the players felt it was necessary. I think for him as well, Carl, it's the fact that he has been through other serious injuries. He's had his foot problem twice. He's now got his second knee injury as well. He's missed a hell of a lot of football. He was looking like becoming a really important player in this system for Ruben Amarin.

Can we just talk about Garnaccio, actually, just a little bit more? We had a message from Tom saying that basically since the transfer speculation, the transfer talks for Garnaccio, that he's been the best player on the pitch for United. I don't know what you think about that. Garnaccio is always going to be a fascinating player in that when he comes off the bench against tiring legs, he looks like...

one of the best attacking football players in the Premier League. He's a little tyrant, isn't he, in that circumstance? Oh, tenacious and whatnot. He's got that thing of...

there have been games where you can feel United's attack have been dragged kicking screaming from Garnaccio's going give me the ball give me the ball give me the ball and against Leicester there were times because he's just give me the ball I'm going to run I'm going to I'm going to stretch the defence and generate my own shot in a way that is currently beyond Hoyland that is currently beyond Xerxe that sometimes beyond Bruno Fernandes so they just keep feeding him the ball now the

quibble thing that people with coaching badges often talk to me about is his decision making and there was a very noticeable point just past the hour mark where he gets the ball cuts inside towards the box Hoyland's running towards near post and Garnaccio tries this really really we're talking one in ten attempts of this is going to go in at the near post instead of squaring it and Hoyland

nearly tears his head off real sort of both hands into space going why have you not passed me the ball Garnaccio is apologising it gets to the point where even Bruno Fernandes comes over as well and is talking to Garnaccio and going look in that situation just be a bit more here and it's also one of those situations where you see it and you realise how many seasons of football Garnaccio has played and you're like oh yeah he's a kid he's a child

He's a child who probably... The reason why he looks so much better when he's coming off the bench is because in a more structured, better functioning Manchester United team, in a Manchester United squad of 0-7, for example, Garnaccio would mostly be playing off the bench. He wouldn't be needed to score 20 goals a season starting every single minute. So you've got that going on. But then, of course, I don't want to complain about Garnaccio too much because that sheer bloodied miniveness is how you get your equaliser. It's how you eventually...

win games because no one else at United can do it in the same way he can do it right now and I'm very glad that the January oh look at his agent he's been spotted here oh look at this person they've been spotted there turning out to be hype and bluster instead of an actual transfer move away he changed the game on Friday and I think we've got to be thankful for that straight away he had fans on the seat he made a run seven or eight minutes after half time that raised the spirits he he

He used his pace to do a breakaway. He did go for glory at one point and Hoyland was waiting in the middle and he looked very frustrated and I understand that because Garnaccio put the ball into the side netting. He was the difference. He was the man of the match and we put his name in lights after that because if he hadn't have come on, we were heading for a game as bad as that Burnley-Leeds game a few weeks ago, which has now officially been recognised as

as the worst game of association football ever. Josh Xerxes, well, thought he did well. Tapped the ball in for the equaliser, but he definitely had an impact. Old Trafford crowd is really getting behind him now. Yeah. Now, some will say this is sort of pity applause. And some will say this is pity applause or trying to G him up. But you are seeing more and more

crisper passes it's still not the Xerxe I saw in Serie A it's not that level it's still the ball's not being released to that point but whenever Xerxe does show glimmers Streffanen gets right behind him and I think that's good there needs to be a version of that for Hoyland but also Hoyland needs to be crisp in what he's doing right now but Premier League is a higher level as well than Serie A different type of game it's non-stop it's intense it's

If a team's leading 2-0, they're not sitting off the ball. I spoke to a Wolves player a couple of weeks ago who said how different the Premier League is to Ligue 1 in France. He said it is non-stop. He said, I once marked Salah for 89 minutes. I did fine. Bang, bang, bang, lose the game. You know, you're never, ever switching off.

My slight worry with Xerxes, he seems far, far more effective coming off the bench than when he starts games. So he earns a start by playing well.

And then he's pretty disappointing and then he comes off. So we're into this cycle. I feel like that's got something to do with the tempo that United are playing at when he comes on. It tends to be when United are chasing the game and they are upping things a little bit that he seems to come into the match a lot more at that point. I don't know if that's why he looks better off the bench than when he starts possibly. Yeah. And the other thing is the players who they're replacing...

were not playing well. I don't think that Kobimeno was playing well. I thought the whole forward line looked really lethargic and it's a worry. When I'm watching Rasmus Heuland, I think we all want him to do well. We can all see there's something there. But if you're a forward for Manchester United and you don't score goals, you've got a big, big problem. And...

