Year Of The Berbatov

Manchester United 3 - West Ham 0
Scorers
Manchester United: Rooney (pen 33), Nani (49), Berbatov (70)

Team: Van der Sar, Vidic, Evans (Smalling 74), O'Shea, Evra, Fletcher, Scholes (Carrick 74), Giggs, Nani, Rooney, Berbatov (Owen 74)

Superb performance at Old Trafford today. Scholes and Giggs were simply awesome, and Nani didn't show any side-effects from last week's missed penalty. In fact it was a penalty that decided today's game.

Scholes has been magnificent with his passing this season, and his one of his searching crossfield passes found Giggs facing Spector on his favoured left wing. Turning back the clock, Giggs did his mazy dance and was about to run riot inside the box before Spector clumsily brought him down. The referee had no choice but to award United a penalty.

Desperate for a goal, Rooney stepped up and blasted the ball into the net. From then on, it was one way traffic. The gulf in class was huge and with a goal advantage, the best West Ham could do was to stem the red tide.

The second goal came shortly after the break with a fine individual effort from Nani. He took Rooney's pass and sliced his way through an incredibly porous West Ham defence and smashed home the second goal. It's defending like this that leaves West Ham rooted to the foot of the table, even at this early stage of the season.

That's not to say West Ham was that poor in any way. When they could, the did muster up a number of credible efforts, one of which was a beautiful passing sequence that resulted in Dyer striking the post. But such passing fluency was few and far between.

United on the other hand, were playing some superb football. After some intricate passing, Nani faked a shot and lifted the ball into the path of Berbatov and he volleyed home spectacularly from close range. It was a well deserved goal, especially after a really hardworking performance by the normally lacklustre Bulgarian. In fact, he seems to have pulled up his socks and finally started putting in much more effort into the games he's played and the crowd and teammates seem to have responded as well. It's a vicious cycle sometimes. The harder the player works, the better the response and in turn, he works harder for the adulation.

With the result, we've kept pace with Chelsea and Arsenal, who won their respective games as well. It's vital to keep the distance close while we can fully concentrate without the cup distractions. Last week was an unfortunate loss of 2 points.

Craven Collapse

Fulham 2 - Manchester United 2
Scorers
Fulham: Davies (57), Hangeland (89)
Manchester United: Scholes (11), Hangeland (og 84)

Team: Van der Sar, Vidic, Evans, O'Shea, Evra, Fletcher, Scholes, Valencia (Giggs 74), Park (Nani 67), Bebatov, Hernandez (Owen 74)

Sigh, we just can't win at Craven Cottage. I suppose this is a marked improvement from our last 2 visits. This time we took the lead twice, and even with the intervention of Mr OwnGoal, we still couldn't take all three points.

Nani missed a crucial penalty when we were 2-1 up at the 87th minute and all hell broke loose after. To be really fair to Fulham, it was never a penalty to begin with. The ball struck Duff on the arm while he was trying to clear it. It wa a handball, but with absolutely no intent, nor did he even know about it. It's about as harsh a penalty given. Yet given the opportunity to seal the victory for United, Nani fluffed his lines and his penalty was driven away by the outstanding stand-in keeper for Schwarzer, David Stockdale.

On the other end, Hangeland made amends for his own goal and rose the highest to head home the equalizer, robbing us of 2 points. Credit to Fulham, who made a real fight out of it, especially from the way we started this game.

Right from the off, we came out blazing, before Scholes broke the deadlock with his 150th for the club. Berbatov could have had a brace but Stockdale was simply outstanding, making two almost point blank saves.

The game then mired into a bit of to and fro-ing with Fulham causing problems with Zamora really troubling Evand and Vidic. And on the other end, we always looked like scoring.

Fulham's first equalizer came from Simon Davies after some really good play from Duff. Van der Sar would be really disappointed that the ball still managed it's journey into the net after he had a good amount of palm to Davies' strike.

As the game wore into the final third, United started to pile on the pressure. Nani's introduction gave United the extra width and we exploited it to devastating effect, bombarding a stretched Fulham defence with crosses. Nani's 84th corner finally found the breakthru that we were so desperately craving. Hangeland was at the wrong place at the wrong time when the ball struck him and bisected both Davies and Stockdale on the line and into the net.

Then Duff 'handled' the ball and Nani missed the spotkick. Hangeland then scored the equalizer.

