Manchester United lost to Arsenal yesterday as they were dispatched with relative ease by Mikel Arteta’s title chasers and Paul Merson thinks he’s spotted a major problem.
Erik ten Hag’s side barely got near the Gunners and caused their backline little problems, as William Saliba once again impressed at the heart of the defence.
For United, it was just another dismal home performance in a series of them this season.
Ten Hag spoke after the game about injuries in the squad not helping and on paper, there are a number of big players missing from the squad.
However, Paul Merson, who was watching from pitch-side for Sky Sports, is not completely buying it and he believes he spotted a big problem even during United’s warm up.
Paul Merson concerned for Manchester United after seeing them warm up
Speaking on Sky Sports about the injuries at United and what he noticed in the warm-up, Merson admitted his concern for what’s happening at the club.
“It worries me, Martinez I heard you say he wanted to play and he wasn’t playing. 15 staff out there today when we were doing our thing and they were warming up. There was as many staff as players,” Merson said.
“If I want to play I’m going to play. The physio ain’t telling me I’m not playing. I played over 700 matches, if I played 100 games at 100% I would be shocked. If I went out there and was buzzing today, everything is good. I was having injections, taking tablets.
“I wasn’t going to listen to someone else tell me I can’t play. This is the problem, everyone else tells everyone else to play.”
Cultural problems seem to continue at United
Everyone who knows football will have read an article somewhere down the line about United and the problems they have as a football club, culture wise.
That seems to have made its way to the first-team now and Merson, as well his fellow pundits Roy Keane and Wayne Rooney, were simply not having that all of United’s injuries warranted missing this game.
Quite where the evidence is for those claims, is unknown. But as Merson says, there does seem to be an element now of physios and others having a lot more power.
Players should be busting a gut to play for a club like Man United in a big game against Arsenal.
Sadly, it looks like things are not completely rosy once more for Ten Hag and his players.