Been meaning to post this last week, but got really caught up else where.
Paul Scholes Interview, 23rd Mar
Anderson Interview, 30 Mar
The Anderson interview, in particular, was an eye opener. The thing that worries me is that, given his material needs, he might bolt when/if a better offer comes in.
Manchester United 4 - Aston Villa 0
Scorers
Ronaldo (17), Tevez (33), Rooney (53, 70)
Team: Kuszczak, Rio (Hargreaves 62), Vidic, Brown, Evra (O'Shea 62), Carrick (Anderson 62), Scholes, Giggs, Ronaldo, Tevez, Rooney
That's what I'm talking about! This is easily the best performance we've put out this season. It wasn't the most exciting spectacle but we were ruthlessly efficient. By 'efficient', I mean that we didn't waste energy on defense and we took the chances that fell our way.
It also helped that Villa came to OT with with an inferiority complex. When exactly was the last time they actually beat us? Quite frankly, I can't remember off the top of my head any losses in recent history. You'd probably have to go back to as far as the opening game in 95 when we lost 3-1, with some of the fledgings taking their maiden flight. It of course prompted the famous 'You can't win anything with kids' quote by Alan Hansen. Just the memory of that brings a smile to my face, that was indeed a year to remember.
The game started pretty evenly with the villians possibly having the better of the opening exchanges but it wasn't long before that irresistible man, Ronaldo, opened the scoring for us. Villa faileded to clear a corner and Ronaldo cheekily backflicked it, catching Carson and his merry men off guard.
On the half hour, after some beautiful passing which sliced the Villa defense like hot knife on butter, Ronaldo found himself with time and space to put a pin point cross right onto the head of Tevez. 2-0. Aston Villa simply had no answer to our pace and movement in creating the goal.
We allowed Villa plenty of possession but marshalled them superbly. They hardly had a sniff of goal.
The second half was more of the same and it wasn't long before Rooney added his name to the scoresheet. Once again Villa was undone by a Ronaldo backflick. This time he did it in midfield, fooling the defence, allowing Rooney a one v one chance. Rooney rounded the keeper and passed the ball into an empty net.
With Roma looming on Tuesday, Fergie brought out a triple substitution yet surprisngly left the 3 goalscorers in the game. Although I would have preferred to have a couple of them rested, I'm not complaining.
Villa's attempts to cut the deficit were all but dashed in the 70th minute when Rooney added his second for the night. Once again, it was Ronaldo who was the provider. Rooney could have sealed a wonderful night with a hat-trick, but he was caught offside a couple of times in the last 20 minutes.
The game ended 4-0 to the good guys and my word, what an impressive victory. It wasn't exciting, but it sure was efficient. I'm not even sure we broke a sweat, that was just how comprehensive this victory was.
I don't usually feel this confident going into a Champions League game, but if Fergie names an unchanged side, I'm pretty sure we'd come away from Rome with a result.
Game notes
Ronaldo - Just how bloody good is this kid? His goal today was amazing. He made it from absolutely nothing. Reminds you of the goal Henry scored against Charlton last season. What's more ridiculous is that Ronaldo created all the other 3 goals scored today. There is just no ceiling to what he can do.
Carrick - If not for Ronaldo, he would have been my man of the match. He didn't put a foot wrong. He was effective passing the ball forward and industrious tracking back to defend. When he plays like this he's a world beater. More importantly, you can see his confidence is at an all time high, playing with a familar partner, Scholes, in the centre of the park.
Hargreaves - He came on as a sub and played in right-back. I'm seriously not comfortable with this at all. He plays best in midfield period. While he's done the job at Bayern Munich and has done credibly the two times he's played at right-back, I'm still against the idea. I'm all for keeping players familar in their designated roles rather than confusing them.
Giggs - He got injured today and left the pitch before full time. Let's hope he's alright. He played well today but personally I think he's lost a step. Ideally I would love to have someone of his experience to come on late in the game to steady the ship. More importantly, by the time he comes on, everyone else should already be playing at his pace.
