As Manchester United manager, Sir Alex Ferguson can boast a shed load of Premier League titles, a bucket load of FA Cups, and far too many League Cups, Champions Leagues, Charity Shields and individual awards to just store away somewhere sensible. How do you, then, write about a man who has accomplished so much? The task sounds daunting, but some were about to do it justice (recommended, though it’s been a while: this one, this one and this one).

In one of the many great tribute pieces, the Guardian‘s Daniel Harris had written the following:

We’re obsessed by stories, and we’re obsessed by happiness, and Alex Ferguson has provided indecent amounts of both, such that listing the bare facts of his achievements, however impressive they are, would be completely to miss his measure. The numbers are simply an aspect of the attributes that make him such a compelling and extraordinary character.

Harris says that Ferguson’s departure would be such a significant loss to the sport that even United’s “greatest rivals will feel differently in his absence.” It is by being an imperfect and complex character that Ferguson has been able to either earn the full respect of many, primarily fans of United and Aberdeen, or the begrudging respect of the rest. Success accounts for a lot of that, but there is more to say about the Scot than just how many trophies he has won. This is important, and if we were to take Harris’ idea further, that to simply list his achievements would be to “miss his measure”, Ferguson’s success — which translates to ‘titles’ — has also created shortcuts when discussing on-the-pitch matters. It’s acknowledged that he has won titles, but the whys and hows should also be considered because it helps to distinguish this individual from football’s other winners.

The shock of a benched Wayne Rooney in what would later turn out to be Ferguson’s last chance to win another European Cup — only his third — was understandable: who wasn’t just a little surprised? After all, here was a man so desperate to win the most coveted trophy in club football that he cared little about who knew; the frequency and depth to his expressions of regret was almost uncharacteristic of someone who would, at the same time, speak proudly of all his players and all he has achieved with them. Had Ferguson not been so close in 2009 and 2011, the dramatic shootout victory of 2008 might have seemed recent enough for him to be content. Alas, no; he acknowledged the popular retort to any Ferguson praise — “he’s only won it twice in 26 years” — and, regardless of whether it was fair or not, regardless of whether it took into account just how difficult a thing winning in Europe is, he seemed to agree with it. By dropping Rooney, some got the impression he wanted to extend it to 27 years. And yet, despite all this, it was a classic Ferguson move. He wanted his third.

A Champions League final at Wembley — that being the scene of his very first triumph — would have been a perfect way for Ferguson to bow out, with the manager’s first and last pieces of silverware creating a sort of bookend. The significance of that FA Cup win in 1990 should not be downplayed. Ferguson wrote in his very first programme notes four years previous that “success has a snowball effect.” Little did he know it would lead to a start of a dynasty.

Even though Ferguson maintains that he would have kept his job even had his side lost to Crystal Palace in the final, it felt as if time had been running out. If not now, then soon. However, as if unaware, Ferguson made the biggest decision of his career yet. He dropped goalkeeper Jim Leighton after United drew 3-3 with Palace and opted instead to select Les Sealey for the replay. It was the first real example of Ferguson’s notorious ruthlessness, a decision made more amazing when you consider that Sealey was only at the club on loan and making his third appearance of the season. Leighton was punished for a poor performance and Sealey, of course, would go on to be the star, making a series of outstanding saves fitting for any ‘keeper of Manchester United. (Leighton, meanwhile, the Rooney in goal, was later offered the medal by the fans’ new, sympathetic favourite.) Sealey would help Alex Ferguson win his first trophy … and an equally-heroic display against Barcelona in the Cup Winners’ Cup a year later allowed him to win a second.

But goalkeepers, ambiguous as they are, are better suited to the background. Eric Cantona is often credited with United’s upward movement but perhaps not even Ferguson could have envisaged the impact he would have had. He underestimated him and later told Philippe Auclair that he was one of those players “who do what can’t be taught, who, in fact, teach you something you didn’t know about football, and can’t be learnt, because you had no idea it existed before they did it.” With Cantona, United went from tenth to eighth in November and then higher than they’d ever been with Ferguson: to first place. There were other signings designed to do exactly the same thing: namely Andy Cole, who with Dwight Yorke created the most satisfying strike partnership on these and any shores, and, most recently, Robin van Persie.

A masterful Roy Keane display in 1994′s cup final might have been another occasion when Ferguson felt most vindicated, a record-signing who looked a bargain within his first season. But Keane’s talent was obvious; there have been others that Ferguson has been able to turn into winners where it has been less clear. The Scot’s faith in Danny Welbeck this season was not misplaced, but not widely understood, either. Welbeck was United’s best player over two legs against Real Madrid and had largely done his job — to “choke” Xabi Alonso — and was hailed by the Spanish press in the first at Bernabeu as “the star, involved in all Manchester’s best plays.” Ferguson would come out the loser, but it didn’t feel that way. Phil Jones looked like a natural midfielder and David de Gea’s display was a testament to all the good work United have done with the player in little time.

With Darren Fletcher — not unlike the appointment of David Moyes — a cynic would often say that Ferguson’s admiration came first from the fact that they were both Scottish. But ‘Fergie’s son’ — as his critics, Roy Keane and practically everyone else, would later find out — was a good player anyway, and if there was any favouritism shown to him by the manager, it did not do the club much harm. The midfielder was a true product of Ferguson’s latter-day Manchester United (this is a good thing): an important player without any special or distinctive features, but capable of many things. John O’Shea was another.

There was also the transformation of Park ji-Sung into a player that would play in the biggest of games and the brief revival of Wes Brown in 2007/08 where he looked like the defender Ferguson always wanted him to be. In 2001, he believed that Brown was the best natural defender in the country, “better than Sol Campbell … [and] Rio Ferdinand,” and, in 2009, maintained that he indeed still was, if injury-free. That double-winning season saw Ferguson get the very best out of his players; he successfully managed to serve the interests of all of Carlos Tevez, Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney and, in the Champions League final, Owen Hargreaves had one of his finer performances on the right in a move designed to give United a third midfield option and allow Ronaldo the freedom he desired. (Another small victory: Michael Owen and Antonio Valencia were not replacements for Ronaldo and Tevez when they’d left, and yet a change of style — or lack of it — to something more pragmatic, still saw United to their 18th.)

When United put four past Schalke at Old Trafford in the same competition in 2010/11, a watching Pep Guardiola, envious of perhaps the one thing his all-conquering Barcelona team did not have — depth — said afterwards that they “played a Champions League semi-final with a team full of reserves and won 4-1 – that says everything you need to know about the quality they have.” A lot of things have happened since then, but Fergie’s emphasis on a big squad remains the same, as obvious a thing as that sounds. He believes his 1999 squad was “not nearly as strong as the squad I have got today,” and that has shown; other teams could provide an eleven that look better on paper, but United, who have had 20 different goalscorers, have been able to churn out points at a rate where their challengers couldn’t, even throwing a few away for fun for the sake of a 5-5.

What else? Federico Macheda recalls Ferguson’s promise of a place on the first-team bench if he could get a goal against Newcastle for the reserves. “Can you imagine the excitement?” Macheda said. “Then I went and scored a hat-trick.” Then he went and scored the title-winning goals against Aston Villa and Sunderland in the following weeks. While it’d be reaching too far to give Ferguson credit for goals he could never have expected, it fits with his great management of youth. The Class of ’92 and their subsequent rise must be Ferguson’s biggest source of pride, and, according to Phil Neville in 1997, “the boss paved the way” for his generation to become everything they wanted to be: league and FA Cup winners, England internationals and whatever they were after the treble success. This great believer in youth, however, in his last game, shunned the chance to officially promote another youngster, Adnan Januzaj, preferring Rio Ferdinand to put a lid on United’s own defensive implosion. He wanted to win above all.

Someone, naming no names, wrote this about Antonio Valencia in April 2012:

They tell you that football is a game played by eleven, not one, but what is this sport, like the chocolate selection box you feel guilty for constantly treating yourself to, if you haven’t got your favourites? Valencia is the caramel hazelnut.

Things have changed. The caramel hazelnut that tasted so good has mysteriously disappeared; the wrapper, of some sort of green-y blue colour, is the same, but the contents are different. Some factory negligence or something.

When you look past the silverware and the guard of honours (i.e the important stuff (also: topical)), your favourites alone can make football worthwhile. It’s soppy, but true. It’s what makes a live game a little more enjoyable and your own sense of nostalgia feel unique and personal. Valencia could have confidently called himself a favourite of many not long ago, but, like life, extended chocolate metaphors and ’90s boybands, things invariably turn ugly. Fine, except it’s happened too soon. Valencia was better when he was one of the favourites. The Rafaels, De Geas and the Welbecks remain the milk ganaches, praline truffles and tangy oranges, but Valencia, this champagne-coffee-coconut-strawberry treat, is no longer among them.

Anything can be made to look better — or worse — when you have something to compare it to. Antonio Valencia has not had a good season. Put it next to the one before that and it’s been close to terrible. And when you consider the expectation a player of his/at this level carries, ‘close to terrible’ still stands even if you were to completely isolate this season.

What’s more worrying is that it’s difficult to pin down why. For a player to become worse is expected; heck, Valencia is like any other winger, cursed from birth, but from one season to another and by this much? At 27? For such a superior United side? Is Garth Crooks more entertaining than he is thick? To simply put it down to confidence seems lazy, regardless if true, because it’s not really known how much confidence affects a player and then, if so, why it has such an impact. Does it suddenly erase natural ability? It could all just be a coincidence; that instead of having five or six forgettable games like he had last season, he’s had 25 or 26 out of his 30-odd this time around. What about the change of shirt numb- no.

In reality, it might be that United have set up differently in a way that hasn’t favoured the Ecuadorian. Sir Alex Ferguson has been bold with selection and constant with his changes: happy times for the wide-men in this joyful season where, at times, the manager has played just one or none at all (Valencia, though, has made as many league appearances as he had in his award-winning year). But it still doesn’t completely explain Valencia’s profligacy throughout, where, with the ball, he’s stumbled and stuttered (and not in the Valencia way of ’11, where his Garrincha stutter was his chief weapon), been matched by defenders he would usually get the better of and produced balls so unworthy of its homonym in the shadow cabinet. His struggles and the lack of answers for it suggests that football is a game better left alone, where all attempts at analysis are futile. Perhaps he was never that good at footb- no.

It’s hard being hard on Valencia, but ultimately justified. Singling him out makes sense because, one, he’s played the most games of all the wingers, and, two, because his descent is the most surprising.

All of this is less a criticism of the player than it is an expression of disappointment in a season largely lacking in these. It’s what makes you say ‘close to terrible’ instead of just ‘terrible’.

How sad. And, anyway, his best performance? The title-winning game against Aston Villa, perhaps, and in those around it up to the 1-1 draw at Arsenal on Sunday, but there’s little about a slight improvement to be enthusiastic about. There was also Chelsea in a cup replay — where he played at right-back, of course.

Ashley Young had one of his finest games in a red shirt — opposition and definition of finest considered — in Manchester United’s 3-2 win over Manchester City earlier this season. Good things barely repeat themselves, however, and so Monday’s reverse fixture was slightly different. Indeed, it was exactly that: a reversal of all the good we saw in December, where United — again, opposition considered — had looked like a team worthy of all of football’s best silver. Months later, it was just the reverse! Young played badly; the forwards frustrated; on this occasion, the midfield battle was lost and Phil Jones’ gurns officially went from amusing to disturbing.

United’s great lead, the one positive that would always have been regardless of the result, means they should get that silver, but what happened at Old Trafford yesterday cannot possibly be ignored. At least, it could, if it was a one-off. But it wasn’t. Since the second leg defeat to Real Madrid last month, United have been unconvincing for five straight games.

This is a really strong United team. Not Sir Alex Ferguson’s best, but a capable team nevertheless. And what’s better than a strong, capable team? A strong, capable squad, which United have. The one of 1999, according to Ferguson, was “not nearly as strong as the squad I have got today.” It remains clear which is the better team but he feels this one has a greater number of options.

Which meant it was a shame that it wasn’t utilised as well as we might expect from Ferguson.

We saw it against Madrid; to respond well to Nani’s red card was always going to be difficult, but United had options on the bench they (a) either didn’t use or (b) or used too late (Shinji Kagawa and Wayne Rooney). This was just a one-off, so excusable. And, in the manager’s defence, United had both matched Madrid for sixty minutes and then found their options limited with a man short. But none of those can be used as defence here. It took 80 minutes for a substitute, and that was when the amnesiac Antonio Valencia had replaced Danny Welbeck. There was a second in the 85th minute, Javier Hernandez, and a third two minutes into stoppage time. That was Shinji Kagawa, a man whose velvet boots can find life where there isn’t any and change a game. Except he didn’t have any time to touch the ball.

