Fringe Players Too Hot For Championship Side

Scunthorpe 2 - Manchester United 5
Scorers
Scunthorpe: Wright (19), Woolford (90)
Manchester United: Gidson (23), Smalling (36), Owen (49, 71), Park (54)

Team: Kuszczak, Rio, Smalling, Rafael, Brown, Gibson, Anderson, Park (Bebe 74), Macheda, Hernandez (Obertan 68), Owen

Pretty superb game that had everything, including a streaker....too bad it was a 'he'. As expected, we fielded most of our second teamers. Ferguson was in Spain scouting next week's Valencia game and Mike Phelan took over the reigns for this one, which probably accounted for the relaxed approach the players took to the field.

Right from the whistle, Scunthorpe were the hungrier side and Kuszczak was made to make a number of fingertip saves. Eventually, Scunthorpe went into the lead with a stinging strike from Josh Wright.

The lead somewhat galvanised the team into action. Smalling's long punt was well met by Gibson. He out-sprinted the Scunthorpe defenders and lobbed the ball exquisitely over the keeper from a narrow angle. It was a touch of class and sheer brilliance from the United midfielder.

Smalling got on the end of a cross to put United into the lead in the 36th min with a deft touch to direct the ball into the net.

To be honest, Scunthorpe were the better side in the first half. Kuszczak had a torrid time in goal and our defenders were having a hard time with Scunthorpe's shoot-on-sight policy. All throughout the game, we were unable to close them down, resulting in 19 shots on target. Kuszczak was an incredibly busy man. While he did do well for most of them, he did fumble a number too. Kinda hard to take the Pole's threat to quit the club seriously based on today's performance. Way too uneasy for my liking.

Whatever Mike Phelan did at half time worked. We came out from the locker room a significantly different team. Macheda lead a counter attack and fed Owen, who seems to have regained some of his speed from yesteryear as he raced straight down the throat of the Scunthorpe defence to score United's third.

The fourth came quickly via a mad scramble with Park firing it hard and low into the bottom right corner. Despite Scunthorpe's valiant attempts to make a game out of it, it was United who added a fifth when the keeper spilled Park's thunderbolt, only for Owen to prod it home.

The goal killed off whatever remaining resistance from the home crowd until a streaker decided to take matters into his own hand/leg to entertain the crowd. Sadly the camera could not follow the exploits of the streaker, but Mike Phelan and his counter-part on the Scunthorpe bench had a good giggle over it.

Bebe was subsequently introduced and Scunthorpe found a consolation into injury time. Overall an eventful game and a good workout for the lads who rarely got a game.

Bebe is everything I think he is. Big, powerful, fast but incredibly raw. I caught him in against the Aston Villa reserves a week back and thought he has a pretty good right leg, especially those crosses when he was playing on the right wing. While the crosses were of good quality, he didn't take the time to look up to see if anyone was on the end of them. I suppose the potential is there, but it would probably be a couple of years at the minimum before he finds his 'ball-sense'. 7 million may be a bit rich for now, but it'd be sometime before he realises his potential and then we can fully evaluate.