Everyone around Manchester United is struggling. The contortions that the analysts on the club’s in-house TV station got into last night, shifting in their seats while delivering the once heretical observation that some of United’s players are past their best, do not make easy viewing.
“This has not happened at Man United for a long time,” manager David Moyes (above) said after the 2-1 defeat at Sunderland in last night’s Capital One Cup semi-final first leg. Lou Macari and David Healy — those analysts — feel that sentiment.
It was left to Ryan Giggs to attempt to account for another anaemic display in which United’s sole striker Danny Welbeck looked isolated, with Moyes reluctant to complement him with Javier Hernandez — the only striking option on the bench — until the 87th minute.
Giggs, whose mere presence on a football field for United at the age of 40 is a symbol of the club’s failure to renew in the midfield area, shifted marginally from Moyes’s declaration that officialdom alone had caused United’s first defeat on Wearside and first three-match losing run in 13 years.
“Perhaps getting into the final third, the quality of crosses or shots — maybe we can work on a little bit,” said Giggs.
Luck had come into it, too, he added. “I hit the crossbar, Adnan [Januzaj] hits a shot against me where I was offside. On another day that could have been given and it just didn’t go for us.”
But otherwise, Giggs insisted that the questionable winning penalty and the free-kick from which Sunderland led were the difference — judiciously editing from the script that Sebastian Larsson had missed the opportunity of the night from open play in the second half.
“I thought both decisions were harsh,” Giggs said.
“For the first one I was getting ready to jog up the pitch because I thought it was a decision for us — though saying that we’ve still got to defend the free-kick.
“We didn’t do that and got punished for it. But we got back into the game with a great header for Nemanja [Vidic] and then there looked like there was only going to be one winner.
“It’s getting laughable now that the decisions just aren’t going for us.”
Sunderland manager Gus Poyet was right to say that United are favourites for the second leg in two weeks’ time, for which Wayne Rooney and Robin van Persie may both have returned.
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“No chance. With Rooney and van Persie coming back?” Poyet said. There was also a subtle type of menace in Moyes’s voice when he was “looking forward” to the second leg, as if United could exact easy revenge for the officials’ errors.
But no game is easy for United at the moment. Everyone is struggling.
