Roy Keane criticized Manchester United’s “non-existent” midfield of Casemiro and Manuel Ugarte after the club suffered a shock defeat to relegation-threatened Leeds at Old Trafford. Leeds won 2-1 with two goals from Noah Okafor in United’s first match at Old Trafford in 24 days. The Leeds striker got Daniel Farke’s side off to a strong start, scoring twice within the first 29 minutes and could have been even further ahead at the interval.
Lisandro Martinez was then sent off for pulling Dominic Calvert-Lewin’s hair, leaving United with 10 men in search of an equaliser. Casemiro reduced the deficit with a header at Bruno Fernandes’ far post, but it proved not to be enough for United, who suffered their first home league defeat to their opponents since 1981. It was only their second comeback in 11 games under manager Michael Carrick, but Keane delivered a harsh verdict.
“They’ll be disappointed,” he said on Sky Sports. “They’ve been very strong in recent months and there’s a lot of praise for the manager. There were obviously concerns heading into the game with them not playing for a few weeks, but manager Carrick said that should be fine and they’ve been through training camp.”
“But that’s how they came into the game. They came into the game slow and it’s hard to recover. And they couldn’t do it in the first half. And what you have to do in this game, we saw Man City do that in the second half yesterday, you have to run!”
“They weren’t at full speed, United, and the timing in the last bit was too slow. It’s a huge setback for them. Midfield? Non-existent, especially the first two, they had no energy or quality. Leeds got out of the blocks quickly and it was a great result for Leeds.”
Carrick was forced to bring in Manuel Ugarte, who lined up alongside Casemiro at the heart of United’s midfield, to replace the injured Coby Mainu. Despite a sluggish start as Leeds flew out of the traps, Carrick decided to draw attention to referee Paul Tierney’s decision in his post-match address to the media.
The United manager believed Lenny Yolo was fouled by Calvert-Lewin before Okafor’s opener and Martinez should not have been sacked for his altercation with the Leeds striker. “We didn’t start the game particularly well. We conceded a goal because Lenny Yolo hit us with a forearm to the back of the head,” he said.
“They didn’t make the decision to turn it around, and that was the big moment of the game. We just didn’t quite get our rhythm and didn’t get going. We had some moments, but we didn’t have that for the majority of the first half.”
“After the shocking decision to send Richa (Martinez) off, I thought the players thought positively and played as hard as they could in the second half. That was the second game in a row where the decision went against us, but that game was one of the worst I’ve seen.”
