Manchester United and Spurs set the standard | OneFootball

I sat down to watch Manchester United play Spurs in the early Saturday match.

If you didn’t watch it, the opening half hour was woeful, both in terms of quality and entertainment.

It simply reminded me that last season it was Manchester United and Spurs who were fighting it out last season to be fourth worst in the Premier League, lucky to have three even worse who would be relegated.

The end of the season proved comical.

Spurs ‘won’ the battle to end up fourth bottom of the final 2024/25 Premier League table.

Whilst Spurs though did lift the Europa Cup, by beating Manchester United in the final! That final summed up two things, just how bad both teams were last season, plus just how lucky they were that it had been the weakest ever Europa League competition, by some considerable distance. That largely due to the expanded 36 club Champions League and the fact that eight clubs no longer dropped from the Champions League into the Europa League after the group stage.

Anyway, back to yesterday.

After that dreadful opening half hour, poor Spurs defending gifted Man U the opportunity for Mbeumo to head the opener.

The next 50 minutes were back to woeful, it was like two retired out of condition boxers tempted out of retirement by the cash, then going through the motions without any real intent or quality.

Spurs were huffing and puffing trying to get an equaliser, whilst Man U seemed to have no other ambition than trying to stop them doing that.

The media will of course portray this as some kind of great game, in terms of quality and excitement, it was neither of these things.

Including six added minutes, the last 12 minutes WERE entertaining, but in more of a watching Scottish football kind of way. Where the lower quality allows more mistakes and often more goals, because of how poor it all is. So for a neutral it was amusing to see Man U fans so gutted as they gifted the chances for Spurs to turn it around and lead 2-1, then equally amusing to see the looks on the Spurs fans’ faces as they then gifted a very late equaliser to Man U.

I just checked this morning and sure enough, Spurs are currently fifth in the Premier League and Manchester United.

They both spent serious money this summer, especially Man U, but any improvement for either side is marginal.

However, it has proved to be enough for the pair of them to stumble towards the upper end of the Premier League table as things stand.

This for me is the standard, the Premier League standard Newcastle United will need to surpass to end up top six. United don’t need to be better than Arsenal, they simply need to be better than the likes of Man U and Spurs to compete for a Champions League place.

Of course Newcastle need to pick up their Premier League form, especially away, but time and time again Eddie Howe has shown that once he gets his team into the groove, they can rack up an impressive run of results in the Premier League, as well as in the other competitions. As evidenced by five wins from six in the Champions League and Carabao Cup this season so far.

Let’s get this win at Brentford today and then go about chasing down the likes of Spurs and Manchester United.