Manchester United 3 Leicester City 0: Wright writes up a write-off
With Manchester United struggling in the bottom half of the table, Steve Cooper’s Foxes had an opportunity to make a statement against their illustrious hosts on Sunday.
But a limp defeat has increased the noise around Cooper’s job, meaning he’s fittingly staring down a barrel with the majority of fans during an international break that will end with Enzo Maresca’s return to Leicester.
The ball dropped out of the sky, catching the defender off guard. For a moment there was real danger until he managed to smuggle the ball out for a throw in. Everyone is chilled... a little too chilled.
The throw is taken quickly, half the defence is caught napping, the other half stand rooted to the spot like statues. The opposition work the ball to the best player on the pitch who carefully curls a shot into the bottom corner to open the scoring.
Its the sort of story many reading will have experienced watching their children's teams on a crisp autumnal Sunday morning. When the above happens in a Premier League, it's all the more frustrating.
Going into yesterday's game, the Foxes had the chance to leapfrog The Red Devils and put some distance between ourselves and the trap door. However, for the second time in 10 days, we've played at Old Trafford without threatening to win and been on the end of a heavy defeat. With a number of others below us picking up points, we're back to looking down the table rather than up.
As my article last week suggested, it's pretty difficult to make a firm conclusion of where we stood going into this weekend. Cooper's Leicester really are the Inbetweeners. Looking good in front of the cool kids some of the time, before doing something daft to ruin it all.
Any discussions amongst City fans regarding whether we'd finally put together a 90 minute performance were halted with the team news. It's almost 2025 but there's still a sense of dread with No Vardy meaning No Party.
Our reliance on the talisman shows so sign of reducing, with credit to Vards for his longevity and no credit whatsoever to those who work in the transfer department. Odsonne Edouard becoming the latest deputy to not even be a deputy as he just about made the bench, with super-sub Jordan Ayew preferred up front.
If Edouard isn't going to play when Vardy is injured, there really isn't any point in keeping him around. It's a wage and a squad place that could go to someone else (cough Cannon, cough cough). Let's hope we inserted a break clause in both loan deals.
The other changes saw James Justin replace the injured (and subsequently detailed, long term injured) Ricardo, and Bouba Soumaré replace the out of sorts Stephy Mavididi.
If you went into the game with the thought that the change in midfield to three 'defensive' midfielders would have made us more difficult to play through, the first 10 minutes showed that it was business as usual in the centre of the park as Manchester United regularly won possession and quickly moved through the lines.
It was clear that United wanted to target our right hand side, the people behind the scenes at Old Trafford simply only having to watch those two minute Sky Sports highlight clips of our previous games to spot our glaring weakness.
Aside from a glorious Fatawu nutmeg (before giving the ball away), there wasn't much to get excited about from our point of view before inevitably Bruno Fernandes opened the scoring.
Generally speaking, I do like and understand how expected goals (xG) works, but that system doesn't really do justice to that type of goal. It'll register as a low quality chance due to the distance and angle. Great finish as it was, if you give elite level players that sort of time and space, the net bulging is usually the end result. We don't talk about Bruno - we don't bother marking him either.
As has been the case a number of times under Cooper, going behind seemed to be a catalyst for an improvement in performance. Fatawu and Buonanotte looked a threat and we started to fashion some chances. 5 shots on target for us to United's 1 (goal) at one point. Sadly, one of those shots was from halfway (Fatawu) and the big chance fell to Ndidi, who simply isn't comfortable that far up the pitch. He was quickly snuffed out by Onana in the United goal.
Just as we were getting a foothold though, we again failed to deal with Fernandes, who touched a cross onto the unfortunate Victor Kristiansen for 2-0 at the break. Once again the goal came from our right hand side.
There still seemed to be a degree of optimism, despite the scoreline. The hope was that our poor half may have been out of the way. Unfortunately, the reality is that Southampton-esque comebacks are very rare, and we never threatened to do so here.
Not a great deal happened in the second half. The referee appeared to have forgotten his yellow card following a number of strong challenges by United players, but then found it again to book Buonanotte, who misses the next game. We were also treated to an appearance by Jonny Evans, who's miraculously fit all the time these days.
Oh, and we had a comically bad free kick, to rival the Huth one from the title season. At least Huth got a shot away. Set pieces were really poor all game.
The frustration with the second half was that, as we've seen before, the game was drifting with Cooper inert on the touchline. "Sort it out" rang loud and true from the away end before a few far too late subs.
Without really doing anything, Manchester United added a third through Alejandro Garnacho, a depressingly similar goal to the ones we've conceded all season.
The combination of Justin and Faes on the right simply doesn't work and needs changing immediately as it's becoming embarrassing how easily we're conceding from that side.
Three of yesterday's defence were relegated 18 months ago, with the fourth unable to get in that team. With Ricardo now injured too, we simply aren't good enough at the back, as we weren't in 2022/23. Caleb Okoli to return alongside Conor Coady and one other in a three is a serious option that needs consideration.
It was a game where the stats looked like it should have been a 0-0, but three lapses in concentration coupled with some good finishing left Ruud Van Nistelrooy enjoying his last game as caretaker manager. Wonder if he's got anything lined up?
For the Reds, a new dawn awaits under Ruben Amorim. For the Foxes it's a heavy defeat and more questions than answers as we go into the international break.
Leicester City only won one of our first 26 away games at Newcastle. It was a special one - a 5-1 win in 1928 when the great Arthur Chandler scored four goals - but we’re going to focus on another comprehensive victory nearly sixty years later.