United Road Take Me Home

Same old city?

I’ll be honest – I’m getting nervous. I’m writing this at about ten in the morning, and, for at least the next 8 hours, the summit of the Premier League table is occupied by Manchester City. Should we fail to get a point at Spurs this afternoon, their tenancy will be extended for at least another week. Delirium will be writ large throughout Stockport and surrounding areas, plans will already be being made to travel to all next season’s Champion’s League games by bogey, and Gary Cook will be buying up space on every billboard and bus-stop in the North-West to do his crowing.


Such premature self-congratulation is of course, one of the many traits that make the Manchester City Project such a comedic gift. Should Spurs not be their usual obliging selves as whenever the reds roll into town, there will be consolation and comfort taken in the fact that we still have two games in hands on the laser-blues. In some ways, this is a whole loaf of comfort, rather than a few scattered crumbs, but it’s this that sets the anxiety rippling through the stomach.

I’ve already got a last-season-at-Burnley feeling about next week’s trip to Blackpool, particularly given our habit of chucking away winning positions away from home. Another draw looms. The gap is shaved a bit closer. Then there’s the Chelsea game, shifted to a point when they may finally have remembered how to win matches, or at least not lose them. Another draw. Then where are we?

I’m discounting Arsenal from the title-run in, too flimsy at the back, and – clichéd it might be, but it’s hard to dispute – too easily outmuscled by sides unwilling to sit back and applaud their undeniable artistry. As for Chelsea, too many cheap points lost in the last couple of months. Which leaves two; us and them. Them first.

You keep telling yourself; they’re city, they’ll find a way to blow it. They could be five-nil up at half-time, nailed on certs, and they’d still engineer a way to lose 6-5 (Mancini urging them on from the touchline, telling them 5-6 will do maybe). But then you look at some of the personnel involved: Tevez, Yaya Toure, Silva, Mancini himself, and you start to feel a bit edgy. We’re not in the Kippax anymore, Dorothy.

As for us, we’re unbeaten, but at times, like Villa and Birmingham away for instance, we look utterly mediocre. That’s not to deny that we haven’t also played some thoroughly wonderful stuff, and it’s important to note players like Vidic, Berbatov and the rejuvenated Anderson, all of whom are probably having their most consistent seasons in United shirts. Other positives? Hernandez has done great work, we’ve proved that we can play devastating football without Scholes as the fulcrum, Carrick is creeping back towards his best, Rafael has made the right-back position his own. And we’ve achieved all of this with Rooney largely on the periphery. And we’re unbeaten.

All of which serves to quell the storm of nerves for a minute or two, but then you glance at the table again, the what if’s surge back, and you wonder if it would be sporting to have some kind of formal ceremony in which we hand the banner over.

A win today should diminish the chances of that having to happen.

posted by Royton Red @ 11:33 AM