Man United exposed

MANCHESTER. – Manchester United’s momentum-sapping defeat by Swansea City on the English Premier League soccer’s opening weekend suggested that new manager Louis van Gaal will not be able to revive the club’s fortunes overnight. United approached the game encouraged by a pre-season campaign in which they won five and drew one of their six matches, notably beating Real Madrid and Liverpool, but at Old Trafford on Saturday, the old failings returned.

Despite enjoying 60 percent of possession, there was no cutting edge to United’s play, and both Ki Sung-yueng and Gylfi Sigurdsson were afforded acres of space when they scored the goals that gave Swansea a 2-1 win.

“We have built up a lot of confidence,” Van Gaal said afterwards. “It will be smashed because of this.”
The 2013-14 campaign was a long succession of unwelcome milestones for Van Gaal’s predecessor, David Moyes, and the Dutchman was quick to add one of his own: United’s first opening-day home defeat in Premier League history.

It moved former Liverpool midfielder Steve McManaman, now a television pundit, to declare Van Gaal’s team “the worst Manchester United side I’ve seen for 20 years”.

In mitigation, Van Gaal could point to an injury glut that deprived him of the services of Jonny Evans, Michael Carrick, Antonio Valencia, Danny Welbeck, Robin van Persie and new signing Luke Shaw.

With untried youngsters Tyler Blackett and Jesse Lingard in the line-up, United looked uncertain in Van Gaal’s favoured 3-4-1-2 formation and at half-time the manager abandoned it, reverting to a 4-2-3-1 shape.

But although United equalised through new captain Wayne Rooney, Sigurdsson soon restored Swansea’s lead and the hosts’ attempts to find a second equaliser were incoherent.

Juan Mata was largely anonymous, despite the fact that United’s new system is designed partly to give the Spanish playmaker optimal conditions in which to work. And with Marouane Fellaini – gangling symbol of Moyes’s failures – thrown on to chase high balls into the Swansea box, the final stages of the game resembled the darkest days of the previous campaign. – AFP.