United's illogical comeback can't mask alarming trend

David Moyes and Ruben Amorim can testify to the difficulties of walking in Sir Alex Ferguson’s footsteps.

- RICHARD JOLLY

The most famous comment made by Manchester United’s most decorated manager came after his most celebrated comeback. Football, bloody hell? As two of his successors met, this seemed another case of it, a fightback that, like Ferguson’s against Bayern Munich in 1999, was remarkable in part because it felt inexplicable, because United were out of sorts, outclassed, seemingly out for the count.

After 70 minutes of their final visit to Goodison Park, there was a temptation to say this was a new low for United; yet another one. Their xG was 0.04, meaning that – statistically – they would have had to play for more than 29 hours to create chances equivalent to one goal. The performance was ponderous. Casemiro had seemed to cover less ground on the pitch than Kevin Sheedy did when inducted into Everton’s Hall of Fame at half time. Amorim had picked the wrong team, omitting Alejandro Garnacho, Moyes was justifying his United counterpart’s pre-match assertion that the Scot was doing the better job.

Which, in the broader scheme of things, is still very true. Much of Everton’s display was testament to Moyes’s transformative effect. Much of United’s was atrocious. They nevertheless emerged with a point apiece. It was thanks in part to the catalytic prowess of Bruno Fernandes and his refusal to accept a defeat that his teammates seemed resigned to.