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Your support makes all the difference.As Manchester United disintegrated in front of their very eyes, the crowd began chanting: “Can we play you every week”.
Huddersfield had not played them since 1972 and they had not beaten Manchester United since 1952. This was a rare, special occasion and it was rewarded with a rare, special performance.
This was Manchester United’s first defeat of the season which left them five points behind City at the summit of the Premier League. It was not a freak, it was not a fluke and after two barren displays in Liverpool and Lisbon, it had been coming.
Sir Alex Ferguson used to remark that, whenever United lost, the inquests would always focus why his team lost rather than why his opponents won. The question would be how close his empire was to the edge. This was a game in which Huddersfield’s performance should be celebrated before damning Manchester United’s which Jose Mourinho duly did. The difference, the United manager said, was in “attitude”. Huddersfield had it, his players did not.
Huddersfield played the game of their lives. In the last few minutes when the match was played entirely in their half, they stretched every muscle and blocked every ball. The block from Mathias Jorgensen that smothered Chris Smalling’s shot at the finish was critical but Manchester United had deserved nothing but defeat.
Before kick-off a section of Huddersfield’s support held up a banner which declared: “It doesn’t matter how big you are or how experienced you are, if you have passion and desire you have no limits”.
That at least is the theory that all freshly-promoted clubs take with them to the Premier League. However, by mid-October the reality of the big time had begun to press in on Huddersfield Town. They had not won since August, they were facing a Manchester United team that not only crossed the Pennines unbeaten, they did so having conceded only once in their eight previous league games.
“The scoreline if you can believe it, is Huddersfield Town two, Manchester United nil” said the half-time announcer. Mourinho could well believe it. His team were sent out for the second half minutes before the restart and two Juan Mata and Anthony Martial were not invited to begin the remaining 45 minutes.
The collapse had begun with a substitution. Phil Jones had begun aggressively and effectively at the heart of the Manchester United defence when in the 23rd minute he went down with what looked like a knee injury.
‘Aggressive and effective’ were not adjectives you would apply to Jones’s replacement, Victor Lindelof. The kindest word you could reach for to describe the Swede was ‘ineffectual’. He made almost no attempt to cut out Jonas Lossl’s long upfield punt, which Laurent Depoitre simply swept around David de Gea for what, astonishingly, was Huddersfield’s second goal of the afternoon.
The first had come from another, rather more conventional counter-attack that displayed the kind of pace and directness that Manchester United appeared to completely lack. Denis Law, who had come down to Huddersfield as a 14-year-old from Aberdeen and reached the peak of his career at Old Trafford was the guest of honour and, frankly, even at his age Law might have fancied his chances against Lindelof.
Aaron Mooy had already given United one scare when his free-kick floated through De Gea’s entire backline before being cleared by Romelu Lukaku. Now the Australian seized the ball from Mata and charged forward. There were options to both sides. He chose Tom Ince, whose father played in a vastly better Manchester United team than this one. De Gea blocked Ince’s shot but could do nothing about Mooy’s follow-up.
As the rain from Storm Brian – a very Yorkshire name for a weather event – sent the rain scudding horizontally across the John Smith’s Stadium, David Wagner knew his team had 45 minutes in which they would be pushed deeper into their own half.
You thought that they were defending too deep against too much firepower and that United must inevitably break through to force the kind of grandstand finish that had seen Chelsea rescue themselves earlier in the day.
The electronic scoreboard ticked away, the rain kept gushing down and the attempts to play Lukaku through became ever more erratic. Then, with a dozen minutes left, Lukaku managed to provide some ammunition for his fellow forwards. His cross was a sight better than some of those that had been aimed towards him and Marcus Rashford headed it past Lossl.
Manchester United had more than enough time to break men they would regard as their lesser. Ferguson’s teams, in their pomp, always would; there was a grating inevitability about it. There was nothing inevitable about this. Huddersfield had welcomed Manchester United to Yorkshire with a brass band outside the players’ entrance. On the final whistle, they sent them on their way with a vast, rolling cheer. In the dressing room there would have been only embarrassed silence.
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