The jovial South African coach is back at his old stomping ground – but Man United might not be stomping on their rivals this term. (Photo by Matthew Ashton - AMA/Getty Images)
According to a veteran pubgoer in Stockport, greater Manchester, Benni McCarthy used to play a lot of poker at his local pub back in 2006. This was soon after the South African had joined nearby Blackburn Rovers and bought a house on the outskirts of Stockport. Commenting on the website The Athletic this week, the pubgoer wrote that Benni drank only soft drinks, but his sobriety did not help his woeful cards skills. Apparently, he did not realise that his sunglasses kept reflecting his hands to his opponents.
This all may be apocryphal or grossly exaggerated. The source also claimed that Benni was obsessed with fire engines, for some reason, and once drove a fire engine to the pub in question, which sounds a bit improbable.
Still, the story does fit with the temperament of the Benni we know: exuberant and zany, with a taste for banter and camaraderie. I remember interviewing him in 2012 and loving his ability to take the piss out of himself as well as others. He was even able to giggle about that time he called then West Ham boss Karren Brady “the devil with tits” and she retorted that well, at least she was supposed to have tits. (Benni was a tad overweight for an elite player.) His sense of fun is part of his EQ, and probably a factor in his success to date as a coach: he puts his players at ease, in the healthiest sense.
Whether he can bring that vibe to the Old Trafford dressing room is another matter entirely. For one thing, Cristiano Ronaldo is sulking, and when Cristiano sulks, cracks appear in surrounding institutions. The man is a bit like Eleven in Stranger Things: he can break big things from a distance just by pouting at them.
Of course he deserves some patience and forbearance at the moment, having recently borne the unbearable loss of a newborn child. It will take him time to recover. Moreover, Ronaldo is just not meant to play in the Europa League, whatever you may think of his abysmal work rate off the ball these days. It’s just not an appropriate stage for “The King” (as he described himself the other day in the third person).
The problem Ronaldo faces is that no other superclubs seem to be yearning for a brilliant but insanely expensive king who refuses to press and thus deflates any effective tactical system. So new Manchester United manager Erik Ten Hag, with Benni’s support, will simply have to try to cheer Ronaldo up, perhaps simply by pissing him off. A properly angry Ronaldo is soon an in-form Ronaldo, and therefore a happy Ronaldo.
Plus, nobody can teach Ronaldo how to score more goals – not even an ace finisher like Benni. Nor can anybody teach him to be a selfless team player. It’s just not in his wheelhouse. The only way to rouse the beast in Ronaldo is to provoke him into proving that he’s still the best beast in the business.
Easier said than done, right now. Cristiano is a slowly fading force, and the battle for this Premier League season’s Champions League places – let alone the title – will be so oversubscribed that even a revitalised United could finish outside the top four again.
For starters, if Pep Guardiola can find a way to harness a prolific, box-centric, conventional Number 9 to his swirling tactical system, then Erling Haaland could chow 40 league goals for Manchester City, and in so doing lift the Champions League total well beyond 100 goals, which would imply even fewer dropped points than usual.
But over on Merseyside, a clear and present danger remains for City. Highly evolved Uruguayan goal freak Darwin Núñez looks fit enough to survive in the Sadio Mané-shaped hole he will fill in the Liverpool attack. What with Luis Díaz rampant, Salah staying in town and Jurgen Klopp’s genius for striking a balance between renewal and stability, the Reds will breathe down City’s neck again.
Meanwhile, Tottenham Hotspur coach Antonio Conte has shipped in a boatload of premium talent in the shape of Ivan Perišić, Richarlison, Yves Bissouma and Clement Lenglet.
Arsenal have done likewise, adding Gabriel Jesus, Oleksandr Zinchenko and Fábio Vieira, with Youri Tielemans set to follow and William Saliba returning from his imperious loan spell at Olympique Marseille. Both the north London giants are building aggressively and systematically on stable foundations laid by strong managers: one proven, one promising. Neither will challenge for the title, but they will take some crucial points off the other big guns.
Chelsea, by contrast are disrupted – by a change of ownership, by the loss of two prized centrebacks (Antonio Rudiger and Andreas Christensen) and by a shortage of goals. But Thomas Tuchel is Thomas Tuchel. He will panelbeat the battered Blues into shape and get them flying from a standing start, using new recruits Raheem Sterling, Kalidou Koulibaly, Conor Gallagher and Emerson Royal.
And then there are the wildcards: fossil-fuelled Newcastle United, who have been strangely quiet in the market so far, with the only headline signings being defenders Sven Botman and Matt Targett. Selling clubs are understandably refusing to give Newcastle a good deal. But manager Eddie Howe will likely land a couple of marquee names before the window closes.
Elsewhere, West Ham could build on last term’s strong showing – while the likes of Leicester, Wolves and Aston Villa could easily hit a hot streak and challenge for the Europa League places.
All of which means that it could be a very long season for United. At some point, Benni might need to take Ronaldo down to the pub in a fire engine.
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