Phil Jones-ing our way around the league

It’s 2016. Manchester United are crawling around between non-descript positions on the league table, somewhere between the mediocre and the dreadful.

Daley Blind is wandering around left-back territory around the 84th minute of the first home game of 2016 against Swansea. The Gambia’s Modou Barrow is inverted wing-ing United’s defence into submission, shaking them up with shots off the outside of the boot, shimmying in and out near the penalty area.

One of these times, the ball’s flicked into the area and Blind is a few nautical miles away from it. Yet, he manages to stop Barrow from causing lethal damage by pushing him away. United are 2–1 up, and clutching on to this by the skin of their shaking teeth.

Baby-faced, university freshmen lookalikes make up the core of United’s defence these days, Stam and Vidic only distant memories. A 43 year old Stam was the only player on the pitch to last 90 minutes this June, refusing to come off in a charity game against Bayern Munich Legends. Paul Scholes was gently warned by the referee in that game, just to remind him there were no stakes in the fixture. These were men who played like every opponent had insulted their sisters. Alas, they are just nostalgic afterthoughts these days.

Back to Blind. And Matteo Darmian, who’s being shunted from right back to left back every other game. It’s almost like van Gaal’s political inclinations are as confused as his footballing philosophy. Here, there. Back here.

Blind tackles, does the customary arm-raising, gets the yellow. He goes to stand awkwardly as one of two men forming a defensive wall breached by design, a gaping hole between them enough for a Sunday League footballer to penetrate. Barrow takes the kick, Blind improvises, with trigger right foot movement, and the ball lands at the point where there should have been another man to support him. The manager might tell us that was planned, that the ball hit the first man. Here, Blind was first and third man. He gets the ball, passes back up field.

Another time, he’s at right back, making last-ditch tackles. He’s like an overworked manservant, mopping up others’ spills, and when his cleaning day ends, is then required to cook up forward passes for his teammates, starting moves that evade the midfield and reach the forward line. You almost feel only he deserves to receive these passes and convert them into goals.

These boys, these two, aren’t clatter-proof, considering the abundance of physical strength in the League. As they say, posting them to defend against the Barrows and Gomises is like peeing on erupting volcanoes. You know it’s no good, but you do anyway, because that way, you at least feel good about having done what best you could.

There aren’t too many of these fear-inducers, unless you count Fellaini’s elbow as armor. Schweinsteiger exists, and his last ditch scrapping fed Young forward without impediments in his way for United’s first goal today, but even he knows his peak bulldog is long gone. And yet, he remains an oasis in this dreary, soft wasteland.

You wish for Schweinsteiger’s beastliness with Young’s nimble feet down the wings, but ain’t gonna get those in this era of possession football. In fact, that name is Antonio Valencia, and about that particular hybrid, the less said the better. Times were such that Valencia used to get those early bird tickets from Scholes, couriered to him from the midfield, leaving him free before the opposition defend could get to those diagonal balls. Now, though, that clattering, fear-inducing element at the centre of the pitch is only a ghost of Christmases past.

Also, what of Louis van Gaal’s fair weather substitutions? His ‘one goal more than opponent is enough’ nonsense means there is no such thing as shutting the game down with extra attackers. He switches wing backs on a whim, in the process also trying to hard-sell that 3 at the back approach to the world.

And so ends yet another weekend, this time with 3 points after what feels like ages. Every single win these days, feels like that Jones crawl. And as Jones’ training ground injury inflicting tackles are described, future might just look at these as “lion-hearted”. If anything, we can award that title to Blind, De Gea and Schweinsteiger for this season.

Manchester United 2–1 Swansea City, Old Trafford, 2nd January 2016.