Sir Alex Ferguson replaces Paul Scholes with Ryan Giggs at
Stamford Bridge. Photograph: Tom Jenkins for the Guardian
While Manchester City spent, Chelsea regressed and Arsenal's
bright future finally threatened to show up, Manchester United were winning this
Premier League title race without fanfare. In a rebuilding phase
themselves, they relied on old organisational wisdom and defensive
strength to exploit the weaknesses of their pursuers.
Sir Alex Ferguson has won championships with spectacular
attacking football. He was winning this one without the same
artistry in midfield and with Wayne Rooney becalmed. All the while
his team remained unbeaten there was a sense of unstoppability
about the club's quest for a 19th title — one more than Liverpool,
whom United face at Anfield on Sunday.
The Inexorables are no more. United have been beaten twice in
four league games but enter familiar territory. To run away with
the prize is no longer a hope. Now they must hold what they have.
The invincibility went with a 2-1 loss at Wolves. Then the Chelsea
hoodoo struck again. It would be absurd to suggest Ferguson's side
go looking for fresh motivation around this time but grievances
will again drive them on.
United started this contest brightly but were subjugated by
Chelsea in the second half. The penalty awarded to Yuri Zhirkov
after he had tripped over Chris Smalling's leg was soft: a classic
case of an attacking player looking for a limb to trip over. David
Luiz, who scored a whipcrack equaliser, ought to have been
dismissed for felling Rooney with his thigh: his third bookable
offence, even if Martin Atkinson, the referee, chose not to count
them that way.
From the other side of the divide Chelsea's followers called out
that Rooney was lucky to be on the field in the first place, in the
light of events at Wigan on Saturday, when he elbowed James
McCarthy in the head.
Nemanja Vidic, though, can have no complaints about his
dismissal for a second transgression, three minutes into added
time. Those moral wrangles can swing back and forth. But the
reality is that United will now face Liverpool without their
first-choice centre-halves: Vidic, who is suspended, and the
injured Rio Ferdinand.
So adversity looms for Ferguson's team, just as life was running
smooth.
They like it that way. Now they have something to kick against.
With 10 games left the siege begins, with Rooney finding his range
again. "We defended badly for the first goal, but the penalty-kick
is so soft, dear me," Ferguson said. "We played really well and we
didn't deserve that. Three years in a row here decisions have
changed the game."
Ferguson's decision to retain a starting line-up for the first
time in 165 matches was above all a statement of faith in Javier
Hernández, who even a Top Gear presenter could recognise as a
highly motivated Mexican.
To keep Dimitar Berbatov on the bench was an affirmation of
Hernández's growing stature at Old Trafford. Not since the Premier
League game against West Ham on 3 May 2008, which followed a
midweek Champions League tie with Barcelona, had Ferguson pinned
the same 11 names to a board.
Thus was delivered a painful blow to Berbatov's seniority in a
department where Rooney had been living off his reputation before
his spectacular bicycle kick in the Manchester derby and a fierce
29th-minute drive here helped restore his status as a menace around
the goal. Even Chelsea's fans jeered the airgun-wielding Ashley
Cole with shouts of "shoot, shoot" but it was Rooney who fired
first, beating Petr Cech minutes after exposing himself to more
disciplinary peril when running into Ramires in front of the
referee.
This was United's chance to knock the holders out of the race.
Hernández, who scored twice against Wigan, was here on merit, at a
ground where Ferguson's teams have tended to go home empty-handed.
The life-loving, God-fearing Chicharito teamed up with the
irascible, elbow-throwing Rooney, who started in a familiar grump,
howling at the referee when a push went unpunished and radiating
the usual displeasure.
Hernández's mobility, lateral running and infectious enthusiasm
are his best assets, along with a gift for subtle finishing. If he
has a fault, 25 appearances into his United career, it is that his
final release from promising positions is sometimes hurried and/or
imprecise. This will be coached out of him. His movement across the
line allowed Rooney to start his own darts from deeper. The
piercing Rooney run from just beyond the halfway line has been
a rarity in this campaign. Here, though, he set off with some of
his old locomotion.
Rooney, generally a team player, drew a yelp of annoyance from
Gary Neville, in the stands, when Nani slipped the ball to him on
Chelsea's right and Rooney advanced on goal in an arc but tried a
shot from an acute angle rather than cutting it back for Hernández,
who had pulled off his defender into space. Territorial selfishness
by the older player. Soon Hernández was replaced by Berbatov, with
Ryan Giggs trotting on for Paul Scholes on the eve of the 20th
anniversary of his United debut.
Here come the veterans, the experts in campaigning. The
knowledge runs deep. But the easy days are over.