On this day of all days, when Manchester United should have been united, the fans arrived at Old Trafford with the scent of flares in the air and mutiny in the ranks.
At three o’clock, an hour and a half before kick-off in the 199th Manchester derby, 500 of them gathered at The Bishop Blaize pub around the corner from the stadium and began to march.
Specifically, it was to demonstrate over the club’s clampdown on ticket touting which, according to protest group The 1958, has targeted innocent fans without sufficient evidence.
But discontent has been festering for some time now over United’s attitude to match-going supporters, and longstanding hatred towards the Glazer family has been directed towards minority owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe and Ineos.
Both ownership groups came under fire as the protesters made their way to Old Trafford, holding banners and setting off flares. Only when they crammed into the Munich Tunnel did their ire turn on Manchester City and the usual derby day chants could be heard.
At roughly the same time, inside Old Trafford another supporters’ group were preparing a message of their own. The Red Army provide and pay for the flags and banners inside the Stretford End, which have been increasing in number and impact in recent years.
On a day when Manchester United should have been united, they were anything but amid fan protests in the stands
Hatred towards the Glazer family has recently been directed towards minority owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe (pictured) and Ineos
But on this occasion they decided to go with one simple banner displayed above the players’ tunnel. It read: ‘The way you treat us is a disgrace.’
United fans are not militant by nature and it takes a lot for them to turn on the club in this way – and in a game of this magnitude. It demonstrates the level of ill feeling and genuine concern over the way United are being run.
Michael Carrick counts himself as one of them, and didn’t try to duck the issue after a painful derby defeat that will only have darkened the mood among fans.
‘I definitely appreciate the supporters,’ said Carrick. ‘If they do feel that in certain ways, I want to try and make them happy.
‘They are everything for this football club and I’m feeling for them today on the back of losing. I’ll never take them for granted. It means a lot to me.’
Against this backdrop, Carrick was trying to repeat his rousing first game as head coach of United, a 2-0 win over Pep Guardiola’s City here in mid-January.
It set the tone for an excellent run of results under the former United midfielder, which ended with the club returning to the Champions League and Carrick landing the job on a full-time basis.
Instead, this was further evidence that United are still some way short of where they need to be, and that juggling European football with the demands of the Premier League has created a far greater challenge for their head coach.
Michael Carrick did not dodge the topic after the game, admitting ‘they are everything for this football club’
After an inauspicious start in the league, taking four points from the first three games against Hull, Ipswich and Everton, the derby came three days after United’s opening Champions League tie against Sabah. It was an easy enough start, but City had two more days to prepare.
Carrick’s side looked worryingly flat against Hull last month and it was a similar story here, even after Phil Foden was sent off in the 23rd minute.
It was puzzling how little threat they posed to City’s ten men for more than an hour of a Manchester derby that was there for the taking.
Yes, Marcus Rashford and Kobbie Mainoo – two homegrown players who could hold their heads up high – hit the post in either half, but it was deep into injury-time when the disappointing Bryan Mbeumo forced Gianluigi Donnarumma into his only real save of the game, and a fine one at that.
This was the first time United have failed to score at Old Trafford under Carrick.
‘In all the games we’ve won here, we’ve scored at least two goals,’ he argued. ‘We’ve lost one game and we scored in that game. At some point you have a game when we haven’t scored, so I can’t be too critical of the players.
‘Of course, we would hope for more in general from the team. We could have been a little bit more creative. We could have finished the game better, for sure.’
The big call for Carrick was bringing back Matheus Cunha as a false nine for Benjamin Sesko, a more conventional centre forward who got his first start of the season against Sabah and scored for the second game in a row.
It was puzzling how United provided so little threat against the 10 men of their local rivals
It didn’t work. Cunha doesn’t offer enough of a threat centrally, and it was perhaps no coincidence that he also scored against the team from Azerbaijan after reverting to a position on the left flank.
Carrick switched to that game plan when Sesko came on for Youri Tielemans in the 67th minute, but Enzo Maresca already had the measure of his opponents.
The other issue going into this game was the absence of Luke Shaw. United opted against buying cover for Shaw in the summer, possibly encouraged by the fact he started every single Premier League match last season.
It was never going to happen again, and Shaw lasted just four games before going down. When he missed training before Sabah, it was described as a designated day off. But he was sat in the stands on Thursday night and again for the derby.
Patrick Dorgu deputised on both occasions but the Dane is not a natural left back, and questions were asked of him when Erling Haaland scored the controversial winner.
After United’s £155million midfield rebuild this summer, it hasn’t taken long for their issues in defence and attack to surface – and for the fans who protested on Sunday, the lack of progress on the pitch is just one more reason to worry.
