Could Derby Win Prove a Turning Point for Jose Mourinho and Manchester United?

It would hardly be melodramatic to suggest that at half-time during Saturday's Manchester derby, a significant number of those in the away dressing room with heads bowed were effectively on the precipice in terms of their Manchester United careers.

The significant overhaul manager Jose Mourinho has intimated is coming will no doubt still happen this summer, but the gallows being readied at Carrington may perhaps no longer require quite so many nooses. Though United's victory delayed rather than derailed Manchester City's coronation, it could have accelerating properties in terms of their own cycle of transition.

Inside the Etihad Stadium, the smoke bombs going off intermittently were blue, the familiar refrain of "Blue Moon" was bellowed throughout and the language heard from the away end was definitely blue. But inside United's dressing room at the break, the mood would have been pitch-black. The noisy neighbours were lording it over Mourinho and his team.

Having watched his side be eviscerated in a first half in which City scored twice and would not have been flattered had they bagged four or five, Mourinho is cute enough to realise he was overseeing what would be remembered as one of the worst days in United's rich history.

City looked almost certain to win the Premier League by virtue of not just beating United but by schooling them in a manner that was nothing less than humiliating. The memes being readied were brutal.

This was a Titanic moment, with Mourinho's right-hand man, Rui Faria, resigned to spending the second half playing the violin while the good ship RMS MUFC sank without trace.

Appropriately attired in a smart overcoat fit for a funeral, Mourinho searched for the right words. According to Chris Smalling's interview with Sky Sports after the game, the United boss didn't wrap it up (via Samuel Luckhurst of the Manchester Evening News): "You don't want to be the clowns standing there, watching them get their title."

It was a bold choice of words by the Portuguese. A gamble. Whereas in his halcyon days it seemed impossible to go a day without hearing one of his players talk of him in gauche terms usually reserved for schoolboy crushes, in latter years his sharp abruptness has been perceived as being alienating. He has always been an island, but there's a stark difference between being remote and uninhabitable.   

On this occasion, shooting from the lip proved inspired. The response it fostered demonstrated how his players still covet his approval. It has long since been glib to talk of players "playing" for the manager, yet whatever passed in those few minutes at half-time clearly stirred something that has too often lain dormant.

Perhaps the biggest complaint about Mourinho's United side over the past two seasons is that they lack personality. To his chagrin, after City, Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool have become the poster boys for the aesthete generation despite the fact they trail his team in the league and haven't won a trophy between them since 2012.

In the second half, United positively bristled with personality. They were as good as they were dreadful in the preceding 45 minutes. In that first period, when Guardiola's band of stylish mods darted around United's plodding rockers, English football's finest modernists made their neighbours look hopelessly antiquated in comparison.

Vincent Kompany's thumping header to open the scoring was a replica of the one he scored at the Etihad to see off United in April 2012, just weeks before City clinched their first Premier League title. Smalling was the fall guy that day too. Of the four goals United have conceded against City this season, three have come from set pieces. The script, it appeared, was being adhered to. After all, who better to set City on their way than the skipper, an adopted Mancunian?

Five minutes later, on the half-hour mark, the mood was carnival-like. Ilkay Gundogan placed one tentative hand on the Premier League trophy when City ruthlessly punished David De Gea's weak kick out that fell straight to Leroy Sane. He worked the ball to his fellow German, whose perfectly executed pirouette in the box and intuitive stab for goal extended the home side's lead.

United's response was nonexistent, with their failure to have a single shot a fair reflection of how abject they were. City completed 326 passes to United's 148. United had started the day trailing City by 16 points. On this showing, it could have been a 60-point deficit.

City's unconventional, not to mention diminutive, front three of Raheem Sterling, Bernardo Silva and Sane persistently rotated to leave United's back four looking like they had been asked to look after three toddlers despite having no previous experience of child care. Frazzled and panicky just about covers it.

Sterling's profligacy, a mystery given his composure in front of goal has improved under Guardiola no end, would prove costly. At least twice he should have extended City's lead.

And then, from nowhere, a week after Easter, Manchester bore witness to a resurrection Jesus would have baulked at for being unrealistic.

At the centre of the metamorphosis, inevitably, was Paul Pogba. Sporting somewhat provocative blue-and-white hair, the France international had the haircut police fuming from the off. 

A penchant for visiting barbershops seems a fairly innocuous pastime given other habits of footballers past and present. Yet Pogba's hair choices remain a topic of endless fascination. If barbers are as influential as is made out, they should be on footballers' wages.

On Sky Sports, Gary Neville was decidedly unimpressed: "I like him. I think he's a good player, but he doesn't help himself. If you are a wise individual, you don't attract attention when things aren't going your way."

It's been quite the week for Pogba. On Friday, in a move straight out of Mourinho's managerial playbook, Guardiola informed the assembled press he had been offered Pogba as a potential summer signing by the Frenchman's agent, Mino Raiola. As barbed comments go, it was like wielding a sword with three blades, one each for Raiola, Pogba and Mourinho's guts.

It was information he had sat on for two months, choosing to release it ahead of the derby in response to Raiola's description of him as "an absolute zero...a coward, a dog."

If it were meant to unsettle the player, it had the desired effect in the first half. Had Pogba been a dog, there's a fair chance he would have been put down at half-time.

Despite being used to the left of his favoured three-man midfield, also comprising bodyguards Nemanja Matic and Ander Herrera, he spent most of the first half meandering to no purpose. 

