A 3-2 win over Liverpool secured Manchester United’s Champions League qualification for next season. The 0-0 draw against Sunderland made clear which players are equipped for the obstacles European football will bring.

United were undercooked and underwhelming at the Stadium of Light, as a rotated side struggled to play with the sort of accuracy or aggression that has characterised their best performances under Michael Carrick.

Before the trip to the north east, the mood in and around the club had turned to forecasting the future. Had Carrick done enough to be confirmed as United’s permanent manager? Will Bruno Fernandes reach the elusive 20 Premier League assists record? Could any of Carrington’s best and brightest graduate from the academy and into the senior team for a few minutes?

The draw provided few satisfactory answers, instead raising a collection of concerns. Do United have enough squad quality to make a deep run in next season’s Champions League?

Which areas need to be strengthened outside of central midfield? How do Carrick and his coaching staff guard against any complacency across the season’s final games?

Opinion will vary on how many conclusions can be read from United’s performances after securing Champions League football earlier than expected, but Carrick’s men toiled through tricky situations against Sunderland.

They registered only one shot on target within the game, while Senne Lammens had to be alert to stop Brian Brobbey and Noah Sadiki from scoring. There is much work to be done.

“It was a tough game,” said Carrick in his post-match press conference. “Credit to Sunderland, we knew it was going to be a tough game coming here anyway. We had to dig deep at times. It wasn’t our best, but actually to take something from the game when you’re not at your best is a good trait that we’re trying to build as well.”

Saturday’s draw could best be attributed to squad rotation, with the injury-enforced absences of Benjamin Sesko and Casemiro prompting Carrick to make five alterations to the starting XI that saw off Liverpool.

Mason Mount and Joshua Zirkzee were given rare Premier League starts, but neither man produced enough to warrant another chance against Nottingham Forest next Sunday.

Mount has endured a stop-start United career with multiple injuries making it difficult for him to cement a place and the England international was paired with Kobbie Mainoo in the holding midfield positions. They were tidy in possession but lacked the bruising brilliance of Casemiro.

Mason Mount played in a deeper midfield position (Alfie Cosgrove/News Images/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Such was the aggression of Sunderland’s press that United spent the majority of the first hour unable to play out of their half. They lacked the precision to pass through Regis Le Bris’ side, and were unable to move the ball with the necessary pace to get around it.

Lammens’ attempts to kick long and play over Sunderland were blunted by a team shape ill-suited to fight for second balls. Ambitious runs off the ball from Matheus Cunha and others went unanswered by a midfield unable to hit long, probing passes into channels. Carrick’s starting line-up revealed plenty about United’s squad depth, one that is ill-equipped to compete on four fronts in 2026-27. 

Their pursuit of a successor to Casemiro is well known; this draw reiterated the many tasks any incoming defensive midfielder will have to take on. His successor will have to be a positionally clever, athletic ball-winner with a good passing range and — ideally — the ability to dominate aerial duels. It is a lengthy list of desirable attributes. Sign the right defensive midfielder, and it will lift United’s tactical capabilities. Get it wrong, and United may have more middling performances like this one.

The blunt attack was not helped by Zirkzee’s sluggishness. The self-described “9.5” jarred with a team around him. It was the Dutchman’s first start since December, and he lacked the consistency in touch and link-up play to make his style effective. An unassertive header on goal in the first half prompted Fernandes to have a few words.

Matheus Cunha was a willing runner but rarely found (Alfie Cosgrove/News Images/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

A centre-forward for United cannot be content with garnishing games with a few elegant touches. There has to be an intensity in application. Zirkzee was substituted in the 65th minute for Patrick Dorgu. His United career has fizzled in places — but failed to fly.

A centre-forward alternative to Sesko and Mbeumo may feature in director of football Jason Wilcox’s list of transfer considerations. This draw is the first fixture in which United failed to score in 23 matches, yet Carrick said he is almost “offended” over concerns that players may grow complacent after the Champions League was secured. 

“If we weren’t in a good headspace and motivated, we lose the game today,” Carrick said. “Sunderland played really well at certain points and made us work for it.”

“We had pride in ourselves, and each other, and the responsibility of playing for this great club. Motivation and focus are not the reason, whether we’re going to be brilliant, or maybe we’re gonna have a performance where it comes a little bit more challenging. Whether it’s today or the next two games, that (complacency) won’t be affected at all.”

United players are not “on the beach”, but shortcomings will need to be addressed before the holiday season and the World Cup.

There is a passivity in and out of possession that Carrick and his coaching staff will want to iron out for the remaining two matches. Summer recruitment needs to be purposeful rather than padding out the squad.

