Arsenal Gifts United 3 Points

Manchester United 2 - Arsenal 1
Scorers
Manchester United: Rooney (pen 59), Diaby (og 65)
Arsenal: Arshavin (40)

Team: Foster, Brown, Vidic, O'Shea, Evra, Fletcher, Carrick, Valencia (Park 63), Nani, Giggs (Berbatov 86), Rooney

My word, that was one lucky win. Arsenal were all over us from the start and really were the better team on the day. Only god know how they let us back into the game and eventually lost it in 7 crazy minutes in the second half.

The starting lineup spelt a totally defeatist attitude. Ferguson opted to play Rooney upfront along with Giggs and, Nani and Valencia on the wings, as support. For the uninitiated, you would think we were playing at the Emirates instead of Old Trafford. It was conservative and more important, showed the lack of confidence of the manager in his strikeforce.

The game went according to how the managed planned it. We were under constant threat from the very mobile Arsenal forwards, and only desperate defending and lucky deflections keep the scoreline at 0-0. Our passing was utterly horrible, giving the ball away again and again, putting pressure on the defence. How players like Carrick still manage to get into the team is a mystery for the the Hardy Boys to solve. Giggs and Fletcher were no better at passing either. But in their defence, they made plenty of effort to win the ball back. In fact, Fletcher was the ultimate destroyer. He was Keano in that department.

True to the way the game was going, Arsenal took the lead via an outstanding long-ranged thunderbolt from Arshavin. Had Foster been a split-second faster, he might have saved it, instead he only fractionally got a finger on it as it burst into the net.

Foster, however, made amends early in the second half, instinctively sticking out a leg to save a point blank shot from Van Persie. Arsenal were all over United at that point in time and made for terrible viewing for us, United fans.

Yet against the run of play, Giggs supplied a beautiful angled pass that Rooney latched onto. One on one with the keeper, Almunia brought Rooney down resulting in a penalty. This time Rooney stepped up instead of Carrick and sent Almunia the wrong way, and United the right way.

7 minutes later United got the second. Giggs' freekick from the right was header into his own net by Diaby. Diaby was under no pressure but yet his wayward header fooled Almunia and flew straight into the net.

The game threatened to explode into more goals but neither team had their scoring boots on and good chances were missed on both sides. Van Persie did put the ball into the net 5 minutes into injury time but one of his teammates was caught offside in the preceding play. Wenger was sent to the stand for probably saying something or kicking someone and the whole incident took up all the time that was left on the clock, saving us a few more heart-stopping seconds.

On the final analysis, we were frankly rubbish for large portions of the game. We were sloppy in possession and our passing on the day was simply abysmal. Possibly only Fletcher shone as our only outstanding player. His passing still leaves alot to be desired, but his industry and tackling is top-notched.

Next week is the international weekend and we only get to play high-flying Spurs in a fortnight. It's probably a good thing, we need plenty of time to work things out. Despite winning 3 games, there are plenty of aspects about our play that needs to be worked on and a short break, even this early in the season might just do us some good and give us time to reflect on our mistakes.

Champions League Draw

I've nothing better to do on a Thursday night/Friday morning, so I'm going to sit in front of my PC and bore myself silly with the Champions League draw. I should really get a tweeter account and do it there. It feels easier doing it but I'm just going to save everyone the trouble and do this one here.

Group A
Bayern Munich
Juventus
Bordeaux
Maccabi Haifa

Group B
Manchester United
CSKA Moscow
Besiktas
Wolfsburg

Group C
AC Milan
Real Madrid
Marseille
FC Zurich

Group D
Chelsea
Porto
Atletico Madrid
APOEL Nicosia

Group E
Liverpool
Lyon
Florentina
Debreceni

Group F
Barcelona
Inter Milan
Dynamo Kiev
Ruban Kazan

Group G
Sevilla
Rangers
Stuttgart
Unirea Urziceni

Group H
Arsenal
AZ Alkmaar
Olympiakos
Standard Liege


Live Thoughts: After a long long introduction, we finally have the Pot 1 teams allocated. We're in group B. While waiting for the next Pot to be choosen, Paulo Maldini is getting some award. I'm not getting an English feed so have no freaking idea what award he's getting. Not even going to guess.

Live Thoughts: Terry wins European club defender.

Live Thoughts: We avoid meeting Real Madrid. They get grouped with AC Milan.

Live Thoughts: It's CSKA Moscow. Difficult trip to Russia, but we last won the cup there. Maybe a good omen.

