Let’s set the scene.

Manchester United lost to Newcastle United in what was a truly tepid and turgid performance. Up next is a clash against top-of-the-table Liverpool. No one is giving the Reds a fighting chance, it’s not about whether or not Liverpool will win, the question is by how much.

Except no one seems to tell that to Manchester United. United grabbed an unexpected lead and earned a draw that ultimately feels like a letdown because really, United should have won. The following week, United took their back three system down to London for a Cup match against their rivals.

There’s a bit more optimism for this one, but still extremely cautious. United are the underdogs and this ground has not been kind to the Red Devils in recent years. Again United grabbed the lead, then right around the hour mark they conceded an equalizer, but at the end of the day, it’s Manchester United who go into the pot for the next round’s draw.

It may only have been one win and a draw, but these are huge results that give the feeling that United are back and well on their way. Just a few days later United square off against a side in the relegation zone and go back to looking like the inept side they had been prone to looking like.

Of course, we’re not talking about Manchester United in January 2025. We’re talking about Manchester United in the fall of 2019.

Back then, the knock against Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s side was they were a great counter-attacking who could get up for the big games, but they didn’t have the ability to break down a low block.

Just to prove this all wasn’t a fluke, at the start of December United defeated Jose Mourinho’s Tottenham and Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City in the span of three days, once again bringing back the feeling that “we’re back.” A week later they faced an Everton side close to the relegation zone who had recently fired their manager. They once again looked completely flat and only managed a 1-1 draw. Further emphasizing the low-block narrative.

Present-day United are going through the same pattern. United put in a stout defensive performance at the Etihad to win the Manchester Derby last month but followed that up with losses to Bournemouth, Wolves, and Newcastle. In January they put in another strong performance to get a draw at Anfield that they were unlucky to not win. A week later they put in the work to earn a 1-1 draw against Arsenal and advance to the next round of the FA Cup on penalties, including playing around an hour down a man.

Both games were very inspiring performances. United got stuck in and defended brilliantly. They were combative in midfield and were constantly disrupting the flow of their opponents. They pounced on their opponents' mistakes and took their chances. It seemed like United had turned a corner and things were starting to click.

Four days later United United took the pitch at Old Trafford against a Southampton side who have a real shot at going down as the worst Premier League side ever. This should have been straightforward but it was anything but. United played one of the worst first halves you will ever see. Barring a five minute stretch around the 20th minute it was historically bad Southampton who most often looked like the better side. Things were better in the second half, but not by much. They left with a happy ending only after Amad bailed the team out by scoring a (sensational) hat trick in the final 12 minutes.

While it was surprising just how bad United were, that United weren’t at their best should have been no surprise at all. For starters, United played a man down for around 60 minutes just four days earlier. That was always likely going to take a toll on the squad and make this more of a tricky fixture than it should have been.

More importantly, this was always going to be a different type of match. Earlier in the week Ruben Amorim said he would learn more about his team against Southampton than in the previous two games. It’s a much different task to set yourself with the goal of disrupting your opponent and keeping things tight than when you need to take the game to your opponent. In the former, heart and desire can go a long way in helping you get a result. When the onus is on you to play on the front foot and ask all the questions, those traits are far less important than, just good old football ability.

That good old football ability is something United lacks, which is something we’ve seen before.

We live in a world where we always need someone to blame. When United struggled in the fall of 2019, the manager was blamed. This is Manchester United; you should be winning these games!

Take a look at the starting XI of the team that lost 1-0 to Newcastle.

In hindsight, this is laughable. Long-term injuries to Luke Shaw, Anthony Martial, and Paul Pogba already made things tough. Compound it with short-term injuries to Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Victor Lindelof, and Nemanja Matic and you’re left with this. It’s truly a terrible team.

There’s no ball progression at the back and even less in midfield. There’s no creativity up front and very little technical ability. How in the world could these players be expected to break down a Steve Bruce 4-5-1 bus firmly parked low block? These players simply don’t have the ability to do that.

