Giggs Century Leads The Way (Manchester United 4 - Derby 1)

Before I begin proper on this game, I did manage to catch the Fulham game whilst in Korea. The commentary was in Korean but a few things stood out from that game.

1. Offsides. There were plenty of offsides and most of it undeserved.

2. Ronaldo's yellow for diving. It probably didn't look like a penalty, yet at the same time didn't look like a dive. Either way, a yellow card didn't look like the right decision. If anything, Ronaldo did more diving in today's game.

Today's Game
It was a wet and heavy pitch and the passing just wasn't as crisp as expected from Manchester United. But we did dominate the game without really putting in our best effort. It was against a woeful Derby County and for large periods in the game you just get the feeling that the lads felt that by just turning up in a red jersey, victory was guaranteed.

I would have preferred to see alot more effort, but in truth, Derby are a really awful team. We could have really embarassed them if we really went for it.

After toying around with Derby for a good 40 minutes, Giggss opened the scoring, pouncing on Ronaldo's rebound. It was his 100th league goal for the club. Moments later, Tevez added a second. It was some seriously woeful defending from Derby, failing to clear the ball after Tevez had initially missed kicking the ball. At the second bite of the cherry, Tevez fired home.

On the hour mark, Tevez gave us a 3-0 lead with a superb strike. Derby should have been dead and buried. But as mentioned, we never did really turn up to play football today.

Derby managed to get a consolation goal when Evra allowed his man to run past him on the left and Van der Sar was caught in no-man's land. The cross was met by Steve Howard who managed to somehow poke it in despite some last grasp defending by Brown. This was Derby's first away goal. Probably gives some notion of just how out of depth Derby are playing in this league.

Given the way we played this game in the wet and cold, I would have gladly taken a victory. However, Ronaldo had different ideas. Right at the end of the game, he earned a penalty. Waving away Tevez, Ronaldo went on to slot home the penalty.

It was possibly be the right result at the end of the day, given just how woeful Derby was. There were probably only 3 United players who turned up today in their soccer boots. Tevez, Giggs and Rooney were outstanding. Everyone else was a shell of their former self.

In midweek, we should be sending a shadow squad to Rome and the lads should be well rested against Liverpool. Given the amount of rest we have, we had better get a good result against the grannystabbers.