Valencia's Strike Sees United Thru To Second Round

CSKA Moscow 0 - Manchester United 1
Scorer
Manchester United: Valencia (85)

Team: Van der Sar, Rio (Brown 57), Vidic, Fabio (Carrick 88), Neville, Scholes (Owen 70), Anderson, O'Shea, Nani, Valencia, Bervatov

Let's see if I can do this before the Real Madrid vs Milan game starts. I really would love to catch that game. Should be an exciting one compared to this almost bore draw.

We were missing 3 of our best players in the form of Giggs, Rooney and Fletcher. There were other absentees, but none more important than the 3 who have carried this team on their collective shoulders the entire season so far. With our big 3 missing, I wasn't really expecting much from the game. A draw would have been a great result, putting us into a really strong position in the group tables to advance.

Instead, we went one better. We got an unlikely away victory when Valencia smashed Berbatov's header into the net as the game was going towards a goalless draw.

We weren't doing too bad in the game. The artificial pitch caused havoc in the beginning half of the game, resulting in a comedy of errors from both sides misjudging the bounce. But fortunately for both teams, none of the bounces proved catastrophic.

The game itself was mostly going our way. The Russians seemed to have settled for a draw right from the start. They allowed us to have it our way as long as we didn't score. On our part, we duely obliged by holding on to alot of the possession and making absolutely nothing of it.

Nani and Fabio in particular saw loads of the ball on the left. Their industry and hard running should have produced much better results but the final ball was severely lacking in quality. Valencia had choice moments in the game, but suffered the same end product.

It reached a stage in the game (somewhere in the middle of the first half), Berbatov simply stopping running. Everytime the other 3 had the ball, he just stood in the box with his hand raised in disgust at the cross. He stopped chasing and ball that was passed 2 yards away from him. Personally it was just horrible to watch.

I think we can all admit that Berbatov is a really skilful player, somewhat temperamental at times, but a good player nonetheless. Today, he was just an asshole. He was mouthing off everytime the ball did not get to him. The problem with his attitude today is that it rubs off on players like Nani, Fabio and Valencia. More so Nani, since he comes across as a player that plays on the confidence of his teammates. As the game wore on, all 3 of their passing just got worse. And Berbatov got moodier. And the whole vicious cycle continued.

And what really irks me today is that we won. Now we can sweep all that under the carpet and pretend nothing's happened. Every thing's honky dory.

I honestly hope today's attitude is a one-off thingy although I think it's going to rare it's ugly head somewhere down the season. In the meantime, we can look forward to Sunday's big game against the team we all hate, Liverpool. Let's beat them, kick them while they're down and settle their pathetic season once and for all. The peace and quiet from all my pool loving friends for the next 10 months would be sweet music to my ears.