Cometh the month, cometh the man. During a season where he has often seemed an afterthought, Ander Herrera -- when it has mattered most these last few weeks -- has been Manchester United's best midfielder.
Yes, Paul Pogba has been decisive, but his performances have oscillated between abject and excellent, often in the course of a single game. Nemanja Matic, perhaps due to fatigue, looks a level below his imperious form of the first part of the season. Both Pogba and Matic have emerged to play vital roles in the victories over Manchester City in the Premier League and Tottenham in the FA Cup, but the most consistent inspiration in the middle of the park has been the Spaniard.
Herrera stands to end this year on as strong a note as any he has had at United, which is odd given how he started it -- in good shape, but utterly out of rhythm. As United blew teams away in the first few games, with -- it is strange now to relate -- Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Anthony Martial among the team's leading attackers, Herrera could not have looked further from Jose Mourinho's starting XI. Pogba and Matic had quickly formed a powerful midfield axis, and Herrera was suddenly the jack-of-all-trades who had been outed by masters.
But that was then, and hindsight is of course glorious. Subsequent experiences -- among the most notable of which was the defeat away to Tottenham in the Premier League -- showed Mourinho that, against elite opposition, United could not compete with only Pogba and Matic in the middle. Yet even then, Herrera had to wait, presumably outshone by Scott McTominay in training. As McTominay -- a little surprisingly, it must be said -- found himself less in favour, Herrera took his chance.
And how he has done so. These few weeks he has variously been United's chief creator and enforcer. Against City, he supplied a sublime chested pass for Pogba's first goal, to launch that famous comeback at the Etihad. Against Tottenham in the FA Cup semifinal, he supplied the winner himself. That was only a few days after his pass into the inside-right channel, in the manner of a certain Andres Iniesta, had led to Chris Smalling's goal against Bournemouth. Once again, Herrera is the main man.
Ander Herrera has come to the fore again at Manchester United. Michael Regan/Getty Images
This is maybe as it should be. At one point his statistical output measured well alongside that of N'Golo Kante, while his influence went far beyond mere numbers. Yet though Herrera might now seem like a "Mourinho player", it wasn't always clear he would be so. Perhaps it is more accurate to say that, like his compatriot Juan Mata, Herrera has adapted his game in order to thrive under his manager.
That transition wasn't easy. Even as Herrera turned in titanic defensive performances against Liverpool both home and away in Mourinho's first season, there was a sense that something of his creativity had been lost. The player who had once arrived so readily in the area as an extra forward, his late runs a weapon of devastating effect, now looked to be a thing of the past.
But Mourinho challenges his players to bend to his will, and when they can do so the results are spectacular. See, for example, the minute when Herrera scored the decisive goal against Tottenham -- mere seconds before he ran on to a loose ball in his opponents' area, he had calmly headed that same ball, from well outside the box, into the grateful arms of David De Gea. It's this all-action approach that has latterly so endeared him to Mourinho.
One suspects, too, that Mourinho is very comfortable with Herrera's expression of his nastier side. Herrera needles the opposition to the point of distraction -- a niggling foul here, a sly remark there -- and in that sense is part technician, part troll. He is the combative foil to Pogba's connoisseur -- and, as if inspired by his example on Saturday, the Frenchman shrugged off none other than Moussa Dembele on his way to giving an assist for Alexis Sanchez.
If United do end a third straight season with silverware, they will have Herrera in no small part to thank. But he has already given them something even better -- as the soul of two of their most thrilling comebacks in recent seasons, he has shown them the essence of what is often referred to as "The United Way".
Source: espn.co.uk