Defensive Iron …
Times: “Offence wins games. Defence wins championships” – Jon Gruden, the coach of Tampa Bay Buccaneers, after victory in the 2003 Super Bowl.
It was not so much what happened as his reaction to it. As a fellow, Nemanja Vidic is amiable. As a footballer, “friendly” is a concept unfathomable to him. On Wednesday against Glentoran, the Serb steamrollered through forwards as if Manchester United were in a cup final, not an exhibition game. His skull thudded against Michael Halli-day’s in one accidental clash and he left the field, blood streaming from a cheek. And what did Vidic do as he walked off, wiping the wound? He grinned.
In an age when some players swoon at the merest waft of contact, the defender’s relish for the fray is remarkable. “Five stitches. Smiling. Aye, he was delighted,” said Sir Alex Ferguson, chuckling with pride. “Big Pally [Gary Pallister] would have been crying. Pally was always concerned about ruining his ‘good looks’. Then, in his last season, he broke his nose for the first time. He said he was going to sue me.”
Perhaps it is only because he bleeds that we can be sure Vidic is not some cyborg centre-back built specially to Ferguson’s blueprint in a secret lab in Belgrade. He seems to like the nasty bits of defending: the bumps, the bashes, the bruise-taking, like someone who does not have flesh to hurt. In Japan last month he was beaming again when, after another bounce match, against Urawa Reds, he sported a scarlet dent in his face. “Just a header,” he said, laughing. He broke his collarbone against Blackburn Rovers in March; from an injury with a normal six to 12 weeks’ recovery time, he was back playing in 32 days.
Ferguson, despite his jests, loved Pallister, whom he recalls as being “unusually blessed with balance and pace”. If one modern United player is his double, it is Rio Ferdinand. Vidic reminds Ferguson of Pallister’s old partner, Steve Bruce. Bruce, says Ferguson, “mixed resolution with warmth and modesty”, which is similar to Vidic. “He’s got qualities like Bruce,” said the manager. “Brucey would stick his head in and ask the question of the opponent. ‘Do you want hurt? I’m going to put my head in there. If you want to get the ball, you’re going to have to put your head in front of mine’. Of course he’d lost his looks long ago. He’s like Bernard Cribbins now! The hair’s going white.”
Going into the new season, Ferguson is in great fettle. Finally getting Carlos Tevez has enhanced his mood. His appetite for making United even more exuberant is well documented, but something underpins the optimism. Perhaps for the first time since 1999, he feels he has a base of granite on which to construct indulgent attacking designs. Not since Ronny Johnsen and Jaap Stam were in their prime has he had better than Vidic and Ferdinand at the back. If Bruce and Pallister remain the benchmark for United central defensive pairings, the manager thinks the Serb and the Londoner can reach for it.
“I’m pleased how they’ve developed. It’s a good partnership. They’ve got pace, they’ve got strength and there’s a good balance between then,” Ferguson said. “I expect more authority this season from Vida. He’s been with us a year and a half and this is his third season. He came in the middle of one season and it took him time to adjust, but I’m excited about him. With Rio [29 in November] I can rely on his experience.”
Offence wins games. Defence wins championships. It is a truism used in US sport. Nobody is sure who coined it, but it was repopularised when uttered by Gruden in 2003. The Glazer family, the owners of the Bucs, would have recognised Ferguson’s logic when three of the first four signings made after their takeover were Edwin Van der Sar, Vidic and Patrice Evra. Ferguson said he was responding to the higher defensive standards brought to the Premier League by Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea. It was United’s feat that, for all the goals they scored, they conceded just three more in the league than Chelsea last season. Any bid to retain the title must be founded as much on Vidic and Ferdinand as it is on Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney.
“It’s obvious from the signings that we’re going to play an attacking game, which makes it even more important for the defence to do its job,” Vidic said. Although Ferdinand’s junior by almost three years, he appears to influence his partner. The off-field scrapes Ferdinand once got into suggest an impressionable streak, and this might extend to his play. When ditzy Mikael Silvestre was his partner, we saw him at his daydreaming worst. Alongside Vidic he seems a different beast, committed, aggressive, using mental strength to marshal the gifts of speed, anticipation and ball control that have so long made him a defender of world potential. There are still errors of judgment, but generally, Ferdinand is finally finding maturity and was surely one of those Ferguson had in mind when he said: “What I’ve seen in [preseason] training is a far better stability and continuity in performances, and that is encouraging.”
Vidic, like many muscular centre-backs, needs to be in peak condition to perform. The consequences when he is underprepared were exposed by Milan’s Filippo Inzaghi in the Champions League semi-final in May, when he was just back from his broken collarbone. He looks sharp and Kevin Doyle could face no tougher opponent as he begins his attempt to reprise last season’s scoring heroics for Reading today. The Royals scored more times against United (six) than any other team in 2006-7 and four times denied Vidic and Co a clean sheet. “Reading are a commonsense team. They don’t make silly signings and when you hear their chairman talk, it’s about stability and being sensible,” Ferguson said. “They’re an example of a really well run football club.”
Gabriel Heinze is not being blacklisted despite his attempts to win a move to Liverpool. His case will be resolved at an arbitration hearing on August 20. “If he’s still a Manchester United player, he’ll be treated accordingly, as a Man United player. I have no worries about his attitude. He won’t let us down [if he stays],” Ferguson said. Tevez is unlikely to feature today: “We’re looking more at the Manchester City game next week.” Owen Hargreaves is still being nursed along after his tendinitis, with Paul Scholes and Michael Carrick, last season’s regular central midfield partnership, set to pair up against Reading. Neither Scholes nor Carrick is truly a holding player and United were as hard to score against last season as Chelsea and Liverpool, both of whom liked to operate with not one but two midfielders screening their defence. It reflects well on United’s centre-backs and it might be that they don’t need much protecting. Except, in the case of the blood-stained Vidic, from himself.
Inside track
- United have lost only three out of 15 opening-day Premier League matches (at Sheff Utd, Aston Villa and Chelsea)
- Reading were last season’s third-highest scorers on the road with 23 goals, behind United and Chelsea n Reading were only visitors to score twice in the league at Old Trafford last season
- Despite selling top scorer Ruud van Nistelrooy, United scored 83 league goals last season, shared among 17 players (both totals were the best in the Premier League). They managed 123 goals in all competitions n Reading’s 38 league bookings last season were the lowest club total in the Premier League Statistics supplied by statbunker.com
