Manchester United’s unique comeback leaves no one knowing how to feel

As the Manchester United players who had been told they were not fit to wear the shirt, in perhaps the earliest ever airing of that chant in footballing history, celebrated a second ridiculous comeback in five days, the Stretford End launched into a different chorus.

They had told the team they were unworthy of representing them after a mere five minutes, had jeered in damning fashion when the dreadful Diogo Dalot was substituted, had been vitriolic about the Glazer family, Sir Jim Ratcliffe and Jason Wilcox. But United left the pitch in the relegation zone while their supporters serenaded Michael Carrick.

“It’s hard to believe it’s not Scholes,” they sang. In one respect, it was hard to believe it was not Sir Alex Ferguson, plucking results from nowhere. In another, it was hard to believe this was not the prelude to a sacking. It may still be.

But Carrick won’t quit. “That’s not going to happen,” he said. “I am quite clear what direction the club needs to go in and we need to win games.” They have only won once in 11 games, one point in three in the Premier League but Carrick is starting to specialise in escapology. Bournemouth had seemed the end for him, Roma looked it when his side were 2-0 down. Aston Villa seemed his valedictory game twice, before two two-goal comebacks.

“Making it hard for ourselves,” said Carrick. That was putting it mildly. Yet his side have twice delivered a show of spirit to salvage something from the brink of humiliation. Ferguson’s most famous comeback was delivered by two substitutes, Teddy Sheringham and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. If Carrick has a lifeline now, it came from two replacements, scorers in Fergie Time, when it seemed time had run out for the latest United manager.

First Patrick Dorgu set up Joshua Zirkzee to halve the deficit. Then Dorgu headed in Bruno Fernandes’ 96th-minute corner. “In extra time conceding two goals is painful,” said Unai Emery. “Today we have lost two points.” Emery headed off for the tunnel when Dorgu scored, a picture of frustration. “I was angry with the situation, not with the players,” he said. A few minutes earlier, the Villa supporters had been jubilant, taunting their former midfielder Youri Tielemans with a chorus of: “Youri, what’s the score?”

Few, Emery included, foresaw the eventual answer. Villa were on course for their biggest victory at Old Trafford since 1920; then, suddenly, they did not have a win at all. This was confusing and complicated, crazy entertainment. United showed a self-destructive streak at the start of each half and reacted to spread the kind of chaos that put a smile back on their faces.

“I am disappointed we didn’t win the game,” claimed Carrick. United were both awful and exciting. They have character, if not competence at the back, where they did an impression of a particularly hungover pub team. A team with a series of historic lows have a pan-European level of porousness. As Villa scored four, no team in Europe’s five major leagues has conceded more goals in all competitions than United. Defensively, they are disastrous, disorganised, struggling at set-pieces, forever caught out by the counter-attack. Dalot is in hideous form and it got worse. Carrick erred by not swapping him with Noussair Mazraoui at half-time. What followed was all too predictable as, unable to contain the outstanding Alysson, Dalot fouled him to concede a penalty. Yet when Dalot eventually did go off, he was replaced by a rescuer, in the shape of the fit-again Dorgu.

Before his introduction, United had looked a shambles as they made a shocking start, and then another. They twice responded to Carrick’s team talks by capitulating, conceding two goals in four minutes at the start of the match and two in eight after the break.

Two goals behind after 18 minutes to Roma, United somehow surpassed that. This was the earliest they had ever been 2-0 down in a Premier League game when Villa doubled their lead, with Senne Lammens at fault for both.

Dalot should share the blame for Alyson’s first-minute opener, allowing the winger too much room to shoot. He beat the goalkeeper at his near post. When Lammens only pushed another Alysson shot straight to Nicolas Jackson, the summer signing slotted in his eighth goal in his last nine games.

It was, ridiculously, the fifth consecutive game in which United went 2-0 down. Briefly, they hinted at a second consecutive 3-2 win, only for something still more outlandish to unfold. The comeback against Roma began with a penalty won by Matheus Cunha and scored by Fernandes. Five days later, Boubacar Kamara fouled the Brazilian and the United captain sent Zion Suzuki the wrong way. Déjà vu.

As United were forced into a pattern of frenetic attacking, Cunha tried to power another fightback. There were echoes of Tuesday night, waves of attack. Cunha, Fernandes and Amad Diallo all came close. Suzuki made fine saves from Cunha and Amad. Tielemans swept in his first United goal from Mazraoui’s cutback.

After the interval, Villa felt fired up again. United emerged dopily. Carrick left Dalot up against the outstanding Alysson and tripped him. Either the winger was unstoppable or United made him look so but John McGinn, who missed his penalty against Fulham last week, scored this.

Then Lammens made his save of the game, sparing Leny Yoro an own goal but in vain. Jackson scuffed his shot but Leon Goretzka finished. His first Villa goal, it seemed, would finish off Carrick and United. Somehow, extraordinarily, it did not. They struck back in added time. His reign may be in added time, too.