Time was running out on Monday Night Football to dissect Manchester United's supine performance at Newcastle, so Gary Neville presented a comparison of the two midfields.
Newcastle's trio of Bruno Guimaraes, Joe Willock and Sean Longstaff had higher numbers for touches, possession won, duels won, shots attempted and touches in the opponent's area than the combination of Bruno Fernandes, Scott McTominay and Marcel Sabitzer.
Newcastle's midfield had six more touches, regained possession on seven more occasions, won 22 duels to United's 15, had nine times as many attempts at goal and eight more touches in the opponent's area.
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The influential Guimaraes was the man of the match, Willock got the winner and Longstaff performed like the £50million midfielder Newcastle valued him at when United came calling in 2019.
United have yearned for Casemiro when they have fortuitously won without him, so you can imagine how abysmal they were at St James' Park in defeat. The 2-0 reverse on Sunday was an overall worse performance than the 7-0 annihilation at Anfield.
With every week, United are also missing Christian Eriksen more. Erik ten Hag has emphasised the importance of control and United have that with Eriksen. They seldom do without him.
United coped commendably with Eriksen in the treatment room in a February of eight fixtures in 26 days, a month when Fred came to the fore, starting every match.
Fred had a few wobbles. His partnership with Sabitzer never truly convinced while he had a hopeless first 52 minutes in Camp Nou. Then he played in Marcus Rashford down the right-hand channel to equalise.
In the return leg, Fred heralded United's comeback with the equalising goal. Yet in the weeks before the clocks went forward and the week after, Ten Hag has suddenly stopped starting Fred in domestic matches. He was on the bench against Southampton, Fulham and Newcastle.
Ten Hag miscalculated the midfield in all three. He underestimated the accomplished Southampton pair of James Ward-Prowse and Romeo Lavia, inexplicably relocating Fernandes deep next to Casemiro. McTominay and Sabitzer are not as functional a duo as Sabitzer and Fred or, perish the thought, McTominay and Fred.
The latter two have not started together since the opening defeat to Brighton almost eight months ago. You cannot blame Ten Hag for consigning an axis synonymous with Ole Gunnar Solskjaer to the past but he has been misguided in overlooking Fred of late. Fred and Sabitzer's record reads two wins and one draw.
Fred had the benefit of a fortnight off and flew to the Maldives as he was not on international duty. Of the three imperfect midfield pairings available to Ten Hag at Newcastle, Fred had to be the certain starter. He emerged belatedly in the 82nd minute, with United 1-0 down.
It is increasingly clear why Ten Hag coveted Frenkie de Jong so keenly and he has endorsed another approach in the summer. Manchester did not appeal to De Jong's fiancee, Mikky Kiemeney, but the Barcelona midfielder was prepared to reunite with Ten Hag if his wage deferral was addressed.
Barcelona are the champions-elect in La Liga and hold an aggregate advantage over Real Madrid ahead of Wednesday night's Copa del Rey semi-final second leg. They are still a mess of a club, one that made payments to the former vice president of Spain's refereeing committee over a 17-year period. The Uefa president Aleksander Čeferin described that as "one of the most serious [issues] in football that I have ever seen".
United have dropped to fifth in the Premier League but their Europa League duel confirmed they are, at the very least, Barca's equals, and a return to the Champions League would make them an easier sell to top-drawer targets. The United football director John Murtough warmly greeted his counterpart, Jordi Cruyff, in the Old Trafford directors' box in February.
Privately, Murtough was appalled by Barcelona's conduct after United agreed an €85m fee for De Jong in July. Relations between two of football's institutions are warm, though, and Murtough was present at a lunch for dignitaries of both clubs ahead of the first leg in Catalonia.
De Jong was Barcelona's standout performer in the return in Manchester, where he was heckled with an impromptu chorus of, "Frenkie, Frenkie, what's the score?" The celebrations were so raucous it is doubtful the fluent English speaker heard the merry Mancunians.
On two occasions in the first half, De Jong made recovery runs into his own third to retrieve the ball and he had 69 touches. That is almost half of United's trio at Newcastle combined.
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