It's tempting to think that both clubs were doing a bit when they met at Old Trafford on Monday night.
Happy anniversary, Mr Amorim. On the first anniversary of making his debut as the latest manager of Manchester United, his team really offered up a highlights package of his previous twelve months that was worthy of the occasion.
United and their opponents last night, Everton, have become something of a staple for the low comedy of the Premier League in recent years, yet even for these two clubs there was something so utterly on point about their Monday night meeting that it felt at times as though they may both be doing a bit.
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For Manchester United, the evening rolled back the stodge once again. Five games undefeated had lifted them into contention for a Champions League place (and they are indeed still in contention for one), but as if everybody knew their role in ensuring that the narrative of the Old Trafford emotional rollercoaster continued, they put in their worst performance since they lost at Brentford last month. 77 minutes, lads. You had77 minutes. PLUS STOPPAGE-TIME!
As for Everton, well, they contrived not only to get a player sent off for slapping another of their own players, but in a manner so inoffensive that it was reasonable to ask whether it really merited a dismissal even though the rules are very clear on what should happen should a player raise a hand towards another and make contact. Idrissa Gueye might have got away with it, had he claimed that a butterfly had landed on Micheal Keane’s cheek and he was just brushing it away.
Was it a red card? Yes, yes it was. The strength of the contact simply isn’t mentioned in the rules. Idrissa Gueye may have made the sort of contact that you make when adjusting someone’s make-up, but if you raise your hands and make contact, it’s an automatic red card. It’s not required to rip someone’s face half-off in order to be sent off. Thankfully, Proper Football Man discourse on the subject of “real men” the game having been “gone” has been limited since the game ended.
Everton’s evening really did have it all, from Jordan Pickford’s Red Bull-infused intervention into the argument followed by a string of outstanding saves, through Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall’s excellent twenty-yard winning goal, to David Moyes admitting in his post-match interview that he liked his players almost getting into a punch-up on the pitch, and the standing ovation that Gueye received when he apologised after the match.
This is why football continues to rake in ever-increasing amounts of money while Hollywood is floundering. You’d say that “they couldn’t script it”, but the truth is that this particular evening probably could have been scripted, but it wouldn’t have withstood the weight of audiences having to suspend their disbelief in test screenings.
For Everton, this was the sort of evening that could kick-start something. They dug in - though, to his credit, David Moyes didn’t reorganise his team into some sort of ultra-defensive formation; he presumably understood that the Manchester United defence can be got at, even by a team playing a man short - grabbed the goal they needed, and let the home side come at them until they ran out of puff.
The more you looked at it all, the more there was to chuckle over. In true Everton style, this was the first time they’d won at Old Trafford since 2013, when the Manchester United manager was David Moyes. That particular year, of course, also happened to be the last time that Manchester United last won the Premier League.
On the pitch, Everton’s evening was defined by performances from two players. Jordan Pickford not only managed to break up the fight between Gueye and Keane, but also pulled off a string of excellent saves and fully deserved his 24 cans of Lemon Fanta after the match. He remains - bizarrely, considering that he’s got 81 England caps - a strangely underrated goalkeeper, though we all know that this is because he doesn’t play for A Big Club, just one that has a stadium holding *checks notes* 52,000 people.
And then there’s Jack Grealish. A happy Jack Grealish is a joy forever, and he put in a full-throated performance to help secure the win. Some players are just better suited to being bigger fishes in smaller ponds, and Grealish has clearly rediscovered some of the joie de vivre that blighted the end of his time with Manchester City. He won the Premier League three times, the Champions League, the FA Cup twice and the World Club Cup in four years, but he’s rediscovering the pure joy of playing football on Merseyside.
It’s probably little unfair to say that David Moyes’ post-match comments couldn’t have been more Glaswegian. After all, Teenage Fanclub and Belle & Sebastian are from Glasgow, and there’s no so fey as they. But the way his eyes sparkled as he expressed his delight at his players G’ing enough of AF to (kind of) come to blows was a pleasingly backward-looking end to the evening. Never stop being David Moyes, David Moyes.
The upshot of all this is that Spurs, Everton, Manchester United and Liverpool are now tied in the Premier League between 9th and 12th place on 18 points, which feels strangely appropriate, considering their seasons so far, although all four have got to this identical position by very different means. Spurs can’t win at home (and haven’t been brilliant away either, recently). Everton are stil capable of looking excellent one week and then terrible the next. Manchester United started well, improved, but are still clearly vulnerable. Liverpool started excellently but have tailed off dramatically.
Such is the nature of this freakish, bloated division that they all have hope and the possibility of disaster at the same time. They’re all seven points above the relegation places, although how long it might take any of the current bottom three to overturn a seven-point deficit is just about anybody’s guess, yet they all remain three points from a Champions League place.
If the Premier League really is the equivalent of a soap opera, then Monday night’s episode was the equivalent of Alan Bradleygetting sideways glanced by a Blackpool tram, albeit it with less fatal consequences. Yes, yes, yes, it’s gilded nonsense and half the owners of the clubs are pure, unadulterated evil. I understand all of that. But for so long as it continues to serve up utter nonsense like this, it probably will continue to scratch an itch that other football can’t quite manage.
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