UK Edition
Manchester United 2 Huddersfield 0: No muzzling Alexis Sanchez as team-mates are brought to heel
There were moments on his Old Trafford debut when Alexis Sanchez looked every bit as impatient with his team-mates as he had done during the bleakest times at Arsenal, and it is this restlessness of spirit that might just breathe some life into Jose Mourinho’s team when they need it the most.
After United’s Wembley mauling at the hands of Tottenham Hotspur, Sanchez scored his first goal for his new club, helped make the other for Romelu Lukaku and generally contributed an afternoon’s work worthy of the highest-paid player in the league. He suffers no fools, and he was resistant to some of the heavier challenges from Huddersfield Town as he probed and scurried around their defensive positions.
It is difficult to judge United when they were up against a team that did not have a single attempt on David De Gea’s goal and have now slipped into the bottom three of the division, although the corresponding fixture in October was one of United’s worst defeats of the season. Mourinho dropped Paul Pogba for this game, a decision which he was reluctant to connect with the midfielder’s mediocrity at Wembley, and if it was a punishment it only lasted as long as the second half when the Frenchman came on.
Afterwards, Mourinho tried to soften the blow to Pogba by talking up the suitability of his replacement, Scott McTominay, and while the academy boy did have a very solid performance it was hard to ignore the message being sent to the club’s £90 million man. “I changed a few players and the intention was not to punish anyone,” Mourinho said. “Because to punish anyone I also need someone to punish me... we are a team and when we win, we win together. When we lose, we lose together.
“I made a few changes thinking about the characteristics of this game and I think this kid has a great desire to recover the ball when the team is not in possession.”
In a moment of classic Mourinho sentimentality, he reflected on the story of McTominay and “the beautiful way a little kid who arrived here with his mum at nine years old for the first training session, 10 or 11 years later the kid is playing in a Manchester United shirt.” Then the United manager took aim at the home fans.
Asked to explain a throwaway comment about Old Trafford being a “quiet stadium”, Mourinho made a surprise comparison with the Fratton Park he once knew. “It [Old Trafford] is not Portsmouth,” he said. “I remember Portsmouth when I was in Premier League and such a small stadium. The atmosphere was absolutely incredible and here the atmosphere is a bit quiet and there is not very, very enthusiastic [sic] but the players like to play at home.”
This was the day that United marked the 60th anniversary of the Munich air disaster, which falls on Tuesday, and two survivors, Sir Bobby Charlton and Harry Gregg, were both at Old Trafford. Arguably not the best moment for supporters to unfurl a “Welcome to Manchester” banner in homage to Sanchez and his two pet dogs in the East Stand, presumably intended to be at the expense of Arsenal who had something similar at the Emirates. It was promptly removed by the stewards.
For David Wagner, this was a difficult day in which his side held out until half-time but were then opened up down the left when Sanchez won the ball for the move that led to Lukaku’s opening goal. Nemanja Matic played it into Juan Mata in the left channel, and his cross was met first time by United’s Belgian centre-forward, making this a fifth straight league defeat for the visitors.
“I don’t like it that we are now in the bottom three but, to be totally honest, it makes it easier,” Wagner said. “We are the ones chasing the others. We don’t have to look over our shoulders. We knew these games against Liverpool and Manchester United would be difficult. Now there are fixtures ahead of us at home where we must create the atmosphere to fight and survive.”
He was asked about a first-half moment in which winger Rajiv van La Parra went down, presumed injured, only to leap to his feet when the ball came his way. Naturally it went down badly with the home crowd and Wagner said he could see their point. “They [the players] are human and they make mistakes,” he said.
For United, it was two points gained on Manchester City, their lead at the top of the league reduced to a mere 13 points and it was rough going for a while in the first half. Wagner had to replace Philip Billing after half an hour but not before he had clattered his way through a couple of challenges and into the book. Earlier, Terence Kongolo had come in hard to win a header against McTominay, and put the United man on his back without doing any lasting damage.
In the second half on came Michael Hefele who was promptly booked and then gave away the penalty. Sanchez was too quick for the German defender on 68 minutes, drawing the foul with his movement. Jonas Lossl did well to block the penalty but pushed it back into the area and Sanchez finished.
Mourinho later said that Marouane Fellaini could be back by the end of March after “a small [surgical] intervention in his external meniscus [ligament]”. As for Sanchez, he said the Chilean was more than capable of taking the rough challenges. “He is a humble guy who doesn't forget where he started and when he was playing in Chile he had difficult places to play and difficult opponents.”
Certainly Old Trafford held no concerns for Sanchez, and it will be the demands he makes of his team-mates, as well as his own performance, that will have an immediate effect.
37 min
Sanchez is gesticulating at both Mata and Lingard, the first for passing to the last instead of him having spotted Lingard's run beyond Zanka. Lossl has to come out and leaves his goal empty but manages to catch Lingard's attempted chip from too acute an angle. Sanchez was screaming for the pull back.
