Today was not a good day to be a Manchester United fan. Liverpool beat us by a humiliating score of 7 goals to nil. The worst score in the history of the club.
It hurts.
It was excruciating to watch the match. The first half was decent, we had a few chances that should have been scored. We conceded a goal at the end of the first half, nothing we couldn’t recover from. But the second half was just horrible.
Players were not going after the ball, making stupid errors. Our captain Bruno acted like a petulant child going down on the field every time a Liverpool player came close to him, fishing for that penalty. It looked as if all the players had lost the confidence in themselves with their head hanging down on their shoulders. You could see it in their body language that they were just waiting for the match to be over. Conceding 6 goals in 2nd half alone was a disgrace.
The main reason why this defeat hurts is because we have been in great form recently. We won the Carabao last week, knocked the in-form Barcelona out of the Europa League the week before that, advanced to the quarterfinals of the EFL.
All of this success was catalyzed by the arrival of the current coach Erik ten Hag. He has brought a fresh change at Manchester United. He has transformed this team into a winning side. He has dealt with Ronaldo tantrums and most of all has taken McGuire out of the regular eleven. The current roster of players have shown confidence and positive results under his reign.
Last week, David de Gea, our star goalkeeper was feted for the most number of clean sheets at the club (181), marking him as one of the top goal keepers of the Premier League. Ironically, today he was turned into a joke by the opposition seven times in 90 minutes.
It was the same Liverpool that drew 0-0 at Crystal Palace last week. The same Liverpool that lost to Madrid 5-2 while being 2-0 ahead. The same Liverpool that were hanging in the mid-table. But, today they decided to flip a switch and rain hell on us.
Sure, Liverpool had the home advantage to play at Anfield. They have a reputation of not losing there. But today was different, they were feeding of the insane energy of their home crowd. They just kept going at it. It was just painful to watch the ball go to the back of the net one after the other. It was like a cat toying with her meal before devouring it.
The last time we lost 7-0 was a 100 years ago or something.
For me as a fan, it was terrible, sitting on my couch watching the 11 players take the field on my TV. I can only imagine the pit in the players stomach as the kept conceding those goals on live television. Losing to Liverpool is not even the worst part. The worst part is having a hardcore Liverpool fan for your best friends. Especially, after I’ve been reminding him of Liverpool’s form that has been terrible all season long and that they are a mid-table team.
I have been a fan of Man United ever since I started watching the Premier League as a kid. I don’t follow other sports with the same fervor as I follow Manchester United play in the Premier League. Weirdly, Manchester United means a lot to me, I cried when Sir Alex Ferguson retired in 2013. I jump and shout in the living room when they score a goal. United hasn’t had the best seasons in the last few years. It was tough to see the club go through hardships of David Moyes’s reign, Van Gaal’s reign and even Ralf Ragnick. So just when things were turning with Erik ten Hag’s reign, Liverpool hand us this present.
I would have been cool with a draw. I had a different post for today if we had lost 2-1, but 7-0 is a kick in the teeth.
Writing this post without any expletives was such a task in itself but oh well, that is life. You win some and you lose some. The show must go on and all the other bullshit. End Rant.
⛺️ Content I’m Digging
🎙️ CEO Coach Matt Mochary on the Tim Ferris show
Matt is a business coach to Naval Ravinkant and CEOs of Coinbase, OpenAI etc. His Mochary Method is available as a google doc and it is insane.
My favourite section was the first part where Matt asks Tim about his fears. Tim opens up about his recent end to a relationship and his fear to put himself out there and starting back from square one. Matt coached Tim though it by asking him to predict the worst thing that can happen if those fears came true. Then Matt boldly made a bet against those predictions by drilling down to the root cause and setting a course of action to overcome that fear. The details of this method seem so obvious but yet they are not.
Quote of the week
A Derek Sivers quote I should have imbibed before today’s match.
Disasters come suddenly, without warning.
Tragedy hurts the most when it is unexpected.
But if you expect it, you take away its power.
Thank you for reading.
I really appreciate your attention.
Your Friend,
Shubham