Rooney Giveth, Rooney Taketh

Hull City 1 - Manchester United 3
Scorers
Hull City: Fagan (pen 59)
Manchester United: Rooney (45), Dawson (og 73), Berbatov (82)

Team: Kuszczak, Brown, Vidic, Rafael, Evra, Fletcher, Carrick, Valencia (Park 63), Giggs (Obertan 78), Berbatov, Rooney

Another week, another lucky escape. We were god awful, then again what's new.

We had Brown and Vidic to shore up the defense and more vital was that both Carrick and Fletcher we restored into the centre of the park. Fletcher was outstanding and for once, Carrick didn't do too badly either.

Despite having a decent lineup we were pretty terrible on the pitch. Hull are legit relegation candidate, but for most of the game we looked the part instead. Slick, neat passing has always been our calling card, but in recent weeks, our passing has been sloppy and wasteful, none more so that today. As a fan since the early 80s, I cannot honestly recall us being that piss poor in this department. It's painful to watch.

Yet after a hugely poor display of passing the ball to non-existent players, we grabbed the lead at the death of the first half. Rooney found himself at the end of a Fletcher cross, and tapped the ball home. And that is having survived a legit penalty claim and a superb save from Kuszczak earlier in the game.

Our second half was no better. Hull were the better team by far, while we continued to give the ball away. Rooney gifted the ball to Hull in a dangerous area, and Rafael had to bring his man down to prevent a sure goal. As a result, Hull was awarded the penalty and Fagan brought the scores level.

We were rattled and Rooney was pissed at his mistake. Hull were still the better team and were the likelier team to win the game.

But fate is cruel and cream, in the form of Rooney, rises to the top. In typical break-away fashion, Rooney's cross was put in by Hull's own Dawson.

Rooney put the icing on the cake with a delightful pass to Berbatov to finish any resistence from Hull. Up to that point, Berbatov was practically a passerby.

We were lucky to scrape a win here all thanks to the good work of Rooney and honourable mention to Kuszczak for the number of good saves he's made. In the absence of Van der Sar, Kuszczak is fast winning over fans.

We may have closed the gap to two points at the top of the table, I'm still convinced we don't have what it takes to win the title this season. It's going to take more than scrappy wins against relegation teams to make me change my mind. Chelsea maybe facing a tough January without several key players but they are playing slightly better as a unit compared to us.

In a totally unrelated note, I wouldn't be doing the mid term report this year. The games are coming in too fast to collect my thoughts. Moreover, it's a busy period for me. Too many steamboat buffets to attend.