Pride comes before a fall, as the proverb goes.
Marc Skinner was bullishly singing the praises of his Manchester United players for their eye-catching start to the season a few days ago.
Intoxicated by the joie de vivre of their play as much as the free-scoring which has seen them top of the goalscoring charts, he declared they were “playing better football than we’ve probably ever played”.
United’s 1-0 defeat by Aston Villa and a lacklustre performance in the Women’s Super League (WSL) later and the United boss’ tune was inevitably more sombre.
“Flat. It was very flat,” Skinner succinctly put it to BBC Radio 5 Live.
A face like a wet weekend in the autumnal sunshine as those in red shirts trudged off the pitch at the Leigh Sports Village, Skinner knew this was an opportunity missed for United.
Chelsea’s 1-1 draw with Arsenal meant United would have gone top had they beaten Villa. Instead they are three points behind the defending champions.
Will it be one that Skinner laments later in the season when the margins between success and failure might be more acute? Possibly.
“To think about the table now is a bit crazy. We don’t really look at other teams so we don’t care about other results,” insisted United captain Maya le Tissier.
But whereas Skinner, arguably, got carried away with their start – based on his public comments at least – he was adamant there will be no overreaction to this result.
It was a tepid performance, an off day, but United have shown in the seven WSL games which preceded this one they have the potential to be in the mix this season.
“You are going to have flat performances. But I don’t want to overemphasise the situation,” he explained.
“Sometimes these [results] happen. I thought Villa’s goal was a scrappy, scruffy, goal from a set-piece. It happens and sometimes it goes against you.”
Skinner felt United needed to be “cleaner in our actions and our techniques” which he wanted his “players to own as well”, while Le Tissier acknowledged they “didn’t do our basics well”.
This was far from an ideal start to what could be a pivotal week in their season for United, of course.
Paris St-Germain visit Old Trafford in the Champions League on Wednesday. Then there is the small matter of the derby against Manchester City on Sunday, 16 November.
“As a collective we’ll move forward and be better going into the PSG game,” Skinner added.
“We’ll move forward and we are really good at bouncing back and use that as energy – and that’s what we’ll do on Wednesday.”
