Chaos is a ladder that United and Arsenal cannot get off

By Urban Newton

(@urban_newton)

“Chaos isn’t a pit. Chaos is a ladder,” says Petyr Baelish in season three of Game Of Thrones. “Many who try to climb it fail and never get to try it again. The fall breaks them.

“And some are given a chance to climb. They refuse. They cling to the realm or the gods or love. Illusions. Only the ladder is real. The climb is all there is.”

Manchester United and Arsenal are in chaos.

Last night’s 1-1 draw was one of the worst adverts for the Premier League you will ever see. Mistakes everywhere. Space everywhere. A lack of quality everywhere.

It was obvious the game would be awful.

Under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, United have a former player who’s love for the club is unwavering and deluding him. He doesn’t know how he has got where he is. We don’t know how he has got where he is.

That night in Paris in March, when Marcus Rashford’s last minute penalty saw them progress to the Champions League quarter finals at the expense of PSG, that somehow got him the job.

Ed Woodward could not wait to appoint the cheap, non-conflictive caretaker as manager of the biggest football club in the world. It was a desperate and easy decision. It was never going to work out.

Solskjaer has often spoken of reinstalling the “Manchester United way”. Since Alex Ferguson’s retirement in 2013, United have supposedly increasingly lost these values.

Attractive, attacking football was gone. No longer was youth being promoted either. Marquee signings came in in every window.

Apparently Ole will rid of all that though. They play on the front foot, with young British players being at the spine, the heart of the team.

It doesn’t work though does it?

The players are not good enough. Solksjaer is no more than a coach. He may inspire the youngsters to play the “United way” in front of the Old Trafford faithful but it just doesn’t work.

A big overhaul is needed yet again at the club. The only solution is to spend. Spend on a tactician to manage the players on the pitch and give the club an identity again, even if it isn’t the “United way”.

Spend on star players again. This time do the right scouting, the right recruitment, the right networking, to ensure the players will be right for the club.

Both United and Arsenal showed nothing last night.

The Gunners in particular should be the team most disappointed with their performance. For all their appalling defending and positional discipline off the ball, they have shown they can at least attack.

That was nowhere to be seen however. In possession, players were isolated, too far apart from one another.

Too many times did they look to counter attack, only to find vastly limited options due to a lack of willing, dangerous runners.

Unai Emery is supposed to be a pragmatic manager too. He is supposed to be able to change things in game when necessary. Yet last night Arsenal were consistent in their clumsy and ineffective performance over the full ninety.

If chaos is indeed a ladder, then Arsenal and Manchester United are very far at the bottom of it.

United are trying to reinstall past glories and philosophies that worked so well previously in a time that cannot be forcefully revisited and discovered easily. Arsenal are moving away from such times under Arsene Wenger but are not exactly doing it well.

Neither side can challenge for the title. They are too tactically inept to win the big games yet have the quality to beat the lesser sides regularly enough to stay within enough distance of the Top Four. One of them will probably stutter into the Champions League places somehow.

The two former giants of world football are not in a good way. They face a very tough challenge, one that requires lots of change and investment, to climb the ladder of chaos and get off it.

By Urban Newton

(@urban_newton)