16 Conclusions on Manchester United 2-2 Tottenham: Bentancur, Hojlund to Rashford, Werner, Ten Hag | OneFootball

Rodrigo Bentancur celebrates Tottenham's equaliser against Manchester United.

Tottenham had style and substance despite a second-string attack, while Manchester United had a fair bit of the latter but none of the former, again. Erik ten Hag is an interim manager.

1) The return fixture in August saw us get giddy over Angeball and question the ‘cohesion in United’s attack’. Erik ten Hag’s team weren’t too bad that day, and had enough chances through pouncing on Spurs errors to get something from it. At that stage we were wondering when United would come good, not if, and assumed they would find a groove over their next 18 league games that would see them in around the top four, with or without Tottenham.

They haven’t found that groove and there was no real sign of a discovery on Sunday. Both have had significant injury crises since. And, to be fair, both have stuck to their guns in the absence of key players. Tottenham have continued to play harum-scarum football with tucked-in full-backs and a ludicrously charming high line. Manchester United still have no clear plan or defined style, and have relied on brilliant goals from unlikely heroes in games that if they’ve got something out of they’ve rarely deserved to.

It was a similar story at Old Trafford, save for United’s heroes being the ones we would expect to wear capes, and Tottenham’s bonkers football limited at the point of climax by absentees.

2) There is perhaps no better indication of the mood of the two football clubs than the reaction to the possible signing of Timo Werner. A move for a man with four goals from 45 shots in his last Premier League season and 21 from his 91 league games since his £50m move to Chelsea in 2022 was understandably met with skepticism upon reports of United’s interest. It felt unlikely that the solution to their attacking profligacy would arrive in the form of a footballer whose misses would be perpetually reposted be Joey Barton were it not for his distinct lack of oestrogen.

But at Spurs, under Ange Postecoglou, he could actually be alright. That’s in part because of a skillset (he’s really bloody quick) which makes him suited to the style, but mainly because of a level of faith and respect built by a manager in six months to make the mind boggle. ‘If anyone can get a tune out of Werner, it’s Ange’, is an extraordinary but widespread opinion among both Spurs fans and neutrals, but they do have cause for optimism, given Richarlison’s remarkable return to goalscoring form. It’s six in six now for the Brazilian; that’s as many as he managed in his previous 46, stretching back to the end of his time with Everton.

Werner got an assist, a neat pass for Rodrigo Bentancur, and looked neat and tidy besides. But he often did at Chelsea, for whom he got 15 assists in his debut season. He also took a hell of a lot of shots for Chelsea, and his five on Sunday was two more than anyone else on the pitch, with one of his two notable efforts placed into the second tier and the other dragged pretty horribly past the far post.

He’s always been a useful footballer, and may well be particularly useful to Spurs, but more likely as a nuisance and part-time provider than a full-time finisher.

3) Tottenham are still yet to lose a game Micky van de Ven and Cristian Romero have started together. It’s now eight wins and two draws, and Radu Dragusin – who came off the bench to make a brief debut – will have to go some to displace one of them. We’re thoroughly looking forward to his agent’s reaction to his bit-part role in the coming months.

There were some signs of fragility in the first half, but the ring-rust was replaced by familiar dominance over opposition forwards in the second, with Van de Ven sweeping up balls he had no right to get to ahead of United’s offside-beaters and Romero stepping in, and then out of defence to get his side on the front foot. They’re a defensive partnership ‘worth the ticket price alone’, which we’re not sure is a cliche that could be applied to any other pairing in the country and entirely sums this Spurs side up.

4) Tottenham were without their two most influential players in attack – Son Heung-min and James Maddison – another starter in Dejan Kulusevski, as well as Pape Matar Sarr and Yves Bissouma. It made little to no difference to the style of their football. Angeball is a philosophy that runs through this squad.

“In the second half we really controlled the game. We’ve had a really rough week off the field with illness and other things,” Postecoglou said, revealing that both Oliver Skipp and Destiny Udogie played despite being on the sickbed in the lead up.

