‘HUMBLE’ JOSE STILL CHASING GLORY DAYS
UP in lights behind the statue of Sir Matt Busby was Manchester United’s new advertisement for the YouTube channel they’ve just launched. They’re using clips of the 8-2 win over Arsenal here, on an August day nearly seven years ago, to reel the viewers in.
There was a multitude of ironies in that. That victory was United’s monumental response to Manchester City thrashing Tottenham Hotspur to go top of the Premier League. This one might have demonstrated the cussedness Sir Alex Ferguson enshrined in the club but it won’t be featuring heavily on the new channel any time soon.
The points allowed Jose Mourinho to smile broadly and display some bonhomie towards Antonio Conte. But they came against a Chelsea side whose second- half capitulation was so catastrophic that their manager could barely summon the energy last night to protest about a late Alvaro Morata equaliser being wrongly chalked off for offside.
Mourinho was happy to talk about ‘humility’, while also explaining that no side is better prepared for games than his. ‘We are the best with the pen and the paper when we define the game plan and our model of play,’ he said. But buried in his self-satisfaction was also an admission about Manchester City which was more significant than he seemed to appreciate. ‘The top one is there and will be there,’ he said, carefully avoiding identifying them by name. It was the kind of admission that would have left Ferguson spitting blood.
So would Mourinho’s suggestion that ‘it is not possible to create a lot of chances against Chelsea’.
The positives for United to take from the afternoon included Romelu Lukaku’s work-rate and first goal against a top-six club, though there was precious little of the royal entertainment that this great stadium is synonymous with. Nothing to suggest that, for all the fortunes being lavished on the Old Trafford squad, United will be anything more than a speck in City’s rear view mirror for the foreseeable future. Second best is about as good as it might get, for some time to come.
IT didn’t help that Paul Pogba was a shadow of the player he can be and there was a suspicion Mourinho might have been playing a political game, with a ‘humility’ theme directed specifically at him.
It perhaps explained the manager’s bizarre congratulations in his programme notes for specific ‘ humble’ players. They included Ashley Young, for having another child, and Phil Jones and Sergio Romero, on their birthdays. Not the kind of comments Ferguson ever offered in his match notes.
Alexis Sanchez’s role was equally unfathomable. He spent half the match running down blind alleys, tracking back and matching up with N’Golo Kante.
The pitch perimeter ads for United’s corporate partners simply rubbed salt in the wound. They promoted slick tyres, high performance engine oil and footwear ‘here to create.’ For long periods, United were none of the above. Liverpool and Tottenham are currently offering a far greater sum of creativity than this.
Chelsea plumbed depths which overshadowed everything, drifting into oblivion from a 1-0 advantage that they would have driven home in years gone by. Willian was their nexus and one shining light, initiating the exchange of passes which saw him burst into United’s area to score. He is surely one of the Premier League’s most underrated players. But Morata could not build on the promise of his early volleyed shot against the bar from Marcos Alonso’s deft cross. He looked a very inferior alternative to Diego Costa, once again. Eden Hazard also offered initial promise, during an opening half hour which made United look very ordinary. But his mind was somewhere else — before Conte withdrew him for the good of the team. There are moments when Andreas Christensen shows potential, too, though he was found deeply lacking when Jesse Lingard met Lukaku’s cross to score the winner. When things are as bad as this, managers reach for some technical explanation or other and Conte started talking at length about a lack of ‘balance.’ It was more elementary than that. The side’s spirit seems shot and with Manchester City away next, they could be nine points adrift of United by next Monday evening. Conte made no pretence that his side may miss out on a top-four finish. ‘I don’t know but this could be a possibility for sure. In this league, to find a place in Champions League is not simple. It is not easy.’ Before the players drifted away, they would have caught glimpses of the League Cup final to which this match was, in every way, subsidiary. City were two up in an hour and furnished with plenty of footage for their own YouTube channel. They launched it six years ago and are already well over one million followers to the good.