It’s the dawn of a new era at Manchester United with Sir Jim Ratcliffe officially in as a minority owner, but it’ll take a while for the bad habits and collateral damage of yesteryear to be fully weeded out.
What’s the collateral damage, you ask?
You didn’t ask, actually, because if you’ve been living on planet Earth and taken even the slightest interest in football in the last 15 years, you’d know all about how much of a circus it’s been at United, with ugly truths rearing their heads for fun in the post-Fergie era.

We’re not going to open that can of worms now – that’s a can for Sir Jim and his cycling/petrochemical buddies to open – but one thing we do need to address is the left-back situation in Erik ten Hag’s squad.
A return to form after a difficult end to 2023 has papered over some cracks, but also been a sign of what United can be capable of with a fully fit side.
Unfortunately for Ten Hag, the Luke Shaw dilemma continues to persist. That dilemma being his fantastic double act of being both one of football’s most gifted and talented left-backs, but also being made of glass.
Shaw has been one of United’s best players in recent seasons and has shaken off inconsistencies to establish himself as one of the best full-backs in the game – when fit.
He’s United’s Alfa Romeo, is Shaw. Stylish, slick, one of a kind and the car you’ve had the pleasure of owning for years. But also the car that’s given you sleepless nights, several roadside recoveries and an expensive medical bill to pay.


That’s why selling Alvaro Fernandez and cancelling Sergio Reguilon’s loan deal – while Tyrell Malacia is also injured – made no sense at first. Thankfully, Harry Amass has emerged, the stars have aligned and now Ten Hag’s masterplan all suddenly becomes a lot clearer.
Amass has been training with United’s first team on and off since the turn of the new year, and at just 16, is widely regarded as one of the club’s crown jewels.
Injury to Shaw or not, the way Ten Hag has slowly been integrating Amass into the senior setup feels eerily similar to the way in which he did with Kobbie Mainoo in 2022-23 – and look at him now.
Born in London, Amass got his footballing education with Watford and was named on their bench in 2023 at the age of just 15 for an FA Cup third-round tie.
He moved to United that summer and has enjoyed a spectacular first year in red, proving pivotal to their almost flawless under-18 campaign thus far, and looks set to be hot-shotted into the first team in his first season – at just 16 years old.

A young gun with bags of natural talent and technical ability that Pep Guardiola would give a kidney for, it’s clear to see why Ten Hag was so desperate to clear the decks and create a path for his ascent.
What’s most striking about Amass is the maturity already evident in his displays. For someone so green, he approaches every situation in and out of possession with a serious composure.

Watching him glide with the ball at his feet and dink it between tight gaps is coincidentally very Luke Shaw-esque. And considering how technically adept he is, that’s a brilliant path to be on.
We could hype Amass up with a myriad of technical terms, wax lyrical about his quick rise and dig out the numbers to back it all up, but what’s the point? It’s quite obvious he’s an elite prospect – just look at the old-school, short socks.
That’s a player right there. No messing around – just straight business, which is exactly what United need right now.
By Mitch Wilks
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Porto 1-0 Arsenal: Last-gasp Galeno strike leaves Gunners with work to do

Arsenal’s hopes of reaching the Champions League quarter-finals for the first time in 14 years suffered a blow as they slipped to a late defeat in a drab first leg of their last-16 clash in Porto.
On the eve of the tie, Mikel Arteta challenged his players to prove they belong on this stage but they laboured for large parts of the game and failed to register a shot on target throughout a largely low-key affair, losing 1-0 at the death courtesy of a stunning Galeno strike.
With the second leg at the Emirates Stadium on March 12, Arteta now knows his side must win on home soil to reach the business end of the Champions League on their long-awaited return.
Arsenal know better than anyone there are no easy games at this stage of Europe’s elite club competition – having fallen at this hurdle seven years in a row under Arsene Wenger.
This is their first time back at this level since the last of those in 2017 and it unsurprisingly proved much more challenging than the recent Premier League thrashings of West Ham and Burnley.
Porto currently sit third in the Primeira Liga, off the pace of their big rivals Benfica and Sporting Lisbon, but they were a match for the Gunners, frustrating the visitors for much of the evening.
Declan Rice was walking a tightrope for almost the entirety of the contest after he was booked for a late challenge on Galeno with just 67 seconds on the clock.

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Arsenal were not at their recent, slick best and were very fortunate not to fall behind just before the midway point of the first half as Galeno wasted two great chances in quick succession.
After a cross dropped to him in the box, with the Brazilian fizzing a shot off the far post and then somehow turned the rebound wide for six yards – the home fans flummoxed as they celebrated along with the music that greets a goal for the hosts inside the Estadio do Dragao.
The let-off failed to rouse Arsenal from something of a slumber, but they did finally have their first shot on the evening after 33 minutes and should have taken the lead themselves soon after only for William Saliba to head a Bukayo Saka corner wide.
Porto were still the more likely to open the scoring, though, as Evanilson drew a low save out of David Raya with what proved to be the only shot on target from either side until the late winner.


