Manchester United 1-0 Roma

Another three points, but another display that was more in keeping with Mourinhos Chelsea than the type of football Manchester United are famous the world over. I heard Ferguson say we deserved to win the game in the post match interview, i think a draw was the fairer result myself. If they had took one of the guilt edged chances they had in the last ten minutes they would have got what they deserved. I am not a fan of our tactics in Europe, they are miles too negative, and i don't think we are good enough defensively against the very best teams in Europe to be trying to win 1-0 all the time anyway. Obviously you are going to have to defend well if you are to do well in the competition, but i don't want that to be at the expense of playing the type of football that Manchester United should stand for.
After saying all that, even if our tactics were more attractive, i am not sure we would see much difference. We just are not playing very well at all, you can't fault the defence they have done their job reasonably well, though we got a bit lucky last night. But going forward it is just not happening at all, not one of our forwards is playing anywhere near to their potential. Last night we eventually got to see a proper centre forward playing up top with Rooney just behind, and not much changed i am afraid. I suppose we will have to give Saha quite a few games to recapture the form of the first half of last season. But i was still disappointed with his performance, when he had come on against Chelsea, he changed the game immediately with his pace and strength causing them problems. Yet last night he couldn't seem to impose himself on the game at all, and we looked more dangerous when Tevez came on, just to disprove my theory that Tevez and Rooney can't play together.
It was a nice goal from Rooney, to cap one of our better moves on the night, let's hope he goes on a run of scoring, because if we are to recover last seasons form we need him and Ronaldo to start scoring again. It was a fine through ball from Nani to put Rooney through, his best moment in the match. I can't say i have been very impressed with Nani so far though, i know he was bought for the future and has played more games than was intended, but i can't see anything special in him. I like the look of Anderson though, it's been said that he was bought to replace Scholes, but he looks more like a replacement for Giggs to me, especially the Giggs of the last couple of seasons playing more centrally than earlier in his career.
It's disappointing to hear that Hargreaves is now out for another three to four weeks, when he has played he has been one of the better players. I thought last night would have been a good opportunity to give Pique a game, if he is one of the players for the future, then he will have to start getting some games under his belt. O'shea didn't do anything wrong and he is a decent back up full back, but if our youngsters are to improve, then i would be picking the youngsters with the potential to be a first team regular over the squad member who had his chance, but never really took it.