What was also jarring was seeing an exhausted Ryan Giggs play 90 minutes in central midfield. The decision to start him was fine, but whatever you do with him, he’s still a 39-year-old. Back in December, United were able to keep Yaya Toure quiet at the Etihad with a two man midfield of Michael Carrick and Tom Cleverley. It didn’t matter so much that the opposition players were (arguably) better as individuals, or had outnumbered them. The visitors were set up to attack and the partnership worked with that in mind. They gave that impression again with a few early, sweeping moves but Giggs and Carrick do not complement each other as well and that was soon realised, with Gareth Barry (exclamations!) performing well for City. Giggs has been wonderful to watch this season, but mainly because he’s been rationed and used properly. He played 30 minutes too many.

Meanwhile, Patrice Evra, Rafael and Young were not much better, Welbeck was a lot of things and Robin van Persie only really looked like Robin van Persie with the assist for the equaliser. Jones in central defence was United’s best player, but in truth, there were so few candidates anyway. Rooney showed promise in the first half, and was kept on despite a sharp decline in the second, perhaps for his unique ability to have an impact even when not playing well.

It is tempting to conclude on a positive note. Just “12 points” and leave it at that. Because it was that sort of game, a depressing one (opposition considered).

Creators of television series are pretentious enough to describe their shows as like a ‘book’; an episode is essentially a chapter. They mostly frown on critics for this very reason. The superb Boardwalk Empire’s recent third season was its best despite the fact that the first half of the 13 episodes were average. (Not all relevant but) In the end, the plotlines in the average ‘chapters’ grew in importance and became more enjoyable as the season progressed – and so the pay-off was extremely satisfying. It’s a clunky metaphor for the football, in a way. The parts you’d rather forget do not have to be as troubling as they were in real time when you begin to consider the whole thing. If United go on and win the title in May, it may very well be like that. There’s this game and the last month or so, but then there’s everything before it.

“Good things barely repeat themselves”? Not true. It only feels like that in bad times.

12 points.

- Observers will point to an uninspiring 1-0 home win over Reading last Saturday as proof of the weakest Manchester United side since that other time they were just as dire. It’s almost an extension of last year’s criticisms: why watch, analyse and conclude when there’s a way to do none of that? Good point. Leave it at that.

15 (fifteen) points suggests something else entirely. But, then again, maybe not. United should have won the title last year, and this new lead might just be like the other. There are no assurances. But how much does that matter right now? Sir Alex Ferguson did not want to dwell so much on the Reading game, saying “it wasn’t a great performance but where we are now is not down to today, but the last six months.”

And, for now, where United end up in May is less relevant. There’s no good predicting — though it should happen — when United’s present situation gives the best indication of where this team is. Do they deserve to have such a lead? Almost certainly.

A long time ago, a good side was exactly that and few would argue otherwise — partialities rarely ever clouded judgement, it was that easy to see. This season, public enemy or not, some have found it difficult to acknowledge just how good this team is, or can be. The truth is they’re harder than you think.

- To hell with some, though. On closer inspection, you’d be able to see why this team are at the top. In an interview with Gary Neville, Ryan Giggs admitted that the 3-2 aggregate defeat to Real Madrid left him “disappointed”, and plainly said that he hadn’t felt that way for a “long, long time.” Disappointed because of a referee’s game-changing call? Perhaps, partly. Disappointed because United just didn’t match Madrid over 180 minutes, because they fell to defeat in much the same way they did to another Spanish side, a mid-table one, in Europe the year previous? Not close. “But … there are so many positives as well,” Giggs said. “Because I think that we performed so well, we made Real Madrid look ordinary at times. And it was a proper European performance.” It might have promised more than it actually did, but United’s very admirable 180 minutes told us what we needed to know.

- What of football’s fascination with The Paper? Teams that look stronger ‘on paper’ are among the best ones, but don’t necessarily have to be the best one. The Paper states that there are countless sides United’s superior — but top-tier football is not Top Trumps. It might have been enough for Manchester City last year, it might even be this year (just because, you know), but it isn’t fair on players that have the misfortune to remain unappreciated, or on managers that value team chemistry as much as anything else. Those such as Rafael da Silva or Jonny Evans would not have to worry so much about what’s being said if a round piece of silver for the summer was promised, but it’d still be nice if they could have it their way. (As an aside, those two may just be examples, but very fine ones at that. It almost feels like an extension of last year’s crit-oh, see how that works.)

- It is possible for a good United side and a weaker league to co-exist. Even – even – if the Premier League is no longer in line with the very best in Europe, 15 points between last year’s runners-up and champions remains an incredible lead, and 29 games is an appropriate enough scope to say such a thing. If you weigh these two arguments up against each other, the lead surely says more — being a fact — than a theory about the state of the league, no matter how obvious it may be. It’s also worth noting the leads Barcelona and Bayern Munich boast at this moment; if these two teams are so far ahead in their leagues, does that give anyone justification to dismiss the rest? Not when the rest include Real Madrid and Borussia Dortmund. That’s not equating them, but there are clear parallels to be had that might say more than a typically Anglo-centric view about the best-suddenly-not-so-great league. Agree for agreement’s sake that the quality has waned, and 15 points is still very good.

(As a further aside, it could be argued that the nature of knock-out football means this year’s Champions League doesn’t actually say anything about where English football is right now; certainly, all eight of those teams, of course, are not the best eight in Europe.)

- The Real Madrid game is worth going back to. Here’s a rough list of players whose performances in either leg were well-received: Danny Welbeck, Rio Ferdinand, David de Gea, Phil Jones, Michael Carrick and Evans. Throw in Nemanja Vidic, Patrice Evra, Giggs, Welbeck again, Ferdinand again and even Rafael for a much-improved 2nd leg. Some of these players don’t play every game. Where United have been particularly successful, above everyone else, is their level of depth. Ferguson went as far to say that the treble-winning squad of ’99 was “not nearly as strong as the squad I have got today.” The 1999 squad was complete: but complete in terms of the level of its core players, and where they had gone and where they could go. Literally, not so much. “When we went to the Champions League final in 1999, Roy Keane and Paul Scholes were suspended, but Henning Berg was the only injury,” Ferguson said. “I had to pull in a player, Jonathan Greening, who had only played once or twice in the first team. He got a medal for being on the bench. That gives you an idea of the strength of the squad. Now I could change a whole team.”

Depth is a tricky one. Having depth is what some mistook Arsenal for having when they fielded a weakened side against Blackburn Rovers in an FA Cup game. A bench featuring Santi Cazorla, Theo Walcott and Jack Wilshere is pretty useful, except it’s simply not an indication of anything. Leaving your first-team players on the bench is not a sign of good depth, regardless of whether Arsenal have it or not. A better example, conveniently, would be United’s 18 against Madrid. The big games are the best sign of depth. On the bench, even if you discount Rooney from the second leg as he’s a proper starter, they had Evans, Shinji Kagawa and Javier Hernandez. That’s depth.

- The team’s one big problem, central midfield, has not even been that this season. While Paul Pogba continues to be the subject of envy over at Juventus, the truth is that United are not missing him so much (in the same way they don’t have to miss someone like Gerard Pique). Michael Carrick continues to be magnificent and the side looks most comfortable with his presence, Tom Cleverley has had a good season while Phil Jones could feature more regularly in that position in the future. But even when it hasn’t worked so well, which it has a few times (especially with Anderson), United have managed. Lately, less goals are being conceded while goals are still being scored. Whether the theory that improvements at the back since the turn of the year have hindered Van Persie lately hold up or not, the team still remains a threat. Again, United have so far been able to manage with the squad they have.

- March saw United’s first defeat of the year, but that was to Madrid, where United, as cheesy as it sounds, lost with pride intact. There was also the near-collapse at Chelsea, where the hosts squandered a 2-0 lead in the FA Cup, but a dismal 45 might not prove anything at all, especially when Manchester United could relate to their renascent opposition. It was almost inevitable that Chelsea would lead a second half charge, as most good teams in that position do. United’s biggest regret was their failure to keep possession or to kill off the game, but those “six months” that Ferguson spoke of means it is dangerous to dwell on, and then to make conclusions from, just from that (though, at the same time, it is worth remembering). As Sean Ingle wrote, “we forget that the 1998-99 treble-winners, arguably Ferguson’s greatest side, had their struggles.” Nostalgia certainly obscures things — United won that title by just a single point (though, amusingly, the next one by 18). In hindsight, if all goes to plan by May, would inevitably alter perceptions on this team somewhat.

- The 2-0 win over Everton in early February is a good example of when United get it absolutely right. Even with the biggest game of the season to date not far away, the Reds managed to assert their dominance, and, in the process, prevented Everton from getting a goal, with a satisfying and efficient performance. United’s control of the game meant they could have scored more, but what was impressive was that when they eased off, with Madrid in mind, they still didn’t look like conceding. Above luck and refereeing decisions, they have won games through their own hard graft.

- The remaining nine games could possibly see that 15 point lead cut with City, Arsenal and Chelsea to come. At the start of the season, United would have been second favourites against City; but an away win in the winter perhaps hints at yet another shift in power. Indeed, one great indication of a much-improved United is how they have played against the biggest teams. So far this season, they’ve beaten Arsenal once, Chelsea (and City, as mentioned) as visitors and Liverpool, so often a difficult game, twice. No prediction for what’ll come, but it’s not false that United are better placed to win those games now than they were in 2011/12, or even at the start of this campaign.

Greed: Wanting to have more than Dante.

Law vs. Busby, 1966

If a tenner a week were to ensure a generous flow of goals for the next few seasons, any football manager in the world would — without a second thought — rummage through his jeans and pay it up himself. This, however, was 1966, and Matt Busby usually wore tracksuits. Denis Law made a mistake in asking for an extra £10-a-week, finding that his manager’s response was not to offer his hand, rather to deal Law a slap on the wrist. Law was transfer listed as a result with Busby telling Law, in the latter’s own words, that “he wouldn’t be held to ransom.” It didn’t stop there: “He gave me a prepared statement of apology to sign and he presented it to the press.”

“He might have looked like a cuddly grandfather, but step out of line and he had an iron fist,” Law told Champions in 2012.

Kanchelskis, bloody hell, 1995

There exists a few Manchester United fans, even now, that are reluctant to forgive Andrei Kanchelskis for the way in which he left the club in 1995, but the general lack of animosity can be easily identified through the simple fact that football was a different game then, and the whole saga caused far too much confusion that it probably wasn’t worth bothering with anyway.

When you look at United’s recent history for things that may constitute greed — Roy Keane’s contract wrangle in 1999 (“I am not naive enough to settle for anything less than a reasonable valuation of my worth”), Wayne Rooney in 2010 and others — few are on a par with this. It’s just that this one is better suited to the ‘oddball’ section of the news.

In ‘Football – Bloody Hell!’, a biography of Sir Alex Ferguson, Patrick Barclay writes that the United boss would have liked to have kept the winger, but the “Ukrainian had manifested a restlessness which Ferguson ascribed to a clause in his contract … guaranteeing the player a slice of any profit if he were sold.” It did not help that Ferguson was not initially wise to the clause, but, regardless, he had to be moved on. ”I was fully aware that the removal of Kanchelskis … would leave us short in the wide right position but his attitude was so bad that there was nothing to be gained from keeping him,” Ferguson wrote in Managing My Life. 

Kanchelskis’ agent caused further complications. Grigori Essaoulenko had rewarded Ferguson with £40,000 that Barclay writes was “inside a samovar … why the money had been put in United’s safe and not reported to the Premier League inquiry into ‘bungs’ which followed [George] Graham’s punishment was to become a pertinent question when the affair came to light in Ferguson’s autobiography. But it was returned eventually, when Kanchelskis finally went to Everton, after another colourful episode when, according to Ferguson, Essaoulenko threatened [Martin] Edwards and the United board decided to hurry the deal through.”

The threat, apparently, was Essaoulenko saying to Edwards, the then-chairman of United: “If you don’t sell him now, you will not be around much longer.” The Independent‘s Steve Boggan, a week after Ferguson’s autobiography release in August 1999, wrote that Edwards perceived Essaoulenko’s words to be a genuine threat to his life.

There could be no hesitation about Kanchelskis. “His pace and strength on the wing had been huge assets for us while he showing real enthusiasm for our cause,” Ferguson wrote. “But, given the transformation that had occurred in his behaviour, Merseyside was welcome to him.”

Ferguson responds to Rooney’s ‘other’ demands, 2006

When Wayne Rooney has a bad game, the usual response is that he’s carrying a bit of holiday weight. Sir Alex Ferguson is just as blunt it seems. Beating Celtic in a Champions League group stage game in 2006/07 was a must if Manchester United wanted to progress sooner, but instead they contrived to lose 1-0. A below-par Rooney, in the middle of contract negotiations, was one of the players singled out by an angry Ferguson according to the player himself in his autobiography My Decade: ”Players wanting more money from the club and new deals – you don’t deserve anything after that performance!” And his manager came down hard; Rooney had to make do with a feeble £100,000-a-week, and another four years — at least — at Manchester United.