Kai Havertz, who scored the winning goal in a Champions League final in this stadium for Chelsea, was next to miss the target with a header from a Saka corner.
Set-pieces certainly seemed Arsenal’s best way to goal and Leandro Trossard will feel he should have done better as he peeled off to the back post from a corner early in the second half, only to fire Rice’s centre harmlessly over.
There were no other opportunities of note until the dying embers, when Galeno collected the ball and brilliantly bent a finish over the out-stretched Raya as the whole Porto bench burst onto the pitch in celebration.
For Arsenal, they return to their Premier League title challenge knowing their backs are against the wall in their quest to progress in Europe.

Liverpool 4-1 Luton: Reds come from behind in nice warm-up before Carabao Cup final

Asecond-half comeback saw Premier League pacesetters Liverpool restore their four-point advantage at the top with a 4-1 victory over Luton Town.
Chiedozie Ogbene’s early header was only the 11th league goal a visiting team had scored at Anfield this season but for a long time it looked like producing another twist in the title race as the depleted hosts struggled to find their best form.

But headers from Virgil van Dijk and Cody Gakpo within the space of two minutes turned things around before Luis Diaz and Harvey Elliott fired home to ease them away from the clutches of second-placed Manchester City.
Any slip up, even at this stage, could have significant implications in what is currently a three-way battle and without this victory City would have had the chance to go top at Bournemouth on Saturday as Liverpool are otherwise engaged in the Carabao Cup final against Chelsea.
That Wembley encounter meant no risks were taken with Mohamed Salah and Darwin Nunez, who are both carrying knocks, but with injuries had already ruling out nine other players it left Jurgen Klopp with very few options.
What the first half, in particular, showed was that stand-ins Elliott and Gakpo lacked half-a-yard of pace both over the ground and in their passing.

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They were not helped by some poor decision-making by Diaz, the one regular starter in the forward line, who in only the third minute delayed his shot too long as he tried to manoeuvre it on to his right foot and then shot wide with only goalkeeper Thomas Kaminski to beat.
Read more: Who will replace Jurgen Klopp as next Liverpool manager? 
Luton stunned Anfield by taking the lead in the 12th minute. Tahith Chong received a return pass from Cauley Woodrow before shooting from a narrow angle and the ball squeezed under Caoimhin Kelleher and bounced up to the far post where Ogbene headed into an empty goal.
Luton’s gameplan was then to try to attack the space behind the full-backs but limit Liverpool’s options by going man-for-man in defence, which often left them two on two.
The last visiting team to win a league game at Anfield – Leeds in October 2022 – did the same.
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And Luton also worked harder – Albert Sambi Lokonga easing Elliott off the ball as he looked to shoot from Gakpo’s flick-on – and smarter as the hosts resorted to firing in long-range shots.
Elliott’s radar was off from two breakaways as his passes to Gakpo were three feet short and two yards too long as the final ball continued to elude them and frustrations threatened to boil over with Klopp exploding in rage at a fan near the front of the main stand, presumably for his negative reaction to a third mis-placed Elliott pass.
The early omens in the second half were not much better as Diaz fired straight at Teden Mengi but when Gakpo’s near-post shot was turned behind Van Dijk powered home a header from Alexis Mac Allister’s 56th-minute corner.
Two minutes later it was Gakpo producing a brilliant leap to launch Conor Bradley’s cross past Kaminski, who had brilliantly saved Bradley’s deflected shot with his legs.

The Luton goalkeeper did even better to repel another powerful Van Dijk header as Liverpool turned the screw, with substitute Andy Robertson charging forward to tee up Diaz for the third.
In doing so he became the fifth Liverpool player to reach double figures, which is the best of any team in Europe’s top five leagues, with Elliott grabbing his second of the season late on as Luton remained in the bottom three.
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Garnacho, Jesus and Onana: Every Premier League club’s bad omen

Turns out Alejandro Garnacho isn’t all he’s cracked up to be while a Newcastle teen is also a bad luck charm.
We’ve looked at every club’s worst points per game (PPG) performer. They must have played a minimum of 1000 minutes to qualify and the FBref rules state a player must have played at least 30 minutes of a game for it to count towards their score. 


 
Arsenal (2.20) – Gabriel Jesus (2.00)
Everyone was convinced Arsenal needed ‘a proper striker’ to challenge Manchester City for the title before 21 goals in five games in 2024 cooled that particular hot take. Unfortunately for Jesus he’s contributed just one of those 21 goals, with Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Martinelli and Leandro Trossard doing most of the damage as a front three the Brazilian looks hard pushed to penetrate.
 