A lot of work needs to be done if they wish to properly contend for honours in 2026-27.

“A lot has happened this year which has made the job difficult,” Brendan Rodgers told reporters after a sixth-placed finish and Europa League football was confirmed. “They have every right to be angry and frustrated, and I take full responsibility for that. There’s an awful lot of work to do and the job is now to go and fix that, and make sure we come back with a motivation greater than ever to push on next season.”

Eleven years ago, owners Fenway Sports Group (FSG) ignored the outside noise and resisted the temptation to sack the Northern Irishman. Despite Rodgers having not won a trophy during his three years at the helm, they decided he had sufficient credit in the bank, having led Liverpool agonisingly close to Premier League title glory in 2013-14.

Their faith that he would revive the club’s fortunes with the help of a few shrewd additions in the summer transfer window proved horribly misplaced. Rodgers couldn’t shake off the cloak of negativity that had enveloped his Anfield reign and within three months of the following season starting, he was gone, with Liverpool on 12 points from eight matches and 10th in the Premier League.

FSG will imminently face a similarly big decision over the fate of Arne Slot. Everything up until now has pointed to them standing by the Dutchman. There is sympathy with what he’s had to contend with this season — from the loss of Diogo Jota last July to the succession of crushing injury setbacks.

Unlike Rodgers, Slot is a Premier League title-winner and should still salvage Champions League qualification from the wreckage of this campaign.

But the mutinous mood inside Anfield on Saturday sent a clear message to the hierarchy about the scale of the unrest. It felt like this was the day when patience truly snapped. A Liverpool manager hadn’t faced this level of dissent on home turf since the final throes of Roy Hodgson’s tenure in late 2010.

The boos rained down from the stands at the sight of teenage winger Rio Ngumoha, who had set up the opening goal for Ryan Gravenberch, being substituted midway through the second half. Supporters had expected the ineffective Cody Gakpo to make way for Alexander Isak.

Slot explained that Ngumoha, who has yet to complete 90 minutes at first-team level, had been suffering from cramp after being handed only his third league start.

“I knew the moment Rio’s number went up that would be the reaction, but that’s not a reason not to do it and keep a player in the team that tells me he cannot continue,” he said.

More boos followed at the final whistle as Anfield delivered a withering assessment of what had been served up. Forget apathy; given the empty seats by the end, the overriding emotion was one of anger.

Liverpool fans’ patience with Arne Slot is wearing thin (Carl Recine/Getty Images)

Asked if he truly believed he could win back the support of those who have turned against him, Slot said: “Yes, I do. Not this season, by the way.

“This season, they will have their opinion and it will not change. But if we can have the summer that we are planning to have, then I’m 100 per cent convinced we will be a different team next season than we are now.”

The problem is that so much goodwill has been lost over the past nine months that if Slot stays put and then Liverpool’s form at the start of next season is patchy, things will turn toxic at Anfield very quickly.

And if FSG find themselves having to make a change mid-season, as they did in 2015, the calibre of candidates available is highly unlikely to be comparable to those out of work this summer. For example, Xabi Alonso, who would be a popular choice among supporters, will surely be in a new job. There certainly won’t be a saviour in the mould of Jurgen Klopp waiting to pick up the pieces, as he did 11 years ago.

Of course, amid all the glory, there were a couple of torrid seasons under Klopp. But when Liverpool’s defence of the Premier League title fell to pieces in 2020-21 due to a centre-back injury crisis and then they trailed home fifth in 2022-23, the collective feeling was always that the situation would be even worse without Klopp. Belief in him was unwavering.

That’s not the case with Slot, who doesn’t have the same kind of stature or bond with the fanbase. There’s also a massive disconnect between what supporters expect to see from a Liverpool side and the brand of football the former Feyenoord boss is repeatedly serving up.

Chelsea arrived at Anfield in crisis, having suffered six successive league defeats. When Gravenberch struck inside six minutes, Liverpool had the perfect platform to kick on, go for the jugular and exploit the Londoners’ frailties.

Inexplicably, they took their foot off the gas. As sporting director Richard Hughes watched on from the directors’ box, the hosts retreated and allowed Chelsea time and space to operate.

The home fans vented their spleen at the erratic Ibrahima Konate for putting his studs on the ball and slowing the game down. No urgency, no tempo, no intensity. Were they following orders? The alarm bells were ringing long before Enzo Fernandez equalised.

“Didn’t you see me screaming on the sidelines: ‘Go back! Go back! Defend your own box’,” Slot said sarcastically. “Of course that wasn’t the idea for us to back off. We wanted to keep going but we played against a team who got more and more comfortable on the ball.

