The Sports Buff ⚽️ ⚾️ 🏈

Manchester United are terrible, as well as Tottenham, and both De Zerbi and Michael Carrick need the sack. Hello and welcome to the overreaction theatre, with your host, me, Ayyaz Malik.

Sports fans, boys and girls, the first week of the Premier League is done (except for Fulham’s game with Chelsea), and already some can’t resist making snap, knee-jerk reactions.

With 20-time Premier League champions Manchester United and former Europa League winners Tottenham Hotspur suffering chastening defeats, the argument is that, despite both sides having spent big on playing talent, both will struggle.

As a sports writer of 15 years and a sports fan/Man U fan of 30 years, I dare to believe I am qualified to talk on the matter. First things first, Saturday’s result was terrible, and the display was desperately poor.

You’d think they couldn’t be that poor anytime soon. The really bad display is out of the way early. This is applicable to Tottenham and United in equal measure. Naturally, with both spending an eye-catching amount, the scrutiny and the criticism will come with it.

Ladies and gents, it’s one game, and also, surely Hull and Brighton deserve their credit for the way they performed on the day! It’s a wake-up call for both sides (Man U and Spurs), but this is the first game of the season.

Even more so with Tottenham, but a huge chunk of that squad has changed. The Red Devils have a new midfield pairing in the Hull game, in Youri Tielemans and Andrey Santos, so they will need time to work together.

Roberto De Zerbi, although he can come across as a maverick, is, I argue, one of the best managers around in the Premier League this year. A season with plenty of bumps during the season awaits.

To make a judgement call on anything position-wise is outrageous. As armchair fans love to do, I’ll make a judgement call: United need a left-back and toughness in the middle of the park, while Spurs need a proven goal scorer and some steel and toughness in the middle of the park.