BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN
Watching the FA Cup Final on Saturday, it was fascinating studying the body language and facial expressions of Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag.
Ten Hag knew that, against the odds, his side had already beaten Manchester City earlier in the season but that the chances of repeating this feat were slim. His furrowed brow was a permanent feature during the match even when United levelled from the penalty spot. His body language was that of a man fully expecting to be involved imminently in a car crash. Pragmatist Ten Hag, in his first Premiership season, is a football realist and – sure enough – irrepressible City scored what turned out to be the winner in the 51st minute. It should be noted that United did have some good chances to win later on after the talented Argentinian youngster Alejandro Garnacho took to the field and immediately discovered space in City’s defence.
Ten Hag does not need excuses. City have spent better and more than United on their team – they are a winning machine with many years of recent success under the brilliant Guardiola. Only Liverpool, and more recently Arsenal, have caused City any trouble in the league over the last five seasons. Ten Hag should be proud of his first season as Manchester United manager and winning the League Cup. In fact, United (difficult for me to say as a Liverpool supporter) are a team on the up and if they can engineer a takeover by one of the moneybags consortia they have lined up, they will get back on top sooner than perhaps even ten Hag thinks.
City on the other hand could well be relegated into a lower division soon. The Premier League charged Manchester City with more than 100 breaches of their rules in February. Much of the debate has swirled around the one contentious issue of Financial Fair Play (FFP). In fact this is a sideshow and, in the view of many figures familiar with the process, “irrelevant” – other than the fact the club are accused of trying to get around the Premiership’s spending regulations. As reported in the Independent in February, “this case is about the far more serious allegations of fraud, dishonesty and a failure to accurately disclose information.”
Life can be amusing.
It’s funny how the tables can turn so fast.
Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall
One minute a team can be celebrating and laughing about managerial genius. The next they will be complaining about the standard of the showers at Rotherham or whining about the fans’ behaviour at Millwall.
At such times I am reminded of the painting known as Checkmate (real name Schachspielers), a painting that once hung in the Louvre Museum in Paris, painted by Friedrich Moritz August Retzsch. It is now in private hands, having been sold at a Christie’s auction in 1999.
The painting shows two chess players. One is Satan, who appears arrogantly confident. The other player is a man who looks forlorn. This is said to be a depiction from von Goethe’s tragic play ‘Faust’. If Satan wins, he wins the man’s soul.
As always, the Devil’s in the detail…
One day a chess grand master (understood to be Paul Morphy) came upon this painting on a tourist trip to the Louvre. The grand master stared a long time at the chess board in the painting and finally noticed something surprising. The typical interpretation of the painting (that Satan had the man in checkmate) was mistaken. Though Satan seemed to be the obvious victor, in fact he was not winning. According to the arrangement of the pieces left on the chess board, his king had one more move. This move would make him the winner of the match.
The chess grand master called over the curator of the Louvre and determined that the title “Checkmate” did not fit the scene because the forlorn-looking player actually had the ability to defeat his opponent, though perhaps, in this poor fellow’s case, he had not realised it yet.
I am not comparing Manchester City to the Devil – United are known as the Red Devils after all – nor am I comparing ten Hag to the chess player sat opposite the Devil. Ten Hag seems a much cooler fish. I am simply pointing out, in the spirit of Heraclitus, and to suffering Manchester United fans currently getting heckled by their City neighbours, that there is nothing permanent except change.
There is always one more move.
Be sure to make it the winning one.
Dominic Wightman is Editor of Country Squire Magazine.