So just how good was Ronaldo's freekick yesterday? You be the judge.
*Content removed due to copyright issues*
Edit:
That just sums it up huh? Rightly or wrongly, the Premiership claims rights to all videos, hence the video has been removed from the source. Unfortunately, in the end, the fans, people like you and me, are the ones who suffer.
2nd Edit:
Well, almost as soon as I posted the above, I received an email of a working link. Let's hope this one stays up.
Manchester United 2 - Portsmouth 0
Scorers
Manchester United : Ronaldo 10, 13
Team : Van der Sar, Evra, Rio, Vidic, Brown, Scholes (Hargreaves 62), Carrick, Park, Nani, Ronaldo (Anderson 73), Rooney (Tevez 73)
24hrs after Arsenal had briefly taken top spot by beating a truely woeful Newcastle, we turned up heat by totally obliterating Portsmouth.
Due to some technical difficulties, I missed the entire first half but managed to catch the highlights. From everything I saw, hear and read, we were totally in our element in the first half.
It didn't take long for us to open the scoring. Nani fed a beautiful ball to Ronaldo and he scored 10 minutes into the game.
His second came 3 minutes later from a wonder goal via a freekick. It's probably one of the best freekicks I've seen in my entire life.
Portsmouth didn't know what hit them as we continually tore them apart. Scholes was outstanding in midfield and you probably couldn't tell that this was his first start since his injury 3 months ago. It was as if he never missed a game.
I managed to fix my computer by the start of the second half and was happily seated in my room, anticipating the excitement to continue, unfortunately, by then we had taken the foot off the pedal, possibly thinking of the next game against Spurs.
Actually it was Portsmouth which decided not to engage us at our game. Apparently Harry Redknapp had decided that if they continued in the same vein as in the first half, they would be soundly thrashed and I can't really argue with that train of thought. Based on the highlights, we were that good.
We still bossed the midfield, and while Portsmouth didn't threaten, we couldn't add to the scoreline. We created numerous chances but neither Rooney, nor substitutes Anderson and Tevez, could convert any of them.
All in all, it was a good result and an even better performance. I just wish I could've caught the first half.
Munich Tribute
There's been plenty going around regarding the Munich tribute 50 years on. Strangely enough, alot of the debate seems to be going around the minute's silence when England plays their friendly in a week's time and our own 4 days later against City. The issue I personally have is all the noise that is being generated even before the minute's silence. For some reason, it leaves a sour taste. If there are going to be spoilers, so be it. Let's not add to the noise.
And speaking of the tribute, I received a mail earlier today and I have to take my hat off to Arsenal. In their match programme yesterday against Newcastle, they had their own special Munich tribute. You can probably view it on their website in a couple of days. For those of you who are too Red to hop over to the enemy's place, I'll post what was written there:
Today's match is the last here at the Emirates before the football world will remember the 23 people, including eight Manchester United players and nine journalists, who perished in Munich on February 6, 1958.
The Munich disaster occurred when Manchester United were refuelling on their return from a European Cup fixture against Red Star Belgrade in Yugoslavia. The final match that the legendary "Busby Babes" had played prior to their trip to Yugoslavia was at Highbury, as Sir Matt Busby's team won a thrilling encounter 5-4 in front of 63,758 on February 1, 1958.
The picture on the right shows Duncan Edwards, who was already regarded as one of the world's great players when he perished aged just 21, signing an autograph on the Highbury pitch prior to this match. Edwards went on to score in the game.
Arsenal Football Club would like to extend their sympathies to all those affected by those tragic events 50 years ago.
One of the game's darkest days - it will never be forgotten.
Manchester United 3 - Tottenham 1
Scorers
Manchester United : Tevez 37, Ronaldo 69 (pen), 88
Tottenham : Keane 24
Team : Edwin Van der Sar, Evra (Simpson 90), Rio, Brown, O'Shea, Hargreaves, Carrick (Scholes 64), Giggs , Ronaldo, Tevez (Anderson 80), Rooney
I don't even know where to begin. Despite the scoreline, we were shit for very long periods in the game. Had it not been for individual errors for Spurs, they fully deserved to go thru in to the 3rd round of the FA Cup. But football is a cruel game.
The run up to today's game couldn't have been any more different. We spent a couple of days in the sun in Saudi Arabia playing some meaningless game, while pocketing a million pounds for our greedy American owners. While Fergie and his croonies argue that it's a good break from the cold, we all know it's greed at play. As a football club, we've fucking sold our souls to the devil. No two ways about it. We can't even have a decent tribute to the Busby Babes without having our sponsor somehow wiggling their logo in.
Spurs, on the other hand, came to Old Trafford with their tails up, after giving a pretty decent Arsenal team a good old-fashion thrashing at midweek.
And our different run up to the game showed. Spurs were sharper, hungrier and quicker to the ball, while United were busy thinking of the sun and the sand in Saudi. Evra, in particular, was horribly exposed time and time again by Lennon. Without Vidic to support him, Lennon game him a torrid time and it wasn't surprising that Lennon supplied the cross that resulted in the game's opening goal.
Lennon whisked past Evra and hit a grounder across the face of goal. Brown and, in particular, Rio were caught napping, allowing Keane a simple tap in. Suddenly we realise just how important Vidic is. Without him in the centre, everyone gets exposed for just how horrible they are at doing their job. And this happened throughout the entire game. It was just due to unlucky finishing, that we survived by the skin of our teeth.
United pressed forward in search of the equalizer but Spurs dealt with everything we threw at them rather comfortably. In the 37th minute, we did get a breakthru. The makeshift Spurs defense made their first mistake by not clearing the ball and Giggs held off his defender, giving enough time for Tevez to smash the ball into the net.
The scores were level but Spurs still had the better exchanges. Just before half time and just after the break, Spurs could've and should've gone in front when on both occasions, Jenas was one on one with Van der Sar. Thankfully both chances fell to Jenas who scuffed them both. Had it been for someone with more composure, we would have been staring defeat in the face.
The game was balanced on a knife's edge. We poured forward looking for the winner while Spurs looked terribly dangerous on the counter. Given the way we have been defending on the day, you could almost see Spurs hitting us with a counter punch. On the other side of the ground, we simply couldn't deliver the final pass.
Yet despite all that, we went in front. Dawson inexplicably handled the ball in the penalty area. The referee had no choice but to send him off and award United a penalty. Ronaldo took it and put United in front. It was definitely not deserved, but I'll take any crumbs that fall my way.
The sending off seemed to have galvanized Spurs. For the rest of the game, they were the much better side. They controlled the pace and tempo, stringing passes together and almost drawing level five minutes from time when Berbatov's effort came off the post.
That effort probably took the sting away from Spurs and minutes later, Ronaldo was given the room to roam and his strike somehow wiggled it's way under Cerny and into the goal. 3-1 up and it was game, set and match.
We were pretty terrible for most of the game but managed to wake up at crucial moments. Fergie and his coaching staff have plenty of work to do as the games are coming in thick and fast.
We would be facing Pompey in midweek and on paper should be an easy home game, considering almost half of their first teamers are away in Africa. But we're United, and for some reason this season, we tend to make things difficult for ourselves.