“They didn’t have any wingers available so they brought a lot of midfielders and they started to control the midfield, passing through us more and more. It didn’t lead to a lot of chances but they were by far the dominant team in the game.

“It was difficult to change that during the first half but you might have noticed that at half-time we changed things. It didn’t straightaway lead to what we wanted but we were much more able to press them high and keep them in their half. Not perfect because they were still able to play through us a few times but not as much as in the first half.

“I don’t think it’s fair to me that anyone could ever think I tell my players to back off, drop deep and not to press. Either you haven’t seen my teams playing last season or a large part of this season, let alone since I’m a manager, but it did look like that — that we dropped deep but that was never the intention. We just weren’t able to control all their midfielders.”

Even accounting for the absentees due to injury, this was bleak. Liverpool had just three attempts on target and created an xG (expected goals) of just 0.56.

Gakpo only had six touches in the first half and won just one out of five duels before he was finally hauled off. Him needlessly straying offside ensured Curtis Jones’ celebrations were cut short after nodding home. Jeremie Frimpong was a tough watch down the right.

The midfield was a mess, with Alexis Mac Allister winning one out of nine duels, Dominik Szoboszlai one of seven and Gravenberch five of 11.

Szoboszlai and Virgil van Dijk both hit the woodwork but victory would have flattered the hosts. The howls of derision deep into stoppage time when Giorgi Mamardashvili caught the ball and nobody seemed interested in launching a late counter-attack perfectly encapsulated where Liverpool are right now.

The end of the season can’t come soon enough. There’s so much wrong and it requires a sizeable leap of faith to believe Slot can fix it.

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There was a time when some of the best English footballers and cricketers spent their ‘off-season’ playing the other national sport.

The extraordinary Denis Compton was one of England’s great batters over two decades from the late 1930s to the late 50s but was good enough as a footballer to win the league and FA Cup as a winger with Arsenal.

More recently, county cricketers such as Jim Cumbes, Chris Balderstone, Phil Neale and Arnie Sidebottom all played professional football at a time, in the 70s and 80s, when it was still possible to play both sports close to the highest level.

Gary Lineker once missed a game for Spurs because of an injury sustained in a cricket match he was not supposed to be playing in, and Gary and Phil Neville are still considered the ones that got away by Lancashire because of their cricketing prowess.

Now there is a new name to add to the list and one who is making his mark in a second sport at an age when most top players have long hung up their boots and bats.

Nigel Martyn was a goalkeeper good enough to go to two World Cups with England, made 666 professional appearances, mostly at the top domestic level with Crystal Palace, Leeds and Everton, and was the first £1million goalkeeper in English football.

But what is less widely known is that Martyn has long been an accomplished wicketkeeper-batter, both as a youngster when he played age-group cricket for Cornwall, and, since he retired from football, at a high level of Yorkshire club cricket.

Now, approaching his 60th birthday, Martyn is close to becoming an ‘international’ again after his selection for the Lions, England’s second-string, at 60s level and is set to make his debut, perhaps appropriately, against old footballing rivals Scotland next Friday.

Nigel Martyn still lives in Yorkshire, where he excelled for Leeds (Neal Simpson/EMPICS via Getty Images)

“I got an email out of the blue asking me to go for a trial,” Martyn tells The Athletic. “I’ve been playing for Cornwall over 50s and because I turn 60 this year, the county recommended me. I didn’t know anything about it.”

The trial at Loughborough University and an intra-squad day in Derbyshire last week went so well that Martyn, 24 years since he went to Japan and Korea for the 2002 World Cup and reached the quarter-finals under Sven-Goran Eriksson, was back in the international picture when England cricket seniors named their squad for the summer.

“It’s a little bit later in life, but it’s still a big thrill,” says Martyn from his home in Yorkshire, where he lives following his days at Elland Road.

“I love my sport and take it seriously, but I do have a laugh along the way. Seniors cricket is getting bigger and bigger, and the standards are high. All these guys I play with and against are incredibly fit and you have to remind yourself that many of them are 60-plus.

“You’re not going to put your body through the pressure of playing at this level without having that commitment. Yes, I take it seriously as a former footballer but all these guys do too and I take my hat off to every single one of them. It’s great to be a part of.”