Live Thoughts: Xavi Hernandez win European club midfielder. Waiting to see who else we get to play.

Live Thoughts: Damn....we travel to Turkey. Not a nice hunting ground.

Live Thoughts: CSKA Moscow and Besiktas. Tough away fixtures. Dennis Law makes an appearance to hand out the club striker of the year to Messi. And finally we're going to round off this fucking boring draw.

Live Thoughts: We got the Germany champions, Wolfsburg. The home games should be routine for us, but the away games look particularly difficult. Despite chalking up the frequent flier miles, we should still make it to the next round. Thankfully we not in groups A or C. Both groups look like it could go down the wire.

United Answers Critics With Five In Second Half

Wigan 0 - Manchester United 5
Scorers
Manchester United: Rooney (56, 65), Berbatov (58), Owen (85), Nani (90)

Team: Foster, Evans (O'Shea 72), Vidic, Neville, Evra, Fletcher, Scholes (Gibson 72), Nani, Valencia, Berbatov, Rooney (Owen 72)

United answered the critics to their horrid performance at the midweek in devastating fashion, smashing 5 past Wigan at the newly named JW Stadium (formerly JJB Stadium).

The first half was a typical United game, plenty of possession but terribly goal-shy. Our best chances fell to Fletcher and then subsequently Scholes, but both missed horribly. Wigan had their chances but good defending and Foster kept the game scoreless.

United sprung to life in the second half, with Rooney notching up his century for the club in emphatic fashion with a header in the top left hand corner. Berbatov, who has been ridiculously hardworking on the night scored a beautiful individual goal, first deftly lifting the ball beyond the Wigan keeper then volleying the ball into the net.

It wasn't long before Wigan wondered what hit them when Rooney twisted and turned in the box, unleashing a shot that deflected into the net giving the good guys a 3-0 lead.

With a commanding lead, Ferguson decided to give the two-goal hero a rest along with veteran Scholes, bringing on Owen to shoulder the scoring load. And he didn't disappoint. In a trademark turn and spin move, Owen cleared himself of the defense and scored United's fourth in the 85th minute.

Nani got into the celebration with good freekick to exocise the ghost of Ronaldo. In all, this was the best answer to all the naysayers, myself included.

However, at the same time, this is also our biggest problem. As mentioned in previous posts, our strikers are going to get their share of the goals, but we need more than that to mount a sustained campaigned. Everyone needs to contribute to the shortfall left by Ronaldo and Tevez. As evident in the first half, our midfielders are still unable to fill the deficit when the chances present themselves. We need to be more clinical and more efficient in front of goal. Not everyday we're going to face a team that's going to present us a boatload of chances.

But let's keep those worries for another day. Today is a day to celebrate a great victory, and let's enjoy it while we can.

That's Just Pitiful

Burnley 1 - Manchester United 0
Scorer
Burnley: Blake (19)

Team: Foster, Evans, Brown (Neville 71), O'Shea, Evra, Anderson (Valencia 59), Carrick, Park, Giggs, Rooney, Owen (Berbatov 64)

We all knew this was not an easy game. This was Burnley's first home game in the top division for over 30 years and emotions were high. Still it's a game we should have come away with a victory, given the quality of the opponents. Taking nothing away from a fiesty performance by the home side, we were simply rubbish.

The fixtures threw up a few seemingly easy games to start us on the new campaign, and we fizzled on the second game. Burnley were good value for a well taken goal in the 19th minute with a superb volley from Robbie Blake. And we never really looked like levelling the score.

With an entirely changed midfield, it's natural to assume it would take sometime for the engine to switch into gear, but we never did. The Anderson and Carrick pairing should NEVER EVER be put into play again. All these two bozos did were square passes and lose the ball. Park's first touch is terrible. He didn't do anything positive in the game. Only Giggs did well.

At the end of the first half, we were awarded a penalty but Carrick's spot kick was saved emphatically. I'm abit surprised that he's our designated penalty kicker. We have players like Giggs, Rooney and Owen around and Ferguson's decision was to have this waterboy take our spot kicks. I can never understand what's on Ferguson's mind.

The second half was more of the same crap. We showed no urgency, and more importantly, we lack the cutting edge. There is absolutely no way we're going to retain the title this year if we continue playing like this.

I caught Chelsea's game against Sunderland yesterday and barring some miracle, they are going to walk away with the title. Every player knows their role and when they pressure the opponents, they give it their all, something evidently lacking in our players. Maybe I'm abit harsh here on the effort thingy, but they just collectively play on the same page.