Aston Villa (1.96) – Diego Carlos (1.76)
Considered quite the coup when he joined from Sevilla in the summer of 2022 but having been injured for the whole of his debut season, Carlos has featured out of necessity rather than desire, with injuries to Tyrone Mings, Pau Torres and Ezri Konsa forcing Unai Emery’s hand.
 
Bournemouth (1.17) – Max Aarons (0.64)
Bournemouth have only lost one of the ten games Aarons hasn’t played, picking up 19 points, which when stretched across the whole season would see Andoni Iraola’s team above Tottenham in fifth.
 
Brentford (1.00) – Ben Mee (0.87)
Significantly worse than fellow Bees centre-backs Ethan Pinnock (1.09), Nathan Collins (1.10) and cream of the crop Kirstoffer Ajer (1.24), who’s featured the least of any of them.
 
Brighton (1.52) – Jason Steele (1.36)
Rotated with Bart Verbruggen (1.73), who – according to our ranking – is the better goalkeeper.
 
Burnley (0.52) – Ameen Al-Dakhil (0.38)
The centre-back started Burnley’s first ten games of the season, in which time they picked up just four points, and has started just two games since.
 
Chelsea (1.40) – Robert Sanchez (1.19)
He’s now recovered from a knee injury but will presumably struggle to get back in the team ahead of Djordje Petrovic (1.60).
 
Crystal Palace (1.00) – Jean-Philippe Mateta (0.86)
Michael Olise, star player linked with seemingly every top English club along with Juventus, hasn’t featured enough to qualify due to various injuries, but is actually more of a bad luck charm than Mateta with a PPG of 0.82, which has us questioning the logic of this piece. Though similarly in-demand Eberechi Eze leading the way on 1.38 makes us feel a bit better.

 
Everton (1.20) – Amadou Onana (1.11)
Talk of his transfer has gone rather quiet while a fellow Toffees midfielder attracts attention.
 
Fulham (1.16) – Joao Palhinha (1.05)
Widely considered to be Fulham’s best player, or at least their most valuable, but two of their eight wins this season came in the three games Palhinha has missed through injury or suspension.
Fulham midfielder Joao Palhinha celebrates his goal against Brighton.
© Provided by Football365
Joao Palhinha celebrates his goal against Brighton.
 
Liverpool (2.31) – Ibrahima Konate (2.11)
Liverpool have picked up 22 points from the eight games Konate hasn’t featured in this season. Jarrell Quansah has started five and won five.
 
Luton (0.8) – Marvelous Nakamba (0.46)
The biggest difference to the team PPG of anyone on this list, which is especially impressive given how big a percentage of that whole it is.

 
Manchester City (2.24) – Ruben Dias (2.10)
He just beat Erling Haaland (2.15) to it and we wouldn’t read too much into this given Dias missed Burnley home and away, along with Bournemouth before they got good and Everton after they went bad.
 
Manchester United (1.76) – Alejandro Garnacho (1.65)
Lovely to see one of the great hopes for the future bringing up the rear while redundant pair Scott McTominay and Harry Maguire lead the way with a score (2.00) that would have United comfortably in the top four had they played every game.
 
Newcastle (1.48) – Lewis Miley (1.21)
Incredible that he’s even played enough to make this list given he’s just 17 and the significant injury woes that have granted him so much game time have also understandably led to a downturn in results.
 
Nottingham Forest (0.96) – Harry Toffolo (0.71)
He produced both assists in the 2-0 win over Aston Villa, but that’s the only three points he is credited with, too briefly coming off the bench against Manchester United and playing no part in the victories over Sheffield United, Chelsea, Newcastle and West Ham.

 
Sheffield United (0.52) – Anel Ahmedhodzic (0.42)
Didn’t think Mason Holgate’s assault on Kauro Mitoma was worthy of a red card, with his apparent need for an eye test going some way towards explaining why Sheffield United have conceded 65 goals this season.
 
Tottenham (1.88) – Brennan Johnson (1.63)
Not only a worse record than Manchester United but a worse record than Manchester United’s worst performer. Hang your head in shame, Brennan.
 
West Ham (1.44) – Nayef Aguerd (1.26)
Fellow centre-back Angelo Ogbonna has started just three times this season, and in those games West Ham have beaten Brighton and Arsenal at home, and drawn with Brighton away.
 
Wolves (1.40) – Mario Lemina (1.32)
He’s been very good all season and can take solace in the fact that he’s just below top scorer Matheus Cunha (1.33), who’s been undeniably excellent too.