The atmosphere was tingling with excitement, albeit a tad subdued for the home spectators due to the calamitous outcome of the preceding top-billed clash of the titans in another gladiatorial arena not too far away. Nevertheless, it was still a glorious sight to behold as the multitudes packed the stadium to the brim with nary a vacant seat to spare.
For the zealots who call the place home, this glorious venue would be the appropriate coliseum for the re-enactment of a spectacle that had been replayed for no less than fifty eight years with the same eventual outcome always favouring the home hero. The Spartacus of an earlier era, rudely awakened from slumber, is now again up in arms, his thunderous voice bellowing and echoing throughout the modern day amphitheatre, baying for blood to appease a gnarling, inner fury.
On this fateful day, the scribes had somehow seen it fit to rewrite the script. The venerable victor of old showed glimpses of an old dexterity and prowess immediately after the battle gong was sounded. However, the rival tribe initiated a new battle plan that very quickly turned the tide and reduced Colossus to a tottering giant, arms flailing in desperation as the carnage continued to wreak havoc and devastation till the bitter end.
Burnley have finally managed to emerge victorious after fifty eight long years of battling Manchester United. On the Red Devils’ home turf, too, adding insult to grievous injury. This has dealt a severe blow to United’s Champions League qualification hopes. Not able to contain the agony and the pent-up frustration anymore, the Old Trafford fans vehemently vented their anger at the club’s owners, the Glazers, and the puppeteer they hired, Ed Woodward.
This stunning loss is the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. Few would deny that Burnley’s well-deserved victory won in convincing manner and style was as meritorious as Manchester United’s calamitous defeat was shameful and appalling. Old Trafford’s season has now hit a new despondent low, having had every flaw and weakness in Solskjaer’s expensive squad, injury-hit or able-bodied, humiliatingly exposed.
Two superb goals from big Chris Wood and Jay Rodriguez on both halves of playing time were all it took to sink the United vessel. Only the blind wouldn’t have noticed the sorely lacking presence of Marcus Rashford and his razor-sharp killer instinct in the frontline. This in no way assumes that Solskjaer’s team were ably manning all their other respective stations. On the contrary, they were seen scrambling hopelessly all over the Old Trafford pitch without any clear sense of purpose and direction.
The defeat clearly left Solskjaer sitting hapless in the dugout. Gone was the contrived poise and smug confidence. His was the countenance of a man staring into the abysmal darkness and murky depths of a bottomless pit. All around him were endless rows of seats rapidly vacated even way before the match had reached its final conclusion. What was more telling were the years of indiscriminate, haphazard spending thrown disdainfully into the transfer market with results equally bare to show.
Like Rio Ferdinand, the former United legend, said when he lambasted the club’s transfer policy after the match:
“Around £600million has been spent on this squad, and on what? I don’t see it out there. I don’t see that the money, the recruitment, what has been bought. There is nothing. I’m sitting up here and if I’m honest, I’m embarrassed. It’s embarrassing to be here. The way the team is. Not just the way the team perform but I don’t see what is coming next. You don’t see a pathway.”
Well, when the current perpetrators and miscreants of club mismanagement have been left too long to stage their own randomly-hatched productions, the Theatre of Dreams envisaged by the original architects of club football ascendancy and pre-eminence can easily transform into the Amphitheatre of the Absurd.