The Wheels Are Falling Off (Manchester United 0 - Arsenal 1)

It was the first big game of the season and we flunk the test, against an Arsenal team playing without Henry and Van Persie. I've always thought we were not good enough this season, and it's finally showing. Against a short-handed and struggling Arsenal, we were finally exposed as the pretenders we are. I wonder how many lucky games we can squeeze out, especially after our last 2 league games.

For some reason, Tomasz Kuszczak stared instead of EVS. When I saw him in the lineup, I just had a bad feeling about this game.I can only assume EVS must have been injuried. Thankfully Kuszczak had a brilliant debut, unfortunately for him, he ended up on the losing end. He was one of the few players in the team who actually played well. As early as the 12th minute, he was called to save a dubious penalty. Throughout the game he made some fine stops, but was unable to save the winner from Adebayor, at the 86th minute, after our defense was expertly carved open by Fabegas.

The Arsenal midfield controlled the game right from kickoff and never once allowed ours to settle. We simple had no answer to they energetic and vibrant midfield. They basically laid seige in our half, and we had to settle for the counter-attack, or punting long balls to our front men. This wasn't to say that we didn't have chances. However, Lehmann stopped whatever we threw at him.

Perhaps the entire complexion of the game could have changed if Silvestre wasn't substituted early in the first half by the utterly incompetent Evra. I believe he single handedly made the game so much easier for Arsenal. My patience for him has totally and completely ended, and I can't wait for Heinze to return to left back. Frankly, Ferguson should stop being an ass and play Bardsley there, or even the pathetic Richardson. Evra is just plain useless. He's our Achilles heel.

As for our performers, only Kuszczak, Scholes, Fletcher and Saha were wearing a red shirt today. Everyone else honestly sucked, not as badly as Evra, but sucked all the same. We were unable to match Arsenal both in terms of tactics as well as desire. As an armchair critic, for once I'm unable to critic Ferguson. They were simply better in every department. Perhaps we could have been more motivated, but I can hardly fault Fergie for the inadequacies of the players. I can only hope this would serve as a wake up call for the players.

One thing for sure is that our squad simply isn't good enough. Unless our board can find some players in the January transfer window, we're pretty much screwed. Well, I'm not much of a believer, but divine intervention would help too.

I'm not really keen to see us face Reading next Saturday away. As far as I'm concerned, no Steve Coppell team is a pushover, especially the way we're playing.