With the way we're playing right now, there is a good chance we may even fall off the top 4 this season. City and Spurs both look pretty good this season. Pool and Arse won't win the league, but they are right up there too. This is going to be a long hard season and frankly, one I'm not really looking forward to.

Wigan, this weekend, scares the shit outta me. As long as they pack the box, I can't any of our players score.

Where Are The Goals Going To Come From?

Manchester United 1 - Birmingham 0
Scorer
Manchester United: Rooney (34)

Team: Foster, O'Shea, Evans (Brown 75), Evra, Fabio, Fletcher, Scholes, Nani (Giggs 45), Valencia, Rooney, Berbatov (Owen 75)

Damn. It took a while to get this up. I had to give up trying to get this damn blog up with firefox and am currently taking baby steps with IE.

With the amount of hair-pulling and kicking the PC about, I've almost clean forgotten how the Birmingham game went. As far as I recall, we looked very much like we did at the start of last season...quite terrible. And this time without the services of Ronaldo or Tevez.

So the burning question here is, where are the goals going to come from? We know Rooney and Berbatov would get their share, and Owen might chip in abit if he gets a decent run in the team. The rest of the team's....well....quite pathetic in that department. Scholes has lost his touch in front of goal, evident in this game, taking about half a dozen long-ranged shots and hurting an equal number of pigeons flying about. The rest of the team looked equally dismal in front of goal.

We did of course score with Rooney, but were unable to put the game away beyond reasonable doubt. Moreover injuries to Vidic, Rio and just about every right-back we have, Birmingham looked threatening whenever they had the ball. Evra even had to make a goal-line clearance with his head. Thankfully Foster put last week's game behind him and had a relatively stable game.

All in all, we won, and that's what really mattered, even though we really shouldn't have had to worry in the final minutes.

The season's barely begun and Ferguson must realise that we're probably going to have trouble finding goals this season. Rooney is but one man and most of the time he tracks back too deep to collect the ball. I don't really think Berbatov is going to improve much on his goal tally from last season and based on this one game, it might take sometime before Owen gets his engine started.

No Birmingham Review

I give up. Screw blogger.

All I can say is that blogger just threw a spanner in the works. The posting format totally changed and it's ridiculously different from former platform. I've spent the last 20 odd hours trying to make my posting, but the learning curve is just too steep.

So until something changes, I'm taking a break, and maybe for good.

PS. It took me a freaking minute to find the damn 'post' button! Screw blogger.

Chealsea Beats United On Penalties

I've got to make this as brief as possible. The past few weeks have been rather hectic, hence I've not been covering the preseason friendlies as much as I would have liked. Cow's mum passed away and my girlfriend had a career threatening crisis, both incidents took me away from watching the game I love. So to Bill Shankly, who famously reckoned that football is more important than life, well, he and all the Liverpool fans can go kiss my ass.

Which brings me to my next point. I was offered tickets to the United in KL but was unable to go due to the passing of Cow's mum. It probably would have been a great experience, but being with a good friend in a time of need was way more important. And while our good neighbours had the good fortune of seeingUnited play twice in KL, we, in Singapore got the short end of the stick, having to host a bunch of ungreatful scousers. Word from the grapevine (people who were involved) was that most of the Liverpool players and their officials were giant dicks, but we probably already knew that. The exceptions were Kuyt and the Israeli boy named Benayoun.

Today's Game
I'm going to be brutally honest here and say outright that Chelsea is going to win the league. The only way we're even gonig to top them is if we do what Liverpool did last season, and that's to play out of our skins. And also the Africa Cup of Nations might work in our favour at the turn of the year when Chelsea loses key players. Other than that, there's no way we can beat them in a straight race.

We dominated the first half of the game, but that was only because Chelsea were still in preseason mode. Nani gave us the lead with a rasping shot.

The second half was a total turn around. Chelsea totally controlled the game. With Fletcher as the only midfielder, we were completely outplayed and outpassed. We weren't helped that Foster was a bunch of nerves and probably played the worst game I've seen a keeper play in my entire life.

We managed to equalise at the death with a great pass from Giggs which set Rooney alight goalwards. However that rescue act merely prolonged the inevitable and we lost the game on penalties.

It's only a pre-season game and the league starts proper next week, but it's worrying to see us outplayed by our closest rival to the title. We have to play alot harder and alot smarter to make up the difference in quality, if we're going to retain the title for a record 4th time.