Stoke 2-0 Man United

Stoke 2-0 Man United

Home team scorers
Bojan Krkic 19
Marko Arnautovic 26

High in the stands, one Stoke City supporter had come dressed for the occasion, wearing a José Mourinho mask and carrying a placard marked as a P45 for Louis van Gaal, the struggling Manchester United manager. Once again, his team were beaten. They were abject for long spells and the last time they went this long without a victory goes back to an eight-match sequence from December 1989 to January 1990, back in the days when a banner appeared at Old Trafford calling time on the pre-knighted Alex Ferguson. “Tara Fergie,” it said. “Three years of excuses and we’re still crap.”

At the risk of being cruel, Van Gaal has managed the same in 18 months, with no apparent sign he is getting any nearer to everything clicking. This was their fourth successive defeat in a run of seven games without a victory. A plodding team have now managed 14 goals in 16 matches and this cannot be written off as a blip when, going back to April, they have won only 14 of their last 34 assignments. The indignities are stacking up and someone might have to explain to Van Gaal the irony of Stoke’s supporters chanting “boring, boring” when his team had the ball. While Bojan Krkic, Marko Arnautovic and Xherdan Shaqiri led their opponents a merry dance, United aimed the ball to Marouane Fellaini, misplaced passes, lacked clarity and in the worst moments looked like they would rather be somewhere else.

Is Van Gaal being serious when he says this team have realistic credentials to win the league? On this evidence they might even struggle to reach the top four and perhaps the most startling part is that this ought to have been a day when his players put on a united front. On the contrary, if you came here looking for signs that the players are as puzzled by Van Gaal as everyone else, there were plenty of them. Their body language was appalling during those first-half moments when the damage was inflicted.

Stoke have now beaten three out of England’s four Champions League qualifiers here this season and it would be a tremendous pity if, among all the scrutiny of Van Gaal, that record were overlooked. They attacked with great flair during the first half, sensing their opponents were there for the taking, and in the second half when they were put under sustained pressure for the first time we saw some of the old doggedness, defending with great determination while still looking dangerous on the counterattack.

Van Gaal can take a glimmer of encouragement from his team’s improvement after the interval but their deficiencies were so considerable he would be wrong to dwell it on too much. Ander Herrera was recalled to midfield but decorated the game with carelessness. They were grateful Arnautovic, having scored a beauty, could not make it 3-0 after he ran clear on 36 minutes and a traumatic first half concluded with Daley Blind trying to cross the ball from the left, scuffing it straight out of play and ending up on his backside. Blind had terrible problems trying to keep close to Shaqiri. Ashley Young’s inexperience as a full-back was shown up by the harebrained handball that led to Stoke’s second goal and Juan Mata rarely came out of a shell of his own making.

As for Memphis Depay, his ordeal lasted only 45 minutes and his first season in English football was probably encapsulated by that moment, under pressure from Glen Johnson, when he attempted a back-header to David de Gea, made a pig’s ear of it and cost his team the opening goal. Krkic was left with virtually an open goal after Johnson picked out his run and, whereas United once went by the mantra that they always had to respond forcefully to going behind, that does not appear to be part of Van Gaal’s philosophy.

Seven minutes later, Young’s handball gave Krkic the chance to try to curl a free-kick around the defensive wall. The ball came back off the cluster of bodies and Arnautovic took over. His first touch set up the shooting opportunity and the second was lashed past De Gea with power and precision, swerving into the net from over 20 yards.

In happier times, United would not have dared play this badly because of the threat that a certain manager might march out into the technical area with little puffs of smoke emanating from his nostrils. Van Gaal and Ryan Giggs sat beside one another like strangers on a bus. Rooney came on at half-time for Depay and there was at least a measure of urgency about United’s play during that period.

Their best chance came after 64 minutes but Jack Butland has been outstanding for Stoke this season and spared his team a nervous finale with a sprawling save to keep out Fellaini’s shot. It was excellent goalkeeping but Fellaini, six yards out, should have made a much better contact from Rooney’s cross. Butland also turned away a shot from Anthony Martial and then Mata in the last 10 minutes but it was not the onslaught that might have been anticipated.

The old United are no more and the lingering memory of Martial’s performance will be his dive to try to conjure up a first-half penalty. “That’s just embarrassing,” the home crowd chanted. Krkic did the same in the second half but the difference was that Stoke’s player looked like he could get the better of his opponents in a more honest way, too. For Van Gaal, it was a long walk down the touchline to pass the away end.

Guardian