Ronaldo Shines In Sparkling Performance

Manchester United 2 - Portsmouth 0
Scorers
Manchester United : Ronaldo 10, 13

Team : Van der Sar, Evra, Rio, Vidic, Brown, Scholes (Hargreaves 62), Carrick, Park, Nani, Ronaldo (Anderson 73), Rooney (Tevez 73)

24hrs after Arsenal had briefly taken top spot by beating a truely woeful Newcastle, we turned up heat by totally obliterating Portsmouth.

Due to some technical difficulties, I missed the entire first half but managed to catch the highlights. From everything I saw, hear and read, we were totally in our element in the first half.

It didn't take long for us to open the scoring. Nani fed a beautiful ball to Ronaldo and he scored 10 minutes into the game.

His second came 3 minutes later from a wonder goal via a freekick. It's probably one of the best freekicks I've seen in my entire life.

Portsmouth didn't know what hit them as we continually tore them apart. Scholes was outstanding in midfield and you probably couldn't tell that this was his first start since his injury 3 months ago. It was as if he never missed a game.

I managed to fix my computer by the start of the second half and was happily seated in my room, anticipating the excitement to continue, unfortunately, by then we had taken the foot off the pedal, possibly thinking of the next game against Spurs.

Actually it was Portsmouth which decided not to engage us at our game. Apparently Harry Redknapp had decided that if they continued in the same vein as in the first half, they would be soundly thrashed and I can't really argue with that train of thought. Based on the highlights, we were that good.

We still bossed the midfield, and while Portsmouth didn't threaten, we couldn't add to the scoreline. We created numerous chances but neither Rooney, nor substitutes Anderson and Tevez, could convert any of them.

All in all, it was a good result and an even better performance. I just wish I could've caught the first half.

Munich Tribute
There's been plenty going around regarding the Munich tribute 50 years on. Strangely enough, alot of the debate seems to be going around the minute's silence when England plays their friendly in a week's time and our own 4 days later against City. The issue I personally have is all the noise that is being generated even before the minute's silence. For some reason, it leaves a sour taste. If there are going to be spoilers, so be it. Let's not add to the noise.

And speaking of the tribute, I received a mail earlier today and I have to take my hat off to Arsenal. In their match programme yesterday against Newcastle, they had their own special Munich tribute. You can probably view it on their website in a couple of days. For those of you who are too Red to hop over to the enemy's place, I'll post what was written there:

Today's match is the last here at the Emirates before the football world will remember the 23 people, including eight Manchester United players and nine journalists, who perished in Munich on February 6, 1958.

The Munich disaster occurred when Manchester United were refuelling on their return from a European Cup fixture against Red Star Belgrade in Yugoslavia. The final match that the legendary "Busby Babes" had played prior to their trip to Yugoslavia was at Highbury, as Sir Matt Busby's team won a thrilling encounter 5-4 in front of 63,758 on February 1, 1958.

The picture on the right shows Duncan Edwards, who was already regarded as one of the world's great players when he perished aged just 21, signing an autograph on the Highbury pitch prior to this match. Edwards went on to score in the game.

Arsenal Football Club would like to extend their sympathies to all those affected by those tragic events 50 years ago.

One of the game's darkest days - it will never be forgotten.

Football rivalries aside, this was indeed a classy move by them. I wonder if any of the other clubs did anything similar in their programmes.