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If Ole Gunnar Solskjaer had got his way, the scorer of the most famous goal in Manchester United’s history may now only be deemed the second best Norwegian striker to play for the club. He was Molde manager in 2018 and had a young centre-forward to recommend, and for a bargain price. “They didn’t listen, unfortunately,” he said in May. “They never signed him. Four million! Don’t ask [where he is now].” The answer, as Solskjaer knew all too well, is Manchester City. Perhaps, as a self-proclaimed fan of the club whose father had an altogether less prolific spell in their midfield, Erling Haaland would have always preferred the blue half of the city anyway. Maybe, like Jude Bellingham – another United target, another who found Borussia Dortmund a deluxe finishing school – he would have plotted a path to the top via places where potential tends to be realised. Whichever, Haaland scored a hat-trick in his first Manchester derby last year. He goes into his fourth with nine Premier League goals already this season. Or, to put it another way, nine times as many as United’s various forwards have between them. Admittedly, it excludes Bruno Fernandes’ sumptuous winner at Burnley, scored when he was standing in as a right winger, but even that lone goal, from Marcus Rashford at Arsenal, came in defeat. Rasmus Hojlund, Anthony Martial, Alejandro Garnacho and Antony are all yet to find the net in the league. Rashford has had 33 shots, Antony 16, Garnacho 13, Hojlund 11 and Martial three. It amounts to one goal from 76 attempts, a 1.31 per cent chance conversion rate. The law of averages suggests some will start scoring soon. “The goals will come in the Premier League,” Hojlund, who has three in the Champions League, said on Tuesday. The contrast with Haaland may be particularly jarring for him. “I don’t want to be compared to him,” the Dane said. Yet he is another Scandinavian, equipped with some of the same consonants, arriving at a cost of £72m – not the 2018 Haaland’s £4m - and also playing as a No 9. It may be both unfair and inevitable. His fellow forwards’ failings have made it harder for the 20-year-old to ease into life at Old Trafford, though. “I’m convinced with the quality from our [forward] players that they will go and score more goals,” Ten Hag said. The first step is to hit the target: Hojlund has done it with just three of 11 attempts, Antony three from 16, Garnacho two from 13 and Rashford seven from 33. There are reasons why United rank third for shots, but only joint eighth for efforts on target; only 29.4 per cent of their shots have been on target, the fifth lowest average. The forwards are not the only culprits, but a quintet of attackers with a combined xG of 6.95 have one goal between them. Ten Hag was keener to cite other statistics. “The pressing is quite good,” he said. “We have the most ball regains and the most middle [third] regains in the whole Premier League. But we don’t take benefit in attacking transition moments.” For him, the problem lies partly in decision-making, partly in execution. Certainly Hojlund is still trying to get to know his teammates, though there were signs against FC Copenhagen on Tuesday that he and Rashford are starting to strike up an understanding. But United, Ten Hag thinks, should have had more chances. “The cooperation has to click, but we showed this week in the week some examples where they are so many we have overload positions, going in overload position to the opponents’ goal and we don’t net or don’t even hit the target,” he rued. It has led to a disjointed feel, to a sense that United have been less than the sum of their parts. Rashford has veered between arguably the best form of his career, scoring 30 goals last season, to some of the worst. “I play him every game and so I have a strong belief he will return to scoring a lot of goals,” Ten Hag said. Rashford delivered a winner, albeit a controversial one, on City’s last trip to Old Trafford in January, but then he had also scored in his six previous games. Now he has no goals in his last eight outings for United. Yet Rashford’s struggles have overshadowed the enduring ineffectuality of Antony. The Brazilian’s season was interrupted by a leave of absence while he addressed allegations of assault from three women, which he denied. On the pitch, however, he has been dismal: his United drought stretches back 17 matches and Ten Hag’s best option on the right against City may be Fernandes, particularly if shifting the captain into a wider role allows him to bolster his midfield. And there are other reasons to select midfielders. Casemiro is an injury doubt but remains United’s top scorer in all competitions this campaign. Their leading marksman in the Premier League, somewhat improbably, is Scott McTominay, who got more goals in injury-time against Brentford than their five main forwards – six if the absent Jadon Sancho is included – have mustered between them in the top flight all season. It is hardly a Haaland-esque haul. And while - when Hojlund was still with Atalanta, and Rashford managed 30, the quartet of the Mancunian - Antony, Martial and Garnacho equalled the Norwegian’s total of 52 goals for a Manchester club between them last season, now they are very much trailing in his wake. And whether or not Haaland would actually have joined United, they have added reasons to regret the one who got away and subsequently joined their neighbours as long as their own forwards are misfiring. 