It's a bit disappointing to come away with a draw, especially with our rivals smashing their opponents. Then again, they have to visit Craven Cottage. We can only hope that Fulham will show the same amount of tenacity they showed today. But we shouldn't be doubting any team managed by Mark Hughes. Like the man himself, I'm sure Fulham's going to make things difficult for anyone on their day.

Just a couple of comments I wanna make:

Gallas
From my well chronicle hatred of Sol Campbell, this one seems mild to me. Actually there's only apathy for me in this instance. Sol is a different animal altogether. Sol is born and bred Spurs, and he knowingly joined Arsenal having lived in England all his life and knowing the deep resentment between both sets of fans, especially the Spurs fans, who honestly haven't got much to cheer about until recently. Even then, they are the petty sort, just the type of fans you generally love to hate, coz they are so damn knowledgeable too (I should know, I have a Spurs-loving cousin).

Whereas for Gallas, I never really viewed him as an Arsenal player. He never really fit into Arsenal. His teammates hate him. He hates his teammates. Hell, the only reason he signed for Arsenal, besides being deadweight in the Assly Cole deal, was to spike Chelsea. Total dick in my opinion, but a totally different dick from Sol.

Goals
Wtf? Has the Premiership gone goal crazy? More importantly even at this early stage, can anyone stop Chelsea? Granted their opponents are relegation fodder, still 6 goals twice is nothing to sneeze at. Then there's six for Arsenal and more inexplicably 6 for Newcastle, a team we comprehensively beat last week. And more astonishingly, they did it against Villa! These couple of weeks are pretty weird. Wonder when our turn in the sun will happen.

We Missed Newcastle

Manchester United 3 - Newcastle 0
Scorers
Manchester United: Berbatov (32), Fletcher (41), Giggs (85)

Team: Van der Sar, Vidic, Evans, O'Shea, Evra (Rafael 87), Fletcher, Scholes, Nani (Giggs 70), Valencia, Berbatov, Rooney (Hernandez 62)

Glad to have Newcastle back in the Premiership. We sorely missed this hopeless bunch. Could have been a different story last season had we had this sorry group to play against. Well, it's a new season and new aspirations to aim for. And for once we didn't fuck up the opener.

Nothing much to say about this game. We controlled practically every aspect of the game right from the kickoff till the final whistle. Barring a couple of scares, none of which looked really threatening, it was as comfortable as it could get. At times, our biggest enemy on the pitch were ourselves. We spent too much time passing the ball around instead of breaking Newcastle down. For brief moments in the game in the second half, it almost looked as if we were too bored being 2-0 up and decided to murk around trying to add some spice for the capacity crowd. But Newcastle were not buying into it. They stuck to being hopeless and boring. Someone else with more adventure would have made thing more interesting.

Just a couple of things to add:

- Berbatov looks very much like finally justifying that ridiculous transfer fee. He had a pretty good game and probably should have been more selfish, but after scoring the opener, he was trying to set everyone up. Get the feeling this could finally be the year Berbatov sets the stage alight. From the goal celebrations last week and tonight, you could tell that the entire team is rooting for him too.

- Rooney seems out of sorts. Really not at his sharpest. I'm just worried that a poor World Cup campaign could have played into his psyche. Let's hope he snaps out of his funk soon.

- Evra started today, which was pretty incredible. Having been out the entire pre-season, Fergie opted to start him. Didn't do too badly, but didn't light up the stage either. I'm just surprised he got picked to start after a no-show at pre-season.

- What can you say about that man Scholes? Best player on the pitch by a wide wide margin. His tackling is still his achilles heel, but his passing is out of this world. I was surprised and yet glad that Fergie played him the full 90 mins. You would expect that at 2-0 up, you'd be resting those old legs as much as possible. Nevertheless, another great great performance by Scholes.

United Draws First Blood

Chelsea 1 - Manchester United 3
Scorers
Chelsea: Kalou (83)
Manchester United: Valencia (41), Hernandez (76), Berbatov (90)

Team: Van der Sar, Vidic, Evans, Fabio (Smalling 71), O'Shea, Scholes (Fletcher 79), Carrick (Giggs 79), Park (Nani 46), Valencia, Rooney (Berbatov 46), Owen (Hernandez 46)

Life is good. We did well, really well, to take the game to a Chelsea side that looked completely out of sorts. With the exception of Essien, Chelsea looked jaded and at times, rather mundane. If today's game is any indication of the season to come, we look like genuine title contenders. As Kentona mentioned while we were watching the game, it looks like we have two first teams, with equal cover in every single position.