32 min
Depoitre falls heavily when fouled by Rojo as they went for a header. Huddersfield move it from right to left and back into the box but United clear and they make a sharp break. Sanchez runs with it through the centre-circle and accelerates. Van La Parra sticks with him and muscles him off the ball.
20 min
United should have a penalty - Kongolo clears out McTominay in an aerial challenge, hitting him midair off the ball and knocking the stuffing out of him. He went down like the proverbial sack of spuds. He passes the concussion protocol and is allowed to continue. The referee restarts with a bounce-up. Odd decision, that. Odd being a euphemism for garbage.
Good afternoon
Tuesday marks 60 years since Feb 6 1958, when the second and greatest of three Manchester United teams built by Matt Busby were flying home from their 3-3 draw with Red Star Belgrade in the European Cup quarter-final second leg, a result that put them through to the semi-finals with a 5-4 aggregate victory.
They had stopped to refuel in Munich and made two attempts to take off that were abandoned due to problems with the left engine. Despite snowfall, the captain decided to make a third attempt, hit slush on the runway and the plane crashed through a fence and hit a house.
It was the darkest day in the club’s history and in the 73 years of the English professional game. Seven Manchester United players were killed at the scene – Roger Byrne, Eddie Colman, Mark Jones, Billy Whelan, David Pegg, Geoff Bent and Tommy Taylor while the magnificent Duncan Edwards died of his injuries 15 days later.
Three members of the United staff – Walter Crickmer, Tom Curry and Bert Whalley were mortally wounded and eight journalists travelling with the team – Henry Rose, Donny Davies, Tom Jackson, Archie Ledbrooke, Eric Thompson, George Follows, Alf Clarke and the former England and Manchester City goalkeeper turned News of the World correspondent Frank Swift – lost their lives along with the Manchester United fan Willie Satinoff, travel agent Bela Miklos and two members of the aircraft’s crew, Ken Rayment and Tom Cable. In addition two players, Jackie Blanchflower and Johnny Berry were so badly injured they never played again
The outpouring of grief in a far less tribal age was universal. Thousands of people attended memorials to the Busby Babes, youthful, vibrant, fearless players who appeared both to have the world at their feet and their feet on the ground. They had won the league in 1956 and 1957 playing a brand of athletic, attacking football that remains an imperishable memory for all who were fortunate enough to see a team bristling with vitality and potential and the incomparably powerful Edwards, the swerving and swivelling runs of Eddie ‘Snakehips’ Colman, the lethal finishing of Tommy Taylor and the quick, graceful Roger Byrne.
Jimmy Murphy, the man who nurtured them for Busby, summed up the duty of the survivors best: "I know those lads better than anyone. I found them. I nurtured them. I was there with them every morning, noon and night, piss and rain and gales and snow. They let me mould their lives from the ground up. They repaid me, they repaid this club with their skill, their passion and now their lives. It's not about honouring their memory. It's about showing who we are to the world. Showing we'll not be bowed by tragedy. Because how we are in the future will be founded on how we behave today."
Manchester United survived, eventually recovered and prospered but there remains a sorrow at the heart of the club that drives those who love it to pay justice to the eternally poignant memory of their beloved lost lads.
Far more prosaically today also marks Huddersfield Town's first visit to Old Trafford since 1972, halcyon days of Joe Gormley, Reginald Maudling, Barry Foster as Piet van der Valk and Frank O'Farrell and Ian Greaves in adjoining dugouts. United won the match 2-0 with goals from E for B and Georgie Best and old double banger himself, Ian Storey- Moore.
It's 88 years since Town won their only league game at Old Trafford, a 6-0 thrashing in 1930, four years after the third of their hat-trick of titles for which they will wear the stars on their shirts today. What does this tell us about the prospects of an away victory today? Nish, I'm afraid but then Town's objective prospects, despite winning the home meeting back in October when riding high, high, high.
Three draws and four defeats since their last win - over Watford in mid-December - have greased their plummet down to 17th, a point and a place off the bottom three, and their performances against Liverpool and West Ham were worryingly passive and one-paced at times. There's a compelling argument to be made for ditching the 5-3-2 they used against Liverpool and opting not for their default 4-2-3-1 but going for a 4-4-2, sticking Tom Ince in the XI and telling him to run at United's full-backs.
As for Manchester United, whose results have pardoned the performances until the wheels came off at Wembley and Phil Jones, after an impressive run of form, did what Phil Jones usually does after an impressive run of form and had a stinker, a convincing performance is required today.
Having signed Alexis Sanchez and started him on the left against Spurs, wouldn't it make more sense to stick him on the right in a 4-3-3 so they could [a] use Anthony Martial or Marcus Rashford in their optimum positions and [b] stop wasting Paul Pogba. He was magnificent against Everton in a more advanced role and this square peg-round hole nonsense of Mourinho's is never going to be as effective as playing him in his proper position. Time to compromise. You should read JJ Bull for more analysis:
We'll have team news from 2pm. We know Denis Law will be there to see two clubs he loves, the one that nurtured him and the one that gave him a stage for his magnificence to shine, but I hope Arnie Sidebottom who served both with less distinction but equal dedication is there, too. "C'mon, Arn!"