Football matches are often described as a game of two halves. This was something new: a game of one half. By the end of Manchester United’s 3-1 defeat of a distressingly flaccid Liverpool there were still whispers around Old Trafford, some suggestion that a first 45 minutes may have actually taken place, but no memory of it lingered, no marks remained. Just a vague sense, perhaps, of some 22-man slow-motion arm-wrestle having taken place in soft evening sunshine as the Manchester United project shared a piece of grass with the Liverpool project.
The collective narrative before this match had always suggested what we were about to see was a kind of angst-summit, a meeting of two decaying empires gripped with Weltschmerz, angst, ennui and – let’s face it – unhappiness at not getting to win everything all the time any more.
By the end two things were clear: first, the malaise in this Liverpool team looks a little more deep-set. They were meek, vague and lacking in ambition before they went behind just after half-time. After which they were simply vague for half an hour, before being buoyed by Christian Benteke’s fine volleyed goal. Brendan Rodgers has a fair run of favourable fixtures now to try to stir his on-the-hoof new-build team. He is going to need them.
For United the second half here felt, if not like an awakening, then perhaps like some long-term convalescent patient rising up out of his bath chair finally feeling some spring in his legs. With three minutes remaining there was even a eureka moment – the thrilling sight of Anthony Martial, football’s costliest teenager, scoring his first goal for the club. Yes, by now they even had a No9 on the pitch, Martial having appeared and, with some ceremony waved Marouane Fellaini back into midfield. Taking the ball on the left he jinked into the box, opened his body in the classic Gallic striker’s style and passed the ball low into the corner, a lovely finish. A team in red with pace up front, a rampaging left‑back and a pair of suddenly energised wide midfielders. As fully realised multifaceted processes go, well, this was a bit more like it.
“I am not a dictator!” Van Gaal had declared before this match, quick to emphasise his “soft” qualities as a communicator, a listener and all-round Santa Claus, almost to the extent of sounding sarcastic. “I changed the way that I say things … Not only do I listen, my assistants listen.” How much longer, you wonder, before there’s another knock at the door, another delegation saying: “Boss, we’d like you to stop listening to us so much.” Not that bending to popular will is his style. Before kick-off there had been a collective harrumph across social media that the club of Law, Violet, Cantona, Cole, Yorke, Van Nistelrooy – also, of course, the club of Davenport, Dublin, Birtles, Bellion – was now reduced to fielding, signing and starting a player for the World’s No2 ranked international team up front.
Fellaini scored for Belgium last week against Bosnia from an advanced midfield position. He has two in four games this season and eight in his last 16 for club and country. He isn’t, though, a centre-forward, as was clear in that nonexistent first half as he rumbled about on the shoulder of Liverpool’s defensive line keenly enough but was let down repeatedly by his lack of fine-point striker’s touch.
Before kick-off there had been suggestions Benteke would be able to worry, harry and generally devour Daley Blind. Rio Ferdinand had even suggested the Belgian might “pick him up and run around with him on his shoulders”, a genuinely tantalising prospect. It didn’t actually happen.
This scenario had always rested on the idea of Liverpool putting in crosses and attacking in numbers down the flanks. Instead Blind showed what he can do with his goal, a moment that combined awareness, quick-thinking and supreme accuracy and power in his shot from the edge of the area just after half-time.
The introduction of Ashley Young for Memphis Depay at the break had added instant urgency, a player who seemed ready to attack his full-back and also gripped at least with some residue of the the feverish will to win that has been a feature of this fixture down the years. Young ran at Nathaniel Clyne and was fouled. Juan Mata rolled the ball across the area, having spotted Blind in space, and the ball was spanked first time with lovely easy power into the top corner. After which, a game of football broke out as both teams forgot themselves, full-backs overlapped, midfielders pushed on, possession was risked. From the touchline you could almost hear the sound of flip-charts being upended, marker pens thrown, presentation binders gnawed.
It wasn’t exactly great, much of the attacking here in the second half resembled something fraught and half-remembered, scrambles in the area, heavy touches and shanks and last-ditch saving tackles. But it was at least a shift from the entropy-football of the first half, and a glimmer of something close to the more rousing energies of this fixture down the years.
Ander Herrera played well on the right here, and had the wit and drive with 20 minutes remaining to draw Joe Gomez into an unwise challenge in the box. Herrera went down, stepped up and absolutely leathered the penalty into the top corner to effectively kill the game.
At the end there was almost something nostalgic about the general fizz of excitement around Old Trafford. Perhaps there might even be something in the idea that as with so many other things in football United’s problems – stalled process, “flatness” in the dressing room, insufficient thrills and spills – would simply fade away with a run of victories. Here, at last they looked for 45 minutes like a team with the bite and drive to make that happen.
