Awful, scrappy, difficult to watch – the fourth and final instalment of this seasons Manchester derbies was every bit the polar opposite of the previous three epics, and after even Sir Alex Ferguson looked like he had given up the league, it was Paul Scholes, a member of the United legend club, who scored with a marvellous header with just 20 seconds of added time remaining and breathed new life into the most unlikely of title challenges.
With the stakes so high the first half was very much a tentative affair. Both sides knew that defeat or even dropped points for United would finally put an end to any lingering hopes they had of retaining their title – the visitors approach was to utilise all of their big game experience.
That approach was by far the more dictatorial of the two and United dominated those opening exchanges, but neither side really managed to open the other up. Fletcher and Scholes both had 20 yard efforts that went wide either side of a Tevez free kick that van der Sar did well to save.
Wayne Rooney did his level best to cause a nuisance and his mere presence sent Kompany into a panic, but the forward was unable to fully seize the opportunity. The returning striker was lucky to escape a booking after a petulant swing at De Jong but referee Martin Atkinson was favouring a more lenient approach to the robust challenges.
City’s best opening aside from the free kick was a Bellamy cross that was begging to converted on the half hour, but after that United saw the half out with a positional advance that pushed the hosts back into their own half. That pressure almost resulted in a goal but both Rooney and Giggs will probably think they should have done better. Valencia had a fine opening 45 and did extremely well to nod down a long ball to Rooney. Rooney wasn’t immediately challenged but took the chance on his left anyway and it went comfortably wide. 3 minutes later Valencia was chief tormentor again, this time playing in a good cross to Ryan Giggs who tried to flick it with the outside of his left foot but could only softly direct it to Given.
Indications were that United would really need to step it up in the second half – for all the pre-match hype (a BBC sports correspondent on Football Focus actually raising the ridiculous question “Are City now a bigger club?”) and for all their free scoring form, City barely even attempted to impose themselves on the game until the last twenty minutes, although on the counter they did fashion the first opening of the second half. With United committed upfield, Tevez collected the ball and ran at the defence, playing in Bellamy. The Welsh forward’s sense of time and space was totally off colour and he shot poorly wide.
United brought on Nani for Gibson and the winger nearly scored about ten minutes after his introduction when he stabbed wide a Ryan Giggs cross. City went up the other end and through Barry, had a penalty shout, though it would have been harsh, and the over-priced midfielders reaction was ridiculously exaggerated.
A minute later, Sir Alex made the change that seemingly indicated that he thought the game was up. Bringing on Berbatov for Rooney with just 15 minutes left of a game that United needed to win to stay in the title race did not seem like a move to attack, even taking into account Rooney’s recent injury woes. The Bulgarian, to be fair, did impress in his short time – but even his header which was narrowly wide from Nani’s cross, though decent, lacked that star factor.
With the game petering out and City sensing the opportunity to snatch three points, there was time remaining to revisit some of the defining factors from the previous clashes this campaign. Firstly, City were incorrectly awarded a corner, just as they were in the Carling Cup at Eastlands, but this time they were unable to score. It took an almighty good old fashioned heart in the mouth scramble to stop them though – van der Sar was left flagging at the cross, Vieira stabbed it across goal and time stood still as Nemanja Vidic threw his body on the line to ensure that neither Onouha or Tevez could be a goalscoring beneficiary.
Gabriel Obertan had come on by this point for Valencia, who had looked United’s best bet of a ball into the box, and the young winger offered little. It seemed there was little left on the pitch to create, but United had one trick left and it took all of the determination of one of the clubs best ever players to embody what the club are all about. The Red Devils settled the reverse league fixture and the Carling Cup tie with late goals, and that script was revisited with new cast. Scholes started the move which eventually led to Obertan seemingly clueless and crowded out, but admittedly cleverly finding Evra. Evra’s cross was good, Scholes timing of the run and accuracy of the header was better, evading Given’s full stretch reach and going right in the corner.
Stunned silence was followed by unadulterated joy, relief and renewed optimism. Should Spurs do United an unlikely favour against Chelsea in the evening game then the title race looks like it will be back on, when little more than a minute’s game time ago it looked to be all over. And you can trust that as long as it is possible, as long as United have the likes of Paul Scholes on the pitch, they’ll keep going until that very last kick.
Ratings : van der Sar 7, Neville 8, Evans 7, Vidic 8, Evra 7, Fletcher 6, Gibson 6 (Nani 6), *Scholes 9, Giggs 6, Rooney 6 (Berbatov), Valencia 7 (Obertan)
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