United’s derby win underlines a missed opportunity
Eamonn Sweeney
MANCHESTER UNITED’s derby win may be the ultimate bittersweet triumph. In 90 odd minutes they repeated their victory of last season, showed what they should have done this season and perhaps laid down a marker for next season. But, happy though the club’s fans will be to take some gloss off their neighbours’ inevitable Premier League crown, they may be haunted by thoughts of what might have been.
What if United had adopted the same approach in other big games? At the Etihad they were changed utterly from the timid bunch who’d turned up to the previous seven meetings with big six opposition.
This United got on the front foot from the start, had the courage to risk pushing up from the back to deny City space and didn’t even retreat into a defensive shell after going 2-0 up.
The big change in attitude was probably rooted, like the preceding negative displays, in Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s finely honed sense of self-preservation.
The dullness of last week’s 0-0 draws against Chelsea and Crystal Palace meant another scoreless draw would have been as unacceptable as the heavy defeat the manager has been running scared of since the 6-1 loss to Spurs.
Bravery was United’s only option. Embracing it worked so well United may be feeling the mixed emotions of a man who after giving up drink finds himself regretting the wasted years before he quit.
Boldness suits this United team. The most striking thing about the victory was how comfortable it was. As the second half wore on it became obvious that man for man United are at least as good as City.
There’s no great imbalance between the talent available to Pep Guardiola and that available to Solskjaer. That fact has been muddied by the eagerness of the latter’s partisans to engage in the populist pretence that the manager had been given an impossible task by the club’s owners.
The truth is that there might have been a title in the current United squad. We’ll never know for sure because their manager lacked the confidence to try and find out if there was. Yesterday’s result may be more an indictment than a vindication of his reign.
The ease of United’s victory raised the possibility that City have pinched a handy title with Liverpool in disarray, Chelsea in transition and their city rivals too often in a state of fear.
The long unbeaten run of Guardiola’s team has been far more impressive on paper than on the pitch.
City have rarely been irresistible and exhilarating in the way that Liverpool were last season or that they themselves were the season before that. At 2-0 down, they never remotely looked like saving the match.
Contrast that with the performance of Bayern Munich who, after falling 2-0 behind tp Borussia Dortmund on Saturday, fought back to win 4-2 with the winning goals coming in the 89th and 90th minutes.
City don’t seem to have a performance like that in them which is why they lack the greatness of Bayern.
The result is that United have thrown away their chance of making a serious title challenge
Once put in a spot by top-class opposition they appear unable to move up a gear. That should give United hope for next season though it remains to be seen whether this display is a turning point or just another false dawn.
Yesterday United’s urgency and sense of adventure were perfectly encapsulated by the second goal. It began when Dean Henderson, much more commanding and reliable between the posts than the absent David de Gea is these days, released Luke Shaw with a Schmeichel-like throw.
Hunger and determination brought Shaw past Joao Cancelo and away from Kevin De Bruyne before he found Marcus Rashford. A quick return pass gave Shaw the chance cut a precise low drive into the right corner of the net for a goal which could not have been more richly deserved.
Shaw has been United’s best player this season aside from Bruno Fernandes yet he’s not the type of player to attract headlines. There’s something determinedly unglamorous about the left-back which may be why Jose Mourinho chose him as scapegoat when things went pear-shaped during ‘The A**e-Covering One’s’ Old Trafford reign.
Renaissance
It can’t have been an easy time for Shaw, not least because Mourinho’s felon-setting saw him become a target for social media mockery. His renaissance is an example of how to rebuild a reputation and career in the face of unfair treatment. That seems a timely lesson given the week we’ve had.
Shaw has gone a long way by making the very most of his ability. Anthony Martial sometimes seems to have done the opposite yet yesterday he provided tantalising glimpses of what can he do. There was the surge at the City defence to win the early penalty and a run which saw him make John Stones look foolish and Rodri look weak as he brushed him aside.
Yet there was no goal for Martial at the end of that run and his botching of fine opportunities in the 57th and 67th minutes illustrated the combination of sublime and ridiculous which has made him such an enigma. That enigmatic quality sometimes seems to extend to a team as a whole. But those misfires may reflect managerial rather than player shortcomings.
Yesterday showed how good they can be. The lesson was clear. For Manchester United, the only thing to fear is fear itself.