Former Manchester United midfielder, Nicky Butt sprang up to defend Manchester United’s Sir Alex Ferguson after the team lost to arch rivals Manchester City by a lone goal saying the tactics he played against City made sense.
Butt who is weaving up his media career after retiring from football with six premier league titles won at Old Trafford and before retirement left for Newcastle, was an analyst for MUTV for last night’s game and surprisingly didn’t support the opinion chorused by other pundits that Wayne Rooney shouldn’t have been the only man upfront rather, Butt said if it wasn’t for the tactics Sir Alex deployed United would have suffered more damage.
He said the idea was for United to go and defend and not let City dictate the pace of play in the midfield and that called for the tactics Sir Alex deployed but if United had put two men upfront the midfield would have been very open for City to have easy penetration as they had the control of the midfield most of the time in the game which enabled them move the ball well, United would have conceded more goals.
Concerning City, Butt they said the team contains quality players just like United too and they should not be underestimated as they have spent millions of pounds buying top notch players to move up their game and that’s what has happened and blamed Chris Smalling for allowing Vincent Kompany for bad defending and also the team’s inability to support Wayne Rooney as he was most of the time isolated upfront not getting support from the midfield.
Indeed, confirmation that United failed to register a single shot on target for the first time in a Premier League game since the 2009 encounter with Arsenal – when they only required a draw to win the title – told its own epitaph on a sorry night when they surrendered the initiative to their fiercest rivals.
Last night’s defeat will however open the eyes of Sir Alex Ferguson to the weakness that has been lingering in the team for so long a time and nip it in the butt finally.
