FIVE ASIDES Premier League: City 4, United 1 (we’ll spare you the highlights)
That wasn’t a derby, we said after the 2-0 defeat by City in November. It was a minor surgical procedure. Well, this was a derby, but of a particular kind – a demolition derby. At the Etihad, which has often brought out the best in them, United had their defence blown apart, first by City’s electric front five, then by Roy Keane, who sees being a pundit as a chance to play the wrecking ball. His rants are rather like jokes: they sometimes contain only a grain of truth. ‘These guys,’ he fumed, ‘are all about “how am I looking?”.’ But he also complained that they weren’t running back, and if all they cared about was how they looked, they would have made sure they were seen to be running their socks off. To me, the game felt more like a syndrome we all remember from kids’ football: sometimes you just get over-run, paralysed, stunned. You’re there but not there. It’s like depression. It’s a horrible feeling and yesterday, not for the first time this year, you could see it all over Marcus Rashford’s face.
If Ralf Rangnick’s United have a defining trait, it is that they do do things by halves. Through his first three months, as they faced one modest opponent after another, we wondered what would happen if they tried being half-arsed against the big boys. And now we know. In the first half they turned up, held their heads high, even stayed on level terms for 11 minutes (five on 0-0, six on 1-1), and scored a peach of a goal. At half-time they were still in the game, but then City moved up a level and United went missing. From the 70th minute onwards, they were reduced to making up the numbers, like Sporting Lisbon a couple of weeks ago. Any manager doing his homework on them – Antonio Conte or Diego Simeone, let alone Jurgen Klopp – would have been wondering whether to laugh or lick his lips. And Rangnick was partly to blame: for picking Aaron Wan-Bissaka, who was made redundant by Pep Guardiola’s decision to rest Raheem Sterling; for not changing the back four at all; for leaving Anthony Elanga on for an hour even though he was overwhelmed; and, yet again, for letting Juan Mata waste away on the bench when he could have been on the field showing the others how not to waste the ball.
United were without three galacticos. Cristiano Ronaldo wasn’t missed, and didn’t deserve to start anyway, though his presence might have come in handy off the bench. Edinson Cavani was missed up to a point, as United’s best defender from the front, though he might well have been rusty after another exasperating lay-off. The one who did leave a gaping hole was Rafael Varane. In the 14 league games he has started, United have conceded only 11 goals. Their record in those games hasn’t been earth-shattering – won six, drawn six, lost two – but it has been steady. Only once when he has started have they conceded a second goal, at Villa Park, and that was thanks to a moment of genius from another galactico, Philippe Coutinho. Varane is so injury-prone that he has now been a non-starter for half United’s league season, which is maddening but helpful for purposes of comparison. In the 14 games he hasn’t started (including two in which he came on as a sub), United have conceded 27 goals. All their shockers – the 0-5 against Liverpool, the 1-4 at Watford, the 2-4 at Leicester and both the derbies – have come in Varane’s absence. United, as their traditions demand, have plenty of players who make things happen. Varane’s superpower is the ability to make things not happen. They score fewer goals with him there (20, as against 25 in the other 14 games), but they win more points (24 to 17). He doesn’t just exude calm on the field: he imposes it on the scoreboard.
It was ingenious of Rangnick to field two false nines, but it wasn’t very sensible. First, because it was playing Guardiola at his own game. Second, because United aren’t used to it, and they don’t have City’s exceptional ability to shape-shift. Third, because it left Rashford feeling even more deflated, just when his tyres needed pumping up. Fourth, because it meant that Paul Pogba, who can change a game with one pass, saw less of the ball than Fred, who can’t. Stranded upfield next to Bruno Fernandes, Pogba had just 30 touches, the fewest for any starter on either side (even David de Gea had 31). One of those touches was sublime, the crossfield ball that turned into an assist for Jadon Sancho’s pinpoint finish, but it wasn’t enough. The formation didn’t play to Fred’s strengths either: he is United’s best presser, so if there were had to be two false nines, he should have been one of them (even though his finishing can be farcical). It would have been better, surely, to opt for the midfield diamond, which United have had some practice at, and which allows both Pogba and Fred to be in the thick of it, with Scott McTominay behind them and Fernandes ahead. McTominay didn’t have enough support, but still managed to have a decent game. In the rebuild that has to come this summer, his strength of character can be one of the building blocks.
There was a telling moment after 35 minutes, when the action stopped to make it easier for someone in the crowd to receive medical attention. Guardiola, whose team were 2-1 up, used the break to harangue Joao Cancelo, who might have felt he had credit in the bank after single-footedly winning the previous derby. Pep was a picture of intensity, not afraid to go into the realms of self-parody. Rangnick, whose team had just fallen behind for the second time, was talking to his players too – with about a quarter of the same animation, and nothing like the same fire in the belly. He was professorial, whereas Guardiola was magisterial.