It was essential on Saturday. With winter stamping its feet at the turnstiles the occasion did not offer comfort. Manchester United shivered all the more when Derek Geary crossed and their former player Keith Gillespie was unmarked to direct the header that put them 1-0 down after 13 minutes.
The recovery was irresistible but not at all belligerent. Sir Alex Ferguson's team have sufficient faith in themselves to be calmly insistent. Anyone seeking explanations for the recovery would point out that Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs are in their best form for years. That pair, in turn, were probably galvanised by the realisation that they might not after all have to spend the closing phase of their careers as also-rans to Chelsea.
There has been a range of improvements and it would be wrong, for instance, to ignore the vigilant Nemanja Vidic, who differs from the rest of the back four in being interested solely in defending. The side as a whole has put
The Sheffield United manager was in a hurry to deliver some last-minute exhortation to his men.
The Sheffield United manager is not a soft touch and the club's supporters must be bemused to find him so appreciative of visitors who had taken all three points, but Warnock did not want to stifle his admiration. "They've got flair, panache, arrogance, everything you need," he said. "Of course I'm envious."
He also sees the ripening of the match-winner: "Rooney is the king in our eyes and that's why Steve McClaren has to hope everything stays fresh with him and play him in his best position. I can't see a problem with him playing behind that front man. That's the best place for him. If you play Rooney there then you're going to score goals.
"He's had a few blows this summer [in the World Cup] but he is only a young lad. When you are our best player in
At their peak under
The Times
Twenty-five minutes to three on Saturday afternoon and Neil Warnock, charm personified, reverted to his more familiar bluntness after wondering if he was ever going to get Sir Alex Ferguson out of his office. “I had to kick him out,” the Sheffield United manager said. “We'd had a
Time will tell whether that approach is enough to keep ahead of
“If I had to pay to watch, I'd watch
It was that sort of afternoon, illuminated not only by Rooney's two goals but also by the endeavour of a home team who, for all Warnock's claims that they are “thick”, will never be accused of lacking honesty. Admittedly, they never looked like holding on to the lead they took through Keith Gillespie's thirteenth-minute header, his first goal for the club, but it took a second adroit finish from Rooney with 15 minutes remaining to keep
“This was a great win, especially with the
The Indie
"There's something romantic about the way Manchester United play their football," Warnock enthused in his programme notes. Then, after Warnock had booted Sir Alex out at 2.35pm ("I said 'bloody hell, it's all right for you with your team. I've got to go and try to motivate my lads'," he revealed later) the Bramall Lane faithful were asked for - and provided - a standing ovation for his 20 years at Old Trafford by a stadium announcer who didn't give much for the home side's chances. "The last time we beat United, Sean Bean scored," he told the crowd, in reference to the fictional victory which came a full 10 years ago, in the film When Saturday Comes.
If all this was designed to soften up the visitors for a sucker punch, then 13 minutes in it seemed to have worked when Keith Gillespie, whose United career ended in the exchange deal for Andrew Cole which took him to Newcastle, met Derek Geary's 20-yard cross with a header of a power and precision befitting most strikers Sir Alex has signed down the years.
But Warnock could not have expected his programme notes to prove quite so prescient. "Romantic football", had he called it? It is hard to conjure a more appropriate epithet for the exhibition of midfield movement, touch and engineering which Gillespie's strike seemed to conjure from Ryan Giggs, Cristiano Ronaldo, intermittently Paul Scholes and most especially Wayne Rooney - who took three exquisite touches to find his two goals and delivered passes of a vision not seen at this ground for many a long year. "Two great strikes from The King," Warnock said later. Again, no hyperbole.
And set against all that in this old-fashioned kind of football place was an old-fashioned kind of hero, wearing a pink piece of elastoplast in the place where his right eyebrow used to be. If Paddy Kenny is, as his manager said this week, proof that "it's the thick ones you have to watch" then IQ tests need be no requisite for Premiership survival. Kenny saved twice at full stretch from Rooney in a five-minute spell - and grinned - as United purred. "I've told him he should put a plaster on the other eye if he plays as well as that," his manager said later.
Parity was inevitable, of course, despite the Blades' graft and what, at times, looked like a flat back seven. Louis Saha had just been flattened by Rob Kozluk in one of three strong first-half penalty appeals when Gary Neville delivered with his "wrong" foot to Rooney who raced past Claude Davis. A touch with the left instep and a strike with the right boot did the job.
Just the single touch was needed for his second - arguably the better, which came when it seemed that Warnock's men might just hold out. Ghosting away again from the tormented Davis, he drove Patrice Evra's 30-yard cross into the ground and the net for a goal which had many United fans talking about a similar Cantona strike from a Neville cross at St James' Park 10 years ago.
The