Manchester United 3 - Liverpool 0
Scorers
Manchester United: Brown (34), Ronaldo (79), Nani (80)
Team: Van der Sar, Rio, Vidic, Brown, Evra, Carrick, Scholes, Anderson (Tevez 73), Giggs (Nani 73), Ronaldo, Rooney
First off, I would just like to thank Chelsea for our victory, especially that man Cashley Hole. After what happened in the midweek 4-4 draw with Spurs, the entire English media (and that of the world) were vilifying Cashley Hole's actions and Mik Riley's ineptitude for not producing a red card for dissent.
Today's referee, Steve Bennett, had no such problems. The turning point of the game came at the end of the first half after we were leading 1-0 courtesy of a Wes Brown header. Rooney's cross found Brown in the penalty area and he headed it into an empty net when Pepe Reina came flapping without getting to the ball.
At the end of the half, Bennett booked Torres for dissent. Incensed by the booking, Mascherano came charging at the referee with some choiced words. He had been booked earlier in the half for a full blooded, two footed tackle at Scholes. Despite being held back by his teammates, Mascherano continued his tirade, leaving Bennett absolutely no choice but to show him a second yellow, with a 'Respect Ma Authoritah!' Eric Cartman style. Had it not been for the controversy in the weekend incident, he probably would have stayed on the pitch given the stature of the game.
Unfortunately for him, and fortunately for us, Bennett was made of sterner stuff than Riley. It would be interesting to hear what Bennett wrote in his review of the game because after being shown the red card, Mascherano went completely berserk and Benitez literally had to grab him by the neck to pull his wayward player off the field. More importantly, it was a strong message sent out by the FA in response to the midweek incident and what a better way than to do it in a high profile match. Let's hope for all our sakes this has set a pecedent on how to deal with players backchatting the referee, even if it means our own Rooney having to sit out games when he starts mouthing off. This is a good thing for football on the whole. Now all we need is for the referees to be consistant.....
Up to that point in the game, it was fairly balanced in my opinion. We created the better chances and were crisp with our passing, but Liverpool had shown plenty of hunger and desire, biting into the 50-50 balls.
The second half was practically all United. With a man down and their morale sapped, it became almost a walk in the park for our 3 men, Carrick, Scholes and Anderson, in midfield. We continued to spurn chances that fell our way, notably Rooney and Ronaldo the major culprits.
Just as it seemed that the score would remain 1-0, the floodgates opened. Ronaldo scored once again. This time it was a glancing header from a corner. Once again Reina was found wanting in the box. He came out to grab the ball and once again caught air instead.
A minute later, Nani finished off the scoring with a screamer after Rooney had found him. His celebrations were even more spectacular than the goal as he did a double somersault with a half twist, thankfully not landing on his head!
The game finished 3-0 to the good guys. We didn't really fire on all cylinders and really should have put the granny-stabbers away earlier if we had taken our chances. The sending off took away all the fight from them and really made things so much easier for us.
Quite frankly I'm beginning to feel alittle concerned with both Tevez and Rooney. They have been spurning chance after chance and if not for that man, Ronaldo, we wouldn't have such a comfortable lead in the table. And as I'm typing this, Chelsea has just defeated Arsenal to leapfrog into second, 5 points behind us with a crucial game at the end of the season against us at Stamford Bridge. Let's hope it doesn't come down to that game.
Manchester United 2 - Bolton 0
Scorers
Manchester United: Ronaldo (9, 19)
Team: Kuszczak, Vidic (Brown 58), Pique, O'Shea, Hargreaves, Fletcher, Anderson (Scholes 70), Nani, Ronaldo, Tevez, Saha (Rooney)
Ronaldo celebrated his acension to captaincy in style. Two early goals by our captain for the day enabled him to not only equal Bestie's goal record for a season, but surpass it.
