Well, what an interesting few days it has been for us. Firstly, an absolutely disgraceful weekend followed by a very positive result late yesterday. From the deepest lows, to some great highs, football is a funny old game….
On Sunday…
The game at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday has to be the most humiliating defeat since we last got battered by City two years ago, 6-1. That day was awful, this one was no better. Apart from dropping Ashley Young for Danny Welbeck on the wing and having a fully fit Robin Van Persie up front, our team was at full strength. Nemanja Vidic and Rio Ferdinand played alongside each other yet again, which only promised benefits. Maraoune Fellaini and Michael Carrick would surely be a steely midfield pairing, perhaps one capable of matching Yaya Toure and Fernandinho. Player for player, we matched the quality of City in every position. So what went wrong?
The answer is the will to win was missing from the red side of Manchester. Football, like all sport, is played 80% mentally. If you want to win more than your opponent, you likely will. Obviously, as soon as the players stepped onto the Eastlands pitch on Sunday, Toure wanted it more than Fellaini, Sergio Aguero wanted it more than Welbeck, Fernandinho wanted it more than Carrick, Vincent Kompany wanted it more than Ferdinand and so on, and so on. The only possible exception to this is Wayne Rooney, who again put in a top performance and on any other day he would have won us the game, had it not been the day that Vincent Kompany decided to play the game of his life.
The big Belgian was, essentially, the difference between the sides physically. Every 50/50, Kompany won it. Every tackle, Kompany won it. He was unbelievable. However, a centre back did not directly influence the four goals scored down the other end. Every goal was born of a mistake from a Utd player, no matter how subtle it was.
Goal 1: Antonio Valencia was in no mans land as Aleksandar Kolarov ambled on to the end of a very simple pass from Nasri to cross for Aguero’s opener.
Goal 2: Ferdinand and then Fellaini lost their men at the corner, the latters man being Toure, who poked in a the back post.
Goal 3: Ferdinand agin had no clue where Aguero was as the ball sailed past him straight to Aguero for a tap in.
Goal 4: Valencia again. Nobody closed down the ball as Samir Nasri eventualy arrived unmarked to score.
Clearly, the players weren’t switched on as much as the City players were, and that ultimately cost us the game. When you are on silly money to play football, the least you can do is concentrate on the game in hand and try your very best to win. I wonder what Duncan Edwards, Nobby Stiles, Bobby Charlton and Bryan Robson would have made of the performance, where we lost due to lack of desire. Not a lot, I don’t think.
Last night however, was a stark contrast. Shinji Kagawa rattled the woodwork, Rooney forced Simon Mignolet into some saves and Javier Hernandez scored the winner in 1-0 victory in the Carling Cup against our bitter rivals, Liverpool, who were back with Luis Suarez playing again. It’s already looking like a topsy turvy season, who knows what the next few weeks will bring for Man Utd?
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