Friday was pretty sobering watching that, but then it's like, again and again, we've seen this happening before. Thankfully, there's no game at Old Trafford this weekend or next weekend. In fact, well, it's Ipswich, isn't it? And then...

The way that the Europa League, it's probable that we'll be away in the first leg. So by minimising home games, I'm sort of hoping... Things might improve. We might improve. The entertainment factor might go up a little bit. I started that section talking about Garnaccio. Obviously, he remained at the club in January. There were players who left and we're beginning to see those players...

starting to make an impact on their new clubs. So Tyrell Malassi made his debut for PSV at the weekend, a one-all draw against Willem II. Anthony got his first goal. I didn't know he scored those for Real Betis in a 3-2 defeat to Celta Vigo. I do remember him actually doing this at the start of his Manchester United career. And he's won two Man of the Match awards in a row. During pre-season, Anthony told a number of people in the United States that

that you will see the name Anthony in combination with goals and assists this season. At Real Betis. That was a hell of a prediction from him. He just didn't tell us it'd be at Real Betis. He's won two Man in Matches because the Man in Match award, as I understand it, it can be fan voted. And this is me being incredibly harsh. This feels like a fan base trying to G up Anthony rather than Anthony playing...

at a 9 out of 10 level I've watched extended highlights of both his games now and it's still Anthony he's still not taking the ball on his right foot

And they lost the game as well. It was a nice finish, but they were leading 2-0 and got beat 3-2. And Malasia, for PSV to draw at home, that was also a disappointing result for them as well. And then a lad called Marcus Rashford, I think I've pronounced that correctly. People haven't really spoken about him, but he came on for Aston Villa in the FA Cup. So he's another lone star there.

And I think you watched it closer than I did, but it seemed to do all right. Yeah, yeah. More of the older Rashford. So he went into 1v1 duels, was taking on players, trying to run behind...

We talked about, was he going to show? And yeah, he's on his way. Another person who went on loan and didn't have a good FA Cup weekend, Jadon Sancho. Yeah, Jadon Sancho. I've actually had quite a few questions about his situation, Andy, or Carl. I don't know whoever has the more knowledge of this situation, really. Corrie on Spotify sums it up. Can I ask about the Sancho situation? It was Ten Hag who had the fallout. So could things change under Ruben Amorim?

Not really. The nature of the loan to Chelsea means that he's probably going to be a Chelsea player going forward. I think it's 24 million. United could pocket from the deal. Could they cancel the deal if they wanted to? Sancho would have to keep playing the way he played against Brighton for that to happen. It wasn't a great performance. This is...

As I said before, one of the problems Sancho has is that for his good intuitive invention and his playmaking and his match reading ability, he is not rapid. He is not an explosive athlete in the same way that Marcus Rashid can be at his peak, in the same way that Morgan Rodgers has been partway through this season. He doesn't take the game by the initiative in the same way that Cole Palmer does, for example.

And I think that's going to be a problem for him the longer he stays as a Premier League player because for him to thrive, the team needs to be built around him to some degree. But also in the Premier League for these clubs that want to be in the Champions League, I don't think he can offer enough raw output in terms of goal and production to get those privileges. So...

If you're a United fan going, oh, could we get Sancho back? He might work as one of the number 10s. I would say, do you want to play Joshua Xerxes as one of the number 10s? Because if you answer that no, then you might not want to get Sancho back because that's the sort of experience you'd be looking for.

There's another player. Remember I said last week that Ruben Curley went to Stoke City. He went as an academy player and he was named on the bench for the first team in the FA Cup against Cardiff City on Saturday. So I think he'd done well in training. The reason I've mentioned him several times or I seem to have become like an expert on Ruben Curley. Because you're related to the Ruben Curley correspondent, yeah. It's because he's... This is going to be like a weekly update, by the way. Well, I know the lad. I've known him for a few years. His dad played with my brother. So that's why...

I was, when Ruben was injured, I'd go and I'd see him and he's a lovely lad and he's overcome two serious injuries. But his brother, my brother and his dad were, played for like Curzon Ashton, semi-professional football. Hey, good club Curzon, don't knock them. I'm absolutely not knocking them. They are punching so far above their weight. They deserve loads of credit because they're up against professional teams and

They're at the high end of the National League North. So Curzon have done really, really well. Not just this year, but over the last sort of 10 years. Basically, since my brother and Ruben's dad, Chris, left them, things picked up. Yeah, I mean, I left Curzon sort of 2003 as well. So it seems like things have picked up since, yeah. So you were at Curzon, how long for? I played in the youth team for years, from about...