But that’s not the way it was looked at at the time. The feeling back then was, these are Manchester United players, therefore they are of Manchester United quality. Marcus Rashford is the guy who thrived when Ole Gunnar Solskjaer first came in, and he’s gotten off to a good start this season. He’s going to be one of the best in the league. Scott McTominay who puts out more effort than anyone else every single game, that’s what you need to be good. Dan James is the new signing who already had three goals at this point. £15m is looking like a steal! It might be hard to remember but the narrative around Andreas Pereira at this point was still he’s never gotten a run at his natural no. 10 position, once he gets a run of games there you’ll see him come good.

If the players are good and the team isn’t winning, it’s obviously the manager who is bad! Yet when United got their players back from injury, they suddenly didn’t have a problem beating low blocks.

Fast forward to today where we all agree that Ruben Amorim is actually good, maybe even one of the best in Europe. If there’s no question that the manager is good, and these performances are still happening, it must be the players' fault. Blame the players!

This is where things get a little slippery. As a collective, the players are in fact not good enough. That’s not really a question, nor is that really the fault of the players. If Manchester United is offering you a contract, it’s not the individual player’s job to say “You shouldn’t sign me. I’m not actually that good.” It’s Manchester United’s job to sign good players if they put out a sub-par squad that is on the club.

Unfortunately, that logic doesn’t fly because it doesn’t satisfy the underlying desire of why someone needs to be blamed, which is, the ability to fix the problem. If the problem is the manager, you can sack him and hire a new one. It’s almost impossible to change the players in the middle of the season.

Therefore the narrative needs to shift to something that can be fixed. So instead of blaming the players as a collective, the blame starts to be put on the effort of the players. Things like they don’t care, they have a weak mentality, they don’t play for the shirt.

The blame goes to mentality and effort because those are things that can be fixed. If you don’t have the right mentality the manager can drop you for someone that does. The same goes for effort.

If you put out the same effort against Southampton as you do against Liverpool these things wouldn’t happen is the belief, but in practice, it’s not true. The job at hand against Southampton is far different than the job at Liverpool, and the reality is the jobs players have to do are things they aren’t good at.

If you want to take the game to your opponent, you need to be able to push the ball up the pitch, break lines with your passing, and get the ball to your attackers. You need midfielders who can do that.

United’s midfielders aren’t those types of players. Ruben Amorim’s back three system works to negate this by having the wingbacks handle a lot of ball progression responsibilities, but in order for that to work, the wingbacks need to be able to do that too! If they can’t, you end up with a passing network that looks like this, with the midfield and the attackers completely isolated.

This doesn’t come from a lack of effort or a lack of desire. Manuel Ugarte is desire personified. He has an engine that allows him to run for days. He’s extremely combative in midfield and an elite ball-winner. He was made for games against Liverpool, Arsenal, or Manchester City.

What Ugarte is not is a strong ball mover. There shouldn’t be a surprise here, it’s not something he was ever good at, and not being strong with the ball at his feet is why he was dropped from PSG’s XI. This is what he was before he signed with United (in blue).

Anyone who looks at this and decides to sign Ugarte thinking he’ll be able to give you ball movement from midfield should not have a job making recruitment decisions for a football club. Ugarte is going to look like an incredible player when he plays against Arsenal. That’s a setting that suits his strengths. Asking him to play against a low block is setting yourself up for disappointment and makes everyone's job more difficult.

Ugarte is not the only one. Kobbie Mainoo has made good strides in his development this season, but he still lacks that forward passing that will take him to the next level. That’s not to say it will never come, but right now he doesn’t have it.

That’s where United are across the board. Amorim said the rest of United’s season will be a “rollercoaster” and he’s right. They just don’t have the talent.

That’s the result of several years of players leaving and either not being replaced or being replaced by inferior players. Some of those players may have had bad attitudes or not been “good enough,” but they were still better than the players United currently has. They haven’t replaced the sheer level of talent that they used to have.

That’s where the true blame is. But that can’t be fixed overnight, so it’s easier to direct your blame towards the mentality.

United’s players are capable of getting the job done against the big boys when the task at hand is far simpler. Playing against a smaller team requires a different skillset which at the moment United lacks.

We’ve seen this before. The issue isn’t mentality. It’s not a tactical issue. It’s simply not having the right players.