Disgraceful Tribute To Munich Victims

Manchester United 1 - Manchester City 2
Scorers
Manchester United : Carrick 90+2
Manchester City : Vassell 25, Benjani 45

Team : Van der Sar, O'Shea (Hargreaves 74), Rio, Vidic, Brown, Scholes, Anderson (Carrick 74), Giggs, Nani (Park 63) , Ronaldo, Tevez

What an utterly disgraceful performance. Just when you thought that last week's game was a one off, United threw up this pile of dung right smack onto everyone's face. To add insult to injury, this was the one day designated as a tribute to the Munich air-crash victims of 58, the one day to remember those who had bravely worn the United jersey and played their hearts out for the club.

The only thing that went according to plan was the one minute's silence, which was impeccably kept. Everything else just totally and completely fell apart.

We entered this game without Rooney and Evra, both suspended for the game. And it showed. We were practically toothless upfront. Everytime Tevez or Ronaldo had the ball, they were crowded out by City defenders. It didn't help that Richard Dunne and Micah Richards were on top of their game.

In fact, City were by far the better team, by a mile. They were compact at the back, and at the same time pacy and powerful charging forward. It wasn't a surprise that they went ahead midway thru the first half. Even a double save from Van der Sar couldn't stop Vassell from opening the scoring. United just weren't able to clear the lines and paid the price for slack defending.

And right on half time, City debutant, Benjani headed a glancing header beyond Van der Sar's oustretched hand to put the blue side of Manchester 2-0 up.

United tried to make a game of it in the second half, but every move forward was stopped by the impenetrable City defence. Ferguson threw on desperate substitutions, without a notable goalscoring option on the bench, the result was only going to be a City victory. In fact we were lucky not to concede in the second half when City threw away numerous counter moves.

Just as last week, we brought back some respectability to the scoreline when Carrick pulled one back, deep into injury time. It was too little too late.

This was a loss that was utterly deserved and the scoreline somewhat flattered us. City could and really should have stuffed us. We walked into this game wearing our 58 replica jersey, thinking that City would roll over and play dead, given the circumstances of the occasion. Unfortunately, the jersey, like the team is just a replica of the one in 58, it didn't share the same fighting spirit of the team of 58. Someone forgot to let the team know that City is a Premiership team too, fighting for a place in the Champions League.

No one played well today. Everyone played for himself. When Nani, Giggs, Ronaldo and Tevez got the ball, all they were doing was trying to take on their own defender. Even when they did pass, it eventually went to an opponent.

Giggs in particular was a pain to watch. It's just so sad to watch Giggs labour in today's game. He's a step too slow to take on defenders, and it's just plain painful to see him try and try again today. Not to mention, his passing today was just atrocious.

What's worse, no one seemed arsed enough to want to take on the responsibility to carry the team. We simply didn't have the winners' mentality, and to be frank we haven't had it for quite sometime now.

I'm personally feeling that perhaps we're just not good enough to win the title this season. If the players just can get motivated enough to win on a special occasion like today, then perhaps they are simply not worthy of winning it all. I just hope that there is a deeper strength in character the players have than I give them credit for.