If this feels like vindication for Manchester United, it shouldn't. The sort of unforgettable European night you could have been forgiven for thinking might be a long time in coming for this listing club, certainly. A fresh start to a season that seemed on the brink, perhaps. And yet everything else does not go out of the window just because this team made Old Trafford roar again in a thrilling comeback to beat Roma 3-2.
A modicum of the commitment, energy and application they showed in the second half and United would never have been in the hole they found themselves in in the first. It turned out that when United do not just throw in the towel on the concession of a goal, there's still a decent football team lurking in there. More significantly than that, there are players who are still committed to the cause and perhaps to the manager. It surprised many that Michael Carrick got the backing of those above him after the defeat to Bournemouth nine days ago. This was as clear an indication as any that his players share his commitment to the cause, the belief he articulated on Monday.
Carrick might, however, ask where exactly this had been on the many occasions adversity came United's way in the last month. Why has everyone not been playing with the ferocity that Matheus Cunha used to carry this team back from the brink? The Brazilian was so exceptional you could forgive the overexuberance of a late red card. It was the same quality that saw him force the penalty through which the petulant Bruno Fernandes halved the deficit. The equalizer was afforded to Cunha when Leonardo Balerdi cleared fresh air. The winner only required a helping hand from Shea Lacey, Cunha taking the ball to a narrow angle and rocketing in a goal that seemed unimaginable when the hosts were being booed to the dressing room at the interval.
Old Trafford had been electrified. It hadn't taken much, that penalty where Fernandes was lucky to get a second chance after a questionable encroachment call. When Bryan Mbeumo clipped both posts, it sounded like the wobbly roof might come off. All it had taken was a few minutes of intensity and a browbeaten crowd roared again. Hope can now spring at a ground that really wants to believe that Carrick can get this right.
And yet whether he can will remain in doubt when so many of his players can fail to execute a game plan for so long, as they did in defeat at Como last month. That much was apparent for Roma's first goal. It was evidently part of Carrick's tactical plan to get Diogo Dalot high up the field early in the move to apply pressure to the right wing back. Risky, given the threat Matias Soule posed at the other end, but a perfectly valid approach. What would be required is some willingness on the part of others to plug gaps if Roma turned the ball over at the right moment.
Make no mistake, Dalot, stood with gray shirts between him and the ball, was not really making himself available for the pass. When Roma turned the ball over, however, the left back did blitz it back into position. There was just no way for him to get back in time. For Fernandes, perhaps there were gaps he could plug. Kobbie Mainoo too could have got in position. Instead, the right half of the penalty area was wide open for Soule to collect a pass from Rodrigo Mora and drive past Senne Lammens.
This is the sort of goal that, once you have conceded once, you ought never to again. Strictly speaking, United didn't; it is just that the penalty they conceded five minutes later again came because no one was filling the space vacated by Dalot. This time Soule tried to turn provider before getting the ball back off a lackadaisical Harry Maguire clearance. His shot deflected off Ayden Heaven's arm, Donyell Malen doubling the lead from the penalty spot.
The 28 minutes that followed were perhaps even more troubling. The legends of this football club are forged in fighting spirit on European nights, and yet defeat seemed to be accepted. United did not manage to take a shot in the penalty area in the first half. Amad Diallo seemed to be the only man who could get the ball into those dangerous areas. Meanwhile Fernandes carped at Carlos Baleba over a pass he didn't like. Baleba gave it back too. United looked to be on the brink.
It speaks favorably of Carrick that he turned it around not through any obvious tactical adjustments but through getting his side to move the ball with a little more intensity. They delivered it, and at the club that Sir Alex Ferguson built, there will always be a belief that a manager can come back from the brink to reach footballing immortality.
And yet the common thread of recent weeks is not that United can be as good as they were in the second half but that they can consistently plumb the depths they hit in the first. It only takes Morgan Rogers running in a straight line, Nico Paz finding space or Leny Yoro slipping to begin a chain reaction of mental anguish. On the evidence of tonight, those momentary crises were never intractable. Doesn't that make it all the more infuriating that United players were the first to call it quits?