Goal no. 32 was a result of a scramble in the Bolton box. The Bolton defence failed to clear the ball and it fell kindly to Ronaldo, who needed no invitation to scoop it over the motley crew scrambling to reach it.
Goal no. 33 was a beauty. It was a trademark Ronaldo freekick that flew sweetly and dipped wickedly into the net. I have grown to stop complaining about his freekicks. There are still occasions he would send it to row Z, but that is fast becoming the exception instead of the norm. Practice and dedication to the art has paid off handsomely for Ronaldo.
Apart from the two early goals, there was really little to cheer about. Fergie had rung in the changes in poor impression of his Liverpool counterpart. The team didn't click and the normal fluency associated with United simply wasn't there. We played in starts and stops. A certain degree was probably due to the fact we were already 2 up and had shifted a gear or two down.
On the other hand, Bolton didn't help their cause too much either. They rarely threatened, and when they did, our makeshift defence stood up well. With stiff competition for the spot, Kuszczak did well enough to put his name in the hat when Fergie eventually chooses a successor.
Despite a less than stellar performance, we won the game comfortably and pulled ourselves 3 points clear of Arsenal with only 24 left up for grabs. We face Liverpool on 'super sunday' and it's imperative we win that game. It's not only a matter of pride to beat one of the hottest teams in the league, but to put pressure on both Chelsea and Arsenal, who play later that same day.
Talking Points
Hargreaves - He played leftback today and did a pretty commendable job in that position. My concern here is that Fergie might be tempted to use him there more often, especially when/if injuries occur. I'm not a huge fan of playing players out of position unless the situation warrants. We've already seen how Fergie practically ruined John O'Shea's and Phil Neville's careers by shifting them all over the shop.
Nani - He's a top player, no doubts about that. However, he's getting way too desperate to impress. Whenever he gets the ball, his first instinct is the shoot, irregardless of the options around him. There is still a long way to go in his development into a player of Ronaldo's calibre. The good thing here is that he doesn't have Ronaldo's piss poor attitude when he first arrvived.
Saha - Wtf is wrong with him? He got injured today (what's new?). He was given a starring role today and he fluffed it big time. I can't remember a telling contribution he made, except for the part where he injures himself again. I mean he hardly broke a sweat the entire game and yet ended up being substituted due to a self-inflicted injury. I want him to succeed so badly, but this entire season, it's just been one disappointment after another.
Chelsea vs Spurs - How the hell Chelsea escaped this game with the full compliment of players on the pitch is beyond me. Ashley Cole's tackle on Alan Hutton was disgraceful. But what made it worse was the conduct of the Chelsea players who surrounded the referee. Possibly intimidated, Mike Riley's balls shrunk to the size of peanuts and he only issued a yellow instead of a red.
Derby 0 - Manchester United 1
Scorers
Manchester United: Ronaldo (75)
Team : Foster, Evra, Vidic, Brown, O'Shea, Scholes (Carrick 62), Anderson (Fletcher 73), Giggs, Park (Saha 62), Ronaldo, Rooney
The team looked kinda strange when the starting lineup appeared. Foster was given his debut after Van der Sar was injured and Kuszczak suspended. Rio was also missing from a knock. What was particularly surprising was that Tevez and Nani were not even on the substitute's bench. We can only hope everything's fine with them.
Facing a Derby side, that shouldn't have any business in the Premiership, we were all sure this was going to be an easy victory. Right from the whistle, we dominated the game and all signs were pointing to a comfortable return to the top of the table, albeit for a couple of hours.
We were decidedly the better side and really should have put the game beyond Derby. Yet, like the game the previous week, we were firing blanks.
After totally outplaying Derby for about the entire half, the tables were turned. Derby carved out two superb chances which Big Ben saved superbly. In just one half of his debut, Big Ben was staking his claim to Van der Sar's throne as the future no. 1 for the club.