It’s not a great look for United that what was a noticeable dip in the quality of Spurs’ football, if not the style, as a result of those absentees and illnesses, led to 64 per cent possession in the away side’s favour, 16 shots to United’s eight and a general sense that they were in charge of the game at Old Trafford. Had Tottenham had a fully fit squad, they would have walked this game. And, in the presumption of United fan whataboutery, had both sides had fully fit squads, Spurs would also have walked this game.

Postecoglou has every right to be “delighted mate” as although it may only be United, given the struggles his side have faced in the build up, it’s a point won that leaves them level with Arsenal, albeit having played a game more.

5) Erling Haaland comparisons based on little other than his position, nordic heritage and blonde hair have done Rasmus Hojlund no favours. While Haaland’s Premier League goals have come at a rate of one every 81 minutes, we’re not entirely sure whether the rules of mathematics allowed a rate to be calculated from Hojlund’s return before Sunday.

But we can now with him in something of a hot streak after his second in two games. And both goals, other than giving a clear indication that one in 562 minutes is not a fair representation of his ability, suggest he does have more than a bit of the Haalands about him.

Against Villa he reacted quickly to volley a ball bobbling around the box past Emiliano Martinez. And against Spurs here he manoeuvred the ball into his kill zone on his favoured side before hitting it really rather hard. Like Haaland, it looks almost awkward. He bucks the left-footers’ ‘cultured’ trend, preferring to increase his odds of scoring by pushing the goalkeeper back into his own net if they get in the way.

There was a ‘sod this’ mentality to it, as if he was taking all thought out of the process, which is a well-renowned – and apparently in this case successful – method of strikers climbing from ruts.

6) As has been widely reported along with laughing emojis, Jadon Sancho was the last United forward to score at Old Trafford before Hojlund’s Boxing Day strike. And Marcus Rashford hadn’t managed one since May – his last of 13 at home in the Premier League last season – before beautifully sliding one in at the end of a first half in which he was “on it”, as Roy Keane succinctly described in the studio.

Pedro Porro – for all his clever positional play and quality in attack – has never entirely convinced defensively. To which Postecoglou’s quite reasonable solution has been to stop him having to defend all that often. But he was forced into convention by Rashford, who had him scuttling back towards his own goal at least as much as he threatened the other way before the break.

For the goal the full-back was turned inside out by Rashford, who played a one-two with Hojlund without actually needing to get past Porro, because the Tottenham defender made the atypical mistake of not looking at the ball. The finish was made to look simple, and so much more satisfying because of it; one to make you wonder why he doesn’t do that all the time.

7) It’s not their goals but the link-up between Rashford and Hojlund that’s the most positive outcome of this game for United. Rashford’s goal aside, when Hojlund acted as the wall for him to bounce the ball off, there were genuine signs of them looking for each other when in possession, which sounds like it should be a given for a winger and striker, and should be, but hasn’t been.

There will be significant change at United in the next two, three, four seasons under Sir Jim Ratcliffe, but that pair, along with Alejandro Garnacho, should form a big part of their future, assuming they get the right mix of midfielders to support them…

8) “He can play the pass,” scoffed Erik ten Hag ahead of kick-off when asked what Christian Eriksen brings to his United team, responding as though the reporter had never seen the Denmark international play football.

Eriksen completed 17 passes. Of the starters, only Rasmus Hojlund completed fewer with 14. Which means that one of the foremost creators in Premier League history, the guy who’s twelfth on the list of all-time assist-makers on 75, was essentially a midfield body, a disrupter if you will, a nuisance to get in the face of compatriot Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg, whom we don’t think we’re being churlish in suggesting would barely be fit to lace peak Eriksen’s boots, and completed 88 passes.

Manchester United’s 31-year-old midfield destroyer made one tackle, one clearance, no blocks and no interceptions. He was almost entirely pointless.

9) Manchester United could have won this game. Scott McTominay should have scored in the last minute. But it would have been another result to paper over the cracks, as the draw does to some extent.

They remain a ‘moments’ team, and any goal they score or chance they create comes as a result of players passing, moving and combining at random. When they get the ball they don’t know where they’re supposed to pass it – they’ve quite clearly not been told – and work it out as they’re going.

Bruno Fernandes has a ‘free role’, which sounds poetic and innovative until you think about any world class manager and realise they haven’t given any of their players such license, unless they’re Lionel Messi. And there appears to be a general ‘go out there and express yourselves’ level of direction given to the forwards, which would be the one bullet point we would expect to see on the pre-match presentations of Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard, but not a supposedly high-level tactician like Ten Hag.

Erik ten Hag instructs striker Marcus Rashford during Manchester United game

10) “Senior players like Casemiro, Martinez and Luke Shaw are returning and when you add that to our team I am sure it is a strong side,” Ten Hag said, defending his team’s lack of style, as has become a staple of his post-match interviews.

But Shaw did come back before getting injured again, and made no difference, with United winning two of the eight games he started. Lisandro Martinez was arguably the worst of all the players before he was sidelined in September, with Ten Hag apparently joining the collective revisionism over him and Casemiro, whom he is now suggesting can be the player to get them playing more football, despite that literally being the reason he cited for taking him off at half-time in his last Premier League game, against Brentford.

11) Five-foot-seven-inch Kobbie Mainoo shouldn’t be marking anyone from corners, let alone Richarlison and Romero. Both deliveries from Porro, one from the left for Richarlison’s flicked header into the corner, and one from the right which saw Romero thunder one off the bar, were perfect. Swung in, swung out, each of them dropped in the middle of the two posts, about five yards out.

Onana could have come but he’t not a goalkeeper that typically does. Which meant that unless Jonny Evans managed to get his head on the ball as the free man – as he did on five occasions – United were essentially relying on Spurs players to miss chances or get the luck of the draw with a bounce of the ball. United’s lack of aerial ability is a real problem, particularly without Scott McTominay in the starting lineup.

12) Aaron Wan-Bissaka’s last and only previous sojourn at left-back in his professional career was in the 4-0 defeat to Liverpool in March 2022, in which Mohamed Salah – playing from the right of course – scored two and provided an assist. This was a far better display.

Dressing room leaks, takeovers, sack talk or heavy defeats appear to have little to no effect on the full-back, who gives solid, unspectacular performances near enough every time he plays. The go go gadget legs nailed Brennan Johnson a couple of times, but he retains that permanent state of innocence despite inklings to the contrary.

An upgrade on Wan-Bissaka would be an easy win, as he doesn’t offer much at all on the front foot, but given this is a team and squad frequently accused of lacking effort – not that that was the case against Spurs – replacing him with a more crowd-pleasing option could, and almost certainly would, further reduce endeavour on the whole.

13) A paltry four camera shots of Ratcliffe in the entire game, which is a pretty good indication that a) it was quite a good game and b) United weren’t getting battered. “What must he be thinking now?” would otherwise have been the Peter Drury question put to Gary Neville between over-excited shouts of striker names as they pull the trigger.

14) 36-year-old Jonny Evans has started six games in the last 28 days. That’s a lot for someone who would be classed as a geriatic were he a) a woman and b) with child. There’s no shame in it taking a little while to get the muscles moving at such an age – who doesn’t require a groan to get off the sofa now and again? – and though we’re not suggesting Ange is genius enough to have his side target Evans within a minute of the second half, that may well be a plan future opposition managers should employ after the centre-back’s attempts to stop Bentancur.

The midfielder did a body swerve almost imperceptive to the human eye which left Evans so flat-footed that it looked briefly as though he might have ‘one of his falls’.

15) It was a brilliant finish though, from a wonderful footballer. Manchester United’s is not a difficult midfield to dominate, but with support from Skipp and Hojbjerg – who undoubtedly played their part – Bentancur waltzed around Old Trafford, beautifully knitting together what was a defence and attack fundamentally alien to each other given new signings and returnees.

16) And that’s the key takeaway from this game: team with clear style and substance beats team with some of the latter but none of the former despite the dominant side having at least four, possibly five, of their most influential attacking players out of action.

Yes, United still have players to come back, but anyone thinking any of those absentees holds the key to unlock a style of football we’ve seen nothing of is as deluded or deceptive as their manager, who is now playing the role of interim, having been brow-beaten into a fire-fighting role by a club that has already swallowed him whole, but is biding its time before spitting him out.

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