United Road Take Me Home

Some extracts from the conversation going on in my head with about 20 minutes left to play yesterday. (Note for historians. Yesterday meaning United v. Sunderland, a 1-0 victory that maintained an impressive, nay implausible run of clean sheets and a 15 point gulf from the team in second place, some sheik’s bombastic PR/vanity project.)

Not exactly freewheelin’ stuff this is it? Not exactly the kind of performance you’ll fast-forward the DVD of the season to get to, is it? Not exactly the kind of game that’ll glow in your minds-eye and that you’ll plonk children on your knee (family ones, nothing to see here Operation Yewtree) to wax romantic about?

Yeah, but it’s about the result ain’t it? It’s the winning that matters, not the how you win. Style’s just a frivolous luxury, an affectation. Savour the beauty in the pragmatic, the bottom line’s the only line that counts.

But surely we should be cutting loose against a team as toothless and abject as this? Surely if we’re half the team that fifteen point gap says we are, we should be sticking three or four past sides this mired in mediocrity? Shouldn’t we?

That’s only how football works in the minds of people who don’t understand football. Think rationally for a minute. It’s late in the season. Half the team have spent the week scattered across the planet on international duty, and not even international friendly duty, but actual competitive games duty. They’ve got an FA Cup Quarter-Final replay in 48 hours against tougher opposition than this. They know city ain’t catching ‘em, and they know that even if Sunderland miraculously do breach a defence with Vidic at its core, they’ve still got to get past De Gea, and even if they do that, they’ll still be 13 points ahead, even if they don’t go straight down the other end and stick a winner away.

But, surely there’s nothing wrong with asking for a bit more from the lads, is there? A bit of swagger and panache to make it feel like we won the league because of the style of football we played, not by default, not because we were better at hanging on to one-goal leads, leads that we got through fortuitous, deflected goals?

Style again is it? Did you not see all them little touches from Kagawa, the first within about 25 seconds of the game kicking off? Trawl the internet, there’ll be gifs of them knocking about. Did you not see Buttner bursting through into the box, barging players out of his path on every side? Did you not see Carrick tracking back and doing some wonderful tackling?

Yeah, but, I don’t know, none of that seemed to add up to anything that impressive.

Well then did you ever stop to think you just might be spoiled? Even after last year and that last minute Agueropalypse, winning the thing back’s not enough on its own? You amaze me. And depress me. And sicken me. And...

Alright, I get the message. And yeah, I know that the imaginary dialogue device is a cheap and gimmicky resort of the scoundrel, and just because you’re going to stick it on a blog that nobody actually reads rather than do anything any more meaningful with it, shouldn’t make any difference. Still, looking forward to Chelsea tomorrow?

Can’t wait.