Defeat sure is bitter to take, especially when it comes in a derby match against your local rivals. And not to mention a hammering, that is. While it's easy to get carried away by emotion as we all do for we love Man Utd, let's put things into perspective. Technically, a 1-6 defeat meant 3 points not gained and -5 to our goal difference. Now, that's not going to decide where the league title goes. We haven't lost it and Man City certainly hasn't won it yet. The implication is more to the morale of the team and fans alike. Sure, it blows away the confidence and esteem of our players and I'm sure they will turn up for training this week knowing they had just got themselves into the record book for the wrong reasons. However, there's no reason for knee-jerk reaction or slating-the-player sessions just because we lost a league match. There are much to learn from this defeat that will, hopefully, put some reality back into us. That we can't go on playing the kind of champagne football we suddenly become associated with this season. No doubt it's great that our team "plays like Barcelona" but Barcelona plays in La Liga, not the Premier League. I always think that if Barca is to compete in the English game, they will not win the league. In the match against City, I suddenly found myself thinking that we looked like Arsenal and Man City actually looked like...us. The old us at least, with more flair surely. We were passing the ball every where but didn't create any real chances for almost 30 minutes while City were using the ball very effectively and dare I say, ruthless, a word that is usually associated with Man Utd. Sure, on good days, that kind of free flowing football can end up producing sensational displays, such as the ones against Arsenal and Chelsea. But against a team that is defensively well-drilled the Italian way and full of superstars in attack, we need to be careful. And that is what we didn't do. I thought we were careless in possession at times and perhaps, Sir Alex summed it up pretty well in the match against Basel, that we may have become a bit complacent. I thought we haven't got a good game since beating Chelsea some time ago. Against Liverpool, we set ourselves up defensively as Anfield is no easy place to go to and play entertaining football. Perhaps, Sir Alex may have spotted something and decided that we can't afford to be too attacking. Against City, it's at Old Trafford and our impressive record there means we can afford to be less conservative, even if it is a derby match against a much-improved City team.
The players will learn from this defeat. Jonny Evans certainly will. Before we start slating him, in fact it had already begun the moment he was red-carded, we should ask if we trust Sir Alex. His decision to put Evans ahead of Jones, Vidic and Smalling for the central defensive role probably speaks of the faith he has in him. Well, until Sir Alex loses faith in him, we shouldn't. I mean, he will learned to have let Balotelli through and let his keeper deal with him one-on-one. So what if it's 0-2. It's not like we haven't gone into this situation before, yes, but with 10 men, no. He needs to improve on his awareness as he probably wasn't aware he was the last man. In other situation where he wasn't the last guy, his fouling of Balotelli would have been hailed as a good piece of defending for it stopped the striker from going through on goal. We need to rediscover our way of playing that mixes flair with tackles and above all, ruthlessness as we had done for so many seasons. Let's not evolve into Arsenal (all out attack that produces anything but success). We just need to get the balance right and shirk off the obsession of catching up to Barca by trying to play like them. Alas, it's only 3-points dropped and to put things into further perspective, we got beaten by Arsenal and Liverpool last season but still ended up winning the league. What does it say? The title is not won or lost until May.