Park Takes United Back To The Top

Manchester United 1 - Arsenal 0
Scorer
Manchester United: Park (41)

Team: Van der Sar, Rio, Vidic, Rafael, Evra, Carrick, Fletcher, Anderson (Giggs 85), Park, Nani, Rooney

Mesmerizing game, brilliant result. Going to do a really short one here. It's 6am in the morning and I haven't slept a wink for quite sometime.

- We completely dominated the first half. Arsenal were chasing shadows for most part of the game.

- The five men midfield total controlled the ball and kept Arsenal from playing their usual game. Park, Anderson and Nani were particularly effective. The downside with 5 in midfield was that besides Rooney, no one else was in the box when the crosses came in.

- On the occasion where Park got into the box, we scored. Good goal, highly difficult to direct the deflected cross into the box.

- The defense was immense. The Rio and Vidic partnership kept the Gunners firing blanks. Evra was at the end of some poor challenges, probably due to his unfriendly comments in midweek. Rafael is slowly but surely making his mark. Defensively, this is probably Rafael's best game.

- Rooney missed a penalty around the 70th odd minute. He could have sealed the game but blasted the spot kick way over the bar. Personally I'm glad he missed and we still won. His body language was very Berbatovish. While he did run his socks off, he was also guilty of berating his teammates frequently for not finding him.

- Particularly impressed with the bench and Berbatov. Berbatov should have felt hard done by, especially after the kind of form he's showed, but instead of sulking on the bench, he was intensely following the team on the pitch and focusing. In fact all the bench players were intensely concentrating on the game which is a good sign. It shows that everyone is ready and focused when called upon by the manager.

- I've already mentioned Anderson, but am going to do it again. He was just absolutely brilliant once again. He ran so hard up and down the pitch that by the time Giggs came on to replace him, he barely had the strength to walk off. His fitness still needs abit of work, but my word, he's been the best player on the pitch the last 3 times he's on it.

- 3 points clear at the top of the table and the team is coming together and playing some really good football. Next week we face a back-against-the-wall Chelsea, who is rapidly going in the opposite direction after an incredible start to the season. Potentially this one could get really ugly for us. Chelsea needs a win in the worst way possible and they are finally getting their best players back in the shape of Lampard, Terry and Essien. As always, let's enjoy the win and let next week worry about itself