Ronaldo Seals The Deal

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.......