McCarthy must quit easy life at Latics
In fact it was a matter of inches and United had already had two solid penalty claims turned down, so Martinez’s fury might have been better directed at the players who had again surrendered to United, continuing their dismal record against Alex Ferguson’s side.
Certainly Martinez’s players do not seem terrified of the prospect of walking off the pitch in defeat, and seemed to have interpreted the harsh sending-off of Conor Sammon in the first half as their get-out clause. The goals kept going in but nobody seemed to be taking it personally.
You wonder if this is the best club for James McCarthy to develop his talents. Giovanni Trapattoni has been encouraging him to grow up, to become more aggressive, more domineering, more demanding of himself and his teammates, but Wigan are a nice team, shy and apologetic, happy to be there, with a sort of benign collegiate atmosphere.
McCarthy will play plenty of matches there but he does not seem to be developing as quickly as everyone had hoped.
United’s crushing victory moved them level on points with City, a superb achievement given City’s spending, and showcased the mental strength which will be their biggest asset in the second half of the season.
The fact that they took the field missing Wayne Rooney and with several players in unfamiliar positions yet dismantled Wigan in exactly the manner everyone would expect of their strongest XI underlines their high standards of professionalism.
The contrast with Wigan’s previous opposition, Kenny Dalglish’s increasingly neurotic Liverpool, could not be more stark. United slot players into positions almost at random, and the machine keeps purring.
Liverpool don’t know what kind of team they are: it’s Suarez plus 10 others. Dalglish has not succeeded in imposing any defined pattern of play and seems to change his mind about players — yesterday’s goalscorer, Maxi Rodriguez, did not start a league game until October, while former stalwarts like Dirk Kuyt have lost their way. The flatlining Stewart Downing oozes misery while Jordan Henderson remains an innocent abroad.
Looming over everything is the sad figure of Andy Carroll, a subject Dalglish refuses to discuss in any realistic way.
The coming ban of Luis Suarez means the hour of Carroll is at hand — and that prospect perhaps explains why Liverpool’s reaction to the Suarez verdict has been characterised by hysterical denial. Carroll’s Liverpool career is not yet completely dead — there is still a chance for him to salvage something, to earn a reputation as only a moderately bad signing, like Emile Heskey. But if he can’t step up when Suarez is banned, it’s probably time to step off.
