Strange Game, Good Win (Manchester United 3 - Everton 0)

Can't quite put my finger on this game. We played with a makeshift side after the weekend draw with Chelsea. Vidjic, Giggs, Scholes and Saha all did not feature in the lineup at all, replaced by Fletcher, O'Shea, Richardson and Silvestre. Rooney and Ronaldo were partnered upfront.

To be honest, for most of the game we looked horrible. There was no cohesion in midfield and the only guys making any good passes were the front two. Thankfully Everton looked equally bad, with the exception of a certain Neville. Wish he was still wearing Red today.

You would think that after Sundays great performance against Chelsea and the absence of Scholes in midfield, this was the perfect setting for Carrick to shine. Unfortunately I thought he utterly stunk! His passing was wayward, and his control was terrible. All of a sudden, I wished he was the InvisibleMan again.

Anyway we scored 3 goals today. A brilliant effort from Ronaldo, showing some superb technique volleying a deflection to open the scoring in the first half. Then in the second half Evra scored his first goal in a red shirt, and O'Shea rounded up the goals with a sweet goal at the end of the game.

Despite my constant whining over players like Evra and Carrick, I've never really brought myself to hating any United player, past nor present. However Richardson is really close to breaking that duck. He not only doesn't seem to understand the game, his attitude generally sucks. I can't exactly put a finger on what exactly he did today, but his general behaviour is ungentlemanly and lacks the class of a player wearing the Red jersery. If not for the fact he turned down West Brom to fight for a first team place, he would have been in my doghouse a long time ago.

Man of the Match.....Evra. It was a close call between Rooney, Ronaldo and Evra today, but Evra probably pipped the rest. He did not really play a brilliant game by any means, but he brought countless entertaining moments throughout the game, the best being in the 60th minute when he got booked for tripping over himself and falling right into Arteta. A most bizarre yellow card! And of course he scored his first United goal a couple of minutes later. I suppose after all the rollicking he's been getting from this site, he probably deserved this award.

Advantage Chelsea (Manchester United 1 - Chelsea 1)

But...but we drew! How is that advantage Chelsea?

Well, let's put things into pespective before all this championship contender status gets out of hand. We played last year's top 3 at Old Trafford and have only come away with 4 points. A loss against Arsenal, a draw against champions Chelsea and a victory against a woeful Liverpool, who can't get over their travel sickness.

To add to that, we have a waffle thin squad and a thick schedule coming up before the transfer window opens. Another injury to any of the quintuple, Rooney, Ronaldo, Saha, Giggs or Scholes and we would be going into December with a monkey on our backs. Already a wrench has been thrown into the works with Ronaldo and Saha taken off injured today. How serious their injuries are is still unknown at this present time.

Compare this with Chelsea's squad, they have ample replacements at every department. Enough to last till January when they can just go into the transfer market and pick the best available.

The Game
As for the game itself, it's probably going to be reflective of how our entire season will unfold. In the first half, we were pretty much up for the challenge, showing plenty of desire. Add to that we were much more hungry going after the ball, and really putting Chelsea under pressure every step of the way.

Saha's first half goal was probably well deserved, and it was coolly taken too. He sidefooted the ball into the net from outside the penalty box. Despite all the talk about his head being messed up over the midweek penalty miss, he shown that he was back in control.

In the second half, Chelsea showed what they were made of. They worked hard and kept pushing forward for the equalizer. We had to endurea blue tide, but were unable to withstand the irresistable force before us. By the 70 min, Chelsea had already broken thru with a Carvalho header, and to be frank, they looked more likely to win the game than us.

In the end we were probably glad to have come out of this game with a point, especially after Saha and Ronaldo were both replaced because of injury. To emphasize the quality of our subsititutes, we had John O'Shea and Darren Fletcher come on for us, while Chelsea had Joe Cole and Arjen Robben come on for them. Nothing against Fletcher or JOS, but the disparity in quality showed.

Unless we can field the same 11 eleven every game till the end of the season (which we can't and wouldn't), it's just going to be a matter of time before Chelsea catches up and fills that meagre 3 point gap.

Nakamura's Freekick Sinks United (Celtic 1 - Manchester United 0)

Just had an eye operation so will keep this one really short and really sweet. We dominated most of the play but were simply unable to make that final pass. Nakamura struck a sweet freekick to give Celtic the win in the 81st minute.

Saha had a chance to equalise at the end of regulation time but his penalty was saved.

So here's how it looks, Celtic face Benfica in their last game which they probably should win, while we face Benfica at OT. If Celtic wins their game, they go top regardless of what our result is, due to a superior head to head record against us. To make matters worse, should we lose our last game against Benfica, we would have to settle for 3rd in the table and out of the Champions League.

It looks like it might take a might effort to beat Chelsea this weekend.