The Manchester City striker Carlos Tevez celebrates his
first goal by gesturing, apparently towards Gary Neville.
Photograph: Alex Livesey/Getty Images
They will try to tell us that it is only the Carling Cup. They will remind us that
for years they have regarded this competition as little more an
afterthought, cluttering up an already-congested fixture list and
getting in the way of more important matters. They will enjoy the
fact that Manchester City created a
commemorative programme for reaching their first semi-final since
1981 and they will insist this competition represents football's
equivalent of the girl next door to the supermodels they normally
date.
Yet this is a strange time for Manchester United. There has been a
bad vibe at their recent home matches. The crowd have been
restless, occasionally mutinous, as the team have laboured and the
news has seeped out of the offences to football committed by that
orchestra of geeks known as the Glazer family. The whole club needs
a lift and there can be no doubt how much it will hurt them if they
are unable to turn this tie upside down next Wednesday. This was
another blow to their morale.
Sir Alex Ferguson's team have already
lost five times in the league and been knocked out of the FA Cup by
a Leeds United side from League One. Now the latest indignity: two
goals from the striker they lost to City during the summer. United
fans used to have a "sign him up" campaign on Tevez's behalf. Since
he left they have, almost overnight, tried to convince themselves
he had the worst first touch of any United attacker since Ralph
Milne, the man Ferguson remembers as his worst-ever signing. In the
away end at the City of Manchester Stadium they will have watched
Tevez milking his celebrations through the latticework of their
fingers.
Ferguson argued that the damage was not irreparable, and
justifiably so given the number of chances his team carved out. Yet
the United manager is beginning to sound like a looped tape,
lamenting his team's finishing, almost rolling his eyes as he
expresses his astonishment that they could be so generous. Ferguson
has been almost reluctant in the past to acknowledge City as
genuine rivals for United, calling their stadium the Temple of Doom
and offering painkillers to City journalists at his press
conferences. But the team he selected last night demonstrated how
he has had to modify his thinking.
The old deceiver had initially promised to play his youngsters,
as is the norm in the Carling Cup. He then backtracked a little
after the defeat to Leeds United in the FA Cup to say it would be a
mix, but mainly still the kids. What we got instead looked
suspiciously like Team A when you consider Edwin van der Sar's
previous appearance in this competition was all the way back in the
final against Wigan Athletic five years ago. Darron Gibson, the
hero in the quarter-final against Tottenham Hotspur, was not even
on the bench. Rafael da Silva brought down the average age but,
even then, there was an argument the Brazilian deserved his place
given that Gary Neville can be a danger to his own team when the
pace is this frenetic.
Or at least that was the sense beforehand. As it turned out,
Ferguson must regret not going for the more experienced man when he
considers the impetuousness with which Rafael tugged at Craig
Bellamy's arm to concede the penalty that changed the course of
this game.
This was the moment Tevez had been craving since his defection
from Old Trafford and the lingering sense of bad feeling could be
seen in the exuberant way he chose to celebrate compared to the
respect he has afforded West Ham when scoring against another of
his former clubs. Tevez was so pumped up he made a beeline for the
touchline where Gary Neville had been warming up and informed his
former team-mate (imagine Rod Hull with an invisible Emu) that he
talked too much. Neville had said on the eve of this match that he
could not argue with Ferguson's assessment that Tevez was
over-priced at £25.5m.
For the second goal his intention seemed to be to make a point
to Ferguson, running to the same touchline to cup his ears in front
of the two dug-outs. Ferguson, one imagines, will use the memory of
that moment to motivate his players in the return leg. As it
stands, however, United look like they could do with Carlos Alberto
Tevez.