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Thrashing Liverpool is still the highest form of pleasure here. However, big the cross-town rivalry with Manchester City and the battles with Chelsea, true happiness is sending the Scouse enemy back down the East Lancs Road with derision in his ears.
Beauty, fluency and end-to-end domination elude this Manchester United side but the wins keep rolling in: six in a row now in the Premier League, where Louis van Gaal’s arrival coincided with the club’s worst start to a league campaign since 1986. After 10 matches United were 10th in the table and Van Gaal described his mood as “lousy”. Since then they have risen without trace but are an increasingly good bet to stay in the Champions League qualifying places.
How? Why? David de Gea’s brilliant goalkeeping is one reason, together with Robin van Persie’s emergence from dormancy, Wayne Rooney’s dependable goalscoring and the restoration of tenacity to a team that turned soft last season. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, who knew how to beat a keeper, described De Gea’s performance as the best he had seen between the Old Trafford posts.
Peter Schmeichel and Edwin van der Sar might want to contest that but Solskjaer was right to eulogise. In the first half De Gea tormented Raheem Sterling one-on-one, standing up to Liverpool’s makeshift centre-forward in a style reminiscent of Manuel Neuer. After the interval he moved on to Mario Balotelli. Impregnability was assured with a glorious airborne save from the increasingly non-super Mario. Hit it low and De Gea blocks with his feet. Hit it high and he takes to his trampoline.
The return of the old fighting spirit was apparent in the narrow defeat at City, the win at Arsenal and this avenging of the 3-0 loss to Liverpool in March. How much gloss can be painted on top of the matt of this fantastically expensive United squad is not a pressing issue. Functional will do for now.
The Old Trafford chroniclers are keeping busy. Starting line-ups change with dizzying regularity; the defence is never the same and even Rooney, the captain, is moved around the side to suit Van Gaal’s “philosophy”. As injuries distort the picture, Michael Carrick is now a regular centre-back.
Not any old centre-back, but the central one, directing operations.
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To see Rooney start in central midfield was to wonder whether young James Wilson was ready to display world-beating qualities alongside Van Persie. He is not.
Van??Gaal’s method, he said, is to measure the “weaknesses of the opponent” alongside United’s own capabilities. “I needed more speed up [front], and Wilson has speed,” Van Gaal said. But it was Rooney who landed the first blow, after Antonio Valencia had nutmegged Joe Allen to supply him with the cross. “I have a staff who are always looking for ways to give pain to the opponent. You need luck but you can force the luck, and we are forcing the luck now,” Van Gaal said.
“We couldn’t say that at the start of the season. We have to see match by match. Of course we are winning six matches in a row, which is fantastic. But we have to improve our play style. Only after the matches against QPR and Hull City have I said: 'OK we’re dominating the game for 90 minutes.’?”
United’s victory at Southampton last Monday night suggested a sharp regression to the bumbling form that cost Moyes his job and left Van Gaal looking baffled. Though they left the south coast 2-1 to the good, the paucity of the display was masked by Van Persie’s finishing skill. United were lumpy and negligent in possession.
Here they had six shots on target to Liverpool’s nine, were handed a goal from an offside position (Juan Mata) and relied on a Dejan Lovren error for their third. They were the beneficiaries of Liverpool’s disarray, which has developed its own cruel momentum. The 21-point turnaround between the two clubs since March is the reverse of the superiority established by Brendan Rodgers’s team when Luis Suárez was still in town.
United, remarkably, are now only eight points off the lead. Nobody could call their play orchestral, but it has become relentless again. There may not be the old quality to this United squad but the depth is undeniable. Ander Herrera and Radamel Falcao are tidy second-half subs. And United were operating here without Marcos Rojo, Daley Blind and Ángel Di María. The good news is that those chosen are all busily trying to nail down a regular place, regardless of injury lists.
United needed this. They needed players to stop lurching across the deck in the storm expecting someone else to rescue them. Valencia and Ashley Young, in the wing-back positions, are among those who have upped their games.
Not that Van Gaal is using the transfer market to scare them. The air here is still vibrating with his anger after we in the media carried stories of Kevin Strootman, Mats Hummels and Diego Godin featuring on yet another shopping list. “I think it is disgusting always writing about numbers,” Van Gaal said. “It’s disrespectful to my players.”
There was bound to be friction between Van Gaal the demagogue and United the international brand. These encouraging wins take the heat out of any culture clash. Five days after Liverpool were knocked out of the Champions League, United knocked them into crisis mode. With a 3-0 win in the most loaded of derby games, Van Gaal’s men will cope without bouquets.
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