Gutted & Gobsmacked

Go ahead and repeat after me: “It’s only a game. It’s only a game. It’s only a game.”

Yeah, right. Doesn’t help, does it.

You can’t turn your allegiance on and off like a switch once you’ve been bitten, even in the heart of North America.

Sure, you avoid the constant replay of City goals. Sure, you avoid all the newspaper headlines and water cooler talk lingering into the week, with the local Vikings-Packers rivalry surly to dominate sports discussions on Monday.

But, you can’t escape the worst, I repeat, worst home loss in eighty-plus years. You can’t escape the poor will shown by the Red Devils in this match. You can’t escape that all this happened with the friggin’ money grabbers – um, err – Glazers in attendance to underline a nagging problem – hope the Bears maul the Bucs.

United’s annual debt payments were on full display today, as the missing, world-class midfielders – one creative, one iron fox – cost oodles of dosh. This United club cannot afford to take a £35M roll of the dice, plus hugely inflated wages, on anyone over 25 years of age, unlike City.

It’s also what’s missing at the moment.

We all know Ferguson’s been brilliant at deflecting the real cost of the American’s ownership, until today, where it laid bare naked on the Old Trafford turf.

Ah, but I digress – back to the match at hand.

There’s absolutely zero shame losing to this City squad, which arguably is deeper and stronger than the Red Devils at this moment. The manner of the loss, on the other hand, is something else entirely.

Never-ever give up, should be the motto of any player donning the beloved Red shirt. Unfortunately today, several players did just that.

Patrice Evra showed no ability to rally the squad let alone defend his own flank, no thanks to Rio, a former captain as well, who played his worst game ever for United and justified the Chicago Fire transfer rumor.

We’ve learned in crystal clear, high-def if you can defend wide play, you can bottle this Sir Alex Ferguson side. No central can opener exists.

It’s so difficult to admit, but Mancini, not Fergie, got his tactics spot-on today, relying on Ya-Ya Toure on the right wing – sometimes – and trusting Agüero, Balotelli, and Silva to weave magic menace.

City possessed the edge, not the Reds, attacking effectively with as few as four players.

There’s no doubting now that Red’s defense hath become a weakness, with a revolving door not helping this unit develop anything close to cohesiveness. Add Jonny Evan’s 3-match ban only serving to make the short term even worse.

You could argue that the backline players are too young or too injured. The alchemy is wrong at the moment, as conceding the most shots in the Premier League pointed to real difficulty, not an over-inflated statistic by hopeful shots from distance.

We can take solace from knowing there’s nobody on the planet better at rallying his side than Ferguson.

But this match was in October, at home, and some players actually quit – a historically horrible result, in fact. Something else entirely is troubling my soul now.

Who in this squad will lead things from within the player-ranks?

Only Rooney and Fletcher seemed incensed at the effort and ballooning score. I almost expect someone else to get sent off wearing red, by taking serious aggression to the blues trying to inspire matters. None of that occurred. No capital-H “Hard” tackles. No spit and fury, but simply a look of embarrassed, empty faces.

C’mon lads, Robbo, Keane or Neville are not going to walk-in this locker room anytime soon. You need to figure it out yourselves.

You sense Rooney could be become that player, but you also feel it’s not exactly his time yet, with his flirtations away from Old Trafford lingering with players that lived through that soap opera.

For now, the squad can turn to Sir Alex’s leadership, which was on display immediately after the match.

After admitting it was his “worst ever” loss, he focused the attention elsewhere.

"We'll come back. By January we'll be okay. We usually get the show on the road in the second half of the season and that will have to be the case. We've played all the teams around us and they have all to play each other so the second half of the season is important to us now.

We will react, no question about that. It's a perfect result for us to react to because there is a lot of embarrassment in the dressing room and that will make an impact."

Hope so. Otherwise it could become a long season.

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Back at you after the Everton match. Cheers.