Just A Poor 4-1 Win

Portsmouth 1 - Manchester United 4
Scorers
Portsmouth: Boateng (pen 32)
Manchester United: Rooney (pen 25, 48, pen 54), Giggs (87)

Team: Kuszczak, Brown, Vidic, Neville, Evra, Fletcher, Carrick (Anderson 76), Scholes, Valencia, Giggs, Rooney

Don't let the scoreline fool you. I thought we were absolutely terrible for most of the game. Good goalkeeping from Kuszczak kept us alive in the early stages of the game, before Rooney was fouled in the penalty area. Rooney stepped up and scored from the spot giving us a shortlived goal advantage.

Ferguson watched the game from the stands, a punishment for his recent outburst against the referees. And true to the mark, the referee of the day, Mike Dean, proved just what Ferguson was on about. He awarded a penalty for the home team that left everyone scratching their collective heads. No one knew exactly at that point in time what the fuck the penalty was for. Not the players, not the commentators (both the English and Chinese ones) and definitely not me. It was an abysmal decision and Mike Dean is a lucky lucky man that the decision did not have a deeper impact on the game other than adding more fuel to fire the disgruntle feelings towards the modern day referee.

Boateng levelled the score from the spot, while we struggled to gain a foothold on the game.

The second half started on a brighter note and Rooney missed a glorious chance. On the subsequent attack, Giggs put him thru again, and this time he finished neatly giving us the lead for good.

Rooney completed his hattrick from the spot after the evergreen Giggs was fouled in the box. We were enjoying a good spell at this point, with Giggs, Valencia and Rooney playing particularly well.

Then we begun to relax and take the foot off the paddle, allowing Portsmouth room to come at us. Make no bones about it, Portsmouth is a limited team, but at the same time they are a desparate team. And they came at us with a ferocity of a caged animal. Good saves kept the scores respectable in our favour. Our midfield and defense was really at sixes and sevens for a good period.

Having weathered the storm, Giggs added salt into Pompey's wounds with a delightful freekick, rounding off the scoring for the day.

This was really a difficult game to watch. We weren't anywhere near our best, but we haven't really been up to our standards bar the odd game here and there. I feel there is something lacking in this squad, but I can't really put a finger on it. All that I know is that we're really not as good as we think we are.

God Awful Ref Robs United

Manchester United 0 - Portsmouth 1
Scorers
Portsmouth : Muntari (pen 77)

Team : Van der Sar (Kuszczak 46), Evra, Vidic, Rio, Brown, Scholes, Hargreaves (Carrick 68), Nani, Ronaldo, Rooney, Tevez (Anderson 68)

So many talking points to this game and I don't even know where to start.

Let me first begin with how goddamn awful blogger.com is. If you're thinking of starting a blog, I wouldn't recommend using this platform. I couldn't log in the entire day. Hell, I couldn't even view this page until now. It's frustrating as hell, especially during Sunday soccer with the guys where everyone was wondering when the review was coming.

As it was an early Saturday kickoff, Kentona and I did the usual 'keep our partners occupied while we get our fix' routine by prawn fishing at our usual haunt.

The game started off well for us. In fact it started off very well for us. In the opening minutes, Ronaldo brightly raced into the penalty area only to be crudely barged off the ball by Distin and to everyone's amazement the referee, Martin Atkinson, for the day waved play on. Only a couple of seconds earlier, a similar body-check on the same player was deemed a foul. Having set that precedent, Kentona and I could only stare wide-eyed in astonishment at the big screen TV in front of us. That was some bloody in-consistant refereeing.

But judging the way we played, we were sure it wouldn't matter in the final reckoning. We were all over Pompey. It was only a matter of time before we would erupt.

Yet as time went by, we kept missing chance after chance. If there was one criticism of our play was that we were all hat but no cattle.

In the second half, Van der Sar was replaced by Kuszczak, which could only mean that Van der Sar must have been carrying an injury. Again at that point in time, it didn't matter. United kept up the pressure from the first half and it was just a matter of time before we murdered them.

Then in the 68th minute, it all began to fall apart, in probably the most spectacular fashion. Without a striker on the bench, Fergie brought on Carrick and Anderson in place of Hargreaves and Tevez. The substitutions had me going....WTF???