For most of the second half, we couldn't make any inroads. The Derby defense was stout and stubborn. Most of our chances fell to Ronaldo, but he could only hit the side nettings. And on the occasions when he did hit the target, our former no.1, Roy Carroll, was having the game of his life. Why the hell couldn't he do that while playing for us?
Fergie threw on Saha, Carrick and Fletcher but none of them made any significant impact to the game. while Fergie took off the ineffective Scholes, he left Giggs in the game, whom IMO was having one of the worst games I've ever seen him play.
As our desperation grew, we were given a lifeline. Rooney crossed a ball onto the path of Ronaldo and he sidefooted it into the goal. While it looked a simple goal, anyone who's played the game would know just how bloody difficult it was to control the flight of the ball with the instep, while flying in mid-air. It was a great goal!
We spent the remainder of the game controlling possession and holding on to the lead. It's not a classic nor a convincing win by any means, but we got the 3 points.
Fergie and his coaching staff cannot be happy with our performance. There is something distinctly lacking in our play. We're able to dominate possession, and create chances, but we just do not have the finishing touch. We do not have an out-and-out goal poacher and we're relying too much on Ronaldo to produce the goods. So far Ronaldo's been doing the job but we need to get everyone involved.
More importantly, we need to address our shyness in goal, either from within the club resources or from the transfer markets in the summer.
Totally Unrelated
I just want to put this in writing. It's nothing to do with United.
Well, actually it's about another united, Leeds United.
Every week, I would place a small bet ($2) on a parlay of about a dozen or so teams and the payout is usually some ridiculous amount of a few thousand. It's like playing 4D and I don't really expect to win at all. It's all for fun....except for today.
Of the 13 games that I had in the parlay, I was winning 12 of them, the Leeds game being the 13th. Leeds had a 2-0 lead at the half but the bottom team Port Vale had pulled level in the second half. I really wasn't entertaining any hopes of winning until the 86th minute when Leeds took the lead. I could barely contain my euphoria and went to double check all the scores and calculate my winnings. Freaking hell, I was about to win over 4k from a $2 bet! It was a bloody winfall!
Then the unthinkable happened. Fucking Leeds concided the equalizer 3 fucking minutes into injury time! 3 MINUTES!!!!
Bloody couldn't believe it. I used to hate Leeds, but now I hate them with every single bone in my body. Bloody 3 minutes into injury time.......
I was out most of the day (and night) and a good friend (thanks Lengmen) had to sms me the results for the quarter finals draw.
Quarter Finals
AS Roma - Manchester United
Schalke - Barcelona
Arsenal - Liverpool
Fenerbahce - Chelsea
Semi Finals
AS Roma/Manchester United - Schalke/Barcelona
Arsenal/Liverpool - Fenerbache/Chelsea
Looks like we've got a pretty tough draw. We face Roma whom we convincingly thrashed at the same stage last season. This time round it's probably going to be much more difficult. Barring that classic game which we scored 7, we've faced them 3 other times in the past year and have won 1, drew 1 and lost the other. No doubt Roma's going to be ultra motivated to avenge that humilating loss. To add to that, Roma's chances of winning the Serie A is all but numerically over, so they are going to throw everything at us.
To make matters worse, our fans (those brave/foolish enough to travel to Rome) are going to have to face the prospect of those buttock-stabbing ultras in the capital city. As much as I think we'd not win the cup, I really do hope we dump these bunch of Italians. The thought of the scenes from last season just leaves a sour taste in the mouth.
Should we navigate past the buttock-stabbers, we're probably going to have to face the most potent attack in the competition, Barcelona. They are currently struggling in La Liga and by the time we face them, if we face them, chances are the Champions League is all they have left for silverware.
The good thing here is that if we do get to the finals, the odds are that we'd face English opposition. I have no doubts we would win it if we get to that stage. None of the 3 English sides scares me.
Derby
But let's not get ahead of ourselves, we still have an important game against Derby tomorrow. They are dead and buried, and we should soundly thrash them.