Did you come in the first team at all? Not the first team. Reserves, but not the first team. I've got a real long story about, obviously, a horrible injury which stopped me being a professional footballer, but I won't bore people about that. We've all got a story. You're saving that for the live show. Yeah, maybe, yeah. My brother invited me to go training with him, and I thought, I'm in shape, I can do this. And I got there, and the manager, Gary Lowe, God rest his soul, he went, right, come on, we're doing a run first. We're doing a four or five mile run.

And you very quickly realise how you're not trained to play football, even at that level where the standards are still really good. Gary Lowe was brilliant as well. Very old school, hardened, non-league manager is how I'd describe him. Yeah, he was brilliant with my brother. I had a lot of time for Gary and I'm glad his son is doing well. And it's a big shock when he...

when he passed away. And I can't believe this podcast is now talking about former Curzon managers. But, you know, these clubs are really important in Manchester. We've touched on it in a few articles. Well, Matt Busby opened the old clubhouse at Curzon, actually, to be fair, for a Manchester United link at Curzon.

at National Park yeah before they obviously got the new stadium Alex Ferguson opened the clubhouse at Flickston in 95 and Richard Tuck lifted a piece for the Athletic recently about that ground being sold which was so fantastically niche that I thought this is brilliant you loved it oh I loved it and I think um

To be fair to Manchester City, I think it was Brian Horton was very close with Droylesden. Loads of former Man United players have been close to Altrincham as well. I feel like actually United maybe have sent a team to play Curzon when they opened the new stadium. I seem to remember there being a Gerrard Piquet and Giuseppe Rossi picture in the boardroom there. It's true. Long may it keep on thriving. Yeah, absolutely. Just a couple of things then before we wrap up.

I've just had to check this, actually. So Adam says, we've won seven out of nine, yet it feels doom and gloom. I mean, I feel like I should pick this up with us three as well. This has felt like quite a doom and gloom podcast. That's a friend, Ronaldo Brown.

tweeted this saying United have won six out of their last eight. And I was like, you what? Sorry, it's six out of eight, not seven out of nine. Adam, you're that strong, mate. Six out of eight. I've run out of fingers. Six out of eight. And I mean, the optobods might tell you off about how you disqualify the Arsenal game because it went to extra time. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's a victory on penalties, yeah. Yeah, it is weird. Because I remember leaving Old Trafford after United beat Southampton and it wasn't jubilant.

And there is a very, very famous quote from Thomas Muller where he said, when you play for Bayern Munich, you don't feel joy when you win. You just feel relief because you can get on with the rest of your weekend. And of course, that's about the massive pressure about being the biggest club in Germany. I was going to say, that's also a team who wins every week. Yeah, that's a team who wins every week. But I do think when you look at those six victories United have, apart from the Arsenal game,

which I'm going to be mean and selfish because I just always love doing one over Arsenal. I do feel relief a lot more over victory instead of who we won, beating Leicester City. Thank God for that in 90 minutes as well. Maybe this is because I'm jaded and do this for work now instead of resort for it as a feeling of pleasure. But yeah, I do feel more relief than just like jubilant joy when United win now, which is odd, right?

Yeah, I think a lot of people would agree with that, to be fair. The Bonnie Tyler song, Andy, obviously had a bit more pick-up in the game at Old Trafford, but we have had some Scottish Reds actually pointing out that it's been a tartan army song for Scott McTominay for some time. I'm a bit disappointed by that. Yeah, I'm a bit disappointed myself. They played it on the PA system at Old Trafford before the game. Your version or hers? It ain't my version. I'm just passing on what I was saying. We were all very impressed last week.

Yeah, well, I mean, I've sent it by my boys in the Stretford end and it was obviously taking off. And then I had that lovely chain of events where we get people from Bonnie's band emailing us in. It's a nice thing, isn't it? Back to the point about the wins.

the Barca fans in Spain call it resultistas, people who are only obsessed by results against those higher powers who are more concerned by how they play. And there's elements of that because United have had good results and

And you notice that run starts after that horrendous home win against Newcastle United. Home defeat? Yeah. The results across January. I would never, ever have said United would have got anything at Anfield, would have knocked Arsenal out of the FA Cup.

