Let's just put it this way, we failed to win our most important game of the season. Sir Alex and the boys knew too well that Liverpool and Arsenal had earlier dropped points and so it was down to us to punish them for it. Unfortunately, and yet again, we've let the leaders have it their way. There are not many weekends when all our rivals will drop points so this was a mega-let down. It's true are quite a difficult team to beat these days as they have cost our other rivals points but that cannot explain the sloppy football on show yesterday. I personally lost count of the miss-placed passes from our lads. In fact I can confidently assert that save for the goalkeeper, every other United player had a miss placed pass to his name! It quite embarrassing on many occasions. We are the European Champions and so we have to give a good account of ourselves more consistently.
To be fair to the lads, Gomes had a blinder for Spus (after emptying his stock of howlers). But we did not do ourselves any favours in restricting ourselves to occasional attacks. It's only fair to say that Spurs had as many clear-cut chances as we had. In fact, EVDS was, in many ways, the hero for us today. He pulled off at least 3 world-class saves to keep us level.
Much as it was nice to watch an away game without having Ronaldo booed by opposition fans, the lad is not doing much to help United's cause of late. I wonder if the marking has got tighter on him but he is the only player allowed to roam anywhere on pitch given his free role. That should be enough to get him going. I think he's so busy collecting awards that he can't concentrate fully on the game. World Soccer magazine has also honoured him and we're anticipating that top FIFA prize in January. Could all this be getting to his head? To be fair to him, it's hard to be what he was last season and he's still young but I wish he could diversify his style a little bit as he's becoming too predictable. It was wise of him to let Giggs take that free-kick and it nearly paid off.
Now I do not understand why Fergie has stuck on to Fletcher in the middle. The lad is, to me, strictly for big games. That was the situation earlier on the season. I would like to see Anderson play more in the holding role as he is the most natural in that position. There is no point in having Fletcher doing the ball spreading as we already have Carrick and the lad is not good at tackling too. (Rather, he does not want to tackle).
Then, it hit me hard to see Fergie take off Tevez and yet the lad was a consistent thorn in the Spurs defence. Park was tired and he should have gone off. Tevez clearly was compensating for Berba's immobility upfront. He was the tormentor in chief and I thought that he linked up well with Ronaldo especially in the first half. Surely Giggs was never going to do the running and hustling that Tev was doing. It was for me, a poor substitution. It should have been Park off, Giggs on. Of course the result now leaves us in a delicate position. It surely is down to how bad our rials perform. But again, when they do poorly like yesterday, we should take the chance!
We play in mid-week in the Club World Cup and it has to be said, the opposition is quite formidable. Pachuca are the side that will give us a hard time. But that will only be if we get to the final next Sunday.
Anyhow, the game is on Thursday at 10.45 Universal Time. It's kind of great to be United fan this season. Even when there is no mid-week football, our club is in action! We are guaranteed 2 games a week--and in some incredible venues..now, it's Tokyo in the YOKOHAMA STADIUM!
Labels: REVIEWS
