Scorelines can be misleading. This one wasn’t. Man of the Match awards can be misleading too. This one was.
The result told the dismal story as Red Monday became Dead Monday. Behind us in the posh seats in Anfield’s redeveloped Main Stand, a father and son yawned as the clock ran down. School will be more exciting than this.
As for the Man of the Match, in these pages at least that went to David de Gea, the Manchester United goalkeeper. Do not let that fool you, though. Do not think the Spaniard was some kind of comic book hero, repelling waves of Liverpool attacks in front of the Kop.
No, it wasn’t like that. It wasn’t like that at all. De Gea just showed himself to be the best of a very bad bunch. He was only asked to make three saves all night while at the other end Liverpool’s Loris Karius was not required to make a single one of note.
It just so happens that the two De Gea made in the second half were exceptional. So for that he gets the vote here at the end of a game that promised to deliver so much but actually gave us nothing at all.
What – if anything – did we learn from this? Apart from the fact that other channels on TV are available.
Well, we perhaps know not to make assumptions about Jose Mourinho. But we knew that already.
The Manchester United manager came to Anfield on a hiding to nothing, according to some hysterical preliminaries. This was supposed to the night when his stale, unimaginative football was to be eased in to the shadows by Jurgen Klopp’s energetic, dynamic Liverpool team.
That it didn’t happen should surprise nobody who knows anything at all about him. Mourinho has achieved too much in his gilded career, has poured too much in to his life’s work, to submit to popular whim.
As such, he will have emerged from this night the happier man. Maybe the moral victory was his on an evening when Liverpool appeared almost unrecognisable for the first hour and only slightly better thereafter.
What was beyond dispute, however, was the lamentable quality of this game. Liverpool finally came to life late on, raising the volume at last. United, for their part, were the better side before the interval.
There was no cut and thrust, though. No punch and counter-punch. The edge of the seat remained untouched. This is was just a poor game of football.
And so to De Gea. His was, on reflection, the defining contribution so we may as well start and end there.
Before half-time, the Spaniard - not always at his imperious best recently – had been reduced to spectator status. United were reasonably positive and did not retreat or spoil. Liverpool merely malfunctioned as first touches turned in to tackles and passes missed their mark by feet not fractions. It was very strange indeed.
But eventually, after United failed to translate possession in to chances, Liverpool did find a way in to the game and when that happened Mourinho needed his goalkeeper.
His first piece of excellence came in the 59th minute. Seconds earlier Liverpool had made such a hash of a free-kick routine that it was tempting to wonder if Klopp had forgotten to reintroduce his players to each other after the international break.
But from nowhere the German midfielder Emre Can suddenly found himself in a yard of space in the penalty area and the door to goal opened just a fraction.
In truth, the ball was stuck under his feet a little and it was this that prevented the 22-year-old from generating the power he would have wished in his left foot shoot.
Still, it was struck firmly and accurately enough to promote screams to the throats of Liverpool supporters only for De Gea to drop low to his right and present a hand just strong enough to divert the ball away safely.
It was typical De Gea in many ways. It spoke of his alertness and his agility and, more importantly, his ability to produce his very best just when it matters.
Better was to come, too. As Liverpool found some initiative following the introduction of Adam Lallana and the promotion of Roberto Firmino to centre forward, United began to feel consistently threatened for the first time.
On the fringes of that improvement was Philippe Coutinho and the Brazilian must have thought he was about to win the game with less than 20 minutes left. His shot from 25 yards was perfectly struck, curling back from beyond De Gea’s left post towards the corner. But once again De Gea was the shot’s equal and with that save, plus a superb late tackle from Antonio Valencia on the breaking Firmino, United’s point was assured.
Given the anxiety felt by so many associated with Old Trafford before this game, a draw was satisfactory. United had come here with their honour on the line and they went home having sustained no further damage to confidence or reputation. With games against Chelsea and Manchester City up ahead, that was important.
But what can we make of a game between these teams that featured so few goal bound efforts by the home team and not a single one from the opposition?
This was the first scoreless draw between these clubs since 1991. At least back then, not as many people would have been tuning in to watch it.
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment