Manchester United avert a crisis, but can’t really avoid criticism. Michael Carrick got lucky against Fulham, and consequently got away with one. For now.
A game that had looked like it was edging towards a first Alvaro Arbeloa win, courtesy of Lisandro Martinez’s bizarre own goal, instead saw another wicked deflection divert it to a 1-1 draw.
Neither club is completely unhappy, but this could have been a lot worse for both.
An exuberant Fulham at least climb off the bottom of the table, ensuring it is Tottenham Hotspur who sit there going into this three-week international window. They look the closest to the “crisis club” enduring all manner of external criticism and introspection going into an unusually long break. That was so close to being United.
Matheus Cunha’s deflected late strike, however, shouldn’t put off bigger discussions.
This was another underwhelming display, completely lacking in any kind of convincing attacking football. There is just so much off with the team right now.
An irony is that the calamitous own goal actually came in the one period of the game where what United were doing actually made some sense. Fulham are one of the most aggressive teams in the Premier League in how they push forward, almost absurdly overcommitting.
After that contributed to an entertainingly open first half, Carrick evidently realised his team should just try and hit the home side on the counter. It was logical… until your team just does something illogical.
An Alex Iwobi shot was eventually deflected into the path of Martinez, who instinctively reacted and helped the ball back towards goal. With Senne Lammens wrong-footed by his initial save, however, he didn’t reach across and somewhat meekly allowed the ball to go past him.
He might have been conscious of a back-pass or maybe was just too far away, but it all just added up to another hapless moment.
Carrick might well feel that’s just what happens in football when it feels everything is going against you.
It is almost the total opposite of last season, where it was like everything – right up to the calendar – was going United’s way. They had a positive momentum. Now, certainly until that late strike, it was a negative momentum.
And that’s also why he might feel the equalising goal was so important. It was a stroke of fortune when United badly needed it.
Rather than intense discussion of Carrick losing his job, the talk could be about how this might be a turning point, that this is something to build on, that it will psychologically settle a team that had looked tense.
That would also be a bit much, though.
United do look to have visible structural problems in the team. They don’t properly construct attacks that aren’t almost set-piece moves. So many passages of play end with hopeful long shots or hopeless crosses, to a striker that isn’t even there.
That is where the main discussion should lie.
Put bluntly, they don’t even attack in the way that Fulham do. The 19th-place position of Arbeloa’s side does seem like it doesn’t fully reflect performances given they have had an enjoyable intensity about all of their games, but the issue is a clear inability to close anything out.
There’s a vulnerability there, that doesn’t look like it’s going to go away any time soon.
Is it a naivety about the Premier League from a young manager, who does have something about him?
Can they grow from fully committing to the idea?
It is at least an idea. United don’t really seem to have one going forward, and that should be the real concern out of this match, regardless of result.