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Sol Campbell has turned his back on football management and says he is no longer applying for jobs. The former Arsenal and Tottenham defender has tried to forge a career in the dugout and had spells at crisis clubs Macclesfield and Southend between 2018 and 2020. He has not been able to find a job since and has spoken out in the past about his frustration at the lack of opportunities. And the 49-year-old has revealed he is no longer chasing managerial roles. “For me, it is about getting opportunities to fail,” he told the PA news agency at Web Summit in Lisbon. “Some of my peers have had jobs and it’s not worked out and then they have had opportunities again straight away, they’ve always had a lifeline. “That is a nice position to be in. I am not in that position, I would love to be, but those situations are not coming to me. I would love to be involved in football and have chances, but that is not happening. “You have to look at football in a different way and that is what I am going to start doing and hopefully it will work out and I will be able to help players, just in a different way. I want to be in football in a meaningful way. It won't be on the sideline. I am not applying any more for jobs Sol Campbell “I love coaching, so I am going to go back into football in a meaningful way. I have had to go away, studied at Harvard. I want to be in football in a meaningful way. It won’t be on the sideline. “I am not applying any more for jobs. “I’m happy to be in a different space now and one I want to be in.” Burnley’s Vincent Kompany is the only black manager in the Premier League and Campbell believes the bosses at the top clubs in the country should be doing more to diversify their backroom staff. “Football needs that diversity in terms of management, but for me it seems to have gone backwards in some cases. “We need to understand not everyone is going to make it to be an amazing manager, but you have to get the opportunity or a chance to prove yourself right or even show you can do the job. “Sometimes you get to the stage where you can’t fail. Sometimes you have to fail to suceed, but if you don’t get that opportunity how can you succeed. “There are a few managers who are slowly having diversity in the backroom staff, that can help. “Some of the top managers know if they could diversify their coaching staff it would help. That is a start. “They are the ones in a strong position, where they have won things and are at great clubs. “I think that is how people should start thinking, that is an easy way to kind of get experience and get through the door. Some of the top, top managers have to look at their coaching staff and mix it up a little bit.” Read More Rohit Sharma urges India to retain same mindset for World Cup semi-final Luis Diaz reunited with kidnapped parents after returning to Colombia LaLiga president says Jude Bellingham ‘like he’s from a different planet’ Rory McIlroy aware ‘loose lips sink ships’ as progress made towards golf future ‘Drained and stressed’ Ronnie O’Sullivan withdraws from Champion of Champions Liam Cooper wants Scotland to ‘do ourselves justice’ at Euro 2024

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Late last month, as Washington’s political and media elite gathered at the Hilton hotel for the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, Joe Biden, 80, couldn’t gloss over a fact that’s increasingly colouring his political future: He’s just an exceptionally old person to be president. In fact, he’s the oldest person to ever hold the White House. “I believe in the First Amendment — not just because my good friend Jimmy Madison wrote it,” the president began in his remarks, before good-naturedly taking The New York Times to task for stories about his age. “You call me old? I call it being seasoned,” he said. “You say I’m ancient? I say I’m wise. You say I’m over the hill? Don Lemon would say that’s a man in his prime.” The reference was a telling one. Mr Lemon, who was ousted from CNN last month, caused a minor media scandal when he commented about women of a certain age being past their “prime.” This remark was itself a reaction to former South Carolina governor and current presidential contender Nikki Haley calling, somewhat scandalously, for mental competency tests for politicians over age 75. Generational conflict is nothing new in American politics, but age has played an especially prominent role in Washington in recent months, impacting everything from leadership battles in Congress to the future of the presidency, raising questions about fairness, gender, and the vitality America’s very institutions themselves, which have scarcely ever been filled with more senior citizens. Mr Biden may have been in a laughing mood at the Correspondents’ Dinner, but that may have just been him putting on a smiling face for the cameras. His pollsters are surely worried about recent data, such as a March poll finding 68 per cent of registered voters thought he was too old for another term, or an April poll finding that 70 per cent of adults said Mr Biden shouldn’t run again, with the roughly same percentage saying age was a factor in that decision. The age-related worries are just the tip of the iceberg though. Overall, there’s