LAST AUGUST, MANCHESTER UNITED played host to Chelsea in their second league game of the season. Buoyed by their opening-day 4-1 win over Swansea and faced with a side still very much in transition following Jose Mourinho’s return as manager, United received another boost when the teams were announced. Despite having Fernando Torres and Romelu Lukaku in the match-day squad, Mourinho decided against playing either and selected Andre Schurrle, a winger, up-front instead. Chelsea’s aim was to contain. For United and their new manager David Moyes, it was an opportunity to make a statement.
And they did – just not in the way many expected. Because for Moyes, it was about restraint too. He felt a point at home to Chelsea was a positive result. But given the circumstances, it wasn’t. The assignment was an early chance for him to put a marker down. With the home supporters watching on, what a feeling it would’ve been to knock Mourinho (the man many wanted to succeed Sir Alex Ferguson) from his lofty perch. And an impressive result against a high-calibre team would inevitably have instilled plenty of positivity in the dressing-room, the players buying into the new man’s philosophies, quirks and idiosyncrasies.
Of course, many will point to other results having proved the eventual death knell for Moyes and it’s fair to assume United’s top brass weren’t overly concerned by a scoreless draw with Chelsea early in the season. But the biggest pattern to Moyes’ tenure was United’s meekness when faced with quality opposition. The 4-1 derby-day demolition, a 3-1 loss to Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, the 3-0 defeats to Liverpool and Manchester City. In each game there was a lack of desire, spirit, determination and belief. With every tame run-out, another sliver of confidence fell away.
Much has been made of the money that Moyes’ successor, Louis van Gaal, has lavished on summer acquisitions. Certainly for purists everywhere, there was a sense of melancholy when club products like Danny Welbeck and Tom Cleverley were shown the exit door and high-profile raconteurs like Angel Di Maria and Falcao arrived in their places. Many spoke of how the club’s identity was being ripped apart. Yet, against Chelsea on Sunday, the side played with a camaraderie not seen on Sir Matt Busby Way for well over a year.
There seemed a common goal. When Van Persie popped up with a last-gasp equaliser, the players – essentially a band of strangers – lost themselves in the moment. Marouane Fellani, a much-maligned figure up until a goal-scoring substitute’s appearance against West Brom two weeks ago, wrapped himself around the Dutchman as he fell to the ground. There was Marcos Rojo – an Argentine making his sixth appearance for the team, who enveloped Van Persie too. James Wilson, the latest callow teenager to emerge from the United supply-line, was there and so too Luke Shaw and Daley Blind – another pair of summer arrivals. Afterwards, Shaw spoke proudly of the rousing and passionate finale.
It’s a feeling I’ve never felt before. The whole crowd got up and you saw how much it meant to all of us. We all jumped on each other. It was crazy, the fans, the stadium sort of erupted. It was a great feeling and I was proud to be involved in that. We spoke in the dressing room and we knew we could have got three points with the chances we had and maybe we could have done a bit better on their goal.”
There are those that will look at United’s points tally and subsequently ponder whether Van Gaal’s side is any different to what went before. At the same interval last term, the club had fourteen points from nine games. Right now, they’ve got thirteen. Certainly, United have offered up poor performances (most notably against Leicester) but they’ve shown plenty of character at various stages. Against West Brom, they were bullied from the off and deserved little from the game. However, they grabbed an unlikely point. Against Everton, they dug deep at 1-1 and Falcao popped up with the winner. After Wayne Rooney’s straight red card against West Ham, they found it immensely tough to increase the tempo and the Hammers could have easily sneaked an equaliser.
Some will dismiss such things as trivial. They will argue that a win over West Ham and a draw with West Brom shouldn’t be celebrated but expected. But they are small victories. And for a team in the midst of enormous transition, the minor moments count for something.
But there are also the big moments and the rescued point against Chelsea counts as a substantial step in the right direction. Van Gaal won the tactical battle and United should have been in front at half-time. They easily created openings and, comparatively, peppered the Chelsea goal. On average, Mourinho’s side concede 11 shots per game. United managed 19 with 7 hitting the target.
There may be a genuine perception that United merely frustrated Chelsea and, to a certain extent, that’s correct. But they offered much more offensively than their opponents and took the game to them from the off. Within a few minutes of kick-off, there was a frenzied attack where Van Persie and Fellaini had half-chances in the area before Di Maria cracked a volley narrowly over the bar. The full-backs, particularly Luke Shaw, pushed forward and offered plenty of purpose. At the same time, they shut out Cesc Fabregas and greatly reduced the threat posed by other notable Chelsea attackers by keeping their shape well, not making sloppy defensive slips and offering up a sense of collective cohesion, a togetherness that’s been noticeably absent from the vast majority of United’s performances over the last twelve months.
From a United perspective, maybe the brightest moment came in the immediate aftermath of the game. Louis van Gaal outlined how his players weren’t jubilantly celebrating a point in the dressing-room. Instead, they had spoken of how the game had been there for the taking and how they had failed to capitalise on an impressive display.
Van Gaal will know that the numbers paint an unflattering picture. 13 points from 9 games is a long way from where he wanted to be. But, with an entirely new bunch of players feeling their way around a new club and a new atmosphere, it was always going to take some time.
Sunday had the air of a turning point about it. Players played with chests out and heads up. They relished the battle. But there will be many more to come before the war is won.