Manchester United players enjoy burgers, 2008

In Alex Ferguson’s earlier years as a football manager, he held the belief that what his players ate before a game was “as important as what happens during the game.” Now, thanks to “advances in sports science and the expert nutritionists we have here at Carrington,” he told The Sun in 2012, he no longer has to worry about any of that. All very good. Except, perhaps those experts aren’t entirely devoid of any flaws, and are maybe prone to the odd oversight.

Gerard Pique has a lot of nice things to say about Manchester United but, for him, the diet was ‘outrageous’. “Everyone ate whatever they wanted to eat and when you think about the typical English diet, you can imagine what I am talking about,” Pique would say in 2008 as a Barcelona player, probably stick-thin by then. ”Every fifteen days they would put us on what we dubbed the ‘spare-tyre machine’ to measure our body fat. You would be amazed at how many top players practically broke the machine because their diet was based on beer and burgers.”

‘Amazed’ would be an interesting choice of word for some.

Not just Ruud, but selfish, 2001-06

There is an idea that Ruud van Nistelrooy was moved on because the game had changed, and Manchester United needed a player with all-round capabilities. Nonsense! It soon became clear that he didn’t just stop being good when he later played for Real Madrid. He was injured for a lot of his time there, of course, but still scored goals at much the same rate he did in a red shirt. Sir Alex Ferguson wasn’t stupid, even if he did go on record once to say that Van Nistelrooy could do more to improve his game. He left because of who he was, what he did and what he said. He was unhappy and had to leave; the belief, tedious but true, that no player is bigger than the club perhaps ruled here, just like it had done with a discontent Roy Keane a year previous, in 2005.

Before anything, the player we know. He was a goalscorer, above everything else. Like others fortunate enough to have been called the same, to score was Van Nistelrooy’s primary concern; he appeared not to be preoccupied with much else on the field if he was one of the names to feature on the score-sheet. Few wanted it any other way. Louis Saha, his former strike partner and one-time enemy, put it best in his autobiography: “Ruud was the most selfish goalscorer. But a goalscorer needs to be selfish, to be obsessed by scoring. Ruud was a killer. Like [Filippo] Inzaghi or [David] Trezeguet. Obsessed.” Ferguson agreed with the idea of man ‘obsessed’ with adding to goal tally; when the striker was going through a difficult spell during the 2004/05 season, he would become “angry with himself,” according to his manager, that by not scoring, he thinks “he is not contributing.” It’s accepted on the whole, however, that a selfish Van Nistelrooy was a good Van Nistelrooy.

Nobody talks about it now, or had ever really talked about it, but one of Van Nistelrooy’s great, actually-selfless performances came at Old Trafford against Real Madrid in 2003 in a game that had essentially been a lost cause when the world’s best forward player, the Brazilian Ronaldo, had been in the form that he was. In the first leg at the Bernabeu, Van Nistelrooy scored a typical poacher’s goal; and then again in the second. But where the first game, a 3-1 defeat, saw Van Nistelrooy largely isolated due to United’s cold feet, the second saw the Dutchman in his element, all a result of the desperate situation that had presented itself.

United could not waste time, and badly needed their key man to be involved. Indeed, Van Nistelrooy was ever-present, except it was mostly outside the box where a lot of his good work had been done. It was a night where he was able to liberate himself and banish the poacher tag — temporarily, but still — constantly harassing, tackling, passing, creating; basically, what the coaches from far-away lands call “getting stuck in”. There was a moment where he picked up the ball on the right-hand side, feigned a kick to cruise past a dumbfounded Ivan Helguera, shifted away from Roberto Carlos and then hit the ball hard at Iker Casillas who could only bat it away. It was a sequence that suggested Van Nistelrooy still believed the tie was winnable, all the weight on his droopy shoulders as he tried to lead the team. From a Manchester United perspective, David Beckham’s cameo in that game is most remembered, and that’s expected. Van Nistelrooy would always receive less credit than he had deserved for some of the other things he could do, but to play like had here, to this extent, was rare. This was a great one-off.

There was another kind of selfishness, an altogether uglier one, that possibly contributed to the Dutchman’s eventual departure. It’s funny, but considerably more tragic, to think that what had ultimately finished off Van Nistelrooy was his mistake in thinking aloud when he had that training ground bust-up with Cristiano Ronaldo (as discussed in Envy), the day before the final game in his final season against Charlton Athletic. There, the story goes, egos clashed and Van Nistelrooy apparently asked him why he seldom passed, especially when he’s the striker. Ronaldo’s own selfishness was noted but celebrated by this time; and celebrated enough for Sir Alex to pick his favourite.

Months earlier, Van Nistelrooy was left out of the Carling Cup final. United had beaten Wigan Athletic 4-0 and Saha, the man that had taken his place, would score the all-important second goal. Ferguson reasoned that Saha deserved to start because of form, but how Van Nistelrooy felt about this we can only guess. Those body language experts deduced that he wasn’t taking it very well, and Daniel Taylor wrote in the immediate aftermath for The Guardian that the winners’ medal he received was, in no time, “stuffed into his pocket.”

“In Eamon Dunphy’s Only A Game, he recalls being made a substitute at Millwall and sitting on the bench wishing bitter misfortune on his replacement, secretly hoping that his own team would be thrashed,” wrote Taylor. “Even if he would never admit it, Van Nistelrooy has made a career out of that kind of selfishness. How must he have felt as Saha bundled in Gary Neville’s cross to continue his goal-a-round record: euphoria or resentment? Only the naïve would presume it was the former. Footballers, or the vast majority of them anyway, think of themselves first and the team a distant second.”

This is not presented as fact; yet it’s not at all out of place in what (though little) we know about Van Nistelrooy. If he really did tell Ronaldo to “go running to your dad” (Carlos Queiroz), does this suggest that here was a man that realised he was no longer the team’s most important player as his goal record probably demanded and, crucially, no longer as indispensable as he suspected? To drive home three hours before a game, the season’s last, suggested that all illusions had finally been shattered.

The best goals are typically those that can be looked back on fondly; naturally, then, they have to be in a winning context. This one isn’t that. It’s an exception to the rule — my rule – that goals have to mean something.

It could be argued that it wasn’t a completely meaningless goal, even if it did happen with Manchester United 3-0 down (at home in a game they were expected to win). Indeed, David Beckham’s strike had appeared to reinvigorate United at the time, and was perhaps one that would inspire the side to another late, famous rally. But, then again, they needed three more because of the away goal rule. And they managed just the one, a Paul Scholes penalty just before the clock struck ninety.

In isolating the goal, regardless of the result, it is clearly a very good one. But again, a goal needs something around it for it to resonate; just look at what placed 40th on an ITV show on the greatest Champions League goals: Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s ’99 final winner against Bayern Munich. That one was going to be special before it was even scored, no matter how it was scored. What does this mean for Beckham’s goal, then? No context, no nothing. Not important.

Except, maybe not. “The thing that was always said about David Beckham was that he couldn’t beat a man,” said Clive Tyldesley, as he introduced the show’s number 47. “Well, he beat a couple there.” It was a goal that was so unconventional, so surprising that it was oddly amusing, because it had come from Beckham, a player often accused of being fairly one-dimensional. George Best probably agreed with that, in typically Best-like fashion: “Beckham can’t kick with his left foot, doesn’t score many goals, can’t head a ball and can’t tackle. Apart from that, he’s all right.”

A proper, damning criticism of Beckham came weeks before the Old Trafford game, in the aftermath of the 0-0 draw in Real Madrid’s home leg, where the defending champions no longer looked a team to be feared. Roberto Carlos was most disappointed by United, calling them “just another team”. He didn’t see much in Beckham, either. “Against Real Sociedad, I had to face [Ricardo] Sa Pinto, who came at me one-on-one and put crosses in,” Carlos started. “But against Manchester United I had Beckham, who comes from centre-field and tries to cross, but he is not a player with speed or real ability, and you seldom have to face him in one-on-one situations.” It would have been wonderful for United to have won that game and Beckham to score the goal that he did. It’s funny, but could have been infinitely funnier had the Reds turned up, to think Carlos had been made to look most pathetic by the player he seldom faced in one-on-one situations.

Picking up a Scholes pass, Beckham looked up, saw a charging Carlos — and just eased past him. Beckham didn’t take a breather; he glided past Carlos’ Brazilian counterpart Savio, moved away from the approaching Aitor Karanka, and smashed the ball hard into the top right-hand corner past Iker Casillas, who, for 154 minutes of the tie, looked nothing like what an 18-year-old goalkeeper should do. The finish would have made a fine goal in itself.

Carlos’ poked tongue at Beckham was nothing new around this time, especially with all the post-France ’98 revisionism, even though this moment fell not long after Beckham had the boast of being the world’s second best player, after Rivaldo, as those that voted in 1999′s Ballon d’Or agreed. Indeed, Carlos was quick to change his tune when Beckham joined his club a few years later, describing him as an “excellent player” that would soon “end all the rumours saying he is only an advertisement boy.” For the initial jibe, read: mind games. And as much a nothing concept as ‘mind games’ is, Carlos must have believed it, because he was unfortunately right. For over an hour with United trailing 3-0, Beckham could barely impose himself in the game. But, even still, that goal. It was pretty good.

All of this, and it could just be that Beckham’s great moment wasn’t even the game’s best. Raul’s second, Madrid’s third, hasn’t even been mentioned yet. But everyone knows of Fernando Redondo’s 40 yard run, nonchalant flick through Henning Berg’s legs, then the manner in which he accelerated to the byline with a pass to Raul to seal it off.

It seems strange to say so now, but what Beckham did was surprising even in a game where Redondo did that; at the time, there seemed to be something romantic about Argentine and Brazilian players in Europe — they had an altogether fresh approach, and those that played for the top clubs played with an air of superiority, and Redondo was one of them. He was one of those players we see these days as cool to like because, why not? Everything Redondo did seemed natural (far more expressive than your typical ‘defensive-midfielder’), while Beckham’s was just — not very Beckham.

The Redondo-Raul goal will forever be remembered, but Beckham’s own effort at least warrants a passing mention.

Nothing’s changed #1: Danny Welbeck might never be the hero. He’s handsome, of course, but not the other thing. Welbeck’s place in the squad is secure, at least for now — indeed, it would be when he’s playing well — but he might be another addition to an unfortunate, and unfortunately existing, group of Manchester United players who have to do extraordinary amounts to change perceptions. Rafael da Silva and Jonny Evans have tried to break free with considerable success; but, even still, one remains to some, a liability that cannot do the impossible task of balancing defence and attack, and the other, despite being described as perhaps “the best defender in the country” by his own manager, is still deemed a weaker alternative to many others. It shouldn’t matter what people think, except it doesn’t feel right when obvious talent isn’t complemented by reputation. And the reason why it matters more in Welbeck’s case than Evans or Rafael is that, actually, there is a small chance of not enough obvious movement in a bid to change what is perceived.

What’s stopping Welbeck is the thing that will at one point worry every forward that’s ever existed — a lack of goals. For Welbeck, it might go further than that: sometimes his decision-making isn’t great, and that means that the wrong pass is found, or that he’s too selfish, or selfless. Making decisions might even determine how many goals he has scored or hasn’t scored. This is arguably too elaborate a criticism, but Welbeck constantly finds the ball in some glorious positions, or with others in glorious positions, and so it feels as if more can be done.

But that’s only sometimes. And those are the bad things. When Welbeck plays, it is reassuring that even if he were to do the bad things, he can do plenty good, too. He creates relationships; last season it was with Wayne Rooney, and now there’s potential with Robin van Persie as we’ve seen in United’s last two games against Liverpool and Tottenham. His Man of the Match performance against Liverpool (ask Gary Neville) was enough to keep Rooney on the bench for the visit to White Hart Lane and he was able to have a similar impact in this game.

However, players’ worth is weighed by the things that are naturally visible to us; so it is Cleverley — though not wrongly — who will be credited for setting up Van Persie’s opener, and not Welbeck, who showed great initiative to hold up the ball, run a few yards to find Cleverley, that changed the direction of the attack in United’s favour.

To briefly re-visit the point about being in ‘glorious positions’: whilst he might not always make full use of where he is, to get there in the first place is surely impressive. He’s ubiquitous, a night-shift relief for those that need it because he’s so energetic and because his talents transcend. And then there’s more: he is nifty, and the ball stays with him like a magnet smothered with kisses of pritt-stick. He has power, and batters his way through small gaps and big bodies with the ease of a man simply typing words, all at great speed. If he’s not a hero, he’s hero material.

Invariably, all Welbeck apologia goes back to the fact that he is still young enough to refine his game and that there is still time; this is all, importantly, very true no matter how many times it’s said. Welbeck is still young enough to refine his game. And there is still time. Welbeck is still young enough to refine his game and … repeat.

But, pause. He’s also extremely useful right now.

Nothing’s changed #2: Robin van Persie. He’s still very good.

