Harry Maguire revels in red mist to bend chaotic tie Manchester United’s way

It was always going to end like this, a fact that became essentially unavoidable with the sight of Joshua Zirkzee rotating his arms wildly towards the away end before the penalty shootout at the end of this 1-1 FA Cup third-round draw, shorts hitched up, chalk down one leg, transformed in that moment into Warrior-Zirkzee.

From that point it also seemed inevitable Kai Havertz, who had earlier fallen over a pocket of air to win a potentially game-turning penalty, would now produce the key miss, a spot-kick so weak he could have run after it, caught up, taken it back and had another go.

And, of course, Zirkzee got to score the winning penalty for Manchester United, side-footing the ball into the empty half of the goal, then joyously machine gunning the crowd in celebration, before remembering that he probably shouldn’t do that.

Zirkzee is an odd footballer, a mooching, bovine figure, clever with the ball, perhaps lacking a certain viciousness. But this was a wonderful moment of personal catharsis after some difficult recent times.

But then, this was a game that always seemed to carry a sense of a redemption arc about it. The job for Ruben Amorim has always been to take bad things and make them good, banish ghosts, flush out that deep United voodoo. A 10-man shootout win on a freezing Sunday in front of a Cup-sized away end felt like a pretty good staging post along that road.

All the more so when the key men here were Zirkzee and also Harry Maguire, who had another excellent game, and looks suddenly very suited to the back three plus double pivot that is the base layer of this new era.

Mainly this was a victory born out of spirit. United had a genuinely strange make-do-and-mend team on the pitch in extra time. Zirkzee as the lone attacking Dalek. Toby Collyer, Bruno Fernandes and Amad Diallo. That’s your central midfield.

Behind this Maguire was the low-key star of this game, patrolling his prescribed areas in his best loyal police horse mode, and in a way that feels tactically significant. It is, of course, early days. But United have gone in double-quick time from a creaky, rickety thing, all weird open spaces, to a team who are actually horrible to play against, who have the ability to suffocate an opponent.

The three central defenders were brave, stayed high and stepped into midfield, where Manuel Ugarte was again excellent. Maguire is effective in this kind of system, all close, tight defending and one-on-one grapples. In 90 minutes he had 11 clearances, five blocked shots, four headers won, more in each case than anyone else on the pitch. He just looks good these days, survivor-ish, lived-in, the floppy fringe, the broad back, the soldierly way of moving. Amorim had asked for more leadership, and it’s never really clear what this means. But there a was a moment here where Maguire brought those intangible qualities.

View image in fullscreen Ruben Amorim’s Manchester United are no longer enjoyable to play against. Photograph: Kin Cheung/AP

This was a VAR-free afternoon. It was fun for the neutral, but also marked by strange decisions, the sense of the referee, Andy Madley, being let off the leash, a little giddy, trying to run without his leg braces. It contributed to the 11 Minutes of Madness that defined the game.

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With an hour gone and United 1-0 up, Diogo Dalot was sent off. Within 90 seconds Arsenal were level. Eight minutes later they had a penalty, awarded after Havertz had collapsed under an imaginary contact with Maguire. At which point Maguire did something that can’t really be measured in standard metrics. He made lots of noise. For 30 seconds he was the daddy, the boss, a finger-jabbing avenger, creating energy, resistance, vibes.

There was, briefly, chaos, forehead to forehead stuff, hands on faces, aggrieved reaction to the aggrieved reaction. It was pure alpha-vibemanship from Maguire, rage-doctoring the air around him, bending the day back his way. Martin Ødegaard, stuttered, waited and produced an under-hit penalty that was saved well at the foot of the post.

It helped that United were facing a team that has so clearly lost its attacking edge. Ødegaard kept on floating out to the right, still loyal to those fond old Saka spaces, like a mournful dog still nosing sadly around his master’s empty armchair and abandoned slippers. It was a strange opening from United, who didn’t have a single attack or even an attack-curious moment, but also didn’t seem to be playing badly or being dominated. They were just there, in the way. And steadily a bad, hard game became a good, hard game as those 10 men hung on with a sense of increasing certainty.

Amorim is essentially all about control and defensive architecture. This felt like something happening in real time, an entity finding a shape; and above all, driven on by that noisy support, like a moment of soulfulness for a team that really has been missing those.

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