TERRACE TALK: Reaction from the weekend's top Premier League action
Back in early December, after a second home defeat in four days, I loudly whistled Dixie and wrote: “rest assured, when it’s time to run around yelling that one’s pants are on fire, I’ll be at the head of lynch-mob, frantically whacking my bottom.”
Reader, I smell smoke.
That was almost the greatest humiliation I can recall LFC inflicting on us: worse than the 1-4 five years ago, which was a freaky anomaly, and worse than the 0-4 at Anfield in September 1990, in which we actually played rather well for long periods.
You surely have to go back to December 1978 for its equal, a 0-3 capitulation against a side that was about to become champions — gulp — on an afternoon so awful that my cousin, attending his first match, swore never to go to the football again.
I certainly pity any father who chose yesterday as the perfect moment to introduce his son to the Theatre of Dreams, soon to be renamed the Bearpit of Nightmares.
We had a new edition of Red Issue fanzine out for the game and, tellingly, it was full of doomy portent. A grim ‘Moyes Special’ investigation detailed the descent into the abyss since the New Year, stuffed with disturbing behind-the-scenes glimpses and the dark utterances from time-served Old Trafford experts, leaving the reader in no doubt that all is not well at Carrington — nor, indeed, in Tampa.
A stern editorial from a publication that’s been the acme of patience hitherto warned: “If Moyes can’t rouse himself and his players for these three key games, then there’ll be few left in the stands who’d want to see him still in charge come August... he may have the comfort of a lengthy contract but it’ll surely count for nought if he doesn’t start delivering.”
But nothing was delivered to us yesterday bar embarrassment, shame and anger. We deserve better. Not because we have a divine right, but because, as Danny Taylor put it in The Guardian: “For David Moyes, there is probably only one redeeming feature... at another club, they would be hounding the manager out by now.”
Indeed they would. And another display like that against City might yet see us cry, in Monty Burns style: “Release the hounds!” And yet ... (yes, your eyes don’t deceive you: I really am going to try to find a positive for you this morning)... there’s the small matter of Wednesday to come. As Red Issue’s editor went on to write: “Even a bad defeat against Liverpool would be instantly forgotten if United have qualified for the European Cup quarter-finals by 10pm on Wednesday. Any such comeback there might even be enough to help ride out a tonking from City too.”
Therein is encapsulated the nature of being a Red. Because of the extraordinary things we have seen in our United lives — such as the contemporarily pertinent Barca ‘84 — and because of who we like to think we are, we’ll head to Old Trafford in 48 hours time not like condemned men to the gallows, resigned to their fate, but condemned men who seriously harbour a belief that the Three Musketeers might turn up in the nick of time and whisk them from the scaffold. This is either deluded or magnificent. Possibly both.
So for Athos, Porthos and Aramis read Rooney, Mata and Van Persie (with young latecomer Adnan as D’Artagnan). I know they might as well have been billed as the Three Stooges yesterday but that was then, and this is now. Chin up: stop pouring whisky onto your cornflakes, get into work, and face those rival fans like a man. And remember: back in 1978/79, after that nadir of a Liverpool defeat, we thrashed City shortly thereafter and eventually reached a cup final.
Hmm. When historical omens and blind faith are all one can offer, you know your pants are starting to combust.
My hands are shaking. It’s been hours since the final whistle and I’m still trembling.
That’s what football does to you. That’s what this team does to you. That’s what ‘they’ can do to you, and I’m not the only one.
The ecstasy on fans’, players’ and the manager’s faces after the third goal said it all. Two up, a man extra, eight minutes left — but still not secure.
This monkey’s been riding our back so long, you get used to the furry nuzzle of the neck, the scratch of the paws and the vicious, usually fatal, usually late bite. Someone was bound to do something in the final minutes surely, and when Gerrard missed the third penalty (I’ll repeat that; The. Third. Penalty. At Old Trafford) you twitched, winced and readied for the punchline to the world’s worst joke.
But it never came. These boys have broken the backs of several hoodoos now. No league wins at Stoke? Pah. Couldn’t beat Arsenal at Anfield? Chalked off in 20 minutes. No victories at Southampton?