Unfortunately, things are not that straight forward. It was just a couple of seasons ago we faced a Sunderland team that was on a run of 13 or so consecutive defeats before they faced us. And we somehow drew that game, and were out of the running for the league in the process.
I was browsing the net and came across this article. I thought it's a little bit of information to share with my readers. I know he hardly made an impact when he was with us, but it's kinda sad reading how his life turned out. Anyway, he's still young and still making good money doing what he loves. It's just a reminder of how out of touch with the world some footballers can be.
Manchester United 0 - Portsmouth 1
Scorers
Portsmouth : Muntari (pen 77)
Team : Van der Sar (Kuszczak 46), Evra, Vidic, Rio, Brown, Scholes, Hargreaves (Carrick 68), Nani, Ronaldo, Rooney, Tevez (Anderson 68)
So many talking points to this game and I don't even know where to start.
Let me first begin with how goddamn awful blogger.com is. If you're thinking of starting a blog, I wouldn't recommend using this platform. I couldn't log in the entire day. Hell, I couldn't even view this page until now. It's frustrating as hell, especially during Sunday soccer with the guys where everyone was wondering when the review was coming.
As it was an early Saturday kickoff, Kentona and I did the usual 'keep our partners occupied while we get our fix' routine by prawn fishing at our usual haunt.
The game started off well for us. In fact it started off very well for us. In the opening minutes, Ronaldo brightly raced into the penalty area only to be crudely barged off the ball by Distin and to everyone's amazement the referee, Martin Atkinson, for the day waved play on. Only a couple of seconds earlier, a similar body-check on the same player was deemed a foul. Having set that precedent, Kentona and I could only stare wide-eyed in astonishment at the big screen TV in front of us. That was some bloody in-consistant refereeing.
But judging the way we played, we were sure it wouldn't matter in the final reckoning. We were all over Pompey. It was only a matter of time before we would erupt.
Yet as time went by, we kept missing chance after chance. If there was one criticism of our play was that we were all hat but no cattle.
In the second half, Van der Sar was replaced by Kuszczak, which could only mean that Van der Sar must have been carrying an injury. Again at that point in time, it didn't matter. United kept up the pressure from the first half and it was just a matter of time before we murdered them.
Then in the 68th minute, it all began to fall apart, in probably the most spectacular fashion. Without a striker on the bench, Fergie brought on Carrick and Anderson in place of Hargreaves and Tevez. The substitutions had me going....WTF???
If there was a dying need to bring someone out, it would have been Scholes. I can't recall him doing fuck all the entire game. Moreover I couldn't believe he took out Hargreaves. The moment Hargreaves was taken out, I was thinking of ways how Portsmouth could nick it from a quick release from a corner.
The rationale is simple. When we get corners, both Vidic and Rio would both move forward for headers, leaving both the full-backs to play the role of central defenders. Given that Brown also joins the two in front, Hargreaves is usually the other guy who plays the role of the defender. That's just the way we play from observation.
As for taking Tevez out, IMO, I thought if Fergie was going to sacrifice a frontman, it should have been Rooney. He's been in somewhat of a scoring funk lately. In fact, he's more prone to missing chances presented to him than to clinically finish them off.
In the 76th minute, the unthinkable happened. We were caught flat-footed when David James caught the ball from our corner kick and released it early down the flanks. Without Hargreaves in a defensive position and Evra and Scholes going awol, the defensive onus fell on Anderson and Rooney (????).
Unfortunately, Rooney can't defend if his life depended on it. Instead of following his man, Baros, he got sucked into following the ball leaving Baros totally unmarked. Kranjcar found Baros with a pretty easy pass, leaving him one on one with Kuszczak.
Baros rounded Kuszczak, and in the process ran into him. The referee gave a penalty and sent Kuszczak off. While I probably agree with the penalty decision, I thought the sending off decision was a god awful one. If I hadn't known better I would have thought that the pathetic Atkinson had a punt on Pompey.
