Ken Early: ‘Resurgent United’ narrative does not stand up to scrutiny

Few would have backed Ole Gunnar Solskjær to complete a league double over Pep Guardiola this season, or to win three out of four matches against Manchester City in all competitions. Yet here we are. The scenes when Ederson flung a wet ball across the field to Scott McTominay, only to see the United midfielder shoot unerringly into his unguarded net from 45 yards, were perhaps the biggest celebrations Old Trafford has seen since Solskjær took the job in December 2018.

They might even be the last celebrations in those stands for a while, since Premier League insiders have been admitting that it now looks more likely than not that league matches will soon be taking place behind closed doors. Already Serie A grounds are closed to spectators, as Italy wrestles with Europe's biggest outbreak of Covid-19, and there is little real confidence that this season's Italian championship can be completed. For now you can not only watch every ball that is kicked in Serie A, but you can hear it too, against the echoing backdrop of an empty stadium.

The 'resurgent United' narrative is complicated somewhat by the fact that their points performance compared with last season has declined even more steeply than City's

While the pitch of the United celebrations might have been new, what had preceded it was largely familiar. The match followed the same pattern as all of Solskjaer’s biggest wins, in that United started as outsiders, kept their shape while the opponent passed the ball in front of them, and raided on the counter. At the end the overall narrative was obvious: City are in decline and disarray, United resurgent as Solskjær’s new-look side takes shape.

City’s decline is indeed plain. They have 57 points from 28 matches, the same as they had in Guardiola’s first season, when he was still learning to drive the new team. That is 83 per cent of their total after 28 matches last season, when they had 68 points. The season before that, when they won the league with 100 points, their tally after 28 matches was 75.

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Muted method

This was the first time Guardiola had gone to Old Trafford in the league and failed to win. It is hard to escape the sense that his team is running out of road. With no chance of winning the league, they have struggled to produce the intensity that is such a crucial ingredient in their style of play. At Old Trafford each of the back six outfield players had more than 100 touches, yet City managed only four shots on target, none of which were really dangerous for David de Gea. Without the injured Kevin De Bruyne and with David Silva left on the bench, they lacked the element of unpredictability that turns possession into opportunity, and instead mechanically transferred the ball from side to side without threatening United's defence, applying the method that used to work without the ingenuity that once made it so effective.

The "resurgent United" narrative is complicated somewhat by the fact that their points performance compared with last season has declined even more steeply than City's. They have played 29 matches and have 45 points, or 77 per cent of their total after 29 matches last season, when they had 58. Remember, this included 17 matches under Jose Mourinho that produced only 26 points. That performance was bad enough to get Mourinho sacked in December, but if his points-per-game average over those 17 matches was extrapolated over 29 matches, it would give you 44 – one fewer point than Solskjaer's team has now. The last time United finished in the top four was 2017-2018, when they came second; that season their total from the first 29 matches was 62 points.

The struggle has been in the situation of static attack, where the opponent turns their own tactics against them by sitting back and playing on the counter

If United fans currently seem more optimistic than the points total might seem to warrant, much of that must be due to the impact made by the January signing of Bruno Fernandes, who was recently described by Solskjær as resembling "a cross between Paul Scholes and Juan Veron". Fernandes's quick thinking cracked City open for the first goal, as he scooped a free-kick through to Anthony Martial, who beat Ederson with a snapshot to the near post just as he had in the reverse fixture in December.

Strange comparison

Veron seemed a strange comparison for Solskjær to make, since he came to be regarded as an expensive flop, but presumably the coach was referring to a shared quality on the ball, rather than some similarity of character or temperament. If Fernandes is already looking more likely to succeed than Veron, perhaps it has to do with the dynamics of the team he is coming into. Veron had to integrate with a midfield unit made up of established, title-winning players who were not especially interested in changing their way of doing things to accommodate his style of play. Fernandes finds an uncertain group in need of the sort of leadership he provided as captain of Sporting Lisbon, and he has risen to the challenge.

Yet one player, however dynamic and intelligent, can hardly be expected to turn things around by himself. The true source of United’s current ebullient mood is to have spent so long being so mediocre that a return to reasonable form feels like a renaissance. There is still no real sign of a new footballing identity emerging that could make United competitive with the best teams again. They have shown for more than a year that they are capable of defending in numbers and attacking with pace.

The struggle has been in the situation of static attack, where the opponent turns their own tactics against them by sitting back and playing on the counter. Their failure to figure out this situation, which confronts them in the majority of their league games, explains why they have won only 12 times in 29 matches. Multiple victories against Guardiola and Frank Lampard will help Solskjær keep his job – but the results in the other matches will determine whether his team ultimately goes anywhere.