Nothing’s changed #3: There is probably no coincidence that United have conceded less goals of late with the return of defensive golem Nemanja Vidic. Like Rio Ferdinand, he might be going grey, but, for at least 89 minutes on Sunday, the pairing evoked memories of a time not-so-long-ago where the idea of “they’ll score, but we’ll score more” would likely be met with thick and fierce growls. Both were difficult to get past, as demonstrated by Ferdinand’s excellent last-ditch tackle to prevent Jermain Defoe from scoring an equaliser at 1-0. Behind the scenes, United are building a Ferdinand and Vidic for the future in the shape of Evans and Chris Smalling, and though both are good enough now, the originals can’t do much wrong until then. If fit, expect Sir Alex Ferguson to retain them as first choice.

Nothing’s changed #4: What is perhaps the best thing about Tom Cleverley doing so well in a Manchester United shirt is the fact that he picked up an injury last season at a time where he was performing just as well. He has not been perfect, but then again he doesn’t have to be — as it stands, for a second year running, he has met and exceeded all expectations. (It probably should be said that it was Cleverley that crossed for the goal, delivering something of a Beckham ball.) To play well, a central midfielder needs a good partner.

In 2011/12, just briefly, it was Anderson. Now it’s Michael Carrick. The remarkable thing about Cleverley is that he seems to work with just about any partner. Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs and whoever he’s played alongside for England. Carrick, meanwhile, appears to enjoy working with him, too. In a interview with the Sunday Times, Carrick says Cleverley is “different to me, but we complement each other well.” The two, one the would-be hero, the other a belated hero, had welcomed a third midfield player for Spurs: Phil Jones.

One thing the midfield has undoubtedly lacked this season is defensive security, as well as some good old gurns, and Jones gave it to them. It was a shame, then, that Dempsey had scored and it came in the manner that it did, with a multitude of errors in the box. A Tottenham fightback was inevitable, but United had done well, until stoppage time, to keep them out.

Nothing’s changed #5: There are always two very vocal groups whenever David de Gea is in the news; the ones that staunchly defend him and are willing to give him a free pass in just about anything, and those that take joy in pointing out his flaws when the opportunity presents itself, but ignore all the good bits (bit like Welbeck, then), even when they’re more frequent. The truth, at least what appears to be the truth, is that De Gea needed a stronger punch in the lead up to Clint Dempsey’s 90th minute leveller and is therefore partly culpable. But, when ignoring that rather big blemish, the Spaniard was superb yet again. But good luck finding a consensus on it.

Robin van Persie’s first act as a Manchester United player was to take a corner-kick in the season’s first game at Everton; it almost didn’t matter that the set-piece amounted to nothing, because it was an outcome most were familiar with. It was also Van Persie. And his job was to score goals.

Months on, he’s scoring goals, but doing more. Not that Van Persie was not ever such an all-round player, of course he was*, but United’s aim this season was to learn the lessons of the last; that meant finishing off games, that meant turning one point into three, and ensuring that there was no repeat of what ultimately consigned United to a runners-up spot: 2011/12, as Sir Alex Ferguson said in August, was “the first time anyone has beaten us on goal difference.”

*This should be made clear. What justified the signing of Van Persie was the promise of another 30-goal season and that meant that United, already in possession of an accomplished group of strikers, could pay plenty for a 29-year-old. 

After scoring two against Wigan Athletic in Tuesday’s 4-0 win, Van Persie observed that “everybody’s helping each other and everybody wants to share the goals.” In the previous campaign, United would play Danny Welbeck at the risk of leaving goals on the bench (Javier Hernandez and Dimitar Berbatov), with the idea that the young English striker could complement United’s chief goal-getter, Wayne Rooney, best. That generally worked — only this year, by signing Van Persie, they’ve made this super-effective, especially when partnered with Rooney. It’s also worth noting, though at times it feels like an illusion, Hernandez’s added efforts outside the box.

The Wigan game was changed, after 20 minutes of very little action, because United had stumbled onto a new way of creating pressure and building momentum. This season, from corners — corners! — they’ve looked decidedly dangerous, as Jonny Evans and Patrice Evra would no doubt agree, and even if they don’t score directly from one, they are able to put the opposition on the back foot. Ferguson seemed to agree, with much of the same words: ”We took a bit of time to get going but, once we started to get those corner-kicks, with Robin [van Persie] whipping them in, it was keeping them under pressure.”

Fans feel confident when United have corners; gone, for now, are the days when United would take them short to counter their own inability to make them work. When writing about corner-kicks a few years ago, Rob Bagchi noted that they fail because they end up “as a simple equation of being outnumbered, and unless an extraordinary cross or slackness opens up an avenue to score, it becomes a routine defending exercise.” United do not have to follow by this rule any more; sure, there will remain those that are cleared by the first man, but considerably less of it, especially with new personnel (Rooney has been productive from it, too) who can deliver those extraordinary crosses.

The manager was also pleased with United’s willingness to go for a second, scored, unsurprisingly, by Van Persie. It was a goal the importance of which could not be downplayed, hitting the home side again just before half-time. This one was all Van Persie, as he took his time to weigh up an opportunity before turning the ball onto his right foot and placing it in with such precision that Ali Al-Habsi could offer no resistance. And there’s another claim to the striker becoming an all-round player; as he showed for Arsenal in his final season, he is remarkably capable with both feet. Goalscorers must strive to ambidexterity; this particular one has six goals with his less-favourable foot out of 16 (in addition to his 13 out of 30 last year).

With Hernandez’s good form put into consideration (with two more goals at the DW), some are tempted to forget about Wayne Rooney altogether. It shouldn’t be like that; since returning from the gash injury suffered in a game against Fulham in August all the way until United’s draw with Swansea in December, Rooney had performed very well, especially in tandem with his new partner. Still, when Van Persie had signed, many had hoped it would mean that the team no longer relies so heavily on Rooney. They’ve just about achieved that. Now, they’re only reliant on Robin.

Sloth: Wanting to sleep at Dante’s house. 

Di Canio outsmarts Barthez, 2001

Back when ‘mind games’ as a footballing concept was underground and credible, Fabien Barthez could call himself the undisputed King of the Games. He had virtually won 2002’s free-for-all when his famed eccentricities, history has it, saw him prevent a spot-kick and, with it, a Manchester United defeat. With Fulham’s Steed Malbranque set to take a penalty, Barthez thought it funny – it was, in fairness – to scrape the soles of his boot on either post, importantly getting rid of some mud that might contrive to bite him back later on, and catch up with his thoughts, perhaps to contemplate the nature of Beppe di Marco’s relationship with Lynne Slater. This colourful Barthez moment, though the Loftus Road crowd saw it differently, delayed Malbranque from taking the penalty despite the referee’s approval by whistle. Duly booked, Malbranque could take his kick, but could not convert.

The BBC described this as “unsporting” and taking “gamesmanship to the limit”, which, isolated, makes the event sound like a one-off. Barthez had in fact done something similar thirteen months earlier, this time with Muzzy Izzet and Leicester City. Izzet, having initially put the ball into the empty net only to have it disallowed, saw his second attempt saved by Barthez. Of course it was.

Like another of United’s Frenchmen, Fabien Barthez quite enjoyed the attention he invariably got in his football career. Like Eric Cantona, this attention was the result of two things: performances and everything else, which covered all the interesting bits that made the characters. Unlike Cantona, the attention that came from ‘performances’ was largely unwelcome, perhaps somewhat unfairly. Goalkeepers are the lonely men of football, thrust into an unforgiving world, where only a small percentage, disproportionate to players of any other position, are ever held in high regard. Mistakes, those that can be comprehended, are magnified. Bad mistakes, those that can’t, even more. And then there’s instances like Barthez’s with Paolo Di Canio in 2001′s FA Cup. At the time, Barthez had not yet mastered his psychological manoeuvres.

Di Canio, through on goal having gleefully collected a Frederic Kanoute pass, struck the ball past Barthez, who, mostly in hope, put his right arm up in search of a flag. What Barthez had in this instance was time and the kindness of angles, and decided to use neither: rather deception. That failed and West Ham led 1-0; and not unjustly, either. Replays showed that Denis Irwin had played Di Canio onside, and there went Barthez’s defence. There was little time for United to recover, and Barthez, so desperate to atone, played the last minute as an outfield player.

On behalf of the Izzets and Malbranques of the world, and those opposition forwards unlucky enough to have been rounded and nutmegged by the crazed ‘keeper, Paolo Di Canio saw past the smokescreen those before and after him couldn’t see. “He tried to stop me. He tried to make my brain a little bit confused,” Di Canio would say post-match. ”But I have played 15 years at the top level and have a little bit of experience in these situations.”

Barthez later conceded to trying to put Di Canio off: ”It’s all part of the game!” There was no flag signalling offside, but there was, clear to everyone including Di Canio, a big white one in the goalkeeper’s right hand.

United’s grey area, 1996

An invisibility cloak has its uses in the fictional world, but, as Alex Ferguson and his team realised, not in the real one. Trailing 3-0 to Southampton at half-time, Ferguson had told his players to ”get that kit off, you’re getting changed.” They had worn a grey strip for the first half, but came back out in blue-and-white. ”The players don’t like the grey strip. They find it difficult to pick each other out,” Ferguson explained. It was only after the kit change had they realised the bad guys were the ones in the red-and-white, and scored a consolation goal through Ryan Giggs.

“The shirt is probably a collector’s item now, for all the wrong reasons,” said Lee Sharpe a decade later, a ‘two birds’ purchase for any Manchester United fan who enjoys J.K. Rowling.

George Best is sick of it, 1972

It happens even to the Best. In the 1971/72 season, with Manchester United’s challenge waning, George Best declared to a journalist that he was “sick of United”. The author of Sod This, I’m Off to Marbella, John Roberts, revealed that Best’s motives for leaving was the team: “It’s just not good enough. It’s just not going anywhere,” he would say off the record. “I could go right through the team and find things wrong. People knock me when I’m not doing it, but when I’m not doing it who is?”

1972 was not Best’s year. The problems that had existed in the first half — the bottled-up anger, absences from training, premature retirement for good measure — had worsened into the second. In December, he had enough. United were in the wrong half of the table, and Best, presumably in search of some joy, was spotted in a London nightclub when he was supposed to be up north. He was transfer listed (5th) the next day. On the 6th, the writer Eric Todd sided with the club: “He has shown a complete dis­regard for discipline, and several times he has been suspended and fined by his club for missing training sessions.” Eight days later, a u-turn, apt as it’s just one of the many to concern Best in his career, and the club no longer had him up for sale. Still, the damage was done. On the 16th, United were on the end of a 5-0 thrashing to Crystal Palace. On the 19th, manager Frank O’Farrell was sacked and Best had announced another retirement by letter. “I’ve had as much football as I can take,” he was reported to have written, citing United’s position in the table — last — as the reason for his decision.

George Best would play again in a red shirt. It remained that way for another two years, perhaps to everyone’s surprise.

Manchester United have, at times, looked a team without an identity. They still win games — they win plenty — but it sometimes feels like they’ve forgotten how they used to do things. Nerves have replaced verve, and it has generally been less entertaining to watch as a result. While they no longer dissect teams like they had done in the latter part of the ’00s, United are still home to a talented set of players who can play. When Jackie Chan remarked that “I may have amnesia, but I’m not stupid!” in his good-but-not-his-best, surely-a-metaphor-for-this-United-team film Who Am I?, he recognized his own capabilities, despite essentially being a changed man. Manchester United seemed to have realised that as they beat Manchester City 3-2 on Sunday.

In many ways, this was the opposite of the corresponding fixture last season where City won 1-0. Three of The Guardian‘s five talking points in the aftermath of that game, points 2, 3 and 4, would cover the following: Sir Alex Ferguson’s ultimately futile decision to go against type and play with caution; United’s defeat in midfield; and a significantly quiet game for Wayne Rooney, whose highlights included “nearly being booked by Andre Marriner for giving the referee too much ear-ache.” Lessons learned this time around.

Since Cristiano Ronaldo left, and it’s a bit sad we’re still on that, United have scrabbled around for a system that works — they’ve been fairly successful post-Ronaldo, but less convincing. What made United so good back in 2007/08 was that there never a reason to change. They performed well, they got the results. This season, there are factors; we’ve seen Ferguson bring out his inner-hipster with a diamond most probably to cater for either all of his forwards or lack of wide players. But, above all, the most telling reason for constant change is that is not clear which of width or no width has been better, with the scores tied at 1-1, 40-40.

Width will always prevail in the end, as anyone would suspect. The diamond has always felt like it has an expiry date, while Ferguson wouldn’t seriously think of turning away from something that has brought so much joy to those sides he has assembled. What helped United beat City was that Ferguson had clearly learned from the embarrassment of their previous meeting, where they played three thirty-somethings in midfield and just the one forward. Other sides might be comfortable in lining up in such a way, but United are not. They beat City at the weekend with the two central midfielders, two wingers and two forwards: this time they played to their strengths.