Without a keeper, Rio took on the keeper's role and Muntari scored from the spot. A man and a goal down, it was going to be an incredibly tall task for the men in red.
The game ended 1-0 to Portsmouth, no thanks to some seriously dodgy refereeing.
While as United fans, and fans in general, we probably blame the referee, but we also need to look at ourselves. We created a boatful of chances and couldn't put one away.
Moreover, there were some weird decisions that baffle logic. In the past week, the coaching staff have been under-performing. If a casual fan like myself can see it, I don't understand how professionals can goof it up so badly.
At least there's a silverlining here, Chelsea got dumped by Barnsley.
Manchester United 1- Lyon 0
Scorers
Manchester United : Ronaldo (40)
Team : Van der Sar, Evra, Vidic, Rio, Brown, Fletcher, Carrick, Nani, Anderson (Tevez 70), Ronaldo (Hargreaves 90), Rooney
We're never going to win the Champions League. There, I said it.
Despite having, perhaps, the best squad to compete for the holy grail, we're going to be let down by a brain dead coaching staff. For some inexplicable reason we went to a 4-5-1 formation while playing at home. Suffice to say, we were simply wretched. Had Lyon played anywhere near the potential they were able to, we would have been duely punished.
Well, at least there is a silverlining here. Whichever team we face in the quarters is going to be infinitely better than the French. I would love to see the bewildered looks on both Fergie and Queiroz when we underachieve in Europe yet again.
There's nothing very much to say about the game itself. Putting out a 4-5-1 simply sucked the entertainment out of the game. Ronaldo scored a scrappy goal at the end of the first half to give us the lead. Given how we played, I'm not even sure we deserved a goal.
After holding out a very inept Lyon frontline, we switched to a 4-4-2, by introducing Tevez in place of Anderson. Immediately the game opened up. We began to exploit the space in front of us but our finishing let us down, leaving a nervous end to the game.
The difference was huge between the 2 formations. If Fergie and company cannot see it, then they must be blind. I can barely understand playing a 4-5-1 in an away fixture, but to play it in a home leg is simply unacceptable. This is the leg we are supposed to put our opponents away.
Without sounding like a broken record, I'm just going to part with this saying 'Those who fail to learn from history, are doomed to repeat it.'
Fulham 0 - Manchester United 3
Scorers
Manchester United : Hargreaves (15), Park (44), Davies (og 72)
Team : Van der Sar, Evra, O'Shea, Rio, Brown, Scholes, Hargreaves, Nani (Anderson 75), Park, Saha (Ronaldo 69), Tevez (Rooney)
I'll keep this one short (no...really I will).
A combination of a bad stomachache and the fact that all the coffee shops around my area were showing the Arsenal-Villa game, resulted in Kentona and I making the short trip to Queens Country Club to catch the game mid-way thru. As a result, I completely missed Hargreaves' opener. So any help describing or providing a video would be welcomed. (Jiahao, I'm banking on you to produce the goods!)
I did, however, catch the second goal. I was a well worked goal with Saha, Nani, Scholes all involved before the ball was floated into the penalty area for Park to head. We weren't doing very much due to the huge gulf in class between the teams. In other words, it was relatively easy.
We even had the luxury of giving Fulham a huge amount of possession which probably wasn't a very smart thing to do. But like I mentioned, the gulf between the two teams is huge, and in the grander scheme of things, didn't really change the scoreline.
We even managed a third, when O'Shea forced an own goal from Simon Davies. We were simply the better team, even at half pace.
The good thing about Queens is that it usually shows two matches and I was busy turning around to catch glimpses of the Arsenal game. It, of course, helped that there was a really beautiful lady sitting in that general direction....ahm....
It's rather frustrating that Arsenal managed to equalize at the last second to pull one point ahead of us in the standing. I suppose from their point of view, it was more of two points lost than one gained. It can't be denied that Arsenal are crumbling fast before our very eyes and with 10 games to go, I'm really feeling good about our chances.