a marked lack of enthusiasm for Mr Biden, with 57 per cent of respondents in a recent poll suggesting the Democrats should nominate someone else in 2024. If these doubts were vanquished, and Mr Biden did win again, he would be 86 by the end of his second term. If Mr Biden was re-elected, it would further cement the dominance Baby Boomers have exerted over national politics in recent decades, according to Kevin Munger, assistant professor of political science and social data analytics at Pennsylvania State University, author of Generation Gap: Why the Baby Boomers Still Dominate American Politics and Culture. “We’ve had 28 years of Boomer presidency in a row,” he said. “That streak was only ended by Joe Biden, who is technically too old to be a Boomer by two years. That is unprecedented for a single generation.” Age was a political accelerant during the Trump presidency, too. Prior to Mr Biden, the billionaire, at age 70, was the oldest person ever to become president. Throughout his presidency, Mr Trump’s mental fitness and cognitive health was a political flashpoint, with the former president bragging about his results on mental competency tests, psychologists openly openly opining about the president’s mental acuity, and former advisors gossiping to the political press that Mr Trump’s mental decline was so serious cabinet officials considered invoking the 25th Amendment and removing him from office. Of course, Mr Trump, the insult-comic-in-chief, found a way to turn this speculation against his rival, dubbing Joe Biden “Sleepy Joe” throughout the 2020 campaign season. It’s not just the White House, though, where age has been a concern. The present Congress contains the second-oldest Senate and third-oldest House in US history. Generationally, the US population fits roughly into four, equal-sized blocks of about 20 to 25 per cent: ages 0 to 18, 19 to 34, 35 to 54, and 55-plus. The composition of Congress, meanwhile, is drastically tipped toward the elder part of that range, with the median House member aged 57.9 and the median senator aged 65.3. Beyond just being another way the US government doesn’t mirror the wider diversity of the US population, age within Congress can become a political weapon, used by both parties as part of their machinations. In March, Senator Dianne Feinstein, 89, the oldest US Senator, who has been dogged in her later years with accusations of declining mental faculties, was hospitalised with shingles, and has had to miss large swathes of in-person work in the upper chamber as she recovers. The following month, she asked to temporarily be replaced on the key Senate Judiciary Committee, which handles the appointment of federal judges, one of the few remaining ways the Democrats can exert lasting influence in a divided Congress. However, Republicans, knowing that the full Senate must approve committee assignments, have added a major, likely unacceptable demand for the Democrats: they’ve asked that Senator Feinstein must resign the Senate entirely before they consider a replacement. In a sign of just how scrambled the politics of age are on the Hill, members of both parties have argued such treatment is unfair, but that hasn’t stopped the GOP from changing its tune. Sen Chuck Grassley, Republican of Iowa, called the demands “very anti-woman” and “very anti-aging” in an interview with The Independent, while Sen Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, argued, “The Republicans are saying no, for no reason, other than trying to block the court from going forward in its investigation of the Supreme Court and pass more judges, which is the right of the majority to do.” The issue has divided the Democratic Party as well. In April, rising star California congressman Ro Khanna forcely called for Sen Feinstein to resign. “We need to put the country ahead of personal loyalty,” he said. “While she has had a lifetime of public service, it is obvious she can no longer fulfill her duties. Not speaking out undermines our credibility as elected representatives of the people.” Age has also been a clear undercurrent in House leadership battles, where former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made a point to highlight the comparative youth of the new slate of Democratic leadership, following at times barbed exchanges between her and younger, more progressive parts of the party like Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. “The hour has come for a new generation to lead the Democratic caucus,” she said in November when she stepped aside. “Now we must move boldly into the future, grounded by the principles that have propelled us this far, and open to fresh possibilities for the future.” All told, according to Professor Munger, the age of America’s most senior politicians – Sen Chuck Schumer is 71, Sen Mitch McConnell is 81 – often means that issues that matter to other generations don’t get top billing, leading both to disaffection and to bigger-picture existential issues, like a lack of serious climate legislation or the impending funding crisis of Social Security. “It’s been clear that because of the size of the Boomer generation, at a certain point we were either going to have to raise taxes on the workforce or cut the benefits,” he said. “We didn’t do either of those things. Sometime in the 2030s, it’s going to run out. They’re not going to cut benefits to Boomers…Instead, younger