With Antonio Valencia and the majestic Rafael on the right-hand side and Ashley Young, in confusing form, with the renascent Patrice Evra on the left, United played, from minutes 15 to 45, the sort of football that fans had longed for; and though perhaps someone like Valencia didn’t play necessarily well, others around him clearly benefited from the way United were set up.

The midfield battle was more or less won by the visitors by default, on a moral victory, because they came a long way from the horror show at Eastlands last April. Michael Carrick was impressive and enjoyed Tom Cleverley’s presence, and there was a sense that it was because this was something they felt more comfortable in. The midfield that had lost out to City back then felt contrived, unnecessary and quite simply a pale imitation: a bit like Simon Webbe’s rap verses.

Up field, Wayne Rooney was excellent along with Robin van Persie, and though it seems like one of those things that are only really realised on simulation games, last season’s two top scorers have forged a good partnership. United’s dependence on Rooney is arguably greater than that of the Dutchman. However, the Englishman acts as the spare wheel both on the channels and in midfield — and this season, he might just create as many as he scores.

The United that had beaten City were far from perfect, and probably were only as good as their opposition (who were superb in the first quarter of an hour, and, to their credit, stayed in the game) but they set up with a clear game-plan this time and had done things the right way. They approached the game with a mind to three points, not one. There was not a single problem with selection, either. Even the decision to bring on Danny Welbeck instead of Javier Hernandez was vindicated; it was Welbeck’s quick thinking to win the ball off Gael Clichy with the game into its nineties, that allowed United to have one last attack which would eventually lead to the winning free-kick.

Things people were wrong about: Well, wrong is harsh. Ashley Young might still be the “thespian s***house” Rob Smyth thinks he is, but he does have his uses, especially in a simple 4-4-2 built to get goals. He is football’s no.1 ‘On His Day’ player.

Things people weren’t wrong about: David de Gea; some great saves, yes, but more importantly, he continues to show that he has indeed grown more assured in the air. Soon you’ll see, people. Soon. Meanwhile, Rafael’s hair, as it turns out, doesn’t give him magical powers. He’s just always been very good.

Diplomatic and idiosyncratic, Anders Lindegaard has a lot to be liked for. He is popular enough amongst fans: he’ll remind you that he’s not at Manchester United to “pick his nose”, and that his career has developed in the way of a “fairytale”, that he’s got “calmfidence” and plenty of it, and that he’ll love to have even “one seat” named after him (in response to Sir Alex Ferguson’s very own stand and statue). But what’ll ultimately pull him down is that he’s not the most popular. And it’s not that he’s not good enough, it’s just that he’s not as good as David de Gea.

The people want David de Gea.

Sir Alex Ferguson, September 2012: ”I am happy alternating them. That’s the policy I am adopting and I am happy with that situation.”
Sir Alex Ferguson, November 2012: “I am not happy to rotate [the goalkeepers] all the time — I don’t think that creates consistency.”

People change their mind all the time. And there’s nothing wrong with it, largely. When Sir Alex first mentioned his desire to rotate his goalkeepers, and then went ahead and put it into practice, United fans hoped he would see the apparent danger of it all sooner. His recent decision to put this rotation on hold would have been welcomed, but for one thing: he’s chosen the wrong number one. Or so the consensus believe.

What has swayed things in Lindegaard’s favour, other than De Gea’s fitness, is that, according to Ferguson, there is no “actual reason to leave Anders out in terms of form.” But it is easy to object to ‘form’. How important is form? And just how in-form is Lindegaard? The answer to the latter is not very — he’s played a handful of games, for one, and probably not near enough to either justify even his temporary security, nor a starting place ahead of the superior De Gea. Additionally, the goalkeeper’s efforts in the four games he’s played since De Gea’s last (excluding the Reading visit, because the manager’s comments preceded it; more of which, of course, later) are simply not noteworthy enough, except in the defeat suffered at Galatasaray, where Lindegaard showed himself to be confident and competent — a good number two, in other words. The other three looked like this: yet another 1-0 defeat, this time at Norwich and two comfortable wins over QPR and West Ham, where Lindegaard only had to make a single save in each.

This is barely an indication of an in-form player, but that’s not to act as criticism, though it might seem to some (some) that the real reason the Dane is playing is because he just happened to be the last one in goal when it was decided that there would be no more rotating. Which brings us on to the first question on the importance of (good) form; you generally play the one who is performing better, even if the other is held in higher regard. However, it isn’t one of those situations. Which then means that De Gea should start if both are available. And if we’re going by form this season, also just a handful as if happens, De Gea edges it on those he’s played.

“I am going with Anders at the moment because he has not let me down,” Ferguson would say a day before Saturday’s 4-3 win over Reading, tempting fate as if on purpose. Lindegaard looked troubled and barely touched the ball inside the first half hour — except for when he had to trudge back into the net and pick the ball up.

Three times.

He was not culpable for all, nor was he fully responsible for any particular goal if we were to consider what could have been contributed defensively. Still. “He’s in a position where he can collect the ball,” said a blunt Gary Neville on Monday Night Football, analysing Reading’s second and third that started from Nicky Shorey’s corners – Nicky Shorey! — and ended up in the back of the net. Neville pointed out how crucial it was for Lindegaard to “dominate the box”, mostly because it would reassure his team-mates that he had control.

There is a certain irony in Lindegaard failing at what has lazily been presented as his main selling point — that is, being able to do what his Spanish counterpart cannot. De Gea would have instead rushed out for at least one, if not both, and punched the ball to safety, shortly before being chided by a typically disgruntled co-commentator for not catching it.

Whether the rotation policy itself really affects goalkeepers could never be proved outright, but logic would suggest it doesn’t. “It keeps us both sharp,” Lindegaard told MUTV last year, on this precise subject. “It makes us both better.” Two immediate responses to that would be, well, he has to say that and, second, he would still prefer to be the indisputable number one. It also made sense to rotate back then. United had two new goalkeepers and both were settling in. Once that time had passed, a clear winner emerged. Post-Christmas, De Gea was near-flawless and had what was justifiably his.

All of this, you might suggest, is simply a fuss over nothing, and a fuss too soon. That may well be right, but this is a problem beyond what the manager might say, beyond who plays tomorrow, or next week or next month. United need to settle on one goalkeeper because, above whether rotating is a hindrance or quite the opposite, it is clear who their best goalkeeper is. And it isn’t Lindegaard; but, in his defence, and get this, the man who he’s up against is pretty damn good.

Gluttony: Wanting Dante’s share. 

When Ferguson signed Veron, 2001

“I want this chess set. Isn’t it beautiful, this set?” In Living With Michael Jackson, the infamous 2003 documentary which gave an insight into the life of a troubled star, there was a segment where, in a vase and furnishing store, Jackson binged on the nice, shiny things, buying expensive urns, vases and even a large golden chess set. He had the money and it all looked good: whether he could better use his money elsewhere was irrelevant.

Like the chess set, Juan Sebastian Veron was the ultimate luxury. He cost a lot and was difficult to accommodate. United fans, however, are fairly revisionist when it comes to Veron; he was not a flop, instead a good player who had many good moments, outstanding in Europe, but held back by expectation and an unfamiliar setting. It would, of course, be delusional to think Veron was anything better: he himself went as far as calling his debut season a “catastrophe”. He was played in a number of positions because, ultimately, there were others who fit into the side more easily. “Sometimes he may put Paul [Scholes] in the middle and I’ll be elsewhere. I’d much rather have Roy [Keane] in the team,” Veron would say in 2002.

In an article about Foodies (those crazy types who like food), Steven Poole of The Guardian wrote that the original definition of ‘gluttony’ wasn’t simply the excessive consumption of food, but the interest in it, too: “the theologian Thomas Aquinas agreed with Pope Gregory that gluttony can be committed in five different ways, among which are seeking more ‘sumptuous foods’ or wanting foods that are ‘prepared more meticulously’.” In buying a player that he really appreciated, and to an extent, over the needs of the team, Sir Alex Ferguson committed the sin of gluttony.

The signing of Robin van Persie in August 2012 is another example of this excessive interest. It was adding to a single position that was already embarrassingly strong. He did the “I want that one; and that one,” thing Jackson had done in the pricey store; Van Persie was not absolutely necessary, but it’s always better with than without.

And also Blanc, 2001

While a defender was necessary when Jaap Stam left the club in 2001, it could be argued that it was not in United’s interest going forward to buy a player whose main selling point was simply the experience he had gained naturally through age, because, in reality, Laurent Blanc was no longer as good as he once was. Ferguson had always shown an interest in Blanc that should have ideally waned as we reached the Millenium: it was perhaps, as suggested by Greg Johnson when these Deadly Sins started to take shape, a case of the Scot’s preferences overruling “the true needs and functions of the team.”

It was instead important to sign a player that could be relied upon to deliver and develop, as well as having adequate experience anyway. Like Rio Ferdinand a year later: one of Ferguson’s most astute acquisitions to date, even if he did cost the equivalent of twelve 35-year-old Laurent Blancs.

Ferguson wants an end to the drinking culture, 1986

When Alex Ferguson became Manchester United manager in 1986, he made it clear that things would be done his way, imploring those concerned to trust his judgement in moving the club forward. One thing standing in his way was alcohol — and, more precisely, the players’ attitude towards it. In his autobiography, Managing My Life, Ferguson wrote that it had always been a “blight on the discipline of British footballers.”

And so he established his very own Volstead Act. “When I arrived at United, I was astonished to find that there was a club rule forbidding players to drink alcohol ‘less than two days before a game’. I replaced that feeble prohibition instantly with a rule that made it an offence for any player to drink while he was in training. Of course, I knew there was no way that ban would be observed but at least the new wording was a declaration of my attitude.”

He was right. He would encounter a problem in the shape of Paul McGrath and Norman Whiteside. “It was with my two wayward Irishmen that alcohol would eventually become an unmanageable problem for me.” McGrath revealed that, because of the amount of time the two spent together in the treatment room, that both he and Whiteside would use the afternoons to drink. “We had serious injuries together at the same time which compounded the problems.”

Both left the club in 1989, with Ferguson uncertain and impatient over fitness. “I was saddened as well as infuriated by the way they abused themselves,” he wrote.

Darron Gibson meets Rangers, 2010

When people first wrote about Darron Gibson the Manchester United player, they would go at length in explaining why he simply wasn’t good enough for a team that has seen better and can do better. But “he can shoot at least,” they would admit, placing a pillow in front of the gun before pulling the trigger. Though, along with something about how he still has potential, that was apparently all that was good about Gibson. But then it stopped. It turned out that he couldn’t even do that any more.

Gibson would find that the thing he was renowned for — “shooooot” — the thing that gave him added worth in a cruel game was exactly the same thing he would be repeatedly chastised for. “Shooooot” would become ironic, a revoking of permission, a cry of displeasure. “Shooooot” would become “boooo” and “booo-urns”. Gibson was not fully deserving of the backlash, but it existed because the same thing over and over … is the same thing over and over.

It would be at its worst against Rangers in a scoreless Champions League group game in the 2010/11 season. “We didn’t really make too many chances.” said Sir Alex Ferguson pre-match. “All the attempts were from outside the box from Darron Gibson.” Gibson would have six shots in that game — five of which were off target.

When Roy Keane drank, 1996

“There was a social culture in football at the time,” Jason McAteer would say in 2001, by then ex-Liverpool and, more importantly, ex-Spice Boy. ”We were doing nothing more than the players at Arsenal or Manchester United.” McAteer was right: the Nineties witnessed another kind of footballer, or, even if footballers remained the same, they were different because off the pitch activities were all of a sudden being highlighted. Tragically. And Liverpool would suffer most as a result as the likes of Steve McManaman, Jamie Redknapp and even Robbie Fowler (or “Ugly Spice” according to McAteer) were made celebrities of. The thought of the country’s most decorated club underachieving was relatively new and with the level of expectation, players’ lifestyles were being contrasted with apparent failures on the pitch.

Of course, as McAteer pointed out, these types could be found elsewhere; Dwight Yorke, simultaneously footballer and playboy, was overwhelmingly one of them. David Beckham, too, and not just for being Mr Spice. It wouldn’t be right to put Roy Keane in such a category — because he’s Roy Keane — but he did enjoy what the nightlife had to offer. “[He] regularly used to punch and puke his way through the city’s nightspots,” wrote The Guardian‘s Daniel Taylor, for whom credit, along with Lee Sharpe, goes to for the following anecdote.

Liverpool’s tribute band would arrive at the same bar Keane was in and — predictably — trouble would ensue. Because it is sometimes too difficult to distinguish hyperbole from anything Keane is even remotely a part of, you didn’t have to witness it, or read it in the newspapers to believe it. You just knew it to be true. This was classic Keano.

