IT HAS all gone a bit flat at Manchester United and the first voices of dissent can be heard.
Of course that is the problem when expectations are raised, fans expect them to be met.
The opening day thumping of Leeds and the return of Cristiano Ronaldo on that memorable afternoon against Newcastle did that.
Suddenly United once again had a team to challenge.
Yet now in less than a fortnight they have lost their opening game in the Champions League and gone out the Carabao Cup.
They needed David De Gea’s last gasp heroics to earn them a victory at West Ham and now this, defeat at home to Aston Villa.
Not just that, but a performance that deserved little more.
Bruno Fernandes’ missed penalty in injury time summed the afternoon up for the home side.
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Careless, ragged, disjointed.
Long before the Villa winner it had needed De Gea at his best to keep them level until he finally succumbed.
Elsewhere it was very uninspiring. Even Ronaldo had an off day.
After four goals from his first three games he barely had a shot in this match.
Visiting managers need to watch a video of this game as an object lesson of how to starve him of the ball.
You can’t man mark him but if he doesn’t get the ball there is not a lot he can do.
There was a point during the game where he was waving his arms at his team-mates to tell them to calm down.
He could see that the frustration from the terraces was tumbling onto the pitch.
Players started reverting to long balls, solo runs, shots from distance that kept getting charged down.
Fernandes wasn’t getting on the ball, Paul Pogba was having one of those Pogba afternoons that so frustrates.
With Luke Shaw off the pitch injured there was nothing coming from the full-back areas.
Aaron Wan-Bissaka simply provides nothing going forward.
They need some creation and one of the players they bought for this is Jadon Sancho, but he remained on the bench.
To be fair we have seen little so far from him to suggest he should be anywhere else.
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You could see the confidence draining from the Red Devils long before Kortney Hause headed home a deserved winner.
Then Fernandes had the chance to paper over the cracks with that injury time penalty, and sent the ball into orbit.
Much for Solskjaer to ponder.
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