Originally Published October 4th 2023 for For Green Fields clients
Pseudo-journalists at pseudo-newspaper The Guardian claim that unnamed senior management at Manchester United are comfortable with the job that Erik ten Hag is failing to do at Old Trafford.
This despite the club being bottom of their Champions League Group and having only won 4 of the opening 10 games of the season.
But it could be worse - the refereeing errors in the Wolves and Forest games distort the Premier League table and, without the inputs of the PGMOL, United would sit one point above Luton and Bournemouth and two above Sheffield United.
The situation is chaotic and follows on from the extensive insider trading perpetrated last season (often against the club's interests).
In our view Steve McClaren and ten Hag are not fit for purpose and should both be sacked.
But rather than focusing on the present, we would like to travel back in time...
When the excellently named Andre Onana Onana signed for Manchester United in the summer, the Manchester Evening News ran an article claiming that the new goalkeeper's one year ban for doping in 2021 (later reduced to nine months) was "a genuine mistake".
Really?
After a Champions League game for Ajax at Atalanta in October 2020, the keeper had a headache and, apparently, decided to take a paracetamol from his kitchen.
Unfortunately, the paracetamol turned out to be furosemide which is extensively used in football as a masking substance to disguise the use of Performance Enhancing Substances (PESs).
Onana's ban came into effect in February 2021.
But.
What if we evaluate the performance of Ajax around this window...
At the end of November 2020, it was clear that Onana was in trouble.
Up until that stage in the Eredivisie, Ajax had been almost unstoppable.
Their first ten games saw victories of 5-0, 5-0, 3-0, 5-2, 13-0, 5-1, 3-0, 3-0, 2-1 and a solitary 0-1 defeat.
Yardage covered and goals scored late in games were astonishing metrics - for example, 22 goals were scored in the latter part of each half and only one conceded.
Mysteriously, following the issue surfacing with Onana, the equivalent late half goal differential for the remainder of the Eredivisie season was 21 goals scored and 9 conceded.
Similarly in the Champions League where, after covering 119 km in their opening match versus Liverpool, Ajax only averaged 110 km per game in the remainder of the group stage.
Ajax were less fit in the latter two-thirds of the 2020/21 season than at any other stage of ten Hag's stewardship.
Edwin van der Sar, the chief executive at Ajax at the time, suggested the ruse that Onana had mistakenly taken furosemide instead of paracetamol but the player was still banned by UEFA and Ajax allowed him to leave on a free transfer at the completion of his ban - hardly a ringing endorsement of his innocence.
The Manchester Evening News went on to claim that "football has not been plagued by drug doping like some other sports" which is simply a lie - we extensively analyse doping in all of the major leagues and Leicester City's fake title was based on PESs inputs from Dr Mark Bonar, MAPEI and Team Sky Cycling medics.
Many of the players who were so amazing for Ajax during their run to the Semi Finals of the 2018/19 Champions League were never quite the same player again thereafter (a sure sign of systemic doping).
Manchester United selectively doped last season which, combined with inappropriate pre-season training regimes, has resulted in the Red Devils being the third worst team in the top three European leagues on fitness - only Sheffield United and Empoli are more ploddy.
There has also been an injury 'crisis'.
Additionally, ten Hag is signing players based on the suggestions of the club agent as well as Steve McClaren and ten Hag's own agent SEG.
United's transfer policy has been and continues to be inept and is a key part of the dysfunctionality at the club.
Still.
One ray of light in the future is that Manchester United's last match before the International Break is against Brentford at Old Trafford on Saturday.
And the Bees' keeper Mark Flekken is represented by SEG.
The Lord be praised.
© 2023 Football is Fixed
