FIVE ASIDES
Champions League
United 3, Roma 2 Were you watching when United hit rock bottom? To be fair, there have been a few of these to choose from lately, but the rockiest of them all (so far) surely came in the 57th minute against Roma. United had been two goals down for ages and they had just lost Carlos Baleba to injury. Their crisis had gone from bad to worse. Suddenly they were thrown a lifebelt by the VAR as Matheus Cunha won a penalty that was not overturned, even though replays suggested he had tripped himself up. The camera zoomed in on Bruno Fernandes, looking anxious. The penalty he proceeded to take was so feeble that even a novice goalie could paw it away. You see better pens in the Carabao Cup, taken by teams like Grimsby and Fleetwood. But then, a second lifebelt arrived, in the form of ‘encroachment’. Like a student who only knuckles down for retakes, Fernandes took the second pen properly, treating it as a free kick and blasting it into the roof of the net. Not even an experienced goalie would have saved it. We need a new chant: Glory, Glory from Encroachment.
That moment turned the tide. Bryan Mbeumo, who had been sluggish again, came to life, hitting both posts with the same shot. In the first half United had had five attempts, all from outside the box. Now they had four inside it in the space of four minutes: Diogo Dalot (shot, wide), Amad (shot, blocked), Harry Maguire (header, blocked), Dalot again (header, saved off the line). Roma regrouped, but didn’t threaten. They took not a single shot in the whole second half. They had memories to haunt them: they had been two goals up and lost just the other day, to Real Madrid, and their manager, Gian Piero Gasperini, had led 2-0 at Old Trafford and lost with his previous club, Atalanta. Mind you, so had Michael Carrick’s United, against Brighton in September. And for all their new-found dominance, they still went 25 minutes without finding an equaliser.
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Carrick removed Amad, who hadn’t scored for United this year, and sent on Shea Lacey, who had. Greeted by a roar of approval. Lacey repaid it by being everything Old Trafford wants to see in a winger, young, home-grown, fearless and influential. Meanwhile Fernandes was almost back to his best, making things happen, reeling off the key passes (six in the match, four more than the next United man, Cunha). When Fernandes curled in a cross, it brought another stroke of luck. Leonardo Balerdi, the only centre-back Gasperini hadn’t taken off, messed up a simple clearance. Cunha, who was where Benjamin Sesko would have been, kept calm and found the corner. It was a poacher’s goal, which, for United this season, is a collector’s item. Three minutes later Lacey took a lovely touch and fizzed a square ball into Cunha, who also took a great touch before slamming a shot inside the near post. After scoring just three goals in six games, United had managed three in half an hour.
Cunha is every inch a United player, for good or ill. He sometimes fails to track back, like Marcus Rashford. He sometimes waves his arms to tell off a team-mate, like Fernandes. He sometimes waves his arms to whip up the crowd, like Casemiro. He sometimes shoots when he ought to pass, like Cristiano Ronaldo. He goes through lean spells, like any forward you care to mention. He can be brainless picking up a card, like Lisandro Martinez – two of them in five minutes last night – but he plays for the shirt, even if he can be an idiot tearing it off. He has verve and presence and a sense of drama, like Eric Cantona. After getting one goal here, he seemed to see it as his destiny to get another. The only other time a United player has scored twice this season was when Fernandes grabbed a hat-trick against Ipswich. Last night, the occasion was much bigger, the pressure infinitely greater, and Cunha delivered. As Carrick said afterwards, ‘Matheus can do them things.’
Carrick himself did well in his usual quiet way. He started Kobbie Mainoo, who almost guarantees a decent result, kept faith with him when he made an early blunder and reaped the rewards later. He persisted with Leny Yoro at right-back, and Yoro was the only United defender not to let anyone dribble past him. At half-time, when most managers would have sent on a sub if only for show, Carrick decided that as United had improved a bit, they required just one small adjustment. He swapped Mbeumo, who had been toothless as the makeshift centre-forward, with Cunha, who had been just as disappointing there earlier in the season. When Baleba limped off, Carrick sent on Youri Tielemans, who was excellent in a Carrickish way, misplacing only one of his 26 passes. And when United’s dominance didn’t yield a second goal, Carrick sent on Lacey, who got his first senior assist just when it was most needed. Surely, now, he has to be given more minutes.
Tim de Lisle is the editor of United Writing, a sportswriter for The Guardian and a pop critic on Substack. He’s been supporting United since long before they beat Roma 7-1.
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