Fellaini sent off for headbutt as rivals battle to a standstill
It takes a career in football to know how to kill a game with the tactical cold-bloodedness that Jose Mourinho has learned over the years, but it takes just one moment of brainfade from Marouane Fellaini potentially to undermine the whole show.
Which was why the Manchester United manager appeared to offer the Belgian a piece of his mind when Fellaini trudged past him to the dressing rooms after a sendingoff with six minutes to go that very nearly scuppered an away-day shutout. This was not the kind of Manchester derby that the world tuned in to see but it was the kind of derby that Mourinho wanted and he very nearly lost his prize because of Fellaini.
United came for the draw and the draw was what they got but not before Fellaini fell for an old act of provocation from Sergio Agüero that no seasoned professional should have permitted himself to be suckered into. In the space of a few seconds, Agüero tipped his face close enough to invite the exasperated headbutt from Fellaini and then duly pointed it out for referee Martin Atkinson, who had been watching from a few feet away.
In fact, the referee might have been about to send Fellaini off anyway for a second bookable tackle on Agüero just 19 seconds after the midfielder had committed the first, which, at the very least, shows that he does not have a good memory. In the end, United’s 10 men clung on for the draw, with Mourinho now without Fellaini, dismissed for a straight red, for three games.
As for Mourinho, he was in a jolly mood afterwards, essaying one of his outrageous defences of the indefensible by trying to say that Fellaini’s blatant headbutt might not have been a red card on the basis that he had seen Agüero subsequently in the tunnel and observed “no broken nose, no broken head, his face as nice as always”.
Yet Mourinho will also be without Tim Fosu-Mensah, a substitute after Fellaini’s sending off who is now injured, alongside the casualty of Marcos Rojo from last week. Yet, improbably, the Premier League unbeaten run continues, now standing at 24 games with 13 draws from their total of 33 so far and Swansea City awaiting on Sunday. United’s possession count of 30.8 per cent is said to be the club’s lowest since records began.
The greater frustration lies with Manchester City, who maintained their one-point advantage over their neighbours and keep fourth place but could have been clear of Liverpool in third with more composure in front of goal.
Agüero had the best chances and for the most part he worked hard for those but still failed to put the ball in the back of the net.
City had 69.2 per cent of the possession and 100 per cent of the ambition to win the game but there is still something lacking. Guardiola sent on Gabriel Jesus post-red card and a goal he scored from Agüero’s cross was rightly flagged offside. City had 19 attempts on goal, with six on target, compared to United’s six attempts and three on target.
Even Mourinho admitted that City had the better of the second half – with the caveat that his side were better in the first – and yet the home side never overwhelmed their opposition with the kind of chances that were unmissable. Agüero struck a post in the first half and Gabriel offered energy when he came on but, for the most part, they were caught in the web of a classic Mourinho spoiler with nine men behind the ball.
The referee Atkinson had a good game and let as much as he could go unpunished, which meant that both teams immediately took it right to the limit. Fernandinho was lucky not to be booked before the break for taking out Henrikh Mkhitaryan early on and then clattering Ander Herrera.
As for United’s best chance of the game, it was Herrera in the last regulation minute of the first half who emerged unmarked from a pack awaiting Marcus Rashford’s freekick from the left and headed the ball wide.
On a couple of occasions, Rashford burned past Nicolás Otamendi, who recovered well to tackle the second time, but up against the striker, the Argentine generally looked like a man trying to run up the down escalator. Rashford lifted the ball over Otamendi with the outside of his right heel in one standout moment, but there were no clear chances for the striker.
The other fell to Mkhitaryan who was gifted the ball in the area by Claudio Bravo’s weak flap at an Anthony Martial cross that just created more problems than it solved. The City goalkeeper was carried off in the second half with a calf injury.
United accepted the risk of sitting back, with Herrera, Michael Carrick and Fellaini generally doing a good job dealing with the emergencies around the United box until the chaos of the Belgian’s red card. All United’s outfield players were behind the ball bar Rashford, substituted late on, and left to duke it out against Otamendi and Vincent Kompany, who was impressive in his third straight start.
Kevin De Bruyne struck one wide. Agüero lashed the ball over when Antonio Valencia made a mistake clearing a Pablo Zabaleta cross. Otamendi got to a header but Eric Bailly, who had a fine game, managed to get a bit of his head on it, too, and the ball went wide.
United were doing just enough in one direction and virtually nothing in the other. Mkhitaryan and Martial seemed too anxious to leave their defensive duties for long enough to get forward. On the touchline, during one break in play, Mourinho even wandered over to Zabaleta for a chat and the United manager seemed to think it was going just as he had planned it.
That was until Fellaini fell for the oldest trick in the book with Agüero and a fraught last six minutes with injury time on top ensued for United. Judging by his mood later, Mourinho is still intent on portraying his team as the underdogs, labouring under the burden of European football and an injury list that is growing by the game. That may well be the case but they got what they came for on this evening, although it was not pretty.