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Key events
50 min McGinn almost sends Watkins away as Casemiro and Mainoo get in a muddle, but Maguire tidies up.
“This is yet another poor EPL game,” says Tim Stappard. “Very little imagination. Bruno apart. But Utd have no excuses to be so slow and pedestrian.”
48 min Chance! Amad intercepts a pass from Mbeumo intended for Dalot and hits it hard with his right foot, but over the bar.
46 min United attack from the kick-off. Again a couple of crosses come in, and again there’s nobody to meet them. Where’s a Slovenian beanpole when they need him?
The players are out again, apart from Bryan Mbeumo, who trots on a little late.
“The gameload has properly bitten the Premier League,” says Christopher Faherty, “since around Valentine’s Day. Everyone looks tired all the time, mentally as well as physically.”
United’s women are having a worse time of it, losing 1-0 to Chelsea in the League Cup final. Billy Munday is covering that one.
Time for a glance at the mail. “I’m at Dens for the Dundee derby,” says Simon McMahon. “No goals yet, so a Happy Mother’s Day to the sainted Margaret, and also Lisa, and all mums everywhere. Glad that’s over, now to important business, COME ON UNITED!!!” I dodn’t think he means Manchester United.
And here’s Adam Roberts. “As well as his many admirable – and quite a few less admirable – qualities, I’ll really miss Casemiro’s look of shocked amazement every time a blatant foul is given against him.” Ha, fair.
Nothing doing in the other two games either, though Dominic Calvert-Lewin did miss a penalty for Leeds at Crystal Palace.
HALF-TIME! Man United 0-0 Villa
And suddenly, with no minutes added on, it’s half-time. Maybe Anthony Taylor was bored. It’s been a toothless performance from both teams, with just eight attempts and only one of them on target – the header from Amad that Martinez did well to save. That may be the only moment so far that makes it onto Match of the Day 2.
45 min Villa get forward and Onana wins a corner. All that comes of it is a United attack, to no effect.
43 min Watkins can smell redemption as he prepares to pull the trigger in the inside-left channel, but Yoro puts in a fine sliding tackle. As United break, Fernandes shoots wide from distance.
42 min Ollie Watkins thinks he’s clean through but he’s a yard offside, and he plays on – so he gets a yellow card, as if he was 20, not 30.
40 min And Villa sniff something! McGinn gets to the byline down the right, and as he plays a cutback it’s Shaw, again, who makes the vital intervention.
39 min Barkley feeds Watkins, who has his pocket picked by Shaw. “Villa,” says Neville, “have lost their way in the last ten minutes.” Not sure about that.
38 min Fernandes is beginning to run the show. His delicious chip finds Dalot, who blazes over the bar.
37 min Casemiro, teed up by some Fernandes wizardry, has a shot blocked.
35 min United’s turn to have some possession, all rather sluggish. They can’t be tired, but they may be rusty. Eventually Casemiro gets a decent cross in, and again they miss Sesko, but they do win a corner. It leads to a shot by Mbeumo, so wayward that it stays in play, and finally a cross by Fernandes that Maguire can’t quite reach. Get Sesko on!
33 min It’s 0-0 in the other two PL games as well. Exciting times.
31 min Buendia jinks into the box, waits for his moment to strike – and is calmly dispossessed by Mainoo.
29 min Villa have a long spell of possession. If you didn’t know, you might assume that they were higher up the table. They look more … joined-up. United snuff out this move, but only because Mbeumo darts back into his own area.
27 min Things calm down for a minute, then United come again. Cunha and Mbeumo, more involved now, almost conjure something, then Dalot and Amad have a go but Dalot’s final ball, as so often, is rather approximate.
25 min From that United corner, Casemiro went down expecting a penalty as he wrestled with Barkley. Checked and cleared.
24 min Villa’s turn to apply some pressure. Rogers whips the ball into the penalty spot, where someone half-clears it, and then McGinn sends a shot well wide.
23 min Save! By Martinez, low to his right, from a header by Amad that was en route to the far corner.
22 min United win a corner (still no shots), then another, which gets the crowd going.
17 min Another fine cross, from Dalot this time, and another failure to meet it. If Sesko had been picked, he might have had two goals already.
20 min Shaw tries to get Mbeumo more involved with a long ball. He can’t get on the end of it, which rather sums up this game so far: we’ve only had one shot, and it wasn’t on target.
17 min Cunha bursts down the United left and sends in a gorgeous cross with his weaker foot, his left. Nobody can get a head to it, though Amad feels he had his shirt pulled by Tyrone Mings. The VAR does not agree.
15 min Although United have had a fair amount of the ball, the three least busiest players in the game so far have been their front three – Mbeaumo with two touches, Cunha with four and Amad with six.
15 min Bruno Fernandes, fed by Mbeumo, sniffs his first assist but his cross is too low and easily headed away. McGinn tries to send Watkins through, but Maguire shakes him off and leaves him on the floor.
14 min Ollie Watkins gets involved on the left wing and eventually fouls Casemiro.
13 min Gary Neville reckons United are struggling with Villa’s shape. “So compact under Unai Emery.”
11 min The free kick is taken short, with McGinn trying to block the defenders breaking from the wall. Anthony Taylor is wise to it and gives a free kick to United.
9 min Another foul by Casemiro as Buendia dribbles forward in the inside-left channel. The free kick is 25 yards out and half the Villa team hold a conference about it.