Tish and fipsy, but there is no jinx like the Old Trafford jinx and Liverpool just pulled its pants down and smacked it senseless.
I won’t pretend the alarm bells weren’t deafening beforehand. Talk of shifting power balances, statements of intent and a scent of blood in the nostrils. Rodgers even lectured United on how Liverpool’s great side crumbled and went AWOL for years. Hubris lurked around the corner sharpening her knife.
The Mancs were in ABL mode too, but ultimately Moyes could not deliver. By default or design, he has catapulted them back into his Goodison safe-house, delaying the peasants’ revolt by occasionally scuppering Anfield’s tenuous dreams. All he needs now is 30 tons of wood and some nails and the transformation will be complete. He’s got more hair than McGuinness, if that’s any consolation.
By half-time, the nerves had settled a little. There was no doubt our manager had got it spot on while his counterpart had been completely outfoxed. Then the jitters returned, as there was no way United could be this toothless again surely? If anything, they got worse. Perhaps it was the bolt-pistol stupefaction of conceding two penalties that left the theatre so quiet and dead. We passed around them brilliantly at times, given there was not very much assistance from our front two who seemed to be playing in a different game at times.
They came into it more in the latter stages though, and by the time Vidic was taking his lonely, all-too-familiar early stroll (the Carrick tackle that immediately followed looked more of a pen on second glance) the jig was almost up.
Until then the only real alarm was with young Flanagan’s impetuosity but Clattenburg kept his powder dry. Perhaps some deep loathing of Moyes from his Everton days of scream ‘n’ screech was stirred anew within him, but alliances have also definitely shifted post-Ferguson.
When Gerrard missed the penalty I had just enough time for one more panic attack before Suarez wrapped it up. If he actually did wear those woollen boots I’d consider that experiment largely a failure, but it matters little. You don’t have to wear everything your auntie makes you.
All that was left for United was consolation in resistance and pride. “Twenty times” was sung to “Give me joy in my heart”. You can admire their bolshiness but back in their drinking pits, the questions and doubts will multiply. For us only more mountains to climb.
A lot of reds, including myself, have shook their bewildered heads about this team and predicted tumbles at every hurdle. Even if we don’t make it back on our perch by season’s end there’s no doubt who won’t be sat on it for a while. That’s always pleasant.
It was all about the result at White Hart Lane and keeping up with the North-West Joneses, after Chelsea had left the door ajar. Yet despite the rosy appearance of us maintaining our pitch in the title frame and the potential for complacency and inconsistency to continue to plague the ranks of the two favourites, with the Scousers on the charge in impressive form, ultimately the denouement of Sunday’s match left me feeling we’re only just managing to cling to the coattails of our rivals.
Don’t get me wrong, considering we’ve not savoured a win at the wrong end of the Seven Sisters Road these past seven years, Sunday’s win was celebrated with the sort of gusto only to be surpassed should we end our silverware drought. Yet with the wheels coming off Tim Sherwood’s bandwagon these past few weeks, even my Spurs mates feared the worst.
I adore a good old-fashioned “1-0 to the Arsenal” as much as the next Gooner and after enduring panic-stricken efforts of a frustratingly fragile defence for far too long, there is something very satisfying about the staunch resilience developing amongst our current defensive unit. However Wenger’s teams have never been designed in the image of those of George Graham, to grind out results, week in, week out.
Sunday’s success would’ve proved a whole lot more enjoyable, if it hadn’t come courtesy of the sort of back-foot performance that left us sweating for 88 minutes, after Rosicky silenced the Lane in seconds with a wonder strike.
Not to mention the toll that this sort of encounter takes on one’s ticker, as despite Spurs failure to overly trouble Szczesny, as closer we came to achieving our objective, the more I found myself waiting for a missed block, or deflection that’d result in the ball looping into the net.
With Spurs rattled by the early goal, I wanted the Gunners to go for the throat, not sit back on our slender lead and allow the home side time to settle. Obviously the Ox came in for some stick for his failure to find the net and in truth we really should’ve put this game to bed before the break, if we hadn’t been quite so profligate in attack.