If there was a dying need to bring someone out, it would have been Scholes. I can't recall him doing fuck all the entire game. Moreover I couldn't believe he took out Hargreaves. The moment Hargreaves was taken out, I was thinking of ways how Portsmouth could nick it from a quick release from a corner.

The rationale is simple. When we get corners, both Vidic and Rio would both move forward for headers, leaving both the full-backs to play the role of central defenders. Given that Brown also joins the two in front, Hargreaves is usually the other guy who plays the role of the defender. That's just the way we play from observation.

As for taking Tevez out, IMO, I thought if Fergie was going to sacrifice a frontman, it should have been Rooney. He's been in somewhat of a scoring funk lately. In fact, he's more prone to missing chances presented to him than to clinically finish them off.

In the 76th minute, the unthinkable happened. We were caught flat-footed when David James caught the ball from our corner kick and released it early down the flanks. Without Hargreaves in a defensive position and Evra and Scholes going awol, the defensive onus fell on Anderson and Rooney (????).

Unfortunately, Rooney can't defend if his life depended on it. Instead of following his man, Baros, he got sucked into following the ball leaving Baros totally unmarked. Kranjcar found Baros with a pretty easy pass, leaving him one on one with Kuszczak.

Baros rounded Kuszczak, and in the process ran into him. The referee gave a penalty and sent Kuszczak off. While I probably agree with the penalty decision, I thought the sending off decision was a god awful one. If I hadn't known better I would have thought that the pathetic Atkinson had a punt on Pompey.

Without a keeper, Rio took on the keeper's role and Muntari scored from the spot. A man and a goal down, it was going to be an incredibly tall task for the men in red.

The game ended 1-0 to Portsmouth, no thanks to some seriously dodgy refereeing.

While as United fans, and fans in general, we probably blame the referee, but we also need to look at ourselves. We created a boatful of chances and couldn't put one away.

Moreover, there were some weird decisions that baffle logic. In the past week, the coaching staff have been under-performing. If a casual fan like myself can see it, I don't understand how professionals can goof it up so badly.

At least there's a silverlining here, Chelsea got dumped by Barnsley.

United Unveils New Jersey

United has officially unveiled the new home jersey for the upcoming season. I'm personally not too overwhelmed with the design. Call me old school, but jerseys without collars to flip up just doesn't work for me. Moreover the back just doesn't seem asethetic enough. Maybe with the names and numbers printed, it might actually look pleasing to the eye. In any case, I'm not adding any money into the Glazers' pockets.


In other news, we've offically signed Owen Hargreaves.

Nani and Anderson both signed 5-year deals. And we've made the Kuszczak loan deal a permanent one.

Meaningless Draw (Chelsea 0 - Manchester United 0)

With the title already in the bag, United fielded a virtually reserve side. Chelsea, too, took the opportunity to field some new faces.

The game itself was uninspiring, unimpressive and, at times, unwatchable. Having to catch it at 3am made it almost unbearable. Just as well nothing much happened in the opening 45 minutes, as I was nodding off a number of times, missing most of the action anyway.

The second half was a slightly better affair, or should I say a more heated contest. The first 15 minutes was peppered with bad fouls and deserved yellow cards dished out.

United were denied a penalty, and probably just as well. Can you imagine the incensive moaning we'd have to face from Moanrinho for the next couple of weeks if it was given?

Chelsea ended the game strongly, forcing good saves from Kuszczak and a couple of goalline clearances. In the end, a dull draw was probably the best result in a meanless match.

Selected Player Performance

Kieran Lee - Not a bad debut. Did well in right back and made a goalline clearance.

Dong Fangzhou - He's going to have to step up big time to convince me he's not a token Chinese player in the squad. Marketing aside, I don't think he did very much on the pitch. In his defense, there was no service whatsoever.

Chris Eagles - The most impressive of the 3 debutant starters. Hungry and aggressive, although did show signs of rashness.

Alan Smith - Played in midfield and it showed.

Wes Brown - Outstanding in defence. Don't think he put a foot wrong. He's still my perfect complement for the central pairing with Vidic.

Tomasz Kuszczak - Kept a cleansheet, keeping out the late Chelsea surge. Did look uneasy from crosses and fumbled once. Overall, still a good performance. Should be interesting to our keeper situation next season when Ben Foster returns.