Everton’s Goodison bearpit the start of season-defining gruesome run for Manchester United

A couple of anniversaries of sorts passed at Manchester United this week. It was 12 months on Wednesday since United signalled that Cristiano Ronaldo would be leaving the club by mutual consent, a statement followed four hours later by the news that the Glazers could sell up after formally launching a strategic review at Old Trafford.

Even by United’s enduring capacity for drama, it was an eventful day but both developments hinted at the winds of change blowing through the club and the possibility of a brighter future.

Here was a club that for too long had allowed corrosive player power to take root now standing firmly behind its manager in a battle with its most high profile and highest earning star. At the same time, United supporters dared to glimpse a world beyond their reviled American owners of 18 years. A sale, it emerged, was being targeted by brokers in the first quarter of 2023.

On the pitch, United had just recently secured their eighth win in 12 Premier League matches before the mid-season break for the World Cup in Qatar, a run that would gather fresh momentum after the resumption with 15 victories from 19 games culminating in a first trophy for six years, the Carabao Cup.

Discipline and unity were being restored by their progressive new manager Erik ten Hag, Old Trafford was rediscovering its fear factor, new signings Lisandro Martinez, Christian Eriksen and Casemiro had hit the ground running and Marcus Rashford would soon be in the form of his life. Optimism abounded.

If supporters had been told then that, a year on, the club – with nine defeats in 18 and struggling to score goals – would be besieged by problems on and off the field and still under control of the Glazers then they might have rightly wondered what on earth had happened in the ensuing period.

Equally, it is probably in keeping with United’s misfortunes this season that their trip to Goodison Park this weekend should also be Everton’s first game since the club were docked 10 points for breaching Premier League financial rules.

As it is, Goodison has not been the happiest hunting ground for United in the past few years, with just two wins in the last five league visits and a couple of grisly defeats. Now Ten Hag and his players can be pretty sure they will be entering the lion’s den given the sense of injustice at the Merseyside club at the scale of punishment meted out and, with it, the opportunity for Sean Dyche to create a siege mentality.

Four league wins from five before the international break has at least given Ten Hag something to build from but the performances in all of those matches were far from convincing and, as with most things at United at the moment, a feeling of fragility and uncertainty persists.

The Everton game, which has suddenly taken on a more testing look, marks the beginning of a gruesome run of fixtures. Lose to Galatasaray in Istanbul next Wednesday and United are out of the Champions League. Thereafter, they are due to face Newcastle, Chelsea, Bournemouth, Liverpool, West Ham and Aston Villa up to Christmas, a perilous sequence that could help make United’s season if they emerge strongly from it but also with the real potential to deepen their troubles. Survive Galatasaray and they may well still need something from their final Group A fixture, at home to Bayern Munich and Harry Kane, to progress.

The sight of Luke Shaw – United’s much missed left back – returning to training this week was a welcome fillip for Ten Hag and goalkeeper Andre Onana should be fit for Everton despite returning from international duty prematurely after an injury scare. But Ten Hag is still without Martinez and Casemiro while Christian Eriksen and Rasmus Hojlund both succumbed to injuries against Luton in the final game before the latest round of internationals.

At the same time, Jadon Sancho remains in exile following his public falling out with the manager in early September and so many other attackers are out of form, not least Rashford, Antony and summer signing Mason Mount. United’s 13 goals in 12 league games is comfortably the fewest of the division’s top 12 and will prove increasingly problematic the longer it persists.

Off the field, Richard Arnold has stepped down as chief executive, having never really recovered from his bungled handling of the Mason Greenwood saga, as Sir Jim Ratcliffe finally hopes to complete his £1.3 billion purchase of a 25 per cent stake in the club after 12 months trying to strike a deal that suits the Glazers.

It is not the revolution United fans are pining for and raises more questions than answers but they can only wish it marks the start of a change they had hoped to believe was already under way this time last year.