8 min Another ambitious ball from Casemiro, seeking to send Dalot through; another misfire. Then Casemiro fouls John McGinn.
5 min Better from Maguire, who picks uop a loose ball and charges into midfield – but then plays a loose pass of his own that doesn’t reach Cunha.
5 min Now United’s centre-backs are needed in the air as Ross Barkley goes long with a good ball. Yoro half-clears it, Maguire has a go too and then wins a soft-looking free kick.
4 min Shaw dribbles down the left and tees up Cunha, whose cross is a good one – but well dealt with by Villa’s centre-backs.
3 min United string some quick passes together, Casemiro to Amad to Fernandes to Casemiro, who goes long and loses it. Mbeumo, as expected, is at centre-forward.
1 min Villa get forward right away but the first free kick goes to United. Harry Maguire lobs it long, to little effect.
Bruno Fernandes addresses the United huddle, with no ref in the middle. The cameras find Emi Martinez, who was sent off here in May.
The players and managers come out. The cameras go in close on Michael Carrick, who keeps calm and applauds the fans in the Bobby Charlton stand.
If you’re a United fan, you may only dimly remember their last game, which was on 4 March. (Their opponents that night, Newcastle, have played twice since, drawing with Barcelona and winning at Chelsea.) I tried to make sense of the defeat at St James’ Park for United Writing, the free newsletter I started with Rob Smyth to comment on nearly all United’s games, not just the glamorous ones.
My line was that there was no need to panic, as it had taken a worldie (from William Osula) for Carrick to lose his unbeaten record. It’s a view that may well look naive if United stumble again today. That’s sportswriting, though: as in politics, we can all be left looking clueless by events, dear boy, events. And of course we’re quite capable of being wrong about anything.
Everyone is either too busy or not busy enough, a wise literary agent once told me. She was talking about authors but the point applies to sportspeople too.
Which would you rather be? Morgan Rogers, ricocheting from Lille to Manchester with an England camp looming, or, say, Luke Shaw, who’s just had a weekend off, may not get an England recall and could soon find himself with a 24-day lull between United’s trip to Bournemouth this Friday and the home game against Leeds on 13 April. That’s not just an international break: it’s a full Easter holidays.
This is a big game, but it may not be the biggest game Manchester United have this afternoon. Their women’s team play Chelsea in the League Cup final, kicking off at 2.15pm GMT, a quarter of an hour after the men. It’s a curious clash that would present a dilemma for many club owners, though perhaps not Jim Ratcliffe. We’re live-blogging both, with Billy Munday covering the final.
Teams in full
Manchester United (4-2-3-1) Lammens; Dalot, Yoro, Maguire, Shaw; Casemiro, Mainoo; Amad, Fernandes, Cunha; Mbeumo.
Subs: Bayindir, Mazraoui, Heaven, Malacia, Ugarte, T Fletcher, Mount, Zirkzee, Sesko.
Aston Villa (4-2-3-1) Martinez; Bogarde, Konsa, Mings, Digne; Onana, Barkley; Buendia, McGinn, Rogers; Watkins.
Subs: Bizot, Garcia, Lindelof, Torres, Maatsen, Luiz, Elliott, Bailey, Abraham.
Referee Anthony Taylor.
Teams in brief: Villa
Unai Emery shakes up his midfield. John McGinn is back from the start, as mooted, and he’s joined by Ross Barkley, who usually gets only a cameo. At a guess, McGinn will be the no. 10 and Barkley the 8, with Amadou Onana as the 6.
Teams in brief: Man United
Michael Carrick makes two changes, which may be a record for his current stint. Benjamin Sesko reverts to the bench as Amad comes back in, so it looks as if Bryan Mbeumo will start down the middle, as he did for Carrick’s first few games. In defence, Diogo Dalot returns at right-back in place of Noussair Mazraoui.
Preamble
Afternoon everyone, happy Mother’s Day and welcome to a six-pointer. It’s third against fourth and, unlike the top two, Manchester United and Aston Villa are neck-and-neck, separated only by goal difference.
Villa have one more win but United have three more draws. United lost their last game, 2-1 at Newcastle, whereas Villa won theirs, 1-0 at Lille. United have had a ten-day break, while Villa, who have played ten more games this season, are back to the Thursday-Sunday grind – though if any manager thrives on that, it’s Unai Emery, the grandmaster of the Europa League.
When this fixture last took place, just before Christmas, it was a tale of two inside-lefts. Morgan Rogers scored for Villa, Matheus Cunha replied for United, Rogers did it again and then Cunha missed a sitter. Bruno Fernandes was forced off by a rare injury, which meant that United’s midfield went from middling (Fernandes and Manuel Ugarte) to makeshift (Ugarte and Lisandro Martinez, then Martinez and Jack Fletcher). The difference between the sides was Rogers’ wizardry, which put Villa ten points ahead of United. That gap has now been closed by Michael Carrick, who was Rogers’ manager and mentor at Middlesbrough.
United should be stronger today, with a settled midfield duo of Casemiro (suspended last time) and the revitalised Kobbie Mainoo. But then Villa could have John McGinn, their driving force, making his first start since a knee operation in January.
If Carrick’s new-manager bounce has been fading, he’s still got it at home, where he has won four games out of four. But Villa, the only English team to win in Europe this week, could be coming out of their slump. And both camps will have been cheered by Chelsea’s unexpected defeat last night.
My considered opinion is that it’s too close to call.
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