When it was all said and done, and Manchester United are now so nearly there in terms of Champions League qualification, Louis van Gaal’s post-match soundbite cut to the heart of the matter. “Football is crazy,” the United manager said.
This was an outlandish result for his team, chiselled from a performance so sub-standard that for large swathes of the second half, it was difficult to believe that here before our eyes were the 20-time champions of English football. Or, even, the fourth best team of this season’s Premier League.
After the Crystal Palace substitute Jason Puncheon had cancelled out Juan Mata’s first-half penalty with a free-kick that deflected in off Daley Blind as the United midfielder shielded his eyes from the sun, the home team sensed blood. United’s vulnerabilities were alarmingly clear, particularly with the captain, Wayne Rooney, having been forced off with a dead leg at half-time.
Van Gaal’s team groped for direction and leadership, and the errors pock-marked their play. Chris Smalling made some of the most glaring but the centre-half was not alone. United were clinging on after Puncheon’s equaliser and, not for the first time, they were indebted to the reflexes of David de Gea, whose headline moment was the stunning save to deny Glenn Murray at close quarters on 71 minutes.
Apart from a couple of bursts from Ashley Young, United offered nothing as an attacking force in the second half and yet they staged the smash-and-grab with Marouane Fellaini’s seventh goal of the season. Even that came coated in good fortune. Following Young’s cross from the left, the United substitute, Radamel Falcao, shoved Damien Delaney into Julián Speroni, which scrambled the Palace goalkeeper and allowed Fellaini to head home.
Van Gaal could not explain it all, and he did not attempt to do so. “When you see how we have played against Chelsea, Everton and West Bromwich Albion [in the previous three games, each of which was lost] and you compare it with today – this was not our best match,” Van Gaal said. “But you win and that is also the beauty of football. What I have seen today is the fighting spirit of my team. I said to the players: ‘When you fight like that, you are difficult to beat.’”
United now need only two more points from their final two matches to ensure a top-four finish and they might not even need that, if Liverpool were to slip in any of their remaining three games, the next of which is at Chelsea on Sunday.
“This result brings us a big step closer to our goal and I shall sit with a fantastic glass of wine to see the match, Chelsea against Liverpool,” Van Gaal said. Would he toast a Chelsea result with champagne? “When I don’t drink too much red wine, then maybe,” he replied, with a smile.
Alan Pardew looked bemused and a little shocked at how his Palace team had emerged with nothing, and the manager’s complaints centred on two penalty controversies. He felt that Scott Dann should not have been penalised for leading with his right biceps on Young’s cross, which was a tough sell, as the award for handball looked to be sound. Mata converted his 10th goal of the season to end United’s goal drought at 305 minutes.
But Pardew was on safer ground with his gripe about the referee Michael Oliver’s non-award of a penalty in the 53rd minute. Puncheon jinked back inside the area; he felt Mata catch his standing foot and down he went. It was not a natural fall but, equally, there was contact from Mata.
The temperature went up and, with United looking uncertain, it was no surprise when Puncheon fashioned the equaliser, after Smalling had conceded a free-kick 25 yards from goal.
United had lost Luke Shaw on 39 minutes after he copped an accidental elbow in the face from James McArthur; Rooney could not continue after the interval and Smalling, too, seemed to have a knock. Van Gaal was asked what it was. “He was stumbling [around] and I don’t think he played his best match, so that’s why I substituted him,” Van Gaal replied. He did go on to say that his hapless player had some cramp.
Blind had hit the post from distance early on, while Ander Herrera fluffed a 22nd-minute volley, but Palace, too, had their moments in the first half, with Mile Jedinak heading narrowly off target and Murray just failing to convert after a well-worked free-kick.
Palace turned the screw after the equaliser and, for a dismal 20-minute period, United trembled. Smalling was caught in possession, leading to McArthur prodding inches wide and then the big chance, when Dann teed up Murray, six yards out. The striker went for the deft chip but De Gea threw out an arm to save. It was a priceless moment from the United player of the season and it felt even more so when Fellaini plundered the winner. There was still time for De Gea to save with his legs from Murray. United squeaked home.
