The worst of enemies

WE should have known. The tunnel love-in and the touchline handshake told us. Once a clash of giants, this had the feel of a dead, end-of-season rubber between two teams of mid-table water carriers.
Fifth versus sixth? More like 10th against 11th. Where were Roy Keane and Patrick Vieira when you needed them? Ruud van Nistelrooy and Martin Keown of long ago?
No one told today’s peaceniks the tunnel is for concentrating on the battle ahead and, if the chance arises, a spot of pre-match sniping to seize the psychological upper ground. It is not for hugging the enemy.
Vieira was not at the races after Keano had given him the blowtorch treatment back in 2005. United won 4-2 with 10 men. On Sunday, Phil Neville compared the tunnel atmosphere to a christening. Only old warrior Wayne Rooney looked focused.
There was even a ceasefire between the bosses, the most bitter and enduring of enemies. Once close to trading blows on the touchline, the Special One and the Specialist in Failure actually managed a civil greeting.
It won’t win them the Nobel Peace Prize but is a sure sign of how far these erstwhile Goliaths have fallen. Why, Jose Mourinho even posed for pictures with Arsenal fans!
Cynics are saying he wouldn’t be so friendly if he felt Arsene Wenger posed a threat: but it was surely the Portuguese who missed a trick here and one he was in denial about later.
He had put so many eggs in the Europa League basket that he’d forgotten the top four was still attainable – and would have had a decent chance had he bagged three points at the Emirates.
Liverpool’s failure to beat Southampton had left the Champions League door ajar and United could have plonked a menacing foot inside. Indeed, a win would have put them just two points behind their eternal rivals with a game in hand.
They still have to go to a faltering Spurs and Southampton, but face Crystal Palace at home in the last game of the season. It is not a cakewalk and an awful lot harder after this testimonial-paced surrender. But given the iffy form of the teams above, it was never the “impossibility” Mourinho’s propaganda would suggest.
After all the talk, he still fielded a reasonably strong side with a couple of unknown names. He has a big squad and many of the wounded are walking again. But it was as if the players didn’t believe they could do it.
Arsenal were there for the taking. Wenger spoke about them “improving” but he’s kidding himself: they were eviscerated by Spurs a week ago and here they broke the deadlock with a wicked deflection from a distance.
Danny Welbeck’s goal was superbly taken but really United should never have lost. All the focus on Celta Vigo inevitably lowered the importance of this game in the players’ minds – with all the resources at their disposal, United should have been able to beat both the Galicians and the Gunners with some comfort.
And so ends a strangely unconvincing 25-game unbeaten record in the League that was punctuated by a League Cup defeat by Hull and FA Cup loss to Chelsea. And that was not the only unbeaten record the United boss lost.
Make no mistake, although he seemed curiously mellow in defeat, Mourinho would not have been happy. And he certainly wouldn’t have liked losing to his arch enemy for the first time in a competitive match either.
The Community Shield defeat in 2015 was the only blot on his record against Wenger, about which he relished reminding the world. Yet he is prioritising a lightweight, mid-table La Liga side and a youthful Ajax – likely opponents in the final – over his normal bread and butter in the Premier League.
He left the world’s most expensive player on the bench yet still had £230 million’s worth of talent on the pitch. Sixty games is par for the course for a successful side in Europe – Monaco have already passed that and are poised to win the French League.
He was more like his old self afterwards when he couldn’t resist a mild dig at Wenger. He said: “We shook hands and during the game I don’t like what I never like. He puts too much pressure on the fourth official.”
Tame stuff for a man o’war yet in keeping with a tame afternoon. As for the Frenchman, he has also spoken of a truce. Neither that nor the result gives any real clue about his future, on which a decision, you feel, has already been made.
All in all, this muted affair suggested that besides their teams being in decline, both managers are in varying states of denial. Everything was a lot better when they hated each other’s guts.