Match Report: Manchester United 0-1 Sunderland

Given Old Trafford’s occasional penchant for Joy Division tunes prior to kick-off, ‘New Dawn Fades’ might well be an appropriate, if rather painful, choice for the build-up to Tuesday’s game. Apologies to anyone who either isn’t of my age group or who has a similar record collection, but though the atmosphere before kick-off suggested United fans expected some kind of continuation of the feelgood factor instigated the previous weekend, we lost control of affairs somewhere in the middle of the second half and, ultimately, failed to come anywhere close to tearing Sunderland apart.

It will be pointed out that we created a number of chances during the game and largely dominated possession but that, I’m afraid, is largely the story of the season at Old Trafford, where home fans witnessed a seventh league defeat for the first time since we returned to the top division in 1975 and a second reverse to a Sunderland side who, like so many this season, have had to be no better than organised and tight at the back to see off any threat posed by the Reds.

Once we’d gone behind, to Larsson’s volley after Sunderland had taken advantage of a flat-footed United defence with the simplest of moves, a familiar edginess entered United’s game, with misplaced passes and the distinct lack of a cutting edge all too familiar features of our approach play. Before that, we’d been the better side, true, but direly predictable. We’d started the game with Nani and Young out wide and both gave an able display of why they shouldn’t be at Old Trafford next season. The former was largely anonymous while the latter displayed his familiar trait of being great at finding space and attracting the ball to him, but doing absolutely nothing with it when he received it. Cross after cross found the leg or torso of a Sunderland defender as United’s one-dimensional attacks petered out.

Young was booed when he was substituted in the second half but, in truth, we created little more after he and Nani had left the pitch. Perhaps this was partly because Mata, who’d looked United’s liveliest player in the first half, left it also, but it was also because they were far from being the only problems. Michael Carrick, so often outstanding last year, now looks the player of four years ago again and, while Fletcher gave everything as usual, he couldn’t provide the creativity or drive so lacking in United’s midfield this season.

Although the Reds created several chances in the second half, with Vidic, Chicharito and Welbeck all going close, Sunderland carved out better ones and only the woodwork prevented first Giaccherini and then Borini from doubling their lead.

I’ll admit I’d got a bit caught up in the emotional and excitement of the previous Saturday myself. Like other Reds, this performance brought me down to earth with a huge bump. There was an even heavier one, I suspect, for those United fans who’d assumed that removing David Moyes and his coaching team from the club would suddenly make everything OK. Our problems, on this evidence, go much further than that.

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