3-1, with B Fee's assist and goals from Erlanga, Greenwood and Marcus Rashford, Manchester United beat Brentford 3-1 away to close the gap from the top four to two points. In this campaign, coach Ronnick's platoon arrangement and on-the-spot reaction were remarkable, but the most impressive thing was that he replaced Portuguese superstar C Ronaldo in the 71st minute of the second half.
In fact, United did not play easily in this game, especially in the first half, if it were not for goalkeeper De Gea's four extremely heroic saves, Manchester United would have fallen behind by 2-3 goals. After withstanding the opponent's onslaught, Manchester United's technical strength began to show, and 3 young strikers completed the goal. One thing to say, in the first two goals of Manchester United, Ronaldo also played a key role, Erlanga's goal, he took Brentford's defender out of the box, and Greenwood's goal, he used a beautiful chest ball in midfield to help B Fee form a single knife, the latter into the box selflessly crossed the assist Aoki to complete the goal.
However, just when C Ronaldo was rushing to prepare to score goals himself, Lonnick waved the flag, Rashford and Maguire hung up, replacing C Ronaldo and greenwood, who scored. This practice made C Ronaldo very unhappy, and he did not respond to Lonnick's hug when he left the field, and even after Manchester United scored the third goal, Lonnick personally came to him to explain and appease him, C Ronaldo was still expressionless.
Cristiano Ronaldo had his own reasons for not being happy, when United were already leading 2-0, the last 20 minutes of the game were left, it seemed that 3 points were not a big problem, and he could have scored the rest of the time. But Lonnick didn't think so. He still remembers the scene in which United led 2-0 in the last game and was finally chased by Aston Villa to draw 2-2 in a row. Brentford are no ordinary promotion horses, their attack is very distinctive, in the first half of this game, they have already made The Langnick on the sidelines frightened.
Replacing the elderly C Ronaldo and greenwood, who is a little overstretched, use Maguire to strengthen the defense, and Rashford to use it to counterattack, which is completely fine. The course of the game since then proved Ronnick's approach correct, With Rashford counter-attacking and Brentford breaking De Gea's dream of a clean sheet in the melee. Just think, if it weren't for Lonnick's timely adjustment, United would probably repeat the mistakes of the previous game.
Judging from the performance of the media and fans after the game, they also affirmed the coaching talent shown by Lonnick in this game, and for C Ronaldo, who was emotional at the end of the game, the media and a group of celebrities unceremoniously criticized it. The BBC said that Ronaldo used his conceit to create a completely unnecessary add-on, he almost thought he was bigger than Manchester United, and Manchester United star Ferdinand accused C Ronaldo of only thinking about himself, "The team is leading 2-0, he only thinks about himself, he only wants to score goals to improve his goals on the top scorer list." ”
Everyone may still remember the last time C Ronaldo was rotated, in the 7th round of the Premier League with Everton, C Ronaldo was on standby, and as a result, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer suffered a lot of verbal criticism after the game, and even his mentor Ferguson also stood up and claimed that "the best player should be on the field", obviously dissatisfied with the boss to let C Ronaldo substitute. In the seven games that followed until Solskjaer's dismissal, Cristiano Ronaldo started all of them, except for the 3-0 away win over Tottenham Hotspur, the remaining 6 games played a full 90 minutes. But before the match against Tottenham, Manchester United was just 0-5 bloodbathed by Liverpool, and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, who is eager to justify his name, will do whatever it takes to win, and whether Ronaldo is happy is not his consideration at all.
Today's Lonnick is not as good as the original Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, who was at the time and had the support of most Manchester United players, Lonnick was almost out of the crowd, and his record is also directly related to whether the Manchester United advisers are mascots or real power. With these factors, Lonnick's move of "picking up the tiger's whiskers" is not difficult to understand.
However, Longnick's toughness may make the United executives very entangled. On the one hand, they naturally hope that the team's record will improve, after all, entering next season's Champions League will bring great benefits; but on the other hand, C Ronaldo is also a cash cow in their hands, bringing the Portuguese back to Old Trafford last summer, and the Glazer family has made a lot of money, in this sense, they certainly do not want C Ronaldo to choose to leave the team because he is unhappy. So until now, the United hierarchy and Ferguson have rarely remained silent, because they know that what they say now is wrong.