Once again they sang Michael Carrick‘s name and this time it was not out of sympathy. This time it was different.
This time there had been some guts and this time there had been some glory. This time, most importantly, there had been a victory. So the Stretford End sang Carrick’s name out of thanks. Finally some respite from the relentless misery of this tortuous season.
How Carrick’s Manchester United team pulled off this comeback is hard to fathom. But for now all that matters to Carrick is that they did. For at last he has something tangible to cling to as he tries to drag his club’s season back from the jaws of hell.
How on earth do we describe this game? Maybe just with the facts.
Carrick’s team were so bad in the first half it was almost impossible to understand. However awful they have been this season, this was worse. Two down to early goals from Matias Soule and Donyell Malen, United presented both to Roma on a plate.
The game looked over. United’s Champions League season looked over. Carrick’s reign felt over.
Matheus Cunha’s late double rescued Manchester United from the jaws of defeat on a night of madness at Old Trafford
Cunha scored in the 83rd and 86th minute to turn the game on its head against Roma
There was still time for Cunha to be sent off in the dying embers of the game – but that failed to take the shine off a memorable night
In the crowd they waved green and gold balloons in protest at the owners the Glazers. Then they threw tennis balls on to the field. The only surprise was that none of the United players put one in their own net.
But then, somehow and almost impossibly, this game changed. Whether it will be enough to prompt a genuine shift in the course of United’s season, only time will tell. The chances are it won’t. There is too much wrong.
And United were lucky, too.
They were lucky to be given an early second-half penalty and lucky that Bruno Fernandes was given the chance to take it again after he missed the first one. They were then lucky in the 83rd minute when Matheus Cunha was handed an equaliser by a defensive howler.
But luck is no good if you don’t ride it. And the winning goal Cunha delivered into the net at the near post with four minutes left was not about luck. It was about a team and a player seizing the opportunity to write a different story.
It was born of desire, desperation and perhaps some anger after the pain of the last few weeks. Within a second, the Brazilian’s shirt was off and he was in the crowd.
It was hard to blame Cunha, even if he was to pay a price. Booked for that, he was soon cautioned again for a foul and was forced to leave the scene early. At least it was to an ovation. We have not heard one of those here for a while.
Old Trafford was jumping. Of course it was. Thus far this season has brought United supporters only embarrassment and at times earlier here this had felt like a new low. The way United played in the first half was arguably worse than anything we saw under Ruben Amorim and Erik ten Hag.
Matias Soule had given Roma the lead after only 11 minutes
The game was briefly halted in the first-half when fans threw objects including tennis balls onto the pitch
United boss Michael Carrick suffered a further blow when Carlos Baleba limped off
United were in full self-harm mode and in truth could have been four down by half-time.
There was actually nothing in this game for the first 10 minutes but United hurtled from safety to dire straits in the space of seven minutes. That’s the way it tends to go and the first Roma goal was simply extraordinary.
When United midfielder Kobbie Mainoo lost the ball in his own half, his team found themselves a defender short. Diogo Dalot, the left back, was so far up field he may as well have been on the Stretford End.
When Rodrigo Mora switched the ball across into the space where Dalot should have been, Soule had time to cut inside and shoot low in to Senne Lammens’ bottom left hand corner.
It was one of those goals that looked stranger the more you studied it. Six minutes later, United presented Roma with another one.
Once again Dalot was out of position as the ball reached goalscorer Soule on the edge of the penalty area. This time only a sliding block from Leny Yoro denied the Argentine his second goal but the ball had struck the defender’s raised arm and former Aston Villa forward Malen slid in the penalty.
United were shambolic. Fernandes was booked for being, well, Fernandes. It was a harsh card but sadly the United captain’s reputation now precedes him. It’s the way it works in sport.
As half-time neared, Malen brought a low save from Lammens before Soule curled one from 18 yards that must have missed the righthand post by no more than six inches.
That was the difference between United being out of the game and still in with the chance of the kind of comeback they eventually produced.
Cunha was desperately fortunate to be awarded the penalty that started it all just before the hour. He seemed to trip himself up. Fernandes was then lucky to be offered a retake after his first kick was saved. The level of encroachment by a Roma defender didn’t seem to meet the threshold written in law.
But once Fernandes smashed the retake high into the net Roma suddenly found themselves facing a different home team and a different environment.
Bruno Fernandes’ first penalty was saved – but he made amends with his second after the referee ordered a retake for encroachment
Victory eases the pressure on United boss Michael Carrick
Carrick will perhaps argue he deserves some fortune. He certainly didn’t get any as his team lost at Chelsea at the weekend. Nevertheless, his team needed some more.
Bryan Mbeumo had struck both posts with one shot after running clear immediately after Fernandes’ goal while a header from Harry Maguire at a corner hit an opponent when it appeared to be heading in.
But United’s fire seemed to be on the verge of burning out when a harmless 83rd-minute cross from Fernandes was completely missed by Roma defender Leonardo Balerdi to present Cunha with an equaliser from six yards.
Roma were by now a shell of the team that they had been in the first half. They had been knocked from their feet by a red tidal wave, and when Cunha unleashed a hammer shot from an angle three minutes later they were dead.
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