Wily Sevilla Show Manchester United That Momentum Is Not A Tactic | Jonathan Liew theguardian.com

This, as José Mourinho might drily observe, is football heritage.

To lose one semi-final might be considered unfortunate. To lose two a coincidence. But in United’s third unsuccessful attempt to grease their season with silverware could be identified a clear pattern running through the club. It is not a problem that can be solved by signing Jadon Sancho and Jack Grealish. Rather, it is something more systemic and deep-rooted, a malaise that took years to set in and may well take years to cure.

It is the lack of anything remotely resembling a process, a plan, a blueprint: something that sustains you through the tough parts, that gets you over setbacks. Here, against the wily Sevilla, it manifested itself most clearly in the lack of composure, an inability to concentrate for the full 90 minutes, on the inability to find solutions on the pitch, on Solskjær’s unshakeable faith in his starting XI, to the point that he resisted a substitution until the 87th minute, despite his side’s increasing fatigue.