Awin secured late against a struggling side, in a game blighted by a series of baffling refereeing decisions that afflicted both sides. A performance that was often slow and disjointed. The gap to the top still 13 surely insurmountable points. If this was the start of an upsurge, it was a low-key, unconvincing one but Manchester United’s victory over Crystal Palace at least confirmed a level of tenacity and fight. It wasn’t another draw – and there have been six of them in the past 10 weeks – and it meant United have won consecutive Premier League games for the first time since August. And United, to take the most positive conceivable interpretation, are now on a run of just one defeat in 11 league games.
United managers can measure out their lives in Palace games. It was a 5-0 defeat at Crystal Palace that marked the end for Frank O’Farrell in 1972 – and so the beginning for Tommy Docherty, who was in the crowd that day in his capacity as Scotland manager. It was against Palace that Alex Ferguson marked his nadir as United manager, in December 1989, with a 2-1 defeat during which the famous banner bemoaning “three years of excuses and we’re still crap – Ta-ra Fergie” was unveiled, and against Palace the following May that he began the process of rebuilding United with victory in the FA Cup final.
Last season, the FA Cup having ceased to be something that could save a faltering career, it was with another final victory over Palace that marked Louis van Gaal’s farewell. And, to stretch a point slightly, it was at Crystal Palace that Ernest Mangnall confirmed his greatness by leading United to their first FA Cup final success at the now national sports centre against Bristol City in 1909.
It’s unlikely Wednesday’s game will have quite the same resonance but after so many games in which United have been the better side and drawn, it did at least perhaps mark a change of fortune for José Mourinho. There was even a sense of a return to form from him after striking so many duff notes in recent weeks. “When a rich guy who has already had a phenomenal career wants holidays, he doesn’t come to play in England,” he said. “It’s the most difficult league in the world, so if you come here you want to show what you can do.”
Ostensibly he was speaking of Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who had scored the winner, but his words were surely equally directed at Pep Guardiola, arrived as he is from Germany where, as Mourinho put it after wrapping up the title with Chelsea in 2015 – with a win over Palace – “a kitman could win the league”.
Managing United is not easy. They may be the most successful club in English league history but their story is one of repeated failure broken by three exceptional managers – Mangnall, Matt Busby and Ferguson. It’s not merely a quirk that Manchester City (four league titles) have won the league under more different managers than United (20 league titles); it’s evidence of how rare it is that the chemistry is right and the manager fits effectively with the players and the circumstances, even in the modern age when football’s finances are so rigidly stratified that, barring Leicester-style miracles, success is limited to a tiny handful of clubs.
Mourinho’s start has not been particularly impressive but there are faint signs of something slowly building. There has been weird inconsistency of selection and message, players frozen out and suddenly rehabilitated, a sense that the outrages by which Mourinho used to control the narrative have become stale and ineffective. But he has restored a measure of solidity, creating a workable defensive unit out of improbable ingredients – even if Marcos Rojo has embarked on a one-man crusade to re-legitimise the two-foot tackle. The re-introduction of Michael Carrick has given a measure of control in midfield: the 12 games in which he has played this season have yielded 10 wins and two draws.
But that’s when the absurdity of the situation becomes apparent. This is Manchester United, likely to be listed as the wealthiest club in the world when the Deloitte list is released next month. They broke the world transfer record for Paul Pogba in the summer. And yet they’re in a position in which they’re reliant on two 35-year-olds to bring them victory against a Palace side who had lost six of their previous eight games.
The club seem, unofficially at least, to have backed up the claim that they will take two more transfer windows to put right a squad on which a fortune has been spent over the past three years with little sense of coherence. While the accusation that he may be better served working with what he has rather than ostracising then rehabilitating a series of players has some validity, it’s also true that the sluggishness of United’s play is down in part to the incoherence of the squad Mourinho inherited.
Nobody could pretend United played well at Selhurst Park. Nobody could say this is the beginning of United’s new age. But at last perhaps there are glimmers and, amid the frustration, the side are taking on certain Mourinho characteristics.
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