Manchester United took charge of Group A with what should have been an easy win against a nervy Real Soceidad side at Old Trafford last night. The scoreline does not reflect the story of the match in any way as the Reds were dominant from the off. However, its that lack of ruthlessness infront of goal that is currently the biggest concern for us in games. We've so far failed to turn in chances against Chelsea, Crystal Palace, Liverpool, West Brom, Southampton and now Real Soceidad. In some of those games, we've managed to got off lightly but given the law of averages, we've been punished severely in most of those games.
The biggest concern though on the night was the result as it will serve us well to get the group sorted as soon as possible given the attention demanded by our domestic form. In that respect though, we did well to get to within three points of qualification; you'd imagine that given what we saw on the night, we should be able to complete the job in the return leg of the fixture in a couple of week's time.
The night was full of rarities, none more important than the fact that we actually managed to get a clean sheet in Europe. It's 10 games since our last so in that respect, its easy to see why we've suffered in the competition in recent seasons. There was also a rare start for Shinji Kagawa who impressed on the night along with Wayne and Giggs. You'd imagine that now that Moyes has seen enough of the Japan International, he'll be much closer to the regular starting line-up than before.
RVP missed the match through injury but it was nice to see Javier Hernandez start a game and I thought he did well to press the opposition from attacking positions.
In the grand scheme of things, the bread and butter that is the EPL needs to be sorted. Stoke are the visitors to Old Trafford in a another rare Saturday tea-time fixture. The importance of the three points is underlined by the fact that even a 6-0 win will not lift us from 8th position in the log. We've made it a heck of a mountain to climb so much so that the only results that will benefit us on Sunday when our two main rivals for the title face off is a draw. We're one bad result from making it realistically impossible to fight for the title and yet we're yet to string a couple of league wins together. Stoke is start, but we shall be kidding ourselves if we think we can keep rationalising poor league results. The so called difficult start is over, so its time we put points on the board and stop making Arsenal seem like Bayern Munich!
Labels: UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE
