Yet more from The S*n.
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SUNDAY, bloody Sunday.
Another day when racism reared its ugly head and a fiercely-contested local derby was tainted by crowd trouble.
Yet among the bigotry, the bitter words, the thrown coins and the claret streaming from a cut above Rio Ferdinand’s eye there was also poetry.
Poetic justice that Robin van Persie’s
wonderful late free-kick should give Manchester United all three points and so inflict Manchester City’s first league defeat of the season and the first at the Etihad for two years.
And once again expose not just the holes in Roberto Mancini’s management but its bizarre twists and turns.
Having made the absurd decision to start the game with Mario Balotelli — the strutting prima donna with an average this season of one goal every 535 minutes —
he saw his side totally outplayed as the outstanding Wayne Rooney scored twice to give United a 2-0 lead at the break.
And it should have been 3-0 and all over in the 59th minute when Ashley Young netted after Van Persie’s shot came back off the inside of the post.
Yet
a short-sighted linesman flagged Young offide, though Pablo Zabaleta was playing him on.
Within 60 seconds City had scored through Yaya Toure to launch a comeback that had the Etihad and millions of armchair fans on the edge of their seats.
As Alex Ferguson said afterwards: “Decisions like that don’t just kick you in the teeth, they can kill you. Thankfully we came through in the end.”
Toure’s goal brought City back to life and in a tremendous finale they not only equalised through Zabaleta but also saw David Silva’s shot hit David De Gea on the shoulder and clear the bar.
In the end, though,
the match and football got the right result as Van Persie’s free-kick took a deflection and curled into the far corner.
What
delicious irony that the Dutchman was the striker Mancini craved above all last summer.
Afterwards Mancini looked like a man who had just seen his favourite blue and white scarf disintegrate in the washing-machine.
He talked of the agony of losing with almost the last kick. And the agony of having to live with Balotelli. Yet not for a minute would he admit any responsibility.
His excuse, one we hear increasingly these days, is that it is very easy to be wise after the event.
Yet Mancini should have known that the moment he inked in Balotelli’s name on the teamsheet rather than Carlos Tevez, a player who always troubles his former club, that it would blow up in his face.
Everyone else did. Why not him?
Then again this is a season where Mancini’s managerial weaknesses are becoming both more frequent and obvious.
The moment the infuriating Balotelli went off — after starting the second half with some pointless back-heels — City’s game was transformed.
The urgency Tevez always brings was transmitted to his team-mates and, suddenly, we had a match.
But Balotelli’s selection was not the only decision by Mancini that had the Etihad loyalists scratching their heads.
When Vincent Kompany went off injured after 20 minutes, Kolo Toure was whistled up from the bench.
The same Kolo Toure whose appearances this season can be counted on the fingers of one hand.
And the same Kolo Toure who was out of position when Rooney, having his best game of the season, scored his second.
On the touchline, Mancini stood with his mouth open, hands on hips, shaking his head. Joleon Lescott, no doubt, was doing the same. Why had he not be sent on instead of Toure? Because, apparently, these days you cannot play two left-footers at centre-half.
So you send on someone with two right feet.
And then we had all the business about City having only three men in the wall for the Van Persie free-kick that won the match.
And how Mancini had wanted Tevez to be in it but the Argentine had wandered off somewhere and he couldn’t get the message to him.
At this point in the post-match press conference Mancini shrugged his shoulders in that internationally understood gesture that says: What can you do?
He had done the same when questioned about Balotelli. You can’t throw quality like that “out the window”, he said.
So what do you do instead? Just wait until this deluded Diva, a man who obviously believes hard work is beneath him, decides he might bother to shake a leg?
Get rid of him. The only trouble is what mugs would buy him? Well, there’s always Chelsea...
So where do City go from here? If they play like they did in the second half, they could still retain their title despite standing six points behind United this morning.
We saw last season how things can change dramatically.
But a pattern is developing. On the one hand, you have Southampton (3-2), QPR (3-1), Fulham (2-1), Sunderland (3-0), WBA (2-1), Swansea (1-0), Villa (5-0) and Wigan (2-0).
Then there’s Liverpool (2-2), Real Madrid (2-3), Arsenal (1-1), Dortmund (1-1), Ajax (1-3, 2-2), Real Madrid (1-1), Chelsea (0-0), Dortmund (0-1) and Man Utd (2-3).
The season after winning a title is all about character and a number of City players are not showing that.
They also don’t look too convinced about a manager who, at the moment, is all over the place.
Meanwhile, Ferguson is punching the air and welcoming his players off the pitch with open arms.
There’s a belief, a bond and a mutual understanding within the United ranks that cannot be purchased in the transfer market.
<a class="postlink" href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/football/4689509/Roberto-Mancini-got-it-so-wrong-AGAIN-Man-Utd-got-it-right.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sp ... right.html</a>
