Oh, how Mourinho would have enjoyed raining on his great rival’s parade
United’s manager helps orchestrate one of the biggest turnarounds in the long history of this fixture
They were not expecting that at the Etihad. Sure, the title will be theirs sooner or later. Sure, Manchester United’s stunning comeback has merely put the champagne on ice. And when the title is won, against Tottenham, Swansea, West Ham or Huddersfield in the coming weeks, the record books will still have note of their team’s total ascendancy over the rest of the Premier League.
But everyone of a Manchester City persuasion will know that this was a once-in-a-generation opportunity lost, a chance squandered to do what these fans have long waited for: to rub noses in the dirt, to mock, to relish the manifestation of total superiority.
To win it against the enemy would have been the sweetest moment of their supporting lives, payback for the years of condescension. Even better, it was something United themselves had never done, even in their years of domination. Despite 20 opportunities, they had never been in a position to secure the title against their nearest rivals.
Despite what was at stake, this was not Anfield last Wednesday night. The United bus slipped into east Manchester virtually unnoticed. No one was waiting for it, no one assaulted it. The home fans probably felt they did not need to. Even if the bus had made its way on to the pitch to be parked in front of David de Gea, the home fans would have assumed David
Silva, Leroy Sane and Raheem Sterling would hardly have been disturbed: they would have simply passed round it.
Ahead of kick-off, the sense of what lay ahead was everywhere. A spool of City’s goals in recent derbies playing on the big screen. There were a lot of them. A giant scarf reading MCFC OK was unfurled high in the stands. Then, as the players came out, those in blue shirts holding the hands of their own children in a hubristic demonstration of premature celebration, the home fans held up pieces of plastic to mosaic up the words We Are
City. The whole ground was a swathe of blue and white. Apart from a corner of grumpy red and black.
After a magnanimous round of applause for Ray Wilkins (tactfully the picture on the big screen was of him in England rather than United kit) things began cagily. The two managers paced their technical areas in identikit blue Macs, hands buried deep in pockets. In the home stands the fans belted out a spirited rendition of “We’re not really here”, the chant of embarrassment coined when playing Southend in League One.
And when City scored, the explosion of noise demonstrated what it meant. There was something particularly appropriate about Vincent Kompany putting the ball in the net after barrelling past Chris Smalling as if the United skipper wasn’t there.
The way he wheeled away in celebration, the way he scooted in front of the United supporters, leaping in triumph, the way he roared in front of the City stands, was indicative: if anyone knew the significance of the moment, City’s longest serving player did. Within touching distance of beating United to win the title: he knew it meant everything to the fans.
Then, when the second went in, a smug glow descended over the home sections. This was what it meant to be City: to glide with supreme ease past the hapless red shirts. Never mind Tuesday’s appointment against Liverpool in the Champions League, never mind conserving energy for the almighty task of reversing three goals, this was the one that mattered.
At half-time, the talk was entirely triumphalist in the blue sections. It was about how little Alexis Sanchez would have offered to their team had he settled for City instead of United on leaving Arsenal. And how glad they were that whatever the offer that had been made of Paul Pogba in January, it had not been taken up by Pep Guardiola. The players they had were showing they were more than capable of delivering what they had long dreamed about.
And then the roof fell in. Whatever Jose Mourinho said to his stumbling team at half-time, it was to produce perhaps the most unexpected turnaround in this fixture’s long, long history. Suddenly Pogba, the man who had been so roundly dismissed moments before, looked what few believed he could be after his first half showing: a class operator. His two goals were greeted with foaming fury in the seats in front of the press box. Irate City fans scoured the corporate sections for disguised United supporters. Every decision by the referee was greeted with howls of outrage.
Meanwhile, in the United area, a sense of glowing disbelief took hold. The brooding silence was replaced by a manifest delight.
It is a role you imagine Mourinho would have loved, raining on Guardiola’s parade. But if he did, he kept his satisfaction to himself, marking the winning goal by wandering over to the drinks container and taking a swig from a water bottle. And then, at full-time, greeting his long-term rival with a generous embrace.
Meanwhile in Liverpool, for the first time in recorded football history, they will have witnessed a United victory and cheered it to the
rafters.
Pogba’s two goals were greeted with foaming fury in the seats in front of the press box