Nevertheless, despite Alex’s lack of composure in front of goal, he deserves credit for bustling past the Spurs backline, with the sort of drive and commitment expected of derby combatants but on the wane amongst many players who can’t appreciate the context of these matches for fans (my Spurs mates have lived on such crumbs most of their lives).
It would be fitting for Arsène to celebrate his 1000th game as gaffer with a long overdue triumph at Stamford Bridge. But we could’ve badly done with the sort of convincing win on Sunday that would’ve enabled us to approach the fixture with something like the same swagger that they currently appear to be achieving on Merseyside.
I was harbouring hopes that the return of the likes of Ramsey would offer the sort of boost needed to garner positive momentum for the run-in, but unless such salvation is to emerge in the unlikely form of Kallstrom, I fear we’re likely to witness more commendable battle-weary efforts just to hang on in there.
Before I start my rant about Foy (come on, you didn’t expect me to ignore it?) can I just say that we didn’t deserve to win the game against Villa on Saturday.
They have become a Mourinho bogey side, and from the outset it was obvious we were going to struggle to get anything from the game.
We laboured through predictable passages of play and Torres up front had possibly his worst ever game — but it would be unfair to single him out, as the entire team looked unable even to complete a pass at times.
But now we must talk about the referee.
What had Foy to lose by explaining his decisions to Jose Mourinho? But then I suppose it would have been difficult to justify why he sent off the Chelsea manager for coming onto the pitch, yet failed to do likewise to Agbonlahor for leaping off the bench coming onto the pitch and grabbing Ramires around the neck. He could also have sent off the Villa manager along with a number of others who I saw entering the fray. How do you explain that? If Willian saw red, why didn’t Vlaar? He bought down Ramires in what was a clear goal scoring opportunity. Explain how that was not a sending off?
The Matic goal — now I accept that was a handball — however, the linesman did not flag and the referee initially awarded the goal and pointed back to the centre circle — so why did he change his mind?
Changed his mind once surrounded by angry Villa players, I might add. The point is not that the decision was correct — the point is how and why did he come to change his mind?
Next time Chelsea players have a wrongly-awarded goal scored against them, should they now surround the ref to make him change his mind?
Foy was also the referee that sent of Bosingwa at QPR and awarded a penalty against us, yet ignored two identical opposition shirt-pulls in the area. He is also the referee that didn’t send off Aguero for a stamp on David Luiz and also sent off Robben for “over-celebrating” a goal. He was also the referee who sent off Eden Hazard for kicking a ball boy — when in fact we all know that Hazard kicked the ball which was being held by a time-wasting ball “boy” — a boy who had boasted he was going to do just that prior to the game.
I’m talking about consistency here — or the lack of it. I don’t believe in coincidences — how can a referee who has an average of 0.17 red cards per game have handed out six in eight games to one team?
This of course is not even including the Mourinho sending off, nor the red card for Alex in a League Cup game.
Whatever your opinions on Chelsea — you cannot honestly believe that they are a dirty side as a whole? I have no issue with the Ramires red. But if you look again even at this incident — Foy initially only gives a foul and looks to change his mind once again only when surrounded by Villa players and substitutes.
Mourinho told us that the team had discussed Foy’s history with the club and that they were worried about his propensity to dish out red cards to our players. Yet despite this extraordinary history with us, the referee still chose not to take accountability for his performance. Why? Forget the players and Mourinho for a moment — are the fans, not owed that?
A referee is paid to make decisions — if those decisions are influenced by the crowd, by players on the pitch, by past histories, his position is compromised. I truly believe that Foy is compromised.
The real shame of all of this is that it has overshadowed what was a great Villa win. It has also meant that pertinent questions are not being asked of the Chelsea performance. City once again demonstrated their strength — they so remind me of Chelsea under Jose’s first tenure. In those days you could bet your shirt on Chelsea winning, even when going down to 10 — that mental strength is not yet there and it’s frustrating but we are still I think expecting too much for Mourinho’s first season back. It will be the mental strength that Jose will need to work on this week to get us over this episode and get heads right for the week ahead. Let’s hope he can do that and also that we don’t get a referee that wants to get his red card average up.
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