There is no greater reset button than the start of a brand new football season. But for a handful of top-flight team, the opening weekend of the 2022/23 Premier League season turned out to be anything but a reset.
For some, it was just an exact continuation of the exact same problems that had plagued some of these teams just a few months prior.
Here is a shortlist of teams from Matchday 1 that if I didn’t know any better, I would’ve guessed the current month was May of 2022 instead of August….
Manchester United
Let’s start with the most obvious one.
After some pretty decent pre-season results and word getting around that new manager Erik ten Hag was adding much-needed structure and discipline to his Red Devils squad, Manchester United supporters arrived at Old Trafford on Sunday full of hope.
However, that hope was quickly crushed by the weight of old misery as the same problems of last season quickly came back to haunt United in their 1-2 loss to Graham Potter’s Brighton & Hove Albion.
An overall lack of quality, poor performances in the midfield, losing possession too often, and frantic scrambles to play catch up probably made most of those same supporters wish they had just stayed home.
Manchester United trying to add Adrien Rabiot and Marko Arnautović to an already unhappy dressing room: pic.twitter.com/ggLSgEIzso
— B/R Football (@brfootball) August 8, 2022
United began to look somewhat convincing after cutting Brighton’s lead in half in the 68th minute, throwing every Red Devil on the ball and throwing tactics out the window. But the point is that it should not have to get to that in order for United to look sharp.
The intensity should be there from the get-go and Sunday’s loss will now only ask more questions of the new manager.