King of Palace!
Matic crowns brilliant comeback
FOR the second season running the United coach arrived late at Selhurst Park. “It’s stuck,” said an incredulous Londoner. It would have provided Jose Mourinho’s detractors with a bus-parking punchline, only this was the night that Jose played the way United should.
From 2-0 down on 52 minutes to 3-2 up in the 91st. This was the most stirring comeback by a United side since Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement, capped by a howitzer of a strike from Nemanja Matic. Appropriately in Fergie time.
The evening began so inauspiciously. Andros Townsend found a gap in the ‘stuck’ bus on 11 minutes and by that stage Victor Lindelof and Chris Smalling had shown signs of regressing to the double act which gifted Huddersfield victory back in October, taking turns at fluffing clearances.
The Eagles preyed on the pair, with Christian Benteke drawing an apprehensive Smalling to the edge before finding Townsend on the edge to curl past David de Gea with the aid of a Lindelof deflection. A half-time dressing room dressing down could not reinforce the concentration. Jeffrey Schlupp won a free-kick on the right three minutes after the pause and while Smalling and Antonio Valencia dithered Patrick van Aanholt dashed forward, leaving him one-on-one with David de Gea, who was beaten cutely at his near post. Yet having emerged from 1-0 down to beat Chelsea, they went one better on an evening that the old United seemed to return. No player embodied their dogged determination better than the pitbull-like Alexis Sanchez, accustomed to capitulations at Palace with his former club. Sanchez raged against the dying of the light and set the benchmark for his team-mates, with Paul Pogba belatedly taking his ego out of the equation following a poor first-half. Mourinho emerged from the dugout to spit vitriol at the under-performing pupils and it finally elicited a response. Smalling converted Valencia’s pinpoint cross on 55 minutes. Shaw and Juan Mata emerged as Mourinho
It was an evening when the old United seemed to return Samuel Luckhurst
opted for some tactical variety by switching Lingard to right wing-back. The run would go on. Sanchez’s effort looped onto Wayne Hennessey’s crossbar, Lukaku gathered the rebound, waited and waited and waited – and then struck it into the near corner.
While United fans readied themselves for a third, Benteke stooped at the far stick and would have regained Palace’s advantage but for the agile De Gea. The excitement and frantic pace caused Mourinho to loose his footing in the technical area as both teams sought winners.
In the end, it was Matic who won it.