Now that the dust is beginning to settle on the Premier League's latest grand VAR melodrama, perhaps a clearer-eyed view of Manchester United can emerge. Were Matt Donohue and his assistant VAR Blake Antrobus a significant factor in Sunday's 1-0 defeat at home to Manchester City? Absolutely, but they were not the only ones, perhaps not even the decisive one.
Most profoundly of all the problems that emerged when United found themselves a man up with well over an hour to play were not new to them. If anything, they might be difficulties that are innate to playing football in the style that Michael Carrick wants it. What is indisputable is that when put in an extremely advantageous position by Phil Foden's 23rd-minute red card, United were leaden-footed and guileless in attack, too slow in possession and without much in the way of ideas to prise open a low block.
After the red card and before Erling Haaland scored, United had 105 final-third touches to City's 37 and yet produced only seven shots worth a combined 0.25 xG. Even after that contentious winner, there seemed to be no real sense for how this team might manufacture attacks when they did not have space to run into, their only real high-value opening coming when Bryan Mbeumo drew a 95th-minute save from Gianluigi Donnarumma. The lived experience of this Old Trafford defeat was not the same as United's other league games this season, in which a draw, a win and a defeat have combined to deliver this club its joint-worst start to a top flight season since 1992.
Side bar, doesn't it feel like you hear that about United every year around September or October? The City experience was different in that the hosts were thrust into a game state they might not reasonably have expected to be in come kickoff. Carrick's XI, with Youri Tielemans preferred in the deep role next to Kobbie Mainoo, looked to be one designed to spring quick forwards running at City's parlous transition defense.
That goes out of the water when United gain a man advantage. To hear Enzo Maresca explain it afterwards, it seems almost too easy to coach against United. "They love transition and space in behind, but the game became more difficult with us and them We just dropped, no space in behind and no more transition which is why the game was also more difficult for them." United have already proven this season that they have the players to be devastating on the counterattack, Bruno Fernandes brutally punishing Ipswich Town's errors on a trying day for the newly promoted side.
Their issues lie in a possession game that reflects a pastiche of their manager's playing career. The (inaccurate) critique of Carrick the player was that he was too sideways a midfielder, controlling the game without ever providing the cut through that the Barcelona midfielders who were the game's yardstick delivered. So far this season, his team are more like the caricature than Carrick ever was.
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