At start of play, nothing other than a win would have been deemed a result. 90minutes later and a further fifteen to digest all the results of the league last night and there was no feeling of points dropped. If Chelsea had got a point at Goodison Park, then there would be some itchy feeling about the result.
That we played over an hour with ten men and yet still managed to dominate a game away from home against our League Cup final opponents is no mean feat.
We're now just a point behind Chelsea, and really that is just about as much as we could have asked for before kick-off last night.
APPORTIONING THE BLAME
Having said all that, and given my greed for success, I still think we could have won the match. Nani is the biggest culprit for today. His tackle was, on my watch, naive, reckless and needless. I mean it's not like he was the last man or anything, the ball was in their half! How do you go two footed, studs showing away from home. I emphasise away from home because the noise made by the home fans is always likely to influence the ref. It wasn't the worst tackle in the world but I thought that the Portuguese should have known better. It sent me reminiscing about the time he got sent off a couple of seasons ago against West Ham and missed our last game of the season and two of the following season for a headbutt on a West Ham player. You only wonder what this could do to his form. That's three games out for another player and we are not sure if he will come back all guns blazing. When you also consider the fact that Giggs is out for a month, it's a bit scary.
Valencia could have placed the ball in the net without putting is foot through the ball when he was clean through.
I'm well aware that we don't have our best defence at the moment, but we let in a cheap goal. We should have dealt with it better.
It's now a week's rest till Milan so we'll definitely be expecting a United performance come Tuesday.
Labels: REVIEWS