Both teams started the game with attacking flair and either side could have taken the lead. But it was United who drew first blood with a fine combination of Scholes and Rooney, finding Valencia alone and unmarked to fire home. Scholes pass was utterly exquisite he seems to have found a new dimension to his game. We all know Scholes is good when he's not tackling, but from the game's I've seem so far, he seems to have brought it to a higher level. The question is if he can keep it up for the entire season. Both in preseason and today's game, Scholes has been our top performer so far.

Wholesale changes were made at the start of the second half and United's entire strikeforce was replaced. Berbatov seems to link well upfront with Chicharito. His little flicks and Chicarito's runs behind the backline of Chelsea's seemed to be giving the defenders a harder time than expected.

The game was played at the right spirit with neither team parking the bus and both willing to throw men forward. Eventually it was United who scored again. This time Valencia was the provider and Chicharito opened his United account with a goal that was truely comical. His shot ricochetted off his face and into the net. It didn't matter to the lad nor everyone in the team. I'm pretty sure it's the first of many in his United career. At some point in the distant future, we're all going to remember his first United goal, much like the way we always remember Ole's first against Blackburn.

To Chelsea's credit, they came back strong and pulled one back with Kalou. Their onslaught to find the equalizer eventually left them exposed and Berbatov finished them off with a delightful lob. It was an immensely entertaining game and we signalled our intent to carry the fight to the champions.

Every season, I can't help but be bearish over the team's chances, but this season looks and feels different. For once in a long long time, I actually think we have a really good chance of taking the Premiership title back. Chelsea is our main rival, and I don't really rate the rest of the chasing pack. City looks good on paper, but the title isn't won on paper. They have too many new plays and a manager who does seem clueless. As we've seen with Chelsea's rise, it takes a few seasons before the team finds the maturity and chemistry wrestle control for the big boys.

Wenger is a brilliant manager, someone I rate as highly as our own SAR. But Arsenal is Arsenal. You just get the feeling at some point in the season, their lack of depth/funds is going to haunt them like the previous seasons.

Liverpool is the dark horse here. Hodgeson is no pushover but their inability to bring in new blood to replace the junk they inherited from my all time favourite manager, Benitez, will hamper their chances. Yet they are the dark horses for a reason. A change in regime, and an influx of funds could change their season completely. With a manager at the helm who knows the English game, Pool could be a force to reckon with.

Everyone else, ie Everton, Spurs and Villa, are simply not good nor deep enough. There is still a gap in talented personale between them and the top 5.

Damn it, I think I've just convinced myself to place a bet on us to win it all.

United Scores Seven In Exhibition Game

Airtricity League XI 1 - Manchester United 7

Scorers
Manchester United: Park (13, 63), Owen (25), Hernandez (47), Valencia (60), Evans (69), Nani (pen 82)

We welcomed back a host of players who were in South Africa. Rooney, Valencia, Park, Vidic and Carrick all returned after their extended break to start in an exhibition game against the Irish league's own version of 'Allstars'. Owen, seemingly, fully fit, was also given a runout.

Despite the poor competition provided, there were alot of encouraging signs. Valencia is pretty awesome, as was Park. They dominated their respective flanks. I was rather surprised at how sharp Park is in front of goal.

The more I see Smalling, the better he gets. He seems to be growing in confidence with more games under his belt. Today he looked superb paired with the ever-present Vidic.

I paid special attention to Hernandez and I gotta say he looks like a gem. Besides his pace and scoring prowess, I was mightily impressed with his range of passing. There were a couple of Scholes-like long passes that were pretty accurate. His off-the-ball movement was fantastic, not to mention the timing in making those darting runs. Of course all these observations are made in pre-season games. The litmus test is when he faces the physical defenders opponents will throw at him in real games. So far he's been very sharp and very impressive.

And what's the deal with Evra? With all the regulars back in the fold, Evra was missing from the party. As far as I know, he's not injured. It would seem he's being punished for his extra activities in the whole France fiasco. Or maybe he's just been given a longer break than the rest. Let's hope he gets some games before the season starts.