The refreshingly blunt Keane would remind this group of Liverpool players that they were indeed underachievers, going at them like the wooden targets in a shooting range, one by one for verbal practice. Phil Babb would get it. John Scales, too: “You’re rubbish as well, with your England B cap, you’re nowt, rubbish.” And then Redknapp who, like Scales, tried to make peace and failed. “What the hell have you done in the game?” Keane would ask, most likely rhetorically.

“He had this blackness inside him I never understood, and it came out when he drank,” revealed Sharpe, which is interesting, because any poor soul oblivious to Roy Keane the footballer might just assume he was an angel when sober.

If it has been established that the ‘second best bed’ for Anne Hathaway (the other one) was not an insult nor an example of a fractious relationship, then surely we’ve got it all wrong. ‘Second best’ is a good thing – or, at least, it should be. Certainly, being second best at Manchester United is. Robin van Persie has been so good this season that he is the outstanding candidate for all of the awards; and so good that, in imagining a ranking, those that follow him in second, third, fourth would not feel inclined to be aggrieved by his superior position.

Who, then, would place second? Tom Cleverley perhaps; but, right now, it’s only been satisfactory going on good going on very good. There hasn’t been a distinguishable level of performances and, as if it hasn’t been said already, United must persevere in being patient — not that it’s necessarily a bad thing. Just look at Rafael da Silva.

Now, football, as a general rule, is too slippery and erratic to form premature opinions: when Manchester United started 2011/12 beating all of Tottenham Hotspur, Arsenal and Chelsea, scoring three, eight and three goals respectively, few stopped short in hailing a return to the attacking football the club had practically deserted the year before, and foresaw a dominance that season that would never really materialise. In September, with Arsenal the only of the 92 league teams to have not conceded, Amy Lawrence of The Guardian wrote that Steve Bould’s presence in the dugout has “had a remarkable effect on Arsenal’s approach to defending,” which not only made sense at the time, but was such a widely-held view that it is unfair to make an example out of that particular one. Still — swiftly moving on — this could be Rafael’s season. Or not. No, it definitely could be. Maybe.

Resisting the late charges of Javier Hernandez, Wayne Rooney and the renascent Patrice Evra, Rafael places second in the Imaginary But Definitely Important Rankings. But it is worth wondering how many others see that to be the case; Carl Jenkinson was preferred to Rafael when a couple of BBC pundits — the best of the judges — sat down to devise a Team of the Season So Far. It isn’t so much a case of Jenkinson not deserving it all, but Rafael perhaps deserving it more. Thankfully, this is easy to shrug off; this was just one instance, after all, and an instance in which the alternative view isn’t one exclusive to Robbie Savage: Jenkinson has been good enough to be in contention. The problem here is not what’s not been said in the present, but what has in the past and what might in the future. It would be predictable of badly behaved football to change its tune and for Rafael’s form to taper; but, in imaging some twisted sort of football utopia, where things reassuringly remain the same, what would be said of him then at season’s end? (Hint! Say good things!)

Rafael is a full-back and he’s Brazilian. Godspeed. He may never truly be appreciated in this regard because the notion of an accomplished, flawless Brazilian full-back is almost an impossibility; as if this is limited to just Brazil. It is true that there is an extra emphasis on what could be offered going forward, the reason, according to Brazil-based Tim Vickery, why Rafael and his twin brother Fabio left for Manchester United so early in their careers. “Taking them across the Atlantic before they had ever played a senior game for Fluminense followed a simple logic — left in Brazil, it wasn’t likely they’d have much chance to refine the defensive side of their game,” Vickery wrote. But not everyone has fallen into the trap. Indeed, the two prime examples are among their greats: Roberto Carlos and Cafu. The two were so good in going forward that it was assumed that their weakness was in defending: but, at the risk of sounding revisionist, it only compared unfavourably. Carlos, impressively enough, was twice UEFA’s Defender of the Year.

The world, however, dislikes full-backs just as much as they do goalkeepers, because so many of them cannot find a balance between defence and attack … well, obviously. The full-back is, in general terms, the only player tasked with two jobs. And that’s never going to end well.

Rafael, though, after four years of enthusiastic bouncing around ‘There’ and ‘Not Quite There’, has finally made firm his place in the starting eleven. He has even been able to show up others; while Nani and Antonio Valencia have been floundering, Rafael continues to respond to situations such that he’s a part of the United attack that has played so well this season, and for whom most credit goes to for the club’s league position. Against Aston Villa, he was refreshingly insistent and was rewarded when his cross had set up the second. The hotheaded Rafael is still there, but is often suppressed, and with an improved head, sees his defensive game, his tackling, his willingness to compete and get at the other player, go up a level.

“Maybe he had rashness and the impetuosity of a young boy but somewhere along the line that maturity comes along and the rashness disappears,” said Sir Alex, suggesting that Rafael could emulate Gary Neville. “His form this season has been brilliant.”

Injuries elsewhere have helped and, forced away from tinkering, Sir Alex Ferguson has managed to get the best out of the right-back, his self-belief burgeoned. He has played regularly, often twice in a week, and has not yet suffered from burnout or a loss of form — not to jinx it, but the lack of any of that so far is a sign of wonderful progress. Of course, fitness will always be a worry; as are all the things that have happened before.

But to find evidence of actual progress, you can point to Arsenal’s Andre Santos — if you’re not doing that already. A decent left-back until now, once on par with team-mate Kieran Gibbs, Santos is now apparently miserable and hopeless. In Rafael and in Santos, you have players of contrasting fortunes. One has been exceptional, the other an exception. If that makes sense. For a full-back, a bad case of defending is usually shown as not being there at all, an exploited space. That problem is barely ever their problem; a team should be able to cover. What Santos has done wrong, not Rafael, is his inability to do something when posed against it. Match of the Day, though admittedly not at the forefront of football analysis, showed several examples of Santos’ failure to deal with the opposition threat at Old Trafford a fortnight ago, where he would show reluctance in doing anything about it. He would let play as well as an out-of-form Antonio Valencia to bypass him. What constitutes a bad full-back, or one out of form, or one learning, is surely one that makes the same mistake over and over. Rafael has not done that. Not this season, anyway.

Pride: Wanting a mirror that isn’t Dante’s. 

Cantona says hello to Leeds, 1993

Eric Cantona the footballer would strut around on stage accompanied by a spotlight — if it had momentarily focused elsewhere, he would instantly demand it back. It was part of a package deal, but it was not something that hindered him, rather the opposite. Cantona, citing the “kick, and then rush” football at Leeds United as one of his reasons for leaving to FourFourTwo, would reveal that “if I don’t feel the environment is good, I don’t want to be there. I need to feel good.” It was this that made Manchester United, according to the man who had signed him, the perfect club for the mercurial Frenchman.

“There’s no way Eric Cantona would have been a great player if we hadn’t allowed him to express himself, to be Eric Cantona,” Sir Alex Ferguson would reveal to journalist Philippe Auclair in an interview for The Blizzard. “I think we were a perfect club for him, a club where he was able to stick his chest out and say, ‘I’m the man here, I’m the king here.’ Because he had this aura, this presence, this belief in himself.”

Auclair would never pass up a chance to talk Cantona, especially to the man who knew him better than most and doubly especially being the author of the wonderful Eric Cantona biography, The Rebel Who Would Be King, for which credit goes to for this story. Auclair revisited Cantona’s return to Elland Road, his first since leaving Leeds United, and of his provoking of a hostile crowd. As the pre-match practice was coming to a close, Auclair writes, through the help of a friend present that day, when “the moment came to return to the dressing room, drowned in an ocean of noise, a sewer in full flow, Cantona took the ball, juggled it for a while and signed off with a volley into the top corner. The jeers doubled in ferocity but, as David [his friend] remembers it, intensified by the admiration the crowd couldn’t help but feel for such arrogance (‘We had to admit — this guy had balls’).” He had big balls.

Roy Keane threatens to play badly, 2005

This one could easily have been filed under ‘wrath’, but, no, it goes beyond that. In an interview with MUTV, Roy Keane criticised new signing Rio Ferdinand and other members of the Manchester United team (in Keane’s defence, he may well have been ticked off by Ferdinand’s white suit, in which case he is excused). Here are the highlights: “Just because you are paid £120,000-a-week and play well for 20 minutes against Tottenham, you think you are a superstar. There is a shortage of characters in this team. It seems to be in this club that you have to play badly to be rewarded. Maybe that is what I should do when I come back. Play badly.”

Keane is a proud man. Was he arrogant? Almost certainly. Sometimes we’d get hard-men like Keane (some might say) and automatically assume that there are layers; that emotion isn’t supposed to come with what they might do — or say — and so that it’s natural they don’t brag about it. They just shrug it off, it’s what they do. Bragging shows character, a big head, a swagger and linked to that is some kind of twisted happiness. Not that he wasn’t hard — he was hard, he is hard — but to simply lump Keane with the hard-men would be unfair, because he had dimensions, plural, and because hard-men aren’t supposed to be this fun, rather generic, the template for wannabe Krays.

Keane didn’t explicitly boast, but he always appeared to be on the verge of it. He would tell Mick McCarthy that he didn’t rate him as a footballer, Jamie Redknapp, too — “You, Redknapp, are you happy with your Under-21 caps?” — and assume some kind of superiority by chiding those who wore gloves on the pitch. “Sometimes I believe the man upstairs has great plans for me,” he would say once.

Roy Keane has standards but only very personal ones, and appears to care little for reputation. That’s a good thing, probably. To think we were surprised that Keane, the leader of a team that desperately needed reassuring words after a bad run of form, would speak so openly!

Bless him — he went on: “There is talk about putting this right in January and bringing new players in. We should be doing the opposite — we should be getting rid of people in January.” Hands up if you love him.

When Andy Cole became Outstanding, 1999

Andy Cole made the unfortunate decision to release Outstanding (there could well be a full-stop here) in the same year as Manchester United’s treble-winning season, where everything could invariably be compared unfavourably — though apparently that was the intention. To put it kindly, it was an ambitious record, with lyrics that otherwise screamed the “do you know who I am?” line, including the fact that, apparently, he is ‘the host with the most / got clientèle guaranteed’ and that he’s ‘sharp like a razor / speed to amaze ya / beat ya like Ali did Joe Frazier’, which, though intimidating on the surface, would probably be laughed out of a recording studio in Harlem.

But credit to Cole for trying; he chose not to adopt a faux-American accent, only briefly touched on various actually-banal, actually-not-song-worthy tasks carried out in the early hours and made no unsuccessful attempts to rhyme ‘positive’ with ‘negative’. You could look at it another way: this was at the start of Britain’s short-lived hip-hop golden era. This one stayed true to itself, with lyrics that still resonate today (‘Tell the world my name, who’s that? Andy Cole’).

Can he kick it? Like every other ’7.5 mill record-maker’, yes he can.

Scholes too good to be a reserve, 2001

Paul Scholes, they would tell you, is as modest as one of Chaucer’s maids, but with all the stories (or story, as it’s apparent that only Rio Ferdinand’s recollection is on record) of hitting trees from 40 yards in front of his impressed team-mates, he does at least recognise that he’s got a unique gift.

”I don’t know why I did what I did in 2001, but it is something I really regretted doing,” Scholes would say after his initial retirement in 2011. ”I wasn’t in a great mood. I had been left out the Liverpool game the previous weekend and I knew that the team going down to Arsenal in the [League] cup was basically a reserve side.” United were beaten 4-0 at Highbury, with arch-enemy Sylvain Wiltord scoring three, as if to foreshadow later events that season.

“I ended up getting fined and having to apologise, but I was lucky. The manager would have been within his rights to get rid of me.” Scholes’ loss, really; how many others could really say they played alongside Lee Roche and now-convict Ronnie Wallwork?

Sir Matt and Sir Alex the same, 1945 & 1986

Manchester United’s two greatest managers have always, in some way, tried to play down their achievements, wanting not to be carried away. Those that know and knew both Sir Alex Ferguson and Sir Matt Busby would vouch for their humility, though not for their self-confidence; those things, which some make the mistake of thinking, are not mutually exclusive.

Indeed, they would have self-confidence in abundance. ”Call it confidence, conceit, arrogance, or ignorance but I was unequivocal about it,” Busby wrote in his autobiography Soccer at the Top. ”At the advanced age of thirty-five, I would accept the managership of Manchester United only if they would let me have all my own way. As the manager, I would want to manage. I would be the boss.”

There are some striking parallels to be had here with Alex Ferguson’s first programme notes in 1986, long before he was a ‘Sir’: ”I am not really interested in what has happened here in the past. I don’t mean any disrespect to the great achievements of Manchester United over the years. It’s simply that now there is only one way to go, and that is forward.

“Taking over a club of the magnitude of Manchester United is an awesome prospect,” he added. “But ultimately a football club is a football club and I shall simply try to run things at Old Trafford in what I believe to be the right way.”

