United too passive in derby; Mourinho must take blame
About 10 minutes before halftime at Sunday’s Manchester derby which saw City beat United 2-1, the plea went up around Old Trafford, “Attack! Attack! Attack!” It’s a chant that dates back to the 1960s.
It was heard, for instance, at Wembley in 1968 as Manchester United beat Ben¿ca to win the European Cup as fans reveled in the refusal of Matt Busby’s side to rest on a 1-0 lead even in a game so freighted with emotion and importance, the Guardian reported.
José Mourinho was always going to have his side sit deep. That’s just how he plays in big games and the evidence of City’s last three league games – and particularly Pep Guardiola’s evident frustration at the approach – was that City does not ¿nd it easy against teams which set out with few ambitions but to deny Citizens space. This City pose challenges few other teams have ever posed: Mourinho’s approach was both predictable and, up to a point, understandable. But only up to a point.
That he began with Marcus Rashford, Jesse Lingard and Anthony Martial behind Romelu Lukaku was misleading. Four forwards looks positive, but he did that at Internazionale as well, when he would ¿eld Goran Pandev, Wesley Sneijder and Samuel Eto’o behind Diego Milito and, in big games, watch them defend with great discipline.
Mourinho’s greatest gift, perhaps, is his capacity to persuade forwards to defend. That, and the management of expectations.
United’s front four did defend: clumsily and, as it turned out, counterproductively in the case of Lukaku, ef¿ciently and diligently in the case of the wide men tracking the fullbacks.
At half-time, City had had 75 percent of the ball and United only three shots.
Little wonder, then, that some home fans became a little restive as they watched a string of long punts aimed in the vague direction of Lukaku, or at least the half of the pitch in which he was mournfully loping.
But United is not weak; it is the richest club in the world. Playing like that sits uncomfortably with its self-image. What may work at Chelsea or Porto or even Inter, where reactivity can be accepted as necessary to take on the establishment, doesn’t work when you are the establishment, as United is, as Real Madrid is.
United had played like this against Tottenham, waiting for a mistake that did eventually come.
The Red Devils had played like this at Liverpool, waiting for a mistake that never came. Here, there were mistakes and they served to highlight how many more there might have been had United just applied a little more pressure a little earlier in the game.
City, having dominated, became oddly sloppy in the ¿ve minutes before halftime. Its opening goal came just after a couple of uncharacteristic misplaced passes, as though City players had mesmerized themselves with their possession. Three mistakes in dealing with one simple cross led to the equalizer. At no stage did City seem comfortable dealing with direct balls.
Nicolás Otamendi had one of his shaky days. Fabian Delph for once looked like a mid¿elder playing at the back, as did Fernandinho for the quarter of an hour he did so before being rescued by the introduction of Eliaquim Mangala.
Lukaku and Rashford had chances even before the Ederson double save. With ¿ve minutes to go, City was rattled enough to take the ball into the corners, despite its manager’s oft-expressed ideological commitment to attacking football.
City was vulnerable and United, just as against Liverpool, not only didn’t take advantage but didn’t seek to take advantage. There is a line between reactivity and passivity and in the ¿rst half United was on the wrong side of it.
When Mourinho did ¿nally have a go, it was two hours too late and he was complaining about the volume of the music in the visitor’s dressing room.
United is not, to use the metaphor Mourinho himself deployed in his ¿rst season back at Chelsea to preempt and explain the failure of a nascent title challenge, a “little horse”.
It is Manchester United, the biggest, most successful team in English football, and its transfer spending is a net £250 million in the two years he has been there. A team of that stature cannot be reliant on Paul Pogba.
Resistance for now is limited but the bigger the gap at the top of the table becomes, the more stylistic questions are going to be asked: why betray tradition or self-image, romanticized as it may be, if the result is defeat?
And particularly when the suspicion is that a more proactive, more palatable approach might actually have been more effective, might have exposed an opponent’s weaknesses?
And this is the second season. This is supposed to be Mourinho’s golden time before third-season syndrome strikes.
‘Barca way works’
Guardiola said his side is proving playing in the same style as Barcelona can work in England after the Citizens won for a Premier League record 14th successive game.
“People said we couldn’t play the way we did in Barcelona in England,” said Guardiola, 46, who won three La Liga titles and also two Champions League titles and two Copa del Reys in four years at the Camp Nou between 2008-2012. “But it is possible and we did it.” City ¿nished third in the table, 15 points behind champion Chelsea, in Guardiola’s ¿rst season in charge as the Spaniard tried to implement the same possession-based philosophy that served him so well at Barcelona.
However after a summer recruiting players who ¿t Guardiola’s template and a year of working under his methods, City is now well placed to win its ¿rst league title since 2013-14.
“The personality to play here is what I want,” added Guardiola after a fourth successive 2-1 win in the top Àight.
“We can play this way in England. I knew that last season.
“Always I believed we could do it. Everyone can play how they want, that’s why football is so beautiful.
“I’m happy to go to Stamford Bridge and Old Trafford and to beat them in this way.”