generations are going to have to fully fund this obvious 30-year shortfall.” In the case of Social Security in particular, many of the leaders deciding on the issue are current recipients, while those younger generations who will likely pay more or get less in the future aren’t represented in office. A similar problem arises with climate change: the leaders holding up urgent action on the climate likely will not be alive to see the very worst impacts of their inaction. “The issues that matter to younger generations don’t get on the agenda at all,” Prof Munger added. Instituting parliamentary system, he said, instead of our current winner-take-all model might lead to more representational and ideological diversity, but like major climate or benefit reform, overhauling the US election system doesn’t seem to be a consensus priority at the moment. And those younger generations in turn don’t participate as much as they fully could at the national level. In the 2022 midterms, only 23 per cent of eligible young Americans cast a ballot, up from 2014’s woeful 13 per cent, but still well below the participation rate of older generations. The same held true in 2020, the highest turnout election of the 21st century: 76 per cent of those age 65 to 74 voted, while only 51.4 per cent of those 18 to 24 did. Some of this demographic dominance is unavoidable, argues Philip Bump, Washington Post columnist and author of The Aftermath: The Last Days of the Baby Boom and the Future of Power in America. The Boomers, born in the abundant post-war years between 1946 and 1964, were until very recently the largest generation in US history. During their lifetimes, American cemented its place as a global economic superpower, the voting age lowered to 18, and the federal government poured millions into creating a new middle class. It’s no surprise then, Mr Bump says, this generation has a strong hold on power. “The Baby Boomers make up a disproportionate share of elected officials, especially at the federal level, simply by virtue of scale,” he told The Independent. Combine that with the built-in political advantages of incumbency and wealth, and you have a recipe for a political system tilted towards older people. “Senators are not usually just elected out of the blue,” he added. Some argue that critcising elected leaders, and the system at large, over age concerns is ageist, and often sexist as well, given the extra scrutiny paid to leaders like former Speaker Pelosi or Senator Feinstein. However, according to Amanda Litman, co-founder of Run For Something, an organisation that encourages young people to run for office, this is largely missing the point. Any one elected leader can be an effective and competent advocate regardless of age, she told The Independent, but we must acknowledge that the system at large needs to allow more young people in. “This isn’t about any one person. This is about a collective problem of Congress not being reflective of the American people,” she said. “We know that in business, and in other governments, things work better when they’re made up of diverse perspectives. All of us would be better served if there were more voices at the table.” According to Penn State’s Professor Munger, debates about age in politics aren’t new. During Ronald Reagan’s second term, similar conversations about mental fitness and age circulated around the Beltway and the country at large. And despite the apparent controversy of someone like Nikki Haley calling for age limits, the US already has such policies in other arenas, like age requirements for generals or pilots, or mandatory retirement ages in certain other professions. What makes these conversations often intractable, though, is that they’re not really ever just a conversation about age or reform, he argues. Both parties are always considering the partisan stakes. “There’s no way to have that debate except through the lens of immediate political reference,” he said. Finding some resolution to the generation wars will be urgent, however. There’s a higher percent of Americans older than 65 than there has ever been in US history, so questions about age, competence, and representation aren’t going away any time soon. Neither are big-picture problems like the climate crisis, where urgent action is needed now to prevent impacts that will play out in both a matter of seasons and centuries. Ms Litman, of Run for Something, is encouraged by recent research her organisation did, which found that more than 130,000 young people around the country wanted to run for office. To her, it showed that for all the inaccessibility of the US political system, younger generations have the same urge to serve as those who came before them. “We often hear, young people don’t vote. They don’t want to engage,” she said. “That’s not true. You have to ask. You have to open the door to them. When you do, they are ready and eager to run right through it.” Read More Biden 2024: The polls, the politics, and why he needs Trump in order to win What should Democrats do about Dianne Feinstein? Biden laughs off 2024 age concerns: ‘My career of 280 years’ The US has approved $42 billion in loan forgiveness for public service workers. Here's what to know Harris 1st woman to deliver West Point commencement speech AP source: Harris postpones MTV event over writers' strike

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