Read the first part of this series here: http://www.sportskeeda.com/2012/10/26/manchester-uniteds-seven-deadly-sins-1-envy/

The difficulty in attempting a series such as this is that nothing is ever definitive; and that probably, all judgements are instinctive. The deadly sins overlap, where someone’s idea of ‘wrath’ could conceivably be filed under ‘pride’ by another, ‘lust’ for ‘greed’, ‘greed’ for ‘envy’ or ‘gluttony’ and so forth. Perhaps by committing another one of the cardinal sins, ‘sloth’, could one example lazily appear multiple times under multiple categories, which sounds more tempting the longer the fingers are flexed. But the aim of this series is not so much about the sins as it is covering aspects of history (a lot, understandably, recent history that is easier to access) but delivered in a way that, hopefully, doesn’t take itself too seriously.

Envy: Wanting to be like Dante. 

Ruud van Nistelrooy wants the ball, 2006

Ruud van Nistelrooy’s final season as a Manchester United player reads much like a tragedy. It peaked at the very start; Van Nistelrooy scored eight goals in as many games. And though it appears so, this story is not merely a parroting, a repeat of those in past seasons. This one was different.

The striker could put so much down to the influence of David Beckham when he had first joined the club; it was Beckham, after all, arguably more than any other player, who had helped elevate him into such a position, and he surely longed for him years after the midfielder had left: “I think he is missed here as a player and as a person,” Van Nistelrooy would say in 2004, and no doubt would have muttered to himself a couple of years later. The partnership between the two was outstanding and well-noted, but so very ordinary. Beckham would swing in a cross, and Van Nistelrooy would meet it (“When Beckham left United I was very sad … because of the way we connected on the pitch”).

However, it wasn’t so much the manner of goals that was the problem because he coped without him, sometimes easily, and received regular service (and was already in an early two-horse with Thierry Henry for the Golden Boot), but Beckham’s replacement, Cristiano Ronaldo, would get better, become the star and play an altogether different game from his predecessor, one that placed less emphasis on others, more himself. Van Nistelrooy did enjoy his presence, but only ever to an extent. With Beckham, the predictability was at least comforting.

Tensions would gradually increase between the two before the turning point at the very middle. “In January, Ruud van Nistelrooy and Cristiano Ronaldo, who literally cannot stand the sight of each other, traded punches in training, and Van Nistelrooy left Ronaldo with a broken face,” reported Setanta’s Graham Hunter. The situation would worsen as time wore on. The rise of Wayne Rooney, Louis Saha and the Dutchman’s nemesis, Ronaldo, would mean prolonged spells on the bench, even in the most vital of games, and then the nadir, where, in not being selected for the season’s final game against Charlton, he walked out, taking his Old Trafford career with him.

“On Sunday, Van Nistelrooy was not named in the team, and as we all now know, he walks out,” Hunter said. ”The roots are from a serious bust-up on the training pitch the day before, over a perennial row between the two. Ronaldo held onto the ball too long in training, and Van Nistelrooy asked again: ‘Why do you keep onto the ball, why don’t you pass to me? I am in position, I am the striker. Get the ball to me.’ Ronaldo gives Van Nistelrooy some lip, it ends up in a fight, and Van Nistelrooy as he always does, needles into Ronaldo, and says ‘yeah, yeah, go running to your Dad.’”

Sir Alex Ferguson has never disguised the fact that some players require more attention than others — he was always relaxed in disciplining Eric Cantona, and would practically do the same for Ronaldo, though partly because his Portuguese assistant, Carlos Quieroz, was so accomplished at man-management and shared a unique bond with his counterpart.

“He means Carlos Quieroz, Ferguson’s assistant,” Hunter continued. “Ronaldo’s own father had died during the season, and finally, in the face of this abuse, Ronaldo burst into tears on the pitch and shouts “I don’t have a Dad, he’s dead.”

Van Nistelrooy would soon make up with Ronaldo and they would play together again. Though it was at Real Madrid. So there’s no happy ending here.

Ferguson takes Gascoigne snub well, 1988

Sir Alex Ferguson has always maintained that Paul Gascoigne was, in his own words, “the one that got away.” The story goes that, even after agreeing to sign for Manchester United himself, Tottenham Hotspur came in late and won him over with a promise of a new family home. In 2012, Ferguson told Radio 5 Live. “I think I could have done something with him, he’s the one real world star England have produced.”

Time heals, though. According to Gascoigne, shortly after his transfer to Spurs, Ferguson wrote a letter to him calling him a “stupid fat bastard”. Of course. 

Willie Morgan wasn’t George Best, 1970s

“We’re your first, last and only line of defence,” rapped Men in Black’s Agent J, assuming full responsibility in protecting the world from extraterrestrials. When the bigger tests arise, Manchester United’s back four will have to realise that they’re mostly alone in their battles, too; for the midfield, even in containing two largely defensive-minded players in Michael Carrick and Paul Scholes, can only do so much.

It is very easy to point to the return of those on the sidelines as the solution to United’s current defensive woes; Saturday’s 4-2 win over Stoke City would suggest that they do need Chris Smalling, Phil Jones and Nemanja Vidic back fit – and they do – but, in considering the quality of the (yes, depleted) back four they have to choose from, the reasons for conceding are not as clear-cut as they appear.

Jonny Evans and Rio Ferdinand were among United’s best performing players in 2011/12 but it is difficult to tell whether this season will be the same; for every bad performance like the one against Tottenham, there were wins over Liverpool and Newcastle United before and after. Against Stoke, a single error for Michael Kightly’s goal at 3-2 was enough to act against the two, but in reality it was a single blemish in an ultimately satisfactory performance. Rafael da Silva and Patrice Evra, too, looked assured once United saw off Stoke’s early pressure.

United’s failure to prevent Charlie Adam’s £10million crosses from coming into the box were neither Evans’ or Ferdinand’s problem; in fact, as dangerous as Stoke were from the cross, United’s defenders and David de Gea made sure to limit the end result of them after Wayne Rooney’s early own goal. It is far too simplistic a view to lump everything with those easiest to blame; but when Stoke attacked, and attacked well, it was because they took advantage of the way the home side set up in attack, where even the midfield had wandered forward: and the back four would then find that they are indeed the first, last and only line of defence. Sometimes, you can get away with it. They did at Old Trafford.

“There is no doubt our attacking play is the best part of the team at the moment. Our forwards got us out of trouble again because our defending has been slack,” Ferguson conceded, and though it would have been remarkable had he said any different, it is matter that must be explored further. When you have Danny Welbeck, Wayne Rooney and Robin van Persie up top it shifts responsibility on the midfield — and Carrick and Scholes would have to pull the strings to make them of any use, which they did well, in knowledge that the visitors can hit them on the counter and expose any temporary imbalances, any gaps. Whilst potentially game-defining, it is the only real downside to United’s bold emphasis on attack.

United have now scored six goals in their last two home games, conceding five, losing one, winning the other. It is as if Sir Alex Ferguson recognises the risks that comes with it but is willing to keep going, especially when, sandwiched between the two games (Spurs, Stoke), was an impressive 3-0 away defeat of Newcastle. It is why, with leaders Chelsea coming up, we may see United retain the front three that have, nearly on their own, maintained the side’s credentials when pitted against Manchester City and also Chelsea.

“We should accept that he’ll try to build a team for the next three or four years,” said Dimitar Berbatov’s agent Emil Danchev in March 2012. According to Danchev, in selling Berbatov, Ferguson wants to “change the style of play of United, to put more speed in the game“, which should translate into being less pragmatic, a style the team would adopt post-Ronaldo. Could it be that United want to have another go in being the team they were in 2007/08? Certainly, they have the players for it.

What makes the front three of Van Persie, Welbeck and Rooney so impressive is that they look comfortable no matter what the game demands of them; they respond well to the actions of the opposition, whether they are enjoying a lead or just a prolonged spell in possession, and use their initiative when required. The trio would pop up on the left and, crucially, appear not be fazed by it. Indeed, it was the impressive Van Persie whose stunning cross found Rooney in the box to make it 1-1 (and goals 2,3 and 4 would have the three scoring, assisting or both). Even Antonio Valencia was willing to let them in his home on the right and, fed up of being a recluse, found himself in the middle, and, in keeping with the theme, playing well. It’s just a little too similar (but it is important to stop short in danger of speaking prematurely) to the way the double-winning team of ’08 set up where Carlos Tevez, Cristiano Ronaldo, Rooney and Nani rotated positions and seemed so at ease with the whole thing. Of course, though, if it were so easy, every team would do it.

What United have to do now is now is find something resembling a balance that doesn’t hinder any of its stars. Failing that, they could always score one more than the opposition.

Cast your mind back ten years to 2002. We witnessed the broadcast of a tenuous and tedious Pepsi advert, featuring David Beckham staring down a young Iker Casillas in a Wild West showdown. It was bad, camp and yet somehow, in someone’s mind, commercial; hawking carbonated drinks and brand Beckham through pastiche and golden ball’s very talented horse.

The summer of ’02 also saw Denis Irwin leave Old Trafford for Wolverhampton Wanderers, having played 511 games for United, scoring 33 goals, and winning more trophies than he had fingers (deep breath … that’s seven Premier League titles, three FA cups, a League Cup, the Champions League, the Cup Winner’s Cup and the 1999 Intercontinental Cup).

Back to the ad. With Casillas down and defeated, Roberto Carlos, the ultimate full-back glamour star, arrives ball in-hand, not seeking glory, honour or the defence of his team mates or colours, but to demand satisfaction for his interrupted haircut.

Had Irwin, so often trusted to take penalties in a team that featured the likes of Steve Bruce and Eric Cantona, interceded on Pepsi’s dustbowl shootout, he would have ridden in as if portrayed by Eastwood: a quiet, yet formidable character, whose unassuming, humble demeanor belies a lethal, quick-draw ability in a dead ball situation.

Carlos, the Brazilian rockstar wing-back, with the ridiculously curvaceous free kicks, will probably forever be popularly remembered as the greatest full-back of Irwin’s era, but the Irishman’s considerable claims to such a title are not easy to dismiss.

He may not have looked the part of the superstar player, or boasted an arsenal of tricks and skills, but Irwin was an exquisite and clever footballer, with an unfussy yet elegant style. He favoured the finesse of intelligence and functional technique, rather than glossy, hollow flair. Genuinely two footed, he was potent and unpredictable going forward – happy to overload the flanks or cut inside – while also solid and dependable in defence. As a footballer, Denis Irwin had what some folks might call True Grit.

As the box-to-box midfielder fell out of fashion, and effectiveness, the tactically free and uncontested nature of the full-back position lent itself to complete footballers with the skill, imagination and fitness to maraud up-field. While only five-foot-eight in height, Irwin was a stocky, square-built player with impressive stamina, and a match winning appetite. Adept at left and right back, with the ball at his feet, he could switch the play with ease, pass long or short, deliver from wide and offer a serious threat from set pieces.

Purchased from Oldham for £625,000 in 1990, the Irishman stayed at United for twelve years – an exceptional return for the outlay, especially considering the size and consistency of the club’s trophy haul during his years of service. No wonder Sir Alex believes the full-back was his greatest ever signing. In that time, he endeared himself to the Old Trafford faithful as a hardworking, no-nonsense professional toiling away – in stark contrast to the PR men, whose powers and influence appear to grow in line with the game’s new-found appetite to consume itself and its integrity in exchange for profit.

If he were a Dutchman, or perhaps named Irwinho, his abilities may have been even more highly praised, although with his inclusion in a number of “best of the Premiership” team lists during the League’s 20 year anniversary, it’s clear that many do remember the skill and charm of the Corkman bursting forward, or harrying opponents from full-back.

Today Paul Scholes is United’s exceptional quiet man, lauded for his longevity at 38 – the age at which Irwin retired in 2004 when playing for Wolves. While the commercial travesties of the modern game have often run roughshod over the traditions and history of football’s institutions – Manchester United’s badge has been contracted and redesigned for branding reasons by marketing gurus – players such as these stand out as discreet honourable anti-icons.

Irwin is arguably Manchester United’s greatest ever left-back, one of the finest players to ever come out of Ireland, and emphatically, football’s answer to Eastwood’s Man With No Name.

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MANCHESTER, ENGLAND – AUGUST 22: Ryan Giggs of Manchester United kicks the ball during the Barclays Premier League match between Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur at Old Trafford on August 22, 2011 in Manchester, England.

Silvio Dante: This attitude of yours, it’s a lot of what’s made you an effective leader. But we’ve all got flaws. Even you. Seven deadly sins and yours is… pride.

Tony Soprano: All due respect, you got no f*ckin’ idea what it’s like to be Number One. Every decision you make affects every facet of every other f*ckin’ thing.

If the haughty Sir Alex Ferguson had a confession bear, he would likely confess to it that he had made a mistake in starting Ryan Giggs on Saturday evening. Indeed, his immediate substitution at half-time confirms this. And if one decision truly does affect everything else, then it is worth exploring the impact of selecting the Welshman for a second game running.