1st XI v 1st XI
1st XI 36/3 (10), 285 reqd off 40 ov
9.3: Giddings to Scott, OUT
Tom Scott c Nigel Martyn b Toby Giddings 0 (2)https://t.co/SITg9fGuey pic.twitter.com/7SLPrRy72n

— Knaresborough CC (@KnaresboroughCC) June 18, 2022

Martyn loved his cricket growing up in St Austell and played both sports at school. “I was always a wicketkeeper,” he says. “I wasn’t allowed to play in goal at school even though I wanted to because I was deemed to be more useful out on the pitch but I did keep wicket and diving around was something I enjoyed doing from a young age.

“There are transferable skills, hand-eye coordination being one of them. You’re seeing a ball out of nowhere and you have to put your hands in the right place to stop them. If I’m not stood up to the stumps, I’m still able to dive around and am maybe able to get to those balls that are a bit wider or have come off the edge or the thigh pad because of football.

“It does help being a goalkeeper but the technical side of wicketkeeping is something you have to learn as you’re going on. There are some good basic tools to work with being a goalkeeper that’s for sure, but I’m still learning to be a ’keeper even now.”

It has been a cricketing journey that was put on hold when Martyn’s football career took off — it was then deemed too risky for him to play cricket — but began again four years after he retired in 2006.

“I finished football when I had a stress fracture in my ankle and I didn’t think I could play sport again, but after a while I got pretty bored and felt I needed to get back doing something,” he says.

“Then I got the all-clear to start playing cricket and I’ve enjoyed the last 15 years of doing it again. I’ve been at Knaresborough for the last six years and helped get them to the Yorkshire Premier division, so that’s as high as you can go at that level.

“Then I had a friend message me in the winter asking if I would help him at Scarcroft to try to help them up through the leagues in the same way, so I’ve got a fresh challenge at club level this year as well as the seniors now with England.”

So, was Martyn lost to cricket, like the Nevilles and Lineker, by the greater lure of football?

“I don’t know if I was ever good enough to play cricket professionally when I was younger,” he says. “I had the athletic ability to dive around and stop the ball but technically at that time I would have needed a lot of work to make it my career. I did play Cornwall schools cricket, but I couldn’t get in the Cornwall schools football team, which is ironic.

“The captain of my Cornwall schools team is now skipper of the Over 50s and he’s the guy who asked me to start playing for them again and that has led to the Lions call-up.

“I still live in Yorkshire and a home game in Cornwall is an 800-mile round trip for me. I play cricket up here on Saturday, drive to Cornwall on a Monday, play the game on Wednesday and get back up in time for Saturday’s game. So I’m lucky that my wife is supportive of this, just as she was throughout my football career.”

The old competitive juices that took him so far in football are still there. “I’m definitely as competitive as I used to be,” says Martyn. “Team sport is many cogs trying to make the machine work, so it’s about doing your job well while encouraging team-mates.

“I get a lot of enjoyment watching other people do well and celebrating it with them. That’s part of the team environment that I have again.”

And cricket has enabled Martyn to retain his fitness. “My daughter is a physio at Harlequins (the Premiership rugby union team) and keeps me on the straight and narrow,” he says.

“When the cricket season finishes, I say, ‘Right, that’s it, I’m not going to the gym anymore’ but she’s immediately on at me and says, ‘You can’t yo-yo, your weight can’t go up and down. At your age, you have to keep doing it!’ So she keeps me going.”

Nigel Martyn playing for Crystal Palace in 1991 (Mark Leech/Offside via Getty Images)

Martyn will be taking a big step towards becoming a ‘dual international’ when he takes to the field at Seaton Carew near Hartlepool to take on Scotland with the Lions but the ultimate goal is to play in another World Cup or perhaps ‘the grey Ashes’ against Australia.

“There’s a World Cup being played in Canada in August, and my birthday falls during the tournament, so I’m not eligible to play a full senior game until I turn 60,” he says. “I’d only have been eligible for the later games, so I wasn’t really considered. But I have to say England have picked two very good wicketkeepers for the World Cup, so I don’t know if I’d have been picked even if my birthday was earlier.

“It would be lovely to get to another World Cup but at this age you can’t look too far ahead!” says Martyn. “The feeling inside of me is to stay fit, strong and carry on enjoying it.

“If there’s a World Cup further along the line, then who knows. But every guy in that squad still works extremely hard to make sure they’re good enough to be there. These guys are bloody good at what they do.”

It would be quite an accomplishment after a football career that saw Martyn play in the 1990 FA Cup final for Palace and win 23 caps for his country, despite being around at a time when David Seaman made the England goalkeeping place his own.

“I do look back with pride,” says Martyn. “My career is something that’s nice to look back on and it’s lovely to be able to go back to your old clubs and be held in high esteem by supporters. That connection is important. When I go back anywhere, it’s always only positive and that’s a nice feeling.”

As would playing cricket for England.