It's just, as Carl was saying, you're leaving the Southampton game and you've got to win, but everybody's going, whoa, and Leicester on Friday night. The team are just not convincing and that probably plays into the mood. And then when Brighton come to Old Trafford or when Palace come to Old Trafford,

and they shred Manchester United. The mood just slumps down. So I remember after the game in Bucharest a couple of weeks ago, people were saying three wins on the bounce now, you know, and they want to be optimistic, but if there's a confidence, it is so fragile. And the players have touched on that, haven't they? Lots of players have touched on that.

It's interesting to hear Harry Maguire talk about how the team are struggling to play at Old Trafford at the minute. I mean, we've noticed it clearly, obviously. I had a look at some of the stats, actually, and I think other than about half an hour in the Rangers game in the Europa League, in normal time, Manchester United haven't led at Old Trafford in the last eight games. It's only been stoppage time, really, where...

They've made the victories, or snatched the victories from draws. So it's no wonder that people aren't feeling that jubilant because really the home games is what set a lot of the mood, isn't it? Because they're the matches that the majority of people are witnessing in person at the games. Just the last point then, Carl. I mean, Amarin speaks a lot about getting more training sessions. So he's got a big gap here. But I can't help but think when he's had these big gaps, it's not always produced results.

more coherent football in this style, has it? I know what you mean. Do you know what I mean? I don't know. I feel like I'm being a bit harsh on him in some ways. I know what you mean, because we had the huge joy of beating City in the derby, and then there was loads of chat, mixed zone, press conference, whatnot. Got to maintain it for Southampton. I'm sorry. Hang on. Was it a Liverpool game within Southampton? That was after Arsenal and Liverpool. So it's after Arsenal and Liverpool. Draw at Liverpool, win on penalties at Arsenal. Right, Southampton's got to be the same. So there you go. And there was all this chat of...

the real chess is Southampton. The real chess is how we react against Southampton. And you watch a Southampton game and you're like, what have you been doing for the last couple of days? Well, they won 3-1, mate. I don't know what you're talking about. So, yes, I do want to see... I want to see some more of the tweaks that Amarant has talked about in the upcoming game against Spurs. I want to see...

Just more consistency over who's going to be left-sided centre-back. Is it going to be Jorah? Is it going to be Mazraoui? I think Mazraoui in the three on the right-hand side is good. I really want to see Dogu left wing-back. I just want Dogu left wing-back, Ahmad right wing-back, someone next to Ugarte. There are too many question marks right now for a football club

this far into a season. And yes, the manager's changed, but even simple stuff like, where's Bruno going to play? What? Yeah. Is he next to Agata? Is he a 10? Where's Menuhin going to play now? I just want a little bit more clarity and solidity on that going forward. We talk about United's record record

in the last eight games they talk about their record away from they still haven't won back-to-back Premier League games they can't win back-to-back Premier League games with a result against Spurs I think this is the thing their stop start their bitty they're not consistent in a level that you want a team of this wealth I'm not going to say talent or quality or whatever but for a squad that has this many international football players and it's paying this much in wages it's

You should be able to win more or be more convincing for longer periods than what you're currently doing. And I really hope you get that in the next couple of games. Manchester United are 13th in the table with a goal difference of minus six. We ain't going to be on the rooftop sinking away. The five points off the top half. Wow. Off the top half? Yeah. Remember when we used to say off the top four? Yeah, yeah.

Oh, sorry. Sorry. People say to me, you know how the match have fallen, eh? Well, yeah. Well, they have. No one's pretending otherwise. No.

No, OK. Well, let's leave it there then on Talk of the Devils. It seems like a rather depressing place to leave it. No, they won't because we will be back. We will be back. There's no doubt about that. We'll be back on Thursday to preview the weekend's game away to Tottenham and Manchester United as a force will be back. Andy Mitten has already promised us that on the last podcast and I'm sure he'll have to say it again between now and the end of the season just to remind us. Hopefully not on the next podcast.

Let's hope the team do that. Remember, if you want to get in touch, devilspod at theathletic.com. It's been brilliant to get in your emails in the last couple of podcasts, so thank you very much for doing that. And we will speak to you on Thursday to preview the game at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Thanks for your company. Thank you, Andy. Thank you, Carl. And we'll see you on the next one. Take care. Bye-bye. For those of you who are wondering why we didn't mention the fact that Harry Maguire's goal was so far offside, we don't care. See you on the next one. The Athletic FC Podcast Network.