His touch was loose and his passing looser, with a tendency to overplay (often in the wrong areas) an Achilles heel Mourinho will be desperate to right before the start of next season.

After the game, when dissecting his performance with Thierry Henry on Sky Sports, Pogba, perhaps pointedly, spoke of how playing in a three allowed him to make the type of runs that brought him two sublime goals.

"I give the credit to Michael Carrick, because after the game, every game, he shows me the video and says to make those runs," he said. "He's someone who's helped me a lot. Every time after training, he says: 'Come, look at this run. You can kill because nobody can stop you.'

"It's hard to make this run in a two, because you have to stay and you have to control. When we have three players, I know Matic will stay behind, and you have more freedom to go in front." 

There was an almost Bryan Robson-like intensity and omnipresence to Pogba after the break. All of a sudden, he was everywhere, and United played much higher up the pitch. Driving his team-mates forward, United were alive again after flatlining throughout the first half. Launching into tackles, his force of personality proved infectious.

Alexis Sanchez, likewise previously anonymous, started to reminded everyone why Guardiola was just as keen on him as Mourinho was in January, when Arsenal made it known they were willing to do business.

It was the Chile international who was the architect of Pogba's first goal, a counter-attack Guardiola will have quietly applauded. From Sanchez's clipped cross, Herrera played a chest pass more befitting of David Silva into the path of a marauding Pogba. His finish was composed to beat Ederson. It was the type of goal he should be looking to make his trademark, as Frank Lampard did in his playing days.

He still has some way to go. This was his first goal since he netted in United's 4-1 win over Newcastle United on November 18. Afterwards, he told Henry: "I feel very happy [about the victory], but there is one side of me that is disappointed too, because with a performance like we had in the second half, if we had done this all season, I think we would be fighting for the title with City or we'd be just in front of them."

The pronoun he should have used more frequently in his discussion with Henry was "I." No player epitomises what might have been for United this season more than Pogba. He demonstrated on Saturday he could boss one of Europe's top sides, unquestionably England's best team, pretty much single-handedly. Whether he can use the game as a springboard to convince Mourinho his talent is one worth building a side around, only time will tell.

At full time Guardiola made a beeline for Pogba. What was said between them has gone unreported, but Pogba's "Say what?" post on Instagram probably spoke volumes about his take on the situation. 

His second goal was even more impressive than the first. With Sanchez finally starting to dispel the idea that Mourinho has bought a busted flush, think Chelsea's £50 million outlay on Fernando Torres—not to mention the notion he is incompatible with Pogba because they are drawn to the same channel—there was a fluidity to United that has rarely been seen in big matches this season.

It was from Sanchez's cross that Pogba brilliantly manipulated his neck muscles to plant a downward header beyond Ederson despite the ball being fractionally behind him. 

"If it's true that his agent offered him to some clubs, now the price has gone up," Mourinho, in dry from, told Sky Sports at full time.

By the time Smalling had redeemed himself for his error in the buildup to Kompany's opener with a winning goal of his own, the majority inside the Etihad resembled lottery winners who had been informed by their bank giant cheques cannot be cashed. The new order may be established, but it will be City fans experiencing a blue Monday.

This was the first time Mourinho has beaten Guardiola in a league game since 2012, the first time a Guardiola team has conceded three goals in two consecutive matches and the first time a Mourinho team has come back to win 3-2 after going two goals down.

City supporters will point to a lineup that saw Guardiola name Kevin De Bruyne, Sergio Aguero and Kyle Walker on the bench with one eye on Tuesday's UEFA Champions League quarter-final second leg against Liverpool, along with a flurry of missed chances, De Gea's great save from Aguero and a rejected stonewall penalty appeal.

For United, Smalling's unlikeliest of interventions will be the highlight of their season, whichever way you cut it. A circumspect Mourinho was loath to read too much into the win.

When asked whether it represented putting down a marker for next season, the United manager told Sky Sports: "I don't think so. It's an important victory, a good victory. I think deserved, but I don't see more than that. We need points to finish [in the] top four or finish second, and we got points in the stadium where it's most difficult to get points, where they won virtually every game."

There will be much debate as to whether this is how Mourinho could have had United playing all season if only he would have released the handbrake sooner, as circumstances dictated he had to in the second half. It is unlikely one great half of football, however stirring and reminiscent of great United sides from the past, will be enough to convince him to ditch his famed conservatism.

Still, it will give him food for thought, even if it does not prove to be the epiphany many hope it will be. 

The Champions League defeat to Sevilla in March, when Mourinho's negative approach was undoubtedly United's undoing, should provide a stark counterbalance when he is weighing up how to set up his side hereon. Surely there must be a temptation to at least experiment with the idea it may be better to assert United's authority in big games rather than try to bore the opposition into submission.

Although Mourinho, to give him his due, would point to United's record against the top six this season and argue he probably knows what he's doing more than any of us. From nine games (with Arsenal still to visit Old Trafford) against their closest rivals, United's record reads five wins, three defeats and one draw. They have beaten each of the top six at least once, taking a more than respectable 16 points from a possible 27.

It is often levelled at Mourinho that he no longer understands how to coordinate top-level attacks. To a certain extent, whether by accident or design, United's first two goals point to the contrary. His obvious irritation at the lack of respect he receives from those who perceive the game to be about more than just winning is longstanding.

To his detractors, despite his record of delivering silverware, he will always be the one-eyed king in the kingdom of the blind.

He may no longer be king, but he's definitely not a clown.