We shall not...
Last season it took us until January 19th and that glorious dipping header from Berba at the Reebok before we climbed to the top of the table. This time out, even though my United calendar is still turning to face the wall – September belonging to Tevez – we’ve mounted the thing before October. What happened to all that pre-season doom and gloom? I for one was convinced pre-season that the city project would finish above us and that our hold on a top-four spot was looking far from secure. Was I off my head?
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Maybe, maybe not. Leading the league in September offers no guarantee you’ll still be there come the season’s end, as Rafa well knows. But it has to be said, the ghost of Turf Moor has been fully exorcised, particularly now that Chelsea’s claim to invincibility have been shredded by Wigan. In truth confidence has ebbed back ever since the Spurs game when the trauma of Rome finally seemed to be forgotten and we remembered just what a gifted bunch of players we have at United.
.That said, yesterday once again illustrated the depth of our reliance on Ryan Giggs. Berba’s goal celebration – stabbing his finger in Ryan’s direction – was, quite literally – a pointed attack on the dearth of quality service that had predominated while Nani was on the field. Indeed, you have to wonder if Nani is ever going to shed the errors that infect his game and make good on his potential.
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I’m assuming that Alex, for all the talk of his adopting a more sophisticated approach to man-management these days – has felt compelled to give Nani several blasts of the fabled hair-dryer, and yet put the guy on the edge of the box with players screaming for a pass and he will invariably look to take a shot that was never on in the first place. Booing of your own is never an option, but the grinding of teeth all around the United end as Nani squanders another chance and Rooney and Berba look at him in dismay, disgust and despair tells its own story. Time is running out for you, son.
Turn the telly up!
We all make mistakes. Red Issue for instance previewed yesterday’s game with the warning that a cracker was unlikely to be on the cards. Meanwhile on Sky’s Sunday Supplement the Mirror’s Martin Lipton was asserting, with that unswerving conviction that journalists are prone to, that Tevez would play no part in the afternoon’s game. And I myself, may have suggested that signing Michael Owen was no Fergie masterstroke, but a desperate throw of the dice from a manager stripped of financial resources. Well, it gives me infinite pleasure to state that I was wrong. Well, mostly wrong.
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If Michael Owen does nothing else in a United shirt he did that yesterday. When the stakes were at their very highest, when pressure at its most intense, he got one chance and he slotted it away with imperious ease. City fans will crowd the airwaves with moans about Fergie-time (I’d not even made it to the top of Sir Matt Busby Way before hearing some bitter invoking that phrase), but any rational ones amongst their number have to admit that, in the second half, they were destroyed yesterday. Wave after wave of attacks, mostly kept out by the ever-excellent Shay Given, galvanized Old Trafford to a pitch that’s been sorely lacking in recent years.
.When Rio ridiculously opted to chip Bellamy and left the golf-club wielding weasel free to rush goalwards the sense of deflation was unbearable. Cut to twenty minutes later, or whatever it was city fans claim, and the euphoria was palpable. Affecting coolness and maintaining the aggressively anti-Owen posture that I’ve affected all season simply wasn’t an option. Only utter barminess can suffice in such circumstances.
.And what of that man from Argentina? Before the game all you could hear was reds lustily bellowing the hastily rewritten ode to the ‘money grabbing whore’. The boos that rang out when they announced the teams seemed to give him a physical slap. The contrast the to the love that chased him down the tunnel last time he walked on the OT turf could hardly have been more pronounced.
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As for his performance. He scurried and chased in familiar fashion, and his closing down lead directly to the first equalizer. But, as ever – and this isn’t the revisionism of the jilted lover talking, it’s what I’ve maintained from the off – in front of goal he lacks the clinical composure that someone else deployed to such devastating effect.
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To his credit though, when the city players converged on Bellamy to celebrate his second goal, it was noticeable that Tevez ambled back to the centre circle, alone with his thoughts. I’d have offered him a penny for them, but I know that his owners wouldn’t countenance anything like such a shoddy deal.
He's our midfield magician...
About time too! When Anderson’s missile struck the back of net I jumped so high from the sofa I was in danger of hitting the roof. (Which means no, I wasn’t there. As previously discussed, if you think that renders the following worthless, go and ask Ed O’ Brian from Radiohead what he thought of the game or something). I suppose we should never be surprised by beating Spurs, it’s a routine element of every season. No matter how many goals start we give them, however unlikely and unpropitious the circumstances, we always reel them back and overpower them.
.Such it was again yesterday. There you go, have an early lead. Need more assistance? Allow the referee to reduce us to 10 men. Surely now you’ll give us a game? Once again, the answer being a resounding no. That said, out stuttering form so far this season has left me feeling worried about any fixture, so perhaps meeting Spurs was the ideal medicine for soothing the queasiness that rises up in me whenever I think about our chances of winning anything.
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And it was, by some distance, a magnificent performance. The Spurs midfield did its bit by playing like a bunch of immobile mannequins that we could just wander around at leisure and remind ourselves of the fantastic football we’re capable of. Anderson may well have been the chief beneficiary. Post-Rome, too many bad noises have swirled around his name, and considering that his was the limpest performance on that very limp night, the prospect of his exit looked realistic.
.Hopefully yesterday will fire his self-belief and we can see the return of the marauding magician of a few months ago. That said, it was another midfield alchemist who really caught the eye yesterday; a sprightly fella’ by the name of Giggs; stocks of superlatives are once again running dangerously low in the face of such a performance.
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Maybe there’s something to this weak squad, underdogs vibe – rarely does so routine a win feel as special as it did yesterday. Bring on city!
