Dear reader, that sound you can hear is everything crashing back down to earth at Old Trafford. It turns out that Manchester United are not the greatest team in the world after Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s quick paint job.
Yesterday’s Champions League football showed that PSG’s reserve XI are still better than United‘s first choice XI.
And that, as Solskjaer rightly says, is a ‘reality check’.
Paul Pogba was sent off for two yellow cards in the 89th minute but even Graeme Souness could not blame the defeat on him. PSG were 2-0 up and in control, although both French goals came after Jesse Lingard and Anthony Martial had gone off injured.
Solskjaer has warned his players ‘not to feel sorry for themselves’ and that anyone who does won’t be playing against another club in crisis, Chelsea, in the FA Cup on Monday.
United could also be trouble after someone from the crowd chucked a bottle in the direction of Angel di Maria. Unlike during his time playing for the club, Di Maria killed the bottle on his thigh, dribbled it past two and stuck it in the top corner.
Also, can we now stop with the Marcus Rashford vs Kylian Mbappe comparisons? Mbappe is younger, better (at this stage) and a World Cup winner. Rashford is just about nailing down a place in United’s starting XI now he has a manager who trusts him. Let them both get on with it, no?
Over in Rome, Roma beat Porto. But nobody cares about that one, do they?
Tonight a depleted Tottenham side will probably lose to Borussia Dortmund, meaning that at least Solskjaer and Mauricio Pochettino will have that in common as they battle it out for the full-time role at United.
Now we are nearly a whole two weeks since January, the silly season of transfer rumours are fully underway.
Chelsea want Luka Jovic who is on loan in the Bundesliga. He is young, Serbian and has scored lots of goals so far this season. The problem is, those facts have also alerted Real Madrid and Barcelona and let’s be honest; if it is a choice between those three, Chelsea are coming third.
Tiemoue Bakayoko is currently putting his Chelsea nightmare behind him and slowly remembering the skills that made him so promising at Monaco. He is now doing alright for AC Milan, so alright in fact that they would like him to stay and continue that partnership with Franck Kessie. The snag to that plan is that Chelsea might like Kessie to come to London in return which could then mean that Bakayoko starts to look rubbish again. Hmmm, decisions.
Another player out on-loan from Chelsea is Kenedy, currently frustrating the living daylights out of Rafa Benitez up at Newcastle. Rafa knows there is a player in there somewhere but is running out of patience and ideas on how to relocate it.
Finally, as we always knew, Paul Scholes has taken to football management like a duck to water. His Oldham side, in his first match, won 4-1. The problem is Scholesy, it can only go one way from here.