For starters, Giggs’ worth is diminishing — and there is little doubt that his establishment as a club great in the years gone by has almost guaranteed his starting games in the future.

There are, however, two objections that could be made at this point as to explain why Giggs featured:

1) He has a lot of experience, and

2) United were short of options down the left

The first is true, but ultimately, experience is merely just experience if not coupled with something else. Giggs was largely ineffective, and one writer noted that he had only completed five passes.

And, experience?

LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND – SEPTEMBER 23: Ryan Giggs of Manchester United in action during the Barclays Premier League match between Liverpool and Manchester United at Anfield on September 23, 2012 in Liverpool, England.

United had plenty of it, anyway. Among the starters were Rio Ferdinand, Patrice Evra, Paul Scholes, Michael Carrick and Robin van Persie, their combined age having as many digits as pi. The latter point is true in the sense that Giggs was the only conventional left-winger in the absence of Ashley Young, with Nani on the right, but football has moved on from the two lines of four and that almost doesn’t matter.

Against Newcastle in the League Cup, though against admittedly weakened opposition, individuals appeared liberated, as if the structures of the Premier League were somehow culpable for any shortcomings. There, Wayne Rooney popped up on the left, as did Tom Cleverley, as did Anderson, as did Danny Welbeck.

All four were benched for Spurs.

The point isn’t so much to criticise Giggs and blame him for defeat, but an attempt to identify where it went wrong. Rio Ferdinand, after a Man of the Match performance at Anfield, could have been judged United’s worst player here after a dismal first half performance, but to stop there is refusing to look deeper.

You can blame Ferdinand and Jonny Evans, or you can dismiss it as a one-off. The real problem is not necessarily the knowledge that the two first half goals could have been prevented, but the reason why United could not respond. Why they could barely keep the ball. Why Spurs kept finding gaps in the midfield. Why the only notable thing that happened in the Spurs box during the first 45 was a penalty appeal. Why all this changed once a substitution was made.

MANCHESTER, ENGLAND – SEPTEMBER 29: Rio Ferdinand of Manchester United controls the ball during the Barclays Premier League match between Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur at Old Trafford on September 29, 2012 in Manchester, England.

The problem with being expressive about selection, however, is that it is mainly done with the luxury of hindsight; people complain about a ‘clear’ penalty not being given after they’ve seen a replay. They are correct because it’s too easy to be correct. It is why (excuse the switch to first-person) I am hesitant to do so. In fact, I admire those who let their feelings known even before there’s a chance they could be proved wrong. But Giggs against Spurs was not going to work — it was almost inevitable after a difficult 90 minutes against Liverpool a week earlier.

And then we found out as much when United fell two goals behind before the interval.

Perhaps if Giggs had stayed on, with the game somehow not beyond United, and scored the equaliser, there would be an altogether different feeling. He would not be past it, rather rolling back the years but then that would mean we’re doing and thinking about football all wrong. It’s a bit like what we had with Wayne Rooney last season: why care that he’s not as playing as well as he should be when he’s scoring goals? You don’t have to care. But accepting that playing Giggs was the wrong decision is not some sort of betrayal, and it is wrong to think being quiet or sitting on blind faith is the least you could do for a player that inspired so much before, and still does, albeit in a lesser role.

He will still be important, you’d think; a timely cameo, perhaps, a late goal, another record broken. But it is best to stop expecting.

MANCHESTER, ENGLAND – SEPTEMBER 29: Robin van Persie of Manchester United and William Gallas of Tottenham Hotspur battle for the ball during the Barclays Premier League match between Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur at Old Trafford on September 29, 2012 in Manchester, England.

Giggs’ lack of pace meant his presence in a midfield already consisting of Carrick and Scholes would compare unfavourably against Tottenham’s ultra-energetic side (featuring the in-form Jermaine Defoe, Gareth Bale, Moussa Dembele and Sandro among others), struggling where benched alternatives might not. The selection was wrong.

This point was reinforced when Rooney came on and gave United wings. Nani was allowed to flex, finally (and score because of it), Kagawa would remember what a football felt like and all this, bringing Rooney on, a decision that went some way in affecting every facet of every other f-ckin’ thing, allowed Carrick and Scholes and Scholes and Scholes to play. Van Persie, too, would show signs that he would be a willing partner to Rooney.

United had dramatically improved in the second half, but lost because they never turned up for the first.

The Irish Press, Dec 8 1994

It was no more than a year after Manchester United’s visit to Hell, where fans were invited to buy carpets just so had they something to take home with them, that they re-visited the inferno seeking vengeance — but arrived back in Manchester with just a point in a game that ended scoreless. United had found Galatasaray to be a stubborn and worthy match; up to this point, December 7 1994, their last three meetings read: draw, draw, draw. What made this game — the focus of this piece, and the one mentioned earlier that year — different from the infamous encounters of a year ago against the Turkish side was that this was just a group game, with not away goals to worry about, rather the might of stronger teams that would shape fate elsewhere.

To progress, Manchester United had to defeat Galatasaray in the sixth and final round of the group stage; and hope for an already-safe IFK Göteborg to beat Barcelona away from home.

That wasn’t going to happen.

And Alex Ferguson thought as much. Partly because of trademark tinkering and largely with several players missing, the Scot would field an eleven and a bench full of players who practically still had fontanelles. “The restrictions on foreign players are unfair but we can’t hide behind that,” Eric Cantona would say post-match. “We have to develop or buy more English players but we have a good school of young players and they may be the answer.” Cantona was on to something. While this game could simply be dismissed as irrelevant as it did not lead to anything as noted by history, it was significant in that it gave Ferguson the opportunity to trial the best crop of young players in the world — unbeknown to all at the time — against a strong opposition, however beleaguered and exhausted they were after a dismal campaign. They put four past their bogey side. Welcome to Heaven.

The Reds did have reason to expect something favourable over at Camp Nou; IFK were Group A’s best side, in terms of performances isolated to that one group, and had with them a dangerous 20-year-old named Jesper Blomqvist; while the Spaniards in Barcelona’s midfield had to speak to each other — ’la humiliación,’ they’d probably say — as they could not yet communicate through telepathy, but even still, only in games like these does one team want it more than the other (it ended a goal apiece). United were knocked out of Europe too soon — again — and how they would respond to this failure was unclear; but the young players offered a sort of reassurance as to say that the best solution is not in the transfer window, but closer to home.

Though not everyone was convinced.

The Irish Press (left) and The Times (right), both Dec 8 1994

As with many youngsters in football, giving them a chance puts you at risk of being deceived. Rob Hughes mentioned this in his column a day later in The Times: “Where do they go from here? Down the years, careers of international schoolboys have been still-born at Old Trafford,” Hughes wrote. “There have been great expectations, a brief flurry in the red shirt, a disappearance and then a traumatic slide down the scale to lesser clubs.” That much was true for Simon Davies, scorer of the night’s first, and impressive throughout. But Davies would go on to make just a handful of first team appearances before barely-notable spells at lower-level sides, ranging from Macclesfield Town to Bangor City to Airbus UK.

If Davies’ performance was impressive, Beckham’s was extraordinary, considering all things. ITV’s Brian Moore opined that “young Beckham has had a superb game on the right of United’s midfield.” Indeed, this sort of praise, to call it ‘superb’, is typically reserved for the untried or the goalscorer. Beckham was both. He would be a constant presence on this, like Davies, his senior début, whether on the flanks or in the box and there were already signs of an understanding, especially with a floppy-haired Gary Neville, a partnership that would gradually become one of the finest of its kind in later years.

United would have four 19-year-olds in Beckham, Neville, Davies and Nicky Butt, who looked as promising as the rest, with a further four players on the bench no older than twenty-two, including Paul Scholes. Neville and Butt were already growing as United players; the former was slowly establishing himself at right-back while Butt, Rob Hughes describes, was “a player of tempestuous attitude, [and] has shown throughout the European campaign that he can live with the pressure.” Ryan Giggs was missing from the action but was by now a first-team player, something for the others to try to emulate.

Davies would open the scoring with a left-footed, angled finish after just two minutes, and then Beckham doubled the lead with a low, drilled shot from outside the area. Moore exclaimed: “First Davies the youngster, second Beckham the youngster … well, the young boys are doing Alex Ferguson proud!” Goals are just goals for players that are expected to carry out other duties, but it is a wonderful method of attention seeking. Beckham would then set up the third; flicking a header from a Cantona cross that Roy Keane, after easing past two defenders, finished smartly. Beckham threatened to score again, Butt, too, but it was Bülent Korkmaz, definitely not an academy graduate of United’s, who added a fourth with an own goal.

Alex Ferguson was full of praise for his young players after the game. “That was the way to do it, just go out and enjoy themselves. They were fantastic and I’m pleased for them.” Simon Davies, who could not have expected his career to go down such a different route to his colleagues, pleaded with the manager to retain faith in youth.

“We hope we’re solving the problem for him,” said Davies. “We were all thrown in the deep end against Galatasaray and we’re all very pleased with ourselves. We didn’t let him down and hopefully we will all get stronger and bigger as the years go on. We’re almost a team in ourselves. We won the Youth Cup together, now we’ve come up through the reserves and won that League together. There’s a great sense of camaraderie.”

Going back to Hughes’ piece, he ended by saying: “We have enjoyed a glimpse of United’s future. It is full of promise of youth, but when will we see it reach manhood?” That question was answered a year later. Alan Hansen nor could anyone believe it, but Manchester United had won something with kids. With the power of hindsight, the club and its fans could point to a particular European night, among others, as the starting point for the new success that would continue through the ’90s and beyond.

Highlights of the game here:

With thanks to Tr16ia for the newspaper clippings

The Match of the Day commentator Jonathan Pearce, perhaps guilty of not getting close enough to Sir Killalot during his Robot Wars days, watched Robin van Persie’s failed penalty kick in Sunday’s 3-2 win over Southampton and exclaimed: “he went for the Pirlo!”. (Ignoring his buffoonery for a moment …) Udinese midfielder Maicosuel did something similar — and failed — in a Champions League qualifier last week and that, like Van Persie’s, was perhaps a direct consequence of Andrea Pirlo’s successful attempt at the European Championships in June. The man responsible for the chipped penalty, Antonin Panenka, says that “several times I’ve seen a player take a penalty like that on television, and every commentator in every country never fails to describe it as a Panenka penalty, which is naturally very gratifying.” With the two recent attempts of it, you get the feeling that he might be changing his mind. To miss a penalty is excusable, but to try something audacious — and not succeed at it — whilst your team is losing is not.

Then again, there is perhaps never a right time for such a thing; Andrea Pirlo could have well fluffed his Panenka attempt and Italy could have then been knocked out of the quarters, even to England. What made Van Persie’s attempt so disappointing was that the penalty was a route back into a game that had Southampton’s name scribbled all over it. And he didn’t convert.

Still, nice hat-trick.

Southampton were unlucky and arguably deserved the three points more than their visitors; Adam Lallana was always busy and lead the team well, Jason Puncheon was a constant threat down the flanks before being subbed off, and Morgan Schneiderlin bulldozed his way through a vacant midfield that would probably alarm the people at CERN. In contrast, United’s key men had an off-day. Tom Cleverley and Michael Carrick under-performed while the latter was atypically sloppy in possession, and Shinji Kagawa found that his Hover Boots were replaced by the Iron Boots.

But it would be lazy to say that Southampton had defended well; United would suddenly find a worrying amount of space in the opposition box when Paul Scholes had come on and eventually, the two late goals would come from free headers. Still, United were no better. They would be matched or even outnumbered by the Saints as they attacked. Nemanja Vidic and Rio Ferdinand both looked rusty (Evans is a good option off the bench) and didn’t get the assistance they required from either full-back nor the midfield; that was, until substitutions were made.

United can’t seem to shake off their reliance on 37-year-old Scholes. United looked organised in midfield and, as a result, they attacked much better. “When Paul Scholes came on, everything started ticking,” Van Persie would say after the game. Sir Alex was also impressed: ”Paul Scholes came on and brought composure, a consistency of passing and made the difference. Hernandez came on and made a difference also. He started stretching them and running in between them.”

Above all, it was the presence of Van Persie that did well in masking any deficiencies the team has. United need the Dutchman more than they had initially thought, especially in the absence of Wayne Rooney, and it appears he thrives in this sort of environment. Last season he helped propel (an overachieving?) Arsenal to a respectable third place and he could well be the difference in deciding first and second this year. There are issues that need addressing but good strikers, across a wide-range of teams have, for a long time, been able to make up for others, their goals as an adequate smokescreen; Rooney did exactly that last season. United fans only have to look at his set of goals on Sunday to believe this; the first, an angled strike with his left-foot, the second a poacher’s goal, and the third a header that had been executed perfectly (it looked immensely difficult to pull off; not only did he get his head on a Nani corner — an achievement in itself — but ran into a good position and used the pace of the ball to guide it in). Bet Pirlo can’t do that (“he probably can” – smart-arses).

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